Why is the National Guard on trash duty in Washington, DC? While the Trump administration claims the troops are needed to combat crime, we examine what this says about the true agenda behind the deployment and break down how this costly, aesthetic-focused mission is not about public safety but about political aesthetics.
Chef Jose Andres with World Central Kitchen visits a temporary shelter for the victims of the Southern California wildfires at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Celebrity chef and local D.C. icon Jose Andres is pushing back against Trump’s claim that his federal takeover and law enforcement surge in the nation’s capital has resulted in a “boom town” for the city’s restaurants.
Trump on Monday rejected reports that the flood of federal agents and National Guard troops had hurt D.C. restaurant and nightlife industry.
“Half the restaurants closed, because nobody could go, because they were afraid to go outside,” Trump said. “Now those restaurants are opening and new restaurants are opening up. It’s like a boomtown.”
Andres, in a Tuesday post on X, directly and sarcastically addressed Trump, saying: “I understand why you are confused…all your time in DC you haven’t eaten ONCE outside the White House or your own hotel. I’ve lived here for 33 years, and it’s a flat out lie that half the restaurants have closed because of safety…but restaurants will close because you have troops with guns and federal agents harassing people…making people afraid to go out.”
The Spanish-American restaurateur and founder of the global food charity World Central Kitchen and Trump have exchanged public hostilities in the past.
August 26, 1789 The French National Assembly agreed to document known as the “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” It was a set of principles for gauging the legitimacy of any governing system, and included (in summary): • “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights” “ Those rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression” “ Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else” • “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man” Declaration des Droits de L’Homme et du Citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen) • Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society and law is the expression of the general will. “ Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation.” • No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except when in violation of a public law, all persons are held “innocent until they shall have been declared guilty,” and receive punishments “only as are strictly and obviously necessary” • The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces, and a “common contribution” is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration, and that public servants are obliged to account for use of those funds • Property is an “inviolable and sacred right,” and no one shall be deprived thereof The complete text:
August 26, 1839 The Amistad (“Friendship”), a Spanish slave ship seized by the 54 Africans who had been carried as cargo on board, landed on Long Island, New York. The leader of the mutiny was Joseph Cinque, a Mende, from the part of Africa that is now Sierra Leone. Cinque-one of the revolt leaders The Amistad More on the story of the Amistad
August 26, 1920 The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, officially became part of the U.S. Constitution: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” This day has been known since 1971 as Women’s Equality Day. More on Women’s Equality Day The document itself, from the National Archives (And it is still there.)
August 26-29, 1968 Police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey for president inside the Amphitheater. Club-swinging Chicago police indiscriminately tear-gassed, kicked and beat anti-war demonstrators, delegates, reporters and innocent bystanders outside, arresting 500. 11,900 Chicago police, 7500 Army troops, 7500 Illinois National Guardsmen and 1000 Secret Service agents were ultimately involved. Protesting what was later officially designated a police riot, members of the Democrats’ Wisconsin delegation attempted to march to the convention hall, but police turned them back. When Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut) delivered his nominating speech, he infuriated Mayor Richard Daley by saying, “with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.” Julian Bond, the first black member of the previously all-white Georgia state legislature, seconded the nomination of anti-war presidential candidate Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. Bond added that he had seen such police behavior before, but only in segregationist Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. a narrative account Arthur Miller on the Convention
August 26, 1970 Betty Friedan leads a nationwide protest called the Women’s Strike for Equality in New York City on the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage.
August 26, 1971 Six thousand turned out for a National Organization for Women-organized Women March for Equality in New York City. They were calling for equal rights, including the demand “51 percent of everything,” reflecting women’s proportion of the U.S. population. This first “Women’s Equality Day,” instituted by Bella Abzug, was established by Presidential Proclamation and reaffirmed annually.
August 26, 1985 Samantha Smith, a 10-year-old from Manchester, Maine, was invited to visit the Soviet Union by its Premier, Yuri Andropov. Statue of Samantha Smith at the Maine State Library, Augusta, Maine She had written him a letter asking if the Soviet Union intended to attack the United States. She visited him in the U.S.S.R. and became a young ambassador for peace. She died in an airplane crash at age 13 on this day returning home with her father from a peace mission. Grade school student, peace activist 1972-1985
I have been waiting for the show to clip this interview. I watched it live when he was interviewed. I was blown away by Frost. He is the kind of Democratic elected members we need and the kind of candidates we should vote for. Please give the interview a watch. Hugs
I don’t care if a person can afford to have facial surgery and does to make themselves look prettier than nature did at birth, but this woman who clearly had a lot of work to change her appearance would object to a young adult trans person would do the same thing. But the point is this person is spending millions to cosplay to her heart’s content all over the Northern Hemisphere so she can put a pretty face to the horror her department is inflicting on people. Look she went to the El Salvadorian SECOT prison dressed up for a photo op. But what they are trying to hide is she was living in a mansion paid for by the US taxpayer …. meaning paid by us and so when that got found out she moved into a water front mansion her boyfriend was living in paid for by the US Coast Guard. The grifting and corruption of this administration is unbelievable. They cut every healthcare and food assistance for the poor in the US but they demand every amenity paid for by the taxpayer and think they are due it. Hugs
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BIG SPENDER
The DHS will pour a fortune into its “Stronger Border” ad campaign as Secretary Kristi Noem weathers a relentless storm of mockery.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
The Trump administration is set to spend up to $50 million on a wave of taxpayer-funded PR amid the torrent of negative coverage dogging his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
A planning forecast record posted this week by the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) pledges $20 million to $50 million as an “International Campaign Follow-on” to the “Stronger Border, Stronger America” ads that have starred Noem.
