“We found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6,” said the report, contradicting a common belief that federal agents with the FBI may have infiltrated the crowd and encouraged acts of violence and vandalism.
The report is consistent with the past congressional testimony of FBI officials but offers no account as to whether intelligence operatives associated with agencies outside the Justice Department may have been involved in such a “psy-op” infiltration.
The FBI did have 26 confidential sources on the ground during the protests. Some of those sources fed information back to the bureau during the attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the report. Three of those 26 went to D.C. with the approval of the Washington Field Office to report on possible domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event.
“Our review concluded that none of these three FBI [confidential human sources] were authorized to enter the Capitol or a restricted area, or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any [confidential human source] directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6,” the report claimed.
Nonetheless, four entered the Capitol, and another 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol. Nine confidential sources “neither entered a restricted area nor entered the Capitol or otherwise engaged in illegal activity,” according to the report.
“None of the [confidential human sources] who entered the Capitol or a restricted area has been prosecuted to date,” the report added. “The OIG determined that many of these 26 [confidential human sources] had provided information relevant to the January 6 Electoral Certification before the event and that a few CHSs also provided information about the riot as it occurred.”
The report faulted the bureau for not asking field offices to collect information from informants ahead of the rally.
“Despite playing only a supporting role, the FBI recognized the potential for violence and took significant and appropriate steps to prepare for this supporting role, including attempting to identify known domestic terrorism subjects who planned to travel to DC for the January 6 Electoral Certification,” the report said.
The report said what the FBI did was effective in part of its role that day.
“Indeed, after the Capitol was breached by rioters on January 6, the FBI was in a position to deploy tactical assets to help clear the Capitol of protesters and to help USCP secure the perimeter around the Capitol Complex,” the report said. “The FBI told Congress that its posture for January 6 preparations was ‘extraordinary,’ and we found that the FBI effectively carried out its tactical support function on January 6.”
The FBI disputed some of the findings in the report, but it agreed with the recommendations.
“Although the FBI continues to disagree with certain of the factual assertions in the Report regarding the manner of specific steps, and the scope of the canvass undertaken by the FBI in advance of January 6, 2021, a time period during which the Report recognizes as including multiple field offices providing information in response to direction from Washington Field Office and FBI Headquarters, the FBI nonetheless accepts the OIG’s recommendation regarding potential process improvements for future events,” an agency official wrote in a letter to the OIG responding to the report.
(Headline USA) Country music star Morgan Wallen on Thursday pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment for throwing a chair from the rooftop of a six-story bar in Nashville and nearly hitting two police officers with it.
Wallen, who appeared in court alongside his attorney, was sentenced to spend seven days in a DUI education center and be under supervised probation for two years.
“Conditionally guilty,” Wallen said when Judge Cynthia Chappell asked how he would plead.
According to the arrest affidavit, Wallen was accused of throwing a chair off the roof of Chief’s bar on April 7.
The chair landed about a yard from the officers, who spoke to witnesses and reviewed security footage. Witnesses told officers that they saw Wallen pick up a chair, throw it off the roof and laugh about it.
Shortly after the incident, Wallen issued a statement in which he said he accepted “responsibility” and was “not proud” of his behavior.
The statement did not include an apology but did mention making “amends” and touching base with law enforcement.
The “One Thing at a Time” singer was initially charged with three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
Worrick Robinson, Wallen’s attorney, said in a statement that the singer “has cooperated fully with authorities throughout these last eight months, directly communicating and apologizing to all involved.”
“Upon the successful completion of his probation, the charges will be eligible for dismissal and expungement,” Robinson added.
Wallen did not make a statement after the brief 10-minute hearing concluded on Thursday.
Instead, he was quickly escorted out by several security guards.
Wallen is one of the biggest names in contemporary country and was named the Country Music Association Awards’ entertainer of the year last month.
(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) With the modern American Left pushing farther and farther to the Marxist fringes, it comes as no surprise that one of its mantras hails from the father of Soviet communism, Vladimir Lenin.
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” Lenin is quoted as having said. Fittingly, the quotation itself is likely misattributed, as are many of the famous aphorisms that we now consider to be conventional folk wisdom.
"The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they are often not true." – Abraham Lincoln 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/geqUsLq4UM
While Abraham Lincoln’s famous takedown of quotes from the internet may be words to live by, the problem with disinformation in the modern era goes much deeper.
