Raw Story

President Donald Trump spoke to reporters from the Oval Office on Monday about his trade tariffs and his talk with Canadian and Mexican leadership — and signed an executive order establishing a sovereign wealth fund for the nation.

But his news conference was littered with comments that left onlookers wondering if he knew what was happening.

It started when he asked a staffer which executive order he was signing. Then he was bombarded with questions including what he thought of markets tanking after he announced tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China over the weekend, and about Elon Musk's closing of the office housing the U.S. Agency of International Development. He was also questioned over Musk's accessing the personal data of government employees.

ALSO READ: What Trump's unconstitutional executive orders are really meant to do

Those who watched couldn't help but ridicule as the president struggled to answer — and they fact-checked his statements.

Journalist Aaron Rupar called out a Trump claim that 300,000 Americans die annually from fentanyl overdoses — even though Trump's own executive order on tariffs to China cites 75,000 deaths from the drug. "This is a lie," he wrote.

Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding linked the sovereign wealth fund order to authoritarian regimes. "Kings and dictators have sovereign wealth funds," he wrote.

"Trump is again doing that weird thing where he signs executive orders that need to be explained to him just before he signs them," pointed out Rupar.

On tariffs, policy director Ned Resnikoff pointed out on BlueSky, "Neither the mainstream press nor our political system seem to have digested the fact that the U.S. president is trying to illegally annex a NATO ally using economic coercion."

And on Musk's activities, legal analyst Bradley Moss said it's clear: "He has no idea what Elon is doing. He let loose Elon to go wild."

Ex-conservative columnist Jen Rubin replied, "Musk is running the government. Trump is a feeble figurehead."

Radio show host Nicole Sandler summed up order signing event with, "Delay, whine, lie. Blather, wince, repeat."

"Donald Trump just criticized the existing trade deal, and asked, "Who the hell came up with some of these trade deals?" I'll just leave this here," wrote author and activist Majid M. Padellan, better known as BrooklynDad on X. The screen capture he posted showed Trump was the one who signed the "new NAFTA" trade deal during his first term.

A former FBI official sent a warning Monday on MSNBC to President Donald Trump's nominee to head the FBI, saying he's about to walk into an agency that "won't work for him."

Last week, the new Trump government began purging the FBI and teased more cuts are on the way. Among those who could be fired are FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases, which means roughly three-fourths of the FBI could be fired.

Speaking to MSNBC on Monday morning, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi said Kash Patel is set for a showdown against his own people.

Such actions endanger American national security, he said, and make the U.S. "less safe" as the FBI is currently "tracking multiple terror plots in the United States."

ALSO READ: 'They're both dangerous': Senators worried Patel and Gabbard refused constitutional pledge

Firing the directors of the Washington, D.C., and Miami field offices and identifying 5,000-6,000 agents is "simply politicizing a revenge action against those agents here."

It's not only dangerous but "demoralizing," he said.

"There is absolute dismay over this. Some of these leaders who are going out the door were highly respected veterans. Some, by the way, are not eligible for retirement, meaning they will not be able to put food on their table until this is somehow resolved. We all know this is an illegal action."

He continued that the problem is that it may take a year or two for the issue to be resolved in court.

"The other thing I see happening, which is interesting, is there's traditionally been some tension between field offices and headquarters," he said. "So when the field first heard, hey, a bunch of suits were walked out of headquarters, they kind of shrugged."

"But now that they're the thousands of agents are in peril, that their jobs are in peril in the field, that's got their attention. And Kash Patel, if he gets confirmed, is going to walk into an agency that literally will not want to work for him," Figliuzzi closed.

See his full comments below or at the link here.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) held a news conference outside the United States Agency for International Development headquarters and confirmed that security guards had been told not to let employees in the building after operations were halted under the guidance of billionaire Elon Musk, chair of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

"About 20 years ago, when I first came to work for the federal government, I walked through these doors right behind me," Kim told reporters after trying to get into the building on Monday. "It was really tough today walking through these same doors 20-some years later only to see it shut down to employees."

Kim said he received calls "all weekend long" from USAID employees who had been told not to show up for work.

"In fact, I went inside trying to speak to the acting administrator, [Jason] Gray," he explained. "Unfortunately, I was not able to meet with him, and I'm going to continue to try today to be able to meet with the acting administrator because I want to hear straight from him... You know, you have mysterious people within this new administration sending out emails across the entirety of USAID telling them not to show up."

"I talked to the security guard just in there. He said he has been given specific orders to prevent employees of USAID from entering the building today, and I just find that to be absolutely ridiculous. You know this is no way to govern. This is no way to treat public servants," the senator continued.

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"Well, I certainly hope Congress takes action because what is happening here is illegal," he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Tuesday that President Donald Trump named him as acting director of USAID. Multiple reports said the Trump administration intended to merge USAID with the Department of State.

Watch the video below from C-SPAN.

Donald Trump may have miscalculated just how much financial "pain" Americans are willing to tolerate due to his sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, according to a new article in The Washington Post.

