Dangerous War

Tulsi Gabbard’s Dangerous War

Trump’s hatchet woman is weaponizing classified intelligence like never before.

David Corn

On Saturday, Donald Trump convened a meeting on the Iran war in the White House situation room. At the table, according to news reports, were Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, envoy Steve Witkoff, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Missing from this list: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. This was another opportunity for administration officials to snicker that DNI stands for Do Not Invite.

You might wonder what’s the point of having a director of national intelligence who’s routinely not included in major deliberations about national security. Gabbard’s value for Trump is not in her oversight of the 18 agencies in the intelligence community, which is ostensibly her job. Nor in her intelligence experience, which is slight. It is in her willingness to serve Trump’s lust for vengeance against those he deems his political enemies. That includes her enthusiasm for politicizing and weaponizing intelligence to an extent never seen in US history.

Last summer, she did this by releasing highly classified intelligence documents that she claimed proved that President Barack Obama, his CIA chief John Brennan, and other Deep Staters had committed “treason”—a crime punishable by death. She accused them of falsifying intelligence to show that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had covertly intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Trump. The memos clearly did not show that. (Investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department, and the bipartisan Senate intelligence committee have confirmed Putin attacked that election to boost Trump.)

Here was the top US intelligence official deploying unsubstantiated or phony Russian material—over the objections of CIA officials—to smear an American politician. It was disgraceful.

Gabbard’s stunt was a despicable act of immense gaslighting. And she and Trump each called for Obama, Brennan, and others to be prosecuted. Trump went so far as to post an AI-generated video of FBI agents violently handcuffing and arresting Obama and tossing him into a prison cell. In the video, Obama is on his knees before Trump. Never has intelligence been so abused by an administration for purely political purposes. Gabbard’s move led the Justice Department to mount a criminal investigation of Brennan and others that is ongoing.

At the time, Gabbard also declassified and made public a secret report that cited Russian intelligence material from 2016 that claimed Hillary Clinton suffered from “intensified psycho-emotional problems,” was on a daily regimen of “heavy tranquilizers,” and had schemed to set up the Trump-Russia scandal to distract from her email controversy. But US intelligence analysts and FBI agents had previously judged this Russian material to be unreliable and possibly disinformation. So here was the top US intelligence official deploying unsubstantiated or phony Russian material—over the objections of CIA officials who worried its disclosure could compromise sources and methods—to smear an American politician. It was disgraceful.

Trump loved it. Gabbard had been on the outs with the White House prior to this for several reasons, including her release of a video that implied she opposed military action against Iran. Now Trump proclaimed her a “star.”

Recently, Gabbard was again in the hot seat. In March, the day after her ally Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the Iran war, Gabbard testified before Congress on threats posed to the United States. Trump, according to Axios, was displeased that Gabbard at this hearing did not wholeheartedly endorse his war in Iran and personally scolded her. He was also apparently mad that she had protected Kent, who had publicly undercut his rationale for the war. (In his resignation letter, Kent said Iran posed no “imminent threat” to the United States.) Trump began asking his top advisers if he should give Gabbard the boot.

Gabbard showed that she had learned the lesson of how to survive in Trumpland: She released more intelligence documents to discredit a Trump foe.

MAGA activist Laura Loomer tweeted that “Tulsi was done” and that the White House was about to show her the door. But this didn’t happen. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump adviser who was found guilty of lying to Congress during the Trump-Russia scandal (and subsequently pardoned by Trump), took credit for interceding with Trump and rescuing Gabbard. Axios quoted “a source familiar with Trump’s thinking” saying, “Roger sealed the deal. He saved Tulsi.”

Whether Stone’s influence mattered or not, Gabbard last week showed that she had learned the lesson of how to survive in Trumpland: She released more intelligence documents to discredit a Trump foe and to reveal yet another purported Deep State conspiracy against the president.

This time, the target was the whistleblower who in 2019 filed a complaint with the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, about the infamous phone call during which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch investigations to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, who was then running for president, and to prove that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the 2016 election. The whistleblower maintained that Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election.”

Just as Gabbard is trying to airbrush away Putin’s intervention in the 2016 election, she’s now attempting to delegitimize and erase that first impeachment.

When the acting DNI, John Maguire, declined to share this classified complaint with Congress, Atkinson informed Congress of its existence, triggering a brouhaha that soon led to Trump’s first impeachment. 

Trump was not convicted by the Republican-controlled Senate, but he has always been steamed by the impeachment. Just as Gabbard is trying to airbrush away Putin’s intervention in the 2016 election, she’s now attempting to delegitimize and erase that first impeachment.

Last week, she released a handful of documents that she asserted exposed “a coordinated effort by elements within the Intelligence Community (IC), including a former Inspector General (IG), to manufacture a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump in 2019.” She insisted these records show that Atkinson “did not follow standard IG procedures and relied upon politicized, manufactured narratives” and that he took “actions to weaponize the Whistleblower process and exceed his statutory jurisdiction.”

Once more, she insisted that Trump was the victim of a nefarious cabal: “Deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States.”  

Yet again, Gabbard is pulling a big con. The materials she released do not back up the charge that Atkinson mishandled this case, and they certainly don’t prove a narrative was manufactured. In fact, the whistleblower’s complaint was largely confirmed when the Trump White House, under pressure, released a summary of his call with Zelenskyy. And that summary played a more critical role in the impeachment proceedings than the whistleblower’s complaint. During the Trump-Ukraine controversy, Maguire testified that the whistleblower “did the right thing.” Maguire also testified that Atkinson’s handling of the whistleblower complaint was done “by the book” and consistent with the law. 

