Inquisitr: Leaked Oval Office Photos Expose Trump’s Vision for a Triumphal Arch [Video]
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Tag Archives: Donald Trump
Inquisitr: A Nation in Crisis — Trump’s Golden Arch Dream Rises While Americans Drown in Food Debt
Is Trump is set to start another extravagant project in Washington D.C?
Donald Trump has an ambitious vision to make America Great Again! Stemming from a background of generational wealth, he built a strong identity for himself through hard work, support, and intelligence, which shows in his lifestyle. The real estate mogul was a big shot name in the industry long before he said yes to politics.
Naturally, his extravagant choices can also be seen during his tenure as he plans another lavish construction project in Washington, D.C. This triumphal arch could rival the Lincoln Memorial in size and grandeur. This week, a correspondent captured images of a large model of the proposed arch, complete with a winged golden figure sitting atop the Resolute Desk, reminiscent of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. The White House has not confirmed.
As per The Irish Star, the arch would be the latest in a series of projects tied to Trump’s return to office, including federal buildings with significant credit given to his administration. This news comes after Trump has already spent quite a large sum of funds renovating parts of the White House.
The 79-year-old is set to construct a lavish ballroom, described as a $200 million gold-plated vanity project spanning 90,000 square feet. It is under scrutiny over whether its funding has ties to foreign governments. The President has also paved the infamous Rose Garden at the White House and turned it into a something akin to a patio in a resort.
Despite the federal government shutdown, which occurred on October 1, 2025, and remains unresolved as of October 9, construction on the ballroom has not stopped. Trump administration officials insist that the build is being financed through a combination of Trump’s personal finances and his ardent supporters, who are tycoons from companies like Google, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Palantir.
A controversy also began in lieu of the funding claims for the ballroom. YouTube, which Google owns, paid $24.5 million to resolve a longstanding lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. Similarly, Trump’s domestic spending bill, signed in July, includes billions for projects and symbolism aimed at reshaping the capital in his image.
His recent military parade, timed with the Army’s 250th anniversary and his 79th birthday, is estimated to have cost taxpayers up to $40 million. He has also spent quite a bit on renovating the Oval Office and covering it with gold accents, despite adverse reactions online.
The news about Trump’s love for investing in gold, making massive renovations, and enjoying a luxurious lifestyle comes when there is an ongoing political fiasco between the Republicans and the Democrats over the shutdown, as TSA workers aren’t getting paid, the agricultural sector is suffering, and the people are concerned about America’s future.
As millions of Americans face cuts to healthcare, food assistance, and disaster relief programs, Trump has redirected hundreds of dollars in federal funds toward aesthetic upgrades, lavish amenities benefiting himself and his circle. Meanwhile, Republicans accused the Democrats of pushing for extreme spending measures, including proposals to offer health care to undocumented immigrants, which led to the shutdown.
Even people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have decided to go against her party’s leadership despite her support for Trump and his ideas. All the funds meant for these workers were reportedly being used for providing healthcare for illegal immigrants and transgender surgeries.
“Our government keeps sending billions overseas while doing nothing for our own people,” Greene said. “It’s shameful, and I’m not staying silent about it anymore,” Greene said.
As Trump’s administration continues to announce grand renovations, many people have questioned the ruling party’s real agendas and accused them of heading towards an authoritarian style of leadership.
Newsweek: Chicago producer’s arrest by border patrol agents raises legal questions
A legal analyst has warned that the arrest of a Chicago TV producer by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents on Friday could have been a direct violation of a recent court order in the city.
Debbie Brockman, a producer for Chicago television station WGN-TV, was apprehended by border patrol agents in a residential area of the city on Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed her arrest in a statement to Newsweek stating that she “was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer.” As did WGN though it mentioned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) instead. WGN added no charges were filed were filed against Brockman.
For the senior writer covering the courts for Slate, Mark Joseph Stern, her arrest “appears to be in direct violation of a temporary restraining order prohibiting DHS officers from arresting journalists.” The officers who arrested, he wrote on Bluesky, “may well be subject to contempt of court.”
Why It Matters
Immigration agents, under the direction of the Donald Trump administration, have been scouring the streets of Chicago for illegal immigrants to deport, sparking protests across the city.
On Thursday, a federal judge in Chicago issued a temporary restraining order banning federal agents from using riot control weapons and other force against protesters and journalists covering demonstrations, who are not posing a threat to law enforcement.
