Raw Story: Trump’s own words are being thrown back in his face after his latest threat

Now:

Donald Trump’s own words are being thrown back in his face after his Saturday Wal-Mart threat.

The president over the weekend told Walmart’s executives that they should absorb any increased costs that he has created on imported goods through trade policies.

“I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!” Trump wrote as he demanded Wal-Mart and China simply “eat the tariffs.”

Then:

But that didn’t sit well with many longtime Trump onlookers, who observed that the president previously said no one would need to eat the tariffs.

Author James Surowiecki said, “But Trump has said over and over again that foreign countries pay tariffs, not US businesses or consumers.”

“If that’s true, why would Walmart have to eat anything?” he then asked.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-own-words-walmart-threat

Washington Post: Court lifts block on Trump order to strip federal workers of union rights

The injunction had frozen the president’s order seeking to remove collective bargaining rights from workers at dozens of government agencies and offices.

This sucks:

A federal appeals court on Friday lifted a block on an executive order from President Donald Trump that seeks to strip union rights from federal workers at dozens of agencies and offices.

Trump in March issued an executive order that said that parts of the United States Code that protect federal workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain would no longer apply to agencies including most or all of the Departments of Treasury, Defense, Veterans Affairs, State and Justice. The executive order covers about two-thirds of the federal workforce, according to the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which filed a lawsuit challenging it.

It had been blocked by a federal judge last month as part of the NTEU lawsuit, but that block was lifted Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In its order canceling the injunction, the appeals court’s 2-1 majority said the union had not proved it would suffer “irreparable harm” if the executive order was executed while the lawsuit challenging it was ongoing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/17/trump-executive-order-unions-block-lifted

Independent: Venezuelans ‘barricaded’ doors and ‘threatened to take hostages’ in ICE detention, Trump team alleges

Administration calls on Supreme Court for permission to swiftly deport nearly 200 immigrants detained in Texas

In its latest demand to the Supreme Court to begin swiftly deporting immigrants from the United States, Donald Trump’s administration claims a group of Venezuelan men imprisoned in Texas tried to barricade themselves inside their unit, covered surveillance cameras and threatened to take hostages.

A group of 23 men the administration accused of being Tren de Aragua gang members “have proven difficult to manage,” according to a sworn statement in court documents from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.

In an incident on April 23 that has not previously been reported, the men allegedly “refused their breakfast trays and barricaded both the front and rear entrance doors of their housing unit using bed cots” and “covered the surveillance cameras and blocked the housing unit windows.”

They “threatened to take hostages and injure facility contract staff and ICE officers” and “attempted to flood the housing unit by clogging toilets,” according to Joshua D. Johnson, acting ICE director for the Dallas office.

Can you blame them for trying to avoid an illegal deportation to a prison in a third country? They wanted to be deported (legally!) to their home country:

Another image captures a group holding up a sign that reads, in Spanish, “Help, we want to be deported. We are not terrorists.” The sign says “VZLA,” a reference to Venezuela, and suggests they are pleading with authorities to avoid their imprisonment in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, labeled by human rights groups as a “tropical gulag” and concentration camp.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-administration-supreme-court-alien-enemies-act-b2750299.html

Independent: Trump endorses idea that Supreme Court ruling blocking his deportations under Alien Enemies Act is ‘illegal’

President reposted a comment claiming the Supreme Court was heading down the wrong path by blocking some of Trump’s actions

President Donald Trump endorsed the idea that the United States Supreme Court had placed an “illegal injunction” on him by temporarily blocking his administration’s ability to deport Venezuelans, accused of being gang members, without due process, while litigation on the matter plays out in lower courts.

On Truth Social on Saturday, Trump reposted two posts made by attorney Mike Davis, a close Trump ally and the founder of the Article III project, calling the court’s recent decision “illegal” and claiming it was “heading down a perilous path” by not allowing Trump to continue a constitutionally questionable action.

“The Supreme Court still has an illegal injunction on the President of the United States, preventing him from commanding military operations to expel these foreign terrorists,” Davis wrote.

Do these fools have any understanding as to why the Supreme Court exists?

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-supreme-court-deportation-truth-social-b2753057.html

USA Today: ‘Spaghetti against the wall?’ Trump tests legal strategies as judges block his policies

The Trump administration is fighting to kill 40 court orders blocking its new policies.

  • Solicitor General John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to halt nationwide injunctions against Trump policies but said if class-action lawsuits took their place, he would oppose them too.
  • Legal experts said if the Supreme Court abolishes nationwide injunctions, Trump could cut his losses by limiting the reach of court rulings that go against him.

As the Trump administration fights to kill 40 court orders blocking some of his most controversial or aggressive new policies, legal experts say the government’s strategy is to break the cases apart, into individual disputes, to delay an eventual reckoning at the Supreme Court.

One called President Donald Trump’s legal strategy a “shell game.” Another said government lawyers were “throwing spaghetti against the wall” to see what sticks.

