Trump Is Spending Millions on America250 Repairs

The Department of the Interior is paying more than $3 million to repair grass on the National Mall that was damaged during President Trump’s poorly-attended America 250 celebrations this summer, according to The Washington Sun. 

“TURF REPAIR FROM A250,’ reads the contract with Maryland landscaping company Custom Lawn Service Inc. The contract runs until March 2027.

The contract does not say where exactly the mall repairs will be. But Trump has been spinning tall tales about “vandals” destroying the grass  for a few months now. But that patchy, drab looking area is exactly where the main stage for his Fourth of July celebration event was. 

“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 in August. “Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!”

The $3.4 million the Interior Department is now spending is likely due to increased foot, vehicle, and equipment traffic. What kind of vandals are tearing up grass and kicking up dirt and leaving? 

Trump himself has been the cause of most of the damage around the National Mall. The Justice Department found that it was indeed Trump and his hand-picked contractors who were responsible for the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that left the monument drained and shielded by chain-link fences. Those same federal contractors were also responsible for cracking the fountain at the German-American Friendship Garden.

In the past, members of the Republican Party have accused Democrats of waging a war on meat. Now, it appears that the bleeding-heart environmentalists at the Trump administration won’t stop sabotaging the beef industry.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing the secretary of agriculture and secretary of health and human services to begin exploring options for adding warning labels to food that contain “significant amounts” of alpha-galactose, a sugar molecule found in most mammals.

You may have heard of that substance before because of alpha-gal syndrome, an increasingly common and potentially life-threatening food allergy to red meat that can develop from a tick bite.

The Trump administration’s new rule was framed as one way of cracking down on tick-borne illnesses—but it may end up hurting the meat industry in the process. The new rule could potentially result in meat processors being forced to slap an allergy alert on every package of mammal products, including ground beef, steaks, pork loins, lamb chops, and even dairy. Just imagine a warning: This burger could kill you!

To be clear, from a public health standpoint, the policy is potentially a pretty great idea, considering just how severe alpha-gal is. But the rule likely won’t go over well with a certain group of longtime GOP allies who are already not too happy with Trump: farmers, herders, and ranchers.

In August, the American Farm Bureau Federation criticized Trump’s plan to grant farmers and ranchers the right to slaughter and process their own meat instead of requiring that they rely on USDA-inspected facilities. Farmers also condemned Trump’s plan to import tariff-free beef, which has yet to actually bring down prices.

All of this comes as the shrinking American herd struggles to keep up with high demand, and Trump’s tariffs and military campaign in the Middle East have kept prices elevated. Farmers in the Midwest—who were once some of the president’s most steadfast supporters—say they are facing the toughest economic crisis in decades.

The only explanation for a policy that will so obviously irritate his MAGA supporters is that it isn’t MAGA at all—it’s MAHA. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent months talking about alpha-gal without really doing anything at all, and has been an outspoken advocate for slapping warning labels on all kinds of foods. As for pleasing the rest of Trump’s base, the social media comments beneath the administration’s announcement indicate that they’re more concerned with discussing conspiracy theories about how alpha-gal started in the first place.

President Donald Trump doesn’t seem that concerned over whether the ongoing Iran war will hurt his party in November’s midterm elections.

At the White House Thursday, a reporter noted to Trump that his daughter-in-law Lara Trump said that the war “may threaten the midterms for you,” and asked if he agreed with her.

“Well, it’s possible, I don’t know, it should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” the president replied, shrugging. “When you say, ‘Is it OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon?’ I would say a hundred percent of the people say no, including worldwide. So when you say it that way, it would help. If you don’t say that, it could hurt.”

The way Republican candidates frame the war in their campaigns is not the problem. The problem is the ongoing closures of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on either side of the Arabian Peninsula, which have led to skyrocketing fuel prices, damaging the economy not just in the U.S. but worldwide.

