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Just a week ago, the United States officially recognized Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, as a “specially designated global terrorist.”

Now, he’s shaking hands and smiling in the Oval Office.

@cnn

Less than a year after his lightning power grab, Syria’s president Ahmed Al-Sharaa is capping his transformation from jihadist to global statesman in a historic visit to the White House that says as much about the young leader as it does his push for his country’s diplomatic reinvention. CNN’s Paula Hancocks reports.

♬ original sound – CNN

On Monday, Ahmed al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president to cross the threshold of the West Wing, a feat that is noteworthy in and of itself, but becomes even more so when we remember that Sharaa only recently had a $10m bounty on his head; with the US only lifting it in December 2024.

A shocking meeting

Sharaa’s meeting with Trump in the White House may be the most astonishing meeting ever hosted at the White House.

Remember, Sharaa was so captivated by 9/11 that he copied Osama bin Laden’s look, pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and led a militia that used suicide bombers to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq.

Now he’s standing in the White House.

A shady entrance

The route that Sharaa took to enter the White House spoke volumes about how the administration feels about the meetings.

Hiden from the media and television cameras, Sharaa entered the building through West Executive Avenue, rather than being driven to the front door of the West Wing as is customary for the arrival of world leaders.

Sharaa left the White House about two hours later and was greeted by a mob of supporters.

Not the first meeting

Trump and Sharaa first met in May at a summit in Saudi Arabia. At the time, Trump called the (former?) jihadist a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past, very strong past. Fighter.”

Interesting wording for someone labelled a “global terrorist” by the… United States.

After the meeting at the Oval Office, Trump claimed Sharaa is a “very strong leader”.

“He comes from a very tough place, and he’s a tough guy. I liked him. I get along with him… the new president of Syria, and we’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful.”

Trump may have chosen to give Sharaa the benefit of the doubt, but experts are hesitant.

“It’s a colossal gamble. He could be a valuable ally. He could be the devil incarnate.” Said a former Western diplomat who served in the Middle East.

Sharaa‘s shift

Over the last five years, Sharaa has shifted his views slightly, going from a hardline Islamist who banned Christmas and persecuted minorities to a president who apologized to Christian clergymen and worked to return stolen property to religious minorities.

At the request of the Turkish government, Sharaa reportedly began cooperating with intelligence agencies around the world, including the CIA and MI6, among others.

Additionally, at the request of Western countries, Sharaa detained wanted jihadists connected to Europe, and even reportedly assisted in the operation that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Experts warn that Sharaa is almost certainly acting in his own interests, not Washington’s, but for now, Syria’s president may be an unlikely ally – and in a country whose trade deals have fallen in pieces at their feet, Trump seems to think Sharaa is worth the risk.

In yet another example of the Trump administration’s shocking incompetence, it’s been revealed that an ex-Trump golf course employee was illegally deported to Mexico.

For ten years, Alejandro Juarez served Donald Trump to the best of his abilities. Juarez worked at Trump National Golf Club Westchester for a decade. While employed, he built a life for himself in New York: a wife, two kids, and a full-time job in America. For most immigrants who flee their country, Juarez was living the dream.

That dream was first battered in 2019, when Trump unceremoniously fired Juarez and a dozen other workers for being undocumented.

“He told me, ‘Thanks, Alejandro, thanks for everything.”

-Alejandro Juarez

Now? That dream is shattered, and Juarez’s family is left trying to sweep up the broken pieces of their lives in America.

Illegally deported

In September 2025, Juarez was ousted from the US and returned to Mexico, more than two decades after he fled the country. Alejandro Juarez didn’t receive a hearing, didn’t appear before a judge, and by the time of his scheduled hearing on September 25, he had already been deported back to Mexico.

“This is unprecedented in my 20 years of practice—an individual being removed without any hearing, leaving even the court and DHS confused,” Juarez’s lawyer, Anibal Romero, told the Times.

Initially, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told the media that Juarez had been arrested for a DUI conviction from 2022, but later admitted to mishandling Juarez completely.