“Their bottom line is that they don’t think these cases should be in court in the first place,” said Luke McCloud, a lawyer at Williams and Connolly who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. “They are looking for a procedural mechanism that will make it the most challenging to bring these sorts of cases.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/17/trump-legal-strategies-federal-judges-injunctions/83673013007

Knewz: The One Reason ‘Pentagon Princess’ Pete Hegseth Still Has a Job

According to The Nation, Hegseth still has a job because of one man – President Trump.

The site explained how Hegseth wasn’t picked for the role of Defense Secretary due to any skills or experience, but because he shares a similar outlook as Trump on the military.

Just like the president, Hegseth believes the military has been compromised by the left-wing.

In late April, Hegseth put an end to a military program he described as “another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative.”

He wrote on X: “This morning, I proudly ENDED the ‘Women, Peace & Security’ (WPS) program inside the @DeptofDefense. WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING.

“WPS is a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it. DoD will hereby executive the minimum of WPS required by statute and fight to end the program for our next budget. GOOD RIDDANCE WPS!”

Following the signal scandal, Mike Waltz was effectively removed from his position as National Security Advisor (NSA) by President Trump – but Hegseth wasn’t stripped of his role.

While the world awaits more firings due to the scandal, Hegseth isn’t expected to be let go due to his friendship with the current president.

It’s all about cronies, not competence!

https://knewz.com/the-one-reason-pentagon-princess-pete-hegseth-still-has-a-job

Raw Story: ‘Sad white boys’: Fear as Trump terror adviser shrugs off threat from ‘inside the house’

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was removed this week but a key Trump counterterrorism official remains in place at the White House — and he’s planning a change in strategy to focus on jihadists rather than white supremacist groups that one leading expert said remain a significant domestic threat.

“The call is coming from inside the house,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “We all understand why the right doesn’t want to tackle domestic violent extremism — it’s their base.”

The Trump official is Sebastian Gorka, an Anglo-Hungarian-American academic who spent seven months in the first Trump White House as a national security strategist before being removed. Closely connected to Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, Gorka’s far-right views have proved consistently controversial. His return to the White House generated protests from former Trump advisers, who called him names including “conman” and “clown.”

Regardless, Gorka is promising a new policy focused on “killing jihadis,” thereby downplaying, if not altogether abandoning, a Biden-era emphasis on white supremacist threats.

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/heads-in-the-sand-white-supremacy-expected-to-be-downplayed-in-terrorism-policy/

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: ‘Rigged System’: GOP Senators Thwart Nominee After Defying Trump

President Donald Trump pulled his nomination of Ed Martin for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. The White House was working to secure his nomination despite declining support from some Republican senators.

Instead, Trump plans for Martin to be an associate deputy attorney general and pardon attorney. Martin will likely recommend pardons for defendants involved in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. In this photo gallery, we review the defiance from Republican senators.

Martin’s nomination ran into significant hurdles, including his failure to disclose nearly 200 media appearances. He claimed under oath that he could not recall controversial statements, raising concerns among GOP senators.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said, “Last Friday, we received responses from Mr. Martin to our questions, and it raised even more questions. Mr. Martin made a number of false statements and contradictory statements that are easily disproven by the material he himself disclosed in his Senate Judiciary Questionnaire. And it wasn’t just to my questions—it was to Chairman Grassley’s questions as well.”

So Trump pulls a nomination for a douchebag crony to be U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., but still plans to give him a job as an associate deputy attorney general despite several red flags regarding his honesty and ethics.

Yup, sounds like what King Donald would do!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rigged-system-gop-senators-thwart-nominee-after-defying-trump/ss-AA1EYyV6

Daily Beast: Trump Shares Unhinged Plan to Release ‘Terrorists’ On Justices’ Doorsteps

The president is not taking the Supreme Court’s rejection of his immigration plan well.

President Donald Trump is raging against the Supreme Court after it temporarily blocked his administration from using a centuries-old wartime law to fast-track migrant deportations. On Saturday, the president ramped up his attacks by highlighting a plan to move “terrorists” near justices’ homes.

“The president should release these terrorists near the Chevy Chase Country Club, with daytime release,” former GOP staffer Mike Davis wrote online. Trump shared the post.

The Maryland country club referenced reportedly counts Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh among its members. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau entered the online fray by summarizing the madness:

“The President re-posts a suggestion from an advisor that he release ‘terrorists’ near the homes of Supreme Court justices who’ve merely ruled that the government can’t send people to a foreign gulag without due process.”

Trump is deranged.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-shares-unhinged-plan-to-release-terrorists-on-justices-doorsteps

Daily Beast: Pence Fears Terrorist Link to Trump’s $400 Million Qatar Plane Gift

Former Vice President Mike Pence has urged President Donald Trump to reject Qatar‘s offer of a $400 million jumbo jet to replace Air Force One amid fears it could jeopardize the commander-in-chief’s safety.

In an interview with Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, Pence said he was concerned that Qatar supports Hamas, and that the Arab kingdom has supported Al Qaeda.

“But Qatar has a long history of playing both sides,” he continued. “They support Hamas. They supported Al Qaeda. Qatar has actually financed pro-Hamas protests on American campuses across the United States.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pence-fears-terrorist-link-to-trumps-400-million-qatar-plane-gift