Tag: donald trump

Trump Describes Executions to Kids, While MAGA Bans Lessons Causing “Discomfort” 

Seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office in early May, Donald Trump delivered a disturbing lecture to a group of children huddled around him — most of them not yet even teenagers. They had been brought to the White House for what was supposed to be a celebratory event marking the reinstatement of the Presidential Fitness Test, dressed in brightly colored T-shirts bearing the government emblem of the rebooted program.

Flanked by a group including cabinet secretaries Linda McMahon, Pete Hegseth, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump turned the White House into his schoolhouse. Casting himself as a master teacher, he launched into an improvised lesson — part contemporary issues, part history, part geography, and all MAGA mythology.

During his lesson, Trump exposed a central contradiction at the heart of his politics. States and school districts across the country have enacted MAGA education policies — such as the Florida Stop WOKE Act — that prohibit teaching content that might cause students “guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress.” But Trump himself showed no such restraint. During what amounted to an advanced course in authoritarian education, he immersed children in a grotesque curriculum of graphic executions, nuclear annihilation, and the threat of entire societies being wiped out — paired with nationalist triumphalism and the scapegoating of transgender people.

The premise of the event itself rested on the fear that the U.S. has become weak and soft, which could only be remedied by making the country aggressively masculine again. Trump framed the return of the Presidential Fitness Test not merely as a health initiative, but as part of a broader struggle for national strength and power. Warning in a statement to the press that declining youth fitness weakens “our economy, military readiness, academic performance, and national morale,” he cast physical toughness as a prerequisite for a nation prepared for war.

This is not education. It is spectacle, coercion, indoctrination, and the normalization of violence.

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For-Profit Immigrant Detention Centers Exploiting Prison Labor With $1 Per Day Wages

As President Donald Trump continues his mass detention and deportation agenda and expands the use of privately owned immigrant prisons, with more than 60,000 people detained across the country, the profits of private contractors like the GEO Group and CoreCivic are skyrocketing—and a new report by a government watchdog reveals one method the multibillion-dollar firms have of extracting profits from detainees.

Public Citizen researcher Douglas Pasternak wrote in a report released Wednesday that approximately 50% of immigrants who are detained for more than a few days end up in the government’s so-called Voluntary Work Program (VWP), earning just $1 per day—12.5 cents per hour—while they keep the detention centers running.

At facilities like Adelanto Detention Center in Adelanto, California, run by the GEO Group, and CoreCivic’s Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, detainees work as many as 14 hours in a day for just $1—cooking, cleaning, performing maintenance work, and completing other labor essential to the facilities’ operations—and in many cases are forced to use their meager wages only at commissaries also run by the corporations.

“This entire $1-a-day pay scheme is economically unjustifiable, fundamentally unfair, and morally reprehensible,” said Pasternak in a statement.

The companies are notorious for price gouging, forcing the so-called “voluntary worker” to work full-time for 11 days to afford a tube of Sensodyne toothpaste—priced at $11.02 at Stewart Detention Center, compared to just $5.20 on Amazon.

“At these rates, it may take a detainee more than three days of work to purchase a can of tuna fish or more than two days of work to purchase a bar of soap,” said Public Citizen.

The business model has saved the contractors millions of dollars and allowed them to reap massive profits.

Former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger made $7.2 million in compensation last year before retiring, and the company’s profits grew from $68.9 million in 2024 to $116.5 million last year. Both CoreCivic and the GEO Group reported well over $2 billion in revenue in 2025.

When it was sued over its use of the VWP in Washington State, the GEO Group testified that it would have had to pay 85 full-time employees at the state’s minimum wage—$17.13 per hour—if it hadn’t used the labor of detainees. Hiring workers would have cost the company over $3 million per year, but instead the GEO Group spent just over $22,000 paying imprisoned immigrants $1 per hour.

“The private contractors running immigrant detention centers are pocketing millions of dollars in profits as tens of thousands of detainees struggle to afford to purchase a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste,” said Pasternak. “The dichotomy between the contractors’ profits and the detainees’ pay is outrageous.”

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President Trump Announces Massive $1.7 Billion “Weaponization” Fund for Americans Targeted by Biden DOJ, Including J6ers

President Trump is set to launch a massive $1.7 billion compensation fund aimed at helping Americans who were targeted by the Biden Regime’s weaponized Department of Justice.

According to a report from ABC News, the fund would compensate individuals who were politically targeted during the Biden years, including many January 6 defendants, conservative activists, and other Trump allies caught in what critics have called one of the largest political persecutions in modern American history.

