Tag Archives: Vice President Kamala Harris

News Nation: Noem accuses CBS of ‘deceptively’ editing interview on Kilmar Abrego Garcia

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused CBS News of selectively editing footage from her Sunday interview, cutting some of her remarks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who was mistakenly deported and returned to the U.S. to face separate charges.

In a statement on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security said CBS “deceptively” edited the secretary’s answers, cutting about four minutes from the nearly 17-minute interview when it aired on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” Noem said in a statement. “Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.”

CBS News, however, maintains that the interview was edited to fit its allotted time slot in the hourlong broadcast and that the full interview was published online.

“Secretary Noem’s ‘Face The Nation’ interview was edited for time and met all CBS News standards,” a spokesperson for CBS News said in a statement to NewsNation partner The Hill. “The entire interview is publicly available on YouTube, and the full transcript was posted early Sunday morning at CBSNews.com.”

Noem’s accusation is the latest example of the administration’s ongoing feud with CBS and its parent company, Paramount.

Earlier this summer, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump over claims the news outlet favorably edited a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the 2024 election.

In Noem’s Sunday interview, sections of her responses cut for the live broadcast include allegations against Abrego Garcia that have not been substantiated and which his lawyers deny.

Those include allegations that the Maryland resident “was a known human smuggler, MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors and even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off,” which Noem said in the section of the interview that DHS claims was removed from the live broadcast.

The DHS statement includes other sections of the CBS interview that reportedly did not air live on Sunday morning.

Earlier this week, attorneys for Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge to issue a gag order against Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi to bar them from making “baseless public attacks” against their client, who faces human smuggling charges stemming from a traffic stop in 2022. 

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in a Thursday motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee that administration officials have targeted their client since he was released from prison, leveling “highly prejudicial, inflammatory and false statements.” 

“To safeguard his right to a fair trial, Mr. Abrego respectfully renews his earlier requests that the Court order that all DOJ and DHS officials involved in this case, and all officials in their supervisory chain, including [Bondi and Noem], refrain from making extrajudicial comments that pose a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing this proceeding,” the attorneys said in a 15-page motion to U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw. 

A DHS official pushed back against the gag order request.

“If Kilmar Abrego Garcia did not want to be mentioned by the Secretary of Homeland Security, then he should have not entered our country illegally and committed heinous crimes,” a DHS official told The Hill on Friday morning. 

“Once again, the media is falling all over themselves to defend this criminal illegal MS-13 gang member who is an alleged human trafficker, domestic abuser, and child predator,” the DHS official continued. “The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal alien has completely fallen apart, yet they continue to peddle his sob story.”

“We hear far too much about gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims,” the official added.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys were told their client could be deported to Uganda, but a federal judge said Monday that the administration is “absolutely forbidden” from removing Abrego Garcia until a hearing is held.

Whine, bitch, whine!

https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/kristi-noem-cbs-interview-kilmar-abrego-garcia/?ipid=promo-link-block2

Law & Crime: Trump doubles down on claim he has ‘absolute immunity’ from Central Park 5 defamation lawsuit

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President Donald Trump is doubling down on his claim that he has “absolute immunity” from a defamation lawsuit filed against him by members of the exonerated Central Park Five over false statements he made about them during a televised debate with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

In an 11-page reply filed Wednesday, the president asserted he is entitled to an automatic stay in the case as an appellate court decides whether he is protected from litigation under Pennsylvania law. The filing argues that the state’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (UPEPA) — an anti-SLAPP law aimed at preventing defendants from being intimidated or silenced by the threat of expensive lawsuits — applies to the lawsuit and immunizes him against the plaintiffs’ claims.

Trump is appealing an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in which she refused to dismiss the defamation suit, holding that the Central Park Five’s claims were not barred by UPEPA, which is Pennsylvania’s version of an anti-SLAPP law.

