News
Can Dolphins’ Tua stay out of harm’s way and remain healthy all season? | Countdown to camp
With the 2025 NFL season fast approaching, the South Florida Sun Sentinel takes a look at 10 storylines to watch for in a 10-part series ahead of the Miami Dolphins’ first day of training camp, which is set for July 22.
It’s the biggest “if” surrounding the Miami Dolphins’ season — “If quarterback Tua Tagovailoa can stay healthy … ”
You can finish the sentence almost any way you’d like. The possibilities are seemingly endless:
— If Tagovailoa can stay healthy, the Dolphins should be a playoff team;
— If Tagovailoa can stay healthy, Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and coach Mike McDaniel will almost certainly return for the 2026 season;
— If Tagovailoa can stay healthy, wide receiver Tyreek Hill has a shot at 2,000 yards receiving.
The list goes on and on.
Tagovailoa’s health is the No. 1 key to the Dolphins having a successful season. And for Tagovailoa to stay healthy, the Dolphins maintain he must play smarter.
“He needs to know how to protect himself,” Grier said in a season-ending news confernece session. “You’re going to get hit at times, it’s always going to happen, but he needs to control what he can control. He understands that. Not being available for taking chances and risk is unacceptable to us, and he knows that.”
Related Articles- Grier, McDaniel or both? Who’s on Dolphins’ hot seat entering 2025 season? | Countdown to camp
- Is this Tyreek Hill’s final season with the Dolphins? | Countdown to camp
- Chris Perkins: Dolphins’ Zach Sieler deserves new contract, but how much and how long?
- Listen to Dolphins Deep Dive with Perk: The Miami Dolphins Podcast
- Jonnu Smith says Dolphins were ‘giving me the run-around’ before trade to Steelers
It seems Tagovailoa has received the message. He knows what must be his point of emphasis in 2025.
“It’s knowing when is the time to give up on a play,” he said. “I would say the longevity for me to be on the field with my guys is more important than whatever that one play is.”
Granted, the Dolphins were only 6-5 last year in Tagovailoa’s starts.
But they were 11-6 in 2023 (11-7 including the playoffs), and 8-5 in 2022.
So, all told the Dolphins are 25-17 (.595) in Tagovailoa’s starts under McDaniel, who revitalized his career in 2022.
If that winning percentage holds in 2025, the Dolphins will go 10-7 (.588).
They key is Tagovailoa playing smarter.
Playing smarter means getting rid of the ball — throwing it out of bounds or into the ground — instead of holding it for that extra half second in hopes the receiver gets open. Playing smarter means sliding instead of taking on a would-be tackler, such as against Buffalo last year, or it means sliding to avoid a hit, such as he should have done against Houston last year. Playing smarter means not diving at the knees of the defender who intercepted his pass in an effort to make a tackle, such as Tagovailoa did against the Los Angeles Rams linebacker Christian Rozeboom last season.
Dolphins Deep Dive: What is Miami’s goal for the 2025 season? | VIDEO
In a sense, Tagovailoa must control his competitiveness for the good of the team.
“It just comes natural to me to compete in that sense, and that’s just the thing I fight with every time,” he said.
From the sound of things, that message hasn’t simply been relayed to Tagovailoa, it’s been emphasized.
“And again,” Grier said, “it’s his availability of controlling what he can control, like throw the ball away, you don’t have to run around and be Superman, live for the next play.”
Tagovailoa joined the Dolphins with an injury history. His final season at Alabama in 2020 ended with a combination hip injury, broken nose and concussion against Mississippi State.
His first two seasons with the Dolphins included missed games for a finger injury in 2020 (one game) and a rib injury in 2021 (three games).
The bigger problems started in 2022. Tagovailoa sustained a high-profile concussion at Cincinnati in a nationally televised Thursday night game. He struck the so-called “fencing pose,” meaning, in layman’s terms, his hands and fingers froze in an unnatural position. He spent part of the night in a hospital before flying home with the team. He missed the next four games.
