March, 18 2025, 04:54pm EDT
White House, Trump Should Release Guest List of Saturday’s Latest Million Dollar-a-Plate Candlelight Dinner Featuring Elon Musk
New Video Shows Trump & Musk Side-By-Side
The White House and President Donald Trump should release the guest list of the Million Dollar-a-Plate candlelight dinners Trump is holding at his Florida estate, including one on March 1 and a new one this past Saturday, March 15, Public Citizen said today. In addition to attendee Elon Musk, the guests could be other government favor-seekers such as federal contractors or the CEOs of companies previously under investigation until the Trump administration stopped enforcement.
A Trump supporter posted a video online showing Trump sitting next to Musk and talking with dinner guests.
“This exorbitant level of payment for presidential access raises serious concerns about the possibility of corruption by candlelight,” said Jon Golinger, democracy advocate for Public Citizen. “The American people have a right to know who was there and whether the Million Dollar Dinner menu for fat cats included a deep dish of juicy government contracts, a side of tasty tax breaks, or a sweet dessert of ending investigations and enforcement actions against their companies.”
A news report today from WIRED revealed the Million Dollar dinner invitation for the Saturday, March 15 dinner from the MAGA Inc. SuperPAC said: “You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest speaker President Donald J. Trump . . . $1,000,000 per person.”
MAGA Inc., or Make America Great Again Inc., is a SuperPAC that spent nearly half a billion dollars backing Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. It is seeking to raise millions more to push Trump’s agenda, according to press reports.
“These pay-to-play dinners are only possible because of Citizens United and shows how desperately we need to fix it,” Golinger added. “These dinners demolish the fiction of independent expenditures that the Supreme Court relied on 15 years ago to justify its Citizens United decision, which abolished reasonable limits on campaign spending.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Senate Dems Want to Know How Trump's Chief of Staff Got Access to Epstein Files
With the Justice Department under fire for how it's handled the documents, the senators asked Susie Wiles to describe her "role in any process related to the review, redaction, withholding, or release of material."
Dec 30, 2025
Two Democratic leaders in the US Senate revealed Tuesday that they're demanding answers from the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, about her access to federal files on deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and whether she's involved in their "bungled and potentially illegal partial release."
President Donald Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein—at least until a reported falling out in 2004. Although the president ultimately signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, it came after he faced intense criticism for his administration not willingly releasing the records, and congressional Republicans delayed passage of the bill, which requires the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to publish materials related to the late financier's sex trafficking case.
Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), ranking member for the Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, began their letter to Wiles by pointing to a two-part Vanity Fair series featuring interviews with Trump's top advisers, including Wiles.
As Chris Whipple reported:
Wiles told me she'd read what she calls "the Epstein file." And, she said, "[Trump] is in the file. And we know he's in the file. And he's not in the file doing anything awful." Wiles said that Trump "was on [Epstein's] plane… he's on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever—I know it's a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together."
Noting those remarks, the senators wrote to Wiles, "Please be kind enough to explain when and where and under what authority you gained access to this material."
They also sent Wiles the list of questions below and requested her response by January 5:
- What were the materials in "the Epstein file" you referred to in your Vanity Fair interview?
- Had material in the file you reviewed been presented to a grand jury?
- When did you first gain access to "the Epstein file" and what was the schedule of your review of it?
- For what purpose did you gain access to this information?
- Did you share with President Trump any information contained in the file you reviewed?
- Please describe your role in any process related to the review, redaction, withholding, or release of material in the "Epstein file," including any processes involving the Department of Justice or Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The letter is dated December 22, just three days after the deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ has missed the deadline, released files in batches, and faced scrutiny for redactions.
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All UN Security Council Members Except US Join Somalia in Condemning Israel's Recognition of Somaliland
Somalia's UN ambassador said Israel plans to “relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia," and warned that "this utter disdain for law and morality must be stopped now."
Dec 30, 2025
At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday regarding Israel's recognition of the breakaway region of Somaliland, 14 of 15 member states joined Somalia's permanent representative to the UN in condemning what the ambassador called an “act of aggression"—and at least one denounced the Trump administration's defense of Israel's move.
The emergency summit was called days after Israel announced its formal recognition of the region, which declared independence in 1991 after a civil war, but which has not been acknowledged by any other country. Somalia continues to claim Somaliland as part of the country while the region's leaders say the state is the successor to the former British protectorate.
Israel announced its decision months after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with leaders in Somaliland about a potential deal to trade formal recognition of the region for help with illegally deporting Palestinians from Gaza, and as Israeli policy advisers have argued that Somaliland could be used as a base for military operations against the Houthis in Yemen.
Despite evidence that Israel formally acknowledged Somaliland to further its own military and territorial interests, Israeli Deputy Permanent Representative Jonathan Miller arrived at the meeting Monday with the aim of explaining the "historical context" for the country's decision.
"Entire cities were destroyed," said Miller. "Civilians were deliberately targeted. These crimes are now widely recognized as a genocide... Israel's then-acting permanent representative, Yohanan Bein, submitted this letter to this very council warning of grave human rights violations in Somalia... That history provides essential context for the discussion surrounding Israel's recognition of Somaliland today."
