Protesters Take Over Trump Tower to Demand Release of Mahmoud Khalil

Hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers and allies staged a sit-in at Trump Tower in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestine activist and recent Columbia University graduate who was kidnapped by ICE agents last Saturday night.

Over 300 protesters, many of them affiliated with anti-Zionist organizing group Jewish Voice for Peace, took over the tower around 11:30 a.m. They chanted, “We want justice. You say, how? Bring Mahmoud home now!” and “Fight Nazis, not students.” About 100 protesters were arrested, according to NBC News.

“My grandmother lost her cousins in the Holocaust. I grew up on these stories. We know what happens when authoritarian regimes begin targeting people, begin abducting them at night, separating their families and scapegoating,” JVP spokesperson Sonya Meyerson-Knox told NBC. “And we know that it’s one step from here to losing all right to protest and then further horrors happening, as we have seen too well in our history. We’re calling on everyone to speak up today because otherwise we won’t be able to tomorrow.”

Republicans are trying to spin Donald Trump’s decision to kneecap the U.S. stock market by arguing that the United States doesn’t actually want to have a booming economy.

Montana Senator Tim Sheehy appeared on CNN Wednesday evening, where he was faced with a brutal CNN poll that found a whopping 56 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy.

Earlier this week, the stock market plummeted after Trump refused to say that the U.S. wasn’t heading toward a recession caused by his steep tariffs against its closest trading partners.

Sheehy had his own explanation for why Wall Street falling was actually OK.

“Well, first of all the stock market’s been on a sugar high for a long time,” he said.

“There’s a fundamental difference between public spending and private spending. And what we’ve seen over the past several years, past three and a half years specifically, is unprecedented money printing into the market. And to be quite frank, a lot of companies benefited from that,” Sheehy said.

Sheehy claimed that a handful of mega-tech companies had driven the stock market index to an all-time high.

“We all love a good stock market, but the reality is that stock market imbalance didn’t necessarily benefit the smaller, midsize companies and average shareholders across the country,” he said.

And Sheehy knows something about big business. He recently won his seat in Montana thanks to the backing of 12 billionaires, including members of the Walton family and organizations linked to Charles Koch and Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone—which owns the Wyoming oil and gas pipeline company Tallgrass Energy, of which Sheehy’s brother is the president.*

Sheehy insisted Wednesday that the “stock market is not the economy,” and said that “uncertainty” would cause disruptions as Trump attempted to create a new “economic landscape.”

Sheehy’s coping mechanism was similar to that of the dumbest U.S. senator, Tommy Tuberville, who was interviewed on Fox Business Monday.

“People are looking at the stock market like, ‘Hey this is how it’s going to continue to be for months and months and months’—that’s not gonna happen,” Tuberville said. “We were probably over-bloated with the stock market here, for a while.”

* This piece has been updated to clarify who is the CEO of Blackstone.

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. military to draw up options for retaking the Panama Canal. 

President Trump has been pushing for retaking the canal since December, and repeated his desire in a joint address to Congress last week, without any elaboration. The rest of the Trump administration hasn’t attempted to explain what he means, either. 

The military is drawing up options, according to NBC News, that range from a closer partnership with the Panamanian military to soldiers seizing the Panama Canal by force, according to unnamed officials. The use of force depends on how much Panama’s military is willing to work with the United States, the officials told NBC News. 

The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, presented the different strategies to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier this week. The plan to use military force against Panama will only be considered if posting additional U.S. military personnel does not accomplish Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the canal, the officials said.  

Right now, the U.S. has more than 200 troops in the country, including Special Forces units working with Panamanian units to combat internal unrest. Trump claims China has troops in the canal, which Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino denies, as does China. In February, Panama decided not to renew an infrastructure agreement with China, drawing criticism from the country toward the U.S. 

China “firmly opposes the U.S. smearing and undermining the Belt and Road cooperation through means of pressure and coercion,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, referring to the country’s Belt and Road development initiative. 