The order from District Judge Sara Ellis also forbids agents from arresting, threatening to arrest, or deploying physical force against journalists unless they have established probable cause that they have committed a crime.
What To Know
Videos circulating on social media show a woman, who later identifies herself as Debbie Brockman, being held to the ground by masked officers before being handcuffed and loaded into a silver van. In some of the videos, onlookers can be heard calling the agents “fascists” and telling them to “get out of our neighborhood, get out of our city”.
According to what witnesses told WGN, another person had been arrested in the Lincoln’s Square neighborhood before the journalist and was already in the federal agents’ van when Brockman was put into it. Residents said that immigration agents seemed to be targeting men working on a nearby property. Brockman, according to her employer, is a U.S. citizen.
Stern shared on Bluesky a screenshot of the temporary restraining order’s text, which reads: “It is hereby ORDERED that Defendants, their officers, agents, assigns and all other persons acting in concert with them (hereafter referred to as ‘Federal Agents’), are temporarily EN/joined in this judicial district from: a. Dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, threatening or using physical force against any person who they know or reasonably should know is a journalist, unless defendants have probable cause to believe that the individual has committed a crime.”
At time of writing, Newsweek has found no video evidence, released by the DHS or other sources, showing Brockman assaulting federal agents.
What People Are Saying
Tricia McLaughlin, who oversees the DHS’s public outreach, said of the arrest in a statement provided to Newsweek: “U.S. border patrol was conducting immigration enforcement operations and when several violent agitators used their vehicles to block in agents in an effort to impede and assault federal officers.
“In fear of public safety and of law enforcement, officers used their service vehicle to strike a suspect’s vehicle and create an opening. As agents were driving, Deborah Brockman, a US citizen, threw objects at border patrol’s car, and she was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer.
“This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers. These attacks highlight the dangers our law enforcement officers face daily—all while receiving no pay thanks to the Democrats’ government shutdown.”
In a statement to Newsweek, WGN said: “A WGN-TV creative services employee was detained by ICE. She has since been released, and no charges were filed against her. Out of respect for her privacy, we will have no further statements about this incident.”
Josh Thomas, a resident of the area where Brockman was arrested, the Lincoln’s Square neighborhood, told WGN: “I heard yelling and screaming and honking. I ran downstairs to see what was going on. It looked like Border Patrol agents in a minivan had slammed some lady to the ground. And so, I ran up to her and asked her for her name. She said she was a WGN employee.”
Resident Giordana Mahn told WGN: “I’m scared for my community. I’m scared for anyone who is Black or brown. You’ll see in the video, the [WGN employee] wasn’t Black or brown […] they are terrorizing anyone. Everyone in Chicago.”
What Happens Next
According to WGN, Brockman was released from federal custody at 3 p.m. on Friday, local time, and no charges were filed against her. As of 6 p.m. on Friday, the TV station said, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Chicago had confirmed no charges had been filed in Brockman’s case.
CNN: Trump announces 130% tariffs on China. The global trade war just came roaring back
President Donald Trump announced he will impose an additional 100% tariff on goods from China, on top of the 30% tariffs already in effect, starting November 1 or sooner. The threat is a massive escalation after months of a trade truce between the two nations.
“The United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social Friday afternoon. “Also on November 1st, we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.”
Trump’s announcement is tied to Beijing ramping up export controls on its critical rare earths, which are needed to produce many electronics. As a result, Trump appeared to call off a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that was scheduled for later this month in South Korea.
Trump’s initial message Friday, delivered via a Truth Social post, in which he threatened “massive” new tariffs, was ill received by investors on Friday as fears of a spring déjà vu, when tariffs on Chinese goods soared to a stunning 145%, set in. Markets closed sharply lower on Friday after Trump’s initial comments, with the Dow falling by 878 points, or 1.9%. The S&P 500 was down 2.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 3.5%.
While Trump doesn’t always act on his threats, investors, consumers and businesses still have reason to worry.
The two largest economies depend on each other
The United States and China are the world’s two largest economies. Although Mexico has recently replaced China as the top source of foreign goods shipped to the United States, America depends on China for hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods. Meanwhile, China is one of the top export markets for America.
