A fired Trump administration official and deportation hardliner is turning on his former employers, calling them "swamp creatures."

Former Border Patrol "commander-at-large" Greg Bovino slammed the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversaw his agency, while speaking with Megyn Kelly, in appearance flagged by The Daily Beast.

Kelly asked about the departure of immigration hardliners like himself and Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks from the Trump administration. Bovino praised Banks as a "fantastic" immigration hardliner, and suggested he was ousted by "snakes" in the Trump administration who pushed stories about him allegedly paying sex workers.

The Trump administration wanted to take a "softer" approach on immigration in the wake of two deaths during immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis in January, and wanted to oust "hardliners" like Banks, who resigned earlier this week, Bovino explained.

"That prostitution thing had been, that had been investigated many years ago, and he was cleared," Bovino said, adding that the story about Banks' prostitution allegations popping up as they're trying oust hardliners, "doesn't happen by chance. There's a lot of snakes, a lot of swamp creatures" still working in the administration and in the Department of Homeland Security.

"Before we go mass deportations, and before we return to hardline immigration, those snakes need to leave," Bovino said. "We're all no longer working for the Department of Homeland Security. We are all mass deportation hardliners....what does that tell you?"

He warned, "Careful, America, still some swamp creatures out there."

President Donald Trump's state visit to China ended with few gains for the United States, according to one of his biographers, and he predicted the president will try to whip up a win the only way he knows how.

Author Michael Wolff told The Daily Beast's "Inside Trump's Head" podcast that Chinese President Xi Jinping displayed political, economic and military dominance over the 79-year-old president during his visit to Beijing, and he said Trump has to realize his failure.

“I mean, I don’t see how you can characterize what happened in China as anything more than a win for the Chinese and an embarrassment for Trump,” Wolff said.

“Let’s remember: China was the point of Trump’s political enterprise," the author added. "China was responsible for all of the problems in America … This was Trump’s central issue — [it] was the central issue in 2016, remained the central issue when he came back into office. In 10 years of the Trump era, we have only seen China become more powerful economically, politically, and in their military, so that’s what Trump has accomplished.”

Trump likes to project a posture of dominance, according to his former biographer, but he said the president often ends up groveling when his bullying doesn't work.

“It’s interesting that he can go from pure confrontation to pure sucking up,” Wolff said. “Again, there are no goals here. The goals are really irrelevant to the fact that Trump can come out of a situation and say, ‘I won,’ which he’s doing now: ‘It’s all great, everything is perfect, nothing to see here – all good.’”

The president is likely self-aware enough to understand the perception that his visit didn't produce the results he had hoped.

“I think he probably does understand, ‘Man, these Chinese, this has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, we’re really kind of screwed here, so how do I look — me personally — look less screwed?’” Wolff said.

That means Trump will try to save face the same way he always does, Wolff said – and that's cashing in for himself and his family.

“It’s always ‘Look, what’s the silver lining here?’ and what’s the silver lining is always how much money can we make off of this," Wolff said. "You know, life is a transaction: 'How do we get something? Even if the overall deal is not looking good, maybe there’s side deals we can we can get,' and I think that we’re going to see likely side deals galore.”

There's a bleak irony in the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court striking down one of the highest points in American democracy, argued New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

The conservative majority severely weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, ruling that protecting minority representation in congressional maps is unconstitutional, and Bouie argued in a new column titled "the law they hate was a high point in our history" that they had betrayed democratic values.

"The Voting Rights Act of 1965 wasn’t the top-down dictate of a rogue, liberal Supreme Court — if such a thing has ever existed," he wrote. "It wasn’t the brainchild of out-of-touch bureaucrats in Washington, nor was it some kind of martial settlement imposed on the states of the former Confederacy."

"It was, instead, an achievement of the most effective social movement of the postwar United States," the columnist added. "The Voting Rights Act revitalized American democracy and stands as one of its great achievements."

The swift response to the ruling by Republican state legislatures made the landmark law appear to have been an imposition by an outside force, but Bouie said it was instead the years-long work off grassroots activists who risked their lives to secure their fundamental rights, and the act was signed into law by a president elected in one of the largest landslides in U.S. history and reauthorized by Congress over and over.

"If there is any single law that you could plausibly say represents the general will of the American people, it might be one that was reaffirmed nearly every decade for 40 years by the people’s representatives," Bouie argued. "This isn’t just a historical point or a piece of idle trivia. It is essential. And it gets to what is so egregious about the court’s campaign against the law."

The Voting Rights Act was an effort to fulfill the promise of the Constitution's 15th Amendment, itself the result of the sacrifices made in the Civil War, to make democracy real for all Americans, Bouie argued, and he bitterly noted the irony of this particular court undoing those hard-won gains.

"The Voting Rights Act has more — much more — democratic legitimacy than this Supreme Court has ever enjoyed," Bouie wrote. "After all, most of this court’s conservative majority was appointed by presidents who entered office as winners of the Electoral College but not the popular vote."

"It is that relative difference in democratic legitimacy that makes this court’s voting rights jurisprudence so offensive," he added.

An ex-Republican strategist warned that a critical United States military alliance has already been so damaged by President Donald Trump that it's too late to save it.

"NATO's on the clock," Rick Wilson said in the latest episode of his podcast. "It's got three, two years left, tops. Even when Trump dies, even when he's gone, the poison he dumped into the system is so profound, I don't know how you reverse it."

Trump's most recent moves include withdrawing troops from Germany and Poland with little heads up to the U.S. allies. Wilson played a video of Trump trashing NATO because he was able to "blast the hell out of Iran" without their help.

"We've had some very bad allies in NATO," Trump is shown saying. "We spend trillions of dollars on NATO, and when we need them, which we never do, we didn't need them here either.

In the video, Trump also called the European-U.S. super alliance a "paper tiger" and said "the last thing I needed was NATO stepping in our way" with Iran.

The way Wilson saw it, Trump went to "our allies in the Gulf, we said, 'Hey, we're going to go do this war for Bibi [Netanyahu] and for Donald Trump's ego." Trump also went to war with Iran so that Defense Secretary "Pete Hegseth can get a war boner," Wilson added.

"Donald Trump has poured so much poison into so many parts of the global economy and the global military alliances that once protected us," Wilson said. "All those countries now are reassessing how they view our relationship."

