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'Extortionist!' Columnist flags Trump move 'deserving of an exclamation point'

President Donald Trump's dealings with everything from Ukraine to Ivy League universities amount to blatant extortion, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote Friday.

"Trump isn’t a dealmaker; he is closer to an extortionist," Parker wrote. "At least he meets the definition of the term: someone who uses coercion or punishment to get what he wants."

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'Extraordinary attack': Cabinet official may become 'first victim' after break with Trump

Secretary of State Marco Rubio "split" with President Donald Trump over the ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, The Daily Beast reported Friday.

Speaking to the press, Rubio lamented the lack of progress in negotiations and said that the United States could “move on” from the talks in “a matter of days" if no agreement can be reached.

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MAGA conspiracists claim many Republicans implicated in Trump assassination efforts

Right-wing commentators Benny Johnson and Mike Cernovich blamed "The Deep State and Ukraine" for perpetuating two assassination attempts on Donald Trump as he campaigned in Butler County, PA, last July; and Palm Beach County, FL, in September.

Johnson hosted Cernovich on his podcast and posted to X Friday, "Unravel the assassination plot against Trump, it's going to implicate many Senators and members of Congress. The Deep State and Ukraine tried to take out our President."

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White House's 'cute' social media post threatens to backfire in court: expert

The White House posted a screenshot of a story in The New York Times with an altered headline — and a claim that the original had been fixed.

Now a former federal prosecutor is cautioning that that action could cause the Donald Trump administration problems in court.

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CNN fact checker cuts Trump off as he launches into 'little biography' of jailed immigrant

President Donald Trump read "a little biography" of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a slip of paper during an Oval Office meeting Monday, offering it as proof that the Maryland man was a criminal who deserved to be held in an El Salvadoran prison.

Trump was speaking about Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who traveled to the Central American country this week to check on Abrego Garcia's condition. The president then asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt to retrieve a piece of paper from another room.

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'MAGA World killing': Trump loyalist's firing raises insiders' suspicions of Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio is being viewed with suspicion by Trump loyalists after he fired MAGA acolyte Pete Marocco from the State Department where Marocco worked to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to reporting in Politico.

Reasons for the firing ranged from Marocco's "bulldozer operating style and failure to work effectively with colleagues" to "substantive disagreements between Rubio and Marocco over how to dismantle USAID," wrote reporters Dasha Burns and Nahal Toosi.

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$10M charity scandal could derail Casey DeSantis's bid for FL governor: analysis

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had hoped to pass the gubernatorial baton to his wife, Casey DeSantis, when his full term runs out in 2027, describing her as the right person to take his accomplishments "to the next level.”

But an analysis piece in The Guardian suggested that a brewing financial scandal could derail the couple's plans of political dynasty and keep Casey DeSantis from even declaring her candidacy.

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Bloody Philippine passion play sees final performance of veteran 'Jesus'

Scores of penitents whipped themselves bloody under a scorching Philippine sun while others were nailed to crosses in a polarising Good Friday tradition drawing the most extreme of Catholic devotees.

The macabre spectacle, officially frowned on by the Church, attracts thousands of Filipinos -- and a smattering of tourists -- each Easter weekend to sites across Asia's only majority Catholic nation.

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'Unrepentant': Trump DOJ blasts 'belligerent' ousted GOP lawmaker ahead of sentencing

Federal prosecutors used disgraced former Rep. George Santos's (R-NY) social media posts against him in a court filing Thursday as they seek a lengthy prison sentence for fraud.

Santos pleaded guilty last August to 23 federal fraud charges of stealing state unemployment money and using his donors' credit card information for personal gain.

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'Taste for revenge': Columnist thinks little-known 1970s feud fueled Trump's Harvard hate

A special correspondent with The Daily Beast connected President Donald Trump's first New York real-estate deal in the 1970s to his desire to punish Harvard University today for defying his authority.

According to writer Michael Daly, the common link between the two episodes is the billionaire Pritzker family; Jay Pritzker ran afoul of Trump when the two entered into an ill-fated partnership to manage New York's Hyatt Hotel in 1975, while niece Penny Pritzker currently serves as Harvard's most senior member on its board of governors.

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'Murdered': Investigative journalist shares grim prediction for mistakenly deported dad

Investigative journalist and author Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York Times reporter, revealed suspicions that a wrongly deported Maryland man "has already been murdered."

Eichenwald wrote about his theory on the Blue Sky social media platform on Thursday.

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Experts highlight law that could smash key argument in Trump deportations case

Three law school professors are disputing a claim from President Donald Trump's administration that information regarding immigrants sent to an El Salvador prison is classified.

In court last month, the Trump administration invoked the “state secrets” privilege when a federal judge demanded information about immigrants deported to an El Salvador prison under the Alien Enemies Act, reported CBS News.

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'I said it was!' Leading Dem snaps as CNN's Dana Bash grills over 'constitutional crisis'

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) appeared to grow frustrated when asked if President Donald Trump had plunged the country into a constitutional crisis.

CNN's Dana Bash said on Thursday's Inside Politics, "The Trump administration is finding ways to defy the courts on a few fronts right now," citing the case of a Maryland father wrongly deported to an El Salvadoran prison, and the White House's refusal to allow the Associated Press to cover the administration.

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