The president’s myriad disparate interests finally aligned on Friday when he was able to squeeze his recent acquisition of Venezuela’s oil reserves into the same sentence as his White House ballroom project.

“The largest Oil Companies in the World are coming to the White House at 2:30 P.M.,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. “Everybody wants to be there.

“It’s too bad that the Ballroom hasn’t completed because, if it were, it would be PACKED,” Trump continued. “We apologize to those Oil Companies that we cannot take today, but Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, will see them over the next week. Everyone is in daily contact.

“Today’s meeting will almost exclusively be a discussion on Venezuelan Oil, and our longterm relationship with Venezuela, its Security, and People,” he noted. “A very big factor in this involvement will be the reduction of Oil Prices for the American People. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly of all, will be the stoppage of Drugs and Criminals coming into the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has used the news of the day to talk about his ballroom. He quickly pivoted to his pet project when asked about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and reportedly keeps leaving his actual duties to survey the construction.

U.S. forces invaded Venezuela early Saturday, bombing its capital, Caracas, as nearly 200 American troops infiltrated the city to capture its 13-year ruler, Nicolás Maduro.

Trump failed to notify Congress before doing so, but didn’t forget to tip off his friends at America’s biggest oil companies, which stand to gain the most from America’s newfound control over Venezuela’s oil supply—the largest in the world.

The invasion followed months of escalating naval attacks by the U.S. and rhetoric between the White House and Venezuela’s leadership, which saw the Trump administration repeatedly pin U.S. fentanyl deaths on Venezuelan drug cartels despite a resounding lack of evidence.

Meanwhile, East Wing ballroom architect Shalom Baranes revealed Thursday that the president’s plans for the White House were bigger than previously understood. In a meeting with members of the National Capital Planning Commission, or NCPC, Baranes announced that the administration intends to build up the West Wing after it finishes its 90,000-square-foot ballroom project in order to add “symmetry” to the executive mansion.

The architect did not offer a timetable for its completion, and did not say if the West Wing’s proposed growth would add to the redevelopment plan’s $400 million price tag.

This would be—at minimum—the second time that Trump has lied about his construction dreams for the White House. Back when the ballroom was first announced in July, Trump pledged that the development would “be near but not touching” the White House East Wing. He then proceeded to completely raze the FDR-era extension in October, plowing forward without prerequisite approval from the NCPC or the express permission of Congress, both of which were conveniently unavailable at the time due to the government shutdown.

Now it seems that no corner of the White House will go untouched by Trump’s white marble dreams.

A newly released camera perspective of the ICE shooting in Minneapolis has shed additional light on the moments leading up to Renee Nicole Good’s death.

The previously unseen cellphone footage, obtained and published by Allen Analysis Newsroom, depicts a federal agent’s vantage point of the lethal encounter, and captures audio of at least one ICE agent calling Good a “fucking bitch” after they shot and killed her.

🚨 BREAKING: Allen Analysis Newsroom has obtained cellphone footage showing the federal agent’s perspective in the ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis. pic.twitter.com/fnilst2MEi

The exchange, as captured in the new video, begins with a 360 degree shot of Good’s red Honda Pilot, with the agent walking from the passenger side to the front to the rear of the SUV, presumably documenting the vehicle and its license plates. In doing so, the agent filming captures video of Good’s dog in the backseat, his large, black head hanging out of the open window.

As the agent passes in front of the driver’s side window, Good can be seen and heard telling him: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”

“I’m not mad at you,” she shouts again as he walks behind her car.

The agent’s masked reflection is caught in the glass of the backseat windows as he moves away.

Another woman—presumably Good’s wife, Rebecca Brown Good—is filming the agent while standing next to the rear of the SUV. Her voice can be heard over a long shot of the vehicle’s license plate.

“Show your face,” she said. “It’s OK, we don’t change our plates every morning, so it’ll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. U.S. citizen, former fucking veteran—disabled veteran. You want to come at us? I say you go and get yourself some lunch, big boy.”

Someone can then be heard telling Good to “get out of the fucking car,” when she reverses and then pushes the vehicle forward. As she does so, several shots can be heard. The image loses focus. When the camera stabilizes, Good’s car can be seen careening away.

“Fucking bitch,” an agent said.

In a paltry attempt to defend the agents’ deadly actions, Trump officials have branded Good a domestic terrorist for moving her car, and have suggested that defying the barked orders of masked individuals that evade identification is a crime punishable by death.

Yet other video footage of the incident illustrates that Good did not hit the agent who killed her, identified by the Minnesota Star-Tribune as Jonathan Ross.

Still, within moments of the new video’s release, Vice President JD Vance and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt breathlessly rushed to mold the clip to their political narrative, excoriating media coverage of Good’s death and claiming that the national outrage is little more than a Democrat-fueled smear campaign.

“The media dishonesty about this officer is an all-time moment in shameless press propaganda,” Vance posted on X Friday.

This story has been updated.

Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good, reportedly had a history of escalating arrests with violent tactics. 

Ross, a 10-year law enforcement veteran, was injured in June during the chaotic attempted arrest of Roberto Carlos Muñoz, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala with prior convictions for criminal sexual conduct, who drove off during a traffic stop in Bloomington, Minnesota. 

Ross and another agent pulled in front of Muñoz’s vehicle to force him to stop. The two officers exited their vehicle and aimed their firearms at Muñoz, demanding he provide documentation, which he did,

© New Republic