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One of President Donald Trump’s golf clubs has a major pest control problem — literally.

“When a Loudoun County health official visited the Trump National Golf Club Washington D.C.’s restaurant last month, the inspector spotted some invaders,” reported by NOTUS' Dave Levinthal on Monday. Levinthal proceeded to describe a health inspector report chronicling “large quantity of small flies” at a storage room near the employee restrooms, as well as a number of health issues.

The potential hygiene hazards included “several food items stored at a temperature above the required 41 degrees Fahrenheit minimum. That included the blue cheese (54 degrees), sausage links (51 degrees), sausage patties (49 degrees) and pasta (49 degrees).” The report also noted that the grill’s employees improperly stored “raw steak, fish and burgers above ready-to-eat foods such as tortillas and sauces.” The snack bar also created a potential health risk, as “the health official deemed the sink’s chemical sanitizer solution exceeded regulations for maximum strength level.”

This incident is part of a larger pattern with Trump’s various construction projects.

“Two other Trump-owned clubs, Trump National Golf Club Westchester and Trump National Golf Club Hudson Valley, both in New York, received recent health citations earlier this year,” Levinthal wrote. “In Illinois, the Trump International Hotel in Chicago also found itself bedeviled by flies, among other health issues, NOTUS reported in March.”

When confronted with accusations of sub-par work at his various businesses and renovation projects, Trump has a history of trying to blame the people who point them out. He is waging prosecutions widely regarded as frivolous against individuals who he, without evidence, has accused of sabotaging his attempt to renovate the Reflecting Pool. The president argued that vandals had slashed a “350-foot gash” into the project when in fact the pool was recently drained and no such gash appeared. The pool, which is supposed to reflect people’s images, has instead turned green while algae blooms proliferate there.

Trump has been accused of giving projects to cronies through no-bid contracts instead of finding the highest quality service for the lowest bidder.

“Those looking for a simple phrase to help summarize Donald Trump’s second term could do worse than ‘no-bid contract.’ Indeed, it has been difficult to keep up on all of the assorted projects championed by the president that have bypassed the normal bidding process the federal government has relied on for many years,” MS NOW analyst Steve Benen wrote in June.

He added, “Reflecting Pool renovations? No-bid contract. Applying gold-toned coating to horse statues by the Lincoln Memorial? No-bid contract. Repairing ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park? No-bid contract."

A Republican senator who President Donald Trump recently threw under the bus is now throwing a top Trump official’s words back in his face — and over an issue that economically impacts every American.

“I recall Secretary Rubio saying that would not be proper for any country. Am I wrong?” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told NOTUS journalist Igor Bobic regarding Trump saying the United States will toll the Strait of Hormuz. Ever since Trump invaded Iran, the Strait of Hormuz has been hotly contested, with Iran’s throttling of the key waterway raising prices on essential products like oil and fertilizer for ordinary Americans.

Cornyn was referring to how Trump recently announced that the United States will be the new so-called “guardian of the Hormuz Strait” and as such start collecting a 20 percent toll on ships that transit across the globally-utilized shipping route.

“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account. “We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”

He added, ”The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20 percent on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”

Trump’s remarks clearly contradict Secretary of State Marco Rubio promising that America would follow international law, which prohibits the charging of tolls and fees on the waterway.

“That’s the law,” Rubio said in June. “It’s an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway.”

He continued, “That’s existing international law. That’s the way it is in international waterways all over the world and that’s the way we’ll expect it’ll be here.”

Cornyn may have personal as well as political reasons to draw attention to Trump’s seeming flip-flop on the issue of Strait of Hormuz tolls. In May, despite Cornyn overwhelmingly supporting Trump’s agenda in the Senate, the president endorsed Cornyn’s primary challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who ultimately prevailed. By contrast, Rubio has risen in Trump’s estimation as a potential 2028 presidential candidate to succeed him instead of Vice President JD Vance, who has reportedly fallen out of Trump’s favor because of his voiced skepticism about invading Iran.

Ever since Trump invaded Iran, Americans have suffered from rising prices due to Iran’s actions shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Speaking with AlterNet in April, White House spokesperson Kush Desai argued that the economic pain caused by the Iran war will be temporary.

“President Trump has been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, and the Administration went into this military engagement with a plan to mitigate these disruptions to America’s long-term economic resurgence," Desai told AlterNet at the time. "As energy markets begin to stabilize, historic tax refund checks hit the mail, and the rest of the Trump administration’s pro-growth agenda continues taking effect, Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come.”

President Donald Trump and his children have long faced accusations of corruption, as the Republican leader openly and his progeny openly do business with foreign countries despite the appearance of conflicts of interest. Now one of those controversial business deals — a planned resort in Albania that would destroy an ecologically-protected flamingo sanctuary — just saw a plot twist that left a conservative commentator literally laughing out loud.

