Trump Picks Annoying Hooters-Obsessed Troll as U.S. Ambassador

A right-wing commentator who has possibly tweeted about Hooters more times than anyone is now Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Malaysia.

“Mr. President, thank you for the honor of a lifetime. In your America, all dreams come true. It will be my honor to represent the United States of America in Malaysia,” Adams said Thursday on X. “To the esteemed Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I look forward to a confirmation process that is at the heart of the Constitution that has given me the freedom to pursue the American Dream.”

Nick Adams is an Australian who arrived on the U.S. political scene in 2016 as an early Trump supporter. He fell in with the Turning Point USA crowd and became an American citizen in 2021. Adams is also a stringent right-winger whose X account reads as a caricature of the entire manosphere. His views range from traditional white supremacy to comical hypermasculinity. His banner on X reads “President Trump’s Favorite Author,” in reference to Trump tweeting some praise from Adams in 2017.

“I’m a walking, talking masterpiece of masculinity. Testosterone levels spike when I enter a room,” Adams posted in 2023. “Everywhere I go, I leave a trail of awestruck admirers in my wake.”

Last year, Adams described his “ideal woman” as “10/10, Low maintenance, strong Trump supporter, no desire to interfere with my foursomes, picks me up from Hooters when I’ve had a few too many domestics with the boys, has dinner ready at 5pm, doesn’t ask questions when I’m out late with the boys.”

“I have already put together a team of billionaires and hundred millionaires to acquire Hooters—any additional investors interested in teaming up on this important venture to save Western Civilization?” he wrote this year in one of his countless posts about the overly sexualized restaurant chain.

Last month, he described the U.S. and Israeli bombings of Iran, which killed hundreds of civilians, as “life saving bombings.” And just this Wednesday, Adams said that “almost all of America’s economic and infrastructure problems are caused by illegal immigration.”

Regardless of how real you think Adams’s Andrew Tate–adjacent MAGA man schtick is, the most important takeaway is that Trump now has yet another mindless devotee with zero actual qualifications in a consequential Cabinet position. This is an administration made up entirely of yes-men.

Donald Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on copper, a move that is sure to slow production and make prices skyrocket.

“Copper is necessary for Semiconductors, Aircraft, Ships, Ammunition, Data Centers, Lithium-ion Batteries, Radar Systems, Missile Defense Systems, and even, Hypersonic Weapons, of which we are building many,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Tuesday night.

Trump said that the decision was the result of a “robust national security assessment” and indicated that the tariffs served to boost domestic manufacturing to make the United States competitive with China. “America will once again build a DOMINANT copper industry,” he wrote.

The U.S. currently produces just over half of the refined copper that it consumes, with two-thirds of that copper coming from Arizona, according to Reuters. The rest is imported, mostly from the Americas. Canada, Chile, and Peru accounted for more than 90 percent of refined copper imports last year.

China also gets the majority of its copper from Chile and Peru, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Beijing has made significant investments to expand its copper mining operation.

Carlos Miguel Gutierrez, who served as secretary of commerce under President George W. Bush, told CNBC that U.S. reliance on copper imports was a “vulnerability” but that the U.S. doesn’t have “the capacity right now to offset copper imports.” He said it would take the U.S. until at least 2027 or 2028 to build up the capacity to smelt enough copper for all of the country’s needs.

In the meantime, Trump’s tariffs will put a significant strain on domestic manufacturing by raising copper prices. Following Trump’s initial threat of a tariff on copper prices, the price spiked 13 percent, its highest one-day gain since 1989. By August, American consumers may end up paying as much as $15,000 per metric ton for copper, while the rest of the world pays only $10,000, according to an estimate from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order nationwide.

Trump’s order, which seeks to deny automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants or those with temporary status, was set to go into effect in late July, in at least some states, after the Supreme Court last month lifted nationwide injunctions halting the order.

