The Economy

Today’s Morning Memo from Talking Points Memo.

Trump’s Corruption Is What’s Tanking the Economy

INSIDE: Eric Swalwell … Tony Gonzales … Pope Leo

David Kurtz Apr 14, 2026

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 07: U.S. President Donald Trump (L) welcomes Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban as he arrives at the White House on November 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump and Orban are holding a bilateral lunch today and are expected to discuss trade and energy. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

It’s the Corruption, Stupid

In the aftermath of Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary, a typically shallow conventional wisdom has already emerged that unless President Trump gets the economy turned around, Republicans are going to have hell to pay in the 2026 and 2028 elections.

The NYT quotes the right-wing commentator Rod Dreher, who decamped to Hungary to work for an Orbán-funded think tank, as explaining the election result thusly: “When all boats aren’t rising, everybody looks at who’s on the yacht. In terms of MAGA, populism is great, but if you can’t deliver on the economy, none of it is going to matter.”

That is abundantly true and yet terribly misleading because the economic mess we’re in is entirely of Trump’s own doing. He’s not the usual American president held hostage to the vagaries and cycles of an economy largely beyond his control.

In historic fashion, Trump has torpedoed key pillars of the global economy by launching unprecedented trade wars and an unjustified elective war in the Middle East that has bottled up world oil supplies to such an extent that it threatens a recession. At home, he has dramatically throttled back the economic engine of immigration, targeted America’s world leading universities, and decimated its vibrant scientific and biomedical research base.

Except for the racist assault on immigrants, all of these moves are not driven by ideological imperatives but by corrupt impulses. The economic damage Trump has done was crafted purposely to create opportunities for self-enrichment for him and his allies. It generates its own currency which can be used to perpetuate his political power. What he dispenses he can take away.

The AP sums up the Trump family kleptocracy succinctly:

The family real estate business is undergoing the fastest overseas expansion since its founding a century ago, each deal potentially shaping everything from tariffs to military aid.

Led by Eric, and his brother, Donald Jr., the family business has expanded into cryptocurrencies with ventures that brought in billions of dollars but raised questions about whether some big investors received favorable treatment in return.

The brothers have also joined or invested in a number of companies that aim to do business with the government their father runs. Last month, they struck a deal giving them stakes worth millions in an armed drone maker seeking contracts with the Pentagon and with Gulf states under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father.

It always sounds a bit earnest to deplore corruption, but one of the practical reasons for eschewing corruption is because at best it acts like an invisible tax on economic growth. At worst, it corrodes the economic engine to the point that it doesn’t properly function any longer. Before Trump, the United States was a world leader in combatting corporate and political corruption abroad for the unapologetically realpolitik reason that American companies could win on a level playing field. Under Trump II, the DOJ has explicitly stopped enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and we’re now in a grubby race to the bottom.

Any notion that Trump can get the economy “back on track” or dampen the economic shockwaves he has unleashed ignores the substance of what he’s done. Not only are Trump’s second term attacks on economic growth hard to reverse, let alone quickly, they’re deeply wired into who he is and what he’s about.

The Economic Warning Signs

The Middle East conflict is causing oil scarcity and rising prices that are contributing to significant “demand destruction” which could lead to the steepest drop-off in demand for oil since the COVID slowdown, the International Energy Agency is forecasting in its latest outlook.
The International Monetary Fund warns that the Middle East conflict will slow economic growth, fuel inflation and raises the possibility of a global recession.

Latest on the Middle East Conflict …

Israeli and Lebanese officials gathered in D.C. for rare direct talks — the first in a decade — as the Netanyahu government has seized on the wider conflict to advance Israel’s position on the ground in Lebanon.
Bitter irony alert: Talks between Iran and Trump administration are complicated by “the risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accord” that Trump abrogated in his first term, the NYT reports.
House Republicans have again abdicated their oversight roles by pushing off until at least May testimony originally scheduled for next week from senior Pentagon officials on the war in Iran.

