Tag: donald trump

ABC Reporter Fabricated Trump Call, Made Himself The Focus After Assassination Attempt

President Trump has slammed ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl for what he calls outright dishonest reporting after Karl inserted himself into the story of the latest assassination attempt on the president.

Karl appeared on ABC’s This Week shortly afterward and claimed Trump had reached out to him personally. “My phone rang shortly after 7 a.m., my landline, George actually. A number that few people call and it was President Trump calling,” Karl told host George Stephanopoulos.

Karl further claimed that Trump “said at first he was calling to see if I was okay with what happened last night. ‘Are you OK?’ And then he reiterated many of the things he said in his press conference last night emphasizing the unity that he felt in that moment that he felt at the dinner before the shooting and certainly after with people who reached out to him… And he was quite firm about this: That dinner must be rescheduled.”

This week, Trump responded directly on Truth Social, blasting the claim as pure fabrication designed to center Karl rather than the president who had just survived another attempt on his life.

“Jonathan Karl, of ABC Fake News, made a statement that I called him early in the morning, the day after the assassination attempt, to ask whether or not HE was OK. No, this was a hit on ME, not HIM, and I didn’t make such a call, why would I do that?” Trump remarked.

The president added, “He called me, but I didn’t take his call — He just confirmed that to me when he called again. I would say that’s very dishonest reporting. He’s trying to make himself look important but, I’m not surprised, because it comes from ABC Fake News!”

This appears to be somewhat deranged behavior from a legacy media figure desperate to remain relevant. Instead of focusing on the security failures, the gunman’s motives, or the president’s resolve, Karl turned the story into a narcissistic fantasy about himself – the brave reporter Trump supposedly felt compelled to check on at 7 a.m. the morning after an attack aimed squarely at the commander-in-chief.

This latest episode fits a long pattern of tension between Trump and ABC News. Readers will recall our earlier coverage of Trump calling out Karl and other ABC figures for biased and obnoxious questioning.

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Trump’s Killing Spree Isn’t Stopping the Flow of Drugs Into the U.S.

The Pentagon claims that attacks on civilian boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific have severely curtailed the import of illegal drugs to the United States. And President Donald Trump says this has saved more than 1 million American lives. Experts call these assertions laughable and reporting by The Intercept shows that claims by the White House and War Department are baseless, phony, or both.

“The administration has failed to explain the long-term objectives of this mission or provide any evidence of reduced drug flows into the United States,” Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said about the campaign on Thursday. “I would ask for a credible answer to this most fundamental question: What is the operation actually meant to accomplish?”

Under Operation Southern Spear, the U.S. military has conducted attacks on 54 so-called drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean, killing more than 185 civilians, since September. The latest strike, on April 26 in the Pacific, killed three people. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of 24 or more cartels and criminal gangs with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name.

Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress from both parties, say the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. These summary killings are a deviation from the standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement agencies generally detained suspected drug smugglers and brought them to trial on criminal charges.

“These are extrajudicial executions, or even just murders — something similar to a cop shooting a fleeing suspect in the back when there is no self-defense justification,” said Adam Isacson, the director for defense oversight at Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group. He called the growing death toll “a gross human rights violation.”

While Trump consistently lies about various aspects of the boat strikes, including the illicit narcotics allegedly on the boats and the number of lives supposedly saved by the attacks, the Pentagon has followed suit, using rhetorical sleight of hand and seemingly disingenuous statistics to bolster the claims of their commander-in-chief.

“I can’t imagine how you could come to some of these conclusions regarding illegal smuggling and drug overdose deaths based on the facts as we know them,” said retired Rear Adm. William Baumgartner, the former commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District, who oversaw drug-interdiction operations in the Southeast U.S. and the Caribbean Basin.

The Pentagon and White House for months failed to respond to detailed questions from The Intercept on the boat strike campaign.

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Trump’s War on Iran Is Destroying America

The very first story on the Drudge Report on both April 23 and 24 was headlined with a quote from Bernard Arnault saying if the Iran war was not quickly settled, it could be a “world catastrophe.”

