Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

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Trump team applying pressure to media: Tell the war’s story the way we see it Through lectures, scoldings and outright threats, President Donald Trump and his aides are ratcheting up the pressure on journalists to cover the war in the Middle East the way the administration wants. Read more.

Why this matters: All presidential administrations tangle with the press; it’s the natural byproduct of journalists’ watchdog roles in a democratic society. But the incidents of the past few days speak to a hostility toward the very idea of being questioned — in a way that, some say, scratches up against the First Amendment itself.   The government’s top media regulator has warned that broadcasters risk losing their licenses if they don’t stay away from “fake news.” Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have both questioned the patriotism of news outlets because of their reporting.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Israel says it has killed two top Iranian security officials   Trump says a former president had an Iran confession. Aides to his predecessors deny recent contact   Lindsey Graham got a war with Iran. What will it cost the country and his party?   WATCH: US farmers deal with rising fertilizer prices and other issues because of the Iran war

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Trump’s War Story Blown Up by Damning Intel Leak

The president’s claims about Iran seem to have been undercut by his own intelligence reports.

Donald Trump’s own intelligence officials say they definitely warned him about the consequences of attacking Iran, even as the president claims “nobody” could have seen it coming.“They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East,” Trump told reporters Monday of his war against the Islamic Republic. “Those missiles were set to go after them. So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait.”“Nobody expected that. We were shocked!” he added. “Nobody, nobody, no, no, no. The greatest experts, nobody thought they were going to hit.”

But, in fact, quite a number of people appear to have thought that. A Trump official and two other sources with knowledge of pre-strike U.S. intelligence assessments told Reuters later on Monday that Iranian retaliation against military assets and allied targets in the region was not “a guarantee, but it certainly was on the list of potential outcomes.”

Islamic regime officials weren’t exactly coy about it either during the tense build-up to the launch of Trump’s campaign on Feb. 28. “In the event that it is subjected to military aggression, Iran will respond decisively and proportionately in the exercise of its inherent right of self-defense,” they wrote in a not-so-secret letter to the United Nations less than 10 days before the U.S. strikes.

“In such circumstances, all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets in the context of Iran’s defensive response,” they went on. “The U.S. would bear full and direct responsibility for any unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences.”

More than a thousand Iranian civilians have been killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes, including dozens of school children killed by a stray U.S. missile that hit an elementary school in the southern city of Minab. At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

Islamic regime forces have effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping lane that carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Global fuel markets have spiked dramatically, as panic over gas prices ripples across the U.S. ahead of midterms already set to be dominated by widespread concerns over inflation.

Trump’s claims that the Iranian response to his attacks could not have been foreseen is further questioned by the fact that the Islamic regime reacted in much the same way last June, when he ordered bombing strikes on nuclear facilities. Iran replied with a barrage of strikes against a major U.S. base in Qatar.

Trump described that attack as “very weak” and Iran “getting it out of their system,” later chalking the conflict up to one of the many he claimed to have solved in his campaign for last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Pentagon for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-donald-trumps-iran-war-story-blown-up-by-damning-intel-leak/?

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Lonely Trump, 79, Gets Blunt Response From Closest Allies Over His War ‘Mess’

There is no appetite among U.S. allies to commit forces to Trump’s latest conflict.

Major allies have no intention of getting directly involved in Donald Trump’s war on Iran—and are telling him so bluntly.

The response to the president’s demands for military help to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane has ranged from skepticism to “Hell, no,” sources familiar with the diplomatic talks told Axios.

The narrow passage between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes has been closed off by Iran as a retaliatory measure since U.S. and Israel began bombing the Middle Eastern country on Feb. 28. The closure of the Strait has resulted in a worldwide oil crisis, with crude oil prices rising past $100 a barrel and gas prices surging in the U.S.

Trump has insisted that the multibillion-dollar war in Iran is going well and will be over soon, while simultaneously demanding that multiple countries, such as U.K., France, Japan, Canada, and even China, immediately help the U.S in resolving the Strait of Hormuz crisis and free up the trapped Gulf oil.

The president has even warned that if NATO countries do not help the U.S. with the mess Trump created, the future of the military alliance could be in danger.

Despite these threats, multiple countries have rejected the idea of sending in their own warships toward Iran to try to reopen the Strait.

Trump spoke with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday to try to convince them to help the U.S.

The day after meeting with Trump, Starmer ruled out the U.K. getting dragged into a conflict in the Middle East. “While taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war,” Starmer said on Monday.

The U.K. is reported to have circulated a draft plan for a multinational task force and shared it with the U.S. However, the plan does not include all the countries Trump wants to join in with the efforts to help reopen the Strait, and it is unclear how such a coalition would work.

“It’s a mess. A lot of people are confused,” a European diplomat told Axios.

A source told Axios that “Macron didn’t give a final no, but at the moment it’s a no” with regard to France helping reopen the Strait.

Germany, another key NATO ally, said that the military alliance does not intend to get involved in the war that Trump has struggled to justify even starting.

“This war has nothing to do with NATO. It’s not NATO’s war,” Stefan Kornelius, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said Monday. ”NATO is a defensive alliance, an alliance for the defense of its territory.”

Trump lashed out at the NATO countries that refused to join the Iran war while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.

“We’re always there for NATO. We’re helping them with Ukraine. It’s got an ocean in between us, doesn’t affect us, but we helped them,” Trump said. “Whether we get support or not, I can say this, and I said it to them: We will remember.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/lonely-trump-gets-blunt-response-from-allies-over-his-iran-war-mess/?

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I Know How Epstein Groomed America’s Corrupt Elite

Author Anand Giridharadas delved into the grim logic that led cowardly elites to cling to Epstein while staying silent in the face of his horrors.

The Jeffrey Epstein files peeled back the curtain on an uncomfortable truth about America’s elites, author Anand Giridharadas says.

Giridharadas told The Daily Beast Podcast that the pedophile took advantage of the government officials, executives, and academics who staked their status on “hyper-connected networks” and turned a blind eye to his crimes rather than jeopardize their standing.

“Everyone is talking about what’s in [the Epstein files]. Here’s what’s not in there. We have all these emails. We have all these people emailing about everything. There’s no breakup emails,” Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, said.

Giridharadas continued, “There’s no one saying, ‘F---, I didn’t know, but I read the story now. You are despicable. Never call me again.’ Not one email that I’ve seen.”

Giridharadas, who has written extensively on the “Epstein class” on his Substack The.Ink, told host Joanna Coles that Epstein’s crimes were “enabled by the silence and complicity and overlooking and looking away of a much larger number of people. And I don’t think you get the former without the latter.”

The best-selling author argued that Epstein exploited a “lack of courage” that he said defines “the age of hyper-connected networks,” where connections in elite circles is the ultimate currency.

“Your wealth is your connections and the density and breadth of your connections to all these other people,” he explained.

Epstein, a well-connected New York financier, served in these circles as a “bridging function,” Giridharadas said, something “very, very valuable” particularly to those elites who are “siloed in particular worlds” but want to move between them more freely.

“To be in that rarefied elite is to have friction removed,” Giridharadas said. Epstein removed friction, so the elites around him looked the other way—too afraid to call him out and risk the very networks that kept them in power, the author explained.