Latest on the Middle East Conflict …

Israeli and Lebanese officials gathered in D.C. for rare direct talks — the first in a decade — as the Netanyahu government has seized on the wider conflict to advance Israel’s position on the ground in Lebanon.
Bitter irony alert: Talks between Iran and Trump administration are complicated by “the risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accord” that Trump abrogated in his first term, the NYT reports.
House Republicans have again abdicated their oversight roles by pushing off until at least May testimony originally scheduled for next week from senior Pentagon officials on the war in Iran.

Lawless Boat Strike Death Toll: 170

The U.S. attacked an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific on Monday, bringing the campaign’s overall death toll to at least 170. In announcing the attack, the U.S. Southern Command introduced new Orwellian language: “Applying total systemic friction on the cartels.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is waging a pressure campaign against the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to squash a potential investigation into the boat strike campaign, The Intercept reports.

Must Read

TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports from Frisco, Texas, the country’s fastest growing city and a haven for South Asian immigrants, which far-right activists are seizing on as “proof” of the Great Replacement Theory.

Thread of the Day

IMPORTANT

Local authorities in St. Paul, Minnesota have launched a criminal investigation into the notorious ICE detention in January of Hmong American ChongLy “Scott” Thao. They’re investigating the warrantless raid on an American citizen’s home as a potential kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment.

Quote of the Day

Cheryl Kelley in The Hill:

American law is built on a simple rule: The government cannot get around legal limits by creating a new structure to do the same thing another way. The Posse Comitatus Act reflects that rule. It exists to prevent the federal government from using a large, armed force for general policing inside the U.S. But by tripling ICE’s size, giving it $75 billion in multi-year funding insulated from normal oversight, and deploying it far beyond immigration enforcement — from neighborhood operations to general airport security — the administration has achieved in practice what those restrictions were designed to prevent.

Swalwell and Gonzales Both Resign

In a rapid-fire combo of scandal-fueled resignations, Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX) both announced last evening that they would resign their seats — though neither gave a date certain for their departures. Depending on the exact timing, the resignations should be a wash and not effect majority control of the House.

Two Big Wins

In the lawsuit over the removal of the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, the Trump administration has reversed course and confirmed in a new filing that it will reinstate the flag and not remove it again.
The American Library Association and a union of cultural workers have reached a settlement in their lawsuit against the Trump administration that saves the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, the NYT reports: “The Trump administration reaffirmed that it had reinstated all previously canceled grants, in keeping with a separate legal ruling last year, and reversed all staff reductions. It also promised not to take any further steps to reduce the agency.”

Good Read

Wired: Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion

Pope Making Everyone Look Dumb

The senior senator from Ohio:

Unintentional Edginess From CSPAN

(snip)

Some News From The Poor People’s Campaign:

Randy/blundersonword is correct about moral turpitude in the US’s government, though of course many believe that moral is as moral does for each person. What I consider moral can be immoral to others (though I never get why… Anyway.) This came in my email today, and maybe others wish to participate with this absolutely moral activism. Thanks for checking in!

Please join us on Tuesday, April 14 at 8:30AM ET for an emergency press conference convened by Bishop William J. Barber, II, DMin, President & Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy, and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.

Bishop Barber will respond to President Trump’s widely circulated AI‑generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ, recent statements from Franklin Graham, and the Pope’s global call for renewed moral commitment to the poor and to pluralist democracy.

Bishop Barber will address the theological and democratic dangers of these developments and call faith leaders nationwide to resist the misuse of religion to sanctify policy violence and division.

You can watch the press conference on the Repairers of the Breach website here: https://breachrepairers.org/get-involved/live/

Maybe If I Change The Title?

Because this is important history that we really ought to review, because the leopards who were “only” going for certain parts of the population are going for all the population, these days.

“Not all Republicans are racist, but racists vote Republican, and they do it for racist reasons.”

Why the Deeply Racist Nixon-Reagan Tapes Are Only a Surprise to Those Not Paying Attention

While the explicit nature of the “monkey” and “cannibal” slurs is jarring, it sits within a long, documented tradition of presidential prejudice that has shaped the nation’s policies.