President Donald Trump reacted to Rep. Lauren Boebert's self-deprecating joke about her infamous indiscretion by begging someone to challenge her in a Republican primary.

The Colorado Republican joined the 79-year-old president's most hated Republican – Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) – for a pair of campaign events Saturday in his home district in Kentucky, and Trump issued a call for a GOP primary challenger for his one-time MAGA ally.

"Is anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District?" Trump posted on Truth Social. "You remember Lauren moved to the District when it became obvious that she couldn’t win in her original Congressional District (The Third!) — A Carpetbagger, indeed!"

"Boebert is campaigning for the Worst 'Republican' Congressman in the History of our Country, Thomas Massie, of the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, and anybody who can be that dumb deserves a good Primary fight!" Trump added. "Even though I long ago endorsed Boebert, if the right person came along, it would be my Honor to withdraw that Endorsement, and endorse a good and proper alternative. Just let me know, or announce your Candidacy, and I will be there for you!"

Trump allies have spent at least $29 million to unseat Massie, who spearheaded the ultimately successful effort to compel the Department of Justice to release its files on convicted sex offender and longtime Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein.

A joke Boebert made at her own expense went viral Saturday afternoon after reporters shared it, referencing a September 2023 incident when the congresswoman and her male companion were escorted out of a Denver theater for inappropriate public touching.

“It is hard dating when you’ve been married for 20 years," Boebert said, according to reporters. "You don’t know what to do with your hands.”

Colorado's primary election is scheduled for June 30, but the filing deadline for candidates already passed on March 18.

"Word is that Rand Paul and Lauren Boebert, two very difficult, and highly unreasonable, Republican Votes, are right now in the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, which I won by 31 points, parading around like fools for the Worst 'Republican' Congressman in the History of our Party!" Trump posted. "His name is Thomas Massie, and he is a disloyal, ungracious, and sanctimonious FOOL, who almost never votes for even the best of Republican Values."

"The man running against Massie, Ed Gallrein, is a true American Patriot, a Farmer from Kentucky, and a Military Hero," Trump added. "He is loyal, and MAGA all the way — VOTE FOR ED GALLREIN, AND WIPE AWAY THE STENCH OF ONE OF THE WORST CONGRESSMEN IN THE HISTORY OF OUR GREAT PARTY, THOMAS MASSIE. MAY WE NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH HIM AGAIN"

A former conservative influencer claims that the State Department under the Trump administration is employing people who encouraged her to pay for cosmetic surgeries and pricey merchandise.

"I don't think you people understand how these people are at the State Department," said Ashley St. Clair, who worked as a brand ambassador for the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, while appearing on an episode of the podcast Krystal Kyle & Friends.

St. Clair never worked for the Trump administration, but she says people who currently serve at the State Department used to encourage her to adopt "a Palm Beach aesthetic" and even pay for breast enhancement surgery. When she was a MAGA influencer, St. Clair used to raise public support for the Trump administration to hire certain conservatives, like Richard Grenell, whom she unsuccessfully pushed for Secretary of State, according to reports.

"There's a class signaling that goes on with the plastic surgery," St. Clair went on. "They're like, 'you need to go see Lara Trump's spray tan girl. You need the Zimmerman dress.'"

She added that Trump officials would talk about "a China lady" who would "get them the fake bags so that they can continue this class signaling."

One of the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee called attention to a document displayed at a new hearing with Jeffrey Epstein's victims that could potentially reveal the names of his co-conspirators.

The panel's Democratic minority held a shadow hearing Tuesday in Palm Beach, Florida, where survivors of the well-connected sex offender provided tearful testimony about his abuse and international sex trafficking ring, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) described powerful evidence about individuals allegedly involved in that network.

"The through line here is that their corrupt interests that unfortunately, are corrupting the administration of justice in this particular case," Krishnamoorthi told MS NOW. "There was a very important document that was displayed at this particular hearing showing that the [Department of Justice] itself, back in 2019, identified numerous co-conspirators to Jeffrey Epstein. But that very document came back to us produced with redactions of at least six individuals, and none of them have been disclosed."

Epstein was found dead in jail that year, during President Donald Trump's first term, while awaiting trial on new sex trafficking charges, and the DOJ's investigative files should have been released months ago as part of the Epstein Transparency Act signed into law toward the end of last year.

"They might be among us continuing their predatory practices," Krishnamoorthi said, "and among the others, the only two people who have been prosecuted in any in any way is Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and Maxwell now is seeking a pardon. She might actually get one from Trump, which is completely unacceptable. So you see, just a corrupt administration of justice here."

Krishnamoorthi said other executive agencies overseen by Trump possess evidence that has still not come to light about Epstein and his network.

"Can I just say one other thing, which you pointed out before, but which came out loud and clear at the hearing, which is that there's $1.5 billion worth of wire transactions contained in what are called suspicious activity reports that have not been produced by the Treasury Department and has been specifically blocked by Scott Bessent at Donald Trump's behest," Krishnamoorthi said. "I feel that that is an obvious and an incredibly important source of information to illuminate the scandal and accountability for what was done."

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A former attorney for President Donald Trump slammed his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and plan to create a $1.7 billion fund.

"It's completely illegal and absurd," attorney Ty Cobb said Saturday on MS NOW. "The case against the IRS is a completely fabricated vehicle for Trump to try to loot the treasury."

Trump has said that he plans to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, which he oversees as chief executive, in favor of a $1.7 billion fund to pay off allies – including Jan. 6 rioters – who say they were attacked and had their tax information disclosed by the Biden administration.

Cobb explained that Trump's lawsuit should be limited by a "two-year statute of limitations."

"The statute involved only allows $1,000 per disclosure," Cobb said. "There's an argument that there may have been, somewhere between one and 10 disclosures" by the Biden administration.

"There's no argument that supports the 10,000 or more disclosures that would be necessary to get him to $10 billion," Cobb continued. "It's really, really absurd."

A former assistant to Jeffrey Epstein appears to have played a much more damning role than Republicans would like to believe, alleged a Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee.

"Sarah Kellen comes up a lot," said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) said Saturday on MS NOW, speaking about the Epstein files. "She was essentially a gatekeeper for Epstein. She was paramount in making him available to be able to do these heinous crimes."

