John Casey

In a week when Donald Trump seemed to think he was a king because he hung with one, something hopeful reminded us he is far from one. In fact, you might say that the emperor's clothing is beginning to be removed, and what’s being exposed is a scaredy cat fraud.

Three diverse, noteworthy figures, over the past few days, looked Trump in the eye and essentially told him, “Get lost.”

After watching universities fold, law firms capitulate, networks grovel, and broadcasters bench their own talent at the first hint of White House displeasure (I’m dreading saying goodbye to Stephen Colbert), we saw a different response to Trump’s horrid reign.

First, a world leader stepped forward to call out Trump’s tragically misguided war with Iran. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had been careful to maintain cordial relations with Trump and left a White House visit last month on good terms, did something rare among Western leaders.

Speaking to students in his home district of Marsberg, Merz said the Americas, i.e. Donald Trump “have absolutely no coherent strategy whatsoever” in the Iran conflict, and that “an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards.”

Trump, predictably, lashed out on Truth Social, claiming Merz “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon” and writing, “No wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!”

But Merz didn’t apologize or backtrack. He was right. U.S. negotiators were set to travel to Islamabad for talks last weekend, and Trump canceled the trip, boasting, “We have all the cards,” while Iran keeps the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, hurting the global economy. Merz said publicly what many leaders say privately.

And let’s hope that other world leaders take the hint and come down hard on Trump. Doing the right thing always works out in the end. Just ask Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmel, and, more importantly, Disney and ABC. Kimmel joked last Thursday about Melania being an “expectant widow” because of their May-December marriage, not, as Melania claimed, about precipitating the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting incident.

You’ll recall that the last time Trump targeted Kimmel, ABC caved, benching him after backlash from conservative politicians and station owners over a monologue about the politicization of activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.

Subscribers canceled Disney+ in protest. It was so embarrassing, and to be blunt, it was great to see consumers react quickly and decisively. Disney, this time, is handling things differently. The same day the Trump’s toothless toady, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, challenged ABC’s broadcast licenses. It was clearly in retaliation for Melania’s accusation. Carr said it wasn’t but of course he’s blatantly lying.

But Jimmy? He went on air and he kept hammering.

He didn’t apologize, because he didn’t need to! He noted the irony that Trump had just joked about his own marriage to Melania at a royal arrival ceremony. Trump noted that his parents were married for 63 years. He then turned to Melania and said, "That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling. I’m sorry. Just not going to work out that way. We’ll do well, but we’re not going to do that well".

Kimmel took notice. Only Donald Trump would demand that I be fired for making a joke about his old age,” Kimmel said, “and then a day later go out and make a joke about his old age.”

And Disney? The company invoked the First Amendment and signaled it is willing to fight, saying it has complied fully with FCC rules. The FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, said Disney “has the First Amendment on its side.”

Then there’s Jerome Powell. Who would have thought a 73-year-old, diminutive, nerdy math guy could make Trump look even more feckless? On his last day as Fed chair, the man Trump appointed, hounded, threatened, and tried to have investigated did not go quietly.

Powell called the political attacks on the Fed “unprecedented in our 113-year history” and announced he will remain on the Board of Governors after his chairmanship ends May 15, rather than disappearing as outgoing chairs typically do—despite Trump repeatedly demanding he do so.

Powell just stuck a sharp #2 pencil in Trump’s eye. I’d say a Sharpie, but Trump’s obviously able to do that himself.

Powell has long projected neutrality, even favoring purple ties to avoid partisan signaling, while pushing back on Trump’s pressure for rate cuts. Now he’s staying put. As one former top Fed official said, Powell “may think it’s in the best interest of the institution to demonstrate he won’t be pushed around or bullied.”

That’s exactly what staying on the board signals.

There’s also James Comey, who responded to his seashell indictment from Trump’s acting AG Todd Blanche with a blunt, unintimidated “let’s go.”

You could even argue King Charles delivered a subtle poke. Speaking before Congress, he didn’t mention Trump but spoke pointedly about Magna Carta, balance of power, and protecting all religions.

Are these signs something is shifting?

Trump has grown used to his targets folding. Many chose to do so, thinking it easier and safer to avoid his wrath, i.e. to protect their funding or tax breaks.

