Trump Claims Victory as Hush-Money Case Ends With a Whimper

Trump is claiming victory after becoming the first convicted felon who will enter the White House.

Judge Juan Merchan on Friday sentenced Trump to unconditional discharge, or a sentence without imprisonment, fines, or probation, saying that this was the “only lawful sentence” he could deliver.

Merchan was careful to note that it was the office Trump was about to take, and not his own crimes, that led to this wrist-slap of a sentencing for falsifying business records to cover up his hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. But Trump viewed it as a win nonetheless.

He wrote on Truth Social shortly after the sentencing:

The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt. After spending tens of millions of dollars, wasting over 6 years of obsessive work that should have been spent on protecting New Yorkers from violent, rampant crime that is destroying the City and State, coordinating with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization, and bringing completely baseless, illegal, and fake charges against your 45th and 47th President, ME, I was given an UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE. That result alone proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED. The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History. As the American People have seen, this “case” had no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no Law, only a highly conflicted Judge, a star witness who is a disbarred, disgraced, serial perjurer, and criminal Election Interference. Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

But as Merchan stressed, there was a case and the president-elect is guilty. And even though Trump will walk free and take his oath of office on January 20, he still is and will always be a convicted felon.

Donald Trump gloated that the Americans “don’t need anything” from Canada, even as the Canadian government sent firefighters and supplies in response to the devastating wildfires in California.  

“Canada is mobilizing to help fight the wildfires in southern California. Canadian water bombers are already in action. 250 firefighters are ready to deploy,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote in a post on X Thursday. 

“To our American neighbours: Canada’s here to help.”

But that same day, Trump had a very different perspective on the relationship between neighbors: “We don’t need anything,” he said during a press conference in Palm Beach, Florida, not speaking about the wildfires specifically but just generally complaining because that’s what he does.

“We don’t need their fuel, we don’t need their energy, we don’t need their oil and gas. We don’t need anything that they have,” Trump continued. 

“And I said to Trudeau, I said, ‘Why are, why are we subsidizing you 200 a—250 billion dollars a year? And he said, ‘I really don’t know.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know either.’ I said, ‘What would happen to Canada if we didn’t?’ He said, ‘Canada would be obliterated.’ I said, ‘Well, then Canada should be a fifty-first state.’”

Canada has actually been helping fight the fires all week through the use of water bombers operating around Los Angeles. One Canadian “Super Scooper” aircraft, two of which are loaned annually to the U.S., was grounded Thursday after colliding with a civilian drone—resulting in a loss of more than 1,500 gallons of ocean water per flight that could have been dropped on active fires.

But Trump doesn’t think we need any help at all. Take lumber, for example, an industry of which Trump clearly has a highly technical understanding: “We don’t need Canada for lumber ’cause we have big forests, that we have, you know, not utilized. In some cases they’re protected, which I can take that protection off. And you can take down that tree and grow a better tree. And you know that’s pretty common.”

Elon Musk is already sparking chaos in the federal government, sending representatives from his Department of Government Efficiency to agencies across the federal bureaucracy.

The Washington Post reports that employees from DOGE, which will be headed by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, are already beginning to interview federal employees as part of their plan to decrease the size of the federal government. DOGE has interviewed workers at the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services.

Musk and Ramaswamy already have 50 employees working out of the Washington, D.C., offices of Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, according to the Post, with plans to have 100 people in place by January 20, when Trump is sworn in as president. But their plans are already meeting skepticism from civil servants and members of Congress, including Republicans.

According to two government employees who spoke to the Post, Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s comments about the federal workforce have made them “wary” of the DOGE effort. The pair have cited a controversial Supreme Court ruling, Loper Bright v. Raimondo, that they say will help them enact sweeping budget cuts across the federal government—but the federal bureaucracy seems all but destined for a clash with the fast-moving, “disruptive” culture of Silicon Valley.

However, in recent days, Musk has been tempering his statements on DOGE, conceding that his goal of cutting the federal budget by “at least $2 trillion” probably won’t happen. Plus, since DOGE isn’t an official government agency and Musk and Ramaswamy aren’t actually federal employees, they can’t make any changes themselves. The most they can do is recommend changes and budget cuts to Congress and the president.

Still, Musk and Ramaswamy will at least attempt to make a big show of appearing to be slashing the size of government, and regardless of how it goes, will attempt to claim victory. If there are negative consequences, rest assured that they will find some way to blame somebody else—likely their critics.

