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President Donald Trump heads into high-stakes meetings with world leaders carrying a risky habit, White House insiders told his biographer.In a Saturday episode of "Inside Trump's Head," Michael Wolff said that Trump refuses to read his briefing books before summits and told co-host Joanna Coles about the pattern while breaking down Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit."I've had this described to me by White House people of what happens when he goes into these meetings," Wolff said. Summits normally demand "really hard work," with briefing books and input from every corner of government that has "issues that they want on the table," Wolff explained."It's a difficult moment for any president because, I mean, you're the guy and you got to know what you're talking about," Wolff said. "If you don't know what you're talking about, you're giving away the store."The stakes, he stressed, go well beyond pageantry."It's a matter of security," Wolff said. "The world turns on these kinds of meetings. Not with Trump."Trump "refuses to look at the briefing books" and "refuses to have extensive conversations about the issues at hand," according to Wolff."Doesn't care, I suppose. Doesn't know what he's talking about," Wolff said. "He is always saying, 'I'm really good with this.' And then he goes into these meetings, and all it is is flattery."That flattery flows in both directions, with foreign counterparts "very clearly" understanding "what they can get by this," Wolff said."I'm trying to circumvent using the word buffoon," he added, "but I think that's what they see him as. They're like, 'Oh my God.'"Coles asked who would traditionally prepare the president, suggesting Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Wolff said the job requires "weeks of preparation," so aides boil it down instead."They give him two points. You got to do this and this," Wolff said. "And even that usually doesn't register with him."Wolff said the reality is difficult to convey to voters, and even to White House staff, who fall back on the idea that "he's been elected twice" and "must know what he's doing.""The president of the United States does not know what he's talking about in these situations," Wolff said.He warned that the consequences will soon come into view."Years from now, or not even years from now, I think we will start to see the effects of this," Wolff said.

A European energy official ripped dealing with the Trump administration as a waste of time while the White House weighs capping diesel exports.Politico reported Saturday that the White House is considering curbs on diesel shipments overseas, with options ranging from a full 90-day ban to gradual limits, as prices in the U.S. have climbed from $3.74 to $6.52 a gallon over the past year. The oil and gas industry has fiercely resisted the idea, warning it could hurt American producers in foreign markets.The official, who represents an Eastern European government and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, pointed to that industry pushback as proof of how little sway foreign governments hold with the administration."If they're not listening to their own people, why would they listen to us?" the official said.The official added that a wider diplomatic breakdown had made formal outreach pointless."With this administration, official channels tend to be a slow waste of time," the official said. "And yet that's exactly why official channels are supposed to work. If everyone tries to get in through the back door, the back door becomes the front door."Some in Trump's own orbit share the concern. An outside adviser to the Trump administration, also granted anonymity, warned the move would undercut the president's pledge to keep allies supplied with American energy."This is going to damage our reputation," the adviser said. "The whole premise of energy dominance was that the United States would be able to supply our allies around the world. Curtailing that is going to raise question marks."Europe has leaned heavily on U.S. diesel since the war with Iran disrupted oil supplies in February. David Jorbenaze, a senior oil analyst at ICIS, said European Union imports rose by 1.5 million barrels a day in August. S&P Global Energy estimates American diesel now meets a tenth of the continent's demand."Removing that source would pull away the leg Europe has been leaning on hardest," Jorbenaze said.

