President Donald Trump announced during a Monday conference at the White House that his administration will take steps to combat violent crime in the District of Columbia, including deploying the National Guard and federalizing police in the district that houses the nation's capital.
"This is Liberation Day in DC, and we're going to take our capital back," Trump said about the plans.
The White House increased the police presence in D.C. recently following the brutal attack of Edward Coristine, a key figure at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), during an attempted carjacking last week.
Trump criticized the amount of violent crime and homelessness in the city and vowed to clean it up.
NBC News was quick to point out that violent crime is down 26% in D.C. compared to last year, but Trump shared statistics that compared it unfavorably to other major cities in the U.S. and around the world.
He mentioned several high-profile incidents by name, including the Coristine attack and the killing of a congressional intern.
Trump also said he would get rid of the "slums" of D.C., and called on the Republicans in Congress to "change no cash bail" to prevent many criminals from being put back on the street after being arrested.
"The radical left City Council adopted no cash bail," he said, reffering to Washington, D.C. "By the way, every place in the country you have no cash bail — it's a disaster."
"Somebody murders somebody, and they're out on no cash bail before the day is out," Trump said.
"We're going to end that in Chicago," he continued. "We're going to change the statute. I spoke with Pam and Todd and everybody. We're going to change the statute, and I'm going to have to get the Republicans to vote, because the Democrats are weak on crime — totally weak on crime."
Trump was joined at the press conference by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other officials.
He said that the city looked "disgusting" and "ugly," which he also wanted to change. "We’re also talking about beautification. We’re the most beautiful, potentially, capital in the world," he said.
It makes sense that Trump would want to fix up the city where he now lives. He tends to want to leave things better than he found them, both in his real estate empire and the country as a whole.
Democrats will be crying about whether it's legal to use the National Guard in this way and to federalize law enforcement, but they are heavily invested in things staying the same despite many promises over decades to make them better. If Trump actually does improve things, it might shake up their voter base so radically that it will never be the same again.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo bashed socialist Zohran Mamdani by calling on him to evict himself from his rent-stabilized apartment.
Mamdani, the rising star of the far left who wants to be New York City's next mayor, is paying $2,300 a month thanks to rent-stabilization measures. This is despite the fact that Mamdani and his family are incredibly wealthy.
In a post to X, Cuomo lit Mamdani up by saying, "Somewhere last night in New York City, a single mother and her children slept at a homeless shelter because you, assemblyman [Zohran Mamdani], are occupying her rent-controlled apartment."
Cuomo is taking on Mamdani in New York City's mayoral race despite losing the primary to Mamdani. To do this, Cuomo opted to run his campaign as an independent and bank on uniting both center-left and center-right voters to form a coalition against socialist ideas.
Whatever the issues that voters may have with Cuomo and his checkered past, it's undeniable that Mamdani's occupation of rent-controlled housing is a blatant abuse of programs designed to help poor New Yorkers obtain apartments.
Mamdani has set himself up as a champion of the working class despite being incredibly wealthy with a six-figure income and international property ownership.
Furthermore, Mamdani is abusing housing programs to pay cheaper rent despite being more than capable of paying the market rate for housing in the Big Apple. It's a classic case of a wealthy elitist posing as a working-class champion while enjoying incredible wealth and privilege.
Cuomo didn't mince words in his X post saying, "No matter which way you cut it: Zohran Mamdani is a rich person. You are actually very rich. Yet you and your wife pay $2,300 a month, as you have bragged, for a nice apartment in Astoria. That should be housing for someone who needs it."
This means that Mamdani is paying nearly a thousand dollars under the median rent in New York City, which reached $3,397. That number has been steadily climbing and shot up by nearly $200 since 2024, thanks to steadily climbing demand and shrinking supply.
Cuomo finished his post by challenging Mamdani to "move out immediately and give your affordable housing back to an unhoused family who need it. Leaders must show moral clarity. Time to move out."
It is a blatant abuse of the system that someone as wealthy as Mamdani is occupying housing meant for low-income New Yorkers. While many of Mamdani's ideas have resonated with voters, it is likely that Cuomo's exposure of Mamdani will greatly anger New Yorkers who are struggling to make ends meet.
Unfortunately for Democrats, the campaign to evict Mamdani, both from politics and his rent-controlled apartment, will likely fail. Mamdani implementing his disastrous socialist policies in one of America's biggest cities would undoubtedly damage Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.
Even with Cuomo's questionable past, having him as New York City's next mayor would avoid rocking the boat, and it would be business as usual in a leftist stronghold.
