Irish Times: “During a joint press conference held by Elon Musk and President Donald Trump from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump appeared to turn angrily away from Musk’s son after the child turned to him and appeared to say something.”

“As Musk was addressing reporters with his son in front of him, he appeared to say something else and Trump reached out to him in an apparent attempt to quiet the child while his father was speaking. At one point the child also appeared to pick his nose.”

“A federal prosecutor assigned to the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned Friday in a blistering letter that accused top leaders at the Justice Department of looking for a ‘fool’ to dismiss the criminal charges,” CNN reports.

“The attorney, Hagan Scotten, is the seventh person to resign over the calamitous effort to dismiss charges against Adams.”

For members: The Thursday Afternoon Massacre

Anne Applebaum: “This appears to be DOGE’s true purpose. Although Trump and Musk insist they are fighting fraud, they have not yet provided evidence for their sweeping claims. Although they demand transparency, Musk conceals his own conflicts of interest. Although they do say they want efficiency, Musk has made no attempt to professionally audit or even understand many of the programs being cut. Although they say they want to cut costs, the programs they are attacking represent a tiny fraction of the U.S. budget.”

“The only thing these policies will certainly do, and are clearly designed to do, is alter the behavior and values of the civil service. Suddenly, and not accidentally, people who work for the American federal government are having the same experience as people who find themselves living under foreign occupation.”

The Economist: “Mr Trump is not just returning to the ways of American presidents before the Watergate scandal, which led to reforms meant to insulate the Justice Department and FBI from presidential pressure. Those earlier presidents tended to be furtive in their use of government to punish adversaries: Richard Nixon’s ‘enemies list‘ was a secret.”

“Mr Trump is up to something new. He not only wants to punish critics and officials, down to the lowliest bureaucrats, who do not embrace him and his priorities. He wants all America to know he is doing it. Revenge, for him, is best served publicly. His new aides are pulling down official portraits of former aides who crossed him, firing prosecutors and FBI agents who investigated him and demanding the names of thousands more agents involved in the inquiry into the attack on the Capitol on January 6th 2021.”

As Trump said recently: “I have certain hatreds of people.”

President Trump’s historic mugshot has apparently been given a prominent spot in the White House, as seen in the background of a photo shared by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Daily Beast reports.