Slingshot News: ‘A Grossly Incompetent President’: Trump Throws Tantrum, Attacks Biden During Angry Tirade In The Oval Office
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HuffPost: Look What Donald Trump Has Done To The Oval Office
Trump has taken an unusually personal interest in redecorating the iconic seat of the American presidency.
In the words of White Stripes singer Jack White, “It’s now a vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy professional wrestler’s dressing room.”
For decades, every president has made the Oval Office his own.
John F. Kennedy specially chose a rug in Harvard crimson, although he did not live to see its installation. Richard Nixon’s office featured a navy rug with gold stars, accented by gold curtains. Jimmy Carter surrounded himself with warmer, more natural shades. George H.W. Bush opted for powder blue as both a floor and window treatment.
The presidents have chosen different sofas, different coffee tables, different books for the shelves, different knick-knacks for the tables and paintings for the walls.
But none have had the aesthetic impact of President Donald Trump.
In his second term, Trump has endeavored to leave a more lasting footprint on the White House by drawing on his long career in real estate development. He paved the Rose Garden’s grassy center, erected two enormous flag poles and revealed plans to build a large ballroom on the East Wing to host events.
Trump’s Oval Office, though, has been the site of the most striking transformation so far.
The iconic space has been positively drenched in gold — curtains, of course, but also vases, frames, trophies, platters and vast amounts of gilding, including shiny curlicued moldings that ensure no part of the wall is left blank. This style is either Rococo or decidedly not Rococo.
An ivy plant that had adorned the Oval Office fireplace for over a half-century was replaced by lifeless objects. (The Washington Post figured out the ivy had been relocated to a greenhouse for safekeeping.)
Trump, it seems, has cast aside norms in decorating just as quickly in his second term as he has cast aside norms in governing. Anyone familiar with Trump Tower in Manhattan or his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida will not be surprised to see the full extent of his changes to the Oval, given his instinct to gild the properties that bear his name.
But that is also why his changes rub some people the wrong way. The White House — the People’s House — is not Trump’s own. First families may make changes to the residence to make it feel more comfortable during their stay, but the Oval Office is not part of a Trump-branded enterprise.
In the words of White Stripes singer Jack White, “It’s now a vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy professional wrestler’s dressing room.”
….
Look What Donald Trump Has Done To The Oval Office
Trump has taken an unusually personal interest in redecorating the iconic seat of the American presidency.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-oval-office-gold-gilding_n_68910956e4b06ab33893e975
MSNBC: Presidential Profiteering? Why Trump’s estimated profit of $3.4 billion in office is a problem
Presidential Profiteering? Why Trump’s estimated profit of $3.4 billion in office is a problem
Before he was president, Donald Trump was known for his numerous business ventures. After a full presidential term and the first 9 months of a second, new questions are being raised around the ethics of how much money he’s made while in office. President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Noah Bookbinder joins Alex Witt to share his insight on the problematic complications President Trump has created in the Oval Office.
Wall Street Journal: White House Moves Forward on Plans for a Department of War
The Trump administration is drawing up plans to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, according to a White House official, following up on the president’s push to revive a name last used in 1947.
Restoring the discarded name of the government’s largest department could be done by an act of Congress, but the White House is considering other avenues to make the change, according to the official.
Trump has broached the idea repeatedly since taking office. “As Department of War, we won everything. We won everything,” Trump said Monday, referring to wars fought before the creation of the Department of Defense after World War II. “I think we’re going to have to go back to that.”
The Pentagon began developing legislative proposals to make the change in the early weeks of Trump’s second term, according to a former official. One idea was to ask Congress for authority to restore the former name during a national emergency, while also reviving the title of secretary of war for the department’s top civilian official, the former official said.
The old name “has a stronger sound,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. He added the change would be made “over the next week or so.”
The structure of the military has evolved considerably since the Department of War was created in 1789, and so has the name for the bureaucracy overseeing it. Initially the Department of War oversaw the Army, while a separate Department of the Navy ran naval forces and the Marines.
After World War II in an effort to increase efficiency, President Harry S. Truman put the armed forces under one organization, initially called the National Military Establishment under a bill passed by Congress in 1947. The legislation merged the Navy and War Departments and the newly independent Air Force into a single organization led by a civilian secretary of defense.
Much of the opposition to the changes arose over ending the Navy’s status as an independent department. “We shall fight on The Hill, in the Senate chamber, and on the White House lawn,” read an inscription on a blackboard of a Navy captain who opposed the new system, according to a December 1948 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. “We shall never surrender.”