Attorney says fishers ‘losing their livelihoods’, but Marco Rubio maintains US still willing to ‘blow up ships if need be’While the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was being decorated in Quito by Ecuador’s president for “helping to promote peace in the region”, 10 Ecuadorian fishers whose boat had been blown up by US forces were adrift in the eastern Pacific.On 8 September, a day before Rubio arrived, a US patrol vessel intercepted the fishing boat Don Rufo in international waters near Ecuador. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump's touted "biggest oil deal in world history" with Venezuela faces legal and logistical problems likely to sink it.The Guardian reported Saturday that nearly every major claim the Trump administration has made about the arrangement falls apart under scrutiny, from how long it lasts to the Pentagon's role in it. Venezuelan law caps oil development agreements at 25 years, not the 100 Trump has boasted about, and Venezuela's own government has put the term at 25."This is all just propaganda," Venezuelan legal expert Jose Ignacio Hernandez told The Guardian. "It cannot be implemented as announced by the administration."Trump announced in August that the Pentagon would take roughly a third of North American Blue Energy Partners, the second-largest private oil company in Venezuela. The move followed the January raid in which U.S. forces captured Nicolas Maduro and replaced him with Delcy Rodriguez.Experts say Congress never gave the Office of Strategic Capital, the Pentagon arm initially tied to the investment, the power to buy stakes in companies. A Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters in August that the office "does not take equity stakes in private companies." In a written briefing to the armed services committees, the Pentagon said it actually holds warrants, which are rights to buy shares later, rather than the shares themselves.The stake will reportedly be held by a separate Pentagon office whose mission is shoring up the defense industrial base and has nothing to do with oil.Phil Gunson of the International Crisis Group said major oil firms and investors are privately keeping their distance."It's the opacity of the agreement that has serious investors concerned," he said.The Guardian's investigation also found that Venezuelan crude won't help refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve any time soon, despite Trump's promises.At the center of the deal sits the company's owner, Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, who has been pulled into several international corruption inquiries but has never been charged with a crime. His lawyer denied that Betancourt ever sought or encouraged bribes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the U.S. had no investigation into him.Former U.S. diplomat John Feeley offered a blunt comparison."The deal is like the big beautiful wall that Mexico will pay for," he said. The Guardian noted Trump's comments at the United Nations earlier this week remained defiant."It was a war, but it's perhaps the biggest deal ever made," he said. "To the victor belong the spoils."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has confirmed his government prepared contingency plans for the possibility that President Trump could order a military invasion of Canada, a stunning admission that surfaced amid an escalating trade war between the two countries.Carney made the disclosure in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published Wednesday, according to the New York Post, describing the scenario as an "extreme tail risk," a phrase typically applied to rare, high-stakes events that most people would otherwise dismiss as too improbable to plan for."I think you have a responsibility in these roles to look at extreme tail risk," Carney said. "That's just risk management. That's not a base case, but it would be irresponsible not to" prepare.Carney declined to detail exactly what those preparations entailed, though he told The Times he'd worked to diversify Canada's supply chains, including for technology, to reduce the country's dependence on the United States. The Times described Carney, a former central banker, as someone inclined to methodically map out and plan for worst-case scenarios before they happen.The admission comes as relations between Washington and Ottawa have deteriorated sharply. Trade talks between the two countries collapsed earlier this summer, triggering a tit-for-tat tariff war that's pushed some U.S. duties on Canadian goods as high as 50 percent. Trump has also repeatedly floated the idea of annexing Canada as the "51st state," including sharing social media images depicting Canadian territory folded into the United States, though he explicitly ruled out using military force to accomplish it back in January 2025.Despite the tension, Carney insisted diplomatic channels between the two governments remain open.Separately, Carney has been working to deepen Canada's military ties with Europe, discussing expanded defense cooperation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Strasbourg this week. Canada recently became the first non-European nation to join the EU's roughly $170 billion SAFE defense procurement program, part of a broader continental push to bolster military readiness.Trump has threatened to escalate trade sanctions against Europe if they make Canada an "associate" member of the European Union, another proposal under consideration.

The Republican Party has a huge Ivanka Trump problem — and it could end in class warfare, a leading Democratic Socialist warned.“The anger and rage is building,” India Walton told Raw Story. “As we begin to raise our class consciousness and realize that racialized capitalism and the institutions that uphold it are the real enemy, and not one another, that will be the day that you'll see people in the streets.”Walton, an ex-mayoral candidate who now serves as a senior strategist for the progressive group RootsAction, made this prediction as President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter takes soft but determined steps back into the spotlight with a series of Instagram posts promoting her business ventures and documenting her family’s luxurious lifestyle.Ivanka’s decision to share recent images of her family jet-setting to Iceland and dining with royalty has unwittingly documented an America divided by wealth as they triggered a stark rebuke from citizens who struggle to put food on their tables and gas in their cars.Earlier this month, Ivanka posted a video of her daughter horseback riding on an idyllic beach and was met with condemnation — even from conservative commentators.“Americans: We can’t afford gas, food or tuition,” conservative podcaster Melissa Witte wrote on X. “Trump Family: here’s a video of Kai’s luxury dorm, Ivanka riding a horse and we’re also gonna rename both New Mexico and Lake Ontario ‘America.’”And Ivanka's family photos from Donald Trump Jr.'s Bahamas wedding now serve as a platform to discuss the recent ProPublica report that found the celebration was funded in part by a Russian oligarch."Elites trying so hard to be normal," Texan Derek Geisler replied on Instagram. "And I used to be a big Trump fan."When Ivanka shared an image of “The Beginning of Infinity” by David Deutsch — a book that explores the impact Western civilization has had on human progress — she was immediately criticized by one Instagram user as "Ivanka Columbus.""I'm sure she's looking to discover new lands to claim as her own," Charles Knight wrote. "Locals be on the lookout."Locals in Albania — where Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner plan to transform one of the nation’s most important ecological sites into a $1.4 billion resort — are doing more than keeping watch. They’re taking to the streets.What began as a one-issue outcry has developed into an organized movement as thousands of Albanians demand their government resign over concerns of corruption in the hands of oligarchs.Ivanka Trump sparked this “Flamingo Revolution” when she bragged, again on her social media, about how she dived off a friend’s boat, swam to what she claimed was the barely known Sazan Island, took a barefoot hike to its peak and decided to “realize its potential.”“It’s not even a business for me, despite the scale of it,” Ivanka told interviewer David Senra in May. “For me, it feels more like a challenge than anything else… a lot of reflection on how I want to live.”On Thursday, Walton argued to Raw Story that the number of Americans who want to live like Ivanka Trump is dwindling fast as the president's MAGA base sours on his philosophies, and sees progress occur outside his realm.“There's still a certain subset of our population who believes that one day, you know, if they work hard enough, they will be the Ivankas and the Donald Trumps of the world,” Walton said. “We are beginning to find out that those things are just untrue.”In Trump's "Golden Age," Americans have simplified their desires to safe food, vaccines for their kids, "a gallon of gas and a dozen eggs," Walton argued.If these frustrated Americans have yet to unite in protest, argued Walton, it's only because they're afraid.“With the militarization of our local police departments, with the deputization of ICE agents who have no qualifications in law enforcement, and who are wearing masks and go unidentified and are just like sweeping up people off the street,” said Walton, “there is a very real and reasonable fear that people are feeling about rising up.”But Americans, Walton believes, cannot ignore the success that her fellow Democratic Socialists have achieved — and pointed to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as proof.“Everyone, all over the country, is watching the success of New York City, one of the wealthiest cities in the world, watching it be able to tackle an affordability agenda,” she said. “People are really starting to question why, and what are people going to do about it?”And as Ivanka Trump continues to highlight the divide between the very rich and those struggling to get by, she only showcases the MAGA movement’s fatal flaw, Walton concluded.“This empire is not going to last forever — it can't possibly,” Walton said. “There's 99 percent of us who are fed up… we are moving away from identity and rediscovering that class is what unites us all.”