Telling gullible information-consumers to vet their facts against “trusted” sources—ones that also have their own vested interests or agendas at stake—simply lures them into a false sense of complacency.
That, of course, is the precise intention of the corrupt establishment, which has the power to stamp the institutional imprimatur of officiality onto its own version of the truth.
If, for example, four out of five dentists recommend eating a particular type of candy, the obvious questions are: Why? Who’s paying them? And what about the other 20%?
Likewise, the “97% of scientists” trope has frequently been invoked to quell debate on “climate change,” but it obviously oversimplifies a complex and nuanced discussion about the causes, urgency, scope and severity—not to mention the appropriate solutions.
And all of those ignore the even more fundamental questions of who gets to define “scientist” and what sort of “science” it entails.
Perhaps asking “climate scientists” to give a professional consensus automatically introduces confirmation bias, since anyone who enters professionally into the field of climate scientology has an inherent motivation to prevent the discipline from becoming obsolete, unprofitable or otherwise a laughing stock in the academic circles from which they derive their prestige and validation.
Thus it becomes like a career Ponzi scheme, passed from one generation to the next, with each new cycle more deeply invested in the lie told by its predecessors.
FOURTH ESTATE SALE
Sadly, the same is true of journalism, a field rooted in the noblest of intentions that has been co-opted by corporate and other institutional demands to do the exact opposite of what it was designed for—and for which it was granted extraordinary protections under the First Amendment.
The Fourth Estate is no longer a pillar of democracy but a bludgeon used to batter it into submission.
During the Biden administration, we have seen the mainstream media increasingly begin to embrace demonstrably false lies as part of an attempt to launder reality through the leftist echo chamber.
They continue, for example, to take out of context President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 riots in Charlottesville, Va.
Your left this part out
Trump didn’t call neo-Nazis or white supremacists ‘fine people’ in Charlottesville speech. In fact, he condemned them.pic.twitter.com/V9gy4x9vZk
By doing so, and putting Trump on the defensive, they are thus able to deflect from the fact that the leftists who largely fomented the violence were not fine people at all. Many were likely paid Antifa operatives who were bused in for the occasion, escalating what should have been an affirmation of free-speech rights into a clash of ideological extremists.
It also papers over the questions as to who was behind it, although Headline USA has confirmed that the intelligence community itself had a sizeable role.
INSURRECTION OR INCORRECTION?
Not surprisingly, the same tactic was rolled out following the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising at the U.S. Capitol.
In this case, leftists, aided and abetted by fake-news reporters, continue to push the brazen and demonstrably false lie that members of law enforcement with the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Metro Police died as a result of that day’s events—all while ignoring the fact that police themselves had a large role in instigating and fomenting the violence.
PSA: If you’re currently twisting yourself into some sort of false equivalency “abuse of power” pretzel in order to make Joe Biden pardoning his son the same as Trump pardoning those who killed our Capitol police in his name, please stop.
Headline USA emailed left-wing influencer “JoJoFromJerz”—aka Joanne Carducci—seeking clarity on who the police were who died as a result of Jan. 6 and what their causes of death were. She did not reply.
In reality, none did. Only Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died at his home hours later, might reasonably have been considered a Jan. 6 casualty—until his death was formally ruled a stroke due to natural causes.
But the talking points Carducci uses undoubtedly are working their way up the chain so that they eventually can be cited by President Joe Biden to justify one of the most outrageously unethical acts of his presidency—which says a lot.
From JoJo and her nearly 1 million “followers” on X, the lie has already graduated to the op-ed section of The Hill where Jonathan Jeffress, a former Obama operative and longtime Democrat donor sought on Monday to make a case—or, rather, a plausible rationalization—for Biden’s norm-violating preemptive pardons.
“Pardons would not stop congressional investigations or administrative harassment, but they would neutralize the most devastating weapon in Trump’s arsenal: federal criminal prosecutions,” Jeffress wrote. “With a stroke of the pen, Biden could provide immediate relief to those under threat and send a clear message that justice is not a tool for personal vendettas.”
To be clear, if this were an acceptable use of power, Trump himself would have used it in his first term to spare a lot of aggravation, not to mention a lot of wasted tax dollars that the Biden administration squandered on political persecution of its enemies.
