Donald Trump invited Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Mar-a-Lago to have dinner with him on Friday evening.
While Trudeau was at the presidential home, Trump delivered bad news that told him loud and clear: The days of Canada and Mexico taking advantage of America are over.”
Trump has proposed a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, tying the measure to his pledge to curb the flow of drugs and migrants across U.S. borders. Trudeau has signaled already that he is willing to help stem the flow of fentanyl across the northern border.
The president-elect indicated the tariffs would be among his first executive actions upon taking office in January. While Trump’s team did not elaborate on the dinner discussion, Trudeau commented briefly, characterizing the exchange as constructive.
The stakes of the meeting were high, especially given past tensions between the two leaders. Trump has previously referred to Trudeau as “weak” and “dishonest,” yet the Canadian prime minister was the first G7 leader to meet with Trump following his November 5 election.
Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University, suggested the move was calculated, saying, “Tariffs are a crucial issue for Canada, and a bold move was in order. Perhaps it was a risk, but a risk worth taking.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nonetheless described his meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago club as an “excellent conversation,” according to The Washington Times. The meeting followed Trump’s threats to impose significant tariffs on Canada and Mexico, causing concern in Ottawa and Mexico City.
As Trudeau returned to Canada from Florida, it remained unclear whether the discussion had alleviated Trump’s concerns. A source familiar with the three-hour dinner, speaking on condition of anonymity, called it “positive and wide-ranging.” Topics reportedly included trade, border security, fentanyl, defense, NATO, Ukraine, China, the Middle East, pipelines, and the upcoming Group of Seven (G7) meeting in Canada, according to the Washington Times.
The dinner included key figures from both governments. Among the attendees were Trump’s nominees for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and national security adviser, Mike Waltz. Trudeau was joined by Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chief of Staff Katie Telford.
Ahead of the meeting, Trudeau expressed optimism about resolving the tariff issue through dialogue. He also highlighted the potential consequences of such measures, warning that they could harm Canadian and U.S. industries alike by driving up prices and disrupting trade.
Experts have pointed out that new tariffs could jeopardize the recently renegotiated North American free trade agreement, which Trudeau has described as a “win-win” for both nations. Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, observed that Trump likely understands the economic risks but continues to use the tariff threats to project strength.
“His goal is to project the image that he gets action when he talks,” Wiseman said.
Trump has linked his tariff threats to broader concerns about migration and fentanyl. While he cited the Canadian border in his remarks, evidence suggests that the scale of these issues is far smaller compared to the U.S.-Mexico border. Canadian officials have pushed back against being grouped with Mexico in Trump’s rhetoric, while affirming their readiness to bolster border security.
Canada remains the largest export market for 36 U.S. states, with approximately $2.7 billion worth of goods and services crossing the border daily. During Trump’s first term, his administration imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, prompting retaliatory duties from Canada.
Donald Trump is setting the tone that America will reassert itself on the global stage. This vision entails leveraging the United States economic clout and market power to renegotiate trade deals that promote the national interest.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to helm the Department of Health and Human Services(HHS) is reportedly rattling drugmakers in light of Kennedy’s prior calls to ban pharmaceutical advertising.
If confirmed by the Senate to serve as HHS secretary, Kennedy could marshal the country’s public health agencies to implement his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) priorities, leading one pharmaceutical industry observer to claim that Kennedy is likely to attempt a ban on direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising. However, any attempt from Kennedy to crack down on pharmaceutical advertising would almost certainly be challenged by drugmakers on First Amendment grounds and may lack the support of Trump and Republican lawmakers who have so far refrained from commenting on Kennedy’s proposal.
“One of the things I’m going to advise Donald Trump to do in order to correct the chronic disease epidemic is to ban pharmaceutical advertising on TV,” Kennedy said to thunderous applause during a Tucker Carlson Live Tour event in Glendale, Arizona, on Oct. 31. “There’s only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical advertising on the airwaves. One of them is New Zealand and the other is us and we have the highest disease rate, and we buy more drugs and they’re more expensive than anywhere in the world.”
Spending on DTC pharmaceutical advertising in the United States ballooned to more than $7 billion in 2023, with ad buys on weight loss and diabetes drugs surpassing $1 billion for the first time, according to analysis from MediaRadar.
