Trump Quietly Backtracks on Disastrous Grocery Tariffs

President Donald Trump eased some of his “Liberation Day” tariffs Friday evening, all but conceding that his trade policy has increased Americans’ grocery expenses despite his administration’s claims to the contrary.

In an executive order, the president exempted certain products, including coffee, beef, and bananas, from reciprocal tariffs that he announced in April. This comes as costs for such goods—and groceries in general—have spiked under his administration, thanks in no small part to his tariffs. And the move undermines his repeated assertions that his tariffs do not hit American consumers’ wallets.

Asked about the rollback on Air Force One Friday, Trump said the reversal was meant to “bring down some of the foods” whose prices have become “a little bit high” (an understatement) because “we don’t make them in this country.”

He did not elaborate on why, in light of this predictable outcome, he had issued the tariffs in the first place.

In a fact sheet, the White House patted itself on the back—with no hint of irony—for “strengthening the economy.” On social media, prominent MAGA accounts spun Trump’s attempt to undo price increases of his own making as evidence of his commitment to affordability.

“President Trump has just signed an executive order ELIMINATING tariffs on beef, coffee, and tropical fruits,” wrote pro-Trump influencer Nick Sortor. “This is an effort to bring down food prices in America, as voters voice concerns about affordability. Keep focusing on affordability, 47.”

He omitted mentioning who had put the tariffs in place.

Donald Trump’s feud with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene continued Saturday, as the president unveiled two new disparaging nicknames for the Georgia Republican.

Trump has been at loggerheads with Greene and her colleague Thomas Massie over their calls for full transparency regarding the notorious late Jeffrey Epstein. Greene and Massie were among the four members of the GOP who signed a discharge petition to force a floor vote, now expected to take place next week, on the Epstein files’ release.

The president, who maintains that l’affaire Epstein is all a Democratic “hoax,” tore into Greene on Friday evening, calling her a “ranting Lunatic” on Truth Social. Greene shot back on X, posting screenshots of text messages to Trump and a White House aide, in which she emphasized the importance of justice for Epstein’s victims: a concern that has thus far failed to move the president.

Come Saturday morning, the two were still exchanging barbs. In one Truth Social post, Trump referred to Greene as “Marjorie Taylor Brown,” as, he explained, “Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!” The president dubbed Greene and Massie RINOs, or Republicans in name only.

Greene attributed Trump’s attack to her Epstein stance and her increasingly critical views of Israel, insinuating the country was putting “pressure” on the president to suppress the files.

Trump answered with more taunting, this time christening the lawmaker “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green,” an insult already coined by MAGA influencer Laura Loomer—to whom Trump has previously outsourced staffing decisions and now, apparently, his name-calling.

Trump’s White House is naming fentanyl as a chemical weapon to justify the indiscriminate “drug boat” bombings it’s been carrying out in the Caribbean, which have killed 80 people to date.

A classified Justice Department memo reported on by The Wall Street Journal sheds light on the administration’s multiple legal arguments to justify the strikes—including that drug cartels are terrorist organizations and that their smuggling efforts are specifically meant to destabilize the U.S. and its citizens. Two people familiar with the memo shared its contents.

The brief mentions fentanyl multiple times as a justification for the strikes, even as the bulk of the drug entering the U.S. is known to come over land from Mexico. There is no evidence that Venezuela, where one of the newly classified terrorist organizations is based, is making and moving fentanyl.

“Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and @SOUTHCOM, this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X Thursday. “The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood—and we will protect it.”

Democrats and experts remain thoroughly unconvinced.

“Much of it is geared toward making a financial argument about what the drugs are providing in terms of monetary resources” to the so-called “terrorist” cartels, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim told the Journal. “But they are trying to use that now to create a lethal kinetic justification, which is not what that designation is for and has never been done before.”

“It is an incredible stretch,” said former Trump and Obama State Department legal adviser Brian Finucane.