In particular, electronics, apparel and furniture are among the top goods the United States receives from China. Trump has pushed CEOs, especially in tech, to move production to the United States, but he’s softened his approach in recent months as business leaders have satisfied the president with announcements of hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in US manufacturing — even if they continue to make the bulk of their products overseas.
Shortly after imposing minimum 145% tariffs on Chinese goods — an effective embargo on trade, Trump issued an exemption for electronics, making them subject to 20% tariffs instead. The move was, in many ways, an acknowledgment that the Trump administration understood the pain he was inflicting on the US economy through his sky-high tariffs.
Then, in May, US and Chinese officials further established the interdependence of trade by agreeing to lower tariffs on one another. China brought levies on American exports down to 10% from 125%, and the United States brought rates down to 30% from 145%.
Both countries’ stock markets rallied as a result.
It was only a matter of time
Trump on Friday claimed trade hostility from China “came out of nowhere.” But in reality, it’s been bubbling up for months.
For the United States, a critical part of trade agreements has been to ensure China will increase its supply of rare earth magnets. Yet despite several apparent breakthroughs, Trump has in recent months repeatedly accused China of violating the terms.
Trump first responded by putting restrictions on sales of American technologies to China, including a key Nvidia AI chip. Many of these restrictions were later lifted.
Then came the Trump administration’s announcement that it would soon impose fees on goods transported on Chinese-owned or -operated ships. China countered with a similar plan on American ships that took effect Friday.
In short: Trump has already demonstrated there’s no limit to how high he’ll go with tariffs on China, and Xi has shown no mercy in how he chooses to retaliate.
But Trump’s ability to continue to impose tariffs on a whim could soon end, pending the verdict in a landmark case kicking off in the Supreme Court next month. Xi, however, faces no such constraints.
Trump announces 130% tariffs on China. The global trade war just came roaring back | CNN Business
President Donald Trump announced he will impose an additional 100% tariff on goods from China, on top of the 30% tariffs already in effect, starting November 1 or sooner. The threat is a massive escalation after months of a trade truce between the two nations.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/economy/trump-china-tariff-threats-economy
Slingshot News: ‘I’d Like You To See A Short Video’: Dick Durbin Sabotages GOP Colleagues When He Exposes Trump’s Cognitive Decline In Anti-Biden Hearing [Video]
Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee held a sham hearing several weeks ago to “examine” Joe Biden’s presidency. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) turned the tables on his GOP colleagues when he showed a video exposing Donald Trump’s cognitive decline.
‘I’d Like You To See A Short Video’: Dick Durbin Sabotages GOP Colleagues When He Exposes Trump’s Cognitive Decline In Anti-Biden Hearing
Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee held a sham hearing several weeks ago to “examine” Joe Biden’s presidency. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) turned the tables on his GOP colleagues when he showed a video exposing Donald Trump’s cognitive decline.
New Republic: MAGA Implodes over Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem’s “Stare Down” with Man in Chicken Suit
A good New York Times piece on Portland nevertheless demonstrates how the conventions of objective reporting fail to accurately capture the bad faith driving pro-Trump propaganda.
This week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem staged a bizarre photo op in Portland that appeared designed to bolster President Trump’s effort to deploy Oregon’s National Guard against ICE protesters in the city. [Bimbo #2] Noem stood on a rooftop observing protesters below, and MAGA influencers hailed it as a moment of extraordinary heroism against a powerful, implacable enemy. “[Bimbo #2] Noem just stared down violent Antifa rioters on the roof of a Portland ICE facility,” one wrote.
Alas, it turned out there were only a few protesters milling around far in the distance, including one man in a chicken suit. Intense online mockery ensued, and this buffoonish display is now at the center of a good New York Times piece, which details how the White House is relying on MAGA media personalities to spread the deceptive impression of a city in large-scale civil collapse.
However, the Times piece commits one misstep: It keeps describing those MAGA personalities as “provocateurs.” In fact, they are propagandists. Mainstream news outlets appear uncomfortable wrestling with the degree to which pro-Trump media figures practice propaganda undertaken in bad faith toward expressly instrumental ends. We need them to get past that.
This may seem like a churlish objection given that the Times piece is well reported and informative. But this euphemistic “provocateur” language risks diminishing the force and quality of the paper’s own reporting. The piece notes that federal and state law enforcement have reported that protests there are small-scale, and nothing like the civil breakdown depicted by Trump to create a rationale to federalize Oregon’s National Guard (that’s temporarily blocked in court). Then it reports this:
But in the bifurcated media world of 2025, one side’s comparative calm is the other’s “hellscape” — as the White House described Portland on Wednesday — and the narrative that the Trump administration has wanted has been supplied by a coterie of right-wing influencers elevated by Mr. Trump himself.
