Even Jim Jordan Forced to Admit Trump Is Coercing People

Donald Trump’s big mouth is starting to bite his allies: Even Ohio Representative Jim Jordan found it difficult to defend the president’s careless remarks regarding his administration’s growing attempts to censor the press.

In an interview with CNBC Wednesday, Jordan conceded that Trump’s language regarding his administration’s handling of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was tantamount to coercion.

“Congressman, can I just read you something? This is what the president of the United States says, and you tell me whether you think this sounds like coercion or not,” said Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin.

“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this,” Sorkin continued, quoting Trump. “Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them they gave me $16 million. This one sounds even more lucrative.”

Jordan, in turn, attempted to deflect the criticism, pointing out that Trump’s pressure ultimately was not successful, considering Kimmel’s triumphant return to some late-night broadcasters Tuesday night. But the Ohio Republican couldn’t defend the White House from a point-blank question.

“But that does sound like pressure from the government, right? There’s pressure, it may not be successful pressure, but it’s pressure from the government?” pressed Sorkin.

After a pause, Jordan relented: “I guess you could say maybe some.” He quickly clarified that he believed it boiled down to a “business decision.”

Other MAGA allies were less protective of the administration’s recent actions, which involved FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatening government action against any broadcaster that continued to air Kimmel after the comedian made a not untrue remark about Charlie Kirk’s assassin.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, for one, likened Carr’s behavior to a “mafioso,” and recognized that opening the door to federal censorship would only end badly for Trump and his allies.

“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said; I am thrilled that he was fired,” Cruz said on his podcast. “But let me tell you: If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said; we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like’—that will end up bad for conservatives.”

Trump’s MAGA influencer turned FBI Director Kash Patel is, once again, live-tweeting an active investigation.

A shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas on Wednesday killed two detainees and wounded a third. No ICE personnel were injured. Hours before the suspect’s identity was publicly reported, the FBI director took to X, publishing a photo of “evidence” related to the attack and speculating about the shooter’s motive, in a post with multiple grammatical errors and typos.

“While the investigation is ongoing, an initial review of the evidence shows an idealogical motive behind this attack (see photo below),” Patel wrote. The photo depicts a “recovered” shell casing bearing the phrase “ANTI-ICE.”

The suspect has since been identified in media reports as Joshua Jahn, who was found dead at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But the investigation is still ongoing.

And despite the seeming paucity of evidence on motive thus far, Patel saw it fit to label the incident a politically motivated “attack on “law enforcement.” It was “not a one-off,” he wrote, connecting it to a July attack at an ICE facility in the nearby Texas town “Prarieland [sic].”

The FBI director published the tweet less than five hours after the attack was first reported to police. Fourteen minutes later, he edited the post to fix two grammatical errors.

Observers on social media criticized the rashness of Patel’s post.

“Posting evidence during a very live investigation where you could plausibly have co-conspirators is very stupid and the head of the FBI should know better,” wrote Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State College of Law.

One would, apparently, be mistaken to expect Patel to have learned to exercise due restraint after drawing widespread criticism for his hasty, misleading communications in the immediate wake of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly admitted Wednesday that the Trump administration was looking to sway the outcome of a foreign election.

Speaking on Fox Business, Bessent seemed to suggest that the U.S. government hoped to carry President Javier Milei through Argentina’s legislative election next month, where half of the seats in the country’s Chamber of Deputies will be selected, as well as a third of the Senate.

“The plan is, as long as President Milei continues with his strong economic policies, to help him—to bridge him to the election,” said Bessent.

Earlier this week, Bessent pledged that the United States was “ready to do what is needed within its mandate to support Argentina,” which was a “systemically important U.S. ally in Latin America.” The deepening relationship between the U.S. and Argentina appears to have stemmed from President Donald Trump’s personal affinity for the self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” who runs the country.

But at home, Milei isn’t so popular, suffering a double-digit loss in the provincial midterms earlier this month, as well as congressional opposition to his cuts to health care and education, and a corruption scandal involving his sister, who managed his campaign.

“People are concerned. People are skittish. It’s very hard to believe that it is different this time, but I believe with President Milei it is,” Bessent said on Fox Business.

Bessent said that he’d met with Milei and Trump on Tuesday, lauding the Argentinian president in a post on X Wednesday for his “impressive fiscal consolidation and a broad liberalization of prices and restrictive regulations.”

In his post, Bessent said that U.S. officials were in talks to establish a $20 billion swap line with Argentina’s Central Bank—an institution Milei once promised to abolish—and even purchase secondary or primary government debt.

