Trump Crazedly Pushes Reflecting Pool Claim His DOJ Already Debunked
https://newrepublic.com/post/214130/donald-trump-reflecting-pool-cameras-vandals
Trump Crazedly Pushes Reflecting Pool Claim His DOJ Already Debunked
Donald Trump also announced new security cameras to deter future “vandals.”
President Donald Trump admits he lied about having proof of alleged vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool while still refusing to drop his claims.
In a post on Truth Social Sunday evening, Trump claimed that a National Park Service career employee, “a highly credible witness,” watched former U.S. Olympian David Hearn “‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating.”
“There was substantial other damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” Trump wrote.
“Security cameras have been, and are being, installed,” he added.
Trump included an excerpt from the government’s initial criminal complaint—a claim that was walked back in a later filing. The government admitted that its witness “could not identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn’s alleged conduct. Indeed, the witness did not even say or suggest that the alleged conduct had compromised the liner at all.”
A week ago, Trump claimed during a press conference that the government possessed photographic and video evidence proving that multiple individuals had vandalized the Reflecting Pool. Shortly after, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro hauled a crate of evidence to the Oval Office in order to explain to the president why that wasn’t actually true. The Department of Justice had previously been forced to admit that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by the contractor’s “flawed” installation of the pool lining, not vandals.
Still, the next day, the president ranted to the press about a supposed “tape,” and one or two witnesses who could confirm his narrative.
Trump’s latest post indicates that some of the truth may have gotten through to him—but it was too little, too late. A judge officially tossed the felony charges against Hearn on Thursday.
This week, Representative Jamie Raskin—the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee—will formally demand that the Justice and Interior Departments turn over a wealth of documents related to the charging decisions made in this case.
Trump Secretly Suggests Giving Up His Biggest Goal in Iran
Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted his main objective is to block Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
President Donald Trump may be willing to end the Iran war without a nuclear deal.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the president floated declaring victory in the war if Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz without a deal on the country’s nuclear program. But that seems increasingly unlikely with Iran now demanding that U.S. soldiers leave the area, as well as an end to the American blockade and billions of dollars in payment.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to escalate the war with more intense bombing of Iranian targets, but he hasn’t followed through, claiming that a deal is imminent. In reality, the America’s allies in the Middle East urged Trump not to ramp up bombing, and U.S. commanders have told him that missile and bomb stockpiles have dwindled.
Iran’s stronger conditions for a deal signal it is digging in and willing to wait out Trump for a more favorable agreement, knowing that he has few options. Iran has proven that throttling maritime traffic through the strait is an effective way to secure leverage, causing gas prices to skyrocket worldwide and badly hurting the global economy.
The longer the war drags on, causing the U.S. economy to suffer in the process, the worse it looks for the president and the Republican Party ahead of November’s midterm elections. Trump is desperate to end the war, but has backed himself into a corner by repeatedly pushing the talking point that he will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
One White House official told the Journal that the U.S. has completed all of its military objectives against Iran, and that Trump is only focused now on the free flow of oil through the strait. Trump himself told Axios on Sunday that he is “low-keying it” when it comes to negotiating with Iran.
“We are only semi-negotiating with them,” Trump said. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.”
“It will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game.”
That seems to indicate that the president is willing to swallow a deal that doesn’t mention Iran’s nuclear program, no matter how bad it makes him look.
Trump Launches New Attack on Fed Governor Despite Supreme Court Ruling
The Supreme Court determined that Donald Trump had to give Lisa Cook the ability to contest the legal accusations against her.
President Donald Trump is reviving his campaign to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
In a letter signed by White House deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, the White House informed Cook Wednesday that it was once again “considering” removing her from her position. The letter demanded Cook respond to the baseless allegations that she committed mortgage fraud within 21 days.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that Trump could not fire Cook, finding that the government had not afforded her the protections she was entitled to by statute, and as a result temporarily preserving the Federal Reserve’s independence.
Last August, Trump declared that he was booting Cook—the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve board—over claims she committed mortgage fraud by having two primary residences. Cook refused to step down and sued, stating that “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so.”
