A top counterterrorism official in the Trump administration is under investigation after allegations that she was using "sugar daddies" to fund her lifestyle, The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism Julia Varvaro, 29, had an official complaint filed against her after a man who was identified by The Mail as Robert B. alleged he spent $40,000 on her during their three-month relationship. He said they met on the dating app Hinge, and alleged she has used a sugar daddy platform under the pseudonym "Alessia."
"Robert has made an official complaint with the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General, revealing she had a profile on the sugar daddy website 'Seeking,'" The Mail reported. "On the page, seen by the Daily Mail, she called herself Alessia and offered 'seductive sophistication.' She used the same photo that is on her Instagram."
Varvaro told the outlet she did nothing wrong and denied having a profile on Seeking.
"We were together in an exclusive relationship. We went on vacations. I don't know what's the problem with that," she said.
In the complaint, Robert made several allegations about his ex, including that they consumed marijuana together — something the high-level Trump official has denied.
"I did not want a sugar daddy/prostitution relationship, after spending $30,000-$40,000 for vacations, Cartier jewelry, expensive handbags, and various shopping trips. She told me that she does not have college debt because sugar daddies paid for her college education," he said in the complaint.
"She also told me directly that the $40,000 worth of jewelry on her wrists and ears are all trophies from her sugar daddies," he added. "I believe that she's under financial stress and that her actions pose a security risk."
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has sent new materials to the Department of Justice, according to reports on Wednesday.
Maxwell sent the Department of Justice a USB stick to support her appeal against her 20-year sentence, reported The Swamp, The Daily Beast's Substack. Although it's unclear what was contained in the digital file, calls to make the materials public were expected.
The Epstein co-conspirator made the move just a week after First lady Melania Trump released a public statement at the White House and attempted to deny any connection to Maxwell and the late convicted child sex offender and financier.
"It seems that Ghislaine Maxwell didn’t want Melania Trump to be the only one to have her say over their mutual pal Jeffrey Epstein," The Swamp reported.
CNN's Kate Bolduan reacted with alarm to a House Democrat's warning about military preparedness as President Donald Trump's war on Iran continues into a third month.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, raised concerns about U.S. weapons stockpiles and troop fatigue, but she told "CNN News Central" that she does not regret her vote to automatically enroll men ages 18 to 26 nationwide for selective service as part of a defense funding bill signed into law in December.
"No, I don't regret thatmove," Houlahan said. "I think this was simply anautomatic registration of aprogram that all men over 18years old are required toexecute upon. Unfortunately, wehad been seeing a significantdrop-off in the people who wereregistering for that, becausethere were no longer places for them to do that in applicationsor having signing up for adriver's license, those werebeing diminished. There arepunishments, real punishmentsfor those 18-year-old and aboveyoung men if they don'tregister, and so an automaticregistration was literally amechanism to be able to makesure that we had the namesand information for all of them and they weren't punished fornot registering."
The law goes into effect this coming December, but it does not create a mechanism to reinstate a military draft for the first time since 1973, although Houlahan warned that Trump's wars were stretching troops thin.
"So no, butspeaking to readiness andspeaking to the fact that we nowhave a war that has been goingon for almost 60 days and a costto $1 billion to $2 billion aday, and many of that much ofthat cost is munitions that,once blown up, are no longerretrievable," Houlahan said. "Yes, this is deeplyexpensive and deeply worrisomein terms of our readiness inother theaters. So as anexample, are we ready ifsomething happens in the Pacific? I can't say withconfidence that we are, becausewe've loaded up our resourcesand we're blowing up ourresources in a totally different theater of war."
That seemed to shock Bolduan.
"You really, you're that concerned aboutmilitary readiness now?" Bolduan said. "You think that theU.S. military would not be capableof fending off an attacksomewhere else right now?"
Houlahan walked back her warning to some extent and praised active-duty service members.
"Let's let's be clear, ourmilitary is exquisite and ourmen and women in uniform areenormously capable," Houlahan said, "and ourcapabilities are unmatchedacross the world. No, I wouldnever say that we're not ready.But I will say that there is aconsequence to having, as youmentioned, the [USS] Ford out therefor hundreds and hundreds ofdays with the sailors without abreak. That does impact theirreadiness, and so we need to wecan't have a constant battlewith them. Literally, we need tohave a purpose and a reason forthe wars that we're in, andI'm just not clear, and I thinkthe American public is not clearof why we are in this war."
