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

April 18

Trump Admin Hands Mega-Deal to Company Backed by Jared Kushner’s War-Profiteer Brother

Joshua Kushner looks set to cash in on Trump’s wars even as the president leans on Kushner’s brother, who’s married to Trump’s daughter, to help end them.

The Trump administration just handed a huge deal to a defense firm backed by the brother of the president’s son-in-law.

The Defense Department has announced a new contract with Anduril Industries, Inc.—which counts Joshua Kushner, younger brother of Jared Kushner, among its major funders—to provide up to $20 billion in military equipment and systems.

Large portions of the full contract notice, reviewed by the Daily Beast, are redacted. It nevertheless shows the Pentagon has now effectively agreed to treat Anduril as a go-to resource for computer systems, military hardware, and data infrastructure, as well as support and training for those services, over the next decade.

Joshua Kushner, who at 40 is five years younger than his elder brother Jared, is one of the wealthiest venture capitalists of his generation, boasting an estimated net worth of $5.2 billion. He is married to supermodel Karlie Kloss, with whom he has three children. They share space in at least three luxury properties in Manhattan, Miami, and Malibu.

Joshua holds stakes in Anduril, a private tech company valued at upward of $60 billion, through his New York venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, which he founded in 2009. Thrive has not publicly disclosed its exact holding in Anduril, but co-led a $4 billion funding round for the group just days before the Pentagon announced the new deal earlier in March.

Jared, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, previously held a stake in Thrive, but sold his shares following the 2016 election to avoid potential conflicts of interest while serving as a senior adviser during the president’s first stint in the White House.

The elder Kushner holds no official position in the second Trump administration. Trump has, nevertheless, repeatedly tapped him to help with negotiations in areas related to defense, including the wars between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, and the U.S. and Iran.

At the heart of the deal appears to be the group’s Lattice OS, a cutting-edge AI command system that works at high speed to detect and respond to real-world threats without requiring any human input. Other products manufactured by the company include interceptor and surveillance drones, sentry towers, and loitering munitions, capable of autonomously hunting down and eliminating targets across hundreds of miles.

The Pentagon awarded the contract to the Kushner-backed group under what’s known as a “sole source” framework, allowing the department to sidestep normal requirements for open competition among potential contractors if it determines that only one company can do the job.

Officials did post a public notice in December, inviting vendors to come forward and discuss the opportunity, but gave them just three weeks to respond over the holiday period. Only one of the four companies that got in touch replied to the DOD’s follow-up queries, confirming it could not match Anduril’s offerings. The Pentagon says it took silence from the remaining three, one of which turned out not to be a defense contractor at all, as a sign they couldn’t either.

The Kushners are not Anduril’s only link to the White House. Palmer Luckey, who co-founded the group in 2017, has hosted high-value fundraisers for Trump, one of which charged $100,000 per ticket, and donated to dozens of Republican candidates and committees. His co-founder, Trae Stephens, served on Trump’s transition team ahead of the president’s first term, and was reportedly being considered for a top Pentagon job in the run-up to his second.

Trump’s son-in-law, in addition to his informal role as the president’s mediator in war negotiations, has also been keenly involved in broader diplomatic talks across the Middle East. His sizable interests in the region have raised alarm among critics, given that he is not subject to the transparency or oversight requirements typically applied to formal government roles.

Jared Kushner is currently facing a congressional inquiry after Democrats accused him of soliciting billions from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and other Gulf monarchies while leading diplomatic negotiations with both Russia and Iran. The White House has called that probe the “same, tired narrative,” and said the extended Trump family member was “generously volunteering his time to advance the president’s agenda.”

It follows reports that officials in Qatar, whose royal family gifted Trump a $400 million Boeing 747 jetliner last year, feared they would receive unfavorable treatment from any future MAGA administration if they did not invest in Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners. Qatar had initially declined when the firm launched in 2021, but ultimately poured in around $200 million ahead of Trump’s re-election.

Trump’s own sons, Eric and Donald Jr., have also significantly expanded their footprint in the region during the president’s second term. Dar Global, a London firm with ties to the Saudi royal family, has pumped more than $20 million into the Trump Organization over the past year in licensing fees alone for two Trump towers in Saudi Arabia.

A government ethics watchdog noted in February that the family’s foreign property income now looks set to “explode,” potentially doubling in Trump’s second term alone the more than $430 million already earned from overseas developments over the prior decade, with much of that income from real estate developments in the Gulf region.

The Anduril deal also comes amid a string of accusations that figures close to the Trump administration have sought to profit from the president’s increasing aggression on the world stage, such as reports that Trump’s sons have made hefty investments in the drone industry over the past few weeks as his war in the Middle East ramps up demand in the sector.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced allegations last month that one of his financial brokers had inquired about defense sector investments in the weeks before Trump launched his attacks on Iran, raising concerns of possible insider trading. The Pentagon dismissed those reports as “entirely false and fabricated.”

The Daily Beast has further revealed that Senator Markwayne Mullin, Trump’s pick to replace Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary, purchased substantial stocks in defense contractors and oil giants just five days before the president’s lightning invasion of Venezuela earlier in January.

Mullin was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time, which receives classified briefings on U.S. military operations. He is likely to have made up to $35,000 from those investments, which will only have climbed further following the outbreak of war with Iran.

More broadly, multiple reports suggest patterns of suspicious trading activity around Trump’s war-related decisions, including $580 million in oil futures flooding the market roughly 16 minutes before the president announced a pause in strikes on Iranian power plants, as well as unusual surges in wagers on Polymarket, a cryptocurrency betting platform, ahead of attacks against both the Islamic regime and Venezuela.

A spokesperson for the Trump administration previously denied that there was anything untoward behind those bets, stating “the only special interest guiding the Trump Administration’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people.”

The White House declined to comment on the Anduril deal. Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said the department “awards contracts based on merit, partnering with U.S.-based companies to equip our warfighters with the world’s most advanced and reliable capabilities.”

Anduril, Thrive Capital, and Jared Kushner’s representatives have been approached for comment, but did not respond in advance of this story’s publication.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-admin-hands-20b-contract-to-weapons-group-backed-by-jared-kushners-little-brother/?

April 18

Trump Uses Secret Billionaire Meeting to Plot Next Egomaniacal Move

The legacy-obsessed president is pushing to put his name on everything.

President Donald Trump’s constant urge to etch his name on everything under the sun shows no signs of abating.

The legacy-obsessed Trump, 79, pushed for his name to be slapped on New York City’s Penn Station during a secret meeting with billionaire New York Knicks owner James Dolan last week, Page Six reports.

The New York real estate mogul-turned president is apparently itching to stamp his name onto yet another corner of public life, after already getting it plastered across the Kennedy Center, Navy battleships, the Institute of Peace, the Palm Beach airport, and more.

It’s unclear what Dolan, who owns the Madison Square Garden arena above Penn Station, said in response to Trump’s egomaniacal pitch to rename the nation’s busiest railway station after himself.

Trump, who took control of long-planned efforts to revamp Penn Station from the MTA last year and handed them over to Amtrak and the Department of Transportation, is weighing one proposal to move Madison Square Garden and build a fountain in its place, Gothamist reported last month. The plan can only move forward with approval from Dolan, who has previously rejected the idea.

When reached for comment, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast in a statement, “President Trump is focused on saving our country – not garnering recognition.”

“While we don’t comment on private meetings that may or may not have happened, President Trump undoubtedly supports a strong and revitalized Penn Station that can better serve New York and New Yorkers,” Ingle added.

The Daily Beast has reached out to Dolan’s Madison Square Garden Company for comment.

Trump previously sought to make the renaming happen through another backroom deal, offering New York Senator Chuck Schumer the release of funds for major infrastructure projects that he has withheld in return for having Washington-Dulles International Airport and the Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station renamed after himself, according to reports.

The president later insisted that Schumer had offered the renaming, a claim the Senate minority leader quickly shot down as an “absolute lie.”

