Tag: donald trump

Trump Admin Withholds $41 Million From California Over English-Language Trucking Rules

The Trump administration is withholding $40.6 million in transportation funding from California after an investigation found the state failed to comply with the federal English language proficiency requirement for truck drivers, officials announced on Oct. 15.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will keep $40.7 million in federal grant funding for California from the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP). The funding is awarded to states to conduct roadside inspections, traffic enforcement, safety audits of trucking companies, and public education campaigns.

“The Golden State thinks it’s OK to ignore [the U.S. Department of Transportation’s] English language requirements for truckers,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X. “You can play all the games you want, but not at the expense of American lives.”

Duffy announced this summer that he would enforce the Trump administration’s new English language requirements for truck drivers, threatening to withhold the grant funds for states that did not meet the standards.

California, Washington, and New Mexico were given until Sept. 26 to comply with new federal rules requiring truck drivers to be proficient in the English language. States that failed to comply were told they risked losing up to 100 percent of their MCSAP grants.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spokeswoman Diana Crofts-Pelayo denied the federal government’s accusations.

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President Trump Authorizes CIA To Conduct Lethal Covert Action in Venezuela

The Trump administration has authorized the CIA to take covert action inside Venezuela, including lethal operations, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, as the administration’s push toward regime change heats up.

President Trump later confirmed that he authorized the covert action and said the US was considering attacks on Venezuelan territory. “We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” he said.

US officials told the Times that the authority allows the CIA to take action against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro or his government, either unilaterally or in conjunction with the US military. The report said it is not known whether the CIA is currently planning operations inside Venezuela or if the authority will be used for future plans.

The US military has been drawing up plans to launch strikes on Venezuelan territory and potentially capture strategic ports and airfields, actions that would almost certainly lead to a full-blown war. The US military campaign in the region has so far involved a buildup of warships and about 10,000 US troops in the Caribbean and strikes on five boats that the US has claimed, without providing evidence, were running drugs.

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Trump Says He Will Make ‘Determination’ on Whether Ukraine Can Launch an Offensive

President Trump said on Wednesday that he will make a “determination” on whether Ukraine can launch an offensive, something he will discuss with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday.

“We’ll be talking about the war with him. They want to go offensive. I’ll make a determination on that. But they would like to go offensive, you know that, and we’ll have to make a determination,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office.

A report published in The Wall Street Journal last month said that President Trump was made aware of Ukrainian plans for an offensive that would require US intelligence support. He learned of the plans before writing a post on Truth Social, where he claimed Ukraine could retake all of the territory Russia has captured since the invasion.

US War Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on Wednesday that the US would “impose costs” on Russia if it doesn’t end the war. “If there is no path to peace in the short term, then the United States, along with our allies, will take steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression,” he said.

The rhetoric from Trump and Hegseth suggests the Trump administration is preparing to abandon its efforts at reaching a peace deal and continue the proxy war indefinitely. The administration is also considering providing Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, which are nuclear-capable and have a range of over 1,000 miles, which would make a significant escalation and increase the chances of the war turning into a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

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Trump says a very wealthy ‘gentleman’ offered to pay troops’ wages through government shutdown

President Donald Trump said that a very wealthy person offered to pay the wages for the military troops if the government shutdown continued.

The president made the comments to reporters on Tuesday as he sat next to Argentine President Javier Milei at the White House.

“I actually have a man who is a very wealthy person … who called — a donor, a great gentleman. And he said, ‘If there’s any money necessary, shortfall for the paying of the troops, then I will pay it,’ meaning he will pay it,” the president said. “How about that?”

But Trump said he refused the offer.

“I said, ‘Look, we’re not going to need it. We’re going to take care of our troops,'” he added. “But this was a position that’s being forced upon us by Democrats.”

Video of the president’s statement was widely circulated on social media.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social Saturday that the administration was seeking alternate methods to pay the troops.

“If nothing is done, because of ‘Leader’ Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th,” he posted. “That is why I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th.”

Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem posted on social media that she had secured funding to pay the U.S. Coast Guard.

