Tag: donald trump

Trump Signs Order Giving Security Guarantee To Qatar After Israeli Attack

President Trump has signed an executive order pledging to provide Qatar with a security guarantee similar to NATO’s Article 5, a step that came after Israel bombed the country, which is a major regional ally of the US and hosts about 10,000 US troops.

Trump’s order says that the US shall “regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.”

It states that the US “shall take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability.”

The order marks the first time an Arab country is receiving such a strong security guarantee from the US, something that Saudi Arabia has long sought. “Saudi Arabia thought that to get a defense pact with the United States, it would require normalizing relations with Israel. Qatar managed to get a partial defense pact with the United States by getting attacked by Israel,” a former US official told Axios.

According to the White House, the order was signed on Monday, September 29, the same day Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and had him apologize to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani for the strikes on Doha, which killed six people, including five low-level Hamas officials and one Qatari security officer.

Trump has claimed that he was unaware of Israel’s plans to bomb, but according to Israeli officials, Trump was notified about the plan beforehand and did not oppose the strikes.

While Trump’s executive order is seen as a response to the Israeli attack on Qatar, it could also be an effort to shore up the alliance with Doha ahead of another potential war with Iran. During the 12-Day War, Iran attacked the US’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in retaliation for the US bombing of its nuclear facilities.

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Pfizer Strikes $70 Billion Deal with U.S. to Expand Its mRNA Empire, Lower Drug Prices

Today, Pfizer announced a “landmark agreement” with the Trump Administration. The press release promised lower drug costs and a revival of U.S. manufacturing. President Donald Trump touted that Pfizer would cut Medicaid drug prices for low-income Americans and sell new medicines at a “most-favored-nation” price — but only in exchange for tariff relief.

In reality, it appears to be a multi-billion dollar effort to entrench Pfizer’s failed gene-transfer platforms for decades to come.

The deal secures a $70 billion commitment to U.S. R&D — a down payment on Pfizer’s next wave of gene-based products:

  • Cancer “vaccines”
  • Obesity injections
  • Expanded vaccine portfolio (flu, RSV, bird flu, more)
  • Chronic disease biologics in inflammation & immunology

Pfizer itself spelled it out:

“With this agreement in place, Pfizer can fully focus on delivering the next generation of cures… in areas like oncology, obesity, vaccines, and inflammation and immunology.”

This comes after Pfizer’s COVID-19 gene-based products have already been linked to catastrophic injuries, deaths, and disabilities worldwide. Instead of scrutiny, the company is rewarded with protection and growth.

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Trump Admin’s $20 Billion ‘Bail Out’ for Argentina’s Milei Raises Eyebrows

The Trump administration says it is working to provide tens of billions of dollars to Argentina’s President Javier Milei, in a financial bailout that many critics say clashes with President Donald Trump’s “America First” platform.

The U.S. State Department told Newsweek Thursday that the America First Foreign Assistance programs must align with administration policies and advance concrete U.S. national interests.

Why It Matters

On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the United States is in talks to provide $20 billion to Milei. The announcement comes months after the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in an effort to instead support programs aligned with Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Argentina is one of the largest South American economies and has notable natural resources, including oil, gas, uranium, and lithium, which are often used in batteries.

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Trump administration confirms another federal agency involved in weaponization: the TSA

Move over FBI and IRS,  a new federal agency is garnering attention for alleged weaponization against Americans.

The Homeland Security Department announced Tuesday that an internal investigation uncovered “widespread abuses” carried out by the Biden administration’s Transportation Security Administration to make air travel “weaponized” against certain Americans.

The revelation that U.S. citizens were kept from flying over their political views drew immediate condemnation from Congress.

“It’s not American …. It’s another example of weaponization of our government that took place under the Biden administration,” Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., said. “It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

In a joint announcement with the TSA, Homeland Security said its investigative findings are being referred to the Justice Department.

In the announcement, acting agency TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill, said the Biden-era officials “under the direction and leadership” of previous TSA Administrator David Pekoske had “systematically watch-listed and denied boarding to those who exercised their individual rights and resisted mask mandates on airplanes nearly six months after the CDC relaxed its indoor mask mandate.”

The TSA also said the Biden TSA used the Capitol riot of January 2021 “as an excuse to target several dozen U.S. citizens” and that “these Americans were watch-listed and harassed despite there being no evidence of wrongdoing or illegal behavior.” 

The TSA said that “this targeted campaign of harassment continued through June 2021, six months after the events in question, despite no clear or immediate threat to aviation security.”

“These Biden-era officials continued to target Americans even after career intelligence officials and even Biden’s TSA Chief Privacy Officer sounded the alarm over these abusive actions,” the TSA said. “The Biden-era TSA’s actions demonstrate clear political bias. For example, these officials chose NOT to flag individuals who attacked law enforcement, burned down cities, and destroyed property during the widespread and violent George Floyd protests in 2020. During this abuse of power, some TSA officials raised serious concerns about these privacy violations and political targeting. They were ignored.”

