Trump visited Louisana as the death toll hit 14, including a 14-year-old girl who lost her life when a tree fell onto her home.
Of the other deaths, a number were the result of carbon monoxide poisoning, prompting the CDC to warn against using "alternate power sources such as gasoline generators and may use propane or charcoal grills for cooking".
The CDC said: "If used or placed improperly, these sources can lead to CO (carbon monoxide) buildup inside buildings, garages, or campers and poison the people and animals inside."
Hurricane Laura has left as many as 400,000 people in Louisiana without water and an additional 200,000 without electricity, the BBC reports.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said: "The devastation and damage stretch from south-west Louisiana all the way through north Louisiana, with more than a half a million power outages remaining, tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes and, sadly, at least 10 lives lost."
It has been reported by KMOV that it could take as long as two months for power to be restored in Cameron Parish.
In what some are calling one of the most bizarre White House events in recent memory, President Donald Trump staged a public Tesla-buying event alongside billionaire Elon Musk.
President Trump has purchased his new Tesla. Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Taking place on March 11, the 78-year-old president posed with various Tesla models on the South Lawn of the White House, praising the company’s quality and slamming Musk’s “unfair treatment” by critics.
The event saw Trump declaring his intention to buy a Tesla Model S for himself and a Cybertruck for his 17-year-old granddaughter, Kai Trump.
It came after Trump addressed the Tesla boycott in a Truth Social post, writing: "I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???"
Trump purchased a Tesla in support of his "First Buddy" Elon Musk. Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Trump’s Tesla Shopping List Exposed
During the event, Trump - wearing his signature blue suit and red tie - was seen holding a note.
Captured by a photographer at the spectacle, a close-up reveals that the note detailed Tesla prices for various models and colors. The list read:
"Tesla Pricing:
Model X - $112,490 (silver)
Cybertruck - $114,000 (Gray)
Model S - $108,990 (Blue)
Model Y - $59,990 (Red)"
Beneath the list, an additional note emphasized affordability: "Teslas can be purchased as low as $299/month or $35K. All cars have self-driving, just needs to be turned on (fee)."
Trump was seen holding a handwritten note with a full price breakdown. Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The handwritten breakdown fueled speculation that the entire event was nothing more than a coordinated PR stunt aimed at boosting Tesla sales, which have declined sharply in recent months amid ongoing protests.
During the event, Trump also insisted to Musk: "I don't want a discount."
A Political Show of Support for Musk?
Trump’s sudden enthusiasm for Tesla comes as Elon Musk faces backlash from former Tesla customers over his increasingly public alignment with right-wing politics.
While Tesla was once a favorite among liberal and environmentally conscious buyers, Musk’s political stances — such as the "First Buddy" leading DOGE — have alienated many customers.
At the event, Trump defended Musk, saying: "Because, number one, it's a great product, as good as it gets, and number two," Trump said, pointing to Musk, "because this man has devoted his energy and his life to doing this, and I think he's been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people."
Trump condemned the ongoing protests against Telsa. Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Despite his sudden support for electric vehicles, Trump has historically criticized EVs.
Just last summer, while speaking in Chicago at the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump stated: "I'm against everybody having an electric car" -- despite Musk’s endorsement of his presidency.
A Financially Motivated Stunt?
Tesla’s stock price has suffered amid falling sales and concerns that Musk is too distracted by his growing involvement in politics.
The company’s stock plunged 55% from record highs in December, and Tesla shares closed at $230.58 on Tuesday, per Insider.
Adding to Tesla’s troubles, protests have erupted in both the U.S. and Europe, with demonstrators criticizing Musk’s political influence and some even vandalizing Tesla showrooms.
Musk admitted that he cannot drive his new Tesla. Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
During a press conference at the White House, President Trump issued a stern warning against acts of violence targeting Tesla and its properties, vowing swift action against those responsible.
When asked whether he would classify violent protesters as domestic terrorists, he responded decisively: "I will do that, I'll do it. I'm going to stop them."
He went on to emphasize the government's surveillance efforts, stating: "Those people are going to have a big problem when we catch them. We've got a lot of cameras up, we already know who some of them are. We're going to catch them. And they're bad guys."
Trump Buys a Car He Can’t Drive
While Trump eagerly offered to write a check for his Model S, he also admitted that he won’t actually be able to drive it due to security protocols.
"I'm gonna buy one, now here's the bad news. I'm not allowed to drive," President Trump said. "I haven't driven a car in a long time. And I love to drive cars. But I'm gonna have it at the White House and I'm gonna let my staff use it. I'm gonna let people at the place use it. They all are all excited about that."
"I'm not allowed to use it," he continued. "Can you believe it?"
His granddaughter Kai, however, is expected to get behind the wheel of the Cybertruck — assuming she actually wants the vehicle.
Social Media Reacts
Predictably, the internet exploded with reactions to Trump's note - with many slamming the POTUS for endorsing Tesla on White House grounds to such an extent.
On Reddit, one user summed up the event by saying: "Jesus. This is one of those pictures you see in history books for all the wrong reasons."
