Bubble behavior

Meta’s Moltbook gamble looks a lot like bubble behavior

Analysis by Allison Morrow

Meta, the company that changed its entire brand identity five years ago on the promise of a technology it turned out no one wanted, just spent an undisclosed sum to acquire Moltbook, a “social network” built for “AI agents.”

I’m quoting Moltbook there, but I’m also using quotes because it’s important to remember that artificial intelligence is just lines of code and therefore not capable of socializing. AI “agents” are just bots that can mimic human actions online, so perhaps the better descriptor of Moltbook is a “pseudo-performance of a social network”? If using Facebook is an online performance, Moltbook is an attempt at aggregating every social media user into a kind of meta-spectacle of socialization.

Whatever you want to call it, Moltbook is essentially a Reddit-like forum where bots are meant to “talk” to one another. And Meta’s decision to buy it is significant — not so much because of what it Moltbook is but because of what it represents: a speculative bet on a novel technology with no demonstrated utility for humans.

The project went viral last month for two major reasons:

• Some people, apparently forgetting that AIs are designed to reflect the dystopian sci-fi and other texts they were trained on, were alarmed by how quickly the bots seemed to conspire against humans and form their own bot religion, dubbed Crustafarianism. (There’s a whole crustacean theme to Moltbook, which is built on an open-source software called OpenClaw, which used to be called “Clawd,” but that sounded too much like Anthropic’s “Claude.”)
• Moltbook is a massive security liability. Cloud security platform Wiz found that Moltbook granted unauthenticated access to its entire production database within minutes and exposed tens of thousands of email addresses. Wiz also found it was easy for humans to gain full access to the site, undermining Moltbook’s claim that posts are purely AI-generated.

For those inclined to see the AI race as a bubble, Meta’s decision to buy an unpolished Reddit imitator on the expectation — still speculative at this point — that “agents” are the future of digital ads and commerce is a clear sign of the kind of irrational exuberance that has defined all of history’s dumbest market meltdowns, from tulip mania to the dot-com crash.

Meta last year shelled out $2 billion to acquire Manus, an AI developer, and $14.3 billion to acquire data-focused startup Scale AI, and it has reportedly dangled $100-million-plus compensation packages for top-tier researchers. And like its Big Tech rivals, Meta is borrowing tens of billions a year to finance these deals — another possible sign of overconfidence.

For Meta, the bet on Moltbook lies partly in hiring its creators, Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr, who are joining the Meta Superintelligence Labs unit. Perhaps the pair can expand Moltbook into something that drives revenue, or perhaps they create another viral hit.

Certainly, they’ve proven they can generate buzz, and in the world of AI, where valuations are lofty and almost fully detached from business fundamentals, that hype matters. (Meta reportedly tried to recruit Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, but rival OpenAI got to him first, per Business Insider.)

“The Moltbook team joining MSL opens up new ways for AI agents to work for people and businesses,” a Meta spokesperson told CNN. “Their approach to connecting agents through an always-on directory is a novel step in a rapidly developing space, and we look forward to working together to bring innovative, secure agentic experiences to everyone.”

Bottom line: Meta is all in on AI, much the way it was all in, five years ago, on its conception of an online town square called the Metaverse. Moltbook may not be a repeat of that flop — Meta yanked its Metaverse unit’s funding and slashed its staff earlier this year — but its aggressive AI spending should be a reminder of the company’s history of getting out over its skis in the name of a shiny new object.

Epstein accountant testifies behind closed doors for roughly 7 hours

Longtime Epstein accountant testifies behind closed doors for roughly 7 hours in House Oversight probe

By Annie Grayer, Em Steck

Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accountant testified his relationship with the late convicted sex offender “was strictly on a professional level,” as he faced investigators on Capitol Hill for roughly seven hours as part of the House Oversight Committee’s probe.

Richard Kahn told lawmakers behind closed doors that he was unaware of the “terrible and unforgivable things that he [Epstein] did to women and girls” during the deposition with Republicans and Democrats on the panel.

The committee on Wednesday sought answers on how Epstein made his money, how he spent it and whether it was used for any illegal activities. The congressional investigators dug into Epstein’s finances for months ahead of the interview through subpoenas to banks and visits to the Treasury Department.

“We did not interact socially and I never attended any of his parties of his social functions. While Epstein was alive, I never observed any sexual abuse or trafficking of women and never received a complaint – either by one of Epstein’s victims or any one else – of such abuse or trafficking,” Kahn said in his opening statement, obtained by CNN.

Kahn testified that had he “learned of any of his horrific behavior, I would have quit work immediately.”

Addressing his accounting work, Kahn said he never saw any financial transactions that were red flags for abuse and trafficking or that Epstein was acting unlawfully. He also pushed back on allegations that he helped structure or set up Epstein’s companies to conceal criminal activity or payments to young women.

“We tracked the expenditures as meticulously as possible, including gifts by Epstein to women and men. The gifts represent a very small fraction of Epstein’s spending,” Kahn said. “I did not see them as red flags for abuse or trafficking.”

He told lawmakers he had “no role in setting up any of Epstein’s companies” nor did he view them as “improper or suspicious,” according to the prepared remarks.

House Oversight Chair James Comer said during a break in Kahn’s appearance that he was “answering every question thus far.”

That testimony included mention of a foreign head of state as having financial transactions with Epstein, according to Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, who did not elaborate on the testimony. A person familiar with the matter said Kahn testified that Epstein had investments with Ehud Barak or one of the former Israeli prime minister’s entities, though he was unable to recall details about them.

