Trump Brags Congress Won’t Stop Him When Military Strikes Move to Land

President Donald Trump floated the idea of expanding his extrajudicial strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels to dry land—or as one might refer to it, he pitched declaring war.

During a roundtable press conference Thursday, Trump claimed that he had all but eradicated drug trafficking by sea, after launching the ninth strike on a foreign vessel earlier this week without providing any actual evidence linking the boats to any drug cartel.

“So, now they’re coming in by land, and even the land is concerned, because I told them, that’s gonna be next,” Trump rambled. “You know the land is gonna be next? And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the Congress and tell them about it, but I can’t imagine they’d have any problem with it.”

“What are they gonna do? Say ‘Gee, we don’t want to stop drugs pouring in?’” Trump added.

But only Congress can decide if the United States is at war—not Trump—even if he thinks the GOP-led legislative branch is too weak-willed to stop him. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the president has attempted to bypass Congress’s authority.

Trump has already decided to unilaterally declare war on the so-called narcoterrorist drug boats, by announcing a state of “non-international armed conflict” against vessels that are part of “designated terrorist organizations.” A memo sent to Congress last month claimed that Trump had the authority to determine cartels were “nonstate armed groups,” and that their transport of drugs constituted “an armed attack against the United States.”

Two Americans are suing Donald Trump for razing the White House’s East Wing.

While the rest of the nation was stunned by the haphazard destruction of one of the nation’s oldest and most cherished democratic symbols, at least two individuals moved to stop it. Charles K. Voorhees and Judith A. Voorhees filed a temporary restraining order Thursday intended to stop Trump’s bulldozing.

In a three-page court filing, the plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration violated the National Capital Planning Act of 1952 by failing to acquire the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission, which has been closed since the government shutdown began 23 days ago.

The Voorhees further claimed that, in fast-tracking the East Wing’s demo, Trump had breached the National Historic Preservation Act and bypassed legally required oversight from the Commission of Fine Arts. They also alleged that Trump and his associates had intentionally “decoupled” the demolition and construction process, picking apart semantics in order to stretch a loophole that could justify their unapproved blueprint for federally-owned grounds.

But their lawsuit may be too late to salvage the historic monument. Nothing but rubble remained of the East Wing by midday Thursday, according to satellite images of the grounds. The demo was apparently an essential component of the president’s plan to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that he had initially pledged wouldn’t interfere with the preexisting structure.

The White House’s partial destruction is, ultimately, another illustration that the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances has all but eroded. The international real estate mogul’s desire to destroy the government—and with it, the architectural face of American democracy—has received practically zero pushback from his allies in Congress, who appear all too willing to sit back as Trump courts billionaires to fund his golden banquet hall.

Resisting Trump’s drafts for the East Wing would require someone in power to actually hold the president accountable. But his desire to destroy and redevelop the White House as he sees fit should come as no surprise, since he’s never appeared to be a fan of the national symbol. During his first term, Trump reportedly called the White House “a dump” (an allegation that he has publicly refuted) and has spent no small part of his second term living and dining at his own properties rather than the executive mansion.

A Justice Department investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James yielded information that may potentially spoil the Trump administration’s plans to convict her of mortgage fraud.

The DOJ, led by inexperienced Trump-appointed interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, accused James of committing mortgage fraud and lying about a second home being rented out as an “investment property,” collecting “thousands” in rent money and saving over $17,000 in the process.

But prosecutors who investigated James warned Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Seibert, that the evidence for those claims wasn’t so clear. They found that James allowed her niece and her children to live in the house rent-free in 2020, and she only reported collecting $1,350 in rent money on her tax return from that year, which was allegedly to cover the cost of utilities. The small sum undercuts the DOJ theory that she was using it as an investment property.

Government lawyers are also doubtful that they’ll be able to prove that James committed mortgage fraud due to the vague standards around what does and doesn’t count as occupancy in a second home. While the DOJ argues that James didn’t visit the home enough to be an occupant, Fannie Mae guidelines don’t specify that a person needs to sleep in the property overnight.