The House Oversight Committee has scheduled Kellen, who started working as Epstein's assistant in 2000, to testify May 21 in a transcribed interview as part of its investigations into the disgraced financier's connections.

Subramanyam, a member of the committee, explained that Kellen is "unique" as she was "essentially an executive assistant, a scheduler and an operator for a lot of Jeffrey Epstein's activities."

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has characterized Kellen and other women in Epstein's orbit as victims, which Subramanyam concedes is likely accurate, but he added that "from what I've seen in the [Epstein] files, she's more co-conspirator to me than anything else because of how involved she was."

"She knew all about his crimes," Subramanyam continued. "We'd love to know what Sarah Kellen knows. We'd love to know if Sarah Kellen can explain to us how Jeffrey Epstein was able to get away with these crimes."

A former high-ranking intelligence official expressed alarm over President Donald Trump's comments following his high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Sue Gordon, who resigned as deputy director of national intelligence during Trump's first term, told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace she was concerned with the president's indifferent attitude to Chinese companies stealing American intellectual property.

“We do things, and they do things, and that’s the way it is,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity about protections for U.S. companies. “I’d like to see it taken care of. But they’ve been doing that for 50 years.”

Gordon, who stepped down Aug. 9, 2019, when she was passed over as national intelligence director, stated that the president was wrong, saying the U.S. imposed a "bright line between our government and our private sector," but Wallace asked whether that was still true during Trump's second term.

"Well, I guess, it's a great point – thanks for depressing me even further today," Gordon answered. "I'm just going to say that there is a difference, yes. On one level, spying is what, a really old profession, and it has been one of the great tools of strategic advantage for nations, nations worldwide for the longest time since Gettysburg and before that. But we are a nation of laws, and I've lived in this world, and I haven't seen that those laws have gone away, and they do."

"They do create boundaries, and also just intellectually, we have had a bright line between what I'm going to call civilian casualties, even that to include economic casualty, and there just is, you know, we we don't go trooping into Chinese companies and steal their intellectual property," she added. "We just, that isn't for the same reason we don't go trooping into our companies and steal intellectual property. So he's wrong about that."

Gordon argued that Chinese law was very different on intellectual property.

"There is a difference, and probably the most concrete difference is that they have national security laws that insist that every Chinese citizen or company, when asked, must provide their information that they have of any data of somebody else's that goes through, and we don't – that isn't our law, so it isn't the same," Gordon said. "I reject the notion that it's the same. Now, if it's being done differently by some people and it hasn't been discovered yet, but just intellectually, it's a different thing."

"That's exactly the impact with our allies and partners," she added. "It's like we've changed sides."

Former top CIA official explains severity of Trump’s China screw-up

Former top CIA official explains severity of Trump’s China screw-up www.ms.now

Former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon is sounding the alarm about America's standing in the world in the wake of the Trump-Xi summit and the quagmire in Iran.

Hundreds of diplomats are being forced out of their jobs by the Trump administration despite ongoing crises around the world, according to a new report.

According to CNN, the State Department finalized the firing of nearly 250 foreign service officers via email on Friday.

"Your reduction in force separation will be effective today," the email read. "Thank you again for your service to the Department."

The reduction in forces also impacted staff that would have been able to "provide guidance on the war in Iran," former officials told CNN.

On top of that, "unprecedented numbers of people are choosing to leave" U.S. foreign services, David Kostelancik, a retired diplomat, told CNN.

"Roughly 2,000 foreign service officers left the State Department last year," CNN reported based on numbers from the American Foreign Service Association.

Another 100 diplomatic posts around the world in tense areas like the Middle East, Ukraine and Russia still lack a Senate-confirmed ambassador, CNN added.

"The most sensitive diplomatic negotiations, on fraught topics like ending the war in Iran and securing an end to the Ukraine conflict, are being led by business associates and family members of President Donald Trump," CNN reported. "Often without teams of experienced diplomats with regional expertise."

Republicans' nationwide redistricting push has been widely viewed as a bid to boost the GOP in November, but one Democratic strategist says it has a more specific target: Black lawmakers, particularly one from South Carolina.

“They’re not going for revamping representation. They’re going for Black political extermination,” said Antjuan Seawright, an adviser for Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), speaking with The Wall Street Journal for its report Saturday.

The Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in late April that effectively gutted a provision of the Voting Rights Act designed to prohibit racially discriminatory voting policies. In the weeks since, Republican-led states launched a coordinated effort to redraw their congressional district maps, with the effort recently reaching South Carolina as its Republican governor faces pressure to call a special session and redraw the state’s maps.

That the GOP’s gerrymandering blitz was also designed to target Black lawmakers has been alleged before, perhaps most recently by Democratic strategist Ashley Allison, who scolded GOP strategist Scott Jennings earlier this week for dismissing Republicans’ “surgical attack” on Black voters.

Clyburn, the only Democrat and Black lawmaker of South Carolina’s seven-member U.S. House delegation, recently warned President Donald Trump that the redistricting push – launched by the president last year with his call for Texas lawmakers to redraw their own congressional district maps – would ultimately backfire.

“The president says he wants them to redraw the lines – all I'm going to say to that is, be very careful what you pray for, because what I believe is that when they finish with the redistricting, there will be the possibility of at least three Democrats getting elected here in South Carolina to the United States Congress,” Clyburn told CNN earlier this week.

Another Black Democratic lawmaker – Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL) – told the Journal that the GOP gerrymandering blitz could take the United States back decades, with the redistricting push having already reached his own state.

“We’re certainly at risk of seeing this country return to where it was, literally in the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, in terms of Black political representation,” Figures told the Journal.

When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told an audience of young Catholics on Friday that he wouldn't recommend his children study or work in the United States right now, ex-Republican strategist Steve Schmidt heard something that ran far deeper than diplomatic friction.

"The words matter because the speaker matters," Schmidt wrote in his Saturday newsletter, The Warning. "When a German chancellor — a conservative Atlanticist, a lifelong admirer of the United States, a man formed politically by the postwar alliance that made modern Germany possible — says publicly that he wouldn’t want his adult children to study in America or work in America, the world should stop and listen."

