The sheer amount of news coming out of the Trump administration is hard to keep up with every week, but it was especially true this week: Tulsi Gabbard announced her resignation, a grand jury indicted 94-year-old former Cuban President Raúl Castro, and we witnessed what some have called the single “most brazen act of presidential corruption this century.”

On the last point, Donald Trump’s cronies at the Justice Department announced the so-called settlement of the president’s bogus lawsuit (effectively against himself), which includes the creation of a $1.776 billion slush fund to benefit his allies and immunity for Trump and his family for pending tax audits.

Trump doesn’t even rely on distraction anymore; he’s doing everything right out in the open.

From Trump’s slush fund to Republicans canceling a vote on the War Powers Resolution to shield the president from a likely humiliating result to a Democrat commuting an election denier’s prison sentence, here’s just a taste of how Trump and his allies hurt democracy, undermined the U.S. Constitution, and harmed societies worldwide:

Saturday, May 16 – Commuting Tina Peters’s Sentence Sets ‘Dangerous Precedent’

On MS NOW, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold slammed Democratic Governor Jared Polis for commuting the prison sentence of Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was convicted of tampering with voting machines following the 2020 presidential election.

Griswold called the move, which Trump had repeatedly called for, a “gross injustice” and “demoralizing” to election officials, and warned that it sets a “dangerous precedent” for future elections. (Polis was later censured by Colorado Democrats for his decision.)

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Sunday, May 17 – Acting AG Says DOJ Is Hard At Work Investigating 2020 Election

On Fox, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke about the Justice Department’s investigation into the 2020 presidential election, ridiculously claiming that “there’s a ton of evidence that the election was rigged,” and adding that the DOJ is “very focused on finding out whether the right people voted.”

He also claimed that the “incredibly troubling things” the DOJ is supposedly uncovering will be made public “at some point, at the right time.”

Monday, May 18 – DOJ Approves Trump’s Very Own Slush Fund

Trump’s Justice Department officially announced the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of the DOJ’s so-called “settlement” with Trump in his lawsuit against the Treasury Department and IRS over the leaking of his tax returns.

The fund will be overseen by a commission appointed by Blanche, whose members Trump can fire “without cause,” and will be made available, in secret, to those who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the government– potentially even those Trump pardoned over their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Tuesday, May 19 – Trump Gets Immunity From Tax Probes

Acting AG Blanche signed off on a new provision as part of Trump’s “settlement” that “FOREVER” prohibits the IRS from investigating or prosecuting the president, his family, or his businesses for pending tax claims, including a current audit that could have reportedly cost Trump more than $100 million.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that longtime Trump ally and former administration official Michael Caputo filed the first known “Anti-Weaponization Fund” claim, seeking $2.7 million and claiming the “machinery of government was clearly politically weaponized against my family.”

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Wednesday, May 20 – Trump’s Pay-to-Play Extends to the Tobacco Industry

The New York Times reported that Trump’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new guidance opening the door to the sale of flavored vapes after a tobacco company donated $5 million to the Trump-backed super PAC, MAGA Inc.

Two days after the donation, Trump had lunch with tobacco industry representatives, during which he interrupted the conversation to complain to his administration officials about the FDA’s e-cigarette regulations. The new guidance was issued just days later.

Thursday, May 21 – House GOP Leaders Cancel Vote To Limit Trump’s War Powers in Iran

House Republican leaders abruptly canceled a vote on an Iran War Powers Resolution, which was likely to be approved due to the absences of Republican members of Congress and others who signaled their support for the measure.

The cancellation comes after the Senate advanced a similar resolution earlier this week to limit Trump’s military action against Iran without congressional approval.

Friday, May 22 – Tulsi Gabbard Resigns as Director of National Intelligence

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard notified Trump that she’s resigning from her position, effective June 30, noting her husband was recently diagnosed with “an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”

During her time on Trump’s Cabinet, Gabbard, whose job is to oversee the country’s intelligence agencies and advise the president on national security matters, spent months investigating Trump’s long-debunked claims of the 2020 presidential election being stolen, and even appeared at an FBI raid of an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, back in January. You can read Zeteo’s Swin Suebsaeng’s take here.

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NOTE: If you subscribe to Zeteo’s U.S. Politics’ morning newsletter, First Draft, a reminder that there will not be a newsletter on Monday 25 due to it being a federal holiday in the U.S.