He has spent his second term making examples of his perceived critics, and some have acted cowardly. Universities, law firms, broadcasters, all calculated resistance was futile.

But in one week, three powerful figures from different arenas sent a different message. If defying Trump’s bullying and threats becomes a trend, it will be a welcome one.

Watching the loathsome Pete Hegseth testify over the last two days in front of both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees gave me a slight sense of déjà vu.

I struggled with why, because Hegseth just comes off like such a jerk. And that’s when it hit me. Former President George H.W. Bush once famously referred to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a “jerk.”

Granted, comparisons have been made between Rumsfeld’s arrogance, another word Bush used to describe his son’s Pentagon chief, and Hegseth. But what hasn’t been fully considered is how both approached congressional hearings during failing wars.

I vividly recall Rumsfeld treating his testimony with a prickly, know-it-all crassness. That’s the same way Hegseth came off, over-the-top defensive, slight pun intended.

At the time, Republicans in control of Congress tolerated Rumsfeld’s dismissive attitude. Then came the 2006 midterms, which swung to the Democrats. It’s no coincidence that Rumsfeld resigned the morning after.

His boss, George W. Bush, understood that voters had delivered a verdict on a war they were tired of being spun about, and the system had shifted against him and his abrasive defense secretary.

After watching Hegseth this week, it’s fair to ask: if Democrats regain control of Congress, will he be destined for the same fate?

The Rumsfeld–Hegseth comparison has been duly noted. Both men arrived at the Pentagon radiating egotism. Both treated congressional oversight as an unnecessary inconvenience, even though it’s the law. Both have overseen wars facing strong public backlash, and both showed open disdain for lawmakers tasked with questioning them - that’s their job.

But the comparison ultimately lets Hegseth off too easily. Whether you liked Rumsfeld or disliked him, he built a formidable career as a Navy pilot, a four-term congressman, and White House chief of staff. He became the youngest Secretary of Defense at 43 under Gerald Ford, and later the oldest under Bush.

Hegseth’s credentials can be summed up this way: don’t ask, because he’ll lie; don’t tell, because there’s nothing to tell.

Rumsfeld’s contempt for Congress was more cerebral than Hegseth’s. After watching him closely for five years, he thought he was smarter than everyone in the room and made a show of it. His evasions relied on cutesy wordplay like “known unknowns,” “stuff happens.” It was maddeningly condescending, but he operated within a system he knew well.

Hegseth is about as far from cerebral as you can get. He has little institutional experience, and his fallback replaces wordplay with blunt aggression. When Rep. John Garamendi called the war a “geopolitical calamity,” Hegseth shot back: “Who are you cheering for here?”

When pressed on the nearly $25 billion already spent, a figure many say is far too low, he brushed it off. When lawmakers expressed skepticism, he labeled them “the biggest adversary” facing the United States.

To Rumsfeld, the game with Congress was a chess match of wits, where Rumsfeld thought he could fight with one arm behind his back. Hegseth thinks he needs to put both fisted arms out to underscore his warrior ethos.

Rumsfeld treated Congress as an obstacle. Hegseth treats it as an enemy. Both approaches are ultimately self-defeating.

The financial parallels are hard to ignore. In 2003, Rumsfeld told Congress the Iraq invasion would cost under $50 billion. It ultimately exceeded $2 trillion.

Now, two months into the Iran war, there is still confusion about the total cost. The Pentagon’s $25 billion figure seems far short of earlier estimates, suggesting a burn rate near $1 billion a day. If that holds, the cost after 40 days would already be around $40 billion.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is already tens of billions in, with a massive supplemental request looming. Congress hasn’t formally authorized the war and hasn’t been given a clear price tag.

Rumsfeld at least understood Congress would eventually demand answers. His strategy was to delay, push forward until backing out became politically impossible.

Hegseth’s posture is more extreme. He behaves as if Congress isn’t entitled to answers at all. Oversight, in his view, is disloyal.

That stance aligns with a broader theory of executive power: that Trump, and by extension his defense secretary, can wage war with minimal interference.

The War Powers Resolution clock has already run out on the Iran conflict, launched without congressional authorization. Legal concerns are mounting, and Democrats, and some Republicans, in Congress are taking notice.