According to DHS, Juarez was supposed to be sent to an ICE detention center in Arizona, but instead was popped on a plane to Mexico.

Per DHS’s comments, Juarez was accidentally sent to Mexico. Yes, accidentally.

Trump administration officials said they would attempt to bring Juarez back to the U.S., but said they would be deporting him again, this time attempting to do so legally.

All-knowing and powerless?

Juarez’s is not the first case of this nature. Last spring, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who was mistakenly deported to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, despite a court order barring his repatriation.

Trump initially claimed that he lacked the power to return Garcia from prison, but the Supreme Court ruled that his administration would have to find a way to secure Garcia’s release.

Garcia was returned to the U.S. in June 2025, but was arrested by ICE in August during a mandatory check-in with DHS. Garcia is currently out on bail, having pled not guilty to a charge of human trafficking.

Garcia is citing vindictive prosecution.

In a move that is clearly furthering the US’s position amid tensions with Venezuela, the USS Gerald Ford has been deployed in the area of responsibility of the US Southern Command, which covers Latin America and the Caribbean.

With USS Gerald Ford now patrolling, there are now 15,000 American soldiers in Latin America, and 60 planes, including F-18 fighter jets.

“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle transnational criminal organizations,”

-Sean Parnell, Pentagon spokesperson

The deployment of the ship and its fleet was announced three weeks ago, but its arrival marks a significant signpost in military tensions between the US and Venezuela.

President Maduro responds

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro announced a “massive deployment” of land, sea, air, river and missile forces, as well as civilian militia, to counter the US naval presence off its coast.

Maduro is accusing the US of “fabricating a new war” and said the military deployment represents “the greatest threat our continent has faced in the past 100 years”.

Maduro has a point, with the arrival of the USS Gerald Ford and it’s accompaniment, which includes dozens of aircraft and destroyer ships forms the largest US military presence in the region in decades – seen as the biggest since the invasion of Panama in 1989.

The USS Gerald Ford has joined other warships, a nuclear-powered submarine and aircraft based in Puerto Rico.

Trump’s justification

Trump has justified all of the military attacks in the Caribbean Sea over the last three months as part of his “war on drugs,” but experts have questioned the validity of the claim, especially since drugs have only been recovered from one of the 20 vessels sunk by the US.

[The US is] stretching the meaning of the term [self-defense] beyond it’s breaking point… Labelling everyone a terrorist does not make them a lawful target and enables states to side-step international law. »

-Prof Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin, human rights expert

Trump has claimed that all 20 boats sunk by US strikes were carrying drugs for Venezuelan cartels, including the Tren de Aragua. The only problem is that at least three of the vessels have been confirmed to have been Colombian, without any attachment to Venezuela or the cartels peddled by Trump.

On Sunday, the summit for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States made a statement informally directed at the United States:

“The use or threat of use of force and any action not in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations.”

Venezuela and Nicaragua were the only countries not to sign the declaration, and Maduro’s regime reportedly expected a direct condemnation of the US rather than a vague statement.

Political motivations

Most analysts see the US attacks as a way to pressure Nicolas Maduro to step down, after stealing last years presidential election.

Maduro lost the Venezuelan election in June of last year, and Venezuela proved it with its own polling technology. Regardless of the loss, Maduro is still in power and has refused to step down.

Polling data has found that Maduro only won 30% of the Venezuelan vote, compared to the oppositions 67%. Not only did Maduro lose, but it was a landslide loss.

More than 1,200 opposition activists and volunteers have been arrested in Venezuela since the election last year.

It is not clear what will be the US’s next action. President Trump was reportedly briefed on multiple options, air strikes on seaports, airports and military facilities, and a dramatic (if less likely) option: sending in a team of special operations forces to apprehend or kill Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his senior advisers. This, of course, would be an overt act of war that experts say even Trump would be hesitant to commit to.

The Trump administration is attempting to drill oil off the shore of California, something that hasn’t happened in more than 4 decades. This would be the first fossil fuel development in California since the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that killed thousands of animals and caused millions of dollars of harm to California’s fishing industry.

