Patrick Meyer, caught on social media openly seething that the assassin failed to kill President Trump. Credit: Kaukauna High School
A social studies teacher at Kaukauna High School has been caught openly lamenting that the latest deranged assassin didn’t manage to take out President Donald Trump.
Patrick Meyer, identified as the taxpayer-funded educator pushing his anti-Trump venom on social media, posted a now-deleted rant on X following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
According to screenshots shared by Libs of Tiktok, Meyer wrote:
“I am not impressed with recent presidential assassins. It’s f-king embarrassing. Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, Oswald must all be spinning in their graves! MAGAA (make Americans great assassins again)! Sad!”
BREAKING: Teacher at Kaukauna High School in Wisconsin who complained that the shooter failed to kiII Trump has been placed on administrative leave
U.S. Rep. Tony Wied (R-WI) responded on this outrageous tweet:
“This type of disgusting rhetoric has no place in our society and does not represent our values in #WI08. It is not the example that our teachers should be setting for Northeast Wisconsin students.”
This type of disgusting rhetoric has no place in our society and does not represent our values in #WI08
It is not the example that our teachers should be setting for Northeast Wisconsin students. https://t.co/w5kArfoX8n
The Kaukauna Area School District issued a statement confirming Meyer has been placed on administrative leave while they “review the matter in accordance with its policies and procedures.”
The Kaukauna Area School District has been made aware of a situation involving an employee’s social media post. The District has placed the employee on administrative leave and is taking additional action to review the matter in accordance with its policies and procedures.
The Kaukauna Area School District is committed to maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment for all students, families, and staff, and unequivocally rejects any conduct, expression, or behavior that may encourage, condone, or promote violence in any form.
The content of the employee’s social media post was not related to the Kaukauna Area School District, and there has been no evidence of a risk to the safety of our students and schools.
Oz Pearlman performing a trick in front of President Trump via CSPAN
One of the most viral videos from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shows Oz Pearlman presenting President Trump with a white card as gunfire rang out inside the Washington Hilton Hotel.
The video prompted users on social media to question and create theories about what was written on the card.
Now Oz Pearlman has revealed what he wrote on the card.
Pearlman, who is a notable mentalist, told USA Today that just moments before a gunman opened fire at the event, he was performing a trick where he was going to guess White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s baby’s name.
The mentalist noted that Leavitt has kept the baby’s name private and revealed that on his white card was the name “Viviane,” which Leavitt has confirmed is the name she has selected for her baby.
Oz Pearlman has revealed the trick he was performing when shots rang out at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
“The night was going very, very well. I was warming up the crowd, the VP was loving my show, and I was speaking to the press secretary,” he tells USA TODAY. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, is expecting her second baby with husband Nicholas Riccio any day. “The challenge was to figure out the name of her unborn daughter,” Pearlman recalls. The mentalist did just that. He turned his notepad around to reveal the name Viviane.
“I never would have shared this with the world, the point is not to ‘gotcha’ her. But I spoke to her and she said it’s OK to share,” he says. “ ‘This is a moment in history,’ she told me. When it happened, she said, ‘I don’t know how the hell you guessed my daughter’s name.’ ”
In a text, Leavitt confirmed that Pearlman’s account is accurate. “The timing was insane,” he adds. “Right as I did the reveal, that’s exactly the moment things went down in the room. So you see the peak reaction to my trick, the ‘Oh!’ And then things instantly change to shock and distress.”
Within moments, he was on the ground with President Donald Trump. “Seeing his face a foot away − I’ll never forget that,” he says. “It’s a photo in my mind forever. I wish I had meta glasses on and I’d have that photo.”
President Trump isn’t the first high-profile figure Pearlman has performed for.
Pearlman previously guessed Joe Rogan’s debit pin number during a live podcast.
WATCH:
NEW: Joe Rogan clearly uncomfortable after ‘mentalist’ Oz Pearlman successfully guesses his ATM PIN code on his recent show.
