Former President Donald Trump’s private airplane was forced to make an emergency landing in Billings, Montana, on Friday after it suffered a mechanical issue.
JUST IN: Donald Trump's plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Billings, Montana due to a mechanical issue.
The plane was headed to the Bozeman Airport where Trump is holding a rally when it was forced to change course.
🚨🇺🇸 Per Billings Airport, President Trump’s plane has diverted to Billings, MT, rather than Bozeman due to a “mechanical issue." He is expected to take a private plane to Bozeman. Protect Trump, please!!#Trumppic.twitter.com/DWK0MWvr4R
The plane of former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump landed in Billings, Montana Friday afternoon. Photos and video sent in by a viewer show the plane land and taxi down the runway.
According to the Billings Airport, Trump’s plane landed in Billings after a mechanical issue. He is expected to take a private plane from there to the Bozeman Airport. Secret Service is doing a complete sweep of the airport here before that takes place
Trump posted a video on his Truth Social account after landing in Billings but he did not address the apparent issue with his aircraft.
“I just landed in a really beautiful place: Montana. So beautiful, flying over and you just look down and that’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump said. “I’m here to do some fundraisers and most important to support Tim Sheehy who’se running for the U.S. Senate and we think he’s going to do really well. We’re going to have a rally. And it’ll be a lot of fun.”
Does this affect Donald Trump‘s chance of winning Georgia‘s crucial 16 electoral votes?
The disqualification of four independent and third-party presidential candidates from appearing on Georgia’s November ballot could have significant implications for Donald Trump in his quest for the state’s crucial 16 electoral votes.
A state administrative law judge ruled Monday afternoon that neither the candidates nor their electors were eligible under Georgia law, delivering a setback to their efforts. However, these decisions are not yet final.
Chief Judge Michael Malihi also determined that former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not include his real residential address on his nomination petitions, which mirrors a recent ruling by a New York court. Kennedy announced Friday that he was leaving the race and backing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but Kennedy has not formally withdrawn in Georgia.
Malihi handed independent candidate Cornel West a pair of mixed opinions, finding that he was eligible to run as an independent under state law but that his electors should have filed their paperwork in their own names, not the candidate’s.
The judge also concluded that the electors for Kennedy and socialist candidate Claudia De la Cruz made the same error on their paperwork.
And Malihi determined that the Green Party failed to show that their candidate Jill Stein would appear on the ballot in 20 other states, which is the threshold required under a new pathway created this year by Georgia lawmakers.
The final decision will be made by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), whose ruling could influence the dynamics of the presidential race in Georgia.
Georgia Democrats originally objected to these third-party candidates appearing on the ballot in the Peach State. Their concerns are particularly relevant, given that President Joe Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.
A spokesperson for Raffensperger stated Monday evening that the judge’s decisions are currently under review.
Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News.
Marjorie Taylor Greene -Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, via Wikimedia Commons
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken allies on Capitol Hill, has escalated her public break with the former president—this time taking direct aim at the Make America Great Again movement itself.
In a lengthy interview with independent political commentator Kim Iversen published on YouTube Thursday, Greene accused Trump of abandoning the grassroots voters who fueled his rise, branding MAGA a betrayal of the very people it promised to serve.
“MAGA is — I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people,” Greene said.
The Georgia Republican, who resigned from Congress last fall, argued that Trump has shifted his focus away from everyday Americans and toward wealthy donors and entrenched interests. According to Greene, political loyalty is now driven by money rather than principle.
“He’s more worried about serving the big big donors,” she said, referring to donors who contribute to Trump-aligned PACs and high-dollar projects, including his newly announced ballroom. “Those are the people that get the special favors, the government contracts, they get the pardons.”
Greene went on to argue that foreign governments and multinational corporations now wield disproportionate influence over U.S. policy.
“And it’s the foreign countries that are running the show here,” she added. “It’s the major big corporations and what is best for the world. That’s really what MAGA is.”
Her criticism extended to foreign policy, particularly Trump’s focus on Iran and the Middle East. Greene suggested domestic unrest is being ignored in favor of overseas conflicts.
“I’m sorry, we’ve got civil war practically breaking out in Minnesota, can we not care about that?” she said.
Greene reserved her sharpest criticism for U.S. involvement in Israel and Gaza, accusing Trump of prioritizing foreign interests over American lives and values.
