Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine took chairs in front of the House Armed Services Committee at ten this morning to defend a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget. Hegseth told the chamber that Iran’s nuclear facilities had already been “obliterated” before Trump launched the war, then told Adam Smith the war was justified anyway because “they had not given up their nuclear ambitions.” Pentagon finance chief Jules Hurst III put a $25 billion price tag on what he called “Operation Epic Fury,” with two destroyed C-130s in the bill. Hegseth attacked Democrats and critical Republicans as “reckless, feckless and defeatist.” “He’s blowing it,” Blundell said.

4️⃣ Bondi Will Testify After Contempt

House Oversight Democrats forced a date out of a fired Attorney General by filing a contempt resolution. Pam Bondi is on the Oversight calendar for May 29 only after Robert Garcia and Summer Lee made clear they would pursue charges that carry jail time. Trump fired Bondi April 2 over the Epstein files, and the Justice Department had previously argued her subpoena “no longer obligates” her testimony. “Compelling her to show up is 75% of the game,” Blundell said.

3️⃣ Oil Climbs — UAE Walks OPEC Friday

Brent crude opened at $116.53 this morning and settled at $114.62 in the afternoon, up roughly 3% on a Trump Truth Social post and a Defense Secretary on the Hill. Alex Vindman walked Hegseth through the rest of the math: Brent has moved from $72 the day before the war to $117 today, and oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is down 81%. The United Arab Emirates leaves OPEC on Friday — third-largest producer, fifty-eight years inside the cartel. Howard Lutnick, the man supposed to broker the Gulf rescue and whose family trust is borrowed against Tether, did not arrive in time.

2️⃣ The Court Turns the Clock Back

At ten-fifty this morning the Supreme Court split six-three in Louisiana v. Callais and gutted what was left of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Alito wrote that the statute “should not have imposed liability on Louisiana” for the second majority-Black district that elected Cleo Fields. Justice Kagan delivered the dissent from the bench and warned any state can now “announce a partisan gerrymander” and walk free. Sunday’s Texas ruling already locked in five Republican House seats; today’s opens the rest of the South — Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina. “It becomes apartheid-like,” Shalev said. “Jim Crow,” Blundell answered.

1️⃣ Cole Allen Never Fired a Shot

The Washington Post reviewed the high-resolution Hilton surveillance video this morning and reported what Truth Social did not. Cole Tomas Allen ran sixty feet with his shotgun pointed at the ground; a Secret Service officer fired four times; there is no muzzle flash from Allen’s gun. Bullet holes in the wall match handgun rounds, not buckshot. Allen was on a different floor from the president, four locked doors and another magnetometer away. While the Post was publishing, James Comey walked into an Alexandria courthouse to answer for an Instagram photo of seashells arranged into the numbers 8647 — an indictment Blundell called “the most embarrassing paragraph in recent federal legal history.” Three days ago Narativ called this presidency the one that cries wolf. The video is consistent with that read. There was no actual assassination attempt. There was a security breach the administration is using as a prop — to indict Comey, threaten Disney’s eight ABC stations, and let the Defense Secretary call critics “feckless” on the floor of the House.

The president invents the threats he wants and prosecutes the people who notice. The court rewrites the law that limits him. The cartel that priced the world for sixty-five years cracks Friday. The fired Attorney General testifies on May 29 because two House Democrats made her. King Charles read Magna Carta into the chamber yesterday and laid a wreath at Ground Zero this morning. Friday closes the sixty-day War Powers clock. The calendar is doing the foreign policy. History Rhymes. That’s how we know sooner.

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5️⃣ Carr Comes For Kimmel And Disney

FCC chair Brendan Carr opened an investigation into ABC and Disney on Tuesday, threatening eight broadcast licenses over a Jimmy Kimmel monologue delivered three days before the Washington Hilton incident. Kimmel had quipped that Melania Trump carried “the glow of an expectant widow.” Carr’s office is folding the line into the administration’s case that critics of the president are inciting violence. Shalev framed the move alongside the Comey indictment as one signal repeating in different rooms. “We live in this time when everything this man says is designed to protect the Epstein class and treat him and everybody in it as if they are the victim class,” Shalev said. The license threat lands the same week the Justice Department began treating opposition speech as criminal conspiracy.

4️⃣ UAE Walks Out Of OPEC

The United Arab Emirates announced it will leave OPEC on May 1, ending nearly 60 years inside the cartel that has set global oil prices since 1960. The exit removes 13% of OPEC’s production capacity and lets Abu Dhabi price its own barrels. Blundell called it “devastating for oil barons, robber barons around the world.” The timing matters. May 1 is also the day the 60-day War Powers resolution comes due in the Senate with the Iran war still unresolved, and Iran sits inside OPEC. Shalev noted the Trump-floated rescue mechanism for Gulf finances may have collapsed inside the same conversation. The cartel that priced the world for sixty-five years is cracking on the day the Senate has to vote on the war.

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3️⃣ Comey Indicted Over Seashells Photo

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche filed a second indictment against former FBI director James Comey on Tuesday, this one built on an Instagram post in which Comey arranged seashells on a beach into the numbers 8647 — shorthand for 86 the 47th president. The first indictment collapsed when prosecutors admitted they had nothing. Blanche’s office is now charging Comey as a criminal conspirator in what the administration is calling the fourth assassination attempt on the president, the Saturday-night magnetometer breach at the Washington Hilton. The theory of the case is that an Instagram post months ago helped produce a man rushing the Secret Service line on Saturday night. “Cash Patel is cosplaying,” Shalev said, “and the fact that Patel feels like he can arrest Jim Comey is ludicrous.” The indictment turns critic speech into a federal felony.

2️⃣ Senate Sends GAO Into The Epstein Files

A bipartisan group of senators announced Tuesday that the Government Accountability Office will investigate the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and a New Mexico colleague signed the request. The GAO is the legislature’s independent watchdog, and its findings carry weight in both chambers. Shalev called it “the first trustworthy official investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and the Justice Department’s handling” of the documents. The timing was not accidental. Epstein survivors held a separate event in Washington on Tuesday demanding to meet King Charles, who declined. The Senate moved while the world watched.

1️⃣ King Charles Puts Trump On Notice In Congress

King Charles III addressed a joint meeting of the United States Congress on Tuesday, the second reigning British monarch to do so after his late mother in 1991, and methodically dismantled the Trump regime’s worldview without naming the president once. Trump was absent by protocol. Charles cited Magna Carta on “the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.” He described the Saturday Hilton incident and said “such acts of violence will never succeed.” He named Ukraine — “that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people” — and both parties stood and applauded. He praised diversity, interfaith respect, climate stewardship, and the rule of law. He closed on Lincoln’s Gettysburg line that the world “may little note what we say, but will never forget what we do.” Blundell called it “the greatest repudiation of Donald Trump in modern history.” Shalev described what he had just watched. “The king of England put Donald Trump on notice.”

The pattern across Tuesday is one signal repeating in five different rooms. The bipartisan GAO move, the cartel exit, the indictment of a former FBI director over a beach photo, the FCC threats against a comedian, and the king of England standing in the chamber where the laws are made and reading the founding documents back to the people who wrote them. The institutions that survived the last century are deciding what to do about this one.

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5️⃣ DC Rolled Its Eyes And Wolf Blitzer Lost A Shoe

The first thing the room did when the shots rang out was nothing. Wajahat Ali was outside the Hilton when it happened, held back by police as the perimeter went up. “Everything was chill,” Ali said. “The residents of D.C. just rolled their eyes. People are like, did someone try to shoot this mother effer? You think it’s real? You think it’s staged? No one cared.” Inside, Lev Parnas described after-parties continuing as the cops shut down every intersection. Steve Schmidt giggled. Dean Blundell, also inside, said the suspicion was universal. “It was, give me a fucking break.” The corporate-media reaction broke the other way. Wolf Blitzer told viewers he lost a shoe. He told viewers he thought the shooter was coming for him. “I said, just watch,” Ali said. “One of these corporate media reeks is going to make it all about themselves and talk like they’re in Fallujah. And right on cue, Wolf Blitzer.”

4️⃣ MAGA Got Its Threads

Within twenty-four hours, every right-wing influencer was on the same line. Rudy Giuliani, Jack Posobiec, Libs of TikTok, GOP lawmakers — we need the ballroom, in unison, before the ballroom had been cleaned. Ali pointed to Ashley St. Clair, the Elon Musk associate who has gone public about how the messaging works. “All these influencers are on the same threads, and they get told to do this, and it’s like pay for play. You do this, you’ll get rewarded. You’ll be a good soldier.” On Saturday it was the ballroom. On Sunday it was the ballroom and DHS funding. By Monday afternoon, Karoline Leavitt was at the lectern naming Hakeem Jeffries, Josh Shapiro, Alex Padilla, Elizabeth Warren, Adam Schiff, Ed Markey, JB Pritzker, Ayanna Pressley, Monica McGyver, and Jimmy Kimmel — declaring their words “indistinguishable from the manifesto.” The threads, in real time. “Donald Trump talks about the ballroom,” Ali said. “They all talk about the ballroom.”

3️⃣ Cole Allen Was A Hotel Guest

Cole Tomas Allen never reached the ballroom. The Washington Post reported Sunday he was on an upper floor of the Hilton, four locked doors and a flight of stairs away from where Donald Trump was speaking. He had been booked into a hotel room that night. “He’s a resident of the hotel that night,” Shalev said. “That gives you all sorts of access.” Allen has a Caltech mechanical-engineering degree, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory fellowship, a master’s in computer science, and a Teacher of the Month award from C2 Education in Torrance. He is described, in Ali’s words, as “a brilliant guy, Caltech, makes video games on the side for fun, a Christian, a teacher, very smart, very kind, very nice.” Lev Parnas allowed that radicalization explains some of it. Dean and Zev pushed back. “Why would he bother going all the way upstairs to the actual main entrance to get his way in when he was already inside?” Shalev asked. “The whole thing just reeks.”

2️⃣ Lev Said Butler Was Staged

Lev Parnas, who spent the first hours of the WHCD aftermath defending against staging conspiracy theories, said something different on the show. “After a lot of investigative work, a lot of listening and watching what transpired, I truly will say that I believe that the Butler assassination attempt was staged.” He said the same kind of operation had been planned for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and “didn’t work out.” He cited the survival of Cole Allen as evidence that this one was different — “they do not leave witnesses.” But on Butler, where Thomas Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper and Corey Comperatore was killed in the crowd, Parnas’s position is now on record. The first three armed men to come for Donald Trump in twenty-one months were, according to Wajahat Ali, all former Trump voters in their twenties who had been radicalized. The pattern is starting to settle into a sentence Parnas will say out loud.

1️⃣ The Crackdown Has Begun

Narativ predicted this morning, in The President Who Cried Wolf, that the manifesto framing would be deployed against the broader Epstein-investigative and political opposition.Hours later, Karoline Leavitt named the list at the lectern. Eight Democratic elected officials and one late-night host whose statements were, in her construction, “indistinguishable from the manifesto.” Trump on Truth Social demanded ABC and Disney fire Jimmy Kimmel for an “expectant widow” joke about Melania that ran four days before the shooting. The political product extracted from one Saturday night now stacks: the ballroom, DHS funding, the Kimmel scalp, the named list. Each new day produces another. “If indeed this was not staged, it is incredibly convenient,” Blundell said. “If there’s one thing the Trump regime knows how to do, it’s to take stuff like this and turn it into leverage, turn it into political capital.”

The Saturday-night security failure at the Washington Hilton became a Monday-afternoon target list. The list will widen.

History Rhymes. That’s how we know sooner.

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5️⃣ The Soldier Who Bet On His Own Mission

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment overnight charging a U.S. special forces soldier with using classified information about the Maduro raid to place cash bets on the outcome. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who reports to the Joint Special Operations Command and helped plan and execute the operation, placed 13 Polymarket bets between December 27 and January 26, turning $33,000 into more than $409,000. “That’s 13 bets because the operation kept moving,” Shalev said. “So he had to keep moving. It’s pretty obvious what he did.” Trump, asked about it from the Oval Office, called prediction markets “somewhat of a casino” and said he was “never much in favor of it.” Donald Trump Jr. sits on Polymarket’s advisory board. A $500 million oil futures bet minutes before the Maduro raid forced the former SEC watchdog to resign weeks ago after she pointed at the Trump family. “These predictive market people,” Blundell said, “obviously have a very close relationship with trend-setting, news-making people who understand when and how some of the world’s worst or best events are going to happen.”