Later this month, Hegseth is expected to visit Panama, where discussions on increasing U.S. troop presence in the canal zone will take place. The Cabinet secretary is fully on board with Trump’s desire to retake the canal, saying in January that the U.S. has “the right—we retain the right—to do what is necessary to make sure there is free navigation in the Panama Canal.”

The canal is one of the busiest waterways in the world, with most of the cargo passing through heading to or from the U.S. Any disruption or blocking of the canal would have devastating effects on the U.S. as well as the world economy. But Trump has proven during his presidency that his personal wishes outweigh any economic concerns, no matter how absurd.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the mass firing of federal employees was an “unlawful” directive by the Office of Personnel Management.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered several agencies to “immediately” reinstate all fired probationary employees. Those agencies included the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as the Departments of Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Agriculture. That would also restore numbers at the Internal Revenue Service, which falls under the helm of the Treasury Department and has been hit hard by job cuts in recent weeks.

In a hearing leading up to the decision, Alsup torched the Trump administration’s decision not to submit OPM director Chad Ezell for questioning as a “sham,” and accused the White House’s effort to cast the firings as performance failures as “a gimmick.”

“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

The Trump administration has fired at least 30,000 employees with the help of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has made a point to target probationary employees still within the first year of their roles. Some of those employees have been called to return, but most are still not working, reported Axios.

Alsup’s order comes as federal agencies are due to submit “reduction memos” to the White House that could affect as many as 250,000 additional federal employees who fit that criteria.

Alsup further accused the administration of hiding the facts of who directed the layoffs.

“You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross-examination would reveal the truth,” the California judge told a DOJ attorney, according to Politico. “I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth.… I’m tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth.”

This story has been updated.

Elon Musk has promised that his efforts to slash the government would be “maximally transparent”—but instead, the billionaire’s Department of Government Efficiency has only worked to obscure the facts of its operation to slash the federal government.

DOGE’s first batch of published savings was riddled with errors, with experts pointing out that the math wasn’t adding up in its accounting. By Wednesday, the group reported—without receipts—that it had saved the government $115 billion through a “combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.”

Fact-checking DOGE’s details, however, revealed that the organization has confused billions with millions, tripled the savings from nixing one contract, claimed credit for canceling programs that ended under the Bush administration, and said it spared $1.9 billion for ending an IRS contract that was actually axed under President Joe Biden. The group later deleted these details from its “savings” page.

But rather than push to improve accuracy in its reporting, DOGE decided to go the opposite route and make its new claims even harder to check.

On March 2, Musk’s group posted a note that it had saved taxpayers another $10 billion by terminating thousands of federal grants. But instead of pointing to specifics for the savings—as it had done before—DOGE opted not to include identifying details related to the slashed grants, The New York Times reported Thursday. The White House claimed the new policy was instituted for security reasons.

Regardless, the Times was able to identify the relevant receipts by examining DOGE’s publicly available source code, which momentarily retained the federal identification numbers of the grants, and discovered that DOGE’s latest batch of savings was just as dishonest and illegitimate as previous rounds. DOGE deleted the ID numbers from their source code shortly after the grant details became known—but not before the Times retained a copy.

“At least five of the 20 largest ‘savings’ appeared to be exaggerated, according to federal data and interviews with the nonprofits whose grants were on the list,” the Times reported.

The largest item DOGE claimed to have produced savings from included a $1.75 billion grant distributed by USAID. But the recipient of the grant, a public health nonprofit called Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, told the Times that not only had the grant not been terminated but the funds had already been fully distributed. That means that slashing the program would have resulted in exactly $0.00 in federal savings.

The MAGA right is seething after anti-vax conspiracy theorist Dave Weldon—Trump’s pick to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—had his nomination pulled at the last minute.

Weldon, a former physician and representative, was getting ready for his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday when the call to withdraw his nomination came down, according to Axios. Even Robert F. Kennedy expressed doubt with Weldon’s confirmation, a source told Axios. But the far right is taking Weldon’s axing personally. 