The political environment is shifting. The war is unpopular. Costs are rising. Voters are focused on domestic concerns. The conditions that led to the 2006 backlash are reappearing, only faster.

Midterms are months away. If control of Congress flips, oversight will intensify.

Rumsfeld understood what a hostile Congress meant, a nightmare really, with loads of subpoenas, hearings, and more exposure to his trickery. He chose to leave rather than endure it.

For Hegseth, if this war drags on without clear victories and public support continues to erode, a Democratic House will investigate, and then some. And when it does, it won’t tolerate his warrior ethos, obfuscation, or that grating arrogance.

So, will Hegseth end up following Rumsfeld out the door?

The first lady’s war on “corrosive” rhetoric has a massive blind spot — it’s her husband, the king of corrosiveness.

On Monday, Melania Trump took to X to demand that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel because he told a joke about her having the “glow of an expectant widow.” His words, she fumed, were “corrosive.” He was spreading hate. He was dividing the country. ABC needed to act.

And, she laughably said Kimmel engages in “atrocious behavior.” As recently as last month, former Vice President Al Gore called her husband “atrocious” — and he’s just the latest.

On Sunday evening, her husband was the epitome of the word atrocious when he sat down with CBS correspondent Norah O'Donnell on “60 Minutes” and called her a “disgrace,” twice, simply for reading aloud from a shooting suspect’s manifesto as part of an interview.

Melania’s statement about Kimmel was nowhere close to a defense of civil discourse. It’s hard to imagine she practices it at home. What do they talk about? Inquiring minds want to know, as the old axiom goes.

She was not taking a high-minded, principled stand against rhetoric that wounds because, only hours earlier, there were literal wounds after a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Instead of showing humility after the shocking incident, she attacked, metaphorically, with guns blazing.

And beyond how tone-deaf it is, if Melania Trump actually believes public figures have a responsibility not to use language that “deepens the political sickness within America,” she would have said something, at some point, about the loathsomely corrosive man she married.

But she won’t, since Donald is her cash cow, and for Melania it’s never about decency, it’s all about the money. Donald is her personal slot machine, albeit an atrocious one.

There’s no reason to rehash all the corrosiveness that spews out of her husband, Donald Trump, 24 hours a day, literally, and seven days a week, even a “vulgar” one on Easter.

Let’s just focus on what he said to O’Donnell, the night before Melania decided to be a hypocrite by assailing Kimmel.

O’Donnell was doing her job, asking relevant questions about the shooting Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton.

During the interview, she asked Trump about Allen’s assertions in his manifesto because understanding a shooter’s motive is, self-evidently, relevant journalism.

Trump’s response was to call her “horrible,” a “disgrace,” and “disgraceful.” He told her she “shouldn’t be reading that on 60 Minutes.” He told her she should “be ashamed” of herself.

He told a veteran journalist that asking about a shooting that happened 24 hours earlier, and involved him, was shameful behavior.

Then came Melania’s zingers at Kimmel. Was she trying to one-up her husband’s vulgarity? Did she even see the irony in declaring that “words are corrosive and deepen the political sickness within America”?

Melania, Donald called, and asked why you are stealing words that describe him.

Maybe Melania really doesn’t pay attention to her husband, and once again went rogue after mysteriously pontificating, overly so, about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

This is a couple that has made the degradation of journalists, and others in the public eye, routine. Trump has called reporters “enemies of the people,” “scum,” and an avalanche of vomiting “fake news” — so many times that we’ve sadly become immune to his insults.

He has mocked reporters’ appearances, intelligence, and patriotism.

The Society of Professional Journalists has noted his attacks follow “an unmistakable pattern of hostility, often directed at women.”

And Melania, who gives every indication she’s not wildly in love with Donald, wants ABC to fire a comedian over a widow joke. God forbid he tells a divorce joke, but we all know that’s a whole other story.

When Kimmel makes an off-color joke, which is his wont, and it’s about the thin-skinned Melania, it’s a national emergency requiring corporate intervention. When Trump calls a CBS correspondent “disgraceful” on live television, well, that’s fine.

Kimmel was joking. Trump was serious, and Melania clearly can’t differentiate between the two.

Her motto is simple: words are only dangerous when they come from someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome. When they come from the deranged Donald, they don’t mean anything.