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4️⃣ Ellie Leonard Transcribes The Wolff-Epstein Emails And Exposes The PR Man

Ellie Leonard, a Narativ contributor who publishes at The Panicked Writer, has transcribed 1,800 pages of emails between Michael Wolff and Jeffrey Epstein — believed to be the only complete read of the entire correspondence. Her reporting establishes that Wolff was Epstein’s paid reputation repairman, writing clean-up pieces including a 7,000-word whitewash for The New Yorker after Epstein’s conviction for procuring an underage prostitute. Shalev noted Wolff’s email volume to Epstein spiked the moment Virginia Giuffre surfaced her Prince Andrew and Epstein allegations, as Wolff worked to discredit her and the journalists covering the story. “He looks like the biggest weasel and leech in the entire Epstein files now,” Blundell said. Leonard has been harassed by Wolff and Michael Cohen for the reporting. The publishing houses that kept handing Wolff book deals, both hosts said, knew exactly what they were buying.

3️⃣ The White House Scraps The Records Law And Clears The Filing Cabinets

The Washington Post reported at 5 a.m. Friday that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional on April 1, and the next day White House Counsel David Warrington sent every Executive Office staffer a memo rewriting the rules. Mandatory became “should.” Prohibited became “whenever possible.” The 2017 version required staff to use official email; the new version suggests they do. “He’s doing something really bad right now,” Shalev said of the timing. Blundell added that the memo lets the administration “hide all the records, delete whatever they want” with no paper trail once they leave office. The post-Watergate law was written to stop exactly this. The White House just walked away from it.

2️⃣ GOP and Dems split On A Maxwell Pardon And Ehud Barak’s Cousin Runs The Operation

House Oversight Chair James Comer said yesterday his committee is split on pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for testimony — testimony that Shalev forecast will clear both Trump and Clinton. Two additional exit ramps are active: a direct pardon from Trump and a motion to vacate the charges at the Southern District of New York. Shalev’s Narativ.org reporting this morning names Daphne Barak — cousin of Ehud Barak, himself accused by Virginia Giuffre — as the operator of a four-year PAC campaign to spring Maxwell, hiring operatives to harass survivors on social media. “Half the committee facilitated the rape and the abuse and possibly the murder of hundreds, maybe thousands of children from around the world,” Blundell said. “And half of them are split.” Marjorie Taylor Greene said publicly that Trump himself ordered Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche to bury the Epstein files. Blanche, now the attorney general, ran Maxwell’s interview before her transfer to a minimum-security camp.

1️⃣ Trump Sinks To 33 Percent And The Women Are Gone

AP-NORC has Trump at 33 percent approval, his second-term low, and the internals show the floor caving. Women: 28 percent. “When everyone realized Nixon was done was when he hit 25 percent,” Shalev said. “And women right now are trending three points above that.” Hispanic approval 25 percent. Black 14 percent. Independents have collapsed from 60 percent to 23. Even the Republican base has softened to 68. The Iran war is the accelerant, with Brent crude at $107 and gas above $4 heading into the midterms. The White House Correspondents Dinner lands tomorrow — a staged victory lap as the numbers say the opposite. “These numbers are the real indicator of how much America hates the president of the United States,” Blundell said.

A soldier bets on his own mission while Polymarket quotes odds on the Maxwell pardon, the records law goes dark, and the 33 percent president walks into a correspondents dinner built to look like a victory. History Rhymes. That’s how we know sooner.

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5️⃣ Laura Loomer Loses

A federal judge in Florida, a Clinton appointee, granted summary judgment to Bill Maher and HBO, killing Laura Loomer’s $150 million defamation suit before it reached a jury. “Summary judgment, which means the judge laughed at it,” Blundell said. The suit targeted a September 2024 Real Time bit in which Maher named Loomer as the president’s likely mistress. Her own deposition sank the case — her income went up in 2024, she still flies on Trump’s plane, she still gets into the White House, and she could not name one person whose opinion of her had changed. Witnesses testified she had told them she “gave Trump the best blowjob of his life,” and her father, Jeff Loomer, reportedly declined to rule out another involuntary psychiatric hold for her, saying he could not deny the claim. “Laura Loomer is the president’s mistress,” Shalev said. “That’s why she has access to the president. In this case, these blowjobs are a national security risk.”

4️⃣ The New Navy Secretary Is Interesting

On day 55 of the Iran war, Trump ordered the US Navy to “shoot and kill” any Iranian boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. In the same 24 hours, Pete Hegseth fired Navy Secretary John Phelan 13 days into the job and installed Undersecretary Hung Cao as acting. “It is stunning that in the middle of a war, this guy has been on the job for 13 days, has now been ousted because essentially he disagreed with what the president was asking him to do,” Shalev said. Cao, a Christian nationalist with a documented record of evangelical-cult rhetoric and race-based KKK jokes on The War Room, once warned that Monterey, California, was becoming a witchcraft capital. “The guy who thinks Monterey is going to become the witchcraft capital of the world is now in charge of the United States Navy,” Shalev said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has already seized two commercial ships and left a third stranded, and Trump says there is “no time frame” on ending the war.

3️⃣ Lutnick Continues Epstein Cover-Up

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified at House Appropriations this morning. Rep. Madeleine Dean confronted him directly — “Why did you lie to the New York Post about your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?” — then laid out the Lutnick family tariff-refund scheme Rep. Jamie Raskin is now investigating. Lutnick deflected every Epstein question to his May 6 House Oversight interview, the same line he used on Sen. Chris Van Hollen in the Senate the day before. “Let the record reflect,” Dean said. “You’re dodging the question. The cover-up continues.” Dean closed by calling on him to “resign before you are fired.” Nobody on the committee asked about Tether — Cantor Fitzgerald, now run by Lutnick’s son Brandon, custodies the $132 billion in Treasuries backing the stablecoin, took a $600 million stake that Tether itself financed through a loan to the Lutnick family trust, and is now reserve custodian for USAT, the new GENIUS Act stablecoin. “Tether is a crypto company that owns Lutnick’s family fortune and owns Cantor Fitzgerald and has it rigged,” Shalev said.

2️⃣ Senate OKs Ice Surge In Pre-Dawn Vote

Trump reposted Michael Savage’s Newsmax segment to Truth Social — a screed calling India and China “hellholes,” attacking ACLU attorney Cecillia Wang by ethnicity, and invoking Andrew Jackson’s defiance of the Supreme Court on Cherokee removal, misattributed as “Stonewall Jackson.” “It’s the most racist thing I’ve ever read in my life that a president has ever put out,” Shalev said. The SCOTUS majority signaled on April 1 that it will strike down Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, with a ruling by end of June, and Savage’s Jackson reference is the framework: if the Court rules against him, ignore it. In the same overnight cycle, the Senate cleared S.Con.Res.33 at 3:49 AM, 50-48 party-line, setting the framework for ICE and Border Patrol funding through FY2035. “They are moving at lightning speed before the next 195 days to take control of the United States elections,” Blundell said. ICE staffing announcements are expected inside 72 hours.

1️⃣ Eric Trump, Pentagon Robotics Manufacturer

Eric Trump went on Fox Business this morning to celebrate a $24 million Pentagon contract awarded to Foundation Industries, a robotics firm where he serves as Chief Strategic Adviser and investor. The product is Phantom 2, a humanoid robot to be deployed to Ukraine to inspect and transport weapons on the frontlines. Maria Bartiromo congratulated him on air. Combined with Donald Trump Jr.’s $620 million Pentagon loan in December and the brothers’ stakes in drone maker Powerus, rare earth magnets, and related plays, the family has now collected “about $770 million now that they’ve made from government contracts in the last 12 months,” Blundell said. Scott McFarlane’s reporting catalogs the parallel bucket list — Trump pushing to replace Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, mint a new $250 note with his own face, rename Dulles Trump International, rebrand the Washington Metro “WMAGA,” and fund NIH research into “Trump derangement syndrome.” “He wants the world to look like his brain,” Blundell said.

Loomer sued herself out of court, the Navy Secretary got purged mid-combat, the Commerce Secretary ran out the clock, the president pre-positioned defiance of the Supreme Court, and the president’s son rolled up $24 million of the Pentagon on live TV. Corrupt administration, top to bottom. History Rhymes. That’s how we know sooner.

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5️⃣ Patel’s “Never Intoxicated” Presser — And Who Trump Hires On Purpose

The FBI Director of the United States of America stood at a DOJ podium yesterday and told a room of reporters he has “never been intoxicated on the job.” That’s the sentence. That’s what we’re doing now. Acting AG Todd Blanche stood beside him — Patel’s boss, for those keeping score — and told reporters he hadn’t read The Atlantic story he was there to dispute, but assured everyone parts of it were “blatantly false.” Reporting he hadn’t read. Blatantly false. Sure, buddy.

Patel’s response to the allegations that he’s had “bouts of excessive drinking” and unexplained absences from the Bureau? A $250 million defamation lawsuit, a rant about the “fake news mafia,” and a cute line about being “an everyday American who loves his country [and] loves the sport of hockey” — that last one a reference to video of him chugging beers with the US Olympic gold medal hockey team in February. An everyday American. Running the FBI.

Zev’s point cut to the bone: this is who Trump hires on purpose. Not despite the red flags — because of them. Compromised people are controllable people. Patel was put there to do two things: protect Trump and punish Trump’s enemies. Everything else — the Atlantic reporting, the 700 agents reassigned, the unexplained absences, Jamie Raskin launching a House investigation today and demanding Patel submit to an alcohol test under penalty of perjury — is noise around the core function.

As I said on the show: “He’s doing the job he was hired to do. The drinking is the side quest. The Bureau being hollowed out is the main quest.”

Dean Blundell

VIDEO: Piss Drunk Kash Patel Hits the Podium, Hits the Wall, Hits Himself in Unhinged Press Conference, Because Hangovers Are Hard.

April 22, 2026…

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7 days ago · 810 likes · 30 comments · Dean Blundell

4️⃣ Lutnick Calls Canada “Insulting.” Shaheen Tells Him Why.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick walked into a Senate Appropriations hearing today to defend the 2027 budget and instead got handed his ass by Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Last Friday at a Semafor event, Lutnick’s assessment of Canada’s trade negotiating strategy was, and I quote, “They suck.” Today he doubled down, calling it “outrageous” and “insulting and disrespectful to America” that Canadian provinces won’t stock American spirits on their liquor shelves.

Howard. Buddy. My guy. You want to know why they won’t stock your bourbon?

Shaheen laid it out plainly: Canadian tourism to New Hampshire is down 30% year-over-year. Tourism is the second-largest industry in her state — 70,000 jobs. Small businesses on both sides of the border are cratering. Her question, which Lutnick could not answer: “How does insulting our closest ally and neighbor help the businesses in my state of New Hampshire, and states all across this country, who are hurting because of the loss of Canadian business and tourism?”

Lutnick’s response was to lecture her about how Canada “leans on” the $30 trillion US economy, as if that was the gotcha. Shaheen came back with the line of the day: “When we have allies and partners, we should try and work with them — not insult them.”

As a Canadian, let me translate for Howard: we’re not buying your liquor, we’re not visiting your states, we’re not signing your deals, and we’re not going to. You called our Prime Minister a governor. You called our country the 51st state. You tariffed us for fun. We have long memories and short tempers and we are done. The Carney government said today they’re in no rush. Why would they be? Every day Lutnick opens his mouth, Canada’s leverage goes up.

Dean Blundell

BREAKING: Trump Just Demanded Canada Pay an 'Entry Fee' to Talk To Him. LOL.

April 22, 2026…

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7 days ago · 1357 likes · 65 comments · Dean Blundell

3️⃣ MTG: Trump Personally Told Bondi To Bury The Epstein Files

Marjorie Taylor Greene went on the Shannon Joy Show yesterday and said the quiet part on a megaphone: Donald Trump “flat out” told then–Attorney General Pam Bondi, “Do not release the Epstein files.”