The memo also refers to the president’s powers under Article 2 of the Constitution, which allows him to control military action for up to two months before congressional approval is necessary—something even Republicans have taken issue with.

“The president had the right to take initial actions, but should seek Congressional authorization for continued strikes,” Representative and House Armed Services Committee member Don Bacon said.

It certainly seems that the Trump administration knows it doesn’t have standing to just keep blowing up “drug boats” instead of stopping, boarding, and arresting these alleged “narco terrorists.” So instead it has to engineer claims in secret memos of chemical warfare and terrorism to avoid any congressional resistance.

The Trump administration is planning to make it harder for immigrants to get green cards and other benefits if they are from any of the countries on the president’s travel ban.

The New York Times, citing documents from the Department of Homeland Security, reports that the plan is to view “country-specific factors,” referring to countries in Trump’s June travel ban, as “significant negative factors” in applications from immigrants. The policy is still being finalized, but would essentially restrict permanent resident status, and subsequent citizenship, by the basis of national origin.

The countries named in the ban were Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Partial restrictions were placed on Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela, with citizens of those countries barred from entering the United States permanently or receiving specific visas. The new rule would affect immigrants who came to the U.S. legally prior to Trump’s ban.

Administration officials claim that the countries on the list have poor screening and vetting practices, but critics, such as American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, say that it makes “national origin discrimination … official government policy.”

“Having something that applies to you based on your country is absurd,” Doug Rand, a senior official at Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Biden administration, told the Times. “This is a radical change.”

Last month, the administration cut the number of refugees that the U.S. accepts to a record low of 7,500 for next year, prioritizing white South Africans at the expense of people fleeing war zones and persecution. In June, it said it would screen the social media accounts of immigrant applications for anti-American activity. Now, it is trying to restrict legal immigration even further.

Republicans in a red state have failed to initiate their pro-Trump gerrymandering efforts for the second time this month.

On Friday, Indiana’s state Senate Republicans announced that they failed to gather enough votes to redistrict their state in their favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“Over the last several months, Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state’s congressional maps,” state Senator Rodric Bray said, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle’s Niki Kelly. “Today, I’m announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene.”

This is a massive failure in the GOP’s plan to redraw districts in the middle of the decade to help it gain more seats in Congress. Last week, Kansas Republicans gave up on a weeks-long effort to accelerate the redrawing of their state’s congressional map. Days later, a Utah judge rejected a Republican-drawn map and instead instituted the state’s first blue-leaning one in 25 years.

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were apparently so close that the billionaire child sex offender once paid the now-president a hefty bet.  

Emails released by the House Oversight Committee show an exchange between Epstein and alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra discussing a time to video chat, when Chopra asked Epstein if he knew Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples. Epstein replied, “Yes  ,  in fact when she told donald she was pregnant. I lost a 10k dollar bet with him, and sent him a truck of baby food in payment. but i have not spoken to her in many years since then.”

The email, dated July 29, 2016, didn’t end there. Epstein added that “she can tell you the story of her friend who was caught having sex with her shoes. yes-shoes.” 

The entire exchange took place months before Trump would win the presidential election for the first time, and details the extent of the president’s relationship with the now-dead Epstein. When Trump and Maples got married in 1993 at the New York Plaza Hotel, Epstein was in attendance. Maples and Trump would divorce in 1999 after having one child together, Tiffany. 

Chopra and Maples spoke together at a “Sages & Sciences Symposium” in 2010, and Maples posted a picture of the two together on Instagram in 2016, in which she called him her friend. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Independent that “These emails prove literally nothing.”

On the contrary, these emails show that Epstein and Trump have a long-standing relationship, refuting the president’s denials. They may have even spent time together while Trump was president. With every new release of Epstein’s correspondence, Trump’s denials are looking more and more pathetic. 

Jeffrey Epstein’s victims are pleading with Congress to release the Epstein files.