Following the Supreme Court ruling, the case was set to be sent back to a lower court. The higher court declined to weigh in on Cook’s allegations, and did not lay out clear criteria for Trump to fire Cook.
In a statement, Cook’s lawyers stated that the allegations of mortgage fraud were “as baseless now as they were a year ago.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s own mortgage agreements appear to match the same criteria his Department of Justice has used to go after many of the president’s enemies.
The GOP’s Midterm Convention Will Be the Worst Film Festival Ever
Republicans are using the event to show an “endless” series of videos of lefties and Democrats.
The focus of the GOP’s first ever midterm convention in September won’t be Trump’s dismal approval rating, how to end the war on Iran, or the stagnant economy. They will be spending their time, resources, and funds focusing on democratic socialism.
Axios reported Friday that the GOP has spent months pulling together an “endless” video trove of attack ads targeted at progressive commentators like Hasan Piker, and Democratic Senate nominees Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico.
This seems like it’ll be quite the spectacle. The convention ends on September 10—the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s death—and will feature speeches from Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The convention plans to emphasize Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement and Vance’s anti-fraud task force, neither of which are particularly compelling. Trump is also expected to be in attendance.
This is all occurring while the vast majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, and blame him directly for their economic woes—all while he drives gas prices up higher as he drags his war on Iran on longer and longer. This event will almost certainly be an endless blooper reel of Republicans calling on the spirit of McCarthyism to try and convince Americans that it’s bad to want more affordability and less deadly bombs to Israel.
“While everyday Americans struggle to pay their bills, fill up their tanks, or put food on the table, Republicans are hosting a multimillion-dollar celebration to satisfy Donald Trump’s massive ego and tie vulnerable Republican candidates closer to his failed agenda,” DNC spokesperson Kendall Witmer said to Axios.
While the GOP itself is leading the charge against democratic socialism, Democrats are leaving it up to their PACs, as the dark money centrist thinktank Third Way just committed $15 million towards punching to their left on Thursday.
Amazon Is Creating the Biggest Pollution Source in the Entire Country
Amazon has bought a site in Texas where it plans to build a data center campus.
Amazon is quietly trying to build the biggest gas power plant in the country.
The Distilled newsletter reported Friday that the megacorporation has bought land and acquired permits in Pecos County, Texas, for an AI data center powered by a 7.65 gigawatt gas power plant. The plant will be completely separate from Texas’s power grid, at least in the beginning, the permits show.
The site, known as GW Ranch, got a state permit allowing the proposed power plant to emit 33 million tons of carbon dioxide, which would make it the biggest pollution site in the U.S., emitting more than the country’s biggest coal power plant, according to Distilled. That’s in sharp contrast to Amazon’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2040 as part of The Climate Pledge.
Amazon filed three construction permits with the state of Texas this week to build three data center buildings immediately upon approval. Land clearing has already begun, according to satellite imagery. Amazon would join Microsoft, Google, and Meta in having its own off-grid gas power.
Amazon says that it has 10 gigawatts of carbon-free energy across 40 projects to power its existing data center operations in Texas, and that the GW Ranch will use brackish groundwater that isn’t potable and thus can’t be used for irrigation or drinking.
But that’s not likely to quell public opposition. Data centers are hugely unpopular across the country among Republicans and Democrats, both in rural and suburban areas. The centers don’t create many jobs or boost local economies. If connected to local power grids, they can drive utility rates up and cause black- and brownouts. Amid climate change and droughts, the claim that data centers will take advantage of unusable water will likely invite skepticism.
The fact that Amazon is building its own power plant for the project will be a small comfort for residents worried about utility rates, but locals still will have concerns about pollution from a gas plant bigger than any other in the U.S. Rural Texas is deeply Republican, and despite President Donald Trump’s delusions about data centers’ popularity, opposition to them on the right is growing. Now that this project is public, a big backlash could soon follow.
Allegedly Abusive MAGA Rep. Sued Daughter’s Daycare Over Her Bruises
Representative Max Miller, whose ex-wife was not listed as a complainant in the suit, filed the lawsuit in 2025.
