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First Lady Melania Trump addresses the B'More Youth Summit in Baltimore, Maryland on November 26, 2019. (Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
WATCH: First Lady Melania Trump Loudly Booed by Students During Baltimore Opioid Summit
"If your president husband calls the city 'a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess' where 'no human being would want to live' and then you hold an 'anti-bullying' event there, on behalf of the White House, honestly, what do you expect?"
Nov 25, 2019
First Lady Melania Trump on Tuesday was greeted with loud, sustained boos during the B'More Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness in Baltimore, a city President Donald Trump recently smeared as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."
The audience of middle and high school students reacted with a mixture of boos and cheers as the first lady took the stage to deliver prepared remarks at the summit, sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The opioid awareness summit was part of Melania's "Be Best" anti-bullying initiative, which the White House launched last May.
\u201cWATCH: The First Lady is met with boos and jeering as she speaks at the B\u2019More Youth Summit for Opioid Awareness.\u201d— NBC News (@NBC News) 1574790624
"If your president husband calls the city 'a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess' where 'no human being would want to live' and then you hold an 'anti-bullying' event there, on behalf of the White House, honestly, what do you expect?" Buzzfeed's Dominic Holden tweeted in response to the first lady's reception in Baltimore.
The booing continued sporadically as Melania spoke, and students talked amongst themselves throughout the first lady's five-minute remarks.
Kate Bennett, who covers the first lady for CNN, said she "cannot recall another event where [Melania] was more negatively received."
"I believe it is also the first loud booing by an audience at a solo event with Mrs. Trump," said Bennett.
The student crowd booed the first lady once more as she concluded her remarks and left the stage.
Watch:
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First Lady Melania Trump on Tuesday was greeted with loud, sustained boos during the B'More Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness in Baltimore, a city President Donald Trump recently smeared as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."
The audience of middle and high school students reacted with a mixture of boos and cheers as the first lady took the stage to deliver prepared remarks at the summit, sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The opioid awareness summit was part of Melania's "Be Best" anti-bullying initiative, which the White House launched last May.
\u201cWATCH: The First Lady is met with boos and jeering as she speaks at the B\u2019More Youth Summit for Opioid Awareness.\u201d— NBC News (@NBC News) 1574790624
"If your president husband calls the city 'a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess' where 'no human being would want to live' and then you hold an 'anti-bullying' event there, on behalf of the White House, honestly, what do you expect?" Buzzfeed's Dominic Holden tweeted in response to the first lady's reception in Baltimore.
The booing continued sporadically as Melania spoke, and students talked amongst themselves throughout the first lady's five-minute remarks.
Kate Bennett, who covers the first lady for CNN, said she "cannot recall another event where [Melania] was more negatively received."
"I believe it is also the first loud booing by an audience at a solo event with Mrs. Trump," said Bennett.
The student crowd booed the first lady once more as she concluded her remarks and left the stage.
Watch:
First Lady Melania Trump on Tuesday was greeted with loud, sustained boos during the B'More Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness in Baltimore, a city President Donald Trump recently smeared as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."
The audience of middle and high school students reacted with a mixture of boos and cheers as the first lady took the stage to deliver prepared remarks at the summit, sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The opioid awareness summit was part of Melania's "Be Best" anti-bullying initiative, which the White House launched last May.
\u201cWATCH: The First Lady is met with boos and jeering as she speaks at the B\u2019More Youth Summit for Opioid Awareness.\u201d— NBC News (@NBC News) 1574790624
"If your president husband calls the city 'a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess' where 'no human being would want to live' and then you hold an 'anti-bullying' event there, on behalf of the White House, honestly, what do you expect?" Buzzfeed's Dominic Holden tweeted in response to the first lady's reception in Baltimore.
The booing continued sporadically as Melania spoke, and students talked amongst themselves throughout the first lady's five-minute remarks.
Kate Bennett, who covers the first lady for CNN, said she "cannot recall another event where [Melania] was more negatively received."