In a haunting letter, the family members of deceased abuse survivor Virginia Giuffre—along with several victims who have accused Donald Trump of participating in Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring—asked lawmakers to “be brave” in the coming days as they vote to potentially make the case files public.

“There is no middle ground here. There is no hiding behind party affiliation,” they said, in a letter jointly addressed to members of the House and Senate.

“Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell’s crimes exposed a double standard of justice, where rich and powerful men and women evade repercussions. Despite years of work to bring them to justice, most of Epstein and Maxwell’s co-conspirators remain completely free, continuing to amass power and prestige, living without apparent shame.

“As you gather with your family this season, remember that your primary duty is to your constituents,” the writers continued. “Look into the eyes of your children, your sisters, your mothers, and your aunts. Imagine if they had been preyed upon. Imagine if you yourself were a survivor. What would you want for them? What would you want for yourself? When you vote, we will remember your decision at the ballot box.”

Pressure on lawmakers dramatically ramped up this week after a discharge petition to force a vote on the files’ release succeeded. Just ahead of the petition passing, the House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 documents Wednesday that it had obtained from Epstein’s estate, revealing that Trump was a frequent topic in correspondence between Epstein and his pen pals.

In a 2011 email, Epstein expressed he was grateful Trump had stayed quiet about details of his life. The “dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,” Epstein wrote, despite the fact that Trump had spent hours at one of Epstein’s properties with a known victim.

In a 2017 exchange with former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Epstein said that Trump was the worst individual he knew.

“I have met some very bad people, none as bad as Trump,” Epstein wrote. “Not one decent cell in his body.”

When queried by Trump biographer Michael Wolff in 2019 about the extent of the president’s knowledge of abductions of young girls, Epstein remarked: “Of course he knew about the girls he asked Ghislaine to stop.”

The White House immediately brushed off the reports, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisting that the emails prove nothing. Trump, in turn, has accused Democrats of inventing the Trump-Epstein connection, repeatedly referring to it as a “hoax.”

In the halls of Congress, conservative lawmakers are turning on Trump. Senior Republicans privately expect dozens of their party members—“possibly 100 or more”—to vote in favor of a bill that would make the federal government’s trove of Epstein files publicly available, Politico reported Wednesday. A handful have already voiced their intention to back the forthcoming bill, including Representatives Eli Crane, Don Bacon, and Warren Davidson.

Border Protection commander Gregory Bovino has finally left Chicago, after a federal judge said he’d lied about using excessive force to target protesters opposing immigration operations.

During an appearance on Fox News Thursday, Bovino, who’d been tasked with leading “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, said that he had retreated to West Virginia, where he was “undergoing training with several hundred border patrol agents.” Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, is home to Custom and Border Protection’s Advanced Training Center.

The CBP chief said he could soon redeploy in either New York, Chicago, or Charlotte, North Carolina, adding that he could “guarantee” that Illinois Governor Pritzker would see “a lot more” immigration enforcement in Chicago.

Earlier this week, officials told CBS News that Bovino planned to leave, taking many of his Border Patrol agents with him.

It seems that Bovino left with his tail between his legs, after suffering a lashing from a federal judge. Last week, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction barring federal agents from using tear gas and other riot prevention methods against protesters, “unless such force is objectively necessary to stop an immediate threat.”

Ellis said that Bovino had admitted to lying about being hit in the head with a rock before deploying tear gas canisters on protesters in Little Village, during his hourslong deposition, and that she’d reviewed video that “disproved” his prior claim. Ellis also said she’d reviewed a trove of evidence that federal agents had used excessive force against protesters, despite little evidence of any actual criminal activity.

Her preliminary injunction requires officers to issue two clear warnings before administering crowd-control measures, to place identifiers conspicuously on their person, and to wear a body camera. In line with her request from a previous hearing, the government’s lawyer confirmed that Bovino would now wear a body camera.