“I think it a lot of what happened in this network has to do with the way courage dissipates, evaporates in an age of networks like ours,” Giridharadas said.

“And so when I look at that inbox, even after people got to know, even after Julie Brown’s heroic reporting in 2018, where no one could say they didn’t know after that, even after he died, that people didn’t have the bravery to break up with him.”

Coles chimed in, “In fact, what you see is the opposite. You have people reaching out.”

The Daily Beast’s chief content officer noted that Epstein associates such as former British ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson and Hollywood publicist Peggy Siegal even came to Epstein’s aid after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Epstein remained connected to a who’s who of elites long after his sexual abuse came to light: Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, health influencer Peter Attia, former Prince Andrew, fellow island-owning billionaire Richard Branson, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler, former Treasury Secretary and Harvard University president Larry Summers, venture capitalist and former MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and many others.

On his Substack, Giridharadas detailed mingling with “network-obsessed” elites and recounted resigning from the jury of an MIT Media Lab award funded by Hoffman in 2019 after learning of Epstein’s ties to Hoffman and Ito.

He said what struck him most after sending his resignation email to the other judges was the “silence.”

“Everybody else—including people linked with some of the most prestigious institutions on earth—played ostrich,” Giridharadas wrote.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-know-how-epstein-groomed-americas-corrupt-elite/?

ps:Exactly what the elitists are doing for trump today, protecting him!!!!!!!!!!

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Trump Orders Scores of Kennedy Center Staff Fired in Final Insult

The president is continuing on his warpath of firings.

In his presidential sidequest to overhaul the Kennedy Center, Donald Trump wants to get rid of most of the people who make it work.

Dozens of employees of the historic performing arts center are on the chopping block after its board of trustees, handpicked by Trump, 79, voted to approve a two-year renovation project on Monday, CNN reported.

Monday’s meeting minutes said that “approximately 75 to 175 of the Center’s roughly 300 employees” would be impacted by the two-year full shutdown, according to the outlet.

“Major infrastructure needs include HVAC and chilled water systems, electrical infrastructure, structural and concrete deficiencies, service tunnel conditions, waterproofing, roof and steel degradation, and life-safety systems,” the minutes said. “A full shutdown is the most efficient and cost-effective path to complete the work properly.”

Though Trump had announced last month that the Kennedy Center would close in July for a two-year renovation, the organization confirmed in a press release that the board approved the measure unanimously.

Trump said on Monday that the closure “will enable us to complete the work much faster.”

His vision for the new and improved Kennedy Center looks very similar to how it looks now, save for some trees, fountains, and clearer signage displaying Trump’s name.

The vote comes just three days after the president axed its chief operating officer and executive director, Richard Grenell, whom Trump claimed had done an “excellent” job.

Grenell, 59, was replaced by Matt Floca, the vice president of facilities operations at the Kennedy Center, who will oversee the two-year renovation project.

“There was a story he got fired; he didn’t get fired,” Trump said on Monday about Grenell. “He was here for a short period of time, for a year, figuring it out with Matt and everybody else. And Matt now is going to take over.”

“He’s a pro at construction, great at construction, and I think Matt would like to run the facility too,” the president added. “He’s fallen in love with it, and I think he’d do a good job, but if I don’t think he will do a good job, I’ll say, ‘Matt, you’re fired. I’m getting somebody else.’”

Reached for comment, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told the Daily Beast in a statement: “While the Democrats neglected the Trump-Kennedy Center for decades, President Trump took bold action to rescue and revitalize this great American institution. The President is strengthening its finances, removing divisive woke programming, and initiating major building upgrades for all patrons to enjoy. Under President Trump’s leadership, the Trump-Kennedy Center will become the finest performing arts facility anywhere in the world.”

The Daily Beast reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.

On Saturday, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who serves as an ex-oficio member of the board, put Grenell on blast for his role in putting the institution “out of business.”

“Like a mob bust-out gone wrong, Trumpsters’ looting of the Kennedy Center has put it out of business, and now it needs to be ‘closed for renovations’ as cover-up,” Whitehouse wrote in a post on X. “No surprise he’s being replaced.”

Not taking the jab lightly, Grenell clapped back at the Rhode Island senator in a lengthy screed a few hours later.

“Your buffoonery knows no limits,” Grenell began. “You sat silent while the place went into total disrepair. You sat silent while the staff was paid with monies designed to pay off the future $30 million loan coming due in 2030 because there was no money in the bank to pay salaries.”

The ousted Trump goon raged on, praising the president’s efforts to change the performing arts center.

“This Washington game of kicking the can down the road and never solving problems has ended with President Trump,” he said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-orders-scores-of-kennedy-center-staff-fired-in-final-insult/?

ps:He destroys everything he gets his hands on! He will destroy this Country if he's allowed to continue!!!!!

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Trump’s Plot for Ultimate Betrayal in Cuba Exposed in Bombshell Leak

The president openly said he wants to “take” the island.

Donald Trump is reportedly planning to oust the president of Cuba but leave the Castro family effectively in charge after bragging that the Caribbean island state was his to “take.”

On Monday, as Cuba experienced a nationwide blackout with dwindling fuel supplies and a crumbling power grid, Trump called the country “a very weakened nation right now.”

“It’s a failed nation,” Trump said in the White House. “They have no money, they have no oil, they have no nothing. They have nice land.” The 79-year-old added, “I do believe I will be having the honor of taking Cuba.”

He clarified, “Taking it in some form. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”

The move may depend on negotiations between U.S. and Cuban officials over the island’s future. Key among the U.S. demands is the removal of President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power, four people familiar with the discussions told The New York Times.

While negotiators are signaling that the removal of Díaz-Canel is a must, Trump was not seeking wholesale change to Cuba’s communist government beyond a new leader, according to the Times.

The move echoes the Trump administration’s forced ouster and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, which kept the leftist Chavista regime in power but under a more compliant figurehead.

The Times said the administration was not planning to take action against members of the Castro family, who still wield power behind the scenes in the country of 11 million people. “That is consistent with the general desire of Mr. Trump and his aides to regime compliance rather than regime change in their foreign policy,” it added.

The Miami Herald previously reported that Díaz-Canel’s reign may be coming to an end and a Trump-approved replacement would be installed to push for economic and political changes in Cuba.

The publication said the Trump administration view Díaz-Canel “as an obstacle” to changes they want on the island, following conversations with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former President Raúl Castro’s grandson. Rubio is the son of Cuban migrants.

Sources also told the Herald that the Trump administration found Díaz-Canel too ideological and not powerful enough to push through America’s desired changes.

A U.S. official with knowledge of discussions between Washington and Havana also confirmed Trump’s plans to replace Díaz-Canel to the Associated Press on Monday.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

The country has been ruled by the Communist Party of Cuba for 67 years, led by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 2008, then by his brother Raúl from 2008 to 2018, and now by Díaz-Canel, who has two years left on his presidential term.

The Times report notes that while the Trump administration has told Cuban negotiators that Díaz-Canel must be removed, they are leaving the next steps, including whether they continue with a Communist leader, up to the country to decide.

The publication’s sources also stated America is not planning to take any action against Castro family members, who continue to wield power in the country of 11 million people.

Last Friday, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of Raúl Castro, appeared in public with President Díaz-Canel.