This all points to signs that the indictment is simply revenge for James’s successful fraud suit against Trump, which made her a lifelong enemy of our spiteful president.

“I will not bow, I will not break, I will not bend,” James said earlier this month at a rally for New York’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani in the midst of her federal indictment. “I will not capitulate, I will not give in.”

The Trump administration’s desperate attempt to incriminate her may have made doing that a bit earlier.

It looks like Stephen Miller’s quest to hire 10,000 so-called “Homeland Defenders” by January isn’t going so well.

During a multi-agency meeting earlier this week, Miller voiced frustration that Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t bringing in deportation officers fast enough, CNN reported Thursday. Meanwhile, multiple sources told CNN that ICE has struggled to process the sudden surge of applicants after the agency dangled a $50,000 signing bonus in front of their noses, in the hopes of enticing Americans to join the legion of law enforcement officials ripping families apart. 

“It’s a shit show,” an administration official told CNN.

One senior ICE official told CNN that “HR is not equipped to hire en masse,” adding, “No one has support staff to support this.” In fact, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has had to lend out some personnel to help handle ICE’s influx of applications, which DHS reports has skyrocketed to 175,000.  

ICE officials are really feeling the strain once new recruits arrive for the agency’s training program, where more than 200 applicants have already been terminated from the program because they did not meet the physical or academic requirements, one source told CNN.

Sources told NBC News Wednesday that multiple new recruits had arrived for training without being properly vetted, and just under 10 were turned away due to disqualifying criminal backgrounds or failed drug testing. At ICE’s training academy in Brunswick, Georgia, staff discovered one recruit had previously been involved in a domestic violence incident, and was once charged with strong-arm robbery and battery. DHS officials told NBC News that other recruits in the six-week training course had not submitted their fingerprints for background checks, which is required by ICE. 

CNN reported that in one case, ICE gave a conditional offer to a Drug Enforcement Administration informant, which was only caught by the DEA. In another case, an individual had a pending gun charge.

These mistakes come as the Trump administration has attempted to speed up the onboarding process, which used to take months, into a partially remote process that only takes 47 days, CNN reported. 

Scott Shuchart, former head of policy at ICE during the Biden administration, suggested that the Trump administration had gone too far in attempting to streamline the process.“They’re trying to do something borderline impossible and they’re doing it too fast,” he told CNN. 

Donald Trump has free license to reshape the White House as he sees fits, according to his staff.

With no warning, the president razed the White House’s East Wing this week to make way for a $300 million ballroom that he claimed would be “100 percent” paid for by himself and his “friends.” 

As the demo bore on, it became clear that what had been originally pitched as a minor expansion to one of the most prominent symbols of American democracy would not only destroy the historic two-story addition, which was constructed under the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It would also overshadow the White House entirely, with a square footage nearly double the size of the rest of the building.

Despite public backlash, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down Thursday that the president had total, unquestionable authority to alter the premises however he desires, repeatedly leaning on the supposed allowances of a legal precedent that she failed to name. 

“The White House has explained that the reason you didn’t submit construction plans to the [National Capital Planning Commission] is because that commission, along with others, don’t have oversight over demolitions, but only over construction,” CBS reporter Weijia Jiang said. “So, can you help us understand—can the president tear down anything he wants without oversight? Could he demolish this building or, say, the Jefferson Memorial?”

“So, it’s not the president who came up with that legal opinion himself. That’s a legal opinion that’s been held by the NCPC for many years,” Leavitt said, suggesting that only vertical construction requires the express approval of the federal planning agency. “There have been many presidents in the past who have made their mark on this beautiful White House complex.”

“It sounds like the answer is yes, he can tear down whatever he wants?” Jiang pressed. 

“That’s not what we’re saying. That’s a legal opinion that’s been held for many years,” the 27-year-old press secretary reiterated. 

“That’s how you’re interpreting it,” Jiang said. 

“No, it’s something that presidents have done for years and years,” Leavitt continued, holding up photos of the West Wing’s construction in 1902 while condescendingly prompting Jiang to explain where the “rubble” in the photo came from.

