… Fox has abruptly parted ways with longtime host and Trump cultist Maria Bartiromo. They gave no explanation in their brief announcement. She worked for Fox for over a decade anchoring their morning show on Fox Business and their Sunday morning show on the main network. Maybe Fox Business wants to start focusing on business.
… I immediately thought that Maria might have left to become Trump’s press secretary. JD Vance filled in as press secretary at today’s WH briefing. I was really shocked to see him come across as a smug, pompous, arrogant, condescending ass. Seemed so out of character for him:
Q: “Maria Bartiromo just left Fox News. Is she going to be the next WH press secretary? Vance: I don't know, man. Uh, no, I don't think so.”
Q: “On July 2nd, Scott Bessent was asked when Americans could see $3 gas again, and he said maybe by Labor Day. Things haven't worked out that way. Should Americans not expect to see $3 gas again until at least 2027? Vance: Well, in defense of Scott, he said maybe.”
Q - “The Iranians say that an attack on a on a wedding celebration earlier this week, killed several people. Vance: Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what's happened. I’m extremely skeptical of this. What I can say with 100% confidence is that unlike the IRGC, the US never targets civilians in combat.”
… American AI does. And this Admin has lied to us every single day about the war on every aspect of the war.
Q: What do you say to those who are uneasy with your close relationship with Tucker Carlson? Vance: Tucker is a friend and I'm not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements.”
… Aren’t these the same people who demand that every Democrat denounce Twitch streamer Hasan Piker?
“I do think, you know, not to brag on my boss too much, but I do think the president has set us about to be the most transparent administration in history, and we have done that with flying colors.”
… That one made me laugh.
Q: “Senator Ted Cruz and your good friend, Pete Hegseth, apparently have been positioning for 2028. Could you see yourself supporting either one of them for a presidential campaign? Vance: Clearly, Ted Cruz is an authentic and likable guy and I'm sure he'll do great.”
… That one made me laugh harder.
Q - “Will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections? Vance: I wouldn’t call it a war. There is no active shooting.”
… More on that later.
… Howard Nutnick caused a firestorm with this statement at an event yesterday: “I think the way the president is playing Iran, there haven’t been American deaths, it’s really just an economic choke-out, which the admin is now executing more broadly and I think it will be very effective.”
… He tried to clean it up with this post today: “While speaking yesterday at the G20 innovation summit about AI, I answered a question about the military actions in Iran, I misspoke. 18 members of our military have died, and to those families my heart breaks and I am so very sorry for their loss. I was thinking about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died.”
… Reuters: “The Pentagon is temporarily rescinding recently published guidance on US troops testosterone screening. On Wed, the Pentagon posted the ‘Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization’ on its website. By Thursday, the memo and an accompanying statement from spokesperson Sean Parnell had been removed and ‘Page Not Found’ appeared on the links.”
… The Hill: “Pete Hegseth is on a collision course with GOP senators as key lawmakers have major concerns about the turnover of senior staff, the lack of a clear plan for ending the Iran war, and the failure of the admin to reach out to Democrats to build support for funding priorities.”
… “Hegseth has been a controversial figure throughout his leadership of the Pentagon, but the growing tensions between him and senior GOP lawmakers will come to a head this fall when the admin makes a push for more than $70 billion in emergency national security spending to cover the growing costs of the Iran war.”
… “Senate Republicans will demand more information about the departures of senior military officials, such as Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, who resigned this week, and about the conduct of the military conflict with Iran, which has now stretched for more than 6 months.”
… Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): “I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force. I urge the president to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it.”
… “GOP senators have grown increasingly concerned over the forced departures of several experienced and well-respected senior military officials, such as Gen. Randy George, former Army chief of staff, and Gen. Christopher Donahue, the top Army commander in Europe, during Hegseth’s tenure.”
… Politico: “Leon Black, a billionaire investor with ties to the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, declined to show up for his scheduled transcribed interview Thursday with the House Oversight Committee - choosing instead to file a lawsuit calling the panel’s subpoenas for his participation ‘invalid.’
… “The lawsuit argues that the subpoenas served to Black compelling his testimony and demanding he turn over certain non-disclosure agreements go beyond the committee’s “delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection to the committee’s legislative purpose.”
… Black’s escalation is likely to trigger a corresponding dramatic response from the Oversight Committee, where Republicans are still endeavoring to show they are taking their Epstein investigation seriously more than a year since its launch.
… Chair James Comer: “I would hold him in contempt right now, but I don’t want to do anything to harm our chances in court. The most important priority is to get Black in to answer questions. He is a very important witness, and the disputes revolve around non-disclosure agreements.”