Abukar Dahir Osman, Somalia's permanent representative to the UN, suggested Miller's comments only added insult to injury, considering Israel has been assaulting Gaza for more than two years—with attacks continuing despite a "ceasefire"—and has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians in what numerous human rights groups and experts have called a genocide.
"If we want to talk about genocide, it's Israel that's committed this to our own eyes every day," said Osman. "[Miller] represents a government that killed more than 70,000 people. Civilians, including children, women, elderly, doctors and other health workers, and patients in hospitals. Destroying infrastructures, deliberately starving people of Gaza."
“To come to this place, and lecture us [on] humanity and genocide and human rights and independence and democracy. And we know what you’re doing on a daily basis," said Osman. "It’s just an insult.”
Somalia’s representative at the United Nations had a history lesson to share with Israel’s envoy today. “To come to this place, and lecture us [on] humanity & genocide & human rights & independence & democracy. And we know what you’re doing on a daily basis. It’s just an insult.” pic.twitter.com/dcg3NnGKI4
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) December 30, 2025
Warning that the recognition of the breakaway region could destabilize Somalia as well as the broader Horn of Africa, the ambassador also expressed concern that Israel plans to “relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia."
"This utter disdain for law and morality must be stopped now,” said Osman.
Other representatives expressed similar outrage, with the UN envoy for the 22-member Arab League, Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz, saying the group would reject “any measures arising from this illegitimate recognition aimed at facilitating forced displacement of the Palestinian people, or exploiting northern Somali ports to establish military bases."
Muhammad Usman Iqbal Jadoon, deputy UN ambassador for Pakistan, said Israel's move following its previous comments on potentially deporting Palestinians to Somaliland was "deeply troubling."
Tammy Bruce, who was sworn in Monday as deputy US representative to the United Nations, was alone in backing Israel's recognition of Somaliland, though she noted that US policy on the region has not changed.
"Israel has the same right to conduct diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state," said Bruce. "Earlier this year, several countries, including members of this council, made the unilateral decision to recognize a nonexistent Palestinian state. And yet, no emergency meeting was called to express this council’s outrage."
More than 150 countries, including a number of major US allies, have recognized Palestinian statehood, with nearly two dozen governments announcing their recognition since Israel began its assault on Gaza in 2023.
Samuel Zbogar, Slovenia's UN ambassador, pushed back against Bruce's comparison.
"Slovenia recognized Palestine as an independent state," he said. "We did so in response to undeniable right of Palestinian people to self-determination. Palestine is not part of any state. It is an illegally occupied territory as declared by the [International Court of Justice], among others. Palestine is also an observer state in this organization."
"Somaliland, on the other hand, is part of a UN member state and recognizing it goes against Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter," he said.
On Tuesday, protests erupted in cities across Somalia, including the capital of Mogadishu, with demonstrators calling for national unity.
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Artists Cite Trump's 'Ego' and 'Overt Racism' While Canceling Kennedy Center Performances
"When American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else's ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night," said folk singer Kristy Lee.
Dec 30, 2025
President Donald Trump's decision to slap his name on the side of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is not going over well with many of the artists scheduled to perform there.
Days after the annual Kennedy Center Christmas Eve jazz concert was canceled over performers' objections to the name change, more artists have decided to withdraw in protest over the president's actions, leading to the cancelation of New Year's Eve festivities at the center.
A Monday report from the Washington Post quoted saxophonist Billy Harper, a member of the jazz ensemble the Cookers that had been set to perform on New Year's Eve, as saying his group did not want to play in a venue that had been unofficially renamed after the current president.
"I would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name... that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture," said Harper. "After all the years I spent working with some of the greatest heroes of the anti-racism fight like Max Roach and Randy Weston and Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Stanley Cowell, I know they would be turning in their graves to see me stand on a stage under such circumstances and betray all we fought for, and sacrificed for."
The Cookers weren't the only artists to withdraw from a scheduled performance at the Kennedy Center, as the New York-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers also announced Monday that they were withdrawing from April performances at the venue.
In a social media post announcing the cancelation, the company explicitly linked its decision to Trump's renaming of the building.
"With the latest act of Donald J. Trump renaming the Center after himself, we can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution," the company explained.
Doug Varone, the head of the company, told the New York Times that his decision to cancel the performance was "financially devastating but morally exhilarating," and he noted that the troupe was set to take a $40,000 hit from withdrawing.
Folk singer Kristy Lee last week also announced she would not be performing at a scheduled Kennedy Center show in January, even while acknowledging that doing so "hurts" her financially.
However, she emphasized that "losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck," and argued that "when American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else's ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night."
Trump-appointed Kennedy Center chairman Richard Grenell has lashed out bitterly at artists for canceling their performances, and accused them of having "a form of derangement syndrome." Grenell has also threatened to sue the jazz musicians who withdrew from the Christmas Eve performance for $1 million in damages.
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