Trump Stops at Random Strip Mall to Go Marble Shopping

Donald Trump’s motorcade stopped at a random strip mall in Florida Friday morning so that the president could purchase marble and onyx for his increasingly expensive White House ballroom.

According to White House pool reports, “The motorcade arrived at a shopping center in Lake Worth, Florida at 9:46 AM.... The pool is told that POTUS is shopping at Arc Stone & Tile.” A White House official said that the president “is purchasing lake and onyx, at his own expense, for the White House ballroom.”

It’s perhaps no surprise that Trump wants marble in his White House ballroom. Trump first estimated the ballroom would cost only $200 million, but the president now claims the cost has skyrocketed to double that.

Trump has brought his longtime obsession with marble to his second term, pushing for it to appear just about everywhere. He urged the Federal Reserve building to be renovated with a marble facade, even as the architects wanted glass walls to indicate the agency’s transparency—and has since tried to use the renovation’s high cost as grounds to remove Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

More recently, he redid the bathroom in the White House Lincoln Suite entirely in marble, and he has proposed marble armrests for the Kennedy Center, claiming it would be “unlike anything ever done or seen before!” (Perhaps there’s a reason no one wants marble armrests.)

It remains to be seen whether Trump will indeed pay for the marble himself—or if he’ll add it to the taxpayer’s bill.

A new year, a new lie: The White House is apparently banking that the American public won’t remember what Donald Trump said about his own health just three months ago.

Trump admitted several times on camera to receiving an MRI in October—as did his physician, who released a report in December officially declaring that Trump’s MRI came back “perfectly normal.” Despite that, Trump now claims that he didn’t get an MRI after all, and that the medical assessment instead amounted to a CT scan.

“It wasn’t an MRI,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in a story published Thursday. “It was less than that. It was a scan.”

The White House has never offered a reason as to why Trump received scans to begin with, but there are some key differences between the two medical assessments. An MRI utilizes magnetic fields to assess tumors, joint injuries, or heart conditions. A CT scan, in comparison, is much faster as it uses X-rays to detect illness and injuries such as cancer, bone fractures, internal bleeding, or lung problems.

The president was remarkably cagey at the time about the scans he received at Walter Reed National Military Medical in early October. At first, he claimed his visit was little more than a “routine yearly checkup,” even though he already received his annual physical just six months prior.

There are also some unexplained discrepancies in the timeline of Trump’s visit to the military hospital. Former White House physician Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served under former President Barack Obama, suggested that Trump could have gotten more work done than was initially revealed, pointing to just how much time he was spending at Walter Reed.

Trump is the oldest person to be elected president. In an interview with The Hill in November, Kuhlman noted that while it wouldn’t be unusual for a 79-year-old to require a second checkup, it was odd that Trump’s supposedly routine tests and reported scans amounted to a four-hour visit at the hospital, according to his schedule.

Trump’s health has been a topic of concern since he was on the campaign trail, when reports circulated that he couldn’t remember the contents of the cognitive exams he claimed to ace. Since then, the president has been spotted with odd discolorations on his hand, routinely appears discombobulated and lethargic during critical meetings with world leaders, and had a drooping expression during 9/11 ceremonies in September that onlookers suggested could be a sign of a stroke.

President Donald Trump has rung in 2026 by threatening war on two fronts—and picking a bizarre fight with American actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal.

Trump on New Year’s Eve trashed the actor’s decision to leave the United States and obtain French citizenship with his wife and two children. Calling the couple “two of the worst political prognosticators of all time,” Trump went on a long Truth Social rant attacking their move.

“Good News! George and Amal Clooney, two of the worst political prognosticators of all time, have officially become citizens of France which is, sadly, in the midst of a major crime problem because of their absolutely horrendous handling of immigration, much like we had under Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump wrote. “Remember when Clooney, after the now infamous debate, dumped Joe during a fundraiser, only to go onto the side of another stellar candidate, Jamala(K!), who is now fighting it out with the worst governor in the Country, including Tim Waltz, Gavin Newscum, for who is going to lead the Democrats to their future defeat. Clooney got more publicity for politics than he did for his very few, and totally mediocre, movies. He wasn’t a movie star at all, he was just an average guy who complained, constantly, about common sense in politics.”