Kahn, Subramanyam said, also testified that “another person who was an accuser of President Donald Trump was given a settlement by Jeffrey Epstein’s estate.” When pressed by CNN, Subramanyam would not share specifics about the accuser or the settlement reached.

Comer, however, told reporters that Kahn testified he never saw any type of transaction paid to Trump or his family. And the person familiar said Trump was not listed among the four men who victims requested be carved out of settlement agreements to allow them to file future litigation.

Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

Comer had said ahead of the hearing that he had wanted to know whether Kahn was involved in creating any settlements for victims.

The Kentucky Republican said that Kahn told committee investigators that the five clients who paid Epstein the most were Les Wexner, Glenn Dubin, Steven Sinofsky, the Rothschilds and Leon Black. Wexner has already been deposed by the committee, and the panel has asked Black to appear voluntarily on May 13.

“What Kahn has said is he was under the impression that Epstein made his money as a tax adviser and a financial planner. So, these were the five people that transferred significant sums of money to Epstein,” Comer said.

Ahead of the deposition, Comer said that lawmakers had many questions for Kahn, who is also a co-executor of Epstein’s estate.

“We’ve been getting bank records in for a long time, and we haven’t talked publicly about them because we were waiting to bring the accountant in once we got a feel on where the money we think was going and where it was coming from,” he said.

In November, Comer subpoenaed JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank for their records on Epstein and since then, his panel has reviewed approximately 44,000 financial documents and counting, a committee aide told CNN.

Epstein had at least 64 trusts and entities associated with him and there were large amounts of money being moved each day between Epstein’s entities and his associates, the aide added. Some of those activities included payments to women, tuition to various universities and routine large cash withdrawals for unknown purposes, according to the aide.

Committee staff have also gone to the Treasury Department to view the suspicious activity reports – a type of confidential report financial institutions file to flag potentially nefarious activity but that do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing — related to Epstein.

A month after Epstein died in a jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, JPMorgan Chase reported to US authorities more than $1 billion in transactions it viewed as suspicious from October 2003 until July 2019, according to court records. The transactions included Wall Street titans, numerous related companies, his former lawyer and others. Two accounts included in the report were linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank.

Though Kahn appeared to be engaging with congressional investigators Wednesday, not all were satisfied with his responses.

Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw told reporters he did not find Kahn’s testimony that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes credible.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring would not have been possible without Richard Kahn, who managed Epstein’s money for years, authorized payments, including payments to victims and survivors. And today we’ve heard from Mr. Kahn a lot of inability to recall, inability to recall emails, messages, activities he was involved in,” Walkinshaw said.

“I do not find it credible that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. If he was ignorant of Epstein’s crimes, he was willfully ignorant of those crimes given the depth of his involvement with Epstein and his finances over many years,” he added.

Comer said he hopes he can finish his investigation by the end of this Congress but mentioned that each time they interview a witness, new leads emerge.

Last week, the panel moved in a bipartisan vote to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, but it has not yet been sent to her. Comer said Wednesday he hopes to depose her “very soon.”

If you are in Arkansas, you will be even more impoverished...

Gas is just the start: What else the Iran war could soon cost you

By Elisabeth Buchwald

Ever since the US and Israel struck Iran, the jump in oil and gas prices has become a major focus for markets and consumers alike. But that’s only the top of a long list of goods that stand to get more expensive.

With oil prices shooting up, the cost to transport physical goods around the world has already increased and is poised to continue going up the longer the war continues.

And because many businesses are already absorbing most of the cost of tariffs enacted by the administration over the last year, they have little wiggle room for them to assume higher transportation costs, said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Boston College.

“If we see the persistence of these higher (oil) prices for a period of time, then you’re going to see a persistent cost shock,” he said.

Fuel surcharges already kicking in

Shipping rates are largely determined by diesel prices. For instance, a fuel surcharge of 21.5% kicks in for FedEx Ground and home deliveries when diesel prices hit at least $3.55 a gallon.

As of March 9, diesel cost $4.86 a gallon, nearly $1 more than a week ago, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. This means a 24.75% fuel surcharge will kick in for the week ahead.

A similar structure exists across all major freight modes – air, rail and ocean – based on what fuel is used and the price.

Where consumers will see higher prices

Grocery stores are one of the first places consumers will see the effects of higher fuel prices – specifically the produce, meat and dairy aisles, said Deborah Weinswig, CEO and founder of Coresight Research, a supply chain and retail research and advisory group.

The less shelf stable an item is, the less companies can stockpile it – and the more vulnerable it is to price increases.

Outside of grocery stores, higher prices will take much longer to appear, Weinswig added. President Donald Trump’s tariffs over the past year spurred businesses to build inventory before the new levies kicked in, meaning they have ample supplies on hand.

Getting creative

Businesses will likely explore other ways to deal with the higher fuel costs.

When the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out in 2022 oil prices similarly soared and compounded already-high inflation.

Back then, many businesses chose to shrink product sizes while keeping the same price — a practice known as shrinkflation, which is effectively a price increase.

But with consumers already starting to cut back on spending, businesses may have a harder time getting such disguised changes past consumers. That may lead them to resort to a more dire action to cut back on costs: laying off workers.

“There’s no free lunch. It’s going to show up somewhere,” Bethune told CNN.

What makes this shit so smart? WTF did he do to be considered an expert? Nothing, I guess that is all that's needed...

Joe Rogan keeps highlighting Trump’s biggest liabilities

Analysis by Aaron Blake

If there’s one figure who epitomized President Donald Trump’s ability to cobble together a winning coalition in 2024, it might have been Joe Rogan — the influential podcaster who made big news by endorsing Trump on the eve of the election after interviewing him.

