Tag: donald trump

Trump administration threatens crackdown on foreigners who ‘make light’ of Charlie Kirk assassination

On X, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau stated that the U.S. will respond to foreign nationals within its borders who express support for or downplay the assassination of Charlie Kirk on social media. 

Specifically, ‘praising, rationalizing, or making light of’ Kirk’s assassination on social media.’

‘In light of yesterday’s horrific assassination of a leading political figure, I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,’ Landau wrote on X. 

Landau added, ‘I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action. Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the @StateDept can protect the American people.’ 

Landau responded to a comment asking how people could flag these individuals. He responded saying he will direct consular officials to monitor the comments to his post. 

Landau didn’t specify which groups fall under the term ‘foreigners,’ nor did he detail what form the response might take—such as visa denials or deportation.

Other activists and outspoken conservative commentators commented on the X post, showing receipts of people calling for their own assassinations, expressing fear.

In light of Kirk’s traumatic death, Vice President JD Vance will visit Salt Lake City, Utah, to offer condolences to the family of Charlie Kirk. The Second Lady will reportedly also join him on this trip. 

This marks a change from his original plan to travel to New York City to commemorate the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to an administration official familiar with his schedule. 

Some public officials and leaders are also cancelling their events, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was supposed to have an event in North Carolina this weekend. 

The president also honoring Kirk this morning, bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the owner of Turning-Point USA, speaking at the Pentagon. The day for the award ceremony has not been announced yet. 

At the event, the president, sounding choked-up and solemn, said he is still shocked by the horror of his assassination, all the while highlighting his influence on the conservative political landscape.

The President has ordered all American flags to be lowered to half-staff until Sunday evening at 6pm EST in honor of Kirk.

The conservative commentator, 31, was hit by a single bullet while speaking to a crowd at the public university in Orem at lunchtime on Wednesday after speaking for about 20 minutes.

The father-of-two, known for his fierce MAGA views and combative debates with college kids across the country, collapsed immediately after being hit in the neck by a single shot from about 200 yards.

Kirk was answering a question about mass shootings seconds before he was struck. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, but was declared dead two-and-half hours later.

The killer is still on the loose with a major manhunt by the FBI and Utah police underway.

Speaker Mike Johnson held a moment of silence for Kirk on the chamber floor as questions circulated about whether the father of two was alive. 

Daily Mail reached out to the State Department on this story. 

A State Department Spokesperson tells Daily Mail, ‘This Administration does not believe that the United States should grant visas to persons whose presences in our country does not align with U.S. national security interests.’ 

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By bombing Doha, Israel once again undermined America’s credibility and standing

President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant this evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.

“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”

Trump may indeed be upset, but the Israeli Prime Minister is casting him in the same light as Biden: issuing indignant statements over Israeli actions that blatantly undermine U.S. interests, actions that almost certainly could not have occurred without Washington’s tacit consent, while offering no hint that Israel will face consequences for allegedly defying the United States.

To make matters worse, Qatar’s foreign minister revealed that Washington’s so-called warning came not before the Israeli strike, but only after Doha was already under fire.

“The attack happened at 3:46,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani said. “The first call we had from an American official was at 3:56 — which is 10 minutes after the attack.”

Whether Washington knew of Israel’s war plans, colluded in them, or whether Trump is truthful in claiming ignorance, the outcome is the same: Israel has dealt a severe blow to American credibility.

What value does an American security umbrella—or even the hosting of a U.S. base—hold if the United States either conspires in an attack against you, or proves unwilling or unable to prevent one?

That is the question now confronting every U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf, all of whom have staked their survival on American protection. Given how Washington has stripped away every meaningful constraint on Israel since October 7, 2023, their leaders should have known this day was inevitable.

Personally, I do not believe the United States should extend security guarantees—implicit or explicit—to any state in the Middle East. The region is no longer vital to U.S. interests, and America is already dangerously overextended. Existing commitments should be reassessed and, where necessary, rolled back. But this must be done deliberately and on Washington’s terms—not sabotaged by Israel—because the point of the exercise goal is to strengthen the credibility of America’s essential commitments, not to erode U.S. credibility across the board.