“While Democrats have played politics with military pay to fight for illegal aliens, the US Coast Guard has been defending our maritime borders, stopping the flow of deadly narcotics and illegal immigration into our country, and countering America’s adversaries around the world,” she said in part.

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US Bombs Another Boat Off the Coast of Venezuela, Trump Claims Six ‘Narcoterrorists’ Killed

The US military has bombed another boat off the coast of Venezuela, according to a statement from President Trump, who claimed, without providing evidence, that the vessel was carrying drugs.

The president also claimed that the strike killed “six male narcoterrorists,” bringing the total number of people extrajudicially executed by the US military since the bombing campaign started on September 2 to 27. The Trump administration has not presented any evidence to Congress to back up its allegations that the boats it has been bombing were carrying drugs or that the victims were “narcoterrorists,” a term used to justify the killings.

“Under my Standing Authorities as Commander-in-Chief, this morning, the Secretary of War, ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility — just off the Coast of Venezuela,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route. The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!” he added.

The president’s post included a video that appeared to show a boat that wasn’t moving getting struck with a missile, then exploding.

The latest US strike on a boat in the Caribbean comes amid reports that the Trump administration is considering bombing Venezuela as part of an effort to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The administration is using drug trafficking allegations as a pretext to push for regime change in the country and could potentially take military action directly against Maduro.

In response to the pressure, Maduro and his top officials have denied the drug trafficking allegations by pointing to data that shows the majority of the cocaine that is produced in Colombia doesn’t go through Venezuela. President Trump has framed the military campaign in the region as a response to overdose deaths in the US due to fentanyl, but fentanyl isn’t produced in Venezuela, and it does not go through the country on its way to the US.

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Why we need to take Trump’s Drug War very seriously

Donald Trump has long been a fan of using the U.S. military to wage a more vigorous war against drug cartels in Latin America. He also shows signs of using that justification as a pretext to oust regimes considered hostile to other U.S. interests.

The most recent incident in the administration’s escalating antidrug campaign took place on October 3 when “Secretary of War” Mike Hegseth announced that U.S. naval forces had sunk yet another small boat off of the coast of Venezuela. It was one of four destroyed vessels and a total of 21 people killed since late September. The administration claims they were all trying to ship illegal drugs to the United States.

Colombian president Gustavo Petro said publicly Wednesday that one of the vessels was carrying Columbian citizens and that they were killed. Two administration officials confirmed to the New York Times that Colombians were on one of the boats blown out of the water. The White House called Petro’s claims “baseless” and “reprehensible.”

However, Trump’s enthusiasm for the military option in the war on drugs long predates this episode. Mike Esper, who served as secretary of defense during the final stages of Trump’s first term, relayed in his memoirs that the president had seriously explored the option of conducting missile strikes against suspected traffickers in Mexico. Esper recalled that his boss asked him at least twice in 2020 about the feasibility of launching missiles into Mexico to “destroy the drug labs” and wipe out the cartels.

The president considered such a drastic step to be justified because Mexican leaders were “not in charge of their own country.”

Esper’s account is not the only evidence of Trump’s enthusiasm for the military option. After a 2019 incident in which cartel gunmen massacred a family of American Mormon ex-pats in northwest Mexico, Trump reacted with a tweet insisting that “this is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR (sic) on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!” He added: “If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively.”

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‘Disarm or be disarmed by force’: Trump issues new threat to Hamas

US President Donald Trump issued a new threat against Hamas on 14 October, affirming that they will either surrender their weapons or be disarmed by force. 

“They said they were gonna disarm,” the president claimed, despite Hamas and other resistance factions repeatedly rejecting Israeli terms for the surrender of arms. “They know I’m not playing games.”

The president praised the “monumental” achievement of returning the captives, adding that this was needed “above all else.”

He also expressed support for Hamas’s crackdown on outlaw militias in Gaza. “They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad … That didn’t bother me,” he said. 

