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‘Alaska Is a State’: White House Scrambles, Says Trump Will Host Putin ‘On American Soil’

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fielded multiple questions on Tuesday after President Donald Trump, during a Monday press conference, repeatedly claimed he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia on Friday.

There is some fringe controversy in Russia over Alaska—some falsely claim the United States’ 1867 Alaska Purchase was actually a 99- or 100-year lease and technically now belongs to the Russian Federation and not to the United States.

Controversy also swelled on Monday as critics quickly concluded that Trump’s claims that he is meeting President Putin in Russia were evidence of a diminishing mental capacity.

READ MORE: Revealed: Pentagon Planning Rapid-Deploy ‘Reaction Force’ to Quell Civilian Dissent

Although not mentioning the Russia slip-up, popular American historian Heather Cox Richardson on Monday night wrote: “Trump’s performance at the press conference—an event for which his handlers would have made sure he was at the top of his game—made it clear that his mental deterioration is moving rapidly.”

American historian Timothy Snyder did mention the Trump-Russia-Alaska snafu.

Pointing to a video titled, “Trump says he’s meeting with Putin in Russia, but their summit is in Alaska,” Professor Snyder wrote: “Russia has been making a claim to Alaska for years. I was meaning to predict they would exploit this but waited because I thought [they] would wait until the day [of the meeting] itself to use it to deride Trump. But he’s using it against himself and ahead of schedule.”

READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations

The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, who has written in-depth on several occasions about Russia and Putin, remarked on Tuesday: “The reason Putin wants to meet in Alaska is because he wants it back. He thinks because it’s former Russian territory he’s psyop-ing and dominating Trump.”

At the White House on Tuesday, a reporter asked Leavitt: “The President said at the podium yesterday—twice—that he was planning to go to Russia. Was that a verbal slip-up, or does he actually plan to go to Russia?”

“Perhaps,” Leavitt replied, “there are plans in the future to travel to Russia. On Friday, the President will be meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, as you know.”

Asked again by a reporter, this time about the choice of Alaska, Leavitt was forced to reiterate that Alaska is not in Russia.

“There were many sites discussed,” she said, “but of course Alaska is a state within the United States of America, so the President is very honored and looks forward to hosting President Putin on American soil.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Supreme Court Asked to Overturn Landmark Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

 

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CORRUPTION

‘My Friends Will Get Hurt’: MTG Says Trump Told Her Why He Doesn’t Want to Reveal Epstein Conspirators’ Names

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said that President Donald Trump was reticent to reveal the identities of any of the men accused of abusing children in the Epstein files was because “My friends will get hurt.”

Greene made the allegation in a new interview with The New York Times published Monday morning. She said that Trump told her the reason while on a call after a press conference where Greene said she may expose the names of some of those listed in the files related to disgraced financier and convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump had called Greene in her office, and a staff member told the Times that the entire office could hear the president shouting at Greene over a speakerphone. The article alleges that she was confused why Trump was so upset, and her question led to the remark.

READ MORE: DOJ Issues ‘Bizarre’ Disclaimer Defending Trump in Latest Epstein Files Dump

Greene also alleges that she asked Trump to invite some of Epstein’s victims to the White House, but he balked at the suggestion. Trump reportedly told her that the women abused by Epstein hadn’t done anything to warrant a White House invitation. Greene says this is the last time she talked with the president.

She says the outburst blindsided her as previously she had believed Trump’s assertions that he was not in the Epstein files.

“The story to me was that I’d seen pictures of Epstein with all these people. And Trump is just one of several. And then, for me, I’d seen that Bill Clinton is on the flight logs for his plane like 20-something times. So, for people like me, it wasn’t suspicious. And then we’d heard the general stories of how Epstein used to be a member of Mar-a-Lago, but Trump kicked him out. Why would I think he’s done anything wrong, right?” Greene told the Times about her beliefs prior to the phone call.

Though Greene was formerly a staunch ally of Trump, her interest in the Epstein files caused Trump to turn on her. She joined with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) to force a House vote compelling the Department of Justice to release all of its files on the Epstein case, with the only redactions to protect victims’ names.

The bill ultimately passed both House and Senate and was signed by Trump, giving the DOJ a December 19 deadline to release the information, But when the date rolled around, only a portion of the files were released. What was available was heavily redacted, with names of co-conspirators and others blacked out.

Shortly after Trump called her a “traitor” on his Truth Social platform over her calls to release the Epstein files, Greene announced that she would be resigning from the House January 5, midway through her term.

Image via Reuters

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More Than Half of Americans Disapprove of Chief Justice John Roberts: Poll

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Over half of Americans disapprove of the job Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts is doing, according to a new Gallup poll.