Trump then pivoted to dismissing reports that he sought to attach his name to the station as “FAKE NEWS.”

“The naming of PENN Station (I LOVE Pennsylvania, but it is a direct competitor to New York, and “eating New York’s lunch!”) to TRUMP STATION, was brought up by certain politicians and construction union heads, not me - IT IS JUST MORE FAKE NEWS!” he wrote on Truth Social on Feb. 16.

The Trump administration suspended $18 billion in funds for New York City infrastructure projects last October amid the government shutdown—though some of the money has since started flowing again following legal challenges.

Asked about a potential renaming of the Midtown transit hub, which honors the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the state’s Governor Kathy Hochul said last month, “It will over my dead body.”

“We are not messing with that man’s memory,” she added.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-uses-secret-james-dolan-meeting-to-plot-next-egomaniacal-move/?

April 18

Here Are the Real Sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome

Trump supporters need to look closer than they think.

If anybody suffers from a derangement linked to President Donald Trump, it is not the opponents who viscerally object to our current president’s malignant narcissism, unending lies and determined manipulation of what is un-American in us.

Actual Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is among those who so blindly support our current president. They imagine that opposition to him arises not from simple decency but from conspiracies hatched against him simply because he is Trump.

In one manifestation of real TDS, Trumpers discerned a sinister plot at work when longtime Obama strategist 71-year-old David Axelrod was granted an April 9 audience with Pope Loe XIV at the Vatican.

Axelrod is Jewish, but he feels a bond with the Pope as a fellow son of Chicago and dedicated White Sox fan.

Axelrod is also the father of a developmentally disabled daughter who found secular salvation and happiness in a remarkable residential facility founded by a nun on the city’s North Side and run under the auspices of Catholic Charities.

“For the first time, her days were rife with activities and her life was filled with friends,” Axelrod wrote in The New York Times in 2021. “While she has the care and supervision she continues to need — and always will — she also is more independent than we ever could have hoped.”

Axelrod added, “Most of all, she is happy. Genuinely happy.”

Axelrod’s daughter celebrates her birthday every year by going with her friends to a White Sox game. He and his wife, Susan Landau Axelrod, marked last year’s outing by presenting each in the group with a memento honoring the team’s new number one fan, the recently elevated Pope XIV.

“We gave them all Sox jerseys they were selling with Pope Leo and the number 14 on the back,” Axelrod told the Daily Beast.

Axelrod and his wife took pictures of their happy daughter along with her buddies and arrived at the Vatican with a perfect gift.

“We have him photos of them with their backs to the camera and facing,” Axelrod said.

In more recent days, some Catholic sufferers of real TDS suggested online that there was something suspect about a Jewish Democratic political strategist getting a papal audience even a lifelong Catholic would have trouble securing. But the difference in faiths may have actually helped Axelrod. Leo is proving to be a pope who embraces the Latin origin of pontiff. Pontifex means bridge builder.

The real TDS sufferers further suggest that Axelrod traveled to Rome to prepare for an Obama sitdown with Pope Leo to further a Democrat scheme.

“Barack Obama doesn’t need me. If he wants to visit with the Pope," Axelrod told The Daily Beast on Thursday, “I suspect he would be received. He doesn’t need any intermediary.”

Axelrod says it is equally silly to propose that his papal audience had anything to do with the Pope’s criticism of Trump’s bombing of Iran.

“For the longest time, I’d been trying to find a way to get to see him,” Axelrod told the Daily Beast on Wednesday. “Finally, a couple months ago, I got a date, an audience... I sure didn’t know when, when I got that date, that we would be at war.”

Axelrod played no role in the Pope’s opposition to war and advocacy for peace. But real TDS sufferers such as Republican analyst Hal Lambert saw a sinister plot.

“This is 100% political, ok? This is all about trying to hurt President Trump’s Catholic vote during the midterms and Republicans in the midterms,” Lambert said on CNN on Monday. “If you look at what... play out the dots here. David Axelrod goes and visits Pope Leo last week. They’re talking about Obama going to visit Pope Leo. Pope Leo is from Chicago. All of a sudden, now, Pope Leo is out attacking Trump and the policies of the United States and Israel.”

Lambert further noted that three cardinals had voiced opposition to Trump’s immigration policies.

‘Hal, there are just a lot of flaws in this argument,” CNN host Abby Phillip told him.

“There’s no flaws,” Lambert insisted.”Axelrod is the chief strategist for Obama. The pope is saying he’s not political. Why is he meeting with the chief strategist for both Obama’s campaigns and in the White House?’

Lambert told the Daily Beast on Thursday, “[Axelrod’s] not Catholic, he’s not Protestant. He was born Jewish…They’re not talking theology.“

He continued, “Within days, you have three Cardinals, come out and do a 60 Minutes interview. And then you have the Pope ratchet up his attacks on Trump. So, I mean, I’m just laying out the facts of what happened.”

The Trump administration continued to dismiss Pope Leo’s pronouncements. Vice President JD Vance, a recent Catholic convert, said the pope “should be careful” when talking about theology.

“In some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality,” Vance advised, as if that did not include war and social justice.

Down in Miami, the Trump administration canceled $11 million contract for a Catholic Charities program that had tended to unaccompanied migrant children for decades. The move raised the specter that other Catholic programs might be targeted.

On Thursday morning, the news site Catholic Arena posted on X photos of Axelrod and his wife meeting with the Pope. They are presenting him with the birthday photos of their daughter and her friends in the White Sox jerseys with Leo and 14 on the back.

Numerous sufferers of real TDS posted comments.

One read, “So, doesn’t take long to have a private few minutes with the Holy father and pass private messages from prominent democrats or coordinate strategy.”

Another read, “LOL, a Jewish man who has never met Leo and yet gets a private meeting with Leo to give him baseball photos….OMG! Nice AI generated pictures as well! You liars are going to burn in Hades.”

And another, “So this non-Catholic private citizen gets over an hour with the Pope just because his daughter is in a Catholic run home? When do the parents of the other children there get an audience? Nothing at all to see here!”

And another, “If I was planning to meet and recruit the Poope (sic) into a conspiracy to overthrow a sitting US president, I’d want to make that meeting appear like it was no big deal. Maybe even exchange a few benign souvenirs in a photo op.”

And yet another, “Sure thing: a notorious political operative (and non-Catholic) like Axelrod travelled all the way from the U.S. to Italy and went through all the necessary hassle to get a private audience with the Pope, just to give him a couple photos of the White Sox. Seems legit.”

Or maybe just deranged.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/here-are-the-real-sufferers-of-trump-derangement-syndrome/?

April 19

Trump challenges Pope Leo’s critique of Iran war amid the pontiff’s African peace tour

Pope Leo XIV began his papacy nearly a year ago seemingly content to stay out of the headlines. This past week, however, he has been constantly in the media spotlight, embarking on an ambitious four-nation trip to Africa while engaging in a dramatic exchange of words with U.S. President Donald Trump. It has changed the world’s perception of Leo and his mission. Read more.

Why this matters:

The pope, who had customarily avoided singling out world leaders for criticism, made clear that he considered aspects of Trump’s approach to the war with Iran “unacceptable.” Leo held firm, even as Trump assailed him as “weak” and soft on crime.
In Algeria, Leo highlighted themes of peace and unity, promoting Christian-Muslim coexistence in the majority Muslim nation at a time of global conflict, and honoring the locally born inspiration of his spirituality, St. Augustine.
In Cameroon, Leo blasted the “handful of tyrants” who are ravaging Earth with war and exploitation, preaching a message of peace in the epicenter of a separatist conflict that's considered one of the world’s most neglected crises.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

April 19

FISA Section 702: Will Congress Let Trump Keep Spying On Americans? (With Ken Klippenstein)

David Sirota speaks with independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein about the FBI’s new NSPM-7 “pre-crime” center — and the upcoming vote in Congress that would allow President Trump to keep spying on Americans without a warrant.

https://www.youtube.com/live/AcV1Ol0M9yg?