“Biden’s TSA Administrator Pekoske and his cronies abused their authority and weaponized the federal government against the very people they were charged with protecting,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said on X on Tuesday. “Biden’s TSA wildly abused their authority, targeting Americans who posed no aviation security risk under the banner of political differences. President Trump promised to end the weaponization of government against the American people, and we are making good on that promise. I am referring this case to the Department of Justice and for Congressional investigation.”

Noem has directed TSA and DHS to refer the findings to DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and to Congress for further investigation, to remove “five senior leaders” who had “betrayed the trust of the American people” from their leadership positions, and to reorganize TSA’s Intelligence & Analysis office to hold senior officials accountable and to provide more extensive oversight on TSA’s watch-listing powers. TSA on Tuesday said that the removals included the executive assistant administrator for operations support and the deputy assistant administrator for intelligence and analysis.

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Tomahawks for Kyiv: a dangerous idea

The US is poised to “sell” Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. The US special envoy to Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg, says only the final decision has to be made. The US has already agreed, Kellogg said, for deep attacks on Russian territory, and only the release of the Tomahawks is pending, a decision left to US President Donald Trump.

While it may be regarded as an open and shut case by Washington, that does not take away the decision as reckless and escalatory. It puts the US on a direct collision course with Russia, one that could lead to a war in Europe.

The Tomahawk cruise missile was originally intended to give the US nuclear triad a system that could successfully deliver nuclear weapons against the USSR. The idea was to create a system that was nearly impossible for Soviet air defenses to counter, after it became clear that conventional bombers – especially the B-52 – could not operate from high altitude over Soviet territory.

Tomahawk was designed to fly “nap of the earth: missions. That is, once it was over Soviet airspace, it was designed to drop down to near tree-top heights and follow the contours of the earth, making timely detection difficult if not impossible.

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Top Trump Officials Intensify Push for Regime Change in Venezuela

Senior Trump administration officials have intensified their push to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power and are discussing steps to escalate the military pressure, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The report said the effort is being led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as President Trump’s national security advisor. Other top officials on board for regime change in Venezuela include CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief domestic policy advisor.

The report cited Venezuelan opposition figures who say their movement has been planning what to do if Maduro is ousted, and that Rubio had met with five opposition figures who fled to the US back in May. During the first Trump administration, the US backed a failed coup attempt against Maduro led by opposition figure Juan Guaido.

Other Trump officials, most notably special envoy Ric Grennel, are pushing for diplomacy with Venezuela, and Maduro has sent a letter to Trump seeking talks, although it was dismissed by the White House.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil pointed to the fact that his country continues to accept twice-weekly deportation flights from the US as a sign that Caracas is serious about diplomacy. He also said that a war would lead to “excessive migration” and economic collapse that would “destabilize the entire region.”

Officials told the Times that the administration is considering launching direct strikes inside Venezuela against alleged drug cartels, something that’s been reported by several other media outlets.

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“We’re Going to See An Astronaut Death”: Government Report Issues Dire Warning Over Trump’s Budget Cuts to NASA

With the US Federal government nearing a possible shutdown, the future of NASA hangs in the balance, and Senate investigators say the space agency’s legendary safety culture, born out of the Challenger and Columbia tragedies, is being systematically dismantled.

This is being achieved, officials warn, by a political campaign to impose unapproved budget cuts, leaving engineers afraid to speak and astronauts at heightened risk.

Under the Trump administration, budget proposals saw a 25% slash in NASA’s funding, dropping the space agency’s overall budget to $18.8 billion, down from just over $24 billion in 2020. Experts and NASA employees are concerned that this could mean not only the demise of several projects but also the loss of hard-learned safety protocols.

“The new culture of fear at NASA jeopardizes safety and security,” the 21-page report, written by members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, warns. The report cites whistleblowers who have “already seen safety impacts” from orders to enact President Trump’s fiscal-2026 spending plan, even though Congress has not agreed to it. 

The report states that these new internal budget shifts are part of an “illegal plot” that would ignore congressional funding levels. However, the courts have already established some precedent concerning their political swing towards the White House. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to temporarily withhold nearly $4 billion in previously appropriated foreign aid while the justices consider the constitutional issues. 

According to testimony collected over the summer, managers repeatedly told employees to shift their focus to do what was in the “PBR,” slang for the President’s Budget Request, and to disregard work that “is not in the PBR” because “it does not count.”

With everyone focused on shifting to the PBR, the report states that NASA employees are “keeping their heads down,” with one veteran engineer noting that workers fear bringing safety concerns forward, fearing retaliation.

The most alarming prediction came from a senior project leader who flatly warned that “we’re going to see an astronaut death within a few years” if the new directives persist. Internal accounts describe staff members avoiding written memos to prevent creating records that could later be used against them.

The President’s plan would eliminate nearly a quarter of NASA’s workforce and slash research lines ranging from Earth-science satellites to student internships that feed the agency’s talent pipeline. Committee analysts project those cuts would erase $46 billion in economic output over the next decade and shrink the supply of U.S. researchers by more than 10,000. Simply put, these numbers translate directly into fewer eyes checking designs, running simulations, and staffing mission control consoles. 

