Weiss has reportedly been ensconced in a secured sixth-floor office suite at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.
President Trump is currently interviewing a few different people to replace Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence. The post REPORT: Here Are The Names Being Floated to Trump for Director of National Intelligence appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
In four minutes on Wednesday morning, Donald Trump promised to bomb Iran and wished for world peace.At 11:50, gathered in the Oval Office for the signing of a $70 billion immigration enforcement bill, President Donald Trump turned to reporters with a warning about Iran. "We hit them hard yesterday, and we're gonna hit them again hard today — in case you miss it, in case you don't turn on your television set," he said.Four minutes later, a reporter asked what Trump wished for himself ahead of his 80th birthday."Peace for the world," he said.The day's strikes follow the downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night. Both crew members were rescued by an unmanned drone boat — the first such operation in U.S. military history.Trump posted on Truth Social Tuesday that the U.S. "must, of necessity, respond to this attack." By 5 p.m., CENTCOM had launched strikes on Iranian air defense and radar sites near the Strait — "a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression," it said. Iran hit back within hours, targeting U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.Trump also declined Wednesday to rule out hitting civilian infrastructure. Asked about power plants and bridges, he replied: "I'm not gonna say that to you, but I could do that."He blamed Tehran for the collapse of peace talks, accusing Iran of running out the clock on a deal he called "fully negotiated.""They keep playing us for suckers," Trump said. "They dealt with some very stupid presidents."The war began February 28 with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian military and government sites. It has now surpassed 100 days.
Add to the number of missteps Donald Trump’s White House has made with regard to the “explosive” Jeffrey Epstein files, Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles believed that the controversy would blow over after the FBI released a memo on their findings.She could not have been more wrong and she had been warned, according to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.According to their forthcoming book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," Haberman and Swan wrote that a small group of White House and Justice Department officials drafted a memo designed to explain why the department would not release further information about Epstein. But the process of composing it was reportedly chaotic, with officials refusing to put their names on it and deep concerns emanating from FBI leadership.FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino had grown increasingly infuriated as they realized the scale of the crisis they were being blamed for managing. They repeatedly raised internal alarms that the Epstein controversy was gaining dangerous momentum with Trump's supporters.Bongino pushed hard for immediate release of surveillance footage from the federal facility where Epstein was found dead in his cell—a definitive gesture meant to satisfy the MAGA base's demand for transparency. But the Justice Department's "nothing-to-see-here" memo was being prepared for public release instead, the report notes.Bongino objected strenuously. He told Patel the memo would undermine their promises of transparency and he refused to put the FBI seal on the letterhead -- but he was overruled.Inside the White House, Trump had no interest in releasing anything, according to the upcoming book. Senior officials including Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair were initially dismissive about the scope of the Epstein crisis and reportedly told colleagues Republican voters "didn't care," citing early polling data from Trump's chief pollster Tony Fabrizio. The Epstein controversy, in their view, was driven by "fringe conspiracy theorists" and amplified by noisy online influencers—not a meaningful voting bloc. Engaging with it, they argued, would only amplify the story and lend it official legitimacy.Wiles, Blair, and Trump's inner circle had watched him weather countless scandals over years and they believed this wasn't "a storm," but instead "passing clouds."Bongino disagreed vehemently. "It's not an online story," he reportedly told White House advisers bluntly. "You don't understand."He was proven right almost immediately with Swan and Haberman writing, "The memo was an earthquake, and it was received by a part of the MAGA base as an outright betrayal.Instead of closing the Epstein file, the Justice Department's carefully worded document landed like a bomb in the MAGA base. A significant faction of Trump's most ardent supporters received it not as reassurance but "as outright betrayal" —an abrupt disavowal of the sinister conspiracy theories that Trump's closest confidants had hyped during the Biden presidency and promised to expose once Trump returned to power.
Donald Trump called up the late conservative gadfly Charlie Kirk last July and berated him for letting one of his Turning Point rallies spiral into anger and conspiracy rumors about the Jeffrey Epstein files, reports the New York Times.According to reporting from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, from their forthcoming book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” at the same time that Trump was trying to take heat off of Attorney General Pam Bondi for her handling of the Epstein Files, Kirk was on the road holding rallies that were roiled by the revelations trickling out of the FBI.The confrontation reflected deepening fractures within Trump's coalition as the Epstein controversy spiraled beyond the administration's control, Haberman and Swan wrote before adding that, while Trump was doing damage control on Truth Social, Kirk was holding court at his rallies where the Epstein Files were becoming a primary focus.Central to the fury was former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino's war with Bondi over the files. Bongino reportedly told White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles: "She was the one on TV saying over and over they had all this stuff. There was never anything. We were always clear about that. But now everyone thinks we did something wrong. And I gave up everything."Bongino described the personal costs of the debacle. He had walked away from his high-rated podcast and millions of dollars, "and now it's all disappeared, because people think we screwed something up with Epstein.""This is going to be President Trump's Iran-contra," he reportedly lamented at the time.On July 12, Trump took to Truth Social to defend Bondi and urge his supporters to stop wasting "Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about." The post was a transparent attempt to quash the controversy—and it failed.Trump told aides he was furious with some of his most influential supporters, including Kirk, and former Fox News personalities Tucker Carlso and Megyn Kelly, all of whom were publicly demanding the administration "come clean on the files."Kirk's Turning Point USA event the day before had turned into an Epstein "grievance session," the Times is reporting, with speaker after speaker attacking Bondi's handling of the situation. Trump called Kirk directly and "scolded him."According to the Times, Kirk was "more attuned to the younger MAGA base" than perhaps anyone in Trump's orbit, and recognized that the Epstein cover-up—as it was now widely viewed—was capturing alarm among his constituency to a dangerous degree.Donald Trump Jr. and Vice President JD Vance, both deeply embedded in the hyper-online younger faction of the base through their X activity, shared Kirk's concerns. They urged the White House to reverse course and pressure the Justice Department to release more Epstein files, Haberman and Swan are reporting.
