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Man Stabs Himself After Being Found Guilty of Trying to Kill Trump

Ryan Routh was found guilty of trying to assassinate Donald Trump at the president’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Donald Trump’s attempted assassin Ryan Routh holds a banner that says, "World help us" while walking in Kyiv
Artem Gvozdkov/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
Ryan Routh in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2022

Moments after being found guilty Tuesday on five charges related to the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, Ryan Routh reportedly attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen.
Fox News’s Danamarie Nichol reported that Routh’s violent outburst occurred while the verdict was being read. Routh was then dragged out of the courtroom and shackled at the waist and ankles. U.S. marshals then returned him to the bench.
A jury found Routh guilty on all five charges, including attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm and ammunition as a felon, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number—carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Routh’s daughter, Sarah, reportedly also erupted at the news of her father’s verdict, promising in an expletive-laden tirade that she would find a way to free him.
“Don’t do anything. I will get you out. What the fuck, fuck, he didn’t hurt anybody. This is not fair. This is all rigged—you guys are assholes,” she shouted, according to Fox News.
Authorities accused the 59-year-old construction worker of building a sniper’s nest in the bushes beside Trump’s Palm Beach golf course. When the Secret Service spotted Routh’s rifle, they shot at him, chased, and arrested him.
Judge Aileen Cannon, known for tossing the felony classified documents case against Trump, oversaw Routh’s three-week trial, as the would-be assassin acted out multiple hijinks, including asking the jury non sequitur questions and listing incredible witnesses. Routh, who has not been diagnosed with any mental illness, represented himself in court.
“Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement on X. “This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our President, but an affront to our very nation itself.”
This story has been updated.

ICE Agents Held 5-Year-Old Autistic Girl as Bait to Arrest Her Dad

Federal immigration agents are turning to increasingly sick tactics to meet the Trump administration’s arrest quota.

Two ICE agents dressed in full camouflage and masking their face
Scott Olson/Getty Images

A Guatemalan family says immigration enforcement agents held their autistic 5-year-old daughter outside their home in Leominster, Massachusetts, last week in order to induce her father to surrender to them.

As Telemundo reported Monday, the father—a man named Edward Hip, who has lived in the country for more than two decades and has an active asylum application—was reportedly driving with his daughter when he called his wife at home and said someone seemed to be following them. When they got home, Hip “managed to run back into the parking lot of my house,” his wife said, but agents got hold of the child.

Video footage obtained by Telemundo shows the father and mother pleading with several men, apparently federal agents, surrounding the girl in a driveway. “They took my daughter, she’s 5 years old. She has autism spectrum,” the woman can be heard shouting in the recording.

A small child with her face blurred out drinks milk out of a bottle while standing next to a car. Two other agents can be seen the video.
Screenshot/Telemundo

“We didn’t take your daughter,” one of the agents said, to which the mother replied, “OK, give me my daughter back.”

In another portion of the video, agents can be seen gesturing for the parents to come over. “Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs,” one asked. Hip responds that he can “give it through the door,” but the agent, pointing in front of him, says, “You can do it right here.”

The local police department apparently intervened, rescuing the girl from the federal agents. Arriving at the scene, NBC Boston reports, “Leominster police recovered the child and returned her to the family.” Two days later, though, federal agents returned, arresting Hip out of his car.

Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin called the story “a disgusting smear,” on X, alleging that Hip had prior arrests, “ignored law enforcement emergency lights to pull over,” and “abandoned” his daughter in the car as he fled inside. 

“Officers helped rescue the child and called local police to report the abandonment,” McLaughlin wrote.  

Trump Responds to Statue of Him and Jeffrey Epstein Holding Hands

A mysterious statue popped up overnight of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein frolicking and holding hands.

Statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein frolicking and holding hands on the National Mall. A man takes a photo on his phone.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

A statue depicting President Donald Trump and deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein frolicking hand in hand appeared on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

The 12-foot-tall statue—made mostly of foam and wire, but painted bronze—is accompanied by three plaques. The middle plaque reads “In Honor of Friendship Month: We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend’ Jeffrey Epstein.” It then directly references the introduction to the strange letter Trump allegedly wrote to Epstein for the pedophile financier’s 50th birthday book: “Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.”

