Judge Smacks Down Trump’s Effort to Destroy Historic Golf Course

A federal judge has once again blocked President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of a public golf course in Washington.

District Judge Ana Reyes issued a temporary two-week injunction Tuesday barring the National Parks Service from cutting down any more trees on the East Potomac Golf Links. The tree clearing is part of a plan to transform the public golf links into an exclusive, high-end course.

During an emergency hearing Monday, a furious Reyes tore into the Trump administration for proceeding to cut down more trees over the weekend. The government had only notified the court of its intentions shortly before 5 p.m. on Friday, and at the start of a holiday weekend.

“I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done,” she said during the hearing, declaring that the government had “lost credibility” by defying her instructions to give advance notice of any renovations.

When Justice Department attorney Marissa Piropato argued the actions over the weekend were “not a renovation,” Reyes slammed her excuse as “preposterous,” “doublespeak,” and “completely beyond the pale.”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller took to social media Monday to hit back at Reyes. “I missed the part of the Constitutional Convention that put federal judges in charge of golf course maintenance,” he wrote.

It’s funny, I must’ve missed the part where the Constitution gave the president permission to order expensive demolition and renovation projects without receiving a whiff of congressional or legal approval. And yet, that is what Trump has done time and time again.

FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, is paying a ton of money to rent space in Trump Tower that it isn’t using.

The New York Times reports that FIFA last year signed a $4 million seven-year lease for a seventeenth-floor suite in the New York building, but it isn’t getting much use, raising concerns that it is essentially a bribe to President Trump.

The move didn’t even make financial sense at the time, as taxes in New York City are pretty high and most of FIFA’s activities take place outside of North America. FIFA already has two offices in Miami, as well. Right now, the suite isn’t fully staffed, and the organization has no plans to fill it, according to unnamed sources who spoke to the Times. The space only gets used for special events and meetings with dignitaries, such as during the U.N. General Assembly.

“This deal with the Trump Organization raises a clear conflict of interest in the light of FIFA’s interests in the U.S. World Cup or its partnership with President Trump’s Board of Peace,” Miguel Maduro, a former governance head at FIFA, told the Times.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has cozied up to Trump since the 2024 presidential election, spending more time with him than just about any other leader. Infantino lavished praise and accolades upon the president, making up a peace award just for him, letting Trump interfere with the 2026 World Cup, and floating a multibillion-dollar deal to sell the World Cup to private investors, including Josh Kushner, brother of the president’s son-in-law.

That deal was scuttled due to a massive backlash from soccer fans and organizations around the world, with Europe’s soccer body, UEFA, even taking Infantino to court. But Infantino’s opponents have not united to field a candidate to oppose him, allowing his corrupt activities with Trump to continue. The world appears to be stuck with both of these unethical politicians for the time being.

The Trump administration wants to block discovery documents detailing the Department of Government Efficiency’s mass firings and contract cancellations—led by billionaire Elon Musk—from a watchdog group. The Supreme Court on Tuesday announced it will allow it to explain why.

Last year, the D.C. District Court sided with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, watchdog in its lawsuit against DOGE, which argued that the agency is subject to the Freedom of Information Act but was ignoring public records requests. After the court allowed CREW’s lawsuit to move forward, and gave the watchdog group a sworn deposition from acting DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason, the Trump administration stepped in to appeal the decision.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court has interfered in the case before, blocking a CREW discovery request last summer. Now the high court will hear the Trump administration’s argument that DOGE was a presidential advisory organization and not a federal agency—making it exempt from public records requests.

All three liberal justices dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Trump’s case.

It’s perplexing that DOGE, which forced out tens of thousands of federal workers, thinks its records and dealings should be exempt from public scrutiny.

“The most transparent administration [in] history?” the Ways and Means Committee Democrats account posted on Tuesday.

CREW plans to continue making its case. “Undisputed facts in the public record—including the president’s statements—confirmed that [DOGE] was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” a spokesperson told the Associated Press.