Pearlman: How’d I do, Joe? Is that your ATM PIN code?
Republican New Jersey Rep. Tom Kean Jr. has finally addressed his mysterious month-and-a-half-long absence from Congress.
Kean, 57, last cast a vote in the House on March 5, and nobody had seen or heard from him.
Since that time, Kean has missed more than 50 roll-call votes at a critical time when House Republicans are operating with barely enough of a majority to advance key legislation.
For weeks, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have reported complete radio silence.
New Jersey GOP Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith said they had not heard from him despite repeated attempts to reach out.
House Republicans from New York who have collaborated with Kean on bills expressed similar confusion.
Even Democrat Rep. Rob Menendez publicly stated he hoped Kean was “doing all right” but had received no information.
The disappearance sparked widespread concern and speculation, especially given Kean’s status as one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents heading into the 2026 midterms. His district is a top target for Democrats, with multiple challengers already lining up to try to unseat him in what is expected to be a highly competitive race.
On Monday evening, Kean finally broke his silence with a statement posted to his campaign’s X account.
In it, he confirmed he has been dealing with a “personal medical issue” but provided no further details on his condition or a specific timeline for his return.
I want to thank my constituents and colleagues for their patience as I address a personal medical issue. My doctors continue to assure me that my recovery will be complete and that I will be back to the job I love very soon. I expect to return to a full schedule and be at 100 percent.
I take my responsibilities seriously and have a strong record of showing up and delivering, which makes this absence all the more difficult. I am especially proud of my Congressional team, who have kept constituent services and legislative work moving forward without interruption, and my political team for ensuring the campaign continues to run strong.
I also want to thank my friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their patience and understanding during this time. I appreciate your support and look forward to being back in the near future.
Kean’s office had previously described the absence only as a “personal health matter” without elaborating.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed last week that he had spoken with Kean by phone and was told the congressman expected to return to full capacity “very soon.”
There have been no additional updates on when Kean will physically return to Washington or resume voting. He is expected to miss votes again this week.
Iran has just been elected to the vice presidency of a UN body concerned with nuclear non-proliferation. Photo courtesy of Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51323142
The United Nations elected Iran as one of 34 vice presidents of the 11th Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which opened April 27 at UN headquarters in New York. Iran was nominated by the Non-Aligned Movement, representing 121 largely developing nations.
The appointment drew immediate objections from the United States, Australia, the UAE, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Christopher Yeaw, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, called Iran’s selection an “affront” to the NPT, saying it was “indisputable that Iran has long demonstrated its contempt for the non-proliferation commitments of the NPT,” and declared it “beyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference.”
The UAE called the appointment “antithetical to the values of the NPT,” warning: “If a state party can disregard its obligations, undermine verification, destabilize its region, threaten international waterways, and still be elevated to a leadership position in this process, then we must ask what message this conference is sending.” Russia defended Iran and accused the objecting nations of “political attacks.”
The basis for the objections is extensive. Iran ratified the NPT in 1970 and concluded a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1974. In 2002, the agency began investigating allegations of clandestine nuclear activities, finding that some had violated Tehran’s safeguards agreement.
The IAEA Board of Governors reported the matter to the UN Security Council in February 2006, after which the Council adopted six resolutions requiring Iran to cooperate with the IAEA, suspend uranium enrichment, suspend construction of a heavy-water reactor, and ratify the Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement. Iran did not comply with most of those provisions. On September 24, 2005, the board had already adopted a resolution finding Iran in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement.
Beginning in July 2019, the IAEA verified that Iran’s nuclear activities were again exceeding JCPOA-mandated limits, with Iran’s installed centrifuges, enriched uranium stockpile, uranium U-235 concentration, and number of enrichment locations all surpassing what the agreement permitted. Tehran was also conducting JCPOA-prohibited research and development activities. On January 14, 2020, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom formally stated that Iran was not meeting its JCPOA commitments and referred the matter to the agreement’s dispute resolution mechanism.
