New York City elected officials and activists re-raised the LGBTQ+ pride flag on Thursday at the Stonewall National Monument in defiance of a Trump administration edict that led to the iconic emblem’s removal. In response, the U.S. Department of the Interior called re-raising the flag a “political stunt.”

The flag’s removal became a national flashpoint after the National Park Service quietly took it down over the weekend from the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement, drawing hundreds of locals to protest this week and prompting elected leaders to vow to raise it again.

PIX11 News’ Henry Rosoff reported that elected officials had aimed to add the flag to a pole that was currently flying the American flag, wanting to “avoid a conflict” because they “believe they’ve been baited by the Trump administration.”

As the pride flag was re-raised, one attendee, USA Today reported, “attempted to pull down the adjacent U.S. flag, as some chanted ‘take it down’ and ‘burn the American flag.’ The local elected officials left immediately after the pride flag was raised and did not give speeches.”

Democratic New York State Senator Erik Bottcher told MS NOW on Thursday, “We’re going up against the federal government, and we’re going to continue doing it until we win.”

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Earlier, he had written, “removing the Pride flag from Stonewall is not a minor change. It is erasure. It is an act of exclusion. It sends a message that LGBTQ+ visibility is negotiable, even at the very site where our community fought back. Stonewall is sacred ground. The Pride flag is not partisan. It is history. It is belonging. And we will not be intimidated into silence.”

Other elected officials, including Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and others have publicly condemned the removal of the flag this week.

The U.S. Department of the Interior issued a scathing statement in opposition to the flag being raised again.

“Hundreds of families in New York City went without power during this year’s severe cold weather, people are being found dead on the streets, and trash has piled up so high it towers over city residents,” the statement reads, as ABC Eyewitness News reported. “This is Mayor Mamdani and city officials’ New York City. While today’s political stunt is a distraction from their recent deadly failures, it would be a better use of their time to get the trash buildup off city streets, ensure there are no more avoidable deaths, and work to keep the power on for the people of New York City. Today’s political pageantry shows how utterly incompetent and misaligned the New York City officials are with the problems their city is facing.”

More here 👉️ https://t.co/HtRJtbqjcM | Local leaders have re-raised the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument on Thursday afternoon after the Trump administration replaced it with an American flag this week. pic.twitter.com/oyezsOQQem

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) February 12, 2026

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In a Truth Social rant President Donald Trump on Thursday praised Attorney General Pam Bondi’s widely-criticized and combative performance at Wednesday’s congressional hearing on the Epstein files and declared that it totally exonerated him of any charges surrounding Russia.

“AG Pam Bondi,” the president began, “under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing on the never ending saga of Jeffrey Epstein, where the one thing that has been proven conclusively, much to their chagrin, was that President Donald J. Trump has been 100% exonerated of their ridiculous Russia, Russia, Russia type charges.”

It was not immediately apparent why he conflated the Epstein files with allegations of Russian interference, but he went on to declare that, instead, it is “the SLIMEBALL Democrats” who “have been proven GUILTY!”

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The president also attacked “’Republican’ Loser, Sanctimonious RINO Congressman, Thomas Massie,” who has been leading the charge on the GOP side to release the Epstein files.

Trump claimed the Republican lawmaker “made a total fool of himself yesterday, fighting aimlessly against a hopeless agenda of Hate and Stupidity, as most clearly stated by his crashing Job Approval Numbers in the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, where a Military Hero Opponent, Ed Gallrein, is crushing him in the Polls.”

Trump has vowed to “lead the charge” to primary Massie.

Despite campaigning on releasing the Epstein files, Trump claimed, “Nobody cared about Epstein when he was alive, they only cared about him when they thought he could create Political Harm to a very popular President who has brought our Country back from the brink of extinction, and very quickly, at that!”

Trump did not explain how the Epstein files might create political harm for him.

“In fact,” he concluded, “this attempt by the Democrats to take away attention from tremendous Republican SUCCESS is backfiring badly. Maybe they should focus on their quest to Open our Borders to the World’s Greatest Criminals, have Transgender for Everybody or, get Men, no matter their size or strength, to play in Women’s Sports. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”

READ MORE: NYC Officials to Defy Trump Admin Over Pride Flag Removal From Stonewall National Monument

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Several New York Times opinion columnists gathered to share their thoughts on President Donald Trump, warning of what they see as his efforts to unravel America’s democratic order and institutions.

E.J. Dionne warned of what he called “regime change” inside the U.S. by President Trump.

Dionne said that “we have to face up to” Americans “overlooking” how much Trump is “actually trying to fundamentally change and destroy, really, the traditional American system.”

He cited the shootings of Minnesota’s Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as an example: “There have been police killings, and there have been mishaps, but the country has never seen an entity like ICE operate completely outside the law in this way.”

Dionne cited a plethora of other examples, including the “corrupt” pardons Trump has granted, in addition to the “extraordinary” pardons he gave to those involved in the events surrounding January 6. He also cited the Justice Department as “really being destroyed and used for investigations of political enemies,” including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. And he pointed to “tariffs, by fiat, on our allies,” and Trump’s “weirdness over Greenland.”

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Further defining “regime change,” Dionne pointed to what Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “has written about radical constitutionalism,” which Dionne called “a real desire to fundamentally alter the regime.”

Trump, Dionne added, is “throwing away all of the constituencies, the swing constituencies, who came to him in the last election.”

“I think he has become more and more aggressive at it and we need to face that this is not just some guy doing one random thing after another,” he warned. “This is somebody who is setting about — in a systematic way — to destroy institutions.”

David Brooks shared his thoughts on what he called Trump’s “four unravelings.”

“First, the unraveling of the Western alliance, the post-Cold War alliance,” he said. “Second, the unraveling that E.J. just described, our democratic order.”

“Third, the unraveling of our domestic security, the sense that we live in a relatively free — at least free of state violence, and we can no longer be sure of that,” he warned. “And then the fourth — and to me, the most important and the primary one — is the unraveling of Trump’s mind, if you want to put it that way.”

Brooks warned of “mental degradation.”

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“If you look through history at the minds of people who are driven by a lust for power and who have tyrannical tendencies, the arc of history bends toward degradation,” he said. “There’s just not many cases where somebody was becoming more and more power hungry, more and more tyrannical, and they said, ‘Oh, I better put on the brakes here and become more moderate.’ That just doesn’t happen. You get this process of mental deterioration that’s, in part, caused by the way the lust for power makes you drunk on power and is insatiable.”

He noted that those who are “driven by the lust for power” create environments that become “more sycophantic.”

Robert Siegel asked Brooks and Dionne if they believe America will have elections in November.

“At the very least, that’s not clear,” Dionne replied, “and I think it’s something that people began to worry about even more over the last several weeks when the F.B.I. raided the Board of Elections down in Georgia, in Fulton County.”

He pointed to the presence of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and said, “I think a lot of people saw this as an attempt to affect the election. Then Trump himself spoke of nationalizing the rules of the election — he then said in 15 places, which sounded like Democratic states. The beginning of that statement he made was: Republicans should take over the elections.”

Brooks had a different opinion.

“I have every confidence that we’ll have an election,” he said, noting that he thinks that Trump has “internalized that we are a democracy and that he needs to step down in 2028.”

He pointed to historical references, then said, “I just have tremendous faith in the power of the people manning our institutions, in the military, in the election officials on the state level and Republicans on the state level. So I think we’ll hold.”

READ MORE: NYC Officials to Defy Trump Admin Over Pride Flag Removal From Stonewall National Monument

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