With the Justice Department in a period of flux and uncertainty following the unceremonious dismissal of Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of her associates has made a brutal admission to the press about the floundering mission to use the full weight of the DOJ to go after President Donald Trump's political opponents.
The revelation was flagged by Finn Hartnett of The New Republic in an analysis released Wednesday.
"As part of an article on Todd Blanche’s time as acting attorney general, CNN asked Chad Mizelle, Pam Bondi’s former chief of staff, why her 'Weaponization Working Group' — which tried to investigate former government prosecutors Trump believed were politically motivated — never produced anything substantial," wrote Hartnett. "'Part of the reason the weaponization work has been difficult is that you need people who are MAGA and who are really competent,' Mizelle said. 'Many career prosecutors are not interested in this kind of work. It’s a very small group of people.'"
That remark, wrote Hartnett, "is a perfect encapsulation of one of the few joys one can take from our present political situation: Trump’s staff is simply too dumb to carry out most of their assignments."
This comes as a number of the Trump administration's prosecution efforts against political opponents of the president have crashed and burned, most notably the Virginia-based cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James — which failed because a judge ruled the inexperienced prosecutor put in charge wasn't lawfully appointed.
It also comes as the administration seeks to launch new such cases against entities opposed by the Republican Party, with this week seeing wire fraud charges being filed against the extremist monitoring group the Southern Poverty Law Center — a case experts have flagged as weak.
Veteran Democratic Party strategist Max Burns believes the movement's loss of both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson is a sign that MAGA support could be slipping.
Burns wrote in The Hill, "MAGA voters have long believed in taking Trump 'seriously but not literally.' This is just another way of saying Trump might lie to other people to advance his own interests, but he would never lie to the supporters who power his political movement.
"At least some of those faithful Trump supporters are finally ready to admit that they’ve been conned, and there’s no way back to believing the fairy tale.
"Greene and Carlson’s awakenings are just the beginning of an exodus from the MAGA movement, which just a year ago seemed to be reaching new heights of power. After a decade of chaos and disruption, Trump’s transactional politics is finally catching up with him. It’s just a shame that it took so long."
Carlson has emerged as a vocal critic of Trump's MAGA movement, primarily over the Iran war. Carlson directly challenged GOP leaders during heated interviews, demanding they answer basic questions about Iran policy.
Carlson, a mainstay on Fox News from 2016 to 2023, recently said he regrets backing Trump over traditional conservative values, The Guardian reported. He said, "You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time – I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional, that’s all I’ll say."
Greene has distanced herself from the MAGA movement over Trump's Iran war, which she views as a fundamental betrayal of core MAGA principles. Greene spent millions campaigning for Trump specifically because he promised to end foreign wars.
Greene suddenly resigned from Congress late last year. Greene had publicly distanced herself from Trump over his Iran war policies, declaring opposition to the conflict and characterizing it as a betrayal of MAGA principles.
Her decision to leave Congress marked the culmination of growing ideological rifts within Trump's movement and her frustration with the direction of the Republican Party under Trump's leadership during his second term.
President Donald Trump is reportedly considering extending his deadline for Iran by another “three to five days,” Axios’ Barak Ravid claimed on Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who shared the news in a curse-laden message.
"Trump is willing to give another three to five days of ceasefire to allow the Iranians to get their s--- together," a “U.S. source briefed on the matter” told Ravid, he claimed in a social media post on X. “It is not going to be open-ended."
Trump has issued Tehran several deadlines throughout the duration of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, deadlines that he’s extended several times for various reasons, most of which have been sharply refuted by Iranian officials.
The latest two-week ceasefire tentatively agreed to by Washington and Tehran was set to expire on Wednesday, but Trump announced Tuesday that he would be extending the ceasefire "until such a time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal” for an agreement to end the conflict.
His reasoning for the aforementioned extension, Trump claimed, was that Iran’s government was “seriously fractured,” another claim that Iran immediately disputed, alleging it to be a “false claim” and a “desperate attempt to save face.”
According to Ravid, Trump now appears poised to give Tehran three to five more days to offer a proposal to end the conflict before hostilities between the United States and Iran would resume.
"Trump is willing to give another three to five days of ceasefire to allow the Iranians to get their shit together," one U.S. source briefed on the matter told me. "It is not going to be open-ended" https://t.co/aQogWCkO3m — Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) April 22, 2026
A Houston police officer was relieved of duty after she was caught in a racist rant on social media, according to reports on Wednesday.
