Trump Casually Threatens to Take Over Two More Countries

President Trump has his sights on taking over two Pacific island countries: Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

The president posted a picture to his Truth Social account Thursday night labeled “U.S. Territories,” showing the flags of the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands along with multiple U.S. territories. The image also included a map of the Strait of Hormuz, labeled “new.”

The Marshall Islands were occupied and administered by the U.S. during World War II, and Congress granted the islands their independence in 1979. Micronesia also was occupied by the U.S. during the war, gaining its independence in 1990. Both have a Compact of Free Association with the U.S., which means they get financial assistance and access to certain U.S. government programs, such as the U.S. Postal Service and National Weather Service.

Why Trump is claiming them along with the Strait of Hormuz (which the U.S. doesn’t actually control) isn’t clear. Perhaps the president doesn’t understand the CFA arrangement, which also allows the U.S. military to operate in the territories, and thinks that means that they are part of the U.S. And for some reason, his picture didn’t include Palau, another country in the Pacific Ocean that is also part of the CFA with the U.S.

In Trump’s second term, his administration has hurt relations with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau, failing to adequately staff U.S. government positions dealing with the countries, such as the Joint Economic Management and Financial Accountability Committee as well as the Joint Economic Management Committee.

Why is Trump claiming these island countries now, especially considering that he hasn’t achieved his dream of taking over Greenland? The CFA ensures a close relationship just short of total U.S. control anyway. Trump’s pointless, braggadocious post isn’t likely to improve relations with the Marshall Islands or Micronesia. Even with the CFA, the Trump administration’s neglect could push them closer into the orbit of a big power in the region: China.

The Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that refugees are not welcome to the United States—unless they’re white South Africans.

Beginning October 1, each white South African entering the country as a refugee could receive $4,500 in aid from the federal government, according to insiders who spoke with The Washington Post. That’s almost double the $2,425 currently afforded in cash support to refugees, as outlined by the State Department.

The raised sum is technically available to any incoming refugee, though the funds are unlikely to go to any other demographic: South Africans are practically the only group currently allowed to enter the country as refugees, comprising more than 99 percent of the refugee arrivals in 2026,  according to the U.S. Refugee Report.

Despite his aggressive stances against immigration, Donald Trump has retained a sweet spot for white South Africans. Throughout his second term, Trump has baselessly claimed that the postapartheid nation is enacting a “white genocide,” circulating fake videos on social media that purportedly depict mass graves of white farmers.

In reality, even white South Africans have protested that claims of a “white genocide” in their country are false, and studies indicate that the vast majority of murder victims in South Africa are economically disadvantaged Black or mixed-race men between the ages of 15 and 44. Trump is clearly upset by the actions South Africa has taken to address its oppressive apartheid system, which segregated Black South Africans from white residents and deprived them of civil and political power until the 1990s. 

Despite the facts of the matter, the world’s richest man—and, consequently, the richest white Afrikaner—Elon Musk, has used his enormous platform and proximity to Trump to push the narrative that South Africa now oppresses white people, particularly white people of means. While still in the White House, Musk claimed that South Africa unfairly restricts its white citizenry via “racist laws.”

Other immigrants in the U.S. have not received such favorable terms. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that a key White House office had just made things even harder for immigrants on H-1B work visas, eliminating a 60-day grace period that allowed them to find new work after being fired or laid off. Earlier this week, the administration announced a $103,265 fee for H-1B hires, effectively punishing American companies for hiring lawfully admitted immigrants.

An internet troll on the Pentagon’s payroll has made a database to track Americans based on their political affiliation.

Jennica Pounds, the Utah woman behind the prominent right-wing account DataRepublican, launched a public tool Friday called DSA Explorer, which she described as an “interactive map of the Democratic Socialists of America and the wider anti-imperialist solidarity network.”

The project is a disgusting attempt to target Americans for their political affiliations, but it’s a particularly inappropriate project for a federal worker. Pounds has been listed as a “special government employee” of the Defense Department since July, The Bulwark reported Thursday.

The truth came to light after Pounds falsely accused Sarah B. Rogers, the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, of attempting to get her to leak sensitive information. The DOD later confirmed that Pounds, who was posing as an independent journalist, was actually on the government’s payroll, but refused to explain what her job was or what office she worked in.

The release of the evidently government-funded DSA Explorer comes amid a broader effort to label left-wing activists and organizers as domestic terrorists.

