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Discerning The Grim Reality Behind Trump's Fog Of Wartime Lies

For anyone who believed Donald Trump's promise to be a "peace" president, his regime becomes more confusing every day.

Having started a war with Iran for no intelligible reason, Trump now alternates between threatening to bomb them back to the Stone Age and overseeing a ceasefire in which the firing hasn't actually ceased. Yesterday, US forces launched what the Pentagon called “self-defense strikes” after Iran fired missiles and drones against the destroyers USS Truxton, USS Rafael Peralta, and USS Mason, as well as attacking with small boats.

Trump insists the ceasefire is still in place and that negotiations toward a peaceful resolution continue. Meanwhile to avoid the Constitutional requirement for Congressional authorization, he has called the war an "excursion," a "military operation," a "conflict," and most recently a "skirmish."

But having issued repeated orders to strike boats allegedly carrying narcotics in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which most of the world regards as a violation of international law, Trump and his Pentagon stooge Pete Hegseth claim that we're "at war" with the supposed narco traffickers on those vessels. According to their twisted logic, those accused smugglers are combatants, and thus not entitled to arrest and trial instead of summary execution.

In the real world -- which bears little resemblance to the Trump fantasy universe -- we have been at war with Iran for months and while the outcome remains to be seen, this misadventure isn't going well by any sane measure despite Trump's constant grandiose prevarications.

He constantly insists that Iran was on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons before the US started this war, a claim he reiterated this week when he slandered Pope Leo. The mullahs were "two weeks away" from possessing atomic bombs, he wrote on Truth Social, to be deployed immediately against Israel, every other country in the Mideast, Europe and the United States. They were about to blow up the world! Only the most braindead MAGA imbeciles believe such fables. The International Atomic Energy Agency and every other credible authority -- including the US intelligence community's own assessment last year -- have determined that Iran is nowhere near to building even a single bomb, nor has its leadership undertaken any decision to do so.

Both he and Hegseth boast that their current military campaign has "completely destroyed" Iran's military, including its navy, air force, missile and drone production facilities. Yet somehow Iran continues to control the Strait of Hormuz and to hit targets at will, including US navy vessels and the territory of US allies in the Gulf.

Trump has said many times in recent weeks that negotiations to conclude the "skirmish" are on the verge of success, although what success would mean is far from clear. He blusters on and on, assuring Americans that the Iranians are desperate to make a deal while he "holds all the cards."

Yesterday the Washington Post revealed that the CIA does not agree with that optimistic assessment. In a secret report to the White House, the agency found that Iran can endure the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz for several months before encountering any serious economic trouble. As one US official told the Post, the Iranian leadership -- the same leadership that Trump says no longer exists -- has become "increasingly confident" that they can outlast the Trump administration in a contest of wills.

There is a reason that almost every word out of Trump's mouth is a lie. Neither he nor we can tolerate the reality of the world deformed by his incompetence and narcissism.

Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund. His latest book is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (St. Martin's Press, 2024). The paperback version, with a new Afterword, is now available wherever books are sold.

Are There Frauds Worse Than That Minnesota Case? Let's Look Again At Donald Trump

The Trump administration has decided to make fraud in government programs in Minnesota into a national crisis requiring massive intervention by ICE and Border Patrol (don’t ask) because it was done in part by Black immigrants from Somalia. While Trump and his Republican minions have been hyperventilating over this fraud, it is worth using a little arithmetic to try to put in perspective.

Of course, arithmetic is not popular in elite circles. Even many liberals have yelled that we have to be very concerned about the Minnesota fraud, apparently because some of it was done by Black people and the Republicans are yelling about it. But I’ll confess to being an old-fashioned type who doesn’t think fraud by Black people is any worse than fraud by white people, even if Republicans yell about it. So, let’s do the numbers.

As best we can tell the amount of fraud in Minnesota in the federal pandemic-related programs the Trump gang is yelling about came to $250 million. (The ringleader was actually white.) There undoubtedly is additional fraud that will be found, but this is what we know about to date.