Since then, drilling has been prohibited in California state waters. There has been no new leasing in federal waters off the coast of California since the 1980s.

Gavin Newsom rolls his eyes

Gov. of California, Gavin Newsom, has emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal adversaries and is unsurprisingly not pleased with Trump’s directive.

“Our coastal communities depend on healthy oceans for economic security and their cherished way of life… If this is the plan, the Trump administration must go back to the drawing board. There’s too much at stake to risk more horrific oil spills that will haunt our coastlines for generations to come.”

-Joseph Gordon – Oceana

In response to the directive, Newsom rolled his eyes and said the plan would be “dead on arrival” once it got to California, and that the state would “absolutely” challenge the plan in court once it’s finalized.

Newsom is currently in Brazil for the United Nations climate summit, but still made comments to the media, noting that Donald Trump did not suggest drilling offshore of Mar-A-Lago, something he finds “remarkable.”

“He didn’t promote it off the coast of Florida… That says everything about Donald Trump.”

-Gavin Newsom

The proposed drilling area in the Pacific Ocean would be off Santa Barbara County, where a small amount of drilling is reportedly already occurring.

Texas-based oil company Sable Offshore is seeking to reactivate three idle drilling rigs in federal waters off Santa Barbara that have sat empty since a 2015 oil spill. In May, the company began producing oil from one of those rigs under an existing lease, but the drilling resulted in a lawsuit from California attorney general, Rob Bonta. Bonta claimed company was illegally discharging waste into local waterways.

Newsom also sent a letter last month, reiterating that California is « firmly opposed » to developments in fossil fuel.

It looks like a senior Russian minister may have fallen out of favour with Vladimir Putin after negatively affecting trade talks with the United States.

Veteran Kremlin foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was nowhere to be seen at a key Kremlin meeting last week, and he’s now been left off Russia’s delegation to the forthcoming G20 summit in South Africa.

The call to Trump

Echoes of Putin’s displeasure with Lavrov have circulated after communications with the United States went south last month. Trump and Putin were planning to meet in Budapest at the end of October, but the summit was cancelled after a disagreement about Russia’s conduct in Ukraine.

According to media reports, the meeting was cancelled after a call between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Multiple sources reported that Lavrov pushed Russia’s maximalist strategies, and the Kremlin refused any change to their position. This call reportedly convinced the Trump administration that a summit would be ‘pointless,’ leading to the cancellation of the meeting.

If accurate, it’s easy to see how Lavrov could have fallen out of favour with Putin. If Putin felt as though he lost control over the situation, it could create serious tensions between the senior minister and his president.

‘Everything is fine’

Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin have been working diligently to dispel the rumours of fractures in their administration.

When asked on Monday, the Kremlin dismissed the reports, claiming they are “absolutely untrue” and that there is “no need to pay attention” because “everything is fine”.

Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said “Sergei [Lavrov] continues to work, and he is actively at work… When there are relevant public events, you will see the minister.”

A former official told media that “Putin wanted the meeting in Budapest, and it wasn’t Lavrov’s role to get in between,” and that Lavrov “mishandled » the conversation with Rubio, making “a diplomatic mess of things.”

Former diplomat Boris Bondarev also commented on the rumours:

“Putin has been very comfortable working with Lavrov all these years because Sergei [Lavrov] is a seasoned bureaucrat. He knows perfectly well that you should never say anything that does not coincide 100% with the president’s position.”

He added that “if there is even the slightest chance Putin might not like it, he simply won’t say it. The idea that Lavrov showed any unwillingness to negotiate, and that this somehow derailed the meeting, is improbable. There is no separate Lavrov line; only Putin’s,”

Lavrov’s piece

On Lavrov’s side, comments from an interview originally made with Italy’s Corriere della Sera paper recently surfaced, where the diplomat made his stance clear.

« We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level, »

He went on to say that Europe is « sabotaging all peacemaking efforts and are rejecting direct contacts with Moscow. They introduce new sanctions which boomerang on their economies even further. They’re openly preparing for a new major European war against Russia. »

Lavrov, 75, was elected as Ambassador of Russia to the United Nations in 1974 and has been the Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2004. Lavrov is one of the longest-serving top diplomats in the world.

