President Donald Trump keeps snubbing Charlie Kirk to talk about construction of a new ballroom at the White House.

Speaking on Fox & Friends Friday morning, Trump took the opportunity to plug preparations for the $200 million ballroom, while describing his despair at learning that his right-wing ally had been fatally shot in Utah.

“I was in the midst of, you know, building a great—for 150 years they’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House, right? They don’t have a ballroom, they have to use tents on the lawn for President Xi when he comes over; if it rains it’s a wipeout, and so I was with architects that were design[ing]—it’s gonna be incredible,” Trump rambled.

Trump on Charlie Kirk: "Oh, when I heard it? I was in the midst of building a great -- for 150 years they've wanted a ballroom at the White House, right? They have to use tents for President Xi when he comes over. If it rains, it's a wipeout. And so I was with the architects ...… pic.twitter.com/wBV5yz2nUC

This may seem par for the course for Trump’s roundabout speech pattern, but later Friday, the president changed the subject from Kirk to construction yet again while taking questions from reporters outside of the White House.

“How are you holding up over the last three and a half days?” asked one reporter, who’d also wished him condolences for Kirk.

“I think very good,” Trump replied. “And by the way, right there you see all the trucks; they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House. Which is something they’ve been trying to get as you know for about 150 years, and it’s gonna be a beauty, it’ll be an absolutely magnificent structure.

“And I just see all the trucks, they just started, so it’ll get done uh very nicely and it’ll be one of the best anywhere in the world, actually,” the president went on.

Q: My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk. How are you holding up?

TRUMP: I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they've been trying to get… pic.twitter.com/Jrw4j2fnVZ

Online, some people accused Trump of not even pretending to care about Kirk’s death.

“Now this is how you respect a man’s memory,” politics podcaster Briahna Joy Gray wrote on X.

Joanne Carducci, a Democratic influencer, wrote, “I vehemently disagreed with every single thing Charlie Kirk ever said, and I was able to express more empathy than this.”

Trump announced the construction of a new 90,000 square foot ballroom that could seat 650 people in July, as the latest project in his sweeping aesthetic overhaul to transform the White House into his beloved Mar-a-Lago resort.

President Donald Trump was—predictably—dismayed by the news that Brazil’s former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, had been sentenced to 27 years in prison.

“President Bolsonaro was just found guilty by the Supreme Court [of Brazil]. You’ve been very clear that you would apply further sanctions to Brazil because of Bolsonaro,” a reporter said to Trump on Thursday. 

Trump on Bolsonaro: It's very much like they tried to do with me but they didn't get away with it pic.twitter.com/6fIa4ceZKK

 “Well, I watched that trial, I know him pretty well. Hard leader … I thought he was a good president of Brazil. And it’s very surprising that that could happen. That’s very much like they tried to do with me, but they couldn’t get away with it, at all,” the president replied. “But uh, I can only say this: I knew him as president of Brazil, he was a good man. And I don’t see that happening.” 

Trump and Bolsonaro share a long-running fondness for authoritarianism that transcends borders, and has led them to become true allies over the years.

On Thursday, Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced the former leader to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup in 2023, or what some see as an attempt to recreate January 6 in Brazil. Bolsonaro had his supporters raid Brazil’s presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and Congress, all because he’d rather see chaos than admit he lost the election to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

The coup attempt caused “damage of an Amazonian scale.” Bolsonaro also planned to have multiple leaders arrested or assassinated. 

The former Brazilian leader’s actions and conviction only endeared him to Trump. In July, the president posted one of his many tariff letters on Truth Social, this one addressed to Brazil. He ordered them to end their “witch hunt” of Bolsonaro “IMMEDIATELY” or be hit with 50 percent tariffs. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also chimed in disapprovingly. 

“The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Rubio wrote Thursday on X. “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”

 While Brazil’s left is wary of continued, U.S.-backed attempts from Bolsonaro’s party and supporters to free him, they see the conviction as  repudiation of authoritarianism rather than a political persecution. 

“Today, Brazil is making history,” Lindbergh Farias, who heads Lula’s Workers’ Party in the lower house of Brazil’s Congress, said, after Bolsonaro’s sentencing. “Brazil is saying: ‘Coups are a crime!’”

FBI Director Kash Patel’s yapping may have implicated Donald Trump in another legal fiasco.

A lawsuit brought by three senior FBI agents—Brian Driscoll, Steven Jensen, and Spencer Evans—accuses Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the agencies they head of wrongfully firing the men.........

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