Trump has touted a figure of $20 billion, but there is no obvious basis in reality for this number. Remember, Trump has repeated boasted about $18 trillion in foreign investment coming into the country, that he won the 2020 election by millions of votes and that he will bring drug prices down by 1500 percent. Trump’s numbers often have nothing to do with the real world.

Let’s just ignore the Trump craziness and go with the $250 million figure of known fraud. By comparison, the inspector general of the Small Business Administration, Hannibal Ware, estimated fraud in the Paycheck Protection Program initiated in Trump’s first term was $200 billion. That would be equal to 800 Minnesota frauds.

In case you’re wondering how this fraud was dealt with, Trump didn’t send in ICE. Instead, Trump fired Mr. Ware, who is Black. He promoted the director of the Small Business Administration, Linda McMahon, to be education secretary in his current term.

There are other cases of much larger fraud that don’t seem to draw as much attention, much less the involvement of ICE, as the Minnesota fraud. For example, the Medicare Payments Advisory Commission estimates that Medicare loses about $40 billion a year to private insurers in the Medicare Advantage program because insurers exaggerate the severity of their patients’ healthcare conditions. This would be equal to 160 Minnesota frauds, also apparently without bringing the involvement of ICE.

We can also look to Donald Trump’s whack-job lawsuits. He has discovered that he can bring any lawsuit he wants against the government, for any amount, and then tell his lackeys to settle. He brought a $230 million case against the Justice Department because it prosecuted him for trying to overthrow the government and stealing classified government. He is apparently directing Attorney General Bondi to hand him the cash. This payment would be a bit more than 0.9 Minnesota frauds.

He is also suing the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion because it allowed his tax returns for two years to leak. (Prior presidents have made their tax returns public, which Trump promised to do as well.) While it’s not clear what damages Trump could claim (a suit by another leak victim was settled with an apology), he apparently is ordering the IRS to also hand over the cash. While this settlement will have to be reviewed by a judge, it would be equal to 40 Minnesota frauds. (The Justice Department case is an administrative proceeding and requires no judicial review.)

One other item to throw into the mix, just so people can know where the money goes, is Trump’s plan to increase annual military spending by $500 billion. This would add more than $5 trillion to the debt over a decade, for those keeping score on such things. It seems the rationale is that we need more money to protect ourselves from the new enemies Trump has made. Anyhow, this increase in the military budget of 50 percent would be equal to 2000 Minnesota frauds.

To be clear, we absolutely should take seriously fraud in public social welfare programs, like what happened in Minnesota. This money is effectively being stolen from people who badly need it. Most of these programs are underfunded and the money going to fraudsters comes out of the pockets of the people standing in line who don’t get support they need.

However, we also need to keep the amount of fraud in context. Most of our tax dollars are not going to fraudsters from Somalia. In fact, if there had never been a penny of fraudulent payments to people from Somalia, it would not even be a rounding error in our budget data.

We know that Republicans, and especially Trump, exploit racism at every opportunity. Arithmetic may not be an adequate weapon to combat racism, but it can be a useful one. And decent people should use it.

Dean Baker is a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the author of the 2016 book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Dean Baker.

Gaslight: Was This Trump's Most Unhinged State Of The Union Ever?

President Donald Trump delivered an unhinged, lie-filled, racist, and disturbingly dark State of the Union address Tuesday where he gaslit Americans about his accomplishments yet ultimately did nothing to change his abysmal standing in approval polls.

In fact, he spent just a few minutes talking about the economy—the most important issue to voters as midterm elections approach—and instead spent the rest of the never-ending speech talking about murders and blood and other depressing things that likely had average viewers wondering what on earth he was blathering about.

Worse for Trump and Republicans is that when he did talk about the economy, he only boasted about how great it’s doing, saying it is “roaring like never before.” Yet he did not offer any plans for how he would bring costs down and help Americans afford their rising cost of living, which is what Americans want to hear.

For example, he boasted that "100 percent of the jobs created under my administration have been in the private sector." Yeah, all 181,000 of them—the lowest annual job creation number in decades?