Indeed, it is some of those very people who targeted Trump with spurious, politically motivated lawfare attacks, bending the law to fit their own agenda in the most egregious of ways, who must now be held accountable.
The distinction between Trump and his corrupt-prosecutor/persecutors, as even Jeffress acknowledges, is an understanding that in order to receive a pardon, one must implicitly admit guilt—something that Trump himself was unable to do since all of his actions, at worst, followed earlier precedent set by Democrats who had faced no consequences whatsoever.
Biden, Clinton and Obama have gotten away with every crime Trump has been accused of pic.twitter.com/oFjMMqkVPT
“Critics may argue that pardons could be seen as admissions of guilt or trigger political backlash,” Jeffress wrote. “But failure to act carries far greater risks. Allowing Trump to normalize political retribution would set a precedent that undermines public trust in the rule of law and invites future abuses of power.”
Sadly, that ship has already sailed, but the precedent Biden threatens to set may still come back to haunt Democrats, just as all of their past acts of short-term indulgence have.
PRESIDENTIAL PRECEDENT?
In other cases now being cited as precedent, most notably then-President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, criminal charges were imminent.
Indeed, it was Nixon who should be credited with the noble act of stepping down, rather than putting the nation through a divisive impeachment trial—although perhaps, in retrospect, he should have.
The deep state, as it turns out, may have had a vested interest in making Watergate go away without further question after it had achieved its goal of regime change.
Some have made the convincing case that Nixon was threatening to blow the lid off the assassination of John F. Kennedy—whose cover-up Ford (the nation’s only leader never to have been elected president or vice president) had a significant role in.
Nevertheless, Nixon would have been free from prosecution if he had remained as president, and so it stands to reason that when he accepted the ultimate consequences of impeachment, that alone should have brought closure to the matter.
BALANCING THE SCALES
What the Biden administration has proposed, by contrast, would be drastically different, setting a dangerous precedent for blanket pardons to anyone, under any circumstance, in order to avoid facing accountability for their actions.
We know that corrupt prosecutors like those name-checked by Jeffress—Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis and Jack Smith—were not acting in good faith, notably because three of them literally campaigned on a “Get Trump” platform before they had any sort of “evidence” to support it. And all four openly disregarded legal protocol, shopping for sympathetic judges and juries to collude with them in their flagrant abuses of the rule of law.
Even so, they all stand a sporting chance, as Trump did, that they could skate on the charges by fighting back—or by getting elected president themselves.
Not so once Biden establishes the precedent of unlimited pardon power.
Should the legal system prove inadequate at bringing justice, Trump could simply dispatch his army of J6ers to enact vigilante justice instead. And all would come equipped with a blanket pardon for any acts past, present or future.
THE MANDATE TO INVESTIGATE
In an interview Sunday on Meet the Press, Trump reiterated his campaign pledge to pardon many of the nonviolent demonstrators convicted of Jan. 6 offenses after a sustained witch-hunt by the Biden Justice Department that has resulted in more than 1,600 arrests.
“First day. Yeah, I’m looking for these pardons,” Trump told interviewer Kristen Welker.
“Look, I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system,” he continued. “They say to a guy, ‘You’re going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.’ And these guys are looking—their whole lives have been destroyed.”
🤣😇 The Donald is just poking the left now with a big stick with a fresh steaming turd on the end of it 🕹️💩President Trump says he’ll pardon J6ers his first day in office during his Meet the Press Interview🤩🇺🇸#Jan6th#TopTrollingpic.twitter.com/5BtfbGP0Br
Trump also reassured panicked left-wingers that he had no interest in retaliating against his “enemies” after the injustices wrought against him, but that he would leave it to the discretion of appointees like presumptive Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel how to proceed.
“I think that they’ll have to look at [investigations of lawbreaking Trump critics], but I’m not going to,” Trump said.
“I’m going to focus on ‘drill, baby, drill,’” he added. “… I’m not looking to go back into the past. Retribution will be through success.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: "Retribution will be through success."
While it was a politically savvy attempt to unite a divided nation, Trump cannot overlook the fact that “retribution” is part of the mandate on which he was re-elected.
The affronts committed at taxpayers’ expense in an attempt to disfranchise voters or undermine the rule of law were an attack on the very fabric of democracy, which now hangs by a single thread.
And with the threat of preemptive pardons, Biden now finds himself swinging blindly at it with a machete.
