SmartNews

Stephen Miller boasts about 'rich resources' in nation targeted by Trump for regime change

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller couldn’t help but note Venezuela’s “rich resources and reserves” Saturday when speaking to a reporter in Washington, D.C., his comments made amid the Trump administration’s growing fixation on enacting regime change in the South American nation.

“It is a drug cartel that is running Venezuela; it is not a government, it is a drug cartel, a narco-trafficking organization that is running Venezuela,” Miller said, fielding questions from reporters. “The people of Venezuela have been suffering and struggling under the reality of a nation that is so rich in resources, so rich in reserves, that is run by (Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro, the head of the cartel.”

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Artists facing '80% empty seats' or more at Kennedy Center after Trump takeover: report

The death spiral is continuing for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts since Donald Trump’s takeover with ticket sales in free-fall, artist cancellations and now artists who are showing up are facing the prospect of rows upon rows of empty seats.


According to a new report from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe, “Audiences are ‘voting with their feet to skip out’ on shows that would once have been packed,” with the popular Stuttgart Ballet faced with poor ticket sales that indicate only 20 percent of the seats will be filled.

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'He doesn't feel as strongly as Bobby': Divide looming between Kennedy and Trump

A stark divide on vaccine policy exists between President Donald Trump and his controversial pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., though the president has decided to continue supporting him, a White House official revealed Saturday.

“He doesn't feel as strongly as Bobby on some of these key issues," a White House official told Reuters in a report published Saturday, speaking with the outlet on the condition of anonymity. “He trusts his judgment."

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'Unchecked for years': Outside effort launched to force release of Epstein files

A new joint effort was launched Friday night to compel the release of files on Jeffrey Epstein, as the Trump administration scrambles to suppress further interest in the matter.

Both the New York Times and the Miami Herald have joined forces in filing a request in court for a judge to unseal financial records from Epstein’s estate on Little Saint James island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Through the request, the outlets hope to learn where Epstein acquired his massive wealth, the details of which still remain a mystery today.

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Pam Bondi's DOJ facing a 'citizens’ revolt' as prosecution efforts flop: report

Attempts by the Department of Justice to prosecute Americans who are balking at Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses are not finding a friendly audience when cases are being presented before grand juries long considered to be prosecutor-friendly.

According to Alan Feuer, writing for The New York Times, the U.S. Attorneys appointed by Trump and working under the supervision of Attorney General Pam Bondi are finding it rough sledding getting grand juries to return a true bill that would set the stage to proceed to the courtroom –– and there is a reason for that.

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'Going in the wrong direction': Wall Street analysts raise red flags over Trump economy

With President Donald Trump’s tariffs already being felt across the American economy, the president has told Americans to be patient, and that his trade policy would soon usher in a resurgence of domestic manufacturing jobs.

And yet, as job growth slows and prices tick up, Trump’s promise to reshore domestic manufacturing has not only not come to fruition, it appears to be “going in the wrong direction,” according to one analyst who spoke with the Washington Post Saturday.

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‘I’m shocked by it’: GOP lawmaker stunned by own party’s dedication to bury Epstein files

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is calling out what she considers to be a “major misstep” by her own party’s leadership, one that threatens to cripple the GOP in the upcoming midterm elections.

Greene has been among the loudest voices of dissent within her party as it relates to the handling of files held by the Justice Department on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in 2019 awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, and is alleged to have run a blackmail operation targeting powerful figures.

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Pentagon gripped by 'frustration, anger and downright confusion' aimed at Trump: report

Outside of Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, there is little excitement within the Pentagon and among former defense officials to see the Department of Defense (DOD) renamed as the Department of War (DOW) with worries about cost, confusion and also how other nations will use the change for propaganda purposes.


According to a report from Politico, the long-anticipated rebranding landed with a thud on Friday as the president and the controversial Hegseth discussed it in an Oval Office press availability.

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'Stalled': WSJ editors trash Trump for bringing job market to its knees

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board took stock of the latest dismal jobs report on Friday — and laid a key part of the blame for it at the feet of President Donald Trump.

"Friday’s monthly report for August confirms that job creation has stalled amid his tariff barrage," wrote the board, a frequent critic of Trump's trade policy. "Employers added a mere 22,000 jobs last month while the numbers were revised down for the previous two by a combined 21,000. This means only 107,000 new jobs were created in the last four months — an average of 27,000. Monthly job gains averaged 167,000 last year."

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Trump poised to defy Cold War arms treaty with mega drone sale

After years of lobbying from US weapons makers, President Donald Trump is reportedly set to implement his first-term reinterpretation of a Cold War-era arms control treaty in order to sell heavy attack drones to countries including Saudi Arabia, according to a report published Friday.

In July 2020, Trump announced that his administration would reclassify unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with flight speeds under 500 miles per hour—including General Atomics' MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper and Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk—as exempt from certain restrictions under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

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'Just turn the lights off': WaPo outrages critics with editorial defending Trump rebrand

The Washington Post's editorial board earned fierce derision from critics Friday evening after it defended the Trump administration's bid to revert the Department of Defense back to its former name, Department of War.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday directing the Department of Defense to be known as the "Department of War" in official communications and government usage. The name had been used until the 1940s and is intended to signal a return to what Trump has dubbed a “warrior ethos” in the military. The legal name of the department can only be changed by an act of Congress.

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Trump's attack dog who accused Fed official of fraud has parents who did same thing

President Donald Trump's Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte has emerged as an "attack dog" who has filed a series of complaints against various politicians and public servants Trump opposes, accusing them of mortgage fraud. His latest target is Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, whom he claims took "primary residence" status on two different properties at the same time — and Trump's Justice Department is now pursuing a criminal investigation of the matter.

A new investigation by Reuters reveals that Pulte's father and stepmother are doing the exact same thing.

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'Absolutely disgusting': Erin Burnett aghast at Trump official's social media activity

CNN anchor Erin Burnett was left aghast by new investigative reporting that unearthed a trove of sexually degrading attacks and bigoted remarks.

Burnett brought KFILE reporter Andrew Kaczynski on her show, "OutFront," on Friday evening to discuss his new reporting on E.J. Antoni, Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the president ousted the agency's longtime chief because he didn’t like the jobs numbers.

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