He crowed that the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 50,000 under his tenure, even though the market is now 800 points below that. And the stock market in the United States is actually faring worse than other countries’ markets.

Americans don’t believe Trump’s economy is great, no matter how many times he declares it to be true. In fact, CBS News released a poll before the speech that found 60 percent of Americans say that Trump makes things seem “better than they really are.”

Aside from rambling like a buffoon and being a raging asshole—reminding a national audience why they dislike him so much—Trump bragged about other head-scratching things that are unlikely to help boost his popularity.

He gloated about having “lifted 2.4 million Americans—a record—off of food stamps." Again, that’s not because he helped people but because he cut the program and stripped food aid from millions.

He waxed poetic about his illegal and destructive tariffs, saying they are “saving our country.” Of course, the tariffs are hurting the economy and Americans hate them, so highlighting this policy is again idiotic.

And he even spoke about how he is working to fix health care—one of his worst policy issues—even though he has absolutely no plan, slashed Medicaid, and let Affordable Care Act tax credits expire, raising insurance premiums for millions of Americans.

In fact, Trump slammed Democrats for not voting for the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—which slashed health care for the poorest Americans in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Rather than cower, Democrats stood and clapped, proud of themselves for not voting for that unpopular legislation.

Trump’s speech coincided with his approval rating hitting second-term lows—rivaled only by the dismal approval ratings he notched after he incited a violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A spate of polls released before Trump’s address found a host of bad news for Trump, including that his approval with independents is at just 26 percent, that Americans disapprove of his performance on every major issue, and that his approval has fallen even among Republicans who he needs to turn out for midterm elections in November.

The nonsense he spewed in Tuesday’s speech—the longest on record—is unlikely to change that.

While we all just suffered through that absolute buffoonery, here’s a final reminder: This utterly embarrassing display won’t matter when it comes to the November midterms. Feelings about Trump are baked in, and nothing he said in that speech will change the minds of Americans.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

How Did Tulsi Gabbard Damage National Security? And Why Is Trump Protecting Her?

It's been eight months since an intelligence official came forward with serious allegations against Tulsi Gabbard. That seems like a very long time to sit on something that reportedly represents a "grave threat" to the nation.

But that report has literally been locked away where no one can see it. Because Trump needs Gabbard. She’s heading the operation to discredit the midterm elections.

Finding the most terrible, noxious, execrable official in the Donald Trump White House is a difficult challenge. Is it the guy who took a $50,000 bribe. from FBI agents, or the one who is systematically destroying public health? What about the woman who can always find a justification for murder, whether it's puppies or people? Or maybe ... Okay, it's Stephen Miller. We all know it's Stephen Miller.

But when it comes to sheer insane-in-the-membrane loopiness, there's one Trump cabinet member who can beat even the guy with the brainworm. Or the worm. Because America's Director of National Intelligence (and it still seems incredible to say this even after a year) is Tulsi Gabbard.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gabbard has done something so irretrievably bad that, even compared to the other outrages of this administration, it seems … really bad.

A U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.

What is the whistleblower alleging? We don't know. However, we do know that it supposedly:

Represents a "grave threat to national security"
Implicates at least one other department in the administration
Involves claims of executive privilege

Considering Gabbard's personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, her willingness to spread Kremlin propaganda, and her dismissal of Russia experts at the CIA, it's not hard to guess that this might have something to do with Moscow. The executive privilege aspect lets us guess that it directly involves Trump.

But we shouldn't have to guess. It's been eight months since this intelligence official came forward with serious allegations of wrongdoing.

Eight months. And still, no one in Congress has been briefed, and no hearings have been held. That seems like a very long time to sit on something that represents a "grave threat" to the nation.

Who is responsible for this intolerable delay? That's also Gabbard. Rather than send the allegations onward, as the whistleblower law requires, she's taken a somewhat different action. That includes unilaterally deciding that no one in Congress has the necessary security to look at the charges against her. And she has taken another action that's even less subtle.

