Why MAGA wants the Epstein list — and won’t settle for less



What’s happening with Donald Trump and Pam Bondi’s mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein files is a textbook example of the rake-stepping that tripped up the president’s first term. The timing is worse this time, too — because it stands in sharp contrast to the mostly smooth, high-functioning operation of Trump’s second term so far.

Something’s clearly going on behind the scenes — something so sensitive that it’s backing this administration into corners that no number of Ben Shapiro explainers can easily talk us out of. I won’t speculate here on what exactly that “something” is. You’ve earned the right to connect your own dots in this post-COVID, post-trans-the-kids world.

We are in a civil war — spiritual, political, cultural. And the last thing we can afford right now is to split our ranks over a human toilet like Jeffrey Epstein.

But the politics of this mess? That’s what I want to talk about.

A movement that’s moved on

As someone who came of age politically reading Buckley, Kirk, Friedman, and Reagan — before I ever knew the gospel — I’ve often found myself at odds with parts of the MAGA movement. My political DNA was shaped by ideas. MAGA has shifted into something else entirely, something rawer, more primal. Less interested in debating the “oughts” and more obsessed with exposing the corruption and rot.

In that sense, DeSantis vs. Trump wasn’t just a primary — it was a proxy war. And MAGA told people like me, flat out: We’re not ready for your high-minded conversation. First, we’ve got to name names and slash some tires.

One of those names, from the very beginning, was Epstein — and anyone who set foot on his infamous island.

Trump himself promised to release the Epstein list more than once on the 2024 campaign trail. So did members of his inner circle. That pledge became a symbol — a MAGA line in the sand. Break it, and you break trust. Think Bush 41’s “read my lips” betrayal, but this time with the stakes multiplied by a base that’s already been burned too many times.

The movement wants its perp walk. And until it gets it, as the prophets Hetfield and Ulrich once said, nothing else matters.

The fracture under way

Still think this is just internet drama? Then explain why George Conway is reposting Glenn Beck. Did you have that on your 2025 bingo card?

 

Or why Jake Tapper — yes, that Jake Tapper — thinks this is his comeback moment. He’s calling for the release of the Epstein list and the tapes, not because he cares about justice, but because he knows exactly how deep the wound could go. He sees the opportunity to turn a hairline fracture in Trump’s base into a compound break.

RELATED: The Epstein case proves one thing: The elites are protected

  Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

And here’s the thing: He might succeed.

Unless someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or the Justice Department decides it’s worth risking serious chaos in the GOP, this issue won’t just fester. It’ll metastasize.

If this controversy had erupted while Trump was pushing votes for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act or preparing to bomb Iran, would the base have stood firm? Maybe not. Because this hits differently. This feels moral. Existential. A test of whether Trump’s still serious — or if power has tamed him as it tamed so many before.

The clock is ticking

And what happens in 2026?

Republican turnout in the low 90s won’t cut it — not with a deflated, demoralized base that sees Epstein accountability as a promise on par with Trump’s other major blunders. COVID. Fauci. The shots. Pile on Elon Musk’s third-party siren song, and that’s maybe just enough to peel off five points, and you’ve got a perfect storm of apathy, betrayal, and collapse.

This is the math no one wants to run — but it’s already penciled in.

The Trump team’s answers are getting the red-pen treatment in real time. The political class can pretend this is a sideshow. It isn’t. It’s the main stage, and the spotlight’s burning hot.

We are in a civil war — spiritual, political, cultural. And the last thing we can afford right now is to split our ranks over a human toilet like Jeffrey Epstein.

Why the right turned anti-war — and should stay that way



After the COVID lockdowns, the Western global leadership class had little credibility left. So it seemed insane when they immediately pivoted to a new crisis — but that’s exactly what they did.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered demands from elites in Europe and America for NATO-aligned nations to involve themselves in the conflict. Many Republicans were initially on board, with Fox News and CNN marching in lockstep behind intervention. But the Republican base quickly soured on the war once it became clear that U.S. involvement didn’t serve American interests.

If the situation really is dire, let the Trump administration make its case to the people. Present the evidence. Debate it in Congress. Vote.

In a strange inversion, the right became anti-war while the left championed military escalation.

That reversal matters now, as some in the GOP look to drag the country into another long conflict. We should remember what Ukraine taught us.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded, many conservatives instinctively aligned with Ukraine. The Soviet Union had been an evil empire and a clear enemy of the United States. It was easy to paint Russia as an extension of that threat. President Biden assured Americans that there would be no boots on the ground and that economic sanctions would cripple Russia quickly.

But the war dragged on. Hundreds of billions of dollars flowed to Ukraine while America entered a painful economic downturn. Conservatives began asking whether this was worth it.

Putin was no friend of the U.S., and conservatives had valid reasons to distrust him. But suddenly, anyone questioning the war effort was smeared as a Russian asset. Opposition to the war became an extension of the left’s deranged Russiagate conspiracy, which painted Donald Trump as a blackmailed Kremlin agent.

Some Republican politicians kept pushing the war. Fox News stayed hawkish. But much of the conservative commentariat broke ranks. They knew that the boys from Appalachia and Texas — exactly the kind of red-state Americans progressives despise — would again be asked to die for a war that served no clear national purpose.