Per Greene, Trump was “blocking everybody” — Bondi at DOJ, Speaker Mike Johnson in the House, Majority Leader John Thune in the Senate. His stated reason, in Greene’s telling of their final conversation before he branded her a traitor and she resigned from Congress: “My friends will get hurt. People you know, Marjorie. People at Mar-a-Lago.”

Let me say that part again, slowly. The President of the United States told his Attorney General to suppress federal evidence in a child sex trafficking investigation because his friends at his private club might get hurt.

Greene is not a credible narrator on most days. On this one, the corroboration is doing the work. She said essentially the same thing to The New York Times in December. Bondi reportedly told Trump in May that his name is “all over the files.” The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Bondi for a deposition on the redactions and the 53 pages of FBI interviews NPR confirmed were scrubbed — she didn’t comply, claiming the subpoena doesn’t apply because she’s no longer AG. And the “client list” Bondi vowed to release in February 2025? Suddenly didn’t exist by July.

Zev connected it to a pattern we’ve tracked for two years: the Epstein story is not a sex scandal. It’s a compromise operation. Seventeen or eighteen countries now have open Epstein investigations. London is dismantling the network in real time. The question is no longer what was on Epstein’s island. It’s who got put where because of what was on Epstein’s island — and whether the sitting President of the United States is one of them.

2️⃣ Mask Off — China Is Arming Iran. The Touska Is The Proof.

On Sunday, the USS Spruance fired on and boarded the Iranian-flagged container ship MV Touska in the Gulf of Oman as it tried to run the US naval blockade into Bandar Abbas. Six hours of warnings ignored. Rounds into the engine room to disable the propulsion. Marines on deck. The ship is part of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines — IRISL — which the US sanctioned in 2019 as “the preferred shipping line for Iranian proliferators.”

Here’s the part that matters. The Touska‘s last stops before Iran: Gaolan port in Zhuhai, China, and Taicang port north of Shanghai, per satellite analysis. Gaolan is known — per The Washington Post — for shipping sodium perchlorate, a key precursor for solid rocket fuel that Iran needs to rebuild its missile program. US security sources say the cargo is “dual-use”: metals, pipes, electronic components consistent with ballistic missile manufacturing. Nikki Haley — and I cannot believe I am about to favorably cite Nikki Haley — said it on X: the ship “was headed from China to Iran and is linked to chemical shipments for missiles.”

This is not speculation anymore. This is a boat. With a captain. Loaded in a Chinese port. Pointed at Iran. Full of missile-grade chemicals. In the middle of a ceasefire the United States is trying to negotiate.

China’s response: “concern” over the “forcible interception” and a demand that everyone honor the ceasefire. Last week they denied arming Iran and threatened “countermeasures” if Trump imposed a 50% tariff over it. Today the Touska is sitting in US custody like a subpoena with an anchor.

The mask is off. China is the quartermaster. The war Trump says he won is being resupplied in real time by the country he’s flying to meet with next month.

1️⃣ Trump Loses Iran. Ceasefire Goes Indefinite. London Meets Without Him.

And here it is. The top story. The one that reframes everything below it.

Trump announced yesterday afternoon — on Truth Social, of course — that he’s extending the Iran ceasefire indefinitely. No end date. No deadline. Until talks “are concluded, one way or the other.” This from the man who said four days ago an extension was “highly unlikely.”

What actually happened: the talks collapsed. Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Islamabad for a second round of negotiations — with Witkoff and Kushner in tow, the same geniuses who brought you the Gaza disaster — was scrapped. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said there were no negotiations to attend. Tehran wants the naval blockade of Hormuz lifted before they’ll even sit down. Trump refuses. Khamenei hasn’t signed off on anything. The Iranian government, per Trump himself, is “seriously fractured.” He’s not wrong. But neither is he winning.

Meanwhile, in London and Paris, the grown-ups are meeting. Forty countries on a UK-chaired call earlier this month — France, Germany, Canada, UAE, India — planning a neutral multinational mission to secure the Strait of Hormuz. The United States was not invited. France and Britain have explicitly framed the initiative as separate from Washington’s blockade policy. Macron and Starmer co-chaired. Merz said Germany would contribute mine-clearing. Meloni showed up in person.

And — the part that should end careers if journalism still existed — the UK is set to announce legislation next month moving Britain closer to the European Union, explicitly because the Iran war has soured the “special relationship” with the United States. The war Trump started. The ceasefire he can’t close. The allies he insulted. The strait he can’t reopen. London is quietly de-coupling from Washington and re-coupling to Brussels, and the American press is covering Kash Patel’s bar tab.

On Chinese social media, they’re already calling Beijing the real winner of the Iran war. A Weibo user’s line of the week: the White House’s “credit score” wouldn’t be enough “to unlock a shared bike.”

The Throughline

Five stories. One spine.

Trump hires broken people on purpose (Patel). He insults the allies who’d bail him out (Canada). He protects the network that compromised him (Epstein). The adversary arming the enemy he’s “at war” with is the same country he’s flying to see next month (China/Touska). And while he loses the war, the allies he mocked are quietly building the post-American order without him (London).

This is not five stories. This is one story told five ways. And the story is: the American presidency is being run by a compromised man, staffed by compromised people, losing a war to a coalition of compromised states, while functional democracies quietly step around him.

Zev’s closing line on the show: “The adults are meeting in London. The drunks are at the podium in Washington. Pick a side.”

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5️⃣ Vance Off The Plane, China On The Board

Vice President JD Vance didn’t even bother traveling Islamabad for talks on Iran, trump claimed it was for security concerns but no Iranian delegation had left for Pakistan. On CNBC’s Squawk Box, Trump described intercepting an Iranian vessel carrying “things on it, which wasn’t very nice,” calling the cargo “a gift from China, perhaps” — the first time a sitting U.S. president has described Beijing rearming Tehran’s air defenses. Former Iranian negotiator Mohammad Marandi posted a public warning telling Iranians to leave the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait immediately, and said ships near the Strait of Hormuz should prepare to abandon. A direct threat to US vessels who have been blockading Iranian ports. Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tehran has “new cards on the battlefield,” language Blundell read as confirmation of the Chinese systems. A Daily Mirror report said Trump asked Joint Chiefs chair Dan Caine for a full ground invasion of Iran and the nuclear codes over the weekend, and that Caine walked out of the meeting. The ceasefire ends tomorrow night.

4️⃣ Ukraines Counter-Offensive

Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Tuesday that the Druzhba pipeline, the Soviet-era crude artery Ukrainian drones knocked offline in January, is repaired and ready to resume. The restart unlocks the €90 billion EU loan that Budapest had been blocking and releases the next Russia sanctions package Hungary had vetoed. Overnight, Special Operations Centre Alpha of the Security Service of Ukraine hit the Samara line dispatch station — the mixing point where high- and low-sulfur crude becomes the Urals export blend — cutting Russian production by as much as 40 percent. In the same window, Peter Magyar won Hungary’s election on a platform of forcing Viktor Orbán out and redistributing Orbán’s captured media licenses. Ukraine now runs 85 percent self-sufficient on munitions and air defense and has signed production deals with the same Gulf states that stopped buying drones from the Trump crime family. Two levers on one pipeline of money: Washington squeezes Iran’s barrels off the market and lifts Russia’s ledger; Kyiv cuts the ledger at Samara and drops Budapest’s veto.

3️⃣ Palantir Puts It In Writing

Palantir Technologies posted a 22-point manifesto to X over the weekend — billed as a summary of CEO Alex Karp’s 2025 book The Technological Republic, co-authored with head of corporate and legal affairs Nicholas Zamiska. The planks include “hard power in this century will be built on software,” a call for universal national service and an end to the all-volunteer force, a claim that “the question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose,” a line that “the post-war neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone,” and the assertion that “some cultures have produced vital advances. Others remain dysfunctional and regressive.” Blundell’s piece, which went viral within hours of publication, called Palantir the first private corporation in recorded history to fuse four powers civilizations had kept apart: the surveillance apparatus of the state, the targeting engine of the military, the ideological machinery that decides what information travels, and the patronage of Jeffrey Epstein — who put $40 million into the company and corresponded with Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and Elon Musk for five years after his conviction. Blundell called it “the digital East India Trading Company,” the private corporate army that ran sovereign states for 150 years until the Crown absorbed it into the Royal Navy. The current Vice President is funded by Thiel; the man behind the manifesto is Karp.

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2️⃣ The Epstein Test

Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, told the Senate Banking Committee he would not be “a sock puppet” and vowed independence from the White House. Elizabeth Warren raised Warsh’s pre-disclosure holdings in Jeffrey Epstein-era financial vehicles during the hearing. Mark Carney endorsed the nomination on the basis of having worked with Warsh years earlier. Blundell’s read on air: Warsh may be a technocrat of some narrow competence, but any confirmed business with Epstein after the 2008 conviction is a single disqualifier Warsh has not yet answered. “Would he be a puppet? No one knows,” Blundell said. “But if he did any business with Jeffrey Epstein post-conviction, he should be kept as far away from America’s leading financial regulatory body as humanly possible.” Republican Senator Thom Tillis has a separate hold on the nomination tied to the Justice Department’s criminal inquiry into Jerome Powell. Republicans hold a 12–10 margin in committee; one Republican no-vote ends the nomination.

1️⃣ Hegseth Kills The Flu Shot

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that the United States military will no longer require any service member to take the flu vaccine — effective immediately, voluntary for all active duty, reserve, and Department of Defense civilians. Hegseth framed the reversal in religious terms: “Your body, your faith, and your convictions are not negotiable,” and told the force that “that era of betrayal is over.” The Department of Defense has required the flu vaccine for 77 years, since the late 1940s. Blundell’s on-air read: the order is not a health policy — it is a loyalty transaction aimed at the 19 to 20 percent of service members who swear evangelical allegiance alongside their oath to the Constitution. “Pete and Donnie are trying to carve away a certain group by giving them what they want,” Blundell said. “I did this for you. You need to do something for me when the time comes.” Context: the same weekend, Joint Chiefs chair Dan Caine refused Trump’s request for the nuclear codes and walked out of a meeting about a 200,000-soldier ground invasion of Iran. Hegseth is buying a cohort because Caine is not.

Washington’s oil blockade lifts Russia’s ledger while the Vice President is funded by the company writing the next regime’s playbook; the same week, the Secretary of Defense trades a 77-year military vaccine mandate for a loyalty cohort while the Joint Chiefs chair walks out on a ground-invasion briefing. The pieces are moving in the same direction.

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5️⃣ The Strait of ‘Iran’, Open but Chained

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” on Friday morning. President Trump quote-posted “THANK YOU!” in all caps and then, in a second Truth Social post the same morning, confirmed the U.S. naval blockade would remain in force “until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100 percent complete.” “It’s easy to be cynical when you hear pronouncements of victory,” MeidasTouch Chief Washington Correspondent Scott MacFarlane said on The Fivestack, noting the conspicuous Republican silence and Ann Coulter’s reaction: “yay, the strait that was open before we began bombing is open again. Everybody pretend this is a huge victory for Trump, so he’ll end this catastrophe.” Host Zev Shalev pointed out that the ceasefire depends on Hezbollah, which is not a party to the agreement, and on a prospective Axios-reported deal unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian funds in exchange for uranium. “It sounds a lot like the Obama deal,” Shalev said. Wyoming Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, declining to mention the president by name, told reporters she had “record food pantry needs right here, right now, this week” in her state.

4️⃣ Mejia Wins New Jersey in a Blowout

Progressive Democrat Analilia Mejia, backed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, won the special election to fill Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill’s House seat, defeating Republican Joe Hathaway by a wide margin. “That suburban New Jersey district is not blue-blue,” MacFarlane said. “Democrats fought like hell to win that seat in 2018. They fought like hell to preserve it in ‘20, ‘22, and ‘24. If that’s uninteresting, if that’s not contested in a serious way, it’s a barometer of where things are headed.” Trump has predicted a Republican landslide in November; thirty-six House Republicans have already announced they will not seek reelection — a record. Shalev noted that the administration’s urgency on Iran is reading less like foreign policy and more like campaign management.

