U.S. Soccer Star Dishes On 'Weird' Oval Office Moment With Donald Trump
Weah was at the White House with his Juventus teammates on Wednesday as part of a promotional event for the FIFA Club World Cup, ahead of the Italian side's 5-0 victory over the United Arab Emirates' Al-Ain FC.
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Trump invited questions from reporters about the game and the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which the U.S. will host alongside Mexico and Canada.
But the Juventus players stood uncomfortably behind POTUS as he instead answered queries about the more pressing political questions of the day.
Weah, the son of former Liberian soccer star-turned-former president George Weah, later told reporters that the players had been made to attend the event.
'They told us that we have to go and I had no choice but to go,' he explained, reported The Athletic.
'I was caught by surprise, honestly. It was a bit weird,' he added. 'When he started talking about the politics with Iran and everything, it's kind of like, I just want to play football, man.'
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Business Insider
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Mark Cuban said the Trump administration needs to crack down on ads in AI models
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Washington Post
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Doonesbury Comic Strips by Garry Trudeau - July 28, 1990
........Trump on Jeffrey Epstein: "Somebody that nobody cares about."....Laura Loomer: "How come we can't talk about what a dumb lying bimbo Pam Blondi is?...How many more times is this woman going to get away with F-ing everything up before she is fired?"....Trump on Rosie O'Donnell: "She is a threat to humanity."....O'Donnell in response: "I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours. I'm everything you fear: a loud woman, a queer woman, a mother who tells the truth, an American who got out of the country before you set it ablaze."....Trump on Elon Musk: "50% genius, 50% boy."....Steve Bannon: "Formerly known as Elon Musk, Elmo the not an American, you're a South we take enough time and prove the facts of that, you should be deported because it's a crime what you did -- among many."....Musk: "The fat, drunken slob called Bannon will go back to prison and this time for a long time. He has a lifetime of crime to pay for."....Tucker Carlson: "Why are my cities disgusting? I don't even want to go there. It smells like weed and halal food."....CA Gov. Gavin Newsom: "Kids running from tear gas, crying on the phone because their mother was just taken from the fields. Trump calls me 'Newscum' but he's the real scum."....Jonathan V. Last on Trump: "Reinventing ICE as the primary instrument of internal state power. ICE is more or less a national brute squad."...Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Trump: "Authoritarian leader cult is folding to his will."....CA Governor's press office on Stephen Miller: "This fascist cuck in DC continues his assault on democracy and the the Constitution hurt your feelings, Stephen. Cry harder."....Charlie Kirk on Texas flooding: "The death toll likely would not have been as high if it wasn't for DEI."....Dean Blundell on Trump: "An aging, increasingly incoherent, barely upright man."....Maureen Dowd: "Trump, who plays at being king, is not interested in virtue; only in humiliation, conflict, enrichment and revenge."....Tina Brown: "Out of Trump's ass, his ego, and his flawless media intuition, came: Let's bomb the shit out of Fordo."....John Cleese on Trump administration: "This is why dictatorships fail. Dictators always surround themselves with yes-people who are terrified to acquaint the dictator with reality."....Trump on Sen. Rand Paul: "His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can't stand him."....VP JD Vance: "I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle difference is that back then we had dumb presidents."....Andrew Sullivan: "A president who lies about everything all the time is singularly incapable of being a war president. People have to trust your word in a war. But Trump's word is toilet paper."....John Oliver on ICE agents: "These are criminal gangs,...bounty hunters making money for each body they manage to kidnap. They have quotas. You are their USA is sick."....WH Communications Director Steven Cheung: "The Nobel Peace Prize is illegitimate if President Trump -- the ultimate peace president -- is denied his rightful recognition of bringing harmony across the world."....Rep. MTG: "America is the greatest country in the world and I fight the nasty 'America Last' Democrats in Washington to keep it that way."....Trump on Democrats: "I hate them. I cannot stand them, because I really believe they hate our country."....Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on House passing Trump's BBB: "One big ugly is a crime scene."....Jonathan Alter: "Might as well tear down the Statue of LIberty and flush Emma Lazarus's poem down the toilet."....Garrison Keillor: "Every morning the news hits us like a baseball bat. How did this crook and clown achieve the White House so he could wage war on science, higher education, the Constitution, regulatory agencies, and the world economy, while redecorating the Oval Office to look like the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas?"....Trump supporter to reporter "We're not stupid. Donald Trump is a genius. 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He has a lifetime of crime to pay for."....Tucker Carlson: "Why are my cities disgusting? I don't even want to go there. It smells like weed and halal food."....CA Gov. Gavin Newsom: "Kids running from tear gas, crying on the phone because their mother was just taken from the fields. Trump calls me 'Newscum' but he's the real scum."....Jonathan V. Last on Trump: "Reinventing ICE as the primary instrument of internal state power. ICE is more or less a national brute squad."...Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Trump: "Authoritarian leader cult is folding to his will."....CA Governor's press office on Stephen Miller: "This fascist cuck in DC continues his assault on democracy and the the Constitution hurt your feelings, Stephen. 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The people of Kentucky can't stand him."....VP JD Vance: "I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle difference is that back then we had dumb presidents."....Andrew Sullivan: "A president who lies about everything all the time is singularly incapable of being a war president. People have to trust your word in a war. But Trump's word is toilet paper."....John Oliver on ICE agents: "These are criminal gangs,...bounty hunters making money for each body they manage to kidnap. They have quotas. You are their USA is sick."....WH Communications Director Steven Cheung: "The Nobel Peace Prize is illegitimate if President Trump -- the ultimate peace president -- is denied his rightful recognition of bringing harmony across the world."....Rep. MTG: "America is the greatest country in the world and I fight the nasty 'America Last' Democrats in Washington to keep it that way."....Trump on Democrats: "I hate them. 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Cry harder."....Charlie Kirk on Texas flooding: "The death toll likely would not have been as high if it wasn't for DEI."....Dean Blundell on Trump: "An aging, increasingly incoherent, barely upright man."....Maureen Dowd: "Trump, who plays at being king, is not interested in virtue; only in humiliation, conflict, enrichment and revenge."....Tina Brown: "Out of Trump's ass, his ego, and his flawless media intuition, came: Let's bomb the shit out of Fordo."....John Cleese on Trump administration: "This is why dictatorships fail. Dictators always surround themselves with yes-people who are terrified to acquaint the dictator with reality."....Trump on Sen. Rand Paul: "His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can't stand him."....VP JD Vance: "I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle difference is that back then we had dumb presidents."....Andrew Sullivan: "A president who lies about everything all the time is singularly incapable of being a war president. People have to trust your word in a war. But Trump's word is toilet paper."....John Oliver on ICE agents: "These are criminal gangs,...bounty hunters making money for each body they manage to kidnap. They have quotas. You are their USA is sick."....WH Communications Director Steven Cheung: "The Nobel Peace Prize is illegitimate if President Trump -- the ultimate peace president -- is denied his rightful recognition of bringing harmony across the world."....Rep. MTG: "America is the greatest country in the world and I fight the nasty 'America Last' Democrats in Washington to keep it that way."....Trump on Democrats: "I hate them. I cannot stand them, because I really believe they hate our country."....Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on House passing Trump's BBB: "One big ugly is a crime scene."....Jonathan Alter: "Might as well tear down the Statue of LIberty and flush Emma Lazarus's poem down the toilet."....Garrison Keillor: "Every morning the news hits us like a baseball bat. How did this crook and clown achieve the White House so he could wage war on science, higher education, the Constitution, regulatory agencies, and the world economy, while redecorating the Oval Office to look like the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas?"....Trump supporter to reporter "We're not stupid. Donald Trump is a genius. That's what the J stands for."....
16 minutes ago
Chilean investigators close in on the notorious Venezuelan gang targeted by Trump
ARICA, Chile -- The Venezuelan gang members wrote out even their most minute purchases in blue pen: $15 for a drug trafficker's Uber; $9 for instant coffee during a lookout shift; $34 for supplies to clean what investigators learned were torture chambers. The meticulous spreadsheets seized during police raids in Chile's northern town of Arica, and shared with The Associated Press, suggest the accounting structure of a multinational. They amount to the most comprehensive documentation to date of the inner workings of Tren de Aragua, Latin America's notorious criminal organization designated by President Donald Trump as a foreign terrorist group. An investigation built over years by Chilean prosecutors in Arica, which resulted in hefty sentences for 34 people in March — and inspired other cases which, earlier this month, sent a dozen Tren de Aragua leaders to prison for a total of 300 years — contrasts with Trump's mass deportations of suspected gang members. While Trump's supporters cheer the expulsions, investigators see missed opportunities to gather evidence aimed at uprooting the criminal network that has gained momentum across the region as migration from Venezuela surges and global cocaine demand spreads. 'With the U.S. snatching guys off the streets, they're taking out the tip of the iceberg," said Daniel Brunner, president of Brunner Sierra Group security firm and a former FBI agent. 'They're not looking at how the group operates.' Transnational mafias have fueled an extraordinary crime wave in once-peaceful nations like Chile and consolidated power in countries like Honduras and Peru, infiltrating state bureaucracies, crippling the capacities of law enforcement and jeopardizing regional stability. The new developments are testing democracies across Latin America. 'This is not your typical corruption involving cash in envelopes,' said former Peruvian Interior Minister Ruben Vargas of the impunity in his country. 'It's having criminal operators wield power in the political system.' Chile, long considered one of Latin America's safest and wealthiest nations, is also among its least corrupt, according to watchdog Transparency International, giving authorities an edge in fending off this kind of organized crime. But with no experience, the country was caught unprepared as abductions, dismemberments and other grisly crimes reshaped society. Now, three years later, experts hold out Arica as a case study in wider efforts to combat the gang. While some see El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's crackdown on criminal gangs as a model, critics see an authoritarian police state that has run roughshod over due process. 