By Asheea Smith

History always has a funny way of spinning the block, and every once in a while, we run into something that refuses to stay buried no matter how much time has passed. Recordings reported by CBS revealed a deeply disturbing discussion between former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan—and you guessed it, it’s super racist.

Per the news outlet, former President Richard Nixon was speaking with then-California Governor Ronald Reagan following a United Nations meeting to recognize the People’s Republic of China. While global attention should’ve been centered on the diplomatic shift, Reagan reportedly phoned Nixon’s White House to voice his frustration over African delegates who celebrated the decision. At one point, Reagan flat out called them “monkeys”—and it only went downhill from there.

Before we get to that, here’s the real question: Why is anyone shocked? To treat these recordings as a singular, shocking “glitch” in the American presidency is to ignore the very fabric of the office. Yes, the explicit nature of the “monkey” and “cannibal” slurs is jarring, but it sits within a long, documented tradition of presidential prejudice against Black folks that has shaped the nation’s policies for decades.

Long before Reagan and Nixon shared a laugh at the expense of African diplomats, Woodrow Wilson was busy re-segregating the federal workforce and praising the post-Civil war Ku Klux Klan as an “Invisible Empire of the South,” per History. Andrew Jackson publicly framed Native Americans as an “inferior race” to justify the brutal displacement of the Trail of Tears. Even Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act, was notoriously recorded using the N-word in private to describe the very people he was legislating for—often viewing civil rights through the lens of political leverage rather than inherent humanity.

When we look at the timeline, Nixon’s own history of referring to Black people as “genetically inferior” or Reagan’s later “welfare queen” trope aren’t outliers; they are the quiet parts being said out loud. So, as these clips circulate on social media, the most revealing part of the story isn’t the racism itself—it’s our collective lack of surprise that it happened at all.

Let’s get back to the audio. Reagan told Nixon “Last night, I tell ya, to watch that thing on television as I did. To see those monkeys from those African countries, damn them. They’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes.”

Laughter is heard on the other end of the call after the disgusting statement. But that’s not all.

After Reagan’s reckless and racist phone call, Nixon later spoke with William Rogers—then Secretary of State—and doubled down on Reagan’s racist remarks. And if you thought the last phone recording was bad… just wait, it gets worse.

(snip-embedded TikTok; click the story title above to go to the page, if you wish)

“He saw these cannibals on television last night, and he says ‘Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and here the U.S. is going to submit its fate to that…” Nixon said.

Later that month Nixon had a laugh with his long time best friend, former Florida banker and businessman Charles “Bebe” Rebozo. And as you may have expected, the racist banter continued to roll.

“That reaction on television was that it proves how they ought to be still hanging from the trees by their tails,” Rebozo said with a laugh during his call with Nixon.

Tiktok’s comments section was riddled with folks asking, “Where’s the surprise?” and “The way my jaw did not drop,” alongside emojis. And let’s be real, we get it.

While there’s certainly shock value in hearing these recordings, none of this is entirely surprising. This is a country built on Black labor and Black suffering—one where federal power has long been used to contain Black political movements, including COINTELPRO, which targeted organizations like the Black Panther Party and other Black-led groups working toward progress and self-determination.

That said, these tapes don’t feel like an isolated incident, but rather a reminder of how deeply racism has been woven into political life at even the highest levels. And while the exposure of this kind of rhetoric may be unsettling, it ultimately tells a familiar reality of Black folks’ lived experience in America.

Will They Do It?

Something to keep track of.

Trump administration agrees to return rainbow Pride flag to New York’s Stonewall monument

By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration said Monday it will resume flying a rainbow Pride flag on a federal flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, reversing course two months after removing the banner from the first national monument commemorating LGBTQ+ history.

The government revealed the decision in court papers as it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by advocacy and historic preservation groups who had sought to block the Feb. 9 removal. A judge approved the deal.

The Interior Department and National Park Service “have confirmed their intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall,” lawyers for the government and the groups wrote in a joint court filing.