The previous week against Buffalo, Tagovailoa’s head hit the ground after a hit and he wobbled noticeably while trying to get to the line of scrimmage for the next play. The NFL and NFL Players Association took notice and the league eventually changed its head injury policy.
Tagovailoa sustained another concussion later in the 2022 season in a Christmas game against Green Bay, forcing him to miss the finale and the team’s wild-card playoff game. That concussion wasn’t diagnosed until the day after the game.
In 2024, Tagovailoa sustained a concussion against Buffalo after running head-first into safety Damar Hamlin while trying to get a first down. He missed the required four games after being placed on the injured reserve list.
Later in the season he sustained a hip injury while running the ball against Houston. He missed the final two games.
The Dolphins are 3-8 (.273) in games Tagovailoa has missed in the McDaniel era.
Clearly, his ability to stay on the field is important.
McDaniel said Tagovailoa started the offseason knowing his ability to stay on the field in 2025 is paramount. So when McDaniel was asked whether there were teaching reinforcements used with Tagovailoa during the offseason intended to keep him healthy during the regular season, his answer was predictable.
“Come on, every rep this dude has that is an opportunity to reinforce something paramount, I’m probably going to over-reinforce paramount,” McDaniel said, “so yes.”
Previously addressedChris Grier, Mike McDaniel or both? Who’s on Dolphins’ hot seat entering 2025 season?
Morning Update: South Florida’s top stories for Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Here are the top stories for Wednesday, July 9, 2025. Get the weather forecast for today here.
SUBSCRIBE NOW: Get our free Morning Update email. Sign up here.
Hollywood mayor and commission give themselves big raise to keep up with Fort Lauderdale
Donald J. Trump Boulevard is the latest presidential road in Palm Beach County
Giant bugs, heat and a hospitalization: Inside Alligator Alcatraz’s first days
Planned Parenthood expands services in Florida after merger of two affiliates
R&B/hip-hop artist Melky Jean debuts Haiti-inspired rum brand. Here’s where to find it.
Kodak Black gets key to the city in Pompano Beach ceremony
We secured a park for Fort Lauderdale and parking, too | Opinion
Florida Supreme Court refuses to halt state’s next scheduled execution
Maxwell: DeSantis spending orgy at Alligator Alcatraz benefits donors
Miss Manners: She threatened to call the cops on me in church
Searchers in helicopters and on horseback scour Texas flood debris for the missing
By NADIA LATHAN and JOHN SEEWER
HUNT, Texas (AP) — As the search in Texas continued Wednesday for more than 160 people believed to be missing days after a destructive wall of water killed over 100 people, the full extent of the catastrophe had yet to be revealed as officials warned that unaccounted victims could still be found amid the massive piles of debris that stretch for miles.
“Know this: We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for. Know this also: There very likely could be more added to that list,” Gov. Greg Abbott said during a news conference Tuesday.
Abbot said officials have been seeking more information about those who were in the state’s Hill Country during the Fourth of July holiday but did not register at a camp or a hotel and may have been in the area without many people knowing.
The lowlands of Kerr County along the Guadalupe River, where most of the victims of the flash flooding have been recovered so far, are filled with youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found.
Crews in airboats, helicopters and on horseback along with hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest search operations in Texas history.
The flash flood is the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. That flood surged through a narrow canyon packed with people on a holiday weekend, Colorado’s centennial celebration.
Public officials in charge of locating the victims are facing intensifying questions about who was in charge of monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.
Abbott promised that the search for victims will not stop until everyone is found. He also said President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover. Trump plans to visit the state Friday.
Scenes of devastation at Camp MysticOutside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and blue luggage decorated with stickers.
Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp’s 75-year-old director.
The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground.
Just two days before the flooding, Texas inspectors had signed off on the camp’s emergency planning. But five years of inspection reports released to The Associated Press don’t provide any details about how the camp would instruct campers about evacuating and specific duties each staff member and counselor would be assigned.
Although it’s difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make catastrophic storms more likely.