“But they will disarm, you understand me?” Trump told a reporter. “Everyone’s always saying they won’t disarm … They will disarm. And I spoke to Hamas, and I told them you’re gonna disarm. Yes sir, we’re gonna disarm, that’s what they told me,” Trump claimed. 

“And if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them – and it’ll happen quickly and, perhaps, violently, but they WILL disarm,” he threatened.

Israel has also threatened to disarm Hamas through military force if the resistance group refuses to surrender. “All hell breaks loose” if Hamas does not disarm, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

The Deputy Secretary General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, Mohammad al-Hindi, rejected Trump’s comments and said “the resistance factions did not agree to disarmament,” adding that “we do not accept the threat of disarming them by force.”

Hamas has also repeatedly stressed that it will not surrender its weapons until a Palestinian state is formed. 

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday that Britain could play a leading role in helping to disarm Hamas in Gaza by drawing on its experience persuading militant groups in Northern Ireland to surrender their weapons. 

According to European diplomats cited by Reuters, the Northern Ireland peace process is being discussed as a potential model for Gaza’s future. They noted that no detailed plan has yet been drawn up.

“Of course, this is going to be difficult, but it’s vital. It was difficult in Northern Ireland in relation to the IRA (Irish Republican Army), but it was vital,” Starmer said.

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Will Russian-US Tensions Likely Spiral Out Of Control If Ukraine Obtains Tomahawk Missiles?

The precedent set by Russia’s restrained response to Ukraine obtaining the F-16s, which could also be nuclear-equipped, suggests that tensions with the US will remain manageable if Ukraine obtains the Tomahawks too due to the modus vivendi that’s arguably been in place for managing them.

The latest talk about the US transferring longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, which Putin said earlier this month could only be used with US military personnel’s direct involvement, has prompted concerns about a potentially uncontrollable escalation spiral. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov assessed that such a development would lead to “a significant change in the situation” but nonetheless reaffirmed that it wouldn’t prevent Russia from achieving its goals in the special operation.

Ukraine’s explicitly stated goal in obtaining these arms is to “pressure” Russia into freezing the Line of Contact without any concessions from Kiev, which would essentially amount to Moscow conceding on its aforesaid goals since none would be achieved in full should that happen, ergo why it hasn’t agreed. In pursuit of that end, Ukraine threatened to cause a blackout in the Russian capital, which would likely be accompanied by more attacks against civilian and military logistics targets far behind the frontlines.

Some are therefore worried that that Russian-US tensions could spiral out of control, especially after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that the Tomahawks can be nuclear-equipped, but the precedent set by the F-16s suggests that they’ll remain manageable. Putin himself warned in early 2024 that they too could be nuclear-equipped, yet Russia ultimately didn’t treat their use as a potential nuclear first-strike. This is arguably due to the modus vivendi that was described here in late 2024:

“[Comparatively pragmatic US ‘deep state’ figures] who still call the shots always signal their escalatory intentions far in advance so that Russia could prepare itself and thus be less likely to ‘overreact’ in some way that risks World War III. Likewise, Russia continues restraining itself from replicating the US’ ‘shock-and-awe’ campaign in order to reduce the likelihood of the West ‘overreacting’ by directly intervening in the conflict to salvage their geopolitical project and thus risking World War III.

It can only be speculated whether this interplay is due to each’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (‘deep state’) behaving responsibly on their own considering the enormity of what’s at stake or if it’s the result of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’. Whatever the truth may be, the aforesaid model accounts for the unexpected moves or lack thereof from each, which are the US correspondingly telegraphing its escalatory intentions and Russia never seriously escalating in kind.”

The latest talk about the US transferring longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine fits the pattern of leaks serving to tip Russia off about this preplanned escalation so it can prepare its responses in advance. Time and again, Putin has exercised an almost saintly degree of self-restraint in refusing to escalate, whether symmetrically or asymmetrically. Readers can learn more about these precedents from the eight analyses enumerated in the one from late 2024 that was hyperlinked to above.