Speaking to young people in Würzburg, Merz cited a "social climate" that had "suddenly developed" in the United States, adding that even the best-educated Americans are now struggling to find work. Trump has feuded with the German leader, going after him after Merz warned the U.S. was being "humiliated" by Iran and risked another Afghanistan-style quagmire.

Merz's warning to his children was a diagnosis, Schmidt said. He argued the chancellor sees through a uniquely German lens shaped by his country's confrontation with the rise of fascism, recognizing "danger signs that Americans still dismiss as exaggeration."

"He isn’t mocking America. He’s mourning it. There’s a profound difference. Merz has met the arsonist." Schmidt wrote.

Schmidt added that Trump has "transformed the greatest democratic experiment in human history into an object of alarm" among the same allies who once told him the U.S. remained "indispensable" — a sentiment increasingly hard to hear from Berlin as Trump's grip on reality faces swirling scrutiny.

FBI Director Kash Patel's war on reporters has exposed a troubling pattern: his FBI has exclusively targeted female journalists who have reported damaging stories about his tenure with investigations — while ignoring similar exposés from male counterparts at major publications.

According to Salon columnist Sophia Tesfaye, three female journalists have been targeted by Patel's FBI despite male reporters from outlets like the Wall Street Journal publishing equally embarrassing details about the embattled director's conduct.

Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post had her home raided before dawn, with federal agents seizing her phone, laptops, and smartwatch without warning — all for covering federal workforce cuts under the Trump administration.

Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times was investigated for potential federal stalking charges after reporting that Patel allegedly used FBI agents to chauffeur his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins.

Sarah Fitzpatrick of The Atlantic became the subject of a criminal leak probe after she reported on Patel's alleged drinking and erratic management of the FBI.

Meanwhile, male journalists including the Wall Street Journal's Josh Dawsey and C. Ryan Barber have published damaging stories about Patel's antics with no federal retaliation. The selective targeting of only female reporters suggests a deliberate pattern of gender-based intimidation, Tesfaye suggested.

As she wrote, "These were not national security reporters" exposing operational secrets or covert agents. They were doing the hard work of "accountability journalism" — beat reporting, features writing, and investigative work.

Her analysis notes that no actual prosecutions of journalists have occurred as of yet, but as Tesfaye notes, authoritarian systems rarely begin with mass arrests. They start with selective intimidation and raids that lead nowhere — creating a chilling effect that discourages future reporting.

Patel made his intentions clear before taking office, openly announcing he planned to target the media. He was hired to destroy the FBI from within, and by every metric — broken morale among agents, mounting lawsuits, and targeted journalist harassment — he is succeeding, the Salon analyst added.

As was predicted by economists, Trump's war against Iran has sent oil prices surging and squeezed household budgets across the country, including in GOP strongholds like northeastern Colorado where one three-time Trump voter issued the president a particularly scathing nickname, Reuters reported on Saturday.

“He voted three times for Trump, but like many interviewed by Reuters, he considers himself a political independent, saying he distrusts the Republican Party nearly as much as their ⁠Democratic foes,” Reuters’ Brad Brooks wrote in the outlet’s report.

“Gas prices were hurting his industry, he said, and Trump was ‘naive’ to think he could quickly solve the issue. He expected prices would remain high into the fall, even if there was a breakthrough in stalled U.S.-Iran peace talks.”

Trump has admitted that Iran’s forceful response to the joint U.S.-Israeli attacks came as a surprise to him. Shortly after authorizing the initial attack on Iran in late February, Trump indicated that the military campaign would finish “within two to three weeks,” which, given the war has stretched into its 77th day as of Saturday, further demonstrated Trump’s inability to predict Iran’s response.

Trump’s allies have struggled to explain the administration’s failure to achieve its war objectives or to reach a deal with Tehran to end the conflict, with one former Trump official blaming said failures on the Trump administration being “too effective” at waging war.

For Brooks, Trump was “naive” in his thinking regarding the conflict. However, he told Reuters that despite the economic pain the president’s decision has inflicted on himself and his community, he still preferred the GOP over Democratic candidates, who he accused of moving toward “full-blown socialism.”

"I voted for Trump because the alternative is so bad,” Brooks told Reuters.

Donald Trump’s return from Beijing without any provable examples of successful negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping was yet another sign that, whatever lofty plans he had in store for the second year of his second term, they are easier to boast about than achieve.

According to analysis by the Washington Post’s Michael Birnbaum and Isaac Arnsdorf, the China summit didn’t include any measurable wins for a president who has had a rough year so far.

“President Donald Trump was riding the early high of his return to power last year when he took his first major foreign trip and declared that he would make a sharp break from years of U.S. nation-building around the world,” they wrote.

Exactly one year after his first major foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — complete with golden swords and honor guards on Arabian steeds — Trump arrived in China at a vastly different moment, the Post is reporting. Inflation is spiraling, the Iran conflict has ensnared U.S. military forces, energy prices are soaring, and his approval ratings are cratering.

This time, there were no sweeping declarations about how Trump's America would manage the world, the Post is reporting. Instead, there was Chinese President Xi Jinping, described as being "respectful but businesslike, welcoming but unbending" on issues that are U.S. priorities.

Trump came to Beijing hoping to secure trade deals. Xi had other priorities, the report noted. The Chinese president made clear that Taiwan's fate, not investment opportunities, was China's top concern — yanking the spotlight from Trump's preferred focus to warn of "clashes and even conflicts" with the United States should disagreements over the disputed island be mismanaged.

Trump left Friday with a promise of Xi visiting the White House in September and trade deals that proved largely disappointing. Boeing's stock dropped 8 percent between Trump's arrival and departure — a stark measure of investor skepticism about the agreements reached.

The president has since claimed triumph that the trip enabled top U.S. business executives to meet the Chinese leader, but offered little evidence of actual transactions resulting from the meetings.

Most of Trump's signature foreign policy initiatives "have fallen by the wayside," according to the Post. The Ukraine war still rages despite his promises to end it swiftly. Many of his tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court. Iran diplomacy has been abandoned entirely in favor of military conflict.

The collapse reflects a far cry from Trump's more "expansive ambitions" for reshaping U.S.-China relations last year, when the two leaders agreed to meet four times in 2026. With Iran now preoccupying Trump and weighing down the global economy, there is little room for retrenchment.