President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday morning in his hush-money case, after becoming the first president to be convicted of multiple felonies.

Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to unconditional discharge, or a sentence without imprisonment, fines, or probation, saying that this was the “only lawful sentence” he could pass down.

Merchan made clear that Trump was receiving this sentence only because he is returning to the White House in a few days. It is the legal protection of the office that determined the sentence, not the occupant of the office, Merchan stressed in delivering the sentence.

It’s a whimper of an end for the historic case, in which Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up his payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, with whom he had an affair. Still, it’s a national embarrassment. Trump is now the first convicted felon to be sworn in as president.

Appearing virtually in the courtroom Friday, Trump complained that he did nothing wrong.

“I was the first president in history to be under a gag order. I’m totally innocent. I did nothing wrong,” Trump claimed. “They talk about business records, but they were extremely accurate and I had nothing to do with them.”

Undeterred, Merchan accused Trump’s lawyers of trying to create a “chilling effect” on the Supreme Court in pressing for the sentencing to be waived.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass also warned that Trump’s actions during the case were an attack on the rule of law. “Such threats are designed to have a chilling effect, intimidate those who have the responsibility to enforce our laws in the hopes that they will ignore the defendant’s transgressions because they fear [Trump] is too powerful to be subjected to rule of law like the rest of us,” Steinglass argued, according to Lawfare reporter Tyler McBrien.

Trump tried very hard to stop this moment from happening, leaning on his presidential immunity, but to no avail.

“Sir, I wish you godspeed as you pursue your second term in office. Thank you,” Merchan said as the sentencing concluded.

The Supreme Court shockingly slapped down Donald Trump’s request to block the sentencing for his sole criminal conviction, leaving him with few other options than to finally face the music at the finale of his hush-money trial Friday morning. But Trump’s interpretation of the rejection—which attempted to frame the forthcoming legal comeuppance as something of a fight song—wouldn’t have you think so.

“I appreciate the time and effort of the United States Supreme Court in trying to remedy the great injustice done to me by the highly conflicted ‘Acting Justice,’ who should not have been allowed to try this case,” Trump wrote Thursday night on Truth Social. “Every Legal Scholar stated, unequivocally, that this is a case that should never have been brought. There was no case against me. In other words, I am innocent of all of the Judge’s made up, fake charges.

“This was nothing other than Weaponization of our Justice System against a Political Opponent,” he continued. “It’s called Lawfare, and nothing like this has ever happened in the United States of America, and it should never be allowed to happen again.”

Trump then went on to lament the details of the gag order placed upon him in the case, claiming that preventing him from bashing the characters of witnesses and court staff in the hush-money trial was a violation of his First Amendment rights.

“For the sake and sanctity of the Presidency, I will be appealing this case, and am confident that JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL,” Trump wrote. “The pathetic, dying remnants of the Witch Hunts against me will not distract us as we unite and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 on Thursday against Trump, determining that there would be no further delays in processing the president-elect’s criminal conviction. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump nominee, sided with the court’s three liberal justices in the majority decision. The court issued a brief, one-paragraph statement explaining its two-pronged rationale for rejecting Trump’s request.

“First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal,” the court wrote. “Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of ‘unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing.”

Last week, Judge Juan Merchan dealt the final blow to any suggestions of serious consequences for the president-elect. Merchan wrote in his order that “unconditional discharge” had become the “the most viable solution” for Trump, indicating that the incoming president would not be hampered down with fines, court-appointed supervision, or incarceration.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, with the MAGA leader appearing virtually.

An appeals court has denied an emergency motion from two of Donald Trump’s co-defendants to stop the release of a report on the president-elect’s felony classified documents case.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team had asked the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision blocking the report’s release in favor of Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Mar-a-Lago, and Walt Nauta, a Trump aide who was photographed carrying large boxes around the estate. The court agreed with Smith’s side, ruling Thursday that the report could be released after three days.

Cannon previously tossed out the felony classified documents case against Trump by ruling Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, a move that has been criticized by legal scholars and repeatedly celebrated by Trump.

Lawyers for De Oliveira and Nauta argued that allowing Smith to publish his report was an “improper attempt to remove from the district court the responsibility to oversee and control the flow of information related to a criminal trial over which it presides, and to place that role instead in the hands of the prosecuting authority.”