Where were the warnings?Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were in the scenic area long known to locals as “flash flood alley.”
Leaders in Kerr county, where searchers have found about 90 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the moments before the flash floods.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said the county does not have a warning system.
Generations of families in the Hill Country have known the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the town of Comfort and swamped buses and vans. Ten teenagers were killed.
Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a warning system. Kerr County sought a nearly $1 million grant eight years ago for such a system, but the request was turned down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local residents balked at footing the bill themselves, Kelly said.
Recovery and cleanup goes onThe bodies of 30 children were among those that have been recovered in the county, which is home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, the sheriff said.
The devastation spread across several hundred miles in central Texas all the way to just outside the capital of Austin.
Aidan Duncan escaped just in time after hearing the muffled blare of a megaphone urging residents to evacuate Riverside RV Park in the Hill Country town of Ingram.
All his belongings — a mattress, sports cards, his pet parakeet’s bird cage — now sit caked in mud in front of his home.
“What’s going on right now, it hurts,” the 17-year-old said. “I literally cried so hard.”
___
Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Joshua A. Bickel in Kerrville, Texas, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
Marlins extend road winning streak to 11 with 12-2 win over Reds
CINCINNATI — The Miami Marlins extended their franchise-record road winning streak to 11 with a 12-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night.
It’s the longest road winning streak in the major leagues since the Phillies won 13 straight away from home in 2023.
Eury Pérez (2-2) made his sixth start for the Marlins since returning this season from Tommy John surgery and only two hits including Matt McLain’s solo homer, his 10th, in the first inning. Pérez struck out eight and didn’t walk a batter.
After Nick Martinez (6-9) retired the first six batters he faced, the Marlins collected six consecutive hits off him in the third, including a two-run double by Xavier Edwards to take a 7-1 lead.
Martinez, who made his first start at Great American Ball Park since taking a no-hitter into the ninth against the Padres, allowed a career-high 10 earned runs on seven hits.
Key momentThe Marlins caught a break in the seven-run third inning when Agustín Ramírez’s high-hopper went just over the head of Reds’ third baseman Noelvi Marte to drive home another run and keep the rally going.
Key statDuring the road winning streak, the Marlins have outscored their opponents 82-47.
Up nextReds left-hander Andrew Abbott (7-1, 2.15 ERA) will make his first start since being named to the NL All-Star team and will face Marlins RHP Sandy Alcantra (4-8, 7.01) on Wednesday.
Pelle Larsson, Keshad Johnson spark summer Heat to 93-79 victory over Warriors
They arrived as two of a kind, played that way as rookies, and were at it again Tuesday night for the Miami Heat at summer league.
Having both joined the Heat a year ago after playing as teammates at Arizona, Pelle Larsson and Keshad Johnson again showed the aggressive promise they potentially can offer beyond meaningless games such as these.
In the Heat’s finale of the California Classic at Chase Center, Larsson and Johnson each went for points in a 93-79 victory over the Golden State Warriors’ summer roster.
Those efforts came with Heat summer-league coach Eric Glass giving 2024 first-round pick Kel’el Ware the night off, on night 2025 first-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis again struggled with his shooting, closing 0 for 5 from the field, leaving late in the fourth quarter after knee to knee contact.
The prime positive takeaway Tuesday was the energy injected into the equation by Larsson and Johnson, as the Heat completed a weeklong stay in the Bay Area, closing the California Classic at 2-1.
“It’s the example that the other guys that are a little bit newer to this, that are still learning our system, they see those guys doing all the right things and competing at a high level and setting that pace for the rest of the group,” Glass said of Larsson and Johnson. “So I couldn’t ask for anything more when it comes to that.”
Larsson, a second-round pick a year ago, and Johnson, who went undrafted a year ago, both are under contract for the coming season.
“We were all just moving, moving the ball,” Johnson said of Tuesday’s effort.
Then there was Jakucionis, who shot a combined 1 of 15 in the three games in the event.