Trump posted about the tariffs over the weekend, writing, “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!) BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

Canada then announced retaliatory tariffs, prompting Fox News to produce a list of 23 goods that will have Americans digging deeper into their pockets. They include, "crude oil, beer, avocados, maple syrup, ground beef, cooking oil, and cars.

Trump campaigned on "bringing prices down," so the "pain" he mentioned may surprise his voters, argued Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake.

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Blake cited a YouGov survey showing 29 percent of Americans wanted tariffs increased, 27 percent wanted them to remain the same, and 18 percent wanted them decreased.

"But then we get to the rub," Blake wrote. "The pollster followed up by asking those who supported higher tariffs whether they still wanted them 'even if that leads to higher prices for American consumers. Only about half of those who said they wanted increased tariffs — 52 percent — stood by that position."

In addition, Blake cited a Reuters-Ipsos poll that showed just 9 percent of Americans “strongly” supported increasing tariffs if prices rose.

"In other words, this is something that not many Americans appear to be clamoring for nearly as much as Trump is. And it’s also something that could catch them off-guard in a way that’s very personal to them — especially given Trump’s sales pitch treated the tariffs as a win-win with virtually no downside," Blake wrote, adding, "Now we find out just how much 'pain' his supporters are willing to tolerate."

Read The Washington Post article here.

Last October in a suburb of Jacksonville, police arrested an 18-year-old Donald Trump supporter they accused of brandishing a machete outside an early voting location, targeting two women.

He was charged with voter intimidation, aggravated assault on persons 65 or older, and improper exhibition of a firearm.

Caleb Williams,18, was booked at the Duval County Jail on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo courtesy Neptune Beach Police Department)

Last week the state attorney for the 4th Judicial Circuit in Jacksonville announced she would not prosecute the teenager, identified as Caleb Williams, and would drop all charges against him.

That decision has angered a coalition of 16 voting and civil rights groups in the Jacksonville area and around the state, and on Monday they wrote a letter to Jacksonville State Attorney Melissa Nelson and Assistant State Attorney Octavius Holliday Jr., saying their decision to drop all charges against Williams “sends a dangerous message” that voter intimidation “is tolerated rather than prosecuted.”

They also want their office to reconsider the decision to drop the case.

“The facts of this case as publicly reported appear very compelling: a man wielding a deadly weapon approached a polling location and engaged in threatening behavior towards supporters of one of the presidential candidates on the ballot,” reads a portion of the letter.

“The victims, two women ages 71 and 54, were subjected to an act of intimidation that no one at a polling location should ever have to endure. Your office’s dismissal of this case undermines public confidence in the justice system and fails in its duty to protect Florida voters.”

Among those groups signing the letter were the Jacksonville branch of the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter, and the League of Women Voters of Florida.

The letter goes on to cite several state statutes regarding voter intimidation that the groups believe clearly shows that Williams had broken the law when he brandished the machete.

Nevertheless, Holliday wrote in a disposition that the state would not prosecute Williams, adding that the police and the victims “concur” with the decision.

‘To protest and antagonize’

Neptune Beach Police Chief Michael Key Jr. said last October that Williams and seven other teenagers — all supporters of Donald Trump — drove to the polling place specifically “to protest and antagonize the opposing political side, according to the Associated Press.

“Every eligible voter in Florida has the right to cast their ballot free from threats, coercion, or fear of violence,” reads another portion of the letter signed the voting and civil rights groups.

“Your decision not to pursue justice in this case directly contradicts that principle. Failing to prosecute voter intimidation weakens our democracy and puts all Floridians in danger. We strongly urge you to reconsider this decision, uphold the law, and take the necessary steps to ensure that voter intimidation is prosecuted to the fullest extent in this case.”

A request for comment to the state attorney’s office was not immediately returned.

Vice President J.D. Vance suggested Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama ordered the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "not to hire" white people.

During a Sunday interview on Fox News, Vance said the Trump administration would "do a better job at the policy so that we make sure that aviation is as safe as it possibly can" after a recent deadly plane crash near Washington, D.C.

"And that does, I think, mean that we have to talk about the DEI policies," he opined. "And in fact, there have been a number of lawsuits from people who would like to become air traffic controllers against the Obama and Biden administration, who were basically said, we were told not even to apply because of the color of our skin, because they were white people."

"Under the DEI regime of the Biden administration, they weren't welcome," the vice president added. "It means that we don't have the best and the brightest sometimes in these positions."

"We knew for years that we had a shortage at air traffic control," Fox News host Maria Bartiromo noted.

"Well, part of the reason why we had a shortage in air traffic control is because we were telling our air traffic controllers not to hire people because of the color of their skin," Vance insisted. "That is a scandal. And it is a scandal, thankfully, that has stopped under the leadership of President Trump."

Bartiromo pressed Vance on his claims.

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"Do you have any evidence that any of those hires that were there at the control Wednesday night were DEI hires?" she asked.

"This is not saying that the person who was at the controls is a DEI hire, but let's just say, first of all, we should investigate everything, but let's just say the person at the controls didn't have enough staffing around him or her because we were turning people away because of DEI reasons," the vice president asserted. "There is a very direct connection between the policies of the last administration and short-staffed air traffic controllers."

"That has to stop."

Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link. .