“Weldon—who is ‘Make America Healthy Again’—his nomination was pulled. The rumor is about they didn’t want questioning on measles,” Steve Bannon said on his War Room podcast. “That would be unsatisfactory. You can’t pull him over measles. No way. Impossible. So we gotta get to the bottom of that. 

“This just puts the last nail in the coffin. CDC is no longer a legitimate agency.  No one is going to believe anything they say anymore,” one far-right account posted on X. “Just SHUT IT DOWN and let the states make their own health recommendations.”

“This is absolutely devastating for MAHA. The antisemites are out for blood, and Trump is showing weakness in the last area he should: commitment to @SecKennedy agenda. It’s beginning to look very bleak,” said another. 

“Dave Weldon, a good man, no longer in the running for CDC.  Weldon recognizes the problem with mercury in vaccines, supports parents who do not want to have their newborns vaxxed vs STDs, and drafted the ‘Weldon Amendment’ protecting physicians of conscience. If not Dave—who?” one supporter opined.

“Personally, I’m devastated to hear this news. Dave Weldon has been a figure in this fight before RFKjr. He’s remained out of the spotlight since he left congress, but the groundwork he laid made those of us with vax injured children hopeful when Trump nominated him,” yet another MAHA supporter wrote on X. “This is such a profound loss. Whoever they get won’t be nearly as aware & committed to doing the research that should have been done decades ago. The autism epidemic marches on. Sad day.”

Donald Trump’s family members are in discussions to take a financial stake into Binance, a cryptocurrency firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to money laundering.

Meanwhile, the company’s founder and largest shareholder, Changpeng Zhao, who served four months in prison on related charges, is also seeking a pardon from President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reports. Binance reached out to Trump allies in 2024, hoping to strike a business deal with the family to restore the company’s presence in the U.S.

The details of the financial stake, or whether it’s contingent on a pardon are not yet known. The Trumps could make a direct investment or go through World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture launched in September in which the Trump family has a stake. Steve Witkoff, who works in the Trump administration as an envoy to the Middle East and for the war in Ukraine, is also reportedly involved with the talks, although the Trump administration denies it.

The move would raise questions of a conflict of interest, especially if a pardon comes with it. Trump’s businesses have been involved in dealings that seem to conflict with his duties as president, especially the Trump Organization’s deal with Saudi Arabia for a new Trump Tower.

Trump’s decision to create a cryptocurrency “strategic reserve” seems to be aimed at making his wealthy associates richer, and the launch of “meme coins” by himself and his wife Melania are a blatant grift designed to line the couple’s pockets. If a deal with Binance goes through, the president and his family will once again prove that all they care about is money.

Donald Trump railed against The Wall Street Journal Thursday, after the paper revealed that business leaders were being two-faced about the president’s disastrous tariffs. 

“The Globalist Wall Street Journal has no idea what they are doing or saying. They are owned by the polluted thinking of the European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of ‘screwing’ the United States of America,” Trump raged in a post on Truth Social. 

“Their (WSJ!) thinking is antiquated and weak, and very bad for the USA. But have no fear, we will WIN on everything!!! Egg prices are down, oil is down, interest rates are down, and TARIFF RELATED MONEY IS POURING INTO THE UNITED STATES. ‘The only thing you have to fear, is fear itself!’”

Trump’s absurd meltdown appears to be in response to an article published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal airing the concerns of American business leaders who have been forced to come to terms with just how disastrous Trump’s tariffs are for the U.S. market. 

Trump could also have been blowing up in response to a Fox Business interview Thursday with the Journal’s editor in chief Emma Tucker, who discussed the article and described how the once “upbeat” attitude American business executives had about the Trump administration had gone sour since the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. 

“The American chief execs that were there were all so excited, the talk was all of deregulation  growth, no tax rises. Boom, boom! America! And Europe was absolutely stuck in the doldrums, very unhappy,” Tucker explained. “But, it’s very interesting how that mood has shifted—pretty much since all the tariffs started coming in.

“I think businesses realize this now, Trump is serious about this. But the problem they’ve got is that they’re being imposed in a very haphazard way, and that’s creating so much instability,” Tucker said.