“This is a process. He’s 19 years old. This is just what it is,” Glass said.
The Heat next move on to the larger Las Vegas NBA Summer League, which features rosters from all 30 teams.
The Heat will open defense Friday of their Vegas championship with a 4:30 p.m. Eastern game (ESPN2) against the Atlanta Hawks’ summer roster.
That will be the first of at least five games for the Heat on the UNLV campus, as they close out their summer schedule.
Five Degrees of Heat from Tuesday night’s game:
1. For starters: Ware was given the game off after a pair of uneven starts in the first two of three games at Chase Center, replaced in the starting lineup Tuesday by former FAU center Vlad Goldin, who went undrafted out of Michigan. Goldin was given Sunday’s game off.
In addition to Goldin being back, also back after a game off and in the starting lineup were Larsson, Johnson and Kira Lewis, the 2020 first-round pick of the New Orleans Pelicans.
Lewis closed with 16 points and four assists.
Jakucionis was in the Heat starting lineup for the third time, the lone starter in all three California Classic games for the Heat.
2. Goldin touch: The extended look at Goldin could be part of the Heat evaluating their limited regular-season depth at center beyond Ware and Bam Adebayo, now that Kevin Love was dealt Monday in the trade that delivered Norman Powell from the Los Angeles Clippers.
Golden closed with 10 points and five rebounds in 20 minutes, shooting 4 of 5.
Should Goldin not be deemed sufficient roster depth in the middle on his two-way contract, the remaining options for the Heat on the free-agent market are somewhat limited.
Among remaining free-agent centers at the moment are former Heat big men Thomas Bryant, Orlando Robinson and Cody Zeller.
An option was lost Tuesday night when former Heat center Kelly Olynyk was dealt from the Washington Wizards to the San Antonio Spurs.
3. Attack mode: Larsson continued to play in attack mode, up to 12 points by the intermission.
He closed 5 of 10 from the field, with five rebounds and four assists.
Related Articles- ASK IRA: What Heat level of upgrade is Norman Powell on Duncan Robinson?
- Simone Fontecchio’s Heat goal in replacing Duncan Robinson? ‘Do the same thing’ (and more)
- Having arrived amid chaos, Davion Mitchell now with clarity with new Heat contract
- Duncan Robinson thanks Heat on way out, with Pistons deal less than it appeared
- ASK IRA: Is Kel’el Ware’s performance in Heat’s summer league becoming concerning?
“He’s just a really steadying presence out there,” Glass said of Larsson.
4. Highlight moments: Johnson offered one of his trademark flying transition dunks in the third period off a steal and feed from Lewis.
While Johnson has yet to consistently show the 3-point touch to make him a 3-and-D power forward in the mold of P.J. Tucker, he did convert a pair Tuesday night and his athleticism continues to stand out on a Heat roster somewhat lacking in that regard.
Johnson, who had his 2025-26 contract fully guaranteed a week ago, closed 6 of 9 from the field, with four rebounds.
“We love what he’s been bringing for us,” Glass said.
While play was closed to the public on Tuesday’s final day of the California Classic, Johnson was able to have his Oakland-based family on hand.
“My family came out,” he said with a smile, requesting the ESPN camera pan to his family. “They always come out. I love my family to death.”
5. Still searching: After shooting 1 of 7 in his Heat debut in Saturday’s opening victory of the California Classic against the Spurs and then 0 for 3 in Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers’ summer roster, Jakucionis this time was limited to five points.
“I think I need to just settle in more, play at my own pace, don’t get sped up too much as I was these three games,” he said, also with four turnovers in his 22 minutes.
On the flip side, at least on summer-league level, Jakucionis has shown better defensive chops than forecast, although he did close with eight fouls. Players have a 10-foul limit during summer league, despite the 40-minute summer games being eight minutes shorted than during the regular season.
Dueling U.S. efforts botched a deal to swap Venezuelans held in El Salvador for Americans
The Trump administration’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was overseeing a deal to free several Americans and dozens of political prisoners held in Venezuela in exchange for sending home about 250 Venezuelan migrants the United States had deported to El Salvador.