Did you miss previous weeks of ‘This Week in Democracy’? Catch up here. And check out more of Zeteo’s reporting from this week below:

Zeteo contributor Alex Colston was among those detained by Israeli forces. He gives Prem his first-hand account of what he saw and endured inside Israeli imprisonment. And the details are shocking.

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“You could hear people screaming” at every checkpoint in the prison facilities, Alex says. He was in the room when Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir gleefully harassed detainees – a moment that went viral and sparked international condemnation. Alex says viral videos may not have captured other abuses, including that soldiers blared the national anthem over and over as they escorted (and tortured) the detainees through different checkpoints.

Colston himself lost feeling in his hands due to Israeli soldiers cuffing them tightly and then using the handcuffs to torture him, again and again. At one point, he said he “just blacked out” because of the extreme pain. When he came to, a guard asked if he was from the US. “I said yes, and he was like, ‘Well, this is my country’. And then he hit me in the ribs a couple times.’”

Watch the video above to hear much more of what Alex saw inside Israel’s abduction and detention of the Gaza aid flotilla volunteers.

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We are removing the paywall from this conversation – but on-the-ground reporting like Alex’s is only possible because of your support. Alex’s work helps us see the violence Israel does in the shadows, and the volunteers who have persisted in the face of it. Please subscribe to help us do more of this work, that mainstream media refuses to. And if you’re already a paid subscriber, you can always support our work further with a donation.

NOTE: Alex participated in this interview in a public setting to have access to Wi-Fi. We apologize for the increased background noise you hear throughout the conversation.

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Read Alex's previous reporting from the latest flotilla:

Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, plans to leave her cabinet-level position by the end of June, according to her resignation letter.

Gabbard, once a Democratic congresswoman, staked her reputation on being vigorously opposed to America’s “regime change wars.” She endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. Then, she spent nearly a year and a half propping up a Trump administration dedicated to authoritarian violence and power grabs, a world-historically corrupt personality cult, and – who could forget? – launching regime-change wars.

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In her formal resignation letter, Gabbard cited her husband’s struggle with “an extremely rare form of bone cancer” as her reason for quitting, and wrote to Trump about how “deeply grateful” she is for “the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half.” She is the fourth cabinet-level official to resign or be pushed out of Trump’s second administration; all four have been women.

By her own words, Gabbard is not resigning out of principle or in protest. She is resigning because of an intensely personal, serious family matter. Taking her at her word, Gabbard is not quitting because she is incensed by what the Trump-Vance administration is doing on Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere across the globe.

As President Trump bombed Iran, as he invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its leader, as he started his illegal war of aggression on the Iranian people, as he’s ramping up preparations for a possible invasion of Cuba, as he refuses to take invading Mexico off the table, as he sought to conquer Greenland, as he waged deadly warfare on his own people, as he bombed, and bombed, and bombed – Tulsi Gabbard stayed put. She did not leave in protest, including when it could have – maybe? – mattered or meant something. She did not meaningfully fight any of the war policies she once claimed to abhor.

She was proud to serve as a willing cog in Trump’s vast war machine, even as she was reportedly regularly excluded from sensitive, high-level meetings – like those over kidnapping Venezuela’s leader – to the point that White House aides would joke that her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite.”

But for Trump, enough is never enough.

The president, according to sources in and out of government who’ve talked to Trump about this over the past several months, had indeed flirted with the idea of getting rid of Gabbard altogether. As Zeteo reported in March, Trump has made snide, bitter comments behind the scenes about Gabbard not being enthusiastic enough about his disastrous war in Iran. And on Friday afternoon, Reuters reported, citing one “source familiar with the matter,” that ​Gabbard had been “forced out by the White House,” as the Trump administration continued to insist her departure was due to her husband’s health.

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But one professional saving grace for Gabbard was that Trump – an administration official and another source briefed on the matter tell Zeteo – had gushed to confidants how thrilled he was by some of the work Gabbard had been doing on what he dubs “election integrity.”

There is, however, no reason that the U.S. director of national intelligence, one of the most influential positions for the most sensitive of national security-related matters and vital intelligence analysis, should be anywhere near Donald Trump’s thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election – an election he lost and then tried to steal, leading to death and destruction.

But that’s what Gabbard’s been doing in recent months, serving as the face and one of the ringleaders of Trump’s intelligence community “investigation” into U.S. voting systems. Her job, officially, is to keep the American people safe. Instead, she used her soon-to-be former office to aid Trump’s efforts to rig future elections and punish his political foes who committed the crime of refusing to help Trump rig a past election.