April 19

Families Fume Over Pathetic Meals for American Forces in Trump’s War

A picture of a gray slab of mystery meat has sparked outrage.

U.S. Navy families have spoken out about the state of the food being served to their sons and daughters amid President Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East.

Food stocks, along with morale, have plummeted in the region following the U.S. Postal Service’s temporary suspension of mail delivery to 27 military ZIP codes. Packages already in transit are reportedly being held without a clear delivery timeline.

Crew on board aircraft carriers the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald R. Ford are beginning to feel the effects. Pictures obtained by the Center on Conscience & War and published by USA Today show the grim meals the sailors and Marines are being served.

One sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln said, “The food is tasteless, and there’s not nearly enough, and they’re hungry all the time,” one community organizer trying to get packages to the afflicted fighters reported.

One image shows a dry patty, plastic-looking carrots, and a slab of processed meat on a plastic tray. Another now-viral image shows shredded meat and a single tortilla on a mostly empty tray.

“We have the strongest military in the world. You shouldn’t be running out of food, and you shouldn’t not be able to get mail on the ship,” Dan, 63, the father of a service member struggling with the situation told USA Today.

“The one thing we had over our adversaries [was] we fed our people,” Dan, who also served in the Marines and asked the paper to identify him only by his first name to shield his child from potential retaliation, added.

MAGA Rep. Randy Fine pledged to fix the issue in an X post laden with his regular dose of Islamophobia. “This is what we’re feeding our brave men and women overseas as they fight Muslim terror in Iran. I know everyone is trying, but our servicemembers deserve so much better than this. I’m going to work with our military to get this fixed ASAP,” he posted, sharing the images.

Dan’s daughter is aboard the USS Tripoli. The warships are tasked with enforcing the U.S. blockade of ships leaving Iranian ports, according to the U.S. Central Command, though they may be receiving new orders after President Donald Trump announced Friday morning that the Strait of Hormuz had reopened.

A Texas mother whose son, a Navy sailor, is also aboard the Tripoli, said her son has complained about hunger. Her family has spent at least $2,000 on care packages, she said, but none have reached her son due to the postal issues. She told USA Today that her son told her that he and his colleagues ration and share food.

Supplies “are going to get really low,” the sailor told his mother in messages seen by USA Today. He added that he doesn’t anticipate a restock until the ship returns from its mission.

“Morale is going to be at an all-time low,” he wrote.

Things are no better on the USS Gerald R. Ford, which, on April 15, broke the record for the longest deployment of any aircraft carrier since the Cold War, at 295 days.

It docked in Crete in the Mediterranean on March 23 after a laundry fire ravaged the ship. It is also reportedly plagued with plumbing problems.

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/families-fume-over-pathetic-meals-for-american-forces-in-trumps-war/?

April 19

Trump expects Iran deal this weekend

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Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Image

U.S. and Iranian negotiators will probably meet this weekend to hammer out a final peace deal, President Trump told Axios' Barak Ravid today.

Trump said over the phone: "The Iranians want to meet. They want to make a deal. I think a meeting will probably take place over the weekend. I think we will get a deal in the next day or two."

Multiple U.S. officials and other sources briefed on the negotiations have told Axios that significant progress has been made.

Yet gaps still remain on critical issues.

💸 One proposal under discussion: The U.S. would release $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds if Iran gives up its stockpile of enriched uranium. (Axios scoop.)

The plan also involves a moratorium on Iranian enrichment.

⚓️ Trump told Barak that he's not going to lift his Strait of Hormuz blockade until a deal is reached, and stressed he wants the strait open for everybody.

Iran announced today that it would open Hormuz for the rest of the ceasefire, which expires next Tuesday.
It's unclear if ships will brave the narrow waterway, given the uncertain conditions and threat of Iranian mines.

Two of President Trump's posts this morning. Screenshot: Truth Social

🇮🇱 Trump also said the deal will "make Israel safe" and stressed that "Israel is going to come out great" at the end of the war.

At the same time, he made clear he wants Israeli strikes on Lebanon to end: "Israel has to stop. They can't continue to blow buildings up. I'm not gonna allow it."

Some in the Israeli government oppose a deal and want to continue the wars in Iran and in Lebanon — though that likely won't be possible without Trump's approval.

Go deeper.

April 19

Grimm and Grimmer

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Donald Trump, as even some of his fiercest admirers will admit, is not always a paragon of personal virtue. Although the president’s aides sometimes treat him like he is a toddler, as the political scientist Daniel Drezner has observed, he’s not an especially well-behaved one. Trump often acts in ways that would result in detention or other punishment for an elementary-school student: bald-faced dishonesty, name-calling, unkindness, refusal to share, and an inability to use an inside voice. Put another way, Trump sometimes seems as though he missed out on all of the lessons that children are supposed to learn from fables and fairy tales. (Meanwhile, his administration is seeking to evict some lessons about tolerance from classrooms.) But perhaps that’s uncharitable: Trump isn’t ignoring those fables; he’s just taking different lessons away from them than the familiar ones. Here’s a set of classic stories and their morals, reinterpreted for MAGA political correctness.

“The Three Billy Goats Gruff”

Plot: Three brother goats must cross a bridge guarded by a malicious troll who wants to eat them. Walking in succession, they are able to trick the greedy troll into waiting for the third and largest brother, who throws the troll into the water, killing him. With the troll slain, the bridge is free for all to pass.

Moral: The goats could have saved time and made money by threatening to destroy the bridge and kill the troll, then proposing a joint venture with the troll to split the proceeds paid by those wishing to cross the bridge.

The Rainbow Fish

Plot: A fish is covered in beautiful iridescent scales. The scales make him very proud, but they also make him isolated in society, because other fish envy them and resent the Rainbow Fish for not sharing. After giving a single scale away, he makes his first friend. Soon, he has given away all of the scales except for one, and has created a tight-knit social group with the other fish.

Moral: Friendships are fundamentally transactional.

“Goldilocks and the Three Bears”

Plot: A family of three bears, upon preparing their breakfast, find it too hot to eat and decide to take a walk. When they return, they discover that a girl named Goldilocks has sampled their breakfast, sat in (and broken one of) their chairs, and is now sleeping in one of their beds. Goldilocks, startled by the bears’ arrival, jumps out the window and is never heard from again.

Moral: People with golden hair are entitled to whatever they want and must not face consequences for their actions, especially if those are official acts.

“The Pied Piper of Hamelin”

Plot: The burghers of a small German town beset with a rat infestation hire a man with a magical pipe to lure the rodents away, which he does, coaxing them to their death in a nearby river. But when he comes to collect his reward, the local authorities refuse to pay him. In retaliation, the piper uses his instrument to lure away the town’s children, who are never seen again.

Moral: Always pay vendors what they are owed. Charismatic European leaders are a threat to the future of your society.

“The Ant and the Grasshopper”

Plot: An industrious ant spends all summer gathering food for the cold months, while a lazy grasshopper dances and sings. Once winter hits, the grasshopper is cold and hungry, and goes begging for food from the ant, who refuses to share any of its bounty, upbraiding the grasshopper for failing to plan.

Moral: Ants are small and weak, and the grasshopper is entitled to destroy them and take the food he needs. He might also consider levying tariffs.

“Hansel and Gretel”

Plot: Two young children are abandoned in the wilderness by their parents, who cannot afford to feed them. They come to the house of a witch, who locks them up and plans to cook and eat them. But when the witch tries to put Hansel into the oven, Gretel pushes her in instead, burning her to death. The children, freed, take the witch’s treasure and return home with a means to live.
Moral: Unaccompanied minors are a violent danger and must be expelled.

“Rumpelstiltskin”

Plot: After a foolish miller falsely asserts that his daughter can spin straw into gold, the king imprisons her and says that he will marry her if the story is true and kill her if it is not. Weeping in her cell, she is visited by a magical imp who offers to turn straw into gold for her in return for her firstborn. The ruse works, and she marries the king and bears a child. The imp returns for the baby, and the queen is bereft. The imp agrees to give up his claim if she can guess his name, the wildly implausible “Rumpelstiltskin.” Although she cannot guess the name, she overhears him saying it to himself and is able to keep her child.

