Russia Joins G20 Summit After Trump Invite—Sparking Massive Backlash

Russia attended the G20 summit in North Carolina Monday, marking the first time that the nation has participated in the global economics meeting since it invaded Ukraine four years ago.

Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, attended alongside representatives of the Russian Central Bank at the invitation of Donald Trump. But the diplomat’s presence was not welcomed by all—European leaders spent much of the morning scorning Siluanov.

German vice chancellor and finance minister Lars Klingbeil scolded Siluanov, demanding that Russia end the war.

“I find the signal sent ​by ​receiving the ⁠Russian finance minister here quite troubling,” Klingbeil ​told reporters following the encounter, according to a translation provided by Reuters. “I ​would ⁠have wanted greater clarity from the American side that he ⁠should ​not be received ​here as a normal guest.”

“You cannot simply return to normality,” Klingbeil emphasized.

Tensions boiled again on the matter of the summit’s historic group photo, as European officials unanimously demanded that Siluanov not be included, else they would boycott the photo altogether.

The photograph was eventually taken without Siluanov. Instead, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posed for a solo picture with the Russian official.

Siluanov’s attendance and invitation were not announced by the Trump administration prior to Monday’s assembly, according to The New York Times, though the White House’s affinity for Russia should not come as a surprise. It was reported in April that Trump was planning to personally invite Putin to the G20 leaders’ December summit in Miami, and Trump has advocated for Russian participation in other Western alliances throughout his presidency. In 2018, he argued that Russia should be “at the negotiating table” of the G7. The following year he said the same, claiming that turning the G7 into the G8—with Russia—would be a “positive thing.”

The idea reemerged in 2025, when Trump said it was a “mistake” to keep Russia from the G7 and that Russia never would have invaded Ukraine if it had been included in the economic conference.

As Siluanov attended the G20 summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared at another summit in Kyrgyzstan, where he was set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Republicans want to air their TV ads for less, and they have the Trump administration’s support in asking the Supreme Court to allow it.

CNN reports that Republican campaign groups made an emergency appeal to the high court Monday to be able to air their television ads at a discounted rate, citing a Federal Communications Commission ruling earlier this year that political parties and associated entities are allowed to purchase ads at lower rates, just like politicians themselves can under federal law.

The rule change is arguably more beneficial to Republicans, who raise significant amounts through party committees, whereas Democrats typically raise funds through candidates themselves. Last week, though, a three-judge panel on the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law only allows discounted ad buys for candidates, not for organizations and parties.

“The term ‘candidate’ means ‘candidate,’” U.S. Circuit Judge Robert King, a Clinton appointee, wrote in his ruling. The decision came in response to a lawsuit from four Democrats running for office this year: Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, and former Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina.

In response, House and Senate Republican Party committees appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that they had “budgeted tens of millions of dollars in ad buys” under the FCC rule change, but because of the federal court ruling, “broadcast stations are already rescinding those rates.” The Trump administration quickly supported their appeal.

“The notice does not grant favored treatment to one side or the other; instead, the notice’s interpretation offers the same benefit to all sides, including the challengers themselves and the committees and parties supporting them,” said Solicitor General D. John Sauer on behalf of the White House to the Supreme Court.

With the midterms just two months away, the high court is expected to rule quickly. In the likely event that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority sides with the Republicans, voters are likely to see an even greater flood of pro-Trump ads between now and November.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s so-called “major fraud announcement” was just another lame attack on immigrants that won’t make roads any safer.

Speaking at a press conference Monday, the two officials declared the emergency shutdown of 110 commercial driver’s license, or CDL, schools, claiming they were responsible for 5,000 violations of federal safety standards requiring licensees to demonstrate English proficiency. “If you’re an illegal trucker, this is your worst nightmare,” Duffy wrote in a post on X Monday.

It didn’t take long for journalists at the event to pull apart the preposterous announcement.

One reporter pointed out that foreign-born drivers holding non-domiciled CDLs were responsible for just 17 fatal crashes in 2025. “The slant here has been strongly about illegals, foreign drivers, but yet it accounts, according to U.S. [Department of Transportation] stats I see, for one percent of the issue,” one reporter said.

