Tag: donald trump

Russia frees 74-year-old retired Michigan teacher in latest gesture to Trump

Russia on Wednesday freed a retired American teacher from Michigan it claimed it had captured in the battlefield with Ukraine, the latest gesture by Vladimir Putin to President Donald Trump as efforts pick up to restart stalled peace talks.

The release of Stephen Hubbard, 74, was confirmed by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Hubbard’s lawyer.

“Stephen Hubbard’s freedom is a dividend earned along the hard road to peace,” Attorney Martin DeLuca said, crediting President Donald Trump, Witkoff and special envoy Jared Kushner for fighting for the release.

“Two Americans have now come home from Russia on humanitarian grounds in ten weeks,” De Luca said. “These are tangible results of sustained diplomacy.

Hubbard was the oldest American held in Russia and the only one in Russia currently designated by the U.S. as wrongfully detained. Russia claimed he was captured while fighting as a mercenary for the Ukrainians.

The Trump administration has also negotiated the release of Robert Gilman, a U.S. citizen and former Marine, who was released in August after spending years in a Russian prison, accused of fighting with a Russian police officer at a train station. He was released on humanitarian grounds, due to his failing health, ABC News reported.

In February, Marc Fogel, an American history teacher, was released and returned in what the White House said was the result of improving diplomatic relations that could help bring about an end to the war in Ukraine. Fogel was arrested in August 2021 after serving 14 years in a Russian prison for possession of marijuana, which his family said he was medically prescribed, the Associated Press reported.

Trump also made a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to lift sanctions in an effort to put more diesel on the global market and bring down fuel costs.

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Trump Puts Bounty on Government Fraud With New Whistleblower Reward Program

Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced a new initiative aimed at rooting out fraud in federal government programs — and Americans who help uncover it could receive a financial reward.

During an Oval Office event alongside Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials, Trump unveiled the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program, which will allow Americans to report suspected corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities.

Under the program, whistleblowers may receive a commission of 1 percent of the fraud uncovered, according to the announcement. The administration also announced a $25 million fund for the initiative, with individual rewards advertised at up to $30,000.

The administration is directing Americans to America.gov/fraud, where they can submit reports of suspected fraud involving government programs.

Trump pointed to several examples of fraud and improper payments that his administration says it has identified, including 160,000 deceased individuals removed from food stamp rolls, 275,000 illegal aliens removed from Social Security, and 562,000 fraudulent small-business loans discovered.

He also cited the elimination of $125 billion in Obamacare subsidies for foreign migrants and the termination of funding to hundreds of allegedly fraudulent hospice facilities that he said had received $1.4 billion.

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Trump DOJ Takes California to Task After State Admits in Court They Have No Way of Verifying Citizenship Beyond What Voters Attest – Newsom’s Office Responds

California admitted in federal court that the state has no way of verifying citizenship beyond what voters attest.

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli took California to task on Tuesday afternoon following the damning admission.

Via Bill Essayli: Massive concession: Los Angeles election officials just told a federal court they have no independent way to verify citizenship beyond what voters attest. (They simply take their word for it.) Under federal law, only citizens may vote in federal elections. Yet California has not acted on the list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens or agreed to set aside their ballots. American citizens’ votes are being diluted in California.

Newsom’s office responded to Bill Essayli and mocked his position as the First Assistant US Attorney.

Bill Essayli hit back at Newsom’s office by citing federal law.

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Truth Social Stock Hits All-Time Low as Userbase Craters on Trump’s Twitter Clone

Donald Trump’s Twitter clone, Truth Social, is in serious trouble.

The company has weathered bad news before, hitting all-time low stock prices on multiple occasions over the past year. But those days now look balmy in comparison, with the social network’s shares sliding more than 7.5 percent on Monday alone and setting a new rock bottom of just $6.40. Zooming out doesn’t paint a prettier picture, either: over the past month, the company’s stock has fallen a stomach-churning 29 percent.

It’s easy to empathize with any investors looking to ditch the company. It never had much of a raison d’être beyond “funnel some money to Trump,” and the president’s declining political fortunes — not to mention looming midterms that are likely to undermine his remaining power — have weakened even that grift-era pitch.

As the Daily Beast reported last week, not even its users are sticking around, with analytics data suggesting that its daily traffic has cratered by more than 30 percent over the past year. For a company that was already posting huge losses every quarter, that’s grim news — and it sounds like the company’s remaining investors may now be seeing the writing on the wall.

As its fortunes have soured, Truth Social has tried a series of eyebrow-raising pivots into gambling and crypto that failed to gain traction. It also moved to merge with a nuclear fusion company and started selling early access to Trump’s messages on the platform, in a move that was widely derided as an attempt to profit off his position as president.