“Should we talk about the Albania resort?” The Bulwark’s Will Sommer told his colleague Tim Miller. Sommer was referring to the attempts by Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner to purchase islands in Albania from an alleged mob-linked figure, prompting widespread protests that have threatened Prime Minister Edi Rama’s regime. After reviewing the history of the fight over the Albanian 1,400 hectares, Sommer and Miller described the latest news report: that Artur Shehu, the businessman who sold them the land, never actually owned it in the first place.

“I think these are the highs and lows of doing business in a country like Albania, you know,” Sommer told Miller. “On one hand, maybe you can get them very quickly, the deeds.”

Laughing, Miller told Sommer he “almost spit out my coffee” at the comment “highs and lows of Albania,” then allowed his colleague to continue with his point.

“But on the other, those deeds might not be real,” Sommer warned Miller. “So basically what's going on here is that there is a village, as I understand it — there's a village involved here, and the villagers say, ‘Well, no, actually this is our land, you can tell because we all have houses and we live here.’ But he claims, ‘No, I have the deed.’ And so the allegation is that he basically forged the deeds and sold — then he said, ‘Okay, Jared and Ivanka and various Gulf sheikhs, you give me the money and here's your deed, and now you can build your resort.’”

After Miller expressed disbelief that the Rama administration did not do more to weed out any potential legal issues with the deal, Sommer characterized it as a dispute in which “Jared and Ivanka say, ‘I will enter that on the side of the cocaine trafficker.’” He also pointed out that the issue has harmed Albania’s standing with the European Union, which it wishes to join, both because it threatens wildlife and because security forces beat up a Greek citizen protesting the resort.

“I don't think it's worth it, Albania,” Sommer said, with Miller adding “you gotta feel for the flamingos. Innocent bystanders, all this — they just want their land.”

In June, the UK-based Independent ran a story covered by reporter Zana Cimili about how Albania became involved with the Trump children.

"Albania's government champions the Adriatic Coast development as a transformative venture for the nation, aiming to boost its high-end tourism sector and support its bid for European Union membership," Cimili said. "However, the project, which encompasses an abandoned island and a stretch of seafront on Albania's southern coast, has sparked criticism from environmental groups and detractors of the long-serving Socialist Prime Minister, Edi Rama." Since late May, Cimili added, "excavators and other heavy machinery have entered the area, opening access routes, digging into the sand, clearing land among pine trees and installing fencing, Environmental groups from Albania and elsewhere in Europe condemned the work, with one prominent local group charging that long-protected habitats are being 'irreversibly destroyed'…. Albania's state anti-corruption agency has confirmed it opened an investigation related to the project but has not disclosed details."

Cimili continued, "The government says the land earmarked for the project is privately owned. But competing claims have emerged questioning the privatization — a common type of legal dispute."

The ongoing saga of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool continued Monday as the water drained, revealing the damage that was visible. Thus far, there is no 350-foot gash in the lining.

Photos from Washington D.C., activist Joe Flood and Democratic Party strategist Matt Rein show the slow process of the pool draining. Rein's photos in particular show that as the pool drained along the parts of the pool that were reachable by the public, there were no gashes.

U.S. District Attorney Jeannine Pirro has charged individuals with intentionally damaging the pool. In one case, Olympian David Hearn was accused by Pirro at a press conference of “forcefully and violently” pulling up the Reflecting Pool liner "with both hands." But the charging documents only say he "maliciously did injure, break and destroy certain property."

"The president said that somebody took a box cutter—" a reporter began to ask during Pirro's press conference.

Pirro agreed, "Yeah." She added, "Someone intentionally did a tremendous amount of damage to the pool, and you can actually see where all the cutting is. They took a sharp object and cut for many feet along the pool."

For someone to have made such a gash, it would be along the side, unless someone jumped into the pool and began cutting the bottom.

The reporter asked Pirro if there were photos confirming her claims.

"When I file a charge, I'll be happy to show you a picture. All right? What I'm trying to do is we're trying to find out who did it. Okay? And until we get to that point, I'm not going to be able to get to that point. I'm not going to be able to you know, discuss anything more than there was tremendous damage that was caused," Pirro said at the time.

President Donald Trump went further with his box-cutter conspiracy theory, saying, without proof, that "vandals" had sliced the gash into the pool.

"No, we had vandalism ... no, vandals," Trump said at the end of June when asked about it. "We have a 290-, I think 300-foot slit right through, probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind."

For a few weeks leading up to the July 4 celebration, Trump hired a company that used a "nanobubble technology" to fix the algae problem in the Reflecting Pool. It was successful and the nanobubblers were removed for the big fireworks display. Within days, the algae was back and has remained for the past week.

President Donald Trump's fans arrived at his "Salute to America" event four hours before doors were set to open, causing such a problem for police that they had to disperse the crowd, reported News Nation's Libbey Dean.

