Donald Trump has been touring the media circuit like a man who believes he deserves a Nobel Prize for solving one of the world’s most volatile conflicts. The president has repeatedly touted his administration’s fragile agreement with Iran as proof that only he could drag the region back from the brink of a catastrophic war.

Behind closed doors, however, the swagger appears to be giving way to something else entirely: panic.

In case you missed it:

According to a new report from Zeteo, Trump has spent recent days privately venting to aides and confidants about fears that the conflict could reignite at any moment. One adviser described a president who is increasingly agitated by developments on the ground and deeply worried that the diplomatic breakthrough he has been celebrating in public could unravel before his eyes.

“He’s swearing a lot about it,” the adviser told Zeteo.

The report paints a striking picture of a president trapped by the consequences of his own political sales pitch. Trump has portrayed the agreement as a historic achievement that ended a dangerous confrontation with Tehran. But according to multiple sources who spoke to Zeteo, he now believes Israeli officials may be actively undermining the deal and attempting to maneuver the United States back toward a broader military conflict.

“During the past several days, Trump has aggressively complained to administration officials and other confidants that the Israelis are trying to trick him into restarting a full-blown war with Iran,” Zeteo reported, citing multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

That allegation represents a remarkable turn in a relationship Trump has spent years presenting as unshakable. Throughout both of his presidencies, Trump has routinely boasted about his close alignment with Israel’s government and cast himself as one of the country’s most reliable allies in Washington. Yet now, according to insiders, the president’s frustration appears directed less at Tehran than at America’s longtime regional partner.

Share

“At least right now, he’s definitely madder at the Israelis than the Iranians,” the adviser told Zeteo.

The source of Trump’s anxiety appears to be a key provision within the 14-point memorandum of understanding negotiated between Washington and Tehran. The agreement reportedly calls for Israel to halt military operations in Lebanon, where Israeli forces continue to maintain a presence in portions of the country. Israeli officials, however, have signaled little enthusiasm for complying with that demand and have publicly vowed to continue their military campaign.

For Trump, the political stakes could hardly be higher. He sold the agreement as evidence of his supposedly unmatched dealmaking abilities after critics spent months warning that his confrontational approach toward Iran risked dragging the United States into another costly Middle Eastern war. If the ceasefire collapses, the president would be forced to explain why the peace he claimed to have secured turned out to be little more than a temporary pause.

Ironically, the Israeli resistance that has reportedly infuriated Trump may also be pushing him away from further escalation. According to Zeteo’s sources, Israel’s defiance has “driven Trump in the opposite direction” of restarting the war, suggesting that attempts to pressure the White House could be having the exact opposite effect.

In case you missed it:

The larger problem for Trump is that the episode exposes the gap between the image he projects and the reality unfolding behind the scenes. Publicly, he continues to market the Iran agreement as a triumph. Privately, according to those closest to him, he sounds like a man watching that triumph slip through his fingers while desperately hoping nobody notices.

And if the deal does collapse, it won’t be remembered as the peace agreement that transformed the Middle East. It will be remembered as yet another Trump “victory” that lasted just long enough for the press release.

There was a time when JD Vance warned that Donald Trump could become “America’s Hitler.” There was a time when Vance openly questioned Trump’s character, competence, and fitness for office. That version of JD Vance has now been buried so deep beneath layers of political ambition that the vice president is apparently willing to argue not only that Trump is smart, but that he may rank among the most intelligent presidents in American history.

The latest display of devotion came during Vance’s appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast, where he reflected on his evolution from Trump critic to one of the president’s most loyal defenders. Looking back on 2016, Vance said he was “embarrassed” that he had ever believed Trump wasn’t intelligent.

In case you missed it:

“I remember this in 2016, and in hindsight, it’s just so, so dumb,” Vance said. “People would say that [Trump] was dumb, or that he wasn’t very smart.” He went on to describe Trump as “super smart,” adding that the president “reads a lot” and “understands people at an instinctual level better than anybody that I’ve ever known.” Vance further insisted that Trump is “a very smart person” from a “pure IQ perspective.”

Vance then made a claim so sweeping that it instantly became the focus of headlines and mockery alike.

“If you give Donald Trump an IQ test with the other 45, 46, presidents that the United States has had, I guarantee he’d be either near the top or at the top,” Vance declared. “The entire American media in 2016 had convinced me, at least, that he was not a smart person.”

The assertion was extraordinary not simply because it praised Trump, but because of the company it would place him in. Historians routinely rank figures such as John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Woodrow Wilson among the intellectual heavyweights of the presidency. Adams spoke multiple languages and played a central role in shaping American diplomacy before becoming president. Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence and amassed one of the largest personal libraries in the country. Yet Vance was effectively arguing that Trump belongs in that same category—or perhaps even above it.

Share

The comments also collided headfirst with Trump’s own public record. Critics were quick to note that Trump has spent years generating headlines for statements that became cultural punchlines, including his suggestion during the COVID-19 pandemic that disinfectants might somehow be used inside the body to combat the virus. More recently, Trump has repeatedly boasted about receiving a perfect score on a cognitive screening exam, presenting the dementia-screening test as though it were evidence of extraordinary intellectual achievement. He has also famously claimed that windmills cause cancer, a remark that remains one of the most frequently cited examples used by critics questioning his judgment.

What makes the episode especially revealing is where it falls in Vance’s broader political transformation. The vice president has spent years methodically shedding his former identity as a Never-Trump conservative and reinventing himself as one of the movement’s most reliable loyalists. That reinvention ultimately carried him all the way to the vice presidency, but it has also produced a steady stream of moments in which Vance appears forced to reconcile his earlier warnings about Trump with his current role as chief defender of the president’s image.

The timing is particularly awkward. Vance is currently on a media tour promoting his memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, a book that has already been greeted with a surprisingly chilly reception. Reviews from across the political spectrum have ranged from lukewarm to brutal. One of the harshest came from The Cut, where writer Ginny Hogan quipped: “I got a colonoscopy on Friday. If only that were the least pleasant experience of my last week. But no, that would be when I pulled an all-nighter on Monday reading Communion.”

In case you missed it:

Instead of generating enthusiasm for the book, Vance’s press tour increasingly appears to be generating headlines about his efforts to outdo himself in praising Trump. And while political flattery is hardly a new phenomenon in Washington, claiming that Donald Trump possesses one of the highest IQs of any president in American history may have crossed into territory that even some Republicans find difficult to defend.

Watch the video below:

Just when Todd Blanche thought he was climbing toward the pinnacle of power at Donald Trump’s Justice Department, a growing chorus of legal experts is pointing out an awkward complication: he may be facing a criminal contempt trial first.

According to a new legal analysis, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche could soon find himself at the center of one of the most extraordinary courtroom confrontations in modern Justice Department history, a proceeding that would place the nation’s top law enforcement official in the position of defending himself against allegations that he helped facilitate the defiance of a federal judge’s order.

In case you missed it:

And if Georgetown Law professor Marty Lederman is right, the evidence is already sitting on the judge’s desk.

In an analysis published by Just Security, Lederman argued that Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg already possesses enough evidence to move forward with criminal contempt proceedings against Blanche and former senior Justice Department official Emil Bove.

“The evidence the judge has already elicited is more than sufficient...” Lederman wrote.

That’s a remarkable statement considering what is at stake. The controversy traces back to March 2025, when Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order blocking the deportation of Venezuelan detainees to El Salvador’s notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo prison while legal challenges proceeded through the courts. Yet despite the judge’s intervention, deportation flights continued.

Share

According to the allegations examined by Lederman, senior Justice Department officials, including Blanche and Bove, advised then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that she could proceed with the deportations anyway. Their reasoning reportedly hinged on a highly technical interpretation of the judge’s written order that contradicted the substance of his oral instructions delivered moments earlier during court proceedings. Meanwhile, the Justice Department lawyers actually litigating the case were allegedly left unaware of those internal discussions.

The resulting legal battle has become a flashpoint in a broader debate over whether the Trump administration has systematically tested the limits of judicial authority.

Boasberg responded by launching a contempt investigation. But before that inquiry could advance, a divided appeals court panel intervened and halted the process through a writ of mandamus, effectively freezing the lower court’s probe.

That decision is now under review by the full appeals court. Lederman argues the panel’s intervention was deeply flawed. More importantly for Blanche, the legal scholar contends that the existing evidence already supports moving beyond investigation and toward formal criminal proceedings.

“The evidence demonstrating those facts would also be sufficient to support a notice of criminal contempt to Blanche and Bove,” Lederman wrote.

In plain English, that means a federal judge could potentially conclude there is enough evidence to initiate a criminal trial.

The implications stretch far beyond the courtroom. Blanche is not merely another Justice Department official. He is Trump’s hand-picked nominee to permanently lead the department, a nomination already expected to trigger fierce opposition in the Senate.

Now lawmakers could find themselves evaluating a nominee whose confirmation battle unfolds against the backdrop of a possible criminal contempt case involving allegations that senior administration officials helped circumvent a federal court order.