Congress discarded the National Military Establishment in 1949 and renamed it the Department of Defense, giving the cabinet-level secretary more power to oversee the services, including their procurement procedures. That ignited concern that the enhanced powers would make the defense secretary a “military dictator,” according to a July 1949 article in the Los Angeles Daily News.
Trump has said his concern is that the title isn’t bellicose enough. In April, during an Oval Office event, he said that the Defense Secretary used to be known as the War Secretary. “They changed it when we became a little bit politically correct,” he said.
He raised the idea of reviving the title at a NATO summit in The Hague in June: “It used to be called Secretary of War,” Trump said at a gathering of foreign leaders. “Maybe we’ll have to start thinking about changing it.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weighed in Tuesday during a cabinet meeting, saying Defense Department “just doesn’t sound right.”
New Civil Rights Movement: ‘Frogs in a Boiling Pot’: Trump Blasted After Again Insisting ‘I’m Not a Dictator’
For the second day in a row, President Donald Trump insisted he is not a dictator, but also insisted that many Americans would like to have one running the country. Some critics are calling his remarks a “trial balloon.”
“So the line is that I’m a dictator — but I stop crime,” Trump said at his televised Cabinet meeting on Tuesday (video below). “So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’ But I’m not a dictator. I just know how to stop crime.”
Those remarks echo ones he made just one day earlier in the Oval Office while attacking Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker.
“I have some slob like Pritzker criticizing us before we even go there,” he said of his plan to deploy the National Guard to Chicago. “I made the statement that next should be Chicago, ’cause, as you all know, Chicago’s a killing field right now. And they don’t acknowledge it, and they say, ‘We don’t need him. Freedom, freedom. He’s a dictator, he’s a dictator.’”
“A lot of people are saying, maybe we like a dictator,” Trump mused. “I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and a smart person.”
Declaring that an American president “even suggesting that Americans want to do away with democracy and be ruled” by a dictator is “chilling,” Rolling Stone on Monday noted that “Trump has been ruling like an authoritarian since retaking office in January, repeatedly thumbing his nose at Congress, the Constitution, and any other check on presidential power.”
CNN’s Aaron Blake, even before Trump’s second “I’m not a dictator” attestation, wrote: “Many people are increasingly entertaining the idea of a dictator. They are his supporters.”
“They don’t necessarily say, ‘Yes, I want a dictator.’ But polling shows Republicans have edged in that direction – to a pretty remarkable degree.”
“Perhaps the most startling poll on this came last year,” Blake explained. “A University of Massachusetts Amherst survey asked about Trump’s comment that he wanted to be a dictator, but only for a day,” during the campaign. “Trump said it was a joke, but 74% of Republicans endorsed the idea.”
He noted that a “Pew Research Center poll early this year showed 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents agreed that many of the country’s problems could be better solved ‘if Donald Trump didn’t have to worry so much about Congress and the courts.’”
And, Blake added, “as many 3 or 4 in 10” Republicans, according to several polls, are “endorsing that kind of power.”
Critics expressed outrage.
Journalist Ahmed Baba observed: “This is the second day in a row he’s said this. This is an intentional normalization effort.”
Journalist Aaron Rupar wrote, “note how Trump on a daily basis is trying to normalize the idea that he’s a dictator.”
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) wrote: “Deploying the military to cities. Breaking laws. Attacking judges. Firing generals, economists, and central bankers who speak truth to power. Praising autocrats who hate America. Republican officials have given up on the rule of law. They obey the law of the ruler. But in America, law is king.”
Hedge fund manager Spencer Hakimian wrote: “You are all frogs in a boiling pot.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
‘Frogs in a Boiling Pot’: Trump Blasted After Again Insisting ‘I’m Not a Dictator’
For the second day in a row, President Donald Trump insisted he is not a dictator, but also insisted that many Americans would like to have one running the country. Some critics are calling his remarks a “trial balloon.” “So the line is that I’m a dictator — but I stop crime,” Trump said at […]
Slingshot News: ‘He Came Over And Hugged Me’: Trump Makes Up A Fake Story Of Maryland Governor Wes Moore In Embarrassing Oval Office Moment
‘He Came Over And Hugged Me’: Trump Makes Up A Fake Story Of Maryland Governor Wes Moore In Embarrassing Oval Office Moment
Donald Trump signed a batch of executive orders several days ago in the Oval Office. During his gaggle with the press, Trump made up a fake story about Maryland Governor Wes Moore hugging him and calling him the “greatest president” of his lifetime. Moore responded with a 3-letter statement: lol.
