Trump Said Pirro ‘Folded Like an Umbrella’ — She Was at the White House Within Hours
There are few things more clarifying in Washington than watching someone who dropped a case against a national monument vandal sprint to the White House after the president publicly humiliated them on camera.
That’s exactly what happened Monday.
Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, dropped felony vandalism charges last Friday against David Hearn — the 67-year-old three-time Olympian who had been indicted by her own office for tearing apart the newly installed sealant lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Her office’s explanation: the damage was primarily the result of a rushed and defective installation, not criminal vandalism, and Hearn deserved an apology.
Trump’s response on Saturday was three words and a percentage: “I 100% disagree.”
By Monday morning in the Oval Office, he had found more words: “I think she choked.” And then the line that will follow Pirro for some time: “She folded like an umbrella.”
Pirro was at the White House within hours. The meeting wasn’t on the schedule. Emergency talks are a reasonable inference.
The substantive case Trump is making deserves to be stated clearly because the contractor-error defense is considerably weaker than Pirro’s office presented it. Trump released video showing the pool lining being cut with a knife or box cutter — deliberate cutting, not peeling from a defective installation. The “86 47” burned into the grass nearby wasn’t contractor error either. These aren’t signs of a substandard construction project. They are signs of a coordinated vandalism campaign against a national monument.
Pirro’s own office said at indictment that it had evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn had “willfully destroyed” federal property and acted “forcefully and violently.” A grand jury agreed and indicted him. He pleaded not guilty. Then a D.C. Superior Court judge pushed back hard on the prosecution — and Pirro’s office walked away entirely.
Trump used exactly the right word: choked. When a judge gets aggressive and a U.S. Attorney drops a strong case rather than litigate it, that’s not a principled reassessment of the evidence. That’s a prosecutor deciding the fight isn’t worth having.
For a D.C. U.S. Attorney appointed specifically to break from the pattern of charges dropped and cases abandoned that has plagued the District’s justice system for years, this was exactly the wrong call at exactly the wrong moment.
The emergency White House meeting suggests Pirro understands that. Whether it produces a reindictment — which Pirro’s office explicitly left open as a possibility — or simply a very uncomfortable conversation about what accountability for national monument vandalism is supposed to look like in this administration remains to be seen.
Trump said he was “really disappointed” in Pirro. “Really disappointed” from this president is the beginning of a process, not the end of one.
Pirro arrived at the White House. The conversation is happening. What comes next matters considerably more than who said what on Monday.
Vance Points Finger At ‘Migrant Communities’ Committing Most Fraud
Earlier this year, President Trump appointed Vice President Vance to lead a task force to identify instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in an effort to save taxpayer dollars from being stolen by bad actors.
By any measure, Vance’s efforts have been successful, and this week, the veep made an announcement about widespread fraud in certain communities that dovetails into the president’s ongoing mass deportation efforts.
Certain migrant communities are contributing to widespread fraud schemes that have cost taxpayers billions of dollars, Vance said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Speaking from his West Wing office at the White House last week, Vance discussed his role overseeing President Trump’s fraud task force.
He said investigators have identified what he described as a consistent pattern of coordination involving some migrant communities.
“You definitely see patterns where certain communities,” Vance said.
“It’ll start as maybe one Somali person takes advantage of the system, or realizes you don’t even have to have children to get money from these programs,” the VP continued.
“You could just claim that you have children, there’s no verification. Then, word spreads like wildfire, and that program gets tapped into by the same members of that community,” he added, describing how the abuse rapidly spreads.
Vance, who has also been involved in negotiations with Iran and recently welcomed a new addition to his family, has taken on a broad range of responsibilities within the administration.
He was assigned to lead efforts to combat fraud after concerns intensified in Minneapolis earlier this year and is now working alongside Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and other federal agencies.
In recent months, federal officials have suspended payments to hundreds of hospice and home health agencies in Minnesota and California that are suspected of fraudulent activity.
The task force is also monitoring similar concerns in several other states.
