Top DOJ Official Delivers Ominous Warning to “No Kings” Protesters

The Justice Department has joined the Republican campaign to discredit Saturday’s No Kings protests, going so far as to describe the event as an attempt to “destabilize” the U.S. government.

No Kings demonstrations—which last swept the country in June—protest the monarchical nature of the Trump presidency by invoking the nation’s founding. They also explicitly name nonviolence as their “core principle.”

But Republicans would have you believe the protests planned for Saturday are “hate America” rallies, with terrorists, Hamas supporters, and antifa in attendance. GOP officials have also baselessly accused Democratic lawmakers of prolonging the government shutdown to appease these supposed radicals.

Now joining the fearmongers is a top DOJ official, Harmeet K. Dhillon, the U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, who warned that the rally “is not your average protest” in an ominous post on X Friday.

“It’s being led by the people shutting down your government and keeping hundreds of thousands of federal workers from being paid,” Dhillon continued, referring to Democratic politicians.

“Take care and be very aware what is going on here,” she went on: “attempts to gaslight the public and destabilize our government.”

Dhillon was responding to a tweet from MAGA propagandist Laura Loomer, who, in typical inflammatory register, conflated No Kings with “political violence.”

Donald Trump’s self-advertised credentials for solving the Russia-Ukraine war: his ability to constantly get played.

Speaking to reporters during a White House lunch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy Friday, Trump attempted to instill confidence in his negotiating tactics by describing himself as a sucker.

“Aren’t you concerned that maybe the Russian president is trying to buy himself more time?” asked a reporter.

“I am, but you know, I’ve been played all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well,” Trump said. “A little time … I’m pretty good at this stuff.”

Despite spending months boasting about his cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump has pulled an about-face in his public stance on the foreign conflict in recent weeks. Last month, Trump claimed that Ukraine could reclaim all of its occupied territory, and earlier this week, he threatened to deliver Tomahawk missiles—which have a range of more than 1,500 miles—to Kyiv should Russia not end its assault.

However, seated feet away from the Ukrainian leader Friday, Trump began to waffle about sharing American munitions, expressing to the room that he was concerned about America’s diminishing supply.

“We’d much rather have them not need Tomahawks. We’d much rather have the war be over,” Trump said. “It could mean a big escalation. It could mean a lot of bad things could happen.”

The two world leaders openly negotiated on the arms while in front of reporters, with Zelenskiy suggesting that Ukraine could support the development of more drones in exchange for the missiles, which would give Kyiv power to strike far beyond Moscow.

MAGA politics neatly align with Russian interests. Halfway across the world, between the borders of America’s Cold War nemesis, elements of the MAGA agenda have already been perfected: Being gay or transgender is illegal, the majority of the country identifies homogeneously as Orthodox Christians, and NATO is a loathed institution rather than a celebrated one.

But even their closely synced political ideologies could not broker an arrangement when Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska this summer. After the theatrics were over, the two world leaders failed to reach a consensus on how to end the bloodshed, with Trump losing his cool while Putin demanded that Ukraine cede more territory to Russia, according to a bombshell report published by Financial Times Friday.

President Donald Trump, 79, invented a bizarre claim that a Democratic senator from Hawaii wants to build a railroad from the continental United States to the archipelago.

Apparently speaking about Senator Mazie Hirono, Trump said Friday, “She wanted a tunnel from the mainland to Hawaii. Then she said, ‘Well, we can’t do that, so we’re gonna build a railroad to Hawaii.’ Do you remember? She’s a current, sitting senator, a Democrat. She wants a railroad to go to Hawaii. You know who that is, right?”

“She’s another b—” the president started, before stopping himself. “She’s another beauty.”

The president’s statement is a nesting doll of inaccuracies, stemming back to a 2019 joke Hirono made regarding misinformation about the content of the Green New Deal.

At the time, conservative media outlets and politicians were spreading the false claim that the Green New Deal would eliminate air travel and replace it with high-speed rail. A Fox News reporter asked Hirono, who supported the progressive climate plan, about the nonexistent provision. The senator laughingly replied, “That would be pretty hard for Hawaii.”

Some on the right, including Trump, took that comment and ran with it. At a February 2019 rally, Trump called the Hawaii Democrat “crazy” for supporting something that (he incorrectly believed) would eliminate air travel to her state. In the six years since, Trump’s grip on reality has apparently only slipped further.

Eric Trump, the second son of the president, did little to allay concerns about his father’s apparent promise to arrange a phone call about Trump Organization business between Eric and the president of Indonesia.

In a hot-mic moment at Monday’s Gaza ceasefire summit, President Trump and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto were caught exchanging words, seemingly about a Trump Organization project in Indonesia.

Trump told Prabowo that he would have Eric, a vice president at the company who holds no government role, reach out to him. “He’s such a good boy,” the president said of his son. “I’ll have Eric call.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday asked about this apparent instance of the president using his office to advance his and his family’s business interests. Eric Trump, 41, said of his father: “I’m glad he acknowledges that I’m a good boy. I am a good boy.”

He also said he hasn’t received the call (yet), but expressed gratitude that the president of Indonesia is aware of the Trump Organization’s ventures in the country. “I’ve never met the president of Indonesia,” he said, “but it doesn’t surprise me, given the magnitude and prominence of those projects, that he knows about what I’m doing over there.”

But Prabowo’s conversation with Trump raises the possibility that he is more than just aware of the Trump Organization’s works in Indonesia. Trump and Prabowo seemed to discuss details about the progress of a specific project, and at one point, the Indonesian president told Trump he had spoken to “Hary”—possibly meaning Hary Tanoesoedibjo, a businessman who frequently partners with the Trump Organization on its projects in the region.

Collins asked Eric Trump if he sees the hot-mic conversation as weakening the notion that a “wall” separates his father’s presidential and private affairs.

“I think there’s a huge wall,” he replied. “I mean, there’s so much of a wall that the guy [Prabowo] has never met me.” It was an interesting response, given the president clearly promised to arrange the very meeting his son was citing as proof that a “wall” exists.

Even America’s top military commanders are jumping in on the AI chatbot wave.

A U.S. Army general told reporters earlier this week that he’d become very fond of “Chat,” even trusting the algorithm to make “key command decisions” in relation to his post.

“I’ve become—Chat and I are really close lately,” Maj. Gen. William “Hank” Taylor said, using a cozy pop culture moniker to refer to generative AI programs during a roundtable at the annual Association of the United States Army conference on Monday.

“As a commander, I want to make better decisions,” Taylor explained. “I want to make sure that I make decisions at the right time to give me the advantage.”

Taylor did not provide specific examples as to how AI has assisted him in completing his duties, though he underscored its use in writing weekly reports and noted that the field army he commands in South Korea was “regularly using” relevant AI programs for predictive analysis.

“As we talk about protection, drone use, counter-drones and counter-UAS, medical modernization, aviation modernization, we have something going on in almost every domain of modernization in Korea, right? AI is one thing that, as a commander, it’s been very, very interesting for me. Obviously, I’ve been in the Army for a long time, right? And so I was in the Army before computers,” Taylor said, according to DefenseScoop.

Like most of America’s managerial workforce, Taylor said that he’s also turned to AI to inform his leadership approach.

“One of the things that recently I’ve been personally working on with my soldiers is decision-making—individual decision-making. And how [we make decisions] in our own individual life, when we make decisions, it’s important. So, that’s something I’ve been asking and trying to build models to help all of us,” Taylor said. “Especially, [on] how do I make decisions, personal decisions, right—that affect not only me, but my organization and overall readiness?”