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Billionaire Makes Massive Political Contribution To Trump

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Image via Pixabay free images

One of the largest single disclosed gifts ever…

A reclusive billionaire from a storied American family with a legacy dating back to the Gilded Age has made one of the largest political contributions in the history of American politics.

Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune, made a $50 million contribution to the pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.

At the end of April, the organization had only $34.5 million.

In a memo following Mellon’s donation, the PAC announced it had reserved $100 million in advertising through Labor Day.

The New York Times continues:

Mr. Mellon is now the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year’s election. He was already the single largest contributor to super PACs supporting both Mr. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent. Mr. Mellon has previously given $25 million to both.

Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Democrats have sought to portray Mr. Kennedy as a spoiler supported by Republicans, in part by emphasizing Mr. Mellon’s dual contributions and seemingly split loyalties. The pro-Kennedy super PAC has distributed quotations from the hard-to-reach Mr. Mellon, and for a blurb that appears on the cover of Mr. Mellon’s upcoming book, Mr. Kennedy called the billionaire a “maverick entrepreneur.”

It is not clear what Mr. Mellon’s mega-donation means for his support of Mr. Kennedy going forward. He has so far toggled between giving to support both candidates. His most recent donation to Mr. Kennedy’s super PAC was a $5 million contribution in April.

But Mr. Mellon’s $50 million gift will significantly help pro-Trump forces narrow the financial advantage that President Biden and his allies have enjoyed so far. Miriam Adelson, the casino billionaire and widow of Sheldon G. Adelson, who died in 2021, has also made plans to fund a pro-Trump super PAC with at least as much money as the $90 million that her family gave in the 2020 campaign, although much of the cash has yet to arrive.

Mellon’s contributions follow Donald Trump‘s conviction in a hush money trial.

Critics argue that the case is politically motivated and based on an overly broad interpretation of campaign finance laws. They add that such payments are common among public figures seeking to avoid public scrutiny.

The Mellon family‘s wealth started when an Irish immigrant named Thomas Mellon founded T. Mellon & Sons’ Bank in Pittsburgh in 1869. His sons, Andrew W. Mellon and Richard B. Mellon, later grew the bank into a strong financial institution. This bank eventually became Mellon Financial Corporation, one of the largest banking institutions in the United States.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Andrew Mellon played a crucial role in financing and supporting key industries such as aluminum, oil, and steel, contributing to the growth of major corporations, such as Gulf Oil, and Union Steel. As secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932, his influence shaped the economic policies of the 1920s, known as the Mellon Plan, which contributed to the economic boom of the decade.

National Photo Company Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 2007, Mellon Financial Corporation merged with The Bank of New York to form BNY Mellon, one of the world’s largest asset management and securities services companies, preserving their 150-year legacy in banking and finance.

Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News

Obama Claims New Yorkers ‘Don’t Take Trump Seriously’

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The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

During a podcast interview, former President Barack Obama swiped at Donald Trump claiming the former President is not taken “seriously” in the city he called home for years, New York City.

Obama appeared alongside Bill Clinton and President Biden in the newest episode of the “SmartLess” podcast. 

Obama was asked on the “SmartLess” podcast by co-host Jason Bateman whether he was surprised how quickly the “protection and passion for democracy was diluted” in recent years. Obama responded by noting the trend began during former President Clinton’s time in the White House before accelerating during his presidency.

“I have been surprised that there haven’t been guardrails inside the Republican Party. Trump didn’t surprise me,” he said, before taking aim at Trump.

“I mean, he comes from New York. There’s nobody in New York who does business with him or lend him money. He’s not considered a serious guy here,” Obama added.

Obama went on to explain how he thought more Republicans would say some of Trump’s behavior went too far.

“But, so I was surprised he was elected, but I wasn’t surprised in terms of his behavior. I did expect, and I suspect Bill and Joe, you’d agree with this, that there would be some folks in the Republican Party who would say, no, you can’t go that far. You can’t start praising Putin and saying that his intelligence is better than the US intelligence agencies,” he said.

Trump is currently on trial in New York for falsifying business records to make alleged hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

MyPillow Evicted From Warehouse

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Mike Lindell via Gage Skidmore Flickr

A Minnesota court has ordered MyPillow to be evicted from the warehouse it formerly used.

The Hill has more:

The Minneapolis warehouse is approximately 125,000 square feet and has been leased to Lindell since December 2015. The lease agreement between Lindell and the landlord, First Industrial LP, has been amended twice. It lasts 10 years, seven months and 20 days, and the monthly rent was $57,794.12, according to the eviction complaint.