The flag — one of several Pride banners at the 7.7-acre (3.1-hectare) park — won’t be removed, except for “maintenance or other practical purposes,” the filing said. (snip-details of position and measurements of the Pride flag)

https://apnews.com/article/stonewall-rainbow-flag-trump-lgbtq-historic-preservation-ac4ab59d3251476139700db6687828ca

What leading Planned Parenthood is like now

Apr 08, 2026 Errin Haines

This story was originally reported by Errin Haines of The 19th. Meet Errin and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

This column first appeared in The Amendment, a newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to her analysis.

When Alexis McGill Johnson took the helm as leader of Planned Parenthood in 2020, the nation’s largest provider of reproductive care and a major force in American politics was already at a critical juncture.

The organization’s last president had lasted just eight months; she followed Cecile Richards, the charismatic and connected leader who was in the role for a dozen years. The future of abortion rights looked potentially shaky, and Donald Trump was in his first term.

In the six years since, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal protections for abortion, a major challenge both for providing care and for the organization’s political arm — then Trump won a second term and moved to take away federal funding, slashing a third of Planned Parenthood’s budget. Under the first Trump administration, Planned Parenthood had more than 600 health centers. Since the start of 2025, 53 have closed. More are threatened since Trump on July 4 signed into law a measure to block them from accepting Medicaid.

The end of federal abortion protections led to a surge in energy around the issue from Democrats and the left. It has faded since then as the president’s military actions and mass deportation strategy dominate attention — but McGill Johnson still has to figure out how to galvanize supporters; keep Planned Parenthood clinics serving patients; and elect Democrats in key races in states including Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio.

As one of the abortion rights movement’s key standard bearers, McGill Johnson is navigating expectations from activists, donors and voters who want a fighter and expect her to deliver. Their sense of urgency can obscure what it means to both lead the fight and provide essential care to millions of Americans in an intentionally overwhelming and chaotic news cycle.

Johnson stands in front of a group of women speaking while those behind her hold signs. — Alexis McGill Johnson’s presence at the top of Planned Parenthood reflects a broader pattern in American institutions, in which Black women are often called on to lead in moments of crisis while having limited room for error and a lack of support. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)

“When I look at where Planned Parenthood is in this moment, we are navigating all of the chaos, but also looking for where the opportunities are inside that chaos,” McGill Johnson said. “Chaos is a strategy: throw everything at people so they don’t know where to look or how to fight.”

McGill Johnson describes her style as collaborative; those who know her best say she’s a master strategist, confronting a challenging political climate with courage, clarity and creativity.

The political climate in which McGill Johnson has led can really not be compared to any other past leader, said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center.

“This isn’t something that’s happened over three decades; this has been the last six years,” said Goss Graves, who first met McGill Johnson in 2017 after Goss Graves became the first Black woman to head her organization. “Alexis was the right person at the right time. It is a big deal that surviving the level of attacks they have faced, that they are still here, they are serving patients, they are still committed, and they have had to make adjustments. The work is what she’s doing.”

Planned Parenthood is shorthand for dual entities: Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nonprofit supporting affiliate clinics across two dozen states; and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the group’s political arm, focused on organizing, advocacy and voter education.

McGill Johnson’s path to leading both came after a career working on voting rights and civil rights, and she approaches the work through a racial and gender lens. She is only the second Black woman leader in the organization’s existence of more than a century.

Her presence at the top of Planned Parenthood reflects a broader pattern in American institutions, in which Black women are often called on to lead in moments of crisis, with limited room for error and a lack of support.

McGill Johnson talked about the added weight of doing this work as a Black woman in a movement that has been largely White at the national level. She said that having lived and worked at the intersection of race and gender has been an asset in her current role.

McGill Johnson is familiar with leading in moments like the one Planned Parenthood is facing, “moments where our leadership is judged more harshly, where we may be granted more scrutiny, less grace.”

“Those are the places where I’ve had to find my center, to remind myself that I’m in this role to be unapologetic about fighting for the liberation of women of color, Black women, at the center of that liberation, because I think that actually transforms the liberation of everyone else,” she said.

Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, the first Black woman to head EMILY’s List, the political action committee focused on electing Democratic women, put it this way when asked about the challenges of leadership for Black women: “It is an expectation whose bumper sticker reads: ‘Fix it for us, please.’ When you look across the movement spaces where both crisis and care are on a collision course, it is Black women like Alexis who are stepping up.”

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended the nearly 50-year precedent of legal abortion access nationwide, angered many Democratic women and motivated them in record numbers in the 2022 midterm elections.

Then-Vice President Kamala Harris championed reproductive rights as a pillar of her 2024 presidential campaign — but her loss was criticized by some, in part, as prioritizing abortion access over the economy. Now, the Democratic Party’s uncertainty around whether and how to talk about abortion to voters adds to McGill Johnson’s challenges in this moment.

The stakes on the ground are still life and death for many Americans, but political strategists say the issue of abortion has proved less politically potent as the national spotlight has moved on.

“For someone fighting on this issue, the progressive movement that was so galvanized is less so because they’re focused on many of the other things that Trump is doing that are dangerous to the country,” said Democratic strategist Karen Finney.

Abortion can still be a motivating issue for Democrats — especially as it’s related to the two biggest issues at the moment, health care and affordability, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

“It’s still motivating to voters for turnout,” Lake said. “Right now, everything is being pushed out by the war and the economy. I think it will reemerge as a much more powerful issue in 2028. Health is the number one issue, the number one pocketbook issue. When you talk about abortion and broaden it, it’s very powerful there.”

McGill Johnson worked to do just that, emphasizing Planned Parenthood’s presence particularly in communities with a lack of options for reproductive care. Politically, she has framed the issue as one of affordability and of democracy, and is focused on a message to voters about how the administration’s actions in recent years are impacting them.

“It may not feel as though abortion is as front and center as it was in the year or two after the Dobbs decision … but when you bring it to people and remind them that these things are happening, it taps directly into that rage,” McGill Johnson said.

She added that part of the job now also looks like acknowledging the concerns of those in the movement as a leader of a complex organization with little room for error. Supporters of abortion rights — and even supporters of McGill Johnson herself — have criticized her for not responding strongly enough to attacks on access, saying they don’t see her fighting in the way they want.

What does it mean when some on the left are more in the mood for a wartime general than a collaborator?

“In the day-to-day, it is a lot of navigating people’s frustrations, anxieties and hopes, and how to keep people focused on that hope and a strategy for how to get there,” McGill Johnson said. “We’re living in moments where philanthropy has pulled back from a number of institutions where there is a federal defund, which has impacted a lot of my colleagues. One day, you’re navigating ICE and the next day, the country’s at war, right? All within the same time period. I think my kind of special superpower is the ability to kind of keep myself at the 30,000-foot view to understand how all of these things are interacting with each other.”

McGill Johnson said the urgent question for her is: Who are we going to be now that we’re no longer defending Roe? It’s one that no other president of Planned Parenthood had to grapple with after the landmark 1973 case that made abortion the law of the land.

Since 2019 when she became interim leader, Planned Parenthood’s supporter base — which includes volunteers, donors, activists and email subscribers — has grown from 13 million to 20 million.

In addition to her focus on the campaign trail, McGill Johnson will also have to continue the work of reimagining Planned Parenthood’s network of clinics as part of the national health care infrastructure. According to the organization, 1 in 3 women in the United States has visited a Planned Parenthood clinic.

“I believe that Planned Parenthood could become the Cleveland Clinic of sexual and reproductive health care, because we have such great clinical excellence,” McGill Johnson said. “We are already a leader in standardizing best-in-class care, on sexual, reproductive health care, including abortion, so I think a lot about what it would mean for us to to focus on seeing as many patients as Planned Parenthood can, but to also export that influence into ensuring everybody else’s is standard of care is raised.”

