Trump’s Military Parade Was So Bad That Now He Wants a Redo

Remember that expensive, wasteful military parade that President Trump forced on everyone in June? Now our dear leader wants a redo—by sea.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Navy is planning a larger parade for this fall after the president told aides he was “disappointed” by the marching and paltry attendance. The second parade is reportedly to celebrate the Navy’s 250th anniversary, much like the summer parade was focused on the anniversary of the U.S. Army.

“Through the America 250 celebrations and beyond, President Trump is rightfully restoring patriotism across the administration and giving our brave men and women in uniform the honor they deserve,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said when questioned by The Daily Beast. “Only the anti-American activists at the Daily Beast could possibly take issue with celebrating our U.S. Navy’s 250th Anniversary – sad!”

The Army’s summer spectacle cost U.S. taxpayers $30 million, and was largely a flop.

It’s unclear what else will be different about this parade aside from the personnel. If Trump was upset by the lack of turnout at his earlier parade, especially after comparing it to the March on Washington, it’s unclear how the Navy would change that. And while MAGA loyalists were delighted by this summer’s show of power, the majority of the public was conflicted. Another parade will likely sow the same sentiments.

A Republican official in North Carolina was charged with felony child abuse after he allegedly attempted to drug his two granddaughters with cocaine and MDMA.

The chairman of the Surry County Board of Elections, James Edwin Yokeley Jr., told police earlier this month that he had discovered “two hard objects” in ice cream he had bought from a local Dairy Queen—but video evidence collected during the investigation suggested otherwise.

Yokeley was reportedly caught on tape placing the pills in the girls’ ice cream himself, the Wilmington Police Department said in a press release Wednesday. Neither child ingested the drug-laced pills.

The local Republican chair was arrested and is currently held on a $100,000 bail. Along with the child abuse charges, Yokeley faces two counts of contaminating food or drink with a controlled substance, and felony possession of schedule 1 narcotics.

Yokeley only recently came into power in the artsy beach town: The 66-year-old was appointed in June by State Auditor Dave Boliek, though the state official no longer appears to be one of his supporters. In an interview with WRAL News, Boliek called the matter “very disturbing.”

Yokeley was selected in part because of his previous experience on the board. He had previously run for a seat on the Surry County Board of Education in 2022, winning 26.69 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. Boliek emphasized that “nothing” had appeared in the election officials’ background check “that would suggest this at all.”

Yokeley resigned via letter Thursday afternoon, though he insisted that he had been “falsely accused.”

“Based on the truth and facts, I remain prayerfully confident that I will be exonerated of all accusations levied against me,” Yokeley wrote.

In a statement to the News & Observer, Boliek said that the resignation would allow the board to “move forward with the process of appointing a replacement.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt struggled to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to oust Susan Monarez, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While taking questions at a White House press briefing Thursday, Leavitt was asked about a statement from Monarez lawyer Mark Zaid, who alleged she was fired after she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

“What specifically did she do wrong?” asked one reporter. 

“Look, what I will say about this individual is that her lawyers’ statement made it abundantly clear themselves that she was not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again,” Leavitt said. “And the secretary asked her to resign, she said she would, and then she said she wouldn’t, so the president fired her, which he has every right to do.”

“It was President Trump who was overwhelmingly re-elected on November 5. This woman has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission,” Leavitt continued. 

But Leavitt was wrong. Just one month ago, Monarez was confirmed by a Senate vote along party lines, and was sworn into office shortly after. If she wasn’t aligned with Trump’s mission, it’s unclear why that wouldn’t have been determined in April when he nominated her, or anytime after.

Leavitt said a new nominee would be announced soon. 

Monarez’s firing has sparked outrage at the CDC. Four agency heads resigned Wednesday, warning that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had compromised the agency’s mission with anti-vaccine policies and other growing misinformation. CDC staff also staged a walkout Thursday, in response to the ongoing turmoil.  

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.