The secretary also hinted at handouts from U.S. companies—but said they hinged on the results of October’s legislative election. “I have also been in touch with numerous U.S. companies who intend to make substantial foreign direct investments in Argentina [in] multiple sectors in the event of a positive election outcome,” Bessent wrote.

Milei’s libertarian party, La Libertad Avanza, currently holds only seven of the 72 seats in the Senate and 39 of the 257 seats in the lower chamber. That could all change in next month’s election. Milei himself won’t be up for reelection until 2027.

“The Trump Administration is resolute in our support for allies of the United States, and President Trump has given President Milei a rare endorsement of a foreign official, showing his confidence in his government’s economic plans and the geopolitical strategic importance of the relationship between the United States and Argentina,” Bessent wrote. “Immediately after the election, we will start working with the Argentine government on its principal repayments.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan called out President Trump for being racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and more after Trump accused him of wanting to “go to sharia law” in his United Nations General Assembly speech on Tuesday. 

“I look at London where you have a terrible mayor, a terrible, terrible mayor and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law, but you’re in a different country, you can’t do that,” Trump said about halfway through his hour-long speech. Khan, very much on the center-left, is London’s first ever Muslim mayor. Trump’s assertion that he wants to instill sharia law in London is nothing more than a lazy, racist dog whistle. 

Khan struck back accordingly. 

“People are wondering what it is about this Muslim mayor who leads a liberal, multicultural, progressive and successful city, that means I appear to be living rent-free inside Donald Trump’s head,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “I think President Trump has shown he is racist, he is sexist, he is misogynistic, and he is Islamophobic. When people say things, when people act in a certain way, when people behave in a certain way, you’ve got to believe them.”

This is far from the first time Trump has singled out Khan. Just last month, he began to criticize Khan so harshly that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was next to Trump, felt the need to defend Khan, telling the president, “He’s a friend of mine, actually.” 

It’s no coincidence that Trump has unprovoked smoke for London’s first and only Muslim mayor while the U.K.’s right wing (and Elon Musk) continue to sow Islamophobia, as they call to end immigration from Muslim-majority countries and even try to ban burqas.  

Khan and his administration remain unfazed. 

“London is the greatest city in the world, safer than major U.S. cities,” a spokesman for Khan said. “And we’re delighted to welcome the record number of U.S. citizens moving here.”

The Trump campaign’s GoFundMe fundraising efforts for the victims of Hurricane Helene has left millions of dollars unaccounted for.

Fueled by their Project 2025–inspired war on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Trump and his allies fundraised millions in aid last fall for areas of the country ravaged by the Category 4 cyclone. At the time of the disaster, they claimed that individual donations from Americans would make a more sizable impact than FEMA could manage.

“In the wake of this horrible storm, many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned, and left behind by their government,” Trump said last October. “And yet in North Carolina’s hour of desperation, the American people answer the call much more so than your federal government.”

Trump, still a presidential candidate, managed to raise $7.7 million—funds that the campaign later said would go to a handful of Christian charities with close ties to Trump himself. Those religious entities included Mtn2Sea Ministries, Water Mission, Samaritan’s Purse, the Clinch Foundation, and Sweetwater Mission.

Unlike FEMA, these groups are not legally required to publicly disclose their expenditures, making it next to impossible for the press, the communities in need, or those who donated to actually track down the dollars. GoFundMe, one of the largest aid distribution platforms in the world, breaks down the statistics of the donations it receives via its annual nonprofit report—but it does not track whether campaigns hit their targets or if they actually delivered on their promises.

That’s left open a major question regarding the intended Helene aid. Exactly where that money has gone or what exactly it paid for since remains a mystery, according to a Grist report.

Grist reached out to all of the organizations to get a better picture of what Trump’s fundraising efforts actually did for communities struggling to recover in the wake of the storm, but only one—Mtn2Sea Ministries—responded in specifics. The Georgia-based charity used its portion of the funds to “buy $25,000 in gift cards for rural communities in Clinch County,” according to Grist.

Millions more in aid donations, however, remain unaccounted for. Samaritan’s Purse disclosed that it had received $5.2 million, but did not elaborate on where the money went.

“South Carolina-based Water Mission would not say how much it received, though it has published updates on its website about its work supporting communities after Helene,” Grist reported. “Sweetwater Mission, located near Atlanta, did not respond at all to the request.”

Curiously, no record existed for the Clinch Foundation, though Grist did locate an entity known as the Clinch Memorial Foundation in Georgia. That group, similarly, did not respond to Grist’s inquiry.