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Having completed adorning the walls of the Oval Office in gold, President Donald Trump is moving to another redecorating project: his signature wall on the southern border. The president has ordered Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to paint the 1,300-mile border wall black — not because he likes the color, but because, he insists, as he did during his first term, that it will make the metal bars too hot for undocumented immigrants to climb.

Five years ago, the cost of the project was put at $500 million to $2 billion. Today’s prices would likely make it more expensive, but based on past results and expert opinion, the outcome will likely be the same: it won’t work.

President Donald Trump and his advance team were highly criticized as images of U.S. soldiers on their hands and knees rolling out a red carpet in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plane on the tarmac in Alaska made the rounds on the internet on Friday.

But the President of the United States was not on hand to greet the seven European leaders who jetted to Washington, D.C. and headed to the White House on Monday.

Conservative attorney and prominent Trump critic George Conway has warned that President Donald Trump could announce a U.S. withdrawal from NATO as soon as Monday night — or at least claim to do so, given Congressional approval requirements — depending on the outcome of his talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders earlier in the day.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long expressed interest in weakening NATO, and recent developments following Friday’s Alaska Summit — including President Trump’s decision to step back from his stated goal of securing a Russian ceasefire, his Monday remarks about ending mail-in voting, and his Sunday statement that Ukraine should cede territory for peace and will never enter NATO — have drawn renewed attention to that issue.

A federal district court judge initially appeared “skeptical” of the Trump administration’s legal authority to take control of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in a hearing Friday afternoon, which she called just hours after the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration to stop the move.

But just before a break in the hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, made clear her goals.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent the week mocking President Donald Trump, adopting Trump’s signature social media style — extreme, self-promotional, hyperbolic, all-caps — to deliver taunts about his plans to counter Trump’s directive for Texas and other red states to redraw their congressional maps, a move aimed at reducing the number of Democratic-held districts and paving the way for Republicans to hold the House in November.

Governor Newsom’s focus has been on what he is calling his “Election Rigging Response Act,” legislation where he will ask voters in November to allow California to redraw its congressional district maps to respond to President Trump’s unprecedented move to conduct redistricting outside the constitutionally mandated decennial censuses.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, disparaged “able-bodied” Medicaid recipients, alleging they spend hours each day watching television or engaging in other “leisure-time” activities instead of pursuing what he called their God-given desire to change the world. He asked why anyone would question that the government would not want to get people to be wealthy.

The vast majority of “able-bodied” people who use Medicaid, a government safety net medical insurance program that does not provide income to recipients, are already working at least one job. In the majority of families that use Medicaid, at least one adult is working a full-time job. The majority of Medicaid users are children, people living with disabilities, or the elderly, who are unable to work.

Maryland’s Democratic Gov. Wes Moore criticized President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal officers to the streets of Washington, D.C., branding it a “performative” act that does nothing to address crime long term.

“I can tell you right now, what people want more than anything in those communities is they don’t want performative, they want performance,” Moore told “Fox and Friends” on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni, is facing backlash after reports that he would consider suspending the crucial monthly jobs report, calling it flawed.

“How on earth are businesses supposed to plan – or how is the Fed supposed to conduct monetary policy – when they don’t know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy? It’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately,” Antoni told Fox Business.

A top former Trump White House national security official is warning that the president’s federalization of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police and deployment of the National Guard and other federal agents to the nation’s capital is a “major step” toward martial law.

Olivia Troye is a Republican who worked at the National Counterterrorism Center, the United States Department of Energy Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis, as well as serving as Vice President Mike Pence’s Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor.

In his short time as U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth has tested the boundaries of the separation between church and state at the Pentagon. On Thursday night, he took things a step further by promoting an interview of Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson—the leader of the church Hegseth follows—who has called for America to become a Christian nation, and the world a Christian one.

“All of Christ for All of Life,” Hegseth posted on social media, from an account marked with a grey checkmark that says, “This account is verified because it’s an affiliate of @DeptofDefense on X.”

The FBI has agreed to a request from U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to locate the Texas Democratic state lawmakers who exited the state to deny Republicans a quorum—part of a broader attempt to block Gov. Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump’s push to redraw congressional maps and boost GOP-held House seats, the Texas Republican announced Thursday.

“We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities,” Cornyn said in a statement that referred to the Texas Democrats as “supposed lawmakers.”

About two hours before the suspect in Wednesday’s Fort Stewart, Georgia, mass shooting was identified, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was quick to blame the “radical left” for allegedly demonizing law enforcement and the military. The suspect has since been identified as a U.S. Army Sergeant at Fort Stewart. No motive is currently known.

“Praying for the safety of everyone in Fort Stewart,” Tuberville wrote on social media at 1:25 p.m. “This is the DIRECT RESULT of the Radical Left’s constant demonization of law enforcement and our military service members.”

A top Missouri GOP state lawmaker says her Republican governor is actively looking into redistricting the state. She offered as his motivation a desire to preserve its “Christian conservative majority.”

Gov. Mike Kehoe “will always consider options that provide congressional districts that best represent Missourians,” his spokesperson, Gabby Picard, said, according to Bloomberg News.