Donald Trump’s administration is claiming that the number of assaults against immigration enforcement officers has skyrocketed, but when pressed, even they can’t keep their phony numbers straight.

In response to CNN’s report about ICEBlock, an app that allows users to anonymously log sightings of ICE agents in their communities, ICE’s acting Director Todd Lyons claimed that officers and agents were “already facing a 500 percent increase in assaults.”

This number isn’t new, but it is getting a little ridiculous. Gizmodo’s Matt Novak wrote Wednesday that when he requested evidence about Lyons’s statement, ICE boosted its claim from a 500 percent increase to 700 percent. No evidence was provided for either figure.

Allegations of increased assaults against ICE have come under intense scrutiny after the Department of Homeland Security claimed that New York City Comptroller Brad Lander had assaulted officers while being detained at an immigration court last month. But a video of the incident showed that Lander hadn’t assaulted anyone and that he’d been detained for asking officers for an arrest warrant.

Fox News’s Bill Melugin reported Tuesday that raw data provided by DHS showed that there had been 79 assaults against immigration enforcement agents between January 21 and June 30, up from 10 during the same period last year. This figure isn’t particularly terrifying, especially when considering ICE’s embrace of warrantless arrests, masked agents, and aggressive policing tactics as part of its sweeping immigration raids. It’s also unclear whether this figure includes patently phony allegations of assault, such as those against Lander.

After a video recirculated of Zohran Mamdani eating food with his hands, many MAGA figures revealed their inability to engage with New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee without being sent into a xenophobic tizzy.

In the video, a 2023 interview with Uncivilized Media, Mamdani describes growing up in the Third World and being surprised by a “glaring contradiction” in the U.S. political mainstream’s stance on Palestinian rights: “We say we care about freedom and justice and self-determination,” Mamdani said in the video, in which he is shown eating South Asian food with his hands, “and yet, for some reason, we draw a line when it comes to Palestinians.”

The clip, which made the rounds after being shared by the right-wing X account @EndWokeness on Sunday, was too much to bear for many in MAGA world.

Laura Loomer, a right-wing influencer who visited the White House last month—and wields considerable influence there—posted, “Honestly, being an Islamist and a Communist was enough for me to not want @ZohranKMamdani in office. He is from Africa. And you can tell in the way he eats. Disgusting. My dogs are cleaner and more civilized when they eat than little Muhammad.” (Loomer is oft-mocked online for eating “human-grade” dog food during an ad on her podcast.)

Fellow MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk joined in, suggesting on his show that the two-year-old clip was a “calculated stunt” to “signal his Third World cred.” Kirk argued, “If he eats rice with his hands, whether he means it or not, he’s either authentically gross, or he’s being a fake, disgusting person.”

“Civilized people in America don’t eat like this,” wrote Republican Representative Brandon Gill of Texas, who told Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” if he refuses “to adopt Western customs.”

“Look at how this pig Zohran eats with his hands,” posted MAGA podcaster Mike Crispi of New Jersey. “Have some respect for our system,” he added, suggesting that “using a FORK and acknowledging the greatness of CAPITALISM” are twin pillars of American democracy.

Donald Trump’s great new deal with Vietnam may actually be terrible for America.

The president announced the trade arrangement Wednesday morning, writing on Truth Social that “Vietnam will pay the United States a 20 percent Tariff on any and all goods sent into our Territory,” as well as a 40 percent tariff on transshipping. In exchange, the United States will get “TOTAL ACCESS to their Markets for Trade.”

“In other words, they will ‘OPEN THEIR MARKET TO THE UNITED STATES,’ meaning that, we will be able to sell our product into Vietnam at ZERO Tariff,” Trump wrote. “It is my opinion that the SUV or, as it is sometimes referred to, Large Engine Vehicle, which does so well in the United States, will be a wonderful addition to the various product lines within Vietnam.”

But analysts reading between the lines of the deal didn’t see the good news.

“Vietnam doesn’t pay tariffs on goods we import!” posted American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, noting that Trump’s explanation is not how tariffs work.

“This deal means American businesses will pay a 20 percent tax on the $140 billion we import from Vietnam, while Vietnamese businesses........

© New Republic