To get there, McGill Johnson will have to endure and survive the current climate and the demands of the post-Roe era. Reproductive Freedom for All President Mini Timmaraju said meeting the multiple challenges at the local, state and federal level with diminished resources and competing areas of attention is daunting.

“We have to do more than we’ve ever done before, and the funding is not what it should be,” said Timmaraju, the first woman of color to lead her organization. “We are all scrambling to make sure that in the moment where abortion funds need funding, clinics need funding, we also have enough resources for advocacy at every single level, and that’s really challenging in an environment where donors are understandably a little frustrated with progressive entities right after 2024 so we’re having to prove ourselves again, and continually having to prove and reprove, over and over again, the salience of abortion electorally.”

Some Peace & Justice History For 4/12:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april12

Randy Rainbow To The Rescue!

(It’s not long, but it’s not a short. However, the figurative ripping of Sec. Hegseth is fine!)

It’s Sunday. Have Some Clay Jones Work!

Ketchup Tacos

I love tacos, but I HATE ketchup

Clay Jones

I had a few other ideas I could have gone with today, but I decided to put them aside and have a little fun with something I wrote a few days ago. I honestly didn’t expect to draw this cartoon the day that I wrote it, along with three other ideas, but as I showed each of those ideas to a couple of friends, it was the one that made them both laugh.

So I decided to take it easy today by drawing this, and I still ended up working until 6 PM on a Saturday. Basically, I feel like this is a cartoon I did not have to draw, but I just wanted to. If nothing else, I should get some satisfaction out of it because I always end up pissing off a MAGAt or two anytime I bring up the word taco.

Fine. I’ll come clean. The biggest reason I wanted to draw this cartoon was for the twist on the Jack in the Box car antenna.

I never thought anyone would put ketchup on a taco, but one of my friends told me some people do. And I thought putting ketchup on eggs was gross. Taco Bell doesn’t stock ketchup, do they? (snip-a bit MORE; click the title. Also I know a couple of people who put ketchup on their Mexican entrees, and yeesh.)

Barron’s Daddy

Melania’s surprise statement that came out of nowhere raises new questions

Clay Jones

Melania Trump came out of nowhere yesterday to deliver a 6-minute address to let us know that she never had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. OK, did somebody ask?

Delivering scripted remarks at a podium in the same room Donald Trump used to address the nation on the war in Iran last week, Melania declared that she “never had a relationship” with, or was ever one of the victims of the late pedophile Epstein she also claimed she never had a relationship with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, despite there being an email between the two where Melania signed it with “love.”

“I have never been friends with Epstein,” she said in her statement. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.”

She went on to say that she and Donald were invited to the same parties as Epstein “from time to time” as “overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach”. But she specifically denied that her emails to Maxwell were anything more than “casual correspondence.”

Melania claimed that she met Epstein for the first time in 2000, at a party she attended with Donald. “I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings,” she said. “Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating (sic) on social media for years now. Be cautious about what you believe.”

The Epstein files released by the Department of Justice earlier this year did contain one brief exchange that appeared to be between Melania and Maxwell. It was signed: “Love, Melania.”

The first email, sent by Melania in October, 2002, with the subject line “HI!” begins “Dear G!” Melania writes that there is a “nice story about JE in NY mag” before asking Maxwell about their travels and to call them when they are back in New York.

In her reply, “G. Max” wrote that while they are already on their way back to the city, they would not have time to see Melania, but they would “try and call.”

Melania and Ghislaine were photographed together a little over two weeks later. Two months later, Epstein was presented with the infamous birthday card containing a drawing of a naked woman and a weird note by Donald Trump. But remember, they’re all just casual acquaintances.

Then, Melania called on Congress to take sworn testimony in a public hearing from Epstein victims…probably just so long that they don’t compel her to testify. They forced Hillary Clinton to testify, who never met Jeffrey Epstein or Maxwell, and congressional Republicans are not going to force former Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify, but sure, let’s hear from all the victims whose names Bondi left unredacted, while leaving Melania alone.

So what spurred Melania to make this public announcement from the White House when Donald Trump is trying to distract all of us from the Epstein files? What was the point of starting a war with Iran to distract us from the Epstein files if Melania was just going to turn our attention right back to them a month later?

