Friday, May 22, 2026

• The future of Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion revenge slush fund looks rocky with Republicans in open rebellion, MAGA grifters lining up for a taxpayer-funded cut and Capitol Police lawsuits in full swing. The meltdown is rapidly becoming a defining test for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, once regarded as one of New York’s more respected white-collar defense lawyers but now increasingly mocked as Trump’s personal fixer inside the Justice Department. Blanche was grilled by angry Republicans and Democrats alike this week over the opaque backroom deal that created the fund — including why DOJ was signing off on an initiative tied to IRS settlements that experts say should fall under the Treasury Department. The backlash has exposed deepening GOP fractures, with senators demanding limits on who can cash in, while House Republicans skipped town early and blew off Trump’s deadline on an immigration enforcement bill due to the divisions.

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Thursday, May 21, 2026

A woman who was named as a potential “co-conspirator” with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and who worked as a personal assistant to the child predator for ten years will tell the House Oversight Committee today that she was a victim and not a facilitator.

Sarah Kellen was one of four women named as possible collaborators and given immunity as part of Epstein’s sweetheart 2007 deal with prosecutors in Florida.

According to outspoken Republican Reps Nancy Mace and Anna Paulina Luna, Kellen was “let off the hook” by the authorities investigating the Epstein scandal. But Kellen will tell lawmakers how she was sexually and mentally abused by the manipulative millionaire. Investigators decided against prosecuting her after ruling that she was victimized by Epstein. She will give her story to lawmakers in a transcribed interview.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2026

You start a war to deflect attention away from those pesky Epstein files, and now you need another distraction for people to forget about Iran. How about starting another war?

The president needs a nice, little island that can’t fight back. His advisers clearly failed to tell him Iran has a population of 93 million or so and is the size of Texas, California, Montana, and Illinois combined.

He needed a country that couldn’t fight back. Like Venezuela, but smaller.

This all goes to explain the steady drumbeat of war surrounding Cuba in Washington. Marco Rubio sent a special video message in Spanish to the Cuban people, offering $100 million and a new special relationship with the U.S., and this afternoon, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will announce a criminal indictment against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, who still pulls the strings on the island.

Don’t be surprised if Trump’s next military target is Havana. And maybe don’t forget the Bay of Pigs…

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Tuesday, May 19, 2026

In Trumpworld, there is a price to pay for reminding the American public that the Department of Justice was hiding the Epstein files despite a promise of transparency. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once the president’s biggest cheerleader and an advocate for Epstein’s victims, is gone, albeit of her own accord. Now Thomas Massie may be on the way out.

The seven-term Kentucky Republican, along with Democrat Ro Khanna, was responsible for legislation that forced the DoJ to release the files, or at least some of them. For daring to stand up to Trump, the president and his henchmen have gone out of their way to try to get the man—from their own party, let’s not forget—kicked out of his job.

Trump called Massie “the worst congressman in history” and sent Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth yesterday to do some freelance campaigning for Massie’s challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein.

It is telling that Trump’s hate campaign appears to be working, with Massie falling behind in the polls.

The count in Kentucky’s 4th congressional district closes at 6 pm. Trump is appearing at the congressional picnic on the South Lawn of the White House at 7.15 pm. If he smells a defeat for Massie, he will no doubt be crowing.

But Massie is a fighter, apart from being a dyed-in-the-wool traditional Republican. Don’t count him out just yet.

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Monday, May 18, 2026

Lest we forget, there is a war on. That won’t stop the Defense Secretary (who likes to insist he is the War Secretary even though a legal change of title requires a congressional vote) from taking time out from serving his country to help his boss settle his petty grievances. Kentucky’s seven-term Rep. Thomas Massie had the audacity to question Donald Trump and stick to his Republican principles, and he could pay the price when the primary ballot in the state’s 4th congressional district opens on Tuesday. Pentagon Pete Hegseth is flying to Kentucky (supposedly on his own dime) to join Massie’s MAGA/Trump-backed challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, on stage at lunchtime in Hebron for an America First Works event.