And then there’s the absurdity of the Kimmel complaint in the context of this weekend.

Cole Tomas Allen traveled by train from Los Angeles to Washington. He checked into the hotel the day before. He ranked his targets. He sent a 1,000-word document to his family 10 minutes before the attack. He referred to himself as the “Friendly Federal Assassin.”

He came dangerously close to creating a horrific, deadly nightmare. You’d think Melania might want to address the emotional havoc that was an outcome of the incident. The nation is still grappling with what happened.

In any ordinary time, the first couple would try to lower the temperature. Instead, Melania raises it.

Her calling Kimmel a coward was rich. She said he “hides behind ABC.” That’s sanctimonious from a woman who has stood silently behind a husband who wanted to wipe out a civilization, celebrated the death of Rob Reiner and Robert Mueller, and posted an image of himself as Christ, arguably the most atrocious insult of all.

He did that in a matter of months, along with a litany of other inappropriate remarks and posts on Truth Social. Her husband is the one who does the hiding. He hides behind everything @realDonaldTrump posts.

Kimmel doesn’t hide. He goes on television five nights a week and says exactly what he thinks about the most powerful family in the country. That’s not cowardice. That’s his job.

What would actually be cowardly is if ABC sided with Melania’s hurt feelings and decided to can Kimmel, or if Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon thought twice about joking about her.

However, the real joke is Melania, especially her documentary, Melania, which was more offensive, especially to the working class, than any joke a late-night host could tell.

Melania Trump wants Jimmy Kimmel fired for saying she looked like a woman expecting to become a widow, while her husband treats women like trash.

So if she’s opening the door to a contest of “corrosiveness,” the joke is on her, because she and her husband would win by a landslide.

In an Eastern North Carolina federal courtroom today, the United States government unbelievably indicted a former FBI director for posting a picture of seashells on the beach on Instagram.

That’s right, seashells on a beach spelled out, in an artsy way, “8647,” which means that Trump needs to go away, and in a nonviolent way. That’s the honest-to-goodness meaning.

But, Todd Blanche’s idle hands are the Trump devil’s workshop.

This seashell lunacy sounds like the plot of some twisted fairy tale written by someone smoking 420 (marijuana). But the 411 (scoop) on this case is that acting Attorney General Blanche is so over-the-top desperate to get rid of "acting" that he is twisting himself in knots to placate the 5150 (mentally disturbed person) living in the White House.

Donald Trump’s Justice Department, in its infinite vengeance and bottomless dumbness, is giving America a 101 (quick lesson) in lawlessness, deciding that “8647” constitutes a threat on the president’s life. And Blanche had a 404 (unavailable) look on his face when he was asked to talk about Comey’s supposed intent to 187 (murder) Trump.

The whole situation is a 6-7, because there is no way to explain it. I think that’s what 6-7 means, but nobody really knows, so it fits here.

I know there are plenty of people, and I count many friends among them, who never forgave James Comey for that October 2016 press conference about Anthony Weiner’s laptop and the Hillary Clinton emails found within. They blame him for handing Trump the presidency, and their animosity runs deep.

Fine. Hold onto that grudge if you must. But right now, to set it aside, because what’s happening to Comey is an attack on every one of us.

This is the second time Trump has come at Comey with charges that would make a first-year law student drop out because of their obvious tomfoolery of the charges. And any first-year law student, by the way, would know what 86 means.

I was a short-order cook at a restaurant outside Pittsburgh in high school. When we ran out of steak on a Friday night, I hollered, “86 the ribeye,” across the diner’s greasy kitchen. Nobody called the police on me.

Because “86” means gone, out of stock, no longer on the menu, and time to move on. It has meant exactly that in American restaurants and slang for almost 100 years.

Now consider this. Etsy sells “8646” T-shirts. And there are “8647” T-shirts worn by smiling models. I’m not sure why models aren’t wearing the “8646,” but the point is: do we call Todd Blanche and tell him to arrest the handsome guy and the cute women pictured in their “8647” T-shirts? Scan social media platforms and the internet, and you’ll see plenty of things being 86’d in a friendly way.