“In enacting the [UPEPA], the Pennsylvania General Assembly explicitly recognized the severe chilling effect that lawsuits which target public participation have on constitutionally protected speech. To combat these abuses of the judicial process, the legislature provided defendants with substantive immunity from suit to spare them the burdens and expenses associated with meritless litigation,” Wednesday’s filing states. “Because the record demonstrates UPEPA immunity was intended to protect defendants from the burdens of litigation, and President Trump’s appeal presents a non-frivolous question, this Court should order an immediate stay.”

Beetlestone last month ruled that UPEPA does not apply in federal court. In his appeal, Trump asserted that the law must be applied in federal court, thereby making him immune from the plaintiffs’ suit. The appeal further argued that because Trump is allegedly entitled to immunity, it is “mandatory” that the court grant his request for a stay pending appeal.

Attorneys for the Central Park Five pushed back on Trump’s claim that a stay in the case is mandatory, claiming the president “does not cite any relevant case for this proposition” and is conflating absolute immunity — being immune from litigation — with being statutorily immune from liability.

For example, a sitting president would be immune from litigation if a lawsuit were based on any official acts taken within the scope of presidential duties, regardless of the merits. On the other hand, immunity based on anti-SLAPP statutes typically requires courts to address the merits of the plaintiff’s claims.

Trump on Wednesday argued that plaintiffs’ position “fundamentally misconstrues the statute,” claiming UPEPA “grants defendants an immediate entitlement to avoid the litigation process itself, which cannot be vindicated once Defendant is subjected to the burdens of litigation.”

“UPEPA immunity is, therefore, like that afforded to defendants under the doctrines of absolute and qualified immunity, and the Court should stay the proceedings in this case as it would in cases where such immunities are invoked,” the filing says.

The president further asserted that refusing his request to stay the proceedings while the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would establish a precedent allowing lawsuits to be filed against citizens “for merely voicing their opinions in quintessentially political discussions.”

The wrongly accused quintet sued Trump for false statements he made during last year’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris in which he said the plaintiffs “pled guilty” to the horrific 1989 attack on a Manhattan jogger and “ultimately killed a person.”

Antron McCray, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, and Raymond Santana gave police coerced confessions, but never pleaded guilty while Yusef Salaam did not confess or plead guilty. Additionally, no one died in the attack, which was later conclusively proven to have been committed by a man named Matias Reyes.

Crybaby Trump claims no responsibility for defamation of others during a political debate.

Trump doubles down on claiming ‘absolute immunity’ from Central Park 5 defamation lawsuit
Donald Trump is doubling down on the claim that he is immune from a defamation lawsuit filed by members of the Central Park Five in Pennsylvania.
Trump doubles down on claim he has ‘absolute immunity’ from Central Park 5 defamation lawsuit

NY Times: Paramount to Pay Trump $16 Million to Settle ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit

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President Trump had sued over an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. The company needs federal approval for a multibillion-dollar sale.

Another $16M in the Grifter-in-Chief’s pockets. The corruption continues unabated.

Paramount to Pay Trump $16 Million to Settle ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit
President Trump had sued over an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. The company needs federal approval for a multibillion-dollar sale.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/business/media/paramount-trump-60-minutes-lawsuit.html

NBC News: Despite promise to remove ‘worst of the worst,’ ICE has arrested only 6% of known immigrant murderers

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After six months of aggressive immigration enforcement and promises to focus on deporting violent criminals, the Trump administration has arrested and detained a small fraction of the undocumented immigrants already known to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as having been convicted of sexual assault and homicide, internal ICE data obtained by NBC News shows.

The data is a tally of every person booked by ICE from Oct. 1 through May 31, part of which was during the Biden administration. It shows a total of 185,042 people arrested and booked into ICE facilities during that time; 65,041 of them have been convicted of crimes. The most common categories of crimes they committed were immigration and traffic offenses.

Almost half of the people currently in ICE custody have neither been convicted of nor charged with any crime, other ICE data shows.

But they’re not capturing and deporting the great majority of serious criminals — most illegal-immigrant murderers and rapists are still on the loose:

The new data obtained by NBC News shows that from Oct. 1 to May 31, ICE arrested 752 people convicted of homicide and 1,693 people convicted of sexual assault, meaning that at the absolute most, the Trump administration has detained only 6% of the undocumented immigrants known to ICE to have been convicted of homicide and 11% of those known to ICE to have been convicted of sexual assault.

