The convict-in-chief has another similiarity with his loverboy dictator: the wife is missing.
First lady Melania Trump has not made an official public appearance for a month as of Aug. 19.
Unlike President Donald Trump , the first lady has often limited her public appearances and stayed out of the spotlight. After their son Barron Trump , who has only joined his parents and half-siblings at a few events since his father returned to the White House, Melania Trump is one of the more private people of the sprawling, famous family.
An analysis of her schedule by NBC News published Aug. 17 shows she has made even fewer appearances in this term compared to her husband’s first term.
Her last public appearance was at the 2026 World Cup final on July 19. Since then, she has opted out of joining Trump at events like the Patriot Games and Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral . Last summer, she also went under the radar for several weeks between July and September.
I love the new conspiracy theory connected with the Felon in the Oval! (The bolding is mine.)
And this one, too!
As Donald Trump appeared to doze off in the Oval Office, a young woman was standing behind him with her hand placed on her midriff.
She tapped her hand against her stomach and, at the same time, Mr Trump seemed to jolt awake.
The moment on Aug 10, which was caught on camera, has gone viral and has led online sleuths to give the woman – Jayme Franklin – a new name: “The Zapper”.
They speculate that Ms Franklin, a 26-year-old Maga influencer, had been entrusted with the task of subtly delivering an electric shock to Mr Trump if he fell asleep. They claim Ms Franklin is concealing a remote control on her stomach.
I like the idea but zapping him might cause him to “let loose” diaperwise.
“The Zapper”'s response to the CT:
Republican representative doesn’t care about reports about the Lincoln. (The bolding is mine.)
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) said Monday he does not “make much” of reports that allege crew members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are suffering from declining mental health and supply shortages due to its long deployment.
In an appearance on Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria” anchored by Cheryl Casone, Fallon, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, responded to the reports and calls for congressional oversight into the physical and mental state of crew members on the ship.
“These reports are just that. I haven’t heard anything personally from our office, and I trust the Navy to do this as well. So, I don’t make much of it, to be honest,” he said.
Casone confirmed the congressman was not concerned about the reports but cited the aircraft carrier’s deployment, saying “260 days is a long time, you know, for a deployment.”
Yep, the Felon in the Oval is turning the place into The Beverly Hillbillies ’ mansion.
President Donald Trump unveiled a new White House construction project Wednesday, issuing an impromptu invitation to reporters to join him on the South Lawn and tour the replacement of the White House driveway as well as progress made on his new helipad.
During the tour, an animated Trump highlighted his personal investment in the projects with painstaking attention to details theoretically far below his pay grade: the placement of stanchions, the radial cut of granite, the elimination of potholes. The tour concluded with him signing a giant slab of granite that he said would be “flipped” and laid into the helipad.
But first, he detailed another project — previously unannounced — that was already finished.
“This was always asphalt, which is very basic, not appropriate for a great house — for a great place like the White House,” Trump said over the clanging noise of construction, gesturing at the surface he was walking on. The driveway has been redone, he added, with a California-mined white granite he described as a “very special stone.”
Trump also suggested he had been involved in the decision earlier this month to disassemble progress made on his helipad.
The war on LEGAL immigration continues.
The Trump administration is restricting all legal immigration categories in an effort to reduce the flow of immigrants to America. The restrictions include freezes by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and State Department officials refusing to process applications abroad. The policies affect U.S. citizens sponsoring spouses, children and other family members to join them in America, as well as employers seeking workers. Analysts note the U.S. economy requires more workers to grow, but the administration’s actions reduce the labor supply.
Add the American Bar Association to the organizations the Felon in the Oval is thumbing is nose at.
The DOJ submitted a declaration from a White House lawyer on Monday to swat away the American Bar Association’s discovery demands, claiming they threaten to “produce information identifying” senior advisers who authored President Donald Trump’s “permanently enjoined” law firm executive orders.
In a notice, the DOJ said that the Executive Office of the President “strongly object[s]” to U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s Aug. 3 order, which attempted to “narrow” the existing discovery “impasse ” between the ABA and the government by opening the door to naming names “at issue” for two specific requests.
The ABA is suing to uncover the origins of Trump’s “unprecedented and uniquely dangerous” executive orders, which targeted Big Law with the threat of tearing up government contracts and security clearances.
More proof he never forgets someone who stands up to his nonsense.
President Trump on Wednesday celebrated the loss of Alex Vindman in the Senate Democratic primary in Florida.
“The most gratifying loss last night was that of a real treasonous creep, Alexander Vindman, to a Radical Left Lunatic, who can’t speak or think properly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon (D), who defeated Vindman by more than 12 points on Tuesday.
Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former director of European affairs for the National Security Council, rose to national prominence as a witness during Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Vindman testified to Congress about his concerns regarding Trump pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former President Biden. Trump claimed his request to Zelensky was part of a “perfect” call, a defense he again brought up on Wednesday.
Let’s talk the Felon in the Oval’s numbers, as in running them.
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump and his family have inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency since his return to power and that his policy decisions are influenced by his private business dealings, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The four-day poll, completed on Monday, found that half of Trump’s own Republicans believe the president allows considerations for his business interests to influence his decisions, a striking finding for a leader who pledged to clean up corruption in Washington.
Question of the Day: Did the Felon in the Oval really speak with Kim Jong Un lately?
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said she is “completely unaware” whether her brother communicated with US President Donald Trump, as Trump claimed this week.
Kim, one of North Korea’s top officials, acknowledged that her brother has a “great relationship” with Trump and “personally has good memories and feelings” for him. But in a statement released on state media Wednesday, she stopped short of confirming Trump’s claim of recent contact.
Trump told reporters Monday that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a conversation, shortly after the president called for reducing joint military drills with South Korea, a close and long-standing US ally. Trump did not elaborate on the contact. He added Wednesday that he intends to meet Kim later this year, but he didn’t offer details and would not say whether he has exchanged any letters with North Korea’s leader.
In her statement, Kim Yo Jong said of the reported “communication” between Trump and her brother: “I am not aware of it at all, and perhaps it may be the only thing I do not know as regards the foreign policy of our supreme leadership.”
Who has a better track record regarding facts, the felon or Ms. Kim? Yes, that’s nearly the Platonic Ideal of a rhetorical question.
The war on immigrants turns into a war on America’s pastime .
The Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more commonly referred to as ICE, has been extremely active under the administration’s crackdown on immigration. A focus on ‘flight risks’ has resulted in several warrantless arrests in airports near the border, and now those arrests are having a major impact on one MLB franchise.
While traveling for work, San Diego Padres minor-league catching coordinator Oswaldo José Pirela was detained by immigration authorities in El Paso, Texas, reports Dennis Romero, Izzy Alvarez, and Jean Lee of NBC News.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee records showed Pirela still in custody as of late Monday.
“We are working to gather additional information and will not have any further comment at this time,” Padre team officials said Tuesday morning.
Pirela’s family has taken to social media in defense of their loved one
“Oswaldo, like me and other members of our family, was directly affected by persecution from the Venezuelan regime, we came to the United States seeking safety through the legal process, applied for asylum through the proper channels, and have worked hard to build our lives and become contributing members of American society.” said brother Jorge Heli Pirela via Instagram.
Check out both infographics in the article.
Surprise! Surprise? Surprised–definitly not.
The Trump administration’s civil rights investigations into three Ivy League universities were politically motivated and designed to pressure those institutions into settlements, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney alleged in a whistleblower account Monday.
Officials pressed for deals with Columbia and Harvard universities despite hasty or incomplete investigations, Haley Van Erem, who worked in the Justice Department’s civil rights division for almost a decade, alleged. At Brown University, officials pursued a deal even after investigators concluded that there wasn’t evidence to support a civil rights violation.
The outcomes of the investigations were “predetermined, without regard to evidence,” the account alleges. Moreover, Trump officials pulled vast sums of federal funding from the universities before probes were even completed.
Lawyers representing Van Erem, who left the Justice Department in May 2025, filed the whistleblower disclosure Monday with congressional leaders on both the House and the Senate’s education and judiciary committees.
In response, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House’s Judiciary Committee, launched an investigation Tuesday into the allegations. In a Tuesday letter to Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division, he requested troves of documents related to the investigations.
Raskin also said the new account shows “just how far the Trump Administration strayed from any notion of professional responsibility, public ethics, or legal candor in its attacks on perceived political enemies in academia.”
Get Smart was a comedy, not a how-to.
An undercover federal agent accidentally dropped her recording device on the ground as she spied on a Minneapolis church group in May, according to new court filings, revealing a potential violation of a federal court order barring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from conducting operations at churches.
The revelation is one of several new details that shed light on a sweeping federal investigation — dubbed “Operation Puppet Master” — into antifascist groups and individuals in Minnesota that resulted in the prosecution of 15 people.
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The undercover Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent attended a May 28 martial arts training hosted by the group Left Jab in the gymnasium of a Minneapolis church, according to court filings. At least one of the participants in that training was later charged by the Justice Department in the criminal conspiracy case.
The undercover agent participated in “boxing/sparring practice,” according to an internal DHS document from “Project Whipple Shield” — a follow-up to Operation Puppet Master named for the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building that ICE operated out of in Minneapolis.