With slumping approval ratings and a faltering economy, Trump now travels the world stage "significantly weakened" compared to a year ago, Birnbaum and Arnsdorf predicted.

Panic spread Saturday as reports suggest that the “next supply-chain headache” could reach the United States soon – one sparked by President Donald Trump’s war against Iran that may risk causing widespread shortages of a critical product used regularly by most Americans.

That product is motor oil, an essential lubricating fluid required to keep anything with an engine – namely vehicles – functioning properly, and outlets such as Yahoo Autos, Axios and others have reported this week on how the U.S. war against Iran may soon bring a shortage of the critical product to U.S. shores.

“Lubricating fluids are the new toilet paper,” warned Timothy Dooner, a radio host and podcaster, writing in a social media post on X Saturday in response to the latest report about a potential motor oil shortage, referencing the widespread toilet paper shortages seen at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dooner was responding to a report of an alleged internal memo from the autoparts seller AutoZone. Reported on by the automotive news outlet Carscoops, the alleged memo warns of an impending shortage of lubricating fluids. While its authenticity has not been verified, its contents are consistent with what experts have increasingly warned about.

“Actual shortages are starting to appear,” warned Amanda Hay, the global lead for the Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association, speaking with Axios in its report Friday.

Other outlets, such as The Drive, reported this week on an alleged internal bulletin distributed to “Toyota service departments with instructions on rationing motor oil stocks due to an impending shortage.”

Responding to the potential of an impending motor oil shortage, the progressive political news outlet The Intellectualist laid the blame squarely on Trump.

“Trump’s policies are responsible for shortages and economic despair,” reads a statement from the outlet written on X to its nearly 300,000 followers.

And journalist and author Mike Freeman, whose experience includes writing for USA TODAY and CBS Sports, expressed his own concern over the potential shortage with two words: “oh boy.”

Donald Trump's reported desperation to end the Iran war is allowing Tehran's leaders to take a harder negotiating line — and a candid admission the president made on Fox News this week handed Iranian negotiators a significant strategic gift.

According to MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, during an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity on Thursday, Trump revealed his evolving priorities regarding Iran's estimated 970-pound stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

When asked whether the U.S. was considering seizing Iran's uranium, Trump first claimed it would take "a week and a half" to extract using a ground operation. But then he made a stunning admission that undercut his entire negotiating position.

"I don't think it's necessary [to get the uranium], except from a public relations standpoint," Trump said. "I think it's important for the fake news that we get it."

He added: "I'm the one that said we're going to get it, and we're going to get it. We have our eye on it."

In those few words — "I don't think it's necessary" — Trump appeared to abandon a position that has been central to his entire premise for the war. He instantly undermined his insistence on uranium removal as a key term of any peace deal with Iran, Aleem wrote.

Trump's characterization of uranium seizure as merely a "public relations" maneuver suggests he is repackaging a key plank of his negotiation position as window dressing — essentially admitting it's not actually necessary to end the conflict.

According to the report, Iranian negotiators will almost certainly exploit this revelation. If Tehran believes Trump is ambivalent about — or could eventually become indifferent to — removal of Iran's uranium stockpile, Iran has far more incentive to refuse to budge on that element or demand compromises more favorable to Tehran.

Aleem observed that Trump has a documented tendency to grow bored with or abandon protracted international conflicts, and the Iran war appears to be no exception and that each public statement weakens his negotiating leverage.

A cloud of dread has descended upon CBS News as controversial editor-in-chief Bari Weiss prepares to overhaul "60 Minutes" when the show returns next season — with network insiders warning changes are coming that will upend the venerable Sunday night institution.

According to the Guardian, the current season concludes on Sunday, after which the iconoclastic Weiss is expected to impose her ideological imprint on a program that has operated with editorial autonomy for decades.

The 59th season will be the first fully under Weiss' purview following Skydance Media's acquisition of CBS parent Paramount Global in August 2025. Amid persistent rumors that next season will look dramatically different, network insiders are bracing for significant disruption.

Speaking with the Guardian, one longtime network insider warned of "massive changes" after the current season ends, though the network reportedly has no plans to completely overhaul the format or abandon the show's award-winning investigative mission. However, layoffs are widely anticipated.

"People [at 60 Minutes] are afraid and they're waiting for something monumental to happen here," said another network insider.

A CBS News staffer, speaking without authorization, expressed alarm that Weiss would implement changes that damage the show "just like she has done with everything else at CBS News."

A third insider urged caution, cautioning: "They don't want to turn it upside down."

Even outside CBS, prominent journalists have voiced concerns about the show's future. CNN's chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour last week expressed alarm about Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison — and his father, billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison — taking control of the network, the report notes.

Amanpour pointed to an "ideological realignment" of CBS News and "the destruction, potentially, of 60 Minutes." She emphasized the show's unmatched status: "Nobody can match 60 Minutes for a brilliant television magazine show that's been doing hard news and cultural news for decades and decades – top-rated, top money-maker for the network."

The Guardian is reporting that two longtime "60 Minutes" correspondents — 84-year-old Lesley Stahl and 68-year-old Scott Pelley — are expected to remain with the show. Pelley has been targeted by conservatives for critical comments about the Trump administration.

Stahl recently lost out to CBS News journalist Major Garrett for an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that aired on last Sunday's broadcast — a decision that raised questions about Weiss' editorial authority and correspondent hierarchy.

ICE agents turned a protester's violent arrest at gunpoint into a social media campaign, which a federal judge has now called a "vindictive effort" to punish him, The Guardian reported on Friday.

Christian Cerna, 28, a carpenter from Boyle Heights and United States citizen, was targeted by ICE agents after he attended a protest against the aggressive federal immigration crackdown in Los Angeles. Cerna was driving with his partner and their two children in Los Angeles on June 11, 2025, when two vehicles slammed into his car, and a group of armed men ran towards them. They detonated flash-bangs and drew assault rifles on the family while another agent arrived with a handheld tripod to capture the chaos.

"I have kids!" Cerna pleaded. "Shut the [expletive] up and listen!" an officer barked back.

DHS then posted high-resolution footage from the arrest on X, calling Cerna a "violent rioter" who "punched" an agent and claiming that he had attempted to flee the scene — footage that showed him surrendering immediately. The post invoked then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's "message" to LA rioters: comply or face prosecution.