It seems like we read it twice a week.

“Four dead in US airstrike,” “Venezuelan ship brought down by US fire,” “Two dead as Trump strikes down another ship,”

So many breaking headlines we become immune to the words « airstrike » and « Venezuela ».

The reality? These words become life-and-death decisions for fishermen in Venezuelan waters. A reality impossible to forget.

Donald Trump has ordered 20 individual bombings in the last three months and has killed more than 80 people since September. Trump claims every last one of those people was “dangerous narco-terrorists” who are threatening America. In reality, there is little to no evidence implicating the majority of the victims in organized crime.

Three months of terror

The US began initiating airstrikes on Venezuelan ships in the Caribbean Sea in September, under the guise of fighting narco-terrorism.

Donald Trump, backed by Pete Hegseth, outlined his mission to battle maritime drug trafficking in Latin America after the first strike.

That first strike came on September 2, when an American military vessel sank a 39-foot speedboat filled with “a considerable amount of cargo.” This initial strike was one of the more legitimate, with the vessel hailing from a known trafficking centre, and multiple sources supporting the US’s accusations of it being a criminal vessel. 11 people were killed in the first strike, according to Trump, all of them members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

Over the next six weeks, Trump carried out another four strikes, killing 16. There were drugs recovered in only one of the strikes. Venezuela has claimed that at least one of the boats attacked was a fishing vessel.

Additionally, at least two of the victims have been confirmed as Colombian citizens without any attachment to the country of Venezuela, nor its organized crime groups.

These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security and poison our people,

-Pete Hegseth

What next?

Donald Trump was reportedly briefed by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Thursday regarding possible avenues of furthering military actions in Venezuela.

According to ABC, possible actions could range from nothing to air strikes on seaports, airports and military facilities. According to experts, Trump was also briefed on a dramatic (if less likely) option: sending in a team of special operations forces to apprehend or kill Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his senior advisers. This, of course, would be an overt act of war that experts say even Trump would be hesitant to commit to.

Pete Hegseth has made it clear that the US feels no inclination to stop its advances against Venezuela.

“The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like Al Qaeda – Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores, will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere,”

The legality of either option mused by Trump is foggy, with some lawmakers claiming the US could legally force Maduro out of office, and others saying that the US has no right to be conducting any foreign military operations in Venezuela.

The US recently deployed the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, just north of the Caribbean Sea. Along with the carrier, there are now 15,000 American troops in Latin America, and 60 aircraft, including F-18 fighter jets.

Are they legal?

Experts are split on whether these attacks are lawful or not. On the one hand, Donald Trump is not technically breaking American law. As president, he is designated “Commander in Chief” of the army, meaning he has the power to order attacks against military targets.

Even if Trump isn’t violating National law, he’s certainly breaking international law.

Prof Luke Moffett of Queen’s University Belfast, a human rights expert, claims that the attacks must be « reasonable and necessary in self-defence where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials, » to count as self-defense. He claims the attacks are « unlawful under the law of the sea, » as the vessels were in international waters and posed no immediate violent threat to the US.

Prof Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin, another human rights expert, says that the US is “stretching the meaning of the term [self-defense] beyond it’s breaking point,” and that “Labelling everyone a terrorist does not make them a lawful target and enables states to side-step international law. »

Whether Trump is directly violating international law is irrelevant (we’ll direct your attention to international crimes committed in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo, all gone unenforced by the UN). What is relevant is the fact that innocent people are being killed. It’s been confirmed that at least three of the vessels sunk were ships being used by drug cartels, but at least three of them were not.

After three months of strikes ramping up exponentially, Venezuelan fishing boats live in constant fear of American attacks, and now that the strikes are happening to Colombian vessels and near Mexican shores, America is striking fear in fishermen all over the Caribbean Sea.

On Wednesday, oversight Democrats led by Robert Garcia released emails from the Jeffrey Epstein estate that had not been previously seen. Oversight Democrats claim the emails raise fresh questions about Trump’s past associations and what he may have known.

