Trump’s team have gone on the defensive about the demolition of the White House, and one of his senior election chiefs plotted an ’emergency’ to rig the midterms.
Donald Trump’s White House seems to have been taken by surprise by the level of public revulsion at images of the East Wing being demolished to make way for his gaudy gold ballroom. So much so that their outriders – toady Republican congressmen like Josh Hawley, Fox News and various Twitter accounts – have been activated. Mostly they’re pointing out that Trump would be far from the first president to make some alterations to the White House. Obama, of course, turned a tennis court into a basketball court. Nixon replaced a swimming pool with the press room. But neither of those were structural. Most of the photos you’ll see online, which are being amplified by accounts friendly to the regime, are from a major reconstruction of the People’s House undertaken in the early 1950s. The White House was rebuilt from inside out, because it was said to be so dilapidated after years of neglect and lazy remodelling that the walls only stayed up “out of habit.” In 1960, once renovations were completed, the White House was granted protected status, which means construction requires a good deal of consultation and permission, which Trump didn’t bother to even seek.
Meanwhile, in Trumpworld
- Trump’s ballroom is going to be even bigger and more expensive
- He “had to” demolish part of the White House so it would fit
- His election integrity chief plotted a ‘national emergency’ to rig the midterms
- Pete Hegseth replaces the New York Times with the MyPillow guy
- Steven Miller loses it at Robert DeNiro
- Trump reckons Putin is ready to negotiate
- Thank Trump for the Beef
- Mamdani takes a leaf out of Trump’s playbook
Here’s everything you need to know…
The Gold House
1. Turns out Trump’s ballroom is going to be bigger and more expensive than he said it would
In news that will surprise almost exactly nobody, Trump’s ballroom is going to be bigger than people thought, and more expensive than he said it would. A new miniature of the proposed venue reveals the gaudy structure will dwarf the main White House building, to which it will be linked via a glass walkway.
Also, given his famous hatred for cost overruns in building projects, he seems remarkably content with the bill for the ballroom climbing steadily upward. Originally estimated to cost about $200,000, Trump revealed last night it’ll be more like $300,000. But no big deal, eh? Oh, and the reason they knocked down the East Wing when they said they wouldn’t was because they “had to.” Good to have that tidied up.
2. Trump claims he’s been “transparent” about the demolition
Asked why he hasn’t been transparent about the demolition of the East Wing, Trump basically told a reporter his mum hasn’t been transparent. “I haven’t been transparent? Really?” He said. “I showed this to everybody that would listen. Third rate reporters didn’t see it because they didn’t look. You’re a third rate reporter. Always have been.”
King Trump
3. Trump’s ‘election integrity’ chief plotted ‘National Emergency’ to rig midterm elections
A startling New York Times report overnight profiled Heather Honey, a prominent election denial activist, whom Trump has appointed “deputy assistant secretary for election integrity” at the Department of Homeland Security.
It opens with alarming reports from a call of election officials from all 50 states, where she echoed Trump’s false claims that his 2020 defeat was the result of widespread fraud.
And it goes on to surface an even more troubling call with right-wing activists in March, before her government appointment, where she suggested the Trump administration could declare a “national emergency” just before the midterms, based on a new “investigation” of the 2020 election. That “emergency” could be used to justify dictating new rules to state and local governments on how to run their elections. She added: “I don’t know if that’s really feasible and if the people around the president would let him test that theory.”
Well, given all the other ways he’s pretty clearly trying to rig or undermine elections in America, what do you reckon?
4. Pete Hegseth replaces the New York Times with the MyPillow guy and a podcaster in a beanie hat
(Almost) the entire Pentagon Press Corps turned in their passes last week in protest at the draconian rules Pete Hegseth wanted them to agree to in order to get access to the building. The main gripe, and a rule nobody could sign up to and also call themselves a journalist, was a directive that they should neither pursue nor publish any information from Pentagon sources that had not been approved for release by the Pentagon. And when you agree to that, you’re signing up to being the propaganda arm of the state.
So today we learned which leading lights of defence and political journalism will be covering the Pentagon going forward, and let me tel you, it’s a stellar crew.
You’ve got Tim Pool, a 39-year-old right-wing YouTuber and podcaster who started out covering Occupy Wall Street protests, but later went hard MAGA. In 2024, he is alleged to entered and arrangement with Tenet Media, which the Justice Department says was secretly financed by agents of the Russian state broadcaster RT – with a view to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for making content for them. Pool says he was not aware of the foreign funding.
Then there’s Lindell TV, a streaming channel run by Mike Lindell. He’s a conspiracy theorist, election denier and pillow entrepreneur, whose main gig is the company MyPillow. You know, the company who used to do a special offer, discounting its stock to $14.88. The numbers 14 and 88 are widely known Nazi dogwhistles, relating to the “14 words” (‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children’) and the eight letter of the alphabet being H, which makes 88 HH, or ‘Heil Hitler’.
Anyway, you might remember him as the guy who lost a $2.3 million defamation case brought by a former employee of a voting machine company.
There’s also regular Trump propagandists Jack Posobiec and Benny Johnson, far-right websites including Gateway Pundit, the PostMillenial and the Washington Reporter. And Frontlines, a media brand of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
So yeah, regime-approved propagandists all the way down.
