10 chilling Donald Trump moments as Court gifts him almost unlimited power
Donald Trump celebrated a "tremendous win" in the Supreme Court - who severely curtailed the ability of judges to block his orders and boosted his own power.
The ruling will remove federal judges' powers to halt or delay his executive orders nationwide - even if they're unconstitutional.
It effectively means the Supreme Court is the only hurdle between Trump and doing anything he wants. And the Supreme Court is stacked in Trump's favour.
Anyway, yesterday Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had an early morning press conference, theoretically to counter claims that the precision strike on Iran's nuclear capabilities had not been entirely successful.
We were all hoping to learn more details of the strike, and any new intel they could share about its success or failure.
What we actually learned was that Hegseth really doesn't like the media.
He gave a series of shouty and bitter rants about the reporters covering the strike, whom he sees as insufficiently glorifying of the Trump regime and its controversial military activities.
Here's more of that, and all the other things that went on in Trump land in the last 24 hours.
Everything is fine, here's what you need to know.
The Supreme Court basically ruled this morning that Trump can do whatever he wants without federal or district judges being able to stop him.
Trump has repeatedly rattled at "radical left judges" blocking his - often apparently unconstitutional - orders.
And he said today's decision was a "monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law."
Others might argue that with an unassailable conservative majority on the Supreme Court, it's a massive blow to the separation of powers - and a huge boost to the power of the President.
He also reassured those present that the ruling would only take "bad, sick" power away from judges, which is certainly a relief.
In response to a question from Lindell TV, a channel owned by Mike Lindell, the far-right conspiracy theorist and pillow salesman, Trump indicated he'd be up for the Department of Justice launching investigations into the judges who ruled - accurately - that he lost the 2020 election.
"All I can say is...I hope so. I hope they're doing their thing because that election was rigged and we can't allow that to happen," he said.
Should be noted that one of the people the Lindell TV "reporter" suggested had been subject to "political persecution...during the Biden administration" was... Mike Lindell, who recently lost a $2.3 million defamation case brought by former employees of a voting equipment company.
"We're cutting $1.7 trillion in this bill and you're not gonna feel any of it," Trump said, implausibly yesterday at an event celebrating his "big, beautiful" budget bill.
"Your Medicaid is left alone. It's left the same."
Analysts suggest this is unlikely to be true. It's the biggest cut to the Medicaid budget in history - and will almost certainly lead to millions of people losing their health insurance.
He also claimed the bill changed the rules so there is "no tax on social security for our great seniors."
That is, in fact, not in the bill.
If you thought people were upset with ICE rounding people up for deportation, occasionally at random, well just you wait.
Trump yesterday pledged to ramp up deportations to 1 million a year.
(While that's significantly higher than last year, it's actually slightly lower than in 2023.)
"I will never say good looking waitress, because looks don't matter anymore in our modern society," Trump said, during an unscripted weave at the White House event.
"She happened to be beautiful but I won't say that...."
He went on to claim the waitress, who addressed him as "sir" - often a sign that a Trump anecdote is apocryphal - had given him the idea to scrap tax from tips.
The idea has been around since the 1980s, it wasn't invented by this mythical waitress who called Donald Trump "sir."
And here's the thing about tax on tips - it's probably not going to help many people. Only 5% of workers in the bottom earnings quartile earn tips. And among those, 37% earn so little that they pay no income tax anyway, so wouldn't benefit at all.
Earlier, across town, Pete Hegseth had been expressing his extreme displeasure at the fourth estate.
He scolded he media at a Pentagon briefing Thursday for 'breathlessly' focusing on an intelligence report he downplayed as preliminary.
The Pentagon briefing included a detailed narrative about military tactics and hardware. But it was short on information about how much the attack setback the Iranian nuclear program.
He said they decided to hold Thursday morning's news conference because "there was a great deal of irresponsible reporting" based on a preliminary intelligence assessment. He criticised "biased leaks to biased publications."
"If you want to know what's going on at Fordo, you better go there and get a big shovel," he said.
He blasted the media for "hunting for scandals all the time."
And he accused reporters of failing to acknowledge "historic moments" like improved military recruiting and increased spending on European defence by NATO members.
He then shifted to attacking the "fake news" for reporting on a preliminary assessment about the impact of recent US strikes on Iran.
"President Trump," Hegseth concluded, "directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success."
The strategists behind D-Day, the bombing of Hiroshima, the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the thing with the Hamas pagers would probably like a word.
Hegseth also urged reporters, instead of holding them to account and asking reasonable questions about the success or failure of a military operation, to "Wave an American flag. Be proud of what we accomplished."
Fox News Reporter Jennifer Griffin asked a fairly reasonable question - are you sure none of the highly enriched uranium was removed?
And Hegseth replied studs up: "Jennifer, you've been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally..."
She replied: "I take issue with that."