From that disillusionment, conservatives drew hard-earned lessons.

They saw that U.S. leaders lie to sustain foreign conflicts. That politicians in both parties keep wars going because donors profit. That Fox News can become a mouthpiece for military escalation. That you can oppose a war without betraying your country. And that American troops and taxpayer dollars are not playthings for globalist fantasies.

“America First” began to mean something real: Peace through strength didn’t require constant intervention.

Unfortunately, many of those lessons evaporated after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

That attack was horrific. No serious person denies the brutality of Hamas or questions Israel’s right to defend itself. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has treated the attack as a green light to target longtime adversaries, including Iran. As a sovereign nation, Israel can pursue its own foreign policy. But it cannot dictate foreign policy for the United States.

In 2002, Netanyahu testified before Congress that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons. He said toppling both the Iraqi and Iranian regimes would bring peace and stability. He was wrong.

He wasn’t alone, of course. Many were wrong about weapons of mass destruction and the Iraq War. But Netanyahu’s track record is highly relevant now. While conservatives once fervently supported the Iraq invasion after 9/11, many — including Tucker Carlson and Dinesh D’Souza — have since apologized. They admit they got it wrong.

RELATED: The culture war isn’t a distraction — it’s the main front

  Blaze Media Illustration

Afghanistan, while flawed, had clearer justification. The Taliban had harbored Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. But the lies about weapons of mass destruction and failed nation-building in Iraq turned that war into a conservative regret.

In March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that Iran had not resumed efforts to build a nuclear weapon. Gabbard, like Trump allies Robert Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth, was chosen precisely for her skepticism of the intelligence bureaucracy. Trump remembers how his first term was sabotaged by insiders loyal to the status quo. This time, he selected appointees loyal to the voters.

Gabbard’s assessment contradicts Netanyahu, who claims Iran is months away from having a bomb. That’s a massive discrepancy. Either Iran hasn’t restarted its program, or it’s on the brink of building a nuke.

So which is it?

Did U.S. intelligence fail again? Did Gabbard lie to Congress and the public? Or did she simply say something the ruling class didn’t want to hear?

Trump, Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance understand how Iraq went wrong. They know Americans deserve evidence before another war — especially one that risks dragging us into a region we’ve already failed to remake at great cost.

Yet the war hawks keep repeating the same lie: This time, it’ll be quick. The United States is too powerful, too advanced, too economically dominant. The enemy will fold by Christmas.

Biden said the same about Ukraine. And hundreds of billions later, we remain in a grinding proxy war with Russia.

Now, while still financing that war, Americans are told they must back a new war — this one initiated unilaterally by Israel. The U.S. faces domestic strife, crippling debt, and an ongoing open-border crisis. Involvement in yet another conflict makes no sense.

Israel may be right about Iran. Tehran may indeed have developed a nuclear program behind the world’s back. But if Israel wants to wage a war, it must do so on its own.

The Trump administration has made clear that it wasn’t involved in Israel’s pre-emptive strikes and didn’t approve them. If Israel starts a war, it should fight and win that war on its own. America should not be expected to absorb retaliation or commit troops to another Middle Eastern project.

These wars are never short, and they are always expensive.

Even if Iran’s regime collapses quickly, the aftermath would require a long, brutal occupation to prevent it from descending into chaos. Israel doesn’t have the capacity — let alone the political will — for that task. That burden would fall, again, to America.

So before conservatives fall for another round of WMD hysteria, they should recall what the last two wars taught them.

If the situation really is dire, let the Trump administration make its case to the people. Present the evidence. Debate it in Congress. Vote.

But don’t sleepwalk into another forever war.

CNN star and Biden flack cash in on too-late confessions



We were told to follow the science. We were told to trust the media. We were told the “adults” were back in charge.

Now, after years of narratives that often disguised more than they revealed, two prominent figures — CNN anchor Jake Tapper and former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — have released books that strategically admit what much of the public already knew: The full truth wasn’t offered when it mattered most.

Redemption begins with humility, not a hardcover release date.

Tapper’s new book, “Original Sin,” co-authored with Axios’ Alex Thompson, presents itself as a political thriller. But its real value lies in what it reveals — consciously or not — about the political and media class’ calculated suppression of uncomfortable truths.

According to Tapper’s reporting, President Joe Biden’s inner circle was “rattled” by his apparent mental and physical decline — yet worked to shield it from being seen by the public. The book describes a White House where denial wasn’t just a strategy — it was a requirement.

‘Truth’ grifters

The Wall Street Journal described “Original Sin” as capturing “a conspiracy in plain view” — a culture in which aides and allies chose silence over honesty, spin over transparency, and, ultimately, their own job security over the voters’ right to know.

This admission, coming now in 2025, would land differently had Tapper not been one of the very voices leading the national chorus of “nothing to see here!” In fact, many of the same journalists now embracing post hoc honesty were the ones who derided and dismissed concerns about the president’s cognitive health as partisan smear or conspiracy theory.

And the American people noticed.

