Not content material with attempting to include Canada, President-elect Donald Trump has set his sights additional north to Greenland. Too dangerous it’s not on the market.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede instructed Trump Monday to again off his outlandish bid to manage the world’s largest island. “Greenland is ours. We aren’t on the market and can by no means be on the market. We should not lose our lengthy battle for freedom,” Egede stated in a written remark.

In a put up on Sunday, the president-elect introduced that Ken Howery, co-founder of PayPal and former ambassador to Sweden throughout Trump’s first time period, would function the ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark, which holds management of the semiautonomous Greenland. He additionally re-upped a bid to take Greenland off its fingers.

“For functions of Nationwide Safety and Freedom all through the World, america of America feels that the possession and management of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Reality Social.

Trump beforehand floated the concept of the U.S. shopping for Greenland in 2019, which the Danish prime minister on the time known as “absurd.” His megalomaniacal musings by no means got here to something, and certain received’t this time round both.

Greenland is residence to the U.S.’s Pituffik Area Base that, amongst different issues, “detects and experiences assault assessments of sea-launched and intercontinental ballistic missile threats in help of strategic missile warning and missile protection,” in accordance to its web site.

Greenland is strategically vital to the united statesbecause it sits between Russia and the jap coast of america, and is the quickest method from Europe to New York. It’s additionally situated beside the Norwegian Sea, which connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic Ocean and the Barents Sea, the place the Russian navy’s northern fleet operates.

U.S. enlargement gave the impression to be on Trump’s thoughts Sunday, and the geopolitical mastermind additionally threatened to take management of the Panama Canal, which has been the property of Panama since 1999. “Welcome to america Canal!” Trump captioned {a photograph} of the canal in a put up on Reality Social Sunday.

Earlier this month, when going through criticism about his plan for harsh tariffs on Canadian imports, Trump made a crack about Canada turning into the 51st state. The final time the U.S. tried to make a play for Canada, the British burned down the U.S. Capitol.

It’s tough to think about Trump’s newest imperialist goals as something aside from a distraction from his sinister plans stateside—which embody violently rounding up undocumented immigrants into camps and deporting them en masse.

Former Consultant Matt Gaetz is submitting a restraining order towards the complete Home Ethics Committee to cease them from exhibiting the world their findings, which reportedly contains proof that he paid an underage woman for intercourse.

Gaetz accuses the committee of an “unconstitutional” try “to train jurisdiction over a personal citizen via the threatened launch of an investigative report containing doubtlessly defamatory allegations, in violation of the Committee’s personal guidelines.”

That is the results of a yearslong investigation into allegations that Gaetz had paid a teenage woman and a number of girls 1000’s of {dollars} for intercourse and medicines since 2017.

This can be a growing story.

Former Consultant Matt Gaetz is submitting a restraining order towards the complete Home Ethics Committee to cease them from exhibiting the world their findings, which reportedly contains proof that he paid an underaged woman for intercourse.

Gaetz accuses the committee of an “unconstitutional” try “to train jurisdiction over a personal citizen via the threatened launch of an investigative report containing doubtlessly defamatory allegations, in violation of the Committee’s personal guidelines.”

This all comes after CNN reported final week that the committee secretly voted to launch its report into former Consultant Matt Gaetz. The report is years lengthy, and based mostly on allegations that Gaetz had paid a teenage woman and a number of girls 1000’s of {dollars} for intercourse and medicines since 2017.

Gaetz’s restraining order request states that the report could be unjustly tarnishing his repute, arguing that it’s “regarding issues of sexual propriety and different acts of alleged ethical turpitude constitutes irreparable hurt that can’t be adequately remedied via financial damages.”

The clerk’s workplace has already instructed Gaetz his lawsuit should be refiled, as Gaetz’s attorneys made paperwork errors that should be corrected earlier than it goes any additional.

Gaetz has fervently denied any and all allegations.

“In my single days, I typically despatched funds to girls I dated—even some I by no means dated however who requested. I dated a number of of those girls for years. I NEVER had sexual contact with somebody beneath 18. Any declare that I’ve could be destroyed in courtroom—which is why no such declare was ever made in courtroom,” Gaetz wrote final week. “It’s embarrassing, although not legal, that I most likely partied, womanized, drank and smoked greater than I ought to have earlier in life. I reside a special life now.”

This story has been up to date.

Donald Trump dismissed the “President Musk” jokes Sunday, and it was lower than convincing.

Throughout his deal with at Turning Level USA’s AmericaFest convention in Phoenix, Arizona, the president-elect pushed again on claims that Musk deliberate to supplant him as president.

“No, he’s not gonna be president, that I can inform you,” Trump stated. “And I’m protected, you understand why? He can’t be, he wasn’t born on this nation.”

However Trump fastidiously elided the precise criticism of Musk’s rising political affect. Individuals aren’t nervous that Musk is plotting to steal the presidency—they’re nervous he already has.

