President Donald Trump has worked over the past several months on a bizarre “side project” aimed at honoring himself at one of Washington, D.C.’s most iconic public parks, two insiders revealed to The Washington Post.As revealed by the Post in its report published on Sunday, the project would be to ensure that Lafayette Square – which sits less than 400 feet north of the White House – has exactly 47 trees in honor of Trump being the 47th president, with the trees all being maple trees, the president’s favorite.“The park has historically contained several dozen trees, although some have been taken out during renovations,” the Post’s report reads. “It’s unclear how many additional trees Trump would plant to get to 47 and whether he would remove any existing trees as part of his effort.”Trump appeared to tease the project earlier this month when on June 3, he said in the Oval Office that before July 4th, “you’ll see something that’s incredible” at Lafayette Square. According to insiders who spoke with the Post, however, “that’s not likely to happen,” the Post reported, paraphrasing the insiders’ own comments.“The park is not on target to open until at least August,” the Post’s report reads.Trump has claimed that he personally paid millions of dollars for Lafayette Square’s renovations, but has yet to provide proof. As recently as Friday, Trump was exposed for using taxpayer dollars to pay for White House renovations he had previously claimed he personally paid for.
Iran has "no choice" but to develop a nuclear bomb, a media outlet linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said — the latest threat to the US-organized peace deal.
A handful of GOP lawmakers made their way to Washington, D.C. recently to attend and promote the Great American State Fair, organized by the President Donald Trump-linked group Freedom 250, but in doing so, “accidentally” exposed the event for its numerous shortcomings, The Daily Beast reported.Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-WA), for instance, took to social media to attack his own state’s government for not participating in the fair, posting a photograph online of himself standing on the National Mall lawn. The “awkward post,” the Beast noted, depicted Baumgartner standing in front of “only a handful of people visible behind him.”Other GOP lawmakers engaged in similar “self-owns,” as the Beast described them. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) posted a video online from the fair asking Americans to attend the event, but in a manner in which he “all but [begged] people to let his office help them get there.” The video also “came with the unfortunate visual aid of Moore standing in an almost empty park, with an empty Ferris wheel turning behind him,” the Beast’s report reads.“Contact our office if there’s any help that you need to organize things or tours or get more information,” Moore said in the video he published online. “Please, please reach out. We’d love to help out in that way.”The Great American State Fair faced challenges weeks before it opened to the public last week after artists backed out of the event en masse after learning of its connections to Trump. In the four days since opening, the fair has been plagued with power failures that stalled a Ferris wheel and melted ice cream supplies.Investigative reporter Eric Flack also revealed that the state exhibits at the fair ranged wildly in quality, with some states’ exhibits amounting to two chairs in a small, shared booth.
Former "Superman" actor and prominent Trump supporter Dean Cain set out to showcase the administration's Great American State Fair this weekend — but critics say the photo he chose did the opposite, capturing a sea of mostly empty grass on the National Mall.Cain posted an aerial shot taken from the fair's Ferris wheel, framing it as a celebratory snapshot of the event marking America's 250th anniversary."View from atop the Ferris Wheel at the Great American State Fair!!" Cain wrote.The image, which showed long rows of white tents flanking a vast green expanse with only sparse clusters of people scattered across it, quickly drew ridicule — most notably from former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic."Hahahaha dude this is not the picture to show," Kinzinger wrote, adding a sardonic jab at the visible attendance: "All 6 people."Cain pushed back, insisting the turnout was robust and questioning Kinzinger's motives."There were thousands of people there and all around DC today, Adam. Why do you wish it was empty? That seems odd," Cain replied.But Kinzinger turned the exchange into something sharper, arguing his objection wasn't about crowd size at all — it was about what the event had become under President Donald Trump."Dean I don't WISH it empty. I WISH Trump wouldn't have turned the celebration of America into a celebration of HIM," Kinzinger wrote. "America is about no allegiance to one man."He went on to express personal disappointment at how the milestone anniversary had played out."I've been looking forward to 250 since i was a kid and heard about 200," Kinzinger wrote. "But Trump ruined this for his 80 year old ego."The back-and-forth added to a rocky stretch for the White House-backed fair, which has faced criticism over low attendance, performer dropouts, and a string of operational stumbles since its opening. For Cain, the attempt to project a thriving celebration instead handed critics a wide-angle view of empty lawn — and a fresh opening to needle the administration over the event's struggles.Dean I don’t WISH it empty. I WISH Trump wouldn’t have turned the celebration of America into a celebration of HIM. America is about no allegiance to one man.I’ve been looking forward to 250 since i was a kid and heard about 200. But Trump ruined this for his 80 year old ego https://t.co/aPmw9XbU6R— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@AdamKinzinger) June 28, 2026