Nobody in D.C. can remember a serving Pentagon chief doing something so overtly political, especially while America was at war. But this is the Trump administration, and all bets are off.

It’s not looking great for Massie following the bashing another Trump critic, Senator Bill Cassidy, took at the weekend in the Louisiana GOP primary. But if anything could help revive his chances of clinging to his seat, an appearance by the hapless Hegseth might help turn things around.

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Friday, May 15, 2026

Donald Trump returns to the White House today with little to show for his efforts in China.

For a second successive state visit, the president has been quietly shown up. During his visit to Washington, King Charles carefully schooled Trump on NATO, Ukraine, climate change, and the inward-looking America First ideology in his speech to Congress. As (Sir) Rod Stewart told the king, he put “that little ratbag” in his place.

Xi Jinping was, if anything, more sophisticated, warning Trump that the two superpowers should beware of the “Thucydides Trap.” Based on a quote by the Greek historian Thucydides, the concept is that war is inevitable when a waning power (America) is challenged by an up-and-coming one (China).

Trump’s response to Charles was to praise him for his standing ovation from Democratic lawmakers. No doubt, he assumes (probably wrongly) that the kind would be a Republican. When he was belatedly brought up to date on Greek history, Trump took a similarly deflective tack with Xi, saying that he must have been referring to the United States under Joe Biden.

So, what was Trump’s takeaway from such an important meeting of cultures, apart from a handful of seeds for a non-existent Rose Garden and a smaller-than-expected and far-from-complete deal for the Chinese to buy our planes? That Xi could always get a job in Hollywood playing a Chinese leader. He is, as the president told Sean Hannity, “central casting.”

Xi would have seen something very different. A leader out of his depth. More character part than leading man.

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Thursday, May 14, 2026

Cheers! Donald Trump makes a rare toast with what appears to be white wine (it’s certainly not Diet Coke). No doubt he is raising a glass to the health of his audience in China. But The Swamp is thinking he should pay more attention to his own as he nears his 80th birthday.

The president regularly hits back at claims that he is going off his rocker by saying he has taken three cognitive tests and aced every one. But, according to Dr. Henry David Abraham, professor of psychiatry emeritus at Tufts, that is not a good thing to boast about.

You don’t do three cognitive tests unless you are actively measuring decline over time... which is not a good sign.

The leading psychiatrist told The Swamp’s Sarah Ewall-Wice that Trump’s repetition and language patterns were serious “red flags.”

The president likes to say that no previous president has taken cognitive tests. Perhaps they just didn’t need them. It wasn’t even necessary for Joe Biden to be tested on his mental decline. It was patently obvious. His test was the televised campaign debate with Trump. And he failed.

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Wednesday, May 13, 2026

We hear that fortune cookies were on the menu on Air Force One for the president’s trip to China. Considering the economic news this morning, that didn’t seem such a good idea.

Maybe Trump would be happier with a McFlurry.

Wholesale prices rose 1.4 percent last month, well above the 0.5 percent economists had expected and double the 0.7 percent increase seen in March, according to the producer price index (PPI). It was the largest monthly increase since March 2022. It’s another humiliation for Trump, who is happy to ignore every other calamity and call it a victory, but cold, hard stats dispute his insistence that this is a golden age for America.

The golden economy is turning out to be the cheap kind that Trump the Developer hates. The kind that scratches off when it is tested.