What followed upended Cerna's life. He was charged with felony assault, which carried an eight-year sentence, but was ultimately released after a week in custody, and a judge sentenced him to house arrest with GPS monitoring. The ordeal took a toll on his family. His toddler had screaming nightmares. His partner lost 20 pounds. His youngest, a five-month-old, had a body rash. Cerna developed a stress-induced ruptured appendix.

Cerna later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of simple assault on a federal officer stemming from an earlier protest.

In March, a federal judge slammed ICE's tactics as "vindictive effort" and "extrajudicial punishment," sentencing him to probation instead. But the damage was done.

Cerna's lawyer and former federal prosecutor Scott Tenley said it was unlike anything he had seen in his 20 years of criminal defense — that he had never encountered officers planning and filming an arrest.

"You’re not making a documentary. You’re supposed to be fighting crime," Tenley said.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump disclosed a “flurry” of financial transactions he’d made earlier this year, but on Saturday, Bloomberg correspondent Josh Wingrove unpacked those transactions in greater detail, and in doing so, sparked outrage among critics.

The financial disclosures revealed this week that Trump or his advisers had made “at least $220 million in financial transactions in the securities of major U.S. companies” during the first three months of 2026, Bloomberg previously reported. On Saturday, Wingrove provided additional details on the president’s financial disclosures.

“President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures show that he or his investment advisers made more than 3,700 trades in the first quarter, a flurry totaling tens of millions of dollars and involving major companies that have dealings with his administration,” Wingrove wrote Saturday in a social media post on X.

Companies that Trump or his advisers purchased securities for include Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Oracle and Bank of America, all companies that have reached major deals with the Trump administration.

“Most corrupt administration in the history of the US,” wrote former Minnesota state Democratic Sen. Linda Higgins, writing in a social media post on X in response to Wingrove’s reporting. “IMPEACH!”

Others, like California State University Fullerton Professor Amy Coplan, issued a demand to Congress to stop Trump from engaging in what she alleged to be “insider [trading].”

“You MUST act to stop this sort of insider [trading],” Coplan wrote in a social media post on X. “This IS NOT A victimless crime.”

A significant schism is emerging within the Republican Party over the extent to which the United States should support Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — with a substantial number of MAGA voters showing unwavering loyalty while non-MAGA conservatives increasingly question America's commitment to the longtime ally.

According to Politico, new polling from The POLITICO Poll reveals stark divides among Republican voters on Israel policy, with the party's traditional unity on Middle East issues fracturing amid Trump's unpopular Iran war and growing skepticism about U.S. interventionism.

Nearly half of self-identified MAGA Trump voters say they back Israel and approve of Netanyahu's government's actions, while just 29 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters say the same. The divide is even more pronounced on specific military operations: 41 percent of MAGA voters say Israel is justified in its military campaign in Gaza, compared with 31 percent of non-MAGA voters.

On whether Israel has overextended militarily, 24 percent of MAGA voters believe the country was initially justified but has gone too far — compared with 31 percent of non-MAGA voters.

Non-MAGA voters are notably more critical of Israeli influence on U.S. policy. They are 10 percentage points more likely than MAGA Trump voters to believe the Israeli government has too much influence over American foreign policy, Politico's Lisa Kashinsky and Erin Doherty are reporting.

The emerging fractures have spilled into an ugly public debate, with prominent Republicans including Tucker Carlson, former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Steve Bannon all criticizing America's close relationship with Israel — particularly as the Iran war escalates.

Most Republican members of Congress and conservative influencers like Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro have remained steadfast pro-Israel voices defending the administration's foreign policy approach.

Republicans were powerfully unified in support of Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas' October 7 attack. But amid the Iran war and growing unease about Trump's foreign interventions, Israel's standing appears increasingly fragile among the non-MAGA wing of the GOP and among young conservatives.

"There is a sentiment right now within the Republican Party of, 'America First,' let's get out of all of the conflicts in the world, let's not be committed to those conflicts," said Amnon Cavari, an associate professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University in Israel, told Politico.

According to the report, the emerging Republican divide carries "significant implications" for the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance and GOP efforts to maintain the coalition that powered Trump's return to the White House.

Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) had to directly answer frustrated voters during a live C-SPAN broadcast on Friday.

A caller named Roger, an independent voter from Lawrenceville, Georgia, pressed the Republican lawmaker to explain why Republicans were continuing to repeat President Donald Trump's continued messages, including Trump's comments around inflation and gas prices.

"Why do you guys continue to parrot Trump's crazy Fox News talking points when I know you have to know right from wrong," he said.

Anchor Greta Brawner asked the caller to be more specific when he started sharing his concerns about what Trump says to the public.

"For example, the 9 percent inflation under Biden — you know that was COVID, like, come on. Gas prices, presidents don't affect gas prices unless they're stupid enough to start a war in the Middle East. Trump, Biden, neither one of them controlled it. It had to do with starting wars and that's why we're dealing with these gas prices. And you know your own intelligence said there was no way they were close to a nuclear weapon, and yet you come on TV and you say the same thing. And you guys only find a spine when you say you're going to retire, come on. I know you have to know better."

Haridopolos responded to the voter's comments.

"Well, it's always nice to have strong opinions. They might not be backed up with fact, but it's nice he has some strong opinions," Haridopolos said.

"We really believe that a nuclear Iran is a true threat, they obviously were trying to upgrade their uranium to create a weapon and they've been lying for years now as we've found out that they had the ability to fire missiles over 2,000 miles away. I consider that a major threat. It's a short-term challenge but it will be a long-term success for America and the world if we take these folks out of the ability to project power."

Another caller named D in New York asked the lawmaker to address the president's trip to China and how Trump had promised to improve the economy, but now how the voter is paying more than $5 a gallon for gas. He also shared a personal experience after a visit to Europe and expressed his doubts about America's standing in the international community.

"When the president came into office, Americans were respected around the world," he said. "I just came from Europe. In Europe, we are disrespected. A guy spat in my face in Luxembourg because of our actions around the world. America is no longer respected."

"Why is the president building a golden statue of himself and acting like he's Jesus Christ on the world stage, putting up portraits, asking as if he's Christ? This is blasphemy."

