Trump administration

Trump on Mexican cartels: ‘You know what the only solution is’

Donald Trump’s second term has been revolutionary in many ways, particularly in his administration’s approach to foreign affairs. From the get-go, the nomination of Marco Rubio as his top diplomat and Chris Landau as Rubio’s deputy signaled a break from orthodoxy. In picking Rubio, previously the most vocal senator on hemispheric affairs, and Landau, Trump’s ambassador to Mexico in his first term, the message was clear: our neighborhood is a top priority.  In his first exclusive magazine interview of his second term, Trump met with The Spectator’s Ben Domenech in the Oval Office, where a large portion of the conversation delved into Latin-American affairs.

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The Spectator’s interview with President Trump: full transcript

The following is an edited transcript of Ben Domenech's exclusive sit-down with Donald Trump — the president's first magazine interview since his return to the Oval Office. The full article will be published in The Spectator’s April edition. You can also listen to it here: https://audioboom.com/posts/8662219-the-donald-trump-interview BEN DOMENECH: The change that you've done this time in terms of your approach... the speed is the only thing people in this town can talk about. They can't believe that you have put the fear of God into bureaucrats and Eurocrats so quickly. And I just wonder, what is it that you learned from the last time around that maybe factored into how rapidly you started moving when you got back in? PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP: So the last time...

What’s behind the vicious attacks on Elon Musk?

Why are Democrats mounting such a ferocious assault on Elon Musk? Why are mainstream media outlets so eager to go along? The simplest answers are the best. Musk is the most prominent member of the new administration aside from the president himself. He is Donald Trump’s point man for exposing malfeasance in federal bureaucracies, determining where the money is going and cutting the engorged payroll. The more Musk and Trump succeed, the worse for Democrats. They created those agencies; their supporters staff them; and those supporters funnel lots of public money to specially favored institutions and projects. When Musk attacks this partisan nexus, he is attacking a major source of Democratic power and influence. That is what’s really at stake here, beyond cutting the budget.

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Sean Hannity declares ‘legacy media is dead’

Sean Hannity played the role of the coroner for traditional news outlets in an interview with Mediaite this morning. “That’s why legacy media is dead — they don’t know it yet, because they don’t tell the truth. They lied about the cognitive state, they lied about immigration, they lied about the economy,” he said before pulling out a list of other untruths that seemed more like an autopsy than anything else. The irony is clear: Hannity has been working for Fox News for the last twenty-nine years, so what separates him and Fox from the media that he declares dead? Well, he would say it’s the legacy media’s lies and weaponization against Trump, evidenced by the fact that the American public voted for him anyway.

Trump plays the hits at CPAC keynote

National Harbor, Maryland President Donald Trump capstoned a three-day CPAC pep rally with a message of… well, Trump. To be fair, that’s what virtually everybody else at the conference was speaking about too. The ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort was packed. In the build-up members of the Trump administration and world leaders had taken the stage, but make no mistake: the attendees were here to see the president himself. Trump entered to rapturous applause. After his signature move of standing before the podium for the entirety of “God Bless the USA,” he addressed the audience. “We fought through hell together, but in the end, we achieved the great liberation of America,” he said. “Kamala?” Trump asked himself, as if searching for a forgotten memory.

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democrats

Where do the Democrats go from here?

Losing elections is a bit like getting dumped. Often times the dumped party’s desire to overcome the heartbreak or to bounce back from the blow can result in an even messier downfall. You need a minute to get your act together, lest you make an ass of yourself in public while trying to demonstrate how well you’re doing. The Democrats are in that break-up spiral, with their latest antics exposing a lack of both direction and discretion.  Earlier this month, Representative Maxine Waters, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Al Green (combined age: 237) gathered outside the Treasury Department and bemoaned the Department of Government Efficiency and its leader Elon Musk.