… Ranking Dem Robert Garcia said that is unacceptable: “We have had survivors tell our committee directly that Leon Black was involved in the abuse of women. His lawsuit against the committee is laughable. What he’s trying to do is slow the process down of getting us information.”
… Garcia said as soon as Dems take the majority he will move forward with a motion to hold Black in contempt of Congress, since Comer will apparently do nothing.
… Sen. Ted Cruz told a story about Trump on the Patrick Bet-David podcast: “We’re making a case to Trump and in the middle of it Elon Musk tweeted that Trump was on the Epstein list. Natalie Harp comes in, prints it on a piece of paper and hands it to him. He reads that tweet, his knuckles turn white. He was so pissed. I learned some curse words I didn’t even know.”
… Garcia was asked by Meidas reporter Pablo Manriquez who is at the top of the list to be investigated by his committee if Dems take the majority in the midterms: “Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller. They’re at the top of the list.”
… WSJ national security reporter Alex Ward: “Privately, Trump is having discussions with senior aides about whether to declare the Iran war over, US officials said, noting Trump has said he favors the idea. Trump also believes economic pressure will force the regime to dismantle its nuclear program or collapse.”
… Exactly what I said he would do all along: At some point he will just give up and declare victory despite accomplishing none of his objectives, costing us a fortune, getting soldiers killed and injured, killing civilians including children, wrecking our military bases and equipment, shattering alliances, and making us looking like bumbling idiots to the rest of the world.
… MS NOW’s Pentagon reporter Priya Sridhar traveled to Thailand to speak to the sailors and Marines on the USS Abraham Lincoln as they left the carrier after pulling in to port to set foot on dry land for the first time in over 9 months:
“I got a chance to speak to some of the crew, the regular rank and file sailors who are part of this 5,000 member crew that have been on this record setting deployment, and many of them told me that this was, in fact, the worst deployment that they have ever experienced. It was incredibly hard, and many of them expressed to me that they actually wish that they hadn’t even done a port call at this point.”
“They wanted to just go directly home. And another thing they told me is they are afraid that because of this war, these really long deployments without any port calls are going to become normalized. And they think that this is going to have a huge impact on retention in the Navy, especially for junior sailors.”
“The sailors top priorities was actually to FaceTime their family members. Because remember, it’s not just them that have served and sacrificed. It is their families as well, their spouses who have had to single parent their kids for an extended amount of time. So really the major priority that they told me they wanted to do while they were here on shore was to FaceTime and see their kids, see their spouses and see their parents.”
… WSJ: “When the US launched its campaign against Iran 6 months ago, Pete Hegseth promised a quick, decisive blow that would avoid a long entanglement. Now, he is quietly extending troop deployments in a sign that the conflict could drag well into next year.”
… “It is part of an open-ended military strategy designed to give Trump options in the war. But the deployment of 19 warships, air-defense units, fighter squadrons and paratroopers across the region is straining servicemembers and their families and creating a maintenance backlog that could take years to unwind.”
… “The US military is maintaining a presence of 50,000 troops in the region in part to give the president flexibility on next steps. Current missions include intercepting Iranian missiles, providing cover for commercial ships in the strait and blockading Iranian ports and coastal areas. US forces also stand ready to launch larger offensive attacks should Trump choose to escalate the war.”
… “As the conflict drags on, the Pentagon’s deployment schedules are growing longer too. Warship crews, air defense units and paratroopers are among the forces being ordered to stay in the region longer than expected. Army air defenders, who work under pressure to bat down Iran’s missiles and drones, have seen their standard deployment timeline shift from 9 months to 12. Some units that moved to the Middle East from their planned posts in Europe and the Pacific have already been deployed for more than a year.”
… Trump posted several unhinged rants about the war. These were a two:
“For the treasonous SCUM that refuses to accurately report on our Military Operation in Iran, we have virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition, far more than we could ever use for this, or for any other War (which is highly unlikely!), that could improbably take place. In addition, we are producing Munitions at levels never seen before.”
“The people and Media Outlets that keep harping on the fact that we have no ammunition (And they are 100% wrong!), are actually treasonous. They do it because they would rather see the United States LOSE a War that we’re easily WINNING, than see me WIN!”
… A few hours after Trump made the posts, JD Vance said it wasn’t a war.
… NYT: “The global oil price rose for a fourth straight session on Thursday and the cost of US diesel fuel came within pennies of its highest level ever, as renewed strikes by the US and Iran strained the flow of energy. ‘Escalation in the Middle East dashes any hope for a recovery in refined product flows, leaving markets tight,’ analysts at the bank ING wrote in a note on Thursday.”
… “Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has been mostly at a standstill. The US Navy, which is blockading Iranian oil at sea from exiting the region, is helping ships navigate the strait, allowing some oil to flow. But two tankers were attacked on Monday off the coast of Oman, highlighting the persistent risk for ships seeking to export oil from the Persian Gulf.”