Haridopolos claimed that investments were growing in the U.S. and admitted to the rising gas prices troubling Americans.

"So yes, we are going through a tough time on gas prices. I'll readily admit that. But in the long-term, what are we doing? We're offsetting some of that with the new oil production that's going to come out of Venezuela and the increased oil production that's coming out of the United States today."

If you’ve ever been to Pearl Harbor, you know that the area around the USS Arizona is revered. It is not a recreational dive site. It’s not some playground for pampered, spoiled, and pompous buffoons.

It is a military cemetery. Hundreds of American sailors and Marines are entombed beneath its rusted hull at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, where they have rested since Japan bombed and sank the battleship on December 7, 1941.

The wreck is accessible only by boat. Recreational diving is generally prohibited. Rare exceptions are made for marine archaeologists, National Park Service survey crews, and a ceremonial diver interring the remains of an Arizona survivor who wanted to spend eternity beside his shipmates.

And then there is America’s most despised frat-boy, Kash Patel.

The miserable excuse for an FBI director, already loathed for joy-riding on government jets and crashing the Olympic hockey locker room, thought he could brazenly slip beneath the waters of the USS Arizona Memorial last August for an exclusive underwater tour of the sunken battleship.

Government emails obtained by the Associated Press through a public records request show that military officials coordinated logistics and personnel for what they internally called a “VIP snorkel.”

Marine veteran Hack Albertson, who dives the Arizona annually with the Paralyzed Veterans of America, put it plainly: “It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It’s hallowed ground. It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.”

Imagine being family members of Pearl Harbor survivors, loved ones who have never been permitted to swim at the site where their fathers died, and learning this week that the arrogant, spoiled Patel got a curated underwater tourism experience above their loved ones’ corpses.

Who does Patel think he is? If I were one of those family members, I’d be calling for his bulbous head.

While his behavior is vulgar and disgusting, his latest offense should come as no surprise. Just a week ago, we learned about Patel’s personally branded liquor bottles. He’s the FBI director, for God’s sake. The last thing he should be doing is handing out booze.

Then came word that the FBI had launched a criminal leak investigation targeting the journalist at The Atlantic who wrote a well-sourced article about his drinking.

That account alleged that Patel’s security staff, unable to reach him after an evening of drinking, had to breach a door to find him, and that his meetings were regularly being rescheduled later in the day because he was pathetically hungover.

Patel called it all lies and filed a $250 million defamation suit. Then he showed up to a Senate hearing this week and proved every word of the characterization true through his sheer fool behavior alone.

When Sen. Chris Van Hollen pressed him on the Atlantic report, Patel declared he would “not be tarnished by baseless allegations,” then accused Van Hollen of being “the only individual drinking on the taxpayer’s dime.”

The utter contempt and disdain the director of the FBI showed for a United States senator is the same contempt he showed for our World War II veterans.

But Patel’s sacrilegious snorkeling is just par for the course when it comes to Trump officials disrespecting the military. Pete Hegseth, again a miserable excuse for a defense secretary, is running a celebrity concierge service at the Pentagon.

Kid Rock, yet again, a miserable excuse for a musician, kicked off his latest concert tour on May 1 in Dallas with a promo video showing him leaving a private jet and entering an Army helicopter. An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter costs roughly $7,000 per hour to fly.

That wasn’t the only time the washed-up crooner took advantage of the U.S. military. In March, the U.S. Army investigated a low-altitude flyoverow-altitude flyover by two Apaches over Kid Rock’s Tennessee home, which he bragged about on social media. He said it wasn’t the first time that happened.

Again, the incident was an expensive misuse of military resources, and the star-struck Hegseth — who gets star-struck by Kid Rock? —quickly intervened to halt the investigation and overturn the aircrew’s suspension.

Patel and Hegseth’s shenanigans involving the military also include the White House’s response to the Iran war. Shockingly, Trump’s comms lackeys mixed real strike footage with clips from Grand Theft Auto, Wii Sports, and Call of Duty.

Since the war in Iran began, the official White House account has spliced real military footage with clips from Iron Man, Top Gun, and video games, including Wii Sports and Call of Duty.

All of this amounts to moral obscenity, framing the risking of human lives and deaths as something to brag about, toy with, and swim around.

Robert Ritchie, Kid Rock’s real name, is the son of a wealthy Michigan auto dealer and he never wore a uniform. Neither has Patel. And Hegseth, who did serve, should know better than to diminish the stature of the troops.

The fans scraping together nearly $5 a gallon for gas while driving home from Kid Rock’s show include military families. The families who cannot swim to their grandfathers’ graves have to watch a conceited moron desecrate those graves.

And the barely-adult 22-year-old soldier in Iran, who is being asked to possibly take a real bullet, gets reduced to a character in a video game.

Our military, which is nobly serving us, is being ill-served — and disrespected — by its leaders.

President Donald Trump lashed out at New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday after she criticized the Trump administration for its labor policies, while also issuing the Democratic governor a backhanded offer to help.

The feud between Trump and Hochul was sparked by the closure of the Long Island Rail Road after workers went on strike early Saturday morning. Hochul said the strike was sparked, in part, by the Trump administration’s “reckless actions to cut mediation short.” Trump pushed back on Hochul’s criticisms, claiming he wasn’t even aware of the labor dispute until Saturday morning.

“Failed New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, a Dumacrat, just blamed ME for her Long Island Railroad STRIKE, when she knows, full well, that I have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT - never even heard about it until this morning,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“She just blurted out, ‘it’s President Trump’s fault.’ No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen. If you can’t solve it, let me know, and I’ll show you how to properly get things done. Kathy, call me if you can’t do it, I will get it done – I know all the players, great people!!!”

Trump also slipped an endorsement into his attack on Hochul for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, who he claimed would lower taxes for New Yorkers and reduce crime.

“He should be your next Governor and New York State would turn around fast, including far less Crime, and much lower taxes!!!” Trump wrote.

President Donald Trump's war against Iran has already hit Americans at the gas pump, but farmers told Axios that a potentially more devastating impact is still coming – and soon.

“There's going to be fewer farmers next year than this year,” said Mark Mueller, an Iowa farmer and president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, speaking with Axios for its report published on Saturday.

