Tag: donald trump

Trump Turns the Tables, Says He Will Not Approve FISA Extension Without Save America Act – Pulte Will Remain as Acting DNI Until US Attorney Pick is Approved

President Trump checkmated the Democrats and RINOs early on Wednesday morning, announcing that the Senate hearing on Jay Clayton to serve as Director of National Intelligence will be canceled, and that Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte will remain in place to serve as acting DNI. 

This comes amid the ongoing debate over FISA Section 702, which the Intelligence Community uses for warrantless surveillance on national security threats– as well as innocent Americans.

“The Republicans agreed with Dumocrats to remove very fair, and talented, William Pulte, from serving as Acting DNI in return for getting FISA approved by the Dumocrats,’ Trump said in a statement this morning.

“However, the Republicans moved so fast with the hearings of the Great Jay Clayton, current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, that Pulte would be gone before the Dumocrats would vote on FISA. Now, the Dumocrats are saying they will vote against FISA — So, the Republicans wound up having fulfilled their commitment, but Dumocrats broke the Deal.”

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US Official Says Striking Iran Was Intended to “Maintain The Ceasefire”

Shortly after midnight, the United States struck Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas, which is home to a naval base. A US official described the actions as “measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire.”

In addition to the strikes, the US official told media outlets that American forces shot down four Iranian kamikaze drones that “posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz” and had also struck a ground control station in Bandar Abbas that “was about to launch a fifth drone.”

Previously, there had been reports of the US striking Iranian naval vessels with fighter jets. The US called these attacks “self-defense,” while Iran called them a ceasefire violation.

The IRGC later released a statement saying it targeted a US base involved in the earlier strike on a site near Bandar Abbas Airport. “The aggressor bears full responsibility for the consequences,” the statement said, putting the blame on the US.

The current ceasefire has held since April 8th, as the US and Iran continue negotiations to end the war.

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Trump Moves to Expand Weapons Manufacturing, Strengthen National Defense

Following months of escalating tensions with Iran, President Donald Trump is pushing to boost domestic weapons manufacturing, invoking emergency powers as his administration eyes billions in new military spending from Congress.

A memo went public on Tuesday showing that Trump actually signed the order back on June 11. It activates the Defense Production Act—a relic of the Cold War that lets the government cut through red tape, jump to the front of the line for manufacturing, and fix supply chain bottlenecks.

“I hereby find that conditions exist which may pose a direct threat to the national defense or its preparedness programs,” Trump wrote. “In particular, systemic constraints in the munitions industrial base, including limited production capacity, fragile supply chains, long-lead dependencies, and related production bottlenecks, may impair the ability of the United States to produce, sustain, and expand the availability of munitions, missiles, and equipment required for the national defense.”

The move comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lobbies lawmakers to approve roughly $350 billion in additional Pentagon funding. Administration officials argue the money is needed to restore weapons inventories and strengthen military readiness after extensive operations tied to the conflict with Iran.

Following meetings with Hegseth on Capitol Hill, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said the discussions centered largely on defense procurement and ensuring the military has the resources necessary to acquire critical weapons systems. The Defense Production Act grants presidents broad authority during national emergencies, including the ability to require companies to give priority to government contracts. The law has previously been used during national crises ranging from natural disasters to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The administration is also preparing a formal request for supplemental defense funding, though questions remain about whether Congress will approve the full amount sought by the White House.

Some Republicans have expressed support for boosting military spending, while others want more information about the long-term costs associated with operations involving Iran. Democrats, meanwhile, have indicated they are unlikely to support a major funding package without additional briefings from administration officials and greater clarity regarding U.S. objectives in the region.

“As long as we are at war with Iran, I will not allow a supplemental to serve as the de facto authorization for the war. And I’ve been debating this with Republican colleagues,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said.

