Judge Puts Brakes on Trump’s Plans to Take Over Public Golf Course

A federal judge rebuked the Trump administration Monday morning for an alleged attempt to seize and bulldoze a public golf course in Washington, D.C.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes responded to a request from the DC Preservation League to block the administration from taking over the East Potomac Golf Links. During the hearing, she chastised White House lawyers trying to argue that their plans for the golf course simply involve the removal of dead trees.

“We can’t have bulldozers taking down trees … and no one has come to me first,” Reyes said, adding that if the administration wants to cut down more than 10 trees, the court needs to be notified and needs to see plans.

The DC Preservation League is worried that the White House will move quickly to demolish parts of the course, pointing to how fast President Trump took over the Kennedy Center. The Preservation League’s attorney said that they didn’t trust the administration, and when Reyes asked a White House lawyer if they planned to close the golf course, the attorney said, “No closure notice has been issued ... but it’s still under consideration at this point.”

“I didn’t hear a ‘NO,’ your honor!” the plaintiff’s attorney interrupted. The White House’s lawyer tried to claim that they would follow the rules, and that they haven’t closed anything yet. But Reyes was then handed a note stating, “It looks like there were signs on the golf course that there were closures.” The administration’s counsel had no response to this, and Reyes said she was concerned about the White House making a “surprise” move on the golf course.

On Friday, NOTUS reported that the White House planned to take over the course and begin landscaping and tree clearing, with major renovations beginning later. A golf course architect, Tom Fazio, has already been chosen, an unnamed source told NOTUS. While the administration denied the report, the DC Preservation League quickly filed an emergency motion to block any construction.

It’s clear that the preservation group does not trust the administration in the slightest, and for good reason. Trump quickly demolished the East Wing of the White House without legal approval for his ballroom project, after saying publicly that he wouldn’t make large-scale changes. He has also slapped his name on several Washington buildings and government organizations without congressional or legal approval.

Whatever Trump’s plans are for this and other public golf courses in the nation’s capital, Reyes’s decision Monday may just slow him down rather than deter his plans altogether. Trump seems intent on remaking Washington in his own image regardless of what its residents or the courts say.

Most Americans don’t believe President Trump is healthy enough to do his job anymore, a new poll reveals, as questions swirl around a surprise medical visit he made over the weekend.

Recent polling from The Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos shows that a brutal 59 percent of Americans don’t think Trump has the mental acuity to serve as president, and 55 percent think he is not in physical shape to do so. That number is a sharp uptick from last fall, when only 45 percent of Americans believed he wasn’t in good enough physical shape to serve as president.

The poll was conducted before an odd medical visit that has raised questions even among Republicans about the president’s health and fitness.

On Saturday, Trump left his Florida golf course rather suddenly for what staff said was a dental appointment that was not previously on his presidential schedule.

“There’s been such lack of candor about the health of the president that even a visit to the dentist raises questions. The WH has a dental operatory (Pres Biden had a root canal there) so why a Sat morning visit in Florida?” wrote Jonothan Reiner, who served as former Vice President Dick Cheney’s doctor. “Maybe he just likes this dentist.”

Representative Nancy Mace also posted a mysterious “pray for President Trump” with no context, only fueling more theories.

“So, yesterday Trump is at his golf course in FL. He’s playing around, and suddenly he leaves for a dentist appointment. His press team says it was a regularly scheduled appointment but it was not on his Presidential schedule,” January 6 insurrectionist Trisha Hope posited. “Today @NancyMace posted this. What’s going on?”

“Why did the White House lie yesterday that Trump’s obvious medical emergency was a ‘scheduled’ dental appointment that was not on his schedule and caused him to suddenly leave his golf course?” conservative commentator Cheri Jacobus mused. “What IV infusion is he getting at the beginning of each month? And what’s wrong with his leg?”

Trump has always maintained that he is in peak physical condition, even though it’s clear that he’s at the very least lost a step since his first term. But the secrecy surrounding his health isn’t just alarming political insiders. It’s alarming most of America. Examples of the president’s questionable health range from Trump falling asleep in public meetings, to his unaired rants on 60 Minutes, to this mystery dental appointment.

Even aging and illness is the fault of American liberals in the MAGA worldview.