(On the flipside, much ink has been spilled about the Kamala Harris campaign not booking a date with Rogan’s podcast and the detrimental effect that might have had on her bid to become president.)

Sixteen months later, Rogan epitomizes Trump’s problems in holding that coalition together.

Rogan has broken with Trump on several major issues since mid-2025. And polling shows the issues he’s picked happen to be some of Trump’s biggest political liabilities – including the war with Iran, the Jeffrey Epstein files and immigration enforcement.

Iran

The big, new one is the war with Iran. Rogan said Tuesday that Trump’s ongoing assault on the country broke his promises to his voters.

“But it just seems so insane based on what he ran on,” Rogan said. “I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these stupid senseless wars, and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

Rogan had also been skeptical of Trump’s plans to target Venezuela before the ouster of Nicolas Maduro back in January. But he said that operation was at least “clean.” The military engagement to bring in Maduro lasted only a few hours, as opposed to the war with Iran, which is nearly two weeks old with no clear end in sight.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to me – unless we’re acting on someone else’s interests, like particularly Israel’s interests,” Rogan added. “It just didn’t make any sense to me.”

Nearly every poll shows the war with Iran is unpopular, with a majority opposing it and independents opposing it around 2-to-1. In fact, it might be the most unpopular new military conflict in a very long time.

Epstein

Rogan has for months expressed incredulity about the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

Similar to Iran, he’s cast it as a betrayal of Trump’s supporters, even suggesting that their belief Trump would make Epstein materials public if he won the election was a part of why they backed him.

“There’s a lot of stuff about, you know, when we thought Trump was going to come in and a lot of things are going to be resolved. We’re going to drain the swamp. We’re going to figure everything out,” Rogan said in July. “And when you have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody’s been talking about forever, and then they’re trying to gaslight you on that?”

Last month, he called the FBI’s claim that there is no evidence Epstein had clients “the gaslightiest gaslighting sh*t I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Two days later, on February 12, he took aim at the Justice Department’s strange and inconsistent redactions practices.

“Like, what is this? This is not good. None of this is good for this administration,” Rogan said. “It looks f**king terrible. It looks terrible.”

Rogan criticized Trump in particular for referring to the matter as a “hoax,” and even entertained the idea that Trump knew what Epstein had been doing.

“It looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real, this is all a hoax. This is not a hoax,” Rogan added. “Like, did you not know? Maybe he didn’t know, if you want to be charitable. But this is definitely not a hoax.”

A January CNN poll found just 6% of Americans said they were satisfied with what the federal government had released of the Epstein files to that point.

A more recent Reuters-Ipsos poll from last month showed 65% of Americans said the federal government was “probably” or “definitely” hiding information about Epstein’s death, which was ruled a suicide, and 75% said it was “probably” or “definitely” hiding information about his supposed clients.

Immigration

Rogan has also amassed a growing volume of comments critical of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

It really kicked off in April, when he called the Trump administration’s sending undocumented migrants to a brutal El Salvador prison “horrific.”

By July, he called the administration’s targeting of immigrants without criminal records “insane.”

“Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers, just construction workers showing up in construction sites and raiding them,” Rogan said. “Gardeners. Like, really?”

Later that month, Rogan decried how US citizens were getting caught up in the raids, and how Trump was trying to deport pro-Palestinian activists with legal status.

“A bunch of people that are totally innocent are going to get caught up. They already have been,” Rogan said. “You know, they have been.”

In mid-October, he said people were right to be concerned about out-of-control border-crossings in recent years. But he added that, “The military in the street, I think, is a dangerous precedent.”

He also criticized the administration for “ripping parents out of their communities,” adding: “I did not ever anticipate seeing that on TV on a regular basis.”

“I really thought they were just going to go after the criminals,” he said.

Rogan went on to criticize the administration for the killings of both Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January.

“It just seemed all kinds of wrong to me,” he said of Good’s death, adding that it “just looked horrific to me.”

And he even invoked the Gestapo, the secret police in Nazi Germany.

“And then I can also see the point of view of the people who say, ‘Yeah, but you don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be US citizens,’” he said. “They just don’t have their papers on them. Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”

Trump’s approval numbers on immigration have gone from about 10 points positive a year ago to about 10 points negative today – in large part because the American people also see his administration’s enforcement operations going too far.

The killings of Good and Pretti, in particular, have resulted in the administration signaling a change of course in an election year.

Tariffs

This has been one of Trump’s most unpopular issues for a long time. And while Rogan hasn’t spoken about it as much or as forcefully, he has called Trump’s strategy into question.

When Trump launched his tariffs against Canada a year ago, Rogan called the move “stupid.”

“We got to become friends with Canada again. This is so ridiculous,” Rogan said. “I can’t believe there is anti-American, anti-Canadian sentiment going on. It’s the dumbest f**king feud.”

He added the next month: “I’m scared of this tariff stuff because it’s radical change.”

Uncharacteristically, Trump hasn’t hit back at Rogan.

Asked about Rogan’s criticisms last month by NBC News, Trump said they had spoken recently.

“I think he’s a great guy, and I think he likes me, too,” Trump said.

He added: “And, you know, liking me isn’t important. What happens is that — I think we do a phenomenal job, but I don’t think we’re good at public relations.”

This has been one of Trump’s most unpopular issues for a long time. And while Rogan hasn’t spoken about it as much or as forcefully, he has called Trump’s strategy into question.