But the deal never happened.
Part of the reason: President Donald Trump’s envoy to Venezuela was working on his own deal, one with terms that Venezuela deemed more attractive. In exchange for American prisoners, he was offering to allow Chevron to continue its oil operations in Venezuela, a vital source of revenue for its authoritarian government.
The discussions, which included the release of about 80 Venezuelan political prisoners, and the two different deals were described by two U.S. officials and two other people who are familiar with the talks and sought anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue.
The State Department never sealed the deal. The top U.S. officials did not appear to be communicating with each other and ended up at cross purposes. The approximately 250 people expelled from the United States are still being held in a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. And it became clear that while Trump’s White House once said that it had no control over the detainees in El Salvador, it was willing to use them as bargaining chips.
Both U.S. tracks — one managed by Rubio and the other led by the envoy, Richard Grenell — involved speaking with the same Venezuelan representative, Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, one U.S. official and the two other people said.
The conflicting diplomatic efforts signaled a monthslong divide over how to approach Venezuela and resembled the chaos that permeated Trump’s first term, when competing officials vied for influence with the president. But the lack of coordination left Venezuelan officials unclear about who spoke for Trump and, ultimately, left both American and Venezuelan detainees imprisoned.
The offer to swap Venezuelan migrants in El Salvador for prisoners remains on the table, one of the U.S. officials said. The White House is not willing, for now, to extend Chevron’s license in Venezuela.
Grenell declined an interview request but said in an email that The New York Times’ account about the separate deals was bogus.
A person close to Grenell who is familiar with the talks with Venezuela said Grenell did not believe that a swap involving the Venezuelan migrants was going to happen because he believed that Trump would never have authorized the release of accused gang members. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the sensitive nature of the ongoing negotiations.
Trump’s aides said that there was no tension between any of the diplomats.
“There is no fraction or division,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “The president has one team, and everyone knows he is the ultimate decision-maker.”
The United States is paying the Salvadoran government millions of dollars to detain migrants who the Trump administration claims are all members of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, and who it said had come to the United States to commit crimes.
But the Trump administration has provided little proof that the men are gang members, and their lawyers argue that their detentions are illegal and took place without due process.
The negotiations over the swap, which were led by the State Department and John McNamara, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, who also oversees Venezuelan affairs, had advanced to the point where in May, Venezuela was set to send a state plane to El Salvador to retrieve the men, one of the two people said.
At the same time, the United States planned to send a plane normally used for deportations to Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, to pick up the political prisoners and the Americans. McNamara planned to fly to Caracas to oversee the handover.
The Venezuelan political prisoners, many of whom were arrested while protesting fraudulent elections held last year, would have been given the choice of staying in Venezuela or going to live in El Salvador, according to one of the people close to the talks.
The swap would have included a range of people who protested the 2024 election results in Venezuela, including a man jailed for criticizing President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela on TikTok and a former mayor arrested in August.
The deal would have freed 11 Americans and U.S. citizens, including Lucas Hunter, who was arrested in January, and Jonathan Pagan Gonzalez, who was arrested last year.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, first hinted at such a deal in late April. He suggested on social media that a “humanitarian agreement” would exchange all the Venezuelan migrants for Americans in Venezuelan custody and some Venezuelans. At the time, Venezuelan officials publicly dismissed the proposal and demanded that their “kidnapped” countrymen be returned.
While Rubio and McNamara focused on the prisoner swap, Grenell worked on a deal of his own. Before pitching it to the Venezuelans, Grenell called the president to tell him about the offer and believed he had the president’s support. But Grenell had not actually received the president’s final approval, according to one of the U.S. officials.
The White House had already heard from a group of Florida Republicans, Cuban Americans, who threatened not to support Trump’s tax and domestic policy bill if the administration eased oil sanctions against Venezuela. Trump’s aides believed that allowing Chevron to export oil from Venezuela would jeopardize Trump’s domestic policy agenda. Now that the bill has passed, it is unclear if administration officials will change their minds on the Chevron license.