At the time, Díaz-Canel announced the country had begun talks with the U.S. “aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations.”

One source told the Times that the younger Castro, known as Raúlito,had been negotiating directly with Rubio and would likely stay in control behind the scenes--“with another figure who does not bear the Castro last name officially holding office.”

The newspaper said ousting Díaz-Canel could hand Trump a “symbolic win,” as in Venezuela, but would disappoint conservative Cuban exiles who demand nothing less than “wholesale political transformation” in their homeland.

Among those criticising the administration’s maneuvering was the Cuban-American pollster and academic Fernand Amandi, whose Miami firm has carried out polling in Cuba.

“If @marcorubio goes along with this unconscionable act of betrayal to the Cuban people and the Cuban exile community and doesn’t resign his position as @SecRubio then Marco Rubio is the ultimate fraud and as complicit as the thug Castro regime in Cuba’s destruction,” Amandi wrote on X.

“If the Cuban exile community could conceive of a betrayal greater than the one they have blamed on JFK for the Bay of Pigs for the past sixty-five years, this would be it.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-plot-for-ultimate-betrayal-in-cuba-exposed-in-bombshell-leak/?

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Top Tulsi Aide Resigns in Protest Over Trump’s War

The director of the Counterterrorism Center announced he was quitting over the Iran war.

A top counterterrorism official announced on Tuesday that he was quitting in protest over Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, shared his resignation letter on X and said his last day would be on Tuesday.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” he wrote. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Kent was a top administration official serving under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a longtime anti-interventionist who once ran as a Democrat against Trump going to war with Iran before she joined his administration.

In his letter to the president, the Republican and Army combat veteran took issue with Trump’s shift on foreign policy.

“I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term,” Kent wrote. “Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.”

After the strikes began on February 28, Kent wrote that the center was operating at full capacity to track potential threats to the U.S. and identify emerging threats. He also urged Americans to stay vigilant. But the top intelligence official has since been silent publicly until he posted his resignation letter.

In the letter, Kent also issued a stark warning to the president that he had been targeted by a misinformation campaign to launch the war in Iran.

“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” he wrote. “This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie.”

Kent argued it was the “same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.”

“We cannot make this mistake again,” he wrote.

When Trump announced he was nominating Kent, he praised the GOP politician and former CIA officer who served in Iraq for hunting down terrorists his entire adult life.

When Kent joined the National Counterterrorism Center last summer, Gabbard said in a statement that he “consistently put country before self, enduring great personal sacrifice in that service.”

Kent lost his wife Shannon in 2019 when she was killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria, while serving.

“As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter. “I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for.”

He closed his letter by stating it was an honor to serve in the administration and the country. The Daily Beast reached out to Gabbard’s office and the White House for comment.

In a post on X, Leavitt slammed Kent’s claim Iran did not pose an imminent threat in a lengthy post.

Some in MAGA world and other Republicans were quick to blast the outgoing Trump official and note his accusations against Israel.

“Good riddance,” wrote Rep. Don Bacon on X. “Iran has murdered more than a thousand Americans. Their EFP land mines were the deadliest in Iraq. Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government.”

Former Trump official and close ally Taylor Budowich wrote: “This isn’t some principled resignation—he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-tulsi-aide-resigns-in-protest-over-trumps-war/?

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Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump’s Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat

Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

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Alternate reality

President Donald Trump’s latest comments about the Iran war make him look out of the loop and unprepared, CNN’s Aaron Blake writes. It raises questions about whether the man who launched a war in the Middle East truly understood the implications. 🇨🇺 Trump's Cuba squeeze fuels crisis President Trump's oil blockade on Cuba is pushing the Caribbean island deeper into a humanitarian crisis, with rolling blackouts from energy shortages disrupting daily life and straining essential services, Axios' Josephine Walker writes. Why it matters: The president is escalating decades of U.S. pressure on Cuba by targeting oil supplies that underpin the island's fragile economy. Trump is threatening tariffs on countries that supply Cuba with oil and has openly mused about regime change. He said yesterday the U.S. will be "doing something with Cuba very soon." The country's health care system is facing ongoing shortages of supplies, staff and medicine, as power outages disrupt services and ambulances struggle to find fuel. Food and water shortages are worsening. Keep reading.

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A Worldview Gone Wrong (Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Mattie Neretin / CNP / Reuters)

View in browser When Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned today in protest of the Iran war, he blamed everyone except the person who launched it. In his resignation letter, addressed to President Trump, Kent portrays the president as a passive figure manipulated by others—“high-ranking Israeli officials” and “influential members of the American media”—rather than the most powerful person imposing his will upon the world. Again and again, Kent casts Trump, a two-term president, as someone swept up in events rather than driving them. “I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term,” Kent writes. “Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.” The alleged shift, Kent claims, was due to an Israeli and media-driven “misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform” and “was used to deceive you.” Setting aside its potentially anti-Semitic undertones, this argument fails on the facts. In reality, Trump telegraphed his bellicose intentions toward Iran for decades, and once in office, he escalated conflict with the country at every opportunity. In 1980, during the Iran hostage crisis, Trump agreed with a TV interviewer that “we should have gone in there with troops,” and said that doing so would make America “an oil-rich nation.” In 1987, The New York Times reported that Trump had told a New Hampshire audience that “the United States should attack Iran and seize some of its oil fields in retaliation for what he called Iran’s bullying of America.” In 1988, Trump told a Guardian interviewer that if he were a political leader, he’d be “harsh on Iran,” and declared: “One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island,” the country’s oil-export hub. (The United States bombed Kharg Island last weekend, and a contingent of Marines is now heading to the region, potentially to occupy it.) “While everyone is waiting and prepared for us to attack Syria,” Trump tweeted in 2013, “maybe we should knock the hell out of Iran and their nuclear capabilities?” When Trump assumed the presidency in 2017, he quickly went to work putting his Iran impulses into action. He tore up the Obama administration’s nuclear deal in 2018 and assassinated Qassem Soleimani, a notorious leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in 2020. After returning to power in 2024, Trump picked up where he left off, bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities last year and finally this year launching the current war on the regime after directing the largest U.S. military buildup in the region since Iraq. Far from a deviation from Trumpism, the president’s Iran war is his ideology given final form. And Trump’s most fervent supporters seem to agree. A CNN average of recent polls found that 89 percent of MAGA Republicans approve of military action in Iran, compared with just 9 percent who disapprove. Kent conjured a vision of an anti-war president who never existed, while claiming to speak for an anti-war, “America First” base that is not in evidence, to blame external actors for an entirely predictable domestic political decision. It is hard to believe that Kent, a decorated former Green Beret, was genuinely unaware of all of this when he chose to serve the president. But long before he assumed his now-abandoned post, Kent gravitated toward conspiratorial explanations of events. He alleged that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen,” and that the FBI helped engineer the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol—and he stood by those claims in his Senate confirmation hearing. Kent has also been partial to anti-Jewish ideologues. In 2022, he primaried and defeated Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, before losing in the general election, but not before paying a member of the Proud Boys as a consultant. According to the Associated Press, Kent had “sought support from figures associated with the white nationalist ‘Groyper Army’ movement led by Nick Fuentes” during his campaign, then disavowed such an interest when the contacts became public. Kent later appeared at a fundraiser with a far-right commentator who had claimed that Hitler was a “complicated” and “misunderstood” figure, and whom the campaign also subsequently disavowed. Kent’s resignation letter reflects this worldview—and its fundamental flaws. In it, he blames Israel not just for somehow suborning Trump into war in Iran but also for being behind the Iraq War. The president, Kent writes, has fallen prey to “the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war.” The historical record, however, suggests the opposite. “The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy—Iran is the enemy,” Lawrence Wilkerson, the chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell and a vituperative Israel critic, told the anti-war reporter Gareth Porter in 2007. The Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal has recounted being told by then–Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2002 that Washington was set on fighting “the wrong war.” (Trump, meanwhile, initially supported the Iraq invasion.) In his letter, Kent also blames Israel for the death of his first wife, a Navy cryptologist, writing that she was killed “in a war manufactured by Israel.” But Shannon Kent was not killed in Iran or Iraq. She was killed by the Islamic State in Syria during the Trump administration’s campaign against the group—which Kent praises elsewhere in the same letter. None of these claims makes much sense from a logical or factual perspective. But they are perfectly coherent as part of the long tradition of conspiratorial anti-Semitism, which blames groups of Jews for being behind the world’s problems. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian forgery considered the most influential anti-Semitic work of all time, purports to record Jewish schemers plotting to profit by keeping the world in a state of perpetual war. The Hamas charter, which cites The Protocols, similarly blames Jews for the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, World War I, and World War II. Like Kent’s letter, these works do not represent reality but rather an attempt to impose an ideology on reality. They pin crimes on a preconceived perpetrator. This fallacy is precisely the reason that movements—and countries—overtaken by anti-Semitism inevitably unravel. Societies that adopt conspiratorial explanations for political, social, and economic problems lose the ability to rationally redress them. “Why did the stock market crash?” is a good question. So is “Why did the U.S. invade Iraq?” But a person who blames a financial meltdown on the Jews or spends their time chasing phantom Israeli culprits instead of a war’s actual American instigators will never understand the calamities in question and will fail to prevent future ones. Anti-Semitic explanations of events rob people of their agency and prevent them from acting effectively to improve their circumstances. Seen from this vantage point, Joe Kent is a cautionary tale. He advocated for and worked for a president who then launched a war that he ardently opposed, because he fundamentally misunderstood the world he lived in. Related: Why so many people don’t understand anti-Semitism (From 2022) The logic of Joe Kent’s resignation letter