When Trump launched his tariffs against Canada a year ago, Rogan called the move “stupid.”

“We got to become friends with Canada again. This is so ridiculous,” Rogan said. “I can’t believe there is anti-American, anti-Canadian sentiment going on. It’s the dumbest f**king feud.”

He added the next month: “I’m scared of this tariff stuff because it’s radical change.”

Uncharacteristically, Trump hasn’t hit back at Rogan.

Asked about Rogan’s criticisms last month by NBC News, Trump said they had spoken recently.

“I think he’s a great guy, and I think he likes me, too,” Trump said.

He added: “And, you know, liking me isn’t important. What happens is that — I think we do a phenomenal job, but I don’t think we’re good at public relations.”

No long-term fix.......

The world just smashed the emergency glass on oil prices. Now it’s up to Trump for a long-term fix

Analysis by David Goldman

Dozens of countries have done the unprecedented, releasing an historic amount of crude from emergency reserves to prevent high oil prices from crippling the economy. If that doesn’t work, there’s only one serious option left: ending the war and opening the Strait of Hormuz.

Those nations this week agreed to send a record 400 million barrels of oil into the market to counteract choked-off crude supplies. It’s the equivalent of smashing the “break in case of emergency” glass for the oil market.

That’s because this is truly an emergency. Oil has been stuck in the Middle East for more than a week, as Iran has threatened to attack any ship passing through the strait – a critical waterway through which a fifth of the world’s crude travels.

More than 15 million barrels of crude production per day have been taken offline, according to investment firm Raymond James, and millions more barrels are stuck on tankers. It’s the biggest oil supply disruption in history – by a factor of two, according to Rapidan Energy Group.

So, the 32 member nations of the International Energy Agency turned on their storage tank spigots to flood the market.

It had better work, because when the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) of emergency oil is gone, it’s gone, until new supply comes back online. The only way for that to happen is to get oil flowing through the Persian Gulf again.

And that can’t happen until President Donald Trump figures out how to end the fighting and secure safe passage for the dozens of oil tankers trying to navigate the now-treacherous channel.

Will it work?

You don’t have to look too far back to determine what this could mean for gas prices. Just four years ago, President Joe Biden coordinated what was then the largest-ever release of emergency oil: 182 million barrels.

By the Biden administration’s own calculations, that SPR release reduced gas prices by between 17 cents and 42 cents over four months.

Another way to look at it: The SPR release meant drivers paid a record $5 for a gallon of gas, on average, over the course of days instead of weeks, according to Tom Kloza, an independent oil analyst and an advisor to Gulf Oil.

Gas prices have already risen 58 cents a gallon since the start of the war in Iran late last month, and industry analysts believe it’s on the way to $4 by month-end if oil prices stay around their current $90 range for a prolonged period.

That’s because the SPR release is a relative drop in the bucket. Global oil consumption is around 100 million barrels per day; the new emergency oil is enough to fuel the world for about four days.

And it’s not coming all at once: “The emergency stocks will be made available to the market over a timeframe that is appropriate to the national circumstances of each member country,” the IEA said in a statement.

That’s why oil traders aren’t getting excited – at least not yet. Oil actually got more expensive Wednesday after the announcement: US oil prices rose 5% to $88 a barrel. And Brent crude, the international benchmark, was also up 5% to $92.50.

“The IEA just shot its bullet,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO and founder of asset manager Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “I’m not sure we’re going to a lot below $80 until we get real clarity, not rhetoric, about how we get ships through the strait.”

What’s next?

The IEA said it could release even more SPR oil. But it doesn’t have infinite stockpiles. The agreed-upon release represents a third of the oil currently in storage.

And restoring those reserves is tricky: The oil has to be bought over the course of time so that prices don’t jump. Trump, who criticized Biden’s decision to release oil in 2022, vowed in his presidential campaign to refill America’s SPR – an action his administration didn’t take even when oil sat below $60 a barrel for a while.

So countries won’t go to zero reserves, and many will be hesitant to go much further than the action they’ve already taken – particularly if the current release has little effect on oil and gas prices.

Largely, the SPR release is a symbolic act, designed to boost sentiment in the market when traders are nervous, noted Matt Smith, analyst at markets data firm Kpler.

But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem.

“There’s plenty of oil in the world,” said Rob Thummel, Portfolio Manager at Tortoise Capital. “The question is: Can we get it moving through the Strait of Hormuz? You need it to be operating to get oil (prices) back down to where we started the year.”

Can’t Agree

The Pro-MAGA Press Can’t Agree on How to Cover Trump’s War on Iran 

A combination of fight, flight, fawn, and freeze.  

Anna Merlan

Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth conducted a remarkably peevish press conference on the United States and Israel’s attacks on Iran. At various points, journalists in the breifing room asked—reasonably enough—whether there was “a concern of this spiraling into a longer war.”

“Did you not hear my remarks?” Hegseth responded, sounding indignant. “I mean, we’re ensuring the mission gets accomplished, but we are very clear-eyed, as the president has been, unlike other presidents, about the foolish policies of the past that recklessly pulled us into things that were not tethered to actual clear objectives.” 

The “mission for our warfighters,” Hegseth added a moment later, still sounding moderately ticked off, “is very, very clear. And they’re executing it right now, violently.”

The prickly exchange was notable, considering that the current Pentagon press pool is almost entirely made up of right-wing outlets who typically provide overwhelmingly pro-Trump coverage. The previous Pentagon press corps walked out en masse in October after refusing to sign a restrictive media policy and were largely replaced by a variety of conservative media organizations and influencers.