Trump, who isn't set to speak until 9:45 p.m. E.S.T. typically has fans show up to his rallies early to ensure they can get front row seats. The gates don't open for this event until 5 p.m. For Trump fans, the rallies feel like an event where they spend the day together, meeting people and sharing their own stories and experiences from previous events.

"Police going over loud speaker attempting to disperse crowd gathering outside Salute to America event four hours before it opens," Dean posted on X.

Saturday is supposed to be among the hottest days of the year, reaching a severity so great that the city canceled it's afternoon parade. Inside the security perimeter, there will be free water and food available for purchase, but that may not be the case outside of the area.

Inside, Dean showed that picnic tables and umbrellas have been set up, along with metal bleachers.

For those at the state fair, the military flyovers that began at 1.p.m. and will continue all afternoon into the lead-up of Trump's speech.

Trump, who typically wears a navy suit and white shirt, will speak from the stage around the time the temperature drops to 81 degrees and the humidity reaches 69-71 percent, the hourly forecast showed.

Scholar and author Janja Lalich, who has extensively studied the MAGA following and the kind of emotional reinforcement that the gatherings provide for the people.

“The people around Trump, and the Republicans in Washington, absolutely kowtow to him, either out of fear they’re going to anger him, or out of adulation. That behavior is very typical of a cult," she said in a Pacific Standard interview in 2018.

"He’s showing him in their presence—being there for them, talking to them, relating to them. All of that helps to solidify their cult membership, so to speak. It reinforces the idea that they’re a special group of people following this very special man. With Trump, it’s not a religion, but there’s the same kind of fervor," she added.

She compared it to a kind of collective ritual like a church service with songs and chants that all help reinforce the "us vs. them" mentality.

A Republican congressional candidate in Florida who openly embraces President Donald Trump’s agenda is calling for a Democratic ex-president to be deported.

In a 30-second video, Belinda Kesier promoted her candidacy for Florida's 22nd congressional district by arguing that she would not only deport undocumented immigrants, but also aim to deport the Democrat she blames for America’s supposed immigration problem, former President Joe Biden.

"I'm Belinda Keiser, and I approve this message because we should deport Joe Biden for what he did,” Keiser proclaimed at the end of the ad, one of many she has run in her bid to claim that seat. Earlier in the same video a narrator vowed that Keiser would “stand with President Trump” and that her goal would be “to deport illegals, to protect American families and American jobs.”

Keiser has been endorsed by a number of Florida politicians who are also leading figures in MAGA world. These include Reps. Aaron Bean, Jimmy Patronis, Neal Dunn and Randy Fine.

Dunn, who is leaving office after his current term, said that Keiser “has served our state well leading her private sector work, which has helped propel many young professionals into the workforce. She knows what Florida needs and has demonstrated that with her support of Republican ideals and principles. Belinda would be an excellent addition to the caucus and the effort to continue to Make America Great.”

Similarly, Fine described Keiser as a staunch supporter of Trump’s MAGA movement.

“Belinda has been a friend since I first entered politics, and I have seen firsthand what she has done to fight for Florida,” Fine told Florida Politics about his endorsement of Keiser. “She has been a champion for our nation-leading higher education system and the future of every Florida student. Belinda has done so much for this state, and I could not be more excited for her to join me in the fight in Washington to Make America Great Again!”

In pre-Trump America Keiser’s statement might have been shocking, but Trump and his supporters have openly advocated for persecuting the president’s political opponents — and sometimes done more than that. Trump has pursued charges against former FBI Director James Comey, arguing that his posting of a picture spelling '8647' with seashells was a threat against the president. He has also pursued indictments that experts agree are tenuous and likely politically-motivated against Democrats including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, California Sen. Adam Schiff, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado and Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania.

Trump has also indicted his own former national security adviser, John Bolton, another of his critics.

President Donald Trump joked about his "friend" he insulted who is using one of the popular weight-loss drugs Trump refers to as the "fat drug" or the "fat shot."

Speaking at an event for mothers, Trump bragged about bringing the cost of drugs down through his TrumpRx program. According to Trump, the same box in London is $87 and in New York, he said, it's $1370. It's a story that Trump has told for about a year, though the numbers change.

"He could be a famous guy," Trump said about his friend. "He's begging me not to release this name. He's a very highly neurotic, very sort of a fat slob, but he's a brilliant man. We know many of those people. He's a brilliant guy, actually."

"But, said, uh, President, what's going on here? He didn't need the money. He's rich as hell, but he just couldn't understand why he had to pay so little in London," rambled Trump. "He went to London, and he couldn't understand it. He said this is crazy and [it] actually motivated me in a certain way, because he was very smart. He actually, he did a study, he actually sent his people and he traced this medicine. And he found out it was the box here is the same box as he had in New York. He made the same plant and it costs, you know, 10 times more here than it did in London, and that there were worse stories than that. And I said that's it, it's over, we're going to do it. That got me really motivated."