Adding insult to injury, Israel has undercut not only the credibility of America’s security guarantees but also its diplomatic standing. This marks the second time this year that Israel has exploited the cover of U.S.-led diplomacy to launch unlawful military action—the first being its strike on Iran in the midst of nuclear talks in June.

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Trump Calls His Drone Strike on an Alleged Drug Boat ‘Self-Defense.’ It Looks More Like Murder.

Last week, President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that sank a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea, killing all 11 people on board. Trump described the targets as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua who were “at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” Although the men could have been intercepted and arrested, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters, the president decided their summary execution was appropriate as a deterrent to drug trafficking.

On Wednesday, The New York Times, citing unnamed “American officials familiar with the matter,” reported that the boat “appeared to have turned around before the attack started because the people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it.” That detail further complicates the already dubious legal and moral rationales for this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects.

The attack “crossed a fundamental line the Department of Defense has been resolutely committed to upholding for many decades—namely, that (except in rare and extreme circumstances not present here) the military must not use lethal force against civilians, even if they are alleged, or even known, to be violating the law,” Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman notes in a Just Security essay. Lederman adds that the September 2 drone strike “appears to have violated” the executive order prohibiting assassination and arguably qualifies as murder under federal law and the Uniform Code of Criminal Justice.

New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department lawyer, agrees. “It’s difficult to imagine how any lawyers inside the Pentagon could have arrived at a conclusion that this was legal,” he told the Times last week, “rather than the very definition of murder under international law rules that the Defense Department has long accepted.”

As Trump told it, the attack was justified because Tren de Aragua is “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” He said the strike was meant to “serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.”

Drug cartels have “wrought devastating consequences on American communities for decades, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of United States citizens each year and threatening our national security and foreign policy interests both at home and abroad,” Trump said in a September 4 letter to Congress. “We have now reached a critical point where we must meet this threat to our citizens and our most vital national interests with United States military force in self-defense.”

U.S. forces therefore “struck a vessel” that “was assessed to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in illicit drug trafficking activities,” Trump explained. “I directed these actions consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations.”

Trump says the men whose deaths he ordered were “assessed” to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua. They also were “assessed” to be engaged in drug trafficking. Without knowing the basis for those assessments, we cannot say how accurate they were. Last week, Trump joked about the potential for deadly errors: “I think anybody that saw that is going to say, ‘I’ll take a pass.’ I don’t even know about fishermen. They may say, ‘I’m not getting on the boat. I’m not going to take a chance.'” Conveniently for Trump, summary execution avoids any need to present evidence, let alone meet the requirements of due process.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vice President J.D. Vance declared in an X post on Saturday. When a commenter observed that “killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime,” Vance replied, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.”

That was too much for Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). “Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Paul wondered. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”

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Trump cracks down on drug ads on TV, social media that he says mislead people

President Trump went after pharmaceutical companies Tuesday by accusing them of intentionally concealing dangerous side effects when marketing their drugs on TV and social media.

He sent roughly 100 cease and desist letters and thousands of warning letters to companies about their advertising.

He also granted broad authority to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary to rein in the companies and their social media influencers.

Among the measures pharmaceutical companies can take are increasing the amount of information about risks associated with the medicine in advertisements and actions to “ensure truthful and non-misleading information in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements

The president hardened the government’s stance against Big Pharma with a proclamation he signed Tuesday in the Oval Office. He did not add new enforcement action but ordered the government to more stringently ramp up enforcement of existing regulations covering drug commercials.

“Our goal is to ensure that patients have proper information about drugs that have potential harms,” a senior administration official said. “I think people are seeing ads sometimes not even realizing that they’re pharmaceutical ads.”

The White House declined to say which companies or influencers would receive the letters, but the official referenced a weight loss drug commercial that ran during the Super Bowl and drew the ire of senators on both sides of the aisle.