So far, none of those moves have showed any signs of turning around the company’s fortunes. Add it all up, and it’s hard not to wonder whether Truth Social will survive as long as Trump’s second administration.

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Trump pressures New Mexico to CHANGE the state’s name…

President Trump is putting pressure on New Mexico to change the state’s name, saying ‘we are not Mexico’.

Here’s what he wrote:

New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America. We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America! The name would add great value and prestige to the State! Home Values and Incomes would rise, and you would be even prouder while saluting our beautiful American Flag! Maybe even the Crooked Elections, that New Mexico is known for, would become honest again! President DONALD J. TRUMP

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Trump Admin, US Businesses ‘Need To Be Wary’ Of AI Espionage, Intelligence Chief Warns

Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton warned that both the Trump administration and American companies “need to be wary” of foreign espionage with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which the government now refers to as super intelligence.

Clayton, who leads the Trump administration’s Super Intelligence Force, told CNBC in a Friday interview that maintaining U.S. leadership in the AI race is critical in the face of potential foreign espionage. He noted that while AI platforms and capabilities can be used for “very good purposes,” they can also be used for “nefarious purposes.”

The intelligence chief’s comments came after President Donald Trump’s Super Intelligence Force held its first meeting at the White House on Thursday. Clayton told CNBC that the meeting was “very good” and that it built on the voluntary accord signed by Trump and multiple technology industry leaders at the White House on Sept. 29.

Asked whether Americans should be concerned about foreign espionage with AI companies, Clayton said Friday that both commercial and state-sponsored espionage are a reality facing the United States.

“It’s something that our private-sector companies need to be wary of, we as a government need to be wary of,” he said.

Clayton told CNBC that it was important for the United States to “stay on the cutting edge” of AI capabilities in order to address concerns regarding AI advances by U.S. adversaries.

“We’re not the only ones developing it. There are vectors in this technology that are coming from some of our known adversaries and competitors,” he said. “The Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans all have significant technical capability. We need to stay ahead of them.“

Many of the risks posed by AI are linked to cybersecurity and digital infrastructure, Clayton told CNBC. He described the U.S. digital infrastructure as critical infrastructure, covering everything from public utilities, such as water and electricity, to national defense.

While cybersecurity risks are not new, the rise of AI “amplifies” those risks, Clayton said. To address the risks, he said the United States is “focused on hardening those systems” and is committed to staying ahead of “nefarious actors” in the AI race.

Clayton’s warning regarding foreign espionage attempts linked to AI came after prosecutors and company officials said on Oct. 13 that Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national and software engineer working for OpenAI, was arrested on allegations that he concealed a sophisticated recording device in an OpenAI office.

According to a court complaint, the office Alfozan allegedly planted a recording device in was frequently used to hold meetings involving highly confidential information, including government engagements, commercial relationships, product plans, and strategic decisions.

In a Tuesday press release, Clayton described the incident as a “serious situation [that] underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative.”

During Friday’s interview on CNBC, Clayton added that the incident involving the Saudi software engineer at OpenAI “shows the lengths that people will go to try and supplant our leadership in this, or at least stay close to us, in this emerging technology.”

The intelligence chief’s warning also followed a series of AI swarm breaches, which has led some industry leaders to suggest that the pace of AI development needs to be slowed down and the technology needs additional oversight.

A report released last month by Anthropic found that the Iranian regime used the company’s AI models to track and target U.S. Navy ships in the Middle East. The report also said that a Chinese-linked operation used Claude to track and attempt to recruit Uyghurs who joined the Syrian army to become spies.

In addition, Anthropic’s report found that individuals affiliated with the Chinese regime used Claude and supporting Chinese AI systems to surveil groups targeted by the regime. Those targeted by the China-linked individuals included members of the Tibetan Buddhist civil society, practitioners of Falun Gong, Catholic cardinals, Presbyterian Church leaders, the New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts, and NTD, The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet.

Trump announced the formation of the Super Intelligence Force earlier this month to oversee U.S. AI policies. Clayton told CNBC that the White House task force took a number of actions during its inaugural meeting on Thursday.

Those actions included outlining a plan to implement the accords signed by technology leaders, tasking the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology with conducting a risk study, establishing committees covering different AI issues, and developing a system for the Department of Labor to regularly report on the impacts of AI on the U.S. workforce and economy.