The Houston Police Department was investigating Officer Ashley Gonzalez after she posted a video telling an alleged story about her wallet almost getting stolen and using the n-word multiple times, TMZ reported. She also made several disturbing comments about racial discrimination and slavery throughout the clip.
"Y’all don’t know how good it felt to say n---- out loud. Oh my God, I felt like I was back in the Marine Corps," said Gonzalez, who served in the Marines from 2019 to 2023, according to Click2Houston.com.
Houston Police Officers’ Union released the following statement:
"The Houston Police Officers’ Union is extremely disturbed by a video circulating on social media regarding an officer making offensive, racist comments. In no way does the HPOU or its leadership condone or tolerate racist behavior from any of our officers. The Houston Police Department prides itself as being the most diverse police department in the nation, largely a product of that collaborative changes to civil service law that the HPOU and the Department have made through our meet and confer process. It is our belief that the Department is diligently working to confirm the authenticity of this video and will take appropriate measures to ensure public confidence and trust between our Department and our community."
Fox News host Lara Trump took a subtle shot at her sister-in-law, Ivanka Trump, for offering the most "unsolicited advice" in the family.
"What she's got, I feel like she wants to help," Lara Trump told White House insider Katie Miller on a podcast this week. "Like she always means so well."
"But, you know, it's okay," she added. "We take it all in stride. It's all good."
Lara Trump acknowledged that Ivanka also gave the "best gifts."
"Eric and I are the absolute worst," she admitted. "I mean, she remembers everything: my kids' birthdays, every single time. Don't ask me when the last time was I sent my nieces and nephews an actual birthday gift on time, because I always fail. I'm the worst."
Congressional approval has reached a new low, and CNN's Harry Enten sarcastically congratulated lawmakers for sharing space with some of the fringiest positions in public opinion polling.
Republicans control both houses of Congress, along with President Donald Trump in the White House, and the legislative branch just tied an all-time record for disapproval among Americans.
"I just want to sayto Congress, stand up andapplaud," Enten said. "You're usually hated,but usually not this hated.You're reaching, or at leasttying, record highs in terms ofdisapproval. Hello – 86 percent, 86 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress. That is tied with November of 2013 for the all-time high."
Republicans held a 234-201 House majority at that time, during Barack Obama's second term and right after a 16-day government shutdown ended, while Democrats held a 55-45 Senate majority, including two independents.
"As I said, Congressusually hated, but usually notthis hated," Enten said. "You're actually managing to tie records. Just10 percent, just 10 percent of Americansapprove of the job that Congressis doing. So therefore, as Isaid, stand up and giveyourselves a round of applause.You managed to do it – congratulations."
Enten then placed that measure of approval into contest with some other topics in public opinion.
"I just wassearching my house like, okay,what else basically has 10 percent ofthe population by their side?" Enten said. "Just take a look here, okay,Americans who say that the moonlanding was faked back in 1969 –Sara Sidner off on the sidelaughing. More Americans saythat the moon landing was fakedback in 1969 than actuallyapprove of the job that Congressis doing right now at 10 percent. That10 percent is equal to the percentageof Americans that believe thatthe earth is flat. Of course, we did not fake the moon landing.We did land on the moon, and ofcourse the earth is actually asphere. My dear friends, yes, it's not flat.You can't walk off the edge ofthe earth. But apparently thesame percentage believe that Congress is a job well done."
Sidner agreed those numbers were "brutal" and asked whether Enten knew why voters were so annoyed or angry at lawmakers.
"P----- is a greatword," Enten agreed. "Perturbed is another one.I like my P's early in themorning, but I would just saythis. You see this 10 percent, right?You go, how the heck did we endup here? You know, Republicanscontrol the House, Republicanscontrol the Senate, but yet Republicans have actually turnedon this congress. Just take alook here, I mean, just look atthis. Congress has net approvalrating among the GOP back in March of 2025, it was plus-33 percent.That was the net approval, thatwas the net approval. Down itgoes to minus-56. What is that?That's like an 89-point moveover a little bit year's time.No wonder at this point Congressis facing record highdisapproval rating because even Republicans, and their partycontrols Congress, absolutelydespises it."
"Wow," Sidner said. "Those numbers areabysmal. I don't know what Congress can do to fix them."