Hims & Hers, a telehealth company, faced scrutiny from Sens. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, and Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican, for an ad promoting the active ingredient in the weight loss drug Ozempic, but not the drug itself. The two senators said the TV ad “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information.”

Under Federal Trade Commission guidelines, Hims & Hers did not have to provide side effect information because it did not advertise a specific drug or medication. Instead, it urged consumers to consult with a doctor, which was consistent with FTC regulations.

Drug advertising aimed at consumers has exploded since the FDA relaxed its policies in 1997. The loosening of restrictions allowed pharmaceutical companies to boast of health claims while disclosing only a drug’s “most important” health risks. Before the policy change, drug companies had to disclose a lengthy list of possible side effects or avoid identifying the purpose of the drug in the first place.

However, enforcement of those guidelines has slacked in recent years. The FDA typically sends roughly 100 letters yearly, taking drug companies to task for their advertising. However, in 2023, the FDA sent only one such letter and did not send any last year, according to the White House.

“There are also regulations that speak very clearly that an ad must present a fair balance of information … but despite these regulations, enforcement has been increasingly lax over recent years [compared with] in the past when ads were far less frequent,” the official said.

Prescription drug ads account for hundreds of billions of dollars in advertising dollars spent each year. Through this summer, prescription drug brands accounted for 24.4% of ad minutes across evening news programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, according to data from iSpot, which tracks television advertising.

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Trump Calls for Quick Trial and DEATH for “ANIMAL” who Murdered Irina Zarutzka – “There Can be No Other Option!”

President Trump made a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning, calling for the death penalty for Decarlos Brown Jr., a black man who murdered murdered 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in what was likely a hate crime. 

The Trump Administration is seeking either life in prison or death for the deranged murderer after federally charging him federally for the murder.

“There can be no other option,” but death, Trump said this morning.

Trump also addressed the senseless murder from the Oval Office on Tuesday, vowing to make America safe again and calling out radical left judges, politicians, and activists for promoting the “depraved criminal element of violent repeat offenders.”

“We have to respond with force and strength. We have to be vicious, just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand,” the President said.

WATCH:

Trump: For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people, really, very, very innocent people. In every place they control, radical left judges, politicians, and activists, they’ve adopted a policy of catch and release for thugs and killers. In Charlotte, North Carolina, we saw the results of these policies when a 23-year-old woman, who came here from Ukraine met her bloody end on a public train. And here’s a picture of it. This is the picture of it. And this is a picture of the woman, a beautiful young girl that never had problems in life, with a magnificent future in this country.

And now she’s dead. She was slaughtered by a deranged monster who was roaming free after 14 prior arrests. We cannot allow a depraved criminal element of violent repeat offenders to continue spreading destruction and death throughout our country. We have to respond with force and strength. We have to be vicious, just like they are. It’s the only thing they understand. 24 of the top 25 most dangerous cities in America are run by Democrat mayors. 50 people were murdered in Chicago in recent weeks, with hundreds being shot. And it’s time to stop this madness. The people of our country need to insist on protection, safety, law, and order.

We have proven that it can be done because we did it right here in DC, District of Columbia. The capital of America was a blood thirsty, horrible, dangerous place, one of the worst, and now it’s a crime free city, and we’re going to keep it that way. It can be done. It can happen fast. All we want is— please, Mr. President, we need help. Chicago needs help. Other cities need help. We’ll do what has to be done, because we’re going to make America safe again, and that includes our big cities. We’re going to make those cities, safe. Thank you.

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Tokenization: Trump Administration Moves To Create Digital ID To Facilitate Digital Dollar And Tokenized Assets In Loss Of Financial Freedom

Following the creation of a digital dollar framework in July, the Trump administration is now creating the tools needed to facilitate those digital dollars, also referred to as stablecoins and tokenized asset deposits, as it seeks to create a nationally approved digital ID system for the U.S. that can safely store Americans’ tokenized ‘money’ and digital assets.

