White House Stepped in to Help Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate

When misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate and his brother left Romania in February to return to the U.S., a Trump administration official intervened on their behalf with Customs and Border Protection.

ProPublica reports that Paul Ingrassia, a White House lawyer who had previously represented the Tate brothers and once bragged about having a “Nazi streak,” intervened on their behalf when customs officials seized their electronic devices at the airport in Fort Lauderdale. 

Ingrassia, working as the administration’s liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, personally sent a letter to senior DHS officials urging them to return the devices. Ingrassia’s letter, obtained by ProPublica, told the officials that seizing the items was not a good use of the department’s time or resources, and that the request came from the White House. 

The letter reportedly alarmed the officials, who thought they could be interfering in a federal investigation if they returned the devices. Tate is under investigation for criminal and civil charges in Romania and the U.K. relating to sexual assault, tax evasion, and human trafficking. A woman in Florida has also sued Tate for coercing her into sex work. 

Ingrassia’s request disgusted at least one government official because of its “brazenness and the high-handed expectation of complicity.”

“It was so offensive to what we’re all here to do, to uphold the law and protect the American people,” the person told ProPublica. “We don’t want to be seen as handing out favors.”

Ingrassia already has a negative reputation inside and outside of government. Currently working for the General Services Administration, he was forced to withdraw his nomination to the Office of Special Counsel last month after text messages surfaced where he made blatantly racist comments. 

Not only is Ingrassia a racist, it seems he has a misogynist streak as well. It’s no surprise that he has also been accused of sexual harassment. But in the Trump administration, all that matters is loyalty to the president, and both Ingrassia and the Tates have it.  

President Donald Trump interrupted his own scrambled attempt to elucidate his affordability pitch to talk about his favorite sandwich.

“I like the fish,” said a hoarser-than-usual Trump while speaking at the McDonald’s National Impact Summit in Washington Monday night. He waved his hand and released a throaty hiss, ostensibly to mime the fish he liked.

“I like it. You could do a little bit more tartar sauce though, please. Seriously. I hate when I say, ‘Do you have any tartar sauce? Do you understand that? Yes, he understands that.’”

Trump’s latest weird attempt to tout the McDonald’s brand in order to seem like a normal person comes just one week after McDonald’s chief executive Christopher Kempczinski told investors that ballooning prices at the fast-food chain had caused traffic from low-income households to drop by double digits.

But it seems that Trump accidentally made clear that his emphasis on the cost of living was simply an attempt to steal the issue from his political opponents, who’d used it to great effect on Election Day earlier this month.

“The word is ‘affordable,’” Trump said. “And affordable should be our word, not theirs, because the Democrats got up and said, ‘Affordability, affordability,’ and they don’t say that they had the worst inflation in history, the highest energy prices in history, everything was the worst. What they are great at is lying.”

In reality, inflation has steadily increased for the last five months in a row.

Clearly, the nation’s economic anxieties have become a sore spot for the president, who has repeatedly claimed to have brought grocery prices down despite consumers experiencing the biggest price jump in more than three years. Earlier this month, he ranted that he didn’t want to “hear about affordability.” Now he can’t seem to stop talking about it.

But he still failed to acknowledge his own role in raising prices—through tariffs and his crackdown on immigrants—and blamed former President Joe Biden for, well, everything.

“We’re gonna make the American dream a word that—two words that you didn’t have. You didn’t have those two words. Remember when Biden said, ‘It’s all about three words: the American dream’? You don’t ever want to get in that situation. Remember that? That was not good,” Trump said.

“You are so damn lucky that I won that election,” Trump said.

He’s right: If he hadn’t, we’d never get to hear him make great economic addresses like this one.

American politics has come a long way since World War II.

More than 250,000 Americans lost their lives fighting fascism in the European theater between 1942 and 1945, but decades later, that fervor to reject the destructive ideology seems to have died among the country’s ruling class.

Republicans on the House Rules Committee refused to condemn fascism Monday, voting against an amendment that would formally rebuke the hyper-nationalistic, authoritarian credo.

Lawmakers that opposed the effort included Representatives Michelle Fischbach, Ralph Norman, Chip Roy, Erin Houchin, Nicholas Langworthy, Austin Scott, H. Morgan Griffith, Brian Jack, and Chairwoman Virginia Foxx.

The conservative fascism defense comes days after the White House branded antifa—a catchall for self-described antifascists—as a foreign terrorist organization. President Donald Trump has used the famously decentralized antifascist network as a scapegoat for years, leveraging the provocative label to push narratives that an organized network of violent, far-left radicals is wreaking havoc in cities across the country.

