Trump Just Made up a New, Crazier National Mall Vandalism Incident

Surprise! President Donald Trump is the real National Mall vandal.

The president took to Truth Social Sunday to blame vandals for a large area of dead grass on the National Mall—that happened to be on the same spot where he built a massive stage for his Fourth of July celebrations.

“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump wrote. “Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!”

Last week, Trump sounded the alarm again after the World War II Memorial was covered in red and green graffiti and soapy bubbles. U.S. Attorney Jeannine Pirro said felony charges are being brought against Melissa L. Farris, but the charging documents made no mention of the patch of dead grass on the lawn.

Regardless of Trump’s apparent outrage, the president has demonstrated that he couldn’t care less about protecting national landmarks—he’s the one destroying them.

The president who cried vandalism has been behind a lot of the destruction at the National Mall. The Department of Justice concluded that Trump and his hand-picked contractors were responsible for the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that left the monument drained and surrounded by chain-link fences. Trump’s federal contractors were also also responsible for cracking the fountain at the German-American Friendship Garden. Not to mention that across the country Trump is actively bulldozing Big Bend National Park in order to build his border wall.

On the day the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is scheduled to expire, President Trump threatened to bomb a different country.

Fox News’s Trey Yingst reported on the network Monday that Trump claimed there is a backchannel with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard officials, but that he is in “no hurry” and, “if Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”

It’s not a reassuring statement, especially considering that Iranian Army chief Amir Hatami on Sunday announced bounties for the death or capture of U.S. troops. The sums start at $30,000 and double if a woman completes the mission. Hatami said the plan came after a “large number of requests” to support the war.

“Anyone who kills or captures and hands over invading American military personnel will receive a reward equivalent to $30,000,” Hatami said. “Courageous Iranian women who carry out such an action will receive double the reward.”

Any weapon captured in such an operation would be bought by the Iranian Army for twice its market value and displayed in a museum, according to Iranian state media.

Trump has alternatively threatened to escalate the bombing campaign against Iran while claiming that a peace deal is imminent. Usually, at the last minute, Trump claims he has pulled back from bombing for one reason or another, such as U.S. allies in the region warning against escalation or U.S. military leaders warning of declining missile stockpiles.

On Friday, Trump said that he planned to declare the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. territory, even as Iran continues to throttle maritime traffic through the critical waterway. The area is split between Omani and Iranian territory, and oil and gas from Persian Gulf countries are exported to the world from there. As this war stretches on without Trump sticking to a deal, the global economy continues to suffer, with civilians in Iran and around the Middle East praying that they don’t fall victim to a bomb or airstrike.

President Trump’s last desperate attempt to avoid paying E. Jean Carroll has just been shut down by the Supreme Court.

Trump sought to overturn a 2023 jury verdict awarding $5 million to Carroll for defamation and alleged sexual abuse. The Supreme Court rejected an earlier appeal from Trump in June, and Trump wanted them to take the rare step of rehearing the case, which the court unceremoniously denied Monday.

Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store in 1996, which Trump denied, attacking her on social media and accusing her of “a complete con job” and a “Hoax and a lie.” She sued him in 2022, and a jury ruled against him, leading to a series of appeals by Trump.

The president eventually paid the cash to Carroll through a fund set up during the appeals process, which grew to $5.8 million after interest. He continues to insist that he didn’t know Carroll and accuses her of making up the story for political and financial reasons, even as he lost another defamation lawsuit to Carroll for $88.3 million, which he also appealing.

Trump is likely to throw a tantrum over the ruling, just as he did when the Supreme Court turned him down in June. He hates having to pay money that he owes, despite the fact that he’s financially better than ever thanks to using the presidency to enrich himself. This time, though, Trump is out of excuses to evade paying Carroll.

This story has been updated.

President Trump on Sunday said he ordered the Pentagon to “significantly” reduce the amount of joint military exercises with South Korea, due to his “very good relationship” with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” he wrote Sunday evening on Truth Social.

“I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” he continued, attributing his decision to South Korea’s position on the Iran war.

“While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’”

It’s unclear how the U.S. plans to reduce the exercises. The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise already proceeded as planned on Monday, the South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed—with 18,000 South Korean forces and 28,500 American ones.

