Tag: donald trump

Trump and the Iran War: perhaps the most openly telegraphed event of all time

Some events are unforeseeable. The current conflagration with Iran wasn’t one of them. Donald Trump first tried to ingratiate himself into the Republican Party by fixating on the purported threat of Iran; you can find tweets to this effect dating all the way back to 2011, when he toyed with running for president during the 2012 primary cycle. To inject himself into the Republican bloodstream, Trump adopted the twofold strategy of harping on Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and fulminating about Iran.

Then he ran for president in 2016 and continued fulminating about Iran. He co-organized a rally with Ted Cruz in September 2015 to rail against the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA), which he said was the worst deal of all time, in part because it allowed Iran to maintain low-levels of uranium enrichment. He pledged to withdraw from the deal. Then he was elected president and promptly initiated the process of withdrawing from the deal, despite his own Secretary of State certifying that Iran was in compliance. By 2018, he officially withdrew from the deal, warning that it had somehow empowered Iran to “threaten American cities with nuclear destruction.” He proceeded to institute a policy of “Maximum Pressure” on Iran, with the intent of crippling its government and impoverishing its population, so as to destabilize the society and eventually bring about regime change. The sanctions continued to intensify even during COVID, when they hindered Iran’s ability to import medical supplies.

In June 2019, Trump said he was minutes away from bombing Iran. By December 2019, Trump, along with Mike Pompeo, manufactured a crisis whereby they connived to assassinate Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani by drone strike. The administration invoked the 2002 Authorization for Use of Force Against Iraq as their legal justification. So, the same legal architecture to authorize the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was resuscitated by Trump to justify a drone-strike assassination of Iran’s top general in 2020 — supposedly because Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission to Iraq. But the precise logic never really had to make sense. Republican senators such as Mike Lee, who has since become much more “based” and therefore less concerned with Constitutional limits on presidential war-making powers, said at the time that the Administration’s intelligence briefing on the strike was so bad as to be “insulting.” Trump threatened to bomb 52 Iranian cultural sites — the legacy of ancient Persian civilization. Iran fired ballistic missiles at a US military installation in Iraq, inflicting at least 109 troops with traumatic brain injuries.

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Trump Calls for Special Counsel to Investigate Rigged 2020 Election

Ex-President Joe Biden was so “grossly incompetent,” there’s absolutely no way he could have won the 2020 election, President Donald Trump argued Friday as he called for a full investigation.

“Zero Border crossings for the month for TRUMP, verses 60,000 for Sleepy, Crooked Joe Biden, a man who lost the 2020 Presidential Election by a ‘LANDSLIDE!”’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD! The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING. A Special Prosecutor must be appointed,” he noted, adding, “This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America!”

“Let the work begin! What this Crooked man, and his CORRUPT CRONIES, have done to our Country in 4 years, is grossly indescribable!” the president wrote.

Trump’s call for an investigation comes as FBI Director Kash Patel this week told Congress the bureau had discovered an illegal Chinese scheme to produce fake driver’s licenses to rig the 2020 election with mail-in ballots.

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Trump admin to intervene on behalf of New Jersey family trying to stop government seizure of 175-year-old farm

ANew Jersey family trying to save their 175-year-old farm from being seized by a local government are getting support from the Trump administration.

The Cranbury city government announced its intention to seize the 21-acre farm through eminent domain in order to build low-income apartments, but the Henry family is resisting.

On Tuesday, Agriculture Sec. Brooke Rollins said the power of the federal government would intercede in the case on the side of the family.

“On the phone with Andy Henry of Highland Ranch in Cranbury, NJ. The city govt has approved seizing his 175-year-old family farm via eminent domain for affordable housing units,” wrote Rollins.

“Whether the Maudes, the Henrys or others whom we will soon announce, the Biden-style government takeover of our family farms is over,” she added. “While this particular case is a city eminent domain issue, we @usda are exploring every legal option to help.”

Andy Henry says he has received many multimillion-dollar offers for the farm, but he has denied all of them.

“Didn’t matter how much money we were offered,” Henry said. “We saved the farm no matter what. We turned down all the offers to preserve the legacy for our family, city, and even state.”

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Tulsi Gabbard sidelined in Trump administration discussions on Israel and Iran

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, an outspoken critic of past U.S. military interventions abroad, appears to have fallen out of favor with President Donald Trump as he weighs military action against Iran, according to multiple senior administration officials with knowledge of the matter.

Gabbard allies insist that, while there is some White House tension, some of the public blowback is overstated, and none interviewed by NBC News expect her to leave the administration as a result of the president’s Iran policy, even if that includes direct U.S. involvement.

Gabbard’s politically perilous position burst into the open this week when Trump brushed her back over her testimony to Congress in March. At that time, she said the U.S. intelligence community did not believe Iran was building a nuclear weapon — a comment at odds with Trump’s recent public statement about the threat posed by Iran’s potential nuclear program.

