President Trump’s attempts to emulate Barack Obama’s inaugurations largely fell flat.
He wanted record crowds, but was dwarfed by the Women’s March on Washington. He wanted A-list performers, but had to settle for Toby Keith. He wanted mass celebration, he got mass protests.
However, one thing he successfully borrowed from Obama was the former President’s incredible cake. Trump’s inauguration cake was an exact replica of the towering treat created by pastry chef Duff Goldman for Obama’s 2013 celebration. The only problem? Goldman didn’t make it.
The cake on the left is the one I made for President Obama's inauguration 4 years ago. The one on the right is Trumps. I didn't make it. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/qJXpCfPhii
Instead, Trump’s cake was crafted by D.C.’s Buttercream Bakeshop.
“They came to us a couple of weeks ago, which is pretty last minute, and said, ‘We have a photo that we would like to replicate,’” Tiffany MacIsaac, owner of the bakery, told the Washington Post.
She also revealed that, unlike Goldman’s creation, only the bottom layer — the one Trump is slicing into in the photo above — is edible. The rest of the cake is Styrofoam. (That Trump’s cake is all grandeur, no substance is somewhat fitting.)
While the nature of the cake’s creation is confusing, there is at least some good news: Donald Trump’s team has accidentally donated to an LGBT rights organization. In a post on Instagram, Buttercream Bakeshop revealed that the profits from the cake are being donated to the Human Rights Campaign.
“Because basic human rights are something every man, woman and child — straight, gay or the rainbow in between — deserve!” the bakery wrote.
Owen McIntire, a 19-year-old from Parkville, Missouri, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges after allegedly firebombing Teslas at a Kansas City dealership. The crime could carry up to 30 years in prison if the UMass Boston student is convicted.
McIntire's case was elevated to the Justice Department’s national security division, which typically handles terrorism and espionage cases. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has called the incident “domestic terrorism.”
"Let me be extremely clear to anyone who still wants to firebomb a Tesla property: you will not evade us," Bondi said following McIntire’s arrest in April. "You will be arrested. You will be prosecuted. You will spend decades behind bars. It is not worth it."
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a directive from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that prohibits transgender and nonbinary individuals from obtaining passports reflecting their gender identities.
Rubio's directive, issued in January, had instructed State Department staff to freeze all applications for passports with "X" gender markers or applications requesting changes to gender markers on existing passports.
Rubio also directed his subordinate to enforce a section of the Immigration and Nationalist Act that allows the United States to refuse entry to any visa applicant who commits identity fraud or misrepresents who they are, with particular focus on transgender athletes from foreign countries.
Andry José Hernández Romero, deported in Trump’s immigration crackdown, was freed from El Salvador’s CECOT prison in a prisoner swap but still faces danger.
Gay asylum seeker Andry José Hernández Romero, a makeup artist and costume designer deported to El Salvador’s notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) maximum-security prison, was released on July 18 as part of a prisoner swap, NBC News reported.
The swap was brokered by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, who agreed to free more than 200 Venezuelans from CECOT in exchange for Venezuela releasing 10 American political prisoners.
Most released detainees had been deported from the U.S. after Trump invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify removing hundreds of undocumented immigrants, alleging ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which constituted an "invading force" whose members were committing serious crimes.
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