Trump’s DOD Gives Massive Contract to Company With Ties to His Son

It looks like President Donald Trump’s family is once again using the White House as a personal piggy bank.

A Florida-based drone manufacturer linked to Don Trump Jr. just received its largest ever contract to supply parts to the Pentagon, the Financial Times reported Friday.

Unusual Machines, a company that builds and sells drones, said that the U.S. Army had contracted it to make 3,500 drone motors, among other parts, and the Pentagon indicated that it would order an additional 20,000 components in 2026. CEO Allen Evans said that he believed it was the largest order the company had ever received from the U.S. government, but he did not disclose the value of the contract. The Defense Department appears to have stopped posting daily contract notices since the government shutdown began on October 1.

Trump Jr. joined the company’s advisory board in November 2024, shortly after his father became commander in chief of the U.S. military. Trump Jr. previously disclosed that he owned a roughly $4 million stake in the company, although it’s unclear whether he has retained his shares. Earlier this month, Evans told Bloomberg that the president’s son had continued to participate in fundraising rounds.

There are obvious conflicts of interest that surround the president’s son being positioned to profit off the defense industry—and the Trump administration has already done plenty to pave the way for buying more American-made drones. In June, Trump signed an executive order to “unleash American drone dominance,” and in July, the Pentagon removed restrictions in order to accelerate drone procurement.

Trump Jr.’s involvement immediately boosted Unusual Machines’ beleaguered stock, and Evans said that the first son’s public endorsement made it easier to get meetings with potential partners, allowing the company to raise more than $80 million from investors this year.

But Evans insisted that Trump Jr. wasn’t involved in the massive deal, and a spokesperson for Trump Jr. said that “Don has never communicated with anyone in the administration on behalf of Unusual Machines or about the contract in question.”

The president’s family has pocketed more than $1.8 billion in cash and gifts since Trump’s return to the White House, according to the Center for American Progress. That figure includes more than $1.2 billion from their cryptocurrency side hustle. On Thursday, Trump pardoned the founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, who helped launch his family’s cryptocurrency platform, World Liberty Financial, with a massive $2 billion favor for its stablecoin.

The ballroom replacing the White House East Wing will share Donald Trump’s name.

The $300 million project has yet to receive a formal designation, but it is already being referred to as the “President Donald J. Trump Ballroom,” a moniker that will likely stick, senior administration officials told ABC News Friday.

Practically every detail that has emerged about the ballroom—and the East Wing’s complete destruction this week—has been uncovered by media outlets that refused to take the administration’s plan at face value.

After promising Americans in July that his ballroom proposal would “be near but not touching” the historic building, Trump plowed ahead without prerequisite approval from the National Capital Planning Commission (which has been closed since the government shutdown began earlier this month) and without the express permission of Congress.

The project’s price tag also inexplicably grew by 50 percent over the last week. What Trump had pitched as a $200 million project was instead referred to this week as a $300 million development plan that the White House suggested would be funded, in part, by some of the country’s wealthiest families and biggest corporations, including the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.

Government officials are still trying to ascertain whether Trump’s sudden, unauthorized decision to demolish the White House was legal, but at least two Americans have already opted to sue him over it in an attempt to suspend the construction.

The White House’s partial destruction is, ultimately, another illustration that the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances has 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 he has spent no small part of his second term living and dining at his own properties rather than the executive mansion.

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.

The Department of Justice has come up with yet another African nation with a dismal human rights record to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongfully deported to El Salvador.

In a brief filing Friday, prosecutors described Liberia as a “a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent,” arguing that the country’s constitution “provides robust protections for human rights.”

The government claimed that because Abrego Garcia had not included Liberia on a list of 20 countries to which he feared deportation, he was free to be removed there.

But the U.S. State Department had a vastly different description of the African nation just last year, reporting “significant” human rights issues, including “arbitrary or unlawful killings” and “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

This is the latest effort by the Trump administration to ship off Abrego Garcia to an African nation.

In August, immigration officials initially offered Abrego Garcia a plea deal: if he admitted he was guilty of charges related to human smuggling, he could be removed to Costa Rica. When he rejected the offer, the Trump administration threatened to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, or Ghana. But U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland forbade his immediate removal and said that federal law may require him to be removed to a country of his choice. In any case, all three countries refused to take him.

Earlier this month, independent journalist Adam Klasfield reported that Xinis ordered the government to provide testimony on efforts to remove Garcia to Costa Rica, which he had ultimately selected as the country of his choice—but the government’s witness didn’t know anything.

“You come today with a witness that knows nothing about Costa Rica,” Xinis said, referring to Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign.

Ensign claimed that Abrego Garcia had told an immigration judge he was afraid to be deported to Costa Rica, but Xinis found that the exact opposite was true.

“That’s very troubling to me,” Xinis told Ensign.

Costa Rican officials had put in writing that they had no intention to remove Abrego Garcia back to El Salvador once he was in their custody. Klasfield noted on X Friday that the government’s latest filing included no assurances that Abrego Garcia would not be removed from Liberia back to CECOT, the notorious megaprison in El Salvador where he was initially sent.

Even the president’s biggest supporters can’t get behind his most recent pardon.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump wiped the criminal record of crypto billionaire and Binance exchange founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who was sentenced to four months in prison last year on charges related to money laundering. Trump claimed that the Chinese-born Canadian founder was a victim of political prosecution by the Biden administration.

But the news was not well received in MAGA world. One of Trump’s wealthiest supporters, Texas-based venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, wrote on X that the pardons suggested “massive fraud.”

“I love President Trump; this is possibly the greatest admin of my lifetime—except for these pardons,” Lonsdale posted Thursday. “If I’m calling balls and strikes, these are hit-by-pitches!! POTUS has been terribly advised on this; it makes it look like massive fraud is happening around him in this area.”

In separate posts, Lonsdale explained that his comment was an attempt to “influence future policy in a positive direction,” and that he also disagreed with Trump’s decision to pardon another white-collar criminal, Nikola CEO Trevor Milton.

Zhao and Trump’s family are financially tied. The presidential family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, has generated some $4.5 billion since the 2024 election, thanks in large part to a partnership with PancakeSwap, an online exchange platform administered by Zhao’s Binance, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

But either Trump must think Americans are terrifically stupid to not see the connection, or he’s suffering from serious mental lapses. During a press conference on Thursday, the president played dumb about Zhao, claiming he couldn’t recall the name of the person he had pardoned the day before.

“I don’t know, he was recommended by a lot of people, a lot of people say—are you talking about the crypto person?” Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “A lot of people say he wasn’t guilty of anything.… You don’t know much about crypto. You know nothing about nothing. You’re fake news.

“I don’t know him, I don’t believe I ever met him, but I’ve been told—a lot of support, he had a lot of support,” Trump said.