The situation also revives questions that have dogged Blanche since he transitioned from serving as Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney to becoming one of the administration’s most powerful legal figures. Critics have repeatedly argued that the line separating Trump’s personal interests from the institutional responsibilities of the Justice Department has become increasingly blurred.

Those concerns are likely to intensify if Boasberg ultimately receives permission to proceed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has already acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding Blanche’s path to confirmation, saying it is “hard to say” whether the acting attorney general has the votes necessary to secure Senate approval.

For now, the full appeals court holds the immediate key to Blanche’s future. If judges allow Boasberg’s inquiry to move forward, the acting attorney general could find himself confronting a scenario almost unheard of in modern American politics: a sitting Justice Department chief simultaneously seeking Senate confirmation while facing the prospect of a criminal contempt trial.

In case you missed it:

That would transform what was already shaping up to be a contentious confirmation fight into a political and legal spectacle unlike anything Washington has seen in years.

And for an administration that has spent months insisting it is restoring respect for the rule of law, watching its attorney general nominee defend himself against allegations of helping bypass a federal judge’s order would be a particularly uncomfortable image.

The question now is whether the courts will give Judge Boasberg the opportunity to test those allegations in public.

Donald Trump and his allies have insisted that the endless stream of revelations emerging from the Epstein files would ultimately vindicate him. Instead, the document dump keeps producing the opposite result: a growing pile of deeply uncomfortable allegations that raise fresh questions about Trump’s relationship with the late sex trafficker and the social world they inhabited together.

The latest example comes from a little-noticed FBI interview buried within the millions of pages released as part of the government’s Epstein files disclosure. The account, given by a woman interviewed by federal agents in 2021, describes what she believed was a recruitment operation operating openly inside Trump Tower during the early 1990s.

In case you missed it:

According to an exclusive report from RawStory, the woman said she was approached while studying during lunch breaks in the public atrium of Trump’s Fifth Avenue skyscraper. Two men allegedly struck up a conversation and quickly steered it toward the building’s famous owner.

“She felt that it was clear that sex was on the table, even though the man never mentioned sex,” the FBI report states. “[She] felt these men were playing the role of recruiters for Trump.”

The interviewee told agents she was a student taking night classes while working at Charles Jourdan, the luxury French shoe retailer that operated a flagship location inside Trump Tower. During breaks, she would sit in the building’s public atrium, a space Trump was required to provide in exchange for zoning concessions that allowed the tower to be built taller than otherwise permitted.

It was there, she said, that she repeatedly noticed two men who appeared to be targeting young women.

“[She] met a colleague and he pointed out two men in their early 30s,” the FBI report states. “[She] described one of the men was dark haired and looked like Antonio Banderas, while the other man was blonde and looked like the surfer type. Her colleague told her that the men constantly picked up [redacted] women.”

According to the report, one of the men soon approached her directly.

Share

“He asked her if she knew who Donald Trump was and told her he was meeting people that day,” the FBI report states.

The conversation allegedly escalated quickly.

“[She] told the man that she knew who Trump was. The man asked if she wanted to meet Trump and told her that she did not need to work so hard to go to school. The man winked.”

The woman said she declined both an invitation to meet Trump and a separate invitation to attend a party. The report states that the invitation she was offered contained Jeffrey Epstein’s address.

“The man told her that if she did not want to meet Trump right then, she could go to a party,” the report states. “The man told her that she could bring a friend if the friend looked like her, but she could not bring a guy.”

“The invitation was in or around 1990/1991 and the invitation had Jeffrey Epstein’s address on it.”

That detail alone would have been enough to raise eyebrows. But the account becomes even darker. According to the interview summary, the woman told federal agents that she received threats after rejecting the invitations.

“[She] said that she received death threats when she did not want to go meet Trump. The threats consisted of the men saying that they knew where she worked and could find her. [She] never told the police because she did not think they would believe her.”

She also claimed to have observed the same men approaching other young women over the following months.

“[She] saw girls, usually blondes, approximately 15/16 years old with one of the two men and them get on an escalator. [She] never saw any females meet with Trump.”

The interview included another disturbing allegation. The woman recalled meeting another woman at a cocktail party who allegedly told her that her daughter had been persuaded by recruiters to go upstairs inside Trump Tower.

The FBI report summarizes the account this way:

“This was in the early 1990s. [The student] recalled sometime later seeing [redacted] at a cocktail party and the woman said something horrible happened to her daughter that day. The daughter had dropped out of school, got into drugs and committed suicide.”

The allegations remain unproven, and Trump has not been charged with any crime stemming from the interview. Nor has he been formally accused of wrongdoing in connection with the specific claims made by the woman. Still, the document is notable because it was provided directly to federal investigators. Making false statements to the FBI is a federal offense, a fact often cited by investigators when evaluating witness testimony.

The account also arrives against the backdrop of the well-documented relationship between Trump and Epstein during the 1990s and early 2000s. The two men moved in the same New York and Palm Beach social circles for years before Epstein’s legal troubles exploded into public view. Epstein was first arrested in 2006, secured a controversial plea deal, and later died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 after being arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges.

When asked about the newly surfaced FBI interview, the White House did not directly address the woman’s allegations.

Instead, spokeswoman Abigail Jackson offered a broader defense of Trump.

“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” Jackson said.

That claim, however, goes further than the available facts. While Trump has not been criminally charged in connection with Epstein, he also has not been formally exonerated.

In case you missed it:

Jackson additionally argued that Trump has done more than anyone to expose the Epstein files, pointing to the administration’s release of documents, cooperation with congressional inquiries, and support for additional investigations.

Yet the irony is difficult to ignore. The more documents that emerge from the government’s sprawling Epstein archive, the more politically uncomfortable material appears to surface. What was supposed to be a transparency exercise designed to bury lingering questions about Trump’s connection to Epstein instead continues to produce fresh allegations, fresh scrutiny, and fresh reminders that the Epstein saga remains far from over.

The Trump administration’s latest agreement with Iran is already being mocked as a breathtaking climbdown after newly reported details revealed that Tehran could receive immediate sanctions relief allowing it to resume oil sales before fulfilling many of Washington’s longer-term demands.

According to reporting cited by The Wall Street Journal, one of the key provisions of the framework agreement would allow Iran to begin selling oil immediately once the deal is formally signed. The signing ceremony is reportedly expected as soon as Friday.

In case you missed it:

A senior U.S. official told the Journal that while long-term sanctions relief would remain tied to Iran’s compliance with American demands—including issues involving its nuclear program and the strategic Strait of Hormuz—Iran would nonetheless receive upfront relief allowing oil sales to resume.

The timing is particularly awkward given how aggressively Trump and his allies have spent years attacking previous administrations for what they characterized as concessions to Tehran. Now critics are asking why Iran is receiving immediate economic benefits before demonstrating sustained compliance with U.S. demands.

Share

Over the weekend, the administration announced what it described as an agreement that could help bring an end to the more than four-month confrontation between Washington and Tehran. But even supporters of a negotiated settlement have noted that the arrangement appears to be more of a framework for future talks than a finalized agreement.

The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the oil provision only intensified those concerns. Josh Block, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, blasted the reported terms in a post on X.

“Insane concession to Tehran - for simply opening Hormuz, which they were supposed to have done for the ceasefire, and WH says was already open. Under MOU they can get BILLIONS from oil sales, WHICH before the war they couldn’t access even if selling oil. INSANE!!”

For a conservative foreign-policy analyst to describe a Republican administration’s deal as an “insane concession” is not exactly the headline the White House was hoping for.

Philip Klein, editor of National Review Online, was even more blunt.

“Money for nothing and ballistics for free,” he wrote.

That short assessment captured a growing concern among critics who argue that Tehran appears poised to receive meaningful economic benefits without first making equally meaningful concessions of its own.

Meanwhile, journalist Aaron Maté mocked what he anticipated would be the reaction from Washington’s foreign-policy establishment.

“A lot of think tank Senior Fellows about to have Senior Freakouts,” he wrote.

Author Michael Weiss highlighted what he viewed as the most politically damaging aspect of the arrangement.

“Money upfront, in other words. The thing they said wouldn’t happen.”

Trump’s political brand has rested on the claim that he alone could negotiate tougher and smarter deals than his predecessors. Yet the details now emerging appear to show Iran receiving immediate access to oil revenue while many of the administration’s most important objectives remain tied to future compliance.

The White House insists that sustained sanctions relief will depend on Tehran meeting its obligations. But that explanation may do little to quiet critics who see the arrangement as rewarding Iran before the hard part of the deal has even begun.

In case you missed it:

The result is a familiar pattern that has followed many of Trump’s most heavily hyped foreign-policy initiatives: grand promises, triumphant declarations, and then the slow emergence of details that raise uncomfortable questions about who actually walked away with the better bargain.

And this time, some of those questions are coming from the very hawks who usually cheer the loudest whenever Trump claims he’s won.