“We’re seeing war on behalf of Israel,” Greene said. “We’re seeing the people in Gaza — innocent people in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of them completely murdered, so that they can build some new real estate development and money can pour in and everyone can get rich there in New Gaza.”
The remarks mark a dramatic evolution for Greene, who was once considered among Trump’s most reliable defenders in Congress. Her relationship with the former president began to fracture publicly after she accused him of dragging his feet on releasing government files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—an issue popular among the GOP base skeptical of elite accountability.
Following those comments, Trump publicly distanced himself from Greene, dubbing her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene” and claiming she had “some sort of act going on.” Their feud intensified in the months that followed, culminating in Greene’s decision to leave Congress altogether.
While Greene has framed her resignation as a rejection of Washington politics, speculation has continued to swirl within conservative circles that she may be positioning herself for a future national run. Allies and critics alike have noted that her recent media appearances, broader ideological critiques, and willingness to challenge Trump directly resemble the early stages of a potential presidential or third-party campaign.
Greene has not formally announced any plans to run for president, but she has also declined to rule it out—fueling rumors that her break with Trump may be less about stepping away from politics and more about redefining the post-Trump conservative movement on her own terms.
According to a November report from Notus, Greene has privately expressed interest in following in Donald Trump’s footsteps to the White House. The outlet cites four sources familiar with her thinking, saying Greene believes she represents the “real MAGA” faction — the core conservative movement that has reshaped the GOP since 2016 — and that many Republican leaders have drifted away from those grassroots values. (RELATED:Marjorie Taylor Greene Reportedly Prepping For 2028 Presidential Run)
One source told Notus that Greene feels confident she has built the national donor network and grassroots support needed to mount a serious primary campaign, especially as the GOP’s base remains loyal to Trump’s populist agenda.
President Donald Trump signs Executive Orders, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)
President Donald Trump is expected to abandon his controversial $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund following mounting backlash from Republicans, according to a report from Axios’ Marc Caputo.
An administration source told Axios that the fund is “dead for now.”
The fund was announced by the Department of Justice last month after the Trump administration settled the president’s lawsuit against the IRS. According to a DOJ press release, the fund was intended to “provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare” and would have the authority to issue “formal apologies and monetary relief owed to claimants.”
Critics quickly labeled the initiative a “slush fund” for Trump allies.
Former Vice President Mike Pence called on Trump to eliminate the fund during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press over the weekend.
“Let’s get rid of this fund,” Pence said. “I mean, it’s deeply offensive to me that you could have a fund that could even possibly compensate people who assaulted police officers or vandalized the Capitol on January 6th.”
🚨 WHOA.
Mike Pence just broke with Trump and called the anti-weaponization fund a "bad idea from the start."
But then he went even further.
He said the possibility that January 6 defendants who assaulted police officers or vandalized the Capitol could receive compensation is:… pic.twitter.com/IroCvNpp8t
According to Mediaite, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) discussed the fund with Trump at the White House on Monday as criticism intensified on Capitol Hill.
The development comes after U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the Justice Department on Friday not to establish the fund while litigation surrounding the proposal remains ongoing.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
A Trump supporter has been sentenced to seven months in prison after he was convicted of election interference over social media posts.
Douglass Mackey was accused of a “scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote,” after a Twitter account he ran under the handle “Ricky Vaughn” posted memes in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. One image showed a black woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign and said “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925.”
The Justice Department said around 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted the hotline although it was unclear how many were participating in the joke rather than trying to cast their ballots.
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey suspended Mackey from the platform.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly, an Obama appointee, sentenced Mackey, claiming that his actions were “nothing short of an assault on our democracy” and amounted to attempts “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” people from exercising their right to vote according to Courthouse News Service.
“Voting is the right that secures all other rights we hold dear,” Department of Justice Attorney Erik David Paulsen said. “They were committing fraud, one that was aimed at one of our most sacred rights in our democracy.”
Prosecutors also took aim at Mackey for derogatory posts he had made toward black people and women, but Donnely said her sentence did not have to do with his political beliefs. “You are not being sentenced for your political beliefs or for expressing those beliefs,” she said.
James Lawrence, an attorney for Mackey, previously said in an interview with The Daily Wire that his memes were satirical and were therefore not relevant to the law he purportedly violated. Mackey faced as many as 10 years in prison.