The piece also refers to “dueling versions of reality.” But this isn’t a case of one side genuinely seeing things one way (as “comparative calm”) and the other side genuinely seeing them differently (as a “hellscape”). It’s a case of one side (law enforcement, local journalists) trying to faithfully depict what’s really happening, and the other side (MAGA) concertedly lying about it to serve corrupt ends that are comprehensively, even intentionally disconnected from facts on the ground.
One influencer, for instance, accuses the Portland police chief of “allowing violent terrorists” to “run the city,” which is horseshit of the highest order. The Times piece quotes another MAGA personality suggesting that right wing agitators might be handing out flags and trying to bait protesters into burning them.
Other MAGA figures have described the city as a “war zone” and “under siege by antifa” or “fallen to antifa” and even in a “state of open insurrection.”
Indeed, as Media Matters documents, the gap between what MAGA media are portraying and what local press is reporting (the protests are mostly small and peaceful) has grown to enormous proportions. As one reporter put it, many protesters are “in pajamas, sharing pastries, throwing a frisbee, and playing board games.”
The point is not that there are zero examples of leftist protesters getting violent—as the Times notes, a handful of leftists are getting prosecuted for just that. Rather, it’s that none of this remotely matches what Trump and MAGA are conjuring into being.
The word “provocateur” doesn’t do justice to any of this—and we don’t mean to pick on the Times here, as that euphemism is constantly used elsewhere, too. “Provocateur” implies that all this is akin to plucky showmanship—political theater designed to needle, satirize, provoke, and entertain, as opposed to manipulate and deceive.
Some of these personalities probably do see themselves, to some degree, as putting on a show. But the broader aim of all this agitprop is far uglier. Trump has employed a form of state propaganda that may be unrivaled by any presidency in modern memory, and these MAGA influencers are generating material for that vile effort.
This is partly about producing endless online content to keep the MAGA base well-fed. Noem has chroniclers around her capturing her every move: When she gazed down on the man in the chicken suit, several depicted her as bravely confronting antifa mobs, even though the man stood with a few other people hundreds of feet away.
But the absurdity of this episode doesn’t diminish how sinister and carefully elaborated much of this propaganda truly is. When ICE raided an apartment complex in Chicago, where Trump is also trying to deploy various National Guards, state propagandists produced a slick video portraying it as a heroic operational triumph against a dangerous, determined, dug-in enemy. Stephen Miller declared that the complex was “filled” with Tren de Aragua “terrorists.”
Yet as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick points out, all of two people were identified as possible members of the gang, per CNN. While some others reportedly had criminal histories (some just involving drug possession), surely that doesn’t justify a massive hypermilitarized operation that terrorized scores or hundreds of people (the building has 130 units) and dragged children into the street.
If Miller were being honest about his true project, he’d forthrightly admit that he consciously intends all this as deliberate propaganda. It’s geared toward establishing unlimited discretion for Trump to simply invent emergencies with an eye toward vastly expanding presidential power. Miller wants Trump to bulldoze the courts into surrendering on fact-finding, into granting him quasi-absolute authority to declare into existence—merely by fiat—the conditions needed to justify whatever law enforcement or domestic military operation that Trump (i.e., Miller) launches next, including ones targeting Americans.
If inflicting these operations on civilian populations incites violence in return, from Miller’s perspective that’s surely all the better. Asawin Suebsaeng reports for Zeteo that Trump advisers are nudging him to invoke the Insurrection Act if necessary to circumvent judicial checks on these authorities. That’s plainly what Miller hopes for.
Yet the conventions of political reporting today are poorly suited to capturing this naked use of sheer pretexts and the bottomless bad faith they rely upon.
Headlines in the Times, for instance, regularly fall short in just this way. They treat Trump and his administration’s stated rationales as things they authentically believe, whether it’s the claim that Harvard violates students’ civil rights to justify his state crackdown on academic freedom … or the insistence that Portland is under siege from domestic terrorists to justify deploying the military there.