However, Mamdani could cause disaster after disaster that would be broadcasted to the nation ahead of the midterm elections and used to galvanize centrist voters into supporting the GOP to avoid more Mamdani's from ascending to power.
However, it seems unlikely that Mamdani can be stopped, so Democrats are going to have to deal with the disastrous optics when his socialist vision inevitably begins to crumble.
New York Attorney General Letitia James' office and her attorney have ascended to new levels of irony after complaining about the "weaponization" of the justice system after the DOJ announced a probe against her.
After leading a blatantly political indictment against President Donald Trump for years, James and her office have the audacity to complain that the Trump DOJ is being "weaponized" to punish a political opponent of the White House.
James and the Biden DOJ pursued criminal investigations against Trump relentlessly for years, and now the shoe is on the other foot, and they aren't happy with the rules that they created.
James is currently facing a probe from the DOJ regarding her political prosecution of President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, which is a moment that conservatives have been waiting on for years.
James is just one of several high-profile leftist prosecutors who attempted to interfere with the 2024 presidential election with political indictments, and justice is finally here for James and her cohorts.
After four years of persecuting Trump, James and her Democrat friends are now on the wrong side of the law. After years of political indictments, Trump has all the room to direct the DOJ to investigate his opponents for any supposed crimes.
Abbe Lowell, James's attorney, issued a statement claiming, "[It is] the most blatant and desperate example of this administration carrying out the president's political retribution campaign. Weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to punish an elected official for doing her job is an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration."
The irony of this statement isn't lost on the Trump administration or Trump's conservative supporters, who aren't shedding tears at the thought of Democrats reaping what they sowed for all those years.
Furthermore, there are legitimate merits to the probe against James as the DOJ is investigating if the Democrat attorney general's office may have violated constitutional protections under the "color of law," a legal term that describes abuses of power by government officials.
The prospective case is probing whether James deprived Trump, his business empire, and the NRA of their legal rights in her blatantly political investigation that was designed to damage Trump's presidential campaign.
James is well and truly in trouble, and this is only the beginning. Trump is in office for another three and a half years and has all the leeway to exact his retribution without damaging his support, thanks to the vicious and reckless behavior of Democrats that changed the rules of the game.
James doesn't just have to worry about the DOJ probing her office for allegations of political persecution; she is also facing allegations of mortgage fraud alongside Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), another notorious Trump hater.
Schiff is accused of lying about his primary residence for tax and mortgage purposes, and after how viciously he pursued Trump, the White House will not be showing mercy should it be found that Schiff was committing fraud.
As for James, if she was found guilty of fraud, it would be sweet revenge for Trump, who was accused of inflating his real estate portfolio by James.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum ordering colleges and universities that receive federal funding to submit admissions data to the federal government to prove that they are no longer using affirmative action in their methods of admitting students.
The Supreme Court's 2023 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. V. Harvard decision said that the use of affirmative action in college admission decisions is unconstitutional, but that ruling doesn't have any teeth unless there is a way to enforce it.
The vast majority of higher learning institutions in the U.S. are heavily invested in affirmative action and other diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices, and are not likely to just give them up because the Trump-dominated court says so.
The order also expands the amount of information institutions will have to submit, as overseen by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. McMahon will also need to conduct more accuracy checks on the information submitted and take action if the accuracy doesn't meet federal standards.
In short, schools that get caught continuing to use affirmative action will probably lose at least some, or maybe all, of their federal funding.
Some schools have been hard at work trying to figure out how to still race as a criterion in their admissions process without it being affirmative action.
Harvard has implemented an essay prompt that allows students to detail how race has affected their lives, while UCLA has practically boasted about its plans to increase diversity in spite of the ruling.
McMahon will be looking most closely at these schools, one would think, but they can't be the only ones trying to keep doing what they've been doing, no matter what the courts say about it.
Since the ruling, some schools have seen an increase in Asian enrollment and a decrease in Black students making the cut.
This is what would be expected without any use of affirmative action. Looking at grades and achievement alone, the Asian population would score higher and would displace some of the Black applicants and others who were given an advantage over them.
It's understandable that things wouldn't be exactly even among all racial and ethnic groups and that colleges would be concerned about "fairness."
But race should not be the only criterion for fairness, there are so many others to consider, including ability, hard work, and more. It's not fair to have worked harder and achieved more, but be denied admission to a school in favor of someone who has not worked as hard or achieved as much.
Sixty-plus years of affirmative action--which is three generations--has not achieved perfect equality, because sometimes the effect of affirmative action is to further weaken the group being "helped."
