Category: Trump
Washington, DC, has become a hostile city-state
The District of Columbia wasn’t supposed to be like this. Hard as it is to believe today, the capital was set apart as its own district not to make it an untouchable bureaucratic citadel, but to make it work for all Americans. Unattached to any one state and free from the control of any one constituency, our government was supposed to serve the whole country.
Decades of misunderstanding, however, have muddled this design. Federalization gives us a fighting chance of restoring it.
Perhaps the most prudent solution would be to subsume the District’s entities into the federal government.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government resided in Philadelphia until a military mutiny prompted it to leave. With this in mind, the framers proposed an optional federal district.
Under the proposal, Congress could create a capital and be vested with “exclusive” legislative authority over it. This would put the government in a position to contemplate and sympathize equally with all Americans. The states approved. And so the framers’ proposal was ratified under Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution. Congress then placed the capital along the Potomac River, and D.C. was organized in 1801.
Confusion soon followed. Congress tried many approaches to local governance and settled on a semi-independent model, enacted as the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973. This established a congressionally appointed judiciary and a popularly elected city council, mayor, and attorney general. Under home rule, D.C. could make its own law, albeit with congressional oversight.
The founders warned us about this model, however. They anticipated that self-governance would embarrass, impede, and endanger the federal government.
This failure predates Trump
Trump derangement syndrome has only vindicated this position. In 2017, D.C.’s attorney general joined litigation against Trump’s so-called Muslim ban. Then in 2020, D.C. painted a “Black Lives Matter” memorial along 16th Street NW, flipping an urban bird at the Trump White House. And in 2025, the District’s attorney general protested Trump’s public safety initiative, contesting his right to seize the Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard across the city.
One might overlook these obstructions if the District’s fierce independence enabled it to ensure safe and efficient self-governance. But that doesn’t describe D.C. In 2023, a Senate staffer traversing the northeast part of the city was knocked to the ground and repeatedly stabbed in the head and chest. Then in May 2025, two embassy interns were murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum. The following month, a congressional intern was fatally shot in the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood.
Nor is partisanship the only problem. D.C. behaves almost as poorly when Democrats wield federal power. In April 2024, pro-Palestinian protesters erected an encampment at George Washington University (a federally chartered school). City officials refused to remove the protesters for two weeks even though their disruptions interfered with students’ final exam preparations.
Bringing the capital to heel will ultimately require legislation. There’s already a proposal to repeal home rule. It’s a great start, but the proposal doesn’t detail how D.C. would operate afterward — not a promising omission when Congress tends to be so ineffective.
Perhaps the most prudent solution would be to subsume the District’s entities into the federal government. Then Congress need not work from a blank slate by creating new bodies for local governance. Instead, D.C.’s city council could become an advisory body to recommend local laws. This would meet the Constitution’s requirement that Congress make the laws without requiring it to fuss over the minutiae of local governance.
This idea won’t appease locals who want equal electoral representation to that enjoyed by other Americans, if not greater. We know that D.C. residents (or, more accurately, the Democrats in their ears) seek D.C. statehood. But if it’s a state they’re after, then they should entertain retrocession or repeal the District’s charter. Illegitimatizing the Constitution to preserve the mock state is not the way to go.
Forcing the issue through the courts
Knowing that Democrats in Congress will object on these grounds to any discussion of federalization, we should use litigation to force a solution on this matter. The difficulty with litigation is finding a plaintiff — a D.C. resident who believes in a federal capital and whose case wouldn’t be easily dismissed by local judges seeking to avoid the issue. But with so many conservatives currently serving in D.C. under the Trump administration, now might be the time to bring a suit.
The right litigant has two ways to attack home rule — challenge D.C.’s lawmaking power or neutralize its prosecutorial authority. The lawmaking approach likely faces two objections. First, judges might question how Congress’ ultimate legislative authority under home rule meaningfully differs from exclusive authority under the Constitution. Second, they might raise the constitutional liquidation theory, which posits that the post-enactment tradition fleshes out constitutional indeterminacies.