In a poll taken this month by Gallup, 53% of American adults disapprove of the job Roberts is doing, compared to 38% who approve and 9% with no opinion. This is the highest disapproval rating since Gallup started asking the question.

It’s also the first time his disapproval rating has been higher than his approval rating. The last time the question was asked was in December 2023, where 46% disapproved compared to 48% approval. Even that was a huge step down from December 2021 when 60% approved and 34% approved.

READ MORE: ‘Brutal’: Trump Approval Tanks as Support Plummets Across Key Issues, Poll Shows

When broken out by demographics, 67% of Republicans approved of the job Roberts was doing, compared to 21% disapproval. Only 16% of Democrats approved while 78% disapproved, and among Independents, 35% approved while 57% disapproved.

The poll was conducted via telephone between December 1-15, and had a sample size of 1,016 adults across America. The margin of error was 4%.

The Supreme Court under Roberts has frequently come under fire, particularly when it comes to cases involving President Donald Trump. While the court has not always sided with the president—on Tuesday, it ruled against him in the case about deploying the national guard to Chicago—public perception is that the Court is in Trump’s pocket.

In June 2024, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called the Roberts Court the “most corrupt in American history.” A September 2021 Gallup poll saw the full Court’s approval rating hit a record low of 40%.

A month after Ocasio-Cortez made her comments, the Court made one of its most controversial rulings—deciding that Trump had immunity from prosecution for any acts made in an “official” capacity as president. The Court ruled 6-3 in that case along ideological lines, with Roberts himself writing the court’s opinion.

Experts were shocked that the Court even took up that particular case, as there had been no contradiction in lower court rulings about the limits of presidential immunity.

“Let’s not beat around the bush, decision by the Supreme Court to hear the Trump immunity case is outrageous and, at its heart, fundamentally corrupt,” author and legal expert David Rothkopf wrote at the time the Court decided to hear the case. “The Appeals Court decision was bullet proof and there is no case Trump has any sort of immunity. The decision not to hear it until late April makes further significant trial delays likely. They are deliberately delaying the trial without any reasonable legal reason to do so. This is a political decision and, in my estimation, an ugly one.”

 

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Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Attempt to Deport Head of Anti-Hate Group

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The CEO of a anti-hate group is allowed to stay in the United States after a federal judge stopped his deportation.

Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons among other Trump administration officials. Ahmed requested a restraining order so he can fight the administration in court.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Trump administration announced an order to revoke his visa, along with the visas of four other Europeans, over claims of digital censorship. Following the announcement of the government’s intent to deport him, Ahmed alleged that the government was targeting him “as punishment for the research and public reporting carried out by the nonprofit organization that Mr. Ahmed founded and runs, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (“CCDH”), which studies the content moderation policies of major social media companies, including Elon Musk’s company, X Corp.,” the lawsuit read.

READ MORE: Trump Pushes Census Do-Over to Exclude Non-Citizens — and to Immediately Redistrict House

“In other words, Mr. Ahmed faces the imminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest, punitive detention, and expulsion for exercising his basic First Amendment rights.”

District Court Judge Vernon S. Broderick ruled in favor of Ahmed; in addition, Broderick also ruled that Ahmed cannot be arrested and detained before his case can be heard, according to the BBC.

“The federal government can’t deport a green card holder like Imran Ahmed, with a wife and young child who are American, simply because it doesn’t like what he has to say,” Roberta Kaplan, Ahmed’s lawyer, told the BBC.

Ahmed’s anti-hate group was formed to combat disinformation and antisemitism online. In the past it’s collected evidence of racist and extremist content on X since Elon Musk bought the platform. X previously filed suit against CCDH in 2023 over its reporting, alleging the data collected by the group was based on “incorrect, misleading and outdated metrics,” according to the Straits Times.

The anti-hate group has recently criticised ChatGPT amid reports of the program being linked to suicides, murders and self-harm.

On Friday, Ahmed accused the tech industry of urging the administration to retaliate against him.

“This has never been about politics,” he told The Guardian. “What it has been about is companies that simply do not want to be held accountable and, because of the influence of big money in Washington, are corrupting the system and trying to bend it to their will, and their will is to be unable to be held accountable.”

“There is no other industry, that acts with such arrogance, indifference and a lack of humility and sociopathic greed at the expense of people,” he added.

The visa bans announced on Tuesday also targeted former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, Global Disinformation Index CEO Clare Melford and Anna Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, according to The Hill.

“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” Rubio tweeted Tuesday. “Today, @StateDept will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States. We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.”

Of the five, Ahmed is the only one who actually lives in the United States. The others, as of this writing, remain barred from entering the United States.

Image via Reuters

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