Despite promise to remove ‘worst of the worst,’ ICE has arrested only 6% of known immigrant murderers
ICE told Congress in September that over 13,000 immigrants known to have committed murder remained at large. Since then, only 752 have been arrested.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/promise-remove-worst-worst-ice-arrested-only-6-known-immigrant-murdere-rcna214817

CBS News: Cuts to FEMA’s storm prep program hammer communities that voted for Trump

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A CBS News investigation found two-thirds of counties that have lost funding from this FEMA program supported President Trump in the 2024 election.

The mayor of Central — a community of about 30,000 outside of Baton Rouge — Evans and his family were forced to evacuate their home by boat in 2016 when flooding from torrential rains destroyed 60% of the structures in town.

“Flood water doesn’t discriminate,” said Evans, a Republican and supporter of President Trump. ‘”Any person that flooded is shocked that it would be considered politics to do flood mitigation.”

So when he received word in April that FEMA was canceling a grant program that would provide nearly $40 million for a new flood control system in Central, he was angry. In a press release, FEMA said the program, which provided funding for infrastructure projects in storm-prone communities, was “wasteful” and had become “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans recover from natural disasters.”

“To me, it’s a brilliant business decision,” said Evans, who said the drainage project in Central would have saved money in the long run by protecting houses that routinely sustain flood damage FEMA ultimately ends up covering. “And then they pulled the rug out from under us.”

Evans and Central aren’t alone. Amid the avalanche of cuts made in the first five months of the Trump administration, none may have red state politicians more up in arms than the cancellation of the infrastructure program, which is formally known as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC for short.

The $4.6 billion initiative was launched under the first Trump administration, and a CBS News analysis of FEMA data revealed that two-thirds of the counties awarded grants voted for President Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.

In other words, King Donald is giving his own fan bois the royal shaft!

https://www.cbsnews.com/femagrantcuts

Washington Post: Many here wanted Trump to enforce immigration law, but ‘it’s going overboard’

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Interviews with more than four dozen people in this swing region encompassing northern Los Angeles County show how much tactics matter in the immigration debate.

Jesus Martinez, a 36-year-old aerospace worker, said he initially supported President Donald Trump’s decision to send the military to quell immigration protests in California. But he has grown increasingly uneasy after seeing images of ICE raids near schools and at workplaces where families are being separated.

“It’s going overboard. It’s too much,” said Martinez, a former Democrat who supported Trump in 2020 and sat out the 2024 election.

“They said only criminals, and now they’re saying, ‘Well, they did come in illegally, so they are criminals,’” he added. “Hispanics or Latinos that voted for Trump, they didn’t think he was going to go after kids.”

…

In this working-class and heavily Latino area known for its wildflower blooms, a region that moved toward Trump in the 2024 election, voters from both parties voiced support for Trump’s promises to deport immigrants who are here illegally, especially those with criminal records. But they drew lines — some over the scope of those deportations and, to a lesser extent, over his decision to crack down on immigration protesters with the military.

“When you already have aggressive people and then you’re sending in people like that, I feel like it just makes it kind of worse,” said Christian Strand, a 19-year-old EMT from Palmdale, a majority-Latino city, referring to the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines. “It’s creating more of a pushback, because the aggression is rising.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/17/trump-california-immigration-voters

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/many-here-wanted-trump-to-enforce-immigration-law-but-it-s-going-overboard/ar-AA1GUEAR

NBC News: Sen. Alex Padilla is forcibly removed from DHS Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem’s news conference in Los Angeles

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[Bimbo #2] Noem was in L.A. to address the ongoing protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Federal agents handcuffed Padilla after his removal.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was forcibly removed from a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday after he tried to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem during a media event related to immigration.

“I am Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla told [Bimbo #2] Noem, which prompted several men dressed in plainclothes to push him out of the room. A top FBI official later said bureau personnel and Secret Service agents were involved in his removal.