As questions about Donald Trump’s health continue to swirl, one psychologist is sounding an alarm that goes far beyond concerns about aging, fatigue, or cognitive decline.

According to Dr. John Gartner, a former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and one of Trump’s most outspoken mental-health critics, the president’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric and fascination with military power could signal something far more dangerous.

In case you missed it:

And if Gartner is right, the implications extend well beyond politics.

Speaking on The Daily Beast Podcast with host Joanna Coles, Gartner delivered what may be his most alarming assessment of Trump’s mental state yet, arguing that the president’s behavior has reached unprecedented levels.

“In 40 years of clinical practice and almost 30 years of teaching psychiatric residents, I’ve never encountered a patient as sick as Donald Trump,” Gartner said. “He’s so many standard deviations away from what we would normally consider normal, and that it’s coming to a head now is in his fantasies of being this military conqueror.”

Over the past year, observers have pointed to a growing number of incidents involving apparent fatigue, verbal stumbles, confusion, and public appearances that have reignited debates about the president’s fitness for office. Those concerns have become even more pronounced as Trump has increasingly embraced imagery associated with military strongmen and historical conquerors.

Share

Last year, he posted the phrase, “He who saves his country does not violate any law,” a statement widely interpreted as a reference to Napoleon Bonaparte. Critics have also drawn comparisons between Trump’s rhetoric and historical figures such as Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great as he continues to test the limits of executive authority.

For Gartner, those comparisons aren’t merely symbolic. They are part of what he sees as a broader pattern.

“What I believe, [is that] he is setting us up. He is grooming us for nuclear war,” Gartner warned. “He wants to be the person who pushes the button first, because that would put him in history as the most powerfully destructive military leader in human history.”

Gartner has never personally examined Trump and is not offering a formal diagnosis. Nevertheless, he has spent years arguing that the president exhibits signs consistent with dementia and that age-related cognitive decline may be amplifying other personality traits that critics have long identified in Trump’s behavior.

According to Gartner, those traits include what he describes as malignant narcissism and sadism, characteristics he believes become more dangerous when combined with the immense power of the presidency.

“And that is what he gets off on because of his sadism,” Gartner said.

Trump’s administration is already facing mounting political pressure. Recent polling has shown growing dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy, while controversies surrounding foreign policy, immigration, and his administration’s increasingly aggressive use of executive power have generated fresh criticism.

Against that backdrop, Gartner argues that Trump may become even more drawn toward displays of military authority.

“He actually gets incredible gratification from destroying things and hurting people and feeling powerful through that,” Gartner said. “As he’s starting to have more and more problems at home, his poll numbers are in the toilet. The economy is in the toilet. He might lose both houses of Congress.”

Then came what may be the most sobering part of Gartner’s warning.

“If he does, what’s the one power he has that no one can assail?” Gartner asked. “Even if we have both houses of Congress, he will still be the commander in chief, and he’s going to want to exercise that power in a way that makes him feel powerful.”

The conversation about Trump’s health is no longer confined to political opponents. It has become a recurring feature of public debate, fueled by visible signs of aging, growing questions about transparency surrounding the president’s medical condition, and a series of increasingly controversial public appearances.

The White House has repeatedly dismissed concerns about Trump’s health and insists the president remains fully capable of carrying out his duties. But Gartner’s warning highlights why those concerns continue to resonate.

In case you missed it:

As Trump’s presidency becomes increasingly defined by military posturing, foreign confrontations, and increasingly grandiose declarations about his place in history, critics fear the debate over his health is no longer just about the president himself. It’s about the enormous powers that come with the office he holds.

Watch the full episode in the link below:

Mark Levin has served as one of Donald Trump’s most dependable attack dogs. When critics accused Trump of recklessness, Levin defended him. When Republicans wavered, Levin demanded loyalty. When foreign-policy hawks complained Trump wasn’t aggressive enough, Levin usually found a way to explain why the president was playing four-dimensional chess.

Now, even Levin appears to be running out of excuses.

In a remarkable public break with the president, the conservative radio host and longtime Trump ally is openly questioning a secretive new agreement the administration is reportedly preparing to sign with Iran, an agreement that appears to have left some of Trump’s most loyal supporters feeling blindsided.

In case you missed it:

And for a White House that has spent months insisting it delivered a crushing victory over Tehran, the growing revolt among its own hawkish allies may be the most politically dangerous development yet.

Levin’s frustration exploded onto social media Sunday as reports circulated that Trump was preparing to finalize a memorandum of understanding with Iran. Rather than celebrating the deal, Levin demanded to know why the administration was keeping its details hidden.

“Has [the MOU] been released so we can actually read it?” Levin asked. Then he answered his own question: “Why not?”

The administration’s strategy of briefing only select journalists through anonymous officials, he argued, was “not enough.”

Levin has been among Trump’s most aggressive defenders in conservative media. If even he is publicly demanding answers, it suggests concern is spreading far beyond Trump’s usual critics, and the reported details of the deal help explain why.

According to reports, the proposed agreement would reportedly reopen the Strait of Hormuz, end the American naval blockade, release roughly $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets, waive oil sanctions, and postpone broader nuclear negotiations until a later phase.

In sum, the administration that spent months portraying Iran as an existential threat now appears prepared to offer substantial economic relief in exchange for de-escalation.

Share

As diplomatic efforts gained momentum, Levin declared on his radio program, “I hate this word ceasefire,” before arguing that Iran “should be forced to sign a surrender document. Unconditional surrender.”

During another appearance with Sean Hannity, Levin warned viewers that “they are the enemy” and insisted the Iranian regime could not be contained “if there’s not regime change.”

Those comments reveal the real source of the growing divide. Trump appears eager to declare victory, sign an agreement, and move on. Levin and the interventionist wing of the right wanted something very different. They wanted the conflict to fundamentally weaken, or potentially topple, the Iranian regime itself.

The split has become so visible that even Trump’s own allies are fighting among themselves. Steve Bannon has accused Levin of undermining Trump’s “peace posture” and effectively siding with the same neoconservative foreign-policy establishment that the MAGA movement spent years claiming it wanted to destroy.

It’s a striking role reversal. For years, Trump marketed himself as the politician who would end endless wars and reject the interventionist instincts of the Bush era. Yet many of the loudest voices cheering his military actions against Iran were the very hawks MAGA once promised to defeat. Now those same hawks are furious because Trump appears unwilling to finish the job they envisioned.

Levin’s criticism only intensified as reports emerged that Hezbollah continued launching attacks against Israel.

“Iran’s Hezbollah continues firing missiles into Israel,” Levin wrote Sunday. “This is precisely what I and others have been warning about.”

The broader problem for Trump is that the deal remains shrouded in uncertainty. Iranian officials have disputed aspects of the administration’s characterization of the agreement, and Iranian media have reportedly dismissed Trump’s claim that the Strait of Hormuz would be immediately “OPEN TO ALL” as “incomplete and inconsistent with reality.”

In case you missed it:

That leaves Trump in an increasingly uncomfortable position. His administration is trying to sell a major diplomatic breakthrough and Iran is disputing key details.

What’s in the deal? The fact that the question is coming from Mark Levin instead of Trump’s usual critics in the media may be the most alarming sign yet that Trump’s Iran strategy is creating cracks inside his own coalition.

Donald Trump treated the Kennedy Center like another trophy to be claimed. This weekend, that fantasy came crashing down behind a giant tarp in the middle of the night.

As workers quietly dismantled the president’s name from the iconic arts institution following a federal court order, the spectacle produced an image critics immediately seized upon: a supposedly strongman president apparently so unable to stomach public embarrassment that even the removal of his own vanity signage had to be hidden from view.

The dramatic effort to erase Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center turned into a fresh public relations headache for the White House Saturday after critics mocked what appeared to be an attempt to conceal the operation behind scaffolding and a massive tarp.

In case you missed it:

The controversy stems from a federal court ruling that ordered Trump’s name removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a judge concluded the institution could not legally be renamed without congressional approval. But while the legal fight had already ended in defeat for Trump and his allies, the manner in which the signage was removed created an entirely new spectacle.

According to reports, workers began erecting scaffolding Friday before finally starting the removal process around 3:10 a.m. Saturday. The work was carried out behind a large tarp that appeared designed to obstruct public viewing of the operation.

That detail quickly became catnip for Trump’s critics.

“Trump’s name went up on the Kennedy Center in broad daylight,” Democratic strategist Jon Cooper wrote in a post on X.

“Removing it? Full scaffolding plus a giant curtain to hide the humiliation from the public. Nothing screams ‘strong leader’ like draping theater curtains over your own petty rejection. Fragile ego on full display.”

The imagery was difficult to ignore.

Photos from Washington showed the Kennedy Center facade wrapped in scaffolding and heavy tarps, obscuring the very section of the building where Trump’s name had recently been installed. The visual contrast was striking. Trump’s allies had celebrated the renaming effort publicly and aggressively. The dismantling, however, took place before dawn and largely out of sight.