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Putin Proposes Summit With Trump And Xi To Negotiate End Of Ukraine War; Zelensky Not Invited

Amid an escalating war that appears to get farther from any hope of a ceasefire, let alone peace, late on Sunday the WSJ reported that Vladimir Putin has proposed that he, President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet next month to talk about Ukraine in an attempt to negotiate an end to the four-year conflict that would favor Moscow.

Citing people familiar with the discussions, the WSJ notes that the plan represents an effort by Putin to capitalize on warming ties between Trump and the Russian leader that have alarmed Ukraine and its allies in Washington and Europe. Such a summit – one notably without the involvement of Zelensky who appears to have terminally alienated Trump in recent days – would be “unprecedented and send alarm bells ringing in European capitals and beyond.”

According to a former Russian intelligence officer briefed on the matter, Putin floated the idea in an Oct. 9 phone call with Trump. That conversation also produced a deal for the U.S. to buy Russian diesel fuel and facilitate its sale on the global market. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that discussions were taking place over a potential meeting.

“There is no clear understanding yet regarding the meeting itself or its potential agenda, although all three parties acknowledge the hypothetical possibility of such a meeting taking place,” he told The Wall Street Journal.

A senior US official said that while Trump hadn’t agreed to such a summit, he said that the president could be receptive to the idea, given his desire to fulfill a campaign promise to settle the war. Trump had said it would be finished on “day one” of his new term, but he is now approaching nearly two years in office.

The Kremlin has suggested holding the trilateral dialogue on the sidelines of the coming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the people familiar with discussions said. That gathering takes place on Nov. 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese tech hub.

A potential three-way dialogue on Chinese soil would mark a big step for Xi in his efforts to elevate China’s role as a diplomatic power broker, said analysts who study China. Russian officials proposed the idea to Beijing through diplomatic channels and the Chinese side has indicated it wouldn’t object if Trump is on board.

“China wants to be seen as the pivot of the great powers, and potentially as a mediator between the U.S. and Russia,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.

While Putin had unsuccessfully proposed a trilateral summit to both Trump and Xi on previous occasions, this time, however, it comes during a reversal of Moscow’s fortunes with Washington.

Trump just notched a deal with Putin to get Russian diesel in a bid to lower fuel prices that have slowed the American economy and hurt Republican prospects ahead of the midterm elections. On Friday, Trump halted implementation of sanctions that were to be imposed on Russia under a bipartisan bill he signed last month, drawing criticism from lawmakers, including some of his allies.

The senior White House official said Trump made the decisions after seeing few other good options to lower prices.

At a time when Diesel prices are soaring, in part due to limited Russian exports amid a constant drone campaign waged by Ukraine against its refineries, Trump has shown renewed frustration with Zelensky, saying the Ukrainian leader must stop strikes on Russian refineries and suggesting that the country needs a new president. U.S.-led efforts to broker an end to the war, meanwhile, have been largely stalled.

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump took aim at Zelensky, following Ukraine’s strike on an oil terminal in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg earlier in the day. He accused the Ukrainian leader of targeting Russian diesel refineries and said he “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.” The president said he was holding off on imposing sanctions because he didn’t want to drive Russia away from the bargaining table. “I WANT THIS WAR END!” he wrote.

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Trump’s Threats to Annihilate Iran

Of all of the things that Donald Trump has said publicly since returning to the White House, his threats to annihilate Iran are arguably the worst. This is not only because the repeated statements are deeply immoral and illegal – deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime – but because they represent the kind of irresponsible rhetoric that will lead us into a global apocalypse and collapse of not just the Persian nation but human civilization as a whole. It is not possible to excuse, justify, or condone this kind of rhetoric. The only question is what to do about it.

As much as some well-meaning people might want to see nuclear weapons as instruments that ended World War II and have kept the peace ever since, the exact opposite has actually been true. Nuclear weapons brutally murdered a couple of hundred thousand civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and injured and sentenced to years and decades of illness and suffering many hundreds of thousands more. As we have written before, multiple alternatives existed to end the war in 1945. In many ways, the false narrative of the atomic bombings averting an invasion and saving lives has enabled the perpetuation of nuclear weapons, bringing the risks to humanity’s survival to levels previously unimaginable. Turning a brutally violent beginning of the nuclear age into something positive has managed to complicate and obfuscate an issue that should never have been complicated. Nuclear weapons are and have always been immoral. Their possession should be illegal.

Although the end of World War II coincided with the advent of nuclear weapons, and we have technically not fought another world war since, this is merely a correlation. Other significant changes in our world, including the founding of the United Nations, technological and scientific progress, and globalized trade, took place over that same time period. In addition, one has to wonder, whose peace we are talking about. Since 1945, over 20 million people have died in armed conflicts around the world, with up to 50 million more indirect deaths stemming from those conflicts. Today, there are nearly 100 armed conflicts across the planet according to the Geneva Academy, and 25 international armed conflicts involving more than one nation state.