In a statement later Thursday to The Hollywood Reporter, Clooney hit back: “I totally agree with the current president. We have to make America great again. We’ll start in November.”

Trump’s Truth Social rant appears to have been a reaction to Clooney’s Tuesday cover story with Variety magazine, in which the actor expressed alarm over Trump’s America and the way news outlets like CBS have caved to the president’s MAGA agenda.

But if picking an inane fight with a popular American actor wasn’t enough for Trump, he has also spent his initial days of the new year threatening more intervention in two different countries.

In a 3 a.m. post on Friday, Trump threatened to intervene in Iran if the regime injured or killed any protesters, warning that the United States is “locked and loaded and ready to go.”

And Trump’s standoff with Venezuela continues. On New Year’s Eve, the U.S. military announced five more strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats. According to the Trump administration’s own numbers, this week’s attacks bring the total of publicly known strikes to 35, with at least 115 people killed.

A damning new report on Donald Trump’s health has stirred the American public, and even roused the president himself.

Practically nothing irks Trump more than stories about his age and his natural deterioration. But a Wall Street Journal article published Thursday—which includes an interview with Trump—revealed several new details about the president’s routine, depicting a 79-year-old man who has little well-informed consideration for the longevity of his body.

The piece received immediate backlash from Trump, who insisted on Truth Social shortly after its publication that he’s in “perfect health.”

“The White House Doctors have just reported that I am in ‘PERFECT HEALTH,’ and that I ‘ACED’ (Meaning, was correct on 100 percent of the questions asked!), for the third straight time, my Cognitive Examination, something which no other President, or previous Vice President, was willing to take,” Trump posted.

Trump has an oddball history with reportedly “acing” cognitive exams. During the 2024 presidential election, Trump took several—but his recollections of the tests, which sometimes included fabricating questions that the tests’ authors claimed were never on the exams, called into question whether he had actually taken them at all.

“P.S., I strongly believe that anyone running for President, or Vice President, should be mandatorily forced to take a strong, meaningful, and proven Cognitive Examination,” he continued. “Our great Country cannot be run by ‘STUPID’ or INCOMPETENT PEOPLE! President DJT.”

But for all his blather, Trump does not appear to be in pristine condition. According to the Journal report, Trump is taking more aspirin than his doctors recommend, apparently under the belief that “nice, thin blood” is better than “thick blood.”

He also brushed off concerns that the odd discolorations that routinely appear on his hands were anything to be alarmed by, though his explanation for the spots only added more intrigue, as he claimed that they were the results of getting “whacked again by someone.” (CNN’s medical analyst noted that Trump’s outsize aspirin use could actually be behind the bruising, since too much aspirin intake can cause a person to bleed excessively.)

Trump denied the fact that he has repeatedly fallen asleep during critical public appearances—something that practically became a fixture of his first year back in office as he was caught dozing off roughly a dozen times. It’s happened during Cabinet meetings, in the middle of bombastic military parades, while meeting leaders of critical allies, and even during the pope’s funeral.

“Sometimes they’ll take a picture of me blinking, blinking, and they’ll catch me with the blink,” Trump told the Journal.

But a final depiction of the president—from one of his supposed allies, RNC Chair Joe Gruters—really hammered home that the 79-year-old has been anything but delicate with his body, despite ongoing public concerns over his health.

Gruters claimed that he was “shocked” to see the scale at which Trump wolfs down McDonalds, including one instance in which he saw Trump consume “french fries, a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburger, a Big Mac and a Filet-O-Fish” in one sitting.

President Donald Trump threatened to intervene in Iran if the regime hurts protesters, warning the United States is “locked and loaded.”

“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 2:58 a.m. on Friday morning. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Iran entered its sixth day of consecutive protests on Friday, as the people are fed up with the regime, soaring inflation, and the collapse of the Iranian rial. At least seven people have been killed so far, according to the AP.

Iranian officials have already responded to Trump’s threats by implying that the protests in recent days have been fomented by the United States—despite the protests’ widespread support—and warning the Trump administration about next steps.

