By Ben Meiselas
Hi all, hope you are enjoying your Monday. Here’s the latest news.
As families across America confront rising costs, shrinking paychecks, and the looming loss of Affordable Care Act subsidies, Donald Trump began his morning waging war against one of his most loyal allies, attacking Marjorie Taylor Greene in a rambling online tirade that underscored a crisis of governance at the highest levels.
The chaos was triggered by Greene’s appearance on 60 Minutes, where she accused the president of betraying the MAGA and America First movements and suggested he was “covering up for a child sex trafficking ring.” She also said Trump was responsible for the death threats she now receives.
Trump responded with a furious post calling Greene “jilted.” He then turned his anger toward 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, complaining about her questioning in 2020 regarding Russia. The grievance came even as Trump continues to echo Kremlin talking points and promote Russian surrender plans for Ukraine.
What seemed to infuriate him most was that “the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air.” He claimed the network was “NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME!” He concluded with a demand: “I hereby demand a complete and total apology… from Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes for her incorrect and libelous statements about Hunter’s laptop.”
Trump continued to call MTG “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown,” writing that “Green turns to Brown under stress!” As everyone knows, the best nicknames are the ones you have to explain every time you use them. I am being sarcastic, of course. Trump’s whining about the press unfolded as millions of Americans face immediate threats to their economic security.
While people are scraping by paycheck to paycheck, while health care subsidies are set to disappear within days, and while families are already seeing skyrocketing premiums on the ACA exchanges, the president dedicated his morning to insulting his own supporters, attacking journalists, and amplifying conspiracy theories.
At the same time, Trump announced he would “issue an executive order” to override state laws on artificial intelligence regulation, arguing that the country needs a single national standard. The president ignored the basic fact that an executive order is not a federal law. If Congress wanted to regulate AI nationally, it would have done so in legislation like the pending National Defense Authorization Act. Instead, Trump, who campaigned on “states’ rights,” is now proposing to preempt state power in one of the most consequential technological and economic areas in the world.
This comes at a moment when AI-driven job losses are accelerating, when massive data centers are draining local energy grids and driving up household utility costs, and when communities across the country are begging for guardrails. Trump’s approach amounts to deregulation by decree, without the force of law or the democratic process. He wants AI to be able to run amok, with no regard for any of its consequences.
Adding to today’s news, new reporting from ProPublica revealed evidence that Trump engaged in the exact mortgage fraud he has accused his political opponents of committing. According to ProPublica, Trump claimed two separate homes were his “principal residence” within a span of seven weeks in the 1990s, even though he lived in New York and the properties were used as rentals. When reporters called for comment, Trump hung up.
This pattern mirrors previous court findings: he has already been held civilly liable for business fraud and criminally convicted on 34 felony counts involving falsified records. Nonetheless, he continues to weaponize the Department of Justice against figures like New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic members of Congress who have investigated him.
And yet the most explosive development of the morning may be the one that received the least attention: the accelerating effort by foreign sovereign wealth funds, spearheaded by the Saudis, Qataris, and Emiratis, to acquire control of Warner Bros. Discovery, including CNN. Paramount’s hostile takeover bid appears to be led, in part, by Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. The involvement of Trump’s son-in-law was absent from Paramount’s initial announcement, as were the roles of the foreign governments financing the move.
The implications are staggering. A sitting president’s family stands to benefit from a foreign-backed acquisition that could place multiple major American media entities under the influence of governments aligned with Trump. This is not hypothetical. These same groups have already consolidated significant portions of the video game industry and other entertainment assets. As economist David Rothschild put it, “Trump’s family’s corruption is magnitudes more than anything else in U.S. history.”
Despite all this, the Trump administration spent the morning insisting the economy is thriving. Advisers like Kevin Hassett touted “positive news” and “trillions of dollars” in new groundbreaking announcements while ignoring the lived reality of Americans facing soaring interest rates, a trillion-dollar Chinese trade surplus, and collapsing household affordability.
Meanwhile, the wealth of Donald Trump Jr. has reportedly ballooned from under $50 million to more than $300 million during the second Trump term, fueled by crypto ventures, AI investments, and foreign-backed financial entities.
In addition, CNN’s KFILE has uncovered footage from 2016 of Pete Hegseth repeatedly warning Trump against issuing unlawful orders and urging service members to reject any unlawful orders they are given, warning they could face prosecution if they commit illegal acts at the president’s direction. Oops.
We’ll keep following all the news, so keep checking this Substack, our YouTube channel, and the MeidasTouch Podcast for more. Ron Filipkowski’s daily political bulletin will be published later today, giving you a comprehensive overview of all the day’s top stories!