To say that Gabbard disgraced herself and her office is both a dramatic understatement and also perhaps the only true qualification she had for working in the second Trump presidency.

Gabbard wrote in Friday’s letter that “we have made significant progress at the ODNI – advancing unprecedented transparency and restoring integrity to the intelligence community,” while Trump thanked her and said, “Tulsi has done an incredible job.”

For most of her political career, Gabbard presented herself as an unshakably anti-war, anti-imperialist political figure of the progressive left – she literally sold campaign T-shirts that declared, “No War with Iran.” As Gabbard joined the MAGA movement, she maintained her professed commitment to preventing wars. “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a man who wants to end wars, not start them,” she proclaimed shortly before the 2024 election.

As Zeteo has noted, Gabbard’s anti-war story was always a lie, and that was the case even before she proudly, shamelessly served the agenda of one of the most fiendishly warmongering and violently imperialistic presidents that the United States has produced in a very long time.

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And by the end of her time spent at the highest levels of Trump’s government, Gabbard revealed herself to have nothing but sneering contempt for American democratic values: someone who would gladly allow the U.S. intelligence apparatus to be perverted and disgraced, all to make Donald Trump feel better about a presidential election he lost and failed to steal.

At best, she allowed President Trump to turn her into one of his warmongers-by-proxy. By her own admission, being stridently anti-war was one of the most important things she could have done with her life. She wanted to stop regional conflicts before they started, she claimed. She said she wanted to save untold numbers of lives.

She threw that all away, like a used Swiffer wipe, in a heartbeat, so that she could serve at the pleasure of a former host of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ who keeps threatening Iran with full-blown genocide.

Let that be her legacy.

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Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Iran has killed thousands, violated U.S. and international law, and sparked deadly worldwide energy and food shortages, but the D.C. commentariat has been unable to resist innumerable takes that the real problem with the war is that it’s a “win for China.”

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It’s true that Xi Jinping has not confirmed Trump’s claim that Beijing offered to help with a deal during their summit last week, Chinese companies continue to equip the Iranian military, and the Trump administration has just claimed the Iran war forced them to conserve munitions promised to Taiwan.

But while Xi might stand to benefit from Trump’s insistence on undermining U.S. economic, diplomatic, and military power, he does not see the Iran war as a “win.” Washington’s fixation on viewing the degradation of American institutions from the perspective of the Chinese president is a cop-out that misunderstands Beijing and obscures – and empowers – the actual threats to our democracy.

Here are five things you need to know:

1. No, a war between every Chinese trading partner in the Middle East is not good for China.

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Good morning! Andrew here. Democrats have lost to Donald Trump twice, and we all continue to pay for it – the vulnerable more than others. You might hope, at some point, the Democratic Party would carry out a fact-finding mission to tell us all why that happened. Well, then I have some good news, as well as some bad news.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we look under the hood of the Democrats’ failed 2024 autopsy report, Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund threatens his $1 billion ballroom, and the Trump administration drops charges against six ICE protesters in Chicago after a judge alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

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Losers Don’t Know Why They Lost

The Democratic National Committee on Thursday finally released its long-awaited autopsy, supposed to explain why the party lost to Donald Trump a second time.

The primary reasons why Democrats lost in 2024 are well-documented and widely understood: There was broad dissatisfaction with the economy and brutal post-pandemic inflation; Joe Biden chose to run again even though his physical decline was obvious, to the point that he was forced to quit the race with just months to go; and Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, adamantly refused to break with her boss over his support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

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As I previously reported with Swin in our own version of a 2024 autopsy, Democrats also ran a bad campaign from a technical perspective. They failed to adapt to a rapidly changing media environment, didn’t present a cohesive message, and relied obsessively on data to drive decision-making in ways that didn’t make much sense.

Swin and I had to complete our story on “How the Democrats Blew It” by January 2025. The DNC never finished its actual autopsy report.

The document released on Tuesday, titled “BUILD TO WIN. BUILD TO LAST,” remains shockingly incomplete a year and a half after Trump won, even though these reports are a perfunctory campaign tradition: The losing side conducts countless interviews and extensive research, disclosing it for the sake of transparency, with the point of doing better next time.

