A Democrat lawmaker is pushing the House toward a vote this week on seven articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. During an appearance on the House floor, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) announced that he intended to invoke privilege, which compels the GOP leadership to act on his impeachment resolution within two legislative days. It’s likely that Republicans will move to table the measure, effectively squashing the effort. Thanedar’s impeachment articles, which he unveiled in April, accuse Trump of committing various “high crimes and misdemeanors” over alleged constitutional violations related to taxpayer funds, deportations, tariffs, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), retaliation against the press, and more. “Donald J. Trump has been committing crimes since day one,” Thanedar said during his remarks on Tuesday. After ticking off the focus of his impeachment articles, he also took note of Trump’s controversial plan to accept a roughly $400 million luxury aircraft known as the “Flying Palace” from Qatar. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI, @repshrithanedar) on impeaching President Trump. Full video here: https://t.co/8foOzwty7S pic.twitter.com/A57j0kabNi — CSPAN (@cspan) May 13, 2025 In his first term, Trump was impeached twice, when the Democrats commanded the House. One inquiry dealt with Ukraine, and the other with January 6. Both efforts ended in acquittal by a GOP-led Senate. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) announced in February, just over two weeks after Inauguration Day, that he would begin a push to impeach Trump for “dastardly deeds.” After Thanedar followed suit, revealing his seven articles of impeachment last month, Trump fired back with a lengthy post on X. “The Democrats are really out of control. They have lost everything, especially their minds! These Radical Left Lunatics are into the ‘Impeachment thing’ again,” Trump said on X. “They have already got two ‘No Name,’ little respected Congressmen, total Whackjobs both, throwing the ‘Impeachment’ of DONALD J. TRUMP around, for about the 20th time, even though they have no idea for what I would be Impeached.” As Trump continued, he suggested that Republicans should consider expelling the Democrats who are perpetuating the impeachment efforts against him. “These are very dishonest people that won’t let our Country heal! Why do we allow them to continuously use Impeachment as a weapon against the President of the United States who, by all accounts, is working hard to SAVE OUR COUNTRY,” Trump said. Meanwhile, top Democrats in the House refused to endorse Thanedar’s impeachment bid. House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA) told reporters that impeachment was “not an exercise that we’re willing to undertake” given doubts that Republicans would get on board. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said he would not have “anything further to add” until he speaks with Thanedar.

Even liberally applied “Hollywood Magic” was not enough to save a floundering former President Joe Biden — “magic” that included help with lighting and sound from mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and direction from Oscar-winner Stephen Spielberg, says the new book “Original Sin” from CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson. In an excerpt from the book published on Tuesday by The New Yorker, Tapper and Thompson revealed just how much pre-production went into getting Biden camera ready as the 2024 presidential campaign heated up — and the moment when everyone involved realized that it just wasn’t working. Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, who had been friends with Biden for decades, spearheaded high-dollar fundraisers — including a Radio City event that raked in $26 million — but he took on a different role as the 2024 presidential election loomed ever closer. “As 2024 approached, he saw Biden’s communication struggles and thought he could help fix them. He worked on providing better lighting for Biden and trying to find a microphone that would amplify Biden when he would break into a whisper for emphasis,” Tapper and Thompson wrote — but Katzenberg didn’t stop there. “Katzenberg also recruited his friend Steven Spielberg, who helped coach Biden for the State of the Union and his debates, even assisting with routine campaign videos. There was, however, only so much that Hollywood magic could do,” they continued. The moment that shocked everyone, according to Tapper and Thompson, was Biden’s appearance at the Hollywood fundraiser hosted by actor George Clooney — and his apparent failure to immediately recognize his longtime friend and supporter. “You know George,” the assisting aide told the President, gently reminding him who was in front of him. “Yeah, yeah,” the President said to one of the most recognizable men in the world, the host of this lucrative fund-raiser. “Thank you for being here.” “Hi, Mr. President,” Clooney said. “How are ya?” the President replied. “How was your trip?” Clooney asked. “It was fine,” the President said. It seemed clear that the President had not recognized Clooney. “It was not O.K.,” recalled the Hollywood V.I.P. who had witnessed this moment. “That thing, the moment where you recognize someone you know—especially a famous person who’s doing a f***ing fund-raiser for you—it was delayed. It was uncomfortable.” Biden had to be reminded that the man standing in front of him was George Clooney, according to witnesses. “Clooney was shaken to his core. The President hadn’t recognized him, a man he had known for years. Clooney had expressed concern about Biden’s health before—a White House aide had told him a few months before that they were working on getting the President to take longer steps when he walked—but obviously the problem went far beyond his gait. This was much graver,” Tapper and Thompson wrote. It was only a short time later that Clooney penned the open letter calling on Biden to exit the race.