"This is extraordinary. The President of the United States is a literal car salesman now," another added.
One Reddit user added: "Using official white house press events to do literal advertisements for his billionaire friends. He needs to be impeached immediately."
Another quipped: "This administration is so unserious. Not that I’m surprised, but every week they escalate to a new level."
"There used to be an Office Government Ethics. I think you can imagine how much their guidance is heeded now," wrote another.
Others couldn’t resist mocking the blatant sales pitch, with one user joking: "This guy should be a World Limbo Champion because there is no bar he can't go lower than."
It seems that Donald Trump can't even do a good deed without raising a few eyebrows.
Donald Trump's recent good deed received a mixed response on social media. Credit: Win McNamee / Getty
In classic Trump fashion, the former president made headlines this week during a campaign stop at a Pennsylvania grocery store. While there, cameras captured the moment he handed a local mom-of-three $100 toward her groceries.
The grocery stop took place at Sprankle’s Neighborhood Market in Kittanning, PA, as Trump promised the public that he was going to work to lower supermarket prices if he’s re-elected to the White House in the upcoming presidential election.
In a video shared by his campaign, Trump can be seen approaching a woman checking out at the store and handing her a crisp $100 bill.
“Here, it’s gonna go down a little,” Trump told the woman, referencing the ever-rising prices at the grocery store. “It just went down 100 bucks.”
The woman, clearly amused, laughed with others around her before saying: "Thank you so much."
“We’ll do that for you from the White House, all right?” Trump replied with a grin, hinting at his plans to tackle inflation and lower costs for Americans if he secures a victory in the 2024 election.
Before moving on, Trump couldn’t help but compliment the woman’s children, saying, “Beautiful,” and “Perfecto,” when he realized they were her sons.
After grabbing a large bag of popcorn to go, Trump headed off to a rally in Indiana, PA, later that day.
The generous gesture had many people asking the same question. Credit: Bill Pugliano/Getty
However, although the video was praised by many people online, many social media users were left asking the same question about whether or not his kind gesture was even legal?
A second tweeted: "That's another crime he is committing."
Another asked: "Is Trump trying to buy votes?"
Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch.com, even boldly accused Trump of "handing out cash to voters".
Another added: "Trump is literally handing cash out to people so they vote for him. I’m no legal scholar, but I’m pretty sure that’s bribery, and bribery is illegal. Apparently that’s just another crime no one will ever hold him accountable for."
When reporting the story, TMZ even shared section 597 of the US Crime Code, which states that "whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate" could be fined and/or imprisoned for up to two years.
Of course, any backlash Trump could face is all dependent on how one interprets his comment, "We’ll do that for you for the White House, all right?" -- otherwise, it's likely his generous gesture will be seen as just that.
Elsewhere, the mom at the checkout was identified as Jenny Kantz, who later told Fox & Friends that she won't be spending the crisp $100 bill. “I’m gonna frame it,” she revealed.
Speaking of her experience with the former POTUS, Kantz said: "We were hoping for an opportunity to meet him. And the fact that he handed us $100 was a complete surprise and it was a great experience."
Meanwhile, Jenny's husband, Bryant, described Trump as being "very personable".
Let's just hope whoever does with the race to the White House can help the rest of us with our grocery prices.
Here's the latest in the Trump outrage industrial complex: since landing on Puerto Rico, Trump has made a number of disparaging comments about the extent of the disaster, acting pretty entitled. Trump expressed fiscal concerns:
"I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you are throwing our budget out of whack. We've spent a lot of money in Puerto Rico."
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And worse, he has downplayed the death toll, which cannot be accurately measured due to the lack of death certificates. They can't be issued quickly enough to catch up.
“If you look at the — every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds of people that died and what happened here with a storm that was just totally overbearing. No one has ever seen anything like that. What is your death count?"
Governor Ricardo Rosselló replied "Sixteen."
Trump said they should be "very proud" and called the disaster response a "miracle". Yet, FEMA has still not authorized full disaster relief for Puerto Rico.
So, we know this much about Trump: if you praise him, he loves you. If you put pressure on him, he hates you. If you'll remember, the media cycle leading up to his Puerto Rico response was full of Trump being told that he isn't doing anything and tons of journalists asking "Why isn't anyone talking about Puerto Rico?" That put a chip on his shoulder, and made him frustrated and want to prove that he was doing well. So he comes across this way most likely because of that.
Here is the full remark he made about the death toll:
"Sixteen people certified. Sixteen people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people and all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud. Everyone around this table and everyone watching can be very proud of what's taking place in Puerto Rico."
Trump also briefly brought up Hurricane Harvey:
"In Texas, it came in and did devastation and went out into the coast. It came in three times and would lot up and come in. Nobody has ever seen water like that. They saved 16,000 lives in Texas. Hard to believe. Between the helicopters and all of them. The Coast Guard in Texas saved 16,000 lives. They went through the hurricane, and there are not too many people who would have done it. Believe me."