According to the complaint, dated March 7, Lindell did not make rent payments for February and March 2024. Since it is not the first time MyPillow failed to pay its rent on more than two occasions in the previous 12-month period, per the lease agreement, the landlord is entitled to retake possession of the premises.

As of Wednesday, Lindell did not answer the eviction complaint or appear at the scheduled hearing, forcing the judge to order the eviction. He confirmed to the AP that MyPillow owes around $217,000 to the Delaware-based company for the rent.

Lindell said the company no longer needed the space and removed its property from the warehouse last June before subleasing it to another company through December. The company backed out in January and “left us all stranded.” MyPillow offered to find another tenant, but the landlord wanted to take the warehouse back, he told the newswire.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell faces multiple defamation lawsuits from two voting machine companies, after he spread lies that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and stolen from former President Trump. In February, a federal judge ruled he must pay $5 million in an election data dispute case.

Andrew Cuomo to Launch New Podcast with First Guest Anthony Scaramucci

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Photos from the opening of the new Delta Air Lines terminal in LaGuardia Airport in Queens, NY, on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019. (Chris Rank for Rank Studios) (Photos from the opening of the new Delta Air Lines terminal in LaGuardia Airport in Queens, NY, o

Look at how far Andrew Cuomo has sunk.

After resigning as New York Governor due to allegations of sexual misconduct Cuomo announced he plans to start a new business venture. Cuomo’s newest foray into the public sphere comes in the shape of a podcast and one of his first guests is scheduled to be President Donald Trump’s former communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

Scaramucci, who briefly served the Trump administration in 2017, has emerged as a critic of Trump and expressed his support for Biden in the 2020 election.

According to The Hill:

Cuomo will this week debut a new hourlong show he is calling “As a Matter of Fact” on podcast streaming service Quake, he told Axios, and the show will aim to “hear from people — their questions, their issues — and have that dialogue.”

The former governor told Axios this week he has “learned from the entire situation.”

“There’s a fundamental problem with the entire system here,” Cuomo told the outlet of the media ecosystem writ large. “We have such division of people and we have such dysfunction of government, and part of it is this hyper-partisan, extreme dialogue that goes on.”

“There is a new sensitivity that I didn’t fully appreciate that some people have, and some people have a new sense of cultural boundaries that I didn’t appreciate enough,” Cuomo said.

It seems the disgraced governor is following in his brother’s footsteps. Chris Cuomo, who was a leading anchor at CNN during the Cuomo sex scandal, also started a new podcast after being fired from the network.

Report: United CEO Pitches Merger to Trump That Would Create World’s Largest Airline

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United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is reportedly floating a blockbuster idea inside the Trump orbit: a potential merger with American Airlines that would create the largest airline in the world — and instantly reshape the U.S. aviation industry.

According to reports, Kirby raised the possibility toward the end of a White House meeting focused on the future of Washington Dulles International Airport. The timing is notable. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has already launched an initiative to “revitalize” Dulles, signaling a broader push to strengthen major U.S. travel hubs and compete globally.

And the stakes are massive. Data from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority shows that a dominant 68.5 percent of commercial passengers at Dulles in December flew United — underscoring just how much influence one airline already holds at a key East Coast gateway.

Now imagine that power combined.

In 2023, United and American ranked first and third, respectively, in revenue by passenger miles among U.S.-based airlines, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A merger between the two wouldn’t just be big — it would create an aviation giant unlike anything seen before, potentially giving the U.S. a dominant global carrier at a time of rising international competition.

Kirby, who knows both companies well, previously served as president of American Airlines after its 2013 merger with U.S. Airways before joining United in 2016 — adding another layer of intrigue to the reported pitch.

Not surprisingly, the reaction from Washington’s political class — especially on the left — was immediate and hostile.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) fired off a blunt response on X, writing, “That’s gonna be a no.”

Matt Stoller, a researcher at the anti-monopolist American Economic Liberties Project, went even further, calling the idea “corporate crime” that is “now legal.”

But behind the outrage is a deeper policy divide. Under Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson, the Federal Trade Commission has taken a more business-friendly approach than it did under former Chair Lina Khan, whose aggressive antitrust stance often targeted large corporate mergers. For many conservatives, that shift reflects a broader belief that American companies need scale to compete with state-backed foreign rivals — particularly in industries like aviation.

Still, even some legal experts say the proposal would face an uphill battle.

Antitrust lawyer Seth Bloom told Reuters the deal would be unlikely to survive regulatory scrutiny, warning that it could hit consumers where it hurts most: prices.

“The administration has said it really cares about the issues that affect the consumer’s pocketbook, and this would give the airlines more pricing power,” Bloom said.