… “The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, ticked up to just above $96 a barrel. The cost of crude has risen 34% since the start of the war. West Texas Intermediate crude, the US benchmark, was up about 1% to around $92 a barrel.”
… “The average price of diesel in the US jumped 9 cents to $5.78 per gallon on Thursday, up 54% since the start of the war. The last time US diesel prices approached this level was in 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, peaking at $5.82 a gallon. Diesel powers a vast chunk of the global economy. In the US, it fuels an array of critical infrastructure like farm equipment, trains and trucks.”
… “US gasoline prices also rose on Thursday, jumping to a national average of $4.14 a gallon. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by 39% since the war began.
… CBS11 (NY): “NYC Public Schools is banning the use of AI in elementary and middle school classrooms for the new academic year. NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels announced that the nation’s largest school district will have a one-year moratorium on AI use in schools for students, along with a new screentime policy.”
… “The sweeping AI guidelines will affect students in Pre-K, or 2-K, through 8th grade, encompassing over half a million students. The city’s one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI will also include a study over the next year on the technology’s impacts.”
… Mamdani:
“Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own.”
“The tech industry wants us to believe that AI-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way. That’s why we’re implementing a moratorium on generative AI for students in 2-K through 8th grade and spending the next year studying the impacts of this technology.”
A little change in schedule. I’m not taking a vacation this year but I am taking Labor Day Weekend off. We are heading off the grid into the wilderness of NW Maine for a weekend of waterfalls and mountain hikes, river kayaking and scenic drives. So next Bulletin on Tuesday. I was planning to put out my mega ‘100 Most Corrupt Things Trump Did in 2026’ on Sat morning. However, now I am going to put it out tomorrow night in place of the Bulletin.
The reason for that is because I thought I would be able to get almost all of it done yesterday before and after my podcast Uncovered. I worked on it all day and I only have a very rough draft of his corrupt acts from April-Sept. So I still have 3 months to go, then have to clean it up. The problem is that I already have more than 100. Way more. So I’m just accumulating each one I find in chronological order, then will have to cut them down to 100.
So it turned out to me a much bigger project than I expected, and I expected it to be big. But when you chronicle Trump’s personal corruption, there are endless examples. That is why I need all of tomorrow to finish it. The one thing that really struck me is the variety and the creativity involved in various schemes. It would literally be a full time job just to orchestrate them - let alone be president at the same time.
But then I realized that Eric, Don Jr and/or Jared are involved in most of them, so they probably create them and take them to Trump. Or take them to Natalie. Or Dan Scavino. Whoever is his grift proxy these days.
We are 60 days out from the midterms and this is always the time when a lot of people who avoid politics for 22 months tend to check back in. We always see a surge in social media followers, podcast views, and article reads during these windows. Much more in presidential years, but midterms too. If that is one of you, welcome aboard for a very wild ride!
Just yesterday on Uncovered, we had 280,000 viewers. In addition to writing what I believe is the most unique and comprehensive political column in America every day, on my weekly podcast we try to bring you things you simply don’t hear anywhere else. The reason why I called it Uncovered is because my concept was to not just report the news, but talk about what is really happening behind the scenes and why it is really happening - things you don’t find in hard news articles.
There can be a herd mentality on social media and podcasts. So often I hear the same takes over and over that are mostly unoriginal since they are just recycled from other people. I think our show is the opposite of that. Anthony and I bring you angles on stories that other people aren’t talking about.
On yesterday’s show, we talked about how Trump is screwing Republicans in the midterms, Scott Bessent blaming Ukraine for gas prices, every angle of the Venezuela oil theft including it’s impact on FL politics, Ron and Casey Desantis’s theft of taxpayer dollars for children’s health care, Trump’s clueless understanding of economics, the Army Secretary quitting, MAGA Milo crying about being deported, RFK Jr wrestling with Dr. Oz in the Oval Office, data center politics & lots more!
You can find a link to the show here. If you missed the last Bulletin, you can find it here.
… Daily Mail: “The Netherlands has moved 86 tons of its gold stock out of the US and Canada to London due to ‘increasing geopolitical unrest’. The move follows alarming remarks that gold is ‘no longer safe’ in Trump‘s America. Moving these stores to British soil would ‘spread risks’ and would ensure the ‘quickest’ opportunity for DNB to deploy the sale of gold ‘in a crisis situation,’ the bank wrote in a statement.”
… “Trump’s unpredictability has been previously cited as a key reason as to why the Netherlands should remove their gold from the US. The director of Goudwisselkantoor – a Dutch auction house that specializes in auctioning gold – said
