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Trump says Jeanine Pirro ‘choked’ in dropping Reflecting Pool cases

▶ Watch Video: Trump rebukes Jeanine Pirro for dropping Reflecting Pool charges

Washington — President Trump on Monday publicly rebuked Jeanine Pirro, his handpicked U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, for dropping the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism cases, but ignored questions about whether he intends to fire her. 

The Justice Department submitted a court filing Friday moving to dismiss vandalism charges against 67-year-old former Olympian David Hearn, saying the Interior Department incorrectly attributed damage in the pool’s lining to vandalism and that evidence showed “contractor error” and a “botched installation” were to blame. 

That move did not rest well with Mr. Trump, who said Pirro “choked” and “made a mistake.” 

“I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “Really disappointed with Jeanine Pirro. She folded like an umbrella.” 

“Frankly, I think she choked,” he said. “…I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

According to court filings reviewed by CBS News in D.C. Superior Court, since Friday, Pirro’s office also moved to dismiss or said it would drop its prosecutions against three more people who were charged with vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. All three had been facing misdemeanor charges.

The president snapped at one reporter who asked if he’s reconsidering Pirro’s role as U.S. attorney and ignored another question from a reporter about whether he’ll fire Pirro. 

The president had previously voiced his displeasure on Truth Social, writing Saturday, “I disagree 100%” with Pirro’s decision on the Reflecting Pool case. But Monday’s comments in the Oval Office went further.  

Asked if the president is considering removing Pirro from her post, the White House referred CBS News to the president’s comments in the Oval Office. 

Multiple sources later told CBS News that Pirro’s job is safe for now. Pirro spoke with the president on Monday in the Oval Office, but didn’t quit or ask if Mr. Trump wanted her to step down, sources with direct knowledge said. Mr. Trump is “pissed” about Pirro dropping the vandalism charges, but did not fire her, the sources said.

Hearn, who lives in nearby Bethesda, Maryland, said he stopped by the pool on June 19 while on a 64-mile bike ride, and authorities arrested him after he reached down to touch it. He was accused of ripping a piece of sealant from the pool, but he denied any wrongdoing.

Attorneys for Hearn said in a statement Friday that the case “should never have been brought” and that the government “owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”

Moving to drop the charges was an about-face for Pirro. She held a news conference when the case against Hearn was first announced, saying: “One of the most offensive images that I hold in my mind are the images of national monuments that are being debased, roped, torn down, graffitied, and damaged by individuals. This unchecked vandalism and civil disorder turns into criminal behavior, and that’s why we are here today.” 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct a reference to the additional charges that were dropped; they were all misdemeanors.

Why is one corner of China’s internet insisting a golden era never existed?

By CNN
Hong Kong (CNN) — Something weird has been happening on China’s internet. One small and vocal corner has been claiming the country’s most famous historical dynasty never existed.That’s the Tang, which ruled China from 618 AD to 907 AD, a period that saw huge territorial expansion, booming international trade and the flourishing of a high culture envied far beyond its borders. Every child learns about the Tang at school; historical dramas inspired by its palace intrigues are a staple of state TV.Claiming that the 300-year dynasty was actually a myth is akin to saying the American Civil War never happened, or telling a Brit that the Magna Carta is a fiction. But in recent months it’s been spreading among China’s very online population, posing a headache for a ruling Communist Party obsessed with controlling how its citizens talk about their 5,000 years of fractious and contested history.It all appears to have started when a history influencer named Qiao Yu deployed some baffling astrological data in a video in May, to “prove” the Tang had never existed.The outlandish claim has since spread far and wide. Reports later emerged that people were calling up the tourism bureau in Xi’an, the site of the ancient Tang capital, to demand it close down because the dynasty itself had been shown to be a hoax.The hashtag “the Tang dynasty doesn’t exist” now has tens of millions of views on China’s X-like Weibo.What motivated the hoax and its spread is hard to pin down. The Tang dynasty has been criticized in the past by Chinese nationalists as its founding emperor was not from the Han ethnic group that makes up most of China’s people. The basis of Qiao Yu’s claim is that the succeeding Song dynasty actually began far earlier than traditionally accepted, therefore canceling out the Tang. The Song dynasty was of ethnic Han origin.“This is basically insane,” said William Kirby, a professor of China studies at Harvard University, adding that there are facts in history and “the Tang dynasty is definitely one of them.”“It was much more than a Chinese dynasty. It was an inner Asian dynasty as well,” he said.As the fallacy spread on social media, China’s powerful and tightly controlled state media waded into the controversy.Many parents say that, thanks to the hoax, their children now feel confused about historical facts, the Nanjing Daily reported last month.Three days later, The Paper, a media outlet affiliated with the Shanghai government, was more strident. “Only when rational inquiry becomes the foundation of public life will historical nihilism truly lose the conditions that allow it to flourish,” it said in a commentary.“Historical nihilism” is a term coined by the ruling communist party that refers to discussion or research that challenges its version of China’s long history. The party itself is a relative newcomer to that story, coming to power in 1949 following a decades-long civil war that tore the country apart.By mid-August the Tang controversy had attracted the attention of the party’s mouthpiece. In an editorial, the People’s Daily called the claim “absurd,” and issued a warning: “Once young people begin to doubt our national history, our cultural confidence will become like water without a source or a tree without roots, and Chinese-style modernization will lose its profound historical perspective.”In recent years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tightened the party’s grip on history and sought harsher penalties for those who dare to challenge the official account.Xi himself has publicly evoked the past glory of the Tang. In 2023 he hosted leaders from several Central Asian countries in Xian, the ancient Tang capital and terminus of the Silk Road along which goods and ideas used to flow between China and Europe.The ceremony featured dancers and performers in Tang-style dress, observers noting the nod to a Tang past when foreign envoys came to pay tribute at the emperor’s court.Using the past to criticize the presentFor a thousand years, Chinese people have used reflections on history to reimagine the past, as a creative way to criticize or approach the present.For example, in the economic boom years of the early 2010s, amid growing criticism of the fixation on consumerism and bourgeois lifestyles, the hardships the Chinese people had undergone during Japan’s brutal occupation during WWII became a favored topic for intellectuals, according to Rana Mitter, a Harvard Kennedy School historian specializing in modern China.But that discussion also allowed some to point out that the current discourse didn’t give enough credit to the Kuomintang troops who fought the Japanese – but who were also the opponents of Mao Zedong’s communists, Mitter said.Even though the Tang era was more than a thousand years ago, any suggestion – however fanciful – that it never existed could be an irritant for the party, said Mitter.“Certainly under Xi, the CCP now honors the longer trajectory of Chinese history. This means that all history needs to point in a direction that suggests unified (rather than split) identity, historical and cultural continuity, and an idea of ‘China’ as a long-standing entity that has been continuous through history,” he said.Callum, a 24-year-old Beijing resident, told CNN that questioning the Tang’s existence could be a way to rebel against established wisdom and a way for China’s young – faced with a slowing economy and greater competition for jobs and resources – to criticize authorities.“It is a way for people to attack the established authorities. It is almost like saying ‘those so-called experts are nothing special. They have all been misleading people. I am the one who understands the truth, and I have exposed them all.’”As of mid-August, Qiao Yu’s accounts have been blocked and all of their videos taken down. Any search of Chinese social media questioning if the Tang dynasty existed now pulls up content condemning such lines of reasoning.In its editorial on the controversy, the People’s Daily attempted to have the final word.“Chinese civilization has endured for five thousand years,” it said, “and the Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty stands as one of its most dazzling chapters.”CNN’s Shuai Zhang contributed to the reporting.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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