Trump Makes Shocking Promise After Ex-Adviser Charged in Russia Scheme

Hours after the Justice Department announced it is charging a former Trump adviser over his work with Russian media, Donald Trump made a shocking promise: He’ll lift U.S. sanctions on Russia.

The Justice Department on Thursday charged Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser Dimitri Simes, as well as his wife, Anastasia, for working with a sanctioned Russian state television network and laundering the profit. According to the indictment, the couple received over $1 million, a personal car, and a driver for their work with Russia’s Channel One. (Simes, by the way, is mentioned over 100 times in the Mueller report, for his relationship with Trump allies like Jared Kushner.)

Given the news, when Trump took the stage at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, the first question from the panel of business leaders was about Russian sanctions. H. Rodgin Cohen, senior chair of law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, asked the former president if he “would strengthen or modify any of these economic sanction programs, particularly Russia.”

Trump then went on a rant about the problems of sanctions, stating clearly, “I want to use sanctions as little as possible.”

“You’re losing Iran, you’re losing Russia. China is out there trying to get their currency to be the dominant currency,” he said, explaining that he believes sanctions of countries like Russia weaken the dollar. “There’s so much conflict with all these countries that you’re going to lose” the dominance of the dollar.

During his time in office, Trump imposed new sanctions on Iran and North Korea but was so reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia, despite election interference and its use of chemical weapons, that lawmakers had to force his hand. As he described to Cohen on Thursday, Trump was quick to take the punishment away. “I use sanctions very powerfully against countries who deserve it, then I take them off.”

The sanctions that Dimitri and Anastasia Simes violated were put in place “in response to Russia’s illegal aggression in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a statement.

Thursday’s indictment comes on the heels of another Justice Department case charging two Russian state media employees in “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” Several prominent pro-Trump influencers were implicated in the case.

Donald Trump couldn’t come up with a meaningful answer when asked about how he would make childcare affordable Thursday.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the Republican presidential nominee gave a long, meandering answer to the question and didn’t even mention children or any possible solutions to the issue, even though he was asked what specific legislation he would pass.

“It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about that, because, look, childcare is childcare. It’s something you know you have to have it, in this country you have to have it,” Trump’s answer began, before he went off on a tangent about economic numbers.

“We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people,” Trump added, still failing to actually answer the question.

Trump’s incoherent answer was somehow worse than the one his running mate, J.D. Vance, gave Wednesday at a Turning Point Action event in Arizona when asked a similar question. Vance told conservative pundit Charlie Kirk that he would suggest people turn to their family members to help with childcare, or, if family members were not available, to loosen education requirements for childcare workers.

Aside from the fact that these answers indicate that the ostensibly pro-family Republican Party has poor solutions to making childcare less expensive, they also show Trump’s increasing cognitive decline. He was asked a straightforward question on how he would make childcare less expensive and the specific legislation he would pursue to make that possible. Trump either had no interest in a coherent answer or wasn’t capable of providing one. Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign had a quick response.

“Billionaire-bought Donald Trump’s ‘plan’ for making child care more affordable is to impose a $3,900 tax hike on middle class families,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement. “The American people deserve a President who will actually cut costs for them, like Vice President Harris’ plan to bring back a $3,600 Child Tax Credit for working families and an expanded $6,000 tax cut for families with newborn children.”

Is Trump capable of presenting, or even understanding, substantive policy ideas? His apparent mental state says he is not, and media coverage seems to gloss over discussions about his condition. Perhaps the upcoming debate with Harris next week will finally expose him in front of a national audience.

X owner, Tesla chief, and SpaceX executive Elon Musk could pick up another role should Donald Trump win in November: leading a government efficiency task force.

The task force would have the authority to audit federal spending and regulations, and came at the recommendation of Musk himself, Trump said in remarks Thursday to the Economic Club of New York.

“At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement—that’s nice, a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing, he knows what he’s doing! It’s very much appreciated—I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump told the subdued crowd of business executives. “We need to do it. Can’t go on the way we are now.”