A December 2024 E3 letter to the UN Security Council reiterated their determination to use all diplomatic tools to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, including the snapback mechanism to reimpose sanctions.
On June 12, 2025, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted resolution GOV/2025/38, formally finding that Iran’s failure to cooperate with its investigation constitutes non-compliance with its safeguards agreement, the first such finding since 2005, put forward by France, the UK, Germany, and the United States.
The IAEA Director General confirmed that man-made uranium particles were found at three undeclared locations, Varamin, Marivan, and Turquzabad, during inspections in 2019 and 2020, and that Iran had never provided credible explanations for nuclear material at sites it never disclosed. Iran responded to the breach finding by announcing a new enrichment facility at an undisclosed location and the replacement of first-generation centrifuges at Fordow with sixth-generation centrifuges.
Prior to the June 2025 Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, the IAEA calculated that Iran held 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a level that has no credible civilian justification and that Iran alone, among non-nuclear-weapon states, has produced. The Institute for Science and International Security assessed that Iran could convert that stockpile into enough weapons-grade uranium for nine nuclear weapons in approximately three weeks at the Fordow facility, with enough material for a first weapon producible in as little as two to three days.
Following the strikes, Tehran adopted a law suspending cooperation with the IAEA, and inspectors withdrew from Iran in early July 2025. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed on August 4 that there were no IAEA inspectors in the country. As of early 2026, DNI Tulsi Gabbard testified that Iran had not resumed enriching uranium, but IAEA chief Rafael Grossi confirmed the enriched uranium stockpile remains inside the country, with over 200 kg of 60% material believed to be intact at the Isfahan tunnel complex.
Concurrent with the NPT conference, more than 80 countries issued a joint statement led by Bahrain condemning Iran’s regional actions and disruptions to international shipping, supporting UN Security Council Resolution 2817, and warning that Iran’s actions have increased costs, disrupted supply chains, and negatively affected global energy markets, with particularly severe consequences for countries facing food insecurity.
Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, rejected the U.S. objections as “baseless and politically motivated,” framing the appointment as recognition of Iran’s stated commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. Iranian officials framed the appointment as consistent with Iran’s advocacy for nuclear disarmament. The conference chair, Vietnam’s UN ambassador Do Hung Viet, noted Iran was selected by “the group of non-aligned and other states.”
Separately, Iran International reported, citing a European intelligence source, that an alleged IRGC-linked espionage and assassination network operating across multiple countries was overseen by an officer identified as Alireza Mohammadi, who allegedly coordinated surveillance and operations targeting Israeli and Western interests. One operative, a cleric trained at Al-Mustafa International University in Qom, an institution sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2020, was reportedly involved in a dismantled cell that had planned attacks on an oil pipeline and a synagogue.
Israeli officials described the disruption as part of an expanding campaign against IRGC intelligence units, including individuals associated with Unit 4000, a covert branch of Iran’s intelligence apparatus.
Regarding the current U.S.-Iran conflict, Iranian officials have demanded that restrictions on its nuclear program be omitted from any peace talks or agreements.
The NPT vice presidency is not an isolated case. In February 2026, Iran was elected vice-chair of the UN Commission for Social Development, a body focused on democracy, gender equality, and non-violence, and vice-chair of the UN Charter Committee. In April 2026, ECOSOC nominated Iran to the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination, which shapes policy on women’s rights, human rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention, with Western democracies including the UK, France, Germany, Canada, and Australia voting in favor. Iran had been removed from the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2022 following its violent crackdown on protesters after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Mad Men actress January Jones has sparked backlash after posting a conspiracy theory accusing President Donald Trump and the U.S. government of staging the assassination attempt that occurred at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.
The shooting took place on Saturday at the Washington Hilton, where President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and Vice President JD Vance were attending the annual black-tie event.