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Ammar Campa-Najjar grew up in the mosque community, attended school there as a child, and was friends with one of the victims – 78-year-old Mansour Kaziha (also known as Abu Ezz). The Mexican-Palestinian-American Navy reserve officer is now running for Congress in California’s competitive 48th district, a key race for Democratic hopes to take back the House – and pro-Israel groups have spent nearly $2 million against him.

Campa-Najjar tells Mehdi the attack on the mosque “did not happen in a vacuum,” but rather in a political environment that is filled with xenophobia and Islamophobia.

“Advisers to this president, including Laura Loomer, who literally said that I’m trying to ‘Islamify’ the military,” Campa-Najjar says, “what she doesn’t understand is that Muslims serve our country every single day, like the security guard who protected those children. Like military officers who serve alongside me, who go to this mosque.”

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Campa-Najjar talks about his primary campaign with Mehdi, who challenges him on his position on US funding for the Iron Dome as well as the Super PACs backing him. The two also discuss Campa-Najjar’s childhood in Gaza, far-right claims that his grandfather was a ‘Palestinian terrorist,’ and the need for Medicare-for-All.

Paid subscribers can watch the full interview for free, with no paywall. Free subscribers can watch a 3.5-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo to watch the full interview and the rest of Zeteo’s content.

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A social media post from libertarian journalist Nick Gillespie caught my eye recently. He was crowd-sourcing ideas. “I’m interviewing Neil Gorsuch later today,” Gillespie wrote. “What should I ask him?”

The Reason magazine editor-at-large was doing what diligent journalists do, soliciting ideas for topics he might have overlooked in earlier preparation. His post also alerted his 118,500 followers on Twitter of special content heading their way.

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That reminded me of a lesson I learned 10 years ago: Even such basic research can be made to look sinister in the hands of bad-faith political actors. And by bad-faith political actors, I mean Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the Russian intelligence agents helping him, and the right-wing media flunkies on their side.

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Israel and U.S. officials saw hard-liner former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the potential future leader of Iran, the New York Times reported this week.

That’s supposedly why Israel bombed his home in the early days of their illegal war on Iran – to free him from house arrest. But instead, he was injured, and, according to the Times, became “disillusioned with the regime change plan” that had been discussed with him prior to the strikes.

He hasn’t been seen in public since.

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Here are seven things you should know about the man the U.S. and Israel wanted back in power in Tehran:

1. Holocaust Denier

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, including calling it “a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim” during a 2009 speech in Iran. The week after that speech, in an interview with NPR, he called accounts of Holocaust survivors “claims,” asking, “Why should everyone be forced to accept the opinion of just a few on a historic event?”

2. Accused by Israel of Wanting to Destroy Israel

Many know Ahmadinejad as the man who called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” a statement that has gotten him countless comparisons to Hitler. The only issue is that he has never said that. A more accurate translation of the remarks would be “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,” a quote from the late Ayatollah Khomeini.

3. Pro-Death Penalty for LGBTQ People

While speaking at a Columbia University World Leaders forum in 2007, Ahmadinejad falsely claimed that there are no gay people in Iran. During the event, he was also asked about the use of the death penalty, including for gay people, to which he responded, “Don’t you have capital punishment in the United States? You do too. In Iran, too, there is capital punishment.”

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4. Allowed Women to Attend Soccer Games

In 2006, Ahmadinejad lifted a ban that had blocked women from attending soccer games, saying, “The presence of women and families in public places promotes chastity.” The move was met with criticism from the hard-line Iranians who helped get Ahmadinejad elected.

5. Barred From Running in Elections 3 Times

Since the end of his presidency in 2013, Ahmadinejad has attempted to run for reelection three times: in 2017, 2021, and 2023, but each time the Iranian Guardian Council barred him from running.

6. Apparently Loves Michigan Football

The former Iranian president had an active Twitter account from 2017 to 2022, where he posted about, among other things, American football. Ohio State Buckeye fans won’t be pleased to know Trump’s pick for the next president of Iran is a Michigan Wolverines football supporter. In 2018, Ahmadinejad tweeted, “With a hard work ethic Inshallah the U of M will return to its glory days.”

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7. Apparently Loves Tupac, Too

During his Twitter era, Ahmadinejad also posted Happy Birthday to the “legend” Tupac Shakur on what would have been the rapper’s 50th birthday. The post ends with the lyrics, “Cause any day they’ll push the button and all come in like Malcolm X or Bobby Hutton,” from Shakur’s 2004 hit “Ghetto Gospel.”