I apparently do not keep up with world business as much as I should, because I did not know that Arnault is one the three richest men in the world along with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. They trade first, second and third depending on fluctuating stock prices.
Arnault heads a French conglomerate, LVMH, which specializes in luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and many others. He bought a struggling Christian Dior in 1984 for $15 million and Tiffany & Co. in 2021 for over $15 billion.

Arnault told the annual meeting of his Company: “Either it (the Iran War) will be a world catastrophe with very serious and very negative economic impacts – in which case, who can say how 2026 will unfold – or it will be resolved more rapidly in some shape or form that we all hope for – even if it doesn’t seem easy – in which case businesses will recover and resume their normal course.”

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, almost always tries to speak in a positive way about Republican chances in elections. But he told the New York Times on April 28 that if the elections were in May, Republicans would lose.

He said: “The war, the sense of affordability, and gasoline – some of that has to be cleared up in order to win. If it doesn’t change, I’ll start tearing my hair out.”
President Trump is in an almost impossible situation. He is in between possibly the greatest rock and hard place in history.

I think Trump realizes that both the U.S. economy and the world economy will be greatly damaged and possibly go in to a major recession if the war is not ended very soon. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said it “will be worse than people think.”
The President seems to be trying very hard to reach an agreement, but he knows Israel wants to go in the other direction and escalate the war even further. And he knows the Israel Lobby has almost total control of the Congress and will go along with Netanyahu no matter what.

John Mearsheimer is a West Point graduate, Air Force veteran, and longtime professor at the University of Chicago. He is one of the most well-respected foreign policy experts in this Country.

In an interview on April 27, he said “The world economy is teetering, and the longer this war goes on the worse the damage… and if we go up the escalation ladder, it will be another hammer blow to the world economy.”

He added: “Israel wants to continue the war. They want us to continue hammering away at Iran to try to beat them into submission and if we can’t beat them into submission, well we’ll just destroy them and do what we did in Gaza to Iran.”

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The Donald Can’t Reopen the Strait

We noted in Part 1 that when confronted with the failure of 44 days of bombing Iran “back-to-the-stone-age”and, also, thankfully, being reluctant to send American boots into a Gallipoli-scale slaughter on the ground, the Donald turned to his goofy Secy of Treasury for a 4-D chess move.

To wit, a blockade of the Gulf of Oman, which commenced on April 13th. The latter was supposed to dry-up Iran’s cash flow from global oil sales and to then fill its oil storage tanks full to the rim, thereby causing the pipelines connecting to its 3.5 million b/d oil production apparatus to back up and then explode in a post-constipationary release.

Alas, the Donald’s genius boy band – also including Pete Hegseth and Little Marco Rubio – forget the elephant in the room. To wit, it was always a question of which of the dueling blockades – Iran’s at the Strait of Hormuz or the US Navy’s outside of the SOH on the Gulf of Oman – would run out of time first.

However, you only had to know a little bit about the world’s 103 million barrel per day petroleum supply, demand and storage system, and a tad more about oilfield engineering, production management and storage systems, to realize that there was never a doubt as to the outcome.

Namely, that the true-believers who run Iran, and in the face of an existential threat to their regime, were destined to outlast the world economy’s ability to function without the Persian Gulf’s massive flows of hydrocarbons and its derivatives. These crucial ingredients of global economic life ordinarily transit the Strait of Hormuz (SOH) to the tune of 30 million BOEs (barrels of oil equivalent) each and every day.

Of course, the truth is that the Donald is lazy, impatient and impulsive—and therefore is always ready to run with a factoid or cockamamie notion that suits his purposes at the moment. And regardless of whether it happens to be true, valid, plausible and or even rational.

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Legendary economist known for 1969-70 recession prediction warns downturn may hit in 2026

Gary Shilling, the legendary forecaster known for his bearish accuracy and being fired from Merrill Lynch for predicting the 1969-70 recession, is sounding the alarm on a 2026 economic collapse.