Padilla’s office shared a video of the incident with NBC News. The video shows Padilla being taken into a hallway outside and pushed face forward onto the ground as officers with FBI-identifying vests tell him to put his hands behind his back. The officers then handcuff him.

…

Padilla to reporters later Thursday that he was waiting for a scheduled briefing from military officials when he learned [Bimbo #2] Noem was in the same building and decided to join her briefing.

“I was there peacefully,” he said. “At one point, I had a question, and so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room, I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed.”

Like everything else that spews out of her mouth, Bimbo #2 Noem lied; He had clearly identified himself, and Bimbo #2 Noem had met with him previously on several occasions:

Bimbo #2 Noem offered a different account in an interview on Fox News in which she falsely said Padilla did not identify himself before he was forced out.

And a summary from Senator Padilla:

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” he said.

Sen. Alex Padilla is forcibly removed from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference in Los Angeles
Noem was in L.A. to address the ongoing protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Federal agents handcuffed Padilla after his removal.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/rcna212688

Associated Press: Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys hundreds of National Guard troops

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Tensions in Los Angeles escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bangs to control the crowd.

Some police patrolled the streets on horseback while others with riot gear lined up behind Guard troops deployed to protect federal facilities including a detention center where some immigrants were taken in recent days. Police declared an unlawful assembly, and by early evening many people had left.

But protesters who remained grabbed chairs from a nearby public park to form a makeshift barrier, throwing objects at police on the other side. Others standing above the closed southbound 101 Freeway threw chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles that were parked on the highway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.

It was the third day of demonstrations against Trump’s immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 federal troops spurred anger and fear among some residents. Sunday’s protests in Los Angeles, a city of 4 million people, were centered in several blocks of downtown.

Starting in the morning, National Guard troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Protesters shouted “shame” and “go home.” After some closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street.

Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon, while southbound lanes remained shut down.

Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles.

Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom requested Trump remove the guard members in a letter Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a “serious breach of state sovereignty.”

…

Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys hundreds of National Guard troops
National Guard troops have begun arriving on President Trump’s orders in response to immigration protests.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-protests-raids-los-angeles-78eaba714dbdd322715bf7650fb543d7

Associated Press: Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys hundreds of National Guard troops

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Tensions in Los Angeles escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bangs to control the crowd.

Some police patrolled the streets on horseback while others with riot gear lined up behind Guard troops deployed to protect federal facilities including a detention center where some immigrants were taken in recent days. Police declared an unlawful assembly, and by early evening many people had left.

But protesters who remained grabbed chairs from a nearby public park to form a makeshift barrier, throwing objects at police on the other side. Others standing above the closed southbound 101 Freeway threw chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles that were parked on the highway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.

It was the third day of demonstrations against Trump’s immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 federal troops spurred anger and fear among some residents. Sunday’s protests in Los Angeles, a city of 4 million people, were centered in several blocks of downtown.

Starting in the morning, National Guard troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Protesters shouted “shame” and “go home.” After some closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street.

Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon, while southbound lanes remained shut down.

Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys hundreds of National Guard troops
National Guard troops have begun arriving on President Trump’s orders in response to immigration protests.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-protests-raids-los-angeles-78eaba714dbdd322715bf7650fb543d7

The Hill: Musk rips media over hypocrisy over Booker gesture

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Tech billionaire Elon Musk slammed the “legacy media” over the weekend, alleging hypocrisy in how news outlets covered Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) recent arm gesture after he faced criticism for a similar gesture earlier this year.

Booker, while speaking at the California Democratic Convention on Saturday, placed his hand on his heart before extending his arm toward the crowd.

We know a Nazi salute when we see one. You thought you’d get away with it. You didn’t.

Suck it up, Bubba!

Musk rips media over hypocrisy over Booker gesture
Tech billionaire Elon Musk slammed the “legacy media” over the weekend, alleging hypocrisy in how news outlets covered Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) recent arm gesture after he face…

https://thehill.com/media/5328855-musk-accuses-legacy-media-hypocrisy