Now, the models pictured in those shirts aren’t calling for Trump’s murder. And anyone who argues otherwise would be laughed out of the room, the city, the state, and perhaps end up in a banana republic like Nicaragua.

Although the seashell “death threat” charges certainly put the U.S. in the same category as Nicaragua.

The wild-eyed, brown-nosing leaders of this farce are Blanche, who is so transparently auditioning for a permanent title that he’d apparently indict a beach umbrella-toting seashell collector to get it.

The other, of course, is Kash Patel, whose breathtaking incompetence and alleged boozing at the highest levels of law enforcement is stupefying. Together, he and Blanche held a press conference today so thin on evidence it could have fit on a post-it.

There was no credible evidence offered that Comey was inciting violence.

Anyone who has known James Comey throughout his long career in federal law enforcement knows one thing with absolute certainty: the man is an intellectual, and constitutionally incapable of threatening a president’s life.

This is a Justice Department lifer. A former FBI director. A man who, whatever his faults, dedicated his professional life to the institutions Trump is now using as a weapon against him.

Comey took down the seashell post. He apologized. It was over.

Except it wasn’t, because for this administration, the retribution campaign never ends. People get arrested for drinking on the beach, having sex on the beach, public urination on the beach, and Comey gets arrested for taking pictures of seashells.

Even J. Edgar Hoover, the most scandalous, paranoid, vindictive, file-keeping, closeted megalomaniac ever to run the FBI or any government institution - besides Trump, is sitting in a dress somewhere laughing hysterically. He would have never brought these charges because he would have been laughed out of the bureau.

What Blanche and Patel are doing is sinister. They say the FBI won’t tolerate threats against the president, or threats against anyone, for that matter. So when Trump threatens to wipe out a civilization, I guess he gets a pass because he didn’t write it in seashells?

At its core, Trump is forcing his minions to use the machinery of justice to punish a man for a beach photograph. And instead of standing up to him, they are folding like a beach chair.

So whether you loved Comey or loathed him, the time to stand up for him is now. Because if the federal government can indict a former FBI director over seashells, they can indict anyone for anything.

Summer’s coming. That means beach time, so be careful what you do with the pretty seashells scattered around you.

They could put you in prison.

The GOP’s first-family “grift” obsession about Hunter Biden is like a dirty joke gone wrong, one with a punchline more offensive than funny.

Republicans in Congress spent years and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars trying to prove a “crime family” narrative about Hunter and his laptop that never materialized into anything more than a tax case and a gun charge.

The GOP’s crime of going after Hunter was far worse than the crimes he was convicted of. His father was absolutely right to pardon him.

But today, first-family grift and corruption isn’t something that exists in the shadows. Donald Trump’s conniving sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have turned investments — and the government’s ignorance — into personal cash cows.

Meanwhile, the GOP hunters of Hunter, along with their accomplice, the Department of Justice, look the other way while the boys rake in cash as ordinary Americans struggle with high gas and grocery prices.

This week, the dunce that is Eric spoke with one of their father’s grossest cheerleaders, Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business, a woman who has lost all journalistic integrity. Eric bragged that his company, Foundation Future Industries, had just landed a $24 million defense contract to test “Phantom” humanoid robots with the U.S. Marine Corps.

Eric serves as the company’s Chief Strategy Adviser. What does this bubble-headed blonde know about AI? Bartiromo didn’t ask a single question about the blatant conflict of interest of the president’s son pulling in millions of Pentagon dollars while his deranged daddy sits in the Oval Office.

She congratulated him. Honestly, I don’t know who is more repulsive, Eric’s obtuseness or Bartiromo’s toadiness.

She beamed like a proud aunt (Or grandmother?) while the American taxpayer is being fleeced. Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “corruption in plain sight” and asked whether the Pentagon had become a “cash machine” for the president’s children.

She’s right; however, don’t hold your breath waiting for the Republican-controlled Congress to launch an investigation. I imagine Mike Johnson took a page from the tawdry Bartiromo and sent Eric a dozen congratulatory AI flowers.

And while Eric is lapping up defense dollars, Don Jr. is running a 21st-century lawless casino. He has hitched his wagon to Polymarket, a so-called “decentralized prediction market” where people bet cryptocurrency on the outcomes of future events like elections, military conflicts, economic indicators, and more.