Moral: If you’re in the business of turning things into gold, trying to keep a low profile is counterproductive. Just plaster your name all over everything.

“Cinderella”

Plot: A girl is mistreated by her stepsisters, who call her Cinderella. One day, an invitation comes for all young women to come to a ball so that the prince can choose a wife. The wicked stepsisters force Cinderella to stay home working, but her fairy godmother provides a magical gown and carriage—with a warning that she must leave by midnight, when she will revert to her normal appearance. At the ball, the prince is smitten but cannot get her name before she dashes out just before midnight, leaving behind one glass slipper. The following day, he canvasses the kingdom until he finds the woman who fits the slipper and marries her. They live happily ever after.

Moral: This story’s message is perplexing, riddled with mysteries and contradictions. Why would it matter whether the shoe fits, and why would a wealthy prince want to stay married to the same person forever? And how big was the prince’s ballroom anyway?

Related:

April 20

White House Eyes Mythos

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei reportedly met yesterday with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to discuss government access to Mythos, an AI model designed to detect cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The meeting comes amid a legal battle over the Pentagon labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk, an unprecedented move against a US company.

Earlier this month, Anthropic shared Mythos with over 40 technology companies—including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft—to find and patch software bugs. The company says it will not release the model publicly, citing concerns Mythos could be used to exploit flaws in critical systems. The model has reportedly already uncovered thousands of bugs in popular software programs, such as a 27-year-old bug in an operating system widely incorporated into internet routers and firewalls.

The companies with access to Mythos call themselves Project Glasswing after the glasswing butterfly, which uses transparent wings to hide in plain sight (see here). The name is a nod to the bugs humans have never found within complex code.

April 20

Keystone Kash’s Endless Wild Booze Binges Spilled by Top Officials

Patel’s alleged drinking makes him a national security vulnerability, concerned officials said.

Kash Patel’s tenure as head of the FBI has been marked by excessive drinking, erratic behavior, and unexplained absences, more than two dozen people familiar with his conduct say.Patel’s actions, according to a bombshell report in The Atlantic, have often concerned other officials at the bureau and the Justice Department. His behavior has deteriorated to the point that some officials describe him as a national security risk.

Patel’s alleged boozing, FBI and DOJ officials told the outlet, has been concerning. Multiple times in the past year, his security detail had reportedly had trouble waking him up because he seemed to be drunk, according to information given to DOJ and White House officials.

Last year, there was even a request for “breaching equipment”—specialized tools used by SWAT teams, law enforcement, and the military to break through fortified rooms and structures—because Patel’s security detail couldn’t reach him behind locked doors.

In the early months of Patel’s stint, meetings and briefings reportedly had to be moved back because he had been drinking the night before, according to six current and former officials and others who know his schedule.

The 46-year-old FBI director, who drew headlines in February for chugging beer in the locker room of the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team after their gold medal win in Milan, often gets drunk at Ned’s, a private club in Washington, D.C., while around White House and other Trump administration staff. He also gets drunk at Las Vegas’ Poodle Room, where he often spends time on the weekends, the report goes on.

Some at the FBI are concerned about what could happen if Patel is needed but is in a compromised state of mind. Those concerns intensified once President Donald Trump decided to launch a war against Iran.

“That’s what keeps me up at night,” one official told The Atlantic.

Furthermore, FBI officials and some in the Trump administration have wondered whether some of Patel’s missteps—like sharing incorrect information about the investigation into the killing of Charlie Kirk—were alcohol-related, the report says.

The DOJ’s ethics handbook states clearly that employees are “prohibited from habitually using alcohol or other intoxicants to excess.”

The Atlantic report cited interviews with more than 24 people, all of whom remained anonymous. Besides the current and former FBI officials, they include staffers and law enforcement and intelligence agencies, members of Congress, former advisers, political operatives, lobbyists, and even workers in the hospitality industry.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement to the Daily Beast, said that “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high-profile criminals have been put behind bars” under Trump and Patel. Patel, she added, “remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.”

The Daily Beast has also contacted the FBI and the DOJ for comment.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told the outlet: “Patel has accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years. Anonymously sourced hit pieces do not constitute journalism.”

An FBI spokesperson provided a statement from Patel denying the allegations: “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.”

Patel later reiterated the threat on X, where he posted a message directed at The Atlantic’s editorial team, which read: “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court... But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/keystone-kash-patels-endless-wild-booze-binges-spilled-by-top-officials/?

April 20

Keystone Kash’s Attorney Outs Even More Devastating Claims

In attacking a report by The Atlantic, the FBI director’s legal team revealed allegations that were not previously public.

Kash Patel’s legal team has revealed more allegations were leveled against him than were published in a bombshell report by The Atlantic—and said what they were.

The Atlantic’s devastating report alleges that the FBI director has been binge-drinking on the job, behaving erratically, and that a SWAT team asked for “breaching” gear because he was uncontactable behind a locked door.

As soon as it was published, Patel’s external advisers used X to attack the story. The attacks included publishing his attorney’s three-page response to The Atlantic, sent before the article was published.

It makes point-by-point responses to what appear to be questions from The Atlantic, going through a series of claims the magazine had put to them for fact-checking and to seek comment, describing them as “defamatory assertions,” which are “categorically denied.”

Many of the “defamatory assertions” the attorney, Jesse Binnall, describes are exactly those that The Atlantic published. Those include that Patel drinks to “the point of apparent intoxication” in exclusive venues in D.C. and Las Vegas, that his security detail has “had difficulty waking” him, and that alcohol played a role in his mishandling of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

But Binnall also published two allegations that The Atlantic did not publish, and which he called false and defamatory.

The first is an allegation that Patel was viewed as a “threat to public safety,” including concerns about how he would respond in the event of a domestic terror attack. The phrase “threat to public safety” was not in The Atlantic’s report.

The second is that an allegation that he once had his security detail shut down the FBI Association Store so he could shop alone, and complained that the merchandise “wasn’t intimidating enough.” The claim that the merchandise was not sufficiently intimidating was published; that the store was shut down by his detail was not.

That means that the letter, which came from a personal attorney for Patel rather than from the FBI’s own counsel, effectively put what it describes as false and defamatory statements into public circulation.

The letter ended by saying, “Please confirm you will not be publishing this false and defamatory article about Director Patel.”

Publishing the entirety of legal communications with The Atlantic is an unusual move for an attorney. Patel’s communications strategist Erica Knight—who is not an FBI employee—also blasted the allegations in a post on X, calling them “fabricated.”

“The so-called ‘intoxication incidents’ The Atlantic breathlessly reports have happened exactly ZERO times,” she wrote.

“Every serious DC reporter passed on this. Sarah Fitzpatrick and Jeffrey Goldberg printed it anyway. Lawsuit is being filed.”

But the reporter behind the story isn’t backing down.

“I am a very careful, very diligent, award-winning investigative reporter,” Fitzpatrick told MS NOW anchor Jen Psaki.

“I stand by every word of this reporting.”

She also pointed to a notable lack of pushback from officials when given the chance to respond.

“We reached out for comment to the White House and to the Justice Department, neither of which disputed anything,” Fitzpatrick said.

“These [sources] are not the types of people who are willing to speak out outside of the FBI… for it to be this level of alarm, this is people genuinely concerned that America is a danger as a result of this conduct.”

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

Just before 10:30 p.m. on Friday, Patel responded directly to the story and repeated his plans to take legal action. “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court,” he wrote. “But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay-up.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/keystone-kashs-attorney-outs-even-more-devastating-claims/?

April 20

MAGA Fuels Wild Trump Assassination Conspiracy Theory

Some of the president’s fiercest allies are starting to ask questions.

Increasing numbers of MAGA allies are buying into a wild conspiracy theory about the 2024 attempt on Donald Trump’s life.The failed assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, wasn’t fake news; it was a fake attack staged in part by Trump himself, they are claiming without evidence.