The other two plaques have Epstein’s name and the corresponding lines of the poem, and vice versa for Trump’s.

Trump-Jeffrey Epstein statue plaque
Washington DC Subreddit
Trump-Jeffrey Epstein statue plaque JEFFREY EPSTEIN Nor will I, since I also know what it is. Yes, we do, come to think of it. As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Washington D.C. Subreddit
Trump-Jeffrey Epstein statue plaque DONALD J. TRUMP Yes, there is. But I won't tell you what it is. We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday— and may every day be another wonderful secret. Donald Trump's signature
Washington DC Subreddit

This statue represents the ongoing public fascination and outrage over the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to suppress further investigation into the Epstein files given his close friendship with the notorious sex predator.

The statues seemed to have struck a nerve within the Trump administration, as they responded almost as quickly as the statues were erected.

“Liberals are free to waste their money however they see fit—but it’s not news that Epstein knew Donald Trump, because Donald Trump kicked Epstein out of his club for being a creep,” a White House spokesperson told TMZ. “Democrats, the media, and the organization that’s wasting their money on this statue knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them while President Trump was calling for transparency, and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents.”

This response is pretty insufficient. Trump has recently said he kicked Epstein out because he “stole” workers from him. There have also been reports that they fell out over a real estate deal. Either way, this story that Trump was some white knight who defended the honor of the women of Mar-a-Lago doesn’t hold up with his own words.

Additionally, the Trump administration has not been transparent. The overwhelming majority of thee “thousands of pages of documents” the Justice Department released on Epstein were already mostly public information. It’s clear that these paltry excuses from the president aren’t going to make any of this go away.

Trump Has Wild Response to Whether Putin Is Trustworthy

Even when faced with evidence, Donald Trump continues to play softball with regards to Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump sits in front of an American and a Ukrainian flag
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Donald Trump isn’t willing to say he distrusts Russian President Vladimir Putin, amid escalating tensions over drone incursions in Europe.

Speaking to the press Tuesday during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the U.S. president provided paltry answers when pressed on whether he still trusted Putin.

“I’ll let you know in about a month from now, OK?” Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly extended a limp “two-week” deadline for Moscow to make progress on talks with Kyiv to end its deadly incursion into Ukrainian territory. Still, the U.S. president seems unwilling to apply any pressure on Putin, and now it seems his autocratic ally has earned himself yet another month.

Trump also appeared to play dumb about a drone sighting Monday that shut down the airport in Copenhagen. “Have you been briefed on the latest alleged drone incursions in Denmark? What do you think of that?” asked one reporter.

“Where? Where are they?” Trump asked.

“Denmark, Copenhagen,” the reporter clarified, asking for a response to the incident that the Danish government suspected was “possibly Russian sabotage.”

“Well, I have no response until I find out exactly what happened. I know about it. But they don’t know what happened. But we’re gonna find out very soon,” Trump said.

Earlier this month, Trump acted completely clueless about the more than a dozen Russian drones that entered Polish airspace. A spokesperson from the Kremlin has denied the “unfounded accusations” of drone incursions, and said such allegations were “no longer taken into account.”

Since then, there have also been incursions by what are believed to be Russian drones in Estonian and Norwegian airspace.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said it was “too early to say” who exactly had been behind the latest drone sighting, but Trump had been present at the U.N. General Assembly in New York earlier that day as NATO leaders condemned the Kremlin for the series of “escalatory” incidents involving drone and fighter jet incursions across allied airspace. NATO warned that it would use “all necessary military and non-military tools” to defend itself.

Trump’s DOJ Reveals True Priorities With New Alex Jones Case

The conspiracy theorist has a powerful new ally.

Alex Jones speaks to reporters outside a courthouse in Austin, Texas
Sergio Flores/Connecticut Post/Getty Images

The Justice Department is going to bat for Alex Jones, the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist who still has yet to pay the $1.3 billion he owes the victims’ families.