The slimy Don Jr. serves as a strategic adviser to Polymarket. His venture firm, 1789 Capital, made a multi-million dollar investment in the company. Since his father’s reelection, Polymarket is seeking a gobsmacking nearly $15 billion investment because of its astronomical, unregulated growth.

Wow, what a weird coincidence, right?

Polymarket is essentially a gambling platform where the house edge belongs to whoever has the best information, and in Trump’s Washington, the best information comes from the house dealer in the West Wing.

A U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, was arrested this week on charges that he used classified information to place bets on Polymarket tied to a military operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Van Dyke participated in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve and, allegedly, used that access to place approximately 13 bets from late December 2025 through early January 2026.

Those bets netted him nearly $410,000.

He had signed nondisclosure agreements promising never to reveal classified or sensitive information. But this is Trump’s military, with the dubious scofflaw Pete Hegseth in charge, a guy who likely thinks gambling is a virtue of Jesus’s warriors.

If a random soldier couldn’t resist the temptation, what do we think is happening at the highest levels of this administration, where the president’s son is a paid adviser to the very platform hosting these bets?

Accounts placed large wagers on an Iran ceasefire just before President Trump announced it on social media. The administration has also been a key ally of the growing prediction market industry in legal fights with states seeking to ban the platforms.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission dropped its legal fight against Polymarket’s competitor Kalshi just five months into Trump’s second term, paving the way for bets on political events.

Don Jr. is an adviser to Kalshi too. The CFTC, under Trump, is now the palace guard protecting the very industry in which the president’s son has millions invested. This is not some reputable financial market. Instead, it’s a rigged game with oodles of federal protection.

And the hits keep coming. Don Jr. joined the advisory board of Unusual Machines, a drone manufacturer, in late 2024. The company subsequently secured over $15 million in defense contracts.

Somehow, nobody in Congress finds that worth investigating.

The brothers also hold roughly $1 billion in paper wealth through American Bitcoin, a family crypto venture whose valuation exploded after the election results were certified. It’s almost as if someone knew crypto-friendly policies were on the way.

Meanwhile, the Trump Organization is undergoing what analysts describe as its fastest overseas expansion in history, with new real estate deals throughout the Middle East, countries with plenty of reasons to stay in the family’s good graces.

The same GOP congressmen who screeched for years about Hunter Biden’s board seat are now silent while the president’s sons collect Pentagon checks, casino profits, crypto windfalls, and foreign real estate deals in real time.

The soldier who bet $33,000 using classified information is now facing decades in prison. And guess who is coming to his rescue? GOP members of Congress are calling for him to be pardoned.

While the GOP remains obsessed with a laptop from the past, the Trump brothers are getting filthy rich, and that’s exactly what happens in autocratic families.

And as long as they have Bartiromo at Fox, a willfully blind GOP Congress, a feckless DOJ, and a daddy in the Oval Office, they’ll keep cashing in while you and I cancel our summer vacations.

The White House Correspondents' Dinner has long been a stage for sharp political satire, with comedians skewering presidents and the press corps alike.

This year, that tradition takes an unexpected turn. Instead of a stand-up comic, organizers have tapped Oz Pearlman, a mentalist known for mind-reading feats and psychological illusion, to host one of Washington’s most closely watched nights.

Pearlman is hardly an unknown quantity. A former Wall Street trader turned full-time performer, he rose to national prominence as a finalist on America's Got Talent, where his uncanny ability to predict thoughts and influence decisions captivated audiences.

Since then, he’s built a reputation performing for celebrities, CEOs, and even former president Barack Obama, who, Pearlman recalls, was left genuinely stunned by his work. Offstage, Pearlman is also an elite endurance athlete, regularly running marathons in under three hours, a discipline that mirrors the focus and mental precision required for his craft.

For me, Pearlman’s rise feels oddly personal. About 16 years ago, my partner and I were stumbling home around 1 a.m. when we passed a balcony party in a neighboring building. On a whim, I asked if we could come up. To my surprise, the answer was yes.

Inside, among the guests, was Pearlman, early in his career and off the clock. Curious, I asked him to prove what he did. Within minutes, he had completely floored me, including somehow changing the time on my watch while it was still on my wrist. It was the kind of moment you don’t forget, and it hinted at the performer he would become.

