Trump Keeps Skipping Work to Show Off Ugly White House Renovations

Donald Trump has reportedly become consumed by his large-scale remodeling at the White House, wandering away from his presidential duties to survey renovations.  

The president has repeatedly derailed visits from foreign dignitaries to give lengthy tours of his new digs, Axios reported Wednesday. Following a joint press conference two weeks ago to tout his tenuous peace plan between Israel and Hamas, Trump led Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a 40-minute walk-through of his latest renovations. And Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb was given a similar tour last week. 

Trump also interrupted a meeting with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month to show off his sound system being installed outside. 

In September, GOP lawmakers from Florida were trapped with the president for well over an hour as he showed off the new marble tiles he’d selected for the floors in the washroom of the Lincoln Bedroom—where DOGE czar Elon Musk once stayed at Trump’s behest. Trump led the lawmakers through the iconic Rose Garden, which he had partially paved over with stones, and asked them for their opinions. “He asked me to pick a tile,” one lawmaker told Axios.

One Trump adviser proudly admitted that the president raised exterior decorations with everyone who passed through his office. “He asks everyone for a vote on everything,” the adviser told Axios. “We vote. Anybody that walks through gets a vote. He cares so deeply about perfection that this is what he does.”

Trump’s changes have been extensive. First it was filling the Oval Office, which was refitted with ornate crown molding and gaudy golden decor, including a golden Trump crest above the door and golden cherub statues straight from Mar-a-Lago. The president also added a copy of the Declaration of Independence, though later revealed he had no idea what it said. 

Then it was the massive $200 million ballroom that looks like it will dwarf the White House; the demolished Rose Garden, where Trump will host MAGA elites; and the infamous autopen photograph Trump used to replace a portrait of former President Joe Biden. Now it seems the president has turned his attention to an “Arc de Trump” monument. 

One White House aide said the sweeping renovations were Trump’s “artistic outlet.”

“President [George W.] Bush liked to paint. Trump likes to build and design,” they said. 

While Trump explores his creative side, his White House has directed hundreds of federal workers to be fired amid an ongoing government shutdown with no end in sight. Meanwhile, federal forces are waging war on Democratic cities, and immigration authorities are scouring the land for undocumented immigrants to rip out of their communities. 

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out its mass firing of federal workers during the government shutdown.

This Wednesday ruling comes on day 15 of the shutdown, as thousands of federal workers have already been fired and thousands more remain on edge. The district judge in San Francisco said the mass firings appear to be politically motivated.

“I am inclined to grant the plaintiff’s motion,” said Illston during a hearing on the matter. “The evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, and the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning to assume that all bets are off—that the laws don’t apply to them anymore, and that they can impose the structures that they like on the government situation that they don’t like. And I find, I believe, that the plaintiffs will demonstrate, ultimately, that what’s being done here is both illegal, and is in excess of authority, and is arbitrary and capricious.”

The case was brought forth by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represent a combined 800,000 federal workers.

This story has been updated.

One day after Donald Trump celebrated a multibillion-dollar bailout for Argentina, his administration moved to double the ante.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at the Treasury building Wednesday that the United States is “working on a $20 billion facility that would be adjacent” to the $20 billion credit swap line Trump already approved, totaling $40 billion in assistance for the economically fragile South American country.

“Many banks are interested in it, and many sovereign funds,” Bessent said. “It is a private-sector solution to Argentina’s upcoming debt payments.”

The aid is intended to salvage Argentina’s collapsing economy ahead of the country’s October 26 midterm elections. That vote will determine if Argentine President Javier Milei, one of Trump’s international allies, will maintain the ability to pursue his dramatic cost-cutting agenda.

But there’s another notable beneficiary of the Trump admin’s Argentina bailout package: major hedge funds led by Bessent’s friends. Several major investment funds, including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Pimco, stand to significantly gain from the aid transfer, as do several independent investors with ties to Bessent, The New York Times reported earlier this month.

Bessent described the exchange Wednesday as an “economic Monroe Doctrine,” referring to the 1823 policy that rejected European intervention and colonialism in the Western hemisphere.

“Much better to use the heft of the U.S. economic power rather than have to use military power,” Bessent continued, comparing the situation to the supposed “narco traffic coming out of Venezuela.”

