Trump Administration

Politico reports: White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday said she has never heard President Donald Trump mention QAnon, as a growing number of Republicans sharply criticized Trump’s appreciative stance on the conspiracy theory. “The media talks a lot about this so-called QAnon. I’ve never heard the president mention it,” McEnany told Fox News. “I talk to him oftentimes …

CNN reports: The president who complains about censorship by Twitter wants to censor people himself. On Thursday, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s decision and grant President Donald Trump the ability to block his critics on Twitter. The petition seeks to revive a case decided by a New York federal judge in 2018. At …

The Daily Beast reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted a GIF of Lisa Simpson sobbing and ripping up papers during House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night. Pompeo had mocked Pelosi by tweeting the same clip in February shortly after Pelosi ripped up President Trump’s State of the Union speech. The clip comes …

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump wants to deny China some of the proceeds from the sale of ByteDance’s U.S. operations of its video-sharing app TikTok, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Wednesday, but it would be unusual for any company that acquires TikTok to provide funds to the U.S. Treasury. “Well he’s said that,” Kudlow told CNBC when …

Public Integrity reports: White House Coronavirus Task Force leader Dr. Deborah Birx, on a private call with state and local leaders Wednesday, recommended that universities test students returning for fall classes as well as set up “surge” testing. “Each university not only has to do entrance testing,” she said, according to a recording of the call obtained by the Center …

The Daily Beast reports: President Trump once asked aides if he could sell Puerto Rico and buy Greenland instead, according to former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, who told MSNBC on Wednesday that he heard the remarks directly in Aug. 2018, when officials were regularly going to Puerto Rico to coordinate hurricane recovery efforts. “One time before we …

Axios reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called out Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Wednesday, saying his alleged suspension of operational changes and cost-cutting “is wholly insufficient and does not reverse damage already wreaked.” Pelosi said that a conversation with DeJoy revealed the USPS has no intention of replacing the sorting machines, mailboxes and other mail infrastructure that has already been …

The Hill reports: White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday would not say whether President Trump would accept the results of the November election if he is not declared the winner, adding to comments from the president in recent days sowing doubt about the outcome of the vote. “Is the president saying if he doesn’t win this election that …

The Casper Star-Tribune reports: Kanye West is officially trying to get on Wyoming’s presidential ballot as an independent candidate this fall, a spokesman with the Wyoming Secretary of State confirmed Tuesday morning. Within a day of the rapper’s filing, county clerks began to field reports about West’s signature gatherers violating state law by being too close to polling places. At …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump personally ordered his secretary of homeland security to head to the border at least half a dozen times, taking her away from her focus on pressing national security matters, according to her former chief of staff. Miles Taylor, who worked in the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019, told POLITICO that Trump often …

The New York Post reports: Speaking to reporters today, Trump called Oracle a “great company” following reports that the software giant had preliminary talks about buying TikTok’s operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. “I think that Oracle would be certainly somebody that could handle it,” the president said. Trump also said he thinks the company’s owner “is …

Courthouse News reports: Two weeks after the neglected storage of highly combustible ammonium nitrate caused a devastating explosion in Lebanon, six environmental groups urged the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday to stop the United States from ushering in a new era of so-called bomb trains. Federal law stipulates that liquefied natural gasses can only be safely transported in trucks and specific …

Politico reports: A raft of big-name business groups is warning many employers won’t participate in President Donald Trump’s payroll tax deferral plan. Calling it “unworkable,” they said in a letter Tuesday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that it risks saddling their workers with large postponed tax bills they could have trouble paying back. Someone earning $35,000 would see their biweekly …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the U.S. Postal Service is suspending operational changes, like removing mail processing equipment and collection boxes, until after the November election, as the agency tries to reassure Americans that it can handle the anticipated surge in mail-in voting. Mr. DeJoy also said the agency won’t change retail hours at post …

Reuters reports: Several Democratic state attorneys general said on Tuesday they will announce legal action against President Donald Trump’s administration over Postal Service changes that may affect mail-in voting in the November U.S. presidential election. The attorneys general for Washington state and Pennsylvania were due to announce legal action at 1 p.m. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said he will …

CNN reports: Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said Monday that she wished the US shutdown had looked like Italy’s, which was under a total lockdown. “I wish that when we went into lockdown, we looked like Italy. When Italy locked down, I mean, people weren’t allowed out of their houses,” she said. “Americans don’t react …

The Hill reports: A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy that would scrap ObamaCare’s nondiscrimination protections for sex and gender identity, one day before it was set to take effect. According to Judge Frederick Block of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, the Trump administration’s rule is contrary to a recent Supreme Court ruling that outlawed …

Politico reports: “Anonymous” is trolling President Donald Trump one more time. The self-described “senior Trump administration official,” who anonymously trashed the president’s leadership in a 2018 op-ed and a 2019 best-selling book, is calling for voters to throw the president out of office this November in a new preface for the paperback “2020 election edition” of the book, “A Warning.” …

From an op-ed published by the Washington Post: After serving for more than two years in the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership during the Trump administration, I can attest that the country is less secure as a direct result of the president’s actions. Like many Americans, I had hoped that Donald Trump, once in office, would soberly accept the burdens …

Reuters reports: The Trump administration on Monday finalized a plan to allow oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, putting it on track to issue decades-long leases in the pristine wilderness area before a potential change in U.S. leadership. The 19 million acre (7.7 million hectares) refuge is home to wildlife populations including Porcupine caribou and polar …