Trump News

President Donald Trump argued that U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon was "out of control" because he blocked construction of the above-ground portions of a White House ballroom.

In his Thursday ruling, Leon sought to clarify an earlier order intended to halt construction of the ballroom while carving out a small exception for national security construction. Trump had said that the exception permitted him to build the entire ballroom structure.

Investigators at the FBI have received new evidence that could crack open the Nancy Guthrie case, according to a new report.

ABC News reported on Thursday, citing "sources familiar with the investigation," that the FBI has sent new evidence to a crime lab for processing to determine whether it came from one or multiple people. Investigators are hopeful that the sample could trace back to Guthrie's abductors, but Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos caveated that it could take up to six months to "untangle" the new sample.

The Cuban government tried to execute a plan to lobby President Donald Trump directly, while making an end-run around Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

"The grandson of Cuban leader Raúl Castro tapped a wealthy Havana entrepreneur to try to personally deliver a letter to the White House last week outside of regular diplomatic channels, said a U.S. official and a former U.S. official," José de Córdoba and Vera Bergengruen reported. "The letter was formatted similarly to a diplomatic note and carried an official Cuban seal," and "proposed economic and investment agreements as well as sanctions relief, and warned that the Cuban regime was preparing for a U.S. incursion, the U.S. official said."

President Donald Trump took a shot at Alison K. Hoagland, an architectural historian at the center of a lawsuit against his ballroom, after a judge blocked construction of the structure.

In an opinion and order on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, said that he was enjoining government officials from moving forward with the above-ground portions of ballroom construction at the White House.

President Donald Trump reacted to a judge's order halting construction of his White House ballroom with the hyperbolic claim that no president "can ever be safe" without the facility.

In an order on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard placed an injunction on all above-ground construction of the ballroom after Trump claimed that a small national security exemption in a previous ruling would let him build the entire structure.

President Donald Trump appeared to casually dismiss survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on Thursday during a brief gathering with reporters, referring to them as "victims, or whatever."

Trump took questions from reporters outside the White House when he was asked whether he believes there should be a public hearing for more Epstein survivors.

President Donald Trump sought to lecture Pope Leo XIV about geopolitics after the pontiff criticized the U.S. war with Iran.

During a press gaggle on Thursday, Trump was asked about why he lashed out at the pope on Truth Social.

A year before convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein died in a prison cell under mysterious circumstances, a friend who was teaching at Arizona State University worried about accusations of sexual harassment and asked for help, which led Epstein to suggest he turn to Donald Trump's White House.

According to Politico's Bianca Quilantan, the texts and emails show Epstein believed Trump's efforts to weaken protections for sexual misconduct accusers could provide physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was teaching at ASU, an escape route from disciplinary proceedings.

"My friends in the White House HATE the title ix c----," Epstein wrote to Krauss in April 2018, using a crude sexist slur to describe his contempt for women protected by Title IX enforcement.

"Ironic but he might be your out," Epstein added without clarifying who he was specifically discussing, Politico is reporting.

Krauss, a noted Trump critic, was willing to give it a shot, replying,: "Ironic indeed! But I will take it."

According to Quilantan, the text and email exchanges also illuminate Trump's Title IX agenda and attitude toward women. Advocates for sexual assault survivors say the Epstein emails prove what they've long argued: the Trump rollback was designed to shield accused men from accountability, not to protect fairness.

"This Epstein email and essentially his blessing and support of the Trump 2020 rule, it just really affirms what we've been saying all along," Shiwali Patel, senior director of Education Justice at the National Women's Law Center told Politico. "It's meant to be an anti-survivor rule. I don't know if it could be made any more clear after the Epstein files revealed his role in support of it."

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr got a tongue-lashing on Thursday during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing as Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) brought up his much-ridiculed HHS video using aging rocker Kid Rock to promote better health.

According to the fuming Sanchez, who repeatedly had to speak over the Trump appointee, the controversial secretary has been wasting money while not doing his job warning the public about serious health issues like the growing measles outbreak.