Despite the clear evidence of a politically motivated attack by a left-wing activist, complete with a manifesto confessing his motives, Jones, best known for her role as Betty Draper on Mad Men, mocked the deadly incident as a fabricated stunt orchestrated by the Trump administration to escape a “boring dinner party.”
“Do you have a boring dinner party coming up, and lots of losers and fake friends have rsvp’d?” Jones began.
“Are you looking for help staging a small scale low risk assassination attempt to get out of it? Look no further, the US Government is your man, call us now at 1-800-wehate-americans,” the actress wrote in an Instagram Stories post after the attack.
The post quickly drew condemnation from conservatives who pointed out the disturbing pattern of leftists rushing to label any violence against Trump or people on the right as “staged” instead of just condemning the actual shooter.
Jones is not the only celebrity pushing the conspiracy.
Actress Mia Farrow wrote on Bluesky that the attack may have been staged to boost Trump’s approval ratings.
“He is forcing us to wonder ‘he has lost a war he is unable to end & is now so desperate to raise his approval ratings, would he …..’ ?” Farrow wrote on BlueSky.
According to law enforcement, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, a teacher who had attended a “No Kings” anti-Trump protest, rushed past security checkpoints armed with a shotgun, handgun, and multiple knives.
Allen, who described himself in a 1,000-word manifesto sent to family members just minutes before the attack as the “Friendly Federal Assassin,” complained about Trump’s policies and expressed hatred toward Christians and the administration.
He was taken into custody at the scene and charged on Monday with attempting to assassinate the president, along with additional federal counts, including assault on a federal officer.
One Secret Service agent was shot but was saved by his bulletproof vest and is reported to be in stable condition.
The Jared Kushners of the world are no match for the Bob Novogratzes.
TakiMag
(Photo by Jacquelyn Martin – Pool/Getty Images)
Say what you will about Caligula’s plan to appoint his horse Incitatus to the Roman Senate, I find it less ridiculous than Jared Kushner’s role as Uncle Sam’s negotiator with Iran. If the stallion did attend any Senate sessions, we do not know. That Kushner negotiated with the Iranians, we do know. And we also know the results: “Nul,” as they say in France, where Kushner’s father, a criminal pardoned by Trump, is our ambassador.
Kushner and Steve Witkoff, a real-estate shark friend of the Donald’s, have been Uncle Sam’s top negotiators with Iran. If the Marx Brothers were around, they might have made a movie about the two, with Harpo plucking away as Tehran burned and burned. Real-estate deals with money to be made, yes, peace negotiations without profits, no was the message. Meanwhile, diplomats with vast experience in dealing with such matters remain in Washington, most likely taking the rays of spring.
There is a simmering phoniness about Kushner playing Metternich; his unparalleled greed showed when he oiled his way down the line of multi-billionaires in the Rotunda during Trump’s inaugural. As of this writing, the bombing has ceased; hence “a whole civilization” is safe for the moment. No thanks to the American Talleyrand. A recent article in the Times traced the disastrous negotiations in Geneva, revealing that the Iranians were actually agreeing to the American demands, but the two real-estate sharks were too inexperienced on this level and too used to real-estate bombast to realize it.
Unless it was done on purpose. Kushner and Witkoff, with no particular expertise in nuclear technology or Iranian politics, faced skilled Iranian negotiators who had hammered out the 2015 deal with Obama. When a deal was within reach, according to a skilled British negotiator-observer, it became obvious that the real-estate sharks did not fully understand what Iran was offering them.