Rudy Giuliani was admitted to the hospital Sunday. His spokesperson said the former New York mayor is in “critical but stable condition.” Yet the problem, according to Donald Trump, was leftists.

In a missive on Truth Social Sunday night, the president claimed that Giuliani—his former adviser and personal attorney—was a “true warrior” and the best mayor in New York City history “BY FAR.”

“What a tragedy that he was treated so badly by the Radical Left Lunatics, Democrats ALL—AND HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!” Trump continued. “They cheated on the Elections, fabricated hundreds of stories, did anything possible to destroy our Nation, and now, look at Rudy. So sad!”

Giuliani is recovering from pneumonia, according to his spokesperson. The 81-year-old’s condition is complicated by restrictive airway disease, which he was diagnosed with after 9/11.

“He is now breathing on his own, with his family and primary medical provider at his side,” said spokesman Ted Goodman in a statement.

Giuliani was once a beloved fixture of the Big Apple, earning the title of a “mob-buster” as a vicious U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980s. He later gained the moniker “America’s mayor” for seeing the city through the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But the fading star lost a lot of that adoration when he saddled his political dreams on Trump during the 2016 presidential race, closely aligning himself with the MAGA movement and its myriad political conspiracies.

Since then, Giuliani has served as a mouthpiece for Trump’s whims. He spread baseless accusations of ballot manipulation about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother-daughter duo of election workers in Georgia, in the wake of the 2020 election. That decision cost Giuliani $150 million in damages (which he tried and failed to worm his way out of), his Manhattan penthouse, and his Mercedes convertible, and almost forced him to give up his Florida condominium.

Giuliani was also indicted—and pardoned—for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia and Arizona. Over the course of 2024, the former Trump attorney unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy, lost his accountant over his insurmountable debts, was legally disbarred, and had his WABC radio show canceled for spewing 2020 election lies.

He also begged Trump for help settling his seven-figure legal fees, though Trump reportedly refused.

Giuliani even started his own coffee brand, “Rudy Coffee,” in an effort to funnel in some extra cash to offset the enormous costs of his unwavering MAGA allegiance. He ultimately lost his bankruptcy case due to his outlandish spending habits, with the presiding New York judge branding the former city mayor a “recalcitrant debtor.”

“Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same strength now. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani,” said Goodman.

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump’s plot to push out Republican Indiana state senators who killed his redistricting scheme may demonstrate just how much power the president has lost.

Last week, Turning Point USA held a get-out-the-vote event for Brenda Wilson, a Trump-backed candidate challenging state Senator Greg Goode in the upcoming primary election on May 5.

A team from Turning Point USA gathered at the Fairbanks Park Amphitheater in Terre Haute, Indiana, flush with law signs and fliers, blasting a playlist called “Trump Rally,” NOTUS reported Monday.

But only four people came, three of whom were from the same family, according to the outlet.

It seems that Turning Point USA has hosted other events with higher attendance, as part of a wider effort aimed at unseating so-called RINOs and moderates, or anyone who has not supported Trump’s meddling in state elections.

Eight of the Republican legislators who voted against Trump’s congressional redistricting scheme are up for reelection in Indiana’s primary, and seven are being challenged by Trump-endorsed opponents.

In addition to funding promised from Trump’s allies in the state, including Governor Mike Braun and Senator Jim Banks, the Trump-backed challengers have invited an influx of outside spending from groups such as Club Growth for Action, which is spending $2 million across eight races.

But as Trump’s approval ratings have fallen to 37 percent nationally and roughly 49 percent in Indiana, a state he won in 2024, it’s not clear that being tied to the president, his unpopular war in Iran, and his poor economic report card won’t be a liability to candidates instead of a boost.

The U.S. military on Monday denied claims in Iranian state media that Iran bombed a U.S. Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz, shortly after President Trump announced a new plan to help guide ships through the critical waterway.

Iran’s Fars Media reported that a Navy vessel in the southeast sector of the strait was struck for “violating maritime security and navigation norms” and that the ship turned around after being hit. One Iranian official told the BBC that there was one warning shot but could not confirm if there was damage.

U.S. Central Command is denying any reports of serious damage.