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Senate Shoots Down Resolution to Limit Trump’s Military Authority Over Iran

By a single vote, the Senate shot down a proposal on Tuesday that would have reined in President Donald Trump’s ability to use military force against Iran without Congress’s approval.

The vote fell just one vote short of advancing with 48-47. Republican Senators Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul voted with the Democrats. On the flip side, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) crossed the aisle to vote alongside the Republican majority against the bill.

Introduced by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), the resolution sought to require congressional approval for continued U.S. military action involving Iran. Warnock had urged Republicans to vote for it, arguing that Congress shouldn’t just sit back and let the president make all the decisions on foreign wars.

The vote occurred as lawmakers pressed the White House for details about an agreement Trump announced Sunday between Washington and Tehran that he has promoted as a path toward ending months of fighting.

“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all!” Trump declared on Truth Social.

Members of Congress are still completely in the dark about the agreement, leading to a push on the administration for transparency. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said lawmakers are demanding more details on how the arrangement actually works. Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, agreements related to Iran’s nuclear program must be submitted to Congress for review before sanctions relief can take effect.

Although the measure did not advance, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats are continuing discussions surrounding a separate proposal sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and are attempting to secure additional Republican support before bringing it up again.

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‘This Has to Be Stopped’: Alarm As Trump’s Crypto Firm Set to Get Federal Banking Privileges

Critics expressed alarm on Tuesday amid a new report suggesting that President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency firm is about to get federal banking privileges.

As reported by NOTUS, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the coming weeks is expected to approve a national trust bank charter for World Liberty Financial, the crypto startup founded by members of the Trump family and the family of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Were it to receive the charter, NOTUS explained, World Liberty Financial would receive “significant legal and financial benefits,” including being able “to settle financial transactions akin to Venmo or PayPal on the World Liberty Financial platform, through which the Trump family could receive a cut.”

David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, dismissed concerns about conflicts of interest, telling NOTUS that “none of [the company’s] leadership or employees work for the US government,” even though the president and his entire family stand to personally benefit from the charter’s approval.

Corey Frayer, director of investor protection for Consumer Federation of America, told NOTUS that here was simply no precedent for a sitting president being granted such privileges for a company he founded by a comptroller whom he personally appointed.

“For the first time in history, a president is leaning on a bank regulator to give his private enterprise the implicit backing of the federal government,” Frayer explained. “It’s outrageous.”

Diana Henriques, a veteran financial journalist best known for her extensive coverage of the Ponzi scheme run by disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, also expressed horror at the prospect of the OCC carrying out the president’s bidding.

“The guardrails continue to fall,” Henriques wrote. “It is functionally impossible to regulate a bank owned by the president. Yet it can imperil the entire banking system if it runs off the rails. For heaven’s sake, this has to be stopped.”

Derek Martin, vice president at Focal Point Strategy Group, wrote that there is “no other way to interpret” the NOTUS report “than Trump using the government to advance his own firm’s interests.”

“World Liberty Financial’s entire brand—and reason for existence, basically—is ‘We are affiliated with Trump,’” Martin added. “This is just the latest way they’re leveraging it.”

Government watchdogs for months have been raising alarms about the president having his own cryptocurrency firm, which has received massive investments from foreign governments since its founding in 2024.

According to NOTUS reporter Jeff Stein, Trump has reported personally earning $57 million from World Liberty Financial so far, a number that could get significantly higher if the firm is granted its charter.

An analysis published by Forbes last month estimated that Trump has nearly tripled his wealth since returning to office, going from a net worth of $2.3 billion in 2024 to $6.5 billion in 2026.

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The MoU Is Not the Final ‘Deal’

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced on Sunday that the U.S. and Iran had reached a “Peace Deal.” Immediately following Sharif’s post on X, President Donald Trump seconded this news:

“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

As the media is reacting to the flurry of updates, there is an air of optimism that I fear is blinding many in the public, and the financial markets, to the truth about this deal. There is a crucial detail that the commentator class seems to be largely missing, outside of a few reliable voices:

This “deal” is a Memorandum of Understanding, not a comprehensive “Iran deal” as Trump keeps claiming.