The move is already sending shockwaves through Washington.

For years, conservatives have argued that the Biden DOJ operated with a two-tiered justice system, aggressively prosecuting Trump supporters while ignoring violent left-wing extremism and politically connected insiders. Many January 6 defendants spent months or even years tied up in court battles, facing prison sentences, financial ruin, public humiliation, and permanent damage to their reputations.

Trump allies say the new compensation fund is about restoring justice and acknowledging the suffering many Americans endured during the Biden administration.

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Musical Chairs

Yesterday, Trump spoke with Xi in Beijing. While markets kept a watchful eye on any headlines about the war in Iran, palates were left dry as only tepid announcements dripped out, such as that China “offered help” on Iran and “pledged not to send weapons.” What they did not manage to evade was a conversation about Taiwan. During the two and a half hour conversation with Trump, Xi underscored that US intervention in Taiwan could trigger a “highly dangerous situation.” While Rubio underscored that the topic of American arms sales to Taiwan wasn’t a major focus of discussion, it likely will be when Congress’ approved USD 14bn arms sale to Taiwan lands on Trump’s desk, and again when Xi visits the White House in September.

While the US and China are stalled in the geopolitical arena, the financial scene seems to be bearing fruit. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced that conversations around the creation of a “Board of Investment” were underway, and that tariffs would be reduced or removed for products that the US doesn’t plan on reshoring, like fireworks. China also agreed to buy 200 “big” Boeing planes, according to Trump, which would mark the first significant Chinese purchase of Boeing jets since the last time Trump went to Beijing in 2017. China also hinted that they may intend to buy more US energy to compensate for flows disrupted by the war.

Though Iran didn’t appear to produce much in the way of headlines, the Strait is still closed, and Brent crude oil is still trading above $100/bbl at $106/bbl at the time of writing. According to Reuters, the IRGC announced that some 30 vessels have crossed the Strait since Wednesday (with Tehran’s permission), and transit is being permitted for “some” Chinese vessels.

US Treasury yields closed higher after hotter-than-expected trade price data for April printed, with import prices up 1.9% m/m and export prices up 3.3% m/m. These were the fastest monthly price index increases since early 2022 for both. However, the import price index, excluding petroleum, registered more modest gains of only 0.7% which, while hotter than the expected print of 0.5%, is cooler than levels seen as recently as January and February of this year. USD was the best performing G10 currency yesterday on a one day view. Yesterday afternoon saw a surge in yields across the board, absent a clear driver in sparse news flow, as the 2 year closed 3bp higher, above 4.00%.

Warsh was recently voted in as Fed Chair by the US Senate, but this creates a game of grown up musical chairs for the Board of Governors. There can only be seven Governors on the FOMC, and with Powell not giving his seat up just yet, if no one steps down, we have eight. However, Stephen Miran has announced that he would be stepping down as Governor and has submitted his resignation, effective upon Warsh being sworn in. Miran also assured that while he believes it’s important that the Fed only have one chair, Powell could help Warsh through the transition.

Bloomberg’s Anna Wong hit Powell with an uncomfortable reality check: “if Powell’s Fed had been more active in getting its own house in order following a massive miss on inflation, outsiders would have had less motive and opportunity to attack.” Powell’s Fed was criticized for its slow response to the inflationary pressures which led to “the Great Inflation.” Wong summarizes that “[Powell’s] limited push for accountability, such as a thorough review of Fed’s forecasting framework, opened the door to the nomination of a more aggressive outside like Warsh, who has vowed to ‘break some heads’ at the Fed. The moral of story: Get your own house in order or someone will do it for you.”

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Trump Counterterrorism Adviser Brands Tucker Carlson an Enemy

Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes have been named by a top White House official as potential targets for the Trump administration’s counterterrorism strategy.

During an interview with Breitbart editor in chief Alex Marlow last week, Sebastian Gorka, the pugnacious far-right influencer angling to be the next head of the National Counterterrorism Center, was asked whether he considered right-wing extremism a threat.

When Marlow asked if there was a threat of “right-wing terror,” Gorka claimed that there were not “comparable trendlines to violence on the right” as on the left (a favorite right-wing talking point). But he then name-dropped two of the highest-profile right-wing figures—who also happen to be MAGA defectors.

“We have to have an effective, accurate snapshot on who are part of the conservative movement today, because I would say to you I’m not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives,” Gorka said.

“If you are lauding Sharia law, if you are saying that there are Muslim states that seem to be better qualitatively than America in terms of freedom and prosperity, I’m not sure that means you’re part of the conservative movement. So if you remove those individuals and you understand that they’re not conservatives, what’s left?”

