WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump broke his silence on the armed intruder shot by Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, jokingly acknowledging the many attempts on his life and the possibility of future attacks. “I don’t know how long I’ll be around,” Trump told angel families assembled in the East Room of the White House on Monday morning. “Got a lot of people gunning for me.” “You know, if you read about all these crazy shooters, they don’t go after non-consequential presidents,” Trump added, referring to President Abraham Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy Jr., who were both assassinated. He joked: “So maybe I want to be a little less consequential? Can we hold it back a little bit, please? Can this be a normal presidency for a little while?” The Secret Service announced on Sunday morning that an armed man was shot and killed by Secret Service agents and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office after he unlawfully entered the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago early Sunday morning. Trump was not present at his Florida home when the incident occurred, since he had stayed at the White House for the weekend. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is seen on September 14, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Authorities later revealed that the deceased intruder was 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of Cameron, North Carolina, reported missing by his family on Saturday. Around 1:30 a.m., authorities discovered him breaking into the premises, carrying a shotgun and a fuel can. He refused to drop these items and was shot by the authorities guarding the premises. While the tabloid TMZ reported that Martin was obsessed with the Jeffrey Epstein files, citing text messages between Martin and his friend, the Secret Service and the FBI have not confirmed this point. “I’d be careful about leaning too much into that,” said Anthony Guglielmi, Chief of Communications for the United States Secret Service. “There is a lot of work to do. As of now, the investigation is being led by the FBI and we are working in conjunction with them to try to learn more about the suspect’s background, actions, and potential motivations for going down to Florida.”

Wages have surged for anyone in New York City who wants to sign up to shovel snow, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced at a Monday press conference. Mamdani increased the hourly wage for snow shovelers from $19.14 to $30 per hour. After 40 hours, that rate jumps even higher, to $45 an hour. “Due to the historic nature of this blizzard, we’ve increased pay to $30 per hour. You can walk into any DSNY garage until 8 p.m. this evening and starting again tomorrow at 9 a.m. All you need to bring is two forms of ID to ensure you get paid,” Mamdani said. The identification requirement sparked backlash over the weekend, with some Americans questioning why ID is required to shovel snow, but not to vote. Mamdani responded saying that the requirement is mandated under federal law. Before the hourly wage increase, the program reportedly failed to attract any shovelers for hours at the NYC site, according to the New York Post. City officials said they hoped to attract a total of 1,400 public shovelers. By comparison, in 2015, the city attracted 6,454 shovelers. During the press briefing, Mamdani also reminded New York City property owners that the mandate to clear four-foot-wide paths along all sidewalks remains in effect. “We issued more than 4,000 violations after the last storm, we do not want to issue as many citations again,” the mayor said. “So please, if you are a property owner, do your part, clear the snow and help make our city passable for our neighbors, especially those with disabilities.” A first offense carries a $150 fine, while a third or subsequent violation can result in penalties of up to $350. Based on the more than 4,000 violations issued after the previous storm, New York City collected anywhere between $600,000 and $1.4 million in fines from unshoveled snow. In addition to the snow shovelers, the New York City winter weather response team includes 2,600 sanitation workers, more than 2,300 plows, and 700 salt spreaders. Mamdani reported that the winter weather response team cleared more than 1,600 crosswalks, 419 fire hydrants, and nearly 900 bus stops during the storm’s first night. With the city’s progress, Mamdani said schools will reopen tomorrow. However, amid 15 inches of snow, parents across the city are calling for a remote learning day. The petition currently has over 100,000 verified signatures.

Actor Robert De Niro was so sincere in his hatred for President Donald Trump that he apparently brought MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace to tears — and choked up a little himself — during a recent interview. De Niro was speaking with Wallace for an episode of her podcast, “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace,” and he reduced himself to tears as he first claimed that he was always going to be about “lifting people up” and then almost immediately complained about “this thing” currently running the country. WATCH: “You’re always about lifting up everybody,” Wallace said. “Everybody around you. Why is that?” “Of course!” De Niro said, visibly affected by the question. After a brief pause, he pushed ahead, still working to keep his composure: “You have to. You have to lift people up. You have to bring them together. Period. You can’t divide people. You can’t win that way. It’s a no-win situation.” “And look what we have. Look who we have there,” he continued. “It’s almost like a destiny to have this thing there attempting to destroy this country and maybe not even understanding why. So it’s up to us to protect the country.” “That we love?” Wallace prompted. “Yes,” De Niro replied. Wallace, who did not appear to be crying, added, “You weren’t supposed to make me cry. Thank you so much. Thank you for this. We talked about how this is the moment, this is the moment that it goes one way or the other. Is it going the other way?” “I don’t know. All I know is people have to have to resist, resist, resist,” De Niro declared. “There’s no easy way. It’s not going to come to you easy. You know, there’s a time when you know in your own life and your own survival, you better do this. You better jump and run through the fire because if you don’t run through the fire, you’re not getting out and that’s what we have to do.”

If you missed the Olympic gold medal hockey game between the United States and Canada, you missed a doozy.  It was a truly spectacular hockey game. The US took a 1-0 lead in the first period and held it all the way until the third period, when the Canadians evened the score. Then they ended up in sudden-death overtime, where Jack Hughes delivered a game-winner for the ages.  He’d already taken a high stick to the face, so he was missing a bunch of teeth. It was the most hockey thing ever. What was really refreshing about it was the way that the men’s hockey team responded: basic patriotism. I know this has now become controversial among some folks, but there’s nothing controversial about America being awesome.  After the game, Jack Hughes said, “This is all about our country now. I love the USA. I love my teammates. It’s unbelievable. The USA Hockey Brotherhood is so strong, and we had so much support from our players, and I’m so proud of the Americans.” Isn’t that great? Can’t we simply feel good about that?  The answer for some people, of course, is no. Many people are not feeling good about Team USA winning gold, because how can you be proud of America in the age of Donald Trump?  Here’s the thing: If Barack Obama were president and Team USA won gold in men’s hockey, I think we’d all still feel pretty good about it.   So why does that change if you don’t like the president of the United States? Notice how the men’s hockey team reacted when President Trump called. Were they upset that Trump called them?  No, because he’s the president of the United States.  Just get over it. You might not like him. It doesn’t matter. When the president of the United States calls to congratulate you on winning a gold medal for the United States, you take the call, and you smile.  There are many reasons to feel good about this, and it’s a reminder of the sort of stuff that typically unites Americans. The first is that we like meritocracy. Virtually every major television event of the last year and a half has been a sports event. Why? Because sports is one of the few areas of American life where we all agree that meritocracy is taking place, that the best team wins, or the team with the most guts. That’s where all the drama lies. Meritocracy is about the adventure. It’s about the drama. It’s about the thrill of victory. That’s why Americans love it.  And so watching the hockey team win gold is awesome because sports are the realm of meritocracy.  The second thing that always unites Americans is having a common enemy in sports. The common enemy is whoever the United States is playing against.  This has been true forever, and not just for the United States. There is a very famous British phrase used in the lead-up to World War I that stated the wars won on the battlefield began on the playing fields of Eton, meaning that soldiers first learned to work as a team by playing sports as boys, and that connected them to masculinity and military prowess. And so it’s easy for Americans to come together when there’s a common opponent. One of the reasons we have splintered so much as a nation over the last several decades is that the United States is, in fact, a global hegemon. That is why there’s a feeling that most of our conflicts are internal.  But that’s not true. The vast majority of real conflicts on planet Earth are between the United States and nefarious powers. This game meant a lot to America because it was a unifying moment.  But of course, I’m joking when I equate the Canadians to the Russians. If the United States had defeated a global superpower in hockey that was also geopolitically an enemy like the Russians or the Chinese, that would have been even bigger. That’s what the 1980 Olympic hockey game was all about.  But for Americans to truly feel unified, we have to see what’s on the other side of the fence. Otherwise, we tend to tear ourselves apart internally. The breakdown here is fascinating sociologically. You’re seeing two groups of people who are looking at this wonderful event, this fun and unifying event, and trying to look a gift horse in the mouth. Some people on the Left are saying, “How dare we feel good about America in a time when Donald Trump is president of the United States?”  The Huffington Post had a piece by Monica Torres titled, “There’s A Name For The Discomfort You’re Feeling Watching The Olympics Right Now.” Torres added, “If waving the American flag or chanting USA turns you off right now, you’re not alone.” You should be alone because you suck.  But that’s the basic idea here from some members of the Left.  I’m supposed to feel bad that the American men’s hockey team won the gold because you didn’t vote for the guy who is currently in the Oval Office? This is a split between the Right and the Left in virtually all polling data. Conservatives are always patriotic about the country, even when a Democrat is president. Democrats are significantly less patriotic about the country when a Democrat is not president. There’s also a bizarre, fringe movement on the Right, trying to suggest that this isn’t a cool thing. Why? Because it turns out that some members of the U.S. men’s hockey team are not necessarily the most conservative on every single issue. So now we’re going to delve into their social media histories and try to determine whether Jack Hughes voted for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Are you kidding me with this crap?  I know that a lot of the time it doesn’t feel like we’re on the same team. Yes, there are Americans who are not on our team. The people who are not on our team are people rooting for foreign powers, and who see America as essentially a dispensable nation unless they win, unless they get their way.  The reason people feel good today about what happened at the Olympics is that it was a nice reminder that we do share a country, and it’s good that we share our country.