Digital ID is tantamount, according to globalist institutions. In 2023, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published1 a framework for member nations to pattern their digital ID around. According to their blog post2, the plans are “an integral part of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” adding, “SDG Target 16.9, which aims to “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration,” underscores the widespread significance of civil registration in societies globally.”

This framework builds off a report that was published by the UN in May of that year, called “Our Common Agenda,”3 that discussed “the vision for the future,” which involves linking digital IDs to banking. The UN says the implementation of digital IDs will also help to fulfil the broader goal of SDG1, No Poverty.

“Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes.”

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Supreme Court Throws Out 90-Year-Old Precedent, Allows Trump To Fire FTC Commissioner

Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay Monday that has effectively put a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent on the brink of being overturned. The ruling, made without explanation on the court’s emergency docket, allows President Donald Trump to proceed with his firing of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, despite a lower court and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals having blocked the action just last week.

The decision has significant ramifications for the independence of federal agencies and could pave the way for President Trump to fire Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.

A Battle Over Executive Power

The legal battle centers on the 1935 Supreme Court case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which held that a president can’t fire officials at independent agencies for mere policy disagreements. The precedent established that “cause” for removal must be based on “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Last week, both U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan and a majority of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with Slaughter, finding that the circumstances of her firing by the Trump administration “almost identically mirror” the facts of the Humphrey’s Executor case. The D.C. Circuit majority, comprised of Judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard, stated that doing anything but reinstating Slaughter “would be to defy the Supreme Court’s decisions that bind our judgments.”

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Could Trump End Up Triggering The Globalist “Great Reset”?

The news feeds were buzzing last week over the recent meeting between Russia, China and India at the Chinese port city of Tianjin. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi made sure to present a unified front at the event, at least in economic terms, and it’s clear that China and Russia’s military ties are solidifying. The Shanghai Cooperation Gathering is being treated by the media as a warning to the US in the face of accelerating trade tensions.

Western journalists seem rather giddy over the news, suggesting that Donald Trump’s tariff policies are pushing America’s enemies together and forming an anti-US axis. The political left hates Trump so completely that I wouldn’t be surprised to see them cheering for Putin and the BRICS in a year or two.

News flash for those who are unaware: The BRICS have been forming their alliance since the Obama era. It’s nothing new and has nothing to do with Trump.

I’ve been tracking the formation of the BRICS alliance since 2009 and the driving motive behind the economic bloc (on the surface) has always been to break from the dollar as the world reserve currency. BRICS leaders have been calling for the end of the dollar and the introduction of a new global currency system for years. Though, the plan is not as eastern focused as many people assume. That is to say, if you’re hoping the BRICS are going to “end globalism” you are sorely mistaken.

In fact, in 2009 both Russia and China put forward the notion of a global currency managed by the IMF; an organization that many people think is US controlled. The reality is that it is globalist controlled, and globalists have no enduring loyalties to any nation state; they are only loyal to their own agenda.

Some people might argue that the situation has changed dramatically since 2009, but I disagree. China is now inexorably tied to the IMF’s SDR basket and Russia remains an active member of the IMF despite the war in Ukraine. It’s important to understand that there are always two different timelines when it comes to world events – There is the more publicized international theater, and then there are the operations of globalist institutions that exist outside of geopolitics.

In my view, globalists are not necessarily the “engineers” behind every conflict or crisis, but they do position themselves to take advantage whenever possible. And, they do play both sides of every conflagration in order to gain the most benefit. In other words, groups like the IMF, World Bank, the BIS, the WEF, and trillion dollar conglomerates like BlackRock and Vanguard are going to court the BRICS just as much as they court the west when it comes to achieving a centralized one-world economy.