It was inevitable, then, that one day those reporters and influencers and others in the MAGA-flavored press would be called upon to cover an actual news event that does not always reflect favorably on the president. With the invasion of Iran, that day has now arrived. 

Following that press conference, Hegseth quickly had to bat away suspicion he had again put a thumb on the scale. Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson, who herself has a history of bigoted and xenophobic statements, denied a report from CNN’s Brian Stelter that Hegseth only took questions from handpicked outlets. “He is not Sleepy Joe Biden,” she retorted on X. “Hope that clears up any confusion.” That take-all-comers bravado was undercut on Wednesday when the Washington Post reported the Pentagon had since acted to bar two photographers from further Iran briefings after they published photos of Hegseth his staff deemed “unflattering.”

With the Iran invasion, Hegseth and the rest of the Trump administration are facing unusually heavy criticism from unexpected quarters. Conspiracy theorists who have often been pro-Trump have made it apocalyptically clear that the war has made them sour on the president: Natural News, a floridly weird anti-vaccine and pro-conspiracy outlet, called the Iran attack “the final, convulsive act of a dying American empire,” arguing that it would, in the end, guarantee “a seismic shift in global power, and it hands the ultimate leverage not to Washington, but to Tehran.” But many, more prominent, far-right figures have also come out unequivocally against it, including Steve Bannon, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Infowars kingpin Alex Jones. (Carlson even claimed on his program, which airs on X, that he’d flown to Washington “three times in the last month” to try to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran.)

Those figures seemed clear—unusually clear, in many cases—that the stakes are high. On Monday’s Infowars broadcast, Alex Jones warned that he thought the attacks would “absolutely escalate to World War III 99% of the time.” 

“The full invasion of Iran is going down,” he said, anticipating a ground invasion. “We have days, maybe a week, to stop this… It’s all happening.”

The Federalist, often a home for more genteel pro-Trump puffery, also pumped the brakes, writing that the administration has been asked reasonable questions that “Trump and his top officials can’t answer consistently and coherently.”

The simple questions, according a piece by Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson, include “what is our goal in Iran? Why did we launch this war now? What is our theory of victory, and how will we know when we have achieved it? These four questions in particular deserve answers. So far, we haven’t got them.” 

Other pro-Trump media outlets, including several that make up the new Pentagon press corps, seems less sure how to cover the invasion, toggling between a neutral accounting and— sometimes in the same breath—kowtowing to the president and the administration by framing the conflict in their preferred terms. The National Pulse, for instance, an outlet founded by former Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam—he’s also an investor in a “MAGA hot spot” restaurant in Washington—ran an item on Tuesday about how the war is, in Trump’s words, “very complete” and praised US and Israeli forces for “effectively decapitating the Islamist regime’s top leadership and crippling” its military capabilities.

In the Pentagon briefing room, reporters asking questions often use the Trump administration’s preferred language, not only by referring to Iran’s forces as “the enemy” and “the adversary,” but by proceeding from the premise that the war is going exceedingly well. In a (calmer) press conference on Tuesday, for instance, in which Hegseth and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took questions, they often served as opportunities to stress that the mission was under control and wouldn’t expand into a broader war. Alexandra Ingersoll, an anchor with the exceedingly pro-Trump One America News, helpfully asked about the degradation of Iran’s missile capabilities. Another journalist tossed up a softball and asked about Trump’s boast that he had a “really good call” with Russian President Vladimir Putin; Hegseth affirmed that he had. 

In contrast, Eric Schmitt from the New York Times asked about a timeline for the bombings to end, prompting one of the most revealing exchanges of the war so far, when Hegseth responded by declaring that President Trump “controls the throttle,” adding, “It’s not for me to posit whether it’s the beginning, the middle or the end.” 

The new Pentagon press corps members are often careful to follow up any question, no matter how bland, with some manner of praise for the administration. After asking about the government’s “message to Americans” at this time, and whether Israel “might be taking advantage of the U.S.’s backing,” Jordan Conradson, a writer from the far-right and heavily conspiratorial Gateway Pundit, tweeted that he was “proud to be in the Pentagon asking fair questions for our readers” and thanked Hegseth and the Joint Chiefs of Staff for “for having us taking my questions” [sic]. 

The Epoch Times, which has been traditionally been rabidly pro-Trump, has so far mostly stuck to bland and newspaper-like recountings of the bombing campaign. But the paper, which is backed by China’s Falun Gong religious movement, also ran a carefully worded opinion piece by a frequent contributor, praising the “current mission” as a “precise air and naval operation without American boots on the ground.” But, the author added, “Lessons learned from the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam quagmires informed us that nation building rarely is effective and democracy can’t be transplanted.” 

There’s rarely been a more stark divide within the MAGA press as the one visible between the often-cheerleading Pentagon briefing room and the critics on the outside. On Monday night, Alex Jones said Infowars wouldn’t cover the invasion “like it’s an entertainment show or we’re watching a war movie”—a strong claim from someone who’s covered virtually every mass shooting as though it isn’t real, spinning those claims into poisonous and virulent infotainment for his audience. 

“This is real,” Jones declared, for once. “We’re living this.” He needed, he added, to “stop the show” for a few hours and pore over his clips and headlines in order to better communicate what was happening to his audience.

“When you’re eating bug protein,” Jones darkly added, referring to his frequent claims that Americans are destined to be enslaved by elites and forced to eat insects, “you’ll remember this broadcast.” 

Dumb War Makes Trumpworld Dumber..........

A Dumb War Makes Trumpworld Dumber

Tracking the inane MAGA responses to the White House’s war frivolity.