MAGA TESTED, PUBLIC APPROVED
By dangling the couterthreat of blanket preemptive pardons for Jan. 6 offenders, Trump might be able to put things back into perspective and shift the media narrative.
For brainwashed leftists who may be several layers deep into the Big Lie, and thus incapable of seeing how wicked and depraved their own side is, being immediately confronted with the implications of Biden’s actions is the only shot at deterrence.
If they truly believe Jan. 6 to have been as bad as they claim, are they willing to put it on the line to protect Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Mark Milley and Anthony Fauci from being seriously investigated—and from finally having their day in court, as countless Trump allies have?
Perhaps the 82-year-old Biden, who has nothing to lose at this point, would go through with it anyway, democracy be damned. But he also has nothing to gain from saving the hides of a few feckless bureaucrats, unless there is some sort of blackmail involved.
While his legacy will forever be tarnished, the damage he has inflicted on the nation is still reparable, for now.
But the same Democrat elites who staged the coup and prevented him from running for reelection now must pull Biden back from the precipice one last time—meaning Trump himself must offer them the necessary incentive to do so.
And what do the people have to say about Trump giving blanket pardons to Jan. 6 offenders if it means stopping Biden’s abuse of power?
Well, it seems four out of five would recommend it.
“Only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter after earlier promising he would do no such thing, according to a poll from The Associated Press.”https://t.co/4yt65xMhBSpic.twitter.com/Bx7Yct4giy
(Headline USA) Several Democratic governors have quietly indicated a willingness to work with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, even as others on the Left draw up new plans for Democratic resistance.
In a meeting of Democratic governors in Los Angeles this week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer even acknowledged Trump’s mandate following his sweeping electoral victory last month, adding that she hopes to find “common ground” with him.
“People in Michigan, like a majority of Americans, voted for Donald Trump, and my oath is to Michigan,” Whitmer told CNN. “Obviously, I’ve got experience in this type of environment that will help inform how I continue to fight for Michigan. But I know Donald Trump cares about Michigan. And I’m hoping that because of that, we’ll be able to find some common ground in some important ways.”
Immediately after Trump’s win, Whitmer began distancing herself from other Democrats’ plans to “Trump-proof” their states.
“I’m not a part of the group,” she said last month.
She’s not the only one paying lip service to Trump.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul likewise informed her colleagues at their meeting in Los Angeles that she had already had a phone conversation with Trump about ways they might work together.
Trump is a “president who is a New Yorker, has been a New Yorker, would understand how important it is for the success of our state,” Hochul said.
Other Democrats, however, have committed themselves to trying to obstruct Trump in any way possible.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee urged his Democratic colleagues to copy his own work “embedding Trump-proofing to the extent humanly, constitutionally possible.”
When asked what advice he would give to Democratic leaders, Inslee said, “I think it’s a combination of two famous speeches: One, Churchill’s ‘We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the air, we shall fight them in the landing fields with growing confidence in our power, in the seas, in the air. We shall never surrender.’ That’s the No. 1 advice.”
He said the second speech comes from the comedy classic Animal House.
“No. 2 is Bluto Blutarsky in Animal House, which is: ‘Over? It’s not over till we say it’s over. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?'” Inslee continued. “The combination of those two speeches, I would say, should demonstrate our resolve.”
In an interview on Tuesday, Warren condemned the violent killing, but then defended those who are frustrated with the healthcare system.
“The visceral responses from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system,” she told the Huffington Post. “Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far.”
Thompson’s alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, reportedly vented his anger with the healthcare system in a manifesto obtained by law enforcement, at one point describing officials such as Thompson as “parasites.”
According to Warren, Mangione simply “lost faith” in the system and felt forced to act out.
“This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone,” she said.
Warren then doubled down on her comments during an interview with MSNBC.
“We’ll say it over and over,” she said. “This guy [Luigi Mangione] gets a trial who’s allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth[care], but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.”
After facing backlash, Warren admitted to Politico that she should have been “much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.”
She added, “Violence is never the answer. Period.”
Even Democrats blasted Warren over her callous remarks.
“It’s fair to read that as excusing outright murder and that is the road to complete disorder and chaos,” Democratic strategist Mark Penn wrote on X. “Warren was just re-elected but do the voters really understand just how radical her views are?”
Stunned
Elizabeth Warren’s comments that in effect justify murder are shocking.