Trump repeated that his friend was desperate not to have his name released publicly.

"He's begging me not to release his name because he is a well-known person, and I so destroyed his reputation in terms of his physicality," said Trump. "Just as I said, you know, you've had a big impact on medicine because you got — you got to be better than any normal person could have."

Trump told Americans that Medicare would eventually cover the weight loss drug. The Trump administration announced in early November that it had struck a deal with leading GLP-1 pharmaceutical manufacturers, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. He claimed that Americans would soon be able to obtain the GLP-1 medications at a lower rate for all Americans. It hasn't happened yet, however.

There were already talks about getting lower prices for those on Medicare, but AARP explained that the drug price negotiation program won't become available until 2027.

Last week, CBS News reported that Trump pledged to make drugs cheaper, but thus far many have actually increased.

“No chance,” is what some close to Democratic politics would tell you about their chances in Florida this year.

However, according to a new report from The Hill, the mounting failures of Donald Trump have given some in the party "renewed optimism" about the now deep-red state, believing that the president could "scramble" the dynamics in his own backyard and hand them a highly sought-after Senate.

While Florida has changed immensely since its swing state days, when it broke for Barack Obama in both of his elections, The Hill reported on Friday that there are some within the party who believe that Trump's economic failures and the runaway affordability crisis that he has directly caused could have a distinct impact on Florida, and potentially drive voters back to the blue side.

"Florida has been a source of deep frustration for Democrats in recent election cycles — something that has been made worse in recent days as [Gov. Ron] DeSantis’s redistricting effort is expected to take more House seats from Democrats," the outlet explained. "But a string of recent Democratic wins — from the Miami mayoral race to the flip of a state legislative seat in President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district — has given Democrats some renewed optimism even as they eye the Senate seat. Democrats also believe Florida’s affordability crisis could scramble the political dynamics."

"It’s the economy stupid on steroids here,” Fernand Amandi, a Democratic strategist in Florida who helped Obama succeed in the state, told The Hill. “Any betting person would still put the safe money and the smart money on Republicans because Democratic performance has been atrocious. But if there was ever an environment that was stacked against the Republicans, I’ve never seen an environment as bad as this one."

The quality disparity in the Senate race is also fueling hope that Democrats could manage a win in November. The seat is currently held by Republican Ashley Moody, who was appointed to the seat by DeSantis after Marco Rubio joined the Trump administration last year. Incumbents who attain their seat in this manner, without selling themselves to voters, are generally considered to have a disadvantage when they seek their first election.

Democrats are also fronting Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Ukrainian-born official who became a "national figure" after playing a key whistleblower role during Trump's first impeachment proceedings. His stature has led to a massive $8.19 million fundraising haul by the end of March.

Despite that impressive sum, prognosticators still say the race leans Republican, with many arguing that Florida is too far gone for Democrats to bother with, when there are much more competitive races to worry about.

“No chance,” Florida-based Democratic mega donor John Morgan told The Hill. “Florida is still Trump country ... Florida is redder than Indiana.”

For many years, far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party seemed entrenched in Hungary. Orbán didn't come to power via a military coup d'état like Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile in 1973 but rather, was voted into office. Orbán, however, did everything he could to undermine Hungary's system of checks and balances, making it very difficult to replace him as prime minister.

But on Sunday, April 12, Orbán was voted out of office after 16 years in Hungary's parliamentary elections, and it wasn't even close. Center-right Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar, running with the Tisza party, won by roughly 19 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were bitterly disappointed, having given Orbán their enthusiastic support.

Journalist Steven Greenhut, in an article published by the libertarian Reason on April 24, examines the implications that Orbán's double-digit defeat has for the MAGA movement in the United States. MAGA, according to Greenhut, now finds itself looking for another foreign despot to idolize.

"Legions of conservatives — including the sitting vice president — have flocked to Hungary to champion the wonders of Viktor Orbán's self-described 'illiberal" government," Greenhut explains. "If you're not up on political lingo, the term 'illiberal' does not refer to modern liberalism, but to the classical liberalism of our founders. Right-wing post-liberalism is about replacing limited government with something like elected autocracy…. Hungarian voters handily rebuked him and his Vladimir Putin-friendly Fidesz party…. despite President Donald Trump's fawning support."

Greenhut continues, "It's been splendid watching the weeping and gnashing of teeth from American MAGA supporters. In an admirable and hard-hitting column in Fox News, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) noted that 'Hungarian politics has persisted as an object of intense fascination in certain corners of the American right.' He found this affinity 'endlessly puzzling,' as 'America's self-proclaimed national conservatives spoke of Orbán's Hungary as an oasis of traditionalism amid the wasteland of an ailing, liberal and decadent postmodern Europe.'"

Greenhut notes that Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts "slammed" McConnell's column in an April 13 post on X, writing, "7-term Republican Senator celebrates Hungary becoming a vassal state of the EU" — a post that, Greenhut laments, shows how "deformed" parts of the American right have become.