Zeteo’s Kennedy Garmong contributed to this piece.

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Donald Trump’s lawless and increasingly authoritarian second term has been marked by a vicious and corrupt campaign against the media – with the president extracting major payoffs from the parent companies of ABC and CBS, threatening to pull broadcast licenses or derail corporate mergers after seeing unflattering TV segments, and incessantly demanding the firing of a TV host he hates, after celebrating the cancellation of a different host’s long-running show.

This has been a long time coming, and the seeds of this cartoonishly mad-king presidential conduct were planted during his first term. Trump has been trying to start several of his wars for nearly a decade – not just on Iran, but on two former Comedy Central hosts, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel. The difference now is he’s surrounded himself with aggressive personality-cultists who don’t think laws or democratic norms are real, and who want to help Trump cement his cultural resentments and catty fury into federal policy.

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Tonight, Colbert’s show will end. The president’s crusade against comics and talk show hosts will continue.

This story is based on interviews with various former and current Trump advisers, TV network sources, professional comedians, and others with intimate knowledge of the American president’s crackdowns on free speech and popular culture. In the course of our reporting, it became even clearer to us than it was before that Trump’s war on late-night TV isn’t a joke or some distraction. A cornerstone of the international autocrats’ playbook is smothering dissent in the media and on the airwaves. And that, perhaps above all, includes satire.

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Good morning, friends. Mehdi here. I went on ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored’ yesterday and, painfully, Piers ended our interview insisting I - a Liverpool fan - congratulate him - an Arsenal fan - for his team winning the Premier League after 22 years. I reluctantly did so. Sorry.

Anyways, in today’s ‘First Draft,’ Jeff Bezos reminds us that he has no principles and no shame; Democrats mount a fightback against Donald Trump’s most crazily corrupt act ever; and Benjamin Netanyahu wants us to believe that Itamar Ben-Gvir doesn’t represent Israel or its values (LOL!).

Here we go…

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‘Jeff Bozo’

Do you remember what Donald Trump used to call Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos during his first term as President? I do.

“Jeff Bozo.”

Second-term Trump and the fourth-richest man in the world now get along much better than they did before. Because Bezos, like so many other billionaire tech moguls, has gone from loudly criticizing the president to shamelessly capitulating to him.

On Wednesday, in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bezos fawned over the president, saying “Trump has lots of good ideas” and “you have to give him credit where credit is due.”

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Rana Dbeis, the mother of a five-year-old student and a close friend of one of the victims, joined Mehdi on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ to discuss the tragedy and growing Islamophobia in Donald Trump’s America.

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“I haven’t personally felt safe in a long time,” Rana says. “It really, really amplified after Trump and the whole MAGA movement gained a lot of traction… The political atmosphere is extremely violent now. It’s supercharged.”

Watch the full video above to hear Rana describe the terrifying moment she learned there was an active shooter at her son’s school, call out the “disgusting” lack of accountability for Islamophobes like Laura Loomer and JD Vance, and share what she wants people to know about her community at the Islamic Center of San Diego.

This video is free for all subscribers. If you think the work Zeteo is doing is important, and you never want to hit a paywall again, consider upgrading your subscription.

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Justin Baragona here, bringing you the latest media dispatches from the right-wing industrial outrage complex and Bari World. In tonight’s edition, speculation that Bari Weiss’s role will be scaled back has reached a fever pitch. So, who could lead a combined CNN-CBS if not Bari? Also, Fox’s coverage of the San Diego mosque shooting sparks internal criticism, and Jeff Bezos has thoughts on ‘Melania.’

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Is Weiss About to be Bari-ed?

In just seven short months at the helm of CBS News, Bari Weiss is already hearing the rumors rumbling in the background that she could see her role significantly scaled back just as Paramount is readying itself to add CNN to the mix.

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It is difficult to put into words the staggering illegality of the so-called “settlement” of Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department. In a normal world, it would be the stuff of a B-list Hollywood movie – except that it’s so clownishly unbelievable that nobody would be dumb enough to try and pitch it.

Except that it’s real life. Happening now.

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On Monday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made public the purported “Settlement Agreement” in the case filed on Jan. 29 in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida by Donald J. Trump, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization against the IRS and Treasury Department, both of which constitutionally fall within Trump’s chain of command.