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Trump fumes at NATO for refusing to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, and embraces going it alone President Donald Trump said Tuesday that NATO and most other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, grousing that he has been unable to rally support behind his war of choice in Iran that he insists he’s conducting for the good of the world, even if it doesn’t appreciate his effort. Read more.

Why this matters: Trump, who has been pressing allies to help safeguard the critical waterway to ease a chokepoint on the region’s oil exports, fumed that the U.S. is not getting support “despite the fact that we helped” NATO “so much,” and said that it was in allies’ interest to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon. “You would have thought they would have said, ‘We’d love to send a couple of minesweepers.’ That’s not a big deal,” Trump said. “It doesn’t cost very much money. But they didn’t do that.”   The European Union’s top diplomat pushed back at Trump, saying the 27-nation bloc does not want to be dragged into the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and broadly rejected Trump’s demand to send warships to the Straits of Hormuz. “This is not Europe’s war. We didn’t start the war. We were not consulted,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ China ignores Trump’s Hormuz request   Dozens of ships slip through the Strait of Hormuz as Iran’s oil exports get through   Top US intelligence officials set to testify about Iran war and threats confronting the homeland   What to know about the resignation of Joe Kent as Trump’s counterterrorism chief   Live updates: Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib killed, Israel defense minister says   WATCH: Interceptions seen in the skies over Israel as air raid sirens sound   What to know about Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant after report of projectile hitting its complex

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Trump’s tariffs were supposed to help American manufacturers. But instead, they’re hurting Trump’s core rationale for tariffs has been that they would force more factories to open in the U.S. and would generate enough revenue to close federal budget deficits. But that hasn’t materialized so far. Factories continue to shed workers, with 98,000 manufacturing jobs lost during Trump’s first full 12 months back in the White House. Read more.

Why this matters: There’s a growing body of evidence that the tariffs that Trump said would help American factories are, in fact, squashing many of them. The problem could get worse as the administration scrambles to craft new tariffs to replace the emergency import taxes that the Supreme Court ruled illegal in February.   The White House maintains that construction spending is high, more workers are being hired to build factories, new investments are being made and labor productivity in manufacturing is increasing — which could eventually fuel a factory revival. “It takes time to get production online, and therefore it will be some more time before we fully materialize the benefits of the president’s policies,” Pierre Yared, the acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an email.   Some of the bright spots in construction cited by the White House appear to be the result of programs launched by Joe Biden. Factory construction spending began to accelerate in 2022 with the anticipation of government support from Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, which included big subsidies for computer chip plants.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ A new US trade deal with Indonesia secures fossil fuels and access to critical minerals   Paraguay becomes final South American country to approve Mercosur-European Union trade deal

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Trump Has Bonkers Reaction to U.S. Defeat

The president said it all in an uncharacteristically brief post on social media.

Donald Trump has doubled down on his bizarre informal takeover proposal to Venezuela after it defeated the U.S. to win the World Baseball Classic for the first time.

A resurgent Venezuela beat the U.S. 3-2 on Tuesday night in a nail-biting final in Miami.

“Nobody believed in Venezuela but now we win the championship,” third baseman Eugenio Suárez, credited for pulling off the win, said after the game. “This is a celebration for all the Venezuelan country.”

Also celebrating Venezuela’s victory over his own country was President Trump, who posted “STATEHOOD!!!” just before 11 p.m. on Tuesday night on his Truth Social account.

Trump, 79, was referencing his curious social media missive from Monday night after watching Venezuela defeat Italy in the semifinal.

“Good things are happening to Venezuela lately!” Trump posted. “I wonder what this magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE? President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Tuesday’s post repeats the president’s new fixation on Venezuela as a potential 51st state of America, a fantasy role he has previously earmarked for both Canada and Greenland, against their wishes.

Venezuela—a South American country that sits on the world’s largest oil reserves—became a Trump target after he directed the U.S. military to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a late-night raid on Caracas in January. They both remain in custody in New York.

Trump approved Maduro’s replacement, acting president Delcy Rodríguez.

She posted a message to the winning team: “I want in the name of our people, of the government of Venezuela, to thank and hug our players.”

The acting president also declared Wednesday would be a holiday for everyone except essential workers as part of a National Day of Jubilation, “so our youth can go out to the streets, the plazas, the parks and ballfields to celebrate.”

The Associated Press reported that Tuesday’s final between the U.S. and Venezuela was politically charged, although players and coaches avoided discussion of the turmoil between the two nations since Trump’s military intervention.

The publication said the sellout crowd at IoanDepot park was heavily pro-Venezuela, and some American players were booed during the introductions.

Most fans remained for a half-hour after the end of the game to join players in singing Venezuela’s national anthem, “Gloria al Bravo Pueblo (Glory to the Brave People).”

The victory makes Venezuela the second Latin American nation to win the WBC, following the Dominican Republic in 2013. The U.S. was last victorious in 2017.