Despite extensive promotion across CNN and various media platforms, “The Lead with Jake Tapper” experienced its lowest ratings since August 2015. According to Nielsen data, the program averaged only 525,000 total viewers between April 28 and May 25, marking a 25% decline from the same period last year. This significant drop occurred despite the high-profile release of “Original Sin” and an accompanying media tour, the New York Post reported.

The book is following a similar trajectory, having only sold just over 54,000 copies in its first week of release. Compare that to Bob Woodward’s “Fear: Trump in the White House,” which sold over 1 million copies its first week.

Cue Ronald Reagan’s famous line, “There you go again,” as Jean-Pierre’s forthcoming memoir, “Independent,” also seeks to reframe her time in the public eye. From her position behind the White House lectern, Jean-Pierre frequently repeated talking points that proved to be misleading or outright false. She insisted the border was secure, the economy was strong, and the president was sharp — all while video clips, inflation rates, and rising crime told another story.

In fairness, press secretaries are paid to spin. But spin becomes something more troubling when it is used to insulate a president from basic scrutiny — or when it misleads the public during moments of national consequence. If Jean-Pierre is now prepared to acknowledge the strain of carrying water for bad policies, that would be welcome. But the timing — conveniently aligned with a book launch — raises an unavoidable question: Why didn’t the truth matter until it could be monetized?

I believe in second chances. I believe in forgiveness. But as someone who also believes in responsibility and truth-telling, I have little patience for public figures who withhold candor until the book advance clears. Redemption begins with humility, not a hardcover release date.

If Tapper and Jean-Pierre had come forward years ago — if they had endured the risk of telling the truth in real time — they might be worth celebrating. But this isn’t courage. It’s career rehab.

An actual truth-teller

Now consider someone like Tulsi Gabbard.

As a sitting Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate in 2020, Gabbard called out her own party for embracing censorship, racial essentialism, and permanent war. She stood on a debate stage and denounced what she called “an elitist cabal of warmongers,” earning the scorn of her colleagues and the legacy media. Hillary Clinton even baselessly smeared her as a Russian asset. Gabbard didn’t wait for the polling to shift or a book contract to come through — she risked her future in real time.

Eventually, she left the Democratic Party, but not before paying a price for telling some highly inconvenient truths. That’s what integrity looks like. You don’t wait for the winds to change — you stand firm when they blow hardest.

Contrast Gabbard with Tapper and Jean-Pierre. Their books reveal what many Americans suspected: that much of what we were told during the Biden years — from the state of the president’s health to the “success” of his policies — was concocted more for optics than accuracy.

RELATED: Who ran the White House? Ask Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson under oath

  Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

But their revelations come not from principle, but from convenience. It’s safe to speak out now. The public mood has shifted. Their platforms are shrinking. The political protection is gone.

America continues to suffer the consequences of schools closed, churches locked, speech silenced, borders breached, and families squeezed by inflation. These outcomes weren’t accidental. Leaders defended them at the time, then later pretended they had known better all along. They chose opportunism over accountability.

The darker concern runs even deeper: This cycle has become routine. Politicians and pundits lie or mislead while the incentives favor silence. They play along when it pays. Then, when the polls shift and the public turns sour, they rebrand — posing as truth-tellers who claim they always had doubts, always saw what others missed.

Next come the book deals, podcast tours, and cushy contributor gigs.

We now live in a country where consequences get outsourced and apologies turn into revenue. Lie when it’s profitable. Confess when it sells. And hope the public forgets who helped dig the hole in the first place.

But many of us do remember. We, the people, remember.

If Tapper and Jean-Pierre want to make amends, they should start with a simple, unqualified apology — not to their publishers or media friends, but to the American people. The public paid the price for the misinformation they amplified and defended. That’s who deserves the truth now.

Trump doesn’t threaten democracy — he threatens its ruling class



For years, I’ve heard the same complaint from friends, family, and the nightly news: Donald Trump is his own worst enemy. The real problem, they say, is the man’s personality. If only he weren’t so obnoxious, if only he didn’t speak off the cuff or insult his critics, then maybe his enemies would stop calling him a Nazi. Maybe the protests would stop. Maybe the country could calm down.

It’s true that Trump’s tactlessness and unreflective speech can grate, even on those who support him. But let’s not pretend his critics hold anyone else to the same standard. Where was their outrage when Joe Biden declared that Trump supporters were “the only garbage I see,” smeared the GOP as “semi-fascists" and "terrorists,” or cursed at reporters who dared ask unscripted questions?

The rage over Trump’s language comes from anxiety. The ruling class members fear that his return to power could disrupt their ideological monopoly.

The same people clutching pearls over Trump’s tone cheered on mouthy scolds like Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. They ignored threats by former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who warned Supreme Court justices against overturning Roe v. Wade outside their own courthouse. When it comes to rhetoric, Democrats don’t offend them — only Republicans do.

And the hypocrisy doesn’t stop there. Anti-white racism is commonplace among Democrats. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) mocked Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as a purveyor of “white tears” for disagreeing with her. Crockett also derided “mediocre white boys” who oppose race-based preferences and once referred to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as “Governor Hot Wheels” without consequence. No apology. No media outcry. Just applause.