In our recent conversation ahead of the dinner, Pearlman described the opportunity as both surreal and strategic. “I’ve been thinking my whole life about what I could do that would amplify my reach,” he said. “For the last 10 years, I’ve asked myself: if you had 30 or 60 seconds with someone like Donald Trump, what would you do? What’s the most amazing thing you could pull off?”

Now, with Trump attending the dinner for the first time during his presidency, Pearlman believes he’s found that answer, and plans to unveil it onstage.

His approach to the evening reflects both his craft and the unique audience. “Know your audience,” he told me. “If I’m with athletes, I tailor it to them. Here, we have policymakers and journalists, people who are skeptical and ask questions. I want to lean into that.”

Rather than resist that skepticism, Pearlman intends to use it as fuel, turning the instincts of reporters, digging, doubting, verifying, into part of the performance itself.

That philosophy underscores why his selection is such a departure. Traditionally, the dinner’s host delivers a monologue heavy on political humor, often walking a tightrope between biting critique and good-natured ribbing. Pearlman, by contrast, isn’t there to roast Washington but to disarm it. His brand of entertainment sidesteps ideology altogether. “Amazement and wonder is a universal language,” he said. “It transcends politics, languages, borders.”

It’s also a moment that reflects the evolving nature of the event itself. Now more than a century old, the dinner has always been a celebration of the First Amendment and the role of a free press, even as it doubles as a high-profile media spectacle.

By choosing a mentalist over a comedian, organizers appear to be betting on something less confrontational, and perhaps more unifying, at a time when the relationship between politics and the press remains deeply polarized.

Pearlman’s set will run about 25 minutes, a tightly constructed performance designed for maximum impact. And while the audience may be filled with some of the most powerful and skeptical figures in the country, he seems unfazed.

In the span of a single day, he noted, he’s appeared across networks ranging from Fox News to MS NOW to CNN, as well as with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. “When people try to label me left or right, I don’t even know what to say,” he said. “I’m everywhere.”

That ability to move fluidly across divides may be his greatest asset on a night like this. It’s also something he carries into his life beyond the stage.

Pearlman and I share a passion for distance running, and even amid a whirlwind schedule, he recently clocked a 2:49 marathon, fast enough to qualify for elite races like the New York City Marathon, which he plans to run again this fall. “Momentum begets more momentum,” he said, describing a life currently moving at full speed.

As Washington gathers for one of its most tradition-bound evenings, Pearlman represents a break from the expected, a performer whose goal isn’t to land punchlines, but to leave a room full of skeptics questioning what they just saw. If his past is any indication, they will.

There is an image burned into the minds of anyone paying attention to the machinations of Donald Trump, his Cabinet and advisors, aka his minions and sycophants. It is not the picture I bet you’re thinking of — the one of Donald Trump, bloodied ear and fist clenched toward the sky, wrapped in an American flag at Butler, Pennsylvania.

Nope, that’s not it.

The image that should haunt you is something different. More joyous? Loutish? It’s Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, standing in the locker room of the United States men’s Olympic hockey team, chugging a beer like a frat boy who stumbled into a party where he wasn’t invited, drinking beer he didn’t pay for.

Not only is he a cheapskate, but do I need to remind you that he is the country’s top domestic intelligence officer? You’d be hard-pressed to think of a man pining for a keg stand.

He is the man who runs the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world, surrounded by elite athletes who just won a gold medal, treating their locker room like he was the uninvited guest of honor.

No sense of gravitas. No self-awareness. No decorum. No suit and tie congratulating the players with a handshake instead of shotgunning a beer. Just Kash, a putrid person in over his head, beer, job and all.

That photograph alone told a story. The Atlantic then told the rest, with an investigative piece aptly titled, “The FBI Director is MIA.”

In a thoroughly reported, meticulously sourced investigation, The Atlantic laid out a damning portrait of Patel as a man who drinks heavily, publicly, and without concern for rolling out of bed with a hangover and trying to run the FBI.

The piece drew on firsthand sources, accounts from bars, restaurants, and Las Vegas clubs, and a pattern of behavior that would disqualify most people from managing an abandoned building, let alone a federal intelligence agency with 38,000 employees and a classified portfolio of state secrets.