Elon Musk wields chainsaw at impromptu CPAC appearance

National Harbor, Maryland Elon Musk made a surprise appearance at CPAC Thursday afternoon, where Argentinian president Javier Milei presented him with a chainsaw. “This is a chainsaw for bureaucracy!” Musk said, brandishing it before a whooping crowd. The Department of Government Efficiency chief took to the stage with Newsmax host Rob Schmitt. Musk wore his MAGA hat — “dark gothic MAGA!” as he said — a black jacket and mirror shades, which he kept on for the duration of his appearance. The X CEO called for America to “legalize comedy” and agreed with Schmitt that legacy media companies receiving USAID money from the federal government were becoming “mouthpieces for the state.

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Liz Truss calls for a ‘Trump revolution in Britain’

National Harbor, Maryland Former British prime minister Liz Truss began her speech at CPAC today by declaring that America has just entered its golden age with the election of President Trump. Britain, however, is in its dark age, she said: “Let’s be honest, Britain isn't working.” Truss’s concerns for the current state of the UK and Europe mirrored those expressed in Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich last week. She touched on attacks on free speech in the UK, the rise of Pakistani grooming gangs and the inability of the British government to do anything about the rise in illegal immigration.

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Were Trump’s comments about Ukraine a gambit to bring about peace?

If you have a pot that needs stirring, call Donald Trump.  A couple of days ago Trump made heads explode when he claimed (among other things) that Volodymyr Zelensky was “a dictator without elections” who started the war with Russia. “Oh my God, can you believe it? Trump doesn’t know Russia was the aggressor in the war. What an idiot.” The BBC, CNN and many other news sites ran little “fact-checking” stories. Politicians dusted off their most serious faces to deplore Trump’s lies/exaggerations (the US hasn’t given $350 billion to Ukraine, it was “only” $180 billion or whatever)/historical ignorance. “Ukraine did not start the war,” CNN intoned. “Russia started the war by invading Ukraine in 2022.

A Trump and Musk love-in on Hannity

When your fiercest loyalists are accusing your government of being taken over by Elon Musk, who they brand a “parasitic illegal immigrant,” what’s the best way to respond? Donald Trump opted for a side-by-side interview with the X CEO on Fox News, speaking to Sean Hannity, the anchor with whom he remains friendliest.  And for all the attempts — both from inside and outside the conservative tent — to drive a wedge between Trump and tech billionaire Musk, the two seemed chummier than ever.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMbcMO5JgEo&ab_channel=FoxNews Responding to Hannity’s claim that the mainstream media wants to see the pair get a divorce, Trump was nonplussed.

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What does Putin want from America?

If I had a penny for every time I have been told that Russian president Vladimir Putin only wants respect. Or that he is only interested in eastern Ukraine. Or that if Kyiv is only denied NATO membership, then he will call off the tanks. Well, in the last seven days President Donald Trump has given Putin all this and more. And, though it is still early days, so far the war is showing no sign of slowing. And what has the man who wrote The Art of the Deal asked for in exchange for all this diplomatic largesse? Absolutely nothing. In fact, the only substantive demand Trump has made so far is of the Ukrainians. Last week Washington sent Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to Kyiv with an extraordinary demand.

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Elon Musk’s critics are more autistic than he ever could be

I’ve managed to keep most of my liberal family relationships and friendships intact, even after going public about voting for Trump. Most of them shrugged and applied the principle our grandparents taught us — blood is thicker than politics. That is, until Elon Musk. He has proven to be the straw that broke the liberals’ back. Realizing that they’d rendered calling Trump “literally Hitler” ineffective, many normie Democrats and liberal commentators have redirected this energy toward the “Chief Twit." First there was the hand gesture at the post-inauguration rally.

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Trump’s hundred days of shock and awe

The second Trump administration has begun as it means to go on: moving fast and breaking Washington brains. Firings commenced immediately, from inspectors general to senior FBI officials to workers who refused to go back to the office (for the federal government, the pandemic never ended). The confirmations blasted through the Senate, with even controversial figures like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rammed through in the first week. Executive Orders flew out like a flock of war pigeons released from the battlements — forty-five in the first two weeks alone — bearing commands small and sweeping.

