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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg shifted part of the blame for the recent derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in Ohio on the Trump administration reversing a little-known safety rule. Buttigieg noted Tuesday evening that his agency had taken a series of steps to improve rail safety through "historic investments," but said it was constrained by the Trump administration action. In 2018, the Department of Transportation (DOT) withdrew a rule proposed three years earlier requiring trains carrying certain dangerous chemicals to utilize electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes, saying the technology's benefits were inconclusive.

This story continues to change by the hour. The Pentagon NOW says there were SIX Chinese spy balloons spotted over US territory during the Trump years. But no one was notified in leadership in the Trump administration or the US intelligence department. And General Keith Kellogg, who was the Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff of the United States National Security Council in the Trump administration, says he was never notified!

On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that he has instructed the Secretary of Energy to begin buying tens of millions of barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. "We're going to fill it right up to the top," he said in a White House speech that primarily focused on the response to the coronavirus. The move is expected to provide some relief to U.S. oil producers like ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), which have been hurt by the fall in crude oil prices triggered by the Saudi Arabia-Russia oil price war. According to Trump, the oil purchases will have...

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said on Sunday that he saw “total corruption” in the transition between the presidency of Barack Obama and that of Donald Trump. Speaking on “Sunday Morning Futures,” Johnson called the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 “corrupt” and slammed the media for reporting on leaked information. “What we saw was a total corruption that before, during and after this transition. It's incredibly serious,” Johnson said. “What we know is corrupt investigations, the misuse of defensive briefings, all the media leaks, and, of course, the Obama administration holdovers....

President Trump is more than half-done with his first term, but in many countries, his foreign policy remains on the runway as Democrats force massive delays on ambassador confirmation votes. Now, Trump allies backed by veteran diplomats are urging a fight as key posts go unfilled. Data reviewed by the Washington Examiner show delays longer than in recent administrations, with some nominees waiting since 2017 for a vote. “They need to be there, in place, doing their jobs. Long delays in the appointments of ambassadors needlessly damage U.S. security,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House...

WASHINGTON — Stephen Miller was furious — again. The architect of President Trump’s immigration agenda, Mr. Miller was presiding last month over a meeting in the White House Situation Room when he demanded to know why the administration officials gathered there were taking so long to carry out his plans. A regulation to deny welfare benefits to immigrants — a change Mr. Miller repeatedly predicted would be “transformative” — was still plodding through the approval process after more than two years, he complained. So were the new rules that would overturn court-ordered protections for migrant children. They were still not...

Earlier this week, the Washington Post found the nerve to breathlessly lionize Tricia Newbold, an unelected bureaucrat bent on blocking the president’s access to trusted advisers. The Post announced that the “whistleblower told lawmakers that more than two dozen denials for security clearances have been overturned during the Trump administration.” These reversals include “the President’s daughter, her husband Jared Kushner and national security adviser John Bolton.” The story, like so many others, was dripping with innuendo against the president’s advisers but short on any actual misconduct that would justify denying security clearances.

The Trump administration’s often overlooked list of achievements has surpassed those of former President Reagan at this time and more than doubled since the last tally of accomplishments after his first year in office, giving President Trump a solid platform to run for reelection on. As Trump nears the two-year mark of his historic election and conducts political rallies around the country during which he talks up his wins in hopes it will energize Republican voters, the administration has counted up 289 accomplishments in 18 categories, capped by the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. They include 173...

Lynne Patton August 14, 2018 via Laura Ingraham on Twitter: My name is Lynne Patton and I am a senior official in the Trump Administration. White House leadership, both past and present, can confirm that I was the closest confidante & friend to Ms. Manigault-Newman during her tenure at the White House, Transition and Campaign - texting and speaking multiple times per day. To that end, Omarosa attempted to contact me just two days ago, but I refused to accept her call. Like Ms. Manigault-Newman, I have also known and worked for both the President and his family for over...

Full title: President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Personnel to Key Administration Posts President Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key positions in his Administration: James N. Stewart of North Carolina, to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs). Mr. Stewart most recently served as economic development committee chair on the North Carolina Military Affairs Commission where he provided advice, counsel, and recommendations to the Governor and Legislature on North Carolina’s military installations. Mr. Stewart is a retired Air Force Reserve Major General. In his last assignment, he...

President Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key positions in his Administration: Holly W. Greaves of the District of Columbia, to be the Chief Financial Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency. Ms. Greaves is a former senior manager at the public accounting firm KPMG LLP, where she provided auditing and advisory services to cabinet-level Federal agencies. She has extensive knowledge of Federal financial and IT environments, Federal accounting standards, and the laws and regulations applicable to financial management and operations. Ms. Greaves was a lead developer for industry-specific training content for KPMG’s Federal...

National Security adviser H.R. McMaster fired Rich Higgins, an Army veteran and former national security surrogate for Trump, on July 21 for a memo he claims captured the unprecedented cultural and ideological threats meant to undermine President Donald Trump’s governance. When Ezra Cohen from the National Security Council was fired a week later, Higgins’ memo and the back-to-back firings sparked instant intrigue on social media. “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd invited McMaster to do an interview about Higgins’ firing in August, and both men called into question Higgins’ work and reputation. Since then, Higgins reports that he has had...

President Trump’s big war right now apparently isn’t with Iran, or North Korea, or Venezuela, or even Democrats and twice-failed presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, says a new analysis: It’s with the State Department. In the U.S. Run by his own appointee, Rex Tillerson, explains a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. That’s the conclusion of Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He’s assembled a big list of times that “Tillerson and his advisers at the State Department have made a number of statements and policy decisions that contradict Trump’s key campaign promises on foreign policy, especially regarding...

The U.S. State Department has backed away from a demand that Israel return $75 million in military aid which was allocated to it by the U.S. Congress. The repayment demand, championed by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was described as an underhanded attempt by the State Department to derail a campaign pledge by U.S. President Donald J. Trump to improve relations with the Jewish state. The dispute is the just the latest example of what appears to be a growing power struggle between the State Department and the White House over the future direction of American foreign policy. The...

As President Donald Trump makes deals with congressional Democrats and continues his national barnstorming campaign for tax reform, is the Trump cabinet and the overall White House team going to remain as is? It's a fair question to ask as the Trump administration has often resembled a brutal set of "Survivor" episodes with key players getting voted off the island with regularity. Just to recap, Reince Priebus is out, Michael Flynn is out, Sean Spicer is out, Steve Bannon is out, Anthony Scaramucci was briefly in and then quickly out, Sebastian Gorka is out, and... you get the idea. So...

Dr. Sebastian Gorka, a now former Deputy Assistant to President Donald J. Trump, says that the West Wing Democrats, the left, and the Fake News Industrial Complex will never succeed in stopping him and others from battling for the president’s agenda. During an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125, Gorka—a former Breitbart News national security editor who served in the White House in a senior position pushing the president’s message—compared former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon leaving the White House to when Darth Vader struck down Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. “We...

President Donald Trump’s plan to eliminate dozens of federal agencies and programs has collapsed, as a conservative Republican Congress refuses to go along. Among the programs spared are agencies promoting rural business development and the arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Community Development Block Grants and the National Wildlife Refuge Fund. Those and many others are getting money in bills approved by the GOP-run House appropriations committee. The House plans to vote on spending bills throughout next week, and the Senate is expected to consider spending plans shortly. Trump unveiled his $4.1 trillion budget plan in March, pledging to “reduce...

Everything is proceeding according to a natural and predictable path. Mr. Scaramucci is now in charge of White House messaging, the focus can now look toward the Capitol and go on offense; the “Big Ugly” is very clearly on the horizon.

The wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R), Callista Gingrich, is going to be announced as the next ambassador to the Vatican, potentially this week, according to reports. The announcement is pending approval of the Office of Government Ethics, but is targeted to be made before President Donald Trump meets with Pope Francis on 24 May in Rome, according to the report. Newt Gingrich, a strong supporter of President Trump, acknowledged to reporters that his wife is “under consideration” for the Ambassadorship and he would be “very excited for her.” Have a terrific weekend.

At the urging of longtime friends and outside advisers, most of whom he consults after dark, President Trump is considering a "huge reboot" that could take out everyone from Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon, to counsel Don McGahn and press secretary Sean Spicer, White House sources tell me... "The advice he's getting is to go big — that he has nothing to lose," the confidant said.. One note of caution: Trump often talks about firing people when things go south and does not follow through on it. So it's possible these conversations are his way...