The only exception was him authorizing the use of the Oreshniks in November after the US and UK let Ukraine use their long-range missiles inside of Russia, obviously through the direct involvement of their military personnel, which he might repeat if Ukraine obtains the Tomahawks. He didn’t authorize them after Ukraine’s strategic drone strikes against parts of Russia’s nuclear triad in June that were much more provocative, however, which might have been due to his diplomatic calculations vis-à-vis Trump.

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Maduro Offered the US Access To Venezuela’s Oil and Mineral Resources To Avoid War

The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had offered the US access to Venezuela’s oil, minerals, and other natural resources as part of a potential deal to avoid conflict, The New York Times reported on Friday.

The report said talks on the potential deal went on for months despite the US increasing military pressure on Venezuela and bombing boats in the Caribbean, but they have ceased since President Trump recently ordered his special envoy, Ric Grenell, to halt diplomatic efforts with the Venezuelan government.

Under the potential deal, Venezuela was willing to open up all existing and future oil and gold projects to US companies and give preferential contracts to US businesses. The report said Maduro was also willing to make other significant concessions concerning Venezuela’s relationship with other countries, including reversing the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the US, and ending contracts with Chinese, Russian, and Iranian firms.

Maduro’s government has also continued accepting US deportation flights despite the military tensions. According to ICE Flight Monitor, a group that tracks US deportation flights, since February, the US has deported more than 10,000 Venezuelans on 58 flights, including nine that landed since the US bombed its first alleged drug-running boat in the Caribbean on September 2.

An official familiar with the issue told The Wall Street Journal last week that Venezuela remained “one of the best relationships” the US has had on deportations.

The Trump administration has permitted some trade with Venezuela by reinstating Chevron’s license to pump oil in the country in July, but US officials seem determined to escalate. Multiple media reports have said the US is now considering launching direct airstrikes on Venezuelan territory and that the real US goal is regime change, though it’s being dressed up as a counter-narcotics operation.

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Washington is Sleepwalking Toward Nuclear Armageddon

In 1914, Europe stumbled into a war no one wanted and few understood;a war that destroyed empires and redefined civilization.

Today, Washington risks repeating that mistake, this time with nuclear weapons on the table. Through arrogance, ignorance, or incompetence, the United States is drifting toward direct confrontation with Russia, the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, with consequences that could be apocalyptic.

President Trump last week said he has “sort of” made a decision about supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine or NATO allies.

He wants to learn more about “what they are doing with them” before making a final decision. His goal is to avoid escalating the conflict, but his words suggest he is doing anything but.

Is Trump posturing, playing 5-D chess as some claim, or joining the warmongering wing of the GOP?

Recent developments in Ukraine point to an alarming erosion of Western deterrence.

Russian Iskander tactical ballistic missiles, the short-range workhorses of the Kremlin’s arsenal, are reportedly reaching their targets with increasing accuracy, potentially in the 90% range based on Patriot missile interception rates.

According to open-source analyses, the Iskander’s circular error probability (CEP) may now be as tight as 10–20 meters when guided by optical seekers, compared to 200 meters with inertial-only systems. This level of precision makes even subsonic versions deadly against fixed military targets.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air defense network is struggling. The Financial Times recently reported that Russian missile upgrades have sharply reduced Patriot missile interception rates from roughly 37 percent in August 2025 to just 6 percent in September 2025.

Analysts at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) noted that intercepting six Iskanders can require 12–18 PAC-3 missiles, costing between $48 million and $72 million per engagement. Ukrainian stocks are depleted faster than they can be replenished.

Every Patriot missile fired in Ukraine represents one less available for America’s own defense. Every escalation that weakens U.S. readiness increases the risk that our sons and daughters could one day fight a nuclear war we didn’t choose.

Some observers have suggested that localized electromagnetic interference, possibly even low-yield EMP effects, occurred before certain missile strikes, temporarily impairing Ukrainian radar and communications.

While unconfirmed, this would fit with Russia’s doctrine of combined-arms electronic warfare. EMP warheads are a recognized capability of the Iskander weapons system.

This is the “good” news because Moscow still sees ways to achieve its military goals without using nuclear weapons.

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