Matt McDonald

Donald Trump has had a career-long love-hate relationship with the press. On one hand, he popularized the phrase “fake news” and branded the press “the enemy of the people.” On the other, the President takes phone calls from virtually every reporter with his personal cell and is fixated on cable news and his print media coverage. Trump views journalists as friends, foes and foils, or some combination of the three. But if a story catches him at the wrong moment, the author could find themselves on the receiving end of a Trump-SLAPP. A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, is a lawsuit filed with a tactical intent besides disproving a damaging story in a court of law. Usually the suit demands an attention-seekingly large sum in damages.

“We have an elite who have been in power for at least the last 40 years, who fundamentally don’t like western civilization and they wanna destroy it,” said Liz Truss, who was prime minister for 49 days in 2022, as she spoke to a half-full room at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas. It was her third such speech. The Liz Truss who addresses American audiences bears little resemblance to the awkward, growth-obsessed economics nerd who somehow ascended the greasy pole of British politics, only to slide back down at staggering speed. She’s changed her vocabulary – and her talking points. The few attendees of her panel, snappily titled “Europestan: Can Europe Survive?” could hear Truss lambasting “grooming gangs” and “transgender ideology.

When you attend the court of King Donald, it’s important to genuflect. Unfamiliar foreigners in need of pointers can look to the man who is currently the most assiduous non-American flatterer: FIFA president Gianni Infantino. It’s only natural that, in the lead-up to this year’s soccer World Cup, the president of the global governing body of the sport should make regular visits to the host nation. Yet Infantino has gone above and beyond. He appears to have spent more time in Donald Trump’s orbit than some of the President’s cabinet secretaries. Infantino has been a willing accomplice in Trump’s campaign to secure the Nobel Peace Prize On paper, it would be easy to make the case that Infantino is a textbook globalist.

Washington, DC President Trump had balls on the brain on Friday. At an unannounced stop at the People's Museum by the White House – where he was checking out the newly refurbished gift shop –  he laid down the gauntlet to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. “I think the mayor has to get on the ball, because we have a situation, and she’s a nice woman, but I tell you what she’s got to get on the ball,” the President told the press. “I don’t want to see phony numbers.” We are now in the 12th day of Trump’s federal takeover of law and order in the capital. In that time, 719 arrests have been made, 36 of them illegal aliens, according to the White House. Next, the President headed over to the Kennedy Center to inspect the ongoing reconstruction efforts.

Artificial intelligence is the future, we’re often told. But it can also prove to be a constant source of confusion in the present. Like when your phone updates and suddenly “Apple Intelligence” is summarizing your texts before you’ve read them – or when you no longer need to click through to a website when you Google something. But don’t worry: the Explainer-in-Chief is on hand to help make sense of the chaos. President Donald “Everything is Computer” Trump addressed an AI summit at DC’s Mellon Auditorium yesterday evening for around an hour, high on the fumes of his recently agreed trade frameworks with Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines.

Washington, DC What’s the best way to celebrate America’s birthday? For President Trump, it was a swift round of golf at his course in Sterling, Virginia, followed by a victory lap to sign his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” on the South Lawn of the White House. Two B-2 bombers, flanked by F-22 Raptors flew over the White House as the US Marine band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Military men in short-sleeved shirts – their wives in flowery sundresses – were dotted on white chairs around gingham-clad tables. It was a quintessentially American affair. “That is some sight,” said Trump, of what he described as a “big, beautiful plane,” after he walked up to the shaded podium on the South Portico with his First Lady.

Washington, DC “Every other country celebrates their victories, it’s about time America did too,” Donald Trump told a whooping, albeit smaller-than-anticipated crowd on the National Mall tonight. “We’re the hottest country in the world right now,” the President boasted. Temperature-wise, that’s debatable. But he’s right that the whole world has been watching on, as the President turned his plans for a military parade from conception into reality. If you gave a 79-year-old man some say in what he did for his birthday, he’d choose one of two things: nap, or pay a laudatory tribute to the US military that everyone had to watch.

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.