A DOJ letter, signed by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin and shared publicly by Jones, pledges the agency’s intent to investigate retired FBI Special Agent William Aldenberg, who testified in the Sandy Hook families’ joint defamation case against the InfoWars host. Aldenberg was one of the first responders to the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

Martin accuses Aldenberg of “acting for personal benefit” by participating in the trial, which effectively bankrupted Jones and awarded Aldenberg $90 million.

“As you may know, there are criminal laws protecting the citizens from actions by government employees who may be acting for personal benefit. I encourage you to review those,” Martin wrote to Aldenberg’s attorney.

The specific requests made by the DOJ pertaining Aldenberg’s participation refer to his employment at the FBI, whether he made clear that his testimony was made in a “personal capacity,” whether he recused himself from certain cases due to a potential conflict of interest, and whether Aldenberg had a relationship with communications firm Berlin Rosen for purposes related to “newsjacking,” which the letter did not define.

Jones also shared an image of himself with Martin, the two gleefully posing next to each other.

In his own statement, Jones claimed that the “DOJ’s task force on government weaponization against the American people has launched an investigation into the democrat party / FBI directing illegal law-fare against Alex Jones and InfoWars.”

Jones made his name and living by labeling the Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 26 people, a “hoax.” His supporters, fueled by Jones’s rhetoric, harassed and intimidated the family members of the shooting victims, including an instance in which they urinated on and desecrated 7-year-old Daniel Braden’s grave, according to court testimony.

Jones reported $9 million in personal assets in a 2024 bankruptcy filing, while InfoWars’ parent company Free Speech Systems held $6 million in cash, with roughly $1.2 million worth of inventory, according to the Associated Press. The company was later auctioned off, with the satirical newspaper The Onion temporarily coming out on top as its next potential owner.

Jones filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after losing his case against the victims of the tragedy. Jones himself filed earlier this month to liquidate all of his assets so that he could begin to put a dent in paying off the massive debt. Days later, the judge overseeing the personal bankruptcy case, Judge Christopher Lopez, approved the switch from reorganization to liquidation. Lopez also dismissed the company’s bankruptcy filing, noting that InfoWars had failed to reach an agreement with the victims’ families that would have allowed Jones to keep the business in operation while paying them millions of dollars per year.

Woman Who Accused Joe Biden of Sexual Assault Defects to Russia

Tara Reade, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, has left the building.

Joe Biden wears sunglasses and looks down while walking at Pope Francis's funeral
Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The former Senate aide who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault has just received Russian citizenship.

Tara Reade blew up national headlines in 2019 when she condemned the culture of Biden’s Senate office and further accused Biden of inappropriately touching her while she worked on his staff in 1993. Numerous major U.S. media outlets reported Reade’s story but backtracked once discrepancies and inconsistencies in her narrative began to appear.

After Biden was nominated as the official Democratic candidate in the 2020 election, Reade’s story shifted into one of sexual assault. She accused Biden of pushing her against a wall, putting his hands under her clothes, and penetrating her with his fingers. Biden vehemently denied the allegations, and former Senate office staff members did not recall or corroborate Reade’s account.

Some of Reade’s other accusations also lacked credibility: Reade claimed she was fired for retaliation, but a PBS investigation that interviewed more than 70 former Biden staffers found that wasn’t the case. Instead, her colleagues recalled that she was fired for poor performance.

Some of Reade’s fiercest critics speculated that she was a Russian asset, in part fueled by since-deleted Medium posts and tweets in which she publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. Five years on, that theory has earned a bit more credibility.

“This was a very special day,” Reade posted on X Monday, resharing a clip of her on RT, a Russian state-controlled television station. “I am now a Russian citizen! What an honor. Thank you to President Putin for this amazing honor of signing a decree making me a citizen and keeping me safe when I applied for asylum.”