In these cases, casual readers will have zero inkling that these are bad-faith pretexts as opposed to genuinely held positions. The media needs to find new tools to convey these basic realities.
Propagandists are not “provocateurs.” Trump’s stated grounds for his abuses of power are not actual reasons, they are pretexts created for purely instrumental ends. And Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem did not “stare down” mobs of antifa terrorists in Portland. That’s because there isn’t any serious network of organized leftist violence in the United States, no matter how loudly Miller shrieks otherwise. Grasping how committed MAGA is to such industrial-scale deceptions is critical to getting this broader moment right.
MAGA Implodes over Kristi Noem’s “Stare Down” with Man in Chicken Suit
A good New York Times piece on Portland nevertheless demonstrates how the conventions of objective reporting fail to accurately capture the bad faith driving pro-Trump propaganda.
https://newrepublic.com/article/201669/kristi-noem-chicken-suit-maga-implodes
Daily Beast: Why Trump’s Beauty Queen Prosecutor Went Behind Bondi’s Back
Lindsey Halligan has shown precisely zero appetite for delay as she charges ahead with what critics have slammed as a campaign of retribution against the president’s political foes.
Donald Trump’s new prosecutorial bulldog is showing mounting signs of impatience as she moves at breakneck speed against the president’s political enemies.
Lindsey Halligan, whom Trump last month appointed as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, made the decision to file charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James this week without letting either Attorney General Pam Bondi or Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche know ahead of time.
“[She] just wanted to get it done,” a source with knowledge of the case told the Wall Street Journal Saturday.
The newspaper adds Halligan had originally wanted to indict James in Norfolk, Virginia, where some of her colleagues believed she stood a better chance of getting a conservative jury at trial.
Her decision to file in Alexandria instead, where she may now face a more liberal pool of jurors, reportedly followed after she learned Norfolk was off the table until sometime next week.
A former insurance lawyer who, like Deputy AG Blanche, has also worked as Trump’s personal defense attorney in the past, Halligan has never prosecuted a case before. Critics have slammed her moves against both James and former FBI Director James Comey as not only a sign of her inexperience, but also her die-hard loyalty to the MAGA leader and a mounting weaponization of the DOJ, given the perceived evidentiary weaknesses of both cases.
The WSJ notes there may also be practical reasons behind the apparent urgency of Halligan’s filings against the president’s foes. Her position as U.S. attorney is technically subject to Senate confirmation, and interim officials are only eligible to serve for 120 days.
District judges can potentially vote to extend her tenure, though it’s understood both Comey and James are planning to argue her appointment was in any case invalid given ongoing questions about the legitimacy of Trump’s effective ouster of Halligan’s predecessor Eric Siebert last month.
Siebert, Also a Trump appointee, reportedly provoked the president after warning him that any charges levied against James or Comey would almost certainly not hold up in court.
Within days of assuming her post, Halligan charged Comey with lying to a Senate Committee about whether he had authorized media leaks from inside the bureau as to its probe of Russian interference on behalf of Trump’s campaign in the 2016 election, long railed against by the president and his supporters as part of a Democratic “hoax.”
It’s since transpired that John Durham, a Trump-appointed special counsel who spent four years investigating the origin of the FBI’s probe into Russian election interference, had already told Siebert’s team he’d been unable to uncover any evidence that would support charges against the former bureau chief.
Halligan’s indictment against James, who previously pursued claims of fraud against the president and his businesses, concerns similarly long-running Republican allegations of mortgage fraud against the New York prosecutor described by herself and her allies as baseless.
Siebert and his staff concluded earlier this year they had not uncovered sufficient evidence James had knowingly made misrepresentations on the relevant documents in a way that would satisfy the legal standards of criminal liability, with the New York AG’s legal team describing any discrepancies in her files as nothing more than “insignificant” errors.
Why Trump’s Beauty Queen Prosecutor Went Behind Bondi’s Back
Lindsey Halligan has shown precisely zero appetite for delay as she charges ahead with what critics have slammed as a campaign of retribution against the president’s political foes.
Looks like Trump found another bimbo bitch to do his vengeful bidding!
Daily Beast: Trump Target Begs President’s Family to Stop Letting Aides Take Advantage of His ‘Dementia’
“I genuinely think there is something wrong with him,” said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker believes Donald Trump’s calls to have him arrested come down to the president’s declining mental fitness.