Others quickly drew parallels to controversies that have dogged the administration elsewhere.

Share

Ben Meiselas, co-founder of MeidasTouch, offered a particularly pointed jab.

“Covering it up like the Epstein Files,” he wrote on social media.

Meanwhile, videos circulating online captured members of the public gathering outside the Kennedy Center as workers prepared to begin the removal process. According to footage shared by liberal commentator Ed Krassenstein, onlookers could be heard chanting “take it down” while crews worked around the building. Additional footage later showed spectators booing as workers moved the tarp into position, shielding the removal from public view.

Christopher Webb, a Democratic strategist and writer, mocked what he viewed as the administration’s contradictory approach to transparency.

“The irony of the Trump administration claiming to be the most transparent in history is never lost on me. Kennedy Center workers used a tarp so cameras couldn’t see the removal,” Webb wrote.

“It’s like playing hide-and-seek with a toddler: if they can’t see you, they think you can’t see them.”

The removal marks the latest chapter in one of the most bizarre cultural battles of Trump’s second term.

The president and his allies had pushed to rebrand the institution as the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” arguing that the center’s programming had become overly “woke.” The move was approved by a board stacked with Trump loyalists but quickly triggered a legal challenge from Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), who argued that Congress had established the Kennedy Center as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy and that its name could not simply be altered by board vote.

Federal Judge Christopher Cooper ultimately agreed, ruling that the center’s governing statute clearly establishes it as a memorial to Kennedy and that any formal name change would require congressional action.

In case you missed it:

That legal defeat was embarrassing enough. What transformed it into a viral political moment was the image left behind: a giant curtain draped across the facade of America’s most prominent performing arts center while workers quietly removed the name of the man who had insisted it belong there.

The Trump administration’s latest attempt to declare victory over Iran may be heading toward an embarrassing reality check — and according to one foreign policy expert, the details emerging from a leaked framework agreement suggest the White House could be on the verge of swallowing a deal that looks nothing like the triumph it spent months promising.

After weeks of threats, military brinkmanship, and breathless predictions that Tehran would finally bend to Washington’s demands, reports surfaced Thursday that Trump abruptly called off a major attack as negotiations continued. Now, leaked details of the proposed agreement are fueling accusations that the administration is preparing to accept terms that would leave Iran largely intact while handing the regime massive economic concessions.

In case you missed it:

That possibility prompted Insider editor Michael Weiss to deliver a brutal assessment during an appearance on MSNBC Friday morning.

The discussion began when co-host Joe Scarborough expressed frustration over the seemingly endless cycle of White House announcements claiming a breakthrough was imminent.

“Why do we keep hearing the same thing over and over and over again when the Iranians have rejected this deal time and again, and hardliners in America have rejected this deal?” Scarborough asked.

Weiss responded by pointing to details published by Iran’s state-linked Mehr News Agency.

“I mean, I just want to read you — Iran’s Mehr News Agency put out their version of this deal,” Weiss said. “Now, again, underscore we ... don’t know if this is going to be the memorandum of understanding. But in their version of the deal they get $300 billion in reconstruction money, $24 billion in a cash infusion, half of which will come before the negotiations begin.”

Share

If those numbers sound less like a victory lap and more like a ransom payment, Weiss appeared to agree.

“Remember, this isn’t a deal, this is an agreement to keep talking and an extension of a cease-fire. There’s nothing new in here,” he explained. “Again, the Iranian version that talks about the missile program or financing or arming terrorist proxies like Lebanese Hezbollah.”

In other words, according to Weiss, the very issues the administration repeatedly cited to justify its hardline posture appear absent from the framework being discussed.

That led him to an even harsher conclusion.

“I mean, this would be an utter humiliation. I could see why Trump would want JD Vance to go to a signing ceremony instead of Donald Trump,” Weiss said with a laugh.

The remark cuts directly at the political dilemma facing the White House. Trump spent months portraying himself as the leader who would force Iran into submission. Allies and supporters openly discussed regime change scenarios. Hawks inside and outside the administration suggested Tehran was on the verge of collapse. Instead, the apparent outcome increasingly resembles a negotiated pause that leaves the Iranian government standing while securing significant economic relief.

Weiss argued Trump understands exactly how far reality has drifted from the administration’s original ambitions.

“If this is any pale shade of what this thing is going to look like — look, I think he knows he’s being had,” Weiss said. “He knows he’s been abased by a regime that shouldn’t exist by his lights, right?”

He then rattled off a list of aspirations that now appear to have evaporated.

“We were going in to do regime change. The Israelis certainly thought we were going to do regime change. We were going to arm the Kurds. We were going to install Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust-denying former president, as our preferred satrap.”

“All of these plans came to dust,” he continued.

The broader criticism emerging from the MSNBC discussion is that the administration spent months escalating expectations without establishing a realistic path to achieve them. What was marketed as a campaign to fundamentally reshape Iran now appears to be ending with negotiations over a cease-fire extension and continued talks.

For Weiss, the explanation is simple: Trump wants out.

“He just wants this thing over and done with,” Weiss argued. “He’s already looking at Cuba.”

Whether the leaked details accurately reflect the final agreement remains unclear. Negotiations are ongoing, and neither Washington nor Tehran has publicly confirmed the terms described by Iranian media.

In case you missed it:

But if the framework resembles what has reportedly leaked, the political fallout could be severe. An administration that promised strength, leverage, and transformation may instead find itself defending a deal that critics on both sides of the debate view as a retreat.

And after months of talking tough, that may prove far more difficult to sell than launching the confrontation in the first place.

Watch the segment below:

Donald Trump and his allies have tried to portray Jeffrey Epstein as a toxic figure who was eventually cast out of Trump’s world. But a newly uncovered thread from the sprawling Epstein saga is dragging one of Trump’s closest longtime confidants directly into the spotlight, and raising fresh questions about how key figures entered the disgraced financier’s inner circle.

According to newly released testimony obtained by congressional investigators, a top Trump diplomat and decades-long Trump ally may have helped connect Jeffrey Epstein to Sarah Kellen, one of the most controversial figures in Epstein’s operation. Kellen would later become both a central employee in Epstein’s empire and, by her own account, a victim of his abuse. The revelation comes as House Oversight investigators continue digging through witnesses, documents, and testimony tied to Epstein’s network, exposing connections that many powerful people would likely prefer remain buried.

In case you missed it:

Tom Barrack, Trump’s ambassador to Turkey, special envoy to Syria and Iraq, billionaire fundraiser, inaugural committee chairman, and one of the president’s closest friends, has been accused of playing a previously undisclosed role in Kellen’s recruitment into Epstein’s world. According to testimony Kellen gave to the House Oversight Committee last month, she was working at the W Hotel in Honolulu in 2001 when an intern at the hotel’s front desk approached her about a job opportunity with a wealthy New York couple.

At the time, Kellen said she had no idea the prospective employers were Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

“She never told me his name,” Kellen testified. “She just told me there was a wealthy couple in New York that was looking for a new traveling assistant and if I would be interested.” She added that the woman had taken risqué photographs of her, sent them to Epstein, and then began pitching the job opportunity.

According to Kellen, Epstein had helped secure the internship for the woman because he was friends with Tom Barrack, who owned the hotel.

Share

That testimony alone would be politically uncomfortable for Barrack. But the story gets even more explosive.

Raw Story reports that a 2012 email from Epstein appears to directly credit Barrack with connecting him to Kellen. In the message, sent while Epstein was arranging a visit involving Barrack and a member of Qatar’s ruling family, Epstein instructed an employee to prepare for the guests and then added a striking personal note.

“It’s Tom Barrack coming, so you can tell him I thank him every day for Sarah,” Epstein wrote. “He is how I found her.”

If accurate, the email would represent one of the clearest documentary links yet between a senior Trump ally and the recruitment of a woman who became deeply embedded in Epstein’s operation.

Barrack has maintained a decades-long relationship with both Trump and Epstein. The relationship was significant enough that Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury reportedly described Trump, Epstein, and Barrack as a trio of nightlife “Musketeers” during the 1980s and 1990s.

Barrack would go on to become one of Trump’s most trusted political allies. He reportedly introduced Trump to future campaign chairman Paul Manafort, served as a major fundraiser, spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and later chaired Trump’s inaugural committee.

Even after Epstein’s downfall, Barrack’s proximity to Trump only grew. Today he occupies one of the most influential diplomatic positions in the administration, serving simultaneously as ambassador to Turkey and as a special presidential envoy in one of the world’s most volatile regions.

The timing is particularly awkward because Kellen remains one of the most disputed figures in the entire Epstein scandal.

Federal prosecutors once identified her as an unindicted potential co-conspirator in Epstein’s notorious 2007 non-prosecution agreement. She was later accused in civil litigation of recruiting young women for Epstein, arranging travel, scheduling visits, and helping manage aspects of his operation.