‘Threat To The Public Good’
“Whilst we have a relatively benign view of RFK’s impact on the Pharma industry, one thing that does worry us is the potential for the U.S. government to ban DTC advertising of drugs,” United Kingdom-based research firm Intron Health wrote in a report excerpted by FiercePharma, a pharmaceutical industry-focused news outlet. “We see this as the biggest imminent threat from RFK and the new Trump administration.”
Kennedy could wield considerable influence over the second Trump administration’s approach to pharmaceutical advertising since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — the chief regulator of the pharmaceutical industry’s advertisements — is housed within HHS.
The Biden FDA issued new guidelines on DTC advertising that went into effect on May 20, requiring advertising to state drugs’ side effects and medication risks in a “clear, conspicuous, and neutral manner.” Kennedy called for a review of these guidelines in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal published on Sept. 5.
During his run for president and as a Trump campaign surrogate, Kennedy claimed that media outlets who receive substantial ad revenue from pharmaceutical companies cannot report on Big Pharma with objectivity.
“The primary purpose of pharmaceutical advertising is not to influence consumers, but rather the television networks and news itself,” according to a statement on Kennedy’s website. “It gives Big Pharma the power to dictate what goes on the news — and what doesn’t — because the networks won’t bite the hand that feeds them.”
“Every other country in the world recognizes that pharma ads represent a threat to the public good,” Kennedy’s website also claims.
Kennedy’s concern that mainstream media has been co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry to buy news outlets’ silence on scrutinizing drugmakers in exchange for ad revenue has been embraced by influential voices in the MAHA movement and other Trump allies.
“The news ad spending from pharma is a public relations lobbying tactic, essentially to buy off the news,” Calley Means, a Kennedy advisor and MAHA advocate, told Tucker Carlson during an interview on Feb 2. “The news is not investigating pharma.”
“No advertising for pharma,” Elon Musk wrote on X on Nov. 19 in response to a post alleging a correlation between the growth of pharmaceutical advertising and rising media bias.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, has also argued that media organizations that rake in pharmaceutical advertising revenue should face increased scrutiny when reporting on public health matters. Bhattacharya was notably blacklisted by Twitter before Musk bought the platform over his criticism of the medical establishment’s lockdown approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Another argument against direct-to-consumer advertising by drug companies: Because of DTC ads, drug companies like Pfizer hold a vice grip on the editorial policies of conventional American media, which can ill afford to lose the advertising money,” Bhattacharya wrote on X on May 30, 2023.
100% true. The main purpose of pharma advertising to consumers is to buy off the news media so they rarely criticize pharma. And since news media ad budgets have shrunk to a trickle thanks to @google and @meta, conventional news sources will stay bought.https://t.co/URCQzqfKN4
Dr. Marty Mackary, Trump’s pick to lead the FDA, has not commented on Kennedy’s proposal nor allegations that the mainstream media has been corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry.
Ban Denies ‘Opportunity To Be Informed’
Although a ban on pharmaceutical advertising would put the U.S. more in line with the rest of the world, an attempted prohibition of the practice by the incoming Trump administration would likely infringe upon the First Amendment’s protection of “commercial speech,” according to Dr. Jeffrey Singer, a general surgeon and senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.
“His calls to ban pharmaceutical advertising violate the First Amendment right to freely share and exchange information, including scientific information, and infringe on the individual right to self-medicate,” Singer wrote in a statement following Trump’s nomination of Kennedy to serve as HHS secretary.
Banning pharmaceutical advertising would also make Americans less informed about the availability of drugs and their side effects and widen the information gap between medical practitioners and patients, an apparent contradiction to Kennedy’s pledge to fight for Americans’ ability to question the medical establishment and do their own research, Singer told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. (RELATED: Americans Sour On Big Pharma After Pandemic, Opioid Crisis: POLL)
“On the one hand, RFK Jr. says — and I agree with him — that people need to be empowered. They need to do their own due diligence. We should be doing our own investigations,” Singer told the DCNF. “Well, how are you going to do that if you are barred from hearing what the pharmaceutical companies have to say about their medication, and its risks and benefits and side effects, which the FDA requires them to mention?”
“If you want an empowered population of adults to be able to do their own due diligence, you can’t block them from the information that a pharmaceutical [ad] is going to give them — especially when they’re [pharmaceutical companies] allowed to give it to healthcare practitioners,” Singer added. “Denying us the information actually denies us the opportunity to be informed.”