Coming the day after the latest inflation figures, it is a brutal reality check for Trump and for the country. The Iran War was meant to take down the monstrous Tehran regime. It could end up taking down Trump…

The president is sleeping off his jet lag in Beijing … we’re going to enjoy the silence (at least before Natalie the Human Printer starts back on Truth Social)…

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Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Kash Patel faces a high-stakes grilling on the Hill today with his political future on the line. He testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee at lunchtime. It’s supposed to be about the FBI’s budget for the next financial year, but Democratic Party members can smell blood after reports of the director’s extracurricular activities, and they will be licking their lips at the prospect of hauling him over the coals. Keystone tends to run with Pentagon Pete’s playbook—going on offense and being offensive. He will talk about historic achievements and how bad the bureau was under Joe Biden, but it is essentially a performance to an audience of one. If it goes badly, he’d better hope his Fed-up Dear Leader was already on board Air Force One bound for China.

Inflation is up 3.8% in April, fueled by higher gas prices. Oil up 5.8% while gas up 5.4% last month—so any wage gains Americans had for the past year have been wiped out. So much for a booming economy. And that probably explains the foul mood Trump woke with on Tuesday.

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Monday, May 11, 2026

A group of senior medical health professionals has a very good reason for wanting Donald Trump removed from office—they are worried he might start a nuclear war. 36 members of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have signed a statement sounding the alarm over the president’s mental health, and it has been entered into the Congressional Record by Democratic Party Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed.

Trump’s “mental instability, coupled with his sole, unchecked authority to launch nuclear weapons, makes him a clear and present danger to the safety of all Americans,” wrote one of the signatories, psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, “Since they circulated their concerns among medical colleagues, Mr. Trump has exhibited more signs of grandiosity, e.g., posting images of himself on social media shaking hands with God, acting like Jesus, and dressing as a Pope. And he has continued nocturnal bingeing on social media posts that are filled with accusations of multiple conspiracies against him, as often as 150 times a night,” Lee wrote in her Substack column. “Most worrisome are his outbursts of extreme, seemingly uncontrollable rage, such as his threat to destroy Iran, saying, ‘A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” she added.

The Swamp hates to worry you. But it’s only Monday, and things are bound to get better. Except that Trump is visiting China later in the week. Gulp!

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Friday, May 8, 2026

Whatever you think of him, Donald Trump has a genius for distraction. Conspiracy theorists were quick to suggest that he launched the strikes on Iran to steer the conversation away from the Epstein files. When a would-be assassin tried to break into the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, online sleuths insisted it was staged to change the conversation from the price of gas (The Swamp was there, BTW, and we don’t think it was a stunt) … (or do we?)

So, when the Pentagon suddenly dumped a pile of previously unclassified UFO files on an unsuspecting public on Friday morning, what were we to think? That an increasingly alienated president decided to enlist the help of extraterrestrial illegal aliens? The files are, at least, more believable than the excuses of most of the high rollers named in the Epstein files. And way less shocking to read.

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Thursday, May 7, 2026

As serious as it is to watch Donald Trump destroy the dignity of his office, it is amusing to watch him play with his Cabinet with the same vicious glee he once treated celebrities on The Apprentice.

Why else would he send Marco Rubio to the Vatican one week after Susie Wiles begged Trumpers to stay in the country and focus on persuading MAGA voters that all is well and America really is first?

Trump has been feuding with the American pope for weeks, occasionally reminding the pontiff that he much prefers his older brother, who lives in Florida. “I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Rubio feels like the grown-up in the administration. He stood in for Karoline Leavitt with aplomb last week and has managed to side-step Trump’s more insane behavior better than suck-ups like Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick, and even Scott Bessent. The president has clearly sided with his one-time presidential nomination rival over the more ardently opportunistic JD Vance.

But the Vatican mission may suggest that, with the Iran War back on the shelf, Trump has decided to amuse himself by playing with his would-be successors. Expect a Truth Social post any minute, blowing up any efforts Rubio may be making this morning to persuade the pope that the U.S. embarked on a “just war.”

The meeting went on longer than expected. I am sure the two men had plenty to talk about, but Rubio had about as much chance of healing this rift as Vance did in Pakistan negotiating peace with the Iranians.

It could all end with them both being fired.