Fascism, however, has become a remarkably touchy topic. In recent weeks, Republicans have flown into a fury over getting called fascists and accused Democrats of inciting political violence by using the term. Since at least 2015, Americans have argued over the application of the phrase, debating the merits of torching Trump’s authoritarian populist ideology as a fascist groundwork or staying silent to maintain the gravitas of the word.

But this wasn’t always true. Decades ago, fascism and its followers had a clear definition in the U.S. consciousness, especially among the Americans who spent their lives fighting it.

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends,” wrote Vice President Henry A. Wallace for The New York Times in 1944.

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism,” continued Wallace.

“They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

Donald Trump snapped at a reporter late last week when she asked him about the Jeffrey Epstein files, appearing to insult her appearance.

The president was asked on Friday aboard Air Force One about his name showing up in many of Epstein’s emails and correspondence released by the House Oversight Committee, and how Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls.” Trump tried to deflect, saying that reporters should be looking into how much time Larry Summers and Bill Clinton spent with Epstein.

When a reporter asked him, “If there’s nothing incriminating in the files, sir, why not—,” Trump shut her down.

“Quiet! Quiet piggy!” Trump said to the Bloomberg reporter.

Trump is known for insulting reporters, usually calling them “fake news,” but it seems the Epstein revelations have pushed him into schoolyard territory. After months of calling the Epstein files in the government’s possession a hoax and trying to delay or block their release, Trump is now faced with the fact that Congress is expected to vote for their disclosure.

If Epstein stays in the news cycle much longer, Trump may resort to even more childish antics. But then again, it’s not really a huge departure from his usual self. One thing is for sure: The files must contain some damaging material to provoke this kind of reaction.

Donald Trump is open to the possibility of launching attacks on Mexico to stop the flow of drugs, he told reporters in the White House Monday.

“It’s OK with me,” Trump said. “Whatever we have to do to stop drugs. Mexico is, look, I looked at Mexico City over the weekend, some big problems over there.”

Trump bragged about his bombing campaign across the Caribbean Sea and in the Pacific Ocean next to Central America, claiming that it had reduced the drug flow into the U.S. by 85 percent.

“We have almost no drugs coming into our country by the sea, by, you know, the waterways, and you know why, OK? I mean, it’s pretty obvious. Would I do that on the land corridor?” Trump said, making a positive gesture. When a reporter asked if he would need Mexico’s permission, the president was dismissive.

“I wouldn’t answer that question. I’ve been speaking to Mexico. They know how I stand. We’re losing hundreds of thousands of people to drugs. So now we’ve stopped the waterways. We know every route,” Trump said, claiming that the government knows where “every druglord” lives. He said that he’d be proud to go to Congress and claimed that he would have the support of Republicans and Democrats “unless they’re crazy.”

“I am not happy with Mexico,” Trump said, concluding the press session.

The Trump administration has bombed dozens of boats south of the United States without providing evidence that they are trafficking drugs, or providing the names of people killed in the strikes. In some cases, the dead and injured were fishermen whom the U.S. declined to prosecute.

The strikes have been condemned by multiple countries, with some even opting to stop sharing drug-trafficking intelligence with the U.S. out of fear that it would be used for more bombings without transparency. Even Republicans have spoken out against the strikes. But if Trump decides to strike Mexico, that could change, as some Republicans have been egging on the president to bomb the country for years.

Trump himself told advisers in his first presidential term that he wanted to “bomb the drugs” in Mexico, and even devised plans to invade the country before beginning his second term. Will he follow through, or is this just the ravings of a man experiencing cognitive decline?

Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino was seen on video asking a random brown-skinned man standing at a bus stop in Chicago if he spoke English. 

“You speak English?” Bovino asks, pointing at the man, who looks obviously uncomfortable. He gives no response, and Bovino switches to Spanish. 

“No demands made.  It was a very casual conversation that ended with the arrest of this illegal alien,” Bovino posted on X in the comment section of the video. “Chicago will continue to see Title 8 immigration enforcement. All illegal aliens should self deport immediately via the CBP Home app.” 

Bovino has been often criticized for his brutal and wanton tactics, which include using tear gas and pepper balls against peaceful protesters. 

“This is the lie they want you to believe; that you can refuse to answer and walk away but we know that’s not true,” Cato Institute Immigration Studies director David Bier wrote in response to Bovino. “We’ve seen them arresting people for doing exactly that.” 

Bovino’s approach in the clip also aligns with the Department of Homeland Security’s policy of racial profiling, which it has fought in court to preserve. 