Based on the details being reported, it essentially saves the most complicated issues for later and would establish a 60-day ceasefire period to discuss these points in greater depth. The main issue, Iran’s nuclear enrichment, has not been discussed in any technical way up to this point.

Despite Trump’s claims that “We will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States,” no such agreement has been reached regarding the details of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

Even as this deal was announced, we still have no clarity on the status of the nuclear file in these discussions. Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday:

“‘We’ll get the nuclear dust later on when we’re ready to go in and do it. I’d say over the next month or two, there’s no rush,’ he said. He called it ‘harmless.’”

Besides the fact that this statement contradicts months of propaganda on the “imminent threat” posed by Iran, this signals that details on Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile have not been worked out, despite Trump’s claims to the contrary.

This agreement also doesn’t set terms on Iran’s missile or drone programs, nor does it discuss Iran’s support for their regional proxies. This has led many prominent neoconservative media voices to criticize the deal, saying that it won’t ensure that Iran is sufficiently weakened in the region.

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Trump Will Slap French Wines With 100% Tariff Over France’s Digital Services Tax – Macron Is Defiant, But Wine Producers Are VERY Afraid

Tech versus Wine is the geopolitical arm-wrestle.

US President Donald J. Trump is in France for the G7 Summit and to meet French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, as you can read in 

Among the many issues that will be discussed, there is one economic war that is on the outing: Trump is demanding that France drop its tax on American tech firms or face a 100% tariff on its wine.

FOX Business reported:

“The U.S. will ‘have no choice’ but to apply the tariffs if French President Emmanuel Macron does not end its 3% levy on large digital services companies. ‘I asked him not to charge American companies, and if they do, I have no choice but to charge a 100% tariff on all champagnes and all wines coming out of France’, Trump told the New York Post in an interview. ‘All [Macron] has to do is get rid of the sales tax, and he wouldn’t have that kind of pressure’.

[…] ’The president has been unequivocally clear on digital services taxes and other forms of extortion against American tech firms’, a senior White House official told FOX Business on Monday, when reached for comment. ‘The administration is committed to using the many legal authorities at our disposal to defend American workers and businesses’.”

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Trump’s Iran War Slowing Global Economic Growth to Lowest Level Since Pandemic: World Bank

The World Bank on Thursday lowered its global growth forecast for the remainder of 2026 as the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran drives up energy prices, inflation, and the cost of debt.

“The global economy is facing another major shock,” the World Bank’s latest biannual Global Economic Prospects report states. “The conflict in the Middle East has triggered sharp increases in energy prices, renewed inflationary pressures, and fueled expectations of tighter monetary policy.”

“Global growth is projected to slow to 2.5% in 2026, from 2.9% in 2025 – the lowest rate since the Covid-19 pandemic – amid weaker prospects for economies dependent on energy imports and those directly affected by hostilities,” the report continues. “Activity is expected to firm in 2027-28 as energy supplies recover, monetary easing resumes, and trade strengthens.”

The Iran War has resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 30% of the world’s fertilizer and 20% of its oil previously passed. In addition to increasing the risk of a global food crisis, the strait’s closure has sent fuel and fertilizer prices soaring, with US farm diesel costing nearly 50% more than it did on the war’s eve in February and various fertilizer products spiking by between one-quarter and one-half.

The war has affected the economies of countries far removed from Iran, as the World Bank reports forecasts that “growth in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is expected to slow to 3.6% this year.”

“The level of per capita income across EMDEs excluding China and India, relative to advanced economies, is not expected to return to the pre-pandemic level until after 2028, implying nearly a decade of lost income convergence,” the international financial institution predicted.

World Bank Group president Ajay Banga said in a statement Thursday that “developing countries have faced a series of challenges over the last decade.”