However, the Supreme Court left open the possibility that a judge could freeze Trump’s order by granting nationwide class action status to all children who would be affected by it. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups thus challenged Trump’s order and refiled their case as a class action lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante, a George W. Bush appointee.

On Thursday, Laplante granted their request, certifying the class and issuing an injunction that stops Trump’s order in its tracks—or, at least, is set to do so after a pause of a few days, during which the president will have the opportunity to appeal.

“The preliminary injunction is just not a close call to the court,” LaPlante reportedly ruled from the bench. (He said he will issue a written decision later Thursday.) “The deprivation of U.S. citizenship and an abrupt change of policy that was longstanding” would cause “irreparable harm,” he said, calling citizenship “the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”

Laplante’s decision marks a significant, if temporary, victory against Trump’s anti-constitutional war on birthright citizenship.

This story has been updated.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is refusing to take responsibility after a report found that she personally instituted a rule that created obstacles in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the deadly floods in Texas over the July 4 weekend.

Per a Thursday CNN report citing four FEMA officials, Noem recently enacted a requirement that DHS expenditures exceeding $100,000 be signed off by her office. As a result, the agency was unable to deploy proactive Urban Search and Rescue squads near anticipated areas of flooding, as it usually would. While state rescue teams sprang into action, “FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets”—and they didn’t receive it until Monday, at which point floodwaters had been raging for over 72 hours.

Texas’s request for aerial imagery to help with search and rescue efforts was also “delayed as it awaited Noem’s approval for the necessary contract,” and, at a FEMA-manned disaster call center, “callers have faced longer wait times as the agency awaited Noem’s approval for a contract to bring in additional support staff.”

It’s a damning report describing a policy one former Customs and Border Protection official called “absolutely nuts,” according to Federal News Network.

Noem dismissed the report out of hand during a Thursday morning appearance on Fox and Friends, even laughing when co-host Griff Jenkins brought it up, before fixating on the outlet that published it rather than the direct line FEMA officials drew between her policy and delays in the disaster response.

“Well there you go. Fake news,” Noem said. “CNN, again, is absolutely trash, what they are doing by saying that. Because our Coast Guard, our Border Patrol, [Border Patrol Tactical Unit] teams were there immediately. Every single thing … they asked for, we were there.”

Noem continued, “The fact that CNN is continuing to be political and push out fake information and false information and lies is not shocking, but it’s a disservice to the country. It’s a real disservice to the country because people start to mistrust anything that comes out, then, over the news.”

U.S. permanent resident and reggaeton artist Leamsy Izquierdo has revealed that conditions in “Alligator Alcartraz,” where he is detained, are as inhumane as advertised.

“There’s no water here for people to bathe. I haven’t showered for four days, there’s no water, no toothpaste, they don’t let you out for even a minute to get some air,” said Izquierdo, whose stage name is Leamsy La Figura, in a phone call later shared online by his partner Katia Hernández. “We are in a cage of metal bars with the lights on 24 hours a day, and the mosquitoes seem like elephants.”

Izquierdo has been detained at Alligator Alcatraz since Friday.

“They give us food only once a day, food that has even been infested with worms. The lights are never turned off, they’re on 24 hours a day,” he continued. “And the mosquitoes seem like elephants.”

Izquierdo is a lawful permanent legal resident of the United States, but was scooped up and deported on extremely short notice after he was arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and simple assault in Miami-Dade County on July 2.

“He never attacked anyone,” Hernández told Telemundo 51. “The police didn’t give him time to explain.”

The Trump administration has been very defensive of conditions in their shining concentration camp on a hill.

“The reporting on the conditions in the facility is completely false,” Stephanie Hartman, director of communications for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said to CBS News. “The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order.”

Izquierdo’s case, much like that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and countless other immigrants, shows just how indiscriminate and extrajudicial Trump’s immigration crackdown is. Ordinary people will continue to suffer while Trump and his inner circle delight in their pumped-up detainment and deportation numbers.