Final week, Musk issued his personal set of marching orders to Congress, ordering Republicans to oppose an enormous spending invoice to avert a authorities shutdown, or face being primaried by a Musk-backed candidate. In the meantime, Trump stayed roughly silent, and Democratic leaders started to criticize the president-elect for permitting Musk to steer his celebration.

When Trump finally did weigh in, additionally issuing a request to raise the debt ceiling, his spokesperson Karoline Leavitt issued a chilly assertion to ensure everybody knew there was just one man in cost.

“As quickly as President Trump launched his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his standpoint. President Trump is the chief of the Republican Get together. Full cease,” stated Leavitt.

Solely when each Musk and Trump authorized of the spending invoice was it in a position to transfer ahead. Whereas the modifications Musk sought have been made, Trump’s request received left on the chopping room flooring.

Musk’s current habits signifies not solely a rising affect on Trump, however on the Republican Get together at giant, as Republicans instantly fell in line. Already, many have begun pledging themselves to help the unelected bureaucrat with the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, a scheme to eradicate federal applications and employees and substitute them with expensive company contracts and distributors.

The Home of Representatives lastly voted to avert a authorities shutdown Friday night, simply hours earlier than authorities funding was set to run out, due to Democratic assist and Republicans’ determination to exclude Donald Trump’s demand to increase the debt ceiling.

The invoice to proceed funding for the federal government handed with 366 votes in favor and 34 votes towards, with each single “no” vote coming from a Republican.

This most up-to-date vote comes in the future after a whopping 38 Republicans joined 197 Democrats in voting towards an abbreviated persevering with decision, endorsed by each Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

That invoice had nixed a number of key provisions from the unique, together with ones to fund analysis into pediatric most cancers, untimely labor, and Down syndrome; to deal with sickle-cell anemia and early most cancers detection; and criminalize deepfake pornography.

The unique 1,547-page bipartisan invoice was scrapped Wednesday, after Musk railed towards it on social media and Trump demanded that Republicans discover a approach to raise the debt ceiling, sending an embattled Home Speaker Mike Johnson scrambling to provide you with a brand new model of the laws.

The huge invoice underwent a number of levels on Friday, having been break up up into three part components for lawmakers to vote on individually: a three-month persevering with decision, a invoice funding catastrophe aid, and a invoice to grant $10 billion in aid for farmers and lengthen the farmer’s invoice, whereas Trump’s request to boost the debt ceiling was nowhere to be discovered.

Ultimately, lawmakers voted on one single package deal, which might fund the federal government via March 14, present roughly $100 billion for catastrophe assist, and lengthen the federal applications supporting farmers, offering $30 billion in financial aid.

Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a easy repair for the present authorities shutdown battle.

“How concerning the Home add marketing campaign finance reform to the CR so Republicans and Democrats alike can cease being so scared about what a billionaire man-child thinks earlier than they vote on something round right here,” AOC wrote on X Friday.

The “billionaire man-child” in query is Elon Musk, who has been threatening to major any representatives who don’t again his most popular model of the spending invoice. Musk helped tank the bipartisan spending invoice on Wednesday via a barrage of posts on X, and on Thursday, a Trump-backed invoice didn’t win over sufficient Republicans. On Friday afternoon, Musk once more started hinting at his opposition to the revised Republican plan.

Musk’s outdoors function in these negotiations has known as into query who’s actually calling the photographs within the Republican Get together.

“The chief of the GOP is Elon Musk,” Consultant Brendan Boyle wrote on X. “I don’t know why Trump doesn’t simply hand him the Oval Workplace,” stated Consultant Greg Cesar.

Roger Stone stated Friday he needs to repair America’s damaged justice system, conveniently forgetting the time he received bailed out of legal costs by his buddy Donald Trump.

Throughout Stone’s deal with at Turning Level USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, the longtime GOP operative and self-proclaimed “agent provocateur” defined what he believed Trump’s allies hope to achieve from a second stint within the White Home.

“What we search is a rebalance of the scales of justice, so this nation can return to at least one normal of justice, not the two-tiered justice system,” Stone stated in a video posted on X by CBS Information’s senior White Home reporter Jennifer Jacobs.

It’s type of unclear to which two-tiered justice system Stone was referring—might it probably have been the one which secured him a presidential pardon after he was indicted for mendacity to Congress about Russian tampering within the 2016 presidential election, witness tampering, and obstruction? The exact same system that rescued him, the president-elect’s longtime buddy and ally, from a 40-month jail sentence? Absolutely not that one, proper?

There are actually severe issues with the nation’s justice system worthy of the eye of the president of america—however Stone’s not speaking about these. No, he’s almost definitely speaking concerning the system that pardoned Hunter Biden for gun costs and tax evasion, or the system that pursued costs towards the rioters on the January 6 riot, whose violence Stone cheered on.

Finally, MAGA is just not in search of to “rebalance the scales”; it’s in search of to throw the dimensions out and do regardless of the hell Trump needs. But when Stone is severely keen on being prosecuted for tax evasion, the Justice Division can positively make that occur.