President Donald Trump's announcement of a fresh round of strikes on Iran touched off a wave of backlash this week — not just from his usual critics, but from voices on the right, including prominent America First and MAGA-aligned figures.The reactions followed Trump's post on Truth Social declaring that U.S. aircraft had struck Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar positions for again violating the ceasefire, warning that "the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist" if the U.S. is "forced to militarily complete the job."Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once among Trump's most steadfast allies, reacted with alarm and invoked the anti-interventionist promise central to the movement."He might have opened Pandora's Box," Greene wrote. "I'm praying this ends. We said no more foreign wars."Some of the sharpest criticism came from David Pyne, an America First conservative who posts under @AmericaFirstCon, and who openly called for the president's removal."Trump says the cease-fire has collapsed as the US continues daily bombing strikes on Iran and then again threatens to wipe it off the face of the Earth implying the use of US nuclear weapons to do so," Pyne wrote. "Can Congress impeach and remove this lunatic already?"Pyne amplified several other critical voices. One, posting as Richard under the handle @ricwe123, framed the strikes as a strategic blunder."Starting a conflict is easy. Living with the consequences is the hard part," Richard wrote, adding that "Trump made a catastrophic miscalculation by blindly following Israel into a confrontation with Iran, with little apparent regard for the geopolitical and economic fallout."Another account Pyne shared, Ryan Matta, is widely followed on the right. Matta argued the episode had shredded American credibility abroad."Trump looks like complete fraud on the world stage. Every peace talk was a lie, the MOU was a hoax, and this was the plan all along," Matta wrote on X. "No country should ever take a peace talk with America seriously. We look like a joke on the world stage."Tom Nichols, the Never-Trump conservative writer and retired Naval War College professor, took a more caustic approach, mocking the administration's characterization of the situation as a ceasefire at all."I'm just simple retired War College professor, but two sides exchanging fire is not a 'cease-fire,'" Nichols wrote, before taking a shot at the administration's rebranding of the Defense Department: "Maybe renaming the DOD was a little hasty." His post was amplified by Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen, also a conservative.
I will never forget reading New York Times book critic Dwight Garner’s 2002 review of Jared Kushner’s loathsome memoir, Breaking History, because if you cull it down and paraphrase it, it becomes a perfect description of Kushner the person.So I’ll attempt to use the magic of Garner’s wonderful wordsmithing.Kushner is a soulless, mannequin-like vanity project. He is the ultimate political arsonist, happily burning down the very democratic foundations and institutional norms that he relies on to sustain his global grift.His efforts on behalf of his equally grifting and crooked father-in-law are queasy-making money-grabbing stunts that feel exactly like watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo. He is a deeply uncomfortable, unnatural experience. He is superficial and self-serving.Oh, there is so much more to say about Kushner, but column space prohibits me from expanding on my rewording of Garner’s poetry.Kushner is nothing more than a spoiled real estate heir who got his job because he married Trump’s daughter before Trump did. I’m referring, of course, to Donald’s well-documented incestuous infatuation with Ivanka.What business did he have negotiating nuclear disarmament with Iran? That sentence, however, gives it all away. Because his business is an illicit and, arguably, illegal one.The original JCPOA nuclear deal was negotiated over years by the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia, and China, with nuclear physicists and non-proliferation experts, and ran to 159 pages.Now, you tell me why a guy whose business dealings have frequently hovered near severe financial distress was sitting at a table yammering about nuclear weapons.Iranian officials were reportedly confused when the White House kept sending Kushner and his partner Steve Witkoff, since neither has any background in nuclear policy. One former senior State Department official who participated in actual Iran nuclear negotiations said it plainly: “I’m not saying you need to be a diplomat to be a good negotiator. But you need to have some sense of history, and you need to know geography.”If you base your assessment of Jared Kushner’s diplomatic chops and sense of history on those criteria, you can once again relegate him to dog-eye goo.And since this deal involves enormous sums of money, Kushner’s association with companies in financial distress should instantly preclude his participation. The framework deal released, and presumably the one the prodigal whiz-kid helped cook up, would release up to $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets, authorize Iran to sell oil on global markets in U.S. dollars, and, if a final deal is reached, lift all sanctions on Iran entirely.Energy analysts say Iran could ramp up exports to roughly 2 million barrels per day, one-third higher than before the conflict, potentially unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars for the Iranian regime. Iran’s total frozen assets abroad are estimated at somewhere between $124 billion and $167 billion.From the looks of it, “negotiator” Kushner is giving away money fast and furiously, much like Saudi Arabia gives money to Kushner.And just who in Iran will see that money? The Iranian people have lived under crushing poverty and religious authoritarianism for nearly half a century. The regime that runs Iran doesn’t build hospitals and schools with windfall money from the Kushner cash machine. No, it funds proxy militias, builds missiles, and pays for the apparatus of repression that keeps its own citizens in line, and they will never see a dime of it. They never do. And J.D. Vance’s comments about turning over a “new leaf” in the relationship with Iran are as naive as…well, Jared Kushner!I will wager money I don’t have that Jared is involved in all this wheeling and dealing because he is representing the interests of his father-in-law and two brothers-in-law, dunce Donny Jr. and dim-witted Eric. It’s all so blatantly obvious, and no one is sounding the alarm.Let’s be abundantly clear about why Kushner was really there, and that was to make sure the Trump family gets their cut.Whether it’s reconstruction contracts, sweetheart investment deals, or some back-channel percentage of the billions being unlocked, Kushner is the family’s eyes on the money. He and Trump couldn’t care less about Iran’s nuclear program, its regime, or its people. They care about the cash and making sure some of it flows back to them. That’s the only reason he was in the room.Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, has garnered $6.16 billion in assets with an eye-popping (not eye-goo in this case) 99 percent of its funding derived from foreign nationals, including sovereign wealth funds operated by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund invested $2 billion into Affinity, despite senior Saudi officials registering their own opposition, which was overruled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself.
