It looks like the White House official social media is being used as unofficial advertising space for the Trump family’s newest golf course.

To close out his four-day taxpayer-funded trip to Scotland, the president attended the grand opening ceremony of the Trump International Golf Links near Aberdeen, alongside his sons Eric and Don Jr.

The White House’s official X account shared a link Tuesday to live coverage of the event, similarly to how it might share information about a presidential press conference or Cabinet meeting.

“We started with a beautiful piece of land, but we’ve made it much more beautiful,” Donald Trump said of the golf course built on top of dunes on Scotland’s eastern coast.

“We’ll play it very quickly, and then I got back to D.C. and we put out fires all over the world. We stopped a war. But we’ve stopped about five wars, so that’s much more important than playing golf,” Trump said, referring to Monday’s tentative ceasefire agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, made amid pressure from the United States.

The White House X account also shared a post directly from Trump International, Scotland, showing the president arriving Monday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“We welcome President Trump and his family as they return to their cherished Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire to open the New Course,” the post read. “The President hosted the Prime Minister and special guests at MacLeod House this evening prior to tomorrow’s grand opening ceremony.”

Trump has sidestepped precedent by refusing to sever ties to companies and other financial assets, instead vesting control of his assets to a family-managed trust. This allows the president’s supporters to pay directly into his family’s coffers by booking their vacations and retreats at any of his family’s many resorts, private clubs, and hotels.

Standing between his two sons Tuesday, Trump cut the red ribbon, though the new course doesn’t actually open for another two weeks, according to the website.

Debt creditors are on the prowl for federal officials.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt owes $326,370.50 in the aftermath of her failed 2022 congressional campaign, according to a new disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Her campaign committee, Karoline for Congress, didn’t raise any money during April, May, or June of this year, failing to pay off a dime of her mountainous debt, according to the disclosure. The majority of the debt is the result of accepting illegal campaign contributions that exceeded federal limits, the bulk of which she has not yet returned, reported OpenSecrets.

The campaign committee reported in June that it had spent the illicit funds a long time ago and currently had no cash on hand.

Some of the individuals owed refunds include former New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson, as well as the late New Hampshire Senate Majority Leader Robert Clegg Jr. Karoline for Congress also owes more than $46,000 to Missouri-based consultant Axiom Strategies, $41,000 to Missouri-based polling firm Remington Research Group, and nearly $13,000 to Washington-based fundraising firm Fundraising Inc. Other donors, however, did scrape by before the committee stopped dishing out refunds. They, conveniently, included Leavitt’s parents, according to NOTUS.

The committee is currently under audit by the FEC. The excessive donations went unreported for years, but in January, the group amended 17 prior campaign finance reports—each one it had ever made—to account for the unlawful discrepancy, NOTUS reported at the time.

An unidentified source close to Leavitt told OpenSecrets that Leavitt doesn’t personally owe anyone money, and underscored that Karoline for Congress is “working with the FEC through the audit and that process is ongoing, hence the outstanding ‘debt.’”

End Citizens United, a Democratic-aligned PAC, sued Karoline for Congress over the illegal donations in November 2022, but little has changed since then. The FEC has lacked the minimum four commissioners necessary to initiate investigations since May. Donald Trump has the sole authority to nominate the commissioners—who must then be confirmed by the Senate—but so far the president has not nominated a single individual to the regulatory agency, despite recommendations from congressional leaders.

“Cases like this send a clear message: If you break campaign finance laws, nothing will happen to you,” End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller told OpenSecrets. “It’s open season for corrupt leaders who want to game the system and get away with it.”

The right-wing commentariat is using Monday’s deadly mass shooting in Manhattan, in which a gunman shot and killed four people, to discredit the candidacy of mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani.

The attacks ran the gamut, from mischaracterizations of the Democratic nominee’s agenda to plain bigotry. Curiously, many attempts to use Monday’s tragedy against Mamdani also treat the Democratic nominee as if he were the current mayor and as if the violence did not occur under public safety policies already in place.

Several prominent conservatives have attempted to scapegoat Mamdani in light of a “defund the police” stance he does not espouse. Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines posted on X: “Do you not realize how terrifying it is this is happening in a city where the mayoral candidate wants to defund the police?” Pro-Trump podcaster Benny Johnson wrote: “REMINDER: Communist Zohran Mamdani wants to defund the police. No cops rushing in—just social workers trying to reason with gunmen.”

These attempts to pin the shooting on Mamdani misrepresent the candidate’s agenda and public comments on public safety. Johnson, for instance, pointed to Mamdani’s (now much-screenshotted) 2020 tweet in support of defunding the police, whereas Mamdani stated clearly during the Democratic primary, “I will not defund the police” and says he supports........

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