“Sometimes when I hear his [Kennedy’s] agenda discussed, people are like ‘sounds great — he’s never going to do it’. There’s zero chance he’s going to be able to undo these conflicts of interests and the power of Big Ag and these Republican lawmakers who have a lot of big donors in these industries,” Megyn Kelly told Casey Means, during a Nov. 20 interview on her show about whether Kennedy’s MAHA priorities have enough support to be achieved during the next four years.
The pharmaceutical industry notably has roughly 1800 registered lobbyists in the United States, and industry PACs have doled out more than $15 million to candidates this year.
Trump tried to further regulate pharmaceutical advertising during his first administration by requiring DTC ads on television to include the list price for nearly all drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Three large drugmakers filed suit in response and a federal judge struck down the regulation before it went into effect, ruling that HHS overstepped its authority to compel drugmakers to include their list prices in advertising.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to the DCNF’s inquiry about whether the president-elect supports Kennedy’s advocacy to crack down on pharmaceutical advertising.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade association that lobbies on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, declined to comment on Kennedy’s calls to ban pharmaceutical advertising.
A Kennedy spokesperson did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Special counsel Jack Smith may not be in the clear, even after dropping all charges against President-elect Donald Trump.
Smith’s decision to dismiss his cases against Trump on Monday reignited calls for an investigation into his efforts. While it’s unclear if probing Smith is high enough on Trump’s priority list to translate talk into action, some aren’t ready to simply brush Smith’s months-long pursuit aside now that the threat is gone.
Investigating the federal prosecutions against Trump is important “because of the huge cost and ultimate failure,” former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Whether that yields findings of criminality is unlikely. However, I think it will find that Smith’s novel legal approach was fraught with issues that should have led a reasonable prosecutor to decline prosecution,” Cherkasky told the DCNF. “Smith is already leaving his special counsel post, but I anticipate some of the lawyers working under him will also be forced out of the [Department of Justice] DOJ for engaging in a legally unsound prosecution.”
Smith’s two Trump prosecutions cost taxpayers upwards of $50 million, according to DOJ reports.
“There is a lot of evidence that the congressional Jan. 6 committee intentionally avoided evidence beneficial to Trump’s position, and if Smith did the same, his conduct could be grounds for more severe consequences,” Cherkasky noted.
The Heritage Oversight Project posted on X Monday that they are preparing a “model indictment” of Smith. Executive Director Mike Howell suggested Smith could be charged under the federal law prohibiting a conspiracy to violate an individual’s civil rights, but told the DCNF there are “other potential avenues as well.”
“Jack Smith and his office must face severe legal, political, and financial consequences for their blatant lawfare and election interference,” Article III Project President Mike Davis like wrote Monday on X. “This includes a federal criminal probe for conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241.”
One of Smith’s charges against Trump was brought under the same conspiracy against rights statute.
If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison.
These prosecutions were always political. Now it's time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again. https://t.co/18dB65naNG
Charles Stimson, deputy director of the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, pointed out that Trump didn’t use his first term to go after Hillary Clinton or those involved in the Russia collusionnarrative. “Past is prologue here,” he told the DCNF.
Trump’s attorney general pick Pam Bondi will have other pressing issues to focus on, such as illegal migrants who committed crimes in the U.S. and protecting free speech, Stimson said. She probably won’t be looking into the past, especially when government employees, including prosecutors like Smith, have immunity for actions taken within their job.
“I don’t think they’re going to spend a tremendous amount of time deciding whether Jack Smith, who will not be employed by the Justice Department, should be prosecuted,” Stimson said.
It’s also possible Congress will take up the cause of investigating Smith.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, along with Republican Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk, told Smith’s team in a Nov. 8 letter to preserve all records related to the Trump prosecutions. Republican senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin letter also put Smith on notice to preserve records.
“Due to the apparent political bias of FBI officials that were involved in the genesis of a case against former President Trump, preservation of Special Counsel Smith’s records is more important than ever,” Grassley and Johnson wrote in the Nov. 13 letter. “If a politically-charged case is to be opened, it must be done the right way and free from political bias.”
As a critical election approaches, the addition of a large number of new voters could potentially influence electoral outcomes, particularly in closely contested regions.
Since President Biden took office and Vice President Kamala Harris was made Border Czar, approximately 3.3 million immigrants have been granted U.S. citizenship, with less than two months remaining in the 2024 fiscal year.
