Trump shares D.C. plane crash theory as he goes off script at National Prayer Breakfast: Live

Here’s Tom Watling with more on the president’s Truth Social post earlier in which he gave more detail about how America might assume control of Gaza.

The president has been speaking at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC and used his address to reflect on political polarization, saying Democrats and Republicans can no longer eat dinner together but hailing the Senate confirmation of Marco Rubio as his secretary of state as an example of the greater unity to come.

He also reflected on his surviving an assassination attempt last year (“God did that”), noting that the bullet did not touch his hair and on last week’s tragic plane crash over the Potomac, pledging improved air traffic control and comparing the current situation to a driving range with golf balls flying across the air (an odd analogy but OK sure).

“I guess the helicopter was high, and we will point out exactly what happened,” he said.

“But the odds even if you had nothing, nobody, the odds of that napping are extremely small. Did you ever go to a driving range in golf and hit hundreds of balls, thousands of hours. I’ve never seen a ball hit another ball. You never see them hit and balls going up all over the place. That is amazing that could happen.”

Trump also revived his proposal for a “national garden of heroes” to be built, which he pitched in 2020 only for it to be canned by the Biden administration.

“People of religion are going to be happy again,” he concluded by saying.

“And I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James has warned hospitals that they will be breaking state law if they adhere to Donald Trump’s executive order on transgender healthcare.

Trump signed an executive order last week stating that federal agencies must make sure that hospitals that receive federal research and education grants must “end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

The order includes words such as “maiming” and “sterilizing”, which stands in stark contrast to the terminology typically used when discussing gender-affirming care in the U.S.

Gender-affirming care for children remains a rarity but has garnered the attention and ire of conservatives.

James used a letter to remind healthcare facilities that refusing to provide gender-affirming care would be in violation of New York state anti-discrimination laws.

Gustaf Kilander has this on what she had to say.

Here’s more from the Mooch’s interview with Robert Peston.

Hours after she was sworn in, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Justice Department to pause all federal funding for sanctuary cities on Wednesday.

Among several directives issued on Wednesday, Bondi charged the Justice Dept with identifying and evaluating funding agreements with nongovernmental organizations that provide support to undocumented immigrants.

Kelly Rissman has the story.

The president’s thirst for land is either a negotiating tactic or the dawn of a new imperial age, writes Richard Hall.

The president is up early and has been firing out posts on Truth Social, all humdingers.

On CBS, he has this to say:

“CBS and 60 Minutes defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before. They 100% removed Kamala’s horrible election changing answers to questions, and replaced them with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview. This was Election changing ‘stuff,’ Election Interference and, quite simply, Election Fraud at a level never seen before. CBS should lose its license, and the cheaters at 60 Minutes should all be thrown out, and this disreputable ‘NEWS’ show should be immediately terminated. With the new Democrat scandal that just arose with respect to USAID illegally paying large sums of money to Politico and other media outlets, the question must me asked, was CBS paid for committing this FRAUD??? Many other questions to come! This will go down as the biggest Broadcasting SCANDAL in History!!!”

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting. The Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region. They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free. The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth. No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!!!”

And on USAID there’s this:

“LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS. THE LEFT WING ‘RAG,’ KNOWN AS ‘POLITICO,’ SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did??? THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!”

Donald Trump left both parties divided after announcing his brazen plan to “take over” the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and, in doing so, transform it from a “hell hole” to the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

The president has been met with a mixture of support, dissent and outright confusion after his remarks in a White House press conference that even surprised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Without ruling out military intervention, Trump declared that the U.S. will “own” the war-torn territory, which has seen vast destruction and around 47,000 deaths in the 15-month conflict between Israel and Hamas. He also suggested millions of displaced Palestinians resettle in “areas where the leaders currently say no.”

By some, like the aforementioned Al Green, Trump has been accused of propagating the idea of “ethnic cleansing” while several of his MAGA faithful have praised his plans to “Make Gaza Beautiful Again”.

James Liddell has some of the key reactions to Trump’s divisive comments from lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.

Congressman Al Green, who filed multiple impeachment articles against Donald Trump during his first term, has been unable to resist the urge to do so again just two weeks into Trump’s return to the White House.

Green announced on Wednesday that he was bringing the articles against the president after he said Palestinians should be removed from Gaza and that the U.S. should “take over” the territory.

Green said he was acting against “dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done”, declared “ethnic cleansing in Gaza is no joke” and quoted Dr Martin Luther King Jr by saying “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and injustice in Gaza is a threat to justice in the United States of America.”