Trump puts the cartels in his sights

Consider it the first tangible example of Donald Trump’s Western Hemisphere policy made real. The president’s day-one Executive Order calling for the “total elimination” of multiple cartels is now getting its teeth in the form of a list drawn up by the Department of State designating eight different groups based across Latin America as foreign terrorist organizations, according to the New York Times.

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The utterly idiotic reaction to the Trump-Putin phone call

President Donald Trump called Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday and discussed various topics, including the war in Ukraine, for an hour and a half. According to Trump, the two agreed to begin negotiations on ending the three year-long conflict immediately and even set up preliminary talks about traveling to one another’s capitals. Shortly after the call with Putin, Trump dialed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for yet another conversation that reportedly went ”very well.” Trump’s call with Zelensky, of course, wasn’t the controversial part. Nobody had a problem with it. The dialogue with Putin, however, was apparently blasphemy, akin to violating all of the Ten Commandments on the same day.

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RFK Jr. squeaks by to become health and human services secretary

The US Senate narrowly confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human Services (HHS) secretary in a 52-48 vote. Democrats voted along party lines — against former Democrat RFK — as did Republicans, with the exception of Senator Mitch McConnell. Expressing his view of RFK’s appointment, McConnell said in a statement: I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles... a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr.

Tulsi caps off a big day for ‘realism and restraint’ in foreign affairs

For the proponents of what they like to call realism and restraint in foreign affairs, it’s been a banner day. President Donald Trump has initiated peace talks with Russia by sidelining Ukraine. And Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed to become director of national intelligence — overseeing eighteen agencies — on a 52-48 vote. At the White House, where she was sworn in by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump declared that Gabbard is “an American of extraordinary courage and exceptional patriotism.”   The sole Republican to dissent from her nomination was Mitch McConnell who has vowed to uphold oldline Republican internationalism during what is more than likely his final term in the Senate.

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Tulsi confirmed: Gabbard survives Todd Young’s attack on the Constitution

Despite frequent claims that Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to be director of national intelligence was in danger, repeated ad nauseam in the Washington press, ultimately she didn't even need J.D. Vance to come back to break a tie. Only Mitch McConnell broke with the rest of his Republican colleagues to oppose her confirmation, which — as I've previously written — was never in doubt once she got out of the Intelligence Committee.  Yet it's worth noting one of the untoward prices paid along the way, given the egregious nature of its violation of the separation of powers.

Pope attacks Trump administration over deportations — yet stays quiet on China

Papa don’t preach! It’s not every day that the Supreme Pontiff, the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion souls on earth, deigns to weigh in on a social media spat involving the vice president of the United States. But Pope Francis is no ordinary pontiff — and he’s just launched an extraordinary broadside against the new Trump administration, including a clear rebuke of J.D. Vance over his recent Twitter row with the British politician-cum-podcaster, Rory Stewart. Last week, as Cockburn noted, J D Vance appeared to "pwn," as the kids say, Stewart in a row over Christian principles and the issue of immigration. "Google ‘ordo amoris,’" Vance told the equine-mouthed Stewart on X, as he cast an uncharitable (albeit accurate) aspersion on Stewart’s intelligence quotient.

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Will Peter Mandelson thrive in Trump’s Washington?

Amid the blizzard of earth-shaking Trump news, the appointment of a new British ambassador may not seem the most pressing story coming out of the nation’s capital. Yet today, Peter Mandelson will hand over his credentials to the Chief of State Protocol in Washington, DC and his arrival as His Majesty King Charles III’s man in America is certain to keep the "special relationship" gossip mill whirring for months to come. It could prove a brilliant appointment. Or it could blow up in the British government’s face. The proof will be in the diplomatic pudding.

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