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Retailers issue ‘warning’ to Trump that higher prices are coming soon: report



Retailers are likely to raise prices "in the coming weeks" due to President Donald Trump's tariffs, according to a report in The New York Post.

Business editor and Fox correspondent Charles Gasparino wrote Friday, "The retail industry is alerting President Trump that they can’t 'eat' his tariffs forever – and price increases are likely to hit in the coming weeks."

"Whether this gets translated into higher official inflation numbers is anyone’s guess at this point. But for many items enjoyed by Americans who like cheap goods brought in from abroad – a majority of them from China – these things will soon be getting a lot less cheap."

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

Trump famously told Walmart execs to "'EAT THE TARIFFS,' and not charge valued customers ANYTHING."

"I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!" he warned.

Gasparino's anonymous sources told him that "the retailers’ warnings to the president about how they can’t just eat tariffs indefinitely were well received in the sense that Trump didn’t chase them out of the Oval."

Gasparino speculated that "When the price increases begin to spread, that could set up an interesting catfight between the president and a huge chunk of the business community."

Read The New York Post article here.

White House claim puts Trump ‘potentially outside the immunity shield’: attorney



An attempt by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to blow off ethical and legal concerns about Donald Trump's crypto dinner on Thursday night might come back to haunt her boss.

Thursday afternoon Leavitt lectured reporters in the Brady Briefing Room about the dinner which was to include foreign investors at a Donald Trump golf resort in Virginia, telling NBC's Garrett Haake, "Well, as you know, Garrett, this question has been raised with the president. I have also addressed the dinner tonight. The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner, it’s not taking place here at the White House. But certainly I can raise that question and try to get you an answer for it."

Leavitt's claim of "personal time" caught the ear of multiple Trump critics.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

On X, The Bulwark's Tim Miller pointed out, "President's don't get 'personal time.' There's not like a magic suit you wear when you are doing official business and one where you are just Donald from Queens."

Conservative lawyer and ardent Trump opponent George Conway took the next step and suggested, "Actually, it’s fine. If Trump is saying he’s doing something on his 'personal time,' then obviously that means he’s not acting within what the Supreme Court calls 'the outer perimeter of his official responsibility,' which, in turn, means he’s not immune from criminal prosecution."

With Conway referencing the conservative Supreme Court's 2024 ruling that Trump and presidents who follow him are absolved of criminality if they are engaged in "official acts" as president, California attorney Tracey Gallagher also pounced on X.

"If Trump claims he’s acting on his 'personal time,' he’s likely implying he’s not operating in an official capacity as president," she asserted. "The Supreme Court, in cases like Trump v. United States (2024), distinguishes between official acts (within the president’s constitutional authority) and unofficial acts (personal conduct outside that scope). Official acts may carry immunity from criminal prosecution, while unofficial acts generally don’t. So, by framing something as 'personal time,' he’s suggesting it’s an unofficial act, potentially outside the immunity shield."

She later cited former Labor Secretary Robert Reich who observed, "The 220 top buyers of Trump's memecoin will have dinner with him at his golf club tonight. The average price of admission is $1M per person. Trump is literally selling access to government to the highest bidders."

Friday morning, conservative columnist Matt Lewis made the case on MSNBC that what the president did on Thursday night was nothing less than being the recipient of "bribery."

‘It looks bad’: Fox reporter admits ‘problem for the GOP that can be exploited’



The Republican-led Senate passed the procedural vote to end a filibuster on a bill that would place regulations on the $250 billion stablecoin market with a bipartisan vote. However, one Fox correspondent

The "GENIUS Act" would create a framework for regulating stablecoins and address ongoing fears about consumer protections and other risks, the legislation explains. GENIUS stands for "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins."

As Axios explained, 18 Democrats voted earlier this week to support the bill, but many of those same Democrats won't support it without "basic protections against corruption by public officials."

The Shib Daily reported Friday that Democrats intend to attach an Amendment to prevent "the U.S. president and other officials from financially benefiting from stablecoins."

ALSO READ: Democrats surrender huge stash of FTX crypto cash

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has been a key player in negotiating the bill with his fellow Democrats. He argued they should back the bill even if they still have concerns about Trump's family crypto business.

“But we cannot allow that corruption to blind us to the broader reality: blockchain technology is here to stay,” Warner stated on Monday, Axios reported.

Pro-crypto Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino wrote for the New York Post that the bill's author, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), was nervous about whether it would make it past the 60-vote filibuster threshold.

“It will be either 59 votes or 70″ voting in favor, said Hagerty. Ultimately, he got 66 votes with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) opposing it.

Gasparino celebrated Trump's transparency in his meme coin investments, but conceded, "you can make the case that it looks bad. It’s still an optics problem for the GOP that can be exploited when the senate tries to pass other more important crypto bills. Amendments about Trump’s business dealings could [bog] down full passage of the legislation. It’s the likely reason for some of the GOP holdouts."

"The problem is obvious," he explained. "The president appoints the people heading crypto regulation, the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Trump is literally deregulating an industry he’s profiting from. This appearance problem could be a sticking point when Congress takes its next legislative step, a rewrite of securities laws to better serve digital coins."

Read his column here.

‘Sealed their fate’: New memo shows Dems giddy over looming elections



Democrats are already plotting to go on the offense over House Republicans' vote to pass President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."

