The Donald Trump Score Card

Leavitt admits second strike on the same boat to kill the survivors who were hanging on to floating debris.


https://thehill.com/homenews/5628447-defense-secretary-authorizes-drug-boat-strike/

excerpt:

"Leavitt told reporters at the White House press briefing that Hegseth authorized Adm. Frank Bradley to carry out the second strike, which reportedly killed two people who were hanging onto the burning vessel after an initial strike.

“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” Leavitt said."

 

Leavitt says it was done in self-defense of the U.S.


White House says second strike on vessel was legal and conducted in ‘self defense’ amid scrutiny – live | Trump administration | The Guardian

excerpt:

“Adm Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated. And I would just add one more point to remind the American public why these lethal strikes are taking place, because this administration has designated these Narco terrorists as foreign terrorist organizations,” the press secretary added.

Leavitt said today that strike was conducted in “self-defence to protect Americans in vital United States interests”. She also noted that the strike was conducted “in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict”.

 

Trump told Maduro he and his family would be allowed safe passage from Venezuela -- but gave an ultimatum | New York Post

excerpt:

"Maduro and his allies condemned the move as a form of American “colonial” aggression, accusing the Trump administration of trying to use military force to seize the country’s vast oil reserves."

 

Five ways Republicans are breaking with Trump.


https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5624163-trump-faces-republican-resistance/

 

Another GOP member leaving House.


Texas seat opens up as Republican announces he won't seek reelection

excerpt:

"Representative Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican, announced Saturday that he will retire from the U.S. House at the end of his term, adding to a growing list of lawmakers who are planning on leaving office soon.

Newsweek has reached out to Nehls’ press team for comment via email on Saturday."

 

Trump in the Oval Office bright and early......11am.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/us/politics/trump-age-health.html

excerpt:

"Mr. Trump still regularly comes down to the Oval Office after 11 a.m., according to a person familiar with his schedule. This routine is a holdover from his first term: After he complained about being overscheduled in the mornings, Mr. Trump kept so-called executive time hours in the White House residence before he headed downstairs for work."

 

It means that the people Trump has been threatening to prosecute for supposedly giving Biden illegal votes in the 2020 election (and those in Congress who investigated him for trying to overturn the 2020 election) can use Trump's pardon of his supporters to say that they too have already been pardoned by him.

It's a similar predicament that Trump faces if he tries to prosecute Biden after the conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled that Trump (and other presidents) have presidential immunity. Trump begrudgingly acknowledged this once in public.

 

Trump administration science assault slams major Bay Area economic engine, threatens 'amazing innovations'

excerpt:

"Nearly 1,000 NIH grants in California have been hit by cuts, according to Grant Witness, a project co-founded by a former Harvard University research scientist Scott Delaney. Some have been restored through lawsuits, but more than 500 research projects in the state remain affected. The state’s collective loss of more than $500 million in NIH funding is more than a third of the $1.3 billion lost across the U.S., Grant Witness reported. Nearly 400 clinical trials — dozens for new drugs — lost funding, according to research published this month in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine."

 

Trump administration science assault slams major Bay Area economic engine, threatens 'amazing innovations'

excerpt:

Veteran Bay Area biomedical CEO Paul Hastings had to lay off five dozen employees at his company earlier this year, thanks, he said, to what he described as the Trump administration’s attacks on universities, science and medical-research funding, he said.

Trump in an August executive order said federal grants had been insufficiently vetted, and some “propagated absurd ideologies.”

 

Trump missed an opportunity to claim that Omar kidnaps dogs and cats and eats them.

 

Trump commutes prison sentence for former private equity executive David Gentile

excerpt:

"HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump has commuted the prison sentence of former investment manager David Gentile, who was convicted of defrauding investors — the latest in a series of clemency actions Trump has taken in white-collar criminal cases."

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/30/war-crimes-hegseth-venezuela-strikes-00671160

excerpt:

"The Washington Post reported last week that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors of one of the Trump administration’s attacks in recent months on boats allegedly carrying drugs in international waters. POLITICO has not independently verified the Post’s reporting.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — both of whom sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — said Sunday that, if accurate, such orders would rise to the level of war crimes."

 

Trump administration officials are saying that everything they are doing is legal.

They have defined the alleged drug traffickers as narco-terrorists and illegal combatants in a war. They are saying that the killings are happening in international waters.

 

Trump officials and judge face off over flights to El Salvador in rare, high-stakes contempt probe

excerpt:

"Two planes carrying Venezuelan migrants out of the U.S. were midair on March 15 when a federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration to turn them around.

Instead, the planes landed in El Salvador hours later, touching off an extraordinary power struggle between the judicial and executive branches of the U.S. government over what happened and why the judge’s order went unexecuted.

That fight entered a critical phase on Friday when U.S. District Judge James Boasberg relaunched an investigation to determine whether the Republican administration deliberately ignored his instruction, letting the planes continue onto El Salvador."

 

In Announcing Pardon of Drug Trafficker While Threatening Venezuela, Trump Displays Contradictions
President Trump’s statements on social media less than 24 hours apart showed the dissonance in his campaign against drug trafficking.
By Tyler Pager
Reporting from New York
Nov. 29, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/us/politics/trump-honduras-venezuela.html

excerpt:

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, called the pardon “unconscionable” and said that Mr. Trump’s actions were more evidence of a “bogus narrative” around his strategy to counter illicit drugs.

“It completely undercuts the administration’s claim that they really care about narco-trafficking, and that raises the question of what is really going on with the Venezuela operation,” he said.

 

I find it interesting that the Saudi Murderer-Prince visits tRump with a few billion bucks in his bathrobe pocket and bam, we are at war with Venezuela - who has as much oil as the Saudis...

 

Wonder how much trump made for that pardon? Nothin's free with trump.

 

Who's next, El Chapo ? Next, he'll let the OxyContin family off the hook....oh, wait, he did that last term....

 

Trump promised a San Francisco crime crackdown. His administration did the opposite.
Brad Heath
December 2, 2025

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tr...n-his-administration-did-opposite-2025-12-02/

excerpt:

"Federal prosecutions in northern California dropped 40% this year

Agents diverted to immigration duties, impacting anti-crime efforts

Trump administration says its immigration crackdown is taking criminals off the streets

San Francisco still battling an epidemic of fentanyl deaths"

 

Trump is known for senselessly digging himself into deeper holes.

The current boat-bombing incidents and standoff with Venezuela is yet another example.

He's now faced with trying to wiggle out of the corner into which he painted himself and claim he 'won the war' with Venezuela.

All of that is supposedly being done to help the down-and-out MAGA working class people left behind by the Great Recession.

Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't buy it.

The rest of the GOP needs to decide if it will keep going along with Trump and his military adventurism overseas and at home.