The growing buzz is apparently a twisted symptom of MAGA’s dissatisfaction with rising prices under the Trump administration and the president’s war against Iran.

Trump took full advantage of his brush with death while campaigning for the presidency in 2024. After Secret Service members scrambled to protect him when a shot rang out during a rally on July 13, 2024, he stood defiantly before the crowd with his fist raised. He later wore a large bandage on his ear, which was reported to have been grazed by the bullet.

Suspected would-be assassin Thomas Crooks—who shot three people at the event, one of them fatally—was killed on the scene by a Secret Service sniper.

Many liberal conspiracists at the time—often referred to as BlueAnon, a play on QAnon—speculated that the shooting was staged by Trump with the help of the Secret Service and some gel packs of blood in a bid to win votes, but they were far to the left of Trump’s adoring MAGA fans. Now the tide is apparently turning, WIRED noted in a survey of online and podcast comments.

“I think maybe it was staged,” announced podcaster Tim Dillon, a former staunch Trump backer. Dillon said Trump should fess up and say: “Some people are going to be upset by this, but we staged the assassination attempt in Butler to show people how important it was to vote for me and how far I was willing to go for them.”

A post about Dillon’s podcast on X drew dozens of agreeing comments. One poster wrote: “I know a Mark Burnett production when I see one,” referring to The Apprentice TV reality show starring Trump.

Late last year, Tucker Carlson pushed the idea that the FBI covered up details of the shooting. Last month, former U.S. National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent, who had just resigned his post in protest against the Iranian war, appeared on Carlson’s podcast to insist that the Trump administration had failed to provide more information about the attempt, and that investigations had been shut down. He offered no evidence for his claims.

But questions linger, with more doubters speaking out on X. One posted a photo from after the shooting of Trump with no apparent injury on the ear he later bandaged. “Not even Wolverine heals that fast,” the poster scoffed.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-embraces-claim-donald-trumps-pennsylvania-assassination-attempt-was-staged/?

April 20

Trump, 79, Teases UFO Secrets in Rambling Speech

The president’s latest speech ricocheted from UFO promises to Iran confusion and back again.

President Donald Trump foreshadowed the release of a new batch of UFO files, because apparently that’s where he wants the spotlight right now.

Speaking at a Turning Point USA conference in Arizona on Friday night, Trump claimed the Pentagon is sitting on “very many interesting documents” related to unidentified aerial phenomena, hinting that disclosures could be imminent.

“I recently directed the Secretary of War... to begin releasing government files relating to UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomena, and I figured this was a good crowd because I know you people—you’re really into that,” he told the audience.

“This process is well underway, and we found many very interesting documents, I must say. And the first releases will begin very, very soon, so you can go out and see if that phenomenon is correct.”

The timing of the UFO tease landed amid continued confusion over the status of the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, which Trump insists is effectively over—even as officials in Tehran say no such agreement exists.

In a blunt post on X, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and a key negotiator, denied that Tehran has reached any agreement with the U.S.

“They did not win the war with these lies, and they will certainly not get anywhere in negotiations either,” he said.

“With the continuation of the blockade, the Strait of Hormuz will not remain open.”

Trump doubled down on his own version of events in his Turning Point speech, suggesting a deal was close before launching into a rambling plan for the U.S. to collect “nuclear dust” from Iran.

“The USA will get all nuclear dust… you know what the nuclear dust is? That was that white powdery substance created by our B-2 bombers… We’re going to go in together with Iran, with lots of excavators… and we’re going to take it back home to the USA very soon,” he said.

Trump also revived talk of another conflict, once again floating Cuba as next in line for a military excursion.

“It’s called a new dawn for Cuba, we’re going to help them out with Cuba,” he said.

“We have people, Cuban-Americans, people that were brutally treated and whose families were killed and brutalized. And now, watch what happens.”

In a recurring theme, the president appeared to lose track of how many global conflicts he claims to have resolved, offering a muddled tally that didn’t quite add up.

“I ended eight wars, and it may be a little early to say this, but if we add Iran and Lebanon, that will be 10 wars ended and many, many millions of lives saved,” Trump said.

There were also more offbeat moments. At one point, Trump fixated on the appearance of Danica Patrick, a former race car driver and outspoken supporter of the president, who praised her hair.

“Where’s Danica? I love Danica,” Trump said.

“I love her hair. I always liked her hair. I always liked the little widow’s peak.”

The speech bounced from global conflicts to personal fixations with little connective tissue, reflecting Trump’s eagerness to focus on anything other than mounting scrutiny surrounding the Iran war.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-79-teases-ufo-secrets-in-rambling-turning-point-speech/?

April 20

Aging Trumpy Justices Finally Respond to Pressure to Quit

The president is ready to reshape the Supreme Court again, but the justices he needs to retire aren’t playing along.

Two of the Supreme Court’s oldest conservative heavyweights are staying put—at least for now—despite intensifying pressure from Republicans who would prefer they step aside while the party still controls the Senate.

Sources close to Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas say neither justice is planning to retire this year, cooling speculation that President Donald Trump could soon lock in another Supreme Court pick, CBS News reports.

Trump made it clear he was ready to move quickly if a vacancy opened up in a recent Fox Business interview, telling host Maria Bartiromo that he might name “two, could be three” justices.

But without a vacancy, that plan goes nowhere.

Alito, 76, and Thomas, 77, are central pillars of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, and are among the most reliable allies of the Trump administration.

Both have served for decades—Thomas was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991, while Alito was tapped by George W. Bush in 2006—and neither appears inclined to time their exit around Trump’s political convenience, but speculation is mounting as Republicans weigh the risks of losing the Senate before a successor can be confirmed.

It’s a calculation Trump has been openly pushing.

“You reach a certain age and you give up your seat if you have the president… so that your ideology, your policies, your everything would be of the kind that we like,” he said.

Trump has already left a lasting imprint on the court by appointing Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett during his first term, which cemented a 6–3 conservative majority.

That impact has already been felt in a series of landmark rulings, including Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned federal abortion protections; Trump v. United States, which expanded presidential immunity from prosecution; and West Virginia v. EPA, which sharply curtailed the authority of federal government agencies to tackle climate change.

And the court isn’t done yet. A fresh slate of rulings is expected by July, including cases tied to Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship, strip deportation protections for Haitian and Syrian migrants, and invalidate late-arriving mail-in ballots.

With the 2026 midterms looming, any shift in Senate control could instantly turn a future Supreme Court vacancy into a political long shot or block it entirely.

That potential reality is already shaping Republican strategy with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley openly declaring that the chamber is “fully prepared” to move quickly on a nominee, while GOP leadership has signaled it would fast-track any confirmation.

For now, though, that window remains closed, leaving Trump waiting on two justices who show little desire to step aside.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/aging-trump-aligned-justices-finally-respond-to-pressure-to-quit/?

April 20

Dem Demands $8.6B Check From Trump for ‘Illegal’ Move

JB Pritzker hasn’t forgotten about the tariff refunds.

At least one blue state governor hasn’t forgotten about the billions of dollars in tariff refunds the Trump administration owes the American people.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, 61, clapped back after President Donald Trump bragged that he would raise tariffs “very soon”—even after his market-crashing levies were declared illegal by the Supreme Court.

“We’re selling more cars now. A lot of it has to do with tariffs,” Trump, 79, said at a Las Vegas event on Thursday night to promote his “no tax on tips” policy.

“You pay no tariffs if you come here,” the president went on. “If you don’t come here, you pay a lot of tariffs, and we’re raising those tariffs very soon. Not on you, it’s on people from the outside that don’t build their plants here.”

But Pritzker reminded Trump there’s a pending matter that Americans have been waiting on him to resolve.

“Meanwhile, you still owe Illinoisans $8,679,261,600 from your last round of illegal tariffs,” he wrote in an X post on Friday.

“Cut the check, @realdonaldtrump.”

When reached for comment, the White House attacked Pritzker.