In a Wednesday Truth Social post, Trump called for Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to be jailed, while accusing the pair of Democrats of failing to protect ICE agents.
The president was angered by legal challenges from local officials to block the deployment of National Guard units to Chicago amid ongoing protests over ICE raids.
“I do not expect to be arrested, and the president of the United States says a lot of crazy things,” Pritzker told The Daily Blastpodcast from The New Republic.
Playing into reports of the 79-year-old president’s alleged cognitive decline, the governor urged Trump’s family to stop letting his aides take advantage of him.
“I genuinely think there is something wrong with him. I wish that his family would intervene, because I do think he needs mental health help, and I don’t think anybody around him that works for him is going to do that, because they’re benefiting from his failure of mental health, his dementia,” Pritzker said. “I wish somebody would help out the president of the United States.”
Trump has displayed troubling signs of cognitive decline, fueling concerns about his fitness for the presidency. For example, on Sept. 29, during a joint White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump incorrectly remembered when his first presidential term began.
Pritzker continued by ripping into Trump’s calls to have him arrested.
“Meanwhile, you know, he says a lot of crazy things,” the governor went on. “He doesn’t have authority to arrest elected officials or really anybody where you don’t have any, you know, example of a crime being committed, and I find it ironic that this guy who’s a 34-time convicted felon is saying that I should be jailed. I’ve never been accused of or convicted of, or, you know, gone on trial for anything. He’s the guy who’s done that so many times and cheated, by the way, in civil court.”
“Pritzker’s family should intervene to get him to a dietician,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast when contacted for comment.
Pritzker separately said on X on Wednesday that he “will not back down,” in response to Trump’s post. “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”
Jackson told the Daily Beast that Pritzker and Johnson “have blood on their hands.”
“These failed leaders have stood idly by while innocent Americans fall victim to violent crime time and time again. Last weekend alone, 30 people were shot and five of them died. But instead of taking action to stop the crime, these Trump-Deranged buffoons would rather allow the violence to continue and attack the President for wanting to help make their city safe again,” Jackson added.
Trump’s move to federalize National Guard troops in Illinois followed weeks of protests in Chicago over raids carried out by ICE agents as part of the administration’s crackdown on immigration.
Illinois and Chicago on Monday filed a lawsuit alleging that the president’s actions were “unlawful and dangerous.” The White House has defended the president’s actions, saying they are part of a wider effort to crack down on crime and lawlessness.
HuffPost UK: Nobel Peace Prize Chief Hits Back After White House Condemns Decision Not To Give Trump Award
A president’s communications director said they had “placed politics over peace”.
The head of the Nobel Committee has hit back after the White House condemned its decision not to award this year’s peace prize to Donald Trump.
Jorgen Watne Frydnes was forced to respond after the president’s top spin doctor said they had “placed politics over peace”.
Trump has been openly campaigning to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming to have stopped as many as eight wars since returning to the Oval Office in January.
However, Watne Frydnes announced on Friday morning that the committee had awarded this year’s peace prize to Venezuelan democracy campaigner María Corina Machado.
In a post on X, they said Machado “has spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people”.
“The Venezuelan regime’s rigid hold on power and its repression of the population are not unique in the world,” the committee said. “We see the same trends globally: rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarisation.”
Their remarks have been interpreted by some as an indirect criticism of Trump, who has been criticised over his legal pursuit of his political enemies and decision to send the national guard into cities run by Democratic politicians.
Writing on X after the Nobel announcement, White House director of communications Steven Cheung hit out at the committee.
He said: “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.
“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
On Sky News, Watne Frydnes said: “Our response is we hope as many people around the world should support the important work of Machado.
“This is work that we believe is desrrving and we hope that both political leaders, countries and people would support the mass movement that wants democracy in Venezuela and works for a free and fair transition from a brutal dictatorship to democracy.”
Asked about Trump’s campaign to win the award, he said: “We read the news as everyone else and this year there has been quite a lot of focus on that, but I must also say that in the long history of the Nobel peace prize, we have seen all kinds of campaigns, lobbying, pressure.
“Every year we receive thousands and thousands of letters, emails, people who want to express their opinion about who should receive the prize and also what actually leads to peace, so that’s something we’re quite used to.”
