Hey everyone. Welcome back and happy Thursday. Good to have you here.
Our top story today: behind closed doors at Camp David, the President blew up at Pete Hegseth over what they keep telling you is fake news. We’re running low on missiles. And the President’s response was to threaten to throw the people who told that truth in prison.
We’ll also get into Trump officially crowning JD Vance as his successor, making 2028 about himself despite not being able to be on the ballot. Also today, more losses are piling up for MAHA, the Republican base being so trained to dislike foreign-sounding names that it booed a fallen police officer, and an insane price tag on the battleships Trump wants to name after himself.
Let’s get to it.
1. Trump Rages at Hegseth Over Missile Shortage
The Washington Post reports that at a Cabinet meeting at Camp David last Friday, President Trump confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, demanding to know why he’d apparently been misled about the severe shortages of American missiles. Trump thought the problem, in his words, had been fixed. Guess what? It hasn’t. Those shortages, in long-range guided missiles and air-defense interceptors, are a big part of why he’s had to pull back from striking Iran.
So how did Hegseth handle it? He pointed the finger at his own deputy and said something like “his fault, sir!” This is the same Pete Hegseth, by the way, who talked Trump into this war in the first place, promising it would be quick and easy. Five months later, his answer was to throw his own deputy under the bus.
Well the President got on Truth Social late last night and slipped up a couple of times. He said we have massive amounts of munitions, in quotation marks for some reason, and that more are being, quote, “shipped to the U.S. as needed.” Shipped to us? From where? And then Trump added that the quote, “leakers of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” and promised long jail sentences.
If the stockpiles were really full, they’d just show the receipts and laugh it off. Trump would like nothing more than to do that. Instead, they’re raging, they’re blaming each other, and they’re threatening to jail reporters. When a government reacts to a story like that, the story is almost always true. They’re not angry because it’s false. They’re angry because it’s true, and taking their frustrations out publicly, like a bunch of toddlers. It’s pathetic and it’s humiliating on the world stage and it makes America less safe.
2. Trump Crowns Vance for 2028 as Tucker, MTG, and Massie Plot Their Own Party
The Washington Post is reporting that in a private meeting with donors, Trump told them, quote, “at the end of the day, we need to elect JD.” That’s the clearest signal yet that he wants Vice President JD Vance to be his successor in 2028.
He’s been dangling a contest between Vance and Marco Rubio for months, and made it about himself by acting like he would choose his successor, not the voters. Well that’s how it is in authoritarian countries. Maybe he’s admitting something there.
Hate to break it to you sir, but a big chunk of your movement has already headed for the exits. Over the weekend, Tucker Carlson, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Congressman Thomas Massie gathered at Carlson’s place in Maine to plot what they’re calling a new movement, possibly a third party.
I’m not here to gas these people up. They were about as MAGA as it gets and just because they suddenly decided not to be, doesn’t mean they’re amazing people. But they do represent something that could be happening in the Republican Party. Marjorie Taylor Greene for example said they backed Trump because he promised no more foreign wars, and, quote: “he’s betrayed us all.”
They’re furious about the Iran war. They’re furious that Trump buried the Epstein files. Massie actually lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger for pushing to release them. So now they want out.
Look, I have very little in common with Marjorie Taylor Greene, or any of these people. But it’s not about that. These are commonsense things that the Republican Party of today is ignoring because of the only-Trump mindset. But there are plenty of Republicans who don’t like these things too. Some, like Greene, Massie and Carlson, are louder than others. But when the time comes, the quieter ones will show their preference. The midterms will be the first moment where that really shows.
3. Trump's Own FDA Just Approved the Vaccine RFK Jr. Spent Years Attacking
Two things happened, and both are good news for your health. First, the Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as the new head of the CDC. Now, I’m not going to oversell her. She gave vague answers in her hearing and said she’s all in on the Make America Healthy Again agenda. But on the record, she did say childhood vaccines are safe, the mRNA platform works, and that newborns should get vitamin K. Those positions are rejections of what RFK Jr. and MAHA preach.
Second, and even bigger, the FDA, which is part of RFK’s own health department, approved the country’s first mRNA-based flu vaccine. It’s about 27 percent more effective than a standard flu shot, and uses the exact technology the Health Secretary has spent years attacking. Here’s RFK on mRNA:
This is a man who, just last year, canceled half a billion dollars in mRNA vaccine research, claiming the technology, quote, “poses more risks than benefits.” His own FDA just overruled him and approved it anyway.
So that’s two losses for MAHA in a single 24-hour cycle. However, Senate Republicans did vote today to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, after he exercised his Fifth Amendment right and declined to answer their questions.
And here’s what you need to understand about that vote. It does nothing. It’s symbolic. It doesn’t send anyone to jail, it doesn’t change a policy, it doesn’t cure a single illness. It’s a headline. Only the DOJ can pursue a case, and to get the full endorsement of Congress the Senate needs 60 votes.
Look, the MAHA movement isn’t wrong about everything. We need to eat more healthy, whole foods, stay active and avoid the things we all know are bad for us. But that’s not what this is about. When Trump’s own government keeps approving the vaccines the MAHA crowd has rallied against for years, you give your supporters a villain to boo instead of a result to celebrate. That’s who Fauci is to them. A distraction from their failures, and somebody to take the blame for their own failures.