'Criminal prosecution, financial intelligence, witness protection and cooperation with other countries, that's what it takes to disrupt criminal networks,' said Pablo Zeballos, a Chilean security consultant and former intelligence officer. Using Tren de Aragua documents first recovered in 2022, Chilean prosecutor Bruno Hernández and his unit brought an unprecedented number of gang members to trial last year, dismantling the gang's northern Chile offshoot, known as Los Gallegos. 'It marked a milestone,' prosecutor Mario Carrera said last month from Arica's shantytown of Cerro Chuño, a Los Gallegos stronghold. 'Until then, they were acting with impunity." Tren de Aragua slipped into northern Chile in 2021, after the pandemic shut borders and encouraged Venezuelans to turn to smugglers as they fled their nations' crises and headed to Peru, Colombia and Chile. Héctor Guerrero Flores — a Tren de Aragua leader nicknamed 'Niño Guerrero' — dispatched managers to take over networks of 'coyotes' shepherding human cargo across Chile's desert borders. 'It was virgin territory from their perspective,' said Ronna Rísquez, the author of a book about the group. Tren de Aragua put down roots in Cerro Chuño, a former toxic waste dump outside Arica where Venezuelan migrants squeeze into boxlike homes. Residents said gangsters extracted 'protection' fees from shop owners and unleashed violence on those who wouldn't pay. 'We live in fear of them," said 38-year-old Saida Huanca, recalling how Los Gallegos extorted her minimarket colleague and sent a knife-wielding man to collect road tolls. "I didn't leave the house.' The gang terrorized competitors and turncoats. Court documents describe members tying up defectors and filming as they administered shocks and slashed fingers in clandestine torture chambers. Intercepted calls from March 2022, obtained by AP, show a rival panicking about Tren de Aragua's arrival. 'Where am I supposed to run, dude?' Chilean kingpin Marco Iguazo can be heard asking. Bodies were found, shot or dismembered and stuffed into suitcases. Many were buried alive under cement. 'It was total psychosis,' said Carrera, who reported Arica homicides surging 215% from 2019 to 2022. Last month at Arica's investigative police headquarters, AP observed Hernández attempt to persuade 23-year-old Wilmer López to talk. The alleged Los Gallegos hitman kept silent, eyes fixed on his Nikes. As a rule, members don't collaborate with investigations. Without testimony last year, Hernández's main recourse was bookkeeping records. They revealed a rigid bureaucracy with centralized leadership that granted local cells autonomy. 'We had to prove not only that they committed crimes, but that there was a structure and pattern," said paralegal Esperanza Amor, on Hernández's team. 'Otherwise they would've been tried as common criminals.' Documents showed migrant smuggling and sex trafficking as the gang's primary source of income. While the per-client price for sex varies by city — $60 in Arica, over $100 in the capital of Santiago — each cell replicated the same structure. The gang confiscated half of women's earnings, then deducted rent and food in a form of debt bondage. Salary spreadsheets showed regional coordinators earning up to $1,200 monthly. Hitmen could earn $1,000 per job, plus protection for relatives in Venezuela. Most operatives received $200 Christmas bonuses. Investigators cross-checked messages among gang members with drone surveillance to decrypt their use of emojis. Some were self-explanatory — a snake signifying a traitor. Others less so: A bone meant debt, a pineapple was a safehouse, a raincloud warned of a raid. With the defendants in custody, the bloodshed abated: Arica's homicide rate plunged from 17 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022 to 9.9 homicides per 100,000 last year. After the team secured 34 convictions on charges including aggravated homicide, human trafficking and sexual exploitation of minors, authorities paid more attention. Similar investigations proliferated nationwide. Carrera traveled to Washington to share intelligence with the FBI. 'The unit did something that had never been done in Chile, and achieved results,' said Ignacio Castillo, director of organized crime at Chile's public prosecutor's office. Other countries have largely struggled to prosecute Tren de Aragua. The Trump administration has used the gang to justify deporting migrants, with some arrested for little more than tattoos. Experts say the Justice Department is too distracted by mass expulsions to conduct thorough investigations. 'Those kind of yearslong investigations are not happening," said Brunner. 'I see the current deportation tactics as working in favor of organized crime." The next challenge for Hernández's unit is tracking Los Gallegos as they regroup behind bars. Some Cerro Chuño businesses said they still receive extortion threats — from prison phones. 'Organized crime will always adapt,' Hernández said. 'We need to get ahead." Despite the national homicide rate declining, enthusiasm for a more ruthless approach is spreading as leftist President Gabriel Boric, a former student protest leader, battles for his legacy ahead of November presidential elections. Polls show security as voters' top concern. The current favorite is far-right candidate José Antonio Kast, who draws inspiration from Bukele and Trump. He vows to build a border barrier and deport undocumented migrants 'no matter the cost.' Watching her grandchildren play outside a church in Arica, Maria Peña Gonzalez, 70, said Kast had her vote. 'You can't walk at night like you could before,' she said. 'Chile has changed since different types of people started arriving.'