Some have contended that Mackey’s right to free speech had been violated in a politically motivated case by the Biden administration. “It’s a three-fer: the prosecutorial creation of a crime Congress has not prescribed, the trivialization of civil-rights law, and the intrusion of government as a monitor of political speech,” former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy wrote in an opinion piece for National Review.
Mike Sington, a retired NBCUniversal senior executive who is now better known for his pro-liberal social media posts, commemorated Barron Trump’s 18th birthday on Wednesday with a sickening post on X.
“Barron Trump turns 18 today. He’s fair game now,” Sington wrote, sharing an image of him with his father.
Mike Sington, a senior executive at NBC who describes himself as Hollywood’s ultimate insider, just deleted this tweet. These people are sick👇👿 pic.twitter.com/srw2YdjHA5
Critics quickly attacked Sington for targeting Barron, who has largely stayed out of the public eye during and after the Trump presidency.
Sington deleted the post and walked back the comment but stopped short of offering an apology.
“I posted he was ‘fair game’ now, meaning, as an adult, he’s ‘fair game’ for criticism from the press,” Sington told Newsweek in a statement. “Someone pointed out to me ‘fair game’ could mean fair game to be harmed. I don’t wish physical harm on anyone, so I took it down. I listen to the comments and criticism I receive.”
The former NBC executive has repeatedly commented on the former President’s family as Trump navigates multiple high profile lawsuits.
You know there are a lot of mentally ill ppl but this guy @MikeSington really has some issues . He’s not funny, he’s not intelligent, just plain nasty pic.twitter.com/bP9GWB71if
Florida Judge Aileen Cannon is currently holding a hearing to consider whether the appointment of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the funding of his investigations is “unlawful.”
Upon postponing the classified documents trial, Cannon scheduled deadlines for reports on June 10 and 17 and a hearing on a motion to dismiss on Friday, “based on unlawful appointment and funding of special counsel.”
Cannon expanded Friday’s hearing to allow amici to argue before the court, as well as Trump defense attorneys and federal prosecutors according to Fox News.
Former Attorney General Ed Meese, who served under former President Reagan, filed an amicus brief in the case, in which he argues that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Smith as special counsel – a private citizen at the time – violates the appointments clause of the Constitution.
Garland appointed Smith as special counsel on Nov. 18, 2022, mere days after Trump announced he would run for president in 2024.
Meese argues that the “illegality” of Smith’s appointment is “sufficient to sink Smith’s petition, and the Court should deny review.”
Meese and company noted in the brief that Smith was appointed “to conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity [including former President Trump] violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.”
Earlier this month, Garland defended his move during a hearing on Capitol Hill, arguing that “there are regulations under which the attorney general appoint special counsel. They have been in effect for 30 years, maybe longer, under both parties.”
Meese, however, in his briefs filed in several points in the Trump cases, argued that “none of those statutes, nor any other statutory or constitutional provisions, remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.”
Meese’s brief was even mentioned in a question by Justice Clarence Thomas in the Supreme Court oral arguments over Trump’s presidential immunity in Smith’s other case regarding 2020 election interference, which the high court is expected to decide this month.
Presenting arguments on June 21 in Florida on behalf of Meese will be Gene Schaerr; Josh Blackman on behalf of Professor Seth Barrett Tillman; and Matthew Seligman on behalf of constitutional lawyers, former government officials, and “State Democracy Defenders Action.”
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Something big is coming…
On Tuesday, President Trump hinted that he would soon make a “very big” announcement.
Trump’s teasing comes days before his planned visit to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
“We’re going to have a very, very big announcement to make, like as big as it gets,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he is meeting with Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney. “And I won’t tell you on what … and it’s very positive.”
“It is really, really positive. And that announcement will be made either Thursday or Friday or Monday before we leave,” Trump added. “But it’ll be one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain subject, very important subject. So you’ll all be here.”
After that, the president asked Carney if he’d like to say a few words.
“I’m on the edge of my seat,” Carney said, drawing laughter from the press before thanking Trump for his “hospitality” and “leadership.”