She said, “Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far…”
It’s fair to read that as excusing outright murder and that is the road to complete disorder and chaos.
Trump pointed to his willingness to be interviewed by anyone as one of the main reasons he won a second term.
He said Harris’s refusal to talk to the media drew more negative attention to her than she must have expected, referencing the vice president’s fear of speaking to podcaster Joe Rogan as a moment of impact.
“I think that when she wouldn’t talk to anybody, it shone a light on her,” Trump said.
The president-elect added Harris’s lack of interviews severely hurt her campaign.
“In other words, if she would have gone out and just did interviews where they’re comparable to Steve, if there is anybody comparable, would say, could you do an interview here?” Trump said. “An interview there? You know, she didn’t do anything.”
“See, I don’t view it as a comeback. And people have said it was the greatest comeback in political history, and beyond even political history plus,” Trump said. “They said, add sports and add everything else. But I don’t view it that way.”
He said he believes the job he did in his first term added to his popularity.
“I think I ran a great campaign. I think I was popular. I think I did a very good job the first term,” he continued. “We got hit by COVID at the end. But even with COVID, we did a very, very good job that people are starting to recognize.”
He added that his father, Fred Trump, would also not refer to him winning a second term as a “comeback.”
TIME MAGAZINE: “What would your father think of your political comeback?”
DONALD TRUMP: “I think he maybe would not call it a comeback. He would have said it’s just Donald.” pic.twitter.com/YrrFYhAM62
“I think he maybe would not call it a comeback. He would have just said it’s Donald,” Trump said.
Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.
(Headline USA) The large mysterious drones reported flying over parts of New Jersey in recent weeks appear to avoid detection by traditional methods such as helicopter and radio, according to a state lawmaker briefed Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security.
In a post on the social media platform X, Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia described the drones as up to 6 feet in diameter and sometimes traveling with their lights switched off.
I just left the New Jersey State Police HQ following the briefing of New Jersey State Legislators relating to the unexplained drone sightings in New Jersey. Might I add – @GovMurphy was not present. My notes are organized following my take below on the situation.
The Morris County Republican was among several state and local lawmakers who met with state police and Homeland Security officials to discuss the spate of sightings that range from the New York City area through New Jersey and westward into parts of Pennsylvania, including over Philadelphia.
The devices do not appear to be being flown by hobbyists, Fantasia wrote.
Dozens of mysterious nighttime flights started last month and have raised growing concern among residents and officials.
Part of the worry stems from the flying objects initially being spotted near the Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. military research and manufacturing facility; and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster.
Drones are legal in New Jersey for recreational and commercial use, but they are subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration regulations and flight restrictions. Operators must be FAA certified.
Most, but not all, of the drones spotted in New Jersey were larger than those typically used by hobbyists.
The number of sightings has increased in recent days, though officials say many of the objects seen may have been planes rather than drones. It’s also possible that a single drone has been reported more than once.
Gov. Phil Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones don’t appear to threaten public safety. The FBI has been investigating and has asked residents to share any videos, photos or other information they may have.
Two Republican Jersey Shore-area congressmen, U.S. Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, have called on the military to shoot down the drones.
Smith said a Coast Guard commanding officer briefed him on an incident over the weekend in which a dozen drones followed a motorized Coast Guard lifeboat “in close pursuit” near Barnegat Light and Island Beach State Park in Ocean County.
Coast Guard Lt. Luke Pinneo told The Associated Press Wednesday “that multiple low-altitude aircraft were observed in vicinity of one of our vessels near Island Beach State Park.”
The aircraft weren’t perceived as an immediate threat and didn’t disrupt operations, Pinneo said. The Coast Guard is assisting the FBI and state agencies in investigating.
In a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Smith called for military help dealing with the drones, noting that Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst has the capability “to identify and take down unauthorized unmanned aerial systems.”
However, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters Wednesday that “our initial assessment here is that these are not drones or activities coming from a foreign entity or adversary.”
Many municipal lawmakers have called for more restrictions on who is entitled to fly the unmanned devices. At least one state lawmaker proposed a temporary ban on drone flights in the state.
“This is something we’re taking deadly seriously. I don’t blame people for being frustrated,” Murphy said earlier this week. A spokesman for the Democratic governor said he did not attend Wednesday’s meeting.
