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Trump bought up to $5 million in SpaceX bonds two days before signing an order that would benefit the company. The Pentagon will livestream the first military execution in more than 60 years. Kimberly Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, allegedly asked a Trump donor to wire $100,000 to her American Express account. And the Justice Department is trying to indict a former Trump aide for telling the truth.
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The invisible hand of the market has very small fingers.
Two days before signing an order that would benefit SpaceX, a major federal contractor run by Elon Musk, Donald Trump bought between $1 million and $5 million in bonds from the company, ethics filings released Thursday show.
Trump purchased senior unsecured SpaceX bonds on August 18 that mature in July 2031, with an interest rate of 5.35%. On August 20, Trump signed a national security memorandum aimed at accelerating what he called a “golden age” of space transportation.
The order allows more than 1,000 launches and reentries a year on American soil by shortening permit and environmental review timelines. SpaceX launches more commercial rockets than any other company in the United States.
The SpaceX purchase was one of 517 trades Trump made in August, which also included up to $25 million of Meta shares and as much as $6 million of Microsoft stock. The Meta trades came weeks before Trump met with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders at the White House, rejecting calls to regulate artificial intelligence.
Anyone saying this is something North Korea would do should know it’s happening at Fort Hood.
Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be executed by firing squad at the site of the shooting, acting Army Secretary Adam Telle announced Tuesday. The execution will be public, and the Pentagon confirmed Thursday it will be livestreamed.
In November 2009, Hasan walked into a medical building where soldiers were getting checkups and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. At trial, he told jurors he was the shooter and described himself as a soldier who had “switched sides.”
The method was reportedly recommended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has a documented history of praising firing squads on Fox News. No state or federal execution has ever been televised in the United States.
Hasan is one of four men on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He could still stay the execution with a habeas corpus appeal in the civilian federal court system.
Trump authorized the firing squad execution just days after Tennessee botched the lethal injection of Christa Pike, a woman on death row for murder, leaving her alive and in critical condition. Governor Bill Lee has since halted all remaining executions in the state and ordered an independent review.
In case you were wondering, diplomatic immunity does not apply to your credit score.
U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle asked a Republican donor to wire $100,000 to her American Express account in a way that would not leave a paper trail, the Wall Street Journal reports. Guilfoyle made the request on July 3, 2025, just six days before her Senate confirmation hearing, through the encrypted app Signal.
The donor, Eric Deters, is a former congressional candidate in Kentucky who had been asking Guilfoyle to put him in touch with Trump administration officials so he could resolve personal tax and legal disputes. Deters had pledged payments of up to $1 million if she could hook him up with the right people.
Guilfoyle also warned Deters to stop putting their discussions in writing. She told him that if he came up with the money, she would be his connection to Trump permanently.
Deters said she never came through on anything. He ultimately didn’t make the payment, telling WSJ it would have cost him his marriage.
A lawyer for Guilfoyle said the messages were not authentic, but didn’t provide further explanation. He claimed she had been paid to speak at events before her nomination and was owed for traveling, which Deters denied.
Testifying against Trump is now a bigger priority for the Civil Rights Division than racism.
The Justice Department wants to charge Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, with making false statements to Congress during her 2022 testimony before the Jan. 6 committee. The department claims she lied when she said Trump knew his supporters could get violent.
Hutchinson testified in June 2022 that Trump knew his supporters were armed on Jan. 6 and didn’t want them screened for weapons ahead of his rally. She also relayed a secondhand account that Trump was so determined to go to the Capitol that he tried to wrestle the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle from the Secret Service when they refused to take him.
Earlier this year, Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk referred Hutchinson to the Justice Department, accusing her of making false statements. Loudermilk himself was investigated by the January 6 committee for conducting a tour of the Capitol complex the day before the attack.
Lying to Congress is a criminal offense usually handled by federal prosecutors. Instead, the case is being pursued by the Civil Rights Division, led by Harmeet Dhillon, which normally deals with things like police misconduct and racial discrimination.
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** Pete Hegseth Could Not Keep Up With the Troops During a Workout.** Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was clearly unable to keep up with Marines in San Diego Wednesday for a morning workout. Video from the event showed service members charging ahead while Hegseth lagged behind, stopping at one point to catch his breath and high-five people around him as the rest of the group sprinted to the next exercise. Hegseth has previously said he would like to instill a “warrior ethos” into the military and announced mandatory testosterone testing for service members over the age of 30. Hegseth was universally mocked online, with former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock writing, “Get this loser a job at a MAGA gym.”
Mike Johnson Signals He May Not Seek the Speakership If Democrats Win the House. Democrats are expected to take control of the House in November, and Speaker Mike Johnson has reportedly told allies that he may not fight to keep the gavel if they do. Johnson wasn’t even the Republicans’ first pick after Kevin McCarthy got ousted in 2023, and his speakership has been defined by carrying out whatever Trump tells him to do and failing to manage his own caucus. He has told allies that a Democratic majority would block the Trump administration’s legislative agenda, because Democrats would use control of committees to investigate every corner of the administration.
** St. Louis Archdiocese Files Federal Lawsuit Against ICE Over Access to Sacraments.** The Archdiocese of St. Louis has become the first Catholic diocese in the nation to sue U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over access to detained immigrants, filing a federal lawsuit against the agency. The lawsuit, filed October 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, challenges a no-contact policy that forbids priests from giving Communion and hearing confessions at ICE facilities. Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski said the lawsuit was motivated by a commitment to ensuring that all Catholics have access to the sacraments and to priestly care.
Massachusetts Orders Data Centers to Bring Their Own Clean Power. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed an executive order requiring data centers larger than 25 megawatts to generate 100 percent of their own electricity from clean sources. Developers who do not generate their own power will have to pay into a ratepayer protection fund so that residents are not stuck with higher electric bills. Massachusetts is the third state in three months to regulate data center development, following New York in July halting construction on all new facilities over 50 megawatts and Texas in August subjecting every new data center to utility commission audits.