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Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Neither objection holds water. For one thing, exclusive legislative authority means what it says — one body enacts the law. Using D.C.’s city council as a think tank wouldn’t violate this principle, because only Congress would oversee legislation from introduction to enactment. But home rule fails because Congress shares its authority with another body. In fact, a law could exist under home rule without Congress touching it at all. The Constitution doesn’t envision such an anomaly.
Relatedly, liquidation presupposes that a constitutional provision is ambiguous. But here, the framers couldn’t have written a clearer provision. Congressional authority over D.C. is exclusive; that means only Congress can exercise it. And so even though Congress has handed lawmaking power to D.C. on multiple occasions, viewing this abdication as indicative of the Constitution’s original meaning would only sanction congressional laziness and cowardice.
A limited win that still matters
The prosecutorial approach would open a more straightforward path to a more limited victory. The pitch is simple: The D.C. attorney general is a federal creation. And yet he is elected and can sue the federal government at will. This flouts the appointment process, as well as the president’s power to remove officers and direct executive-branch entities. Now would be the perfect time to press this argument, as the Supreme Court aims to clarify the president’s removal power later this term and the D.C. Circuit recently questioned whether “the District possesses an independent sovereignty that can give rise to an Article III injury from actions of the federal government.”
The only issue is that D.C. could still make law. But some of that law will be unenforceable if the attorney general cannot prosecute. Hence, a small win — but a win nonetheless.
Congress has subverted the Constitution by entertaining home rule. The results have been ugly and will get uglier. District residents will grow increasingly radical in their demands for self-governance. The framers, in their wisdom, didn’t create a sovereign D.C. — they bequeathed us a federal city to preserve a neutral national government. We should restore that vision.
Editor’s Note: A version of this article was published originally at the American Mind
Fani Willis’ failed lawfare against Trump might cost her a fortune
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did her apparent best to throw President Donald Trump in jail and failed miserably.
While Willis was disqualified in 2024 from the Georgia case regarding alleged 2020 election interference and the case was dropped late last year, the Democrat DA has proven unable to put the lawfare behind her.
In addition to having to fight misconduct allegations, Willis now faces the possibility of having to shell out millions to the president in attorney fees and costs, thanks to legislation ratified in May by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R).
‘It’s Fani Willis’ fault.’
The new law, which went into effect in July, provides “for the award of reasonable attorney’s fees and costs in a criminal case to the defendant upon the disqualification of the prosecuting attorney for misconduct in connection with the case and the subsequent dismissal of the case by the court of a subsequent prosecutor.”
Although the law might appear perfectly tailored to Trump’s case, the legislation had bipartisan support.
Photo by Dennis Byron-Pool/Getty Images
Trump is pushing for over $6.2 million in restitution. As the president’s legal team has reportedly already been paid, most of the requested funds would go to reimburse Trump.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the case, told WXIA-TV, “I feel for the people in Fulton County, because Fani Willis has involved herself in improper conduct. She’s now set up a situation where her office, from funds that have been collected through Fulton County, will have to pay for it. It’s Fani Willis’ fault.”
“At the same time, maybe Fani Willis will tell us how much money she spent from her budget pursuing this politically motivated case against President Trump,” added Sadow.
Her office has since filed a motion to intervene in the matter, which states, “The statute raises grave separation-of-powers concerns by purporting to impose financial liability on a constitutional officer, twice elected by the citizens of Fulton County, for the lawful exercise of her core duties under the Georgia Constitution.”
Willis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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Conan O’Brien calls out lazy Trump-hating comedians
Late-night host and writer Conan O’Brien says Trump-deranged comedians need to step up their game.
Speaking at the Oxford Union Society, the former talk-show host and “Simpsons” writer lamented that some in the comedy establishment have given up on laughs in favor of angry tirades about President Trump.
‘We don’t have a straight line right now. We have a very bendy, rubbery line.’
“I think some comics go the route of, ‘I’m going to just say F Trump all the time’ [and] that’s their comedy. And I think, well, now, a little bit, you’re being co-opted because you’re so angry.”
“You’ve been lulled,” added the Harvard alum, likening the allure of crowd-pleasing but joke-free anti-Trump material to a siren song.