Gabbard went further then pumping out more disinformation. She sent the Justice Department criminal referrals for Atkinson, who Trump fired in April 2020, and the whistleblower, who has never been officially identified. (Conservative media, Donald Trump Jr., and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul revealed his name during the impeachment.)

A pro-Trump conservative activist who believes Gabbard should be ousted told me that it’s obvious Gabbard is gathering intelligence records she can strategically release when necessary to protect her position.

This is another dangerous action from Gabbard, who once again is abusing intelligence to gin up a criminal case to feed Trump’s revenge fantasy. There is no case here. There was no Deep State plot. This is all about payback—and Gabbard keeping her job.

A few days ago, a pro-Trump conservative activist who believes Gabbard should be ousted told me that it’s obvious Gabbard is gathering intelligence records she can strategically release when necessary to protect her position. This MAGA influencer called this conduct reprehensible, noting that if Gabbard has evidence of Deep State conspiracies, she ought to put it all out.

But none of the material Gabbard has released so far proves the conspiracy theories she’s peddling. As an apparatchik for Dear Leader, she’s misrepresenting once-classified material to set up show trials and demonstrating she will lie and cheat for Trump—and to stay employed. Such a disingenuous DNI is a threat to national security. Nothing she says—in private to the president or in public—can be trusted.

Gabbard’s most recent efforts to deceive the public have not received the media attention they deserve. They ought to be front-page news, for Gabbard also is leading the administration’s effort to find evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. Remember when she was photographed at the Atlanta site when FBI agents seized voting records and machines?

If Gabbard will manufacture false narratives and bogus evidence to support baseless criminal prosecutions of supposed Deep State conspirators and Trump critics, what might she do to cook up proof of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 elections or to concoct phony evidence of fraud in the coming midterm elections?

Gabbard is a careerist chameleon. In 2018, as I revealed last year, she spoke at the Bernie Sanders Institute and slammed Trump as a supporter of “genocidal war.” In 2019, when she was running for president as a progressive Democrat, she blasted Trump for being “on the brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran.” Now she’s a Trump loyalist. She clearly will flip positions and jettison supposed principles to attain power. And she has demonstrated she’s willing to go far beyond that.

Gabbard may not be in the room when the big decisions about war are being made. But she’s prosecuting her own war on the truth to score retaliation for Trump. To date, her war has targeted a handful of people whom Trump craves to see crushed. But with her focus also on elections, it’s a war that could affect the future of American democracy.

One in Five of His Own Voters

Majority Backs Trump Impeachment—Even One in Five of His Own Voters

The president’s approval rating is sinking.

Alex Nguyen

A majority of American adults say that the US House should vote to impeach President Trump—including one-in-five people who voted for him in 2024.

A new poll by Strength in Numbers, a data-based news website, and the market research platform Verasight found that 55 percent of respondents said they support the US House voting for impeachment. Out of the 1,514 Americans surveyed between April 10 and April 14, 37 percent said they opposed and eight percent reported they were unsure.

While this is just one poll in a collection of many, it is clear that Trump’s approval ratings are sinking. The New York Times’ daily average of dozens of polls has the president at a 38 percent approval rating. On January 27, 2025, the first average calculated following Inauguration Day, the Times recorded Trump’s approval rating at 52 percent. 

The numbers are striking, but there are few avenues for popular sentiment to achieve tangible results in Washington. There have been numerous calls from lawmakers to impeach and convict Trump or invoke the 25th Amendment, especially following his threats of genocide against the people of Iran. But they appear unlikely to succeed given the Republican majorities in the US House and Senate, as well as large support from his cabinet.

However, as I wrote on Sunday about Trump’s approval rating falling to its lowest point of his second term, if Americans see the upcoming midterms as a referendum on the failures of the current administration, then it could swing elections across the country.

Couldn't make a fat orange pig fly...........

Truth Social CEO Out After $1.1 Billion in Losses

Former Congressman Devin Nunes is leaving the floundering social media network.

Russ Choma

Devin Nunes was not an obvious choice to run a fledgling social media network, but after $1.1 billion in losses, the former dairy farmer and congressman is out as the head of Truth Social.

Donald Trump Jr., a board member at Trump Media + Technology, the parent company of Truth Social, said on Tuesday night that Nunes would be replaced by another executive who formerly worked at Hulu. Nunes confirmed the move in a Truth Social post of his own.

The company, which is majority owned by Donald Trump, has seen its stock plummet 84 percent under Nunes’ leadership, from its debut price of $58 back in 2024. The current share price of around $9.80 is arguably still optimistic for a company that has lost $1.1 billion since it went public, and recorded just over $10.6 million in revenue in the same time.

Even as the company struggled, Nunes prospered. In 2024 alone, his pay outstripped any revenue the company has made over its lifetime—he drew a salary of $1 million, a bonus of $600,000 and was awarded stock worth another $46 million.

To be fair to Nunes, he was asked to oversee a company that despite having one of thet world’s most recognizable faces as its power user, had a remarkably scattershot approach to everything.

When Trump Media was first announced as a concept, the Trump family said it would include: Truth Social, streaming television services to rival Netflix and Amazon and web-hosting that would rival Amazon’s AWS business. And all of it would be devoted to fighting the “woke” media and corporate culture that Trump said had blacklisted him following Jan. 6. Truth Social would be a redoubt for freedom of speech, the streaming services would have wholesome non-“woke” content that America craved and the web-hosting would provide a home for any company that dared to challenge Amazon’s alleged anti-free speech motivations.