Republicans in competitive races are increasingly breaking with President Donald Trump over the Iran war as soaring fuel prices squeeze voters.In a Thursday piece for The Bulwark, Joe Perticone argued that GOP lawmakers had spent months seemingly determined to ignore the spike in gas prices since the conflict began. "Their willful ignorance is starting to fade," he wrote.Perticone reported that a growing number of Republicans running in battleground House and Senate contests are distancing themselves from the president on the war, pointing to pain at the pump as a chief reason. Gasoline averaged $4.48 a gallon nationally as of Thursday, while diesel has topped $6.50 and hit $7 or $8 in some states.With fighting ongoing and the Strait of Hormuz still contested, the White House has leaned on what Perticone described as weak domestic fixes, including Trump-backed discount gas stations he dismissed as a public relations effort. Diesel, he argued, poses the far bigger economic and political problem.Politico reported Wednesday that the Trump administration is weighing a 90-day ban on U.S. diesel exports to prop up domestic supply through the end of the year. Perticone spoke with senators who were cool to the idea."Of the Republican senators who understood what such a proposal would mean, none I spoke with regarded it as viable," Perticone wrote.Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned the plan would hurt U.S. refiners."I think it would end up driving up costs," Cruz said. "It would have massive harm to the refining industry. We refine more diesel than we consume, and it would end up forcing refiners to reduce production. So it would backfire badly."Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called the proposal "a gimmick" while Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) sounded unenthusiastic."The kind of analysis they should be making is, 'Is it a net benefit?'" Hoeven told reporters. "And that should determine what you do."

The Trump administration is facing a "devastating" threat from China after a package containing F-35 fighter jet parts was diverted to Hong Kong.On Thursday, former Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh explained during an appearance on CNN that the Trump administration should be concerned about China's ability to reproduce and reverse-engineer the F-35 after the faux pas."This is incredibly damaging and embarrassing for the United States," Singh said. "This is our most sophisticated aircraft platform that our military uses, and the proprietary information and some of the parts that were rerouted can be devastating, not only to reverse-engineer, but these are the fighters that can evade detection."She said, "An investigation would certainly need to play out" to understand just how devastating the mistake can be and what kind of threat is in place. However, she stressed that the F-35 is "very sophisticated," especially when it comes to avoiding detection."You'll remember when [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin came to Alaska, the red slating that you saw on the fighter jets, that was to protect components of the F-35 from photographs," Singh explained. "So the fact that this has now fallen into the wrong hands, I would hope that the president is pushing President Xi on how to get these back."Singh was referring to the fact that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is in Washington, D.C., and visiting President Donald Trump in the White House. She said it was an opportunity to bring the matter up, "but it's almost a little too late at this point because I would assume Chinese intelligence has at least taken photographs of this."CNN anchor Jake Tapper was flabbergasted to learn that the F-35 parts arrived in Hong Kong via UPS, the popular package courier, despite their importance to national security."UPS?" Tapper asked. "It's not a Christmas sweater."