The left doesn't consider that because affirmative action lets them act as Santa Claus to some voters, which they feel will come back to them in loyalty. But that's not fair, either.
Minnesota residents saw a huge win on the topic of Second Amendment rights this week, following a ruling by the state supreme court about serial numbers on firearms.
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on Aug. 6 that state law does not preclude residents from carrying a “ghost gun,” which doesn’t have a serial number, as Minnesota's KSTP reported.
The case came before the court due to a legal issue that began in 2022 with a state patrol trooper’s response to a car crash when the firearm was found.
During the course of the state trooper's response to an accident that included a rollover crash in Fridley, Minnesota, the driver told the officer about the firearm.
He also told the law enforcement official that he didn’t have a permit to carry that gun. The trooper found it and discovered it was a so-called “ghost gun” without a serial number.
Thanks to that discovery, the man was charged with felony possession of a firearm without a serial number, as well as carrying a handgun without a permit.
In response to those charges, the man’s defense team moved to dismiss the serial number charge, saying there was no probable cause.
The firearm owner had to defend himself from a Minnesota statute that was put on the books more than 30 years ago in 1994, which made it criminal to receive or possess a firearm that is "not identified by a serial number."
The state’s high court, however, decided that the 1994 statute is but a refrence to the federal law, and that the state of Minnesota doesn’t have an independent system to require the serial numbers.
Judge Paul Thissen penned the majority opinion, in which he asserted that the state statute doesn’t clearly define enough about what a serial number references.
According to the Thissen-authored opinion, the possession of a firearm that is not identified by a serial number is illegal "only if federal law requires that the firearm have a serial number."
While the court ruled in favor of the gun owner, this doesn’t mean the justices are in favor of guns without serial numbers.
In fact, Thissen wrote that the guns "pose real dangers to public safety and the proper regulation of such weapons is an important policy issue. Many states have regulated ghost guns through the legislative process, yet Minnesota has not acted."
“Ghost guns” are generally firearms that are assembled from parts put together by those other than the manufacturer, and since they don’t have serial numbers, are much more difficult for law enforcement to track.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives said that between the years 2016 and 2021, they suspect that over 45,000 suspected ghost guns were recovered from crime scenes nationwide.
President Donald Trump is again calling for the federalization of Washington D.C., after a member of the Department of Government Accountability (DOGE) was badly beaten.
The staffer, Edward Coristine, also known as “Big Balls,” by those inside the D.C. beltway, was the victim of the attack, which has again reignited discussion about the possible takeover, as Fox News reported.
Trump’s push is backed by a number of Republicans, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who has been calling for federalization for some time, saying the town should come under Congressional control.
Lee has even introduced the Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident (BOWSER) Act, named after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, in light of recent crime.
The bill, which was introduced with a companion bill by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) has yet to make it out of Committee, despite some moderate support.
"The Constitution already federalizes D.C.," Lee said on X. "We just need Congress to do its job — and reassert its lawmaking power over our nation’s capital city. My bill, the BOWSER Act, would do that."
The president took to Truth Social on Aug 5 to talk about his frustration with the city that he now calls home, saying, “Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control.
“Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released.”
According to Trump, the lawbreakers aren’t afraid of law enforcement “because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now!”
Trump said that the D.C. laws needed to be changed to prosecute those carrying out the violent crimes as adults, regardless of whether they are legally minors, all the way down to the age of 14.
In his post, the president spoke about the recent victim who was “ beaten mercilessly by local thugs,” and he said that Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans.”
Trump also said he believes it’s important for the world to see a Washington, D.C. that is a reflection of the nation, which he believes could be accomplished via federal control.
“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore.
He voiced his regret saying maybe if that step had already been taken, “this incredible young man, and so many others, would not have had to go through the horrors of Violent Crime.”
President Donald Trump fired five of the seven members of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (FOMBPR) on Friday, as reported exclusively by Breitbart News.
An official at the White House informed Breitbart that Chairman Arthur J. Gonzalez, Cameron McKenzie, Betty Rosa, Juan Sabater, and Luis Ubiñas were taken off the board, while the remaining two members, Andrew Biggs and John Nixon, remain in place.
“The Financial Oversight and Management Board of Puerto Rico has been run inefficiently and ineffectively by its governing members for far too long, and it’s time to restore common sense leadership,” the official said.
The official said, and a 2017 Daily Caller report supports, that the average salary of the board members is approximately $214,000, which is 10 times the median household income of $20,078 in Puerto Rico.
All of the board members were appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2016. He also appointed Robert F. Mujica Jr., previously the “budget guru” for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), as the board's executive director at a reported salary of $625,000.