The comedian continued, “You’ve been lulled into just saying ‘F Trump. F Trump. F Trump. Screw this guy.’ I think you’ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny, and you’ve exchanged it for anger.”
Finding the funny
The 62-year-old noted that he has always prided himself on finding a way to be funny in any situation, and he did not give his peers an out when it comes to political comedy.
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“Any person like that would say, ‘Well, things are too serious now. I don’t need to be funny.’ I think, well, if you’re a comedian, you always need to be funny. You just have to find a way,” O’Brien told the audience at the esteemed student debating society.
“And you just have to find a way to channel that anger. … Good art will always be a great weapon, will always be a perfect weapon against power, but if you’re just screaming and you’re just angry, you’ve lost your best tool in the toolbox.”
Playing it straight
Earlier in the interview, O’Brien recalled that some of his most joyful memories in comedy were parodying different magazines or news outlets by mocking their tone and style. At the same time, he said it was impossible to parody something that doesn’t follow a “straight line.”
He referred to the National Enquirer, describing the outlet’s content as impossible to make fun of because it would print stories like, “Elvis found in Titanic lifeboat 105 years after sinking. He is now a woman, and he’s married a giant peanut-butter sandwich.”
“How do you parody that? You can’t,” he explained. “And I think with Trump we have a similar situation in comedy, which is people saying, ‘We’ve got a great Trump sketch for you. In this one, he’s kind of talking crazy and he’s saying stuff, and he tears down half the White House to build a giant ballroom, and he says it’s going to be the new Mar-a-Lago.’ Yeah, no, that happened yesterday,” O’Brien joked.
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Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
“Comedy needs a straight line to go off of,” O’Brien added. “And we don’t have a straight line right now. We have a very bendy, rubbery line. We have a slinky. We have a fire hose that’s whipping around, spewing water at 100 miles an hour or something else.”
‘Reckoning day’ for Newsom: Trump DOT yanks $160 million over illegal trucker licenses
As the Trump administration continues to meet resistance from blue-state governors across the nation, California is now reaping what it sowed by illegally issuing trucker licenses to foreigners.
On Wednesday, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced that it was “reckoning day” for the state of California and its Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom.
‘Gavin refused. So now I am pulling nearly $160 MILLION from California.’
In a social media post, Duffy explained the Trump administration’s “demands”: “Follow the rules. Revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers. Fix the system so this never happens again.”
Duffy’s post comes after months of demanding that California revoke commercial driver’s licenses illegally issued to foreigners. Duffy provided a short video showing that Newsom had many opportunities to comply with federal law.
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Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
However, “Gavin refused,” Duffy said. “So now I am pulling nearly $160 MILLION from California. Under @POTUS, federal dollars won’t fund this CHARADE.”
The funding will be withheld from California beginning in fiscal year 2027.
California agreed in November to revoke every illegally issued license within 60 days. As of the January 5, 2026, deadline, California has failed to follow through on this agreement, leading to the major withholding of federal funding.
At least 17,000 licenses were expected to be revoked on Monday, per the original agreement.
According to a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration audit reviewed by Fox News, more than 20,000 active non-domiciled CDLs were issued in violation of federal rules. The FMCSA reportedly described the situation in California as a “systemic collapse” of the commercial licensing program.
“Federal regulations are clear: states must correct safety deficiencies on a schedule mutually agreed upon by the agency, and California failed to meet its commitment to rescind these unlawfully issued licenses by January 5,” FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said, according to Fox News.
“We will not accept a corrective plan that knowingly leaves thousands of drivers holding noncompliant licenses behind the wheel of 80,000-pound trucks in open defiance of federal safety regulations,” Barrs added.
California DMV spokesperson Eva Spiegel responded to the loss of federal funding in a statement: “We strongly disagree with the federal government’s decision to withhold vital transportation funding from California — their action jeopardizes public safety because these funds are critical for maintaining and improving the roadways we all rely on every day.”
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From Monroe to ‘Donroe’: America enforces its back yard again
When President Donald Trump stood before reporters Saturday and invoked the Monroe Doctrine, he was not indulging nostalgia. He was announcing enforcement. Then came the line that removed all ambiguity: The Monroe Doctrine, he said, will now be known as the Donroe Doctrine.