“The immense weight of Illinois’s sky-high taxes and regulations is matched only by JB Pritzker’s own personal bloat. If this slob really cared about delivering economic relief for Illinois, he’d start with his own state government instead of chasing another stupid headline,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Trump unveiled a flurry of steep tariffs at a “Liberation Day” event at the White House in April last year, quickly sending markets spiraling.

In February, however, the Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, finding that Trump exceeded the powers given to him by Congress under a 1977 law.

Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify his tariffs. The law gives the president the authority to exercise various economic powers “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security.

“We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

The Trump administration is set to launch a tariff refund portal next week to comply with the high court’s order, according to Customs and Border Protection.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/democratic-illinois-governor-jb-pritzker-demands-86b-check-from-donald-trump-for-illegal-tariff-move/?

April 20

Trump Wanted an Easy Win. He Created a New Superpower Instead

The president can no longer hide how much he is willing to give up to make his war go away.

Just imagine if Joe Biden or, indeed, any past president had released $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds, alienated our oldest allies, handed Tehran control over the Strait of Hormuz, and dropped U.S. oil sanctions against the regime.

All while fighting a war that some experts believe may cost American taxpayers more than $1 trillion.

Donald Trump would be the first to call it a catastrophe.

But as the president rushes to make a deal to end a war that never should have begun, we are fast coming to understand the consequences of this disastrously thought-out venture to bolster one man’s ego.

Trump has not rid us of a threat—he has created a global superpower from the one enemy that is most fundamentally opposed to the United States.

And the world is in much greater jeopardy as a result.

Tehran did not bow down and surrender at the first carnage caused by a Tomahawk, no matter how many of its leaders were killed. Nor did it give up the Strait of Hormuz. Probably because it had been planning for this kind of attack for decades.

And now the U.S. is backed into a corner, desperate to make concessions and move on. Probably because it hadn’t planned for this kind of attack.

This president keeps telling us that past presidents are secretly envious of his attack on Iran, and they wish they’d done it. Nonsense. They steered away from it because they understood how disastrous it could turn out.

Iran, much to its surprise, is suddenly holding all the cards.

How else can you explain that Trump’s former golfing partner and son-in-law negotiating team is considering unfreezing $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets to make the war go away?

The cash would be in return for Iran turning over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Didn’t Trump “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear ambitions back in June last year? Wasn’t that what he told us over and over again? Now, stopping Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon is the only explanation Trump can offer for the entire debacle.

The rank hypocrisy of considering handing the regime a $20 billion windfall after haranguing Barack Obama relentlessly over the 2016 Iran Deal that involved sending $400 million to Iran is mind-boggling.

As recently as his April 1 address to the nation on Iran, Trump complained about Obama sending “green, green cash” on a plane to Tehran.

“Very importantly, I terminated Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, a disaster,” Trump said. “Obama gave them $1.7 billion in cash. Green, green cash. Took it out of banks from Virginia, D.C., and Maryland. All the cash they had, flew it by airplanes in an attempt to buy their respect and loyalty. But it didn’t work. They laughed at our president and went on with their mission to have a nuclear bomb,” he added.

“Look what happened,” he said on another occasion, during a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, “where they’re bringing planeloads of cash, planeloads, big planes, 757s, Boeing 757s coming in loaded up with cash. What kind of a deal is that?”

The truth is that the U.S. was settling a $400 million debt for military equipment that was paid for in the 1970s but never delivered because of the revolution that deposed the Shah and ruptured diplomatic relations between the two countries. Obama’s nuclear deal—limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment and putting it under strict inspection protocols—also involved paying about $1.3 billion in interest due on the principal.

Trump must have only looked through the lens of the U.S. when he decided to greenlight his military. Because the repercussions have changed the global balance of power.

And not for the better.

Trump’s war has underlined just how much of a hold Iran has on the Strait of Hormuz. It is such a narrow stretch of water that tankers carrying immense loads simply cannot risk passing without some guarantees.

It has also shown Iran how much it can hurt the world by attacking its Middle Eastern neighbors.

There was a reason it was kept at bay by Western leaders for so long. Oil still fuels their economies.

It is so tough to keep calling out the hypocrisy of the leader of the country you love. But Trump’s grasp on reality has been perilously exposed since he began this war without consulting his own Congress or any of his allies save Israel, which has its own ax to grind in the region.

Now the president can claim to have solved as many wars as he wants to make up.

But he has created a monster.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-wanted-an-easy-win-he-created-a-new-superpower-instead/?

April 20

Insider Exposes Trump’s Staggering Kennedy Center Grift

A former staffer shares what it was like to work at the institution as the president destroyed it.

The Donald Trump takeover of the Kennedy Center has led to widespread cancellations, plunging ticket sales, and, ultimately, being shuttered for two years starting this summer.

But a former staffer is shedding new light on just how far the Trump administration grifted after the takeover of the arts institution before he, along with other staffers, was shown the door.

Josef Palermo was the Kennedy Center’s first curator of visual arts and was hired by former director Ric Grenell, despite having never voted for Trump, to build out the visual arts program for visitors when no show was running.

But in an essay in The Atlantic, Palermo wrote that what he observed, “is far worse than the public knows.”

He detailed how one of the red flags was the sudden decision to sell sponsorships for the lounges at the Kennedy Center, such as the Israeli Lounge, Chinese Lounge, Circles Lounge (formerly the Russian Lounge), and African Room, which had been around since the center’s opening.

Palermo wrote that the Circles Lounge was renamed the SyberJet Lounge after an aircraft manufacturer whose CEO, Trevor Milton, received a pardon from Trump last March.

Milton was convicted of securities fraud in 2022 and faced four years in prison. But the Wall Street Journal reported that he attended the Kennedy Center Honors last year and mingled with celebrities inside the SyberJet Lounge, which was renamed last October after his company spent millions on the sponsorship, just over six months after his pardon.

Palermo also wrote how he organized an exhibit in the Israeli Lounge to commemorate the October 7 attack. The name of the room comes from its decorations celebrating Judaism and music, which were paid for by the Israeli government.

But speaking to the largely Jewish gathering there last fall, Grenell warned that if donors didn’t come forward to sponsor the space and pay for renovations, the lounge would be given away. Palermo recalled him saying it would “be a shame if we lost this room to a corporation or an individual and it was no longer the [Israeli] lounge.”

“Such a strong-armed fundraising pitch, at an event commemorating a pogrom, struck many of us in the room as inappropriate. I was mortified,” Palermo wrote.

Meanwhile, the Africa Room has a plaque that reads “A Tribute to America’s Intelligence Community.”

“This was a strange choice, not least when you considered the named donor for the new room: Gaurav Srivastava,” Palermo noted.

Srivastava’s former business partner accused him of scamming millions by posing as a CIA operative, the WSJ reported.

Items removed from the room were handmade textiles from across the continent, a sculpture from Ghana and a pair of doors carved from 700-year-old wood. While Palermo wrote that he never saw what happened to the items, a staffer told The Atlantic the items are now in the building’s archives.

At the same time, he accused one of Grenell’s “top lieutenants” of texting him to ask if he could do something with an artist whose work Grenell owned.

“Displaying that artist’s work could have raised their prices at auction and benefited Grenell, so doing so would have been a potential ethical breach. I ignored the request,” he wrote.

He also said that Grenell told him to “get rid of” the center’s permanent art collection so they could decorate with new art after the renovations are complete.

“I was taken aback by his cavalier attitude. If the donors of the works didn’t want to pay for their removal, he said, we could put them up for auction or give them away,” Palermo wrote.

Palermo was told not to do anything when he reported the order to another top leader at the center.

Grenell did not respond to The Atlantic’s multiple requests for comment. The Daily Beast asked Grenell and the Kennedy Center for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/insider-exposes-trumps-staggering-kennedy-center-grift/?

April 20

Marjorie Taylor Greene Stokes Trump Assassination Plot Rumors

Greene believes that the president “should be leading the charge” to determine all the facts around the 2024 attempt on his life.