This acceleration not only alleviates the pandemic-induced backlog but also has the potential to reshape the electorate in the coming months, the New York Times reported.
“It’s unclear how many of the new voters live in battleground states, but a number of the states where Kamala Harris or Donald Trump must win have large and growing numbers of voting-age naturalized citizens, including Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania,” the Times reported.
“In Savannah, Ga., people from 19 countries streamed into a federal courthouse recently to take the oath of allegiance,” the report added.
“My case was done in less than six months,” said Gladis Brown, who is married to an American, and emigrated from Honduras in 2018.
The Biden administration’s efforts to reverse many of Trump’s hardline immigration policies have played a key role in the increased efficiency of citizenship approvals. Significant changes include the reduction of the naturalization application form from 20 pages to 14, a move aimed at simplifying the process.
Additionally, the application fee was raised from $640 to $710, with provisions made to facilitate discounts for low-income applicants. These changes are part of a broader strategy to restore trust in the U.S. legal immigration system and to ensure that the process is more accessible to eligible immigrants.
“The surge in naturalization efficiency isn’t just about clearing backlogs; it’s potentially reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election,” said Xiao Wang, chief executive of Boundless.
“Every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency,” Mr. Wang said.
The federal government’s increased pace of citizenship approvals marks a significant shift in U.S. immigration policy. By rapidly and perhaps recklessly clearing the immigration backlog, the Biden administration is potentially altering the composition of the electorate ahead of critical elections.
This was once derided as the “great replacement theory’ — a figment of conservatives’ imagination. Here, the Harris-Biden administration’s allies are openly boasting about it in the New York Times.
A resurfaced video depicts vice presidential nominee and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz praising a Hitler-promoting Muslim cleric as a “master teacher,” after his campaign denied that they had a “personal” relationship.
Walz hosted the individual — Imam Asad Zaman — at an Islamic Center event in 2018, where he applauded his wisdom and expressed gratitude for the “lesson[s]” he taught him, according to an unearthed video obtained by The Washington Examiner and published on Tuesday. Zaman has publicly promoted claims that Hitler was a misunderstood hero and declared “[Palestine’s]… right to defend itself “the day Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and killed roughly 1,200 people.
“I’d like to say thank you to imam (referring to Zaman). I am a teacher, so when I see a master teacher, I know it. Over the time we’ve spent together, one of the things I’ve had the privilege of is seeing the things in life through the eye of a master teacher, to try and get the understanding,” Walz told a crowd at the Islamic Center event in Minnesota in 2018, while he was still a lawmaker in the House, according to the video. “That brings me to the second lesson that imam taught me… a lesson when Imam told me to go speak to people.”
Walz had hosted and met with Zaman on at least five other occasions from 2019 to 2023, and his administration awarded Zaman’s activist group — the Muslim American Society (MAS) of Minnesota — with $100,000 in grant funding, according to a review of publicrecords.
The Harris-Walz campaign denied any close affiliation with the Imam on Friday, days before the video was published by the Examiner.
“The Governor and [Imam] do not have a personal relationship,” a campaign spokesperson told the Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch. “Governor Walz strongly condemns Hamas terrorism.”
Zaman shared a video in 2015 titled “Adolf Hitler: the Greatest Story Never Told,” which claimed Hitler was framed for the Holocaust and was actually a martyr, according to a description provided by the Anti-Defamation League. The film is popular among conspiracy theorists and neo-Nazi groups.
The day Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, Zaman sharedstatements that “Palestine has every right to have its freedom from the zionists” and “Palestine will win at the end no matter how long it takes.”
“[Zaman] has a troubling history of playing into classic anti-Jewish themes and justifying violence against Israel,” an Anti-Defamation League spokesperson told the Examiner. “We urge all public officials and leaders to avoid meeting with him in the future.”
The Harris campaign and Walz’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The United Auto Workers union has filed an unfair labor practice complaint against former President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, arguing that the two men illegally intimidated workers in a Spaces conversation on X.
At one point in their conversation, Trump and Musk were talking about workers who go on strike. Trump said if workers “go on strike, and you say ‘that’s okay, you’re all gone. You’re all gone.’ So everyone is gone.”