The leftist political class recoiled on cue. Mainstream commentators scoffed. Corporate editorial boards feigned alarm. Strip away the theatrics, and the meaning was clear. The United States has decided to resume responsibility for the Western Hemisphere — not in the language of empire, but in the language of order, law, and consequence.
One reality is already clear. The Western Hemisphere no longer serves as an unguarded corridor for corruption, narcotics, and foreign subversion.
The Monroe Doctrine emerged in 1823, when President James Monroe warned European powers that further colonization or political interference in the Americas would not be tolerated. It never meant isolationism. It reflected realism.
Power vacuums invite conquest. Disorder invites domination. The early American republic understood that if Europe continued exporting its political systems into the New World, the hemisphere would remain unstable and unfree. America declared an end to European colonial ambition long before “decolonization” became a fashionable academic slogan.
Over time, enforcement varied in wisdom and restraint. Theodore Roosevelt’s corollary warned that chronic wrongdoing in the Americas could require U.S. intervention. During the Cold War, Washington invoked the doctrine — sometimes clumsily — to block Soviet expansion and nuclear weapons in the hemisphere.
Through each phase, the premise endured: The Western Hemisphere is a distinct political space, and the United States bears a special responsibility to prevent it from becoming a staging ground for criminal regimes and foreign adversaries.
That responsibility eroded in recent decades, replaced by a dangerous fantasy: that cartel-run states can invoke sovereignty to excuse any behavior so long as it occurs within their borders — or moves outward through drug routes and illegal oil networks. Venezuela stands as the clearest casualty of that delusion.
The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Nicolás Maduro on narco-terrorism charges for conspiring with drug cartels to flood the United States with cocaine. This was no symbolic gesture. It marked a recognition that Venezuela under Maduro is not a normal sovereign government, but a criminal enterprise masquerading as one. Enforcement, not rhetoric, gives such indictments meaning. That is what the Donroe Doctrine signals.
Democratic critics objected immediately, even though the indictment originated under the Biden administration. Some argued that because the United States cannot remove every tyrant everywhere, it lacks moral authority to act against any single one. That is moral paralysis disguised as principle. By that logic, no law should ever be enforced because more criminals remain at large. Police would stop making arrests. Courts would close. Justice would dissolve into excuses.
Others insisted Venezuela’s sovereignty places it beyond American reach. Sovereignty does not magically convert criminal conduct into legitimacy. A regime that finances itself through narcotics trafficking, collaborates with cartels, launders money through international systems, facilitates human trafficking, and exports violence across borders has already violated the sovereignty of others — especially the United States. Cocaine and fentanyl ignore borders. So do the trafficking networks Venezuela enables. By its conduct, the Maduro regime declared hostility. Enforcement followed.
Venezuelan officials now appeal to international law. The claim borders on parody. Venezuela ranks among the world’s most corrupt regimes. Its institutions lie hollow. Its courts serve politics. Its elections perform theater. For such a regime to suddenly demand protection from a rules-based order it has systematically violated is not irony; it is audacity. This is not a government. It is a cartel with flags and uniforms.
RELATED: The Venezuela crisis was never just about drugs
Photo by XNY/Star Max/GC Images
The more revealing question is not why the United States finally enforced its laws against a narco-state but why so many Western politicians rushed to defend it. How many careers, campaigns, and institutions have drawn quiet benefit from regimes like Maduro’s? How many activists and academics repeat talking points that align perfectly with the interests of Caracas, Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran?
America’s adversaries understand Venezuela well. China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran treat it as a strategic asset — oil-rich, geographically close to the United States, and governed by leaders willing to trade sovereignty for survival. Through Venezuela, hostile powers gain leverage and access in the Western Hemisphere. Only America’s political class pretended this did not matter.
Venezuelans themselves understand what is at stake. Many celebrated the renewed enforcement of U.S. law because polite diplomacy never delivered accountability. They lived under a regime that destroyed the economy, emptied shelves, silenced dissent, and drove millions into exile. They do not fear American responsibility. They welcome it. While American professors protest Donald Trump and plead for Maduro, Venezuelans cheer Trump and hope for freedom.