But in her recent testimony to Congress, Kellen painted a dramatically different picture, one in which she was not a willing participant but another victim trapped inside Epstein’s system.

She told investigators that Epstein sexually assaulted her on her very first day working at Little Saint James, his private island in the Caribbean. Kellen described herself as “a literal indentured slave” and said she worked around the clock while enduring sexual and psychological abuse.

Her attorney told investigators that Kellen would not discuss the victimization of other individuals because of her own trauma and concerns about protecting her constitutional rights.

Notably, Kellen also said she was never informed that federal prosecutors had identified her as a co-conspirator and claimed she was never interviewed by law enforcement before her name appeared in the controversial non-prosecution agreement.

Barrack has not publicly addressed Kellen’s testimony or the 2012 email. Raw Story reported that attempts to obtain comment through the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Ankara were unsuccessful.

In case you missed it:

The revelation comws as the Epstein story continues to creep ever closer to Trump’s inner circle. Every new document release, congressional interview, and recovered email seems to expose another connection that powerful figures once assumed would remain forgotten.

For an administration that spent months promising explosive revelations about Jeffrey Epstein’s network, the biggest scandal now appears to be what happened after Donald Trump’s Justice Department got its hands on the case.

As Trump pushes Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for permanent confirmation as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, Democrats are escalating accusations that Blanche didn’t merely mishandle the Epstein fallout, he may have actively undermined efforts to uncover the truth. The allegation is extraordinary, politically radioactive, and guaranteed to further inflame a controversy that has already become one of the administration’s most persistent headaches.

In case you missed it:

The latest accusation comes from Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), who is openly questioning whether Blanche’s actions surrounding convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell amounted to interference in the ongoing effort to uncover additional information about Epstein’s network.

Blanche’s nomination arrived just as scrutiny surrounding his role in the Epstein saga intensified. During an appearance on CNN, Lynch was asked whether Blanche’s handling of the Justice Department’s release of Epstein-related files would affect his chances of winning Senate confirmation.

Lynch blasted Blanche as “unqualified and untrustworthy” and accused him of interfering with efforts to investigate Epstein’s potential co-conspirators.

The criticism centers on Blanche’s controversial interactions with Maxwell.

Last year, while serving as deputy attorney general, Blanche personally interviewed Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls. According to reports, the two spoke privately “for a few minutes” before their conversation was officially recorded. Not long afterward, Maxwell was transferred from a maximum-security prison in Florida to a minimum-security facility in Texas—a move that reportedly conflicted with normal Justice Department policies governing sex offenders.

Share

For Lynch, that sequence of events raises serious questions.

“Todd Blanche’s involvement with the Epstein case is disastrous. He actually went and met with Ghislaine Maxwell, took her out of a heavy security prison, gave her a sweetheart deal,” Lynch told CNN.

He then leveled the allegation that is now generating headlines.

“She never agreed to cooperate. [Blanche] put her in a much more permissive environment [that] has given her extensive privileges. I believe that is witness tampering on his part – he interfered with the investigation! She is less likely to talk to us now since Todd Blanche got involved with this case.”

The charge is particularly explosive because it strikes at the heart of the administration’s central claim that it wants transparency regarding Epstein’s crimes and any individuals who may have been involved. Instead, critics argue that the administration’s handling of Maxwell has produced the opposite result.

Reports surrounding Maxwell’s transfer have fueled additional controversy. CNN previously reported that Maxwell was granted access to computers and privileges not typically available to inmates in comparable circumstances. According to the reporting cited by Lynch, Maxwell herself has spoken positively about her new environment, describing conditions as “fantastic” and saying she is “much happier” following the transfer.

The broader political context makes the controversy even more damaging for Blanche. For months, Trump allies promised sweeping disclosures about Epstein’s network, teasing bombshell revelations that would supposedly expose powerful figures connected to the disgraced financier. Instead, the administration has faced growing criticism from both Democrats and members of its own political coalition over the handling of Epstein-related records, the pace of disclosures, and the continuing lack of answers about potential co-conspirators.

Those frustrations have only intensified as lawmakers continue pressing the Justice Department for additional records and testimony. Now, with Blanche seeking Senate confirmation as attorney general, Democrats appear eager to turn the Epstein controversy into a referendum on his fitness for the job.

In case you missed it:

Whether Lynch’s accusation gains traction beyond political rhetoric remains to be seen. But the optics are undeniably ugly. The man Trump wants running the Justice Department is now facing allegations that he made one of Epstein’s most infamous associates more comfortable while investigators were still trying to extract information from her.

Donald Trump has obsessed over one accolade that has always remained just out of reach: the Nobel Peace Prize. He has complained about it publicly, demanded credit for diplomatic initiatives, and repeatedly insisted that he deserved the honor more than past recipients. Now a stunning new report suggests that when the Nobel Committee refused to give Trump the prize he desperately wanted, FIFA simply created its own version and handed him a trophy instead.

And according to reporting that has sent shockwaves through the international soccer world, the entire thing may have been little more than an elaborate exercise in political flattery designed to keep the president happy ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

In case you missed it:

The revelations stem from a New York Times investigation which details how FIFA President Gianni Infantino allegedly orchestrated the creation of a brand-new “FIFA Peace Prize” after Trump failed to secure a Nobel Peace Prize nomination victory.

The timing was difficult to miss. Trump had reportedly been frustrated after being passed over for the Nobel Prize in favor of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. According to the report, Infantino, who had previously lobbied for Trump to receive the Nobel honor, quickly pivoted to creating a substitute award instead.

The result was the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, presented to Trump last December during the World Cup draw ceremony at Washington’s Kennedy Center.

But according to accounts cited by the Times, the award wasn’t the product of a carefully designed selection process. It was reportedly created after FIFA officials were informed that Trump would be receiving the prize before basic questions had even been answered.

Share

Officials reportedly wanted to know what criteria would be used to determine the recipient, how the nomination process would work, and who would serve on any selection committee. According to the report, they received no meaningful answers. Instead, some were simply informed that Trump would be the winner and that the process would effectively be built around that predetermined outcome.

In other words, the winner apparently existed before the contest. The details become even more embarrassing from there.

According to officials cited in the report, the trophy itself wasn’t specially commissioned. Instead, FIFA allegedly pulled an existing sculpture from storage that had been created by the father of a FIFA employee who happened to be a sculptor. Facing a tight deadline, officials reportedly repurposed the piece as the new peace prize rather than designing one from scratch.

Despite that improvised origin story, Trump later described receiving the award as one of the “great honors of my life.” The report also sheds light on why FIFA may have been so eager to cultivate goodwill with the White House.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico are hosting the 2026 World Cup, the largest tournament in the event’s history. FIFA has enormous financial and logistical interests tied to the tournament’s success, and maintaining a positive relationship with the American president could help smooth countless political and operational challenges.

That calculation carries particular significance for FIFA, an organization that has spent years trying to rehabilitate its image following one of the largest corruption scandals in modern sports history. Beginning in 2015, U.S. federal prosecutors indicted dozens of FIFA officials and associates in a sprawling racketeering and bribery investigation that exposed deep corruption within the governing body. The scandal ultimately led to the downfall of former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and triggered widespread reforms intended to restore public trust.

Those efforts may now face renewed scrutiny.

The controversy surrounding the FIFA Peace Prize has already provoked backlash from officials within the global soccer community. According to the report, some viewed the award as a direct violation of FIFA’s longstanding claims of political neutrality.

The president of Norway’s soccer federation, a human-rights lawyer, reportedly argued that the award breached FIFA’s neutrality rules and announced support for an ethics complaint targeting Infantino’s actions.

The episode is also likely to fuel broader criticism of Trump’s long-running fixation on prestigious awards and personal validation.

In case you missed it:

Trump has publicly complained that he has been denied recognition he believes he deserves, particularly when it comes to the Nobel Peace Prize. His supporters have repeatedly floated nominations, while Trump himself has often contrasted his foreign policy record with those of previous Nobel recipients.

Now, thanks to a reporting trail that stretches from FIFA headquarters to the White House, critics have fresh ammunition.

Donald Trump has sold himself as the master dealmaker who could bend allies and adversaries alike to his will. But as the latest Middle East crisis spirals further out of control, even some of Israel’s most seasoned political observers are beginning to suggest that Trump may be confronting an uncomfortable reality: Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t listening anymore.

That was the striking assessment offered Monday by former Israeli consul general Alon Pinkas, who interpreted Trump’s latest social media plea for Israel and Iran to immediately stop “shooting” as something far more revealing than a routine diplomatic statement. According to Pinkas, Trump’s message amounted to a tacit admission that the conflict has slipped beyond his control and that he may be trying to distance himself from a war he can no longer influence.

In case you missed it:

The comments came after Trump posted a brief appeal urging both sides to halt hostilities as Israel and Iran exchanged another round of attacks following one of the most dangerous escalations in the region since the collapse of a fragile ceasefire earlier this year.

Speaking on CNN shortly after Trump’s post appeared, Pinkas argued that the president’s message contained a deeper subtext.

