TV News LIES

Donald Trump has said he “just want[s] to be friends with Canada” after his first post-election meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney – who used the gathering to shoot down any prospect of his country becoming the 51st state.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump praised Carney – whose Liberal party won the federal election last week – for one of the “greatest political comebacks of all time”, and described the prime minister’s visit as “an honour” for the White House.

The amicable tone of Tuesday’s meeting marked a stark contrast with Trump’s hostile rhetoric over recent months, as he launched a trade war against his northern neighbour, belittled Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, and made repeated threats to crush Canada’s economy with the aim of annexing it.

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Roughly a week after Donald Trump started his second term as president, the US military issued an order to three freight airlines operating out of Dover air force base in Delaware and a US base in Qatar: stop 11 flights loaded with artillery shells and other weaponry that were bound for Ukraine.

In a matter of hours, frantic questions reached Washington from Ukrainians in Kyiv and from officials in Poland, where the shipments were coordinated. Who had ordered the US Transportation Command, known as TransCom, to halt the flights? Was it a permanent pause on all aid? Or just some?

Top national security officials – in the White House, the Pentagon and the state department – couldn’t provide answers. Within one week, flights were back in the air.

The verbal order originated from the office of Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, according to TransCom records reviewed by Reuters. A TransCom spokesperson said the command received the order via the Pentagon’s joint staff.

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The months of worries about risks to safety at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport have turned into a public war of words involving the two former Fox News personalities who head President Donald Trump’s Transportation and Defense departments — until DOT Secretary Sean Duffy began trying to patch up the rift late Tuesday afternoon.

Appearing on Fox News, Duffy said he wants to “commend Secretary Hegseth” for suspending helicopter flights to the Pentagon, some of which have disrupted airline traffic in the region. “We’re going to look at it together and figure out what is the pathway forward,” Duffy said.

A second federal judge determined President Trump exceeded his authority in using the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to deport Venezuelans alleged to be gang members, blocking the administration from using it in the Southern District of New York.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said Tuesday that Trump ran afoul of the law, which only may be ignited when there is a declared war or if the U.S., is facing an incursion on its territory.

And he excoriated the administration for providing little opportunity for the men to challenge their alleged association with the Tren de Aragua gang, saying the Trump team was failing to meet the due process protections of the wartime law.

Evidence “that TdA [Tren de Aragua] has engaged in either a ‘war,’ ‘invasion’ or a ‘predatory incursion’ of the United States, do not exist,” Hellerstein wrote, citing the predicates for igniting the law.

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Recently declassified intelligence contradicts Trump administration claims that the Tren de Aragua gang is coordinating with the Venezuelan government — undercutting a key basis for President Trump’s invocation of wartime powers to remove people to a Salvadoran prison.

In justifying his use of the 1789 Alien Enemies Act, Trump accused Tren de Aragua (TDA) of coordinating with President Nicolás Maduro — a basis for using powers to go after citizens of an “enemy nation.”