President Donald Trump has had his eyes on Cuba, but while he reportedly is biding his time, there are plans in place.

“Iran’s not finished, and the president is not in a rush,” a senior administration official told Axios, according to a report in The Daily Beast. “Trump wants to exhaust all the levers that he can. But at this point, there aren’t as many levers as before.”

Noting that Trump wants a “peaceful transition to a free Cuba,” Axios calls his approach the “methodical squeezing of Cuba’s communist regime.”

“To bring Cuba to its knees this year,” Axios revealed, “the administration first focused on the island’s lifeline: Venezuela and its socialist leader, Nicolas Maduro, who kept Havana afloat with shipments of oil that helped power the country and gave it a source of export revenue.”

The Trump administration captured Maduro during a raid in early January.

A senior Trump administration official called the approach “accelerationism.” The Daily Beast reports they were “referring to the fringe philosophy of speeding up a perceived inevitable societal collapse.”

“But we don’t want to kill off the regime just yet. There’s a method to this. It’s in stages,” they said. That strategy allows the commander in chief to focus on his three-month-long war in Iran — something Senate Republicans reportedly prefer takes priority over any Cuba incursion.

The president’s approach to Cuba is “classic Trump,” a presidential advisor told Axios: “Push your enemy off balance. It’s pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure.”

While the administration says there is no immediate plan to invade the island nation of roughly 9.7 million people, the Defense Department is primed and has been performing “tabletop” exercises in preparation. Axios credits Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a “chief architect of Trump’s Latin America policy.”

But according to Axios, one Trump advisor said: “The president does not want boots on the ground for more than 48 hours. It’s a quagmire in the making. This could get messy.”

“Everything is on the table, but no invasion is planned or imminent,” a senior official told Axios. “When POTUS says go, we’re ready for anything.”

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President Donald Trump’s mission to build monuments to himself is growing, and there’s a real reason behind why the nation’s 47th president is defying tradition and putting his name on so many things while he’s still in office — and still alive.

“Donald Trump’s two favorite things are himself and money,” writes Windsor Mann at The Daily Beast. “Now he has decided to combine the two. Indeed, for the first time in history, the sitting president is adding his signature to our paper currency. Trump’s name will be on your money, which is his way of saying that he owns you.”

Mann notes that the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is now, albeit unofficially, the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

The U.S. Institute of Peace is now the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, and, “Trump reportedly floated the idea of renaming Penn Station after himself during negotiations over federal funds for a tunnel between New York and New Jersey.”

The president is not the only one naming things after himself.

READ MORE: Even MAGA Is Confused by Trump’s Birthday UFC Cage Match Project: Report

In 2024, House Republicans pushed legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.”

“And last November,” Mann notes, “Florida State Rep. Meg Weinberger introduced a bill to rename the Palm Beach International Airport as another ‘Donald J. Trump International Airport.’ Sure, why not?”

Spending $300,000 on a two-story tall statue of Trump, a group of crypto investors installed it on Trump’s Doral, Florida golf course.

“It is, like the man it commemorates, vulgar and excessive,” says Mann. “But one thing it is not is unnecessary, at least not from the vantage point of these investors. The way to Trump’s heart is through his ego, and nothing satiates his ego as much as a graven image made in his image and at someone else’s expense.”

Pointing to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial — all built years after their namesakes’ passing — Mann notes that “we memorialize presidents once public opinion and historians have had time to reach a consensus as to whether their contributions merit commemoration.”

Which, perhaps, is why Trump is rushing to do so now.

“After all, what if we built a statue of someone who turned out to be in the Epstein files or who, after losing an election, tried to overthrow our democracy?” Mann asks. “It would be costly and tedious to dismantle a statue of such a person after these revelations surfaced. Perhaps Trump realizes this, which is why he’s building not one monument to himself but scores of them.”

READ MORE: White House Mocks CNN Anchors’ Health After Trump’s Third Checkup in 13 Months

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President Donald Trump’s birthday UFC cage match project is causing confusion.

“The ‘UFC Freedom 250’ fight, which just so happens to be scheduled for Trump’s 80th birthday, is a part of the MAGA-ified America 250 celebrations,” The Daily Beast reports. “The makeshift venue is expected to be able to hold 4,500 guests, far lower than Trump’s wish for it to hold 20,000 spectators.”

“I think it’s gonna be the biggest event we’ve ever had at the White House,” Trump said earlier this month. “I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets.”

Event-related activities will take place around Washington, D.C.

“Weigh-ins for the fight will take place at the Lincoln Memorial,” The Daily Beast noted. “Trump has also said that the White House Ellipse grounds will be made available to host a ‘UFC Freedom 250 Fan Fest,’ where as many as 100,000 people could watch the fights on TV screens.”

UFC CEO Dana White acknowledged that the Fight Night event could harm the president, The Daily Beast also reported.

“I bet he probably wishes that this wasn’t happening, but it’s happening,” White told Rolling Stone on Tuesday.

But when Trump White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino posted video of the construction of a temporary cage-match arena on the South Lawn of the White House, supporters appeared confused.

“Happening now, from the West Wing Colonnade—Looking out toward the South Lawn of The White House,” Scavino wrote, adding a #UFC hashtag.

“What is it?” one commenter asked.

“Thought it was a rollercoaster!” said another.

“Gosh, it looks like a big circle with seats on it. You could just plot people on the seats. Take them to the top and who knows if they’ll be hanging out up there 😂or what😂😂 wouldn’t this be a great idea if this were actually the military tribunal’s in front of the whole world,” another wrote.

“Hangings,” wrote yet another.

Others suggested it might be a circus, a portal, or a piece from a time-traveling device. Some mentioned the movies “Stargate” and “Contact.”

 

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