“The impact differs by country, but the basic test is the same: Protect people and preserve stability today, without giving up on growth and jobs tomorrow,” Banga added. “In response to the current shock, we are providing liquidity where it is needed now – and we are ready with additional financing, guarantees, and private-sector solutions if pressures deepen. Our job is to help countries steady the ship, keep reforms moving, and emerge stronger on the other side.”

The bank said in April that up to $100 billion would be made available over the next 15 months for nations suffering the most acute economic shocks caused by the war.

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Israel And Her Supporters In US Rage Over Peace Deal, Declare Will Not Abide, Enemies Come After Netanyahu

Israeli officials took to social media today to declare they will not abide by President Trump’s ceasefire agreement when it comes specifically to Lebanon. Pro-Israeli influencers and voices in the United States were also upset with the deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s critics used the deal to attack him politically.

Comments are below.

Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir:

Trump’s agreement does not bind us. Israel is not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation!

We emphasize: We love the USA and are grateful to President Trump. And yet, the State of Israel is not a banana republic.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:

The agreement with Iran is bad for Israel and for the entire free world. Period.

The joint campaign had many achievements in weakening Iran, and they will not go to waste. 

We will have to continue the campaign to topple the regime ourselves and in creative ways, and ensure that Iran will never have nuclear weapons.

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A Requiem for Privacy

When President Donald Trump appointed an obviously unqualified friend, a home builder executive, to be acting director of national intelligence, he inadvertently triggered attention to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The director of national intelligence is the head of the umbrella agency that gathers intelligence from the 17 federal spying agencies and from that data prepares and delivers the president’s daily briefing. Sec. 702, which permits warrantless spying, expires this month.

Trump prefers to receive his briefings directly from the CIA and its foreign colleagues, leaving the DNI as an appendage with little to do. Nevertheless, the DNI employs hundreds of spies and analysts, and most of them have national security clearances that permit them to view the nation’s most closely guarded secrets and to invade anyone’s privacy.

Section 702 of FISA theoretically permits federal agents to spy without warrants or suspicion on foreign persons. In reality, it is used as a fig leaf to spy on Americans.

A few years ago, Department of Justice lawyers persuaded the FISA court secretly to permit the National Security Agency — America’s domestic spies — to spy on Americans with whom foreign persons communicate; even suspicionless Americans whose communications with foreigners are benign; even Americans removed by six degrees from conversations with foreigners.

Before 9/11, no one in law enforcement was permitted access to data obtained outside the restraints imposed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Those restraints prohibit searches and seizures — in the modern parlance, surveillance and data acquisition — without a search warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of crime, sworn to under oath. And the warrant itself must specifically describe the places to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

Since 9/11, the wall between surveillance and law enforcement has collapsed even though the feds still maintain that the Fourth Amendment only regulates law enforcement and not surveillance. This wild proposition is defied by the plain language of the amendment, which protects all persons from all government, and by the history of the colonists dealing with British government agents executing general warrants issued by a secret court in London.

Those warrants permitted the bearers to arrest whomever they wished, to search wherever they chose and to seize whatever they found. Under the pretext of looking for evidence of crimes, like failing to comply with the Stamp Act, these agents were truly looking for what the king considered subversive, like a draft of the Declaration of Independence.

James Madison and his colleagues who drafted the Fourth Amendment surely knew that history and shared the near universal colonial revulsion at general warrants. Hence the requirements in the amendment for probable cause of crime sworn to before the warrant-issuing judge, and specificity in the warrant itself.

All of this was crafted to outlaw general warrants, and protect all persons in America from warrantless government assaults and invasions of their “persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

Now, back to FISA. FISA was crafted in reaction to President Richard Nixon’s use of the CIA and FBI for warrantless domestic surveillance purposes. This was spying on Americans — opponents of the Vietnam War and Nixon’s political opponents — which as we all now know came crashing down on Nixon in the Watergate scandal.

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