“This is something you would expect from the president to say, you know, the diplomatic lingo of show restraint, exercise caution, patience, and so on,” Pinkas said. “It’s clear that he, President Trump, had to make this statement, but basically what the statement is saying, you know, the underlining, the underlining logic of it is that ‘this is not my war anymore, I, President Trump, this is not my war anymore — this is between Israel and Iran, and I’m not part of this, I’m pursuing negotiations to get a deal.’”

Pinkas didn’t stop there.

“Yeah, he’s basically saying to Mr. Netanyahu, you’re on your own, and he’s basically saying to the Iranians, ‘Well, you’re not necessarily going to have a deal if you keep on shooting,’” Pinkas added. “But the bottom line is this: ‘I’m not involved in this.’”

The analysis highlights what increasingly appears to be a growing disconnect between Trump and the Israeli prime minister—a relationship that has often been portrayed by supporters as unshakably aligned. While Trump has repeatedly boasted about his influence over Netanyahu, recent events suggest the Israeli leader may have other priorities.

According to Pinkas, Trump has been attempting to create space for negotiations with Tehran while simultaneously pressuring Netanyahu to exercise restraint. Netanyahu, however, appears to be operating according to a very different political calculation.

“Netanyahu and Trump have a different political calculus,” Pinkas explained. “Trump is saying, ‘I want to end this war and I can rein in Israel, and I will tell them what to do, and they will do what I tell them, and I call the shots.’”

The problem, Pinkas argued, is that reality has repeatedly refused to cooperate with Trump’s self-image.

Share

“Netanyahu, on the other hand, has defied Trump three times in the last three weeks,” Pinkas said, citing alleged violations of ceasefire understandings, military actions in Lebanon, and retaliatory strikes despite Trump’s calls for restraint. “Three times Netanyahu defied him.”

That assessment lands at an awkward moment for a president who has built much of his foreign-policy brand around the idea that his personal relationships with world leaders allow him to accomplish what traditional diplomacy cannot. Throughout both of his administrations, Trump has frequently claimed that foreign leaders respect him, fear him, and ultimately follow his lead.

Yet the latest developments suggest that Netanyahu may be more focused on his own political survival than on Trump’s diplomatic ambitions.

“Netanyahu is speaking to a domestic audience,” Pinkas said. “He’s got an election in two or three months.” The former diplomat argued that the Israeli leader wants voters to see him as the politician willing to stand up to Washington in the name of national security.

Meanwhile, Trump appears determined to salvage some form of diplomatic agreement with Iran, even if it falls short of the sweeping breakthrough he once promised.

“What Mr. Trump is doing in stating more than once that he calls the shots and Netanyahu will have no choice but to accept ... he’s talking not necessarily about the ceasefire, but about a framework or a provisional or a memorandum type of deal with Iran,” Pinkas said.

In case you missed it:

Whether such a deal remains possible is another question entirely.

What is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, however, is the spectacle of a president publicly demanding restraint while a close ally repeatedly charts its own course. For an administration that has spent years projecting an image of unrivaled leverage on the world stage, the emerging picture is considerably less flattering: a White House urging caution, a regional conflict spiraling onward, and a foreign leader who appears increasingly comfortable telling Donald Trump no.

Watch:

Long before Jeffrey Epstein became a global symbol of elite impunity, one local police chief was already sounding the alarm. According to a sweeping new Miami Herald report, former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter spent years battling not only Epstein's lawyers, but a system that seemed far more interested in protecting a billionaire's reputation than protecting the teenage girls he was accused of abusing.

Two decades later, Reiter is finally telling the full story, and his account reads like a case study in how wealth, influence, and political power can derail justice.

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal has been told through the lens of victims, prosecutors, journalists, and politicians. But a new Miami Herald report by investigative reporter Julie K. Brown shines a spotlight on one of the most consequential figures in the saga: former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, the man who led the original investigation and repeatedly tried to stop Epstein before the financier’s crimes became an international scandal.

In case you missed it:

Reiter, now 68, rarely speaks publicly about the case that defined his four-decade law enforcement career. But in an extensive interview with the Herald, he described what he sees as a coordinated failure of the justice system, a failure that allowed Epstein to evade meaningful accountability for years despite overwhelming evidence that he had sexually abused underage girls.

“This case, in many respects, felt like the people who work for our government were working more for Epstein than they were working for the victims and protecting the public,” Reiter told the Herald.

The interview arrives amid renewed scrutiny of the Epstein files and growing public outrage over unanswered questions surrounding the government’s handling of the case. Reiter says reviewing those records convinced him it was finally time to tell the story he had largely kept to himself since retiring from law enforcement.

According to the Herald, Reiter’s first encounters with Epstein appeared entirely benign. The wealthy financier donated tens of thousands of dollars to Palm Beach law enforcement initiatives, including forensic video equipment and a firearms simulator. At the time, such donations were not unusual in Palm Beach’s wealthy community.

But Reiter eventually began to suspect that Epstein’s generosity came with strings attached.

Share

One incident involved a 17-year-old girl found at Epstein’s mansion under suspicious circumstances. Another involved complaints about young women regularly visiting the property. Looking back, Reiter said he came to believe Epstein’s donations were really designed to monitor whether police were paying attention to him.

“He called me and asked what else he could donate, and I realized he was probing me to see if we were behind the investigation,” Reiter recalled. “He didn’t really want to donate anything; he just wanted to see how I handled the call.”

Everything changed in March 2005 when a woman reported that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by a wealthy Palm Beach resident. Detectives quickly identified Epstein as the suspect. What followed was an investigation that uncovered allegations involving dozens of girls, many recruited from working-class neighborhoods in West Palm Beach and transported to Epstein’s mansion under the guise of giving him massages.

Police investigators, led by detective Joe Recarey, interviewed victims, collected records, and built what Reiter believed was a powerful sexual battery case.

At first, Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer appeared supportive. But according to Reiter, the case took a dramatic turn after Epstein assembled a legal dream team that included Alan Dershowitz. The defense strategy focused heavily on attacking the credibility of the teenage victims and portraying them as opportunists motivated by money.

The effort appears to have worked.

Krischer ultimately backed away from pursuing the serious charges Reiter believed were warranted. Recarey drafted arrest warrants and probable-cause affidavits, but prosecutors refused to sign off. Instead, according to Reiter, prosecutors moved toward resolving the matter with far less serious charges.

“These were children being victimized and a person using his privilege and influence and power and the ability to hire all the best criminal attorneys in the country,” Reiter said. “To me, if you can’t protect children, your community can’t protect anybody.”

The Herald report also revisits one of the most controversial chapters of the original case: the grand jury proceedings. According to Reiter, prosecutors failed to present the full scope of the alleged trafficking operation to jurors. Rather than emphasizing evidence that dozens of underage girls had been recruited and exploited, prosecutors presented testimony in a way that highlighted allegations of prostitution by one victim.

The result was a dramatically narrowed case that ultimately allowed Epstein to avoid the severe punishment investigators had envisioned.

Reiter says the obstacles extended well beyond the courtroom. The former police chief described a campaign of intimidation allegedly carried out by Epstein’s team. Private investigators reportedly dug through his personal life, scrutinized his divorce, contacted people from his distant past, and spread damaging narratives in the media. Reiter said one of Epstein’s bodyguards even moved next door to him, a development he interpreted as a warning.

Meanwhile, influential Palm Beach figures allegedly pressured him to drop the investigation altogether.

In a deposition cited by the Herald, Reiter recalled being told that he had embarrassed Palm Beach by turning Epstein into a major criminal case rather than quietly handling the matter within the community.

The pressure campaign reflected a broader reality that critics of the original Epstein deal have argued for years: the system seemed determined to treat Epstein as an influential community member first and a criminal suspect second.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Reiter’s account is his insistence that the Palm Beach Police Department was never part of the cover-up. In recent years, public frustration over Epstein’s sweetheart deal has sometimes been directed broadly at law enforcement. Reiter argues that history has gotten the story backward.

Far from protecting Epstein, he says Palm Beach detectives spent years trying to build a case strong enough to put him behind bars permanently. The problem, according to Reiter, was what happened after investigators handed that case over to prosecutors.

In case you missed it:

“The biggest challenge in leading a professional police department usually isn’t the police work, it’s the politics,” Reiter said. “In the Epstein case, those obstacles proved insurmountable, even though we tried our very best.”

Two decades later, Epstein is dead, many of the key players have retired or passed away, and the controversy surrounding the government’s handling of the case continues to generate headlines. But Reiter’s account offers a stark reminder of how the Epstein scandal unfolded in real time: not because investigators failed to find evidence, but because powerful institutions repeatedly chose not to act on it.

The Pentagon has reportedly raised its counterintelligence threat assessment for Israel to “critical,” the highest level available, following what officials described as an aggressive intelligence-gathering campaign targeting senior Trump administration officials.