Former Georgia congresswoman and one-time Donald Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the disgruntled group of MAGA stalwarts raising questions about the assassination attempt on the president when he was running for office.

“President Trump, of all people, should be leading the charge” to determine all the facts of what happened that day in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a campaign speech two years ago, she noted on X. “Why isn’t he?” Greene demanded. “That’s the question.”

Suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was killed by a Secret Service sniper after a bullet reportedly grazed Trump’s ear as he spoke on stage. Instead of ducking or being pushed to the ground by his security team, Trump defiantly raised a fist to the crowd and shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as Secret Service agents pressed around him to protect him.

Crooks’ rifle fire injured two people at the rally and killed local volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore as he was shielding his family. Trump later insisted he was “saved by God," who he claimed wanted him to “make America great again.”

Questions were raised at the time, largely by the left, about the incident. Now, an increasing number of one-time Trump supporters are arguing that the attempt was staged by the president to win votes in a hard-fought election. They have offered no evidence, and a federal task force report concluded the shooting was as it appeared.

But Greene directed her followers on X Saturday to carefully read her lengthy repost by Trisha Hope, a former GOP national convention delegate from Texas.

“Extremely important post worth the read and consideration,” Greene wrote. “Corey Comperatore’s family deserves to know the truth about Matthew Crooks and what happened in Butler on July 13, 2024.”Hope wrote in her post that her “first red flag” about the shooting was Trump’s vow at the Republican Convention just days later that he would tell the story of what happened just once and never speak about it again because it was “too painful.”

“When people tell a lie, certainly a big one, it is tough to keep all the details straight… In my opinion, Trump made that statement to stop any further conversation about what happened,” Hope wrote. “We all know no one loves Trump more than Trump, so this to me felt completely out of character.”

She also found it “odd” that Trump didn’t “aggressively” go after the Secret Service agents who had failed to stop the shooting. The president promoted one of them, Sean M. Curran, to be director of the Secret Service shortly after his election, praising Curran for risking “his life to help save mine from an assassin’s bullet.”

Six agents were suspended after the assassination attempt following a review by the Department of Homeland Security, which concluded that law enforcement breakdowns left Trump vulnerable.

Trump’s iconic photo also struck Hope as too coincidentally press-ready as the agents crouched around him, leaving his head exposed, even though other would-be assassins may have been hiding in the crowd, she added.

She claims Comperatore was sacrificed to make the attempt deadly serious.

“If you cannot look at this story, and use critical thinking skills and have at least some questions, you are the problem and we need you to snap out of it,” Hope concluded.

Greene’s repost of Hope’s claims attracted nearly 1,000 comments in a matter of hours. Some referred to John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on then-president Ronald Reagan when Secret Service agents immediately hurled him into the presidential limo, shielding him with their bodies. One was struck by a bullet.

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-stokes-donald-trump-assassination-plot-rumors/?

April 20

Trumpy Justices’ Frenzied Bid to Steamroll Dobbs Dissenters Revealed

A behind-the-bench recounting reveals the playbook conservative Justices used.

Trump’s Supreme Court darlings put outsized pressure on their colleagues to get the Dobbs decision published as quickly as possible, overturning Roe v. Wade and plunging women in many states across the country into healthcare chaos, a new book by a conservative pundit reveals.

Alito, by Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway, hits shelves on Tuesday, but the network got a sneak peek, highlighting a dispute between Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Stephen Breyer over Breyer’s apparent willingness to speed up the liberal Justices’ dissent to the majority opinion in Dobbs.

The court cannot publish one without the other, and until the Dobbs decision was published, Roe v. Wade remained the law of the land.

Hemingway writes that, upon hearing Breyer had entertained a request from Justice Samuel Alito to wrap up work on their dissent quickly, she allegedly “screamed so loudly” that “the walls were shaking.”

The conservative Justices, the book claims, were in fear for their lives.

“Alito asked the dissenters to make the completion of their dissents their priority because delay of the decision was a security threat,” Hemingway writes.

“Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome. The dissenters demurred.”

The book appears to be alleging that Kagan, Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor were deliberately delaying their dissent to give would-be assassins time to pick off their political opponents on the bench.

On May 2, 2022, the draft of the Dobbs decision was leaked, revealing the court was planning to overturn the decades-old right to abortion nationwide.

If a judge dies after a case has been heard, but before a decision has been published, their voice is voided. That’s a ruling the Supreme Court itself made in 2019.

For Dobbs to be overturned in such a fashion would have required an extraordinary assault on the bench, with at least two Justices assassinated.

Hemingway leans into that kind of scaremongering in her book, writing: “Everyone knew that the leak posed a serious security risk for justices. Since decisions do not take effect until issued officially from the bench, the death of a justice before then could alter the result. The threat of assassination increased dramatically.”

She goes on: “In the ensuing weeks, hundreds of pregnancy centers, churches, and pro-life organizations would be vandalized, some even set ablaze.”

Amy Coney Barrett allegedly “had to put on a bulletproof vest in front of her children.”

The Justices were all provided with extra security after the leak of the draft decision, and one person was arrested and eventually convicted of attempting to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh in June 2022.

Whoever leaked the Dobbs decision, allegedly drawing conservative judges into the line of fire, also gave those same judges the ammunition they needed to pressure their benchmates to hurry up and finish their dissenting opinion.

Who stood to gain more from the leak is a moot point now, and the identity of the leaker is still unknown.

No Justices were hurt in the less than two months between the leak and the publication of Dobbs.

In Texas, maternal mortality rose 56 percent in the first year of the state’s abortion ban. More than 62 million women live in states with abortion bans. Those women are two times as likely to die from complications of childbirth as their counterparts in states where abortion remains legal.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumpy-justices-frenzied-bid-to-steamroll-dobbs-dissenters-revealed/?

April 20

Trump Holds Mind-Bending Meeting in Oval Office With Joe Rogan

“We all respect Joe and he’s a little bit more liberal than I am,” the president said of the podcast host.

President Donald Trump and Joe Rogan briefly set aside their differences in the name of psychedelics.

Rogan, 58, stood dutifully behind Trump, 79, in the Oval Office on Saturday as the president signed an executive order to fast-track the review of psychedelic drugs.

The executive order directs the Food and Drug Administration to boost research into the use of psychedelics such as LSD, MDMA, and ibogaine to treat mental illness. They are classified as Schedule I drugs, which means they have no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

Rogan took a particular interest in ibogaine, a compound found in the roots of the African shrub iboga, which has stirred interest in the medical community for its potential to treat opioid and cocaine addiction despite risks of seizures and cardiotoxicity.

“I wanna tell everybody how this happened. I sent President Trump some information. We have a gigantic opiate problem in this country, obviously,” the podcast host said, referring to data he had sent Trump about the benefits of ibogaine in combatting opiate addiction.

“I sent him that information. The text message came back, ‘Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it,’” he continued, drawing laughter from the room.

Trump said he immediately ordered Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to look into the matter.

“We all respect Joe and he’s a little bit more liberal than I am,” the president quipped. “That’s okay. I have a lot of friends that are liberal. But Joe is an amazing guy and he wrote me a little note about this and I had it checked out.”

“This thing, everybody thought it was incredible. And I told Bobby, I said, ‘Bobby, let’s just do it and get Oz involved and it’s gonna get done so quickly’ and you guys did a great job,” he added.

As he read prepared remarks touting the benefits of ibogaine in treating anxiety and depression, Trump jokingly asked, “Can I have some please?”

“I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever it takes. I don’t have time to be depressed. You know, if you stay busy enough, maybe that works too. That’s what I do,” he said.

Rogan got an invite to the Oval Office even after publicly breaking from Trump on a number of issues, from the war with Iran to the president’s bizarre AI posting spree.

“It’s f---ing terrifying. All of it’s terrifying,” Rogan said of the Iran war on his Thursday podcast. “Anytime you’re involved with you’re shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up, blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know, and Israel’s blowing up Lebanon. Now, it’s like, what the f--k are we doing? How is this still going on?”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-holds-mind-bending-meeting-in-oval-office-with-joe-rogan/?