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Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Howard Lutnick is not the most popular member of Donald Trump’s Cabinet, and West Wing insiders have been predicting his days as the president’s sucker-up-in-chief are numbered to The Swamp for months. But the commerce secretary is a survivor and old pals with the boss, so he has managed to evade the chop. But he might have trouble retaining his job after his testimony today to the House Oversight Committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein’s former next-door neighbor in Manhattan has already admitted he visited the late predator’s private island after initially denying he was there. The photo evidence was included in a DOJ dump of Epstein files, so clearly, he no longer had the sway to keep it hidden.

Today’s testimony is behind closed doors, but it will be transcribed and members—especially the Democrats on the committee—are certain to give their verdicts on the hearing when they are done.

If it goes badly for Lutnick, he may be next out of the door. Or Trump will stick to form and choose another woman to fire.

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Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Donald Trump faces a major test of his power in the Indiana primaries today after local Republicans defied his demands for redistricting in January. It is being billed as Trump v. Old School Republicans, and the results will provide a fascinating insight into how strong a grip the president still has on the party. Not all the state senators who refused to mess with the voting map are on the ballot today, but Trump posted in January that he was out to get them because they didn’t think it was the right thing to do to fiddle with the boundaries.

National Trumper groups have spent an astonishing $9 million on ad campaigns to oust the rebels led by State Senate President Rodric Bray. The GOP holds 40 of the 50 state Senate seats, and half of those are up for re-election (not including Bray).

If the Trump rebels hold their state Senate seats, we can take it as a sign that MAGA is no longer so mega. The president doesn’t like it when the little people in the party say no to him. But if Indiana’s redistricting rebels stand strong, he may have to get used to it.

Similarly, if the Democrats are victorious in a special Senate election in Michigan’s purple 35th district tonight, the red alarms will be blaring louder than ever with six months left until the November midterms.

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Monday, May 4, 2026

With just six months to go to the midterms, and after nearly 16 months in the wilderness, the Democratic Party is finally seeing seeds of hope. The Swamp has learned that more names have been added to the Democrats’ “Red to Blue List” that sets out the districts and states where the party is now confident it can flip seats currently held by Republicans.

Eight more names have been added to the 12 listed in February. They include Marlene Galán-Woods (AZ-01), Jasmeet Bains (CA-22), Jessica Killin (CO-05), Joe Baldacci (ME-02), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), and Johnny Garcia (TX-35).

It seems this new reality has also finally dawned on the president, who is all too aware that he is likely to face impeachment threats up the wazoo if the Democrats retake the House and/or Senate. Donald Trump pre-empted that with a demand on Monday morning for House Dems leader Hakeem Jeffries—”a Low IQ individual”—to be impeached, never mind that’s not a thing in the House (although Reps can be expelled from Congress by a two-thirds vote). Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles understands the blowback her boss will face if the midterms go south and has already ordered GOP lawmakers to stay focused and in the country (yes, that means you, Ted Cruz). She is also trying to keep Trump on track as the administration seeks to reassure the country that gas prices are just a glitch and the cost of living isn’t skyrocketing because of a deeply unpopular war.

Wiles will, no doubt, be hoping Trump will stick to the script at a small business summit in the East Room of the White House today. She will undoubtedly be sorely disappointed.

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Friday, May 1, 2026

It took the 1968 Tet Offensive and the following year’s revelations of war atrocities such as the My Lai Massacre for the Vietnam War to reach its peak of unpopularity in the ensuing years, with polls showing that 61% of Americans were opposed to the conflict. It has taken Donald Trump just 60 days for his Iran War to hit the same level of disapproval from a public that remains bemused by why an America First, isolationist president decided to hitch his flag to a fight so far from home.

According to a new Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll, 61% say military action against Tehran was a mistake, with less than two in ten believing the Trump administration line that U.S. operations against Iran were successful.