Vance said the investigations have revealed fraud schemes that affect a wide range of victims, extending far beyond the financial losses suffered by taxpayers.
“The first and the most obvious victim is the American taxpayer,” Vance said.
“You give your money to the federal government, and you expect the federal government, even if you disagree with the policy behind it, you expect that money to go to the people that it’s supposed to go to,” the Veep told Fox News.
“When a new mom goes to apply for help for herself and her baby, the money isn’t there anymore,” said Vance.
“Or, you have autistic kids who benefit from services that are meant to go to the families of children with autism, and you have fraudsters who get rich off these programs,” he added.
“Sometimes they don’t even have children, much less autistic children enrolled.”
Democrats have blasted the Trump administration’s anti-fraud efforts, claiming, falsely, that the White House and Republicans are depriving needy children of food and other assistance.
In reality, Vance and his team have uncovered hundreds of billions of dollars in fraudulent payments, much of it to migrant communities taking advantage of the system.
Vance said his team has uncovered roughly $230 billion in suspected fraud since President Trump took office and has halted approximately $55 billion in federal payments to individuals and organizations under investigation.
The administration’s efforts have been accompanied by a series of recent law enforcement actions.
Last week, federal and state authorities charged 19 defendants accused of participating in schemes involving more than $4 million in fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims, according to the Department of Justice.
In Pennsylvania, Attorney General Dave Sunday announced a plea agreement with the final defendant in a previously filed case involving 21 people accused of submitting more than $1.7 million in fraudulent claims to government health care programs, Fox News added.
Thune Put the Senate on Vacation Without Passing the SAVE America Act — And the GOP Base Is Done Being Polite About It
At 5 AM Saturday morning, while most of America slept, John Thune moved to adjourn the United States Senate. He confirmed Todd Blanche — which needed to happen and deserved to happen — and then immediately moved the entire caucus out the door for a month-long recess.
The SAVE America Act is still not law. The filibuster is still intact. Democrats are still promising to destroy it the moment they retake power. And John Thune just handed every Republican senator in a competitive race a 33-day vacation with 90 days until the midterms.
Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Ashley Moody (Fla.) were among those objecting at the top of their lungs. It wasn’t enough. There weren’t enough senators willing to stay and fight to block the adjournment. The math was simple and damning: Democrats won’t break the recess, and 15 to 20 Republicans apparently prefer watching their filibuster get eliminated by Democrats next year over eliminating it themselves to win now.
This is the logic that has destroyed conservative political movements repeatedly over the past three decades. We will be rewarded for being ‘the adults in the room.’ We will be praised for ‘respecting norms.’ We will demonstrate our ‘fitness to govern’ by declining to govern when governing is hard. And then we’ll watch Democrats win, eliminate every norm we preserved, and wonder why voters stopped believing we’d fight for them.
The voters stopped believing because of mornings like Saturday.
Here’s what just happened in practice. Trump asked Thune to cancel recess and pass the SAVE America Act. Trump personally came to Capitol Hill. Seven senators said publicly they’d block adjournment. The president put Thune’s job on the line on Truth Social — “we’re going to find out” — and Thune found out that at 5 AM with the minimum number of bodies in the chamber, he could get what he wanted. He wanted to go home.
The SAVE America Act has 83% public support. New Jersey found 6,600 noncitizens on its voter rolls. A British national pleaded guilty in Texas to voting in five elections over twelve years. The Arizona hacker confession just came out. Virginia paused noncitizen removal for 90 days before elections. The evidence is documented, mounting, and urgent.
And John Thune just gave the Republican base a month to think about all the things he didn’t do.
No one cares about institutional deference anymore. The SAVE America Act could’ve been passed if the filibuster had been nuked, but these ‘traditional Republicans’ and their laughable affinity for the old days are what’s going to destroy us.
There’s one month. Democrats come back September 8. If the September legislative sprint doesn’t produce results, this recess will define John Thune’s legacy as Majority Leader — as the man who had everything he needed to protect American elections, had a 90-day window to do it, and chose to go home instead.
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The base is done being polite.