Mujica formerly made $216,000 as Cuomo's budget guru, so it was a huge jump for him as well.
“The Board is tasked with working with the people and Government of Puerto Rico to create the needed foundation for economic growth and to restore opportunity to the 3.5 million Americans of Puerto Rico,” an Obama press release read at the time.
Besides the $3 million budget for staff, the board spent north of $1 million on McKinney each month for "strategic consulting," according to a 2017 New Yorker article.
“Millions more have gone to other firms—many of which have political connections—to cover costs that include catering and inflated photocopying charges," the article said.
The far-left newspaper Jacobin noted in a critical article in 2023 that Puerto Rico has been bankrupt since 2016; in other words, the board's activities have not benefited the territory.
Democrats love to portray Republicans as profiting off the poor (by running legitimate businesses and paying employees), but how much worse is it to take hugely inflated salaries and spend tens of millions of dollars every year while doing nothing to help this nation, where many live on next to nothing?
It's unconscionable, and it happens way too often in Latin American countries where leaders routinely take all the wealth for themselves and leave the people no better off than before.
It's even worse when the American government does it to one of its own territories, which it should presumably protect and help.
Hopefully, Trump will get rid of Mujica, too, and will put in his own people who will actually improve economic conditions in Puerto Rico.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) said Sunday night that if Democrats in the state House don't show up to work by 3 p.m. on Monday, he will ask a court to remove them so he can appoint replacements under Texas Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0382.
The Democrats fled to Illinois last week to "break quorum" and prevent the House from voting on a redistricting plan that they think disenfranchises minority voters.
By their absence, they are denying the chamber a quorum, which means votes cannot take place.
“Real Texans do not run from a fight. But that’s exactly what most of the Texas House Democrats just did,” Abbott wrote. “Rather than doing their job and voting on urgent legislation affecting the lives of all Texans, they have fled Texas to deprive the House of the quorum necessary to meet and conduct business.”
The Democrats justified their actions by accusing Republicans of trying to "steal the voices" of minority voters.
Democrat Caucus Chair Gene Wu (D-Houston) said the governor is “using an intentionally racist map to steal the voices of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal.” The chairman said House Democrats will “not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that (President Donald Trump) wants to steal.”
But Abbott responded, "The Attorney General considered 'whether Texas law allows for a determination that a legislator has vacated office' if they intentionally break quorum. The Attorney General concluded that 'whether a specific legislator abandoned his or her office such that a vacancy occurred will be a fact question for a court.'"
Abbott added:
These absences are not merely unintended and unavoidable interruptions in public service, like a sudden illness or a family emergency. Instead, these absences were premeditated for an illegitimate purpose— what one representative called “breaking quorum.” Another previously signaled that Democrats “would have to go by an extreme measure” of a quorum break “to stop these bills from happening.” In other words, Democrats hatched a deliberate plan not to show up for work, for the specific purpose of abdicating the duties of their office and thwarting the chamber’s business.
That amounts to an abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office.
Abbott's words were far more restrained than Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's.
“Democrats in the Texas House who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,” Paxton wrote in a post on X. “We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.”
Democrats in the Texas House who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.
We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) August 3, 2025
Meanwhile, Democrats accused Republicans of bringing up relief for recent flood victims in the same special session in which the redistricting vote would be held.
“For two weeks, while families in the Hill Country mourned the loss of over 130 Texans in catastrophic floods, Democrats fought to make their relief the legislature’s top priority,” the Texas House Democrats said in a statement on Sunday. “Instead, Governor Abbott and Republican leadership used the tragedy as political cover.”
Sadly, it seems that the only way to try to get Democrats to actually do their jobs as legislators was to hold that aid "hostage" to voting on an issue that Republicans have full power to do.
Let's remember that these Republicans were elected in sufficient numbers to do a job, and now Democrats want to prevent them from doing part of that job just because they don't agree. That's not democracy, and Abbott cannot let it stand.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court decision restricting ICE from targeting individuals for investigation based on job, appearance, or spoken language.
The decision means that ICE agents are required to have specific probable cause instead of a general suspicion about an individual's citizenship.
This decision backs a decision by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong blocking ICE from making arrests based on the aforementioned factors.
The panel wrote, "We agree with the district court that, in the context of the Central District of California, the four enumerated factors at issue — apparent race, ethnicity, speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, particular location and type of work, even when considered together — describe only a broad profile and do not demonstrate reasonable suspicion for any particular stop."
This decision will kneecap much of ICE's workplace raid operations, as targeting specific job sites is an effective tactic to find illegal immigrants. However, ICE isn't taking this decision lying down and plans for more workplace raids are steaming ahead.