News Nation: Gov. Moore issues challenge to ‘ignorant’ Trump
Wes Moore, Maryland’s Democratic governor, criticized President Trump for his negative comment about Baltimore and issued a challenge for the president to “come walk the streets.”
Moore called Trump out Thursday, urging the president to “keep our name out of your mouth,” unless he was willing to be part of a solution.
Trump spoke of Baltimore, among other cities in the U.S., that are “so far gone” when dealing with crime amid his crackdown on illegal behavior in Washington, D.C.
This led to Moore’s criticism and a letter inviting him to visit Baltimore. He joined “CUOMO” to discuss his back-and-forth with the president.Trump announces World Cup draw will be at Kennedy Center
“I’d love for the president to take us up on our offer and actually come walk the streets with us,” Moore told “CUOMO.”
“If the president is going to make comments about Baltimore, then the president should actually make sure (they’re) informed comments, because the truth is, the comments that he is making from the Oval Office, the personal attacks that he’s made on me from the Oval Office, they are just inaccurate, they’re ignorant,” he added.
Moore, a former U.S. Army officer, referenced his background as a soldier when noting, “I will always fight for my folks.”
“If you come after my people, and if you, if you come after the folks who I represent best, believe that we are going to come back,” Moore said.
“If anybody wants to be a vehicle for the solution, I will ride with you, and I will work with you, and I will do it, and I will do it excitedly, but if all you want to do is take pot shots and use tropes at the people of my communities or the people of my state — understand, my training is that I am a soldier, and we will clap back,” he said.
Gov. Moore issues challenge to ‘ignorant’ Trump
Moore, a former U.S. Army officer, referenced his background as a soldier when noting, “I will always fight for my folks.”
https://www.newsnationnow.com/cuomo-show/gov-moore-trump-challenge-baltimore-crime
Law & Crime: Judge shreds Trump admin for ‘nonsensical’ bid to terminate 28-year policy that protects immigrant children in federal custody
A federal judge in California has shot down an attempt by the Trump administration to scrub away the government’s 28-year-old Flores Settlement Agreement, which calls for court-mandated oversight on the treatment of immigrant children in federal custody.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee issued a 20-page order on Friday, keeping the 1997 agreement in place as Justice Department lawyers “fail to identify any new facts or law” that warrant its termination “at this time,” according to the Barack Obama appointee.
The administration had previously tried terminating the Flores agreement in 2019 at the end of Donald Trump‘s first term, but was unsuccessful then, too. Gee reportedly called a hearing last week on the matter “deja vu” as the government tried propping up similar arguments.
“The court remains unconvinced,” Gee wrote in Friday’s order. “There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law.”
Under the Flores Settlement Agreement, immigrant children must be held at “state-licensed” facilities — treated properly and humanely — before being released into the custody of family members or guardians “as expeditiously as possible,” per Gee’s order. The settlement is named after Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old detainee who sparked a class-action lawsuit to be filed in 1985.
The Trump administration recently argued that the Flores agreement was no longer needed because Congress had approved legislation to help deal with the issues the settlement addressed. It also claimed that government agencies had implemented practices and standards to ensure youths were being treated properly.
“The legal basis for the agreement has withered away,” DOJ lawyers argued in a May 22 motion for relief. “Congress enacted legislation protecting UACs [unaccompanied alien children], and the agencies promulgated detailed standards and regulations implementing that legislation and the terms of the FSA,” the lawyers said, blasting the agreement as an “intrusive regime” that has “ossified” federal immigration policy.
“The legal and policy landscape has also changed beyond recognition,” they added.
Gee noted Friday how she had heard this all before.
“These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical,” the judge blasted.
“Incredulously, defendants posit that DHS need not promulgate regulations containing an expeditious release provision because ‘this Court has interpreted [expeditious release] to apply to accompanied children,'” Gee explained. “But ‘the FSA was intended to provide for prompt release of unaccompanied children.’ This is plainly incorrect and ignores the rulings of at least three separate courts.”
Gee concluded her order by saying it was ultimately the Trump administration that “continues to bind itself to the FSA by failing to fulfill its side of the parties’ bargain.”
Lawyers for immigrant children named in the class action complaint that spurred all this have said Trump’s second term has seen similar violations of the Flores agreement that have been alleged in the past.