David Corn

War is an extreme action and, thus, triggers extreme reactions. Including extreme stupidity. It’s always disheartening—or ought to be—to see what should be a last resort comes to pass. It’s worse when a war is accompanied by cruelty, callousness, recklessness, and idiocy, though for obvious reasons that might be unavoidable. As for Trump’s war in Iran—which could well be an immense blunder—it has been enveloped in layers of excessive dumbness.

I’m not talking about the strategic wisdom—or lack thereof—of this attack, which could precipitate calamities throughout the region and beyond. Or the madness of impulsively launching such a war without planning for what comes afterward. I’m referring to how it has prompted imbecility among its supporters, including at the White House.

At 1600 Pennsylvania, the belief seems to be that war is the continuation of trolling by other means. First, the White House released a video intercutting scenes of bomb strikes with video game footage. (Look how fun it is to slaughter people!) Then it posted a video featuring movie clips to hype the awesomeness of this war—a military action that opened with a strike, probably American in origin, on a girls’ elementary school that massacred scores of students.

This White House video moves quickly from Iron Man 2 to Gladiator to Braveheart to Top Gun to Better Call Saul to John Wick to Breaking Bad to other fare, including Tropic Thunder, Superman, and Transformers, and ends with a sound clip from the Mortal Kombat video games declaring, “Flawless victory.” Then a fade to the White House emblem. In the middle of all this, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth intones, “F.A.”—as in “fuck around, find out.”

It’s juvenile and demonstrates a lack of somberness about the nasty and brutal business of war. Kudos to Ben Stiller, who directed, co-wrote, and starred in Tropic Thunder, for demanding the White House remove the clip from his film: “We never gave you permission and have no interest in being part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.” Or a video game.

The video is also pretty dumb. Several of the characters featured, such as Saul Goodman and Walter White of Breaking Bad, are ethically challenged criminals, not the types you want to hail as role models or heroes. Russell Crowe (Gladiator) and Mel Gibson (Braveheart) are from New Zealand and Australia, respectively, and each play a rebel who opposes an invasionary and imperial force. That’s not quite the current storyline.

Making light of warfare that’s killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, and creating potential environmental and health disasters and perhaps a humanitarian crisis shows an utter disregard for human life and dignity. But, hell, pop open a Red Bull and let’s have a ball. There’s no better way to convince the public this war is being run by adults who care about the sanctity of life, respect the Iranian people, and went to war only because there was absolutely no other choice.

We also saw what might be called war frivolity at the Free Press, where Nellie Bowles, who created the site with spouse Bari Weiss, found lots of fun in the latest war news, joshing that Trump will pick Iran’s new leader “via swimsuit competition,” celebrating the torpedoing of a ship (“Welcome back to water warfare, baby!”), and joking that it was a good thing a downed American pilot “didn’t land in Minneapolis.”

Curtis Yarvin, a self-proclaimed political theorist of the far right who denigrates democracy and celebrates monarchy, got into the act. He blamed the United States’ problem with Iran on the American left, tweeting, “The Iranian Revolution was a diplomatic crime of the American left. The Islamic Republic, like its proxy Hamas, is a client power of the American left. Trump is only bombing Tehran because he can’t bomb Brooklyn.”

There is so much inanity in those three sentences.

The Islamic Revolution was a product of 26 years of repressive rule from the Shah, who was installed by the United States after Washington and London orchestrated the coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, a democratically elected leader who dared to nationalize the British-controlled oil industry. Moreover, the fundamentalists of Tehran have more in common with anti-woke Trumpists than they do with NPR listeners in Park Slope. (Ask them about queer people, abortion, and secular relativism.) And it’s swell of Yarvin to suggest that fellow Americans deserve to be bombed.

Such nonsense from him is not surprising. After all, he has called for liquidating democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law and handing power to a CEO-ish leader who would turn the US government into “a heavily-armed, ultra-profitable corporation.” Sounds like a nutball, right? Yet he’s pals with JD Vance and Peter Thiel. So be afraid.

For outright ignorance, we have Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.). On Fox News, he proclaimed, “We have been at war with Iran since 1947.”

Nope. As noted above, from 1953 to 1979, Washington was pals with the Shah, helping him run his authoritarian regime. And here’s the kicker: Crawford is the chair of the House intelligence committee. Ponder that.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) probably knows the United States has not been at war with Iran for 79 years. But he sure doesn’t know how to talk to a skeptical public about Trump’s war. One recent poll found that only 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s actions in Iran and that a majority believes Iran poses a minor threat or no threat to the United States.

Yet with public sentiment tilted against this war, Graham believes it’s fine to turn up the warmongering dial to 11. On Fox News—of course—he bellowed, “We’re going to blow the hell out of these people.”

Performances like that are sure to settle the nerves of worried Americans. Even Republican pundit Meghan McCain saw how counterproductive such rhetoric can be for the fans of this war. She tweeted, “I’ve known Lindsey Graham since I was a child. I am imploring anyone who will listen in the Trump administration to stop sending this man out as a surrogate. He is scaring people and doing damage to whatever message you’re trying to sell to the American public about the Iran war.”

Daniel Pipes, a longtime Islamophobic foreign policy analyst, expressed his disappointment and surprise that the Iranian people last week did not mount a revolution against the regime: “The populace now appears cowed into near-silence.”

When bombs are raining down, many people might prefer to seek shelter and protect their families rather than hit the streets in protest. Also, given Trump’s erratic signals—first he suggested the US would support an uprising, then his team drew back from that—Iranians opposed to the regime might be a tad reluctant to move on the government, while the 200,000-member Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still intact. Perhaps they can apologize to Pipes for letting him down.