Independent: White House admits Trump’s message to [Bimbo #3] Bondi to prosecute enemies was supposed to be a DM: report
Apparent error provides another glimpse into radically reshaped Justice Department under Trump’s command
Donald Trump’s Truth Social post urging Attorney General Pam [Bimbo #3] Bondi to prosecute his perceived political enemies without “delay” was intended to be a private message, according to administration officials.
A post from the president’s account September 20 addressed to [Bimbo #3] “Pam” demands “justice be served” against his former FBI director James Comey, who was indicted five days later.
Trump — suggesting in his post that the prosecution of his favored targets is retribution for his impeachments and indictments against him — believed he had sent [Bimbo #3] Bondi the message directly, and was surprised to learn it was public, The Wall Street Journalreported.
[Bimbo #3] Bondi was reportedly upset over his mistake, which Trump quickly sought to correct with a follow-up message roughly one hour later praising [Bimbo #3] Bondi for doing a “GREAT job.”
The error has provided a glimpse into a radically reshaped Department of Justice, stripped of its historic independence with both [Bimbo #3] Bondi and Trump at the helm.
When asked about the message in a Senate oversight hearing this week, [Bimbo #3] Bondi replied: “I don’t think he said anything that he hasn’t said for years.”
Comey pleaded not guilty to lying to Congress and obstruction in his first court appearance on the charges Wednesday. A trial date is tentatively scheduled to begin January 5, 2026, but Comey’s attorneys are expected to try to have the case thrown out altogether, citing Trump’s “vindictive” prosecution.
Trump’s message to [Bimbo #3] Bondi is likely to be at the heart of that motion, showing the judge overseeing that case that the president directed the nation’s top law enforcement official to investigate a target he labeled “guilty” before any charges were brought against him.
The Trump administration has ousted dozens of officials and government attorneys deemed insufficiently loyal to the president’s agenda, but in his September 20 post, the president singled out Erik Siebert, the now-former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia — who Trump himself nominated and then pushed out of the role after he resisted pressure to prosecute Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Trump complained that “nothing is being done” against Comey, James and Senator Adam Schiff, who are “all guilty as hell,” in his social media post.
He complained that “we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past,” despite Siebert being one of Trump’s own nominees for the job.
Trump called him a “woke RINO, who was never going to do his job,” and said he “fired him” because he wouldn’t take up the case against Comey.
His personal attorney Lindsey Halligan “is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot,” Trump wrote in the message to [Bimbo #3] “Pam.”
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT.”
Three hours later, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was nominating Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience.
Before Halligan entered office, federal prosecutors repeatedly sought to make a case against charging Comey, who is now the first former senior government official facing criminal charges under Trump’s retribution campaign.
According to an internal memo in which career prosecutors explained why they would not seek an indictment, prosecutors determined that a central witness — Comey’s longtime friend Daniel Richmond, a law professor at Columbia University — would prove “problematic” and likely prevent them from establishing a case, according to ABC News.
Richmond’s testimony would result in “likely insurmountable problems” for the prosecution, the memo stated.
In a highly unusual move, Halligan presented the case to a grand jury herself, and the grand jury voted to indict him last month.
A majority of the grand jury voted against charging Comey with one of three counts presented by Halligan, according to court documents. Comey was indicted on two other counts — making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding — after only 14 of 23 jurors voted in favor.
During her contentious confirmation hearing in January, [Bimbo #3] Bondi promised to end what she has called the partisan “weaponization” of the agency against perceived political enemies — echoing claims from Trump and his allies who have characterized the president’s own federal indictments as a politically motivated conspiracy against him.
In that hearing, she did not explicitly rule out prosecuting Trump’s targets. Asked again Tuesday whether she had any instruction from the White House to investigate anyone, [Bimbo #3] Bondi refused to answer. “I’m not going to discuss any conversations,” she said.
Trump, [Bimbo #3] Bondi and law enforcement across the Justice Department — now filled with loyalists and attorneys to dominate agencies that the president claims were weaponized against him — are also targeting other prominent Democratic officials as well as progressive fundraising groups and an array of ideological opponents the administration alleges are tied to acts of terrorism.
Prosecutors in Maryland are expected to bring charges against former national security adviser turned Trump critic John Bolton, according to WSJ, following a raid at his home in August. A case file on a federal court docket remains sealed.
Former FBI director Christopher Wray, another Trump appointee who remained in office under Joe Biden, also is under investigation, according to the newspaper, though the subject of the probe is unclear.