The lawyers also pushed back on the notion that there was a sense of urgency to get the report published before Trump’s inauguration later this month.

“The only counsel in this case now claiming urgency is the Attorney General, but the government’s brief does not explain this urgency,” the lawyers wrote. “The Attorney General is an office and not an individual: It will continue in perpetuity. The urgency of political activity is a fake urgency.”

Still, their motion to block the release was denied, but the Eleventh Circuit left in place Cannon’s order enjoining its release.

U.S. attorneys said Wednesday that the report would not be made publicly available but would be accessible to members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, which the defense lawyers said could lead to possible leaks. Now Attorney General Merrick Garland can publicly release the report from Sunday.

De Oliveira pleaded not guilty to allegedly trying to help Trump delete security footage, and Nauta pleaded not guilty to moving the boxes (a tough one, as again, he was photographed).

The Senate voted to advance a bill Thursday that would allow the government to detain undocumented immigrants accused of committing nonviolent crimes, following the House’s passage of the bill Wednesday.

The Laken Riley Act advanced by a 84–9 vote in the Senate, with 33 Democrats voting with every Republican in the chamber, despite the fact that the bill doesn’t require a conviction or charge, but merely an arrest, to target an undocumented immigrant. There are also no protections for children or DACA recipients. The House bill saw 48 Democrats join Republicans to pass it, and the Senate version still needs a final vote.

Senate Democrats, like their counterparts in the House, seem to be backing the GOP’s rhetoric demonizing all undocumented immigrants, penalizing them just for being suspected of a crime. With less than two weeks until Donald Trump is sworn into office, many Democrats are already joining Republicans in granting him new powers to carry out his planned mass deportations.

See which Senate Democrats voted to advance the bill below:

1. Angela Alsobrooks—Maryland
2. Tammy Baldwin—Wisconsin
3. Michael Bennet—Colorado
4. Richard Blumenthal—Connecticut
5. Lisa Blunt Rochester—Delaware
6. Maria Cantwell—Washington
7. Chris Coons—Delaware
8. Catherine Cortez Masto—Nevada
9. Tammy Duckworth—Illinois
10. Dick Durbin—Illinois
11. John Fetterman—Pennsylvania (co-sponsor)
12. Ruben Gallego—Arizona (co-sponsor)
13. Kirsten Gillibrand—New York
14. Martin Heinrich—New Mexico
15. John Hickenlooper—Colorado
16. Tim Kaine—Virginia
17. Mark Kelly—Arizona
18. Angus King (independent who caucuses with Democrats)—Maine
19. Amy Klobuchar—Minnesota
20. Ben Ray Luján—New Mexico
21. Jon Ossoff—Georgia
22. Gary Peters—Michigan
23. Jack Reed—Rhode Island
24. Jacky Rosen—Nevada
25. Chuck Schumer—New York
26. Jeanne Shaheen—New Hampshire
27. Elissa Slotkin—Michigan
28. Chris Van Hollen—Maryland
29. Mark Warner—Virginia
30. Raphael Warnock—Georgia
31. Peter Welch—Vermont
32. Sheldon Whitehouse—Rhode Island
33. Ron Wyden—Oregon

The leader of Germany’s nativist far-right party wants us to believe that Adolf Hitler was actually a raging Communist.

Alternative for Germany Party, or AfD, co-leader Alice Weidel gave an interview with Elon Musk on Thursday live on X. She discussed everything from “woke mind virus” censorship to how stumped she was on the conflict in the Middle East. Her most eyebrow-raising assertion though was that Hitler was a Communist.

“Hitler was a Communist. He considered himself as a socialist.… The biggest success of our country was to label Adolf Hitler as a conservative or a libertarian,” Weidel opined. “He was a Communist socialist guy. Full stop. AfD is the exact opposite. It’s a conservative libertarian party. Hitler was not ‘on the right.’ Hitler played with people’s envy against each other. That was a socialist weapon. He was nothing other than an antisemitic socialist.”

Weidel’s shameless attempt to associate Hitler with her political enemies on the left was met with zero pushback from Musk.

In reality, Hitler was actually very specific about not being a socialist, even as his Nazi Party was called the “Nationalist Socialist Party” (a popular ‘gotcha’ among Weidel and her fans). Hitler changed the meaning of socialism to fit his own fascistic narrative.