Again, this is a perfect Marx Brothers plot. It would make a great movie: The bad guys give in, but the good guys are too stupid to see it and turn it down. The two real-estate comedians even failed to see the face-saving device by the Iranians, and upped the ante instead. (Just as one does when an impoverished widow cannot pay the rent, and you give her 48 hours to clear out.) Kushner’s business, of course, has gone through the stratosphere because of the Saudis pouring billions into his funds. It is the way of the world today, but when I was still a schoolboy, President Dwight Eisenhower’s top aide, Sherman Adams, resigned in disgrace for having accepted a vicuña coat from one Bernard Goldfine. Kushner accepted $2 billion during Trump’s first term, and is getting another $3 billion from the Saudis during the second.
I’ve never met the bum Kushner. As my children have known Ivanka since she was tiny, she once tried an introduction, but I moved away rather quickly. She’s a good woman, but the reason I think he’s the pits is the remark he made, looking at the ruins of Gaza with 72,000 dead underneath the rubble, about what a great beachfront project it would make. A statement like that reveals the very lowest visceral instincts of a low-life. America is a funny place. It produces people like Kushner at the bottom, but also at the very, very top, men like Bob Novogratz.
Bob died last week, but his obituary did not appear in the Times. (That of some guy who sold denim pants did.) Bob’s parents came over from Austria, were poor Catholics, working class, but hard workers who believed in the American dream. Bob went to prep school at Blair, where I had ended up after being kicked out from Lawrenceville and Salisbury. My father helped with Bob’s scholarship. Bob played for two undefeated teams in football, and also captained the wrestling team in which he never lost a single match. As gentle and soft-spoken in conversation as he was ferocious on the field, he and I hit it off. Bob was interested in my European mannerisms, asking me why I held my knife and fork a certain way, and I explained to him how Europeans ate as compared to Americans.
As he was a brilliant student and the perfect athlete, Yale bid for him, but he chose West Point. He was a member of the last undefeated Army team in 1958 under Red Blake, where he won the Knute Rockne Memorial Trophy for the best lineman in the nation. He could have gone pro, but chose to pay back the nation that had welcomed his parents to Pennsylvania. He served with great distinction in Vietnam and ended his career a full colonel. I only saw him once after we finished school, at our 50th reunion. Happily married to the same lady for 67 years, he had many children, and I believe one of his sons is a billionaire. No country ever got a better deal than when the Novogratz family moved over here. Bob was a real American hero, a John Wayne type, strong and silent, as soft spoken as his tackles were hard and clean. As the Ancient Greeks said to their fallen heroes, let the ground that covers you be soft, dear Bob.
With Falklands Fracas, Trump Is Undermining His British Allies
There is no upside to pushing the UK back into Europe’s arms.
UK Special Coverage
In 1982, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent a naval task force 8,000 miles across the Atlantic to expel an Argentine invasion force from the Falkland Islands, a remote archipelago 300 miles east of the Patagonian coast. The mission was to liberate 2,000 British subjects living there.
It was successful, but the price for Britain was high—255 dead and seven vessels lost, including two destroyers and two frigates. Would any British government attempt anything so audacious today, even if it could somehow find the boats?
The Falklands has become a live issue again, now that President Donald Trump has apparently threatened to withdraw support for Britain’s claim to the territory. Javier Milei, the Argentine president, is not a military dictator like General Leopoldo Galtieri 40 years ago. But Milei is a close friend of Trump and has used Las Malvinas, as Argentinians call the British overseas territory, as a nationalist rallying cry. They haven’t forgotten or forgiven.
Now a leaked report from the Pentagon suggests that the U.S. may “review” its recognition of Britain’s de facto control of the Falklands as punishment for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s refusal actively to support American military intervention in the Strait of Hormuz. “They weren’t there for us,” said a Pentagon spokesman. Javier is ecstatic.
So would the Brits send more gunboats if Argentina attacked? It seems improbable. Starmer is no Iron Lady. Britain is not a war-fighting nation after 40 years of retreat from the international stage.
There was certainly no will to retain that other remnant of the British Empire, the Chagos Islands, last year. If that’s any precedent, Starmer and his Attorney General, Lord Hermer, might be more inclined promptly to hand the Falklands over to the Argentines along with billions in compensation. The UK Labour Party does not like to be associated with anything that smacks of colonialism.