But the White House’s planned Argentina bailout is remarkably hypocritical for an administration that has axed critical executive agencies under the auspice of slashing spending.

Stateside, the government is still shut down over how to fund Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget, which included cuts of billions from Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid—a shutdown that Bessent himself claimed Wednesday was costing America “$15 billion a day.”

And the U.S. will likely need a bailout of its own very soon. American soybean farmers have been pummeled by Trump’s tariff policies, which have ripped the Chinese market from their grasp. However, after it came to light that Argentina had replaced the U.S. as China’s top soybean supplier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that the anticipated Argentina-bound cash infusion had morphed into a “credit swap line.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that harassment, assault, and stolen valor allegations against Republican Representative Cory Mills are not “serious” matters of discussion at a Wednesday press conference.

A Florida judge on Tuesday issued a restraining order against Mills, after his ex-girlfriend alleged that he had threatened to blackmail her using sexually explicit images of her and to commit violence against her future romantic partners.

Johnson bristled at reporters after being asked twice about the matter.

Responding to a question from NBC News’s Melanie Zanona, Johnson initially claimed to have “not heard or looked into the details of that.”

NOTUS’s Reese Gorman followed up, noting additional scandals—two out of a bevy of others—that Mills has faced, i.e., a different woman once accused him of assaulting her at his apartment, which she since recanted, and Mills, an Army veteran, has also been accused of stolen valor, including by military veterans who served alongside him.

“Are you concerned about these allegations?” Gorman asked. Johnson told him to ask Mills, whom he called “a faithful colleague,” before pleading ignorance of the allegations.

“Let’s talk about things that are really serious,” said the speaker, growing cross, before taking another question.

Federal agents arrested a Portland mother who was playing the “Ghostbusters” theme song on her clarinet at a protest outside an ICE facility.

Oriana Korol, 38, is a member of the Unpresidented Brass Band, which calls itself a “social action oriented, horn driven marching band,” and seeks to deescalate protest tensions. In a video of her arrest from Sunday, a federal agent can be seen violently dragging Korol to the ground, as two more agents come to his aid and her clarinet falls out of her hands.

She has been in Clark County Jail in Vancouver, Washington, since, and is still being held without bail.

“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone running, and then a federal officer running after them. By the time I turned around, this person had been tackled to the ground, and there was an officer on top of them,” said Mike Thompson, Korol’s bandleader. “This was happening right at Oriana’s feet. And she was kind of, they were kind of pinned against a fence,” he said.

Korol’s husband didn’t know she’d been transported across state lines until 2 a.m. the next morning.

“It is a beautiful party atmosphere. Everybody’s really excited. Then the band hits into ‘Ghostbusters,’ and then at ‘Ghostbusters,’ that’s when ICE start storming in,” Korol’s husband told KOIN 6. “Why are they targeting a clarinet player? A clarinet player standing on the sidewalk far away from the street, following instructions.

“We’re not seeing her. We don’t know when we’re going to see her again,” he added, referring to himself and their 3-year-old child.

This arrest is yet another example of the excessive, indiscriminate, and in some instances unlawful actions that the federal agents who’ve flooded American cities in the past few months have taken. On Tuesday, federal agents in Chicago violated a freshly minted temporary restraining order banning them from tear-gassing civilians, also gassing local police officers in the process.

The Portland Mutual Aid Network has called for Korol’s release, urging supporters to call the Clark County Jail.

“Oriana Korol was peacefully protesting ICE on 10/12 and was illegally detained by ICE and DHS,” their statement reads. “She is the clarinet player for Unpresidented Brass Band, and was playing music for protestors. Protesting for immigrants is not a crime!”

Republicans are rushing to recast upcoming protests against President Donald Trump as anti-American rallies that are somehow prolonging the government shutdown.

During an interview on CNBC Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed the Democrats for a lack of movement on reopening the federal government, claiming that they were waiting to move until after the “No Kings Day” rally planned for October 18 opposing the administration’s authoritarian tilt.

“There’s a thought out there that they’re at least waiting to get this crazy ‘No Kings’ rally this weekend, which is gonna be the farthest left, the hardest-core, the most unhinged in the Democratic Party which is, you know, a big title,” Bessent claimed.

“You know, no kings equal no paychecks,” he added.