At some point, the conclusion becomes obvious: The outrage over Trump’s rhetoric has little to do with his words. It has everything to do with the groups he opposes. His critics don’t hate how he speaks. They hate what he threatens.

If rhetoric really mattered, then Democrats would call out their own side for the endless stream of vile speech and political violence. But they don’t. They won’t. Because they know it’s not about tone. It’s about power.

Would the Trump-haters change their tune if a more well-mannered Republican — House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), or even Dr. Oz — pushed Trump’s policies? Don’t bet on it. Democrats didn’t tone down their vitriol even after two assassination attempts against Trump, the second by a man, Ryan Routh, who explicitly cited Democratic rhetoric and media hysteria as his motivation.

Legacy media rage against Trump not because he speaks crudely, but because he disrupts their agenda. He guts bloated agencies, cuts funding to woke nonprofits, and works to dismantle bureaucracies like the Department of Education — which caters to teachers’ unions but has done zilch to improve American learning.

Trump also dares to enforce immigration law. After Democrats spent years encouraging waves of illegal immigration, he tried to reverse the damage — and they called him a “tyrant.” He asserts that men are men and women are women, even as the ruling class invents new genders and demands compliance.

RELATED: Progressives’ ‘democracy’ is just a cover for unaccountable power

  Blaze News Illustration

The ruling class can get away with its double standard because its multiple armies close ranks to defend any lie or exaggeration from its government placeholders. When Biden labeled Trump’s voters as terrorists, the foreign policy blob, the think-tank class, and the media all fell in line. Groups like the Council on Foreign Relations echoed the claim, amplifying a fantasy of right-wing extremism while excusing left-wing bigotry.

Search engines bury criticism of Democrats while promoting glowing defenses of their nastiest remarks. The same media that spent years covering for Biden’s obvious cognitive decline and told you it’s a conspiracy theory to question his mental fitness to serve now say they had no idea anything was wrong. Trust them.

And don’t forget the cultural cleanup crews. During Pride Month, every major corporation, institution, and media outlet falls in lockstep. No dissent. No nuance. Just forced applause for whatever new orthodoxy the cultural left pushes. (Though that might be changing.)

The rage over Trump’s language comes from anxiety. The ruling class members fear that his return to power could disrupt their ideological monopoly. Even modest success in weakening their grip on government, culture, or education terrifies them. Because once that monopoly breaks, their entire edifice could fall.

That’s why Trump provokes such hysteria. Not because he insults people. But because he threatens the system that protects their power.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s a good thing.

CDC knew the COVID jab was dangerous — and pushed it anyway



Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) dropped a bombshell last week about what the Biden administration knew — and covered up — about the dangers of the COVID shot. His roundtable featured Dr. Peter McCullough, arguably the country’s leading cardiologist and a frequent guest on my show since the pandemic fell upon the land in 2020.

Let’s talk about what they exposed — starting with VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. VAERS came out of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which gave pharmaceutical companies legal immunity for vaccine-related injuries. In exchange, the government created a “self-reporting” database where anyone could report adverse events. But good luck using it. The interface often crashed or timed out, forced users to restart from scratch, and made tracking real harms nearly impossible.

Far too many Americans can only see COVID in the rearview mirror now, when they should still be seeing it in their nightmares and demanding severe justice.

That wasn’t a bug. It was the point.

A Harvard Medical Review study concluded more than 25 years ago that VAERS undercounted adverse events by a factor of 100. The CDC knew it. During COVID, instead of fixing VAERS, the CDC quietly built a separate system — V-safe — to track mRNA shot outcomes. It compiled peer-to-peer data from over 10 million Americans. The CDC buried those results until Del Bigtree and the Informed Consent Action Network forced the release through a lawsuit.

What did V-safe show? Eight percent of people who got the COVID jab suffered an adverse event requiring medical attention — from checkups to death. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a scandal. The United States has pulled vaccines from the market for far smaller complication rates. Meanwhile, the Biden administration forced this shot on everyone — including healthy kids — while knowing it was more dangerous to them than the virus itself.

Remember the wall-to-wall propaganda campaigns pushing the jab? Did any of them warn you about the 8% of recipients who suffered serious side effects? No. Were you offered a real choice based on your age, health status, or risk profile? Or were you coerced — by a toxic blend of government, corporations, and media lies — into rolling up your sleeve?

We all know the answer.

That’s not just manipulation. That’s a crime. The CDC’s own data from the height of the pandemic showed that only 2% of COVID cases required hospitalization. Yet polls showed Democrats believed the number was 25%. That disconnect didn’t happen by accident. It was manufactured. A psychological operation convinced Americans that the shot was the only way out, even though the jab carried a four times greater risk of harm than the virus itself — before even factoring in age or comorbidities.

RELATED: Heroic COVID docs punished as Abbott, Texas lawmakers stay silent

  Deagreez via iStock/Getty Images

Younger, healthier Americans faced almost no threat from COVID. They weren’t told that either. They had to find out on shows like mine.

By spring 2022, the final infection fatality rate was in. Just 0.5% for the elderly. For children and teens (ages 0-19)? A microscopic 0.003%. But the government shut down schools, crushed businesses, and destroyed lives — all while pushing an experimental shot with exponentially higher risks.