"One of the greatest, most professional, and most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologise to our great warriors, and everyone else!"
He also baselessly suggested that CNN and the New York Times, which reported on the intelligence assessment "will be firing the reporters who made up the FAKE stories."
At the end of a press conference on Thursday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the following about Iran refusing to surrender to the US.
"When you have a totalitarian regime, you have to save face. I think any common sense, open-minded person knows the truth about the precision strikes on Saturday night. They were wildly successful."
At least, we think she was talking about Iran.
Ron DeSantis gave Fox News a tour of his newly constructed...we'll call it a detention camp for migrants.
There are places for migrants to be processed, he said. And to be housed. And to be fed.
"There'll be an ability for them to consult legal rights," he added. "If they have that."
Yikes.
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The Guardian
36 minutes ago
- The Guardian
US attacks on Iran redraw calculus of use of force for allies and rivals around globe
For US allies and rivals around the world, Donald Trump's strikes on Iran have redrawn the calculus of the White House's readiness to use force in the kind of direct interventions that the president said he would make a thing of the past under his isolationist 'America First' foreign policy. From Russia and China to Europe and across the global south, the president's decision to launch the largest strategic bombing strike in US history indicates a White House that is ready to employ force abroad – but reluctantly and under the extremely temperamental and unpredictable leadership of the president. 'Trump being able to act and being willing to act when he saw an opportunity will definitely give [Vladimir] Putin pause,' said Fiona Hill, a former Trump national security adviser and one of the principal authors of the UK's strategic defence review. While Trump has pulled back from his earlier warnings about potential regime change in Iran, going from tweeting 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER' to 'NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' within 72 hours, he has nonetheless reinforced Russian perceptions of the United States as an unpredictable and aggressive rival that will not unilaterally abandon its ability to use force abroad. 'It has some pretty dire warnings for Putin himself about what could happen at a time of weakness,' Hill said. 'It will just convince Putin even more that no matter what the intent of a US president, the capability to destroy is something that has to be taken seriously.' It also shows a shift in the calculus in Washington DC, where hawks – along with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu – were able to convince Trump that launching a strike on Iran was preferable to pursuing negotiations that had not yet failed. That could have knock-on effects for the war in Ukraine, where Republicans and foreign policy hardliners have grown more vocal about Putin's attacks on cities and the need for a tougher sanctions strategy. Although he hasn't changed his policy on resuming military support to Ukraine, Trump is publicly more exasperated with Putin. When Putin offered Trump to mediate between Israel and Iran, Trump said he responded: 'No, I don't need help with Iran. I need help with you.' In the immediate term, however, the strikes on Iran are unlikely to have an impact on Russia's war in Ukraine. 'I don't see it as having a big impact on the Ukraine war, because although Iran was very helpful at the beginning stages in providing Russia with [Shahed] drones, Russia has now started manufacturing their own version and have actually souped them up,' said Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, during a roundtable discussion. More broadly, Trump's attacks could undermine a growing 'axis of resistance' including Russia and China, given the pair's reluctance to come to Iran's aid beyond issuing strong condemnations of the attacks during security discussions under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) being held in China this week. 'It also shows that Russia is not a very valuable friend, because they're not really lifting a finger to help their allies in Iran and returning all the help that they've received,' Boot added. The strike could also have implications for China, which has escalated military pressure around Taiwan in recent months and has been holding 'dress rehearsals' for a forced reunification despite US support for the island, according to testimony from Adm Samuel Paparo, the commander of US Indo-Pacific Command. Trump had promised a tough line on China, and many of his top advisers are either China hawks or believe that the US military should reposition its forces and focus from Europe and the Middle East to Asia in order to manage China as a 'pacing threat'. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Yet his previous hesitancy to use US force abroad could have emboldened Beijing to believe that the US would not come to the direct aid of Taiwan if a military conflict would break out – the one wild card in what would otherwise probably be a lopsided conflict between China and Taiwan. Experts cautioned that the stakes were far different, and the conflicts too far removed, to draw direct conclusions about Trump's readiness to intervene if a conflict broke out between China and Taiwan. Trump's administration appears further embroiled in Middle East diplomacy than it wanted and its pivot to focus on China has been delayed as well. And while some close to the military say the strikes have regained credibility lost after some recent setbacks, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, others have said that it won't send the same message for military planners in Moscow or Beijing. 'We shouldn't conflate willingness to use force in a very low risk situation with deterring other types of conflicts or using force when it's going to be incredibly costly – which is what it would be if we were to come to the defence of Taiwan,' said Dr Stacie Pettyjohn of the Center for a New American Security during an episode of the Defense & Aerospace Air Power podcast. Around the world, US rivals may use the strikes to reinforce the image of the US as an aggressive power that prefers to use force rather than negotiate – a message that may break through with countries already exhausted with a temperamental White House. 'The fact that it all happened so fast, there wasn't much multilateral involvement or chance for diplomacy, I think, is something Russians can point to as an indication of, you know, imperialism to the global south,' said Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, a fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings during a conference call. 'But also in their talking points to United States and western allies, they will definitely make a point of highlighting this as something great powers do, and in a way that normalizes Russia's language on its own [conflicts].