Of those grand dreams, under Nunes, Trump Media managed to launch Truth Social and a tepid streaming service, that runs for free and mostly provides content that is also free on YouTube. Truth Social may have as few as several hundred thousand daily active users, while Elon Musk’s X is estimated to have around 224 million. Those kind of numbers place it firmly in 24th place among social media companies, a few spots behind YouTube Kids.

That’s not how things were supposed to go. At its launch, a slide presentation distributed to investors and filed with the SEC suggested that by 2026, the company expected to have about $3.3 billion in revenue, 40 million users on Truth Social and another 81 million spread across the company’s other services.

Under Nunes, the company has, instead, struck out in seemingly random directions. It has, among other things, launched:

• “Personal freedom” oriented ETFs.
• A crypto “token”—a non-tradeable blockchain-based digital asset which, despite having no value, is slated to be given to shareholders and would grant them discounts on the company’s products.
• A Bitcoin treasury: following in the footsteps of controversial Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, Trump Media announced in 2025 that it would begin accumulating as many Bitcoins as possible, based on the theory that Bitcoin’s precipitous increase in value would also make the company more valuable.

The last initiative, which was announced in May of 2025, a few months before a massive decline in Bitcoin prices kicked in, is responsible for most of the $712 million in losses. The company had purchased roughly $2.5 billion in bitcoin, and the latest data suggests that after declines in the price of Bitcoin and sale of some of the company’s Bitcoins, the treasury is now worth just $753 million.

Trump Media’s boldest move under Nunes might have been the idea to pivot to nuclear power—specifically the largely experimental method of nuclear fusion. In nuclear fission, which is the method used for decades, atoms are split, but in fusion, pushing atoms together generates even greater energy—but the process has never been made commercially viable. In late 2025, Trump Media announced it would be merging with TAE Technologies, a longstanding player in the fusion field, which despite having previously secured funding, was still struggling to build an actual power plant.

The merger, which is supposed to be completed in June, would have made Nunes co-CEO of the social media, streaming, web-hosting, financial products, Bitcoin treasury and nuclear fusion company.

All that is a lot of responsibility for Nunes who began his career working on the family dairy farm in southern California in the early 1990s (he has a degree in agriculture). First elected to Congress in 2003 and served for 19 years, including several as the chairman of the House Intelligence committee, where he and one of his staffers—Kash Patel—became two of Trump’s loudest backers in accusing a “deep state” in the intelligence community of having targeted Trump.

Nunes had no specific experience running a technology company before taking over as CEO of Trump Media, but in 2019 he sued political strategist Liz Mair and two anonymous parody Twitter accounts, including @DevinCow, which purported to be one of the cows on his dairy farm, for defamation. Nunes asked for $250 million in damages, but the case was dismissed.

Nunes confirmed his departure from Trump Media but did not say what he would be doing next. He remains chairman of Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

Maybe having a sex change????

New Jersey’s most vulnerable GOP incumbent is MIA

Rep. Tom Kean Jr.'s team said the absence is due to unspecified health issues.

By Daniel Han and Mia McCarthy

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. represents New Jersey’s most competitive district this November — but nobody, even his GOP colleagues, can say where he’s been for the past month.

A scion of one of the state’s most storied political dynasties, Kean’s team says the two-term congressmember is facing unspecified health issues. The New Jersey Republican hasn’t voted since March 5 and has missed almost 50 roll call votes.

The other two Republicans in the New Jersey delegation, Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, said they have called and texted Kean out of concern for his health. But so far, neither said they have heard from him. Van Drew said it’s been “radio silence.”

Several New York Republicans who have worked with Kean on key issues said similarly. Kean’s absence has largely fallen under the radar and GOP leaders haven’t addressed the issue to the conference, according to several Republicans.

One Republican, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), said he didn’t even realize Kean had been missing until he tried to find him on the House floor Tuesday.

“I was looking for him,” Bacon said in an interview Wednesday. “I didn’t know it was that long.”

“I know the congressman and his family appreciate all of the well wishes and support,” Kean consultant Harrison Neely told POLITICO. “Please know that he will be back on a regular full schedule very soon.”

Closer to home, Kean’s allies also expect him to come back soon.

“I don’t even know the truth myself or even enough to disclose any information,” Union County GOP Chair Carlos Santos told POLITICO. “But I have been texting with him and was told he’ll be fine and make a full recovery in the next couple weeks.”

Kean represents New Jersey’s most competitive House seat — the 7th Congressional District, a large swath across the northern and central part of the state that includes Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. President Donald Trump narrowly carried it by one point in the 2024 presidential race, but Democratic former Rep. Mikie Sherrill carried the district by nearly two points in the 2025 governor’s race. Kean won the district by around five points in 2024.

Kean enters reelection in what could be his most challenging congressional bid to date. He faces an environment that is increasingly challenging for Republicans and the Trump administration is opening an immigration detention facility in his district while pulling funding for a major infrastructure project for New Jersey commuters — both of which have put him in a precarious position.

But Kean’s backers say his temporary absence will hardly be on voters’ minds come November.

“Everyone understands from their own family experiences that people run into unexpected health issues,” Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member and attorney to the Kean campaign, told POLITICO. “Voters will be completely sympathetic and it’s so early in the year that it will be long forgotten come the fall.”

There is a competitive Democratic primary to take on Kean, with four prominent candidates.

Democrats in the New Jersey delegation have also noticed his absence and have started to be concerned for the congressmember’s health. Those members have also not heard anything.