“In CBP facilities across the country, including in cases documented by class counsel in New York, Maine, Illinois, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, and California, plaintiffs report being held for days and sometimes weeks in restrictive, traumatic conditions,” the lawyers said in a June 17 motion to enforce the FSA. One parent, whose allegations were included in the motion, described how they and their child were held at a facility where “the rooms have hard walls, like cement, and there is a window facing the hall but you cannot go out or see the sun,” per the motion.
“We are never allowed to go out,” the parent said. “The children keep telling us, ‘This is not America.’ They feel imprisoned and confused. They are seeing the sun for the first time in this interview room. They both ran to the window and stared out, and my son asked, ‘Is that America?'”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers accused the Trump administration of wanting to be released from the settlement “not because they have complied with and will continue to observe its fundamental principles, but because they want the flexibility to treat children however they wish,” according to the June motion.
DOJ officials did not respond to Law&Crime’s requests for comment Sunday.
Judge rips Trump admin for ‘nonsensical’ bid to shred care standards for migrant children
The Trump administration has failed to scrub away the government’s 28-year-old Flores Settlement Agreement, which calls for court-mandated oversight on the treatment of immigrant children.
Daily Beast: Shallow Trump Pressures Zelensky to Wear a Suit to the White House
The Ukrainian president is reportedly planning to ditch his military-style sweatshirt for a black jacket to avoid another White House showdown.
All eyes will be on Volodymyr Zelensky when he arrives at the White House on Monday afternoon—if only to see what he’s wearing when he meets President Donald Trump.
Ukraine’s wartime president found himself the target of a pile-on in his last Oval Office visit in February, when Vice President JD Vance accused him of being “disrespectful” to the U.S. by not wearing a suit and tie.
Keen to avoid a repeat, White House officials have reportedly been pressing Zelensky to dress up for Monday’s crucial talks at the White House, where Zelensky and Trump will be joined a slew of major European leaders.
Citing two sources inside the Trump administration, Axios reported Monday that the White House had explicitly asked Ukrainian officials whether Zelensky would be wearing a suit to the Oval Office.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One source told the outlet that Zelensky would be wearing the same sort of black jacket he wore to meet Trump at the NATO summit in June, rather his usual army-style sweatshirt. “Trump was happy about that,” Axios reported in its newsletter.
Monday’s talks, which come on the heels of Trump’s summit meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, could help bring an end to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
But all anyone in MAGAworld seems to have cared about over the past few days is what Zelensky will be wearing when he shakes Trump’s hand.
In a scathing preview of the Oval Office talks, Real America’s Voice host Brian Glenn told viewers on Sunday: “Two questions right now. One: Will we have peace? But two: Will Zelensky wear a suit?”
The channel, which calls itself the “authentic voice and passion of real people all across America,” then played a clip from Zelensky’s infamous visit to the White House earlier this year when Glenn himself sparked a brutal pile-on from the room by criticizing Zelensky for what he was wearing.
Zelensky’s casual battle dress was reminiscent of that worn by previous wartime leaders during visits to the White House, including Britain’s prime minister during WWII, Winston Churchill. But the February meeting descended into acrimony, with Vance leading what many observers considered an ambush of Zelensky.
Zelensky will be joined at the White House by European leaders including Britain’s Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron of France who will try to persuade Trump that the pressure should be on Putin to end the conflict he started in 2022. Casualties are widely reported to be past the million mark after more than three years of attritional fighting.
The Oval Office talks come just days the Alaska summit, at which no real progress appears to have been made—and which some White House officials reportedly left looking ashen-faced.
Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin, who has largely been ostracized by the international community since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After greeting him like an old friend, Trump let Putin talk first at a post-summit press conference—with no actual questions allowed—and even game him a lift in his armored “Beast” limousine.
It remains clear, however, that Putin is still clinging to his maximalist demands for sovereignty over large parts of Ukraine and subsequent demilitarization.
Trump is expected to greet Zelensky today at 1 p.m. ET, with a series of meetings with other European leaders scheduled throughout the afternoon.
Shallow Trump Pressures Zelensky to Wear a Suit to the White House
The Ukrainian president is reportedly planning to ditch his military-style sweatshirt for a black jacket to avoid another White House showdown.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/shallow-trump-pressures-zelensky-to-wear-a-suit-to-the-white-house
Washington Post: Trump claims credit for fixing Social Security as it barrels to insolvency
Many of the president’s claims were misleading and ignored months of turmoil at the embattled agency.