The biggest dunderhead move, though, was Trump’s. As the war raged, with reports of new American casualties and US embassies in the region being ordered to evacuate, Trump this weekend showed the nation and the world that he was on top of things by…golfing. Nothing says you’re serious about protecting the troops and ending a war as soon as possible as zipping about in a golf cart at Trump National Doral in Miami and then signing autographs in the clubhouse. (Look, a buffet!)

You might think that a demagogue keen on imagery and PR stunts would realize the value in creating the impression that he’s a committed and engaged commander in chief during wartime—even if he was only faking that—by spending the day in the Situation Room with military brass or in the Oval Office on the phone talking to world leaders about the various crises being triggered by his war. Instead, he’s devoting hours to swinging a stick at a tiny ball.

Didn’t any of Trump’s brilliant advisers suggest that for just this weekend he skip the links? This decision demonstrated tremendous lack of judgment. It suggested Trump views himself as an emperor who can do whatever he pleases and need not worry about consequences. Anyone who pulls such a dumb move cannot be trusted to run a war—or a country.

Yes, but... I a country where woman are property, they sure seems to care all of a sudden...

US Responsible For Killing Iranian Schoolchildren, Investigation Finds. Trump Previously Blamed Iran.

New reporting confirms American Tomahawk missile destroyed Shajarah Tayyebeh school on the last day of February. The president earlier said he “just doesn’t know enough about it.”

Katie Herchenroeder

The United States is responsible for killing at least 175 people, many of them children, in a Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school on the last day of February, according to US officials and others familiar with the ongoing military investigation who spoke with the New York Times. The death toll was reported by Iranian officials. 

The deadly strike on the girls’ school, Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary, followed incorrect targeting intelligence about the area. The school is nearby buildings used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy—which the US also targeted on the same day it decimated Shajarah Tayyebeh. Before it was a school, the site was connected to the base. But, according to a visual analysis for the Times, the school area has been sectioned off from the base for at least a decade. US military intelligence, the preliminary report findings indicate, might have been operating off of old data.

The investigation isn’t over and more information is poised to come out about how the school became designated as a target. While there have reportedly been instances of the US using Claude, the AI model created by Anthropic, in their offensive against Iran, it is unclear if the AI was used in the strike against the school. Government officials told the Times that it may have been the result of human error. 

The Times’ sourcing requested anonymity due in part to the fact that President Donald Trump has suggested, without evidence, that Iran was responsible for the elementary school strike. 

Evidence was already mounting against the United States and their culpability for the strike. For example, the US was the one targeting the nearby Iranian base and its military is the only one involved in the conflict that uses Tomahawk missiles. 

Still, Trump on Saturday told reporters that, “In my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran.”

On Monday, a Times reporter asked the president why he was why he was alone in his administration in blaming Iran. Top officials including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have referred to the ongoing investigation when asked about the school strike. “Because,” Trump began, “I just don’t know enough about it.”

Images and videos circulating online of the decimated school and recently dug graves for the dead children illustrated the human cost of the strikes. 

One mother described the scene on that day in February to NBC News. She received a call from the school that the war had begun and she needed to pick up her child. She didn’t make it in time. Her son died in the strikes. 

“By the time we arrived, the entire school had collapsed on top of the children,” the mother, who asked not to be identified, told NBC News. “People were pulling out children’s arms and legs. People were pulling out severed heads.”

Republicans find it difficult.......

House Republicans find it difficult to focus on rising costs as they plot 2026 agenda

A longshot elections bill and an uphill reconciliation fight dominated the yearly policy conference.

By Meredith Lee Hill and Mia McCarthy

House Republicans arrived at their yearly policy retreat aiming to craft a 2026 agenda that will help them keep their majority in the upcoming midterms. But they left with few specifics on what more they can do before the election to quell voter angst about higher prices.

Speaker Mike Johnson told GOP members in a private session Wednesday closing out the retreat that he remains intent on pursuing a new party-line domestic policy bill to follow on last year’s tax-cuts-focused megabill.

While that legislation could theoretically tackle some cost-of-living issues, Johnson didn’t offer any specific policies that would be included or a timeline for passing it, according to four people in the room granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. Some senior Republicans present at the meetings privately warned they don’t have much time left for such a big legislative lift.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, said he awaited party leaders’ ideas for a second megabill, which would be passed through the party line reconciliation process. But he was candid about the GOP’s limited legislative options before November.

“The bottom line is that inflation is stable, gas prices are going to come down once the Iran conflict is over, we’ll deal with housing in some way,” he said. “I mean, the American people will see the stability in inflation. They’ll see the stability in energy and gas prices. And, you know, that’s probably all we’re going to be able to do before the midterms.”

The GOP’s inability to coalesce behind an election year economic agenda is being driven in no small part by President Donald Trump, who opened the retreat by telling House Republicans their “No. 1 priority” should be passing an GOP overhaul of federal elections, with new restrictions on transgender rights tacked on.

Trump all but dismissed the affordability issue, noting at one point that Americans “don’t talk about housing, they don’t talk about anything” except for the SAVE America Act — the elections bill he’s pushing the House to pass a third time.

Asked about the divide between voters’ top priority and the president’s, Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan said, “I don’t think it’s an ‘or.’ I think it’s an ‘and.’”

“When you look at economic issues, that is really what is important to a lot of Americans,” said McClain, the No. 4 Republican leader. “It’s pocketbook issues, right? So it’s an ‘and’ not an ‘or.’”