3️⃣ The Blanche Coup

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, is converting the Department of Justice into a one-man enforcement arm, Shalev said. Blanche this week told his department to “move on” from the Epstein files while 2.5 million documents remain sealed. His office moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of a dozen Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. And Blanche is personally overseeing an expanding criminal inquiry into former CIA Director John Brennan, with six or more witnesses queued. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, MacFarlane reported, separately filed a motion Friday seeking to have the Justice Department refund restitution fines paid by a pair of January 6 defendants — money that had been earmarked for the victims’ fund covering the 140 police officers injured that day. “That symbol means something,” MacFarlane said. “We are still auditioning for Trump’s approval.”

2️⃣ Oil Prices and the Limits of the Victory Lap

Crude prices tumbled on Araghchi’s announcement — WTI down roughly 12 percent, Brent down 10.5 percent — but gasoline prices at the pump are unlikely to deliver relief before November, and Republican campaign strategists know it. “Gas prices go up by an elevator,” MacFarlane quoted his former CBS colleague Jill Schlesinger. “They go down by a slow spirally staircase.” At a Thursday press opportunity, Trump, asked how much longer Americans would pay high gas prices, replied, “Well, they’re not very high.” “He doesn’t seem to have a real grasp on what his economy is doing to the everyday person,” Shalev said. MacFarlane’s harder point: “Trump’s running the Biden playbook. Which failed. It doesn’t work.” The GOP’s midterm plan — run hard on the Trump tax cuts this spring — has been swamped by pump prices and grocery receipts.

1️⃣ Warning: The January 6 Blueprint Is Back, from Inside the White House

Former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman, who served as senior technical advisor to the House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack, joined the show to walk through his newly published analysis tying Trump’s March 31, 2026 voting executive order to the 2020 playbook drafted at South Carolina’s Tomotley Plantation. “Tomotley Plantation was bought by Lin Wood for about $7.9 million,” Riggleman said. “Tomotley is where they gathered everybody right after the election, right after November 3rd, to come up with a plan to use executive orders and legal frameworks to steal the election.” The 2026 executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile a federal Citizenship List, gives the Postmaster General uniform rule-making authority over mail ballots, and provides criminal prosecution authority over state and local election officials who do not comply. “Jamie Raskin likes to say the biggest indicator, the biggest symptom of a forthcoming coup is a recently attempted coup,” MacFarlane said. Riggleman’s alarm is that the same network — Flynn, Powell, Byrne, Waldron — has simply moved from a hotel conference room to inside the White House, with more sophisticated tactics and no Pat Cipollone left to block them. “When you pardon people who tried to overturn an election, you really have eliminated the moral hazard and the safety net,” MacFarlane said. Seditious conspiracy, he reminded viewers, “means you conspire to overturn the government or democracy or an election. It’s hard to think of a more fundamentally pernicious thing to do.” The Department of Justice is now trying to vacate those convictions.

The Iran story is the distraction. The Blanche story is the coup. The big story rises in the East — and the next one starts at the ballot box. History rhymes. That’s how we know sooner.

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Trump stepped onto the White House lawn on his way to Vegas today and said something that may actually be true: Iran is close to agreeing to no nuclear weapons — not for 20 years, not for 30, but permanently. He also confirmed the second aircraft carrier was sent “in case we don’t make a deal” and said if they do, “it’ll be leaving very soon.”

We’ve heard “close to a deal” before. But this time was different. The Lebanon-Israel 10-day ceasefire is confirmed. Netanyahu and Lebanese President Aoun spoke directly for the first time in 34 years. A photo op is expected at the White House this week. Pakistan’s mediation is holding. The S&P hit a record high. Something is moving — even if we’ve been fooled before.

I said you’d have to give him at least some credit if he gets it done. The problem is the price. “He’s able to solve these things by sacrificing all the things America used to stand for,” Lawrence said. “Liberty, equality, justice, diversity. He says, well, I’ll get rid of all of that and then I can solve the wars. Of course you can — because then you’re not in disagreement with anybody.”

On Trump’s press gaggle:

The inflation numbers he was crowing about this morning? The ones he called “incredible”? The IEA said this morning Europe has six weeks of jet fuel left. Gas is $4.14 nationally. Real wages are down. The S&P is pricing in a peace deal that hasn’t been signed. Dana called it perfectly: “I only hear diarrhea of the mouth. None of this is really true or happening.”

Trump claimed he has now “solved 10 wars.” He was at 8 this morning. He added two in an hour on his way to the airport.

On the Pope:

Trump, Vance, and Mike Johnson are all attacking Pope Leo XIV now — four consecutive days. Leo was in Bamenda, Cameroon today calling the world “ravaged by a handful of tyrants” who spend billions on killing. Giorgia Meloni — Trump’s closest European ally — defended the Pope publicly. Trump attacked her too. The Archbishop of Canterbury stood with Leo. Bishop Barron, on Trump’s own Religious Liberty Commission, called the attacks “entirely inappropriate.” WaPo’s Karen Tumulty: evangelical leaders who stayed silent through two terms are starting to speak.

As Lawrence said: “Politics is addition. He keeps subtracting.”

On Swalwell:

This show went deep on Swalwell today — deeper than most. Lawrence and Dana landed somewhere important: it’s harder when it’s our side. “I wanted him to be a good guy,” Lawrence said. “I thought there’s got to be one good guy who could lead the Democratic Party.” Dana: “There is a grief with that. You don’t want to believe it.”

The discussion went to something bigger — the predator class, the pattern of men at the highest levels of power choosing abuse, and the asymmetry of accountability between parties. “If you’re going to be that kind of guy, you’ve got to be a Republican,” Dana said. “Because it’s only the Democrats who are busy policing themselves.”

Lawrence’s answer to that was the one worth sitting with: “If there is no party actually advocating for justice and the rights of women — we need to be better. If we’re not, the Democratic Party deserves to die and we need to build another one that actually is.”

The Senate blocked war powers for the fourth time — 47-52. The NYT says Republicans are privately anxious. The IEA says six weeks. The ceasefire expires in five days. The election EO is quietly already in effect — 75 career election officials replaced, 10 of whom worked to overturn 2020. Check your voter registration. Now.

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“The Americans are piling all their resources into a part of the world where you can’t really escape,” she said. “It’s a tiny sliver of water they have to protect. Iran has two routes they can block — 20% of global goods through Hormuz, another 15-20% through the Red Sea with the Houthis. We’re on a timeline. Iran is not.”

Here’s what we covered today.

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BREAKING — PAKISTAN IN TEHRAN

Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir landed in Tehran within the hour before we went live, meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister in an emergency bid to extend the ceasefire. Pakistan’s PM Sharif is simultaneously in Saudi Arabia, heading to Turkey and Qatar. The US has not formally agreed to extend the ceasefire. The White House says it “feels good about a deal.” Treasury Secretary Bessent — who called the Strait of Hormuz “the Straits of Vermouth” at his press briefing — promised gas with a three in front of it by summer. The S&P 500 hit a new high. Markets are betting on a deal. Six days left on the clock.

5. CONGRESS CRACKS, TEXAS RISES

Eric Swalwell is gone. Ruben Gallego called him a predator who led a double life — then gave a press conference that raised more questions than it answered. James Talarico, 36, former public school teacher, just announced $27 million raised in Q1 — 98% small dollar, all 50 states, polling within three points of both Cornyn and Paxton. Democrats haven’t won statewide in Texas since 1994. The party is losing California and finding its future in Texas on the same afternoon. The Senate war powers vote happens this week.

4. SEBASTIAN GORKA WANTS COUNTERTERRORISM

Joe Kent resigned as NCTC director in March, on the record, rejecting Trump’s claim that Iran posed an imminent threat. Now Sebastian Gorka — who called the Iran war “Operation Epic Fury” and said “God bless our warfighters” — wants the job. Olga, who investigated Gorka in 2015, confirmed on air that he was photographed with the Order of Vitéz, a Hungarian group with Nazi ties. “We went from a white nationalist to literally a Nazi,” she said. The position requires Senate confirmation. The same Senate voting on war powers this week.

3. POPE LEO VS. TRUMP, DAY 4

Pope Leo landed in Cameroon. English-speaking separatists declared a three-day ceasefire in his honor. Trump attacked him for the fourth consecutive day. Conservative Catholic bishops on Trump’s own Religious Liberty Commission are now publicly rebuking him. “Who attacks the Pope?” Olga asked. “You’d have to have screws loose.” Trump also went after Italian Prime Minister Meloni — a former ally — for defending the Pope. Politics is about addition. He keeps subtracting.

2. FIVE IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES AGAINST HEGSETH

House Democrats filed five articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth today — abuse of power, war crimes, serious misconduct. They won’t pass. That’s not the point. “Trump is going to use him as a scapegoat,” Olga said. “The worse things get in Iran, the more he’s going to pile it on Hegseth.” The double-tap strike in the Caribbean. The Signal chat. The disclosure of classified information while Whitcoff’s phone was in Moscow. It’s all being documented now. Every Republican vote to protect him is a vote Democrats run against in November.

THREE CARRIERS, THE RED SEA, AND A TRAP

The USS George H.W. Bush is rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Three carriers in theater by ceasefire expiry. Iran this morning threatened to shut all trade in the Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea. The Houthis have done it before. Nine Iranian vessels have turned back. Six German ships are stranded in the Gulf. Treasury sent warning letters to two Chinese banks. Trump told Fox Business the war is “very close to being over.” He has said this repeatedly.

“He was sold a war he didn’t understand,” Olga said. “He thought he’d come in, have Israel assassinate the Ayatollah, and that’s it. This is an ideological regime. They will die before submitting to the West. And Iran knows Trump has already blinked — he’s worried about gas prices, the economy. He wants out. They have the upper hand and they know it.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Olga closed with something worth sitting with. China and Russia provided satellite targeting data on US and Israeli positions. Russia provided 50+ Israeli targets to Iran. North Korean troops rotated through Ukraine. The axis is coordinating. Trump called Xi, who said China wasn’t sending MANPADs to Iran. “What is the likelihood that Xi would tell him — yeah, we’re sending MANPADs to the Iranians?” Olga asked. “He’s going to say of course not. And Trump takes his word for it.”

Meanwhile Orbán — the linchpin between the Kremlin’s operations, the MAGA movement, the AFD, France’s National Front, the Heritage Foundation — lost power in Hungary this week. “They’re on the Titanic,” Olga said. “We just can’t let up.”

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There’s a pattern hiding in plain sight. Each story today reads like a separate news cycle. A military standoff in the Persian Gulf. An election office captured by loyalists. A congressman accused of rape. A new pope who refuses to blink. A Canadian prime minister reshaping the Western alliance. But pull back and look at all five at once, and what you’re watching is a single crisis playing out across five fronts simultaneously — the story of a government that has isolated itself from the world, captured its own institutions, and is now confronting the consequences.

Zev Shalev and former Republican congressman Denver Riggleman broke it all down on today’s FIVESTACK. Here’s what they found.

🚨 BREAKING: China Defies the Blockade

The numbers tell the story before anything else does. Before the Iran war began, more than 120 ships per day were moving through the Strait of Hormuz. In the past 48 hours: 28 total.

That is what a blockade looks like — until a sanctioned Chinese tanker pushed through it today anyway.

China has warned it will keep the Strait open. And Denver Riggleman, who spent years in NSA intelligence, isn’t treating this as posturing. He flagged that China may be arming Iran with FN-6 MANPADs — infrared, shoulder-fired missiles. The reason that matters: radar warning systems don’t detect them.

“That’s how you shoot down jets,” Riggleman said.

Meanwhile, the strategic picture is darkening for Washington. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is in Beijing. Saudi Arabia is pressing Trump to stand down. The coalition Trump needed to make the blockade stick is not there — because Trump spent years systematically alienating the people who might have been in it.

“Xi and Putin don’t like him anymore,” Riggleman said. “He’s isolated who he wanted to be our new allies.”