“It’s been a long absence,” New Jersey Democrat Rep. Rob Menendez said. “I hope he’s doing all right. But I haven’t heard anything.”

Lunitic....

Judge tosses Laura Loomer’s defamation suit against Bill Maher

The conservative activist alleged that Maher defamed her with a joke suggesting she had an affair with President Donald Trump.

By Jacob Wendler

A federal judge in Florida has dismissed conservative activist Laura Loomer’s defamation lawsuit against comedian Bill Maher and HBO, ruling that his suggestion that she was having an affair with President Donald Trump was clearly a joke.

U.S. District Judge James Moody also said in his dismissal on Wednesday that Loomer failed to prove she suffered any reputational harm or loss of income as a result of the comedian’s jokes about her on his HBO show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” in September 2024.

“A reasonable Real Time viewer would have understood Maher was making a joke, and not a statement of fact about plaintiff and President Trump,” Moody said.

Loomer, a brash online personality who frequently touts her relationship with the president, said she would appeal the decision.

“It is beyond the pale for any judge to say that a woman can be accused of having sex with a man and have it be brushed off as ‘a joke’ just because she proclaimed a platonic love for their politics and leadership style,” she said in a statement. “The ruling is totally dishonest and misogynistic.”

HBO did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

Loomer filed suit a month after Maher speculated that Trump was having an affair with someone and said, “I think it might be Laura Loomer.”

The joke came after Loomer had accompanied Trump on his private jet several times and attended a 9/11 memorial with him. The comedian said in a deposition filed in response to the suit that coverage of their apparent closeness inspired his remarks.

“I made a joke based on their sudden closeness in the news that week,” Maher said. “I could have shown a video of them together and all the places they were together and all the things that were going on, the ‘I love you’ the ‘I love you,’ the blowing of the kisses, you’re very special, all this stuff, and then just said, ‘Hey, get a room,’” he said.

Though Loomer said she received threats as a result of the jokes, the judge found that she had not shown that she suffered any reputational or financial harm.

“The record reflects that, to the contrary, Loomer testified that her income increased in 2024 compared to prior years and that she continues to speak to and meet with President Trump, he continues to solicit her opinions, and she continues to receive invitations to the White House,” he wrote.

Loomer, an influential figure in the MAGA movement, has used her platform since Trump returned to the White House to weed out administration officials she accuses of being insufficiently loyal to the president. She has targeted dozens of staffers across the White House and executive departments, many of whom have been swiftly fired or seen their nominations pulled.

Ukraine's robot war

Inside Ukraine's robot war revolution

A Ukrainian commander tells POLITICO how robotic systems are transforming the battlefield, in a development with the potential to reshape how wars are fought.

By VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA

in KYIV

The next evolution of war is happening here.

It’s already happened in the air — where Ukraine’s high-tech drones have made the 50-kilometer zone behind the front lines a death trap for Russian troops; and in the sea — where Kyiv’s maritime drones dealt heavy blows to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Now, it’s happening on land, where Ukrainian robotic systems are being used to assault and capture enemy fortifications. Combined with drones and human forces, ground robots have the potential to help reshape how wars are fought — much like the medieval advent of gunpowder, or the development of tanks during World War I.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week highlighted how human-operated robots captured a Russian ground position and forced soldiers to surrender. “For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms — ground systems and drones,” he said.

POLITICO talked to the Ukrainian commander in charge of that assault, who described how it was conducted and the broader impact of Kyiv starting to use more ground-based robots to preserve the lives of its soldiers.

“In conditions of dense saturation of the sky with UAVs, on the modern battlefield ground robotic systems allow for dangerous work to be carried out without involving personnel,” said Mykola Zinkevych, commander of the Third Assault Brigade’s ground robotic systems unit.

The robots have a wide range of uses. “Delivery of important cargo, evacuation of the wounded, conducting surveillance in open areas, destruction of enemy fortifications, sabotage operations behind enemy lines, laying minefields — all this is now performed by ground robotic systems,” Zinkevych said.

That is crucial for Ukraine, which has had difficulty recruiting enough soldiers to fight off grinding “meat wave” assaults, Russia’s relentless high-casualty infantry attacks. Ukraine’s current battlefield strategy also relies on killing more Russian troops than Moscow can recruit, so it’s crucial for Kyiv to keep its own casualties low while inflicting as much damage as possible on the invading forces.

“Infantrymen can and should be taken out of direct fire. Our goal for 2026 is to replace up to 30 percent of personnel in the most difficult areas of the front with technology,” Zinkevych said.

‘Kamikaze robots’

The operation Zelenskyy referenced happened last summer in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region — an early indicator robot use on the battlefield. Zinkevych’s unit was told to establish full control over a fortified Russian military shelter.

“Our infantry assault groups were located 5 kilometers from the target. They used two ground kamikaze robots and drones to start the assault. First, one destroyed the entrance to the Russian position,” Zinkevych said. “As soon as the second ground robot started approaching, Russians held up a cardboard sign signaling they were ready to surrender.”

After that, aerial drones escorted two Russian soldiers to the nearest Ukrainian position, where they were taken prisoner.

“Our infantry assault group entered the position and established control over it without firing a single shot,” Zinkevych added, illustrating how technology can take on some roles traditionally reserved for footsoldiers.

The Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in 2022 plunged Ukraine into a technological arms race, where it is now carving out a lead. Just a couple of years ago, robots were a marginal factor on the battlefield, said Ihor Fedirko, CEO of the Ukrainian Council of the Defense Industry.

Russia is also expanding its use of land drones to supply soldiers, evacuate the wounded and occasionally attack the enemy.