April 20

Keystone Kash Unravels Over ‘Hit Piece Lies’ About Boozing

The FBI director wants everyone to know just how not “concerned” he is by a damning report on his leadership.

Kash Patel has broken his silence on a bombshell story about his chaotic leadership of the FBI with a public “memo to the fake news” insisting it doesn’t bother him.

The FBI director, 46, put up a defiant front after multiple sources were quoted by The Atlantic alleging that his erratic behavior within the agency has alienated officials.

“Memo to the fake news - the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop,” he wrote in an X post on Saturday.

“Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America safe again and taking down the criminals you love,” he continued.

The Atlantic report opened with an anecdote about Patel having what sources described as a “freak-out” when he became convinced that the difficulty he was having logging into an internal computer system meant he’d been fired by the White House. That alleged episode was described as indicative of Patel’s own concerns about his standing with the White House—which would appear to be in further question now, as President Trump has yet to comment publicly on the embarrassing claims made about his FBI director. The outlet also reported that senior Trump officials were already in talks about who might replace Patel.

But White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did offer a statement defending Patel, telling The Atlantic that “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high profile criminals have been put behind bars. Director Patel remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast on Saturday.

The article contained several other explosive allegations about the ever-embattled FBI director, including bouts of excessive drinking that are said to have alarmed his staff.

On multiple occasions in the past year, Patel’s security detail struggled to wake him because he appeared to be intoxicated, The Atlantic reported. At one point last year, a request was made for breaching equipment because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, sources told the outlet.

Patel also reportedly raised eyebrows within the agency because of his unexplained absences from the office. Early into his tenure, meetings and briefings sometimes had to be rescheduled for later in the day because Patel had gone drinking the night before, according to The Atlantic.

The FBI director was described as erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions by numerous sources interviewed, some of whom described his behavior as a national security liability.

When reached for comment, the FBI referred the Daily Beast back to Patel’s post and several other statements released by his lawyers and the agency over the past week.

“This article is a compilation of pretty much every obviously fake rumor I’ve heard the last 14 months except the Atlantic is the only one dumb enough to actually print it,” FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson said on Friday.

That same day, Patel also posted a screenshot of an email that Williamson sent to Sarah Fitzpatrick, the reporter who broke the story, writing: “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court... But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up.”

Patel’s communications strategist Erica Knight—who is not an FBI employee—similarly said a “lawsuit is being filed” as she dismissed The Atlantic’s reporting as “fabricated stories.”

Patel’s tenure at the FBI had been mired in controversy even before the new report, with active-duty and retired agents last year accusing him of “dismal” leadership and a fixation on optics. Despite such criticism, Patel touted his leadership style as “inspiring” in comments on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show podcast earlier this week.

Asked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s workout videos, Patel praised his colleague for what he described as setting a strong example and said he was doing the same for his staff.

“Leaders like Pete and myself are willing to go out there and maintain our fitness levels to what we can, we’re just asking our workforce to do the same, and I think it’s inspiring,” he said, adding that it’s better than having “350-pound overweight people” in charge.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-director-kash-patel-melts-down-over-hit-piece-lies/?

April 20

Trump Records Crackpot Voice of God From Real Old Testament

The president has recited scripture calling for repentance just days after sparking outrage with an image of himself as Jesus.

President Donald Trump has recorded himself reading scripture from the Old Testament for a marathon Bible reading billed as “a national reading of God’s law.”

Fresh off a public tirade against the pope and backlash over an AI-generated image portraying him as Jesus Christ, the 79-year-old president prepared a two-and-a-half-minute reading calling for repentance from God’s people for an event at the Museum of the Bible.

The White House has called the reading an event to “honor Holy Scripture, renew our faith, usher in a historic resurgence of religion on American shores, and rededicate the United States as one Nation under God.”

Trump’s passage comes from the Old Testament’s second Book of Chronicles, which has become one of the Christian right’s favorite passages.

“If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land,” Trump’s passage (2 Chronicles 7:14) reads.

Other MAGA personalities taking part in the “America Reads the Bible” event include Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, both of whom are Catholic. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an evangelical Christian, is also taking part in the Bible-reading event, just days after being ridiculed for reading a “prayer” largely taken from the 1994 film Pulp Fiction at a Pentagon prayer service. The overwhelming majority of participants in the event are evangelical Christians, The New York Times reported.

Most participants will read their passages live at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. over the course of the next week. Trump’s portion will be broadcast between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. EST on Tuesday.

Trump has a rather complicated history with religion. Trump has long said the Bible is his favorite book, but he has struggled to come up with his favorite verses, or even which Testament he prefers.

The president has also tried to profit from the Bible, selling a $60 Trump-branded God Bless the USA Bible during his 2024 campaign.

Last month, he appeared to take credit for Bible sales at a White House Easter luncheon, saying, “So, Bible sales are now at the highest number in many decades.”

In 2020, he famously cleared out a crowd of protesters outside the White House so he could do a photo-op outside St. John’s church while holding the Bible.

More recently, the president has drawn the ire of many faithful Americans for his Truth Social posts.

Last week, he posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ, which was roundly criticized by Christians, including prominent MAGA personalities, as blasphemous.

He later claimed he thought the image depicted him as a doctor, and the image was deleted from his Truth Social account.

The president has also railed against Pope Leo XIV, whom he called “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” after the pontiff appeared to criticize Trump’s war in Iran.

On Thursday, he went as far as to make up a quote from Pope Leo, in which he claimed the pope said: “Iran can have a nuclear weapon.” The pope has said no such thing.

This Easter, the holiest day of the Christian faith, Trump also set off alarm bells with a profanity-ridden tirade against Iran.

“Open the F----n’ Strait, you crazy b-----ds, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!” he continued, adding, “Praise be to Allah.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-records-crackpot-voice-of-god-from-real-book-of-ezekiel/?

April 21

📱 Rogan's text from Trump: "Let's do it"

Joe Rogan, who endorsed President Trump in 2024 but has recently been critical, popped into the Oval Office yesterday as the president signed an executive order to speed reviews of certain psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine, to help treat serious mental illness.

A tieless Rogan, standing behind Trump, said: "I want to tell everybody how this happened. I sent President Trump some information: We have a gigantic opiate problem in this country ... With one dose of ibogaine, more than 80% of people are free of that addiction. ... The text message came back: 'Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it.' It was literally that quick."

Trump smiled and the guests laughed.

Ibogaine — currently designated a controlled substance — has been embraced by combat veterans and conservative lawmakers despite risks.

Read the executive order ... White House Fact Sheet.

April 21

Resignations and firings have depleted the FBI and Justice Department. They’re scrambling to rebuild

The FBI and Justice Department are scrambling to rebuild a depleted workforce after a wave of departures over the past year, with leaders easing hiring requirements and accelerating recruitment in ways that some current and former officials see as a lowering of long-accepted standards. The FBI has turned to social media campaigns to attract applicants, offered abbreviated training for candidates from other federal agencies and relaxed requirements for support staff seeking to become agents, according to people familiar with the changes and internal communications seen by The Associated Press. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

April 21

Psychedelics Reassessed

A number of psychedelics will be fast-tracked for research into their potential to treat serious mental health issues following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump Saturday.

Many such compounds (including LSD, psilocybin, and more) are classified as Schedule I drugs—illegal to possess and federally regarded as having no medical use. Researchers say the restrictions create significant hurdles for formal clinical trials, despite some evidence they may help treat a range of disorders.

The order also earmarks $50M for state-level research into ibogaine (pronounced “e-BOW-gain”). The plant-based psychoactive compound is associated with intense episodes and has been linked to cardiac issues but has also proved effective in small studies to alleviate substance use disorders and reduce PTSD symptoms. The order, reportedly prompted by a text message to the president from podcaster Joe Rogan, does not reclassify any of the compounds.

Listen to veterans discuss their different experiences with psychedelics here.

ps:Well some will be happy for sure!!

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