“Due to the physicality of the event, [the undercover agent] concealed body-worn audio recorder erroneously fell to the floor of the gymnasium near the end of the training,” according to the report authored by HSI special agent Katherine Wespetal and approved by supervisory special agent Hakan Catalan.
The recording device was on the floor for “approximately three minutes” before the undercover agent retrieved it.
The undercover operation may have run afoul of U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV’s February injunction barring DHS and other federal agencies from entering certain churches, including the University Baptist Church where the training was held.
You’re Mexican? ¡Excelente! Your deportation flight destination is…The envelope, please…¡Guatemala y Honduras!
The Trump administration has been quietly deporting migrants from Mexico to different countries in Central America despite the Mexican government’s willingness to accept the return of all its citizens, two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News.
U.S. immigration authorities have been sending deportees from Mexico to Guatemala and Honduras, flying them around Mexican territory instead of returning them to their homeland, the DHS officials said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The officials said one of the objectives of the deportations, which have not been formally announced by the U.S. government, is to deter illegal immigration from Mexico by sending some of its citizens further south and farther away from the U.S.-Mexico border.
The deportations have been occurring for months and have sent hundreds of Mexican citizens to Honduras and Guatemala, one of the DHS officials said. It was not immediately clear what the precise number is.
In a statement to CBS News, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry voiced its opposition to the deportation of Mexican citizens to other countries.
“The Government of Mexico accepts the return of all its nationals. It therefore rejects the deportation of Mexican nationals to third countries and has no such agreement in place,” the foreign ministry said. “Mexico consistently takes the steps necessary to ensure the safe and dignified return of all its nationals to national territory.”
National Park Service knew the Reflecting Puddle would peel.
A National Park Service engineer warned the Trump administration about the floor of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool peeling in early June due to the renovation process and the materials used for the job, court filings revealed Wednesday.
Despite that warning, President Donald Trump accused multiple people of “destroying” the pool once it reopened to the public — and the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington charged former Olympic canoeist David Hearn with destruction of property during a June 19 visit.
The park service engineer alerted the administration to the peeling issue in an email sent June 11, which the U.S. attorney’s office included in a court filing Wednesday. Prosecutors said that they were “not aware of or in possession of” documentation that the Interior Department had of installation problems at the time they charged Hearn.
The engineer noted that the “top layer of liner has peeled,” adding that it is “very thin and will not impact the strength of the liner.” The person explained in the email that the “contractor stated that the peeled area was ‘overspray’ from spraying the perimeter joint with polyurea,” according to the Justice Department. The engineer warned that the issue could “lead to a 1’-2’ strip that is vulnerable to peeling.”
The engineer sent the message to Interior Department and park service personnel.
President Cuckoo is stuck in time, 1950s to be precise. (The bolding is mine.)
First, he announced a ballroom to upgrade the White House event space.
Then, he revealed the ballroom was really just a facade for the military facility he was quietly building below.
And now Donald Trump has admitted what some have long suspected: that the 80-year-old billionaire is also constructing a series of bomb shelters underneath the so-called “People’s House” to protect an elite few.
But as he led reporters across the construction site, the president also acknowledged that special guests of the White House would soon be able to enjoy cocktails on the South Lawn before using his brand-new event space—and potentially even its bomb shelters.
“They get out of the car and they walk down this path… and they can have cocktails and everything outside of the White House, and then they go into the ballroom. Even the military, they can use it like that,” Trump told reporters.
“The ballroom is so much a military component with the drones and the bomb shelters and everything else that we have in there.”
The tour is believed to be the first time Trump has touted the development of “bomb shelters” as part of his ever-expanding vanity project.
And finally, he really does think he’s deity!
A new fundraising email from President Donald Trump uses overt Christian faith language to frame his survival of the 2024 assassination attempt and return to the presidency as part of a larger divine purpose.
“The steady compass of Faith has guided my hands through it all,” Trump writes, before declaring, “I was saved for this one reason: to Make America Great Again.” The email repeatedly describes events Trump says he was “never supposed to” experience, including surviving an assassin’s bullet and becoming president again, before pivoting to a $15 fundraising appeal.
The presentation of the message adds another notable layer. Three phrases — “BUT I DID,” “BUT I AM,” and “BUT I WILL NEVER SURRENDER” — are highlighted in red, with “BUT I AM” appearing immediately after Trump writes that he was “never supposed to be President of the United States again.” Whether intentional or not, in a Christian-themed message, the emphasized “I AM” refers to God, while red-letter Bibles commonly use red text to distinguish words spoken by Jesus.
Holy blasphemy, Batman!