Duffy pretended that the move had little to do with undocumented immigrants.

“You could have migrated to this country, you could have done it legally, but if you don’t speak English, you’re still violating our long-standing safety rules that you have to speak English,” Duffy said. “So this is not just about people who have come into the country illegally.”

Numbers from previous years suggest that licensing status, rather than immigration status or national origin, is the more relevant factor in deadly crashes. In fatal large truck crashes in 2021, 22.5 percent of drivers reportedly had no CDL at all. So the secretary’s decision to shutter schools, undermining access to essential safety training, has the potential to make roadways more dangerous.

About 20 percent of truck drivers in the U.S. are immigrants, and just 5 percent hold non-domiciled licenses, issued by states to people who are legally authorized to work in the country but do not have a permanent legal residence in that state. In March, the Trump administration revoked the non-domiciled commercial licenses of 200,000 truck drivers.

Last month, Trump ranted that his administration would soon take action against undocumented immigrant truck drivers, who were “killing a lot of people.”

“They can’t read signs. Many of them are on drugs or alcohol, and they shouldn’t be driving these things,” Trump claimed, vowing that his administration would enforce English proficiency requirements. At the same time, the Department of Transportation made it easier for U.S. military veterans to acquire CDLs by allowing them to bypass certain requirements.

Duffy announced that DOT would shut down another 160 schools that were previously certified to train truck drivers, but lacked classrooms, adequate space for driving tests, and employed unlicensed instructors.

Anyone who opposes data center development is “backwards and poor,” according to America’s billionaire president.

Donald Trump argued on Truth Social Monday that the only reason to oppose a data center in your community is if you don’t want to be rich.

“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump wrote. “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”

Trump further claimed that China would be the ultimate benefactor of the pushback, claiming that if Americans “kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.”

“The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them,” he continued. “China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!”

Recent polling indicates that the vast majority of Americans—including Republicans—have no interest in permitting the tech industry to build the facilities in their backyards: A survey published earlier this month by Heatmap revealed that 75 percent of Americans oppose data center development in their communities.

That hasn’t always been the case. Heatmap has asked the same question four times in the last year. This time last year, public perception of the issue wasn’t so bad—Americans were actually evenly split on whether they supported or rejected data center development.

But the tech industry has not done a good job at marketing its product, and Americans have become attuned to the inordinate resource drain data centers create. A medium-sized facility can use 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling its hardware—the same amount needed to support a 1,000-household community, according to a 2025 analysis by the nonprofit Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

Nonetheless, some of America’s biggest tech companies—including Meta, Amazon, and Google—have funneled billions of dollars into data center development to power the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. This year alone, the sum is expected to top $700 billion.

Disgraced former Republican Representative George Santos has become the first person to ever receive a lifetime ban from the prediction market Kalshi.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Santos received the ban after he allegedly made over $17,000 from bets he placed about his attendance at President Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year. Kalshi said in a filing on its website that Santos didn’t cooperate with the company’s investigation and also has to pay a $71,356 penalty.

Santos mocked the company on X on Monday morning, writing: “Hey @Kalshi thanks for the lifetime ban from your gambling platform. Let’s see how much longer you guys are around for.” In a follow-up post, he complained about not abiding by a “30 day notice” the platform issued to him on August 7, “and today they leaked/announced once again their frivolous nonsense.”

In July, Santos agreed to pay $35,000 in fines to settle claims from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency the Trump administration claims has authority over prediction markets. The agency accused Santos of leaving out or misrepresenting key information on his social media accounts in order to influence the price of his positions related to the State of the Union address, and also of betting on an event that he had the ability to influence. Last month, Santos’s attorney, Joseph Murray, said that the former congressman only agreed to pay the fines to avoid litigation and did not admit to any wrongdoing.

Santos was expelled from Congress in 2023 amid revelations that he lied about key details of his life and while facing a 23-count federal indictment on charges including conspiracy to commit offenses against the U.S., making false statements to the government, identity theft, and wire fraud. He pleaded guilty to the latter two charges in 2024 and was given a sentence of 87 months in prison, which was cut short when Trump commuted it last year.