President Donald Trump stunned his critics on Thursday with a remark he made about his kids during an interview on CNBC. Trump was asked by CNBC's Joe Kernen about allegations that his children are using insider information to gain favorable business deals. The president recently disclosed that he earned more than $2 billion during his second term, alarming many political analysts and ethics experts. "I feel bad in a way for my kids because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or if they go and do a bill, anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is sort of like, how’s my energy policy?" Trump told Kernen. "So therefore, you have ... almost anything they do, if they buy an energy-efficient truck, they have inside information. So it’s pretty tough in that sense. I tell my kids, 'Stay away from as much as you can stay away from.' But they also have a life.”Questions about the investments made by Trump's children, Don Jr. and Eric, have swirled following the release of Trump's financial disclosures. For instance, Trump's sons recently invested in a mining company in Kazakhstan that later won a nine-figure contract with the federal government. Trump's critics sounded off on social media after the CNBC interview was over. "He actually says this? Wow," Stephen Soldz, a psychologist and researcher in Boston, posted on Bluesky. "Pure corruption. I look forward to the congressional hearings," Zak Williams, a political consultant at Zenith Strategies, posted on Bluesky. "The most corrupt administration in American history and it’s not even close," Max Berger, co-founder of the Momentum Training Institute, posted on Bluesky. "Looking forward to all the Hunter Biden critics weighing in. Especially on Fox," David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, posted on Bluesky.
LeBron James’ tenure with the Lakers is over after he informed the NBA franchise he’d spent the past eight seasons with that he’ll sign elsewhere in free agency. While both sides have shown each other nothing but respect since James’ decision went public, it is clear that his and the Lakers’ relationship wasn’t perfect. If...
Former Fox News host further said he doesn’t ‘want to be a candidate’ for president and aired frustration with TrumpTucker Carlson, the rightwing broadcaster, wants to help build a new political party in the United States, he said in an interview – though he gave scant detail about the party, and did not indicate whether he was referring to a concrete project or merely musing.In the same interview, Carlson dismissed the idea of running for office as part of that new party. “I don’t want to be a candidate,” he said. Continue reading...
On Wednesday, an anchor at what the Daily Beast calls President Donald Trump’s “most hated network” exposed the hypocrisy of his second-term grift by showing a montage of the many times he’s attacked his rivals for profiting off their positions. “The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power, and in the money,” declared then-candidate Trump at a New York event in July 2016. “Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit, and even theft,” he said, attacking his main Democratic opponent at the time. The montage showed many other wide-ranging instances of Trump accusing “corrupt politicians” of enriching themselves by “bleeding America dry,” suggesting they “ran for office promising to protect American workers” only to “line their pockets with special-interest cash.” According to Trump, only he could “dethrone the failed political class” and “drain the Washington swamp,” once asserting, “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost.”After playing the montage, CNN anchor Laura Coates noted the hypocrisy, saying, “For nearly a decade, that has been his case against Washington. Now, his own financial disclosure — is it Exhibit A against him?” Disclosures of Trump’s finances filed earlier in the week highlighted the parallels between the president’s policy decisions and his investments. As the Daily Beast explains, “His accounts snapped up 327 stocks valued at up to $12.8 million last April, just one day before he hit pause on his global tariffs, sending the S&P 500 stock market index up almost 10 percent, according to an analysis of the 927-page document by Sludge. The April haul was not the only buy with lucky timing. One of his accounts picked up Intel stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 on Aug. 18. Four days later, he revealed that Washington would take a nearly 10 percent stake in the chipmaker, worth roughly $8.9 billion, prompting its shares to climb 6 percent. Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan had sat down with Trump at the White House only a week ahead of the purchase.”He bought up large quantities of Palantir stock as his administration expanded the data company’s government contracts, including controversial contracts with ICE. Trump also bought shares of the private prison company GEO Group as it ramped up its detention capacity to accommodate deportation arrests. What’s more, according to the Daily Beast, “The disclosure clocks more than $1.4 billion flowing to Trump from crypto holdings in 2025. His $TRUMP memecoin, widely derided as a scam, raised $635 million, while World Liberty Financial, the digital asset venture founded by his sons, brought in north of $500 million. The president has spent the same period rolling back regulations across the sector.”All of this comes amid revelations that Trump’s sons are poised to profit off a billion-dollar mining deal struck by their father. This has prompted even ostensible Trump allies to criticize the president’s corruption. For example, conservative commentator Megyn Kelly admitted earlier this week that “the Trump family is grifty.”
FBI Director Kash Patel failed to properly disclose a six-figure stock purchase in a company that’s been contracted by the Justice Department, NOTUS reported Wednesday.Federal financial records first reviewed by NOTUS showed that on November 21, Patel purchased between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in MicroStrategy, a “bitcoin treasury company” that has done millions of dollars in business with the DOJ over the past decade.Patel failed to disclose the purchase within 45 days of the trade, in violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, also known as the STOCK Act.In a letter to the Office of Government Ethics on May 26, Patel said the purchase had been “inadvertently omitted” from his financial disclosure. Two days later, in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics, Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Taylor said the purchase had been omitted due to a miscommunication. “I continue to believe that Director Patel is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest,” he wrote.An FBI official told NOTUS that Patel’s late reporting was “not realized and unintentional.” However, Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of the Project on Government Oversight, told the outlet that Patel’s stock purchase disclosure is “absolutely” late under the letter of the STOCK Act.“That’s violating the law—no other way to put it,” Hedtler-Gaudette said.Patel has yet to face the customary $200 fine for his breach of conduct—and he probably won’t.
Catherine Herridge, a former Fox News reporter, was held in civil contempt by a lower court after she refused to reveal her sources for articles she wrote about a scientist who was investigated by the F.B.I.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) on Tuesday accused President Trump of “suffering from dementia.” Pritzker appeared on CNN, where anchor Kaitlan Collins asked the governor about recent comments made by the president, like claiming communism is a bigger threat to the U.S. than both world wars, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11,…