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Shilling warned that a U.S. recession is “almost inevitable” by year-end, driven by a “frozen” housing market, corporate investment indicators and a weakening consumer base.

“Stocks are very expensive and there probably is a major correction coming somewhere in the relatively near future,” Shilling said. “A decline of 20% or 30% is no big deal by historical standards. So I would say that’s probably in the cards.”

“I’ve sort of made a career looking for those hidden flaws, and I don’t see anything right now that is just screaming for a big sell-off, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” he added.

Across American real estate, buyers and sellers have been reluctant to make moves as interest rates remain elevated, and mortgage loan rates slowly tick down. There is also a lack of affordable inventory and reports of rising foreclosures, signaling homeowners continue to get squeezed.

Shilling also pointed to what he described as a “collapse” in capital expenditures, or large investments that companies expect will last for years and boost overall future value. Business Insider cited that broader capital expenditures grew just 3.9% by the end of 2025, compared with a pandemic peak of 24% capex growth.

The economist spotlighted the state of the U.S. consumer as the third pillar leading to a recession, with the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge remaining stubbornly high in March, rising 0.7% month-over-month and up 3.5% from a year ago.

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Trump Goes All In On Regime Change In Cuba

The Trump administration just slammed the door on an effort by Cuba’s communist government to secure an economic lifeline while appearing to embrace reform. A May 1 executive order expands and sharpens longstanding American sanctions on Cuba, and appears to deliberately target a recent gesture at partially opening the Cuban economy. “All property and interests in property that are in the United States,” the order says, are barred from operating “in the energy, defense and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sector of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy,” under the penalty of economic sanctions.

On March 16, in a bid for survival, the communist government of Cuba had announced a series of intended though vaguely executed reforms that would allow foreign investment in the island from Cubans living overseas. The reforms were to include a supposed expansion of private property rights. Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga said that the country was “open to maintaining a fluid commercial relationship with U.S. companies.”

Asked by email if the May 1 order was a deliberate response to the March 16 Cuban announcement, a State Department spokesman referred The Federalist to comments made on April 27 by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. In a long discussion with Fox News Chief Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst, Rubio rejected the possibility of reform under the current Cuban government, describing Cuba as “a failed state.”

Cuba “can get better,” the secretary of state added, but “serious economic reforms are impossible with these people in charge. It can’t happen. And these people in charge aren’t just economically incompetent. They have rolled out the welcome mat to adversaries of the United States to operate within Cuban territory against our national interest with impunity. We are not going to have a foreign military or intelligence or security apparatus operating with impunity 90 miles off the shores of the United States. That’s not going to happen under President Trump.”

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GOP bill earmarks $1B in taxpayer funds for ballroom Trump said donors would cover

Senate Republicans have expanded the scope of their immigration enforcement funding package to include $1 billion for security upgrades in the White House ballroom project and $1.5 billion for the Justice Department’s investigative and prosecutorial efforts.

The filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package that Republicans hope to pass this month provides a total of $71.8 billion through fiscal 2029, designed to last through President Trump’s term.

The bulk of the money, $69.3 billion, will go to the Department of Homeland Security to fund immigration enforcement agents and operations.

Democrats filibustered the annual Homeland Security Department appropriations bill over their objection to funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol functions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection without significant policy changes.

That led to a record 76-day department shutdown, which ended last week after Congress passed a spending bill that funded the department, except for ICE and Border Patrol.

The budget reconciliation package is designed to fill those gaps. It provides $38.2 billion for ICE and $26.1 billion for CBP, as well as $5 billion in additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security, to be used largely at its discretion.

Much of the language describing the allowable uses of the funding is purposefully broad.

Still, it has a few specifications, including that $3.5 billion of the Border Patrol funding be set aside for upgrades of border surveillance and screening technology and “new platforms for rapid air and marine response capabilities.”

The $1 billion for the White House ballroom also falls under the Homeland Security Department. The funds are directed to the Secret Service for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the project.

The Secret Service is planning to build an annex underneath the ballroom, along with other military-grade security infrastructure. The ballroom itself will include security features, such as bulletproof glass and counter-drone technology.