Every day, a new, stupid controversy is pushed by the Left. Now, it’s the fact that the Trump administration has decided to grant some white South Africans refugee status. Why? Because the government in South Africa discriminates against white South Africans. The New York Times reported: Dozens of white South Africans arrived in the United States on Monday on a chartered jet after being granted refugee status by the Trump administration, which has made it virtually impossible for any other refugees to seek safe haven in America. This, of course, is the problem that the Left and the media are having: Why do these refugees get in when, say, Afghan refugees are not getting in?  The Times continues: The arrival represents a drastic reversal in the United States’ refugee policies, which have long focused on helping people fleeing war, famine and genocide. The South Africans say they have been discriminated against, denied job opportunities and have been subject to violence because of their race — though the specifics of their cases are unclear. President Trump, referring to a spate of murders of farmers in South Africa, said farmers are being killed. People who own land in South Africa are disproportionately white compared to the surrounding population, which means that many of the farmers who are being killed are white.  Trump said, “Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.” To understand why the United States is bringing Afrikaners to the United States, we actually have to know a little bit of the history. So Afrikaners, also known as Boers, have been in South Africa since 1652. That’s when the Dutch East India Company established a station at the Cape of Good Hope. For legitimately 350 years, there have been white people in South Africa. Originally, the Afrikaners were Dutch. Eventually, they were joined by both German and French citizens.  The British Empire came in the early 19th century to establish its own colonies in South Africa. Eventually this led to conflict. The British expanded their reach. The Boers made their way inland because they didn’t actually want to be under the edicts of the British Empire. Eventually, there were some conflicts. The biggest conflict was the Second Boer War. That was because the Afrikaners were in an area called the Transvaal, a region very heavy with gold. The finding of gold in the Transvaal essentially incentivized the British Empire to try and expand its holdings in South Africa, leading to the Second Boer War that eventually ended with the British Empire victorious.  In 1948, the National Party came to power and adopted a formal regime of apartheid. By 1950, the races were being categorized by law with special privileges for whites as opposed to blacks. Black people had no say in the government. In 1960, the so-called Sharpeville Massacre ended with the death of 69 anti-apartheid protesters. Nelson Mandela declared the end of nonviolent resistance and began engaging in violent activities directed against the government. He was arrested in 1962, sentenced to life imprisonment, and would end up spending nearly three decades in prison.  Over time, international pressure led to the eventual end of apartheid, with the ban on the African National Congress, which was Mandela’s party, ending in 1990. Mandela was freed from prison that same year. He was eventually inaugurated as President of South Africa. According to the media, that’s where the story basically ends, because we’re not supposed to talk about anything that happened after the end of apartheid. Everything was just hunky-dory after that. Two things can be true at once: 1) apartheid was an evil system, but 2) lots of bad things have happened after apartheid.  One of the dumb ways to cover politics is to suggest that because a bad thing is happening in one direction, no bad things have ever happened in the other direction, or will ever happen in the other direction. Since the end of apartheid, there has been a radical upsurge in the amount of racial discrimination against whites. Today, black Africans represent about 81.4% of the population of South Africa. Colored, which is a reference in South Africa to people of mixed race ethnicity, represent 8.2%; whites represent 7.3%. That is a massive change since 1904, when 67.3% of the population was Black African, but fully a fifth, 21.6%, was white. By 1996, those percentages had shifted dramatically. Suddenly, 77% of the South African population was Black African, as opposed to 11% white. And today, as the white population has dropped dramatically, the government has increasingly started to pass laws that are directed against whites in South Africa. This year, the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, signed a bill into law allowing land seizures by the state without compensation. The great fear in South Africa is that it will do the same thing that Robert Mugabe did in Zimbabwe. Mugabe expropriated all land from whites and then targeted them. Ramaphosa can simply say, “It’s in the public interest to rejigger land ownership in South Africa. We are now taking all the land of white people in South Africa in response to South African apartheid.” The hunky dory version of South African history says that everybody got together and gave a big group hug after the end of apartheid, but that is actually not what happened.  The ruling African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, has been in charge of the country since 1994. In 2017, Jacob Zuma, the corrupt former president of the country from 2009 to 2018, adopted ANC policy that included, “fundamental change in the structures, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership and control of the economy in favor of all South Africans, especially the poor.” That was coded language for “we’re going to completely redo all the structures on a racialized basis.” The ANC is a deeply corrupt party and is closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party, from which it receives money. They’re also closely tied to Vladimir Putin’s Russia as well as Iran. Julius Malema, the head of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which is a radical party in South Africa, has led an enormous crowd in a stadium to chant, “Kill the Boer!” which is the language of genocide. A bunch of communists shouted to kill the Boer. Never in the history of humanity have we ever seen communists attempt to exterminate an entire class of people, except for pretty much every communist regime everywhere.  