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Welcome back to False Flag! We’ve got a packed issue this week, with three stories ranging from a MAGA revolt to a Justice Department official’s apparent winks at Pizzagaters.
After Donald Trump said Tuesday that he can do whatever he wants as president, and suggested again that Americans might support him becoming dictator, I feel more than ever than the work we do at The Bulwark is important to the future of our democracy. But we couldn’t exist without the support of our readers—especially our Bulwark+ members. Please subscribe to help us keep tabs on the Trump administration and the wild right-wing world that influences it. Subscribers get full access to all our locked content, including today’s newsletter—which gets pretty crazy!
–Will
MAGA’s Newest Meltdown With Trump
Move over, Epstein files—the president’s call for 600,000 Chinese student visas has his base irked.
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Trump supporters flip out over Chinese student visas
MAGA world is in revolt over Donald Trump’s promise to grant visas to 600,000 Chinese students to study in the United States. It’s gotten so bad that the tensions are starting to rival those that erupted between the president and his base when he tried to shut down the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
Trump’s troubles began Monday during a meeting with South Korea’s president, when a reporter asked him about the status of trade negotiations with China. Unprompted, Trump unveiled the 600,000 number.
“I hear so many stories about ‘We are not going to allow their students,’ but we are going to allow their students to come in,” Trump said. “We are going to allow it. It’s very important, 600,000 students.”
The next day, Trump recommitted to letting in Chinese students, saying he would be “honored” to have them in the country. The student-visa policy actually wasn’t new. It was tucked into a June announcement about a rare-earths agreement with China. But the specific figure of 600,000—which would represent more than a doubling of the number of students from China in the United States for the 2023-24 school year—hadn’t been uttered before. And it went over like a turd in right-wing media, which has spent years portraying Chinese international students as economic saboteurs or outright spies...
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