In a lengthy disclaimer on the database website, Pounds warned that her data may not be 100 percent accurate. “Inferred, ideological, and patron/sphere associations are analytical interpretations, not statements of fact, and nothing here alleges unlawful conduct by any named person or organization,” the disclaimer states. “Do not rely on this material without independent verification.”

President Donald Trump is so desperate to cash in on the love for Dolly Parton that he posted a fake picture of the two of them together. 

In a post on Truth Social Thursday evening, Trump shared an artificial intelligence–generated image of the late country singer walking through the White House arm in arm with him.  

Ever since her sudden passing earlier this week, Trump has gone out of his way to link himself to Parton. 

Shortly after her death was announced Tuesday, Trump posted a statement calling her “one of the greatest Country singers, and far beyond, EVER,” and announced that American flags should be flown at half-mast for one week.  

Speaking on the Glenn Beck Program Wednesday morning, Trump claimed that the late country singer actually “really liked” him. He suggested she never publicly supported him because she’d lose “20 percent of her fans.” 

It’s true that Parton never expressed any political affiliation, but her lengthy record as a humanitarian shows us exactly what she stood for—and it wasn’t Trump’s agenda of hate. To make matters worse, over the last year, Republicans quietly cut funding for Parton’s children’s book-gifting charity.

Dolly Parton’s sister, Stella, however, was an outspoken critic of the president, calling his behavior “deranged, ugly, and nasty.” 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s myriad lies are finally catching up to him.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden called for a criminal investigation Thursday into the health secretary’s conduct, citing new evidence that directly connected Kennedy and his anti-vaccine messaging to the deadly 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa.

“RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake,” Wyden told The Guardian. “There are consequences for lying to Congress.”

Wyden added that he intended to press the Senate’s Republican majority to issue a criminal referral for Kennedy to the Justice Department.

“When Democrats retake the majority in the Senate, RFK will be at the top of the list of Trump officials the Finance Committee will hold accountable for endangering American families,” Wyden, who currently serves as the top Democrat on the committee, told the outlet.

During two separate confirmation hearings last year, Kennedy claimed that his trek to the Polynesian island country had “nothing to do with vaccines.”

Yet letters obtained by The Guardian and the Associated Press revealed that the virulent anti-vaxxer explicitly informed the Samoan prime minister ahead of his trip that he intended to study the efficacy of the measles, mumps, and rubella, or MMR, vaccine.

In one such letter dated January 20, 2019, Kennedy unambiguously argued that he believed two infant deaths on the island were “temporally associated with MMR vaccines.”

Kennedy’s visit immediately preceded a deadly measles outbreak on the island. At the time, Kennedy’s anti-vax nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines throughout Samoa, tanking the island’s vaccination rate from a 60–70 percent range to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones.

Up until that point, Samoa had not experienced a severe measles outbreak since 1985, when 1,095 confirmed cases were reported to the World Health Organization. But in 2019, after Kennedy’s visit, the country reported 5,707 cases of measles as well as 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of five.

Unfortunately for the American public, the conspiratorial rhetoric of the anti-vax movement has had similarly deleterious effects on local inoculation rates, spurring a regional measles health crisis that has so far killed two people and infected more than 2,777 people this year alone, far exceeding the tally for 2025 by hundreds of cases.

According to CDC data, vaccination coverage for U.S. kindergartners fell by nearly 3 percent—from 95.2 percent to 92.4 percent—between the 2019–2020 school year and the 2025–2026 school year. The dip is more significant than it seems at face value: The lowered figures place the age groups below the threshold for herd immunity that would protect even unvaccinated members of a community (95 percent).

Other Democratic officials have similarly called for Kennedy to be removed from his post since the letters emerged.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey said in a statement that Kennedy “cannot be trusted to run HHS for even one more day,” while Hawaii Governor Josh Green—who personally witnessed the Samoan outbreak—said Kennedy needed to immediately resign “for the safety and health of our country.”

Maryland Senator Angela Alsobrooks told CNN that America’s current measles outbreak could be “tied directly to the horrific leadership of Secretary Kennedy.”

Kennedy was not under oath at the time of his confirmation hearing, but that doesn’t mean he had free license to lie to America’s lawmakers about his qualifications to lead U.S. health policy. It’s a felony to make false statements to or conceal facts from the federal government, as detailed by U.S. Code.