100 references to Donald Trump

The emails included more than 100 references to Donald Trump, though without any ‘gotcha’ emails directly implicating him in sexual crimes.

One email cited Trump as “the dog that hasn’t barked,” while another email to CNN’s Michael Wolff outlines how Epstein thought Trump would handle questioning in his direction. Another email said that Trump “knew about the girls,” regarding Maxwell’s poaching’ of young female Mar-A-Lago staff.  

The Democrats claim these emails strengthen their arguments for releasing the Epstein files and that the emails are further proof that the White House is covering up criminal behaviour from Donald Trump.

selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump

The White House is rejecting the release as politically motivated ‘smear,’ with press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Democrats « selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump », and that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Virginia Giuffre, one of the victims who testified against Epstein and Maxwell.

While the documents don’t actually implicate Trump in any direct criminal wrongdoing, they’re another example in a long line of documents placing Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein together.

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1988664404334792748

Da Benjamin Netanjahu in drei verschiedenen Korruptionsfällen wegen Betrugs, Bestechung und Untreue angeklagt ist, hat Donald Trump versucht, das Verfahren zu beeinflussen, indem er Israels Staatspräsident Isaac Herzog aufforderte, ihn zu begnadigen.

Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust in three separate cases which began in Trump's first term. https://cnn.it/4nQ1vyy

— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-11-12T11:47:03.758543401Z

« Ich fordere Sie hiermit auf, Benjamin Netanjahu vollständig zu begnadigen »

-Donald Trump

Ein langwieriger Korruptionsprozess

Trump, der Netanjahu als « Premierminister im Krieg » bezeichnete, schrieb: « Ich glaube, dass der ‘Fall’ gegen Bibi, der lange Zeit an meiner Seite gekämpft hat, auch gegen den sehr harten Gegner Israels, den Iran, eine politische, ungerechtfertigte Verfolgung ist ».

In Netanjahus langwierigem Korruptionsprozess, der seit 2020 läuft, geht es um Vorwürfe von Betrug, Bestechung und Untreue.

Sein Prozess wurde im Laufe der Jahre immer wieder unterbrochen und verzögert, zunächst durch Störungen im Zusammenhang mit Covid, dann durch politische Unruhen, den Krieg, wiederholte Anträge und Terminprobleme im Zusammenhang mit dem Terminkalender des Premierministers, wobei die meisten Verschiebungsanträge von Netanjahu selbst kamen.

Premierminister in Kriegszeiten

Trump eröffnete seinen Brief, indem er den Moment als historisch lobte und schrieb: « Es ist mir eine Ehre, Ihnen zu diesem historischen Zeitpunkt zu schreiben, da wir gemeinsam den Frieden gesichert haben, nach dem seit mindestens 3.000 Jahren gesucht wird. »

In einem Brief, der vom Sprecher des israelischen Präsidenten verteilt wurde, erklärte Trump, dass « ich Sie hiermit auffordere, Benjamin Netanjahu vollständig zu begnadigen », und beschrieb ihn als jemanden, « der ein beeindruckender und entschlossener Premierminister in Kriegszeiten war », und versicherte, dass er « Israel jetzt in eine Zeit des Friedens führt »

« Es ist an der Zeit, Bibi Israel zu vereinen, indem wir ihn begnadigen. »

-Donald Trump

Unter Berufung auf ihre persönliche Beziehung schrieb Trump: « Isaac, wir haben eine großartige Beziehung aufgebaut, für die ich sehr dankbar bin und die mich sehr ehrt, und wir waren uns gleich nach meiner Amtseinführung im Januar einig, dass wir uns darauf konzentrieren müssen, die Geiseln endlich nach Hause zu bringen und das Friedensabkommen zu schließen. »

Zum Abschluss seines Appells schrieb Trump: « Jetzt, wo wir diese beispiellosen Erfolge erzielt haben und die Hamas in Schach halten, ist es an der Zeit, Bibi zu erlauben, Israel zu vereinen, indem wir ihn begnadigen und den Rechtsstreit ein für alle Mal beenden », wobei er die Begnadigung sowohl als Belohnung für Israels jüngste Erfolge als auch als Schritt zur nationalen Einheit darstellte.