During a propaganda press conference later Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson framed the upcoming “No Kings Day” as a “Hate America rally.”

“Let’s see who shows up for that,” Johnson said. “I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see antifa types. I bet you see the Marxists in full display. The people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic, and that’s what we’re here doing every single day.”

Other Republicans were quick to join Johnson, with Representatives Steve Scalise and Lisa McClain also referring to the protest as the “Hate America rally.”

Johnson started the trend of villainizing constitutionally protected protest last week when he inexplicably claimed that the “No Kings Day” demonstration was somehow to blame for the government shutdown. “It’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally, ’cuz they can’t face their rabid base,” Johnson said of Democrats at the time.

For the past three weeks, GOP lawmakers have been phoning in that whole defending-the-Republic thing, ever since Johnson sent them home amid the ongoing government shutdown. It seems clear that it’s Republicans who have refused to negotiate with Democrats—not the other way around.

Crucially, Republicans are blatantly mischaracterizing the attendees of the nationwide “No Kings” rally, in an attempt to criminalize dissent against Trump. These protests, which have been recurring since the beginning of the second Trump administration, have been notably tame, reportedly populated by older, liberal white people who love America but hate Trump’s policies. The temperate collective action would likely not be left enough for anyone who was ostensibly anti-fascist. Republicans’ outlandish predictions for who is likely to attend are simply setting the stage for law enforcement crackdowns on protesters’ First Amendment rights.

The speaker’s suggestion that protesting the government is un-American is particularly disturbing, as it is not only a historically American activity, but also a foundational right supported by the U.S. Constitution—a right that Republicans such as Johnson seem to care about less and less everyday.

The largest political advertisement spender of the year is: you, the U.S. taxpayer.

While the rest of the Trump administration hatchets away at the federal budget, the Department of Homeland Security has gone on a spending spree to heap praise on Donald Trump. The agency has so far spent at least $51 million in 2025 on a sprawling ad campaign warning undocumented immigrants to either exit the country or be “hunted down.”

Fox News bought the bulk of the ad spots, airing $9 million worth of content, Axios reported Wednesday. America’s morning shows saw the most program-specific spending, with Today, CBS Morning, and Good Morning America leading the pack.

Over the course of the last month, viewers of three programs consumed the most DHS advertising: the Mexican soccer league (Fútbol: Liga MX), Fox’s The Five, and Univision’s Despierta America.

But the campaign has also had a digital arm targeting social media users. The ads have specifically targeted Spanish speakers and users who like Mexican pop music, Latin music, the Mexican Grand Prix, Latin cuisine, and the Mexican national soccer team, according to Meta ad library data obtained by Axios.

Almost all the adverts feature DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Directly facing the camera, Noem suggests that undocumented immigrants are “violent criminals” flooding American cities with drugs, and accuses the Biden administration of taking a weak stance on border crossings. (Joe Biden increased border enforcement across the board and arrested an “unprecedented” number of immigrants that crossed illegally, according to the libertarian think tank Cato Institute.)

One detail is consistent across all the DHS adspots: unmitigated applause for the current president’s agenda.

“Strong borders mean a stronger America. President Trump is making America safe again,” Noem says at the end of one advert.

Compare that to DHS’s last ad campaign under the Biden administration: a series of billboards in Texas that read a person “in immigration custody has rights.” That campaign cost $150,000, and did not feature President Joe Biden or former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In a now infamous September raid on a 130-unit apartment building in Chicago, hundreds of agents reportedly rappelled in from helicopters, kicked in doors, ransacked rooms, deployed flashbangs, and zip-tied people—immigrants and native Chicagoans, adults and children—in the middle of the night.

Amid growing criticism of this heavy-handed blitz, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller defended the operation, calling it a “brilliantly executed raid against a Tren de Aragua complex filled with TdA terrorists.” (Tren de Aragua, or TdA, is a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration, with characteristic alarmism, claims has “invaded the United States.”)

So, how many members of the Venezuelan gang did they catch in the controversial September raid? DHS says that, of the 37 individuals arrested that night, agents got ahold of “just one ‘verified’ Tren de Aragua member,” MSNBC reported this week.