A DHS spokesperson told the Daily Beast that the spending on the campaign is not related to coverage of Noem.
Since being appointed Trump’s DHS secretary, Noem has been skewered over her cosplays and photo-ops promoting Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Trump’s hardline deportation agenda.
That mockery has reached a fever pitch with the latest season of South Park, which won record ratings while portraying Noem as a psychotic dog-killer—referencing her memoir admission that she shot dead her own dog—and mocked DHS’s own celebratory sizzle reels.
Noem wore an ICE vest in promotional stunts for the agency—the new tranche of spending comes as she has weathered intense mockery on ‘South Park.’TheDailyBeast/DHS
The PR campaign will be funded from September through March, listing the incumbent as People Who Think LLC—a company with ties to the GOP and Noem’s unofficial chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski, who also served as Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. Noem and Lewandowski, who are both married to other people, have denied longstanding rumors that they are romantically involved.
People Who Think was co-founded by Louisiana consultant Jay Connaughton, who worked alongside Lewandowski—described by some Homeland Security officials as Noem’s gatekeeper—on Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s campaign in 2024, according to Semafor. Connaughton also worked on ads for Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to the report.
Federal data shows the company has been awarded $26.7 million this financial year, suggesting it could stand to earn nearly double that in its latest deal. The Daily Beast contacted People Who Think LLC for comment.
The new spending is the latest tranche from a pot that Semafor reported as being worth up to $200 million, which has been budgeted for Noem’s nationwide and international messaging drive. The DHS began rolling it out in February.
Early spots featured Noem praising Trump in front of American flags and warning migrants—depicted as crossing the border en masse and purportedly handing over drugs—with Noem saying “we will find you and deport you,” and “you will never return.”
Images from one of the adverts in the campaign launched earlier this year—the DHS trumpeted the spots as a “nationwide and international multimillion-dollar ad campaign warning illegal aliens to leave our country now or face deportation.”TheDailyBeast/DHS
DHS insisted after the rollout that the buys were “competitive,” but a document posted in a federal database in March shows officials at that time invoked an “unusual and compelling urgency” tied to Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border, according to the Los Angeles Times. The measure allows federal agencies to skip a typical competitive process, the outlet reported.
The process sparked alarm from Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, who wrote a letter to Noem slamming a “blatant misuse of American tax dollars,” and demanding records by April 4.
As of now, the committee hasn’t posted any DHS response.
Noem is carrying out what Trump wants—and he continues to support her by funding a PR blitz.Evelyn Hockstein/REUTERSNoem meeting with President of Costa Rica Rodrigo Chaves Robles in June—Lewandowski (second left) and Noem have both previously denied rumors of being romantically involved.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Given the time that has elapsed since the previous “tender,” and the fact that tens of thousands of arrests and deportations of migrants have occurred since Trump took power in January, it is not obvious his administration and the DHS can continue to argue an “unusual and compelling urgency.”
It is also unclear whether a competitive process was used this time around.
“Just yesterday, Secretary Noem announced 1.6 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. This data reveals the world is hearing Secretary Noem’s message loud and clear: if you are in America illegally, leave now or face arrest, deportation, and fines,” the DHS spokesperson told the Daily Beast on Friday.
“Following a competitive process with multiple companies competing to deliver the best service, product, and price for American taxpayers, Safe America Media and People Who Think both earned a shared contract for this targeted national and international campaign that warns illegal aliens to leave our country now, self deport, and not to enter our country illegally or face deportation,” they said, adding that multiple “career government officials oversaw this competitive procurement process.”
Noem at the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador in March—one of her many photo-ops since being appointed Homeland Security Secretary.Alex Brandon/Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS‘South Park’ has been mocking the stunts, achieiving record ratings in the process—Noem has called the parody “lazy” and “petty.”South Park/Comedy Central
The spokesperson also denied that the spending is part of an effort to counter negative coverage of Noem.
“To the Daily Beast’s chagrin, these ads are working, and illegal aliens are leaving in droves,” they said.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
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