Zev Shalev brought it back to the money — as he always does, because the money is always the thread. Trump’s net worth went from functionally broke to $6.5 billion, plus $10 billion in crypto. There’s the “Board of Peace” — $1 billion per country entry fee, nine or more countries in, $1.25 billion of USAID funds funneled into it, with contracts flowing back to Trump-linked companies. Eric Trump invested in Israeli drone company Extend eleven days before the Iran war started. There’s a $750 million contract vehicle, and a $20 billion Andurel contract awarded in March.

Zev’s framing: “A criminal organization inserting itself into every global monetization process.”

The blockade isn’t just a military story. It’s the business model.

5. The Swalwell Accuser

A woman held a live press conference in Beverly Hills today with attorney Lisa Bloom. She is a model and software entrepreneur. She says she met Eric Swalwell in 2018, that she knew his wife was pregnant, and that he offered to help her software company make connections.

On their third encounter, she says she believes he drugged her drink. She arrived at his hotel room incapacitated. She says he raped her, and that he choked her until she lost consciousness.

“I thought I died,” she told the press conference.

Denver Riggleman had history with Swalwell — he went after him hard over the Fang Fang Chinese intelligence story, and Swalwell reached out to him directly during that period. Riggleman was careful about the legal dimensions of today’s accusation, but he didn’t hedge on the pattern.

“Past performance is indicative of future performance,” he said.

Zev was blunter: “Of all the politicians you would have hoped would have turned out to be a decent guy, he ain’t.”

For the record: Swalwell has not been charged. But the press conference was on the record, with counsel present, and the specificity of the allegations was not vague.

4. ProPublica: Trump Gutted Every Election Safeguard

ProPublica published the receipts today. Seventy-five career election integrity officials are gone. They were replaced by twenty-four loyalists. Ten of those twenty-four actively worked to overturn the 2020 election results.

Running point on “election integrity” for the federal government is now Heather Honey. Zev’s assessment: “She made this shit up. Everything she said was completely false.” She was present at Michael Flynn’s February summit where activists pressured Trump to declare a national emergency to seize control of the midterm elections.

Denver Riggleman, who has tracked election interference architecture since January 6th, walked through what’s coming next: Executive Order 14248, being drafted by the same Sidney Powell, Cleta Mitchell, and Patrick Byrne network that tried to overturn 2020. The draft order would nationalize elections, authorize the seizure of voting machines, and mobilize ICE in election contexts.

Riggleman pushed back against the simple version of the “steal” narrative, but his nuance made the danger more precise, not less:

“You can’t steal 50 states. But when you’re talking about specific swing districts — 70 to 80 districts that really matter, down to one county — that’s where you have trouble.”

Why is Trump doing this now? Riggleman had a direct answer: “He’s doing this to stop the investigations that are going to come out of the House if Democrats take over — the impeachment process. He knows how much corruption, how much grifting is going on.”

The conclusion isn’t pessimistic, but it is blunt: “If it’s too big to rig, there has to be an overwhelming mobilization of voters in 2026.”

3. Pope Leo XIV Doesn’t Flinch

Trump attacked Leo XIV on Truth Social. Called him “WEAK on Crime.” Claimed credit for his election. Then posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, deleted it, and told people it was “me as a doctor.”

Leo’s response: “I have no fear of the Trump administration.”

Today, Leo sent a formal letter warning of “majoritarian tyranny.”

Denver Riggleman has watched the Trump movement from the inside — he has family members who believe Trump is “the imperfect vessel executing spiritual warfare.” He watches the Jesus meme and reads something important in it: “I think he believes now what’s being said about him. He’s drank a lot of his own bathwater. The Jesus meme is a tipping point.”

Zev saw the strategic self-destruction clearly: “He’s giving away the mantle of moral authority to the Pope. Saying to Pope Leo, yeah, you go tell everyone what’s right and wrong, I’m just going to keep being the criminal.”

And for those worried about Leo’s durability in this fight: “The papacy survived Attila, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler. It will survive Truth Social.”

2. Carney Wins the Majority. Canada Builds What America Abandoned.

Mark Carney secured a parliamentary majority through Monday’s by-elections — 174 of 343 seats. The man who ran explicitly on “Canada is not for sale” now has a mandate.

Zev said what used to be unthinkable to say on an American broadcast: Canada could become “an adversary, a competitor to the United States. I can’t even believe we’re saying those words.”

Riggleman was specific about what’s been lost: “Canada could be the leader as a trusted partner of NATO, because right now America is not trusted by any country in the world.”

On Friday, Starmer and Macron host a Paris summit — forty nations. The description: basically doing NATO without the United States, against the United States.

Riggleman’s verdict on where MAGA’s isolationist project has landed: “MAGA wanted a nationalistic, isolated government. And they got all they voted for.”

On JD Vance specifically, Riggleman — a military veteran — did not mince words: “A Lima Delta. He doesn’t have the moral compass to be a true American on the world stage. He’s a joke. He’s an embarrassment.”

1. The Blockade (The Full Picture)

Everything in today’s show runs back through the blockade — the Iran war, the drone contracts, the Board of Peace grift, China’s defiance, Lavrov in Beijing, Saudi Arabia pressing Trump to stand down.

Zev’s closing read: “Donald Trump is about as isolated and alone in the world” as the blockade cracks around him.

Denver Riggleman, who has spent years learning to follow money through intelligence networks, stripped it to its core: “The main objective of the Trump family is to make money. The longer he can draw this out, the more money they pour into their pockets.”

The blockade isn’t holding. But that might not be the point. For the people profiting from the conflict, every day it continues is a revenue event.

The Pattern

Step back. Look at all five stories at once.

A military blockade the world refuses to honor. A Congress in active ethical collapse. An election apparatus being captured in broad daylight, piece by piece, loyalist by loyalist. A pope who became the moral authority Trump created by attacking him. And Canada, with Europe, quietly building the new Western alliance — without Washington at the table.

These are not separate news cycles. They are one story about a government that has systematically dismantled every check that might have stopped it, alienated every ally that might have supported it, and is now discovering that the world doesn’t actually need its permission to keep moving.

The blockade is the metaphor. And it’s cracking.

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Wajahat Ali of The Left Hook is sitting in for Dean Blundell, who’s away. Before the countdown, Zev and Waj tore into Donald Trump’s escalating holy war with Pope Leo — the blasphemous AI image of Trump as a healing Christ-figure, his tarmac slam calling the first American Pope “a very liberal person” who “likes crime,” and his press conference insistence that the image was just “me as a doctor.” As Waj put it, “this man is the most blasphemous, hedonistic vulgarian we’ve seen in a long time.” The broader picture: allies are walking away. Chrystia Freeland told MSNBC that America is “behaving in ways that are very hard for us to understand.” Canadian tourism to the U.S. is down 35%. Denmark is hardening around Greenland. NATO refused to help force open the Strait of Hormuz. “If this mother-effer did nothing except play golf for the past year and a half,” Waj said, “America would be better off.”

5️⃣ Swalwell’s Campaign Collapses in 48 Hours

California Congressman Eric Swalwell, 45, was the frontrunner to replace Gavin Newsom until Friday, when the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published sexual misconduct allegations from four women, including a former staffer. By Sunday night his campaign was suspended. “Even milk from Saturday is more fresh than Eric Swalwell,” Waj said. “If someone suspends their campaign, that means there’s a there there.” The bigger question is whether he stays in Congress. Zev noted the obvious hypocrisy: “It’s very difficult to explain how you can keep him in office when you’re also asking for complete transparency on Epstein. Those two things can’t coexist.” Waj connected it to the larger pattern — Weinstein, Diddy, the Epstein class, Madison Cawthorn getting axed the moment he mentioned Republican orgies. “You scratch my back, I scratch your back, you hide my scandal, I’ll hide your scandal.” The demand: a culling.

4️⃣ Bondi Refuses Epstein Subpoena in Open Cover-Up

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi was subpoenaed to testify tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee on the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files. She won’t show. The DOJ says she doesn’t have to because she’s a private citizen now — a dodge Zev called “absolute ridiculous.” Former presidents testify. Former First Ladies testify. Former Secretaries of State testify. “Now we’re saying a former Attorney General somehow doesn’t have to, if they’re involved in the crime that is the cover-up?” Waj called it bigger than Watergate: “This Epstein cover-up is the biggest political cover-up I’ve seen because it spans years, multiple players, foreign countries, banks, so many powerful people. And the person mentioned the most in the Epstein files is Donald Trump.” Zev and Waj also dug into reporting on Zorro Ranch, and circled back to Melania’s unprompted six-minute podium denial — the Barbra Streisand effect in real time.

3️⃣ Orban Falls in Historic Hungarian Landslide

Sunday in Budapest, 16-year authoritarian Viktor Orban — Steve Bannon’s original “Trump before Trump” — was voted out in the biggest democratic rebuke of the global far-right in years. Peter Magyar’s center-right Tisza party took 138 of 199 parliamentary seats, a constitutional-majority wipeout. JD Vance was sent to rally for Orban. Netanyahu’s son was sent. Russia meddled. None of it worked. “Fascism, Orban, Netanyahu, MAGA, Trump, and strongmen are not inevitable,” Waj said. The winning message wasn’t identity politics — it was anti-oligarchy, anti-corruption, anti-brogarchy. Zev flagged the precursor signal for November: Magyar came out of nowhere in two years, and American voters are sick of the same thing. “The Epstein story is the Rosetta Stone that shows people it’s a big international cabal of powerful wealthy men raping girls and getting richer.”

2️⃣ Turkey Charges Netanyahu With Genocide — 4,596 Years

Istanbul prosecutors formally charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 34 senior Israeli officials with genocide and crimes against humanity over the October 2025 interception of the Sumud Gaza aid flotilla — the one carrying Greta Thunberg. The indictment could carry 4,596 years in prison. Waj pointed out what mainstream coverage missed: the week before Israel’s illegal war with Trump kicked off, former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett openly said “Erdogan’s next,” and Ben-Gvir doubled down. “So Erdogan’s like, all right, mother-effers, this is my retort.” The Turkish military is not a paper threat — effective in Libya, effective in Syria. “You don’t want to mess around with Turkey, folks.”

1️⃣ U.S. Navy Blockades Iran as Allies Refuse to Join

At 10 a.m. Eastern this morning, the U.S. Navy began enforcing a full maritime blockade of all Iranian ports at the Strait of Hormuz — one of the most consequential military actions in the Middle East in decades. The trigger: failed peace talks in Istanbul, handled again by JD Vance. Iran called the bluff. NATO refused to join. The allies said no. “If the world’s most powerful superpower cannot force Iran to open up the Strait through threats of force, that makes us look weak,” Waj said. “If Iran is not flinching to our threats, that makes us look weak. And the fact that our allies are not coming to our aid — it makes us look weak and unreliable.” Enter China. Zev’s closing read: Netanyahu needs a forever war to stay out of jail, Trump needs a forever distraction to stay out of the Epstein files, and the world is quietly choosing a different superpower to align with.

A Jewish journalist and a Pakistani-American Muslim lawyer, teaming up against fascism, corruption, and rapists — on a Monday afternoon in April 2026.

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TOMORROW: FORMER CONGRESSMAN IS IN FOR DEAN

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DEAN IS OUT THIS WEEK

5️⃣ Melania’s Epstein Press Conference Backfires

In an unprecedented move, First Lady Melania Trump held a surprise press conference in front of the White House press corps to deny any knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, any relationship with Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, and any involvement in criminal activity. The denial came just hours after Brazilian former model Amanda Ungaro — who was brought into Epstein’s orbit at age 16 by modeling agent Paolo Zampoli, the same man Melania claims introduced her to Donald Trump — posted a blistering message on Twitter addressed directly to the First Lady: “I was around you for 20 years. Shut your mouth when speaking about me because I will expose everything I know.” Ungaro, who recently described in a Globo Television interview being on the Lolita Express as a teenager surrounded by 14-to-16-year-old girls while Epstein and Maxwell disappeared into the back bedroom, went further: “I will take legal action against you and your pedophile husband.” Lev Parnas, who has sources close to both Ungaro and the Trump inner circle, revealed that he’s been working with Congress to secure sworn testimony from Ungaro before the Oversight Committee, and to subpoena the Epstein confession tapes author Michael Wolff is reportedly sitting on. Meanwhile, FBI 302s and archived emails place Melania squarely in Epstein’s world during the late 1990s — including a sworn statement from one of Epstein’s assistants that it was Jeffrey who introduced Melania to Donald, not Zampoli. “She perjured herself so many times in that statement yesterday, just from my sources and the things we’ve been looking into,” Parnas said. The question isn’t whether Melania was part of Epstein’s world — the evidence overwhelmingly suggests she was. The question is what she did there, and why the cover-up continues from the White House itself.