You might see why South Africans who are white feel under threat. Why is it a big deal that Afrikaners are being granted refugee status to come to the United States? Because the Left is utterly puzzled at the idea that white people can ever be refugees. They’re absolutely puzzled by the idea that has been expressed by State Department deputy Chris Landale that Afrikaners might have an easier time assimilating in the United States than, say, Afghan refugees. Why is it that they can assimilate easily into our country? It isn’t about the fact that they are white. They all speak English. They are, by and large, capitalists. They agree with fundamental constitutional rights that are being violated in South Africa. It has nothing to do with the color of their skin, and everything to do with the ideas that they hold, and the cultural hallmarks that they bear in common with the United States.  That may not hold true for Afghan refugees, where you literally have no idea what their ideas are. They don’t speak English. There are a lot of things culturally that they do not have in common with Americans, up to and including a belief in constitutional rights. Are we going to just pretend that all potential immigrants to the United States have an equivalent level of assimilative capability? That’s obviously untrue. Since the 1960s, there has been an idea promulgated that America bears some sort of bizarre blood guilt for its success, and, therefore, bears an obligation to import people from all over the world, from these countries that actually do not share a cultural history with the Anglo-American sphere. Somehow America owes that to the rest of the world, because America’s only successful through some form of exploitation, according to that view, which also holds that there needs to be reparative justice in South Africa because whites used to harm blacks.  America somehow owes it to the rest of the world to let anybody in. And if you say that that’s not true, then you’re undermining the Left’s perception of Americanism.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump successfully cut a trade deal with China, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing our biggest adversary has agreed to scale back tariffs on U.S. imports to just 10 percent for three months. The announcement likely came as a shock to the left-wing media and Democrats who swore it would never, ever happen. But it was a good reminder that the president understands what mainstream American media has failed to cover: China is losing this trade war. Chinese factory floors are deserted, and cargo bookings between the United States and China are down by nearly 50%. And it’s not just China. Trump also recently announced a trade agreement with the United Kingdom and is closing in on deals with India, Japan, and South Korea. Back at home, American manufacturers are seeing a surge in demand, ramping up production, preparing to hire new workers, and announcing billions of dollars in new investments. Meanwhile, President Trump is determined to cut taxes, red tape, and regulations, all of which are sure to help American consumers and businesses alike. You might think this success would change how American businesses think about Trump. Too often, big companies substitute their core values for the zero-sum game of appealing to one side of the political spectrum, costing them public trust and hurting their bottom line. (Two words: Bud Light.) Simply put, corporate America has a long track record of poor decision-making and choosing the wrong hills to die on. After initially embracing Trump, many big businesses have now turned on him, thanks to tariffs. They may want to reconsider. After Donald Trump’s resounding victory last November, big retailers from Walmart to Amazon to Target were quick to reach out, applaud, and align themselves with the new president, donating millions for inaugural ceremonies and even attending themselves in person, congratulating President Trump on his victory, and generally making nice with the White House’s newest occupant. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities,” wrote Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on X. “The dignity of our country is not for sale,” reads an ad by Walmart heiress Christy Walton placed in the New York Times shortly after President Trump’s win. But the honeymoon ended as soon as it began. “These tariffs may be aimed at China, but the bill will be charged to American consumers who will pay more at the checkout,” warned the vice president of international trade for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents Target and Best Buy, among other major retailers. Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz said on CNBC that manufacturing won’t come to America, but price hikes will. Unfortunately for these businesses, gaslighting families into blaming Trump for the high prices won’t work. A recent focus group in Pennsylvania found that, even though voters didn’t fully understand tariffs, they still supported Trump. Bottom line: Big retail would do well to sit tight and stick with the president on this one. The payoff will be more than just dollars and profits. They’ll have earned the trust of the public, demonstrating they take seriously the principles and pride of being an American, and in the long run, consumers will thank them with their wallets for years to come. Carly Bird is a Republican strategist and founder and president of Bird’s Eye Consulting. She previously served as the national spokeswoman for Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

'Reminds people of what went wrong'

'Bending the knee to Trump is not necessarily a zero-sum political game.'

'Trojan Horse for increased regulation'