According to federal law, a company can not fire employees that are on strike. The UAW filed its unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
In a statement Tuesday, the UAW said the complaint centered on dismissive comments made by Trump on the platform, which was formally known as Twitter, about striking workers. The union argued that during his conversation with Musk, Trump suggested that employers could fire workers for going on strike.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a news release.
The UAW has endorsed Kamala Harris for president, drawing the ire of non-union auto workers in Michigan.
Flashback: Michigan auto workers blast the United Auto Workers for endorsing Kamala.
While campaigning for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, UAW President Shawn Fain castigated Donald Trump for his connections to billionaire Elon Musk.
“For months, Donald Trump has gone around trashing our state, trashing our industry, trashing the American autoworker, saying he was against electric vehicles. And then something happened,” Fain said on Wednesday.
“We saw Elon Musk announce he was going to give Donald Trump $45 million dollars a month. And all of a sudden, guess what, Trump changed his tune,” he added, while calling Trump a “sellout.”
Following the assassination attempt against Trump in July, Elon Musk announced that he was publicly supporting Trump. The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk had pledged up to $45 million per month to back Trump, although both Musk and Trump subsequently denied that report was accurate.
In his Spaces with Donald Trump on Monday, Elon Musk explained why he was supporting Trump.
“America is at a fork in the road… and you are the path to prosperity. Kamala is the opposite,” Musk said.
The FBI is investigating an alleged hack of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, drawing attention to potential foreign interference in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
According to various reports, the Trump campaign confirmed that its internal communications were compromised, allegedly by hackers associated with the Iranian government. The hack reportedly led to the exposure of sensitive campaign documents, which were leaked to several media outlets.
The Trump campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the United States,” citing a Microsoft report that Iranian hackers “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.” Microsoft did not identify the targeted campaign and declined further comment to Politico.
“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said. “On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee.”
The breach was first revealed after some media outlets, including Politico, received documents from the campaign through anonymous sources. The Trump campaign has pointed fingers at Iranian state-linked actors, claiming that this cyberattack is part of a broader effort to influence the U.S. elections.
This incident has sparked discussions about the security measures in place for political campaigns, especially given the history of election-related hacking in previous U.S. elections. The FBI is currently investigating the matter to assess the extent of the breach and its potential implications on the election process.
This situation has raised alarms not just for the Trump campaign but also for the broader political landscape as concerns over cybersecurity and foreign interference in U.S. elections continue to grow. The campaign’s response to the hack marks a stark contrast to Trump’s previous stance on hacked materials during the 2016 election.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) shared the full bodycam footage he got from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit (ESU) regarding the immediate aftermath of Thomas Crooks’ attempted murder of former President Donald Trump.
Grassley wrote, “July 13 Bodycam footage provides more info than Secret Service will share with America We NEED detailed answers ASAP on security failures TRANSPARENCY BRINGS ACCOUNTABILITY.”
Grassley added that he got the video from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit.
A local Beaver County officer is heard at the outset of the video stating that a sniper captured numerous photographs of Thomas Crooks prior to his opening fire on Trump and several supporters.
According to the officer, the sniper who captured the images was situated in a building that was adjacent to the location where Crooks fired his shots at the former president.
Subsequently, a Secret Service agent asked about the two individuals who were apprehended subsequent to the assassination attempt. However, the Beaver County officers stationed on the roof denied that any individual had been apprehended.
A blurry image of Crook’s lifeless corpse is visible in the video’s background, with a stream of blood cascading down the roof.
An officer’s radio is audible near the conclusion of the video, as it asks, “Do we have access to a drone to clear this water tower?”
In order to promote transparency, Grassley has been evaluating all records received in response to oversight requests issued to federal and local agencies. In the process, he is making all pertinent records public.
“This morning I released the FULL extent of bodycam footage I’ve received from Beaver Co Emergency Services Unit showing aftermath of Trump shooting The public’s biz ought 2b PUBLIC You can find the video on my website,” Grassley said on social media.
After analyzing approximately 30 minutes of footage, Grassley emphasized two primary concerns in his press release:
The fragmented and delayed chain of communication between local and federal law enforcement; and
A seemingly delayed response in identifying and disabling a potential detonator device, including a potential device located next to the deceased shooter.
“The video footage additionally records law enforcement discussing the need to use a drone to inspect and secure the water tower on site,” the senator noted. “Records obtained by Grassley corroborate that USSS had assigned an Unmanned Aerial System drone operator to the event. Despite this, FBI Director Christopher Wray yesterday testified to the House Judiciary Committee that the shooter successfully flew his own drone around the venue two hours before opening fire.”