Juho Romakkaniemi, CEO of the Finland Chamber of Commerce, called Roberts out on X, posting, "Excuse me, sir. Unfortunately you don’t seem to understand what you are talking about. Hungary was a corrupt slave state of Russia. Now it took its sovereignity back. Being a Member of the EU is not ’being a vassal’, but being a part of something bigger - for not to be bullied."

Greenhut observes, "In Hungary, the country sank on the Freedom Index, as the Cato Institute explained. Its attacks on private property and exertion of state control over industry have caused its economic fortunes to fall behind its neighbors…. I would never have believed that modern conservatives would behave like 1980s leftists. Instead of looking for inspiration from illiberal foreign or domestic leaders, they need to rediscover the classical liberal values that made our nation so free and prosperous."

President Donald Trump's overnight posting spree is prompting questions from those online about his mental stability.

Trump's final post on TruthSocial came about 2:45 a.m. EDT with a post about conspiracy theories around the "birth tourism industry."

It isn't unusual for Trump to go off on a TruthSocial posting spree, and it's the second time in a week.

The spree began about midnight EDT and lasted over an hour. For a moment it seemed like he might stop, but about 90 minutes later he began sharing content from filmmaker Clint Eastwood.

It was just one of 16 posts that ranged in attacks on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama, claiming that they were both part of some kind of conspiracy to keep him from the presidency in 2016. At one point, he shared a post saying that Clinton and Obama committed treason.

The comments prompted liberal political commentator Harry Sisson to question if the president had lost it.

He wrote on X, "It's 1 am in the morning, and Trump is awake ranting incoherently. He's now calling for the 2020 election to be 'permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect.' Someone check him into an insane asylum."

Trump posted at one point: “If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT”

"Trump had another mental health episode and spiraled out of control on social media last night," said Sisson, listing off the topics that Trump posted about.

"Trump’s 1:13 AM post is basically a nocturnal emission of late-night brain static," said satirical influencer SundaeGirl.

Columnist and editor Philip Bump commented on Trump's attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center, characterizing it as: “I say you threw garbage in my lawn therefore I own your house.”

He later added: "Also: does this suggest that the contrived SPLC lawsuit is what Patel was talking about with his claim about an imminent crackdown on the 2020 election?"

Clinical psychologist Dr. Tracy King expressed alarm last week about what she said was a troubling cognitive trend in his nighttime social media behavior, reported the Irish Star.

The post about Eastwood comes from a fake story that has been circulating online for years, and one account has been fact-checked. Snopes debunked it in 2020.

The spree comes a few days after the Wall Street Journal posted a bombshell report that Trump was too agitated to be in the crisis room where the military was working on saving two airmen forced to eject over Iran.

Ghislaine Maxwell appeared before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday, where she was poised to face questions about documents pertaining to the investigation into her activities with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell has been convicted of being an accomplice and was willing to speak in great detail to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. But when it came time to testify before the House behind closed doors, she refused to give information.

Maxwell's attorney said she would answer questions openly if President Donald Trump granted clemency. She has been asking for a new trial, but it's unclear if that is possible. The attorney also mentioned that neither President Donald Trump nor President Bill Clinton is "culpable" in any wrongdoing.

Oversight chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has been criticized by former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton after he subpoenaed them. The Clintons have requested that the full hearing be public.

Comer claimed a "standard deposition" is behind closed doors. He argued that he would release everything immediately, so it doesn't need to be public, but that raised the question of why it must be kept behind closed doors if it's going to be released.

Hillary Clinton previously attacked Comer on X, asking why he was refusing to hold the hearings in public. She told him if he wants the first, then "bring it on" in public.

When the Trump Administration, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was aggressively downsizing a long list of federal agencies, the future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was very much in doubt. Critics of President Donald Trump feared that FEMA would be eliminated altogether.

A year into Trump's second presidency, however, FEMA remains. Trump appeared to back down from eliminating FEMA.

But according to NOTUS reporters Anna Kramer and Torrence Banks, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is holding up more than $1 billion in "hazard mitigation funds."

In an article published on January 28, Kramer and Banks report, "Since July, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved hazard mitigation grants that cost more than $100,000 in only three states, according to a NOTUS review of publicly available data and internal FEMA documents. The three states to get through the logjam: Georgia, North Carolina and Oklahoma. As of December 31, before the North Carolina and Oklahoma projects were approved, Noem's office was sitting on $1.3 billion in requested funds — all of which had been approved at the regional level, according to documents obtained by NOTUS."

The NOTUS reporters add, "This is the first time the scope of Noem's funding hold on the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program has been reported."

According to Kramer and Banks, "hundreds of projects across nearly all 50 states, four territories and two tribal nations remain stuck at Noem's level elected representatives in 10 states."

Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Washington State) told NOTUS, "Unfortunately, Secretary Noem has virtually frozen FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program."

Michael Coen, who served as FEMA's chief of staff under the Biden Administration, warns that holding up Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funds could be dangerous.

Coen told NOTUS, "HMGP is authorized by Congress. The Trump Administration's failure to execute mitigation is reckless and I believe a breach of duty. Lives will be lost during future disasters that could have been avoided. HMGP funding is one of the few tools the federal government has to reduce future disaster costs and suffering."

Read the full NOTUS article at this link.

When Donald Trump was facing four criminal indictments, two of them stemmed from his efforts to overturn the United States' 2020 presidential election results: a federal case prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and a Georgia case prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Both of those cases were doomed when Trump narrowly defeated Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

In 2020, Trump and his allies claimed, without evidence, that Democrats stole Georgia's electoral votes from him — a claim that two prominent Republicans in the Peach State, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, pushed backed against. Kemp and Raffensperger adamantly maintained that then-President-elect Joe Biden won Georgia fair and square.

Kemp and Raffensperger spoke publicly and on the record. But according to New York Times reporters Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, other Republicans spoke candidly about Georgia's 2020 election results in closed-door testimony from 2022.

In an article published on January 13, Fausset and Hakim explain, "Transcripts of secret grand jury testimony from the Georgia election interference case against Mr. Trump and his allies, obtained this week by the New York Times, show just how alarmed and exasperated a number of senior Republicans felt about the president's efforts to overturn an American presidential election. The testimony, given in 2022, is emerging at a time when Mr. Trump is again raising complaints about his 2020 defeat and voicing regret that he did not order the National Guard to seize voting machines after the election."

Those transcripts, according to the Times reporters, "were part of the investigative file" in Willis' election interference/RICO case against Trump and others and were "conducted by a special purpose grand jury."

Republicans who testified included Kemp, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.

Describing the testimony, Fausset and Hakim report, "Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina found President Trump's claims of election fraud in 2020 'unnerving.' Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia described Mr. Trump's efforts to get his state's lawmakers to intervene a 'fruitless exercise.' David Ralston, a former speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, called the plan to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states he had lost 'the craziest thing I’ve heard.'"

Graham, according to Fausset and Hakim, had no doubt that Biden won Georgia when he spoke to the grand jurors in 2022.

Graham testified, "I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short…. If you told him Martians came and stole votes, he'd be inclined to believe it."

Recalling a conversation with Trump after the 2020 election, Ralston testified that "right off the bat, I've got to tell him I disagree with him."

Read Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim's full article for The New York Times at this link (subscription required).

A union-backed auto worker at Ford Motor Co. was caught on video heckling President Donald Trump as a “pedophile protector” when he visited a Dearborn factory on Tuesday ahead of his address to the Detroit Economic Club. The video that has now gone viral shows Trump responded in kind by mouthing an expletive at the worker, twice, and displaying a middle finger as he walked away.

Now, the union says the worker has been suspended while Ford looks into the matter.

A representative from the UAW told Michigan Advance that they could confirm that he was suspended but the length of the suspension was unknown. The union was also uncertain about the process that would follow to investigate the matter.

A message seeking comment from Ford to confirm if the worker was fired or suspended was not immediately returned on Tuesday evening.

In a statement to the Advance, White House communications director Steven Cheung called the worker “a lunatic” who was “wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage.”

“And the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response,” Cheung said.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) said she spoke to a well placed source in the worker’s local union who said he was facing disciplinary action.

“Ford said they can’t talk about it because it’s a human resources issue,” Tlaib said. “In the past, when President Obama (went) onto the plant floor and other times people have said some terrible things, they didn’t get fired.”

@michiganadvance #trump #epsteinfiles @Distillsocial ♬ Quiet Music – Stacey Barelos

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) also told the Advance that the union confirmed that the confrontation meant the man was facing disciplinary action.

Dingell also said she was inquiring with Ford about the status of the man’s employment, and if he was being suspended and investigated in violation of his free speech rights.

“When you’re on a factory floor with union members that have strong feelings, you need to be prepared for whatever they’re gonna say, and I hope they’re not firing him because I believe in free speech,” Dingell said in an interview. “The UAW worker was expressing his right to free speech, and I’m asking questions as to what has happened.”

The video, which was first published by Distill Social shows Trump walking around a raised portion of the Dearborn F-150 plant when the worker, who is not seen on screen, yells to Trump and calls him a “pedophile protector,” a reference to Trump’s widely reported connections to deceased pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein and the Trump administration’s bungling of a new law that ordered the FBI to release all of the files that the department had available to them.

Some have seen the constant delays from the FBI and the slow walk to release the files as Trump protecting either himself or his wealthy elite friends from scrutiny or a clear connection to Epstein.

In response to the confrontation, the Democratic National Committee denounced Trump for being “more concerned with his ego than his spiraling economy, where job cuts are skyrocketing, hiring has slowed, unemployment remains high, and prices continue to soar.”