Yet the Falklanders are not an oppressed colony, as some in the United Nations appear to believe. UN bureaucrats define the Falklands as a “non-self-governing territory.” But it is very much self-governing and fully autonomous.
When John Byron, grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, first landed here in the middle of the 18th century, there were no indigenous Falklanders to colonize unless you include the Gentoo penguins. The people of the Falklands were and are overwhelmingly British.
So Argentina’s appeal to the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonization makes a nonsense of history. Milei’s claim is based on contiguity and a claim that the Brits stole the Falklands from the Spanish. But the islands are in international waters, 300 miles from Argentina. And the Spanish, who briefly occupied the Falklands in the 1770s, were themselves full-blooded imperial colonizers busy displacing the Diaguita and Querandí societies in the land that is now Argentina. So this is really a metaphysical dispute between empires that no longer exist.
The UK’s claim to the Falklands today is based not on conquest but on the principle of self-determination. The overwhelming majority of the population voted to remain a British overseas territory in a referendum in 2013. Only three people voted against. Starmer has reacted sharply to Trump by insisting that “sovereignty rests with the UK, and the island’s right to self-determination is paramount.”
There is no suggestion that Milei wishes to send a military force to retake the Malvinas. He wants to open “negotiations” with the British over the future sovereignty and clearly hopes that a gullible UN will back their claim, if only to express historic loathing of the British Empire.
So Trump has simply opened another pointless can of anticolonial worms by equivocating on British sovereignty. It seems inconceivable that the Pentagon would be thinking this way if it weren’t the wish of the president. It is yet another peculiarly inept move by Trump, not unlike his offensive suggestion in January that the British did not fight in “the front line” in Afghanistan and Iraq. They very much did, losing 457 soldiers’ lives in the process. Trump’s ignorant comment alienated not just British veterans but most of Trump’s sympathizers on the right of UK politics.
Conservative newspapers like the Daily Telegraph were furious and are once again incandescent at Trump’s reckless threat to the Falklands, which it says “adds insult to injury.” Donald Trump’s biggest British former fan, the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, said “there is now no way we’re even going to have a debate about the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands—it is utterly non-negotiable.” Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, says Trump’s musings are “absolute nonsense.”
The timing of Trump’s diplomatic outrage could not be worse, on the eve of King Charles and Queen Camilla’s state visit to America, which was supposed to reinvigorate the much-abused “special relationship.” And has Trump forgotten that America is still relying on British bases for refueling warplanes on their way to the Gulf?
The intervention has given the beleaguered Starmer a much-needed popularity boost. For once he looks like a national leader in refusing to allow any questioning of British sovereignty.
But the worst impact of Trump’s punk diplomacy may have been to help push the UK back into the arms of the European Union. Starmer has used the Iran War and Trump’s contempt for NATO as cover and justification for realigning the British economy with European regulations, as a prelude to further negotiations about participating in the EU single market. Trump’s vacuous musings may actually succeed in reversing Brexit. It’s hard to think of a greater own-goal.
Iran Will Be Shorter Than Iraq. Will It Be Better?
Trump’s political improvisation is facing its hardest test so far.
(Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump was irritated when a reporter pointed out we have been at war with Iran for longer than the originally promised four to six weeks. He noted this was still a much briefer military adventure than various past wars and even accidentally invoked an enduring gag from the 1990s sitcom Friends.
“I took a break,” Trump said in the Oval Office, presumably referring to the ceasefire that remains in effect at this writing.
While Trump has never channeled Ross Geller before, he has previously mentioned America’s longer wars in comparison with what is transpiring in Iran. “And I just looked at a little chart, World War One, four years and three months. World War Two, six years. Korean War, three years. Vietnam, 19 years. Iraq, eight years,” Trump told CNBC. “I’m five months. Okay, five months.”