No one but MSNBC viewers would have lined up for this poison if they’d known the truth. But platforms like YouTube, the largest video site on the planet, actively censored anyone who tried to sound the alarm. That included me — and brave doctors like McCullough — who were banned for speaking plainly about early treatments and adverse events.

Instead, they stuck ventilators down people’s throats while TikTok nurses danced for clout.

So will anyone ever pay for this disaster before the spike proteins strike midnight? Or are exploding hearts, turbo cancers, and collapsing fertility rates just the price we pay for compliance?

Far too many Americans can only see COVID in the rearview mirror now, when they should still be seeing it in their nightmares and demanding severe justice.

The real scandal isn’t Joe Biden’s decline — it’s who hid it from you



The Prime Cut Diamond Drilling company defines a controlled demolition as:

The process of systematically demolishing a structure in order to achieve a certain objective. Often used for work on buildings where high control measures of safety and order are essential, controlled demolition ensures that disturbance to the surrounding structures and area is kept to a minimum.

The company makes clear that a controlled demolition isn’t just blowing up buildings with dynamite, swinging wrecking balls, or making noise with drills and burst charges. It’s about precision. Even the Occupational Safety and Health Administration maintains a web of standards, subparts, and interpretive letters to help ensure compliance with destruction — done by the book, clean and contained.

Why would the Trump administration make such a colossal mistake to reward those who propped up Biden and failed to perform their duty to investigate the truth?

This same concept — orderly destruction — eerily mirrors what the legacy media and Democratic Party are doing to Joe Biden. Their goal: dispose of him and his political baggage as efficiently as possible. As Gwen Walz might put it, it’s time to “turn the page.” The priority isn’t honesty. It’s containment. Limit the damage to Biden and his family. Protect the political infrastructure that carried him into power.

At the center of this choreographed takedown: a conveniently timed book from CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson. For dramatic effect, the public gets a sudden, “unexpected” admission of Biden’s health problems — framing the collapse as a personal tragedy rather than an institutional failure.

None of this should surprise anyone. Fortunately, most Americans see through the staged confessional period now playing out across the media. It’s political kayfabe — an orchestrated performance where journalists and insiders finally admit what they’ve known for years: Joe Biden wasn’t running the country.

What they still refuse to confront is the real question: if not Biden, then who?

These same operatives now expect to walk away with their reputations intact. They offer carefully worded regret, maybe a little contrition, and assume that’s enough to preserve their elite status.

We cannot let them off the hook.

The American public deserves transparency and accountability for the chaos and destruction of the Biden years. The people who called the shots behind the scenes must be named. They must answer for what they did.

A shameless cash grab

For four years, Democrats insisted that “democracy was under attack.” Fine. Then tell us: Who actually held power inside the White House? Who made the decisions? Who overrode the president?

You don’t get to wave the flag of constitutional order while hiding the names of those who exercised executive authority in secret. That’s not how a functioning republic is supposed to work. Pretending otherwise insults every voter and mocks the very system these people claim to protect.

RELATED: The Great Biden Book War has finally begun

  Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

The media should be held accountable alongside those who exercised presidential authority on Joe Biden’s behalf. Tapper and Thompson’s new book isn’t journalism — it’s a shameless attempt to cash in on a cover-up they actively helped sustain.

Throughout the Biden presidency, both CNN and Axios prioritized access to the White House over honesty with the American public. Axios will point to a handful of criticisms they published, but a full review of their coverage tells the real story: They consistently accepted and repeated the Biden administration’s preferred narrative.

They showed no interest in investigating the Biden family’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. They downplayed Special Counsel Robert Hur’s probe into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. And now they’re dismissing our investigation into the White House’s use of an autopen to sign documents — an effort that kept the paper trail moving while insulating the president from oversight.

But the betrayal runs deeper than journalistic malpractice. Tapper and Thompson’s work isn’t just morally compromised — it’s commercially rigged. Axios has a clear financial stake in its own reporter being the center of the story. That context matters, especially when Axios somehow obtained the audio recordings of Biden’s long-sought interview with Hur.

Those tapes didn’t fall from the sky.

The Oversight Project spent the past year in litigation, pushing the Justice Department toward a decision on releasing them by May 20. We negotiated in good faith with the government, believing the process would result in a fair release.

Then, late on Friday, May 16, Axios dropped select portions of the Hur interview — bylined by none other than Alex Thompson.

Absent from their story? Any editor’s note disclosing Thompson’s direct financial interest in the book set to release just days later.

Maximum spin job

Why would the Trump administration make such a colossal mistake to reward those who actively propped up Biden and failed to perform their duty to investigate the truth? All the talk of the “fake news being the enemy of the people” seems insincere when Jake Tapper’s business partner is given the scoop.

And it’s not just the Trump administration implicitly sanctioning Axios and CNN’s role in this long history; it’s that Axios also massively botched the rollout itself. This is a key part of a controlled demolition.

In the hours after the tapes dropped, our legal team at the Oversight Project scrambled to make sense of what had just happened. We, along with others, had operated in good faith — only to be blindsided when those negotiations suddenly veered in the opposite direction.