4️⃣ Trump’s 250-Foot Monument to Himself

The White House released new designs for a proposed 250-foot triumphal arch to be built near the Lincoln Memorial along the Potomac River. When a CBS reporter asked President Trump who the arch was for, he pointed to himself and said, “Me.” The structure would tower 100 feet above the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and 150 feet above the Lincoln Memorial — a monument to a president who preserved the Union, now dwarfed by a vanity project for one who is dismantling it. This comes on top of the $400 million White House ballroom, the renaming of the Kennedy Center, and a planned presidential “library” that more closely resembles a condo hotel. “We’re living in an authoritarian country right now, folks, because in normal democracies, things like this don’t happen,” Parnas said. “There would be people that would tell them no. But we threw that out the door because now Donald Trump says I want an arch and you got people lining up saying, where do we sign, sir?” With inflation surging to a two-year high and Americans struggling with rising energy and food costs, the ostentatious monument is the ultimate let-them-eat-cake moment from a president who keeps building palaces while the country burns.

3️⃣ Iran Peace Talks: The Three Amigos Head to Pakistan

Vice President J.D. Vance departed Joint Base Andrews for Islamabad to lead weekend peace talks with Iran, joined by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — a delegation Zev Shalev described bluntly as “a Russian asset, a Saudi asset, and probably an asset for Peter Thiel and the Russians.” Before boarding, Vance offered his negotiating philosophy on Iran’s nuclear enrichment: “My wife has the right to skydive, but she doesn’t jump out of an airplane because she and I have an agreement.” The talks come as the two-week ceasefire buckles, with Israel killing 300 people in Lebanon on Wednesday alone while claiming Hezbollah isn’t covered by the truce. Iran accuses the U.S. of violating the ceasefire. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. And Russia, as Parnas pointed out, is laughing all the way to the bank — profiting from the chaos on both sides of the oil price swings while its ally Pakistan hosts negotiations that go nowhere. “What I’m hearing is the people that Trump is dealing with are people that Vladimir Putin has connected them to,” Parnas said. The talks aren’t designed to succeed. They’re designed to look like diplomacy while the war machine keeps running.

2️⃣ Hungary Could End Orban’s 16-Year Reign Sunday

Hungary holds parliamentary elections this Sunday that could end Viktor Orban’s 16-year grip on power, with independent polls showing opposition leader Peter Magyar of the Tisza Party leading by double digits. In a remarkable display of election interference, Trump posted a full endorsement on Truth Social urging Hungarians to vote for Orban, calling him “a truly strong and powerful leader with a proven track record of delivering phenomenal results.” Three days earlier, J.D. Vance stood on a stage in Budapest and called Trump on speakerphone to deliver the endorsement live — though Trump sent him to voicemail the first time. The critical question now is what happens if Orban loses. “Does he leave? How does he leave?” Parnas asked. “If Trump didn’t leave, is Viktor Orban just going to say, you know, OK?” Vance has already laid the groundwork, pointing to supposed Ukrainian interference in Hungary’s elections — an absurd claim given Ukraine is fighting for its survival. Expect Orban to contest any loss, claim fraud, and lean on Trump for support. It’s the authoritarian playbook, running in real time.

1️⃣ Kamala Harris Signals 2028 Run — But Is This the Right Time?

At Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network convention in a packed Times Square hotel ballroom, former Vice President Kamala Harris gave her most explicit signal yet about a 2028 presidential run. When Sharpton asked directly if she’d run again, the crowd erupted chanting “Run again! Run again!” Harris waited for silence, then said simply: “I might.” Parnas was unequivocal in his response: the timing is wrong. “We need fresh blood. Enough with the Trumps, the Bidens, the Harrises. We need to move on,” he said. His argument was strategic, not personal — any 2028 announcement now plays directly into Trump’s hands by giving MAGA something to unite against ahead of the midterms. “Right now it’s Trump against Trump’s accomplishments or problems. You put somebody into that race, now all of a sudden Biden’s in the mix, the past is in the mix.” With the economy cratering, inflation surging to 3.3 percent, a war with no exit strategy, and a government still partially shut down, Democrats have everything they need to win the midterms on the merits. The last thing they need is a premature 2028 horse race handing Trump a foil.

The Epstein cover-up, the monuments, the sham peace talks, the authoritarian playbook abroad and the 2028 question at home — every story today comes back to one thing: whether Americans are paying close enough attention to stop what’s happening before it’s too late.

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5️⃣ Canada’s Endless Acronym Becomes an Elon Musk Op

A clip of NDP MP Leah Gazan using the full “MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+” acronym on the floor of Parliament exploded online after Elon Musk amplified it through Alberta separatist David Parker of Take Back Alberta, who repackaged it as proof that Canada is forcing citizens to rattle off a 15-letter identity pledge. “That is an op,” Dean said flatly on the show. “One woman, Leah Gazan, not very well respected in this country.” Zev, who is gay, gently pushed back on the acronym sprawl itself: “I remember the time when it was just the LGBT community. It was fine. Now it’s this endless acronym.” The pair agreed the underlying cause — missing and murdered Indigenous women — deserves real funding, and that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s $7 billion cut to Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations is the actual scandal being buried under the viral mockery. Instead, the American right has hung a caricature on Canada that has nothing to do with how Canadians actually talk about identity or advocacy.

4️⃣ $1.5 Billion Traded in Five Minutes Before Trump’s Iran Ceasefire

While Melania sucked up the oxygen, Zev flagged what may be the bigger financial story of the week: roughly $1.5 billion moved through prediction markets and oil in the five minutes before Donald Trump abruptly reversed his threat to “destroy Iranian civilization” and pivoted to a ceasefire posture. “People are getting hugely rich off the American military,” Zev said. “This man knows how to play the media. He knows how to play the market. And he’s doing it for mucho bucks right now.” The ceasefire itself is already wobbling, NATO allies are openly refusing to bail Trump out, and the president spent the day not on war strategy but on a rage-post against his own former MAGA influencer base. The pattern Zev and Dean kept returning to is that every military spasm of this presidency has come with a suspiciously well-timed trade, and no one in Congress is treating it like the securities-fraud story it increasingly looks like.

3️⃣ Pam Bondi Tries to Dodge Her Subpoena

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is now claiming she doesn’t have to appear before the House Oversight Committee on the 14th because she’s “no longer in the DOJ,” and the White House has quietly co-signed that dodge. Scott McFarlane, joining the show fresh off his departure from CBS News, reported that Republicans on the committee are not celebrating the move. “They haven’t ruled it out,” Scott said of reissuing the subpoena to private-citizen Bondi. “The fact that they haven’t declaratively said now she’s off the hook means she’s not off the hook.” Lev Parnas, working his own sources, said Chairman James Comer is “getting a lot of pressure” from Nancy Mace, Thomas Massie, and other Republicans who want Bondi back under oath. The legal hook matters: as attorney general she couldn’t plead the Fifth, but as a private citizen she can — which, Zev noted, is almost certainly why the administration engineered her exit from DOJ in the first place. Scott’s framing stuck: the Epstein files are “a chronic condition” for the Trump administration, and Bondi’s disappearing act is making it worse.

2️⃣ Trump Melts Down on Truth Social at Tucker, Megyn, Candace, and Alex Jones

In what Dean called “the longest Truth Social post he’s ever put out, the angriest he’s ever been,” Trump unloaded on Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones — the same MAGA influencer ecosystem that put him in the White House — calling them “low IQs,” “nut jobs,” “bankrupt,” and “losers just trying to latch on to MAGA.” He mocked Tucker as “a broken man” who “should see a good psychiatrist,” dragged Alex Jones over the Sandy Hook lawsuits, and sneered at Megyn Kelly over the Rosie O’Donnell debate moment from a decade ago. “He has no defenders,” Zev said. “He has no one left, you know, in the world to defend him.” Dean read the meltdown as evidence the regime’s shelves are empty: “The tariff shelf is empty, the excuse shelf is empty, you’ve got his entire media influencing ecosystem turning on him. Something’s afoot, friends.” That Trump is spending a wartime afternoon writing a multi-page screed at his own former cheerleaders tells you exactly how bad the internal picture looks.

1️⃣ Melania Trump’s Unprecedented Epstein Denial Is a Preemptive Strike

The First Lady, who almost never speaks publicly, walked in front of the White House press corps this afternoon and delivered an on-camera statement denying she was ever friends with Jeffrey Epstein, denying Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump, and demanding Congress hold a public hearing for Epstein’s victims. She named The Daily Beast. She named James Carville. She named HarperCollins UK. She called the reporters “devoid of ethical standards, humility, and respect.” Scott McFarlane, texting live with Epstein survivors during the segment, relayed their reaction: “It’s all a deflection from Pam Bondi and a ploy to put the burden back on survivors.” Lev Parnas was blunter: “She wouldn’t have come out unless there was chaos going on.” Lev connected the dots to Michael Wolff’s recent appearance on Michael Cohen’s podcast, where Wolff said he has tape of Epstein describing Melania having sex with Trump on a plane — an admission Lev says he has already forwarded to Congress. “Trump, knowing Trump the way I know him, for him to have Melania come up and seeing her as angry as she was, this is definitely preemptive. Something’s about to break.” Zev pointed to Narativ’s own reporting from the Epstein Files — a 2016 congratulatory email placing Trump meeting Melania on a weekend Epstein-Florida trip, and a 2019 sworn FBI proffer from a former Epstein assistant stating Epstein introduced Melania to Donald — that directly contradicts the story Melania told from the podium today. Dean’s read cut to the heart of it: “The Epstein files were dead and buried in the court of public opinion for the last month. And for her to come out and reignite this conversation… she’s like, let me make it way worse.” The First Lady of the United States does not break a years-long public silence to deny a story that’s already out. She breaks it to get ahead of one that’s coming.

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5️⃣ Vance Campaigns for Orbán

Vice President JD Vance spent day two of his Budapest visit openly campaigning for Viktor Orbán ahead of Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary election, a vote Orbán’s Fidesz is trailing in for the first time in more than a decade. Zev called the trip a transparent audition. “Vance is desperately trying to position himself as being outside of this war, being anti this war, being anti-Israel, so he can assume the mantle as the next president of the United States,” he said. “He might be sounding very reasonable these days compared to the president, but that’s all showmanship. Behind all of this is a dictator in waiting who’s going to be probably more brutal and more calculating than the current one we have.” The VP of the United States, interfering in a NATO member’s election on behalf of a leader Zev described as “another fascist dictator who lives at the mercy of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin,” was treated in Washington as a footnote. It isn’t one.

4️⃣ Bondi Defies the Epstein Subpoena

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi informed the House Oversight Committee today that she will not appear for her April 14 deposition on the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files. The DOJ, now run by Deputy AG Todd Blanche, argues the subpoena became moot the moment Trump fired her last week. The committee, which issued the subpoena with five Republicans voting in favor, disagrees and is weighing contempt. “Pam Bondi is not going to appear in front of the oversight committee. That’s a big deal,” Zev said. “The reason she was fired is because she doesn’t want to testify. So by firing her, by losing her position as the Attorney General, she no longer feels like she needs to comply with a subpoena, which means she’s obviously hiding something — obviously hiding something from the American people and protecting the president of the United States of America for the crimes he committed.” Five House Republicans already broke ranks on the subpoena. Contempt needs three.