The revelation, first reported by NBC News and expanded upon Saturday by The New York Times, paints a troubling picture of security vulnerabilities inside an administration that has repeatedly claimed to prioritize national security while seemingly ignoring some of the most basic precautions. According to the reports, American officials discovered software capable of intercepting communications had been installed on the phones of U.S. personnel stationed in Israel.

Even more remarkable was the description offered by one senior U.S. official. Speaking to the Times, the official characterized the scope of Israeli intelligence collection efforts against Trump administration officials as “unhinged.”

In case you missed it:

The officials reportedly believed to have been targeted include Steve Witkoff, Trump’s chief negotiator on Iran; Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official; and Michael DiMino, Colby’s deputy for Middle East policy.

But the story becomes even more astonishing when the reports explain how these officials allegedly made themselves vulnerable in the first place.

According to the Times, senior Trump administration figures routinely conducted sensitive national security business on personal cellphones, traveled aboard private aircraft, and often declined staffing support from U.S. embassies while overseas. Those decisions, current and former officials acknowledged, created ideal conditions for foreign intelligence services looking to listen in.

Share

“The tendency of some senior Trump administration officials to fly on private aircraft, to conduct national security business on their personal phones and to reject staffing from U.S. embassies abroad made them especially vulnerable targets,” a former senior official told the newspaper.

The Times further reported that current officials acknowledged the widespread use of personal cellphones by senior American officials had made them “easy targets for eavesdropping.”

The allegations are particularly striking because they involve Israel, a country widely considered one of Washington’s closest intelligence and military partners. Historically, U.S. officials have often downplayed concerns about intelligence collection conducted by allied nations, even though numerous incidents over the years have demonstrated that friendly governments spy on one another with surprising frequency.

One of the most infamous examples remains the Jonathan Pollard case, in which a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst passed classified information to Israel during the 1980s. More recently, reports surfaced during Trump’s first term that Israeli surveillance devices were allegedly detected near the White House, though Israeli officials denied involvement.

The latest revelations suggest those concerns never entirely disappeared.

The Pentagon reportedly now ranks Israel as a greater counterintelligence concern than any other U.S. ally and, according to the reporting, even above some traditional adversaries. That assessment alone represents a remarkable development given the exceptionally close relationship between the Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The White House has rejected the account, calling it false. Israel’s embassy likewise denied the allegations, insisting that Israel “does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone U.S. government officials.”

In case you missed it:

Still, even if every denial is taken at face value, the larger issue remains difficult to ignore: senior officials entrusted with some of the nation’s most sensitive foreign-policy responsibilities were reportedly conducting business in ways that security professionals have spent decades warning against.

In other words, if foreign intelligence agencies were looking for an opening, they may not have needed sophisticated tradecraft. They may simply have needed a phone number.

For Donald Trump, Iowa has long been political friendly territory, the kind of place where endorsements translated into victories and rural voters formed the backbone of his electoral coalition. But according to CNN data analyst Harry Enten, that foundation may be showing serious cracks.

Appearing Friday on CNN’s News Central, Enten pointed to a growing backlash among rural voters as a key warning sign for the president, arguing that economic frustrations and rising inflation have triggered what he described as a “rural revolt” against Trump.

In case you missed it:

The discussion came just days after a surprising political setback in Iowa, where Trump’s preferred candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary, Rep. Randy Feenstra, was defeated by businessman Zack Lahn. The loss marked the end of what had been an almost flawless endorsement streak for the president and raised new questions about his standing among the very voters who helped fuel his political rise.

“Iowa has been traditionally a field of dreams for the president of the United States,” Enten told CNN host John Berman. “But it’s quickly turning into potentially a field of nightmares.”

According to Enten, the numbers suggest Trump’s support among rural Americans has deteriorated at a stunning pace.

Share

“There seems to be a rural revolt going on in this country against Donald Trump,” Enten said. Citing Fox News polling, he noted that Trump held an 18-point advantage among rural voters against then-Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign. Now, however, Enten said Trump sits “14 points underwater” with those same voters.

“That’s an over 30 points switcheroo against the president of the United States,” Enten said. “As I said, there appears to be a rural vote going against Donald Trump.”

When Berman asked what was driving the shift, Enten pointed to a familiar culprit: inflation.

“You know, one of the big reasons that there seems to be a rural revolt against Donald Trump, simply put, it’s the economy. It’s inflation,” Enten said.

Enten argued that Trump’s once-commanding advantage on economic issues has evaporated. During the 2024 election, rural voters trusted Trump over Harris on inflation by a staggering 37-point margin. According to the polling Enten cited, that number has now flipped dramatically, with Trump sitting 19 points underwater on the issue.

“That is an over 50 point switcheroo against the president of the United States,” Enten said. “Rural voters like the rest of the country, turning against Trump on the key issue that got him elected to a second term back in 2024.”

The findings come as inflation concerns continue to dog the administration. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Producer Price Index report showed producer prices rising 1.4% in April, the largest monthly increase since 2022. The increase pushed inflationary pressures to their highest level in three years, reinforcing concerns that the cost-of-living crisis remains far from resolved.

In case you missed it:

For a president who built much of his political brand around promises to tame inflation and restore economic stability, the polling shift could represent a far more serious threat than the loss of a single endorsed candidate.

Watch the video below:

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi found herself ambushed yet again by a reporter from MyPillow founder Mike Lindell’s media operation, and she responded with all the patience of someone who has heard the same conspiracy theory for the thousandth time.

The confrontation erupted in a Capitol hallway when Alison Steinberg, a congressional correspondent for LindellTV, approached Pelosi and immediately launched into a familiar line of questioning about January 6 and the National Guard.

In case you missed it:

“Last time I asked you about January 6, why you turned the National Guard away on January 6, you told me to shut up and that I was repeating Republican talking points,” Steinberg said.

Pelosi wasted no time responding.

“Shut up again,” Pelosi fired back, adding that Steinberg was “speaking lies.”

And just like that, another chapter was added to what has become one of Washington’s strangest recurring political rituals: a MAGA media personality chasing lawmakers through Capitol hallways in search of a viral gotcha moment.

Steinberg pressed ahead, insisting Pelosi had previously admitted responsibility for decisions surrounding National Guard deployment on January 6.

“I did not admit it,” Pelosi shot back. “The president never would agree to send the National Guard. Don’t waste your time or mine on you.”

Share

The exchange quickly deteriorated from there.

When Steinberg pivoted to asking why Pelosi’s daughter was filming her on January 6 — another favorite topic among election conspiracy theorists and right-wing media figures — Pelosi had clearly had enough.

“Why don’t you get away?” she snapped.

But the most revealing moment came when Pelosi directly challenged Steinberg’s claim to journalistic credibility.

“I don’t even think you’re a real journalist,” Pelosi said. “You work for Mike the Pillow Man? ... That’s not journalism.”

Steinberg cheerfully confirmed that she worked for Lindell and even offered Pelosi a free pillow.

Pelosi was unimpressed.

“I’m going to record this,” she said. “I want people to know that you are not a real journalist. You work for Mike the Pillow Man, and all you do is spout untruths. Get away from me!”

The confrontation may have looked chaotic, but it reflected a much larger battle that has been brewing for years between traditional journalism and an increasingly aggressive ecosystem of partisan content creators who blur the line between reporting, activism and performance.

Lindell, of course, remains one of the country’s most notorious election conspiracy theorists. The MyPillow CEO spent years promoting false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, pouring millions of dollars into efforts to overturn the results and becoming a fixture in Trump’s orbit. His media operation has frequently served as a platform for election denialism and other conspiracy theories that have repeatedly collapsed under scrutiny.

The National Guard claim Steinberg attempted to revive is itself rooted in a long-running right-wing narrative surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Multiple investigations have found no evidence supporting the claim that Pelosi somehow prevented National Guard deployment that day. Responsibility for activating the District of Columbia National Guard ultimately rested with the executive branch and the Pentagon, not the Speaker of the House.

That hasn’t stopped the theory from circulating through MAGA media circles, where it continues to generate clicks long after official investigations debunked it.

Thursday’s confrontation wasn’t even the first time Steinberg and Pelosi have clashed over the subject.

Last October, Steinberg approached Pelosi with nearly identical questions, prompting the California Democrat to tell her to “shut up” and accuse her of repeating “Republican talking points.” That encounter generated millions of views online and apparently convinced both parties to run the experiment again.

In case you missed it:

Steinberg has developed a reputation for these confrontational exchanges. Earlier this year Sen. John Cornyn accused her of acting as a “paid influencer” during a tense interview, while Rep. Ilhan Omar dismissed her questioning and bluntly informed her she didn’t want to tell her “jack.”

Watch the exchange below:

CBS executives have insisted that the chaos engulfing 60 Minutes was nothing more than a another corporate shakeup — a painful but necessary transition. Recently fired anchor Scott Pelley just blew that explanation to pieces.