That in turn has increased inflation, making various goods and services more expensive. Fertilizer costs have gone up as a result of the war, as well as commodities such as helium and ethanol. These increased costs have been passed to American consumers, leading to Trump and Republicans polling at record lows.

The war also continues to cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress aren’t helping their own cause by refusing to end the war with legislation, while Trump flip-flops between saying peace talks are going well and making apocalyptic threats against Iran. If Trump thinks all of this doesn’t matter for voters in November, he is sorely mistaken.

Republican Representative Tom Tiffany has raised more than $26 million in his bid to become Wisconsin’s next governor, the vast majority of which appears to have come from three billionaires.

Between August 13 and September 19, the Republican Party of Wisconsin funneled more than $24 million into Tiffany’s coffers.

A good chunk of that money likely came from Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the billionaires behind the Uline packaging and shipping company, who each gave $11 million to the state Republican Party that month, according to campaign finance reports obtained by The New York Times.

A third billionaire also contributed a sizable sum to the Wisconsin Republican Party that month: Diane Hendricks, the co-founder of ABC Supply Co. Inc and the state’s largest conservative political donor.

The transfers accounted for 92 percent of all the money that Tiffany raised since the end of June, and have given him an enormous cash advantage in the final weeks of the race. By comparison, Tiffany’s Democratic opponent, Milwaukee County executive David Crowley, raised $10 million in the same time period.

Tiffany’s campaign details mark the first time since Wisconsin reworked its campaign finance rules that a candidate has been catapulted by such a small number of donors.

But it remains to be seen if the billionaire-provided funds will make a difference at the ballot box. A Marquette Law poll published Wednesday placed Crowley with a narrow lead among Wisconsin voters, besting Tiffany’s late-September odds by just one percentage point (46 percent versus 45 percent favorability).

Crowley’s chances were a hair better among likely voters, 49 percent of whom said they were planning to vote for the Democratic candidate, while 46 percent said they would vote for Tiffany. Five percent of likely voters told the pollster that they were still undecided.

President Donald Trump will be hosting the “most EXCLUSIVE DINNER IN THE WORLD” to the top purchasers of his cryptocurrency. 

The Washington Sun reported Thursday that the website for Trump’s meme coin, GetTrumpMemes.com, is offering invitations to “an evening with 3 Legends and President Donald J. Trump” for the 185 largest holders of the cryptocurrency, with the top 29 buyers scoring an invite to a “VIP Reception with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT” and the top four getting an 18-karat Trump-branded gold watch.

The event will be held on November 22 at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.  Invitations seem specifically made to encourage sales of the $TRUMP coin and give the president a hefty profit, and the competition to crown the biggest purchasers began Wednesday. 

Last year, Trump held a similar dinner for his meme coin at his golf club in northern Virginia, as well as another such dinner in April at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. At the Virginia dinner in May 2025, guests reportedly shelled out $148 million to gain access to the president for a substandard steak or halibut dinner, and the full guest list wasn’t made public because the president was attending the event off the clock. 

Some of the known guests included former Los Angeles Laker Lamar Odom; Chinese billionaire and accused fraudster Justin Sun (who is now suing the president); and Vincent Liu, the chief investment officer at Taiwan-based Kronos Research.

The $2.2 billion Trump made last year mostly came from his cryptocurrency ventures, and he doesn’t appear to be letting up. The latest dinner is chock-full of potential ethical violations, with the president clearly selling access to himself. But while these ventures have been lucrative for Trump, they haven’t worked out well for the people he dupes into investing. 

Trump’s crypto products have lost an estimated $4.7 billion for their investors thus far, according to watchdog group Public Citizen. It’s not clear how much guests will have to shell out to attend this upcoming dinner, but Trump’s largest meme coin account holds about $104 million’s worth. 

Unlike World Liberty Financial, which is owned by Trump’s sons, Trump doesn’t own the firm behind his meme coin, instead only selling the marketing rights to his name. That distance gives him some legal protection. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s ripping off investors to make bank with no fear of consequences.