Trump Reverses Some Food Tariffs, Claims to Solve Problem He Created

On Thursday, President Trump decided to renege on his 40 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods, ending a problem he created. The agricultural products tariffed—beef, fruit, coffee, cocoa—were getting more and more expensive for Americans everywhere.  

“After considering the information and recommendations these officials have provided to me and the status of negotiations with the Government of Brazil, among other things, I have determined that it is necessary and appropriate to modify the scope of products subject to the additional ad valorem rate of duty imposed under Executive Order 14323,” Trump wrote in an executive order. “Specifically, I have determined that certain agricultural products shall not be subject to the additional ad valorem rate of duty imposed under Executive Order 14323.”

Trump initially levied the tariffs against Brazil on the grounds that it was unfairly prosecuting former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro—who was recently sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting to stage a coup in 2023, which some compare to the January 6, 2021 insurrection in the U.S. Bolsonaro had his supporters raid Brazil’s presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and Congress, all because he’d lost the election to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

Now, with Bolsonaro in jail and grocery prices in the U.S. skyrocketing, Trump is backtracking. The Brazilian president made it clear early on that he wouldn’t cave to Trump, stating over the summer that “at no point will Brazil negotiate as if it were a small country up against a big country.” It appears he meant it.

“Trump’s decision to remove many tariffs on Brazilian products is a significant political victory for the Lula administration ahead of next year’s presidential elections,” Brazilian professor Oliver Stuenkel wrote on X. “And a vindication of Brazil’s choice to pursue a calm and pragmatic negotiation strategy vis-à-vis Trump.” 

The Trump administration is going rogue—and MAGA is not happy about it.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held a private meeting in July with Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy who spent 30 years in prison for selling U.S. secrets to Israel during the Cold War.

The news caught the rest of the administration off guard, including the CIA and the president, according to three U.S. officials that spoke with The New York Times.

The “friendly” off-the-books encounter took place at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, according to Pollard, who spoke with the Times by phone on Wednesday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that the White House was not informed of the meeting beforehand but that, regardless, “the president stands by our ambassador.”

It was unclear if the State Department had given the go-ahead for the meeting, and still more confusing as to why Huckabee and his senior adviser David Milstein believed it prudent to meet with one of the most notorious spies from the Cold War.

MAGA conservatives were outraged by the meeting, arguing online that Huckabee should be removed from his post for meeting with a “traitor.”

“Immediately Recall Ambassador Huckabee, He is Out of Control,” posted Grace Chong, the chief financial officer and chief operating officer for Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast.

“There is no universe where it’s appropriate for Mike Huckabee, who is supposed to be OUR AMBASSADOR and serve our country’s interest, is meeting with Jonathan Pollard, who to this day encourages spying on the U.S.,” wrote right-wing influencer Mike Cernovich, calling for an investigation into the meeting.

Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for passing thousands of classified documents pertaining to U.S. nuclear, military, and technical matters along to Israel. Still, some people viewed him as a hero—including Huckabee and some Israelis—spending years lobbying for his early release, which came in 2015.

When he moved to Israel, Pollard was met with a “hero’s welcome on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Times.

“Pollard said he did not regret spying for Israel, claiming the United States had cut Israel out of intelligence sharing. And he castigated [Donald] Trump, calling him a ‘madman who has literally sold us down the drain, for Saudi gold,’” the Times reported.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is reportedly “encouraging” a federal grand jury investigation into Justice Department official Ed Martin and Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte for potential misconduct in pursuing criminal charges against prominent Democrats.

The new investigation, led by the Maryland U.S. attorney’s office, is focused on whether the mortgage fraud charges against California Senator Adam Schiff and possibly New York Attorney General Letitia James were tainted by the methods of Martin and Pulte, who allegedly shared sensitive information with individuals who were not authorized to be part of the investigation.

Two sources told MS Now that Blanche had grown concerned over unforced errors in their cases, and was helping to oversee the investigation into the potential misconduct.

Appearing on MS NOW Thursday night, reporter Carol Leonnig said that Blanche and other top DOJ lawyers had grown “very frustrated” with Martin’s and Pulte’s methods. Blanche was not only well aware of the probe into their conduct, he also was “not in any way interfering with it, and possibly even encouraging” it, Leonnig said.

“In this case, it is a problem, according to our sources, for Todd Blanche, to have cases that aren’t being handled very properly. And as we saw, there were some unforced errors,” Leonnig said. “In another case in the Eastern District of Virginia yesterday. We’re told Blanche is a little bit embarrassed about all of that.”

Christine Bish, a California realtor who helped compile evidence to support allegations of mortgage fraud against Schiff, said she was specifically subpoenaed to discuss her communications with Martin and Pulte.

“They’re investigating each other,” Bish told CNN. “It’s stupid.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham believes that the government owes him restitution for accessing his phone records while investigating Donald Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021.

As part of the budget bill passed to fund the government earlier this month, a provision was passed allowing senators who had their phone records accessed by the government without their knowledge to sue the Justice Department. Senators would be able to win $500,000 of taxpayer money per violation. Many members of Congress found this abhorrent, and this week the House voted to repeal the provision. Graham was incensed and blocked the repeal when it came to the Senate.

“I’m going to sue Biden’s DOJ and Jack Smith, I’m going to sue Verizon, it’s going to be a hell of a lot more than $500,000,” Graham said on the Senate floor Friday, referring to the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

It’s petty, corrupt, and vindictive for Graham to demand that the government pay him for being one of eight Republican senators whose phone records were subpoenaed by Smith’s team. The bill is specifically written to be retroactive to 2022 to help them out. Even Republicans in the House see the whole thing as corrupt.

“What they did is wrong,” said Republican Representative Austin Scott about the provision. “This should not be in this piece of legislation, and they can say it’s about good governance all they want to. When they made it retroactive, all of a sudden it was no longer about good governance. There’s actually a list of people that know they will get paid as soon as this thing is signed.”

Embattled Republican Representative Cory Mills was caught with sex workers on an unofficial mission to Afghanistan in 2021, when he was still a congressional candidate. 

Mills was traveling with a group to Afghanistan to save Americans after former President Biden’s withdrawal from the country left the Taliban in power. On their way, the group stopped in Tbilisi, Georgia, where Mills was caught in a hallway with sex workers, leaving the group he traveled with irate, NOTUS reports. The group then decided to part ways with him, and he appeared to go to Afghanistan on his own.

The congressman made no mention of the incident, instead framing himself as a hero and attacking the State Department for attempting to take any credit for the evacuation.

“This is an attempt to save face by the administration for the Americans they left behind. This is a woman with three children from age 15 all the way down to 2 years old,” Mills told Fox News Digital then. “And they did nothing to try to expedite this.… But at the very last minute, you have these ‘senior officials’ at the State Department trying to claim credit for this, like, ‘Oh yeah, look what we’ve done.’”

Whenever Mills is in the news, it tends to be for some kind of scandal. This year, five of his former service members accused him of “stolen valor,” saying he didn’t deserve a Bronze Star as he didn’t actually save their lives overseas and wasn’t even present at the event. 

Mills was also accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend at his Washington, D.C., apartment, and in February saw his ex-girlfriend file a restraining order against him for  “harassment, threatening to release sexual videos, and to harm future boyfriends.”

And this week, the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Mills for “improperly solicited and/or received gifts, including in connection with privately sponsored officially-connected travel,” and allegations that he “received special favors by virtue of his position” and “engaged in misconduct with respect to allegations of sexual misconduct and/or dating violence.”