Reade also gave a pointed shout-out to Maria Butina, a Russian parliamentarian and self-admitted Kremlin agent who was convicted in 2018 for conspiring to act as a clandestine foreign agent on behalf of Russia in the 2016 U.S. election. Butina leveraged her ties at the National Rifle Association, including her boyfriend—longtime Republican fundraiser Paul Erickson—to develop back channels between Moscow and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Butina first attempted to get face time with Trump as early as July 2015.

Reade first announced her intention to defect to Russia in 2023, when she claimed she no longer felt safe in the United States. Around the same time, Moscow had announced its intention to build a migrant village for American conservatives to take refuge from “liberal gender norms.” However, the project has since collapsed due to low demand, Russian outlet Vot Tak reported in July.

“I am a lucky girl,” Reade concluded.

The Most Dangerous Part of Trump’s Executive Order on Antifa

Donald Trump is steadily rolling back people’s rights.

Donald Trump looks at reporters while standing at a podium in the White House
Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to squash acts of resistance to its authoritarian policies—including its extrajudicial immigration crackdown—by tying all opposition to the supposedly nefarious work of antifa, a group that doesn’t actually exist.

Trump signed an executive order Monday illegally designating antifa, short for anti-fascist, a domestic terror organization. “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law,” the order states.

But antifa is a movement, not a so-called organization. It lacks a central structure, and is instead a loose network of individuals and groups who act separately under the banner of opposing facism.

The order also lists activities the Trump administration claims are the work of the shadowy group, including “armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists.”

Some critics have argued that this language opens the door toward a law enforcement crackdown on protesters and activists who have nothing to do with actual political extremism or violence.

“Trump’s Executive Order on Antifa is written such that someone recording masked agents snatching people off the streets, or asking these agents what they’re doing, can be deemed a ‘terrorist,’” wrote Zeteo’s Prem Thakker on X.

Across the country, Trump’s Department of Justice has repeatedly struggled to secure indictments against protesters accused of assaulting immigration officials. The Department of Homeland Security has vastly overstated claims of widespread violence against ICE officers, claims that crumble under the slightest scrutiny.

Using Trump’s executive order, law enforcement officers and prosecutors could potentially tie protesters they wish to punish to antifa. Proving affiliation to a group with no actual members is impossible, so assigning membership to antifa becomes arbitrary and easily weaponized. It’s not surprising that Trump’s efforts to punish the anti-fascists green-lights a furtherance of, well … do I even need to say it?

Trump’s targeting of antifa is a grave misdirect committed in the backlash of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s death. The actual rate of political violence motivated by left-wing ideologies is dwarfed by the rate of right-wing violence, but the Trump administration has made fast work removing any evidence that doesn’t support its narrative.

Trump Brags About (Incorrect) Poll Numbers in Embarrassing U.N. Speech

Why is he like this?

Donald Trump speaks at the United Nations
Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance/Getty Images

President Trump stood before a room full of the most esteemed leaders in the world on Tuesday and decided to tout his (incorrect) poll numbers and plug his merch.

“The American public agrees … I was very proud to see this morning I have the highest poll numbers I ever had,” Trump said, in the midst of a meandering, hour-long speech that attacked climate change, immigrants, and more. “Part of it is because of what we’ve done on the border. I guess the other part is what we’ve done on the economy.” 

What polls is the president referring to? He had the worst first 100 days’ approval rating of any president in the last 80 years. As of Tuesday, just over half of Americans disapprove of the overall job Trump is doing. And he’s doing even worse than ever with women, as they disapprove of him at 61 percent. You’d be hard-pressed to find any poll that confirms Trump’s claim, which raises the question: Where is he getting this stuff from? Is his inner circle just lying to keep him happy?

Trump then moved on to the grifting. 

“I’m really good at predicting things, ya know? They actually said during the campaign that a hat, the bestselling hat: ‘Trump Was Right About Everything’—and I don’t say that in a braggadocious way,” he said, referring to the hats he often gleefully displays in gift shops and online. “But it’s true. I’ve been right about everything. Everything. And I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail.” 