4. Trump's Handpicked Candidate Lost to a Man Who Dropped Out of the Race
In the Republican primary to represent Michigan’s 8th congressional district, the President personally endorsed a Navy veteran named Amir Hassan. He rallied with him. He posted that “HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.” It looked like Hassan had the race in the bag, because no Trump-endorsed congressional candidate had lost a primary yet this cycle.
But that streak ended Tuesday, when Hassan lost by seventeen points to a man named Tom Smith. Smith is a small business owner who ran zero TV ads. His campaign raised less than two thousand dollars, which he reported to the FEC in a handwritten letter because he couldn’t log in to the website. And in mid-July, Smith literally dropped out of the race and endorsed another candidate. His name only stayed on the ballot because it was already finalized. That is the man who beat the President’s handpicked candidate, fifty percent to thirty-three.
How did this happen? Well, the moment Trump endorsed Hassan, MAGA accounts assumed he was Muslim and flooded the post with negative comments. Hassan clarified multiple times on the campaign trail that he is actually Christian, but it didn’t matter. Another candidate in the race said that voters preferred Smith’s “plain-Jane American name.” Today’s Republican voters are so conditioned to hate anything foreign that they defaulted to a man who wasn’t even running. Over their dear leader’s own pick.
And if you need any more evidence of that ugly MAGA reflex, just take a look at this moment from Trump’s rally in Nevada yesterday:
The Governor of Nevada had to stop his own crowd from booing a fallen police officer. Let me repeat that. A fallen police officer. They didn’t know who he was. They heard the name, and that was enough.
Look, Donald Trump built his political career over a decade ago by telling Americans their President was secretly foreign. He taught a generation of Republicans that a name alone is evidence, and now that is what MAGA has become. No critical thinking. No policy solutions. Just reaction and hatred. And whether it’s a Republican governor on a rally stage or the President’s own endorsements, nothing can stop that rot.
5. The Battleships Trump Named After Himself Just Got 50 Percent More Expensive
Last December, Trump announced his plans for a new fleet of battleships with all the usual bombast:
These new ships have a name: the “Trump class.” Named, of course, after himself. But top Pentagon officials are reportedly skeptical of the costly project, as the Navy’s own strategy calls for smaller, cheaper, distributed vessels.
And this week, that project got even more expensive. Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that Trump’s new fleet of namesake battleships is going to cost roughly 50 percent more than we were told. The first ship alone is billed at more than 23 billion dollars, which is more than an aircraft carrier. Fifteen ships in total, at around 275 billion dollars. That would make them our most expensive warships ever built. And despite Trump’s promise to finish the first two ships during his term, the report says it may actually take eight years or more.
Remember where we started today. We are short on the missiles we need for Trump’s war in Iran, right now, today. But instead of solving that problem, your money is going toward a 275 billion dollar fleet of floating monuments that won’t be ready for a decade. That is this President’s priority. Not the troops holding an empty magazine, not the failing war he started, and certainly not you, your groceries, or your gas prices. Just another shrine to himself.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
New reports today show that Jennifer Mascott, a Trump-appointed judge on the Third Circuit, spent months running a Washington public affairs firm while serving on the federal bench. Mascott was confirmed in October 2025 and stayed deeply involved in daily operations at the firm, Adfero, for at least six months afterward, according to 14 former employees and clients. Nine of those former employees said she worked out of the firm’s Washington office at least once a week and oversaw staffing, business development and client relations while carrying a full judicial docket in Wilmington and Philadelphia. Mascott, who inherited her ownership stake from her late husband in 2023, told Politico she was meeting fiduciary and legal duties and consulted lawyers and ethics advisers about whether to keep the firm going, sell it, or wind it down. The judiciary’s code of conduct does allow a judge to participate in a closely held family business, but warns that it may be prohibited if it consumes too much time, misuses judicial prestige, or involves a business likely to come before the judge’s court. Adfero’s clients included PhRMA and the National Retail Federation, and its own website advertised marketing campaigns built to influence elected officials. Staff and clients left, and the firm shut down at the end of June.
President Trump has spoken repeatedly by phone with new Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh since his appointment in May, according to a report yesterday from the Wall Street Journal. The calls come in bursts, several over a stretch of days and then quiet for longer periods, and Trump has asked Warsh for his read on how the war in Iran and the fast rise of artificial intelligence are hitting the economy. It isn’t clear whether the two have discussed monetary policy, though interest rates haven’t come up since Warsh was confirmed. White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump has stressed that he is giving Warsh room to restore confidence in the Fed, and that the president has reaffirmed the chairman’s independence even as he exercises his right to say what he thinks. Trump told the Journal in December that he wanted the Fed chair to consult him on where rates should go, arguing his was a smart voice that deserved to be heard. At Warsh’s swearing-in months later, he told Warsh to ignore him entirely and just do the job. The Fed held rates steady on a contentious 9 to 3 vote in July, with three dissenters pushing for a hike, after which Trump publicly blamed a “political board” for keeping rates where they are.