Republican Assemblyman Erik Peterson, whose district includes parts of the state where the drones have been reported, said he also attended Wednesday’s meeting at a state police facility in West Trenton. The session lasted for about 90 minutes.
Peterson said DHS officials were generous with their time, but appeared dismissive of some concerns, saying not all the sightings reported have been confirmed to involve drones.
So who or what is behind the flying objects? Where are they coming from? What are they doing? “My understanding is they have no clue,” Peterson said.
A message seeking comment was left with the Department of Homeland Security.
Most of the drones have been spotted along coastal areas and some were recently reported flying over a large reservoir in Clinton. Sightings also have been reported in neighboring states.
James Edwards, of Succasunna, New Jersey, said he has seen a few drones flying over his neighborhood since last month.
“It raises concern mainly because there’s so much that’s unknown,” Edwards said Wednesday. “There are lots of people spouting off about various conspiracies that they believe are in play here, but that only adds fuel to the fire unnecessarily. We need to wait and see what is really happening here, not let fear of the unknown overtake us.”
Trump’s incoming press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed on Thursday that Trump invited Xi, but said it was “to be determined” if the leader of the United States’ most significant economic and military competitor would attend.
“This is an example of President Trump creating an open dialogue with leaders of countries that are not just our allies, but our adversaries and our competitors too,” Leavitt said in an appearance Fox News. “We saw this in his first term. He got a lot of criticism for it, but it led to peace around this world. He is willing to talk to anyone and he will always put America’s interest first.”
CBS News first reported the invitation to Xi.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the invitation.
Leavitt said that other foreign leaders have also been invited, but did not provide any details.
Trump on Thursday during an appearance at the New York Stock Exchange, where he was ringing the opening bell to open the market, said he’s been “thinking about inviting certain people to the inauguration” without referring to any specific individuals.
“And some people said, ‘Wow, that’s a little risky, isn’t it?'” Trump said. “And I said, ‘Maybe it is. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.’ But we like to take little chances.”
Meanwhile, a top aide to Hungarian President Viktor Orban, one of Trump’s most vocal supporters on the world stage, said Thursday that Orban isn’t slated to attend the inauguration.
“There is no such plan, at least for the time being,” said Gergely Gulyás, Orban’s chief of staff.
Every country’s chief of mission to the United States will also be invited, according to a Trump Inaugural Committee official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Through the first two months of fiscal 2025, the Biden administration managed to run a $624.21 billion budget. It’s the biggest shortfall to start a year on record.
The November deficit came in at $366.76 billion, according to the Monthly Treasury Report. That was 16.8 percent higher than the November 2023 shortfall and the biggest November deficit on record.
This follows on the heels of the biggest October deficit ever recorded.
The Biden administration managed to spend its way to this massive November deficit despite $301.75 billion in tax receipts, a 9.8 percent revenue increase over November last year.
This undercuts those who continue to insist tax cuts under the Trump administration are the problem. The real issue is on the spending side of the ledger.
The Biden administration blew through $668.52 billion in November. Through the first two months of fiscal 2025, the federal government spent $1.25 trillion.
Spending in November was up 13.5 percent over last year.
You might recall that President Biden promised that the [pretend] spending cuts would save “hundreds of billions” with the debt ceiling deal (aka the [misnamed] Fiscal Responsibility Act).
That never happened.
The federal government continues to find new reasons to spend money, whether for natural disasters at home or wars overseas. The Biden administration spent a staggering $6.75 trillion in fiscal 2024, a 10 percent increase over 2023 outlays.
The federal government shelled out $86.59 billion on interest expense in November, bringing total interest expense to $168.59 billion for the year. November interest expense was more than what Uncle Sam spent on national defense ($76 billion). These numbers are generally in line with the first two months of fiscal 2024, but we’ll likely see a big jump in December with more payments coming due.
Uncle Sam paid $1.13 trillion in interest expense in fiscal 2023. It was the first time interest expense has ever eclipsed $1 trillion. Projections are for interest expense to remain at a similar level in fiscal 2024.
Even with the recent Federal Reserve rate cuts, Treasury yields are pushing upward as demand for U.S. debt sags. Since Trump’s electoral victory, the yield on the 10-year Treasury is up 15 basis points.
Much of the debt currently on the books was financed at very low rates before the Federal Reserve started its hiking cycle. Every month, some of that super-low-yielding paper matures and has to be replaced by bonds yielding much higher rates.