The exchange arranged by the State Department was set to take place in late May. That month, Grenell went to Venezuela on a separate mission in which he won the release of Joseph St. Clair, an Air Force veteran held in Venezuela.
Senior Trump administration officials still view Grenell as a valuable player in the administration, even though some say they believe that he moved too fast — and without the necessary buy-in — in the episode.
Grenell, the person close to him said, was surprised to learn about the swap, and is the only authorized negotiator on any deals with Venezuela. But since the episode, Rubio has taken the lead in talking to the Venezuelans, one of the U.S. officials said.
The Venezuelan and Salvadoran governments did not provide comment for this article.
The relatives of some Americans detained in Venezuela expressed frustration over the failure of the efforts to win their freedom.
“The sense that we parents had was that you had various people talking, but they weren’t working together — one negotiator would say one thing, and another would say something else,” said Petra Castañeda, whose son, Wilbert Castañeda, 37, a Navy SEAL, was arrested last year in Venezuela. “You would think they would be duly coordinated.”
In Trump’s first term, U.S. officials tried to oust Maduro through sanctions, diplomatic isolation and the support of an alternative president, a young legislator. Rubio and other Cuban American Republicans continue to support sanctions and an isolationist approach.
But in the second term, Grenell has expressed a willingness to work with the Venezuelan government. He made his first trip to Caracas in January, and got several Americans released.
The Maduro government has spent the past year or so rounding up foreigners in its territory and imprisoning them to use in negotiations with foreign governments, according to security analysts and human rights groups.
The Venezuelan watchdog group Foro Penal says there are now 85 people with foreign citizenship wrongfully detained in Venezuela, the largest number the group has ever counted.
While Grenell was able to secure the release of six Americans in January, and then St. Clair in May, many more U.S. citizens and permanent residents remained in Venezuelan custody or were recently captured.
The State Department deal that had been in the works with Venezuela included stern warnings that suggested severe consequences if more prisoners were taken after the swap, one of the people said.
Jetzy Arteaga, whose son, Carlos Cañizales Arteaga, has been held in El Salvador since March after migrating to North Carolina, said she was eager to see the deal revived.
“At first, when we heard that our sons were being used as bargaining chips, this offended us a lot,” Arteaga said. “Our sons are not bargaining chips. But now we realize there is no other option.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Trump ruminates on past presidents and their portraits: ‘I’m a frame person’
By WILL WEISSERT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Turns out Donald Trump gauges his esteem for presidential predecessors by how well their portraits fit into his White House redecorating scheme. Or sometimes how well the frames around those portraits do.
Related Articles- Dueling U.S. efforts botched a deal to swap Venezuelans held in El Salvador for Americans
- Trump’s previous tariff push terrified the world economy. He’s betting this time is different
- FACT FOCUS: No, weather modification did not cause the deadly flash floods in Texas
- Judge orders mental evaluation for Venezuelan man convicted of killing Laken Riley
- Trump comes to Bondi’s defense amid uproar from his base over Jeffrey Epstein files flop
“I’m a frame person,” Trump said Tuesday during a meeting with his Cabinet. “Sometimes I like frames more than I like the pictures.”
Trump wrapped up a 90-plus-minute session by explaining how he personally worked to redecorate the Cabinet Room, seeming to take real joy in choosing which portraits were hung. The president also said he helped choose the room’s drapes and polled those present about whether he should repaint the room in gold leaf. (Cabinet members think he should.)
“I actually spent time in the vaults. The vaults are where we have a lot of great pictures and artwork. And I picked it all myself,” Trump said. “I’m very proud of it.”
The president said that meant “a lot of time, effort” and “very little money.” He even recounted having gone to Secretary of State Marco Rubio ‘s office and directing that a grandfather clock there be moved to the White House.