Rasche Reaktionen in Israel

Bei seinem letzten Besuch in Israel soll Donald Trump den israelischen Präsidenten gefragt haben: « Warum begnadigen Sie ihn nicht? ».

Er hat diesen Wunsch nun in einem Brief formell gemacht, in dem er Netanjahu um eine Begnadigung bittet, ein Schritt, der laut CNN rasche Reaktionen in Israels politischem Umfeld hervorrief: Der Minister für Nationale Sicherheit Itamar Ben-Gvir unterstützte die Idee auf X, nannte die Anklage « schändlich » und forderte Herzog auf, « auf Präsident Trump zu hören », während Oppositionsführer Yair Lapid mit einer juristischen Mahnung konterte: « Eine Erinnerung: Das israelische Recht schreibt eindeutig vor, dass die erste Bedingung für eine Begnadigung durch den Präsidenten das Eingeständnis der Schuld und der Ausdruck von Reue ist. »

https://bsky.app/profile/axios.com/post/3m5gpduhbek2z

In what might be the face-palm moment of his second term, Donald Trump just said America needs immigrants, and that American workers are not skilled, specifically those “in unemployment lines.”

Yes, that’s right, after more than half a decade of anti-immigrant rhetoric, and a Gestapo-like force in ICE, quite literally disappearing legal immigrants, Donald Trump just told American workers they aren’t enough to get the job done.

In an interview with FOX News that aired on Tuesday, Donald Trump said that the United States doesn’t have workers with “certain talents,” and offered his support for the H1-B skilled worker visa program.

Comments on Fox

Trump was pressed by Fox’s Laura Ingraham on whether he would reduce the H1-B program, and Trump responded with “you also do have to bring in talent.”

Ingraham tried insisting that the United States had talented workers, but Trump shut her down.

“No, you don’t, no, you don’t … you don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn. You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.’”

The president then strangely brought up the Hyundai plant fiasco that resulted in hundreds of legal South Korean workers being traumatically deported.

“In Georgia, they raided because they wanted illegal immigrants out — they had people from South Korea that made batteries all their life. You know, making batteries is very complicated. It’s not an easy thing. Very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like 500 or 600 people, early stages, to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You’re going to need that, Laura.”

Why the president would want to bring up an incident that could have only arisen due to administrative incompetence clearly surprised Ingraham, two weeks ago, Trump insisted that he was “very much opposed” to the raid on the Hyundai factory, leading many to wonder why it then happened.

H1-B Visa

In September, Trump signed an executive order to install a $100,000 application fee on the H1-B in an attempt to limit the number of people able to take advantage.

It was another example in a long line of orders cracking down on immigration, in this case, allowing the government control over the intake.

The H1-B is a three-year visa for skilled workers. It can be renewed once, with workers receiving an additional three years. The $100,000 fee allows Trump to control the intake of workers. By partnering with corporations and labour companies, Trump can now personally staff projects using international skilled workers while hindering individuals from successfully applying.

The vast majority of H1-B recipients are skilled workers from India.

MAGA response

The comments have struck Republican politicians with confusion. On the one hand, Trump is right, the U.S. does need international skilled workers. And by taking a looser stance on immigration, the GOP can start to appeal to the moderates. The problem? Anti-immigration has been the GOP’s identity for so long that the party is rudderless without it.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been the only major name to comment. Greene has a mixed bag when it comes to her resume with Trump. She was one of his staunchest supporters in the early years, but has been separated from DJT on the Epstein issue and the government shutdown.

Greene tweeted that “I believe you are good, talented, creative, intelligent, hard working, and want to achieve, I am solidly against you being replaced by foreign labor, like with H1Bs.”

She chose the third option, to come out against Trump, and reiterate right-wing talking points.

Some say this could be a ‘gotcha’ moment for Trump and his policies, but it’s more than likely the news cycle will move on before his voter base lets this sink in.