President Trump is losing his mind over a New York Times report detailing how the White House panicked over Jeffrey Epstein in multiple instances.Early Wednesday morning, MS NOW host Joe Scarborough mentioned the report on his show, Morning Joe. Less than an hour later, Trump attacked Scarborough on Truth Social, calling him “one of the most inaccurate detailers of truthful facts on television.”“His serious case on Trump Derangement Syndrome, often referred to as TDS, has made him a laughing stock among those who know what is going on in the ‘Wonderful World of Television,’’’ Trump posted.Scarborough’s show was still going on after Trump dropped his post, and the hosts called him out for basically confirming the Times’ reporting that mentioning Epstein triggers the White House.“Sometimes I go talk to you in the White House, and we disagree on things, but nothing deranged here, sir, unless you’re deranged,” Scarborough said to Trump. “If there’s any derangement, it would have to be on your side of the relationship, because I’m not deranged. Not about you. I just state the facts, and maybe that makes you deranged.“Ohhhh, that actually sort of affirms the reporting that this is something you cannot mention around the president of the United States,” Scarborough added. “We just read what Maggie and Jonathan wrote about Epstein. Is that what that was?”The Times article is a detailed look at how Trump’s inner circle met in the Situation Room to handle each development regarding Epstein and the government’s files on the billionaire sex offender. Shouting matches, arguments, efforts to get different officials fired, and clashing strategies are all outlined in the article, which is based on reporting from the forthcoming book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. The main thesis of the article is that Trump could not make the public forget about Epstein, no matter what he did, and he continued to prove that Wednesday morning.
As the future President Donald Trump's slush fund remains uncertain, a new report from Politico revealed that one of his top Justice Department officials plotted to cash in on it.The DOJ first announced the "anti-weaponization" fund as part of a settlement for Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, claiming that it would pay out to people who were supposedly targeted by the government for their political beliefs. Following a wave of bipartisan backlash to the fund, particularly over the possibility that it could pay out to Jan. 6 rioters, a federal judge in Virginia issued a temporary ruling to block its implementation, though it remains a possibility that it could be revived, even after reports that the administration was moving away from it due to the backlash.According to a Wednesday report from Politico, while the fund was still an active concern, a top official with the DOJ was planning to claim a payment from it, based on his time as a congressional staffer. The situation raised alarms at the agency, as he was set to be involved in the communication strategy surrounding the fund."The official, Patrick Davis, raised his plan to file a claim with others at the DOJ in May because he viewed it as a conflict," Politico revealed. "DOJ officials were concerned by Davis’ recusal request in part because he was responsible for communicating the department’s reasons for setting up the fund to lawmakers. Davis works as the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, a Senate-confirmed position, and previously served as a top aide to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa."The outlet continued: "His plan to make a claim from the fund stems from his time as a congressional staffer. He had his phone and email records subpoenaed when he was investigating 'Russiagate,' the yearslong probe into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow. It’s unclear how much money Davis would have sought from the halted fund, if any, but the proposed fund would have also offered formal apologies."“[Davis] has relationships with the senators, and it was a very tough time for him to back out,” one anonymous official close to the situation told Politico. “In a very fraught moment, with legislative affairs and stuff with the Hill, DOJ needed to have the head of [lega] affairs involved.”When reached for comment, the DOJ told Politico that "out of an abundance of caution, Davis temporarily recused himself on a precautionary basis and after internal consultation, it was decided that recusal was not necessary for a number of reasons," while also taking the opportunity to once again smear the Russian collusion investigation as a "hoax."
Democratic candidate Graham Platner coasted to an easy nomination for the U.S. Senate race in Maine on Tuesday night, overcoming weeks of negative press over scandals about his personal life and interactions with women to take on longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a top target of Democrats hoping to flip control of the upper chamber.While Republicans project confidence in the race publicly, a recent memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is throwing up alarms, warning this could be a tough fight and Collins must not be caught off guard.The memo was posted to X on Wednesday morning by Fox News' Alexis McAdams."Maine has become more than a battleground state in this year's fight for control of the Senate. It has become a linchpin," stated the NRSC memo. "Because Democrats cannot win the majority without it, they have fully rallied around Graham Platner, an extremely flawed, far-left candidate who secured the nomination last night. Platner has captured his party's financial backing, outraising Senator Collins in every quarter since entering the race. We must match both the energy and the money to retain the seat."The memo outlined the fact that one of Platner's best fundraising days was after the story dropped about his problematic relationships with women.Ultimately, the memo concluded, in a state as Democratic-leaning as Maine, "it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win. He is currently leading. Vice President Harris won the state by 7 points, and the National Democrats view this as their only path to regaining control." Collins, the memo said, has to be protected "with total urgency."