In a stunning statement released days after his firing, the longtime 60 Minutes correspondent accused CBS leadership of something far more serious than bad management. According to Pelley, network executives attempted to pressure him into airing information he believed was false, unverified, and politically motivated.

In case you missed it:

If true, the allegations don’t merely suggest dysfunction inside one of America’s most respected news organizations. They raise questions about whether CBS News is abandoning the very principles that made 60 Minutes a journalistic institution in the first place. Pelley appears determined to make sure the public knows exactly who he blames.

The veteran correspondent, who spent 37 years at CBS News, issued a blistering statement Tuesday night explaining what led to his dramatic exit from the network.

“New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” Pelley wrote. “I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them.”

That allegation alone would be extraordinary. But Pelley wasn’t finished.

According to the former 60 Minutes star, executives also allowed politicians to influence which journalists would conduct interviews, a practice that strikes at the heart of editorial independence. He further claimed that management failures nearly caused an episode of the program to miss airtime entirely, with the broadcast coming within just 19 minutes of not making air.

Then came the accusation likely to generate the most attention. Pelley argued that the network’s new leadership was systematically dismantling 60 Minutes “apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.”

Share

The allegation comes in the middle of a growing controversy surrounding CBS News chief Bari Weiss and the sweeping changes she has overseen since taking control of the news division. In recent weeks, the network has fired or pushed out several high-profile figures connected to 60 Minutes, including senior staff and veteran correspondents. Those moves triggered outrage inside the newsroom and prompted public criticism from Pelley, who reportedly accused executives during a staff meeting of “murdering” the legendary news program.

The confrontation ultimately cost him his job.

According to the report, CBS executive producer Nick Bilton informed Pelley that he was being terminated “for cause” — a designation that could become important if the dispute ends up in court. Yet Pelley insists his firing was merely the latest chapter in a much larger collapse.

His statement describes a newsroom where journalists were increasingly punished for defending editorial standards.

“Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience,” he wrote.

What makes the controversy especially damaging for CBS is that these dramatic changes weren’t occurring during a ratings crisis. According to Pelley, 60 Minutes ended its 58th season with a nine percent increase in viewership, growth he described as “unheard of.”

In other words, Weiss wasn’t dismantling a struggling product. She was dismantling one of the most successful programs in television history. That contradiction has fueled growing speculation that factors beyond ratings are driving the network’s transformation.

In case you missed it:

Critics have increasingly pointed to the broader political environment surrounding major media companies, particularly as corporate executives seek regulatory approvals and attempt to navigate an administration that has repeatedly attacked news organizations, journalists, and critical reporting. Pelley’s statement appears to embrace that interpretation directly.

“The collapse of values at the top has become untenable,” he wrote. “The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.”

Donald Trump has been obsessed with finding the people leaking embarrassing stories from inside his administration. He reportedly demanded answers and launched a leak hunt. He even flirted with using the Justice Department to track down journalists’ sources. But according to a new report, the reason his crusade has gone nowhere may be as simple as it is humiliating: there are too many leakers to catch.

In what one senior administration official described as “one of the worst-kept secrets at the White House,” Trump’s effort to root out internal dissent has apparently run headfirst into a reality that should terrify any president. The people helping him hunt for leakers may be the same people doing the leaking.

In case you missed it:

That startling revelation comes from a new report by Zeteo, which paints a picture of a White House so riddled with internal mistrust that Trump’s leak investigation reportedly collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. If the reporting is accurate, the president’s inner circle isn’t just leaking against one another, they may have created a mutually assured destruction pact that makes accountability nearly impossible.

According to Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng, Trump became furious earlier this year after information from inside his administration repeatedly found its way into the pages of The New York Times. The leaks became such a fixation that the president allegedly “loudly demanded” to know who was talking to reporters and elevated the search for culprits into a “big deal” inside the administration.

The obsession reportedly intensified in May when Trump, described by sources as increasingly paranoid about internal leaks, pushed the Justice Department to identify those responsible. But despite the pressure campaign, the effort appears to have fizzled for one extraordinary reason.

Share

As Suebsaeng reported, sources close to the White House said “way, way too many Cabinet-level appointees and senior administration officials leaked to the Times reporters to make a leak hunt truly effective.”

In other words, the list of suspects allegedly became so large that the investigation lost its usefulness.

“According to sources with direct knowledge of the situation, too many of the people Trump had asked about finding the leakers had themselves, well, leaked to the [Times reporters],” Suebsaeng wrote.

The irony was not lost on those familiar with the situation.

“I cannot possibly pretend that it isn’t hysterically funny how Trump has put himself in a position where it’s very hard for him to find the leakers because the senior personnel he tapped to be the leak-hunters-in-chief are also the ones who’ve been doing the leaking,” Suebsaeng noted. “Good help is hard to find!”

One administration official told Zeteo that investigators had “started making a list of likely suspects,” but the list eventually “got too long” to be useful.

Even more remarkable was the apparent casualness with which some officials discussed the matter. A senior Trump administration official reportedly admitted to leaking information while speaking anonymously with Zeteo.

“It’s one of the worst-kept secrets at the White House,” the official said. “I’m not ratting myself out; that would be ridiculous.”

The report offers a revealing look into a White House that appears increasingly consumed by suspicion, loyalty tests, and internal warfare. Trump has long treated leaks as acts of betrayal. During both of his presidencies he repeatedly denounced leakers as criminals, and at times has suggested that leaking sensitive information amounted to “treason.”

Yet according to one adviser quoted by Zeteo, that rhetoric may have lost its deterrent effect because so many senior figures are allegedly participating in the same behavior. The adviser compared the situation to the climactic standoff in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, where every character has a weapon pointed at someone else.

Zeteo reported that the adviser described the White House dynamic as one of “mutual destruction,” with so many officials possessing damaging information about one another that nobody is eager to start naming names.

In case you missed it:

If true, the picture that emerges is not merely one of a leaky administration. It’s a portrait of a government where competing factions, personal rivalries, and political self-preservation have created a system in which nearly everyone has dirt on everyone else.

For a president who built much of his political identity around loyalty and control, the report suggests a painful reality: the leaks are coming from inside virtually every room in the building.

Donald Trump and his allies promoted a multibillion-dollar fund as a way to compensate Americans supposedly victimized by the “weaponization” of government. Critics saw something very different: a taxpayer-funded jackpot that could ultimately benefit Jan. 6 rioters, convicted Trump allies, and political loyalists eager to cash in on the president’s grievances.

Now, that controversial project appears headed for the political graveyard.

According to a report from Axios, the Trump administration is preparing to abandon its $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” a highly controversial initiative that was pitched as a mechanism for compensating alleged victims of politically motivated prosecutions and investigations. The decision comes after a court order halted the fund and amid growing bipartisan scrutiny over how the money could have been distributed.

In case you missed it:

“It’s dead for now,” one administration official told Axios, signaling that the White House has little appetite to continue fighting for the fund’s survival.

The retreat marks a stunning reversal for an initiative that quickly became one of the most controversial projects of Trump’s second term.

The fund originated from an unusual legal settlement tied to Trump’s own $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. Trump sued the agency after a whistleblower leaked portions of his tax information, arguing that the government had failed to protect his private records. The resulting settlement ultimately became the financial foundation for the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund.

But almost immediately, questions emerged about who exactly would qualify for compensation.

Share

Critics warned that the vague structure of the program created an opening for payouts to individuals convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as other Trump allies who had run afoul of the law but claimed they were victims of political persecution. The prospect of taxpayer-backed compensation for convicted criminals generated backlash far beyond Trump’s usual critics.

In fact, opposition became so intense that even some Republicans began distancing themselves from the project. According to reports, GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been debating restrictions that would severely limit how any future payments from the fund could be used.

That development alone was noteworthy. Trump has spent years demanding unwavering loyalty from Republicans, particularly on issues involving investigations into himself and his allies. Yet the Anti-Weaponization Fund appeared to cross a line even some members of his own party weren’t willing to defend.

The legal problems don’t end there.

The underlying IRS lawsuit that gave birth to the fund is now facing renewed scrutiny. A separate court is reopening examination of the settlement after dozens of retired judges raised concerns about whether the arrangement was appropriate in the first place.

That review threatens to reopen uncomfortable questions about both the legitimacy of the settlement and the administration’s attempt to transform it into a political compensation program.

The collapse of the fund is particularly embarrassing for an administration that has made alleged “weaponization” of government a centerpiece of its political identity. Trump has repeatedly portrayed himself and his supporters as victims of politically motivated investigations, using that narrative to rally his base and justify sweeping efforts to reshape federal law enforcement agencies.

But while those arguments remain potent inside MAGA circles, the Anti-Weaponization Fund proved to be a harder sell outside them.

In case you missed it:

What began as a headline-grabbing promise to compensate victims of supposed government abuse increasingly looked, to critics, like a billion-dollar slush fund searching for beneficiaries. And once courts, watchdogs, former judges, and even Republicans started asking uncomfortable questions, support began evaporating.

Now the administration appears ready to quietly walk away.