According to Punchbowl News' Max Cohen, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already circulated a memo stating that the GOP's vote “will cost them their majority next year,” and that “No matter what happens in the Senate with respect to budget reconciliation, House Republicans have already sealed their political fate.”

This aligns with exclusive Raw Story reporting that Democrats are already strategizing on how to make Republicans pay for their vote.

The GOP's counterparts at the National Republican Congressional Committee, meanwhile, are doing their best to flip the script, attacking Democrats who opposed the legislation as voting for “tax hikes, handouts to illegal immigrants, and open border chaos.”

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

The Republican bill, which came together haphazardly after weeks of impasse and faction-fighting, cuts hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, food assistance, and green energy programs, along with a number of other items like ending the IRS' free tax filing service, prohibiting states from enforcing artificial intelligence regulations for a decade, and sharply limiting the ability of federal courts to civilly sanction Trump administration officials for contempt.

Ultimately, a number of House Republicans who held out over various issues, like Medicaid cuts being either too harsh or not harsh enough, or for a more generous state and local tax deduction, either accepted various compromises or relented.

It now goes to the Senate, where, although the GOP is eager to pass it, it is all but certain to face major revisions from Senate Republicans and intense opposition from Democrats who could use procedural hurdles to strip a number of its provisions out.

‘Under no circumstances!’ MAGA erupts over major university’s ‘lunatic’ new head



MAGA world melted down Thursday over the University of Florida's newest hire — and one close Trump ally even demanded Gov. Ron DeSantis intervene.

Santa Ono was the sole finalist for the presidency of the university and is poised to be hired for the gig. His official appointment is pending confirmation by the Florida Board of Governors, but the university's Board of Trustees has unanimously recommended him for the position.

But Ono's selection was not without resistance from both sides of the aisle.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

The left has is criticized Ono for shutting down the University of Michigan’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and for his handling of pro-Palestinian protests, Florida Politics noted Thursday.

On the right, he's angered prominent MAGA die-hards, including Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, both close Trump allies.

“UF needs to go back and figure out somebody else,” Donalds said, according to the outlet, blasting Ono over a speech he made two years ago praising DEI.

"Under no circumstances should this lunatic be allowed to be the President of the University of Florida. Governor DeSantis, who has been great on education, must intervene immediately," Kirk wrote on X on Thursday afternoon.

"Santa Ono, finalist for the University of Florida presidency, promised students that he would 'strive to make sharing [his] pronouns part of regular introductory greetings' and start 'centering the voices' of 'Two-Spirit, transgender, and non-binary people.' Full woke," chided Christopher Rufo, a writer and activist who's self-described mission is to "overthrow the left-wing ideological regime that has dominated American life for a generation."

Libs of TikTok wrote on X, "He says it makes him very happy that students have become political activists to fight systemic racism and campus should be a place for creating cultural change to behaviors and laws to fight racism. He wants to turn students into BLM activists. How is this happening"

Resistance to Ono forced the university to respond on Thursday, with Mori Hosseini, chair of the Board of Trustees, and Trustee Vice Chair Rahul Patel telling the university community in an email that a "handful of external voices have sought to question Dr. Ono’s alignment with Florida’s vision for higher education."

"Dr. Ono is not shifting his views to fit Florida. He has been evolving his perspective over time — before UF ever approached him about this role,” the email said. “He brings a decisive break from the progressive orthodoxy that has gripped too many elite campuses — one that UF has resisted and risen above. He recognized the toll that ideological excess was taking — on campus culture, academic standards, and institutional trust — and made a clear and courageous choice: enough is enough.”

Hosseini and Patel called Ono the "right person to accelerate UF’s upward trajectory and help make it the undisputed leader among America’s public universities."

In response to the email, Rufo called the defense of Ono "absurd—he has a decade of statements in support of BLM, DEI, trans, and climate radicalism."


‘Biting’: Legal analyst in awe as liberal Supreme Court justices ‘lambaste’ majority



The Supreme Court's right-wing majority handed Trump a sudden "shadow docket" win on Thursday, granting him, at least temporarily, the power to fire independent agency heads at the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The ruling, the majority emphasized, does not overturn the landmark 1935 Humphrey's Executor v. United States ruling that allowed Congress to bar the president from firing the heads of independent, multi-member agencies without cause — but, wrote The Economist's Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie, the liberal dissent angrily pointed out that in practice, that's exactly what they're doing.

"The dissent is biting," wrote Mazie, analyzing the minority opinion of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. "Lambastes the majority for all but overruling a 90 year-old precedent on the emergency docket. Calls the move extraordinary. And says the majority’s reasoning is 'unedifying' and favors the 'President over our precedent'."

The ruling also quoted Alexander Hamilton in cautioning the courts to set out a consistent precedent, which the majority is not doing.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

"Our Humphrey’s decision remains good law, and it forecloses both the President’s firings and the Court’s decision to award emergency relief," wrote Kagan. "Our emergency docket, while fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law. We consider emergency applications 'on a short fuse without benefit of full briefing and oral argument'; and we resolve them with out fully (or at all) stating our reasons" — directly quoting Justice Amy Coney Barrett criticizing the shadow docket in a separate case.

"The court has been sitting on this application for weeks," Mazie wrote. "The extremely unsatisfying reasoning, which justice Kagan expertly exposes, shows how stymied they were, allowing Trump to take the law into his own hands without formally acknowledging the change."

"If this disingenuous, mealy mouthed order doesn’t convert everyone to being a legal realist, I don’t know what will," Mazie concluded.

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