"I believe it is also the first loud booing by an audience at a solo event with Mrs. Trump," said Bennett.
The student crowd booed the first lady once more as she concluded her remarks and left the stage.
Watch:
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LATEST NEWS
Dems Demand Johnson Urge All House Members to Immediately Disclose Stock Trades Made During Trump Tariff Chaos
"The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain," lawmakers said.
Apr 10, 2025
In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to abruptly pause most of the sweeping tariffs he announced last week—a move that raised suspicions of possible insider trading and market manipulation—a group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are urging Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to ensure any stock trades recently made by members of the chamber are immediately disclosed.
"We write to urge that you join us in requesting every member of the House of Representatives immediately file and release their Periodic Trading Reports (PTR) for any transactions conducted between April 2, 2025, and April 9, 2025," according to a letter the group sent Johnson, who represents Louisiana, on Thursday.
By law, lawmakers must file a form that is made public, known as a PTR, within 45 days of making a stock trade valued at over $1,000. The group of lawmakers is asking Johnson to join them in requesting that lawmakers immediately release their PTRs, rather than waiting for the end of the 45-day deadline.
"The public has the right to know whether anyone in the Congress profited from the considerable market instability and economic chaos caused by President Trump and his administration over the past week," according to the letter, which was penned by Reps. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), Mike Levin (D-Calif.), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and David Min (D-Calif.).
Trump on April 2 unveiled broad tariffs that rattled markets and heightened fears of a recession. Then, on Wednesday morning he wrote on social media: "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT." Hours later, he sent markets soaring when he declared a 90-day pause on tariffs for many countries—though a number of levies, including on China, remain in place. The bump resulted in the largest one-day percentage gain for the S&P 500 since the financial crisis of 2008.
"Over the past week, House Republicans met with President Trump at the White House, attended the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner (mere hours before pausing the tariffs), and were in regular communication with the president ahead of the vote on the budget reconciliation resolution," according to the letter. "The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain."
"We reiterate our request for immediate consideration of legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stocks," the letter concludes.
Plainclothes DHS Agents Lied to LA School Officials to Question Elementary Students
The Homeland Security officials falsely told the school principals they had permission from the children's guardians to speak to them.
Apr 10, 2025
The superintendent of Los Angeles public schools, Alberto M. Carvalho, confirmed Thursday that plainclothes federal immigration agents lied to school officials this week in order to gain access to two elementary schools to question several children—which the schools refuses to grant.
Carvalho told reporters that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents told the principals of Lillian Street Elementary School and Russell Elementary School that they had permission from the four children's caretakers to question them—a claim that "was confirmed to be a falsehood," CBS News reported.
The Biden administration barred immigration agents from trying to conduct enforcement operations in "sensitive" areas like schools and places of worship, but President Donald Trump reversed that policy after taking office, with former acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman saying, "Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest."
The five children DHS sought to question on Monday ranged from first to sixth graders.
"My very first question starts there, what interest should a Homeland Security agent have in a first grader?" Carvalho told CBS News. "No federal agency has the authority, short of a judicial warrant, that means the equivalent of a criminal subpoena to enter our schools."
Kate Cagle of Spectrum News 1 SoCal reported that the agents wore plain clothes and that children came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and are in the care of legal guardians.
"My very first question starts there, what interest should a Homeland Security agent have in a first grader?"
Schools are not required to allow immigration agents onto their campuses without being presented with a warrant. In February, Denver's public school district sued the Trump administration over its policy allowing DHS to attempt raids in schools, saying it had led to decreased attendance as families fear potential enforcement actions in their children's classrooms.
"I am proud of these principals, I am proud of our workforce, I am proud of the clerical staff in the front office, for they did exactly what we trained them to do," said Carvalho. "We declared back in August and September and October that at Los Angeles Unified [School District] we have protocols in place and training in place to prepare our workforce in... protection of our students."