The Donroe Doctrine does not promise instant liberation or universal justice. It promises something more basic and more necessary: Criminal regimes will no longer receive legitimacy simply because they occupy a seat at the United Nations. Traffickers, tyrants, and their patrons now face consequences.
Whether this approach extends beyond Venezuela remains to be seen. But one reality is already clear. The Western Hemisphere no longer serves as an unguarded corridor for corruption, narcotics, and foreign subversion.
The age of moral neutrality is over. The age of the Donroe Doctrine has begun.
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Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton Receives Presidential Reappointment
President Trump Reappoints Tom Fitton to DC Judicial Commission Judicial Watch Sues HHS for Human Fetal Tissue Research Records Justice Dept. Sued for Planned Parenthood, Human Fetal Tissue Records Trump Administration Blasted for Ending $10 Million Toilet Project in Madagascar President Trump Reappoints Tom Fitton to DC Judicial Commission I am pleased to announce […]
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Trump says if Iran ‘kills peaceful protesters,’ the US ‘will come to their rescue’
President Donald Trump said early Friday morning that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”
Trump added that “we are locked and loaded and ready to go” in the post on his Truth Social network, which went live just before 3 a.m. Eastern time.
‘Trump should know that intervention by the US in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the US interests.’
Trump’s warning came hours after reports that at least six people have been killed after nearly a week of protests in Iran over grim economic conditions there, CBS News reported.
More from CBS News:
Iran has been plagued for years by staggering hyperinflation, fueled by Western sanctions imposed over the hardline clerical government’s nuclear program and backing for militant groups across the region.
Videos and photos from Tehran and other cities posted on social media have shown protesters marching through streets from early this week, often chanting anti-government, pro-monarchy slogans and sometimes clashing violently with security forces.
In an apparent bid to quell the unrest, Iranian authorities have acknowledged the economic concerns and said peaceful protests are legitimate, but suggested that foreign powers — usually a reference to Israel and the U.S. — are behind subversive elements fueling violence on the streets.
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Ali Larijani — a former speaker of Iran’s parliament and now the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council — said Friday on social media in reaction to Trump’s remarks that “Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” CBS News reported.
Larijani added that “the people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism” and that “they should take care of their own soldiers,” according to the news network.
The “soldiers” remark appeared to be in reference to U.S. military forces in the Middle East in range of Iran’s ballistic missiles, CBS News added.
Ali Shamkhani — an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut,” the news network reported.
“The people of Iran properly know the experience of ‘being rescued’ by Americans: from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza,” Shamkhani added in a social media post, CBS News said.
Prior to Trump’s Friday morning post on Truth Social, the U.S. and Israeli governments issued statements supporting the Iranian protests, the news network said.
“The people of Iran want freedom. They have suffered at the hands of the Ayatollahs for too long,” Mike Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a Monday X post. “We stand with Iranians in the streets of Tehran and across the country as they protest a radical regime that has brought them nothing but economic downturn and war.”
More from CBS News:
Tension between the U.S. and Iran escalated this week on the heels of a visit to the U.S. by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has campaigned his country’s close allies in Washington for decades to take a tougher stance on Iran.
After meeting with Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Sunday, Mr. Trump said he had heard that Iran could be attempting to rebuild its nuclear program following the unprecedented U.S. strikes on its enrichment facilities in June. Mr. Trump warned that if Iran did try to rebuild, “we’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that’s not happening.”
Iranian President Mahsoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday said Tehran would respond “to any cruel aggression” with unspecified “harsh and discouraging” measures, the news network added.
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President Trump Reappoints Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton to District of Columbia Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure
(Washington, DC) – President Donald Trump reappointed Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton to the District of Columbia Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure for a term of five years. (President Trump initially appointed Fitton to the Commission in 2020). Fitton made the following statement about his reappointment: Thank you, President Trump, for reappointing me to […]
The post President Trump Reappoints Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton to District of Columbia Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure appeared first on Judicial Watch.