Trump’s Feb. 28 authorization of the U.S. war against Iran prompted the Middle East nation to immediately close traffic for U.S.-aligned vessels to the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil historically flowed. While the subsequent rise in fuel costs has impacted farmers greatly, so too has the disruption to fertilizer trade, more than 20% of which moves through the strait.

“Mark Mueller tells Axios that the current landscape is tougher than at any time since the 1980s farm crisis, when interest rates soared and exports plunged, triggering agricultural bank failures,” Axios’ report reads. “Bankruptcies are rising. Lenders are becoming more reluctant to loan to farmers. Farmers are grappling with a confluence of forces.”

A recent survey of nearly 6,000 American farmers from every state found that an “overwhelming majority” were unable to purchase enough fertilizer to “get them through the year." Furthermore, a report on the survey’s findings concluded that nearly 8 in 10 farmers in the Southern United States were unable to afford all needed supplies this year, sparking concern about food availability in the coming year.

Appearing on MS NOW early Saturday morning, the frustrated secretary of state of Colorado bashed her fellow Democrat, Gov. Jared Polis for deciding to commute the sentence of former election official Tina Peters, one of the nation’s most notorious MAGA-aligned election deniers.

Speaking with the hosts of “The Weekend,“ Jena Griswold, who oversees elections in her state, claimed Polis has undermined the national election integrity by freeing Peters, a convicted felon sentenced to nine years for tampering with election equipment.

Cutting to the chase, Griswold explained, “Tina Peters was no political prisoner. She compromised her voting equipment, trying to prove Trump's big lie, her actions, and then her lies and conspiracies about her actions were used to further destabilize our elections and increase the threat level to election officials.”

“So the fact that she is going to be released early, in what I view is special treatment is just ridiculous," she added before elaborating, “To tell you the truth, it sends a message to Trump's followers that if they break the law, well, they just may get off on federal charges, but also state charges. And I do think it will embolden the election denialism movement in this country at a time that is quite dangerous with our upcoming elections.”

- YouTube youtu.be

The Trump administration’s Justice Department (DOJ) is “finalizing a deal” to secure a $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded settlement from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), ABC News reported on Saturday, but a new detail flagged by ABC News’ Katherine Faulders has left some onlookers stunned.

The deal stems from a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS in response to his tax returns being leaked in 2019. Trump has reportedly agreed to drop the suit in exchange for a $1.7 billion settlement, directed toward a fund dedicated to “settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration’s ‘weaponization’ of the legal system,” ABC News previously reported.

And on Saturday, ABC News uncovered new details about Trump’s reported plan, including the name of the fund and its symbolic settlement amount.

“The Department of Justice is finalizing a deal to launch a so-called ‘Truth and Justice Commission’ and establish a compensation fund of $1,776,000,000,” ABC News reported, revealing that Trump’s DOJ is seeking to secure exactly $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars to symbolically mirror the United States’ declaration of independence from Great Britain.

The revelation left some onlookers floored.

“We are lost as a nation,” wrote University of North Georgia Professor Matthew Boedy, reacting to the DOJ’s efforts to secure a symbolic $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars. “More than gross.”

MS NOW's Jen Psaki used her Friday night show to fact-check Eric Trump in real time after the president's son threatened to sue her and the network over coverage of his business ties during Donald Trump's state visit to China.

"Today, the adult son of the President of the United States, Eric Trump, came after us on social media and accused us of lying," the former Biden White House press secretary told viewers on "The Briefing."

The lawsuit threat stemmed from a Wednesday segment in which Psaki cited a Financial Times report that crypto-linked firm ALT5 Sigma was pursuing a deal with a Chinese chipmaker that U.S. lawmakers have warned is connected to the Chinese Communist Party. ALT5 is deeply entangled with the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture, which Eric co-founded.

"Contrary to her monolog [sic] and blatant lies, I have NEVER been on the board of ALT5 — not now, not ever," Eric raged on X.

Psaki called the denial a "little confusing" and rolled the tape. She aired footage from ALT5's August 2025 Nasdaq opening bell ceremony, where Eric was introduced from the podium not once but three separate times as a board member or director.

Psaki then walked viewers through the paper trail: ALT5 publicly announced Eric was joining its board, SEC filings listed him as a director, and the company's own website identified him as one. In subsequent SEC filings, he was redesignated as a board "observer" — a nonvoting role that allows him to attend board meetings.

"Eric, of course, says that he has no business interests in China at all," Psaki concluded, "and that he joined his dad's official trip there for one reason and one reason alone: as a loving son who adores his dad. I'll let you be the judge."

President Donald Trump has drawn intense scrutiny over his alleged plan to secure a $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded settlement, but another White House proposal – one with a price tag more than 880 times larger – has gone largely ignored, journalist Ken Klippenstein argued on Friday.

That proposal is the $1.5 trillion in defense spending for fiscal year 2027, a proposal that came from the White House and represents a $400 billion increase over the previous year. The White House is also asking for an additional $200 billion to cover costs associated with the president’s deeply unpopular war against Iran.

Klippenstein argued that, while the increase in defense spending was staggering, it was what was buried within the proposal that led him to label the request as “the military’s biggest taxpayer heist ever.”

“Sure, we all know about the $600 toilet seats, the soldiers sent to war without proper armor, the drone threat nobody planned for,” Klippenstein wrote in an analysis published Friday on his Substack. “But those seem almost quaint compared to the biggest problem these days: the billions spent on the kind of business model ‘innovation’ [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth [has described], supposedly to speed things up or take advantage of ‘commercial’ offerings.”

The “innovation” Klippenstein was referring to was the countless number of Pentagon organizations that have sprung up since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which by Klippenstein’s count have reached at least 211.

“I’m not even talking about the research laboratories that have been around for decades; or the normal [research and development] orgs that exist; or the regular ‘materiel’ commands of the services. I’m talking about 211 organizations created since the second Iraq War because those existing organizations obviously and evidently didn’t do their jobs,” Klippenstein wrote.

“Organizations, plural! One organization exists today, another pops up tomorrow. They are their own universe, an army that marches to its own cadence. Will Hegseth slash them? No. Instead, we’re sure to see the creation of a new Business United Thoughtful Futures Cell (BUTFUC) to spread the extra $400 billion around.”