"There's nothing," Enten replied. "I mean,maybe they can walk off the edgeof the flat earth."
Republicans in Congress continue to be at odds over how to advance a reconciliation package in the Senate to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the Washington Examiner reported on Wednesday.
At issue is whether the bill, engineered to get around a Democratic filibuster under budget rules to avoid a near-intractable fight over the oversight reforms for immigration officers Democrats are demanding, should remain a "skinny" bill that only funds those two agencies, or be loaded with other Republican priorities that can't otherwise pass Congress — a process that would drag out passage and potentially alienate needed votes.
"House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has signaled he is willing to accept the narrower approach, even as he blamed Democrats for the DHS funding shortfall," said the report. 'Through a targeted and narrow reconciliation process, we will fully fund the agency, including ICE and CPP for three years in the future,' Johnson said at a Tuesday press conference. Still, some Republicans are reluctant to give up leverage for a more expansive package — particularly as hopes for a third reconciliation bill fade amid slim margins and the approaching November elections."
But others aren't satisfied with this approach, which comes amid reports that Johnson and Senate GOP Leader John Thune (R-SD) are contradicting each other on certain aspects of the plan.
“Now we’re in a position where we’re having to look at this whole reconciliation thing and whether it’s going to be a skinny reconciliation, which is really frustrating to a lot of my colleagues and myself as well, very frustrating, because this is a tool that we as a majority should be able to utilize,” said Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC).
President Donald Trump's cabinet has a new set of fears to contend with as they are dealt a fresh problem, a political analyst has suggested.
Heather Delaney Reese claims that Trump's team is slowly but surely leaking information to cover themselves as cabinet members and White House insiders worry for their future.
Reese wrote, "The cabinet he promised would be the tightest, most loyal operation in history, is hemorrhaging. Kash Patel is now suing The Atlantic over a deeply reported story about his excessive drinking, which claims his staff has trouble waking him up when he was seemingly intoxicated.
"In the past couple of months, three cabinet members have been fired or forced out: Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Every single one of them a woman.
"Every one of those leaks came from someone who is scared. People do not risk their careers and their clearances to talk to reporters because things are going well. They talk because they cannot stay quiet anymore. Because the fear of staying silent has finally overtaken the fear of him.
"And once that starts, it does not stop. Because what they are seeing is serious enough that the fear of staying silent has finally overtaken the fear of him. That is a shift. A real, documentable shift. And once it starts, it does not stop."
Trump has fired Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.'s appointed CDC director, Susan Monarez, IRS head Bill Long after just two months, and multiple National Security Council and Pentagon officials.
Trump fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi in rapid succession, citing performance concerns and policy disagreements. Noem faced criticism for her handling of ICE operations in Minneapolis, where agents killed two individuals. Democratic lawmakers condemned her dismissal as insufficient accountability.
Trump subsequently removed Bondi, claiming she failed to aggressively pursue his political enemies and investigate perceived adversaries.
The White House faced backlash for "honoring" the University of Georgia women's tennis team with a photo that featured only men in the foreground.
On Tuesday, the Bulldogs were among other NCAA champions that were invited to the White House. To celebrate their accomplishment, the White House's Margo Martin posted a photo on X with the women of the team barely visible behind a group of men, which included President Donald Trump.
"Congratulations, Georgia Women's Tennis!" Martin wrote.
Reactions to the photo were critical.
"Who is being celebrated in this picture? Usually puts the focus of the picture front and center, not hidden behind the dude bros," Winston Smith wrote.
"Good thing the women are showcased. Who are all those other clowns in the picture and what's up with the conman in the middle?" John Gilbert asked. "What a pathetic picture."
"Georgia Women's Tennis, with a bunch of dudes standing in front of them," another commenter complained.
"Of course they put the women in the back. Just like the misogynistic a—holes they are," a user with the handle @mrsccveach noted.
"Where are the women? Oh, there they are, in the back of the bus, behind the white men," Susan jabbed.
After weathering years of challenges, from online competition to the COVID pandemic, President Donald Trump’s tariffs became “the last reason” why Jennifer Bergman decided to close down the New York City toy store her mother opened in 1981.
As small businesses currently navigate a complex tariff refund process and still face rising costs, Bergman, 59, is one of five business owners speaking out in a new $200,000 YouTube ad campaign launched Wednesday by Small Businesses Against Tariffs, a project from the Defending Democracy Together Institute, an advocacy group formed by anti-Trump conservatives.