Since ousting its president, the Trump administration is now effectively overseeing Venezuela’s economy, including its lucrative oil reserves.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-has-bonkers-reaction-to-us-defeat/?

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Panicking Trump Aides Left Scrambling by Counterterror Chief’s Shock Resignation Bombshell

The White House was stunned by the public post that shook MAGA.

The White House had no idea Donald Trump’s top counterterrorism official planned to post his damning resignation letter protesting the Iran war on social media, according to a report.

Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday because he could not “in good conscience” support the Middle East conflict. He wrote that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the U.S. and suggested Trump was drawn into the war because of “pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Kent had informed top administration officials including Vice President JD Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles that he planned to resign on Monday, and Trump was also made aware of the decision.

But he blindsided the White House by posting his bombshell resignation letter on X, where it has been shared more than 250,000 times, causing the president major embarrassment, a senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal.

The incident sparked panic inside the White House and forced several officials to present a united front in condemning Kent’s actions and his criticism of Trump’s war in Iran.

“There are many false claims in this letter but let me address one specifically: that ‘Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.’ This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a lengthy statement on X.

“As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”

Trump, who had endorsed Kent to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, quickly turned on the 45-year-old after his resignation and suggested he was “weak on security.”

“It’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Republican Iran hawks and pro-Israel figures also attacked Kent’s letter, accusing it of pushing anti-Semitic tropes by suggesting Israeli officials and “influential members of the media” had persuaded Trump to launch the war.Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell said the letter contained “virulent anti-Semitism,” while South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham accused Kent of repeating the “oldest storyline in the world” that “if it weren’t for the Jews, we’d all be safe.”It was previously reported that Vance, who had been skeptical of launching a war with Iran, knew Kent planned to resign and urged him to inform Trump and Wiles first.

A spokesman for the vice president told the Journal that Vance “believes that it’s imperative for the national security team to remain cohesive, trust one another, and avoid mouthing off to the media about internal deliberations.”

Kent, a Green Beret veteran who was deployed overseas 11 times, had previously spoken out against U.S. intervention abroad after his first wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologic technician, was killed by an Islamic State suicide bomber in 2019.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/panicking-donald-trump-aides-left-scrambling-by-counterterror-chief-joe-kents-surprise-move/?

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Reagan-Era Judge Tears Into Trump’s Propaganda Goon in Humiliating Ruling

The court had already determined that Kari Lake had served illegally as head of a federal agency.

A veteran conservative judge shredded Donald Trump’s handpicked propaganda goon for her illegal tenure at a public service broadcasting agency and ordered everyone she fired to be given their jobs back.

Royce Lamberth, a D.C. district judge appointed under President Ronald Reagan, issued a withering ruling Monday tearing into the administration’s “flagrant and nearly year-long refusal” to abide by the law at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, singling out its former acting chief Kari Lake for particular criticism.

“The defendants’ persistent omission and withholding of key information in this case has been a Hallmark production in bad faith,” the judge wrote. He further ruled that more than 1,000 employees at Voice of America—which the agency oversees, and who have now spent an entire year on paid administrative leave—be allowed to return to work.

Lake, 56, who has twice run and twice failed to secure office on a Republican ticket in her home state of Arizona, is a MAGA stalwart and veteran conspiracy theorist who has backed Trump’s claims of election rigging in 2020.

VOA employees sued Lake over her efforts to gut USAGM—which Lake has described as the “most corrupt agency in Washington”—by reducing its staff from more than a thousand down to just 68 and scaling back its infrastructure in an effort to shrink the outlet to the “statutory minimum” under its congressional mandate.

Lamberth, 82, ruled earlier this month that because the Senate had not confirmed Lake—whom he repeatedly threatened with contempt proceedings—her tenure was illegal and the changes she oversaw were void.

Lake said she would appeal the judge’s rulings but has not yet filed a motion to do so. The VOA employees have trumpeted Lamberth’s latest decision and said they are looking forward to getting back to work.

“We are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency and our colleagues, to return to our congressional mandate, and to rebuild the trust of the global audience we have been unable to serve for the past year,” they wrote in a statement.

The Daily Beast contacted the White House, Lake, and USAGM for comment on this story.

“President Trump was elected to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse across the administration, including at the Voice of America—and efforts to improve efficiency at USAGM have been a tremendous success," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “This will not be the final say on the matter.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-tears-into-donald-trumps-propaganda-goon-kari-laki-in-humiliating-ruling/?

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Trump Hit With Dire Warning of a Self-Inflicted Disaster

Economists are warning that Americans are going to feel the effects of the oil crisis, even as the White House shrugs off concerns.

Economists are sounding the alarm over the fallout for the U.S. economy caused by Donald Trump’s war with Iran.

Experts believe the conflict will continue driving up oil prices and inflation, stifle U.S. growth, and make it unlikely that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates, the Financial Times reported.

Trump’s multibillion-dollar war in Iran shows no clear end in sight, as Tehran is steadfastly refusing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow shipping passage between Iran and Oman through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes. Its closure has triggered a global oil crisis, with gas prices surging in the U.S. and crude oil repeatedly topping $100 a barrel.

Economists polled by the Clark Center for Global Markets on behalf of the Financial Times warned that the closure of the strait, something the Trump administration shockingly failed to plan for, could significantly damage the U.S. economy.

“The key question is the extent and duration of a blockage of the Strait of Hormuz,” said James Hamilton, a professor at the University of California San Diego and an energy market expert. “If it goes on for a month or so, then this is a very big deal. And I think it would lead to a significant downward revision in the kind of growth we’re expecting for this year.”

Of the 47 economists surveyed by the Clark Center, about 68 percent believe GDP growth would take a hit of at least 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points if oil stays at $100 for the rest of the year.

More than 80 percent also said personal consumption expenditures inflation could rise by as much as 0.5 percentage points if oil prices remain above $100 a barrel.

PCE is currently 2.8 percent, above the 2 percent level the Fed has targeted to achieve since 2021.

Stephen Cecchetti, a professor at Brandeis University, said the Federal Reserve is unlikely to ease inflation pressures by cutting interest rates for the rest of the year at least.

“My prediction right now is that you’re not going to see much action [from the Fed] for a while,” Cecchetti told the Financial Times. “The uncertainty is so high that you have to wait. I would be waiting. But I would be unhappy that I had to start from here.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, a longtime Trump nemesis, is expected to hold interest rates when he delivers a news conference Thursday afternoon.

“President Trump has always been clear about short-term economic disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury. The economic fundamentals and trajectory of America, however, remain strong with real wages rising, productivity growing, and trillions in investments pouring in,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Daily Beast.

“After the military objectives of Operation Epic Fury are achieved, Americans can rest assured that the President’s agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, energy abundance, and fair trade will continue taking America to new highs.”

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, tried to downplay the economic concerns surrounding the war but acknowledged that American “consumers” will be affected, while also admitting that the administration doesn’t particularly care.

“If it were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all,” Hassett told CNBC on Tuesday.

It would hurt consumers, and we would have to think about if that continued, what we would have to do about that, but that’s like really the last of our concerns right now,” Hassett told CNBC on Tuesday.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-hit-with-dire-warning-of-a-self-inflicted-disaster/?