A sniper named “Greg” is identified as the individual who captured photographs of individuals near the rooftop during the event.
“I believe the sniper that saw these and sent the pictures is right inside this building. All right, so if you go to that window that’s open and yell for Greg, that’s the sniper who sent the original pictures. He saw him come from the bike, set the book down, and then lost sight of him,” said one of the Beaver officers.
A whistleblower is alleging that the U.S. Secret Service declined to use drones at the deadly Pennsylvania rally for former president Donald Trump on July 13, even though the technology was repeatedly offered by local law enforcement, Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said on Thursday.
The Secret Service has fallen under intense scrutiny for failing to prevent a gunman from opening fire and attempting to assassinate Trump at the July 13 rally. Amid a series of reported operational failures, Hawley revealed in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday that a whistleblower had told him that the Secret Service repeatedly rejected offers from law enforcement in Pennsylvania to utilize drones for security purposes.
“The night before the rally, U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally. This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site. Secret Service said no,” Hawley wrote in his letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday. “The whistleblower further alleges that after the shooting took place, USSS changed course and asked the local partner to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath of the attack.”
BREAKING.🚨
Whistleblower tells @HawleyMO that “local law enforcement partners & suppliers offered drones to Secret Service BEFORE the rally, but Secret Service declined.”
Drone use is reported by many to have been ROUTINE during Trump’s 2024 campaign rallies.
Hawley wrote in the letter that the whistleblower also told him that the drone technology that was allegedly offered to the Secret Service had the capability to “neutralize” potential threats as well as monitor them.
“It is hard to understand why USSS would decline to use drones when they were offered, particularly given the fact USSS permitted the shooter to overfly the rally area with his own drone mere hours before [the] event,” Hawley wrote in the letter. The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, flew a drone over the rally site hours before the event began to scope out the area.
The Secret Service has been widely criticized for its failure to stop Crooks from nearly killing Trump. Crooks was able to climb onto the roof of a building just hundreds of feet away from the rally and shoot Trump without being stopped by law enforcement or the Secret Service, even though they were made aware of his presence roughly 50 minutes before the former president took the stage.
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday after being berated by Republican and Democratic lawmakers for her failure to ensure that the rally would be safe.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Six House Democrats voted in favor of a resolution condemning President Joe Biden’s administration and Vice President Kamala Harris for their “failure to secure the United States border” on Thursday.
H.Res. 1371 was introduced by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik to formally condemn “Border Czar” Harris’ immigration policy after she was tasked with reducing illegal immigration over the southern border early in the Biden administration. The resolution passed the House with 196 Democrats voting against it and six Democrats joining 214 Republicans in favor of it.
Democratic Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Mary Sattler Peltola of Alaska, Jared Golden of Maine, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, voted in favor of the resolution.
The resolution was cosponsored by Republican Reps. Neal Dunn of Florida, Greg Lopez of Colorado and Mike Bost of Illinois.
“Kamala Harris, every elected Democrat, and their stenographers in the mainstream media will run from their record, but they can’t hide,” Stefanik said in a post on X. “House Republicans will hold Kamala Harris accountable for her role as Biden’s Border Czar leading to the most catastrophic border crisis in modern history.”
The Biden-Harris administration has overseen record influxes of illegal immigration. Since Biden took office, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has encountered nearly eight million migrants, with over 83,000 encounters between ports of entry along the southern border in June alone, according to CBP data.
During former President Donald Trump’s term, every month saw fewer encounters on the southern border compared to June 2024 numbers, with some exceptions in fiscal year 2019, according to CBP data.
The House resolution highlights Harris’ dismal immigration track record, pointing out that it took the “Border Czar” over 90 days on the job before she finally made her way to the southern border on June 25, 2021. The resolution also pointed out the surges in violent crime that have occurred due to the illegal immigration that has taken place under Harris’ watch.
The resolution brought attention to the innocent Americans like Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray and Rachel Morin. All three women were allegedly murdered by illegal immigrants.
“Kamala Harris failed as Border czar leading to violent crimes, rapes, and murders of innocent Americans,” Stefanik said in a statement on X. “We will hold her and Far Left Democrats accountable.”