“Apparent ethnicity can be a factor supporting reasonable suspicion in appropriate circumstances—for instance, if agents know that the members of a criminal organization under investigation are disproportionately members of one ethnic group—even if it would not be relevant in other circumstances,” the Trump administration wrote in a Supreme Court request that was later granted, clearing the way for racial profiling. “And, in context, officers might reasonably rely on the fact that someone exclusively speaks Spanish to support reasonable suspicion that the person is here illegally.” 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has a new primary challenger: New York City Council member Chi Ossé, an ally of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

Ossé filed paperwork Monday to run in New York 8th congressional district, which covers part of east and south Brooklyn. In a statement, Ossé said, “The Democratic Party’s leadership is not only failing to effectively fight back against Donald Trump, they have also failed to deliver a vision that we can all believe in.”

The council member is 27 years old and supported Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary, leading a rally and canvassing for him. Like Mamdani, Ossé has a large social media following and is seeking to capitalize on public frustration with Democratic leadership, joining other young candidates launching primary challenges across the country.

Ossé enters the race with some name recognition in New York City, having been featured in The New Yorker, GQ, and New York magazine. But according to Axios, Mamdani won’t be offering any public support to Ossé to ensure that Jeffries and other leading New York Democrats don’t oppose his policies as mayor.

Still, the upstart candidate could build upon not only Mamdani’s example but also that of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in 2018 defeated a member of the Democratic leadership at only 27 to enter Congress, representing the nearby New York 14th district. Ossé will have to rally the support of Jeffries’s many critics who see the congressman as ineffectual in leading Democrats against Donald Trump and the Republican Party. The question is whether Brooklynites agree.

The arrival of masked federal agents at a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday sent some worshippers fleeing into the woods while children sobbed inside, witnesses told The Charlotte Observer. 

The ICE agents, who mobbed a group of church members doing yard work, did not ask any questions or make any attempt to identify themselves before arresting one man. The Observer did not report the name of the church.

The church’s pastor, who told The Observer he did not want to identify himself, said that agents threatened to arrest other church members, and were physically aggressive. “Right now, everybody is scared. Everybody,” he said. “One of these guys with immigration, he say he was going to arrest one of the other guys in the church. He pushed him.”

Fifteen-year-old Miguel Vazquez was one of the people who took off running when federal agents arrived. “I thought, ‘Wait, why am I running? I’m a citizen,’” Vazquez said. 

As some of the men outside fled, the women and children inside the church reportedly cried out of fear that their loved ones had been arrested.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed that the U.S. Border Patrol, which has been favored over Immigration and Customs Enforcement by the Trump administration for its more aggressive law enforcement tactics, made 130 arrests in Charlotte on Saturday and Sunday. The DHS claimed that detainees had criminal records, including a variety of infractions, but they have not released the names or paperwork relating to the arrests.  

As part of its tactlessly named Operation “Charlotte’s Web,” masked agents in paramilitary gear have kidnapped people from a number of public locations in Charlotte, including restaurants, grocery stores, Home Depot parking lots, and now churches. In January, Trump directed ICE to target immigrants in previously protected areas considered “sensitive locations,” including churches, and in April, a federal judge gave him the greenlight.

On Saturday, Charlotte residents took to the streets to protest the presence of federal law enforcement. 

Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator David Richardson abruptly resigned from his post on Monday, according to sources familiar with the situation. His resignation comes after months of being AWOL, particularly during deadly flooding in Texas over Fourth of July weekend.

FEMA employees told The Washington Post that Richardson spent as little time as possible in daily operations meetings and shied away from leadership, even telling his own employees that he expected to be gone by Thanksgiving.

Richardson became acting head of FEMA after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ousted his predecessor, Cameron Hamilton. During his first meeting as the new head of FEMA, Richardson told his employees, “Don’t get in my way … because I will run right over you.”

When flooding hit Texas in July, Richardson was unable to be reached “for hours and hours,” one senior official said. Richardson claimed to be in “constant contact” with FEMA officials but was actually missing from disaster response while on vacation with his two sons. At least 130 people died in the floods.

“Staff say Richardson is basically useless—absent from the office, unreachable in a disaster, and powerless because Secretary Noem has sidelined him,” New Jersey Democratic Representative Frank Pallone Jr. said in September, calling on Richardson to resign. “This level of bureaucratic incompetence from the Trump administration is putting lives at risk when the next natural disaster hits.”

In November, Richardson was muzzled by the Department of Homeland Security, banned from giving interviews or responding to media requests.

President Trump has yet to comment on Richardson’s resignation.