5. Stephen Miller loses it at Robert De Niro
Stephen Miller has absolutely had it with Robert De Niro. The Hollywood icon, 82, branded the White House Deputy Prince Of Darkness a “Nazi” in an interview over the weekend. Suggesting, as many are beginning to, that Trump will cling on to power after his term ends, De Niro told MSNBC: “He’s set it up with, I guess he’s the Goebbels of the Cabinet, Stephen Miller.” He added: “He’s a Nazi, yes he is, and he’s Jewish. He should be ashamed of himself.”
Miller, Trump’s very own bug-eating Renfield, didn’t so much take a shot back as a nuclear strike when he went on (where else) Fox News last night. “Robert De Niro is a sad, bitter, broken old man who is mostly enraged because he has not made a movie worth watching in at least 30 years,” he said, accusing De Niro of “probably the longest string of flops, failures, embarrassments.” He continued: “This man has been degrading himself on camera with one horrific film after another for my entire adult life and he is not taken seriously by anybody. Not by his family, not by his friends, not by his community. He is a shell of a man and everyone disregards everything he says.”
Weirdly, the last 30 years of De Niro’s career includes the Scorcese movie Casino, which Miller has previously described as his favourite film. In fact, in his youth he is said to have repeatedly slicked back his hair and dressed up like De Niro’s character in Casino Sam “Ace” Rothstein on trips to Las Vegas, his favourite place on earth.
President of Peace
6. Trump slaps sanctions on Russia – but denies missile approval
Trump and the EU both announced rafts of fresh sanctions on Russia, part of a broad effort to choke off revenue and supplies for Putin’s war effort. And despite Russia already being among the most sanctioned nations ever to exist, Volodymyr Zelensky has high hopes these sanctions will bite. Meanwhile, Trump denied the US had given any new approval for Ukraine to use long-range missiles in the conflict, something claimed by the Wall Street Journal last night.
In response, Trump posted on Truth Social saying the story was false. He wrote: “The U.S. has nothing to do with those missiles, wherever they may come from, or what Ukraine does with them!”
7. Putin is ‘willing to negotiate a bit further…’
Vladimir Putin’s position has been broadly consistent ever since he invaded Ukraine three years ago. Ukraine isn’t a proper country, it’s part of Russia really, and has been overrun with Nazis. Therefore this isn’t a proper war, and everyone should just let us take Ukraine back. K thx bi.
None of that has shifted an inch, despite sanctions, resistance, international condemnation and a summit in Alaska.
And yet, Trump reckons his buddy Vlad is finally coming around. “I always felt he wanted the full thing. But I think now he’s willing to negotiate a little bit further. And I think he’s willing to make a deal. We’ll see. We don’t want him to have the whole thing.”
If by “we” you mean the international community, “we” don’t want him to have any of it.
8. Trump claims he has authority to launch missiles at Venezuelan boats because they’re in “international waters”
Trump last night claimed he had the unilateral authority to use missiles to sink Venezuelan boats, killing people suspected of smuggling drugs, because they’re in “international waters.”
Without getting into the intricacies of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, this is almost certainly nonsense.
America Last
9. No Trump No Beef
Former steak salesman Donald Trump reckons there’d be no beef left if he hadn’t been president. Which seems a little farfetched. Nevertheless, he’s squaring up for a showdown with American ranchers, after promising to bring down the cost of beef by importing it from his buddies in Argentina. America First, yeah? Well, he’s expected to run into heated opposition from US cattle farmers who are enjoying some rare profitable years.
In the Oval last night Trump insisted, wrongly, that he had to do it because the only consumer item still suffering from inflation was beef. Experts say the president’s move probably wouldn’t lead to cheaper prices at grocery stores.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America and other farming groups have criticised Trump’s idea because they say it could harm American ranchers and feedlot operators.
“The ranchers… are so happy for what I’ve done,” he said. “I saved them. I don’t think you’d have any beef in this country if I didn’t do that. So we’re very proud of that.”
Trump’s New York Nightmayor
10. Mamdani takes a leaf out of Trump’s playbook
In the final televised debate before the New York mayoral election last night, frontrunner Zohran Mamdani took a leaf out of Donald Trump’s playbook. He turned to rival Andrew Cuomo and told him one of the 13 women who had accused him of sexual harassment was in the audience. Cuomo didn’t have much to say, but it was quite a moment. And one that made us think of the 2016 TV debate when Trump invited some of the women who had accused Hillary Clinton’s husband Bill of sexual harassment while he was President.
Mamdani is Trump’s worst nightmare. A smart, young, articulate, left wing brown person in charge of America’s biggest city. Imagine how apoplectic the President will be when he learns Mamdani used his own strategies to help him win.
The Surge
11. ICE recruits skipping the background check
You’ll recall yesterday concerns were raised about the physical fitness of Trump’s new ICE recruits. Today, NBC report more concerns – this time about their backgrounds. They report staff at ICE’s training academy in Brunswick, Georgia recently found one recruit had been previously charged with robbery and battery linked to domestic violence. And some recruits going through the six-week training course had not submitted fingerprints for background checks – something that’s supposed to be done before they turn up for the course.