A closer review of Axios’ release revealed the deception. The audio had been edited using “jump cuts” that made Biden sound worse in places. We knew immediately how that would play out. Biden’s defenders would seize on the edits to discredit the broader argument. And they did. At this point, calling it coincidence stretches belief.

Every step of this process has aimed to shield Biden — and the people who kept him in place — from real accountability. That pattern continues to this day.

Back in February, we forced the Department of Justice to commit to a deadline: May 20. It agreed to make a decision on whether to release the Hur interview tapes. Shortly after, Tapper and Thompson’s book was announced. The timeline doesn’t feel random. It looks scripted. This wasn’t chaos — it was a controlled demolition.

The autopen investigation

At the Oversight Project, we don’t intend to let that plan succeed.

We won’t allow them to shut the book on the Biden years with a whisper instead of a reckoning.

We’ll provide the dynamite. We’ll swing the wrecking ball. And when the moment demands precision, we’ll bring the drill and the charges. The key to unraveling this entire deception lies in one place: the autopen investigation.

Whoever controlled the autopen controlled the White House. Biden wasn’t running the show. Everyone knows that now. The next step is identifying who was.

And we won’t need Tapper's or Thompson’s help to get there. In fact, they’ve wandered directly into our demolition zone.

Joe Biden was a puppet, not a president. So who signed the pardons?



Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book confirms what we suspected all along: Joe Biden’s health was rapidly declining, and the Democratic Party establishment knew it. Rather than be honest with the American people, they chose to cover it up, to prop up Biden just long enough to survive the election cycle. And the media helped them do it.

For years, any mention of Biden’s cognitive decline was framed as a “right-wing smear,” a baseless conspiracy theory. But now, Tapper and Thompson reveal that Biden’s top aides privately discussed the need for a wheelchair after the election — because the man can hardly walk.

We had no functioning president for much of the past administration.

And while Biden’s closest aides were planning that, they and their allies in the press were publicly spinning the fantasy that Joe Biden’s halting gait was due to a heroic foot fracture from a dog-related incident four years ago. They said his frailty was due to his “vigor.” That’s not a joke. That’s a quote.

And while they said this, they were having special shoes made for him with custom-made soles to help him stand. They weren’t planning for a second term. They were planning how to prop him up — literally — just long enough to survive the election. That is a cover-up.

It doesn’t bother me that Biden might need a wheelchair. What bothers me — what should bother every American — is that his aides talked about hiding it until after the election.

Biden wasn’t leading

Needing a wheelchair in your 80s is not a moral failing. It’s human. I own President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wheelchair — it sits in my museum. That chair represents the strength and resilience of a man who, despite paralysis, led this nation through World War II against a dictator who was gassing the disabled and infirm. He hid his disability out of fear the public wouldn’t accept a leader who couldn’t walk. But he led.

RELATED: The Great Biden Book War has finally begun

 Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images

But Joe Biden wasn’t leading. He was a puppet played by faceless swamp creatures whose only concern was maintaining their iron grip on power.

Whatever you think of Tapper, the book reveals the chilling reality that we had no functioning president for much of Biden’s administration. Our commander-in-chief wasn’t just aging — he was declining. And the people around him — government employees, funded by your tax dollars — weren’t honest with you. They lied to you repeatedly and willfully because the truth would have guaranteed a second Trump term. That’s what this was all about.

Who signed the pardons?

Consider the implications of this revelation. We had a president signing documents he didn’t read — or even know about. We had an autopen affixing his name to executive actions. Who operated that autopen? Who decided what got signed or who got pardoned? Who was in charge while the president didn’t even know what he was doing?

Those are not minor questions. That is the stuff of a constitutional crisis.

The problem isn’t Biden’s age. The problem is that the people you elected didn’t run the country. You were governed by unelected aides covering up your elected president’s rapid cognitive decline. You were fed a lie — over and over again. And if anyone tried to blow the whistle, they got buried.

Don’t get distracted by the wheelchair. The chair itself is not the scandal. The scandal is that people inside your government didn’t want you to know about it.

They made a bet: Lie until November, and deal with the fallout later. That is an insult to the American people — and a threat to the republic itself. Because if your government can lie about who’s running the country, what else are they lying about?

We need further investigation and to hold these crooks accountable. If we don’t, it will happen over and over again.

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The real tyranny? Institutional groupthink disguised as truth



Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” has become a pocket-size gospel for progressives in the age of Trump — a secular catechism of 20 rules to resist looming fascism. It’s pitched not just as a historical analysis but as an urgent survival guide, borrowed from the dark lessons of the 20th century. The message is clear: Authoritarianism is always just one election away, and Donald Trump is its orange-faced harbinger.

Such moral urgency unmoored from historical context tends to collapse into political theater, however. “On Tyranny” is not a serious book. It is an emotive pamphlet that relies less on the actual historical complexities of rising tyranny than on the reader’s willingness to conflate MAGA hats with brownshirts.

Snyder believes a tyrant is always the populist outsider, never the insider who manages democratic decline in a suit and tie.