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump ends trade talks with Canada, says US could move other deadlines
"Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately," Trump said. "We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period." More: Trump praises Amy Coney Barrett, rips NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani: Recap The announcement came after a White House press conference where Trump presented an ambiguous timeline for reciprocal tariffs he put on most other nations to go into effect. Trump introduced the tariffs in April and then paused them. If no further action is taken, they will go into effect on July 9. Trump's administration was separately working on deals with Canada, Mexico and China. At the June 27 news conference, Trump said his administration would soon send out letters to U.S. trading partners informing them of their tariff rate. "We talked to many other countries and we're just going to tell them what they have to pay to do business in United States," he told reporters. "Maybe before, we're going to send out a letter." Trump also signaled later that countries could be facing an even shorter timeline. "We can do whatever we want. We could extend it. We could make it shorter. I would like to make it shorter. I'd like to just send out letters to everybody," Trump said in the previously-unscheduled White House news conference. The president also lashed out at economists who predicted his administration's tariffs could cause a recession. He said they should "go back to business school," while defending his second-term levies. "We're taking in billions and billions of dollars from China and a lot of other countries," Trump added. Trump unveiled a slew of tariffs that roiled economic markets, but paused many of them as he negotiates trade deals and later lowered steep tariffs on China. Markets have since recovered. Stocks rose on June 27, after the administration said it had solidified an agreement with Beijing, then fell after his social media post on Canada. More: Trade deals and better vibes lift S&P 500, Nasdaq to record highs. Dow jumps, too. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick boosted investor confidence when he said on June 26 that a framework agreement between the U.S. and Canada had been finalized and the administration was close to reaching deals with 10 nations. His comments came after Trump said at an East Room event "we just signed with China yesterday." The White House later clarified that he was referring to an adjustment to an earlier framework that would expedite shipments of rare earth materials to the United States. Trump counted China on June 27 in a tally of countries he said he'd made deals with, including the United Kingdom. The president also predicted a deal would come about soon with India. The latest round of negotiations between the European Union and the United States wrapped up not long before Trump addressed reporters. EU commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic said in a social media post that he'd just spoken to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Trump threatened in May to put a 50% tariff on the EU before returning to the July 9 deadline. Contributing: Zac Anderson
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump basks in another peace deal, this one in eastern Africa
"First time in many years, they're going to have peace. It's a big deal," Trump said at a June 27 news conference. Rubio will host a signing ceremony between Democratic Republic of the Congo Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe at the Department of State immediately beforehand on June 27. The seizure of large parts of eastern Congo by the M23 rebel group has killed more than 7,000 people this year alone and displaced more than 450,000 others. The area is home to the DRC's valuable mineral deposits. The U.N. Security Council called on Rwanda to end its support for the rebels in a February resolution that urged the two countries to reengage in diplomatic talks. Rwanda denies backing the rebels. The Biden administration sought to resolve the conflict but was unable to secure a deal before the one-term president left office. Trump's administration hopes the resolution will bring about an end to a broader conflict that has resulted in the displacement of more than 7 million people. Conflict in eastern Congo over in the three decades since the Rwandan genocide has led to an estimated 6 million deaths. More than 18,000 Congolese refugees resettled in the U.S., in 2023, according to the Department of Homeland Security. It was the leading country of nationality for refugees accepted by the United States that year and over the preceding decade. State Department deputy spokesman Tommy Piggott said at a June 26 briefing the signing is a "significant milestone" but "peace on paper must be matched by implementation on the ground." The State Department spokesman said the agreement includes respect for territorial integrity, a prohibition of hostilities, disarmament, the return of refugees and internally displaced persons and a regional economic framework. Congolese refugees in America: They fled genocide, hoping to find safety in America. They found apathy. The deal is central to the administration's approach to conflict reduction around the globe. By enabling and facilitating economic investment in war-torn countries such the DRC and Ukraine, the Trump administration hopes it can unlock lasting peace agreements. "A durable peace in the Great Lakes region will open the door for greater U.S. and broader Western investment, which will bring about economic opportunities and prosperity," Rubio said on April 25 as he announced the framework agreement. "It's, as they call it, a win-win for everyone involved." Businessman Massad Boulos, the administration's senior advisor for Africa and father-in-law of the president's younger daughter, Tiffany Trump, is working to secure a critical minerals deal with the DRC that could billions in U.S. investment to the country. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has substantial reserves of gold, cobalt, and high-grade copper that have been inaccessible due to the security risks and underdeveloped infrastructure, the International Trade Administration says. Cobalt is used to make the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that are used in electric vehicles, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