“As president, you have the power — if I go into the State Department, or Department of Commerce or Treasury — if I see anything that I like, I’m allowed to take it,” Trump said, drawing laughs. He offered the anecdote despite there not being any record of Trump having paid a public visit to the State Department during Rubio’s tenure.
Trump also pointed out each portrait and shared what he thought of each ex-president depicted. He started by indicating “the great Andrew Jackson ” and went from there — renewing his frequent praise for William McKinley and getting in a dig about how Bill Clinton once offered donors overnight stays in the Lincoln bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions.
Show Caption1 of 8WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 08: A painting of former President Abraham Lincoln is visible on the wall as U.S. President Donald Trump talks about redecorating the Cabinet Room during a cabinet meeting at the White House on July 08, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump discussed the recent flash flooding tragedy in Central Texas where at least 109 people have died, and other topics during the portion of the meeting that was open to members of the media. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) ExpandHere’s what Trump said about some past presidents:
James K. Polk (1845-49):“That’s a gentleman named — and we call him — President Polk. He was sort of a real-estate guy. He was — people don’t realize — he was a one-termer. But he was a very good president. But, and I’m not sure I should be doing this, he actually gave us the state of California.”
Then Trump revealed that his choice of Polk’s picture might have had more do with the portrait’s frame being almost the same size as the frame surrounding Jackson’s portrait, which he suggested was especially aesthetically pleasing: “Polk is actually a very good president who’s got the same frame that I needed, OK.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61):“A very underrated president. Built the Interstate (Highway) System. And he was the toughest president, I guess, until we came along. But I don’t mind giving up that crown, because, I don’t want to be too tough on it. But we want to be humane. But he was the toughest president on immigration. He was very strong at the borders. Very, very strong. And, sometimes you can be too strong. He was strong at the borders and, during a certain period of time, there was so strong that almost every farmer in California went bankrupt. And we have to remember that. We have to work together. We have to remember that. But he was a very good president, and a very good general and a very good president and I thought he deserved a position somewhere on this floor.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45):“He was not a Republican, to put it mildly. But he was, you know, a four-termer. He was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And, if you notice, we have a lot of ramps outside. You have a ramp. People say, ‘It’s an unusual place for a ramp.’ It was because of him. He was wheelchair bound. But he was an amazing man.”
Abraham Lincoln (1861-65):“Over there is ‘Honest’ Abe Lincoln. And that picture was in his, ugh, in his bedroom. And we thought this would be a very important place because this is where wars are ended. I’m not going to say wars are declared. I’m going to say wars are ended. OK? We’ll be positive. And, that’s the picture of Abe Lincoln from his bedroom, sat in the bedroom for many, many years. That was his favorite picture of himself. And the Lincoln Bedroom’s very famous. You remember when Bill Clinton had it and he rented it out to people. We don’t do that.”
John Adams (1797-1801):“They were the first occupants of the White House. 1800. And John Quincy Adams, Mrs. Adams, they were the first occupants. So we have them looking at each other and, in between their stares is Abraham Lincoln trying to make peace.”
(Trump is correct that John Adams, the nation’s second president, and his wife Abigail, were the first first couple to move into the White House in 1800. But he was mistaken about John Quincy Adams, who was John and Abigail’s son and the sixth president. He served from 1825 to 1829).
William McKinley (1897-1901):“McKinley was a great president who never got credit. In fact, they changed the name of Mount McKinley and I changed it back because he should have been — the people of Ohio, he was the governor of Ohio — the people of Ohio were very happy when I did that. I heard they were very insulted. They took the name of Mount McKinley off. That was done by Obama a little while ago and I had to change it back. I changed it back. He actually was a great president. He was a president. He was the tariff, the most, I guess since me — I think I’m gonna outdo him — but he was a tariff president. He believed that other countries should pay for the privilege of coming into our country and taking our jobs and taking our treasure. That’s the way he explained it. They took our jobs and they took our treasure. And for that he should pay. And he made them pay. And he built a tremendous fortune.”
Will Weissert covers the White House for The Associated Press.
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