Such historical flattening is the first and most obvious flaw in Snyder’s argument. He leans heavily on the atrocities of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia to suggest that Trump’s rise follows the same trajectory. But this is not serious analysis — it’s emotional manipulation. It’s one thing to warn against patterns; it’s another to flatten every populist movement into a prequel to genocide.

Snyder, a Yale historian, surely knows better. But “On Tyranny” depends on your feeling like you're living in 1933 — whether or not such historical parallels are actually true. And they’re not.

A democratic mandate

Snyder warns against the rise of a single leader claiming to represent the will of the people and establishing a one-party state — equating the 2016 Republican sweep of the White House and both chambers of Congress to Hitler’s consolidation of the Third Reich. Such a comparison isn’t just blatantly false; it’s a cruel dismissal of the democratic will of the people for merely voting in Republican candidates.

Surely Snyder didn’t accuse Barack Obama of fascist one-party rule when he and the Democrats swept the White House and Congress in 2008. Such electoral outcomes aren’t a harbinger of fascism. No, no! That was a mandate from the American people, democratically spoken, demanding change from the status quo. Voters sent that message loud and clear in 2008 — as well as in 2016 and 2024.

Snyder’s false equivalency counts on fear rather than critical thinking — any semblance of which would entice Democrats to pause for a moment of self-reflection and listen to what the American people are saying through the electoral process. But Snyder’s one-sided alarmism silences the electoral voice — merely because it rallied behind Trump.

Civic theater

Snyder’s advice to citizens reads like a secular sermon: “Defend institutions.” “Stand out.” “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.” On the surface, it sounds noble — defiant, even. But strip away the aesthetic of resistance, and what’s left is a deeply superficial understanding of civic virtue.

What exactly are we defending when we’re told to “support the press” or “protect truth”? In practice, Snyder’s rules amount to an uncritical loyalty to legacy institutions that have forfeited public trust — media outlets that gaslight, bureaucracies that bloat, and experts who contradict themselves while silencing dismissive voices.

Snyder dismisses the possibility that institutions can rot from within, that the loudest defenders of “truth” are often its gravest opponents. Instead, he offers something simpler: the feeling of resistance while catering to the institutional elites.

The real culprits

The irony of “On Tyranny” is that the tactics Snyder warns against — censorship, moral panic, political conformity — have not come from MAGA rallies but from the very institutions Snyder holds up as guardians of democracy. It wasn’t Trump who quashed dissenting speech on COVID-19 or colluded with social media companies to throttle viewpoints that didn’t conform with the government’s narrative. It was the political elite and their complicit peddlers in the mainstream media and social media companies.

Unfortunately for Snyder’s brand, tyranny doesn’t always wear a red hat. Sometimes it comes in the name of “safety,” or “science,” or “social justice.” Sometimes it cancels you over a social media post, not because you’re dangerous, but because you’re not sufficiently obedient.

If Snyder were genuinely concerned with authoritarianism in all its forms, he might have warned against this progressive impulse to control thought and punish deviation. Instead, he gives it cover — because the real threat, in his mind, is always the populist outsider, never the insider who manages democratic decline in a suit and tie.

Less performance, more courage

Snyder is right about one thing: democracies don’t die overnight. But they do die when fear replaces thought, when virtue becomes branding, and when citizens outsource their moral judgment to bureaucracies and mainstream news.

“On Tyranny” offers the illusion of courage but none of the substance. It is performance art disguised as resistance. To preserve freedom, we should defend institutions and champion truth. But that requires holding corrupt actors in such institutions accountable, whether it be within the federal government or legacy media. That was the democratic mandate communicated loud and clear in 2024, and if Snyder were genuinely concerned about defending democracy, he would listen.

Let’s build statues for the masked enforcers of COVID tyranny



Think about all the statues the woke mob tore down in recent years with the same fury they now reserve for firebombing Teslas. On the fifth anniversary of COVID-19’s medical, legal, and ethical failures, I have a few ideas for heroes worthy of new monuments.

Idaho alone deserves at least two. In September 2020, police arrested Gabe Rench for peacefully singing hymns at a public protest against the city of Moscow’s strict mask mandate. A court later ruled in his favor. Then, in April 2020, officers handcuffed Sara Brady in front of her children for letting them play outside at a park in defiance of a stay-at-home order. She, too, was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing.

We should build statues and monuments to remind future generations of how science and dignity were cast aside for cultish hysteria and blind fear.

It took until 2023 for justice to prevail in both cases, delayed by a swarm of overzealous Karens and Keystone cops who failed to learn from history’s authoritarian follies. Instead, they seemed eager to replicate them.

They deserve statues too — depicted in their masks, rigidly marching six feet apart, blindly enforcing fraudulent “safety” measures. They can stand near Rench and Brady, a permanent reminder of the goose-stepping hysteria that defined the era.

The statues should defy logic, evoking disbelief and confusion. Children will gaze at them, instinctively pitying the absurdity and disgrace of the era they represent.

“How did they let it come to this?” they will ask. And wiser adults of a future age will answer, “Because they were morons, child. Utter morons.”

Todd Erzen, my book editor, envisions a mural in downtown Des Moines capturing his experience in April 2021. That day, he took his young daughter to a small restaurant to pick up a pizza. Inside, diners sat freely eating and chatting without masks. But when Erzen walked in for two minutes to grab his order, the Stasi guard working the cash register insisted that he wear a mask.

