TV News LIES

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called protesters "ingrates" on Thursday, July 2, as he and other top members of the Trump administration praised the National Guard's work during a D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force event.

“This background noise this morning is perfect; it’s the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude, of people who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them,” Hegseth said. “There’s nothing ideological about this group. There’s nothing political about this exercise.”

Apart from Hegseth, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche were also heckled by “Free DC” protesters during an event.

The protesters blew whistles and horns while Trump administration officials touted the National Guard, who have been patrolling Washington, DC, since the president deployed the military branch following a public safety emergency declaration last year, according to reporting from The Hill.

“Thank you for being here, for backing us up along the way. To the entire team, to the soldiers here, thank you for everything you’re doing. Thank you for waiting out here in the sun,” Hegseth said.

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Two federal judges on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from implementing new restrictions on a student loan forgiveness program that would have barred public service workers from receiving debt relief if their employers are deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose.”

The rulings, issued by Biden-appointed judges in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., came just one day before the new eligibility rules were set to take effect.

The Trump administration had sought to add new rules to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program as part of its targeted overhaul of government programs that do not align with the administration’s priorities.

More than 20 states, along with a coalition of nonprofit groups, challenged the rule in a pair of lawsuits, arguing it would allow the Department of Education to target organizations that support causes considered disfavorable to the administration, including transgender healthcare and immigration advocacy.

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Donald Trump raked in more than $1bn from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Monday shows, giving a substantial boost to his annual income.

In his second term, the president and his family have heavily invested in digital money and various crypto businesses with Trump announcing at the start of 2025 that he wanted the US to be the “crypto capital of the world”. Trump’s crypto earnings are in addition to profit from his legal settlements, real estate and royalty deals.

Many of the president’s crypto ventures were mere startups when he took the oath of office, but now have eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took decades to accumulate. This rise has been fueled by billionaire investors and Trump’s move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.

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The US supreme court will consider whether bans on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms are constitutional.

The justices said on Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area in the next term.

The high court’s announcement comes on the heels of two recent victories for second amendment attorneys and advocates. On 18 July the court sided with a Texas man and prospective gun owner who argued that policies that bar marijuana users from ownership violate the second amendment. The following week, the court’s conservative majority struck down a Hawaii law that prohibits people from bringing a gun on to private property without the consent of the property’s owner.

The upcoming cases are the court’s latest steps toward clarifying the doctrine set in place by the 2022 Bruen decision, which requires gun laws to pass a “history and tradition test”, said Hayley Lawrence, the executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke Law School.

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Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist and first-time candidate, ousted Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado in a primary challenge on Tuesday.

DeGette, a 15-term incumbent first elected in 1996, is the second member of Congress to lose her seat to a younger democratic socialist challenger after Darializa Avila Chevalier unseated Rep. Adriano Espaillait, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in New York's 13th District last week.

Chevalier's and Kiros' challenges came amid widespread discontent and frustration among Democratic voters with party leadership in the wake of President Donald Trump's election. Both Espaillat and DeGette are longtime progressives whom their opponents cast as representatives of a failing Democratic establishment beholden to corporate interests. Chevalier and Kiros both also have a history of pro-Palestine activism and made opposing Israel's war in Gaza central to their campaigns.

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The White House awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for the construction of the East Wing ballroom, with President Donald Trump being directly involved in negotiating some costs, The Washington Post reported, citing a copy of the agreement, related correspondence and records it had obtained.

The contract, awarded to Virginia-based Clark Construction, was ⁠routed ⁠through the Executive Residence, an office that is exempt ​from rules requiring federal agencies to seek competitive bids and make contract details public, according to the June 30 report.

USA TODAY has not seen the agreement. Neither the White House nor Clark Construction immediately responded to USA TODAY’s request for comment.

The project is one of many undertaken by the president as he looks to remake the White House and Washington, D.C., including the Triumphal Arch, rehabilitating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and Lafayette Square Park. Many of these projects have drawn criticism for a variety of reasons, including not seeking congressional approval and awarding no-bid contracts.  An analysis of federal contract data by USA TODAY found that 20 days before Trump first announced the renovation of the reflecting pool, the government had already committed $8.5 million to fix the pool even though the president said it would cost $2 million.

The company charged a ⁠3% profit for its early work on the East Wing, and subsequently projected that it would receive a total of $65 million in combined profit, overhead and daily rates for on-site staff and other costs, according to the new report.

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