The “agreement” purports to transfer $1,776,000,000 of taxpayer money “to an account for the sole use by the Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which Blanche is “directed” to establish, to hear claims by individuals and “entities” who say they were unfairly targeted by the government – a pretext that doesn’t even bother to tether itself to the lawsuit it pretends to “settle.”

As if the corruption wasn’t already obvious, things got worse on Tuesday when the DOJ announced that the IRS is “FOREVER BARRED” and “PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” pending tax claims against Trump, his sons, or the Trump Organization.

Here are nine things to understand about this insanity:

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Good morning, friends. Prem here. Wishing you a wonderful Wednesday wherever you are. Some nice DC news is that one of the most beloved fountains in Malcolm X Park is back on after years out of order, thanks in part to Donald Trump’s insistence on “beautifying” the capital for the nation’s 250th birthday. A source tells me, however, of an odd “odor” wafting around the fountains. Yet another thing that smells fishy in Trump’s America…

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ Trump and pro-Israel interests spend big to stamp out a Republican maverick; an extraordinary report details the U.S. and Israel’s original plan for regime change in Tehran; and Trump’s financial corruption reaches unbelievable heights. Let’s dig in.

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Massieve Loss

Nearly $33 million. That’s how much was thrown into one Republican House primary in Kentucky. The most expensive such primary ever. And it was enough to beat Thomas Massie.

Millions were dropped by outside groups and Trump allies seeking to boost Massie’s challenger, Ed Gallrein. It paid off, Gallrein winning 55% to 45%.

Massie told supporters he had called his opponent to concede. Though he couldn’t resist a crack at Gallrein, he said he was committed to “basic decency” in politics, adding: “We’ve been honorable the whole time and we’re going to stay that way.”

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The spending in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District surpassed even that seen in two vastly expensive House primaries in 2024, successful challenges against then Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri. Bowman and Bush had something in common beyond progressive politics: they were leading critics of the Israeli government and advocates for Palestinian rights. Yes, your guess is correct: many of the same groups and individuals who spent against Bowman and Bush spent to get rid of Massie, AIPAC prominent among them.

It should be said that Massie is no one’s idea of a progressive, hidden or otherwise. Hardline positions include abortion (anti), guns (pro), and birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants (you guessed it, anti).

Nonetheless, his breaks from Trump created headlines, and not just thanks to colorful quotes like this one, when he told a minion of pro-Trump troll Laura Loomer: “I thought you knew. I vote with Republicans 91% of the time, and the 9% I don’t, they’re taking up for pedophiles, starting another war, or bankrupting our country.”

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Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie lost his bid for re-election on Tuesday, falling to a Trump-backed challenger after pro-Israel donors poured millions into the race to depose the seven-term MAGA defector, making it the most expensive House primary on record.

When the race was called, Massie’s opponent, Ed Gallrein, had 54.4% of the vote in Kentucky’s deep-red fourth district. Gallrein ran on Trump’s endorsement and not much else. His victory is a sign of the president’s continuing grip on the Republican base.

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Trump’s fight to unseat Massie started last year, after the Kentucky congressman lambasted the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill and the June 2025 attack on Iran.

The intra-party war escalated dramatically after Massie broke party lines to co-sponsor the Epstein Files Transparency Act with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, in what was both a rare show of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill and a humiliating defeat for Trump. Massie has also opposed the Iran war and unconditional support for Israel.

While the Kentucky congressman has fought the president on some big-ticket items, becoming perhaps Trump’s strongest GOP adversary in Congress, he remains a hard-right Republican who largely aligns with the MAGA base. Massie opposes abortion rights, gun control, and birthright citizenship for children of undocumented migrants.

The hotly contested primary also marks a victory for AIPAC amid questions over the pro-Israel lobby’s influence in US politics.

AIPAC’s super PAC, which called Massie the “most anti-Israel Republican in the House,” poured more than $4 million into the race to defeat him, according to campaign finance records. A new anti-Massie super PAC, created by Trump and heavily funded by pro-Israel billionaires, spent another $5.6 million.

All in all, the challenge to Massie is the most expensive House primary on record, according to AdImpact, which tracked $32.6 million in ad spending.

On Tuesday, the president and AIPAC won.