The White House (along with the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court) is technically exempt from the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires agencies to undergo a review process and field public opinion before altering historical landmarks. Traditionally, presidents have voluntarily submitted construction proposals to the NCPC anyway, in a show of transparency.

But the Trump administration’s rationale for bulldozing past presidential precedent and public expectation also flagrantly ignores the fact that any significant project on the White House grounds, such as tearing down walls or new construction, requires congressional approval and a lengthy approval process to proceed.

The destruction is a far cry from what Trump had proposed when he first floated the idea of constructing a ballroom on the White House grounds. During the initial announcement in July, Trump claimed that his project “won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it.”

Beyond the gargantuan overhaul, the sitting president doesn’t appear to be a huge fan of the national symbol. During his first term, Trump reportedly called the White House “a dump” (an allegation that he has publicly refuted), and he has spent no small part of his second term living and dining at his own properties rather than the executive mansion.

It is not clear whether the National Capital Planning Commission was consulted or received any meaningful insight prior to the White House’s demolition, particularly as it has been closed since the government shut down 23 days ago.

“The decisions were made in complete secrecy and undertaken without public disclosure or proper consultation,”  the ranking members on the House Oversight and Natural Resources committees and the subcommittee on energy on mineral resources wrote Trump in a letter Thursday. “The American people deserve full transparency regarding the substantial demolition, preparation, and construction at the White House during a government shutdown, particularly when it concerns alterations to one of our nation’s most historically significant buildings.”

Donald Trump has been convinced not to deploy federal troops to the city of San Francisco, as he has in other cities across the country. 

In a Truth Social post Thursday afternoon, Trump wrote that he was persuaded by a phone call with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and conversations with tech industry leaders such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff. 

“They want to give it a ‘shot.’ Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!” Trump’s post read.  

The post confirms a statement from Lurie Thursday morning that Trump assured him he “was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco.” Last month, Trump named the city as one of many places where he planned to deploy the U.S. military for “training,” and on Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the administration planned to send 100 federal agents, including from the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, there within days. 

Those plans appear to be on hold for now, thanks to Trump’s tech baron allies talking him out of targeting San Francisco as he has other cities across America, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. The city may also have benefited from the fact that unlike the other cities Trump has targeted, it doesn’t have a Black mayor. 

Whatever the reasoning, California’s Bay Area has momentarily been spared from Trump’s heavy-handed federal agents, a surprise considering that California governor (and former San Francisco mayor) Gavin Newsom has positioned himself as a persistent Trump critic. Maybe other cities should try to convince a wealthy tech CEO or two to keep the president from siccing his agents on them. 

House Democrats have formally begun an investigation into President Trump’s brazen attempt at a $230 million payout from his own Justice Department.

The probe is led by Representatives Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia.

“If either of your claims had any merit, you could have taken them to court by now and litigated them publicly,” wrote Raskin and Garcia, the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees. “You did not do that. Instead, you waited until you became President and installed your handpicked loyalists at DOJ, knowing that you could instruct them to co-sign your demand notes in secret behind closed doors, and then you could present the notes to the U.S. Treasury for cold hard cash courtesy of the American taxpayer. That isn’t justice, it is theft.”

The president is seeking reimbursement for DOJ investigations into Russian election interference and Russian ties to Trump’s 2016 campaign, as well as for the 2022 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents. Trump made the claims in 2023 and 2024, but now his own DOJ is in charge of resolving the matter. The $230 million payout would come from taxpayer funds.

Republicans, however, don’t seem to be too worried about the high levels of potential fraud and corruption associated with an unprecedented move like this.

“I don’t know the details about that, I’ve just read it, I didn’t talk with him about that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson replied when asked about the payout on Wednesday. “I know that he believes he’s owed that reimbursement. What I heard yesterday was if he receives it, he was gonna consider giving it to charity, he doesn’t need those proceeds.”

Donald Trump is apparently so proud of the ballroom he’s building at the White House that he doesn’t want anyone to see the construction in progress. 