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JD Vance Played Key Part in Anti-War Bombshell Resignation Plot

Top intelligence official Joe Kent met with the vice president before his very public resignation.

Vice President JD Vance met with top Tulsi Gabbard aide Joe Kent the day before the intelligence official dramatically resigned in protest of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, became the first senior official to openly break with Trump on the war on Tuesday when he publicly announced his resignation from his post with a bombshell letter, writing, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.”

Hours beforehand, however, Kent met with Vance and Gabbard, two fellow anti-interventionists navigating the war’s political minefield, The Washington Post reports, citing sources.

During the Monday meeting at the White House, Kent, 45, presented his resignation letter to Vance, 41, according to the Post.

Vance apparently thought it wise for Kent to first check in with Trump and the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

“The VP encouraged him to speak to White House chief of staff and POTUS before making any final decisions,” a White House official told the Post. “The VP encouraged him to be respectful to POTUS.”

It’s unclear whether Kent acted on the vice president’s advice. The Daily Beast has reached out to Vance’s office and Gabbard’s office for comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Kent did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Vance told the Washington Post that the vice president “believes that it’s imperative for the national security team to remain cohesive, trust one another, and avoid mouthing off to the media about internal deliberations.”

Trump did not have particularly kind parting words when asked about Kent’s resignation on Tuesday, saying, “I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.”

The commander-in-chief added, “It’s a good thing he’s out, because he said that Iran was not a threat.”

Kent had claimed in his letter that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

The Republican and Army combat veteran, who lost his wife, Shannon, in 2019 when she was killed in a suicide bombing while serving in Manbij, Syria, blasted Trump’s shift on foreign policy and said he had been targeted by a misinformation campaign to launch the war in Iran.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rushed to dismiss Kent’s claims in a lengthy post on X, while Gabbard, 44, issued her own statement saying Trump had concluded that Iran posed an imminent threat after “carefully reviewing” intelligence her office had provided—stopping short of making that claim herself.

Vance and Gabbard—both of whom are Iraq War veterans—have been uncharacteristically silent since Trump made the decision to attack Iran more than two weeks ago.

The vice president, whose political reputation was built on his opposition to foreign intervention, has expressed private doubts about the president’s war, according to reports, even as he seeks to show public solidarity with Trump.

“The Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions unquestionably endangered the U.S. and President Trump’s leadership is making our country stronger and safer,” a Vance spokesman told the Post on Tuesday.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jd-vance-played-key-part-in-anti-war-bombshell-resignation-plot-joe-kent-and-tulsi-gabbard/?

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Pam Bondi’s DOJ Forced to Lower Hiring Standards After Lawyers Quit in Droves

Thousands of attorneys and staff members have left since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is recruiting prosecutors with no experience following a mass exodus of thousands of employees since President Donald Trump took office for the second time.

An estimated 5,500 attorneys and staff members have quit, been fired, or taken buyouts, leaving widespread vacancies across the department, the American Bar Association reported in November.

Two-thirds of the attorneys in the DOJ division tasked with defending Trump’s signature policies have left, Reuters reported in July, while the civil rights division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota have hemorrhaged prosecutors over the department’s handling of Trump’s mass deportation operation.

To fill the void, the DOJ has now lowered its hiring standards, Bloomberg Law reported.

Incoming federal prosecutors previously needed to have at least one year of experience to be eligible to apply for open roles, with many offices adopting their own, stricter rules requiring at least three years of legal practice.

As of this month, the DOJ has suspended the one-year minimum requirement and is allowing U.S. attorney’s offices to accept candidates straight out of law school.

A March 13 memo announcing the rule change said the suspension was “implemented due to an exigent hiring need for attorneys across the Department,” according to Bloomberg.

Public postings for assistant U.S. attorney openings in Minnesota, South Florida, Montana, Alaska, and Louisiana require applicants to have just a law degree and an active state bar membership.

Other U.S. attorney’s offices are still requiring one to three years of experience.

A DOJ spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement that the DOJ was “proud to empower young and passionate prosecutors and offer attorneys at every level the opportunity to invest their talents into keeping their communities safe.”

The Daily Beast has also reached out for comment.

The new standards come as the DOJ has increasingly abandoned its traditional mission of enforcing the nation’s laws and administering justice, and instead begun posturing as the president’s personal law firm.

Experienced prosecutors have clashed with DOJ leadership over the administration’s efforts to prosecute Trump’s political enemies despite a lack of evidence, its case against journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, and its failure to investigate the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal immigration agents.

In January, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller shared a post on X.com saying the DOJ was recruiting lawyers who “support President Trump.”

“If you want to combat fraud, crime and illegal immigration, reach out,” he wrote. “Patriots needed.”

Federal law prohibits the government from discriminating against job candidates based on their political affiliation.

But the lawyers who remain at the understaffed U.S. attorney’s offices have revealed they’re facing massive legal backlogs and toxic working conditions, including a lack of training.

Last month, a rogue ICE attorney said convincing the government to follow court orders was like “pulling teeth” and begged a federal judge to hold her in contempt

“The system sucks. This job sucks. I wish you could hold me in contempt so that I could get 24 hours of sleep,” said Julie Le, who has since left the federal government.

The DOJ has blamed the situation on “rogue judges.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pam-bondis-doj-forced-to-lower-hiring-standards-after-lawyers-quit-in-droves/?

ps:Genius at work once again??????

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Pentagon Pete Branded Completely Clueless During Intel Briefings

“I am embarrassed for him,” says one lawmaker who’s attended the briefings.

A Democratic representative who has been present at Pete Hegseth’s classified congressional briefings on the Iran war says the defense secretary can barely get past the script.

James Walkinshaw, 43—who serves on the Military and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform—said he has seen Hegseth, 45, in classified sessions and comes away “embarrassed for him.”

The Virginia Democrat said the defense secretary “can do nothing beyond read the script,” cannot handle detailed questions, and does not understand the strategy, tactical picture, or operational issues.

When asked by Pablo Manriquez of Pablo Reports on the Meidas Network just “how embarrassing” he found Hegseth, particularly in his “alarming” press conferences, Walkinshaw replied, “Not just the press conferences.”

He added: “I see Pete Hegseth in classified briefings and I am embarrassed for him. He can do nothing beyond read the script that’s given him.

“He can’t answer detailed questions. He doesn’t understand the strategy, not that there is one, he doesn’t understand the tactical or operational questions.

“He is in way the hell over his head.”

Hegseth’s public appearances have already been widely criticized as the former Fox News host seems to try to bluff his way through the Trump administration’s seemingly incoherent strategy and messy messaging on the Iran conflict, which is now in its third week.On March 2, as Trump’s war entered its opening days, Hegseth insisted “we didn’t start this war,” refused to define an endgame, would not rule out boots on the ground, and grew prickly when reporters pressed for basic answers. He appeared to answer mostly from a friendly, pre-selected press pool.

Hegseth also snapped at NBC’s Courtney Kube that hers was a “typical NBC sort of, gotcha type question” when she asked how long the operation might last. He suggested the public did not need to know what the Pentagon would or would not do, at one point railing against “you—the enemy” in comments directed at the press.