According to Trump, the commission would develop a plan to “totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” aiming to slash trillions of dollars from the federal budget while promising not to alter government services. He did not identify any specific programs that could be slashed to save the cash, making budget experts from both parties very wary of the ambitious promise, according to The Washington Post’s White House economics reporter Jeff Stein. The commission as a whole represents an apparent dig at spending under the Biden-Harris administration.

Musk and Trump have grown closer since the tech billionaire formally endorsed the Republican presidential nominee after an assassination attempt in July. That same month, Musk pledged to give $45 million a month to a pro-Trump super PAC (a promise he later walked back.) The pair also shared a long, sprawling talk on X in August (the details of which may have violated FEC regulations.)

Ahead of Trump’s speech, Musk took to X to confirm that he would be open to such a role.

“I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises,” Musk wrote in a post. “No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”

Musk had already previewed his potential federal job on Tuesday, tweeting that he “can’t wait” to take on a cust-cutting role. “There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go,” he warned.

But regardless of his enthusiasm, Musk’s previous attempts to rein in spending at his companies don’t bode well for the government should he take on such a role. After acquiring Twitter, Musk laid off roughly 75 percent of its staff—a decision that infuriated investors and ended up tanking the social media behemoth’s value by 90 percent, in Musk’s own words.

MAGA Republicans are more than happy to excuse the right-wing influencers at the center of a Russian propaganda scheme.

Right-wing influencers like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson all worked with Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based firm that the Justice Department revealed Wednesday was secretly funded by Russian state media employees in “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” The indictment charges two Russia Today employees with providing nearly $10 million to the media company that often spouted Kremlin talking points.

In response to the charges, the pundits and their allies are saying they just didn’t know any better. In fact, they’re the real victims.

“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived,” Pool wrote.

Johnson echoed the line, writing, “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.”

Even Representative Matt Gaetz bought their argument. “Tim and Benny were deceived, as the indictment clearly lays out,” he wrote just hours after news of the indictment.

Propagandist Ben Shapiro also came to the rescue, stating that Pool, Johnson, and Rubin “aren’t the issue” because “they were apparently deceived by the company founders, who were allegedly taking Russian cash.”

Donald Trump too boosted the talking point, as he posted a clip of conservative columnist Michael Shellenberger on Fox News arguing that “this is really small ball stuff” and “two of the influencers that were targeted did not know it was Russian money.” (If that is the case, wouldn’t it be true that the rest did?)

It’s hard to believe that the members of Tenet Media “didn’t know” anything about the scheme. In fact, you can watch Pool describe nearly exactly what he engaged in, during a podcast conversation: 

Let’s see if playing clueless works out for them.

Donald Trump’s trial over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election resumed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, and it was off to a rough start as Judge Tanya Chutkan repeatedly shot down arguments from his legal team.

Trump’s team hid behind the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity two months ago, claiming that Trump could not be prosecuted over his “official acts” as president. Instead, Chutkan declared she would treat Trump like any other criminal defendant.

Trump attorney John Lauro tried to argue against special counsel Jack Smith’s legitimacy in one instance, citing the fact that Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump’s classified documents case by ruling that Smith’s appointment was not legitimate. Chutkan again readily dismissed their argument.

Lauro tried to cite Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to support his argument but was forced to correct himself by Chutkan.

Lauro then tried to challenge prosecutors’ proposal that Trump’s team file a brief on the immunity issue by the end of September, calling it “extremely prejudicial.” Lauro also tried to claim Trump’s conversations with his vice president, Mike Pence, were “official acts,” only for Chutkan to rebuff him. Lauro also invoked originalism, which the Supreme Court’s conservatives adhere to, in his claim that Trump’s conversations with Pence were covered by the Supreme Court ruling. Chutkan shot down that line of thinking.

If Trump’s trial continues to proceed like it has on Thursday, then the former president and convicted felon is going to have a tough time. Smith already put together a superseding indictment taking into account the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, and Chutkan looks like she won’t be favoring Trump, unlike Cannon in Florida. We may have a long and brutal federal trial coming soon.

