Raw Story

President Donald Trump isn’t just orchestrating a National Guard-led takeover of Washington, D.C. – he’s rolling out new measures, including banning the city’s cashless bail system and flag burning as part of a broader campaign targeting the district.

According to columnist Amanda Marcotte in Salon, this is all part of Trump’s attack agenda, engineered to provoke misery rather than protect public safety.

"Don’t get me wrong: The MAGA base loves this so-called 'crackdown,'" Marcotte wrote. "But not because it’s making D.C. safe. They love that it’s making D.C. miserable. They appear to know the victims of this charade aren’t criminals, but ordinary people just trying to live their lives. MAGA is getting sadistic joy out of terrorizing ordinary people whose only 'crime' is living in a diverse, vibrant and majority Democratic city, instead of Cracker Barrel America.

Marcotte points out that the soldiers and federal police are primarily concentrated in low-crime tourist zones such as the White House, Capitol, and National Mall, with federal agents even marching through Georgetown, where zero violent crimes have been reported in 2025.

Trump dispatched several hundred additional National Guard soldiers from red states around the country. The result has been large groups of soldiers standing around in the heat and humidity of the area without much to do.

Meanwhile, neighborhoods actually affected by crime are being ignored. City officials pointed out that violent crime in the District is at a 30-year low, yet Trump’s intervention has made residents feel less safe. Since the takeover began, restaurant reservations have dropped by 31 percent, despite the city celebrating its annual “Restaurant Week,” typically meant to boost business during the summer exodus.

August is usually a slow period in D.C. because residents leave town, Congress is in recess, and lobbyists are scarce. This year, with the federal presence, the situation worsened. Despite these facts, the White House claims restaurant traffic is up — a claim Marcotte describes as “hilariously false.”

"D.C. is a real city full of people," Marcotte wrote. "It’s not Patriot Disneyland for people who are mad they can’t find the Applebee’s among all the Ethiopian joints. That’s the 'crime' Trump is so mad about, which is why he’s also pushing for $2 billion to 'have this place beautified' — a terrifying proposition for anyone who has witnessed his love of plastering everything with cheap gold paint."

Vice President J.D. Vance has insisted the crackdown is about freeing D.C. from lawlessness, while White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has lashed out at critics, insisting only “stupid white hippies” are mad about the occupation. He’s gone so far as to say Black residents support the deployment, contradicting polls showing 80 percent of Black D.C. residents oppose the National Guard’s presence.

Videos of law enforcement harassing residents or dismantling anti-Trump protest banners are being shared and celebrated, especially by the MAGA base, who appear to take “sadistic joy” in the disruption. Marcotte contends that the focus is not on real criminality but on targeting cultural difference—punishing residents for living in a diverse, Democratic city. Trump’s rhetoric about “retribution” and “revenge” echoes through his campaign, and D.C.—where he won only 6% of the vote—is now in the crosshairs. The effort is consistent across other blue cities, while actual crime hotspots in red-state cities are ignored.

As Marcotte explained, the real “crime” targeted by this takeover is not violence or public disorder but the lifestyles and values of city dwellers—people who read books, explore diverse cuisines, and celebrate different identities. Trump supporters appear gleeful, seeing abuse faced by D.C. residents under the occupation as just reward for living in a city they deem foreign and hostile to their worldview.

For Marcotte and many city residents, the federal occupation is less about safety and more about a performative and authoritarian power grab meant to punish D.C.’s cosmopolitan character.

Read the full report here.

Labelling the controversy over the branding change by Cracker Barrel restaurants as “monumentally stupid,” a Monday morning MSNBC panel ridiculed the ginned-up outrage that has included calling the popular chain “woke.”

“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski brought up the rebranding, which led her partner Joe Scarborough to blurt, “What a monumentally stupid story."

"It's so stupid,” he added. “I always say, you’ve got to be able to separate the signal from the noise, and as an old admiral told me when I first started in Congress, he goes, ‘Boy, it's all noise, right?'"

“Well, this is how the MAGA minions get overwhelmed by noise,” Scarborough continued. “So they take a barrel and an old man off of a restaurant logo – restaurant I've been in many, many times. They still got the games, by the way, but they completely overlook the socialization of a tech giant [Intel] that's been the cornerstone of America's technology revolution for the past 35 years.”

“Everything socialism, everything's Marxism and you actually have socialism!" he exclaimed. “You can hear crickets all around the Cracker Barrel store in the parking lot.”

Addressing another distraction, the fury over California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s flood of mocking social media attacks, he added, “When you laugh out loud at like 30 different memes, and then you look at Fox News clips and they really just all lost their minds––.”

“They’re freaking out,” Brzezinski interjected.

Scarborough responded by making mocking whimpering sounds which led his co-host to start laughing.

You can watch below or at the link:

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President Donald Trump raised alarms with a social media post about South Korea's impeached former president hours before his meeting with the U.S. ally's current leader.