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Republican leaders have been fueling the fire with unfailingly bigoted, inflammatory language against Muslims and their faith. GOP Twitter has raged against “Jihadi Mamdani” and ridiculously claimed the country is backsliding into a so-called “United Caliphate of America.” In a moment when houses of worship are no longer sanctuaries, some of the highest elected officials in the U.S. are working tirelessly to make sure Muslims feel unsafe wherever they turn.

Here are seven of the most outrageously Islamophobic and dangerous tweets from Republican lawmakers this year alone:

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Donald Trump is a game show host. Ever since 2015, he’s been telling the American voter – twice successfully – that his time hosting ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ should be seen as a qualification for the United States presidency.

Once in the White House, Trump imported many aspects of how he ruled over that NBC reality TV series to how he governed the U.S. This includes his casual, incredibly stupid racism, his cruelty towards those who are different and people with disabilities, and his propensity for covering for those credibly accused of sexual misconduct. After all, “handle it like you handled it on ‘The Apprentice’” is actually something he said to one of his senior White House aides during his first term.

But now, Trump has grafted his game-show-host sensibilities onto how he’s running an illegal, horrifying, grossly unpopular, and economy-shredding war on the Iranian people. We are almost a year and a half into the Trump-Vance administration, and this president and his cronies have been so consistently, luridly lawless and uniquely corrupt that it seems almost quaint to note that President Trump just committed yet another impeachable offense.

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Still, it cannot possibly be stressed (or yelled about) enough: If the way Trump is waging his Middle East war – with the president openly, routinely declaring his plots to unleash carnage not on the Iranian government but on Iranian civilians, with all the Tune-In-Next-Week-style teasing and banal melodrama of episodic reality television – is not an impeachable offense, then nothing is.

And these are not idle threats. “Donald The Dove” is executing and plotting all of these crimes and killings with the backing of nearly every single senior appointee, administration attorney, and Cabinet member whose actual job it is to tell the president: Sir, that would be completely illegal. Therefore, instead of acknowledging any standard guardrails, the president of the United States is planning sprees of murderous war crimes by his so-called “Department of War” like it’s a fucking game show, with guest appearances by his celebrity pals and powerful, rich buddies.

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In a new ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, Mehdi speaks with Dr. Cindy Harmon-Jones, a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at Western Sydney University, who recently published a new academic study dedicated to answering that very question.

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Harmon-Jones, an expert in cognitive dissonance, tells Mehdi she wanted to understand why Trump supporters stand by him despite the allegations of sexual abuse and other criminal behavior. Her study found three common justifications offered by MAGA movement members.

Mehdi and Harmon-Jones also discuss just how Trump-specific this cult-like support is, what might convince long-time supporters to finally turn their backs on the president, and why people fell hook, line, and sinker for this lawless, lying president in the first place.

“There is quite a bit of research showing that when people feel like they’re under threat, they will turn to authoritarianism,” Harmon-Jones says, particularly “conservatives or right-wing-type people.”

Paid subscribers can watch the whole interview. Free subscribers can watch a 2-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo to unlock this episode and the rest of our award-winning content.

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Good morning, friends. Prem here. Wishing you a wonderful Tuesday, wherever you are. Unfortunately, I write in the wake of horrific violence in San Diego, California. I share my spirit with all who may be directly affected, and to all who deserve to be able to go without fear to their houses of worship.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we discuss all that led to yet another terrible anti-Muslim attack. Donald Trump, meanwhile, got a near-$2 billion slush fund to dole out to his allies, while Israel illegally intercepted another aid flotilla, kidnapping hundreds, including the Irish president’s sister and Zeteo contributor Alex Colston.

Let’s dig in.

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Hating Muslims

Just days after yet another red-faced, fear-mongering Republican congressional hearing on “Sharia law,” a mosque was attacked in the United States. Two teenage suspects allegedly carried out a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday, killing three people.

While many of the details are still being uncovered, here’s what we know about the attack so far and the apparent motivations: the suspects were found dead, of apparently self-inflicted wounds. One reportedly left a suicide note that contained writings about racial pride, CNN reported, while hate speech was reportedly written on one of three weapons taken from the home of the parents of one suspect. A gas can with an “SS” sticker (a possible reference to Hitler’s Nazi paramilitary force) was also recovered.

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Unfortunately, we can become desensitized towards such violence. Violence done with firearms, in a nation with more guns than people. Violence towards Arab Americans, especially since 9/11. Violence towards Muslims, given the posture of US foreign policy for decades on end.