3️⃣ Israel Bombs Lebanon — 100 Strikes in 10 Minutes

Within hours of the Iran ceasefire announcement, Israel launched what the IDF is calling its largest coordinated strike of the war: more than 100 targets across Beirut, southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in under ten minutes, without warning. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported at least 89 killed and more than 700 wounded in the initial wave, with later reports citing 250 dead. Israel says the ceasefire does not cover Hezbollah. Pakistan, the mediator, says it does. “Israel has decided to use this opportunity when America had the ceasefire to go after, indiscriminately, it looks like, civilians in southern Lebanon and Beirut,” Zev said. The campaign now carries an official IDF name: Operation Eternal Darkness.

2️⃣ Iran Shuts the Strait of Hormuz — The Ceasefire Is Already Dying

Less than 24 hours after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, Tehran halted all oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard aerospace commander warned, “Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran.” The White House called reports of a closure “false.” Markets disagreed — WTI fell nearly 20 percent and Brent fell as much as 16 percent, both trading around $95. “The ceasefire has collapsed, it seems, because there is no current open Strait of Hormuz,” Zev said. And the cost isn’t only military. Iran now says it intends to charge $2 million per tanker as a toll to transit the strait — “trillions of dollars of revenue for both Oman and for Iran,” Zev said. That toll gets passed to the American consumer. “Everything that you touch, that you buy, that was delivered to you,” he warned, is about to cost more.

1️⃣ Someone Knew: The Oil Insiders Who Cashed Out on the Iran War

The Fivestack led today with a Narativ exclusive investigation Zev wrote overnight: an exhaustive analysis of market data between February 28 and April 7, 2026, documenting 100 percent correlation between 13 presidential Truth Social posts on Iran and corresponding moves in Brent crude. Every escalation post drove prices up. Every de-escalation post drove them down. Thirteen for thirteen. “I was trying to figure out whether Donald Trump and his network of oil syndicate allied countries benefited from running up a pump and dump scheme on the oil prices during yesterday’s so-called ceasefire announcement,” Zev told viewers. The April 7 timeline is the smoking gun. At 8:06 AM, Trump posted “WHO KNOWS?” — language Zev read as “a man performing uncertainty about a decision that had already been made.” At 12:02 PM, Brent crude began falling 7.3 percent on no public news at all. Twenty-one minutes later, Axios published a story citing U.S. and Israeli officials confirming de-escalation. At 3:50 PM, the Polymarket Iran ceasefire contract surged from roughly 2 percent to 38 percent on about $60.5 million in pre-announcement volume — three hours before Trump announced the deal publicly at 6:32 PM. By Tuesday morning, Brent was at $90.13, down 18.5 percent in two sessions, the largest two-session move since the Gulf War. “Donald Trump has been so cynical about this, that he’s actually just in it to make money for himself, make money for Russia, make money even for the Iranians, definitely make money for the Israelis and the Saudis and the UAE,” Zev said. “This has been a bit of an exercise in running up the stock price or the price of oil per barrel.” Thirteen American servicemen came home in caskets while someone was thinking about selling high. Someone knew when the bombs would fall, and someone knew when the guns would go quiet.

Five stories, one throughline: the people running this war made money on it, and the moment the trade stopped working they lit Beirut on fire.

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The story of the daring F-15E rescue Trump took a victory lap for this morning got a lot weirder once the photos came out of the wreckage Iranian forces picked through in Isfahan. Geneva Convention ID cards. State of Israel automated border-control receipts. American Express cards. American flag underwear. “God, what is wrong with these guys?” Malcolm Nance, a former Navy SERE instructor, said on the show. “Don’t be bringing your ID cards on missions.” Nance, who studied the crash site photos for hours, told Dean and Zev he no longer believes the two C-130s were shot down at all — he thinks they came in nose-first, hot, loaded, blew a tire on landing, the second one plowed into the rut, and U.S. forces destroyed both planes themselves to keep them out of Iranian hands. “That’s not a crash. They were parked side by side and they were just like, fuck it, we blow it.” Either way, the souvenirs Tehran is now holding up on state TV — credit cards, flight bags, a major’s personal effects — are exactly what a sanitized special-operations recovery is never supposed to leave behind.

4️⃣ Hegseth Purges the Brass

While Trump sets ultimatums on cable news, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is quietly gutting the military’s senior ranks. Last week he removed several officers up for one-star promotion, four of them Black women. The pattern is now numerical, not anecdotal. “In the last 160 years since the Civil War, presidents have only fired 11 four- and five-star military officers,” Nance said. “Donald Trump has fired nine in one year.” McArthur. McChrystal. Now nine more in twelve months. “He’s a racist white supremacist,” Nance said of Hegseth, “and he was mad when they wouldn’t get rid of Blacks and women — guys who had served 30-plus years at the highest level of meritocracy in the United States.” Dean called it the most blatant top-down discrimination in the modern military. The men being installed in their places will be the men holding the phone tomorrow night when Trump’s 8 PM deadline expires.

3️⃣ Iran Already Won the Strait

Trump spent today fantasizing about America “charging tolls” once it takes the Strait of Hormuz. Nance, who has transited the strait roughly a dozen times — including under fire in the 1980s tanker war — said it cannot be done. “They control the Strait by the implicit threat that they could mine it. Not one mine has to be seen. They’ve got 33,000 small boats that could land in Dubai in three hours.” The U.S. Fifth Fleet has been pulled back from Bahrain to Norfolk. Iran has been systematically degrading Kuwaiti desalinization plants, the UAE’s Habshan-Fajra pipeline pumping stations, and now the South Pars gas field. “Iran has not moved once from their position in 39 days,” Dean said. “No ceasefire. You will never control the Strait. Bring it on.” Meanwhile Iran is making a fortune — physical barrels are selling at $150 spot in Yanbu, and Tehran has already cleared roughly $14 billion since Trump lifted sanctions on their supertanker traffic. The longer the war runs, the richer the regime gets.

2️⃣ Bibi Goes Rogue

The biggest single problem in the war right now, Nance said, isn’t the Pentagon — it’s Jerusalem. “I’m saying this as a friend of Israel. They are rogue now.” Israeli aircraft have hit near the Bushehr nuclear power plant three separate times. The IAEA has put out formal warnings about what happens if a containment building cracks. Today the Israelis destroyed the South Pars natural gas field — the same field Tehran warned them about two weeks ago, the field that supplies Qatar’s LNG industry. “Netanyahu doesn’t give two fucks about Qatar,” Nance said. “I personally believe Netanyahu is trying to fail that state.” The pattern is unmistakable: refineries, power plants, gas fields, civilian infrastructure. Bibi isn’t fighting a war against the regime — he’s trying to collapse Iran into a failed state, drag the United States in behind him, and survive his own corruption trial in the noise.

1️⃣ Tuesday, 8 PM. Hell and Damnation.

Trump set the clock today: Tuesday, April 7, 8 PM Eastern. Reopen the Strait of Hormuz or America hits Iran’s power grid and bridges. “That is not military targeting. That is collective-punishment warfare against a country of 90 million civilians,” Zev said in the cold open. Nance was blunter: bombing civilian energy infrastructure on a mass scale to punish a population is, by definition, a war crime — and the order, as written, is technically lawful, which means the new compliant generals Hegseth installed will carry it out. But the bigger problem is that Trump doesn’t have the horses. Six U.S. aircraft were lost over Iran in 24 hours. The American public has turned against the war. Even Trump admitted it on the lawn today, complaining that “the American people don’t want me to do that.” Then, four seconds later, threatened to do it anyway. “He hates that he is tied down by the American public,” Dean said. “How dare they stop him from having his fun.” 27 hours until the deadline. The pilots are home. The strait is still closed. And the man holding the trigger is a drunk monkey with a machine gun, dancing in a circle with Pete Hegseth and shooting up in the air.

Tomorrow night at 8:01 PM Eastern, we find out whether the bluff was a bluff.

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5️⃣ Noem’s Husband Exposed

Cross-dressing photos of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s husband Bryon surfaced today — hundreds of messages sent to multiple women showing him in fake breasts and pink spandex as part of what’s being described as a “bimbofication” fetish. Dean Blundell, who broke the story on his Substack, walked through the messages in detail, including exchanges on a fetish platform where Bryon paid tribute to a user listed as “slave” and discussed transitioning fantasies. “She did execute some Americans. She did hurt hundreds of thousands of migrants and people of color in the name of Jesus. She hates trans people and cross dressers. So I can’t ignore that either,” Blundell said. The irony was not lost on either host — the woman who ran Trump’s deportation machine had her own family secret blow up in public, possibly leaked by an undocumented immigrant on the app who recognized who Bryon was. Noem was already quietly removed from DHS weeks ago and reassigned to a made-up “Special Envoy” role. Now we know why.

4️⃣ Trump’s Library Is a Hotel

President Trump unveiled renderings of his presidential library Monday — a Miami skyscraper with his name on it, a gold statue of himself, a golden escalator, and Air Force One in the lobby. Then he told reporters he doesn’t “believe in libraries or museums” and confirmed it would “most likely” be a hotel. The 2.6-acre site was donated by Miami Dade College — a public institution giving away public land for $10. “This is a money laundering center. This is a convention hall. This is a hotel. This is a place for people to pay five times what the market value for a condo is just to say thanks to Donald Trump,” Blundell said. Shalev pointed out that foreign governments — the Saudis, Qataris, UAE, Russians — will pour money into the building, turning what should be a place of public study into a generational revenue stream for the Trump family. “Every single thing is only viewed as a money-making opportunity for these guys,” Shalev said. “There’s not a single thing that is about public service.”

3️⃣ SCOTUS Shreds Birthright Order

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Trump’s executive order to strip birthright citizenship from children born to undocumented parents, and his own appointees tore the argument apart. Chief Justice Roberts called the administration’s examples “very quirky” and questioned how they could expand to millions of people. Justice Kagan pointed out the government’s own brief was mostly about temporary inhabitants, not undocumented immigrants. The highlight came when Justice Gorsuch asked Solicitor General John Sauer whether Native Americans would qualify as birthright citizens under the administration’s test — and Sauer said he didn’t know. “You’re on their soil, dickhead,” Blundell responded. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered the sharpest line of the day, asking whether pregnant women would be “brought in for depositions” to determine their babies’ citizenship. Trump sat in the courtroom for 90 minutes, the first sitting president to attend oral arguments. A decision is expected by June.

2️⃣ Johnson Says We’re Not at War

At 9 PM tonight, Trump will address the nation claiming the Iran war could end in “two, maybe three weeks” — while Speaker Mike Johnson insists the United States is “not at war.” The House voted 219-212 to kill a bipartisan War Powers resolution, with Johnson calling the War Powers Act “unconstitutional and frightening.” Shalev laid out what Trump will try to sell tonight: that the war is good for America, that $4-a-gallon gas is patriotic, and that NATO allies who won’t join the fight deserve to be abandoned. Blundell catalogued the reality — AWACS sawed in half by Iranian missiles, stratotankers destroyed on the tarmac in Saudi Arabia, 17 U.S. military installations gone, the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control. “This is operation cover the shit up as fast as you can and offer 17 different narratives,” Shalev said. Trump told Reuters he’s “absolutely” considering withdrawing from NATO, and MBS put the U.S.-Saudi relationship “on hold.” The free world is closing its airspace to American military equipment for the first time in history.

1️⃣ Lutnick Federalizes Your Ballot

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — whom Shalev called “the crypto secretary” for his ties to stablecoin Tether — stood behind Trump in the Oval Office and laid out the architecture of a federal election takeover. A new executive order directs DHS and the Social Security Administration to compile a national “citizenship list” of eligible voters, with USPS assigned to deliver mail ballots only to names on that list. “They’re just going to send the mail-in votes to Republicans, basically, or white people,” Blundell said. Oregon and Arizona filed suit within minutes. Shalev connected Lutnick’s role to the larger corruption: Tether was under investigation for massive Russian money laundering, Lutnick sold his business to his children who got a loan from the crypto company, and now this same man with zero election authority is inserting the federal government between every American and their ballot — seven months before the midterms. “The whole thing is just a crypto venture,” Shalev said, “and it’s designed to build himself a fortune.”

Five stories, one pattern: every public institution — the military, the courts, the postal service, the presidential library — gets turned into a private revenue stream or a tool of authoritarian control.