Elon Musk is hoping to dispel the extensively circulating notion that he, not President-elect Trump, is basically calling the photographs.

On Thursday, X consumer Lulu Cheng Meservey known as such speculations indicative of a wider “technique” to sow discord between Musk and Trump. “By jabbing Trump about not being the alpha, the concept is to impress him to sideline Elon and to fray the connection,” Meservey wrote.

Musk agreed, writing in a quote-tweet Friday, “The political & legacy media puppets all received their new directions yesterday and at the moment are parroting the identical message to drive a wedge between [Trump] and me. They are going to fail.”

The “President Musk” rhetoric started after the billionaire, whose monetary help for Trump and different Republican candidates made him 2024’s largest political donor, helped tank a bipartisan spending invoice. Musk unleashed a fusillade of criticism on his social media platform, X, in addition to a risk to fund major challenges towards representatives who voted to go the deal.

Later that day, President-elect Trump got here out towards the deal, and after a failed vote on a revised invoice Thursday, Home Republicans are scrambling to place collectively an eleventh-hour plan to keep away from a authorities shutdown.

Musk has since tried to shift blame and downplay his function within the end result. He’s additionally apparently hoping to close down Democrats’ strategies that his outsize function within the legislative course of signifies that he’s the one really pulling the strings within the incoming Trump administration.

Many Democrats leapt on the occasions of the week to say simply that: “The chief of the GOP is Elon Musk,” tweeted Consultant Brendan Boyle. “I don’t know why Trump doesn’t simply hand him the Oval Workplace,” stated Consultant Greg Cesar. “It’s clear who’s in cost, and it’s not President-elect Donald Trump,” posted Pramila Jayapal, saying Trump adopted the lead of “Shadow President Elon Musk.” (Jayapal’s have been the feedback that particularly drew Meservey’s, and in flip Musk’s, ire.)

Regardless of the state of Musk and Trump’s relationship after the world’s wealthiest man flexed his political muscle mass this week, the notion that Musk is delivering marching orders appears to have struck a nerve with crew Trump. On Thursday, a Trump spokesperson insisted that the president-elect, and nobody else, was in cost, saying, “President Trump is the chief of the Republican Get together. Full cease.”

Home Republicans appear poised to offer Donald Trump the finger for the second time in lower than 24 hours.

Speaker Mike Johnson introduced a brand new persevering with decision plan on Friday that doesn’t embody what the president-elect has been pining for for days: an extension to the debt ceiling.

“We’ve a unified Republican convention. There’s a unanimous settlement within the room that we have to transfer ahead,” Johnson instructed a room filled with reporters. “I cannot telegraph to you the particular particulars of that but.… I count on that we’ll be continuing ahead. We is not going to have a authorities shutdown.”

Johnson’s new plan, which he has not but mentioned with Trump, will as an alternative be one vote that features a spending package deal, catastrophe assist, farm assist, and the farm invoice extension—no debt ceiling modifications included. The plan C comes after 38 Home Republicans on Thursday night voted towards a Trump-backed plan that will lengthen the debt ceiling by two years.

Johnson’s transfer is certain to attract the ire of each Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who has been threatening to major any Republican who doesn’t comply with a seamless decision on Trump’s phrases (or his).

Elon Musk is now threatening to eliminate Democratic lawmakers, however he has no concept who he’s coping with … no, severely he has no concept who he’s complaining about.

Musk responded Friday to a video of Consultant Richie Neal, the rating member of the Home Methods and Means Committee, the place the Massachusetts Democrat slammed the unelected bureaucrat for attempting to kill the bipartisan spending invoice wanted to maintain the federal government operating.

“A tweet modified all of it?” Neal scoffed, referring to Musk’s deluge of posts on X Wednesday and Thursday instructing Republicans to oppose the invoice, threatening to oust those who didn’t, and cheering on the more and more inevitable authorities shutdown.

“Are you able to think about what the following two years can be like if each time that Congress works its will, after which there’s a tweet, or from a person who has no official portfolio, who threatens members on the Republican aspect with a major, they usually succumb?” Neal requested.

“This establishment has a separate accountability based mostly on the separation of powers,” he warned.

Musk didn’t like this in any respect, apparently, and replied in his new favourite method: a risk to purchase Neal out of his seat.

“Oh … forgot to say that I’m additionally going to be funding average candidates in closely Democrat districts, in order that the nation can eliminate those that don’t symbolize them, like this jackass,” Musk wrote.

However Neal is a reasonably average Democrat, who has been a consultant in Massachusetts—a reasonably Democratic state—for greater than three many years. In November, he was reelected to his function main the state’s first district by 62 % of the vote, handily beating an impartial challenger.

That’s to not say Musk couldn’t one way or the other discover a challenger to oppose Neal, however the billionaire technocrat clearly thinks he can throw cash at any drawback and transfer the dial. Whereas cash and a right-wing propaganda machine might have an outsized affect in Congress, Musk could also be beginning to understand that he’s simply not lower out for this complete politics factor.