The bill says the $1 billion cannot be used for nonsecurity elements of the ballroom project. However, that figure is more than double the projected $400 million cost of the East Wing renovation.

Mr. Trump has raised the bulk of the funding needed through private donations, and some Republicans may object to taxpayer funds being spent on the ballroom project.

The reconciliation package also includes $1.5 billion for the Department of Justice, giving it wide latitude to spend the money.

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Trump Surgeon General Pick Dr. Saphier Repeatedly Instructed Americans to Take COVID-19 Shot

President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Nicole Saphier, spent the COVID-19 pandemic publicly urging Americans—particularly the elderly and medically vulnerable—to receive the COVID-19 shots.

Dr. Saphier is a board-certified radiologist, Director of Breast Imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (Monmouth), Fox News contributor, and author.

She earned her MD from Ross University, completed residency at Maricopa, and a breast/oncologic imaging fellowship at Mayo Clinic.

Federal safety surveillance data show that COVID injections have become one of the most death-reported and injury-reported pharmaceutical products in modern U.S. history.

Now, as she is elevated for one of the highest health offices in the country, critics argue her role in persuading Americans to accept a pharmaceutical intervention linked to unprecedented reported deaths, hospitalizations, and injuries is not simply controversial.

They argue it is professionally and morally disqualifying.

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Trump’s War on Iran Is Not America’s War

In a recent editorial exhorting President Trump to stay the course in Iran, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Democrats in Congress are hoping for Mr. Trump’s failure in Iran, as if that wouldn’t also be America’s.”

For the life of me, I don’t see how Trump’s failure in Iran would also be America’s failure in Iran. I wish the Journal had explained its reasoning. I hope it still does.

This is Trump’s war. Not America’s. Trump’s!

Let’s keep in mind some basic facts. Trump launched this war all on his own. Well, okay, not entirely on his own. He launched it in consultation and partnership with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two of them got together and decided to initiate their war on Iran, clearly thinking that it would be over within a few short weeks.

One fact is undisputed. Trump did not go to Congress, which consists of the elected representatives of the American people, to secure a declaration of war before launching his war of aggression on Iran. He (as well as the Wall Street Journal editorial board) knows full well that that is what the U.S. Constitution requires. The Constitution is the law. It is the higher law that we the people have imposed on Trump and all other federal officials. Trump is required to obey our law, just as the American people are required to obey laws enacted by Congress (and enforced by Trump and other executive branch officials).

Trump chose not to obey the law. He chose to break it. He chose to launch his war on Iran all on his own. He knew that when he launched his war, he was breaking the law — our law — the law of the Constitution.

Therefore, how in the world can Trump’s illegal war, which he launched without the consent of the American people, as required by law, possibly be converted into America’s war? I just don’t get it. I wish the Journal’s editorial board would explain its reasoning. If Trump’s illegal war of aggression against Iran results in his failure, why isn’t that his failure alone? Why is it also the failure of our country?

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Trump DOJ Closes SF Asylum Factory That Approved Cases at 4X National Rate

The federal government closed the San Francisco Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery Street ahead of schedule, leaving thousands of immigration cases in transition and prompting concerns among legal advocates about delays and confusion.

The closure, which took effect prior to the originally planned timeline, impacts a court widely considered a central hub for immigration proceedings in the United States.

During the court’s final hours of operation, only one individual remained in line for services as operations concluded.

Legal experts and advocates say the shutdown places approximately 15,000 cases in uncertainty within San Francisco alone.

Bill Hing, a professor of law and migration studies at the University of San Francisco, described the scope of the impact.

“We are talking about 15,000 cases that are in limbo in San Francisco. It’s a major hub of immigration in the U.S. Many people who are applying for asylum come to San Francisco, come to the Bay Area, and this is major blow for them,” Hing said.

Ahead of the May 1 closure, the Department of Justice dismissed at least 20 of the court’s 22 immigration judges.

One of those judges, Jeremiah Johnson, spoke publicly in December about his termination.

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