A cloak-and-dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carré novel is swirling around the complaint, which is said to be locked in a safe. Disclosure of its contents could cause “grave damage to national security,” one official said.

Emphasis added. Emphatically.

Aides to Gabbard are complaining about the WSJ article, saying that the whistleblower was "politically motivated" and had "weaponized their position" at the agency. Which sounds like exactly the sort of thing that Congress is supposed to evaluate when a whistleblower report is delivered. As required. By the law.

Also, since the purpose of the Whistleblower Protection Act is to ensure that those who want to bring a serious matter to the attention of Congress can do so without being persecuted for speaking up, it seems more than a little off for Gabbard's aides to be attacking the whistleblower before anyone has even seen the information.

However, this isn't the only WTF Tulsi Gabbard? issue in the news this week. There's also Gabbard's appearance at the FBI seizure of ballots in Fulton County, Georgia.

Trump on Thursday night praised Gabbard for “working very hard to try to keep the election safe” when asked by CNN why she was present during the search. “You’ll see some interesting things happening,” Trump said. “They’ve been trying to get there for a long time.”

The New York Times reports that Gabbard met with FBI agents again following the raid on the election office.

They could not say why Ms. Gabbard, who also appeared on site at the search, was there, but her continued presence has raised eyebrows given that her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work.

Gabbard then called Trump from the meeting, and he also talked directly with FBI agents. All of this is counter to claims by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told reporters over the weekend that Trump had no involvement in the search.

If there's anyone Trump can count on to spin fantasies about problems with ballots that have already been examined repeatedly, it's Gabbard. In addition to being "historically unfit" to serve as DNI, she made her MAGA bones popping in at Fox News to shore up the wildest claims about the 2020 election. In fact, Gabbard was also there in 2016, making some of the same claims then that she would repeat in the following cycle.

Her involvement as Director of National Security in an election issue may be unprecedented, but as far as Trump is concerned, the most pressing issue in national security is bolstering his debunked claims about a vote that took place six years ago. And that's exactly what he's getting from Gabbard.

Gabbard has been “less visible” than colleagues on big foreign policy issues like Venezuela and Iran, said Jeet Heer at The Nation. But she has “made herself useful” to Trump as the administration’s “driving force” to vindicate his 2020 conspiracy theories.

Gabbard isn't performing the legal role of a DNI in terms of evaluating intelligence and coordinating a response to threats. Instead, she's leading Trump's efforts to exhume every false claim he's made over the last six years and create a unified narrative of election vulnerability.

Gabbard said in a letter to Congress that Trump personally asked her to be on site as federal agents executed the search warrant on an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia. The incident has raised serious questions about election security and federal authority. https://to.pbs.org/4c9BckN

[image or embed]
— PBS News (@pbsnews.org) February 3, 2026 at 9:17 PM

Many are measured and sensible, but others seem like the stuff of authoritarian regimes: giving the president the power to take over domestic communications, seize Americans’ bank accounts, and deploy U.S. troops to any foreign country.

Trump may not be able to stop the elections, but he can declare a national emergency and station masked stormtroopers outside critical polling stations. He can make every effort to undermine the nation's faith in the election, to make voting seem both pointless and dangerous, and declare that the system of state-run elections is corrupt. The Georgia search and Gabbard’s involvement is happening at the same time that Trump is calling on Republicans to “nationalize elections” and take control away from states.

Uncovering "evidence" to support his false claims about the 2020 election, backed by Gabbard and trumpeted by congressional clowns like the ever-willing Rep. James Comer (R-KY), would provide an excellent smokescreen for Trump's next attempted coup.

Which is why that safe containing the whistleblower's warning isn't likely to open any time soon.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Discerning The Grim Reality Behind Trump's Fog Of Wartime Lies

Are There Frauds Worse Than That Minnesota Case? Let's Look Again At Donald Trump

Gaslight: Was This Trump's Most Unhinged State Of The Union Ever?

How Did Tulsi Gabbard Damage National Security? And Why Is Trump Protecting Her?

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