During his address at Davos, Trump had openly warned business leaders to move their manufacturing to the United States or face steep tariffs. At the time, CEOs must not have taken his threats seriously. But Trump’s tariffs have since swapped U.S. soft power for a tit-for-tat trade war, sure to decimate the U.S. economy. 

Tucker also said that Trump’s “no pain, no gain” rhetoric during his interview Sunday with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo had only made the situation worse. Trump had refused to say that he wasn’t about to drag Americans into a recession, sending the stock market plummeting the next day. 

Tucker said that CEOs were “reluctant to say anything publicly,” and were waiting until the market dropped 20 percent before they would go on record saying anything critical about the president. 

Trump’s meltdown over the Journal comes as he threatened a new round of tariffs Thursday—this time a whopping 200 percent tariff on alcohol from the European Union, in response to entirely predictable reciprocal tariffs on U.S. exports.

Robert Morris—the televangelist who “spiritually advised” Trump during his 2016 campaign—has been indicted by a grand jury in Oklahoma on five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a 12-year-old girl that began in the 1980s. 

“After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” said his victim, Cindy Clemishire, now 55 years old. 

“It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong,” Morris begrudgingly confessed last year. “This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years. In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of.” Clemishire, however, reported that Morris did indeed attempt to have intercourse with her when she was 16 years old—after having abused her throughout those years. 

Clemishire met Morris when she was 11 and he was 20.  Morris preached at her church and even stayed in her family’s home during that time. He first abused her on Christmas of her 12th year, telling her, “Never tell anyone about this because it will ruin everything.” 

Morris faces up to 100 years in prison if convicted of all counts. 

In 2007, the televangelist and megacurch pastor had the gall to blame Clemishire for initiating her own sexual abuse. 

“It was your client who initiated inappropriate behavior by coming into my client’s bedroom and getting in bed with him, which my client should not have allowed to happen,” Morris’s lawyer wrote. He also accused Clemishire herself of acting “inappropriately with two other men.” Clemishire was abused by those men as well. 

This disgusting predator of a pastor hosted Trump at his megachurch in 2020 and was present at a White House Rose Garden ceremony for Amy Coney Barret’s Supreme Court nomination.

Reciprocal tariffs from other countries seem to have taken the president by surprise.

Donald Trump announced yet another round of tariffs against the European Union early Thursday, claiming that the “hostile” coalition of countries—who have been allies with the U.S. for decades—would face severe consequences for placing levies on U.S. whiskey imports.

“The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50 percent Tariff on Whisky,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200 percent Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”

The EU swiftly hit back Wednesday after Trump raised tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, announcing its own tolls on some of its biggest U.S. imports. Those include American beef, poultry, peanut butter, jeans, motorcycles, and alcohol, the last of which has become collateral damage in Trump’s international trade war.

“The EU is a major destination for U.S. whiskey, with exports surging 60% in the past three years after an earlier set of tariffs was suspended,” reported the Associated Press.

The president’s new tariffs are expected to cost companies billions of dollars. Corporations will either have to eat the losses or—as is more likely—pass the higher costs off to their customers.

“We deeply regret this measure. Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement Wednesday, noting that the levies will cost jobs and only serve to increase the cost of goods both in the U.S. and abroad.

But Trump’s influence in hiking the cost of alcohol likely won’t bode well for the U.S., if history serves as any lesson. While Trump’s efforts aren’t exactly stripping alcohol from the shelves, they will make the price of liquor, wine, and beer skyrocket. That could make bottles less accessible for the average American and ultimately shrink consumption.

The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, which criminalized alcohol and sparked Prohibition, was not just wildly unpopular with the American public but had dire consequences for the U.S. economy. Government tax revenues, which up until that point relied heavily on liquor sales to substantiate budgets, plummeted. The lack of alcohol sales between 1920 and 1933 cost the federal government $11 billion in lost tax revenue.

In 2023, alcohol excise tax collections for the federal government totaled $11.1 billion, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.