The bloodless developments underscore how robotics can shift the broader calculus of war, replacing costly human assaults with remotely operated pressure.

Robots meet reality

Land-based robots have advantages over their airborne cousins — they can carry much larger payloads, can last longer and can fight on the ground with armor protection and heavier weapons.

The Third Brigade has been actively using ground robots for more than two years. Now Ukraine’s defense ministry aims to link up that tech with its human assault forces.

“Such an approach already showed good results in the south of our country, where we liberated a big chunk of territory thanks to the new units,” the ministry said.

“The scale, speed, and scope of changes observed in Ukraine are already altering how wars are fought, how forces are organized, and how military power is generated and employed. They will define the next war,” according to a new analysis by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Mykola Bielieskov, a Ukrainian military analyst with the National Institute for Strategic Studies, compared the arrival of robots to the revolution in military affairs of the 1920s and 1930s, when new technology like machine guns, tanks and aircraft combined to upend warfare in the early 20th century.

But Bielieskov warned that the use of robots “may lead to an unfounded conclusion about the reduction of the importance of humans in war,” which he told POLITICO remains “decisive.”

Even if the robots can bear some of the burden of fighting, their “effectiveness is constrained by the difficulty of navigating rough and uneven terrain near front lines and by their high vulnerability to aerial drones,” cautioned the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

Change of thinking

Ukrainian command was initially unconvinced about ground robots as there were too few skilled operators. That changed, however, after several innovative brigades tested them in different environments and proved their value.

Adding to the need to take the tech more seriously was the success of aerial drones, where Ukraine has established an advantage over Russia and is now pummeling its troops and logistics in a “kill zone” far behind the front lines.

“Rapid expansion of the kill zone is another key factor that forced the army to rethink the role of the ground robots,” said Yuriy Poritskiy, CEO of the DevDroid defense company.

As a result, Ukraine is seeing an explosion of robot designs. Some 200 Ukrainian ground robot producers and the military have already moved from testing to being integrated with military units.

Since the start of 2025, the defense ministry approved some 40 new robots; by the end of last year, some 15,000 were supplied to the army, Fedirko said. In November, 67 units were using them; by March that had jumped to 167.

“Our goal is to perform 100 percent of front-line logistics by robotic systems,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week. “In the first half of 2026, due to increased demand, we will contract 25,000 ground robotic systems, which will be delivered to the front. This is twice as much as in the entire year 2025.”

TerMIT, developed by Ukraine’s Tencore company, is a tracked ground robot that can carry up to 400 kilograms at a top speed of 15 kilometers per hour and operates at a range of up to 40 kilometers. It’s used for everything from cargo transport to medical evacuations, and combat when equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers and is in service with the Third Assault Brigade, as well as more than 50 other units.

“TerMIT is a simple, modular platform. You can always reuse parts from destroyed robots. It fits for evacuation, logistics, fortification, assault operations, or distant mining. All you need is to put on a necessary module,” said Maksym Vasylchenko, the co-founder and CEO of Tencore.

Robots, additionally, are harder to destroy than humans.

“One TerMIT managed to lay more than 1,500 anti-tank mines before Russians destroyed it with many FPV drones,” Vasylchenko said.

Production problems

Kyiv’s issue is that soaring demand is creating a supply squeeze.

“Ukrainian producers can cover the growing demand, the bottleneck is in state procurement and in the ability to master these systems in the army,” Fedirko said.

State contract procedures for robots are slow, Vasylchenko said, adding that many companies haven’t received funding yet, and it’s already the fourth month of the year.

The government says it’s aware of the problem.

Fedorov has promised to speed up supply, built in price flexibility, improved financing, increased the procurement budget for 2026, and is planning to offer next year’s contracts by the end of this year. The government also plans to take robots off the VAT list so they don’t face an additional tax burden.

Ukraine’s European allies are also playing a role in supplying finance, either directly or through programs like the EU’s €150 billion loans-for-weapons SAFE program, which is open to Ukrainian companies.

“That financing allows most companies to survive,” Vasylchenko said. “And that’s a win-win for everyone. Nowadays, everyone is interested in our miltech and experience. And partners help us today, knowing if their time comes, they will have a partner who will come to help them.”

Many foreign robotics producers are already entering Ukraine, seeking partnerships with local companies. Ukrainian manufacturers, like DevDroid, are planning to open production in Europe, integrating into the EU defense market and getting much-needed financing, Poritskiy added.

The goal — both in Europe and in Ukraine — is to minimize human losses on the battlefield.

“We are working to ensure that the robots take the main blow, and the infantry becomes an elite, specialized force to perform those tasks that the robots cannot perform. Because one way or another, people are still the basis of the army,” Zinkevych said.

Navy secretary is out

Navy secretary is out amid Pentagon infighting

John Phelan sparked tensions within the department over his support for a new battleship.

By Jack Detsch, Paul McLeary, Daniel Lippman and Connor O'Brien

Navy Secretary John Phelan abruptly left his job on Wednesday in part because a hugely expensive new battleship he championed sparked friction with his superiors — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Phelan, who served just over a year in his post, had helped conceive of the new battleships to curry favor with President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The “Trump Class” battleships were a major source of frustration for Hegseth and Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg because they did not serve the Pentagon’s broader strategy to pivot toward smaller, cheaper uncrewed ships, according to the two people, who, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The massive ships will cost the Defense Department billions to even begin developing, and are “not at all aligned with where Hegseth and Feinberg want to go,” the first person said.