On Thursday, the Secret Service closed off access to the Ellipse park, where journalists were taking pictures and video of the demolition of the White House’s East Wing. Both CNN and Reuters photojournalists had to leave the area, according to CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

Images of the ongoing destruction of a major section of the White House seem to have caused enough of a backlash that Trump is trying to keep the public from seeing them. It’s easy to see why: Trump previously claimed that the ballroom would result in no demolition of any part of the White House, and ignored the normal legal process for making any changes to the building. 

The ballroom itself is going to be a garish 90,000-square-foot construction full of Trump’s trademark gold decor. Gone will be a guest entrance as well as offices for the first lady’s staff and other White House employees. A majority of Americans are opposed to the demolition, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has called the backlash “fake outrage.” She  claims that Trump is doing what other presidents have only dreamed of, saying “he was reelected back to this people’s house because he’s good at building things.” 

While Trump claims that the ballroom construction isn’t being paid for by taxpayer funds, that’s not reassuring: $300 million in donations is coming from the president’s wealthy friends, allies, and corporations looking to curry favor with his administration. That money could be considered a bribe. 

Now the Trump administration is attempting to hide the probably illegal destruction and construction from news coverage, and while that won’t make the story and images disappear, nothing will or likely can be done now that a big chunk of the White House is gone. Future occupants of the Oval Office will now inherit a big ballroom that nobody asked for. 

Donald Trump just pardoned a crypto criminal who’s making the president’s family richer, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report Thursday.

After months of lobbying the Trump administration, the president signed a presidential pardon Wednesday for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former chief executive of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

“The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over,” announced White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. But is another war on American customers just beginning?

Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 for failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program at Binance, earning him a four-month prison sentence. Binance Holdings Limited agreed to pay the United States $4 billion to resolve an investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money-transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Why would Trump pardon Zhao? Likely because he helped line the Trump family’s pockets through his support of World Liberty Financial, or WLFI, the decentralized finance platform that is majority-owned by a Trump business entity.

Binance has repeatedly boosted and incentivized the use of USD1, WLFI’s stable coin, which is a cryptocurrency that maintains a value of $1. Binance provided WLFI its first significant boon in May when the platform accepted a shady $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi–based MGX made in Trump’s stable coin. The announcement followed an April meeting between Zachary Witkoff, son of special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who is a “promoter” of WLFI, and Zhao in Abu Dhabi where they discussed USD1.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that representatives from the president’s family met with Zhao to discuss a potential stake in Binance.US, the company’s American arm, which has been heavily restricted due to regulatory issues. The company had first reached out to the president’s allies last year, looking to strike a deal to bring the exiled firm back to the United States.

New York City’s second mayoral debate did not pan out well for disgraced ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo, least of all when one of his accusers emerged from the crowd to prompt a question.

Charlotte Bennett was the second of 13 women to accuse Cuomo of sexually harassing them during his time in office. Bennett worked as an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration, but left after the governor asked several unwelcome questions about her sex life and if she “had ever been with an older man.”

Bennett sued Cuomo in 2022 but eventually dropped the case. In April, she agreed to receive a settlement claim tied to separate litigation regarding Cuomo’s alleged harassment. But Cuomo has since said that he would sue Bennett for defamation, effectively silencing her during the mayoral race.

Bennett was apparently invited to the debate hall Wednesday night by Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and her presence forced one of Cuomo’s most contemptible scandals to center stage.

“You sought to access her private gynecological records,” Mamdani said, referring to actions that Cuomo’s legal team undertook as part of his defense. “She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak.

“What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?” Mamdani pressed, turning to face Cuomo as the crowd roared.

Despite months of bankrolled debate prep that quickly proved worthless, the former governor’s reply was remarkably underwhelming.

“Uh—if you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature,” Cuomo stammered, before noting that he had never been found criminally or civilly liable for his alleged behavior.

Continuing the takedown of Cuomo into the next day, Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa followed up with his own zinger, telling reporters Thursday morning that “if you’re under 30, Cuomo’s always flirty.”