It was previously reported that two of the 37 arrested were members of TdA, but even that disappointing figure was evidently overstating it. Further, DHS has yet to provide proof of the alleged gang member’s connection to TdA—a point worth noting, since the Trump administration has faced criticism for advancing weak claims of immigrants’ gang membership in service of its mass deportation campaign.

This new finding lends itself to the conclusions Illinois Governor JB Pritzker shared in his recent conversation with TNR’s Greg Sargent about the raid: “If this was Pinochet’s Chile, if this was Argentina under authoritarian rule, maybe you’d call it successful,” he said, adding later, “Whenever the [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and [Customs and Border Protection] agents say something, they put out a release or, you know, you’ve got Stephen Miller talking about it, they are lying.”

Federal agents ended up tear-gassing Chicago police officers on Tuesday while trying to perform basic crowd control, violating a temporary restraining order banning the very use of tear gas in the process.

A crowd of community members and protesters formed near 105th and Avenue N, where Border Patrol struck a civilian car while trying to arrest the people inside. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said that the crowd “eventually turned hostile,” forcing them to use “crowd control measures” like tear gas. CPD officers present were caught in the crossfire.

About 13 officers were exposed to the tear gas, Chicago police said. This is the second time CPD officers have been gassed by ICE while trying to work with them.

The federal agents are also blatantly ignoring the temporary restraining order sent down from Judge Sara Ellis on October 9, after journalists and community organizations brought the issue forward. Ellis explicitly banned the agents from “using riot control weapons,” “firing [tear gas] canisters,” “using force, such as pulling or shoving a person to the ground, tackling, or body slamming an individual,” “striking any person with a vehicle,” and more abuses of power. The order applies to all agents from the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE and Border Patrol, and was supposed to last until October 23. The federal agents violated it almost immediately.

Civilians have continued to be terrorized by these riot tactics.

“The eyes and the nose ... it burned,” community member Pascal Manuel told NBC 5 Investigates.

“This type of escalation is going to cause harm—it’s not the people of Chicago. It is the federal agents,” said Beatriz Ponce De Leon, Chicago’s deputy mayor of immigration and refugee rights.

There is currently no update on the status of the temporary restraining order.

Republican Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana appeared dumbstruck Tuesday night after his ridiculous attempts to blame Democrats for massive funding cuts to energy projects blew up in his face.

During an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Sheehy was asked about the $1 billion grant that the Department of Energy pulled from the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub, a clean energy project spanning Washington state, Oregon, and Montana.

“They just yanked a billion dollars from that. So, is that taking away good paying jobs in Montana?” asked Collins.

“Of course it is. As I said, we want the government to be open. You should be saying this to Chuck Schumer, who is closing the government down,” Sheehy replied. “I’m agreeing we should have the government open right now, this is an unnecessary shutdown.”

Collins pressed whether Sheehy was acknowledging that President Donald Trump’s administration was hurting his state, prompting the Republican to launch into an unrelated list of federal services interrupted by the government shutdown. “So, this shutdown is not a good thing, and that’s why we don’t want it to continue,” he said.

Collins tried to steer Sheehy back to the topic at hand. “The Trump administration didn’t have to make that decision, they decided to pull that billion dollars from your state,” she said. “Do you disagree with that?”

“Well, I think the reality is we wouldn’t be here if the government was still open, and now we’re going on week three of a pretty unnecessary shutdown,” Sheehy repeated.

But Energy Secretary Chris Wright had specifically told Collins earlier this month that the canceled grant had nothing to do with the shutdown, or the Democrats, for that matter. “He said they would’ve done that even if the government wasn’t shut down, that that was months in the making even before the government shut down,” Collins said.

The two fell silent, as Sheehy’s desperate excuses evaporated. After a long moment, Sheehy replied: “Well, it’s unfortunate we’re still shut down. We shouldn’t be.”

Last week, OMB Director Russell Vought—not Wright—declared that the Trump administration would cut nearly $8 billion in lawfully approved funding for energy projects, targeting 16 Democratic-led states. A longer list of grants to clean energy projects assembled by DOE senior staff totaling roughly $30 billion circulated Capitol Hill, alarming energy advocates and lawmakers, including Republicans whose districts could be affected by the cuts. The fate of the remaining $22 billion, which is mostly earmarked for Republican districts, remains unclear.