Inlay

On Monday night, March 30, U.S. President Donald Trump posted, on his Truth Social platform, a video of a bombing attack against an ammunition depot in Isfahan, Iran. The Wall Street Journal confirmed the video's authenticity. Trump's aides, according to the Daily Beast's Will Neal, are supplying him with videos of destruction in order to "reassure him" that the war against Iran is going well. "The Truth Social clip shows a large number of ,000-pound penetrating munitions being used against the site, setting off a dramatic chain of explosions that lit up the night," Neal explains. "It comes as Trump Administration officials claim the president's aides are feeding him mash-up clips of successful strikes against Iranian targets — mainly, 'stuff blowing up' — by way of keeping him abreast of his war on the Islamic regime, which he started on February 28." Neal adds, "One official explained that the montages, each of which cover the previous 48 hours, are being used because 'we can't tell him every single thing that happens,' and that they are intended to supplement briefings from military and intelligence advisers. They added that the clips focus on U.S. gains in the war because these tend to get a better response from Trump's immediate team, and that the clips are therefore likely failing to capture the full scope of the situation on the ground." But many of Trump's critics are arguing that the Iran war is not going well and that the U.S. president is in way over his head. "Trump's Monday night post comes amid wider concern over his administration’s use of gamified compilations of strikes on Iran to bolster public perception of the conflict online," Neal notes. The Iran conflict escalated rapidly following Trump's decision to launch military operations on February 28, 2026. The administration has since conducted multiple strikes targeting Iranian military infrastructure, including ammunition depots and weapons manufacturing facilities. U.S. military officials have characterized the campaign as degrading Iran's offensive capabilities, though independent assessments of the conflict's trajectory remain limited. The Trump administration has implemented a novel briefing approach for the president, utilizing compiled footage of successful strikes to supplement traditional military and intelligence briefings. Officials have explained that these visual compilations help keep the president informed of operational developments while focusing on U.S. military gains. International observers have raised questions about the sustainability and strategic objectives of the prolonged military engagement, with critics arguing the conflict may not be proceeding as favorably as administration statements suggest.

The celebrity rag with a pro-Donald Trump slant is now sending its paparazzi to follow lawmakers on break during Holy Week. The two-week vacation began on Friday for the House of Representatives after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced he would not allow the House to vote on the bill. The U.S. Senate passed the bill overnight that would fully fund the TSA, the Secret Service, and other agencies. Johnson said he would call members back if anything happened, but sent members home anyway, refusing a vote. TMZ has taken it upon itself to harass members of Congress for leaving Washington, NOTUS reported on Tuesday. "To show how fed up the American people are. Because we are. It's so insulting that the Republicans blame the Democrats ... no, it's both of your faults," said TMZ chief Harvey Levin. Democrats agree, saying that they were ready to vote on the unanimous Senate bill. TMZ tracked Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) to Las Vegas, where they claimed he was hanging out at a casino. "California Congressman Robert Garcia was hangin' at a Vegas casino Sunday, while thousands of federal workers are goin' belly up," the site posted on Threads. Garcia agrees that lawmakers should be back in Washington, but noted he was at the casino having lunch with his dad on the way back to his district. "Actually I don’t mind what TMZ is doing here. Like the story says my dad has lived in Vegas for 15 years and I had just finished lunch with him. I try to see him whenever I can. And like I said a few days ago, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home," he wrote. The following day he was back in Long Beach, California. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was tracked by TMZ to Disney World, which spread across the internet on Monday. Buy Monday evening, Graham claiming he was shooting off guns instead, which TMZ wrote was "days after he was packing a bubble wand in the Magic Kingdom ... but, all while the government shutdown still drags on." "Kinda hard to ignore LG's huge pivot from theme parks to the shooting range. We broke the story," bragged TMZ. They then tracked Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chilling on the plane and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) walking through the airport with the police security escort. Clark later told CNN, "We should be in Washington today. I agree with everything he just said. And what did we get to? We got to a bipartisan agreement. There is one segment of Congress that when it come and take a step forward into agreeing to put TSA workers, put Coast Guard, FEMA, our cyber security, those working at our ports and in customs first pay them for the work they are doing. And that's House Republicans. Unanimous in the Senate. Republicans and Democrats. That is what the people are hungry for, for us to come together," said Clark. TMZ also reported seeing Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the airport, leaving town, where it asked him if he thought everything was resolved. He said he hoped so, but that there was still a lot of work left to do. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) were both spotted at airports, too. President Donald Trump has a rarely used power he could deploy that would require all members to return to Washington to vote on the bipartisan bill. Democrats have thought about using a discharge petition, which, when signed by a majority of lawmakers, would force a vote on the bill. It's how the law was passed that forced the Justice Department to make the investigation files of trafficker Jeffrey Epstein public. On Friday, however, Johnson told reporters that he'd just spoken to Trump and that the president supported his plan to block the vote, even if it meant more federal workers wouldn't get paid.