Trump’s obsession with the elections bill — and Johnson’s determination to pursue a reconciliation bill despite long odds — leaving Republicans with a tough task in addressing rising prices on everyday goods, which remain an issue of top concern to voters.

Even the new pressure on energy prices from Trump’s decision to join Israel in launching a war on Iran has yet to spur GOP lawmakers into action. Most, like Harris, simply asserted oil prices would come down soon enough.

Pressed on affordability issues, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) raised the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, noting it’s “disrupting travel” and “people’s lives,” as he also made the case for the Trump-backed elections bill.

“Especially coming into the election, the SAVE America Act is a top priority, as well,” he said. “But … pocketbook issues are what drives people to the polls. So we need to do both at once, focus on affordability, but focus on the integrity of the election.”

The chair of the House GOP campaign committee, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, tried to square the two demands as he left the retreat Wednesday. Like other leaders, he raised last year’s tax cuts and other bills the Republican-controlled Congress passed last year, arguing candidates have “lots of wins to talk about.”

“Our entire focus as House Republicans is on average, everyday American working families,” Hudson said in an interview. “We’ve delivered tax relief, a lot of other things they care about — school choice, upgraded the air traffic control system.”

Asked if there’s more Republicans could do to lower prices, Hudson said, “Sure.”

“Lots of other things we’d like to do,” he added. “We just have to figure out if we’ve got the votes.”

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) was among several lawmakers who pointed to pending housing legislation as a major opportunity to address rising prices in a key sector.

“I think there’s a program there that we can certainly advance,” Cole said in an interview, mentioning the possibility of energy and transportation bills as well.

But the housing bill is facing a rocky path out of Congress, despite broad bipartisan support. While a version is expected to pass the Senate as soon as this week, it now faces hurdles in the House after Harris and other members of the Freedom Caucus raised objections to provisions dealing with the ownership of single-family homes by large companies and a possible Federal Reserve digital currency.

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), for instance, said in an interview that “socialist policies” would have to be stripped out of the bill. Several invoked the involvement of progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, who helped negotiate a Senate compromise.

“It’s not as conservative a product as the House bill was,” Harris said.

Presidential primary poll

Newsom opens commanding lead over Harris in 2028 California primary poll

The California governor was leading the former vice president by 14 percentage points in their home state, according to a poll by POLITICO and its partners.

By Blake Jones

Gavin Newsom is trouncing Kamala Harris in their home state in a new presidential primary poll by POLITICO and its partners.

The California governor leads Harris, the former vice president, 28 percent to 14 percent among voters leaning toward voting in California’s Democratic presidential primary, the UC Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO poll found. Newsom has also opened a commanding lead over other potential candidates, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, at 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

“All Democrats want to beat Trump, and Newsom has pushed himself to be the most visible opponent among the potential Democratic candidates,” said Jack Citrin, a University of California Berkeley political science professor and co-director of the poll. “Harris, in some ways, is old news.”

Newsom, a leading early contender nationally for the Democratic nomination, has been positioning himself for a likely run, raising his profile by lacing into President Donald Trump at international events and traveling to key early primary states to promote his new memoir.

Meanwhile, just 41 percent of California registered voters said they would be excited if Harris ran again, a similar share to last summer. That’s further evidence of Democrats looking past Harris — who recently said she “might” run — after her two failed presidential bids. And it isn’t just voters who are wary of a Harris campaign. She struggles even more in a concurrent survey of POLITICO’s audience of key political and policy influencers in the state, including political staffers, lobbyists, policy advisers and others — the kind of people most familiar with the former state attorney general and U.S. senator.

Harris, whose rise in politics had mirrored Newsom’s for decades back to their early days in San Francisco, until she was chosen as vice president, draws support from just 2 percent of political and policy influencers likely to vote in the Democratic primary, compared to 17 percent who back Newsom, according to the survey.

The results of the voter survey suggest a widening advantage for Newsom rather than a one-off. Newsom led Harris among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents by a narrower margin, 25 percent to 19 percent among the state’s registered Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents, in a Citrin-POLITICO poll conducted last year.

It has helped, Citrin said, that Newsom’s 2028 plans appear so obvious, prompting voters to seriously consider him as an option.

“Anyone with an IQ of over five knows that Newsom is running for president,” Citrin said. “Harris is still in this kind of Hamlet-like stage. Maybe she’s trying to make up her mind. Maybe she doesn’t know.”

While not an early voting state, California’s massive haul of delegates could be a major advantage for Newsom in 2028.

It is also a state rich with GOP delegates, despite the overwhelming Democratic majorities here. Among California voters leaning toward the Republican primary, Vice President JD Vance holds a solid lead, running ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio 43 percent to 15 percent.

Rubio, however, is more popular with Republican-leaning policy and political influencers, leading Vance 38 percent to 22 percent.

These data come from parallel surveys of California voters and policy influencers, fielded by TrueDot, the AI-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. Interviews for the voter survey were conducted online in English and Spanish between Feb. 25 and March 3, 2026, among a sample of 1,004 registered voters selected at random by Verasight. Voter data were weighted using the Current Population Survey and data from the California Report of Registration.

From Feb. 24 to March 3, 2026, a parallel study was conducted in partnership with POLITICO among its audience of key political and policy influencers in California. The audience was defined based on job title and organizational affiliation and included state and local government employees, political staffers, lobbyists, policy advisers, consultants, business decision-makers and subject matter experts.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percent for the voter survey and plus or minus 3.7 percent for the influencers.