But this attack hits hard, not only because it is at the nexus of so many social ills, but because the fomenting of anti-Muslim hatred in recent months has been so blatant – and so normalized.

For months, Republican members of Congress have unashamedly and publicly spewed venom towards Muslims and Islam, with little press or Democratic Party pushback. Comments that would tank political careers if they were made about any other minority are barely noticed if they are made about Muslims.

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“I don’t answer to you!” Scott Jennings, CNN’s resident defender of Donald Trump, shouted at the panelist sitting a couple of feet to his left.

Angrily pointing his finger in the face of the progressive commentator, Jennings reacted dismissively after the guest countered that the CNN pundit was being “aggressive” with his actions when they were merely “having a conversation.”

“You gonna ask me for my number after the show? Brother, don’t start with me,” Jennings sneered.

No, this is not from Jennings’s recent dustup with liberal pundit Adam Mockler. Instead, this occurred nearly two years ago during a heated confrontation with academic Michael Eric Dyson.

So why then was Scott Jennings so bothered by Mockler gesturing with his hands while pressing him on Iran that he responded, ‘get your fucking hand out of my face” – when Jennings had in fact pointed his finger in the face of a Black man a year and a half earlier?

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Perhaps the two incidents aren’t all that surprising. Jennings has been having contentious interactions with fellow panelists for years, racking up viral clip after viral clip, and laying bare what has become increasingly apparent both publicly and behind the scenes: the rules don’t apply to Jennings.

“A lot of CNN contributors are feeling like they’re on the Scott Jennings network, and their only job is to react to whatever Scott says,” one on-air CNN personality told Zeteo shortly after the MAGA firebrand’s tirade at Mockler.

Former CNN contributor Wajahat Ali told me that “Scott is just a symptom of a problem, which is the obscene double standard of corporate media and American institutions that continue to bend the knee to bad-faith right-wing grievances.”

Indeed, Jennings was back on the air the following day, leading both current CNN staffers and former network employees to point out that if any other paid CNN personality had acted similarly on the air, they would have been suspended or outright terminated.

“He violated what used to be a pretty clear line in TV news. You’re not supposed to cuss people out like it’s an episode of ‘The Jerry Springer Show,’” ex-CNN anchor Jim Acosta, who wrote a Substack article titled “Fire Scott Jennings,” told me.

A CNN spokesperson told Zeteo in a statement, “We select contributors - including Scott Jennings - to reflect the actual clash of political views and values that are being debated in America today.” The spokesperson added, “We choose not to limit either the views or the advocates who argue for them to suit any ideological side in the debate. We believe that giving our viewers a chance to witness a frank encounter of this kind is a service both to them and to democracy.”

Jennings declined to comment.

It’s not just on air, CNN insiders say. The once-affable Kentucky gentleman has become more coarse and callous behind the scenes over the years.

Jennings’s most recent profane outburst and his treatment of staff underscore his evolution from his “aw shucks” Bush-era conservatism to WWE-style pugilism – and of a man who once was referred to as a “Reasonable Republican” who condemned Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection to the word bomb-hurling MAGA sycophant he is today.

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It’s also worth asking how much of Jennings’s Trump idolatry and “own the libs” persona is just a natural evolution of the attention economy, considering how ubiquitous he’s become online these past couple of years. Beyond that, does CNN and its bosses find his MAGA act valuable so they can appease and pander to the president? All the while, amid ongoing layoffs and the specter of CNN becoming part of the Ellison empire, Jennings has only seen his salary grow at the network and his overall media and political profile rise, culminating in his scoring his own syndicated talk radio show.

Meanwhile, questions and concerns have also arisen over his vehemently pro-Israel stance. Journalists and commentators have publicly noted in recent days that Jennings’s show airs on Salem Media, whose chief strategy officer is a registered agent for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Still, even if CNN were to somehow decide to push out Jennings, he will likely be just fine. As several current and former CNN employees told me, either a Bari Weiss/David Ellison-run version of the network would scoop him back up in a few months, or he’ll just go on to bigger and better things.

“So even if CNN gets rid of him, CNN has groomed him into this heel that will launch him either to more media notoriety and success or into the halls of Congress,” Ali said. “He doesn’t need CNN anymore.”

But for now, he remains at the network.

Strap in, readers, here’s how Scott Jennings became the most annoying and “hated” man in cable news today.

When Jennings Called Trump a ‘Desperate-to-Impress Playboy’

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