The lawsuit was mostly based on a statement from a Los Angeles deputy immigration commander that ICE was targeting "certain types of businesses, including carwashes, because past experiences have demonstrated that illegal aliens utilize and seek work at these locations."
As part of ICE's extensive raids in southern California, agents have been raiding Home Depots, car washes, bus stops, and in one highly publicized case, a marijuana farm in Ventura County that employed minors alongside sexual predators.
ICE's mission is an important one, but not to the leftist judges like Judge Frimpong, who was appointed by President Biden, and the judges on the notoriously leftist 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
They would rather make ICE's job harder and defend illegal immigrants and the abusive business owners exploiting cheap labor and endangering minors.
Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is sending money to illegal immigrants, hailed the decision as a victory, saying, "The Temporary Restraining Order that has been protecting our communities from immigration agents using racial profiling and other illegal tactics when conducting their cruel and aggressive enforcement raids and sweeps will remain in place for now."
Of course, this ruling won't truly stop Trump's aggressive deportation operations, but it still demonstrates the damage that leftist judges can do by blocking the will of the American people.
For the most part, the White House has been quiet about this particular case, which will go back to a lower court for another hearing in September.
White House aide Stephen Miller took to X to say, "The ruling has just been issued. A communist judge in LA has ordered ICE to report directly to her and radical left NGOs — not the president. This is another act of insurrection against the United States and its sovereign people."
Leftist district judges still hold a lot of power to obstruct the Trump agenda but it seems likely that should this case advance to the Supreme Court, conservative justices will likely nuke this faulty ruling that has effectively declared certain areas as "safe zones" for illegal immigrants.
President Donald Trump's offhand remark about Jeffrey Epstein "stealing" Virginia Giuffre from his Mar-a-Lago resort has ignited fresh outrage and speculation, the Daily Mail reported.
Trump's comment this week, claiming Epstein poached Giuffre from the spa there two decades ago, drew sharp rebukes from her family, revived conspiracy theories, and spotlighted her 2016 deposition where she cleared him of any misconduct.
Back in the summer of 2000, Giuffre, then 16, held a job as a locker room attendant at the Mar-a-Lago spa in Palm Beach, Florida.
Her father, Sky Roberts, worked as a maintenance man at the club, and the two occasionally crossed paths with Trump, though Giuffre described no close friendship between them.
That same year, Ghislaine Maxwell approached Giuffre and recruited her as a masseuse for Epstein, marking the start of troubling allegations.
Giuffre later claimed Maxwell and Epstein coerced her into serving as a sexual companion, arranging encounters with Epstein and his associates around the world when she was 17 and 18.
Among those she accused was Prince Andrew, though he and others denied the claims and challenged her reliability.
In 2022, Prince Andrew reached a settlement with Giuffre for an undisclosed amount, including a sizable donation to her organization supporting survivors.
Photographs from 1997 show Epstein and Trump together at Mar-a-Lago, and another from February 2000 captures Trump, his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss, Epstein, and Maxwell at the club.
In November 2016, during a libel suit against Maxwell—who had dismissed Giuffre's accusations as falsehoods—Giuffre testified under oath about her limited encounters with Trump.
"I worked for Donald Trump and I’ve met him probably a few times," Giuffre said, specifying the meetings occurred at Mar-a-Lago.
She added that her father knew Trump casually, noting, "My Dad and him, I wouldn’t say they were friends, but my Dad knew him and they would talk... when they saw each other."
Giuffre emphasized no impropriety, stating, "Donald Trump never flirted with me," and affirmed, "True that he didn’t partake in any sex with us."
She clarified further: "I didn’t physically see him have sex with any of the girls, so I can’t say who he had sex with in his whole life or not, but I just know it wasn’t with me when I was with other girls."
Giuffre also said she never witnessed Trump and Epstein together, basing any notion of their friendship on Epstein's own words.
Tragedy struck when Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025, amplifying the sensitivity around her story.
On July 29, 2025, aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters, "I think she worked at the spa, I think so, I think that was one of the people, he stole her, and by the way she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained Trump was answering a query, not initiating the topic, and stressed, "The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees."
Giuffre's family expressed shock, saying, "It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been 'stolen' from Mar-a-Lago."
They demanded clarity, adding, "We and the public are asking for answers; survivors demand this."
Sky Roberts rejected the phrasing, stating, "She wasn’t stolen, she was preyed upon at his property, at President Trump’s property," and noted, "Stolen seems very impersonal. It feels very much like an object, and the survivors are not objects, women are not objects."