So, let's play a game - everyone's talking about gun control right now, right? Well, which Trump tweet will make everybody forget about guns completely and swivel into the next news cycle with total amnesia? I give it 2 or 3 days. I'll be here to report the nonsensical thing, at least.
I mean, can we just please have a bit of memory? Let's reflect on the past week, shall we?
We went from the North Korean nuclear threat to the NFL protests to Puerto Rico to the Las Vegas shooting. It's pretty clear that's all just a ride at this point, a pain parade. No one is going to do a barking thing about a single one of these issues at any point. We're just here to fulfill our part of the wheel, and roll on, from aimless pain-issue to the next.
Donald Trump said on Monday that he "will do whatever he can" to help the country after his Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI last week.
In an interview with Fox News, the former US President referred to the unprecedented raid as another "scam" that the American people are "not going to stand for," before adding that the "temperature has to be brought down."
"The country is in a very dangerous position [...] There is tremendous anger, like I've never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one — years of scams and witch hunts, and now this," Trump stated, before continuing: "If there is anything we can do to help, I, and my people, would certainly be willing to do that."
The FBI search, which took place on August 8, was executed in relation to an investigation into the 45th President's handling of presidential documents, VT previously reported.
Officials had reason to believe Trump was in violation of several federal laws, including laws that govern the "concealment, removal or mutilation" and "destruction, alteration or falsification" of records in federal investigations.
According to the New York Post, Federal agents conducting the search seized 11 sets of classified documents and over 20 boxes of items.
Pursuant to an inventory list that was recently unsealed by a federal judge, the seized documents fell under several different classification categories - ranging from 'Top Secret,' the highest level of classification, and 'Secret,' the second-highest level, to 'Confidential,' the lowest classification level.
Documents in a fourth category were marked with 'Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information,' which would mean they contain the USA's most important secrets, per the New York Post.
Trump and his legal team have disputed this, alleging that the information and records were declassified.
Donald Trump referred to last week's FBI raid as another "scam" that the American people are "not going to stand for." Credit: jeremy sutton-hibbert / Alamy
The 76-year-old has loudly condemned the historic raid, telling FOX News that agents "break in and take whatever they want to take," and that they "could have planted anything they wanted."
However, it is this staunch objection to the search - which Trump has now labelled a "sneak attack" - that has given rise to an apparent sharp increase in threatened violence against law enforcement officials, the New York Post details.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI released a joint bulletin this week to law enforcement agencies, warning of threats against law enforcement, the judiciary, and government staff.
"The FBI and DHS have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial law enforcement and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, including the Federal judge who approved the Palm Beach search warrant," the bulletin read.
FOX News revealed that the bulletin also highlighted an alleged threat to place a "dirty bomb" in front of the FBI's headquarters.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump took a break from golfing and tweeting "WITCH HUNT" to campaign for a job he already has. The president threw a raucous rally in Florida, delivering an extemporaneous speech for thousands of fans. It's kind of like a concert, because he plays all the hits: "Build The Wall," "Lock Her Up," "Drain The Swamp." It's also kind of like a stand-up comedy show. He does the reliable bits that always kill, while sprinkling in some new material.
At the Florida rally, President Trump made the case for stricter voter identification laws. While he handily won the electoral college vote, he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by three million. Rather than take the L and move on, he's peddled the conspiracy theory that there was "large scale voting fraud," with "millions of people" voting multiple times. According to Politifact, that claim is mostly false. Experts say cases of voter fraud and "double voting" are isolated and rare.
But still, Trump insisted that voters need photo identification, saying: "You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. You need ID." Obviously, that's not true. You don't need an ID to buy groceries, unless you're buying alcohol or cigarettes. The Internet roasted Trump for making this ridiculous claim. Has he ever even been in a grocery store? Does he think teenagers use fake ID's to buy groceries? The champion of the blue-collar common people seems more like an aloof elite multi-millionaire.
It's depressing that the president doesn't understand how grocery shopping works, since he makes policies that affect the finances of all Americans. But on the upside, his bizarre assertion inspired a hashtag game on Twitter: #TrumpGroceryStores. It's pretty simple: You just name a grocery store after Donald Trump. The results are hilarious.
At a press conference, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders said she was "not sure" of the last time Trump went to a grocery store. Also, she claimed Trump meant to say "alcohol" instead of "groceries." True, you need photo ID to purchase alcohol, but groceries is what the president actually said.
Older Americans were reminded of President George H.W. Bush's blunder in 1992, when he stared in awe at a supermarket scanner: "This is for checking out?" asked Bush. Then he told the grocers, "I just took a tour through the exhibits here. Amazed by some of the technology." Electronic scanners had been used in grocery stores since 1976, making the president seem out-of-touch. He went on to lose the 1992 election to Bill Clinton, making him a rare one-term president.
However, Geroge H. W. Bush never had a rabid fanbase like Donald Trump. The man seems invincible, swatting down scandal after scandal like flies. But he should probably rework his voter ID material before the next rally. Or, better yet, visit a grocery store. I hear the scanners are amazing.
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