“As working families struggle to make ends meet in Trump’s economy, the Trump family and their wealthy donors keep getting richer — there’s no bigger ‘F-you’ than that,” said DNC Senior Advisor for Messaging, Mobilization and Strategy Tim Hogan in a statement. “The real question is: Why does the mere mention of Epstein set him off?”

Tlaib echoed that point.

“The worker could have said anything, but this worker felt compelled to say you’re protecting a pedophile. I feel very strongly that Ford Motor Company is sending a message that people can’t stand up for sexual abuse survivors,” Tlaib said.

What does Trump have against Minnesota? Not only is ICE causing mayhem in Minneapolis, but Trump is halting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for social services programs there, according to a Tuesday announcement from Health and Human Services.

It’s not just Minnesota. Trump is also stopping billions in funding for social services in Colorado, Illinois, New York, and California.

Why? Could it be because all of them are led by Democrats and inhabited by voters who overwhelmingly rejected Trump in 2024?

It’s not the first time Trump has openly penalized “blue” states. What’s new is how blatant his vindictiveness toward blue states has become.

Angry at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and at its refusal to free Tina Peters — the former clerk of Mesa County, who was convicted in 2024 of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed plot to prove they had been used to rig the 2020 election against Trump — Trump has cut off transportation money to Colorado, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a major climate and weather research center located there, and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires.

Two weeks ago Trump used the first veto of his second term to kill a pipeline project that had achieved bipartisan congressional support, to provide clean drinking water to Colorado’s parched eastern plains. (Trump’s action enraged Republican congresswoman and formerly dedicated Trumper Lauren Boebert, who stated: “Nothing says America First like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in southeast Colorado, many of whom voted for him in all three elections.”)

If there were any doubts about Trump’s sentiments toward Colorado, he posted a New Year’s Eve message telling Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Daniel P. Rubinstein, the Republican district attorney in Mesa County who prosecuted Ms. Peters, to “rot in Hell,” adding “I wish them only the worst.”

Is it even legal for Trump to reward red states and penalize blue ones? In a word: No.

In early December, Justice Department lawyers openly admitted that Trump withheld Department of Energy grants to Minnesota and other states according to “whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect and/or has recently elected Democratic candidates in state and national elections.”

It’s the first time the Trump regime clearly acknowledged in court that which states get what depends on whether most people in a state voted for or against him.

What’s the legal argument? Trump’s Justice Department lawyers claim that such overt political vindictiveness “is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations.”

This, my friends, is utter rubbish.

Punishing states based on whom their residents voted for directly violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires that the government treat citizens equally under the law: No “State [shall] deprive … to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Penalizing a state for how its citizens vote also violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Voting is one of the most basic forms of speech in a democracy; it cannot be abridged or punished depending on for whom one votes.

And it violates a president’s duty under the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” At the least, this requires that a president apply the law in a nonpartisan way. Congress may award grants or benefits to certain states and not others, but this power is reserved for Congress, not the president.

The issue will almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court. Although my expectations for our highest court could not be much lower, I’d be surprised if the justices sided with Trump here.

Any other result would effectively allow Trump to pit red states against blue and wreak havoc on the very idea of a national government.

Trump has made it clear he regards himself as president only of the people who voted for him. But that’s not how the Constitution works. Nor is it how American democracy works.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Two Democratic leaders in the US Senate revealed Tuesday that they’re demanding answers from the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, about her access to federal files on deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and whether she’s involved in their “bungled and potentially illegal partial release.”

President Donald Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein—at least until a reported falling out in 2004. Although the president ultimately signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, it came after he faced intense criticism for his administration not willingly releasing the records, and congressional Republicans delayed passage of the bill, which requires the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to publish materials related to the late financier’s sex trafficking case.

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), ranking member for the Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, began their letter to Wiles by pointing to a two-part Vanity Fair series featuring interviews with Trump’s top advisers, including Wiles.

As Chris Whipple reported:

Wiles told me she’d read what she calls “the Epstein file.” And, she said, “[Trump] is in the file. And we know he’s in the file. And he’s not in the file doing anything awful.” Wiles said that Trump “was on [Epstein’s] plane… he’s on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever—I know it’s a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together.”

Noting those remarks, the senators wrote to Wiles, “Please be kind enough to explain when and where and under what authority you gained access to this material.”

They also sent Wiles the list of questions below and requested her response by January 5:

1. What were the materials in “the Epstein file” you referred to in your Vanity Fair interview?
2. Had material in the file you reviewed been presented to a grand jury?
3. When did you first gain access to “the Epstein file” and what was the schedule of your review of it?
4. For what purpose did you gain access to this information?
5. Did you share with President Trump any information contained in the file you reviewed?
6. Please describe your role in any process related to the review, redaction, withholding, or release of material in the “Epstein file,” including any processes involving the Department of Justice or Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The letter is dated December 22, just three days after the deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ has missed the deadline, released files in batches, and faced scrutiny for redactions.