Donald Trump may have already completely screwed himself in his January 6 trial.

The federal election interference case, which resumed Thursday, was considered practically dead after the Supreme Court granted the former president wide-ranging immunity in July. But in the last week alone, Trump has managed to compromise that shoo-in all on his own by outright confessing to losing the 2020 election—a first-of-its-kind admission that legal experts believe could be used against him in court.

Trump “is forever trying his cases in the court of public opinion, where there are no rules of evidence, no rules of procedure and no rules of law,” argued former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner. “What he apparently doesn’t realize is that every word out of his mouth is admissible in a criminal trial. This is where the rules of evidence come into play—and where they will work to Trump’s extreme disadvantage at trial.”

That could include an eyebrow-raising soundbite from the Republican presidential nominee, who earlier this week admitted on the Lex Fridman podcast that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden “by a whisker.”

That admission infuriated some members of Trump’s longtime fanbase, including white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who lamented having his money frozen and becoming “the most canceled man in America” for advancing the January 6 riot for what was—now by Trump’s own admission—a complete lie.

“So what was the point? Like, what’s the point of any of it? You lost in 2020? Seriously? What are we even doing anymore?” Fuentes said on his web show, figuring out the charade in real time. “You’re a loser. You just lost. Then you lost to Joe Biden. You deserve to be charged!”

“So why did we do Stop the Steal? Why did anyone go to January 6th? Why is anyone sitting in jail? Why did anything bad happen to anybody?” Fuentes continued, torching Trump for ushering his supporters toward the Capitol that day, resulting in more than 1,000 arrests. “Why did that need to happen? If you’re just going to walk it all back and say, ‘Oh, I lost.’”

Donald Trump’s January 6 trial finally got underway again Thursday, and his attorneys have already managed to trip themselves up.

While deliberating the trial schedule, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro argued that they would need “significant time” to parse through what elements of the case would be unsealed, reported NOTUS’s Jose Pagliery.

But that’s not in line with what this same defense team recently accomplished. In July, days after the Supreme Court finally issued its immunity ruling that postponed the federal election interference trial by nearly a year, Blanche issued a whopping 52-page report—and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan took notice.

“Congratulations Mr. Blanche!” Chutkan said with a smile, sending Blanche sinking into his chair while chuckling to himself.

But Trump’s team saw another avenue of attack: Lauro pressed that they would need to start from scratch because the superseding indictment was filed just last week. But Chutkan wasn’t having any of it.

“You say a new indictment, but it’s a slimmed-down version. It’s not more, it’s less,” Chutkan told him.

The pared-down indictment largely focuses on Trump’s private and nonofficial actions, since the Supreme Court granted the former president broad immunity for official acts, thereby nixing them as evidence. As Lauro laid out his argument, it became clear that Trump’s team believed it could be entitled to new evidence in the case as a result, reported Pagliery.

“We have 14 million pages of documents,” Lauro told Chutkan. “We’re still getting discovery in this case … we need to look at this discovery with an eye toward the immunity issues now.”

Prosecutor Thomas Windham, however, explained that his team doesn’t “expect any more disclosures.”

Trump is not at the trial in person. The case hinges on the allegation that Trump knew he had lost the election but still tried to subvert the results, as proven by conversations he had with then–Vice President Mike Pence and his lawyers. Admissions by Trump from just this week—including that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden “by a whisker”—could further damn his chances at trial.

Donald Trump still can’t get over being called weird along with running mate J.D. Vance.

At a Fox News town hall Wednesday night with his confidant Sean Hannity, the Republican presidential nominee said, “J.D. is not weird, he’s a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock.”

“We’re not weird. We’re other things, perhaps, but we’re not weird. But [Tim Walz] is a weird guy, he walks on the stage, there’s something wrong with that guy, and he called me weird. And then the fake news media picks it up, that was the word of the day. Weird, weird, weird, they’re all going. But we’re not weird guys,” Trump said as a raucous crowd laughed in support of him.