Several prison employees at the facility holding Ghislaine Maxwell have been fired since internal whistleblowers revealed the extent of the child sex criminal’s cozy digs.

News of their termination came by way of Maxwell’s attorney, who on Friday cited the recent release of Maxwell’s emails by Representative Jamie Raskin earlier this week as the rationale for the prison staffers’ sudden firing.

“The release to the media by Congressman Raskin, of Ms. Maxwell’s privileged client-attorney email correspondence with me is as improper as it is a denial of justice,” Leah Saffian, a California-based attorney who has long represented Maxwell, said in a statement.

“There have been appropriate consequences already for employees at Federal Prison Camp Bryan,” Saffian continued. “They have been terminated for improper, unauthorised access to the email system used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to allow inmates to communicate with the outside world.”

Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security prison camp mere days after she met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in July to help curate a new list of Jeffrey Epstein’s potential associates.

The information exchange resulted in an extremely cushy transfer for Maxwell—one of the worst sex criminals of the century—shipping her from a Florida prison to a low-security prison camp in Texas that lawmakers have described as “not suitable for a sex offender.”

The British ex-socialite has since raved about her new digs, celebrating the difference between the two facilities as akin to having “dropped through Alice in Wonderlands [sic] looking glass,” according to emails obtained by the House Judiciary Committee.

She has also been granted many privileges not typically afforded to inmates, including meal service in her cell, unlimited toilet paper, and access to private visitations in a chaplain’s office outside standard visiting hours. Her requests to be separated from other inmates have also been granted, with tables and cellmates reportedly being relocated at her whim.

Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in jail for playing an active role in Epstein’s crimes, identifying and grooming vulnerable young women while normalizing their abuse at the hands of her millionaire boyfriend. Maxwell’s attorneys have pressed the White House for a pardon for several months now.

Kash Patel allowed a radio host conspiracy theorist to fill the number two spot at the FBI without first passing a polygraph test.

Deputy Director Dan Bongino reportedly received a waiver for a polygraph test, according to four people who spoke anonymously with ProPublica Friday.

Typically, polygraph tests are required to establish approval for the “Top Secret” security clearances necessary to work at the agency. Recipients are asked questions about their criminal history, drug use, foreign contacts, and any mishandling of sensitive documents. Their results are used to determine whether they can have access to classified information.

It seems that Bongino may not have been asked about any of this, and yet, as deputy director, he has access to a trove of sensitive information, including the President’s Daily Brief, that collates essential information from the intelligence community. He is also responsible for day-to-day operations at the FBI and green-lighting surveillance operations.

Those familiar with Bongino’s rise to deputy director, after he had no prior experience at the agency, said issuing him a waiver was unprecedented. Multiple former FBI officials told ProPublica that they could not recall a single instance where a top-ranking official such as Bongino had received a waiver for a polygraph test, or anyone who had failed one.

Bongino and two other top-ranking officials reportedly received waivers from Patel.

In a statement to ProPublica, FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson said: “It is false that the individuals you referenced failed polygraphs.”

“The FBI follows all laws and procedures on personnel security measures, and any implication otherwise is false,” Williamson wrote. “Furthermore, while the FBI does not comment on confidential security information, particularly in matters of personnel, this article is riddled with falsehoods—it misrepresents polygraph protocol, inaccurately portrays FBI security measures, and makes multiple false claims about FBI employees who have done nothing wrong.”

The spokesperson also claimed that polygraphs were “not required” for political appointees at the agency. But several experts, including Daniel Meyer, a former executive director for the inspector general of the Intelligence Community External Review Panel, and three other lawyers specializing in national security told ProPublica that those Schedule C employees would not typically be excluded from the tests.

A former senior FBI official told ProPublica that while the existence of the waiver may suggest Bongino did not pass the polygraph test, it was possible he received a preemptive exemption. The outlet could not determine whether Bongino sat for a polygraph test.