Yet whistle-blowers insist that the harm is not theoretical but is happening now, as managers have begun canceling projects funded in the current fiscal year appropriation. Leaked internal documents and emails show that NASA’s departments have all been told by the agency’s administration to pivot to the new Presidential budget, and “not any budget approved by Congress.” One message, dated June 27th, 2025, states, “We have to begin preparing to align our workforce and resources now to meet the mission priorities it outlines.”

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Trump’s Executive Order Against ‘Political Violence’ Is an Un-American Attack on Free Speech

Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that purports to address the recent spate of political violence. But the order is remarkably one-sided, taking the apparent position that only leftists can be violent, and it treats speech clearly protected by the First Amendment as evidence of criminal behavior.

“Heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased in recent years,” according to the order, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” It cites multiple recent events as examples—including the murder of Charlie Kirk, the foiled 2022 assassination plot against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and last week’s shooting at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

“This political violence,” it continues, “is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.”

Notably, the order only lists violence against conservatives or targets favored by conservatives; it does not mention the June shooting of two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers, one of whom died. It also elides the fact that in the shooting of an ICE facility, the only victims were migrants in custody.

The order also uses padded statistics, citing “a more than 1,000 percent increase in attacks” on ICE officers “since January 21, 2025, compared to the same period last year.” But that represents a starting point of very few alleged assaults last year, and the increase seems largely to be a result of minor scuffles taking place during ICE enforcement actions.

Perhaps most troubling of all, though, the executive order lists First Amendment-protected speech as evidence of criminality that requires federal intervention.

“These movements portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as ‘fascist’ to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution,” the order claims. “This ‘anti-fascist’ lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

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YouTube Bows to Trump in Censorship Lawsuit, Will Pay Millions to Avoid Court

And then there were none.

YouTube, a Google subsidiary, became the last of three tech titans to settle a lawsuit brought forth by President Donald Trump, according to a blistering report from The Wall Street Journal.

The video sharing platform agreed to pay a hefty $24.5 million to settle lawsuits brought forth by Trump in 2021.

At the time, the president’s YouTube account had been banned following the Jan. 6 incursion at the U.S. Capitol.

YouTube claimed that they had gone to those extraordinary lengths to remove Trump’s channel to nix potential videos that may incite violence.

(The channel was reinstated in March 2023.)

The YouTube settlement is the second-biggest of the lawsuits brought against various tech titans by Trump — and that appears to be intentional.

The biggest settlement Trump had was with Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, which was for $25 million.

“Google executives were eager to keep their settlement smaller than the one paid by rival Meta, according to people familiar with the matter,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

While $24.5 million does come in lower than the $25 million Meta paid, it’s more than double what X, formerly Twitter, paid Trump for a similar lawsuit, as the now-Elon Musk owned platform paid $10 million.

Interestingly, while Trump will “keep” most of this settlement money — $22 million — none of it will actually be going to him.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the money will be immediately rerouted to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall, tasked with building a grand ballroom near the White House.

The other $2.5 million will be dispersed among various other plaintiffs. There is no mention of attorney fees.

This decision comes months after YouTube was apparently having “productive conversations” with the Trump administration in June, per The Hill.

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Foreign Countries Forget That They Have No Say in US Policies

President Trump recently delivered a scathing address at the United Nations, criticizing Europe for allowing unbridled immigration and warning it would lead to the continent’s destruction. He contrasted this with his own record, noting his policies had reduced illegal entries into the United States to about 5 percent of the level under Biden.

Trump was criticized in Europe and elsewhere for his immigration policies, even though they were clearly better for the US and despite data showing how immigration is destabilizing Europe. Many world leaders not only rejected Trump’s recommendations but also wanted him to reverse US immigration policies, reopen the borders, and allow 20 million illegal immigrants to remain in the country. Global reactions to his speech reflected the broader belief that foreign governments should have a say in American domestic policies such as immigration.

On the first day of his first administration, in January 2017, Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation trade deal. He argued it was a bad agreement that would harm American workers while benefiting special interests.

Trump declared that his administration’s policy would be to prioritize the financial well-being of Americans in all negotiations and to create fair, economically beneficial agreements that served their interests. He emphasized his intention to negotiate directly with individual countries on a one-on-one basis rather than through large multilateral deals.

Critics around the world accused him of undermining global trade, but his decision effectively ended the TPP, which was largely scrapped after the U.S. withdrawal. During the campaign, Trump had been blunt, calling the TPP “another disaster done and pushed by special interests” and “a continuing rape of our country.”

Also, during his first term, Trump was sharply criticized for withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. Opponents claimed the move would damage the WHO’s credibility and weaken compliance among member states.

Trump defended the decision by citing the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, its bias toward China, and its lack of independence from political pressure. He also argued the WHO demanded unfairly high payments from the US, while China, with a population more than four times larger, contributed nearly 90 percent less.

Similar criticism resurfaced in 2025 when RFK Jr. urged the US to reject new global health agreements, calling the WHO “moribund.” That May, 124 countries voted for the WHO Pandemic Accord, with only 11 abstentions, but RFK Jr. urged states to reject it. In September, he dismissed a UN declaration on non-communicable diseases, declaring the United States would “walk away” from the agreement.

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