Nonetheless, Trump is spiting South Korea, a longtime ally, for not helping bail him out in Iran while also making a clear overture to the one country it has the most hostile and adversarial relationship with.

“Trump’s description of the D.P.R.K. as ‘unthreatening and respectful’ is alarming to allies, who have watched the regime steadily improve its missile and nuclear capabilities, while also gaining an additional patron in Russia for its support in the war on Ukraine,” Asia Society Policy Institute Deputy Director Emma Chanlett-Avery told The New York Times.

This is just the latest example of the deteriorating U.S.-South Korea relationship under Trump. South Korea has been hit by U.S. tariffs, had hundreds of its citizens (with valid work visas) detained in an immigration raid, and now has lost access to joint military exercizes—all while Trump praises Kim Jong Un and North Korea continues to expand its military capabilities.

“For 70 years, America has held these joint exercises to train AND reassure its Asia-Pacific allies. Furthermore, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is NOT respectful of the USA, now or ever. In the past few months, he has blatantly said NoKo is and always will be a nuclear power, specifically to ward off any hostile action, like America and Israel’s war on Iran,” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour mused Monday on X.

“He already has dozens of nukes, and in June, called for an ‘exponential’ expansion of Pyongyang’s arsenal. They’d already ramped up dramatically since Trump’s failed Hanoi summit with Kim in 2019, which I covered,” she continued. “Since then, Kim has ramped up missile testing, while his soldiers now have real battlefield experience since fighting for Russia against Ukraine. Respectful?”

Detainees at a Mississippi Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility reportedly got sick from a gas leak, complaining of headaches and other medical symptoms.

The Guardian reports that the Adams County Correctional Facility, which is run by the private prison contractor CoreCivic on behalf of ICE, also had a long power outage, leading to a loss of air conditioning for two days this week. This forced detainees to either roast inside cramped cells or spend hours outside in 100-degree temperatures without shade, one detainee told the publication through family members.

The high temperatures also raised tempers, with arguments and physical incidents increasing among the detainees in a facility that is understaffed, causing the publication’s source to fear for his own safety. The gas leak reportedly took place Saturday, and the source, who spoke to The Guardian anonymously, said detainees were evacuated “out into the afternoon heat for hours.”

“They were outside for hours. And when they came back in, it still smelled of gas. And then some of the men were getting headaches and symptoms of inhaled gas. They were never really told where the leak came from, how it was resolved, or was it fully resolved,” the source’s wife said. “Illness has been growing. So there are a lot of people getting sick, and they have begun putting people three to a cell that was designed for two.”

The power outage took place on Monday, and by Tuesday, electricity had only been partially restored for lighting and other operations. Air conditioning would not come on until late in the day Wednesday.

“When these things are happening, either they’re shut out outside without shade and air conditioning, and they’re not given any answers,” the detainee’s U.S. citizen wife told The Guardian. “Or a lot of the time the power was out they just had them locked in their cells, they didn’t get to leave for dinner or breakfast.”

The facility also attempted to prevent detainees from telling anyone outside of the facility about the poor conditions.

“They didn’t give them the tablet devices during that time because they didn’t want them notifying loved ones,” she said. “If they feel anyone’s organizing anything, they’ll send them to solitary.”

CoreCivic downplayed the conditions at Adams County in a statement to The Guardian, saying that the publication received “some bad information.”

“While several detainees thought they may have smelled something related to a natural gas leak, none of our staff members detected anything along these lines,” said CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs Ryan Gustin. “Out of an abundance of caution, an on-call facility maintenance staff member came in to assess the facility for any possible gas leaks, and none were found.”

Gustin said that the power outage was due to a storm in the area, and that there were no disruptions to the air conditioning systems. He also claimed that no one at any time was refused medical treatment.

The Mississippi facility is one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country, holding more than 2,000 detainees on a 14-acre property as of March. At the time, only nine percent of detainees there had a criminal record. The poor conditions there are not unique, as poor hygiene and illness have been recorded at ICE facilities across the country, such as the Dilley family detention facility in Texas and Delaney Hall in New Jersey, which recently had its third detainee death.