“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” Trump told reporters Tuesday on Air Force One.

A person with knowledge of the matter said the U.S. intelligence community’s view has not changed since Gabbard’s testimony in March.

But the idea that a president would openly refute his director of national intelligence immediately spurred questions about whether she is now iced out of decision-making on the issue.

It also reflects a rift that is playing out publicly in Trump’s MAGA coalition, with some supporters advocating standing by Israel in whatever military action it takes against Iran and others saying intervention would go against the “America First” philosophy. Trump’s criticism of U.S. involvement in past conflicts — and his campaign promise to be a “peacemaker” in his second term — brought in unusual bedfellows, such as Gabbard, who had been a Democratic congresswoman.

Multiple senior administration officials said Gabbard has been sidelined in internal administration discussions about the conflict between Israel and Iran. Even two of her allies who spoke to NBC News acknowledged that her standing took a hit when she posted a video on June 10 after a trip to Hiroshima, Japan. The video, which featured the simulated destruction of American cities and Gabbard warning about the dangers of nuclear war, annoyed the White House team, the officials said.

Gabbard did not attend a meeting of top officials June 8 at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, to discuss tensions between Israel and Iran, which raised fresh questions about her status in the administration. A White House official told NBC News that Gabbard was not present only because she had to take part in scheduled training as a member of the National Guard.

Gabbard’s past positions on Iran, coupled with her recent comments and Trump’s responses to them, have forced top administration officials into a difficult position. Gabbard has seemingly been at odds with the administration line, but not to the point where they feel the need to abandon her.

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How Much of Trump’s ‘Built in America’ Phone Is Actually Built in America?

The Trump Organization unveiled Trump Mobile, “a next-generation wireless provider with bold ambitions and a customer-first mission,” on Monday. The organization also teased the T1 Phone—which is slated for an August release and available for preorder—as a “gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States.” The origins of the phone seem to be more of an aspiration than a reality.

Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that “eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America” (emphasis added), per The Wall Street Journal. Given the phone’s hardware and $499 price, the Journal determined that the phones will likely be imported from China because “only Chinese makers like Xiaomi and Oppo have hardware to match.” (President Donald Trump threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on foreign-made phones just last month.)

Max Weinbach, an analyst at market research firm Creative Strategies, also believes that the T1 Phones are Chinese in origin. Based on its hardware, Weinbach says the T1 Phone is a custom variant of the Wingtech REVVL 7 Pro 5G (the T-Mobile version retails for about $170). Wingtech itself is a Chinese semiconductor designer and manufacturer partially owned by the Chinese Communist Party that is listed in the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List, which “identifies persons or addresses of persons reasonably believed to be involved…in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”

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Trump faces uproar from MAGA base over possible Iran strike

The prospect of a U.S. strike against Iran has exposed divisions in the coalition of supporters that brought President Donald Trump to power, with some of his base urging him not to get the country involved in a new Middle East war.

Some of Trump’s most prominent Republican allies, including top lieutenant Steve Bannon, have found themselves in the unusual position of being at odds with a president who largely shares their isolationist tendencies.

Bannon, one of many influential voices from Trump’s “America First” coalition, on Wednesday urged caution about the U.S. military joining Israel in trying to destroy Iran’s nuclear program in the absence of a diplomatic deal.

“We can’t do this again,” Bannon told reporters at an event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor in Washington. “We’ll tear the country apart. We can’t have another Iraq.”

The anti-interventionist part of the Republican Party is watching with alarm as Trump has moved swiftly from seeking a peaceful diplomatic settlement with Iran to possibly having the United States support Israel’s military campaign, including the use of a 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bomb.

The criticism shows the opposition Trump could face from his right-leaning “Make America Great Again” flank should he join the fight, a step that Iran has warned would have big consequences for Americans without specifying what that might be.

A decision by Trump to enter the conflict would be a sharp departure from his usual caution about foreign entanglements. It could impact his campaign to foster good relations in the Gulf and could be a distraction from his efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and make tariff deals with countries around the world.

The MAGA coalition propelled Trump into office in the 2016 and 2024 elections and remains critically important to him even though he is prevented by the U.S. Constitution from running for a third term.

Upsetting that base could erode Trump’s popularity and factor into whether Republicans hang on to control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.

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Trump on Israel-Iran War: “Next Week Is Going to Be Very Big – Maybe Less than a Week”

President Donald Trump spoke with reporters on Wednesday from the White House lawn where he had crews erect two new flagpoles with American flag displays.

The 45th and 47th president was asked about the Israel-Iran War and what he expects from the Iranian regime. Trump hinted that something very big is brewing.

President Trump: Two very simple words. A very simple unconditional surrender. That means I’ve had it, okay? I’ve had it. I give up. No more. Then we go blow up all the military, you know, all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there.