Trump announced that the Houthis in Yemen “don’t want to fight” any longer and agreed to stop its attacks on shipping lanes in the beginning of the meeting. In turn, the president said, the U.S. would stop its bombardment of the Iran-backed terror group. The U.S. has been launching daily airstrikes on Yemen since March 15 to defend the freedom of navigation.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile that struck near the main terminal of Israel’s international airport outside Tel Aviv over the weekend.
In the Oval Office, Trump did not say whether the forthcoming announcement was related to the Israel-Hamas war.
The president went on to discuss trade relations with Canada, the impact of the 145% tariff on China, prompting major automobile and tech companies to invest in onshoring in the U.S., as well as the prospect of the U.S. one day obtaining control of Canada.
The president then circled back to clarify that the announcement would not necessarily be related to that subject.
“We’re going to have a great announcement. And I’m not necessarily saying it’s on trade,” Trump said. “We’re going to have a great announcement over the next few days. Announcement that will be, so, so incredible, so positive. And I’m not saying… I don’t want you to think it’s necessarily on trade.”
Watch:
President Trump teases a major announcement coming soon, just before his planned trip to the Middle East.
He says it’s going to be “as big as it gets,” but is keeping the details under wraps for now.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), one of President Donald Trump’s fiercest political adversaries, offered rare and enthusiastic support for the president Monday after Trump called on Congress to approve a federal incentive aimed at reviving American film and television production.
“I am in strong agreement with the President,” Schiff wrote on X, sharing Trump’s announcement.
“Congress should immediately take up and pass a federal film tax incentive to bring back these good-paying jobs that we’ve lost to other countries,” Schiff continued. “Let’s work together — Republicans and Democrats — to get this done, and bring the movie magic back to America.”
I am in strong agreement with the President. Congress should immediately take up and pass a federal film tax incentive to bring back these good-paying jobs that we've lost to other countries.
Let’s work together — Republicans and Democrats — to get this done, and bring the movie… pic.twitter.com/adeBFYtbM3
The declaration represented an extraordinary moment of agreement between Trump and the California Democrat who helped lead the president’s first impeachment and has remained a relentless administration critic.
Trump unveiled his proposal after meeting with actor Jon Voight, whom the president appointed as a special ambassador to Hollywood alongside Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson.
“I am going to suggest that Republicans and Democrats get together, and immediately craft Legislation to save the Movie, Television, and Entertainment Business in America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Congress should approve, immediately, a Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America,” he added. “It can be done very easily, and EVERYBODY WILL BE HAPPY!”
Trump argued that Hollywood had become a “Complete and Total Disaster” as productions increasingly moved to Canada and other foreign competitors offering generous financial incentives.
“There is no incentive to be there, and it is hurting California very badly,” Trump wrote. “The amount of money spent on Tax Incentives will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury’s coffers.”
The president said Voight and others had persuaded him that federal tax incentives could “Make our Movie and Television Production Business GREAT AGAIN, perhaps GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!”
Voight and his advisers have promoted a federal credit covering as much as 20% of qualifying production costs. Trump did not endorse a specific percentage in his announcement, however, and Congress has not yet introduced a final bill.
Schiff’s support was surprising politically, but not entirely unexpected on policy grounds.
The senator has spent months advocating for a nationwide incentive and circulated a proposal offering a 15% credit on labor costs for productions made in the United States, according to Mediaite.
During a March Senate hearing in Burbank, Schiff warned that state-level programs alone could not compete with the incentives offered by foreign governments.
“State programs simply cannot substitute for the kind of globally competitive federal tax incentive that is needed to bring production back to American soil and stop its offshoring,” Schiff said at the hearing.
Schiff said the industry directly supports roughly 800,000 American jobs and indirectly affects millions more, including carpenters, caterers, drivers, hotel workers and equipment suppliers. He also noted that Los Angeles County lost more than 42,000 motion-picture production jobs over two years.
Trump’s endorsement marks a shift from his previous proposal to slap a 100% tariff on movies produced overseas. Studios and entertainment unions argued that tax incentives would offer a more practical way to compete with Canada, the United Kingdom and other foreign production centers.
The Motion Picture Association welcomed Trump’s support, while the Wall Street Journal reported that studios, unions and lawmakers had been privately lobbying the White House for a national incentive since last year.
Whether Congress can translate the unlikely Trump-Schiff alliance into legislation remains uncertain. For the moment, however, two of Washington’s most bitter rivals have found themselves reading from the same Hollywood script.
