MAGA Rep. Slams Trump’s Shady Takeover of Businesses

President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda is increasingly at odds with free market economics, and some key conservatives are beginning to notice.

At least one Republican—Texas Representative Chip Roy—has harpooned the president’s Intel deal, reminding CNBC Thursday that government stakes in private entities defies conservative values.

Roy also challenged the Trump administration’s intent to develop a state-owned investment fund known as a sovereign wealth fund.

“I think the problem here is that we built up through the broken system and the swamp, this world in which these corporations depend so heavily on the government, when in fact what they should be doing is producing products and competing in the market,” Roy said.

“What I don’t like is taking up stakes in private entities,” he continued. “And in terms of a sovereign wealth fund, we’ve got a massive amount of ability to produce wealth and capital in this country by virtue of free enterprise.”

Roy then claimed that America’s economics had allowed it to front global innovation, citing the creation of the lightbulb, flight, and space travel.

“Now, in the area of tech and AI and everything else, we’ve done that through our innovation and through private enterprise. We do not want to go down the road of government ownership of these things,” he underscored.

The Texas lawmaker did concede that the White House had rightly identified the need to “clean up” corporate dependence on government and “restore competition,” but added that he doesn’t love the idea of government “getting in the game” of the private sector.

Last week, the Trump administration took a 10 percent stake in Intel, purchasing 433.3 million shares for a total price of $8.9 billion. The transaction made the U.S. government Intel’s single largest shareholder, though Intel said that the White House would not have a board seat or hold any governing rights of the company.

Despite widespread concern regarding the federal infiltration, one of Trump’s top economic advisers—National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett—said that Trump is already looking to cut more deals with other companies.

“I’m sure that at some point there’ll be more transactions, if not in this industry, in other industries,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC Monday.

It’s not the only time that Roy has clashed with Trump.

Roy has fielded plenty of criticism from the MAGA leader—including being heckled as “weak and ineffective”—for daring to oppose the president’s agenda. The pair notably split opinions on the “big, beautiful bill,” when the Freedom Caucus member raised hell over the tax cut’s enormous price tag.

President Donald Trump’s administration is asking the naval base outside of Chicago, Illinois for help carrying out the president’s massive deportation campaign, apparently as part of his planned federal takeover of the Windy City.

Navy Captain Stephen Yargosz, the commanding officer of the Naval Station Great Lakes bases, wrote an email to his leadership team alerting them that agents with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be housed at the base starting after Labor Day, and throughout the month of September.

“These operations are similar to what occurred in Los Angeles earlier this summer. Same DHS team,” Yargosz wrote in the email obtained by The Chicago Sun Times. “This morning I received a call that there is the potential to also support National Guard units. Not many details on this right now. Mainly a lot of concerns and questions.”

Naval Station Great Lakes spokesperson Matt Mogle said Wednesday that the Lake Michigan adjacent base had received a request from the DHS, asking for “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS operations.”

Mogle said that no decision had been made on the request, and that they’d received no formal request to mobilize National Guard troops in Chicago, according to the Associated Press.

DHS’s request to Naval Station Great Lakes comes as Trump has set his sights on Chicago to expand his baseless law enforcement crackdown in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. (read: intimidation campaign of Democratic cities) using National Guard troops. The president has claimed he has the “the right to do anything” he wants.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin all said that they had not received any information from the White House about the naval support request.

During a press conference earlier this week, Pritzker warned Trump to keep out of Chicago.

President Trump has fired Surface Transportation Board member Robert Primus, a Democrat, who he himself first appointed to the railroad regulator board in 2020. Primus, who was expected to weigh in on a major railroad merger, is at least the fourth top official fired this week, joining ousted Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook, CDC Director Susan Monarez, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Jeffrey Kruse. 

Primus plans to protest his firing. 

“This is deeply troubling and legally invalid,” he wrote in an email sent to The Wall Street Journal. He also noted that his firing would “adversely affect the freight rail network in a way that may ultimately hurt consumers and the economy.”

The White House disagreed.

“Robert Primus did not align with the President’s America First agenda,” the White House said in a statement. “The Administration intends to nominate new, more qualified members to the Surface Transportation Board in short order.”

It’s possible that Primus’s firing had something to do with his history of opposing megamerger’s for the sake of the public good. In 2023, he was the only member of the Surface Transportation Board to go against the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroad merger. And Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern recently announced a $71.5 billion deal to join together to control all coast-to-coast rail shipments for the first time ever in this country—a megamerger that the Surface Transportation Board was still considering.  

It is unclear whether Trump has tapped a replacement for Primus, even as the ousted board member looks into a potential legal challenge. Cook and Monarez have also refused to vacate their positions. 

Yet another Republican member of Congress was blasted by his constituents at his own town hall over his support for President Donald Trump’s agenda. Barry Moore of Alabama, a U.S. representative and Senate candidate, slipped out the back door of a Wednesday event in Daphne, as the audience erupted in shouts of “Shame!”

According to a video of the event posted online, an early sign of trouble for Moore came at his first mention of Trump’s tax and spending plan, which includes historic rollbacks of the social safety net and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will further enrich the rich and impoverish the poor.

The name of the so-called “big, beautiful bill” alone drew boos.

“So, I guess you guys maybe have read the legislation, I don’t know,” Moore said, leading more than one attendee to shout, “Have you?”

When Moore claimed inflation is the lowest it’s been in decades, attendees laughed in disbelief. The response was even more raucous when he claimed that no Americans will lose Medicaid under Trump’s plan. “That is not true!” “You’re lying!” people shouted.

Then came the Q&A portion, beginning with a question about whether Moore believes consumers pay for Trump’s tariffs. “So, right now, what we just saw in a report is that we haven’t seen inflation at all—” he began. But, sensing his evasiveness, the crowd began to chant: “Who pays the tariffs? Who pays the tariffs?”

Moore similarly struck out with his audience on social issues. He attributed Republican electoral gains in 2024, in part, to voters realizing that “they don’t want men in our daughters’ locker rooms,” a take that elicited outcry. (“There’s a pedophile in the White House!” one woman yelled.)

Asked if he supports “no-exception abortion bans, even if somebody you know were raped,” Moore said, “I am 100 percent pro-life,” and was once again showered in boos.

On the topic of immigration, one attendee asked why immigrants are being deported without due process. Moore replied that “due process for a citizen and noncitizen are different,” and the audience fell into chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as the congressman headed out the back door.

The congressman licked his wounds during a Thursday appearance on a conservative radio show, where he claimed the event had been “hijacked” by left-wing “agitators.”

After deceiving their base and inadvertently sparking days of national controversy, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will finally be called to testify before Congress.

Bondi and Patel will appear before the House Judiciary Committee, with the attorney general testifying on September 17 and the FBI director on October 9, according to Politico. The majority of the questioning is expected to focus on the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein case, like how Bondi went from claiming she had the Epstein files “sitting on my desk” to declaring the case closed, and why whatever files the administration has released contain virtually no new information.

While the Epstein files have not dominated the daily news cycle in recent weeks as they initially did, Congress’s return from recess next week may very well kick the discourse back into gear.

Democrats will likely focus on Trump’s relationship to the deceased sex predator, while Republicans will try to appease MAGA loyalists who have been chasing the story for years. Either way, Bondi and Patel are sure to face some tough questioning regarding their apparent mishandling of it all.

Former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta—who as U.S. Attorney to the Southern District of Florida provided Epstein with the sweetheart plea deal that allowed him to avoid any real punishment for his sex trafficking crimes—has also agreed to be interviewed by the House Oversight Committee on September 19.