“With the statements by Israeli officials and @realDonaldTrump, what has been going on behind the scenes is now clear,” Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X. “Trump should know that U.S. interference in this internal matter would mean destabilizing the entire region and destroying America’s interests. The American people should know—Trump started this adventurism. They should be mindful of their soldiers’ safety.”

Iran’s foreign minister, meanwhile, called Trump’s statement a “flagrant violation” of international law.

It’s impossible to root for anyone in this standoff, other than the people of Iran, but Trump threatening another international conflict—while we also appear to be walking into war with Venezuela—is certainly at least some cause for concern.

President Donald Trump posted a picture of a dead bird felled by a windmill on Tuesday, yet another example of his aesthetic disdain for wind power.

“Windmills are killing our beautiful Bald Eagles!” he captioned the post.

But the bird is not a bald eagle, it’s a falcon. And it isn’t even in America—the image is from a 2017 Israeli news article detailing birds and bats being killed by windmills, as MeidasTouch pointed out on X.

This is another incredibly stupid moment from our president that will likely get lost in the plethora of others. Did anyone review the post at all? It’s so off base that Trump himself might as well have screenshot, cropped, and posted the pictures.

Trump has railed against windmills to justify his preference for coal and natural gas lobbies. He called windmill fields “killing fields” in 2018 and just this summer claimed that windmills in Europe were driving whales “loco.”

Donald Trump’s next Washington vanity project will be going up sooner rather than later.

The president told Politico Wednesday that he expects construction to break ground on his highly teased “Triumphal Arc” (yes, “arc”) within the next two months.

“It hasn’t started yet. It starts sometime in the next two months. It’ll be great. Everyone loves it,” Trump said. “They love the ballroom too. But they love the Triumphal Arc.”

The “Arc de Trump” will be erected near the Arlington Bridge, opposite the Lincoln Memorial, according to the president. It will be modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the historic monument that commemorates those who fought and died for France during the country’s revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

Earlier this month, Trump claimed that early models for his arc were so evocative that his former speechwriter, Vince Haley, cried at their beauty.

“Vince came in one day, and his eyes were teeming. He couldn’t believe how beautiful. He saw it, and he wanted to do that,” the president said at a White House Christmas reception.

The president’s arc campaign is the latest in a string of high-profile projects that he has pitched ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary. He’s already hard at work on a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, the construction of which apparently required the complete demolition of the White House East Wing, despite the fact that Trump pledged months earlier that the project would be “near but not touching” the presidential mansion.

Trump also renovated Jackie Kennedy’s famous Rose Garden, mowing down flowers in order to literally pave paradise; gutted the Lincoln bathroom, transforming it from Lyndon B. Johnson’s favorite office into a marble-slathered eyesore; and swapped the historic Palm Room’s lush green tones and tall ferns for white paint and framed photos of plants.

Meanwhile, his administration is doing some demolition of its own, reportedly planning to destroy some 13 historic buildings on the grounds of former psychiatric hospital St. Elizabeths in order to expand facilities for the Department of Homeland Security.

The president is thrusting some of the blame for Minnesota’s day care scandal onto Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar.

State officials have come under fire since right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley reported Friday that empty or abandoned day care facilities were still receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

The Department of Health and Human Services paused $185 million in aid to the state in light of the video, despite the fact that elements of Shirley’s report were incorrect or inadequately reported. At least two of the centers featured in Shirley’s video had been closed for several years, Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth and Families told NewsNation.

But the nitty gritty of the situation didn’t matter to Donald Trump, who baselessly asserted on Truth Social Wednesday that Omar was one of the scammers sucking up undue funds.

“Much of the Minnesota Fraud, up to 90 percent, is caused by people that came into our Country, illegally, from Somalia,” Trump posted. “‘Congresswoman’ Omar, an ungrateful loser who only complains and never contributes, is one of the many scammers.”

More than a dozen schemes have popped up in Minnesota’s safety net programs in recent years, many of them involving members of the state’s Somali population. They haven’t gone unchecked: More than 90 Minnesotans were charged in federal fraud investigations that began under the Biden administration, at least 60 of which have resulted in convictions.