It’s no secret what this “new world order” is intended to look like. The Davos crowd has openly discussed their visions for years and during the pandemic they ripped the mask off and reveled in the “inevitable” implementation of their “Great Reset”. To summarize, this is what the elites want for the future economy:

A global cashless system. A one world digital currency built around a basket of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies). AI tracking of all financial records. A “sharing economy” in which all private property is abolished. The use of “de-banking” to control civil discourse – Meaning you can say what you want but you might lose access to your accounts, and perhaps even the jobs market. Population control and reduction. Carbon feudalism in which nations pay tribute taxes to globalists in the name of “stopping man-made climate change” (which doesn’t exist).

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Trump Admin Updates Policies to End Unlawful Weaponized Debanking

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on Monday announced actions to end “unlawful debanking” in the federal banking system.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said in a statement, “The OCC is taking steps to end the weaponization of the financial system. We are working to root out bank activities that unlawfully debank or discriminate against customers on the basis of political or religious beliefs, or lawful business activities. If and when the OCC identifies such activity, it will take action to end it.”

The OCC, following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, released a bulletin to banks clarifying how it defines “unlawful debanking” in licensing filings as well as assessing banks’ record of performance under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The OCC will make considerations for a bank’s “debanking” practices in determining its CRA rating.

As part of its mission to assess the extent to which the banking system has become politicized, the OCC initiatlly requested information from the nine largest regulated institutions regarding their debanking activities. The Comptroller also updated its online customer complainer website to assist consumer report.

“Individuals may have been targeted and surveilled based on where they shop or what they believe in and, in some cases, unlawfully debanked,” Gould continued. “The OCC will not tolerate the misuse of customer financial records as a political tool. The OCC intends to work with other government agencies to ensure this conduct is identified and addressed.”

The Trump executive order on debanking tasked the Small Business Administration (SBA) with ensuring that financial institutions stop the Obama- and Biden-era debanking practices, in which Democrat officials pushed financial institutions to debank disfavored companies such as crypto groups and conservative organizations.

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How Trump Is Making Corporatism Great Again

 President Trump has recently endorsed a policy that is arguably as socialist as anything proposed by New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani or Sen. Bernie Sanders — partial government ownership of private corporations.

Earlier this year, as a condition of approving Nippon Steel’s purchase of US Steel, President Trump demanded Nippon give the US government a “golden share” in US Steel. This golden share allows the US government to overrule Nippon’s management if the government determines Nippon is acting against US “national security,” which means the government can overrule many decisions made by Nippon‘s management.

Unfortunately, Nippon was not a “one-and-done” excursion into corporatism. President Trump recently struck a deal with computer chip manufacturer Intel to give the company 8.9 billion dollars in government subsidies in exchange for ten percent of Intel’s stock. This deal makes the US government Intel’s largest stockholder!

The Trump administration has promised that it will not use its position to undermine Intel’s board. However, the administration is reserving the right to counter Intel’s board if the administration determines the board is taking an action that would adversely impact the relationship of the company or its subsidiaries with the US government. So, the Trump administration is yet again giving itself power to manage a nominally private company.

Enabling the government to control a private company (even if the government does not actually exercise its power) means the company’s management will base its decisions on what will please those currently in power, rather than on the desires of consumers.

Government investment in corporations will cause politicians to make decisions based on what will profit the companies the government has “invested” in while those companies’ competitors will seek to attract government investment in order to win special privileges for themselves.

A corporation partially owned by government will be considered “too big to fail” since its failure would cause the government to lose the money “invested” in the businesses. So, the argument will be that a bailout will save the taxpayers money.

According to a 2024 analysis by the World Bank — an organization not known as a supporter of free-market economics, companies of which government owns ten percent or more are six percent less profitable and have workforces that are 32 percent less productive.

Some members of the Trump administration have suggested that the federal government take a partial ownership interest in defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has pointed out that big defense contractor Lockheed Martin, for example, is “basically an arm of the US government” since almost all its revenue comes from the US government. Secretary Lutnick has a point, but the closeness between the Pentagon and big corporations is an argument for restoring a noninterventionist foreign policy. Giving the government an ownership interest in defense contractors would allow the war party to argue that militarism is good for the taxpayer because it boosts the value of the government’s “investments”!

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