Real America’s Voice proved this week that it can’t handle even one voice critical of the president.

RAV reporter Bobby McNeily interviewed an attendee at a Trump rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday—but suddenly cut the conversation short when the man began roasting the president’s second-term track record.

The man—who was identified solely as Brian—started off by saying he was “absolutely not” a fan of Trump.

“That’s very interesting, because I’ve never really spoken with anyone that I can recall interviewing them, not a fan of President Trump but standing in line to hear him,” said McNeily. “What are you hoping to hear tonight?”

“What I hope to hear is not what I plan to hear,” Brian laughed. “But what I plan to hear is a bunch of rhetoric, a bunch of lies, a bunch of the same old script.”

“I’m kind of here to get a first-hand perspective of the kind of lies and garbage and stuff that he’s going to be peddling for the next two years, as if the first two haven’t been bad enough,” he said.

Brian told McNeily that he wasn’t aligned with a particular party until JD Vance joined the 2024 Republican ticket as Donald Trump’s running mate.

“Then I actually registered [to be] a Republican, my strategy being if I can keep him off the general election ballot by voting against him in the primary, then I get two chances to eliminate all these MAGA idiots,” Brian chuckled. “That’s my approach.”

The producers at Real America’s Voice abruptly decided to cut away from Brian while he was still mid-sentence explaining how he opposes anyone endorsed by Trump.

Real America’s Voice is a tiny news commentary service that popped up during Trump’s first term. Since then, it has proved to be one of the most servile media entities in the American news landscape, relentlessly fawning over the MAGA leader and his agenda.

The extent of the network’s sycophancy is probably best exhibited by the lineup of its on-air roster, which includes Trump’s first-term chief political strategist Steve Bannon, alt-right political activist Jack Posobiec, and former Fox News host Eric Bolling (who was ousted from the conservative media behemoth after he was accused of sending unwelcome nudes to three of his female colleagues).

Bari Weiss’s hang-ups about a story on violent Israeli settlers almost drove veteran reporter Lesley Stahl to quit 60 Minutes.

A 60 Minutes segment that aired Sunday highlighted the groups of militant settlers that are violently driving Palestinians out of the West Bank, and doing so with impunity.

During the editorial process for the piece, Weiss became “very, very hands-on” with the story, one insider told Status. Since Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief, she has repeatedly placed her own pro-Trump and pro-Israel politics at the center of CBS News’s coverage.

Things were so bad this time that Stahl, a 35-year veteran of the venerated program, privately discussed quitting, sources familiar with the discussions told Status.

With just days left until the story was meant to air, discussions about the package became extremely contentious. “They didn’t know if it was going to air because the screenings got so heated,” one source told Status.

Weiss and her deputy managing editor Charles Forelle presented a mountain of notes that were incredibly broad. At one point, Forelle suggested postponing the piece altogether, sparking an aggressive exchange. The final piece was aired on-schedule Sunday.

This isn’t the first time that Weiss’s steadfast defense of Israel has appeared to interfere with her work at CBS News. In a separate piece that aired on last week on the anniversary of Hamas’s deadly incursion into Israeli territory, Weiss’s handpicked foreign editor Shayndi Raice reportedly blocked CBS correspondent Holly Williams from reporting the death toll in Gaza.

In May, Weiss reportedly gave Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a choice between being interviewed by 60 Minutes’s longtime correspondent or CBS’s chief Washington correspondent, Major Garrett. Netanyahu chose Garrett, who doesn’t even work for 60 Minutes. In April, Weiss reportedly meddled with CBS Sunday Morning, making last-minute edits on a story about Israeli archeological digs in the West Bank. One of the story’s subjects later complained that his interview was “selectively edited to falsely portray me as someone who erases Jewish history.”

Since Weiss’s installation, there has been a talent exodus from the news magazine, including Anderson Cooper, longtime 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens, CBS News producer Mary Walsh, CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey, and 60 Minutes host Sharyn Alfonsi, to name a few.