Phelan had also recently seen some of his key responsibilities pulled away, according to a third and fourth person. They said Feinberg had taken over management of submarine programs and the Office of Management and Budget was already running the shipbuilding effort.

Phelan was in the lobby of the White House on Wednesday after the announcement was made, according to a person familiar with the matter. He was also seen on Capitol Hill that day. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Pentagon declined to comment on specifics about the battleship. Phelan could not be reached for comment.

The ouster of Phelan comes amid the U.S. military campaign in Iran and a week before Hegseth is set to testify on the Pentagon’s proposed $1.5 trillion budget, which would involve significant boosts to key Navy programs. This includes Trump’s proposed “Golden Fleet.”

Phelan, a wealthy financier, was one of several businessmen tapped for top Pentagon posts by Trump, alongside Feinberg. He came aboard a service plagued by problems in shipbuilding with promises to shake up the process. He oversaw the cancellation of the troubled Constellation-class frigate, along with the announcement of Trump’s battleship and efforts to consolidate the Navy’s ranks of admirals.

But he struggled to get the Navy to increase shipbuilding numbers, one of Trump’s top priorities. Phelan had also lost key staff in recent months. Hegseth in October fired Jon Harrison, Phelan’s unusually powerful chief of staff who had sought sweeping changes to the Navy’s policy and budgeting offices and attempted to curb the role of the undersecretary before undersecretary Hung Cao was confirmed to the post.

Cao, the service’s second ranking civilian, will take over Phelan’s role on an acting basis.

Phelan’s management of the Navy was “out of touch” with the service, which frustrated both Feinberg and Hegseth, according to the second person, who added that Phelan had been left with “low-level people” as advisers.

Hunter Stires, who served as a top Navy advisor in both the Biden and Trump administrations, said Phelan had also made a misstep when he signaled an openness to building American warships abroad.

“Phelan’s statements directly undercut a bipartisan strategy championed by the Trump administration to incentivize world class allied shipbuilders to invest in modernizing and expanding shipyards here in the United States,” he said.

The Pentagon announced Phelan’s surprise departure on Wednesday without citing a reason. “On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. “We wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Phelan had spoken at the Navy League’s big Sea, Air, Space conference on Tuesday.

The sudden departure is the latest in a series of senior resignations and firings across the Trump administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Phelan is the second top military official fired amid the U.S. war in Iran, after Hegseth dismissed Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George this month.

A con game.........

‘FUCK this coin’: Trump set to attend memecoin conference after 96 percent wipeout

A Mar-a-Lago conference for top investors in Donald Trump’s $TRUMP crypto token featuring the president himself is drawing much less trading than a similar event last year.

By Declan Harty

President Donald Trump’s memecoin was once the talk of Washington. No more.

Eleven months ago, a gala dinner for major investors in the cryptocurrency token set off a buying frenzy from MAGA-loving crypto traders, outrage among Democrats and a headline-grabbing protest at the event. But a similar event planned for Saturday at Mar-a-Lago is highlighting a growing disenchantment with Trump’s crypto ventures.

Over the last year, investors have shunned the so-called $TRUMP memecoin, a type of collectible crypto token whose logo depicts Trump raising his fist in the air and the words “Fight Fight Fight.” The memecoin is currently down more than 95 percent from its January 2025 high. Just a handful of lawmakers have publicly bashed the conference. And ethics watchdogs are only now starting to bark about it.

“Nobody likes it,” said Morten Christensen, a crypto investor who still plans to attend the Mar-a-Lago event and was at the 2025 dinner. “People are losing on the coin, and they are vocal. They are the people on Twitter like, ‘Fuck this coin’ or ‘It’s a scam.’ And they’re right, basically.”

Launched just days before his inauguration, Trump’s memecoin is overwhelmingly held by two entities: an affiliate of the Trump Organization and a company run by Bill Zanker, a longtime Trump business partner. Both collect fees on the memecoin’s trading, according to its website.

Memecoins are a highly volatile type of crypto token that generally have no inherent value and trade based on online fervor. The tokens have struggled for much of the last year, amid a broad crypto market sell-off. But Trump’s other recent ventures haven’t fared much better.

Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the Truth Social parent company, have crumbled 75 percent since Trump’s inauguration. On Tuesday, the company announced it was replacing Devin Nunes, a former Republican lawmaker, as CEO. Meanwhile, Justin Sun, a once-major backer of World Liberty Financial, the crypto company with ties to the Trump family, sued the company Tuesday.

And while Trump-linked companies have continually attracted scrutiny, the reality is that the “shock value” is less than what it once was more than a year after Trump’s return to power, said Public Citizen co-President Lisa Gilbert, whose advocacy group helped plan last year’s protest. She said the Washington-based advocacy group is not planning a protest outside of the event this weekend, citing in part the challenge of organizing something in Florida versus in Virginia, where last year’s event was held.

“He’s normalized his corruption,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, in an interview. The Mar-a-Lago event is “simply another way to generate more money for himself, profiting directly from his office,” he said. “A lot of people have become inured to it.”

Spokespeople for the White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the memecoin event’s organizers. The White House has previously dismissed claims that Trump faces conflicts of interest, saying that he only acts in the American public’s best interests.

Investors have been pulling back on speculative assets for months and in crypto, that means memecoins, said David Grider, a partner at the investment firm Finality Capital Partners, who added that the tokens are “very out of favor right now.”