South Korea President Lee Jae-myung arrived Monday in Washington, D.C., for a meeting with Trump to offer a $150 billion package called "Make America Shipbuilding Great Again," but the U.S. president commented on the country's recent political instability in a social media post.

"WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA?" Trump posted at 9:20 a.m. EST. "Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there. I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!"

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and suspended from office after a botched declaration of martial law in December sparked massive protests, and observers were confused why Trump would bring that up right before his meeting with the new leader.

"South Korean govt’s worst nightmare appears to be coming true: Trump involving himself in the insurrection investigation of impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol," posted BBC journalist Jake Kwon.

"It was not immediately clear what Trump was referring to, but South Korea had been in a state of political turmoil for the last several months after the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, briefly imposed martial law and eventually was ousted from office," said Seung Min Kim, White House correspondent for the Associated Press.

"More foreign interference incoming, this time in Asia," added journalist Mark Chadbourn.

"This sounds like a defense of fellow wannabe dictator Yoon Suk Yeol," wrote John Carl Baker, senior program officer at Ploughshares Fund, where he manages the foundation's portfolio of North Korea-related grants.

"If you’re wondering why Trump may be talking about purges and revolution in Korea, some MAGA folk have been trying for months to get Trump to help impeached and imprisoned former Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol who has espoused election fraud conspiracies after declaring martial law last December," noted Korean studies professor Benjamin A. Engel.

"Trump has seen ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol on trial for leading an insurrection after his martial law chaos," commented Bluesky user Jude Nagurney Camwell. "His wife is under investigation, too. Both are in detention. Trump sees his own future in this, as he does in the case of Bolsonaro, fearing similar fate."

President Donald Trump issued his vision of a peace plan for the war in Ukraine from his Truth Social account on Monday, a plan that one expert said could "go off the rails at any moment."

The plan was issued after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several leaders of European nations at the White House.

"During the meeting we discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America," Trump's post reads in part. "Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine."

The plan raised several questions for Julia Ioffe, a founding member and Washington correspondent for Puck News. Ioffe appeared on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper," hosted by Pamela Brown, on Monday, to discuss the plan.

"First, wow," the Russian-born American journalist said about the plan. "Second of all, I'll believe it when I see it."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he would not accept security guarantees from NATO or European countries to end the war in Ukraine. Ioffe found it curious that the European delegation would discuss security guarantees based on Putin's past statements.

"What kind of security guarantees are acceptable for Ukraine but not too much for Russia?" Ioffe asked.

She also noted that Putin appears to want to end the war and secure his gains in Ukraine. However, Trump has given Putin no reason to stop the war, she added.

There are also outstanding questions about whether Russia will be allowed to keep Ukrainian land or if it will have to give back land that it has taken, Ioffe noted.

"We'll see, but this could go off the rails at any moment," she said.

Watch the entire clip below or by clicking here.

Not even local police officers in Maine are immune from President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement busts.

According to The Associated Press, ICE agents "arrested Old Orchard Beach Police Department reserve Officer Jon Luke Evans, of Jamaica, on July 25, as part of the agency’s effort to step up immigration enforcement. Officials with the town and police department have said federal authorities previously told them Evans was legally authorized to work in the U.S."

ICE alleged, however, that Evans overstayed his visa and unlawfully tried to buy a gun while he was undocumented.

The move triggered a dispute between ICE and the Old Orchard Beach police, the report continued: "Police Chief Elise Chard has said the department was notified by federal officials that Evans was legally permitted to work in the country, and that the town submitted information via the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program prior to Evans’ employment. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin then accused the town of 'reckless reliance' on the department’s E-Verify program."

The conflict appears to have ended with Evans agreeing to leave the country voluntarily, with ICE telling reporters a judge has agreed to accept his voluntary departure, "and that he could leave as soon as that day," avoiding forcible deportation.

The Trump administration's massive increase in immigration enforcement has led to extensive controversies, from the fact that many of the detainees are being shipped out of the country with little or no due process, to the fact that some of them appear to have been politically targeted, like students who were involved in anti-Israel protests.

In other cases, immigration officials have arrested people performing vital work for their communities, including a Russian researcher at Harvard whose work on imaging could massively improve cancer screening, and who faces persecution in her home country due to her criticism of the invasion of Ukraine.

President Donald Trump said he is helping to set up a meeting between himself, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after meeting with both leaders in recent days.

Trump met with Zelenskyy on Monday at the White House, alongside several European leaders, to discuss negotiations aimed at ending Russia's invasion.

Following the summit, Trump bragged on his Truth Social platform that he had a "very good meeting" with his "distinguished guests," and said that ended with a" further meeting in the Oval Office."

"During the meeting we discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America," he said. "Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine."

Once the meetings ended, Trump confirmed reports he called Putin, and said he began making arrangements for another meeting at a location that has yet to be determined that will include himself, Putin and Zelenskyy.

"After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years," he said.

Trump said Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and special envoy Steve Witkoff are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine.