LIVE COVERAGE
Garbage: Racist Shits 'R Us
Improbably, the White-Nationalist-In-Chief still plunges to lower, ranker, more nakedly racist depths as he tries to deflect from his failings, lies, naps and crimes. The fake Peace President’s ugly apogee, topping murders at sea, banning migrants “non-compatible with Western Civilization,” siccing ICE dogs on innocents et al: His vicious invective against Somalis as “garbage” while his Stepford bigots stand silent before it all, complicity unbound. Ferris Bueller's hapless teacher: "Anyone? Anyone?"
Obviously the mild cluelessness of blank students facing Ben Stein's teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off pales before the toxic spectacle of a blithering, execrable fascist stirring up gutter-level hatred as he spews "possibly the most openly racist shit any US president has ever been caught saying." The dissonance of the furious bigotry erupting from an alleged national leader - its vitriol, animus, beyond-the-pale crudeness, the eerie silence into which it falls - also prompts a jarring, queasy sense of, "what the fuck is wrong with this picture?" even as it comes from a ghastly human whose most longstanding, foundational tenet is brutish racism (plus greed), going back to his KKK father, his deadly hatred for the Central Park Five, his snarling claim all Mexicans are criminals and rapists.
In his ongoing "shitification of American politics," there's always, obviously much more. There's blithering, gaslighting, verbal incontinence: "Affordability is a con job, a hoax started by Democrats." Self-serving grandiosity: "The Ukraine war never would have happened if I'd been president." Outlandish fantasy: "They're finding money in our country now they never knew existed. The other day - $30 billion. Where did it come from? I said, 'Why don't you check the tariffs shelf?' They call back: Sir, you're right.'" (America: "Of all the things that didn’t happen, this didn’t happen the most.") Cult worship: The National Park Service has removed MLK Jr. Day and Juneteenth from their free admission days, replacing them with Dear Leader's birthday; he'll be 12 next year.
In further Stalinesque self-glorification - and in the first time a living (sort of) president (ditto) named a building for himself while in office - months after DOGE tried to illegally seize control of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a non-profit think tank for international conflict resolution, the building has re-emerged with massive silver letters as the Donald J. Trump U.S Institute of Peace. A White House spokesbot, lauding straight-faced the what is it now 38? wars he's ended, declared, "Congratulations, world!" The world, noting the Orwellian renaming of an institute created in 1984, helpfully if hopelessly pointed out that Orwell's dark masterwork "was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual," but here we are.
Other atrocities proliferate. The report Trump’s military occupation of U.S. cities has cost over $473 million - from $270 million in D.C and $172 million in L.A. to $13 million in Chicago - even as he cut more than $1 trillion from vital domestic services. The fact that both of the DOJ's wildly unqualified, illegally appointed partisan hacks/pretend acting U.S. attorneys Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan still claim to hold their non-existent positions. The fact that, after boasting about rolling back food stamps and her "gratitude and joy for this work," USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins is still "hellbent on people going hungry" in blue states. Passage of Texas' racist redistricting coup - "Let's talk about cowardice" - and the White House's icky Daddy's Home holidays meme.
And everything "no stupid rules of engagement" dunk-tank clown Pete Hegseth does: The Signalgate report that his massive security leak "risked endangering U.S. military personnel," which he somehow turned into, “Total exoneration." His slimy, shifting narratives - the Pentagon has no idea who's on board vs. they're all on a secret list of military targets - for 48 minutes of murderous video showing "what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys clinging to a tiny piece of wood and about to go under," aka, "a shooting gallery with helpless targets" which is clearly either a war crime or murder - plain and simple,” both impeachable, though Megyn Kelly would've preferred "they lose a limb and bleed out a little."
Still, with sinking polls, rising prices, Epstein lurking, a tragic D.C shooting to open the floodgates and billions for ICE's jackbooted thugs, the splenetic racism from a presidential bully pulpit is paramount, a timeless scapegoating ploy now at "absolutely unique" levels of depravity. "It all started with Barack Hussein Obama," he raved, before attacking Somalis who have "nothing" to do with the shooting or anything else. America will "go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage," "They have destroyed our country," "Ilhan Omar is "garbage," "her friends are garbage," Somalia "is just people walking around killing each other," "they come from hell and do nothing but bitch," "their country stinks," "we don’t want them," "Minnesota is a hellhole right now," ”Let them go back to where they came from." And, evil one, may you too. Oh please.
His on-camera racistmania was dutifully lapped up, first by the obsequious (seated) members of his creepy circle jerk, then by the obsequious (standing) minions - blinding white, stiffly smiling, hands clutched, tongues tied - performatively gathered for his "supine authoritarian MAGA messaging...a barely coded cry of 'Everybody into the pool!' for a supporting cast of racist demagogues." One by one, they obeyed. J.D. banged on the table to lay the blame where it belonged: "Why did homes get so unaffordable? Because we had 20 million illegal aliens taking homes that ought by right to go to American citizens." Marco Rubio, in some insane optics - try watching without sound - feverishly genuflected to the peace president, sitting next to him, dozing off.
ICE Barbie thanked him for having "kept the hurricanes away" and "saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean"; she urged a travel ban on "every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies" - but not those getting free jets - who "slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch benefits (from) AMERICANS. We don't want them." Whew. She flamboyantly echoes both Stephen Goebbel's Nazi rhetoric and Trump's calls for stripping citizenship, blocking all refugees - except sad white Afrikaners - from a vague list of “third world countries,” aka brown and black, "non-compatible with Western Civilization" - an illegal move that def turns the racism up to 11. Manifesting "cultishness off the charts," Press Barbie celebrated all this as "amazing" and "epic."For Minnesota's Somali community of up to 80,000, the largest in the country, it is "extraordinarily harmful." Already tense in the wake of an alleged $250 million fraud scandal involving federal nutrition aid and two non-profits - both run by white people but involving dozens of Somalis - pressure from the new racist surge feels "inescapable...The volcano has erupted." Though many are U.S. citizens, and Minneapolis' police chief has told officers they'll be fired if they don't stop illegal force by ICE goons, people are afraid to go to work, to school, to Friday prayers, especially in Somali-dense areas like "Little Mogadishu" and the Karmel Mall. "We know authoritarianism," said a Somali city council member, and with it the potency of racism and nativism. After Haitians eating pets, he said, "It's just the next iteration."
Meanwhile, ugly ripples ooze from Trump's rhetoric. ICE thugs keep thugging, though most of their victims have no criminal record and some are U.S. citizens. They've sicced dogs on people, resulting in horrific injuries and reviving MAGA's sick "good old days." They have a cruel new plan dubbed "Operation Irish Goodbye" to arrest those already self-deporting, and they're canceling citizenship ceremonies for people from the "wrong" countries. A 2025 blood-and-soil US National Security Strategy touts great replacement theory, warns Europe it faces "civilizational erasure" by migrants of color, supports their fascist groups, rejects our allies for Russia, imagines a "Crusader-style reconquest (of) Europe by the white right." He just trashed a "decaying" Europe with "weak" leaders, 'cause brown people. A Wisconsin worker was fired and went viral for calling a Somali couple "niggers"; fellow racists raised $100,000 for her, echoing "garbage" slurs.
Despite outrage about his murders at sea, Dunk-tank Pete killed four more brown people, bragged about it, insisted Trump can kill "as he sees fit" and gave a speech with ominous shock-and-awe echoes declariring "narco-terrorists are the al-Qaida of our hemisphere (and) we will keep killing them." Then the most petty, hateful person on the planet - spite-revoking a pardon?! - giddily accepted a hideous, made-up, Happy Meal, savagely mocked FIFA Peace Prize and medal - the “Trump dance! the Village People! - to appease his no-Nobel ego because "if you show up with a tchotchke (and) give it to the three-year-old in the Oval Office, he will (be) happy." Gavin Newsom got the Kennedy Center Peace Prize: “AUDIENCE WAS AMAZING (CHAIRS NOT GREAT)...CROWD WENT WILD."The View gave out medals too: "You get a medal! And you get a medal!" Okay, all medaled up. Now can he go home?

Microplastics Make Up Majority of National Park Trash, Waste Audit Finds
More than half the trash polluting America's national parks and federal lands contains hazardous microplastics, according to a waste audit published Thursday.
As part of its annual "TrashBlitz" effort to document the scale of plastic pollution in national parks and federal lands across the US, volunteers with the 5 Gyres Institute collected nearly 24,000 pieces of garbage at 59 federally protected locations.
In each of the four years the group has done the audit, they've found that plastic has made up the vast majority of trash in the sites.
They found that, again this year, plastic made up 85% of the waste they logged, with 25% of it single-use plastics like bottle caps, food wrappers, bags, and cups.
But for the first time, they also broke down the plastics category to account for microplastics, the small fragments that can lodge permanently in the human body and cause numerous harmful health effects.
As a Stanford University report from January 2025 explained:
In the past year alone, headlines have sounded the alarm about particles in tea bags, seafood, meat, and bottled water. Scientists have estimated that adults ingest the equivalent of one credit card per week in microplastics. Studies in animals and human cells suggest microplastics exposure could be linked to cancer, heart attacks, reproductive problems, and a host of other harms.
Microplastics come in two main forms: pre-production plastic pellets, sometimes known as "nurdles," which are melted down to make other products; and fragments of larger plastic items that break down over time.
The volunteers found that microplastic pellets and fragments made up more than half the trash they found over the course of their survey.
"Even in landscapes that appeared untouched, a closer look at trails, riverbeds, and coastlines revealed thousands of plastic pellets and fragments that pose a clear threat to the environment, wildlife, and human health,” said Nick Kemble, programs manager at the 5 Gyres Institute.
Most of the microplastics they found came in the form of pellets, which the group's report notes often "spill in transit from boats and trains, entering waterways that carry them further into the environment or deposit them on shorelines."
The surveyors identified the Altria Group—a leading manufacturer of cigarettes—PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Coca-Cola Company, and Mars as the top corporate polluters whose names appeared on branded trash.
But the vast majority of microplastic waste discovered was unbranded. According to the Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation, petrochemical companies such as Dow, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Formosa are among the leading manufacturers of pellets found strewn across America's bodies of water.
The 5 Gyres report notes that "at the federal level in the United States, there is no comprehensive regulatory framework that specifically holds these polluters accountable, resulting in widespread pollution that threatens ecosystems and wildlife."
The group called on Congress to pass the Reducing Waste in National Parks Act, introduced in 2023 by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), which would reduce the sale of single-use plastics in national parks. It also advocated for the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act, introduced last year by Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and then-Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska), which would prohibit the discharge of pre-production plastic pellets into waterways, storm drains, and sewers.
"It’s time that our elected officials act on the warnings we’ve raised for years—single-use plastics and microplastics pose an immediate threat to our environment and public health," said Paulita Bennett-Martin, senior strategist of policy initiatives at 5 Gyres. "TrashBlitz volunteers uncovered thousands of microplastics in our nation’s most protected spaces, and we’re urging decisive action that addresses this issue at the source."
In 'Historic Victory' for Oceans, Norway Pauses Controversial Deep-Sea Mining Plans
In a move celebrated by environmental advocates as a "massive win for nature," the Norwegian government on Wednesday delayed the issuing of deep-sea mining licenses in its Arctic waters for a second year in a row, this time until 2029.
In January 2024, Norway drew massive criticism from ocean campaigners and scientists when it became the first European country to open its waters to the controversial practice. Since then, however, smaller parties have twice succeeded in delaying the granting of licenses in return for passing the yearly budget.
“Deep-sea mining in Norway has once again been successfully stopped," Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle, the deep-sea mining campaigner at Greenpeace Nordic, said in a statement. "We will not let this industry destroy the unique life in the deep sea, not in the Arctic, nor anywhere else."
Wednesday's decision came as part of the new Labour government's budget negotiations, as the Reds, the Socialist Left Party, and the Green Party all opposed granting licenses. To pass its state budget, the government agreed "not to launch the first tenders for deep-sea mining during the current legislative term," which lasts four years, according to Agence France-Presse. The agreement comes a year after a similar intervention by the Socialist Left Party delayed the first round of licenses.
"Wherever this industry tries to start, it fails. We can protect the oceans from extraction."
The Norwegian government also said it would no longer direct public funds toward mapping for minerals, which Greenpeace called a "major shift in its stance on deep-sea mining."
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) agreed, saying, "This decision represents a significant shift in Norway’s position and is a historic victory for nature, science, and public pressure."
A 2024 Greenpeace report warned that mining the Arctic seabed could cause "irreversible harm" to its unique ecosystems and even drive some as yet unstudied species extinct.
“This decision is a historic victory. Norwegian politicians decided to listen to scientific expertise and to the strong public demand to protect the vulnerable deep-sea environment, rather than being swayed by the mining lobby,” Karoline Andaur, CEO of WWF-Norway, said in a statement.
Louisa Casson, a Greenpeace International deep-sea mining campaigner, wrote on social media: "Deep-sea miners thought it would be easy to start mining the Arctic seafloor… But thanks to campaigning, Norway has just halted all deep-sea mining development! Wherever this industry tries to start, it fails. We can protect the oceans from extraction."
Deep-sea mining opponents like Greenpeace saw Norway's decision as "another blow" to an industry that has faced widespread popular opposition. It follows the decision by the Cook Islands last month to postpone a determination on deep-sea mining until 2032.
“There is no version of seabed mining that is sustainable or safe," Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Juressa Lee said in a statement at the time. "Alongside our allies who want to protect the ocean for future generations, we will continue to say a loud and bold no to miners who want to strip the seafloor for their profit.”
Following its pause on licenses, environmental advocates want Norway to bolster the growing momentum against deep-sea mining by joining the nations who have signed on in support of a global moratorium.
"Now Norway must step up and become a real ocean leader, join the call for a global moratorium against deep-sea mining, and bring forward a proposal of real protection for the Arctic deep sea," Helle said.
WWF's Andaur noted that "as cochair of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, Norway now has a unique opportunity be consistent and stand alongside their cochair Palau and the 40 countries already supporting a global moratorium or pause on deep-seabed mining, turning this national pause into true global ocean leadership."
“Millions of people across the world are calling on governments to resist the dire threat of deep-sea mining to safeguard oceans worldwide," Greenpeace's Casson said. "This is yet another huge step forward to protect the Arctic, and now it is time for Norway to join over 40 countries calling for a moratorium and be a true ocean champion."
Majority of Democrats, Independents Want Leaders to Fight GOP Attacks on AI Rules
A poll published Friday revealed that a majority of Democratic and Independent US voters want congressional Democrats to fight GOP efforts to block states from passing laws regulating artificial intelligence—even as the technology evolves at a speed that has many experts concerned about serious and possibly existential consequences.
The Demand Progress poll of 2,257 likely voters conducted by Tavern Research found that voters across the political spectrum are wary of Big Tech's ability or willingness to ensure safe development of AI, with just 8% of Democratic respondents, 9% of Independents, and 18% of Republicans saying they trust companies to "adequately prioritize safety."
Respondents across the board—81% of Democrats and Independents and 74% of Republicans—also agreed that "large technology companies have too much influence over AI policy."
Although an earlier Republican attempt to slip a 10-year ban on state AI regulation into the massive One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump in July was shot down in the Senate, a bill introduced in September by Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.) would impose a temporary moratorium on state laws regulating artificial intelligence.
So far, Trump's most notably robust regulation of artificial intelligence has been his executive order aimed at preventing "woke AI." His other AI-related edicts have rolled back regulations, including some meager steps taken under former President Joe Biden to bolster safety.
Last month, Trump signed a directive launching the Genesis Mission, "a new national effort to use artificial intelligence to transform how scientific research is conducted and accelerate the speed of scientific discovery"—even as critics warned that the administration's lax approach to regulation poses safety and structural risks.
As experts urge a more measured approach or even a pause to AI development, 56% of Democratic and 62% of Independent respondents to the new poll want Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to work to block Republicans’ policy to prevent states from regulating AI.
Additionally, 61% of Democratic voters and 68% of Independents said they would be less likely to support a Democratic member of Congress who backed a bill to prevent states from regulating AI. Just 15% of Democrats and 14% of Independents said that they would be more likely to support lawmakers who approve such legislation.
On Monday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries avoided taking a stance on the issue, saying that it “hasn't been brought to the leadership level yet.”This isn't enough. Our poll found that voters want to see their congressional leaders fighting back against AI deregulation.
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— Demand Progress (@demandprogress.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 6:53 AM
On Monday, Jeffries avoided taking a stance on the Republican effort to ban AI guardrails, arguing that it hasn't yet reached the leadership level. Critics urged him to speak out against the legislation.
“Democratic and Independent voters overwhelmingly want to see Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer fighting Donald Trump and Big Tech’s attempt to ban states from enacting AI safeguards, not back down and compromise,” Demand Progress policy director Emily Peterson-Cassin said in a statement Friday.
“It’s not enough for Leader Jeffries to say that the issue hasn’t been brought to him yet," she added. "Voters are angry about Big Tech’s rogue AI telling teens to commit suicide and they want to see their congressional leaders fighting back.”
Opponents of a more cautious approach to AI development argue that the United States cannot afford to fall behind competitors including China in the rush to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical advanced AI that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge of any subject as well as or better than a typical human.
The race to AGI and development of AI systems in general is fraught with perils ranging from cybercrime, consumer manipulation, erosion of democracy, and worsening inequality to what many experts warn is the distant but possible threat of uncontrollable AI wiping out humanity.
With so much uncertainty—and even danger—accompanying the unprecedented promise of AI, an increasingly aware public favors caution. Majorities of respondents to poll after poll say they want more, not less, AI regulation.
Leaked Memo Shows Pam Bondi Wants List of 'Domestic Terrorism' Groups Who Express 'Anti-American Sentiment'
A leaked memo written by US Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the Department of Justice to compile a list of potential "domestic terrorism" organizations that espouse "extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment."
The memo, which was obtained by journalist Ken Klippenstein, expands upon National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by President Donald Trump in late September that demanded a "national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
The new Bondi memo instructs law enforcement agencies to refer "suspected" domestic terrorism cases to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs), which will then undertake an "exhaustive investigation contemplated by NSPM-7" that will incorporate "a focused strategy to root out all culpable participants—including organizers and funders—in all domestic terrorism activities."
The memo identifies the "domestic terrorism threat" as organizations that use "violence or the threat of violence" to advance political goals such as "opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality."
Commenting on the significance of the memo, Klippenstein criticized mainstream media organizations for largely ignoring the implications of NSPM-7, which was drafted and signed in the wake of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"For months, major media outlets have largely blown off the story of NSPM-7, thinking it was all just Trump bluster and too crazy to be serious," he wrote. "But a memo like this one shows you that the administration is absolutely taking this seriously—even if the media are not—and is actively working to operationalize NSPM-7."
Klippenstein also warned that NSPM-7 appeared to be the start of a new "war on terrorism," but "only this time, millions of Americans like you and I could be the target."
Trump Envoy Ripped for Claim That 'Benevolent Monarchy' Is Best for Middle East
Tom Barrack, President Donald Trump's ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, faced backlash Monday after arguing that US-backed Middle Eastern monarchies—most of which are ruled by prolific human rights violators—offer the best model for governing nations in the tumultuous region.
Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar on Sunday, Barrack, who is also a billionaire real estate investor, cautioned against trying to impose democratic governance on the Middle East, noting that efforts to do so—sometimes by war or other military action—have failed.
“Every time we intervene, whether it's in Libya, Iraq, or any of the other places where we've tried to create a colonized mandate, it has not been successful," he said. "We end up with paralysis."
"I don’t see a democracy," Barrack said of the Middle East. "Israel can claim to be a democracy, but in this region, whether you like it or not, what has worked best is, in fact, a benevolent monarchy."
Addressing Syria's yearlong transition from longtime authoritarian rule under the Assad dynasty, Barrack added that the Syrian people must determine their political path "without going in with Western expectations of, 'We want a democracy in 12 months.'"
While Barrack's rejection of efforts to force democracy upon Middle Eastern countries drew praise, some Israelis bristled at what they claimed is the suggestion that their country is not a democracy, while other observers pushed back on the envoy's assertion regarding regional monarchies and use of what one Palestinian digital media platform called "classic colonial rhetoric."
"The reality on the ground is the opposite of his claim: It is the absence of democratic rights, accountable governance, and inclusive federal structures that has fueled Syria’s fragmentation, empowered militias, and pushed communities toward separatism," Syrian Kurdish journalist Ronahi Hasan said on social media.
Ronahi continued:
When an American official undermines the universal principles the US itself claims to defend, it sends a dangerous message: that Syrians do not deserve the same political rights as others and that minority communities should simply accept centralized authoritarianism as their fate.
Syria doesn’t need another foreign lecture romanticizing monarchy. It needs a political system that protects all its people—Druze, Alawite, Kurdish, Sunni, Christian—through genuine power-sharing, decentralization, and guarantees of equality.
"Federalism is not the problem," Ronahi added. "The problem is denying Syrians the right to shape their own future."
Abdirizak Mohamed, a lawmaker and former foreign minister in Somalia, said on social media: "Tom Barrack made public what is already known. The US labels dictators and monarchies benevolent when their behavior is aligned with US interest, and when their behavior isn’t aligned with US interest they are despots. Labeling dictators benevolent is [an] oxymoron that shows US hypocrisy."
For nearly a century, the US has supported Middle Eastern monarchies as successive administrations sought to gain and maintain control over the region's vast oil resources. This has often meant propping up monarchs in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran (before 1979), the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar—regardless of their often horrific human rights records.
While nothing new in terms of US policy and practice in the region, the Trump administration's recently published National Security Strategy prioritizes "flexible realism" over human rights and democracy and uses more candid language than past presidents have in explaining Washington's support for repressive monarchs.
"The [US] State Department will likely need to clarify whether Barrack’s comments represent official policy or personal opinion," argued an editorial in Middle East 24. "Regardless, his words have exposed an uncomfortable truth about US foreign policy in the Middle East: the persistent gap between democratic ideals and strategic realities."
"Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this episode is what it reveals about American confidence in its own values," the editorial added. "If US diplomats no longer believe democracy can work in challenging environments, what does this say about America’s faith in the universal appeal of its founding principles?"
Trump Says Ground Attack on Venezuela Imminent—Plus Colombia, Mexico Also in US Crosshairs
"It's now taken as a given... that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization," said one critic.
President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that a US land attack on Venezuela is coming and signaled that he is open to launching similar military action against Colombia and Mexico.
“We’re gonna hit ’em on land very soon, too,” Trump told Politico's Dasha Burns, citing the pretext of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States.
Trump repeated his baseless claim that during the administration of his predecessor, the "very stupid" former President Joe Biden, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro "sent us millions of people, many from prisons, many drug dealers, drug lords," and "people in mental institutions."
Burns then noted that most of the illicit fentanyl sold in the United States "is actually produced in Mexico," which along with Colombia is "even more responsible" for trafficking the potent synthetic opioid into the US. She asked Trump if he would "consider doing something similar" to those countries.
"I would," Trump replied. "Sure, I would."
Pressed on his contradictory pardon of convicted narco-trafficking former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández while threatening war against Venezuela, Trump feigned ignorance, claiming that "I don't know him" and asserting that "he was set up."
Trump's latest threat against Venezuela comes amid his deployment of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of the oil-rich South American nation, his approval of covert CIA action against Maduro's government, and more than 20 airstrikes on boats his administration claims without evidence were smuggling drugs in the southern Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
The Trump administration's targeting of Venezuela evokes the long history of US "gunboat diplomacy" in Latin America and continues more than a century of Washington's meddling in Venezuelan affairs. It also marks a historic escalation of aggression, as the US has never attacked Venezuelan territory.
Officials in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as relatives of men killed in the boat bombings, contend that at least some of the victims were fishermen who were not involved in drug trafficking.
The strikes have killed at least 87 people since early September, according to administration figures—including shipwrecked survivors slain in a so-called double-tap bombing. Legal experts and some former US military officials contend that the strikes are a violation of international law, murders, war crimes, or all of these.
Critics also assert that the boat strikes violate the War Powers Act, which requires the president to report any military action to Congress within 48 hours and mandates that lawmakers must approve troop deployments after 60 days. The Trump administration argues that it is not bound by the War Powers Resolution, citing as precedent the Obama administration's highly questionable claim of immunity from the law when the US attacked Libya in 2011.
A bipartisan bid to block the boat bombings on the grounds that they run afoul of the War Powers Act failed to muster enough votes in the Senate in October.
"Note that it’s now taken as a given—as an unremarkable and baked-in fact about our politics—that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization," New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent observed Tuesday in response to the president's remarks to Politico.
"What emerges from this interview," he added, "is that Trump is pulling all of this—the substantive case for these bombings, the legal justification for them, the rationale for mulling a massive military escalation in the Western Hemisphere—out of his rear end."
'Victory for Everyone Who Pays an Electricity Bill': Judge Tosses Trump Ban on New Wind Energy Projects
"Get out of the way of the expansion of renewable energy," one clean power advocate told the Trump administration.
Clean energy advocates have scored at least a temporary victory after a federal judge on Monday threw out President Donald Trump's executive order that banned new wind power projects in the US.
As reported by CNBC, Judge Patti Saris of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts tossed Trump's executive order in its entirety after finding it "arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law," and arguing that the federal government did not provide a reasoned explanation for enacting such a policy.
The executive order, which Trump signed in January, halted all permits and leases for both offshore and onshore wind power projects.
A group of 17 states, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, sued the Trump administration earlier this year to overturn the executive order, which they labeled "an existential threat to the wind industry" in the US.
In a social media post, James hailed the judge's ruling and called the decision "a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis and protect one of our best sources of clean, reliable, and affordable energy."
Nancy Pyne, senior adviser for Sierra Club, declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who pays an electricity bill, is part of the clean energy workforce, and breathes air."
"Americans need cheaper and more reliable energy that does not come at the expense of our health and futures," Pyne added. "We are glad to see this illegal order get vacated, and we will continue to advocate for more wind energy projects across the country to lower the cost of energy and create stable, union jobs in our communities."
Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at Natural Resources Defense Council, also emphasized the benefits to US consumers of allowing more wind-power projects to move forward.
"From the beginning of its time in office, the Trump administration put a halt to the wind energy projects that are needed to keep utility bills in check and the grid reliable," Kennedy said. "In the months since, this action has been a devastating blow to workers, electricity customers, and the reliability of the power grid."
Kennedy added that the Trump administration should accept the judge's verdict and "get out of the way of the expansion of renewable energy."
The Trump administration has the option to appeal the judge's order, although it did not respond to questions from the New York Times on Monday about whether it had plans to do so.
Trump's war against wind power comes at a time when rising electric bills, caused in large part by increased demand from energy-devouring artificial intelligence data centers, have become a hot-button political issue.
A recent report from researchers at The Century Foundation and financial abuse watchdog Protect Borrowers found that the average overdue balance on utility bills has surged by 32% over the last three years, going from $597 in 2022 to $789 in 2025. The report also estimated that roughly 1 out of every 20 US households has utility debt that is “so severe it was sent to collections or in arrears."
Senate Report Shares Stories of US Citizens Assaulted, Unconstitutionally Detained by DHS
"Masked ICE and CPB agents chillingly seizing Americans isn't the nation we know and cherish," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal. "Totalitarian tactics have no place in our democracy."
Despite US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's claim that "no American citizens have been arrested or detained" as part of the Trump administration's violent and widely condemned immigration operations, ProPublica has tracked more than 170 cases, and a Senate report released Tuesday shares the stories of 22 of them.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released Unchecked Authority: Examining the Trump Administration's Extrajudicial Immigration Detentions of US Citizens ahead of a public forum with House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and five Americans unconstitutionally detained by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents.
"While the second Trump administration has been marked by brazen lawlessness in many areas, the daily drumbeat of shocking stories detailing the behavior of federal immigration officials has been particularly chilling," the report states.
"The subcommittee's findings add to a growing body of evidence that the Trump administration is seeking to build a nationwide paramilitary force with vast resources that lawlessly detains citizens based on its own whims—an effort which has a number of unfortunate and obvious historical parallels," the publication continues.
"They couldn't even agree who had authority over me because none of them did. I was never arrested. Never charged. Never given an explanation. Never given an apology."
The report also notes that the testimonies included "represent only a subset of the likely hundreds of American citizens who have been unlawfully detained," and "also do not account for the many green-card holders, visa recipients, and others who have been captured and whose immigration status may cause them to be subject to even more severe treatment and harsher conditions than the appalling experiences of the Americans documented herein."
On June 8, when Cary Lopez Alvarado—a 23-year-old born and raised in Los Angeles County, California—was taking lunch to her husband, who was providing maintenance services on private property, masked immigration agents targeted him and her cousin in a work truck. Lopez Alvarado, who was pregnant, approached and took a video of the scene, where agents tried to pry open the vehicle's doors and threatened to break a window.
According to the report:
Cary tried again to tell the agents to stop, but, before she could finish her sentence, the officer put his hands on her and shoved her into the side of the truck. Two other agents immediately rushed over to further detain her. Cary knelt and clutched her mid-section to shield her baby from the assault. "I wasn't resisting at all," Cary recalled. "I can't fight back; I'm pregnant." The officers yanked her up and placed handcuffs around her wrists, all the while shoving her stomach against the truck. Her cousin attempted to intervene; "Be careful. Don't you see she’s pregnant?" he pleaded. At this point, Cary became dizzy from the altercation. When she regained awareness, she saw three agents on top of her cousin and several more in the process of throwing her husband on the ground. Then, the agents began kicking the back of the unoccupied work truck. A viral photo shows Cary, handcuffed and heavily pregnant, being led by a masked agent into a car.
The document also details the experience of Dayanne Figueroa, a first-generation Mexican American and working mom to a 6-year-old in Chicago, Illinois. When she was driving down a residential street to work on the morning of October 10, an unmarked, silver Dodge Durango SUV with blacked-out windows rammed into the side of her car. She reached for her phone to call local police, "but within seconds, two masked men in camouflage leapt out of the Durango and ran over to Dayanne's black Mercedes-Benz; one raised a gun in Dayanne's direction, and the other had an assault rifle strapped around his shoulder," the report says.
"Moments later, a third armed and masked agent appeared. Two of the men ripped open Dayanne's car door and grabbed her," the report continues, noting that bystanders recorded videos. "Two agents forcibly dragged her out of her car by her legs, ripping both shoes off, slamming her to the concrete, and digging their knees into her body to restrain her, directly over the site of her recent surgery. The agents flipped over Dayanne—who stands at 4 feet 11 inches and weighs 120 pounds—and put her in handcuffs, cinching them so tight that Dayanne has since suffered nerve damage to her wrists. Three agents carried Dayanne to an unmarked, red SUV and threw her inside, while a fourth agent reached into her car and grabbed her laptop, purse, and cellphone."
They initially took her to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, where federal agents have violently responded to protesters and held immigrants in "horrific and inhumane conditions." She was then brought to a Federal Bureau of Investigation facility in another Chicago suburb, Lombard, where she started urinating blood. That afternoon, she was eventually released to paramedics. Figueroa recalled that "they couldn't even agree who had authority over me because none of them did. I was never arrested. Never charged. Never given an explanation. Never given an apology."
UPDATE: Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chair Sen. Blumenthal releases "Unchecked Authority" report with firsthand accounts from 22 US citizens "who were physically assaulted, pepper sprayed, denied medical treatment, and detained—sometimes for days—by federal immigration agents"
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— Tyler McBrien (@tylermcbrien.com) December 9, 2025 at 8:57 AM
While Figueroa's young child was not part of her encounter with federal agents, the report stresses that when children are involved in ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents' interactions, "they are treated with reckless disregard."
For example, a now-6-year-old Massachusetts girl on the autism spectrum, called M. in the report, "was separated from her parents by ICE agents in an apparent attempt to lure her parents to leave private property so they could be apprehended" in September.
"M. was violently ill upon being returned to her family and had to be treated in the emergency room, miss school for a week, and has continued to struggle with nightmares," according to the document. It also notes that "her father has a pending asylum case and her mother has a pending request to obtain a legal status."
In a Tuesday statement announcing the report, Blumenthal said that "Americans should have a hard time recognizing our great nation in these stomach-turning, heartbreaking stories of brutal assaults on our fellow citizens."
"Masked ICE and CPB agents chillingly seizing Americans isn't the nation we know and cherish," he added. "Totalitarian tactics have no place in our democracy. I hope that elevating stories of abhorrent abuse will reinforce our resolve to preserve democratic rights."
Tuesday's public forum at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC featured testimony from American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Figueroa, and four other citizens who have encountered immigration agents, including Wilmer Chavarria, a school superintendent from Vermont, and Javier Ramirez, a Californian who was assaulted by DHS and denied adequate treatment for diabetes while being held for four days.
The other two participants are also from California: George Retes is a US Army veteran who missed his daughter's birthday after being violently arrested and detained during a raid at his job site, and Andrea Velez was falsely charged with assaulting an officer during an immigration raid she encountered on her way to work in Los Angeles.
"I served my country. I wore the uniform," Retes has warned. "If it can happen to me, it can happen to any one of us."
This article was updated after the hearing to include a video of the event and links to the witnesses' written testimonies.


