“I would have won Vietnam very quickly,” he added. “I would have, if I were president, I would have won Iraq in the same amount of time that we won, because essentially, we won here. Okay?”
That is precisely where things have gone off the rails in Iran. Trump became convinced that the difference between his past brief military interventions and no-win quagmires like Iraq and Vietnam was his superior management skills. He isn’t alone in this kind of thinking. That’s why Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld (or Paul Bremer) became the scapegoats for Vietnam and Iraq, respectively.
The real difference is that Trump has previously stuck to things that were militarily achievable and ended the conflict as quickly as practically possible. Whatever your view on whether what Trump did in Venezuela was wise or just, it was short, and in the immediate term, at least, it worked out well enough.
It is the attempted political transformation of foreign countries, especially in the Middle East, that leads inevitably to American failure. George W. Bush wasn’t unsuccessful at overthrowing Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. He was unable to quickly replace them with anything better (or in the case of the Taliban, after 20 years in Afghanistan, really to replace them at all).
Trump of course doesn’t want to devote much time or resources to a political transformation of Iran, though he was likely convinced the regime was much closer to collapse when he decided to begin this war. He doesn’t want to do nation-building. He is perfectly happy to stroll into Pottery Barn, smash everything on the shelf, and then leave someone else with the bill.
The problem is that means you have to either leave behind a political vacuum or do business with the remnants of the regime you went to war with in the first place. In Venezuela, those remnants were willing to cooperate with Trump. In Iran, they aren’t yet and may even be further radicalized.
That’s why we usually end up nation-building, even though we aren’t very good at it. The alternatives seem equally unappealing in the immediate aftermath of the expenditure of blood and treasure. It is not until the conflict fully devolves into a forever war that it becomes apparent that a sunk-cost fallacy foreign policy isn’t actually a positive outcome.
Trump is probably readier for the war to be over than what’s left of the Iranian government is, despite the pounding Tehran has taken. That’s why he has largely stuck to the ceasefire even when Iran has arguably broken it, or at least given him plausible pretexts to abandon it himself. He has advertised this as a short war from the very beginning, keeping intact a domestic political coalition with a wide variety of perspectives on war and peace, even if at the cost of sowing confusion about the war’s aims among the broader electorate.
This remains the main area on which Trump is still preferable to Bush on foreign policy.
In peace talks, however, Trump continues to demand a face-saving way out for himself without offering one to the other side’s negotiators. This has so far been a nonstarter. Yet it is Trump’s party, and soon after his legacy, that most suffers the longer this goes on without any obvious benefit to America’s strategic position or the global economy.
The Iran War probably won’t drag on as long as Iraq, Vietnam, or Afghanistan precisely because Trump’s successor is unlikely to continue it. Whether the outcome is any better, or Trump is able to take the credit for its comparative brevity he clearly thinks he deserves, will depend on how quickly he can declare victory and come home.
Democrats want to talk about rhetoric, but they cannot escape one damning fact.
Regardless of who uses what words, the bullets have only flown in one direction.
In the wake of Saturday’s alleged assassination attempt against President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois told CNN’s Pamela Brown that Trump bears special responsibility for the inflamed passions that have produced such acts of violence.
First, Brown played a clip of Trump commenting on political violence in general before blaming Democrats in particular.
Then, the CNN host asked the congressman for his comment.
“I think that definitely the rhetoric needs to cool,” Krishnamoorthi said in a clip posted to the social media platform X. “But remember his own rhetoric has inflamed the discourse in a way that we haven’t seen before.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi: “I think that definitely the rhetoric needs to cool, but remember [Trump’s] own rhetoric has inflamed the discourse in a way that we haven’t seen before.” pic.twitter.com/Ha7FLjHkF8
For more than 10 years, of course, Trump has indeed used colorful language to attack his political opponents. More often than not, the president used that language to fight back against Democrats’ outrageous slanders.