That tension — between building a stronger, more competitive American airline industry and protecting consumers from higher costs — is likely to define the debate if this idea gains traction.

For now, Kirby’s reported pitch remains just that — a pitch.

Trump Names 3 A-listers As Special Ambassadors To ‘Very Troubled’ Hollywood

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Austin Green, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

President-elect Trump announced three special envoys on Thursday with the purpose of promoting business in Hollywood.

Those special ambassadors will be Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, Trump said. All three actors are conservative and have appeared publicly with Trump or praised him publicly in the past. Stallone, for example, praised Trump as “the second George Washington” while introducing him at the America First Policy Gala in Palm Beach in November.

“It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump wrote in a Thursday Truth Social post. “They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

“These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest,” Trump added. “It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”

The actors’ support for Trump is particularly significant given the strong anti-Trump sentiment voiced by many Hollywood progressives, such as George Clooney, who embrace politicians like former President Barack Obama.

“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world,” Stallone said of Trump in November. “‘Cause without him, you can imagine what the world would look like. Guess what, we got the second George Washington.”

Report: Trump Set To Become One Of World’s Most Wealthy People

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Former President Donald Trump will become one of the 500 richest people in the world after his media company begins public trading on Tuesday, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

The Daily Caller has more:

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, established the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) in February of 2021 to develop an alternative social media website, following his removal from Twitter after the events of Jan. 6, 2021, with the new website “Truth Social” being unveiled in 2022. On Monday, TMTG completed a merging process with DWAC, a special-purpose acquisition corporation, that would allow the company to be publicly traded on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations stock exchange, also known as the “Nasdaq” exchange, with Trump’s 58% stake in the company being valued at $3.9 billion, according to Bloomberg News. 

The share price of DWAC increased by 35.22% to close at $49.95 on Monday when the closing of the deal was announced, with the new company retaining the TMTG name and changing its stock ticker to Trump’s initials, “DJT.” The process will increase Trump’s net worth to $6.4 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Trump’s net worth, which until recently has primarily comprised real property of The Trump Organization, has been subject to varying estimates. The Australian Financial Review estimated his net worth to be $9.8 billion following the TMTG acquisition process, while Forbes maintains his net worth at $2.6 billion as of Monday — making him the 1,265th richest person in the world — with its highest-ever estimate for his net worth being $4.5 billion in 2016.

Truth Social has reported many losses since its creation, with Trump being the primary user of the platform with the largest number of followers. He often announces major legal and campaign decisions on the platform, similar to his use of Twitter during his presidency.

Trump will not be able to sell his stake in TMTG for at least six months following the commencement of trading

Elon Musk Accuses Trump Ally Of ‘Leaking’ Info To The Media

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UK Government, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Tensions are running high within Trump’s inner circle…

Billionaire Elon Musk clashed publicly with Boris Epshteyn, one of Trump’s closest allies in what sources called a “massive blowout” over key Cabinet appointments.

According to three sources cited by Axios, the dispute reached a boiling point during a dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club last week during which Musk accused Epshteyn of leaking sensitive details about the transition process, including potential personnel picks.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Epshteyn reportedly fired back during the heated exchange.

The altercation highlights a power struggle as Musk, a newcomer to Trump’s inner circle, increasingly advocates for his preferred candidates. Musk has reportedly criticized Epshteyn’s influence in selecting Justice Department nominees, including Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

Musk is lobbying for Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, as Treasury secretary, over Wall Street veteran Scott Bessent.

Despite the friction, Musk maintains considerable support among Trump’s family and allies. 

However, the tech billionaire’s growing role in the transition has rankled longtime Trump loyalists, who view him as overstepping boundaries. 

Musk has been among the president-elect’s most vocal and influential supporters since he endorsed Trump immediately after a July assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally but some in Trump’s inner circle say the Tesla CEO is being to overstay his welcome.

“Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him. Until I don’t like him,” Trump quipped, according to a source in the room when Trump met with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill last Wednesday.

some Republicans have questioned how long Trump and Musk can happily co-exist, particularly given Trump’s past frustration with those who take up too much of the spotlight.

“Trump is not going to have another alpha. I think Trump is going to tire of him,” one source close to the transition told The Hill.

One Republican lobbyist with ties to Trump said there are some in the president-elect’s orbit who think Musk is “a little big for his britches.”

Trump transition team spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not respond to requests for comment from The Hill, but in a statement on Wednesday to NBC News described Musk and Trump as “great friends and brilliant leaders working together to Make America Great Again.”