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Before the countdown even started, Dean Blundell broke news from a fresh court filing: the ATF was unable to match the bullet recovered from Charlie Kirk’s autopsy to the rifle allegedly used by Tyler Robinson. The bullet fragmented on impact with bone, making conclusive ballistics analysis impossible — though the spent shell casing at the scene did match Robinson’s weapon. Robinson’s defense team filed a motion requesting a six-month delay to review the evidence. Meanwhile, Washington County Sheriff Nate Brooksby, who orchestrated Robinson’s surrender, abruptly resigned after 30 years on the job. “This is the biggest story in the world that nobody’s talking about because it’s getting buried,” Blundell said. The case that made Kirk a MAGA martyr — complete with Capitol posters and a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his wife — now has serious evidentiary questions at its core.

5️⃣ Let Them Eat Cake

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill renaming Palm Beach International Airport to Donald J. Trump International Airport, effective July 1 with airport code DJT — and the Trump family had already trademarked the name plus luggage, flight suits, and plastic shoe protectors. Meanwhile Eric Trump unveiled renderings of a 50-story presidential library tower in Miami, gold arches and Air Force One in the lobby, funded by a tax-exempt foundation planning to raise a billion dollars with no restrictions on foreign donations. The original fund was dissolved after failing to file basic paperwork, with $63 million in media lawsuit settlements unaccounted for. Senators Warren and Blumenthal are demanding answers. An airport, a tower, and a trademarked merch line — none of it is about legacy. It’s revenue streams wrapped in presidential immunity.

4️⃣ Gas Hits $4

Gas crossed $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022, with the national average hitting $4.02 — up 34.7% in a single month, the largest spike ever recorded in the United States. Larger than after Katrina, larger than after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Diesel is at $4.59 and analysts say $5 is possible if the Strait of Hormuz stays contested. Every gallon is a war tax from a conflict Americans didn’t vote for and weren’t consulted on, delivered by an administration that promised energy dominance.

3️⃣ NPR/PBS Funding Ruled Unconstitutional

A federal judge struck down Trump’s executive order defunding NPR and PBS, ruling it violates the First Amendment. Judge Randolph Moss called it “viewpoint discrimination and retaliation,” noting the order specifically cited NPR articles about queer animals and a PBS documentary about a transgender teenager. The ruling connects directly to the broader media landscape — with Oracle’s Larry Ellison moving to acquire CBS and CNN, building what Shalev called “not just a surveillance state but a censorship state” designed to control what Americans see, hear, and believe for the next decade.

2️⃣ Judge Halts White House Ballroom

A second federal judge handed Trump a major loss Tuesday. Judge Richard Leon halted construction of the $400 million, 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom, ruling the president lacks authority to fund it through private donations from Amazon, Google, and Palantir — companies with billions in government contracts. “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner,” Leon wrote. Blundell put it more simply: “He’s the Billy Mays of presidents — he’s always selling someone on his idea.” Trump is expected to keep building regardless, just as he ignored the Supreme Court on tariffs.

1️⃣ SCOTUS Guts Conversion Bans / Allies Reject Trump’s War

Two number one stories today. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violates the First Amendment, with Justice Jackson dissenting alone, threatening protections in 30-plus states — on Transgender Day of Visibility. Shalev called it “a Russian copycat policy” and “a pathway to criminalizing homosexuality,” noting Russia banned another LGBTQ organization called Coming Out the same day. Then came the revelation that Kristi Noem’s husband Byron was outed as a cross-dresser on fetish sites while his wife pushed anti-LGBTQ policy in Jesus’s name. And on Day 31 of the Iran war, the coalition of one is collapsing. Defense Secretary Hegseth, who declared Iran “neutralized” last week, is now begging NATO allies for help keeping the Strait of Hormuz open — the same allies Trump called cowards. Italy blocked landing rights, Spain denied overflight, and Qatar asked for its jet back. “They’ve lost the war,” Blundell said. “They’re not willing to admit it, but they’re currently defeated.” Trump’s response to allies: “Build up some delayed courage. Go to the Strait and just take it.”

One year of the Fivestack. Two chill middle-aged snacks doing their best to inform the people — and a whole lot more work to do to bring democracy back.

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5️⃣ No Kings — 8 Million March

Two days after the largest single-day protest in American history, the question is what happens next. Eight million Americans turned out across all 50 states in over 3,300 organized events demanding an end to the Iran war, democratic backsliding, and the suppression of the Epstein files. “250 years of American history, there has never been a bigger protest against its own government, ever,” Dean said, noting the numbers have doubled from the previous No Kings march. Yet Sunday morning shows barely mentioned it — Kristen Welker was the only anchor to reference it, calling it “tens of thousands.” Dean revealed that FCC chair Brendan Carr sent notes to media executives warning them not to cover the march, and the regime is now threatening to charge television executives with treason for showing the footage. “When 9 million people show up, that’s a fucking revolution,” Dean said. “That’s the beginning of a civil movement that Donald Trump can’t stop.”

4️⃣ Russia Targeted US Base for Iran

Ukrainian President Zelensky dropped an intelligence bombshell this weekend: Russia took satellite images of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on three consecutive days — March 20th, 23rd, and 25th — before Iran attacked the base on March 26th, injuring a dozen American troops and destroying an AWACS command-and-control aircraft and multiple stratotankers worth hundreds of millions. Former Congressman Denver Riggleman, who joined the show as a surprise guest straight off the plane, broke down the significance. “This means we have a massive gap not only in how we’re actually responding, but we have a massive gap in our counterintelligence operations,” Riggleman said, calling for the U.S. to seize all Russian economic assets, arm Ukraine with every long-range weapon available, and deploy jammers against Russia’s GLONASS navigation system. Trump’s response to the Russian-assisted attack on American servicemembers: “They do it and we do it.”

3️⃣ Bunker Under the Ballroom

The $400 million East Wing “ballroom” renovation is really a secret military complex. Trump let the truth slip on Air Force One this weekend, revealing that underneath the ballroom is a massive bunker and command center — something he had been hiding behind the cover story of a ceremonial ballroom with Corinthian pillars. Riggleman explained that what’s really being built is a massive SCIF — a sensitive compartmented information facility — and raised critical questions about other entrances, exits, and whether similar bunkers are being constructed around the country as part of a continuity of operations plan. Dean pointed out that the New York Times renderings reveal bizarre design flaws including stairs that lead nowhere and a front facade with no door, while the building is being funded by private — possibly foreign — donors. “Leave it to Donald Trump to build a brand new ballroom that has no fucking door,” Dean said. Riggleman warned: “I am worried about 2028, and if this thing is complete by 2028, what that means if he does refuse to leave.”

2️⃣ Exclusive: Tether Owns the Lutnick Empire

Narativ published a new investigation revealing Jeffrey Epstein’s direct role in designing the cryptocurrency capture of America — for Vladimir Putin. Emails from the Epstein archive show Epstein pitching an intermediary with a plan to deliver to Putin a vision for Russia to leapfrog America’s financial dominance using cryptocurrency, describing it as a Sputnik-level event. The connections run deep: Epstein’s crypto advisor Brock Pierce invented Tether, the stablecoin whose $133 billion in treasuries are held by Howard Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald — and Lutnick sold Cantor to his kids through a trust funded by a Tether loan. Riggleman called for a crypto investigative task force, estimating Trump family crypto holdings may be close to $10 billion, with 19 of the 25 largest investors in Trump-backed crypto being foreign entities. “It’s almost like it is the Epstein regime,” Zev said. “It’s not the Trump regime.”

1️⃣ Greater North America — The Donroe Doctrine

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stood at U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral and redrew the map of the Western Hemisphere. Everything north of the equator — from Greenland to Guyana, Alaska to Ecuador — is now America’s “immediate security perimeter,” which he’s calling Greater North America. Dean connected it directly to the Greater Israel expansionist plan and identified the religious through line: Hegseth is framing this as a Christian nationalist mission, tied to the Seven Mountains Mandate and Project 2025’s concept of “re-hemisphering.” Riggleman broke down how the plan maps onto Project 2025’s framework where global powers each claim their own hemisphere, with the U.S., Russia, China, and Israel each carving out territory. “This is an attempt by the Donald Trump regime, by Pete Hegseth, to paint his expansionism as a mission from his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” Dean said.

Former Congressman Denver Riggleman joined the show as a surprise guest from Zev’s house — straight off the plane, sharing a microphone, and bringing receipts on the Trump family’s capture of the military-industrial complex. His six-part series on the Trump crime family’s drone and defense industry corruption is at denverriggleman.substack.com.

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5. Kash Patel Hacked by Iran

The FBI director got hacked by the enemy he’s supposed to be fighting. An Iran-linked hacking group called Handala breached Kash Patel’s personal Gmail account and published photos, emails, and personal documents online dating from 2010 to 2022 — and the DOJ confirmed the material is authentic. Among the leaked files: photos of Patel in Cuba smoking cigars next to cars with Cuban plates, his personal resume, and years of correspondence. The FBI is now offering a $10 million reward for information on the hackers, which as Zev noted means the best the bureau can do about its own director getting compromised is offer a bounty. Dean had his own take: “He’s an honorary screeched-in citizen of Newfoundland — we need to remove that designation right now.” Meanwhile, the White House’s own social media accounts posted two unexplained videos to X and Instagram Wednesday night — one showing someone’s feet with a woman’s voice asking “It’s launching soon, right?” — deleted 90 minutes later with millions of views and zero explanation.

4. Johnson Kills DHS Bill

The Senate passed a bipartisan bill to fund DHS at 2:20 this morning — everything except ICE — a compromise to end the six-week shutdown that has 510 TSA officers quitting and airports in chaos. Speaker Mike Johnson killed it hours later, calling it a “crap sandwich” and announcing his own eight-week stopgap that funds all of DHS including ICE. Dean’s assessment was more blunt: “It’s not a crap sandwich, it’s a shit sandwich.” Johnson’s version goes back to a Senate that just left for a two-week recess, with Schumer already calling it dead on arrival. The NTSB chair is still driving five hours to crash sites because she can’t fly through her own country’s airports. Nobody is governing — they’re just positioning.

3. Fulton County Sues Over Ballot Seizure

A federal court hearing happened today in Georgia that may be the most important legal proceeding you haven’t heard about. Fulton County is suing to get back more than 650 boxes of 2020 election ballots that the FBI seized in a January 28th raid — ordered by Kurt Olsen, the Trump lawyer who was part of the original scheme to overturn the 2020 election and is now the White House’s director of election security. As Zev put it: “A man who tried to steal an election is now in charge of investigating elections, and his first act was to send the FBI to seize the ballots from the county that helped flip Georgia for Biden.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was physically present at the seizure despite having zero authority over domestic elections. Dean connected the dots: “These are the same fucking people and they’re running it back.”

2. Tomahawks Running Out

The United States has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of war with Iran, and Pentagon officials describe remaining stockpiles as “alarmingly low” — some using the word “Winchester,” military slang for out of ammunition. The math is devastating: the U.S. produces between 90 and 100 Tomahawks per year, each costing $3.6 million and taking two years to build. In four weeks, this administration burned through a decade of production. Dean laid out the profiteering angle — the Trump family has secured $1.5 billion in defense contracts through 32 companies since the war began. “He’s basically burning through our ammunition on purpose,” Dean said. Raytheon says it will take a minimum of five years to replenish what’s been fired.

1. 10,000 More Troops to the Middle East

The Pentagon is drawing up plans to send 10,000 additional ground troops to the Middle East — infantry, armor, the 82nd Airborne — joining 5,000 Marines already en route. Their staging area: within striking distance of Kharg Island, the small strip of land that handles 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports. Trump extended his pause on strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure to April 6th, claiming talks are going well while Iran says no talks are happening. “You don’t move 10,000 ground troops into theater to negotiate,” Zev said. “You move them to invade.” Meanwhile the Strait of Hormuz is effectively shut, and Russia earned $7 billion in the first two weeks of March selling oil that used to flow through it. April 6 isn’t a peace deadline — it’s a deployment window. And tomorrow, millions of Americans will be in the streets for the third No Kings rally, with more than 3,000 events planned in all 50 states.

The FBI director is compromised, the government is shut down, the ballots are seized, the missiles are spent, and the troops are moving. Tomorrow, America answers.

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