Trump even said that he didn’t know this announcement was going to happen, and it took him by surprise, like Kristi Noem’s husband with helium-filled balloon titties.

What happened? Did Barron ask, “Who’s my daddy?” Did Barron ask why there were so many photos of his mother and father with a pedophile? Did Barron eventually come around to asking why there are so many nude photos of his mommy on the internet? Did Barron ask about his father’s claim that you are allowed to grab women by the pussy as long as you are famous? Maybe Barron’s follow-up question was, “Mom, am I famous?” (snip-MORE-it’s great! Click the title to go see.)

A.I. In Telehealth-Yeah, That’ll Make It Better!

It was a yesterday’s Wonkette tab, but I just got to that email over lunch. It’s a horrible story. Of course, the hospital likely is understaffed thanks to policies and practices of our government, but still. Here is this-

Dental Student Dies in ‘Fake ICU’ as Telehealth Doctor Monitored Him from a Video Screen, Lawyer Claims

Conor Hylton’s family alleges in a lawsuit that he was pronounced dead by a “provider on a video screen” who had been monitoring him remotely

By Cara Lynn Shultz

Cara Lynn Shultz is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. Her work has previously appeared in Billboard and Reader’s Digest. People Editorial Guidelines

NEED TO KNOW

Conor Hylton’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital
The ICU where Hylton was treated had no on-site doctors and relied on off-site telehealth monitoring, the complaint alleges
A representative for the hospital tells PEOPLE, “We are unable to comment on pending litigation”

A dental student died in a Connecticut ICU where he wasn’t being cared for by an on-site doctor, but instead, was monitored remotely by an off-site physician via video.

The family of Conor Hylton has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital after the 26-year-old died in the Milford Campus’s intensive care unit. According to the complaint obtained by PEOPLE, the site is a “tele-ICU meaning there are no qualified ICU intensivists on site.” The complaint further states, “ICU intensivists are located off-site at a centralized remote location, purportedly monitoring critically ill patients through a video screen.”

In a statement to PEOPLE, a representative for the medical group said, “Yale New Haven Health is aware of this lawsuit and is committed to providing the safest and highest quality of care possible, however, we are unable to comment on pending litigation.”

Hylton first arrived at the hospital at 11:08 a.m. on August 14, 2024, with abdominal pain and vomiting, per the complaint, which says he was admitted and diagnosed with “pancreatitis, dehydration, metabolic acidosis, and alcohol withdrawal.” His condition “continued to change and deteriorate over the evening.”

At 4:30 a.m., the complaint says, “Mr. Hylton slid down in bed, his eyes rolled back and he became unresponsive and exhibited seizure-like activity, vomited, became bradycardic and code was called. He was intubated, but he could not be resuscitated, and he was pronounced dead.”

The complaint states that although the pronouncement of Hylton’s death was said to be made by an on-site doctor, it was actually done by a ‘tele-health’ provider on a video screen.”

According to the complaint, an on-site doctor was called to intubate Hylton, but “the provider summoned to perform the intubation did not know how to find the ICU and had to find someone else to show him where it was located. This led to a delay in [care].”

An expert medical opinion included with the lawsuit wrote, “no on-site doctor assessed Mr. Hylton from the time he was admitted to the ICU until after he exhibited seizure activity at 4:30 a.m.”

Joel T. Faxon, partner at Faxon Law Group, which is representing Hylton’s family, said in a press release: “It’s alarming to think in a supposedly intensive care setting: Where is a doctor? Where are the nurses? How does the emergency doctor not know how to get to the ICU to provide life saving care?”

Faxon confirmed to PEOPLE that neither Hylton nor his family were informed there were no on-site doctors at the ICU. As Faxon told PEOPLE exclusively, “If the Hylton family knew that their son was being placed in a fake icu with no doctor present they would have demanded he be transferred to a hospital that could properly treat him. They were never given that option and, tragically, Conor died as a result.”