Mr. Trump, may I have a word? Bad enough for you to insist — in the face of all evidence to the contrary — that you won the 2020 election. But it’s another thing for you to pretend — in the face of mounting deaths and injuries, ballooning expenses, and rising prices — that you won, or are winning, the war with Iran you began on February 28. “Let me say, we’ve won,” you told a rally in Kentucky on March 11. “I think we’ve won,” you said on the White House South Lawn on March 20. “We’ve won this war. The war has been won,” you said in the Oval Office on March 24. “We are winning so big,” you told a fundraising dinner on March 25. “We’ve had regime change,” you told reporters three days ago. “The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead.” Iran has now moved onto its “third regime,” and American negotiators are now speaking to “a whole different group of people” who have “been very reasonable,” you said. You’re making all this up. In fact, you’re losing your war. And so is America and much of the rest of the world. After a month, your war has already cost 13 American lives, cost American taxpayers at least $30 billion, cost American consumers at least a dollar more per gallon of gas than they paid a month ago, pushed up food prices and mortgage rates, and pushed down the value of 401(k) retirement plans. It’s mangled supply chains for industries that rely on items such as fertilizer to grow food or helium to make computer chips. It’s also wreaked havoc across the Middle East with at least 1,574 civilians killed in Iran, including 236 children, and at least 50 killed in Iran’s attacks on other Gulf nations. You assumed Iran would give up its nuclear program. Wrong. After more than a month of bombing by the United States and Israel, you’ve most likely stiffened the regime’s resolve to produce a nuclear weapon. In this respect, too, America is worse off — more endangered than we were in 2018 before you withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama. In that deal, Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program — reducing uranium stockpiles by 98 percent and capping enrichment at 3.67 percent, and allowing inspections — in exchange for relief from UN, EU, and U.S. nuclear-related sanctions. Iran now holds a stockpile of approximately 970 pounds of uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. That’s close to weapons-grade. No one knows where it’s stored. You thought winning this war would be as easy as abducting Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and setting up a puppet regime there. Wrong again. The old ayatollah is gone, but the new one and his regime are even more radical and hard line. You assumed America’s military might would weaken Iran’s military capacity. Wrong. They’ve embraced asymmetric warfare — using cheap drones and missiles and blocking the Strait of Hormuz — rather than take on America’s and Israel’s superior forces directly. You thought the regime would soon cave. Wrong. It’s been over a month and they’re the ones playing the waiting game. They think they can withstand the mounting political and economic pressures better and longer than you and America can. They may be correct. Reportedly, you’ve told aides you’re now willing to end the war even if Iran continues to block the Strait of Hormuz. Maybe this is your best option at this point. But it will allow Iran to decide in the future how much oil gets through and for whom, and could cause the economic damage to the U.S. to grow exponentially worse. Mr. Trump, do you really believe you won this war? Do you really believe America is better off than it was when you began the war? Maybe the people around you are telling you that you’ve won the war and we’re better off because you punish the bearers of bad news and reward those who tell you what you want to hear. Presumably you’re hearing the same fictionalized good news from Republicans in Congress, from sycophantic leaders abroad, from other assorted lackeys and suck-ups. Or maybe you think that if you can convince enough people that you won and we’re better off, you will have won and America will be better off. Because for you it’s always about public perceptions of reality rather than reality itself. Everything depends on hype, spin, exaggeration, and outright lies. For you there’s no truth, only belief. Or maybe you think that if you keep saying you won or are winning, and America has come out on top, your magical thinking will in fact come true. But this isn’t a game, and you’re not a magician. This is real blood and guts. Real pain. Real deaths and injuries. Real price increases at the gas pump. Real hardships for real people — in America, in the Middle East, and elsewhere. You can’t pretend, sir. This isn’t reality television. This is for real. And the reality is Americans are worse off now and less secure than we were when you started this. Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Standing in the Oval Office last week, Donald Trump declared that the war with Iran — a war he started without a declaration of Congress, apparently at the urging of MBS and his son-in-law who takes $25 million a year from Saudi Arabia — is “won,” and then added that “the only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.” Iran, for its part, flatly denied that any negotiations are even taking place. And the network news covered it just like that: Trump says the war is won, Iran says it isn't, here's the weather. Nobody on camera yesterday morning even bothered to ask why Jared Kushner, who was simultaneously soliciting a fresh $5 billion from the Saudis who lobbied hardest for this war, was one of the people at the table in Geneva when the last chance for a deal collapsed. That omission isn't an accident. It’s the result of a thirty-year Republican strategy to bully the press into docility, and it’s long past time for Democrats to fight back using the exact same playbook. An old friend dropped me a note this week with a complaint that, once you hear it, you can’t stop noticing everywhere you look in our nation’s media. He’d been watching one of the three major network TV evening newscasts and noticed that Trump and other Republicans are on every single night, almost always without serious pushback or fact-checking, while Democrats are rarely featured at all. When a Democrat does show up, it’s usually to react to something Trump just did or said, a process that reinforces the Republican frame of the news even when it pushes back against it (see: George Lakoff). I’ve been in the media much of my life; was a radio news reporter for a top station in the 1970s and have been writing books and articles about democracy and politics regularly for the past three decades. What my friend is describing is neither an accident nor a coincidence. It’s the fully ripened fruit of a successful strategy Republicans have been running to get the media to spin stories for them since the early 1980s. And it’s long past time for Democrats to stand up and fight back hard with exactly the same playbook. Back during the 1992 Clinton/Bush Sr. presidential race, Rich Bond, then chairman of the GOP, explained his party’s media strategy with unusual candor:“There is some strategy to it,” he said of their habit of bashing the so-called liberal media. “If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is ‘work the refs.’ Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one.” Lee Atwater had been running a version of this strategy for years before Bond said the quiet part out loud. The genius of it was that they never needed to prove that the media was actually infected with “liberal bias.” Which was good for them, because the mainstream media’s never really had any sort of political bias other than status quo; it’s just that the GOP has relied on so many lies over the years like “trickle down,” “murderous immigrant invasion,” “evil union bosses,” “non-citizens voting,” “queer predators,” etc., etc., that when they get confronted with reality it seems to them like bias. All they needed was for the accusation to be repeated often enough that journalists and producers would end up sufficiently intimidated to lean over backward to prove they weren’t pushing a liberal line. And it worked. Media scholar Eric Alterman documented the phenomenon in detail at the Center for American Progress: conservative columnists like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and Bob Novak had prominent perches all over the allegedly “liberal” media showing up on major TV programs weekly, while genuinely progressive voices like Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne almost never got television slots. A study comparing Sunday morning talk shows during Obama’s first two years versus Trump’s first two years (first time around) found that by the Trump era, every single major Sunday show, including NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’s Face the Nation, was featuring more Republicans than Democrats. And a FAIR analysis found Republicans outnumbering Democrats 56% to 40% in Sunday show appearances during Trump’s first post-election transition period. Here’s how effectively this strategy worked: When Bush was president, the networks said they “needed more Republicans” on television because “Republicans are in power.” When Obama was president, they said they “needed more Republicans” on TV “because Democrats were in charge,” and “it’s important to hear from the opposition.” Heads Republicans win, tails Democrats lose, every single time, under almost every conceivable circumstance and on pretty much every topic. That’s not journalism. That’s genuine media bias. In favor of the GOP. And while that particular scheme was playing out, the billionaires on the hard right were simultaneously building media empires of their own that now include roughly 1,500 rightwing radio stations, Fox “News,” Newsmax, One America News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, more than half of America’s local newspapers, and now, CBS itself. Meanwhile, CNN may soon land in the hands of the same billionaire nepo-baby buyer, reportedly eager to move it in a similar direction. Just ask Pete Hegseth, who recently said, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.” Even the White House and Pentagon press pools, once home to credentialed reporters from established outlets, are now packed with “reporters” from fringe rightwing websites and sketchy podcasts, while serious journalists and representatives of progressive outlets often find themselves locked out. The hypocrisy here, particularly since the media now either ignores or treats Trump family and cabinet corruption as something normal, is breathtaking. For example, Jared Kushner has been simultaneously acting as Trump’s Middle East “peace envoy” while raising a new $5 billion round of investment from the same foreign governments he’s supposedly negotiating with. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), already pumped $2 billion into Kushner’s private equity firm right after he left the first Trump White House, and pays him $25 million a year in management fees. According to reporting in The Washington Post, MBS was making private phone calls to Trump for weeks before the bombing of Iran started, urging him to strike, since Iran is Saudi Arabia’s chief regional rival. Kushner himself met with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva just before the bombs fell. Iran’s foreign minister later said a deal “was within reach,” suggesting Kusnher may have been playing them for suckers on behalf of MBS and/or Netanyahu (an old Kushner family friend). Senators Ron Wyden and Jamie Raskin have called for investigations into whether Kushner violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Constitution’s emoluments clause. Not to mention policies against nepotism. And that’s Trump’s peace envoy. That’s the person steering American foreign policy toward a war that explicitly benefits and may even be being fought — at the cost of American lives and treasure — on behalf of his biggest client. At the same time, Qatar handed Trump a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 jumbo jet to ultimately keep for himself and you and I are now paying a billion dollars to outfit it. Multiple constitutional law scholars have called it a textbook violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which prohibits presidents from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval. The New York Times has reported that Trump has already personally pocketed at least $1.4 billion from the presidency through his family’s various business deals; other investigations suggest the number could be well over $4 billion. The administration has also been killing people on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean — at least 151 people killed in 45 strikes since last September — including at least one Colombian fisherman, all without a declaration of war or congressional authorization. And then they bombed and invaded Venezuela, killing more than 80 people including civilians, seizing its president without any legal authority whatsoever under international law. Now, consider what would have happened if Barack Obama or Bill Clinton had done any of this? What if Clinton’s son-in-law had taken $2 billion from a foreign government and then whispered in Clinton’s ear to start a war that benefited that same foreign government? What if Obama had accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar? What if a Democratic administration had been killing people on boats in international waters without congressional authorization? Republicans would have been incandescent, holding news conferences and hearing after hearing after hearing. Fox “News” would have run wall-to-wall of outraged coverage for months. The Sunday shows would have featured nothing but Republicans demanding impeachment or worse. And the mainstream media would have covered those hearings seriously and continuously, because they’d have been terrified of being called “liberal” if they didn’t. That’s the mechanism. That’s how it works. Republicans institutionalized the accusation of “liberal media bias” so thoroughly that the media now polices itself on their behalf, even when the corruption on the other side is jaw-dropping. The solution to this media crisis that’s so damaging to our democracy is straightforward, and Democrats need to do it now. Every senator, every congressperson, every governor, every mayor, every Democratic surrogate who goes on television needs to be trained to say the words “rightwing media bias” early and often, not occasionally, but constantly, institutionally, the same way Republicans “worked the refs” for thirty years. It means pressuring the networks directly. It means holding hearings — even if they have to be unofficial “shadow” hearings — right now about media consolidation and the capture of the press corps by rightwing interests. It means pointing out, loudly and specifically, every single time a network gives a Republican five minutes of uncontested airtime and then gives a Democrat thirty seconds to “respond.” Republicans didn’t spend forty years bleating about the “liberal media” because the liberal media actually existed. They knew it didn’t but were relentless about the accusation nonetheless, and they had the infrastructure to amplify it everywhere, all the time. Democrats can do the same thing today, and unlike the GOP, they have the truth on their side.