President Donald Trump unleashed a lengthy attack on journalist Maggie Haberman at midnight Saturday over a new book about him, dismissing the work as fiction and hurling insults at the New York Times reporter who has covered him for years.In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had been briefed on the book and was unimpressed, deriding both the project and its author — whose name he mangled throughout the post."Based on a very quick and boring briefing concerning the Magot Hagerman book about me, it is mostly made up, Fake News, largely fiction, as have been most of the things she has written about me for so many years," Trump wrote.He went on to belittle Haberman personally while taking credit for her career."She is a third rate writer and intellect, who has made a first rate income because of your favorite President, ME," Trump wrote.The president then ran through a familiar list of grievances, claiming Haberman had been "wrong about me on the Elections," wrong about "the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax," and "wrong about me on just about everything else." He complained that she "continues to spew out garbage, and people continue to buy it."Trump also disputed a specific element of the reporting, insisting that the book's authors lack evidence they have suggested they possess."And they don't have the audio tapes that they imply they have," he wrote. "Just another Margot Con Job!"He closed the post by restating his 2020-and-beyond election claims in all caps — asserting he won "ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, THE POPULAR VOTE, 86% of the Counties" — before pivoting abruptly to a foreign policy declaration amid the ongoing strikes on Iran: "And Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon!!!"Haberman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent and longtime chronicler of Trump, has been a frequent target of the president's ire, a dynamic that has persisted across his time in and out of office.
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York ripped into Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday night for saying that Republican control of Congress is the only thing keeping President Donald Trump from being held to account for his numerous scandals and abuses of power during his second term in the White House.Asked about comments made by the Speaker earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez told MS-NOW’s Jen Psaki that Johnson characterized future efforts to investigate or accountability for possible misdeeds or corruption by Trump, his family members, or members of his administration “as though it’s some partisan witch hunt,” she said. “But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes.”Ocasio-Cortez, often referred to by her initials AOC, had been asked about remarks Speaker Johnson made at the annual summit of the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group with close ties to Trump and the Christian nationalist movement that supports him.“If we lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats—y’all, impeachment isn’t even the real concern,” Johnson told the crowd. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted.”The House speaker added, “I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you, OK?”Johnson’s remarks unsurprisingly sparked a series of critical reactions, including AOC’s.“Mike Johnson saying the quiet part out loud: protect the powerful. S---- everyone else,” said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Pa.).“The Speaker of the House just talked like a guy guarding a operation that can’t survive daylight,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). “Because that’s exactly what he’s doing.”“You don’t need a ‘protection program’ for people who did nothing wrong,” Levin continued. “You need one when you’re afraid of what the books would show. Congress is supposed to be a check on power, not the muscle protecting it. Johnson is a total disgrace to the office. November can’t come fast enough.”What Johnson is “talking about,” explained AOC in her interview with Psaki, is a Republican Party in Congress “running a protection racket” for Trump and his cronies, both in and out of government. “And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history,” she continued, referencing the scandal surrounding the disgraced convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. “And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I’m the only thing standing between you, and a consequence that should rattle at the conscience of every American,” she said. “What he wants to do is create—or rather, not even create, because it’s already been created—but protect a class of impunity in America that says, ‘You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.’ And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That’s their pitch.”Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, responded to Johnson’s comments by detailing just a few examples of possible corruption by Trump that deserve much more scrutiny and congressional oversight.“Trump has almost tripled his net worth during this term. His sons bought drone companies and immediately received military contracts right before Trump started another war. Trump threw a crypto contest to see who could buy the most of his meme coin, with the prize being exclusive access to him in his presidential capacity,” D-Arrigo noted. “His son-in-law is getting billions in business deals from the countries and oligarchs wanting political favors. Large donors are spending millions to get pardons and investigations dropped. Trump is still actively covering up the Epstein files,” she added. “And these are just a handful of the things that were publicly reported on—imagine what we don’t know about yet.”D’Arrigo called on voters to help “flip the House” away from the Republicans and investigate these examples of grift and corruption as well as others.
CNN’s chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins pushed back on President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the rise of democratic socialism in the U.S., which Trump has incorrectly conflated with communism, following several victories from progressive House candidates in New York primaries. During “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” on Friday, the CNN anchor aired remarks Trump made…