But Omar, the first Somali American lawmaker and one of the first Muslim women in Congress, doesn’t have any connection to the fraudsters beyond her heritage.

Instead, it was clear that Trump was singularly interested in attacking Omar’s ethnicity, dredging up an old right-wing conspiracy that the lawmaker had married her brother.

“Did she really marry her brother?” Trump asked rhetorically in his post. “Lowlifes like this can only be a liability to our Country’s greatness. Send them back from where they came, Somalia, perhaps the worst, and most corrupt, country on earth. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

MAGA conservatives have rumbled for years—without evidence—that Omar married her brother to bring him into the U.S. The conspiracy first emerged during her 2016 campaign for the Minnesota state legislature in a since-deleted post on the conservative blog Power Line, where an anonymous source was quoted as saying that Omar’s ex-husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, was related to her by blood.

Omar has vehemently and repeatedly denied the unfounded allegations, which have been disproven by her marriage certificate. At the time, Omar described the insinuation that she had married her brother as “absurd and offensive.”

President Donald Trump has vetoed a bill that would expand the territory of a small Native American tribe in the Everglades because they didn’t support his “Alligator Alcatraz” plans.

“Despite seeking funding and special treatment from the Federal Government, the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected. My Administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding projects for special interests, especially those that are unaligned with my Administration’s policy of removing violent criminal illegal aliens from the country,” Trump wrote in a message to Congress Tuesday night.

“It is not the Federal Government’s responsibility to pay to fix problems in an area that the Tribe has never been authorized to occupy. For these reasons, I cannot support the Miccosukee Reserved Amendments Act.”

The Miccosukee Tribe was part of a lawsuit along with two environmental groups—Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity—that argued that the Trump administration and Florida state government hadn’t carried out the required environmental review for the construction of the detention center deep in the cherished Southern Florida wetlands.

Now Trump is denying their effort to regain just a portion of the land that was taken from them in the First and Second Seminole Wars of the nineteenth century.

The Miccosukee weren’t the only ones hit with a spiteful veto from a most spiteful president. In Colorado, Trump shot down a massive clean water project that was years in the making because MAGA Representative Lauren Boebert refused to cave to his pressure to stay mum on the Epstein files. She voted for their release, and now 39 communities may have to go back to the drawing board for their clean water.

Border Patrol has been arresting U.S. citizens, according to the agency’s leader.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino told Fox News Tuesday that his underlings had in fact arrested American citizens, claiming that they had cuffed U.S. nationals for assaulting border patrol agents.

“As far as American citizens, the vast majority of American citizens, especially that the U.S. Border patrol has arrested, many of those citizens assaulted federal officers, assaulted border patrol agents, in the performance of our duties,” Bovino said. “Anyone that assaults a federal officer, you’re gonna go to jail.”

The Homeland Security Department released a memo in November claiming that assaults on DHS agents had risen by 1,150 percent since 2024. They blamed the supposed rise on the rhetoric of sanctuary city politicians, alleging that political opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda—such as condemning ICE and Border Patrol agents as “Nazis” and “slave patrols”—had inspired the unprecedented violence.

“Our law enforcement officers have had Molotov cocktails and rocks thrown at them, been shot at, had cars used as weapons against them, and been physically assaulted,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the memo.

Meanwhile, the tactics utilized by ICE agents to arrest and detain the undocumented population have been nothing short of appalling. ICE agents have violently ripped families apart, beaten suspects, and even detained elected officials attempting to visit their facilities or escort immigrants to and from scheduled immigration court dates.

But the agents have also masked their faces and intentionally tried to hide their identities, making the government officials practically indiscernible from violent laypeople as they invade homes, hijack cars, or assault people on the street.

Bovino himself is no stranger to violent behavior. In late November, the Border Patrol chief was slammed by a U.S. district judge after he semantically dodged questions related to his and his agents’ excessive use of force against protesters in Chicago. At the time, Bovino split hairs about how many canisters of tear gas he threw into a crowd as well as other alleged misconduct by officers under his command during “Operation Midway Blitz.”