All along, in addition to the deaths and suffering in war zones across the planet and the horrific toll exacted by poverty and inequality, humanity has been waiting almost helplessly for another nuclear weapon to explode by accident, miscalculation, or intention, likely triggering a full-blown nuclear war in which tens or even thousands of nuclear weapons are used. The past eight decades have witnessed numerous incidents in which human wisdom and decency or just plain luck interrupted a course of events that seemed inexorably leading to nuclear war. Nuclear weapons have not brought the peace. Quite the opposite  –  they threaten what little of it we have each and every day.

And yet, for all of his threats on Truth Social and most recently in the halls of the United Nations, Trump has also stated that nuclear weapons “could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over,” calling for “denuclearization.” In fact, two days after his unacceptable statement to “drive [Iran] into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness” at the UN General Assembly in September, Trump suggested to President Xi in DC that there be a nuclear summit between China, Russia, and the United States.

Trump did so knowing full well that Xi’s government’s participation in arms control negotiations is contingent upon China achieving rough parity with the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia. This should be pursued not by China continuing to expand its arsenal to the gargantuan size of the U.S. and Russian arsenals, but by the U.S. and Russia reducing theirs to the size of China’s, and adopting China’s demand for an across-the-board no-first-use policy.

Since his latest threat, delivered in the world’s premier diplomatic space unlike his earlier Truth Social rants, including the one on April 7 that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump actually seemed to welcome Iranian destruction of Los Angeles and San Diego at an election rally. Even if he now unconvincingly claims that the original clips, which suggested that such destruction was a small price to pay, were taken out of context and the small price to pay was about the price of gas, it is not reassuring to have the US President talking about nuclear bombs exploding over American cities. Never mind that Iran neither has the nuclear weapons nor the ability to send missiles toward US soil. Nuclear Armageddon seems to be on Trump’s mind.

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Trump Issues Full-Throated Endorsement Of Netanyahu Ahead Of Tough Election

In what should come as no big surprise at all, President Trump has issued a whole-hearted endorsement for Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday as next Israeli prime minister.

Axios points out, “This is the first time in the history of the U.S.–Israel relations that a U.S. president explicitly and publicly endorsed a candidate in the Israeli elections.“

There’s a mere nine days to go before the country’s Oct.27 elections, and domestically Netanyahu has long been accused of prolonging and escalating conflicts in order to sell himself as the necessary ‘wartime president’.

Axios further observes that Trump’s endorsement was ‘needed’ as most polls show Netanyahu’s coalition “falling short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.“

Trump himself on Truth Social touted Bibi as “a Great Warrior Prime Minister” and a “great partner” in the war against Iran.

“If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work [in Iran] ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” Trump wrote.

The post is full of lavish praise about how Netanyahu ‘thrives’ under pressure and that most “normal men and women” would in the same situations “would have wilted under pressure.“

Political opponents are lambasting inappropriate ‘foreign intervention’ while Netanyahu is really soaking in and making the most of Trump’s full explicit backing:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Israel could face a “hostile” US president in two years, emphasizing the need to capitalize on the time remaining in US President Donald Trump’s term.

“There is a window of another two years with President Trump, and one of the questions in these elections is who will work with Trump? Who will complete the remaining work?” Netanyahu said.

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Trump Floats Sweeping Pardons for His Allies — Even Raises Possibility of Pardoning HIMSELF: “I Did Nothing Wrong… I’m Allowed to Do a Self-Pardon”

In a Newsmax exclusive interview with Rob Finnerty, President Donald Trump made clear he will not stand by while the radical left tries to drag his people through endless legal hell the way they tried to destroy him.

Trump stated bluntly that he did nothing wrong, that he is allowed to issue a self-pardon, and that he has no intention of letting loyal Americans who work for him suffer the same lawfare nightmare he endured.

“I can tell you this: I don’t want to see my people go through years of nonsense,” Trump said. “Because these people are lunatics on the left. I don’t want to see people that work for me go through years of nonsense, hire lawyers and everything else — all for nothing.”

He continued: “I did nothing wrong… I’m allowed to do a self-pardon. I’m allowed to pardon… They say it’s the most powerful thing a president has.”

Trump noted he could have pardoned himself on the way out of office the first time but chose not to, because he knew he was innocent. He won those cases the hard way. Now, with the full power of the presidency restored and the Democrats’ playbook fully exposed, he is signaling he will protect those who stand with him.

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