“Elon Musk is a once in a generation business leader and our federal bureaucracy will certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency,” Leavitt said.

Palm Beach County Signs Off On Trump Airport Trademark Deal

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Image via Pixabay

Palm Beach County commissioners narrowly approved a controversial trademark agreement Tuesday that clears the way for Palm Beach International Airport to be renamed after President Donald Trump — pushing forward a politically charged project that has divided local leaders and raised fresh concerns about taxpayer costs and oversight.

In a 4-3 vote, the commission signed off on a licensing deal with DTTM Operations LLC, the Trump family company that manages the president’s trademarks. The agreement gives Trump’s organization significant control over how the airport’s new identity is used, including authority over branding, marketing materials and the sale of airport-themed merchandise.

The vote marks the first official action by county commissioners tied directly to the airport renaming effort, which was mandated earlier this year by Florida lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Under the agreement, the airport is expected to adopt the name “President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” matching trademark filings submitted by Trump’s company in February.

Supporters of the deal argued the county had little choice but to move forward after state lawmakers forced the renaming through Tallahassee. Republican commissioners said approving the trademark agreement ensures Palm Beach County retains at least some role in negotiations surrounding the airport’s future branding and operations.

But critics warned the agreement grants unusually broad authority to Trump’s business organization while locking the county into a deal with no clear exit strategy.

Democratic commissioners Gregg Weiss, Joel Flores and Bobby Powell Jr. voted against the measure, saying they were given less than 24 hours to review the final agreement before Tuesday’s meeting.

They also raised concerns about provisions allowing Trump’s company to approve how the president’s image and biography are used in airport promotions and displays. Another clause requires airport retailers to source airport-branded merchandise only from vendors approved by Trump’s organization.

Trademark attorney Josh Gerben said portions of the agreement go beyond what is typically included in standard licensing deals.

“Normally a trademark agreement focuses on quality control standards,” Gerben said. “It’s unusual to see language requiring retailers to purchase merchandise from approved sellers selected by the trademark owner.”

County Attorney David Ottey defended the provision during Tuesday’s meeting, saying it was designed to maintain quality standards and insisting the Trump family would not financially benefit from sales made inside the airport. However, county officials acknowledged they still do not know which vendors may ultimately be approved.

The agreement also contains no termination clause, meaning Palm Beach County would remain bound by the deal indefinitely unless state law changes in the future.

Beyond the political controversy, county officials continue to warn about the financial impact of the renaming project. Administrators estimate the airport overhaul — including signage changes, marketing updates, federal documentation and operational adjustments — could cost taxpayers roughly $5.5 million.

County leaders have repeatedly urged the state to cover those costs rather than forcing local officials to redirect funding away from other infrastructure projects.

Officials have also raised concerns in recent months about possible safety and logistical complications tied to changing the airport’s name, particularly involving aviation systems, emergency coordination and federal regulatory updates.

Still, with Tuesday’s approval now complete and Trump having already signed the agreement over the weekend, the renaming effort appears poised to move ahead — cementing one of the most politically symbolic airport name changes in the country.

This article originally appeared on Official Trump Tracker. Republished with permission.

Family of Isaac Hayes Sues Trump Over Playing Hit Song

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Gage Skidmore Flickr

The family of late soul singer Isaac Hayes is suing former President Donald Trump for using the icon’s music at his rallies, Isaac Hayes III announced last week.

 The filing accused the former president and the Republican Nation Committee of “willfully and brazenly” engaging in 134 counts of copyright infringement.

A letter to Trump and his campaign from the Georgia-based law firm Walker & Associates reads:

Our firm has been retained by the family and Isaac Hayes Enterprises, who own the copyright to the musical composition and recording “Hold On (I’m Coming)” (the “Song”). It has come to our attention that you or the campaign have authorized the illegal public performance of the Song on multiple occasions during various rallies for your political campaign without authorization from the copyright holder, despite being asked repeatedly not to engage in such illegal use by our client.

Upon information and belief, you, your campaign, and/or the RNC and other parties have willfully and brazenly engaged in copyright infringement in violation of several provisions of Title 17 U.S.C., including § 501, of the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended, over one hundred times. We have attached for your convenience a non-exhaustive list attached hereto as Exhibit A. As we prepared this letter, there was an additional use in Montana just two nights ago, even with your office apparently aware that you had no permission. We and the family hereby demand that you cease the continual infringement of our copyright and stop all unauthorized use of the Song.

The suit further demands Trump pay $3 million, stop using the song, and to remove any campaign multimedia of the song being played at rallies. Hayes’ estate also demanded Trump issue a statement acknowledging he played the song without permission.