Author: potus

President Trump’s statements on Tuesday about an American takeover of the Gaza Strip and displacing millions of Palestinians were immediately dismissed by many as reckless and half-baked pronouncements, a provocative threat that Mr. Trump was unlikely to enforce.At the same time, his comments are the latest example of how government officials on the right in both the United States and Israel now speak publicly about a shared goal: the takeover of Palestinian land.The question of whether the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — territories captured and occupied by Israel in 1967 — might become the foundation of a future…

The mood at today’s rally at the Capitol in support of the U.S. Agency for International Development was one of shock, fear and fury at lawmakers for not doing more to push back against the dismantling of USAID.Mary Kate Adgie, a State Department contractor who said she was laid off last week as a result of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s stop-work order, told NBC News she was working on projects under the Global Fragility Act — a law co-sponsored by then-Sen. Rubio and signed by Trump during his first administration that “aims to revitalize how the United States invests…

DENVER — Heavily armed federal agents raided apartment buildings across metro Denver early Wednesday in a search for Venezuelan gang members and other migrants under the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort targeting major cities.At least two dozen officers carrying high-powered weapons stormed several complexes before sunrise. In some cases, they were backed by large, military-style vehicles.The Department of Homeland Security said on social media that it was targeting 100 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua for arrest and detention. It did not say how many people were taken into custody.The operation included officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement;…

First-of-their-kind lawsuits, near-daily staff memos from the little-known acting FBI director and abject fear among agents that they could lose their jobs have distracted and destabilized the FBI workforce, a half-dozen current and former federal law enforcement officials with experience in the bureau told NBC News. The tensions at the country’s most powerful federal law enforcement agency follow a Trump administration request for the names of thousands of agents assigned to work on Capitol riot-related investigations. Assurances from the administration that it will review agents’ conduct and not necessarily fire them have not quelled fears of mass firings.If the new administration…

Dozens of Head Start programs, which provide child care and preschool education to low-income children, have been unable to access previously approved federal funding, putting some programs at risk of having to close their doors in the coming days, according to a survey by the National Head Start Association. The programs say they haven’t been able to draw down the funds to pay for expenses, like payroll and utilities, since a federal funding freeze was announced in the second week of the Trump administration. The freeze started last week with an Office of Management and Budget memo, which was then quickly…

A package from Temu is seen in front of a screen with the Temu logo. (Photo by Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesChinese online retailer Temu has been surfacing more products on its app that can be shipped from warehouses in the U.S. following President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke a popular tax loophole.The nearly century-old exception, known as de minimis, has been used by many e-commerce companies to send goods worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty-free. Trump on Saturday suspended the exemption as part of new tariffs that include an additional 10% tax…

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump the president was once Donald Trump the real estate mogul, and in his new term the two roles are starting to blur.First he targeted Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. Now he is eyeing Gaza as America’s next great acquisition.The tiny strip of land in a Middle East war zone, hard by the Mediterranean Sea, is a potential French “Riviera,” something that would be worth a “long-term ownership position,” Trump said Tuesday night.Follow live politics coverage hereThe remarks, focused on his plan to “own” Gaza, stunned even congressional Republicans.“I thought we voted for America First,” Sen.…

President Donald Trump’s calls for the United States to “take over” and “develop” the Gaza Strip have handed jihadist terrorist groups a rallying cry to recruit and inspire attacks against Americans at home and abroad, security experts and former intelligence officials say.Trump’s comments this week, proposing that the United States would control the Palestinian enclave while its residents would be forced to relocate abroad, have caused shock and outrage around the world — and terrorists will pounce on that anger to attract more support and organize attacks, experts said.“I think every CIA station chief in the Middle East woke up this morning with…

President Donald Trump said Palestinians wouldn’t be permitted to return to the Gaza Strip as part of his plan for the United States to take ownership of the war-torn territory.In a taped interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, a clip of which was released Monday, Trump was asked about his proposal to “own” and rebuild Gaza, first announced last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House.”We’ll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people. We’ll build beautiful communities, safe communities — could be five, six, could be two, but we’ll build safe communities a little…

Until recently, Elon Musk seldom posted about the U.S. Agency for International Development on X, where he is wont to share his thoughts on nearly every subject. Then on Sunday came a flurry of posts wherein the world’s richest person, the Trump-appointed head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, described USAID, the foreign humanitarian assistance agency, as “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America,” “evil” and “a criminal organization.”“Time for it to die,” Musk posted.Elon Musk has moved quickly to make changes in the federal government through DOGE.Kenny Holston / Pool via Getty Images fileMusk’s sudden…