No One on Team Trump Will Explain That $130 Million “Gift” to Military

An anonymous ally of Donald Trump is donating $130 million to pay members of the military during the government shutdown.

The Department of Defense confirmed Friday that “the donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” spokesperson Sean Parnell told CNN. Trump had announced the donation the day before.

The move is unprecedented, as the military has always been funded by American taxpayers. According to CNN, the White House referred questions about the donor’s identity and possible ties to foreign interests to the Defense Department, which then referred questions back to the president. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress told the news outlet that they were out of the loop.

It’s the latest example of the Trump administration touting an influx of private cash. Trump has bragged that his White House ballroom is being funded entirely with private donations, but seems unconcerned about the appearance of bribery or corruption. The fact that this donation, ostensibly to military personnel, is coming from an anonymous donor also raises the question of legality, as it could come from a foreign entity or government looking to curry favor with Trump or his business interests.

The Trump Organization, which the president claims is being run by his children during his presidency, has expanded its business interests dramatically in the past year. One foreign leader, the president of Indonesia, was caught asking the president to speak with his son about a deal earlier this month.

Is this donation to the military coming with strings attached for government policy? Or is it benefiting the president’s personal interests in some way? Thanks to a lack of transparency, no one outside of the president’s inner circle has a clue.

Canada seems to be caving to President Trump, pulling a TV ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan’s criticism of tariffs. The ad originally began airing in Ontario last week, thanks to Doug Ford, the province’s conservative premier.

The ad featured a clip of Reagan’s 1987 radio address in which the conservative icon argued that tariffs undermine economic prosperity and that they only serve to “hurt every American.”

The one-minute ad cuts portions of Reagan’s five-minute speech so that Reagan is saying several sentences in succession that were actually separate during the original address. As edited, Reagan says:

When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short while, it works—but only for a short time.

But over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world, there’s a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. America’s jobs and growth are at stake.

While the clip is edited, Reagan certainly was not pro-tariff, and the ad Ford posted is not that far off from how the former president felt, much to the chagrin of Trump. Watch the ad in full here:

New York State Attorney General Letitia James warned Friday that President Donald Trump is using the American justice system as a “tool of revenge.”

After pleading not guilty to charges related to committing mortgage fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, James delivered remarks outside of the federal courthouse in Norfolk, Virginia.

She thanked her supporters, who cheered her as she spoke. “But this is not about me, this is about all of us,” James said. “And about a justice system which has been weaponized. A justice system which has been used as a tool of revenge.”

James added that the president was using the justice system as a “vehicle of retribution” against his perceived political enemies.

But Trump’s crusade against his critics is far from over. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi admitted Friday that the Trump administration had already set its sights on another of the president’s foes: former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That announcement follows the federal indictments of James, former FBI Director James Comey, and former national security adviser John Bolton.

The DOJ effort against James, led by inexperienced Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan, accused New York state’s chief legal officer of duplicitously acquiring a second home. James is accused of renting the home out as an “investment property,” collecting “thousands” in rent money, and saving over $17,000 in the process. But prosecutors charged with investigating James discovered evidence that undermined the government’s allegations that James collected significant rent from her niece Nakia Thompson.

James’s ethics disclosures revealed that she had previously collected rent on the property—but only once in 2020, and for a sum between $1,000 and $5,000. Prosecutors found that James allowed Thompson and her family to live in the house rent-free in 2020, and James only reported collecting $1,350 in rent money on her tax return from that year. After prosecutors warned U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, and he declined to take up the case, he was summarily sacked and replaced by Halligan, Trump’s former personal lawyer.

Thompson had previously testified before a grand jury that “she had lived in the house for years and that she did not pay rent.” However, that wasn’t the grand jury that indicted her aunt, and Thompson was not asked to testify again in the case.

The Department of Defense is sending even more troops to the Caribbean and Latin America to combat “illicit actors.”

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on X Friday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, and its strike group to deploy to the U.S. Southern Command from the Mediterranean Sea “to bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”

The move adds to the many U.S. ships and fighter jets already deployed to the area, and comes just hours after the Trump administration announced a tenth strike on a ship it claims was being used for drug trafficking. Even Fox News’s chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin noted Friday afternoon that the move looks like a “major military buildup for what many fear is an undeclared war.”

Griffin said that the aircraft carrier’s new deployment would mark the first time the U.S. wouldn’t have an aircraft carrier in the Middle East, and that 14 percent of the U.S. Navy’s fleet would now be in the Caribbean Sea.

President Trump’s strikes have attracted criticism and controversy, with one military leader even likely resigning because of the bombings. The strikes have expanded to the Pacific Ocean and are taking place extrajudicially, with no proof that the people killed in the strikes are even connected to drug trafficking. Some of them have been identified as fishermen.

The administration is responding to criticism of its bombings, which is even coming from other Republicans, by increasing its military buildup and making crass jokes. They are ignoring the fact that the strikes are likely illegal, and seem to be ratcheting up the possibility of war, breaking the president’s campaign promise to end endless wars.

President Trump’s Department of Justice is sending election monitors to “protect the votes of eligible American citizens” in six different blue districts this November.

The poll monitors will focus on California, which is set to vote on a ballot measure known as Proposition 50 that would redraw the state’s congressional districts to help Democrats, and New Jersey, where Republicans have a real shot at winning the governorship.

“Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi Friday. “We will commit the resources necessary to ensure the American people get the fair, free, and transparent elections they deserve.”

The effort will be coordinated by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. The districts that will be surveilled are Passaic County, New Jersey, Kern County, California, Riverside County, California, Fresno County, California, Orange County, California, and Los Angeles County, California.

The DOJ is also taking open requests and complaints at a tip line: VEM@usdoj.gov.

“The Department of Justice will do everything necessary to protect the votes of eligible American citizens, ensuring our elections are safe and secure,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. “Transparent election processes and election monitoring are critical tools for safeguarding our elections and ensuring public trust in the integrity of our elections.”

Further details are sparse at the moment, and poll monitors are nothing new, but in this current climate one can imagine that this decision may lead to intimidation, draconian surveillance, and arrests of anyone suspected to be an immigrant at polling places in deep blue areas in November.

This faux concern about “election integrity” is rich coming from a president who can’t even admit that he lost an election fairly, and who has openly mused about breaking the law to run for a third term.