President Donald Trump marked the 90th anniversary of Social Security on Thursday with an Oval Office signing of a proclamation that the safety net was “more resilient than ever before,” thanks to him. He claimed improvements to the program’s customer service. He also misleadingly declared that he had checked off his campaign promise to eliminate taxes on benefits for seniors.
But Social Security is barreling toward insolvency faster than before because of Trump’s tax bill and immigration policies, according to experts. The agency has faced tumult since the U.S. DOGE Service came in with a grand scheme to root out fraud and overhaul the program, causing disruptions and frustrations within the agency.
And despite the repetition of “no tax on Social Security” from Trump and his allies, the law ultimately signed by the president did not eliminate taxes on seniors’ benefits.
The Oval Office event — largely ceremonial — offered the president a chance to repeat his commitments to older Americans on the anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law. Trump was joined by Commissioner Frank Bisignano, who has led the agency since May.
“I made a sacred pledge to our seniors that I would always protect Social Security, and under this administration we’re keeping that promise and strengthening Social Security for generations to come,” Trump said.
However, Republicans have not yet provided a solution to put off Social Security’s impending shortfalls.
Natalie Ihrman, a Social Security spokeswoman, said the agency is “committed to working with Congress and other stakeholders to strengthen these vital SSA programs and continue to provide secure retirement and support in times of disability for millions of Americans.”
The trust fund will be insolvent by 2033, the program’s trustees said in June, if Congress doesn’t act. And after the passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the chief actuary said the law could hasten Social Security’s insolvency date.
In addition, experts have warned that Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants — who pay into the system but are barred from receiving benefits — will further deplete the program.
Penn Wharton’s budget model has projected that if the government deports 10 percent of undocumented immigrants annually over the next 10 years, Social Security will lose $133 billion in funds over that period of time.
In his comments Thursday, Trump repeated a baseless claim that immigrants were getting benefits and asserted that nearly 275,000 immigrants were removed from the agency’s rolls. The agency did not provide information about the president’s claims that immigrants were getting benefits, but it said, “SSA updated the Social Security records of about 275,000 individuals no longer holding legal status, ensuring people ineligible to receive benefits are not improperly paid.”
Most federal public benefits — such as Social Security — are available only to U.S. citizens and certain categories of legal immigrants.
Trump also praised himself for keeping a campaign promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security.
“I signed One Big Beautiful Bill and allowed no tax on Social Security for our great seniors,” Trump said.
But the law didn’t create an exemption on taxes on Social Security benefits. It added a temporary $6,000 deduction for seniors who earn as much as $75,000 a year, or $12,000 for joint filers earning as much as $150,000.
Ihrman of SSA said the law “provides historic tax relief to America’s seniors.”
The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that 88 percent of older adults will not pay taxes on their benefits because of the bill, up from 64 percent under previous law.
Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, said the council’s estimate relies on the assumption seniors would use their standard deduction to reduce their tax liability on Social Security benefits rather than their total income. The policy center has estimated that about half of recipients will pay at least some income taxes on their benefits.
“What he’s saying is just wrong,” Gleckman said of Trump’s claim.
Trump and Bisignano also touted achievements in customer service, specifically claiming recent reductions in wait times for the 1-800 phone line and at field offices as well as the elimination of scheduled maintenance times for the website.
Bisignano came into the agency in May after the cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service implemented changes that led to customers complaining of dropped calls, the website repeatedly crashing and thousands of workers leaving the agency.
One of Bisignano’s early efforts to address the overwhelmed phone line was to move field office workers to answer calls.
Advocates have said it is harder to tell what customer service is like since the agency has taken down many of its public-facing performance metrics.
To trumpet the phone performance, the agency has said it reduced the “average speed to answer,” which does not count the time callers wait for a call back, even though the agency rolled out the callback feature last year.
The agency also said it cut wait times at field offices, a statistic repeated by Trump on Thursday.
That is misleading, according Jessica LaPointe, president of Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees. After the agency rolled out a new system of assigning appointments to people walking into field offices in December, the time people wait in the lobby of field offices went down because they were no longer getting their issues handled when they showed up.
“Now you wait 20 minutes in the lobby to get to the window and then you’re given an appointment and you are waiting then months to get your business finished, from start to finish,” LaPointe said.
Trump claims credit for fixing Social Security as it barrels to insolvency
Many of the president’s claims were misleading and ignore months of turmoil at the embattled agency.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/08/14/trump-social-security-90th-annniversary
Also here:
Trump claims credit for fixing Social Security as it barrels to insolvency
Many of the president’s claims were misleading and ignore months of turmoil at the embattled agency.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-AA1Ky5eX
