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‘He is not in charge’: Trump mocked for asking what’s in his executive orders
President Donald Trump has signed more than 150 executive orders, often with cameras rolling and staff looking on. The ritual rarely varies: seated at the desk in the Oval Office, the President listens as someone—typically the White House Staff Secretary—reads a brief summary of the order. On occasion, Trump interjects with a question, prompting speculation that he may not be fully familiar with the contents. He is seldom seen fully reading the orders themselves, which can span anywhere from a few pages to nearly 70.
On Friday, President Trump signed several executive orders, but according to The Daily Beast, one particularly revealing moment suggested he may not have known what he was signing—describing it as “a telling moment” that implied the president hadn’t read the order.
EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade
“Are we doing something about the regulatory in here?” Trump asked a business person attending the event.
“Several business leaders standing around him were quick to chime in that his order did address the regulations while Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also responded, ‘You are, sir,'” The Daily Beast also reported.
At the end, Trump asked, “Is that it?” and one of the attendees replied, “That’s all we have for you now, sir.”
Then, rather than asking if there were any questions for him about the executive orders, Trump asked if anyone had any questions for the guests in the room, whom he called “brilliant.”
Critics blasted the President.
Fred Wellman is a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School, an Army veteran of 22 years who served four combat tours, and a political consultant.
“He is not in charge,” Wellman alleged.
MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen snarked, “It’s almost as if Trump has cognitive deficiencies, which from what I hear on CNN is a major scandal.”
“’Is that it?’ while signing orders he doesn’t understand, parroting talking points he didn’t write, and pretending it’s leadership,” wrote investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze. “Peak performative confusion.”
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Ex-prosecutor loves judge’s smackdown of Trump: ‘Let’s peopel connect the dots’
A federal judge accused the president of enacting an executive order he declared an "unconstitutional abuse of Donald Trump's power." One of the lawyers targeted in the order is celebrating the ruling, saying he "loves" the judge's smackdown.
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Friday as the news broke, former partner Andrew Weissmann smiled as he spoke about the judge's decision to stop the Trump order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block. Weissmann worked for the firm until 2011. More recently, Weissmann worked as one of the prosecutors on special counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Trump and Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.
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"What I love about this breaking news is that it allows people to connect the dots," Weissmann said. "Retaliatory actions that's alleged with respect to what the administration has done with respect to Harvard preliminarily enjoined" due to the First Amendment. "The same day, you have a federal judge in D.C. — a very well-respected judge permanently enjoining again, and what is the main ground? First Amendment violation."
Weissmann predicted, "You're going to see this over and over again."
He argued, "It's really important for people to see this not as isolated, but this is remarkable. The United States government repeatedly being found to have violated the First Amendment in really significant ways in attacking ... a series of major law firms and Harvard University."
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Judge smacks down Trump in retribution case
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, a Republican appointee, permanently blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block, finding the retribution unconstitutional.
The order, issued Friday afternoon, alleged that Trump was trying “to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers."
Trump targeted the law firm, citing lawyer Andrew Weissmann, a top prosecutor who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller's team that investigated Trump and his connections to Russia in the 2016 election. Weissmann hadn't worked for the firm since 2011 and has been teaching at New York University Law School.
EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade
The executive order attempted to kill any government contracts with the firm and block any of the firm's lawyers from accessing federal buildings like courthouses.
Jenner & Block isn't the only firm Trump targeted. He's gone after several, and nine of them struck a deal with him to give nearly $1 billion in free legal services to allied Trump causes.
This is the second time a court has struck down Trump's target of a law firm. The others involved include Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey, all of which filed suits in federal court. Judges in all four cases have issued temporary blocks to enforce the executive orders.
‘Who’s going to milk the cows?’ Dairy farmers hit by Trump’s deportations
Dairy farmers who voted for President Donald Trump are worried there will be no one around to milk the cows now that the administration is cracking down on "otherwise law-abiding immigrants in the country illegally," The Boston Globe reported.
Farmers in Vermont told the Globe they voted for Trump because they liked his tough talk on quelling immigration and closing the border. Things are different now that ICE is coming for their workers.
“All the dairy farmers who voted for Trump were under the impression they weren’t going to come on farms and take our guys,” one farmer said. “It’s happening more than we’d like. It’s scaring the farming community and we’re like, ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen.’”
According to the report, "Farm owners and workers alike in this agricultural region near the Canadian border have been on edge in the month since U.S. Border Patrol officers detained eight Mexican men on Vermont’s largest dairy operation, Pleasant Valley Farms."
EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade
The report said that four of the men taken into custody have since been deported.
"Federal immigration authorities say they are not targeting Vermont’s $3.6 billion dairy industry, which is responsible for 63 percent of the milk produced in New England," the report said. "But the recent arrests are prompting some in the sector to wonder how it would survive without its undocumented labor force."
The report quoted Vermont's Secretary of Agriculture as saying, "I think our farmers are concerned about the well-being of their workers. That’s foremost. They’re also concerned if (the workforce) was to go away, who’s going to do the work? Who’s going to milk the cows?”
Read The Boston Globe article here.
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."
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."