The Mar-a-Lago event is being advertised as “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD!” It is open to the top 297 $TRUMP investors, who will get the chance to hear from an eclectic lineup of speakers that includes several crypto executives, boxing legend Mike Tyson, motivational coach Tony Robbins and Trump, who will speak during the event’s luncheon, according to promotional materials. He is expected to be in Washington later in the day for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Trump’s memecoin soared to as high as $75 shortly after its debut. And the 2025 dinner only fanned the interest. Nansen, a crypto analytics firm, shared data with POLITICO showing that more than $12.9 billion traded hands in the token through decentralized crypto trading platforms in the immediate run-up to the 2025 dinner. But this year’s contest only drew $1.4 billion in volumes.

As of April 2025, the Trump family and its partners had made $320 million in memecoin-related trading fees.

Ogle, a cybersecurity expert and crypto founder who does not publicly release his name, was a top 25 holder in the memecoin last year. But he’s not attending the Mar-a-Lago event, he said. He sold off his $TRUMP tokens in the last year, and while Trump crypto events can be “quite fun,” he said, “there’s enough other stuff going on in my life right now that I don’t need to make a trip down to West Palm Beach.”

“There’s a novelty factor to the first experience,” he said. “If you have a baby, the first one is surprise and confusion and all the other things that go with it. And then the second one, your body has a little bit less of a freak-out reaction.”

Even once-loud critics on Capitol Hill are staying away. A senior Democratic Senate aide, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, called the event “horrible and awful.” But, the aide said, “people see it for what it is: a con.”

“This has slipped to the bottom of the barrel,” the aide said. And with an ongoing war in the Middle East, budget reconciliation and the rise of the prediction markets, which have attracted new corruption and ethics concerns, the aide added: “It does not feel like this should rise to the top.”

There is still outrage about Saturday’s event, of course. Democrats and ethics watchdogs have long said they are aghast that the president’s business empire is expanding in an industry that he was actively promoting from the Oval Office.

A trio of Senate Democrats that included Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Adam Schiff of California and Blumenthal pressed Zanker in a letter earlier this month for details about the extent that Trump was involved in the planning. Lawmakers are also pushing to include new ethics guardrails in a pending crypto bill in the Senate that, they hope, will rein in Trump’s crypto businesses.

Some investors are excited, too. Vincent Deriu, a consultant from New York who will be in attendance, told POLITICO that the Mar-a-Lago event is “the next progression” in the evolution of the $TRUMP memecoin. He said the token, if combined with Trump’s other businesses, could help create a new Trump “conglomerate” that reaches across the technology, crypto and financial industries.

“The Trump memecoin is being slept on,” Deriu said. “People don’t realize it’s the memecoin, more or less, of the president of the United States.”

Who will be in attendance at the Mar-a-Lago event, beyond those who have divulged their plans, is not clear. Attendees must pass a background check, according to the event’s website. There will also be no private meetings with Trump.

A leaderboard on the event’s website shows a list of the 297 accounts holding $TRUMP who secured a spot, though the No. 1 account is named “Sun.” A spokesperson for Sun, a self-proclaimed ardent Trump supporter who was the top $TRUMP holder at last year’s dinner, did not respond to a request for comment on whether the account is his or if he will be in attendance. On Tuesday, Sun sued World Liberty Financial over his frozen holdings of the company’s crypto token, WLFI. World Liberty has rejected the claims.

For Christensen, who lives in Cancun, Saturday is an opportunity to “shake some hands with some important people” with the hope of boosting his own company, AirDropAlert.com. He said he is also making “a weekend” out of the trip with a visit to friends in Miami as well.

But he’s not going into Mar-a-Lago with any expectation that Trump is going to revive his memecoin’s trajectory.

“This is just another thing,” he said. “I don’t expect anything because last time, he didn’t say anything. But I will be ready if he does.”

FAA chief’s airline stock divestment

Key Democrat seeks inspector general probe into FAA chief’s airline stock divestment

Sen. Maria Cantwell and other lawmakers want an investigation into whether the agency’s administrator “profited from deliberately violating his ethics agreement.”

Sam Ogozalek

The Senate Commerce Committee’s top Democrat is calling on the Transportation Department’s independent watchdog to launch an investigation into whether Federal Aviation Administration Chief Bryan Bedford “profited from deliberately violating his ethics agreement” by not divesting from an airline company — which he once ran — during a stipulated time frame last year.

Bedford had vowed in that agreement to dispose of his equity in the parent corporation of Republic Airways, the regional carrier he presided over before joining the Trump administration, within 90 days of being confirmed to head the FAA. But he failed to meet that early October deadline, unloading millions of dollars in stock afterward, ethics documents he filed show.

In a Wednesday letter to acting DOT inspector general Mitch Behm, first reported by POLITICO, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and other Democratic lawmakers alleged that Bedford might have intentionally breached his agreement by waiting to divest his stock until after Republic Airways Holdings completed a merger with another regional airline company, Mesa Air Group.

Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) signed the letter, too.

“We also have serious concerns about the veracity of Mr. Bedford’s shifting explanations for violating” his pledge, the trio said. Bedford ultimately divested his shares fully by late February, disclosing that he sold between $5.5 million and $26.2 million this year.

The lawmakers asked that Behm probe if the FAA chief “made material misrepresentations to Congress or the Office of Government Ethics” and urged him to dig into whether “any disciplinary or corrective actions are warranted,” including having Bedford relinquish “any excess capital gains he has realized.”

They argued that it appears he could have sold his stock on time, adding that the reason for his “divestiture obligation is obvious”: He holds significant sway over the regional airline industry as FAA administrator.