The Kamala Harris campaign quickly seized on Trump’s answer, posting it to their X account the same night.

It’s pretty clear that the “weird” criticisms, which Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is credited with inspiring before Kamala Harris even chose him as her running mate, is driving Trump nuts. He can’t stop talking about it, which in turn is giving the word traction and a continued association with him and Vance. His repeated denials only drive the point home even further, and neither he nor Vance has come up with an effective response.

It also doesn’t help that Trump’s own words seem to validate the attack, whether he’s fumbling through a rally speech, seemingly forgetting who he’s running against, or suddenly flip-flopping on major policy positions. And Vance hasn’t helped, either, with his odd views on family, his associations with neo-Nazis, and his complete inability to order donuts like a normal person (which Walz has no problem doing). With Trump’s debate with Harris less than a week away, the convicted felon runs the risk of the entire country seeing his weirdness on live television next to a former prosecutor.

Speaking at a Fox News town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Wednesday night, Donald Trump got weirdly threatening with his voter base.

“You have no choice,” Trump said. “You’ve got to vote for me, even if you don’t like me.”

As Trump continues to get bad news in the polls, it appears he is getting increasingly desperate to escape a prison sentence and reclaim power. The new election threat comes on the heels of him repeatedly telling voters this summer that after this election, they’ll never have to vote again.

During Wednesday’s town hall, hosted by Sean Hannity, Trump couldn’t even take the time to enjoy a friendly crowd without getting worked up about Kamala Harris.

Trump launched into the ominous order to voters after saying Harris will ban fracking nationwide, which is a lie. “If she won, you’re not gonna have any fracking in Pennsylvania,” Trump exclaimed. Though Harris floated limiting fracking during her 2020 campaign for president, she has since aligned with President Joe Biden’s policy position on the issue. She told CNN last week that she now believes that her administration could create a “thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”

The two candidates appear to be tied in the polls in Pennsylvania, hence Trump’s drumming up fear about the industry in the state and begging for votes.

Just a handful of months ago, Donald Trump glided through New Hampshire’s Republican primary. After his first match-off with President Joe Biden in June, Trump’s campaign was so confident it would carry on with the Granite State’s support in November that it had legitimately spooked Democrats. 

Things could not be more different now.

After a weekend kerfuffle in which a top Trump volunteer released an email indicating that the campaign should back out of its efforts in New Hampshire, Team Trump officials seem all too ready to ignore that they ever thought they had a fighting chance to win the battleground state.

“This election is going to be won in those seven swing states” and not in New Hampshire, the Trump campaign’s New Hampshire co-chair Lou Gargiulo told Politico, referring to Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. “That’s where the effort’s got to be put.”

Despite making recent promises that his attention was still trained on its voters, Trump has reportedly not visited the Granite State since he won its primary. His campaign has failed to match the energy of Democrats in the state, with no surrogates carrying the torch in his absence.

“The Trump campaign does not appear to be matching or contesting” New Hampshire, according to Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist from the state and former Trump administration appointee who spoke with Politico.

The Trump campaign was caught off guard on Sunday when a top volunteer, Tom Mountain, issued an internal message notifying fellow volunteers that “the campaign has determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state.” Mountain also wrote that internal polling indicated  Trump could lose New Hampshire by a wider margin than he did to Joe Biden in 2020. 

Mountain is reportedly no longer with the campaign, but his message was, apparently, not a one-off. Instead, other New Hampshire Republicans have also signaled that the race in their state is a done deal, according to CNN correspondent Steve Contorno.

Speaking with Erin Burnett on CNN’s OutFront Tuesday night, Contorno argued that the tides have turned for the Trump campaign among New Hampshire voters.

“When I talked to other Republican operatives in the state, they said that this volunteer is painting a pretty clear picture that’s really illustrative of what’s happening there,” Contorno said.

One such Republican was GOP strategist Mike Dennehy, who said that Trump could lose New Hampshire by six to eight percentage points.