Trump Tells the Navy to View Half the Country as the Enemy

President Donald Trump lashed out at Democrats during a wildly political speech that made the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary all about him.

Speaking to a massive crowd at the Norfolk Naval base Sunday, Trump seemed to forget he wasn’t on the campaign trail anymore and veered off into attacks against his opposition.

Trump warned that, “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats.”

“They want to give all of our money to illegal aliens that pour into the country. And you know, I have a bigger heart than they do, but the problem is when you do that, they come in by the millions. Everybody wants that, so you can’t do it,” Trump said, before bragging about how much money he’d poured into the armed forces.

It almost goes without saying, but Trump’s highly political comments are out of step with the U.S. military’s tradition of nonpartisanship. And for the second time in a week, the president seemed intent on turning his armed forces against half of the country.

Last week, when speaking to a gathering of top U.S. military brass, Trump delivered a diatribe against the Democrats, which was met mostly by silence. He ranted that the United States was “under invasion from within.”

Now, calling the Democrats a “gnat” to be swatted away is just the latest in a long line of dehumanizing rhetoric from the president. He’s also called his opponents “vermin,” and “the enemy within,” and recently referred to Democrats as “The Party Of Hate, Evil, And Satan.” All while blaming the rhetoric of the left for a spate of political violence.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Ghislaine Maxwell, who was hoping the court would reverse her convictions for her role in helping the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein abuse young girls.

Maxwell’s convictions and 20-year criminal sentence remain in place, after the Supreme Court declined certiorari, meaning fewer than four of the nine justices voted for the Supreme Court to review her case. The decision came with no dissent or explanation.

Maxwell and her legal team had argued that she should have been protected from federal prosecution because a 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida shielded his “potential co-conspirators” from charges.

“We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” said Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus. “But this fight isn’t over. Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”

In July, Markus requested that Maxwell receive clemency from President Donald Trump.

This story has been updated.

A South Carolina Judge who recently ruled against the Trump administration had her house go up in a massive cloud of flames on Sunday. 

Judge Diane Goodstein’s home can be seen in a video engulfed in a gargantuan cloud of smoke and fire. Three people were injured, including Goodstein’s son as well her husband, former state Senator Arnold Goodstein, who had to jump out of the window while fleeing to safety. The judge herself was not in the home at the time of the incident. Authorities have yet to determine what the cause of the fire was, and there is currently no evidence of foul play. 

However, the timing of this accident is rather peculiar. Goodstein recently blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to access South Carolina’s voter registration database in their effort to exert greater control over elections. Goodstein’s decision was later overturned, and she was called out directly on X by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.   

Goodstein also received death threats for weeks before the fire, according to Time magazine. And just days ago, Trump adviser Stephen Miller wrote that there is “a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country” that is “shielded by far-left Democrat judges.” 

Even as police continue to investigate, it’s hard to ignore that this judge’s home burned down in the midst of an executive effort to publicly shame and isolate judges the administration disagrees with. Many judges have made it clear that they feel a ruling against Trump, no matter how principled, makes them a target.     

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is decrying the notion that the president sending troops into American cities is subject to judicial review.

Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut temporarily blocked the administration from deploying National Guard troops to Oregon.

The Trump-appointed judge—whom the president has mistakenly referred to as a man—first blocked the deployment of Oregon’s National Guard, before blocking that of all states’ National Guards for two weeks. Oregon, Immergut said, would “suffer an injury to its sovereignty” once “the federalized National Guard deploys to Portland.”

An enraged Miller took to X just after midnight on Monday to post a screed against the ruling.

The president, Miller claimed, has “undisputed authority” to “deploy troops, stationed in any state, to defend a federal facility” from what he called “domestic terrorism or violent assault.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Miller added, is facing a “violent armed resistance designed to incapacitate the essential operations of the duly-elected federal government, by force.”

“A district court judge has no conceivable authority, whatsoever, to restrict the President and Commander-in-Chief from dispatching members of the U.S. military to defend federal lives and property,” Miller wrote, calling the ruling an “egregious and thunderous” violation of “constitutional order” and an attempt to “nullify the 2024 election by fiat.”

The statement was consistent with Miller’s habit of referring to political activity he doesn’t like in hysterical terms, perhaps to establish a pretext to crack down on Republicans’ political opponents.

Notably, the federal judge that drew Miller’s ire dismantled his and the Trump administration’s alarmist descriptions of Portland as a war-torn hellscape.

While the president has said Portland is so “war-ravaged” as to require the National Guard, Immergut said this was “simply untethered to the facts.” Protests at an ICE building in Portland—which Miller said are akin to “violent armed resistance”—have actually been “small and uneventful” on the whole, the judge noted, and nothing that “the regular forces” such as Federal Protective Services can’t handle.

A progressive member of the Chicago City Council was detained Friday after pressing federal agents about the due process rights of a detainee being held in a hospital within her ward.

Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes told reporters she had gone to Humboldt Park Hospital upon hearing that a roughly 37-year-old man—who was being chased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during an operation in the neighborhood—had fallen, broken his leg, and was taken to the hospital by the agents.

The agents, whom she identified as ICE, were not letting the man speak with lawyers, Fuentes said. A video of the incident, which begins amid a back-and-forth between the elected official and two agents, was shared on Fuentes’s Facebook page.

The footage begins with Fuentes stressing that the detained man has constitutional rights, to which one agent replied, “No. No.” The alderperson asked whether the agents had a signed judicial warrant for him.

“You need to leave,” the agent answered, threatening to arrest her. The other agent, a masked man, told Fuentes, “You are going to be placed under arrest—”

Before he could finish, his partner violently yanked Fuentes’s arm with both hands, turned her around, and placed her in handcuffs. A woman behind the camera can be heard saying, “This is an alderperson who is being [placed] under arrest!”

While being handcuffed, Fuentes inquired repeatedly about a warrant for the injured man, and seemingly told the men the handcuffs were hurting her. She emphasized that she had not touched the agents, and the man who handcuffed her said she was “under arrest for impeding.”

“That man has constitutional rights,” Fuentes repeated, before the masked agent brought her to the exit door. “I did not touch you. It is a public space. I am not trespassing. I am asking you: Do you have a signed judicial warrant?”

The masked agent eventually replied that he did not need a warrant.

At a press conference, Fuentes said she was ultimately brought outside, where Border Patrol agents were going to put her into a vehicle. However, she was released from her handcuffs, she said, upon asking, “What law did I break, outside of exercising my constitutional right to ask if they had a signed judicial warrant?”

According to Block Club Chicago, a local news site, Fuentes was told she would be arrested if she reentered the building.

Fuentes told the press that this is “not the first incident” of its kind, but “common practice,” as “ICE has been taking individuals into hospital rooms, into emergency rooms, because people are harmed while ICE is trying to detain people in the city of Chicago.”

“What ICE is doing is exercising violence,” she said, “physical violence on the people of Chicago.”