Moreover, in many cases, those slanders have had sinister origins and purposes. When they called him a Russian agent, for instance, Democrats had already laid the groundwork for a “treasonous conspiracy” that included the manufacturing of intelligence to perpetuate a hoax that undermined the first Trump administration.
The same thing happened after the 2017 Charlottesville protests. Democrats accused Trump of racism with their now-debunked “very fine people” hoax. In fact, last week, the Department of Justice secured 11 indictments against the extreme-leftist Southern Poverty Law Center, which stands accused of funding that event (and other hate-group leaders) to raise funds off the manufactured racism.
In other words, with Democrats, there exists a correlation between words and actions.
For instance, in the same CNN interview, Krishnamoorthi subtly tried to legitimize the attempted violence against Trump.
“There’s tremendous, as you can understand, concern, given the threat levels that are going up, in part because of the president and now three assassination attempts on him, his very low approval ratings, which unfortunately fuel a lot of disaffection,” the congressman said in another clip posted to X.
UNREAL. Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi blames President Trump for the assassination attempts against him instead of blaming the left-wing lunatic shooter:
“The president… has very low approval ratings which fuel a lot of disaffection.” pic.twitter.com/a5da2GEBV1
When, therefore, the president has low approval ratings, we should expect violence? No Republican ever took a shot at the wildly unpopular former President Joe Biden.
Unfortunately, Democrats do not behave the same way. Convinced of their own righteousness, they produce foot soldiers who justify murder.
In fact, not only do they justify it, they celebrate it. Thousands of unhinged leftists went online to gloat following the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Thus, Krishnamoorthi can say whatever he likes about Trump’s rhetoric. The fact remains that in the present era — call it the Trump Era — the purveyors of violence have only targeted Republicans.
A newly resurfaced recording of a damning phone call has revealed that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was warned about the potential for the dangerous and destructive wildfires that swept through southern California more than a year ago.
She had all of this information before she left the country for a trip to Ghana. She went anyway.
It’s just another reminder of how incompetent Bass is as a mayor. The people of Los Angles were doomed before the fires even began.
In the leaked audio, Bass was reportedly talking to John Alle, a local resident and property manager in the Santa Monica and Westlake areas. Alle himself confirmed this here.
Reports are that Elle called Bass on Jan. 4, 2025, warning her about the risks tied to the weather, the wind, and dry conditions. In the call, Alle said he tried to convince Bass not to leave for Africa, but in the secretly recorded audio, she told Elle she had no intention of canceling her trip in spite of all his warnings.
To be sure, we have not been able to verify with 100% certainty the validity of this leaked audio, but it is worth noting that neither Bass nor her office has disputed the call’s authenticity and the content of the audio.
This is the transcript of the call:
Bass says, “The situation is very dangerous, and I would never do… I will take the criticism before I do a publicity stunt, and frankly a press conference at this point in time would just be publicity.”
Elle interrupts with, “I think my neighbors, property owners, and the residents – 41,000 people live within a square mile here. Two families share a one-bedroom apartment…”
Bass then says, “But they wanna hear that something is gonna be done.”
Elle replies, “They want to know it’s recognized.”
Bass then gets creepily cryptic, “Exactly, but if I have a choice between that and compromising something, I just have to go along with it. It’s not my area of expertise. I wanna make sure that you are safe. And hopefully you can read in between the lines. But I would just appreciate… and it’s hard for me to tell you this, but um, hold tight. You will understand soon.”
The two then indicate they now understand each other, and Bass then adds, “And when I am able to talk, I will be happy to go into great detail.”
Elle reminds Bass, “You’ve got me on the street, and you’re welcome to call me at any time, I’ll call you right back.”
On the matter of her plans to travel to Ghana in the midst of this crisis, Bass tells Elle, “Just in terms of my trip, just so you know I’m missing two work days. That’s it. And if President Biden extends an invitation, I took it.”