According to the national debt clock, that represents 123.39 percent of GDP. Studies have shown a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 90 percent retards economic growth by about 30 percent.
We see these big deficits month after month, but most people don’t bat an eye. There seems to be a sense that spending more than you take in month after month isn’t a problem.
But anybody who says “deficits don’t matter” is deluded.
“Confidence in U.S. creditworthiness may be undermined by a rapidly deteriorating fiscal situation, an increasing concern with federal debt set to grow substantially in the coming years.”
This could lead to lower economic growth, higher unemployment, and less investment wealth.
Lack of confidence in the U.S. fiscal situation could also lower demand for U.S. debt. This would force interest rates on U.S. Treasuries even higher to attract investors, exacerbating the interest payment problem.
Biden has run the debt higher at a dizzying pace, but to be fair, this isn’t just a Biden problem. Every president since Calvin Coolidge has left the U.S. with a bigger national debt than when he took office.
The debt will likely be one of the biggest problems facing President Trump as he takes the reins of power. With Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, there is an opportunity to tackle the spending problem, but whether the GOP has the political will to make substantial cuts remains to be seen.
Trump has at least talked about slashing the size of government, but he’s going to need to do better than he did during his first term.
The Trump administration almost hit the $1 trillion mark in 2019 and was on pace to run a trillion-dollar deficit in fiscal 2020 before the pandemic, even as the U.S. supposedly enjoyed the “best economy” ever. The economic catastrophe caused by the government’s response to COVID-19 gave policymakers an excuse to spend with no questions asked, and we saw record deficits in fiscal 2020 and 2021.
Even if the Trump administration manages to slash discretionary spending as promised, that only accounts for 27 percent of total spending. The vast majority is for entitlements, and there is little political will to take the scissors to Social Security or Medicare.
And the sad fact is most people in positions of power are content to kick the debt-can down the road. They reason, ‘Nothing has happened yet, so why worry?’ But the problem with playing kick the can down the road is you eventually run out of road.
(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) CNN commentator Van Jones said Wednesday at The New York Times’s Dealbook Summit that Americans want “nothing to do with CNN” and other cable news networks.
Jones told panelists that Democrats are “way off” on their communication strategy, pointing to the success of the Trump campaign’s online outreach.
“First of all, digital is the new door-knocking. You gotta understand that. We were laughing our butts off at Donald Trump for suspending his door-knocking campaign and letting Charlie Kirk and Elon do a bunch of stuff online,” Jones said.
The CNN commentator recalled how Democrats called Republicans “idiots” and “stupid” for relying on the Internet—but then mentioned how people would answer the door holding their cellphones.
Van Jones has come to the realization that legacy media is dead: "Digital is the new doorknocking. You got to understand that we were laughing our butts off at Donald Trump for suspending his door knocking campaign and letting Charlie Kirk and Elon do a bunch of stuff online with… pic.twitter.com/oNGjDemKtZ
“They’re in a 24-hour digital surround sound that has nothing to do with CNN, has nothing to do with any of the stuff that we do,” Jones said.
Jones said his son told him the most influential people are online personalities Kai Cenat, Adin Ross, Jinxy and Sketch. He said his son uses Twitch, Kick and Rumble.
“I said, ‘That sounds like you need to go to the hospital!’ What are these platforms?” Jones said.
Jones admitted that CNN and other previously reputable news sources are out of style, saying, “The mainstream has become fringe, and the fringe has become mainstream.”
Jones’s admission came the week after CNN fell to No. 17 among cable stations during primetime, defeated by Food Network, TNT, Hallmark Channel, ESPN and even MSNBC.
During the same roundtable discussion, Jones urged Democrats to “look in the mirror” and realize their five most recent social movements, including Black Lives Matter, all made the same mistake.
Van Jones laments that the Democrat party does not lift people up, but puts people down with 'dehumanizing binaries' like BLM: "We're pushing people out of this party. And the last thing I'll say is, I hate all this people the anti-woke, the anti this, the anti that. But you've… pic.twitter.com/kGfF1bi9Wz
“We’ve had five movements in a row in our party that rely on dehumanizing binaries where you’re putting down some people to lift somebody else up,” the CNN commentator said. “I love all our movements but there’s a moral flaw when every movement has got to put someone down.”
Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.
