Trump’s longtime rage at Obama roars back amid Epstein furor
CNN
This week, Donald Trump’s preoccupation with Barack Obama — and specifically his role in probing Russia’s role in the 2016 election — reemerged in dramatic fashion.
President Donald Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama have met for a substantive conversation exactly once: November 10, 2016, two days after Trump won his first election. It was Trump’s first time in the Oval Office. By most accounts, it was a little awkward. Eight years and eight months later, the meeting cropped up again this week in a very different context. On Sunday, Trump posted an AI-generated video using footage from the session to depict FBI agents bursting into the office, pulling Obama from his chair and handcuffing him as he falls to his knees. In the video, Trump watches on with a grin. His campaign anthem “Y.M.C.A.” blares in the background. For years — since well before he launched a bid to become president himself — Trump has marinated in a singular fixation on the 44th president, whom he almost always refers to as “Barack Hussein Obama.” This week, Trump’s preoccupation with Obama — and specifically his role in probing Russia’s role in the 2016 election — reemerged in dramatic fashion, drawing a rare rebuke from Obama’s office and reigniting the bitterest feud inside the rarified club of presidents. The temperature ratcheted up Wednesday when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard came to the White House briefing room to directly accuse Obama of “leading the manufacturing” of an intelligence assessment she said was designed to undermine Trump. She said criminal referrals had been made to the Justice Department.
Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer is expected to announce Thursday that he is retiring after serving more than four decades in Congress.
A top staffer for longtime DC Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton announced Wednesday he plans to run for her non-voting seat in Congress.
Trump administration officials on Wednesday began outlining a makeshift strategy for taking indefinite control of Venezuela’s oil sales, as they race to maintain stability within the nation after overthrowing its leader.
In the wee hours of Saturday, shortly after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was captured, blindfolded and taken to the United States, video emerged of Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister and one of its most popular talk show hosts, surrounded by a group of armed men in Caracas.
President Donald Trump issued a stark threat to defense contracting companies on Wednesday, saying he would seek to limit stock buybacks and executive salaries unless they improve their delivery of weapons systems to the US military hours before saying he’d decided to substantially increase the defense budget.
Temir Porras, who was ousted President Nicolás Maduro’s chief of staff from 2007-2013, tells CNN’s Isa Soares that he cares about the stability of his country and that the leadership in Venezuela is showing “maturity and balance in the movement they’re making.”
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis strongly criticized White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s recent comments suggesting the US should take control of Greenland, calling the remarks “amateurish” and “absurd,” and urging President Donald Trump to fire people who give that kind of advice.
It was as telling a moment as any when it comes to the Republican Party’s relationship with President Donald Trump.
While the Trump administration insists the US will run Venezuela, it’s not that simple. Many of President Nicolás Maduro’s loyalists are still in positions of power. CNN’s Rafael Romo reports.
Four days since US President Donald Trump’s most strident military move yet, the gulf grows between his claim that the United States will “run” Venezuela and the reality of a continued dictatorship on the ground.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he plans to call a special session in April for the Republican-dominated legislature to draw new congressional districts, joining the redistricting arms race.
As part of its claims of widespread fraud in the federal safety net, the Trump administration is halting $10 billion in funding for several programs in five Democrat-led states.
The Trump administration has outlined a number of demands that Venezuela must agree to order to resume oil production, two senior White House officials told CNN.