The U.S. Might Be About to Enter a New Conflict—but Trump Won’t Say

After days of deliberations with high-ranking officials, President Donald Trump thinks he may have come to a decision about a major foreign policy issue.

He’s not quite sure, though, and he definitely isn’t sharing what his decision might be.

“I sort of have made up my mind,” Trump told CBS Friday on the topic of Venezuela, during a meeting with the press on Air Force One.

However, the president continued, “I can’t tell you what it is.” He added that they had “made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in,” however.

As The New York Times reported Friday, Trump has been applying military pressure to the South American country, but it remains a mystery for what purpose or what end.

The U.S.’s biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was moving into a position close enough to carry out strikes on the country, the Times reported, and the president was meeting with officials to review military options. He hadn’t ruled out direct action inside the country.

Trump has engaged in saber-rattling toward Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for some time now, saying he’s allowing armed gangs to smuggle drugs in the U.S. Venezuela’s military is now on high alert, creating a pressure-cooker situation, though, as several outlets have reported, Trump officials and aides have said contradictory things about the purpose of these moves.

The U.S. military has also engaged in numerous strikes over the past few months on more than 20 boats it claims were moving drugs from South America to the U.S. While the legality of these strikes are questionable, they’ve killed dozens of people in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, and have created a surge of anger and displeasure among the international community, and Americans—and even Trump’s base.

As The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, a secret leaked memo from the DOJ showed that the administration was linking the boat strikes to fentanyl and stating that they were a chemical weapons threat, a claim that hasn’t been substantiated.

After pardoning a far-right militia member for his role in the Capitol riot, President Donald Trump gave him another pardon for an unrelated conviction for illegally possessing firearms.

On January 6, 2021, Dan Wilson, of the Oath Keepers and a Three Percenters–associated militia, breached the Capitol. Days earlier, per prosecutors, he had sent a disturbing text message to a Telegram group chat with other anti-government militia members: “I am ready to lay my life on the line. It is time for good men to do bad things.”

Wilson was ultimately convicted for conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer. He pleaded guilty to the gun charges after authorities searched his Kentucky home and discovered firearms, some loaded, that he was forbidden from possessing due to previous felony convictions.

Trump did away with the conspiracy charges this January, when he pardoned “individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

Since then, Wilson’s lawyers have argued that the pardon also applied to his gun charges.

But as Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled in March, the “plain language of the pardon” did not cover them. However, the judge noted at the time, Trump “has the constitutional authority to pardon Wilson for all of his crimes. He still may do so.”

On Friday, the president did just that, Politico reported Saturday—signing a full and unconditional pardon for Wilson that specifically cited his gun case. An unnamed White House official told Politico’s Kyle Cheney that Trump is pardoning Wilson because the search that led to the firearm conviction “was due to the events of January 6, and [the investigators] should have never been there in the first place.”

In recent days, Trump has issued slews of eyebrow-raising pardons for his political allies, though this one stands out as a particularly egregious example.

As Democratic Senator Chris Murphy wrote on social media, “Trump is now pardoning January 6th rioters for unrelated crimes, just to reward them for their violence to keep him in power. The Republican Party is in the full time business of endorsing and incentivizing political violence.”

President Donald Trump made a baffling comment after receiving an MRI, calling into question his grasp of basic medical treatment—or what he could be hiding from the general public.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, the president said that he had undergone a physical and received an MRI, or medical resonance imaging test, as part of the exam.

He (predictably) reported that the results were extremely positive.

“Mr. President, can you tell us why you needed to get an MRI?” a reporter asked. “I understand that the results were good, but what was it for?”

“Because it’s part of my physical,” he said. After some back and forth, the president broke it down for the reporter.

“Here’s what the story is. I had an MRI. The doctor said it was the best result he has ever seen as a doctor. That’s it.” Trump said. “But, I had an MRI as part of my standard, yearly—or, I think they do it every two years. But I have the physical every year. But the result was outstanding.”

“Was it your brain, or … ?” the reporter asked.

“I have no idea what they analyzed, but whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well,” the president said.

For what it’s worth, an MRI is a fairly involved process that involves removing clothing, donning earplugs, and lying completely still in a large scanner for extended periods of time with the goal of obtaining quality images of internal structures of the body, according to Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine. Given the amount of effort this process takes, several people on social media pointed out, patients would generally know what body part is being tested.

Trump, who is the oldest person ever elected president, has been the subject of swirling theories and concerns about his health for months, which seems to have put him on the defensive. The president breezed past his ignorance about the test and continued the conversation with the reporter, lauding his mental acuity, as he is wont to do.

“The other thing I took is, I took, as you know, a … very advanced test on mental acuity. Because I think a president should have to do that. And as you probably heard I aced it, I got a perfect score … and the only reason I tell you that is that it’s one subject, unlike Biden, and others, that you can take off your plate,” he said.

But for someone who claims not to know what his MRI “analyzed,” it’s hard to see how this could be true. Or maybe he just doesn’t want us to know. Either way, we’re left with a lot more questions than answers.

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.