It’s a telling moment for Trump, who has badgered aides about his thirst to make his mark in history and leave a lasting legacy. The Swamp assumes he didn’t have Richard Nixon in mind. But an unpopular war wouldn’t be the only similarity between two paranoid presidents…

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Thursday, April 30, 2026

Just imagine the scene on board the Royal British Airbus A321neo today as Queen Camilla slaps on a nicotine patch and shares a snifter with King Charles as they gossip about their state visit.

The two couples will wave a fond farewell at the South Portico of the White House at lunchtime, and then Charles and Camilla can finally stop suppressing their giggles as they make their triumphant flight home after a job well done.

It’s as hard to imagine the queen having anything in common with Melania as it is for the king to be great pals with Donald. But if they’re looking for acting jobs in the next season of The Crown, then Peter Morgan should snap them up right away.

In MAGA world, Trump and Charlie were a terrific double act and welcome light relief from the Iran War and the Epstein files. On board the royal flight—and back home in Britain—Charles was being celebrated as perhaps the first foreign dignitary to really put the president in his place on some of the biggest crises facing the world today.

It’s just a shame that Trump didn’t seem to notice.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026

The Swamp has been told that Donald Trump writes weekly letters to King Charles, and the odd couple has built a special friendship even as the Special Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom has faltered.

Charles will hope to patch up the differences Trump has had in recent weeks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer over Britain’s reticence to go all-in on the peacemaker president’s chaotic war with Iran.

The Swamp will be in the chamber this afternoon at 3 pm when Charles will make the first royal address to Congress in 35 years. The king will remind Trump of the history between the two countries, the importance of resolving the war in Ukraine, call for “reconciliation and renewal,” and boost NATO.

All of this will, no doubt, be couched in the flattery required of any relationship with Trump’s fragile ego.

But the king may blanche at one subject Trump was planning to raise when Charles and Camilla turned up this morning at the White House. The property-loving president has always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace and planned to joke about it amid the backslapping at the White House.

Perhaps they can do a mansion-swap for the summer? At least Buckingham Palace already has a ballroom…

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Monday, April 27, 2026

The Secret Service had to search out members of Trump’s Cabinet and senior administration members at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner after shots were fired before rushing them out of the Washington Hilton’s International Ballroom.

Donald Trump, Melania, JD Vance, Karoline Leavitt, and the top table guests were ushered to safety after the loud shots were heard.

But Secret Service agents scrambled to find top officials such as RFK Jr, Scott Bessent, Kash Patel, Stephen and Katie Miller, Dan Scavino, and Pete Hegseth, who were all eventually led—separately—out of the ballroom by armed guards.

The Swamp has also confirmed that neither the Secret Service nor the Capitol Police knew where in the ballroom members of Congress were sitting. They were not escorted to a safe area, but asked to come to the front of the stage about one hour after the gunman was caught. Earlier, Capitol Police officers went table to table trying to map out where senators and Reps had been sitting.

The revelation is certain to put more pressure on the Secret Service as a probe is being launched over lax security that allowed the armed shooter to get within feet of the packed room.

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Friday, April 24, 2026

• Pete Hegseth held another press conference on Friday morning to sell a war that’s getting longer, pricier and harder to spin. But the most notable part was TMZ’s new D.C. team using its Pentagon debut to troll the Defense Secretary. The never-shy celebrity news outlet asked Hegseth what it’s like to inflict “extreme levels of violence” against foreign enemies and whether he’d consider renaming the Department of War the “Department of Peace” given that’s what he’s supposedly striving for. “What’s going through your mind and your body?” their reporter asked. “Do you have, like, an adrenalin rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you’re on a power trip?” Even Hegseth, a former Fox & Friends co-host, seemed somewhat amused. “A very TMZ question,” he replied. Less amusing, however are reports that the war is chewing through U.S. munitions at a worrying clip, even as reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains elusive. As for an endgame to the conflict? “We have all the time in the world,” Hegseth told reporters. Not a great sign for consumers struggling with soaring costs.

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