The agency told POLITICO it will respond to the lawmakers directly and noted that Bedford has divested his stock. Republic Airways Holdings didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bedford previously defended himself during congressional testimony in December, saying, in part, that he followed career ethics officials’ advice.

He added: “I played it right down the fairway, completely transparent, open, honest about where I was at, what I was trying to accomplish.”

The inspector general’s office confirmed to POLITICO that it received and will review the senators’ letter but otherwise has no comment for now.

Bedford retired as chief executive officer and president at Republic Airways Holdings, a private firm, on July 1, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The Senate OK’d him a little over a week later.

Under the terms of his ethics agreement, Bedford committed to divesting from the company no later than Oct. 7.

But in paperwork he signed that day, first reported in November by POLITICO, Bedford said he had yet to ditch his stock. He added that he would remain recused from any matters affecting the carrier’s financial interests while he retained his equity and was seeking an extension of his deadline.

He contacted Judith Kaleta, DOT’s deputy general counsel, to request another 60 days, citing his busy work schedule.

Kaleta wrote to OGE, the federal government’s central ethics office, urging it to grant Bedford’s ask.

Then, there seemed to be a misunderstanding. In an October conversation with OGE, outlined in a later email exchange, Kaleta recalled that “it was not clear to me that [the office] had reached a formal decision on the request.”

But OGE on Dec. 1 informed Kaleta in writing that it wouldn’t grant Bedford an extension and inquired about whether he had divested, saying the office would alert the Senate to the issue. Subsequently, Kaleta argued that she had thought Bedford’s ask was still unresolved; OGE responded: “We were not aware you believed the request for an amendment was still pending. ... We conveyed being busy with your position did not constitute an ‘unusual hardship.’”

By this point, Republic Airways Holdings and Mesa Air Group had merged; the finalized deal was announced in late November. The combined carrier became publicly traded.

Kaleta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Patrick Shepherd, an OGE spokesperson, in a statement said the office is “committed to transparency and citizen oversight of government” but doesn’t respond to questions about specific individuals.

Under the merger, Bedford was able to turn 16,733 private shares into “at least” 652,475 shares in the merged entity, according to the Democrats’ Wednesday letter, which cites an SEC filing.

OGE notified Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) of Bedford’s ethics agreement violation on Dec. 8, and Cantwell expressed outrage over the matter.

During a Senate aviation subcommittee hearing later that month, Bedford faced sharp questions from some Democrats about the topic. He argued that he had simply followed the advice of career ethics officials; he was appropriately recusing himself in the meantime; and his hands were now tied due to the merger, with his stock “terminated.”

“I’m waiting for the shares to be reissued under the new organizational structure,” he said, apparently referring to the combined company, which is still called Republic Airways Holdings.

But he added: “My intention was always to complete the merger and to sell the shares in the market. That was my intention coming into government.”

His ethics agreement made no mention of this, and the Democrats’ Wednesday letter homed in on his testimony before the subcommittee.

Bedford disclosed in March that he had completed his divestment as of Feb. 20.

In a separate ethics document released in April, he noted that he had sold between $5.5 million and $26.2 million in stock in the company since the beginning of this year. Federal officials like Bedford only report transaction amounts in wide ranges.

Further complicating the situation, Bedford in that paperwork also revealed a sale of up to $5 million in stock on Oct. 21, the trio of Democrats said in their letter. This occurred after his ethics agreement deadline but before the merger was completed.

Bedford “never mentioned this transaction in his official correspondence or congressional testimony in December,” they said.

It appears, the lawmakers said, that Bedford was capable of fully divesting on time.

At close on Nov. 26, the day after the announcement of the merger’s completion, Republic Airways Holdings was trading at $21 per share. It stood at $19.75 on Feb. 20.

Bigger minesweeping effort

Trump pushes to speed up Iranian minesweeping effort amid uncertain peace talks

The president’s push comes amid Pentagon predictions that it could take six months to root out all the mines in the strait, according to a Washington Post report.

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill” Iranian boats still placing mines in the Strait of Hormuz, as American warships embark on the time-consuming task of locating bombs in the waterway and clearing it for commercial shipping.

The president’s push comes amid bubbling concerns it could take months to root out all the mines in the strait, a critical transit lane for 20 percent of the world’s oil.

Trump did not directly address how long it will take to clear the waterway, but urged the Navy to target any remaining boats still placing mines.

“There is to be no hesitation,” he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “Additionally, our mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!”

The president on Tuesday extended a shaky ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran but said he’d continue an American blockade on Iranian shipping in the strait.

Iran slowed traffic on the waterway to a mere trickle in the weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched a joint operation against Tehran in February. It sent global gas prices skyrocketing.

The U.S. blockade has strained relations even more, with Tehran now halting peace talks until it lifts.

Further talks have not yet been scheduled, but Trump said earlier this week that it was “possible” that talks picked back up this weekend.

Experts worry that if a vessel were damaged or destroyed by a mine in the waterway, it would only further choke off trade.

The White House has taken pains to play down the threat of Iran’s boats on the strait in recent days, especially after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two foreign vessels in the waterway Wednesday. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that the seizures did not constitute a violation of the ceasefire and said it was evidence that the U.S. military campaign was working.

“And for the American media who is sort of blowing this out of proportion to discredit the president’s facts — that he has completely obliterated Iran’s conventional Navy — these two ships were taken by speedy gunboats,” she said. “Iran has gone from having the most lethal Navy in the Middle East to now acting like a bunch of pirates.”

In a separate post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump boasted that “Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is,” and said the country’s hard-liners were at odds with its moderates.

“We have total control over the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. “No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!”