To be clear, Carlson did not laud sharia law. Rather, he claimed that Western cities were degrading from “self-hatred,” while Eastern cities were fostering “stability” and “hospitality,” and were “tolerant of diversity.”

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Trump to American workers: Let them pay for the war

On the eve of the French Revolution, the ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette is said to have responded to reports that the peasantry could not afford bread with the remark: “Let them eat cake.” The story is almost certainly apocryphal, but it captured the moment—the arrogance and cluelessness of an aristocracy that had lost all connection to the conditions of life of the masses, even as it presided over mounting social misery and the approach of revolution.

Donald Trump’s statement this week belongs in the same historical register. Asked whether he considered the impact of the US war against Iran on “Americans’ financial situations,” the bloated gangster-president replied, “Not even a little bit.”

There are moments where the reality of social relations is made clear, and Trump’s statement is one of them. He made his comments as he was leaving the White House to travel to Beijing for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump tried to frame his remarks in the context of the danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran—they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody,” he said.

The imminent danger of an Iranian atomic bomb has been the “big lie” peddled by the White House since the beginning of the war. The threat is universally dismissed by commentators with any knowledge of Iran, as well as by the US military-intelligence apparatus. There is no reason to believe that Trump believes this fairy tale either—especially given that he claimed that last summer’s airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities had “totally obliterated” them.

That leaves Trump’s declaration that he does not care about the impact of the Iran war on the cost of living for American working people to stand on its own. He said it, and he meant it. The American ruling class demands that the working class pay the cost of this war.

Trump’s claim that he doesn’t think about the financial position of any American is of course a lie. He thinks constantly about the financial position of the billionaire oligarchs, his sole constituency, the social layer which spawned him. This was on display as Air Force One landed in Beijing, carrying Trump and many top aides, as well as a Who’s Who of American capitalists—Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone, Boeing CEO Robert Ortberg, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, and CEOs of Cargill, GE Aerospace, Goldman Sachs, Micron Technology, Qualcomm, Visa and others.

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US Secret Service and Press Get Into Tense 30-Minute Standoff with Chinese Agents During Trump’s Visit

An armed Secret Service agent and members of the press got into a tense, 30-minute standoff with Chinese agents on Thursday during Trump’s visit.

President Trump on Wednesday evening arrived in Beijing for a state visit.

China rolled out the red carpet for President Trump – literally.

President Trump shook hands with Xi Jinping ahead of their high-stakes bilateral meeting.

On Thursday, however, there was a tense standoff after Chinese security stopped an armed US Secret Service agent from entering Beijing’s Temple of Heaven with their firearm.

“Chinese security officials allegedly blocked an armed U.S. Secret Service agent from entering an event on Thursday during President Donald Trump’s visit to the country, according to media members on the ground,” Fox News reported.

“A Secret Service agent was reportedly blocked from entering Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Beijing’s Temple of Heaven with their weapon on Thursday, according to reporters. The incident triggered an alleged “intense standoff” that delayed entry to the venue for over a half-hour due to heated discussions,” Fox News said.

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US Trapped by Iran’s Resilience; Why the Solution Is Agreement, Not Attrition

In recent months, a painful but increasingly undeniable conclusion has begun to emerge across Western think tanks, mainstream media, and U.S. intelligence assessments: contrary to Washington and Tel Aviv’s initial expectations, Iran has neither collapsed, fragmented, nor moved toward surrender. On the contrary, the conflict has exposed layers of what can only be described as Iran’s “structural resilience” – a resilience many in the West either underestimated or failed to include in their strategic calculations altogether. The central question is no longer whether the United States can inflict damage on Iran. The real question is whether such pressure is actually capable of producing Washington’s desired political outcome.An increasing number of Western analyses now suggest the answer is no. The United States and its allies are gradually realizing that they are confronting a country capable of enduring pressure, reproducing internal control, managing crises, and exporting the costs of war beyond its borders. This reality has drawn Washington into what may be called “the trap of Iranian resilience” – a situation in which continued pressure no longer changes Tehran’s behavior but instead exponentially raises the costs for America itself.