“I'm not afraid of [Trump]. I'm not afraid of his goons, and if they want to throw us all into jail because we're saying things against them, that's fine by me,” Bergman told Raw Story.
“My parents would be really proud of me, and they'd bail me out if they were still around. Actually, they'd be right there with me in jail.”
Jennifer Bergman (provided photo)
Bergman closed her store, West Side Kids, in July after she realized she wasn’t going to be able to pay her rent or make payroll.
”I’d never had that before, ever, ever,” she said.
Over the years, Bergman’s staff shrunk from 12 employees to four. Those four people lost their jobs when the store closed and struggled to find new ones, with one even becoming unhoused, Bergman said.
When Trump added a 145 percent tariff on China last year, Bergman said a $10 toy she’d typically sell for $20 would need to be marked up to $45 to cover the extra costs since she couldn't “afford to eat any of it.”
The price of a scooter she’d typically sell for $150 shot up to $180 when her supplier called to say they needed to reroute shipping containers to Canada and raise prices after Trump announced tariffs last May.
“Prices were going up, and you only have a finite amount of money to spend,” Bergman said.
“The product was getting so much more expensive that I was spending more money for less.”
Bergman also blamed Trump’s tariffs for preventing her from closing on a deal to sell her store as she was in conversation with two potential buyers in early 2025.
“When the tariffs hit, they were both like, ‘We can't do this right now … we just need to deal with this,’ and so I lost the opportunity to sell my store, too.” Bergman said.
‘Never in my wildest dreams’
After deciding to expand to a second location in 2024, Gabe Hagen, co-founder and owner of Brick Road Coffee in Arizona, said starting construction in early 2025 was “rough” timing due to tariffs.
“Once we learned the results of the election and what the new administration was planning on doing with tariffs, we had to really think on our feet,” Hagen told Raw Story.
“We had to kind of re-pivot what we were doing, so we cut back a lot up front.”
Hagen, who is also featured in the Small Businesses Against Tariffs campaign, said the business decided to change equipment purchases and pre-purchased a year’s worth of cups and disposables to “weather the impacts of tariffs.”
Hagen’s projections for stocking the second location, which is both a roastery and a coffee shop, ended up being about a third of what he actually spent.
“The strain of that on a new small business — especially one that's just expanded — we're already so tight on our cash, it's just rough,” Hagen said.
At the end of 2024, raw coffee beans cost Hagen about $4 a pound. At one point, prices spiked to just under $7 a pound, Hagen said. Now prices for speciality coffee are still $5 to $6 per pound, he said.
When Hagen started, roasted coffee cost around $10 per pound. Now prices range between $12 to $14 on the wholesale side, he said.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd be paying 50 percent tariffs on a Brazil coffee, which is our number one coffee that we use,” Hagen said.
The Trump administration backed down its tariffs on coffee at the end of last year, but small businesses like Hagen's are still feeling the effects.
“Every new business, we expect some bleed, but this bleed is taking a lot longer than we expected,” he said.
Hagen took out another working capital loan and put his house up for collateral, he said.
Gabe Hagen at Brick Road Coffee's second location and roaster, Prism Coffee Lab (Photo provided by Brick Road Coffee)
“We don't really have many more levers left on a small business side, so that's why tariffs were so important for me to speak out against because I can't just grow my coffee,” Hagen said.
The unpredictability of Trump’s tariffs make it hard to know “when we'll feel relief," Hagen said.
“I don’t know if it'll change back, so I think the hardest part for me is I don't know how to do a 12 month forecast," he said.
From a trucking company to a DIY flower shop and an eco-friendly dinnerware company, small businesses have struggled to stay afloat due to tariffs, Raw Story reported.
"We felt it was important to run this campaign in light of spiking prices and confusion around the tariff refund policy,” a Small Businesses Against Tariffs spokesperson said.
“Our hope is that it will help to educate Americans about who truly pays the costs of tariffs and trade wars: American small businesses and consumers. The goal here is to keep engaging those people who show an active interest in the tariff issue, to emphasize who ends up paying the costs of tariffs and to de-bunk widespread lies.”
Jennifer Bergman (provided photo)
Gabe Hagen at Brick Road Coffee's second location and roaster, Prism Coffee Lab (Photo provided by Brick Road Coffee)