“​​Socialism is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not socialism. Marxism is not socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take socialism away from the socialists,” Hitler said in a 1923 interview. “Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common.”

Hitler was also a staunch anti-Communist.

“In the years 1913 and 1914 I expressed my opinion for the first time in various circles … that the problem of how the future of the German nation can be secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated,” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. He advocated for “the destruction of Marxism in all its shapes and forms” in those same pages.

Those on the left and the right quickly sounded off in opposition to Weidel’s claim.

“The fact that Alice Weidel—co-leader of Germany’s far-right extremists—calls Hitler a ‘communist’ and likening Nazis to ‘leftish Palestinian’ antisemites in ONE sentence epitomizes the distorted discourse the liberal center in Germany has normalized over the past 15 months,” wrote Guardian reporter Hanno Hauenstein.

“Hitler did not govern as a communist, where the state owned all of the means of production. All private companies were NOT nationalized as is claimed below. Hitler governed more like Mussolini (and sadly today’s America) via economic fascism,” wrote libertarian commentator Chris Rossini. “Private hands … but those hands are at the disposal of the state. That’s economic fascism. Not communism … where there are no private hands … and only the state.”

“Alice Weidel’s claim that Hitler was a ‘communist socialist’ is completely off. Hitler and the Nazis were far-right, deeply anti-communist, and focused on nationalism, not socialism. They worked closely with big businesses, not against them,” military news outlet Geo Insider posted.

Musk gave Weidel a huge, uninhibited platform to spread her right-wing misinformation campaign. The world’s richest man was already accused of election interference in Germany prior to his interview with the AfD leader, and is looking to bolster far-right politics in the U.K. and Italy as well.

Meta employees are protesting the company’s new content moderation guidelines, which practically amount to no content moderation at all.

Some of the recent changes have dropped the digital guardrails on controversial topics such as immigration, race, gender identity, as well as language around the LGBTQ+ community, including allowing users to suggest that being gay is a mental illness. That last detail has sent some of the company’s own employees into a rage, according to internal conversations obtained by 404 Media.

“I am LGBT and Mentally Ill,” one employee wrote on an internal Meta forum called Workplace reads, 404 Media reported Thursday. “Just to let you know that I’ll be taking time out to look after my mental health.”

Users on Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, will also be allowed to refer to women as “household objects or property or objects in general,” Black people as “farm equipment,” and transgender individuals as “it,” according to an updated version of Meta’s hateful conduct policy that crossed out the prohibitions.

On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media behemoth would rid itself of its third-party fact-checkers, opting instead to replace them with user-generated corrections à la Elon Musk’s “community notes” function on X.

“Fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcement posted to Facebook. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

John Fetterman will become the first sitting Democratic senator to visit Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate following the 2024 election, CBS News reports.

“That is the plan. Yes, we are going to have a conversation,” Fetterman told the network, confirming that he accepted an invitation to meet with the president-elect.

“I think that, one, he’s the president, or he will be officially,” Fetterman continued. “And I think it’s pretty reasonable that if the president would like to have a conversation—or invite someone to have a conversation—to have it. And no one is my gatekeeper.”

When Fetterman ran for the Senate in 2022 against Trump’s handpicked candidate Mehmet Oz, Trump shamelessly accused Fetterman of abusing heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and fentanyl, which Fetterman’s campaign dismissed at the time as “the same crap from these two desperate and sad dudes.”

Since then, Trump has been reelected president, Oz became Trump’s shady pick to run Medicare and Medicaid, and Fetterman became one of the most GOP-friendly Democrats in Congress. He has boasted about shifting away from progressive politics for more than a year, even claiming that brain damage from his near-fatal stroke allowed him to “say the things that I have to really believe in and not be afraid of if there’s any kind of blowback.”

Fetterman’s right-wing turn, including his full-throated support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, has cost him a lot of Democratic support. Most recently, Fetterman even downplayed Trump’s crazy idea to annex Greenland, comparing it to the Louisiana Purchase, signaling that he may be willing to go against his own party over the next four years like former Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

An official on Trump’s transition team said that a meeting between the president-elect and senator has not yet been finalized, but it goes to show that Fetterman either isn’t worried about the coming Trump presidency or just doesn’t care. Pennsylvania might have one Republican senator in Dave McCormick and one Democrat in name only.