His messaging only got more confusing as the war pressed on. On March 10, Hegseth told reporters “our will is endless” before almost immediately insisting the war was “not endless.” His comments only deepened uncertainty over the Trump administration’s intended timeline and fueled concerns the operation was sliding toward the very mission creep Trump had promised to avoid.

By March 13, Hegseth’s performance had spiraled into open media warfare.

After U.S. Central Command announced that at least four crew members from a KC-135 crash in western Iraq had died, Hegseth opened his Pentagon appearance by raging at CNN, moaning about TV banners, and floating more “patriotic” headlines he thought networks should run instead. Photographers were also blocked from briefings following complaints from his team about “unflattering” pictures.

All six crew members aboard the KC-135 have since been confirmed dead.

The administration’s messaging on Iran has also come apart at the seams as fractures have been revealed among top officials. On Tuesday, Joe Kent, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in protest, saying Iran had posed no imminent threat.

And on Wednesday, Iran’s foreign minister pushed back against President Trump’s claims that the country wants to negotiate, saying Tehran’s nuclear doctrine is unlikely to change and demanding that any post-war traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will have to meet Iranian and regional conditions.

The Associated Press, citing shipping data, reported that only 89 ships crossed the strait between March 1 and 15, far below the prewar norm of roughly 100 to 135 passages a day, even as some cargo and Iranian exports continued to move.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pete-branded-completely-clueless-during-intel-briefings/?

ps:Another genius at work!!!!!

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Panicked Officials Preparing for Trump’s War Going Nuclear

The World Health Organization hopes the conflict does not escalate into the “worst-case scenario.”

Officials at the World Health Organization are preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump’s war with Iran could escalate into a nuclear catastrophe.Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, told Politico that U.N. officials are monitoring the region in case the U.S. or Israel targets one of Iran’s nuclear sites, adding that officials are “vigilant” about how far the conflict could escalate.

“The worst-case scenario is a nuclear incident, and that’s something that worries us the most,” Balkhy said. “As much as we prepare, there’s nothing that can prevent the harm that will come… the region’s way—and globally if this eventually happens—and the consequences are going to last for decades.”

Balkhy said WHO staff are preparing for several possible scenarios, including an attack on a nuclear facility or the use of a nuclear weapon. “We are thinking about it, and we’re just really hoping that it does not happen,” she said.

As part of those preparations, the WHO is reminding staff of protocols for responding to a nuclear incident, including how to offer guidance to officials about the long-term health risks linked to radiation exposure.

“I think those who read the history of previous incidents, whether intentional or accidental, are very aware of what we’re talking about,” Balkhy said.

Radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was blamed for a sharp rise in thyroid cancer and other diseases in surrounding regions for years after the explosion. As many as 240,000 people are estimated to have died as a result of the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

In response, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the Daily Beast: “President Trump is addressing the long-term threat that the terrorist Iranian regime poses to America and our allies. This is a perfect example of how WHO has become an incredible organization that no one takes seriously.”

Trump has justified the war in Iran by claiming the country is close to acquiring a nuclear bomb—something Tehran has vehemently denied—while also accusing it of plotting attacks on the U.S.

This comes despite the president previously boasting that the U.S. had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities during July 2025 airstrikes.

Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday, saying Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the U.S.

Trump has rejected suggestions that Israel could be the one to use a nuclear weapon against Iran.

“Israel wouldn’t do that. Israel would never do that,” Trump told reporters in the White House East Room.

The president was asked about the possibility of nuclear weapons being used after his cryptocurrency czar, David Sacks, raised concerns on the All-In Podcast about a potential “escalatory approach” in the conflict. “Israel could get seriously destroyed,” Sacks said. “And then you have to worry about Israel escalating the war by contemplating using a nuclear weapon.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/panicked-officials-preparing-for-donald-trumps-iran-war-going-nuclear/?

ps:Not sure God will allow that to happen??

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Republican Warns Trump Move Would ‘Destroy’ the GOP

President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that the U.S. would consider leaving NATO.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon has warned that the GOP could face a “civil war” and risk being “destroyed” if President Donald Trump attempts to withdraw from or dismantle NATO.

Bacon told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on The Source on Tuesday that Trump is “wrong” to say he can leave NATO without congressional approval

The congressman then added his warning about a “civil war” breaking out in the party if the president did take steps to break away from NATO.

The congressman further warned that the Republican Party could erupt into a “civil war” if the president moves to pull the U.S. out of NATO.

“If he broke up NATO on his own, it would be a civil war in the Republican caucus or the conference most of us would find that totally unacceptable.

“And I‘m not alone,” he said. “There‘s a large group of us that believe in our alliances and standing up for freedom and pushing back on China and Russia. We don‘t want war with these guys, but you‘ve got to be strong. And for if he went in and somehow, you know destroyed or tore up NATO, it would probably destroy the party for many years. There would be many that will never forgive that.”

“It would destroy the Republican Party?” Collins then asked.

“I think it would implode,” Bacon replied.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

It comes after Trump said on Tuesday during a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin that leaving NATO is “something that we should think about.”

“It’s certainly something that we should think about. I don’t need Congress for that decision,” Trump said, adding: “I have nothing currently in mind but I’m not exactly thrilled.”

Trump was responding to questions about his demand that NATO allies help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil choke point, amid his war with Iran.

Trump has called on NATO members and other influential nations—including the U.K., France, Japan, South Korea, and even China—to contribute warships or other naval assistance to secure the Strait, warning that NATO could face “a very bad future” if partners fail to step up.

However, many allies have resisted these appeals. Major European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. have declined to deploy naval forces to the region, with several emphasizing that the crisis does not constitute their conflict.

During a press conference this week, Trump addressed the absence of international support from NATO allies.

“If we ever needed help, they won’t be there for us,” he said.

He also raged at NATO countries in a Truth Social post this week.

“We no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!” he wrote.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-don-bacon-warns-trump-nato-move-would-destroy-the-gop/?

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• 🚢 President Trump has waived requirements that only U.S. ships can carry cargo between domestic ports, as officials look to ease access to fuel and supplies while the Strait of Hormuz remains throttled. Go deeper.

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Irreconcilable

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After ordering the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani killed in 2020, Donald Trump claimed that the military officer had been “plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.” But that justification didn’t pass muster with then–Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard had long been explicit in her insistence that a president cannot unilaterally decide to attack another country in anticipatory self-defense. She’d even co-sponsored the No More Presidential Wars Act in 2018, which stated that the president must “seek congressional authorization prior to any engagement of the U.S. Armed Forces against Syria, Iran, or Russia.” It was not surprising when, in spite of Trump’s determination that Soleimani had posed an imminent threat, Gabbard insisted that the president had “committed an illegal and unconstitutional act.” Gabbard also warned that a war against Iran in particular would be “so costly and devastating” that it would make the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “look like a picnic.”

Yet now that Gabbard serves as director of national intelligence to a president waging war on Iran, she is using her position to defend Trump’s unilateral intervention. The president’s recent determination of an imminent threat in Iran seems to be enough for her: Posting to social media yesterday from her official government X account, she wrote, “Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people” and “as our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people and our country.” Gabbard repeated this argument in a Senate hearing on worldwide threats today.