Representative Max Miller blamed a daycare after his daughter was rushed to the hospital last year with bruises.
Miller sued a Westlake, Ohio, daycare provider in February 2025, after the daughter he shares with his ex-wife Emily Moreno (the daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno) was taken to an emergency room with injuries “on her thighs, face, groin, and vaginal area of her body and she was caused to incur psychological trauma.” Her mother took the girl, then under two years old, to a hospital on January 27 after a daycare staff member alerted police as well as the Department of Children and Family Services.
The lawsuit doesn’t clearly state where her injuries came from, and Miller has a long list of abuse allegations against him regarding his ex-wife and daughter, even allegedly fracturing his daughter’s collarbone. His lawsuit, filed four months before his divorce was finalized, accuses the school and four named employees of “failing to properly train and supervise their staff in the proper treatment of children in their care. Defendants abused and neglected a child dependent upon them for protection.”
Miller is the only person named in the complaint, and Moreno isn’t mentioned. Miller claims in the lawsuit that an investigation from county authorities backs up his claims, along with video and audio evidence documenting alleged abuse and neglect. The school denied the allegations, stating that the toddler was not “injured, brutalized, or harmed in any manner while under the defendants’ alleged care and supervision.”
The case was dismissed four months ago, and if there was a settlement, it hasn’t been disclosed. In light of newly revealed allegations that Miller has a habit of holding his daughter’s beloved blue bunny hostage and his admission that he shared an inappropriate photo of her online, this lawsuit raises even more questions.
Trump’s Terrible July Jobs Numbers Only Hurt Women
And the number of women who have left the workforce since January is more than double the number of men.
Women accounted for 100 percent of the decline in the labor force in July, according to a National Women’s Law Center analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s latest dismal jobs report.
Overall, the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July: Women lost 32,000 jobs, while men gained 9,000. Many of the jobs lost were in local government and leisure and hospitality—real jobs that real women, who are already dealing with slowed wages and rising inflation, work.
Meanwhile, a whopping 165,000 women exited the work force last month, meaning they were neither working nor looking for a new job. The number of men in the labor force remained steady.
Jasmine Tucker, vice president of research at NWLC, warned that this latest jobs report was “not a sign of a healthy economy.”
“Women are leaving the labor force in alarming numbers, and many who remain employed are underemployed. This administration cannot celebrate an economy that is failing so many women,” Tucker said.
In fact, more than double the number of women have left the labor force than men since the start of the year. A total of 845,000 women have left the workforce since January, while 406,000 men have left.
It’s hard not to see these startling statistics as part of the Trump administration’s broader campaign to undermine women’s rights and autonomy.
Whether it’s making it harder for women to vote, sidelining women professionally, or endangering emergency pregnancy care—targeting women’s livelihoods just feels like part of the system that’s working as it was designed.
Rubio Tightens “Noose” Around Cubans’ Necks
Even with the Iran War going badly, the Secretary of State is still determined to do regime change in Cuba.
Marco Rubio is slowly choking Cuba to death.
The Secretary of State told Axios his plan to take over the island—long plagued by U.S. intelligence agency meddling and extensive federal sanctions—for good.
“What we’re trying to teach them is there are no escape valves … Every time they create a new mechanism in which they try to get out of the noose, we just close it off,” Rubio said. “They certainly can’t wait us out. Certainly this isn’t going to go away for the next [two and a half] years.”
The Trump administration has kept a constant thumb on Cuba, starting with a blackout-inducing oil blockade in January that has directly contributed to widespread food insecurity, economic collapse, and death, as infant mortality doubled on the island. The U.S. has levied 24 different attacks against Cuba, from accusing its doctor export program of human trafficking, claiming that it’s aiding international terrorism, and running an “irregular and covert” campaign against western ideologies. And military action is still a possibility.
“The Cuban Communist regime is a state sponsor of terrorism that spies on America, arms violent left-wing radicals, spreads poisonous Marxist ideology, and serves as a staging ground for Russia, China & Iran just 90 miles from our shores,” Rubio announced on Thursday. “Today I sanctioned five Cuban entities and eight individuals associated with procuring arms for the regime. As President Trump has said: The United States will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile military, intelligence & terror operations on our doorstep. Anyone supporting, sponsoring, or providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of being sanctioned themselves.”