In the early stages of escalating confrontation, the dominant assumption in Washington was that a combination of military strikes, maritime pressure, infrastructure destruction, and psychological warfare could disrupt Iran’s decision-making system. Yet even some recent U.S. intelligence assessments now acknowledge that Iran possesses the capacity to withstand sustained pressure over a prolonged period. When classified evaluations speak of Iran’s ability to endure months of maritime pressure and blockade, it effectively means that America’s most important coercive lever has failed to produce the rapid strategic results initially anticipated. This issue extends far beyond the military battlefield. One of the most significant dimensions of Iran’s resilience lies in its ability to transfer the costs of conflict to the global economy. Rising insecurity along energy routes, scattered attacks in strategic waterways, and disruptions to maritime security have directly affected global energy markets. The surge in oil prices beyond psychologically critical thresholds is not merely an economic indicator; it is a geopolitical message. Iran has demonstrated that if it is forced to bear the costs of war, those costs will not remain confined within its own borders. Instead, part of the burden will be shifted onto the global economy, international energy markets, and even the domestic political environment inside the United States. This is precisely where America’s strategy begins to erode. Washington has entered a conflict that becomes more costly the longer it continues – from inflationary pressure and domestic political divisions to the depletion of military stockpiles and growing criticism regarding the war’s unclear objectives. What was initially framed as an operation to rapidly contain Iran has increasingly become a stage upon which the limitations of American power are being exposed.

Inside Iran, meanwhile, the war has not produced the kind of social collapse many Western circles expected. New Western analyses openly acknowledge that the wartime atmosphere has actually helped the Iranian state reassert security control over public space. The political system has relied on loyalist networks, security organization, and the cohesion of the regime’s hard core to reinforce social control. In other words, rather than weakening the political structure, the conflict has given it an opportunity to redefine and rebuild its security order. This point is strategically significant for the United States because a major part of the initial calculations rested on the assumption that external pressure could widen internal fractures and transform public dissatisfaction into political crisis. Yet even some Western media outlets now concede that the wartime environment has reduced the visibility and activity of opposition groups while restoring a more securitized atmosphere in urban spaces. This means one of the central indirect objectives of maximum pressure has also failed to materialize.

At the same time, Iran’s power structure has not suffered the kind of paralysis Western strategists anticipated. Recent intelligence assessments suggest that even under wartime conditions, Iran’s political system has managed to establish a form of controlled distribution of power – a model in which decision-making is coordinated across institutions, preventing a complete breakdown of command structures. This is precisely what distinguishes Iran’s structural resilience from many other regional actors. In numerous states, severe military pressure can trigger the collapse of the chain of command. In Iran, however, the system appears designed to preserve operational continuity even under crisis conditions.

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Xi Jinping Warns Trump of ‘Clashes’ Over Taiwan During Tense Beijing Summit

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Trump that Taiwan could trigger “clashes and even conflicts” between the United States and China.

The warning injected a dangerous note into an otherwise warm Beijing summit focused on trade, investment and global power.

Xi Issues Taiwan Warning

Xi raised Taiwan during Wednesday’s high-stakes meeting with President Trump in Beijing.

China’s Foreign Ministry later described Taiwan as the most important issue in U.S.-China relations.

“President Xi stressed to President Trump that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” spokesperson Mao Ning said.

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Who’s Your Daddy Now? Failing War Empowering Euros To Break With Trump

Nearly a year ago, NATO Chief Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was excoriated for calling Donald Trump “daddy” in reference to the American president’s “tough talk” on Europe, whether it be on member states’ per capita contributions to the defense pot, or Washington’s demands to “take” Greenland.

This was at a time of course when European leaders believed that appeasing Trump in such ingratiating terms, and in dulcet tones pitched to soothe rather than challenge, was the way to the man’s heart, if not soul. It certainly did not work.

So after Trump’s second attack on Iran in Feb. 28 and the resulting Iranian closure of the Hormuz Strait happened, some Europeans decided to change their tune. In addition to Rutte never again uttering the word “daddy,” the Spanish president Pedro Sanchez closed off the country’s bases to U.S. military access and condemned Trump’s war as a violation of international law. Germany’s Frederich Merz called the Iran War “humiliating” for the U.S. Italy has closed its bases, and UK and French leaders said the U.S. could only use their bases to defend UK and French assets, not to launch operations against Iran.

Meanwhile, Trump looked around and demanded NATO member states help him wrench control of the strait from Iran. Aside from pledging to meet and come up with ideas to secure the strait after the war, no one has complied. To say Trump is agitated and lashing out as a result is an understatement.

The situation has called into question the future of NATO, as the administration has suggested that the alliance is falling down on its Article 5 obligations, which is not true — a member was not attacked and NATO is not an offensive alliance designed to enter wars at members’ behest. Regardless, if the cohesion of NATO was shaky before, some are saying it’s on life support now.

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