“CLAIM: Iranian state media claims that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit a U.S. warship with two missiles,” CENTCOM wrote Monday on X. “TRUTH: No U.S. Navy ships have been struck. U.S. forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports.”

This comes as the U.S. begins attempts to enact Trump’s recently announced “Project Freedom”—a bid to escort merchant and allied ships through the strait while continuing to blockade Iranian vessels, something Trump is calling a “humanitarian gesture.” Iran continues to hold its own blockade of the strait, as well.

President Trump is insisting that states rig elections in Republicans’ favor—even if it means people have to vote multiple times until they win.

On Sunday night, Trump took to Truth Social and posted, “We cannot allow there to be an Election that is conducted unconstitutionally simply for the ‘convenience’ of State Legislatures.”

“​​If they have to vote twice, so be it. We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done. That is more important than administrative convenience. The byproduct is that the Republicans will receive more than 20 House Seats in the upcoming Midterms! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he wrote.

Trump didn’t even bother to repeat the false Republican claim of widespread voter fraud, instead blatantly stating that his goal is additional congressional seats for the GOP. He hopes that these newly redrawn seats would mitigate or even prevent losses in November’s midterm elections.

All of this comes after the Supreme Court basically nullified the Voting Rights Act last week, throwing out decades of precedent and giving many Republican-led states the ability to redraw their districts and disenfranchise Black voters. Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and other states either have already started redrawing their congressional maps or are preparing to do so.

Democrats are scrambling to sue over these new maps, while also fighting efforts from the Trump administration to gain access to voter rolls in blue states. The midterms are six months away (sooner with early voting), and the Republican Party, led by Trump, is doing everything—other than reverse its unpopular policies—to rig the results in its favor.

The Trump administration has canceled federal funding for test strips used to find out if a substance contains fentanyl. 

CBS News, citing a letter from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reports that government funds can’t be used to purchase the strips anymore, increasing the risk of drug overdoses. The strips also test for other dangerous substances such as xylazine and medetomidine, which are normally used to sedate animals and have been linked to overdose deaths in people. 

Public health organizations are shocked at the move, because test strips only cost about $1 each and can be used to check illicit drugs in powder or pill form. The director of federal policy  at the Drug Policy Alliance, Maritza Perez Medina, called them a “critical, lifesaving tool.” 

“People are just astonished,” Medina told CBS. “There has been a lot of confusion about where this came from.”

The letter cites a July 2025 executive order from President Trump that prohibits SAMHSA, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, from using its funding for programs that “only facilitate illegal drug use.” An HHS spokesperson told CBS that the letter clarifies what SAMHSA funding can be used for, which excludes “practices that facilitate illicit drug use and are incompatible with federal laws.”

In 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., test strips are not considered drug paraphernalia, and Nevada as well as California provide information on where to find them online. Congress protected their use in 2018, and as of last July, the agency still allowed its funding to pay for test strips. 

But that’s over now, and organizations around the country will lose badly needed money to prevent drug overdoses. The executive director of the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, Shreeta Waldon, told CBS that the organization was told it would lose a $400,000 grant, and only has a month’s supply of test strips left after distributing 48,465 strips in the first quarter of 2026. 

“It doesn’t make sense that one day something is an evidence-based protocol, and you decide, because of political climate, it is no longer evidence-based,” Waldon said. “If they follow the science and the data, we would never move in this direction.” 

The Trump administration’s public health decisions, from discouraging vaccines to cutting cancer research, don’t seem to be based on preventing deaths. Drug overdoses occur everywhere, including in rural areas where support for the president is strongest. Now many of those places won’t have a critical tool to save lives. 

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has been hit with multiple lawsuits in the 24 hours since he announced a halt on statewide primaries so that Republicans can redraw favorable congressional districts in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais.

On Friday, several civil rights organizations, including the ACLU, the Louisiana chapter of the NAACP, and the National Council of Jewish Women, sued to block Landry from suspending the May 16 primary election.