The Trump administration (Rubio in particular) is leaning on Cold War, Red Scare rhetoric to justify perpetuating a full-scale humanitarian crisis in Cuba. On Thursday—the same day as Rubio’s announcement and four days after the most recent countrywide blackout—a panel of independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council declared Cuba at risk of becoming a “silent Gaza.”
“The humanitarian consequences are already unfolding into a full-blown crisis, threatening the rights to health, to life, to food and to development.… Measures that knowingly deprive a population of the means to survive strike at the most basic guarantees of the rights to life and diminish the core of human dignity,” the report reads. “The U.S. Government must cease all threats and hostile acts against Cuba’s sovereignty and revoke all measures it has imposed on the country that stand contrary to international law.”
Trump Majorly Flips Out as Judges Rule His Ballroom Is Illegal
A federal appeals court panel ruled that Donald Trump must stop aboveground construction on his beloved ballroom.
President Donald Trump is seriously crashing out after a federal appeals court ordered him to stop illegal construction on his White House ballroom.
In a furious screed on Truth Social Friday, Trump announced that he would immediately appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
“The Military and Secret Service are viewing this horrendous, politically motivated, and unlawful ruling as a National Security threat to our Nation in that the entire Complex is being built for the protection of our Country and, additionally, all future Presidents,” the president wrote.
Trump described his plans to build “one big, expensive, and very complex unit” that includes a state of the art hospital, bomb shelter, and a top secret military facility—well, not so secret anymore, I’d gather.
In a 2-1 ruling earlier Friday, a D.C. Circuit Court panel determined the Trump administration must seek approval for construction from Congress, which has the “exclusive authority to regulate the construction and demolition of White House structures.”
“At this preliminary stage, the National Trust has shown, compellingly, that Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House—the People’s House—to fit a particular President’s desires,” the ruling stated.
Trump-appointed Judge Neomi Rao dissented, agreeing with the administration that the National Trust for Historic Preservation did not have the standing to challenge the construction. The nonprofit’s case was centered around Professor Alison Hoagland, a member of the National Trust, who formally claimed that the ballroom was an aesthetic injury to the White House.
Rao argued that the decision would “permit adjudication of any government action that a plaintiff finds unsightly.” But by the judge’s logic, the Trump administration could make unilateral sweeping changes to any national landmark—even, as the DOJ tried to claim, the Statue of Liberty.
For months, Trump has treated the White House—which belongs to all Americans, not just the president—like one of his gaudy resort properties.
Meanwhile, the price tag on Trump’s ballroom has exploded. The president originally claimed that his ballroom project would only cost $200 million, but that number later ballooned to $300 million, and then $400 million after he decided to tack on extra construction. In June, a bombshell report revealed that taxpayers would be expected to foot the bill for half of a $600 million total cost.
This story has been updated.
Trump May Not Help Struggling Republicans in the Midterms
And he seems to be totally fine with that.
President Trump correctly identified Americans’ mass dissatisfaction with the GOP—but doesn’t think that it extends to him.
“The question is will they vote? ’Cause a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you.… They’re not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans,” Trump told Punchbowl News in an interview released on Friday.
“I could do a lot easier. I don’t have to be away in Nevada yesterday. I didn’t have to be in Los Angeles yesterday making speeches. I didn’t have to be supporting all the people. I have a lot, you know, I have a busy schedule,” he continued. “I said to somebody, ‘Wait a minute. You don’t understand. I won. I’m not campaigning.’”
The voters are mad at him too. The president’s approval rating is just under 40 percent, as nearly 60 percent think that he specifically is doing a bad job of governing. And the issues that people feel most upset by—the war on Iran, inflation, affordability—are directly tied to President Trump, even if he doesn’t seem to think so.
This is an incredibly negative message for the leader of the Republican Party to be sending out less than 90 days before a midterm election in which many expect Republicans to lose. Maybe that’s the point—getting out ahead of getting blamed for losing control of Congress by distancing yourself from your own party.
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