Lots of Trump supporters, inside and outside the government, have walked back their concerns about the legality or wisdom of waging war with Iran. But Gabbard’s prior critique and her current advocacy for Trump are irreconcilable—and instructive. Trump won the 2024 election in part by signaling to a war-weary country that he would be a “president of peace” who put “America First”––a message that some skeptics of foreign intervention found credible because he was giving leadership roles to anti-interventionist politicians such as Gabbard and J. D. Vance. As it turns out, Gabbard not only failed to influence the Trump administration in a way that prevented war with Iran; she is now giving the president cover for it.

The larger lesson, for those who oppose unilateral and unlawful wars, is that neither a president’s anti-war rhetoric nor his appointments of foreign-intervention skeptics are valuable indicators of how he will act. Members of the executive branch cannot be trusted to leave the war power in the hands of Congress, as the Constitution and the rule of law demands. When people serve at the pleasure of the president, the incentives to empower him are simply too strong. What’s more, even if they take the unusual step of resigning in protest, as Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, just did over Iran, the president remains the boss. (It’s telling that even in resigning, Kent did not break from the president, and instead relied on conspiracy theories to argue that Trump is not to blame for the war that he started.)

The Obama era teaches this same lesson. Candidate Barack Obama, a constitutional-law professor and early opponent of the Iraq War, said all of the things about executive power that anti-interventionists wanted to hear. Then President Obama waged new wars unilaterally while asserting extraordinary powers for the executive branch. And he was often assisted not by Dick Cheney–esque avatars of extreme presidential power, but by erstwhile skeptics of executive power such as Harold Koh. The Republican-led House rejected a resolution to support U.S. action in Libya, but members of Congress declined to stop Obama by cutting off funds or to punish him with impeachment.

More recently, a faction of anti-war populists who have complained about the “establishment” interventions of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations came to believe that elevating people such as Trump, Vance, and Gabbard was the solution. Instead, Trump is governing as a hawkish interventionist; as a result, the 2028 primaries are likely to feature anti-war candidates in both parties.

Voters who are skeptical of foreign intervention should stop investing their hopes in presidents and shift their time, energy, and focus to House and Senate contests. Congress is big and messy; the average voter may worry that the makeup of seats is harder to change than the outcome of one presidential race. But Congress alone can mete out consequences to presidents who pursue unlawful wars. And doing so is core to its duties, even though the legislators now in office have failed to discharge them.

In a bygone generation, Grover Norquist became famous for coercing hundreds of legislators into signing a pledge that they wouldn’t raise taxes. Perhaps a congressional majority will one day have pledged, “I swear to vote for the prompt impeachment and removal of any president who attacks another country without a declaration of war, unless Congress judges that he or she preempted an imminent attack on America.”

Presently, the majority of Congress is focused on pleasing the president. But the only way to stop presidents from unilaterally starting new wars is to elect a Congress that threatens to oust them if they do—and means it.

Related:

• The first big administration defection over Iran
• Voters who oppose wars of choice have nowhere to turn.

[phkrause]

D.C.'s hottest ticket

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

President Trump tells Axios it's the "hottest ticket that I've ever seen," Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes. Trump is talking about UFC Freedom 250, the Ultimate Fighting Championship night on the White House's South Lawn on June 14. Why it matters: Donors, lobbyists, members of Congress and well-connected fans are clamoring for tickets. But in a Trumpian twist of marketing, the tickets' elusiveness is building buzz for the event on the president's birthday, and Flag Day, in the runup to America's 250th on July Fourth. 🖼️ The big picture: While Trump deals with a war in Iran and rising gas prices at home, the president seems downright giddy that UFC Freedom 250 gives him a night of pageantry despite the optics. There'll be 5,000 VIP seats around the UFC's famed Octagon. But many will go to military personnel, leaving perhaps just a couple thousand — and far fewer cageside — for the well-connected. Top lobbyists and White House-connected operatives are inundated with requests, sources said. One of them told us they're sick of being asked about the fight. Republicans began flooding the White House with inquiries about VIP tickets almost immediately after the event was announced last summer. One senator asked if they and their entire family could attend. A GOP fundraiser close to the White House received dozens of direct messages on social media asking how they could get in. Trump himself has been fielding ticket requests, a person familiar with the event prep said. 🔎 Zoom in: UFC CEO Dana White announced last week that 85,000 tickets will be given away to the public for an outdoor viewing experience with big video screens on the Ellipse, just south of the White House grounds. Six UFC fights will be held at the event, which will be streamed on Paramount+. White has been meeting with Trump every few months to discuss plans for the event. Between the lines: How the Trump team chooses who gets the prized seats will speak volumes about who has juice in the Trump network. Big donors to Trump's ballroom project, his allied super PAC and his inaugural committee almost certainly will get a crack at seats, Republican operatives predict. The same goes for Trump's closest Capitol Hill allies and his longtime close friends.

[phkrause]

Panicking Trump Busted Trying to Blame Ally for His Monumental War Screw-Up

Trump suffered a full public meltdown over his war which is spiralling out of control.

President Donald Trump’s claims that he had no prior knowledge of Israeli strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure have been contradicted by sources inside both the U.S. and Israeli governments.

On Wednesday, Israel inflicted “extensive damage” on the South Pars gas site—part of the world’s largest natural gas field, located in the Persian Gulf and the Iranian regime’s primary source of income. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded with a warning of “consequences beyond control, the scope of which would engulf the entire world.”

Tehran then struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial zone—hit twice—a Persian Gulf facility responsible for a significant share of global liquefied natural gas and gas-to-liquid production. Iran also launched missiles toward Saudi Arabia, which were reportedly intercepted, with shrapnel landing near an oil refinery. Brent crude, the international benchmark, surged more than 7 percent to $111.23 a barrel.

That evening, Trump, 79, posted on Truth Social claiming he had been blindsided. “The United States knew nothing about this particular attack,” he wrote.

The Wall Street Journal and Axios both reported otherwise. Multiple sources from the upper reaches of the U.S. and Israeli governments told the Journal that Trump personally approved the strike before deciding to deny any knowledge of it. According to those sources, the attack was designed to pressure Iran into reopening the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow shipping lane connecting Gulf fuel to global markets, which has been effectively closed by Iranian strikes since Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28.

The Qatar angle made the contradiction harder to contain. After Ras Laffan was hit, Qatari officials angrily demanded answers from Washington about what prior knowledge the U.S. had. White House envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East point man, scrambled to arrange a call between the president and the Qatari emir.

An hour after the second strike, Trump’s Truth Social post went up. U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios it was inaccurate—Qatar had been blindsided, they said, but Trump had coordinated the attack directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Officials told Axios that Trump now believes Tehran has gotten the message. He doubled down on this message in his Truth Social post, warning Iran that if it retaliated again, the U.S. would wipe out the entire South Pars operation.

“I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications that it will have on the future of Iran,” Trump said, “but if Qatar’s LNG [liquified natural gas] is again attacked, I will not hesitate to do so.”

Markets were less sanguine. “This latest escalation feels like a turning point for markets, because the conflict is no longer just about military headlines or Strait of Hormuz closure,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo in Singapore. “It is now hitting the plumbing of the global energy system.”

The White House referred the Beast to Trump’s Truth Social post when approached for comment. The Department of Defense and the Israeli government have also been contacted for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cowardly-trump-busted-trying-to-blame-ally-for-his-monumental-war-screw-up/?