“Under Louisiana law, the legislature, not the Governor or the Secretary of State, sets the state’s election schedule. Yet, Governor Jeff Landry, aided by Secretary of State Nancy Landry, has purported to unilaterally cancel Louisiana’s 2026 congressional primary election after it has already begun,” read the lawsuit from the National Council of Jewish Women and Louisiana voters. “Ballots were sent to military voters and overseas voters as required by federal law a month ago. Mail ballots were sent to other voters entitled to vote by mail under Louisiana law almost a week ago. As a result, many voters—including among the Petitioners here—have already voted.”

The lawsuit also cited other Supreme Court decisions to argue that Landry cannot change the map this close to the election. “Quite to the contrary, the Supreme Court has historically found that when voting in an election is within months of beginning—and, here, it has already begun—the state must proceed under the invalidated map, and any infirmities must be corrected for future elections,” the suit read.

The lawsuit from the ACLU, the NAACP, and other voting rights organizations is requesting that a state court block Landry’s decision on the grounds that the Supreme Court ruling did not constitute an “emergency” under state law. Landry had already been hit with another lawsuit on Thursday from Democratic House candidate Lindsay Garcia, who argued the suspension infringes on the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteen Amendments.

The aggressive backlash is no surprise, given that this is perhaps the most egregious example of the GOP’s attempt to force through its own congressional maps, no matter how many Black and brown voters are disenfranchised. Prepare for more to come, and from both sides.

Donald Trump has nearly tripled his net worth since being elected president a second time, and it’s all thanks to cryptocurrency. 

The president is now worth an estimated $6.5 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2024, economic analyst and former Obama administration adviser Steve Rattner told MS NOW Friday. Between August 2025 and January 2026, Trump profited to the tune of $3.02 billion from crypto. It all started a few days before his inauguration in January 2025 when he released his $TRUMP meme coin. 

MAGA supporters rushed to buy the coin, which quickly shot up to a $30 billion valuation and peaked at a price of $45. The president was able to cash in, but many of his supporters were left holding the bag as the price plummeted to only $10 four months later. Now, it is worth less than $2.50, according to Rattner. 

“It is a coin that means nothing,” Rattner said on Morning Joe. “It is like buying a pet rock, except you don’t even get a rock. It has no value. It has no trading value. It’s not used in commerce—nothing.”  

In contrast, Trump’s net worth actually went down during his first term as he restricted his company from making international deals. This time around, his sons Eric and Donald Jr. created World Liberty Financial to handle cryptocurrency assets, including the USD1 stablecoin. The venture has taken in billions from funds connected to foreign governments, including the United Arab Emirates,  

Trump’s business activities, whether they pertain to cryptocurrency or his real estate investments, are blatantly unethical for any government official, let alone the president. His family is taking in billions from foreign governments and profiting off the presidency itself, violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause. Thanks to the Supreme Court giving him near-total immunity and Republicans in Congress purposefully turning a blind eye, he won’t face any consequences. 

Alabama is pushing ahead with a racist redistricting scheme after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Republican Governor Kay Ivey called Friday for a special session next week of the Alabama state legislature to pass new congressional and state Senate maps, and prepare legislation to hold special primary elections.

The move came one day after Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the Supreme Court to allow the state to implement new congressional and state Senate maps that were redrawn in 2023 before being barred by the Voting Rights Act.

In Wednesday’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, the court’s six-justice conservative majority effectively dismantled Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race. While the decision did not eradicate it entirely, the court has raised new hurdles for those seeking to prove a racial gerrymandering claim, and gave its blessing to those who would claim partisan gerrymandering as a legal defense.

The new maps would effectively redraw Alabama’s two Black-majority districts: the 2nd district and the 7th district.

Alabama’s 2nd congressional district, led by Representative Shamari Figures, contains Mobile and Montgomery and would see its Black population shrink from 49 percent to 40 percent, according to the Alabama Reflector.

Alabama’s 7th congressional district, led by Representative Terri Sewell, is Alabama’s oldest majority-Black district and has consistently sent Black Democrats to Washington since 1993. This district includes Selma, as well as parts of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Montgomery.

CJ Pearson, a right-wing influencer, wrote on X that the decision “will likely lead to a COMPLETELY REPUBLICAN DELEGATION!” Pearson, who was one of the first to report Ivey’s move, said that it had been the result of lobbying by Marshall, attorney general candidate Katherine Robertson, and Secretary of State Wes Allen.