It’s a sad state of affairs when the U.S. president is talking about his own $40 hats at the U.N. General Assembly. And the more he speaks about how great and respected America is again, the harder it is to take seriously.  

Marco Rubio Fumbles When Asked About Trump’s “Day One” Promise

The secretary of state had a convenient excuse about why Trump isn’t delivering on his foreign policy promises.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at a mic.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Faced on Tuesday with President Donald Trump’s broken campaign promises on the Russia-Ukraine war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio trotted out a convenient excuse.

When Today host Craig Melvin reminded Rubio of Trump’s long-broken vow to end the conflict within 24 hours, the secretary of state (falsely) claimed that the president had not been speaking literally on the campaign trail.

“The president repeatedly though did say that he would end the war in Ukraine on day one, and we are some 250 days into the administration,” noted Melvin.

“Yeah, but that’s not up to us to end the war,” Rubio cut in. “The Russians have to stop the war, and the Ukrainians have to agree to a peace deal. What the president expressed is that it would be a priority of his.”

In reality, Trump harped incessantly on the 2024 campaign trail about how he would achieve peace in Ukraine in 24 hours. This was not a figurative way to describe the war as a priority; he repeated a version of the statement over 50 times, often making a point to note that he was serious, and that it would be relatively easy to accomplish.

“I’ll have it done in 24 hours. I say that, and I would do that. That’s easy compared to some of the things,” he said in June 2023. A few days later, he said that “it won’t even be a tough one by comparison to other things.”

The following month, he emphasized his seriousness, despite naysayers. “I’ll get that done within 24 hours. Everyone says, ‘Oh, no, you can’t.’ Absolutely I can. Absolutely I can,” he said at one event, adding at another that “it’ll be done within 24 hours, you watch. They all say, ‘That’s such a boast.’ It will be done very quickly.”

During an August 2024 podcast appearance, Trump said, “I will have that war settled when I’m president-elect, meaning before I get to office on January 20.” When another podcaster in October expressed amazement at his vow to end the war before taking office, Trump said he would fulfill it because “you need that credibility.”

As his inauguration drew near, Trump walked back his statement in his December 2024 Time Person of the Year story, acknowledging ending the conflict wasn’t as easy as he made it out to be. About three months into his presidency, he told Time, “Well, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point.”

Rubio seems to be taking that same convenient, but untrue, tack now.

Last week, the president came the closest he’s capable of getting to an admission of failure, saying that he’d thought Russia-Ukraine “would be easiest” to solve, but Russian President Vladimir Putin “really let me down.”

Trump Whines About Not Getting U.N. Renovation Job in Deranged Speech

The president of the United States apparently thought this was a normal thing to include in his speech at the United Nations.

Donald Trump speaks at the United Nations.
David Dee Delgado/Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump dedicated a portion of his Tuesday address before the United Nations General Assembly to settle a decades-old score from his days as a real estate developer. In a lengthy digression, he complained that he didn’t get the job to renovate and rebuild U.N. headquarters.

Trump in 2001 offered to renovate the complex for $400 million—“more quickly, much better, and much less expensively” than existing offers, he claimed. He was ultimately turned down, and the refurbishment was completed for $2.3 billion, per the Associated Press. Apparently, he’s never forgotten it—even as a president on the world stage.

“Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex,” Trump told the roomful of world leaders on Tuesday. “I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful. I used to talk about, ‘I’m going to give you marble floors; they’re going to give you terrazzo. I’m going to give you the best of everything. You’re going to have mahogany walls; they’re going to give you plastic.’

“But they decided to go in another direction,” Trump lamented, “which was much more expensive at the time, and which actually produced a far inferior product. And I realized that they did not know what they were doing when it came to construction, and that their building concepts were so wrong and the product they were proposing to build was so bad and so costly. It was going to cost them a fortune. And I said, ‘And wait till you see the overruns.’

“Well, I turned out to be right,” the president said. “They had massive cost overruns and spent between $2 and $4 billion on the building, and did not even get the marble floors that I promised them.

“You walk on terrazzo, do you notice that?”