The Los Angeles schools were targeted days after a school principal in the small town of Sackets Harbor, New York, joined the community in demanding the safe return of three children and their mother after they were arrested and detained in a Texas facility by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
"As the principal of these students, I need to speak plainly," wrote Jaime Cook in a letter that went viral. "Our three students who were taken by ICE were doing everything right... They are not criminals. They have no ties to any criminal activity. They are loved by their classmates... We are in shock—and it is that shared shock that has unified our community in the call for our students' release."
A rally over the weekend drew more than 1,000 people in the town of just 1,351—part of New York's most reliably Republican congressional district, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and the part-time home of Tom Homan, Trump's border czar.
The children were released along with their mother on Monday after the weekend rally, and were back in school on Wednesday.
Analysis of Lobbying in 2024 Shows Clear Target: A Tax Code Forever Favorable to Corporations
"Conversations on Capitol Hill about federal tax policy were dominated by those representing corporate and wealthy interests," said one leader at Public Citizen.
Apr 10, 2025
As the GOP forges ahead with a tax plan that would primarily benefit the wealthy, the watchdog Public Citizen published a report Thursday which found that the vast majority of tax lobbyists' work in 2024 was done on behalf of corporate clients.
Although the Republican tax and spending bill is taking shape in 2025, not 2024, Public Citizen's report suggests that the general thrust of the tax bill—tax cuts that largely benefit the rich and could lead to a massive slashing of programs including Medicaid—can be explained in part due to the power of corporate lobbying.
"Conversations on Capitol Hill about federal tax policy were dominated by those representing corporate and wealthy interests," said Susan Harley, managing director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division, in a statement Thursday. "The Trump-Republican tax proposal is a policy of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich."
Republicans are aiming to extend expiring provisions of President Donald Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts (TCJA), and also enact additional cuts. On Thursday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a budget blueprint that gets the GOP one step closer to securing the spending and cuts sought by Trump.
According to Public Citizen's report, most of the corporations and corporate trade associations that were the largest hirers of tax lobbyists in 2024 lobbied specifically on the TCJA.
Most of the TCJA's provisions that impact businesses, like cutting the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, do not expire—though Trump has said that he would like to see the corporate tax rate further cut, to 15%.
In its analysis, Public Citizen also highlighted that a deduction for "pass-through" businesses—whose owners report their share of profits as taxable income under the individual income tax—is set to expire, though pass-through businesses on average tend to be smaller businesses than their counterparts who pay corporate income tax. Pass-through businesses include sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies, and S-corporations.
To compile its report, Public Citizen searched all federal lobbying disclosures for 2024 to compile a list of all lobbyists who indicated that they lobbied on "tax issues" (the report notes how they define lobbying on "tax issues").
More than 6,000 lobbyists swarmed Capitol Hill in 2024 to lobby on tax issues, the group found, which amounts to nearly half of all federal lobbyists. Public Citizen highlighted that by comparison, there are only 535 members of Congress.
Out of the top 100 entities hiring the most lobbyists to work on tax issues in 2024, all but two represented corporate interests, according to the report.
The corporate trade group the U.S. Chamber of Commerce topped the list with 99 lobbyists. Other top hirers of tax lobbyists included the telecommunications company Verizon and the global financial technology platform Intuit.
However, according to Public Citizen, counting the number of unique lobbyists does not reveal the "true scope" of lobbying taking place. For example, five new corporations could start lobbying on the same tax issue, but if they hired a lobbyist who had already been working on that tax issue, looking at the individual number of lobbyists would not register this increase in lobbying activity, per the report.
That means that counting the number of "unique lobbyist client relationships" reveals a more accurate picture of lobbying activity.
According to the report, clients sent more than 10,500 lobbyists to influence tax issues on average for each quarter in 2024, and more than 85% of those lobbyists represented corporate interests each quarter.
The report notes that "many of the 15% of entities categorized as not representing corporate interests are likely not lobbying against such interests. Our methodology is conservative. Many nonprofit hospital systems, for example, operate similarly to for-profit entities."
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