Over the course of the year, President Donald Trump endeavored to stack the deck of the 2026 midterm elections by demanding red states redraw congressional lines and gerrymander out Democratic voters. Trump's problem, according to a Politico report, is that he can't win the fight that he started.

Thus far, six states crafted new maps, which accounts for "nearly one-third of congressional seats," the report calculated. It puts tens of millions of Americans in a new district, effectively "overnight."

The plot came from top political aide James Blair. Both he and Trump are well-aware that if Democrats take control of Congress, the administration will be plagued by hearings and impeachments of top Cabinet officials.

One person familiar with their conversation told Politico they remember Trump asking, “Wait a minute, you mean redo the census?

"No. Just states redrawing with the authority they already have," said Blair.

“We could either go on offense, or we could let the Democrats sue the majority away,” recalled Adam Kincaid, director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. He was among the first contacted about putting the plan into action.

"Thus began an ongoing caper that did more to shape American politics in 2025 than anything else," wrote Politico.

Ex-Trump campaign manger Chris LaCivita launched a new organization to put political pressure on lawmakers who might oppose the plot.

The stunt hasn't gone quite as well as Republicans hoped. Kincaid and Blair saw blue states enacting non-partisan district maps and assumed those would stop Democrats from countering the GOP with their own plot. They didn't count on Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calf.), who used his political clout to run a ballot measure to institute partisan gerrymandering to counter Texas Republicans doing the same. It canceled out any wins the GOP thought they'd score in 2026.

“You can shake the pinball machine a little bit and sure that helps,” an ex-lawmaker in Indiana told Politico. “But if you hit it too hard, it will go on tilt.”

“If we are relying on redistricting to hold the majorities, we have bigger issues,” a Republican operative who works on Senate and House races told POLITICO in July.

Meanwhile, Democrats had another plan. Former Attorney General Eric holder and ex-President Barack Obama joined forces in 2017 to form their own redistricting group. The GOP thought it was just in preparation for 2030, but when Trump's team decided to enact their mid-decade redistricting plan, the group was ready.

“We can’t do what [Republicans] think we’re going to do,” Holder said in a recent interview with Politico. "Which is, I’ll go on MSNBC and CNN and say, ‘that’s a terrible thing.’ Somebody will write an op-ed. You know, we have to do something that really meets this moment, even if it’s a little inconsistent with what we have been trying to do since 2017.”

Democrats proposed legislation that would stop partisan gerrymandering, but with the GOP in control of the House, Senate and White House, they'd have little success. They lent their voices to Newsom's effort and encouraged other blue state governors.

Trump's pressure campaign was rebuffed by Indiana Republicans who were concerned that redrawing the lines would spread Democratic voters out to four congressional seats instead of isolating them in two districts. In a year with a blue wave, Republicans feared they could run the risk of losing more than winning.

By July, Trump was growing so unpopular that any Republican standing up to him didn't suffer the consequences LaCivita hoped. At least, not yet. Instead, off-year elections destroyed the GOP at the state and local level across the country, but particularly in New Jersey and Virginia.

"In the end, the pinball machine had gone on tilt, jamming up to undermine a player trying to game the system," Politico wrote. "Even with all the states that decided not to move forward with new maps in 2025, it still represented the most redraws in a non-census year since the 1984 election cycle, when the activity was driven largely by judicial decisions rather than political opportunism."

There is still a chance for Florida and New Hampshire to redraw lines, but the report explained those efforts failed in 2025. So, it's unclear if it would "yield any more red fruit in 2026." Other states like Kansas and Kentucky could make a go, but both have Democratic governors likely to veto the attempt.

Meanwhile, Virginia, which just achieved a huge Democratic majority, could pass legislation before April and change the lines for the 2026 election, making more Democratic districts. Maryland could also attempt an effort to remove it's single GOP district, with it's deadline in February.

The worst possible option for Democrats comes from a Supreme Court case set to be decided in the coming year that would effectively eliminate key parts of the Voting Rights Act that mandates "racial balance" when drawing congressional lines in red states across the South.

Liberal groups warned it could mean a 19-seat pickup for Republicans.

The scenario “would be nuclear,” Holder said.

He's hopeful the justices won't go that far, but Chief Justice John Roberts penned a decision in 2013 that weakened Section 5 of the VRA. In the ruling, Roberts claimed that the conditions of racism that necessitated the VRA in 1965 don't exist. He wrote, they "no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions." Roberts did uphold Section 2 in that ruling, however.

Kincaid maintained, “At the end of the day, Republicans are gonna be fine. Having done this redistricting thing for a while now, one thing that I am well aware of is that Democrats are very good at declaring victory prematurely.”

Read more in the report here.