When Erzen pointed out the absurdity — customers raw-dogging the air all around him for an entire meal were somehow "safe," yet his brief presence required a hazmat-level response — the restaurant workers refused to give him the pizza. Then they called the cops.

Erzen hopes the mural will provoke a question from future generations: If someone truly feared infection, why would they prolong an argument with a supposed biohazard instead of simply handing him his pizza and ending the interaction as quickly as possible?

The mural would be called “Trust the experts!”

Not so fast, proclaims the New York Times. This week, the paper ran an op-ed with a breathtaking lack of self-awareness, headlined “We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives.” What in the name of Wuhan is that nonsense? Misled by whom? Where was that level of skepticism when Joe Biden declared COVID-19 a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”? Where was it when Sweden stayed open and defied predictions of mass death and disaster? Or when ivermectin — a Nobel Prize-winning treatment — was suddenly banned overnight, nearly costing my friend Bill Salier his life?

Yes, we should build statues and monuments to remind future generations of how science and dignity were cast aside for cultish hysteria and blind fear. Let them see a grand sculpture of Salier, measuring out “horse medicine” in a desperate bid to save himself, while a smug pharmacist and the likes of Terry Bradshaw mocked him.

Our monuments to the scamdemic should be as absurd as the reality they reflect — a cause for both mockery and lamentation. They should remind us of a similarly stiff-necked people who once worshipped a golden calf instead of the one true God and thus help us vow to do a much better job teaching future generations to smash their idols instead of allowing them to be brought to us by Pfizer.

They lied, we suffered — now the truth is coming out



We are living in extraordinary times, and I don’t say that lightly. After decades of studying history, watching civilizations rise and fall, I have never seen anything like our current moment. Its profundity is undeniable, and it has the potential to save our republic — if we handle it carefully.

For years, we were told a story about our government: that it was a wise manager, an even-handed protector of justice, a careful steward of the public trust. It was force-fed to us in government schools and parroted by the establishment media. Many good, decent Americans believed, at the very least, that their government worked for them — not against them.

America needs to understand: This is not a left-versus-right issue. This is a deeper issue about systemic corruption.

But that trust has been crumbling, and 2020 was the breaking point for at least half the country. Governments across the world turned their power against their own people. They dictated where we could go, who we could see, whether we could open our businesses or even hold funerals for our loved ones. They told us it was all in the name of “health,” “safety,” and “science.”

But we now know the truth. It wasn’t about health. It wasn’t about safety. It wasn’t even about science. It was about control.

Just a few years later, the truth is now finally coming out. The institutions we were told to trust — the government, the media, the so-called fact-checkers, the scientists, the pharmaceutical industry — have all been exposed. Their own emails, their own records, and their own financial trails are revealing what many of us suspected all along.

This should be the moment of ultimate victory for anyone who has ever called themselves a liberal. The left used to be the anti-establishment, the ones who warned against corporate influence, government overreach, and media manipulation. Now, they’re the ones desperately clinging to the establishment narrative, dismissing all revelations as “conspiracy theories.” But it’s not conspiracy when their own documents prove it.

America needs to understand: This is not a left-versus-right issue. This is a deeper issue about systemic corruption. For the first time in our lifetimes, the average, hardworking American is seeing it, not behind the curtain in the shadows, but out in broad daylight, exposed for what it truly is. And that’s a game changer.

But now is not the time for gloating. Now is the time for caution. We must be disciplined, diligent, and honest. The truth is our most powerful weapon, and if we are reckless with it, we risk everything. Credibility should be our north star, and if we lose that, we have nothing to stand on.

That’s why we must be careful about the information we spread. Rumors, half-truths, and speculation only serve to weaken the movement for transparency. If we spread falsehoods, the establishment will use that to discredit everything else. We must demand facts, verify sources, and refuse to be manipulated.

The second thing we must do is demand accountability. No matter whose side they’re on, if laws were broken, justice must be served — period. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Republican or a Democrat, someone we admired or someone we despised. No one is above the law. The corruption in our institutions must be rooted out. The two-tiered justice system that has protected the powerful while punishing the weak must be dismantled. The bloated, unaccountable bureaucracies that have ruled over us without our consent must be shut down.

Finally, we must stand for common sense and the rule of law. This is how we win. This is how we bring about a real American revolution — not through violence, not through destruction, but through truth and justice. The ballot box remains our weapon. We elected a leader who promised to expose corruption, and he is doing exactly that. For the first time in my lifetime, we are seeing a president follow-through on his promises, and that has the entrenched elite terrified.

Elites are scrambling. They are rewriting history, deleting old tweets, trying to downplay what they did. But this time, it won’t work. An increasing number of Americans are waking up and questioning what they’ve been told — and the establishment is quaking.

This is the moment we take our country back — not with anger, not with riots, but with clarity, with vigilance, and with the truth. If we get this right — if we stand firm, if we hold the line, if we refuse to be silenced — we can fix our country.

Transparency will save America. The truth shall set us free, and the establishment fears nothing more than a people who refuse to be afraid.

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