No, they had bad intentions. You know, for 40 years they’ve been saying, death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies, they were schoolyard bullies, and now they’re not bullies anymore. But we’ll see what happens. Look, nothing’s finished until it’s finished. You know, war is very complex. A lot of bad things can happen. A lot of turns are made. So I don’t know. I wouldn’t say that we won anything yet. I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress. And we’ll see. The next week is going to be very big. Maybe less than a week, maybe less.

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Trump Administration Plans to Finance $120 Million Rare Earths Mining Project in Greenland

The last time I wrote about Greenland, the nation had elected independent-minded leaders to the top spots in its political system.

This was then followed by Vice President Vance’s trip with his wife to the Pituffik Space Base on the Arctic island to support the trips.

During an address during the visit, Vance unleashed some hard-hitting statements directed at our ally Denmark. Essentially, Vance took a diplomatic sledgehammer to Denmark’s treatment of Greenland, suggesting that Copenhagen has treated the island more like a neglected outpost than a strategic priority.

Vance did not sugar-coat his opinion of the obliviousness Denmark has had to the threats Russia and China pose in this region.

Given the recent spate of international conflicts (India vs Pakistan, Israel pummeling Iran), Greenland seems to have dropped out of the news. However, it has not been completely forgotten about by President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration is considering financing a $120 million rare earths mining project in the Arctic island nation through a loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) to Critical Metals Corp, in what would be the administration’s first overseas investment in a mining venture. The project, known as the Tanbreez rare earths mine, is aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on China, which currently dominates the global rare earths market.

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Trump Closes Notorious EPA Lab that Conducted Illegal Human Experiments

President Trump is trying to save money by terminating leases on facilities used by federal agencies. One of these is EPA’s Human Studies Facility located at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “Scientists are trying to save it,” reports Nature magazine. But being a waste of money is the least interesting aspect of the infamous lab.

In 2011, through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), I exposed the lab’s illegal experimentation on humans with air pollutants that EPA considers to be deadly. The lab’s central feature is an actual gas chamber into which EPA pumped exhaust from a diesel truck idling outside in a parking lot. You can see a photo of the twisted arrangement here.

After filtering out the carbon monoxide, EPA concentrated the exhaust’s fine particulate matter (soot, called “PM2.5” by EPA) to unrealistically high levels and pumped it into the chamber in which human guinea pigs inhaled it for periods of two hours. The purpose of the experiments was to observe the effects, if any, of inhaling PM2.5. For these experiments, EPA had recruited: asthmatics; people with heart disease and diabetes; and elderly persons up to 80 years of age. EPA paid its human guinea pigs as much as a couple thousand dollars for their participation in the experiments.

All this may seem harmless enough. But was it? EPA had previously concluded that PM2.5 was, essentially, the most toxic substance known to man. Any inhalation could cause death within hours, the agency had determined.  It had also stated that the people most at risk from inhaling PM2.5 were: asthmatics; people with heart disease and diabetes; and the elderly. Those at risk from PM2.5 were the very sort of people upon whom it had been experimenting.

But EPA had not disclosed any of this to, and so did not obtain legally required “informed consent” from its human guinea pigs. Instead of informing its human guinea pigs in writing that the agency believed the experiments could kill them, as was required by federal regulations, state law and the Nuremberg Code on human experimentation, the agency’s consent forms only disclosed that some temporary coughing or wheezing may result from the experiments.

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Judge Cannon Rejects Trump Would-Be Assassin Ryan Routh’s Attempt to Unseal Jury Questionnaire

Judge Aileen Cannon this week rejected Trump would-be assassin Ryan Routh’s attempt to unseal a jury questionnaire.

The judge will also hold a closed status conference to discuss the questions related to the jury questionnaire.

Law & Crime reported:

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has rejected a request from the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump to have the jury questionnaire in his upcoming criminal trial unsealed.

The denial marks the latest legal rebuff for Ryan Routh, a 59-year-old man accused of hiding out with a rifle at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, 2024, in hopes of shooting the then-Republican nominee for president. While discussing pre-jury selection procedures, Routh’s lawyers objected to a proposed plan to keep the jury questionnaire sealed before the trial.

Cannon outlined the two parts that would take place in a status conference regarding jury selection procedures. Part one, she said, would be public and “unrestricted” regarding the general logistics of jury selection, while part two would “proceed in sealed session and focus on a substantive discussion of the proposed juror questionnaire itself.”

It is this juror questionnaire that Routh’s legal team wanted unsealed, but Cannon, a Trump appointee who also presided over and later dismissed his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, denied this request and additionally found that making part two of the conference publicly available would carry “significant risk.”

Last year federal prosecutors charged Ryan Routh with attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate after he pushed the muzzle of his rifle through the fence line at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course.

Ryan Routh was previously charged with two federal gun crimes: Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession (max penalty of 15 years in prison and $250,000 fine), and receipt of a firearm with an obliterated serial number (max penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine).

Routh set up a sniper’s nest in the shrubbery outside the perimeter of Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach.

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