It described heavy drinking, late nights that bled into workdays, and concerns among colleagues about his reliability and judgment. This was not gossip. It was journalism, and the kind that makes powerful people uncomfortable.

So what did Kash Patel do? He went on Fox News and sat down with Maria Bartiromo, where he imploded on live television.

Bartiromo asked him directly whether he had a drinking problem. It was a yes-or-no question. Patel answered it the way a hungover drunk answers when the answer is yes — he hemmed and hawed. He rambled. He told America how great the FBI is.

Then the bleary-eyed Patel said: “You watch. I’m gonna sue them.”

Well. On Monday, he did.

Patel has filed a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic, claiming malice. Two hundred and fifty million dollars against a publication that did what journalism is supposed to do — investigate a powerful public official and tell the public what it found.

Before we go further, I have a confession. “You can’t fool a fellow drunk.”

I have spent over 30 years in Manhattan, and I drank heavily for most of them. I quit over four years ago, but I know that if someone wrote about my drinking exploits, I’d do everything possible to not draw attention to myself.

I had a wildly successful career in PR; however, I went to work many mornings hungover, straining to be at my best. So the stories in The Atlantic rang true. They felt authentic because I did the same thing.

Patel should stick his head in the sand, but instead the arrogant, obtuse faux-FBI person is trying to blow it all up.

Actual malice, as established in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, means the defendant published something knowing it was false, or with reckless disregard for the truth. It is an extraordinarily high bar because the First Amendment does not exist to protect the powerful.

The Atlantic didn’t write a hit job. They investigated. They reported. That is the opposite of malice.

If Patel pushes this lawsuit forward, and if it somehow survives a motion to dismiss, discovery opens up. Depositions. Sworn testimony. Subpoenas. The sources, all those people in bars, restaurants, Vegas clubs, colleagues, even those in that locker room who saw what he did and how he acted, will all potentially be called to testify under oath.

Patel’s strategy to stop the world from talking about his drinking would require the world to talk about his drinking in a federal courtroom, on the record.

And the media will be all over it. What was said to The Atlantic is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s why I know that. When I get together with friends, once the stories about my drinking exploits start, they never end. They get worse, more detailed. If Patel is like any of us who partied hearty, then the proverbial glass is only half full right now.

The lawsuit will almost certainly be thrown out. The threshold for actual malice is high. This case is a stunt. Patel is trying to emulate his boss — to look like a fighter who blindly sues, like Trump.

But not only is Patel stupid for suing The Atlantic, he’s doubly stupid for following Trump’s lead. Trump loses almost every single time.

The Trump playbook is for other losers like Patel.

I’m almost hoping the case proceeds, because a trial would be scandalous. All that dirty laundry in a federal courtroom. All those witnesses. All those stories dragged into the public eye under the threat of perjury, where B.S. and Fox News talking points don’t help you survive.

And neither, by the way, does two aspirins, a Gatorade, and a greasy egg sandwich.

“The Strait of Hormuz isn’t social media. If someone blocks you, you can’t just block them back.” That snarky but perceptive taunt, posted by an Iranian diplomat on X shortly after Tehran reversed its decision to open the waterway, should be the epitaph for the Trumpian school of foreign policy.

It was intended as a slap in the face to Trump, who actually does treat the most volatile chokepoint on the planet like a digital word game on his smartphone.

For over four decades, prior administrations’ understanding of global macroeconomics warned that poking the religious extremism that is the Iranian bear would possibly lead to the shuttering of the Strait. They warned that Tehran’s leverage had the power to pull the plug on the global economy and plunge the world into an oil crisis or worldwide recession.

But Donald Trump thinks decades of advice about Iran consist of scrawling on a bar napkin to be disposed of. He relies solely on the “stable genius” that lives in his gut, the only decision-making process he thinks is relevant.

That unstable, moronic rotgut then transmits signals to his swollen fingers that punch out nonsensical blabber posted to Truth Social. He regards that as official policy procedure.

He does it all by impulse. He frantically spits out herky-jerky Truth Social posts at 3 a.m. with a demented mind that pontificates nonsense and typos, treating the Strait of Hormuz as just more content to be uploaded, alternating between calling it the “Strait of Iran” and the “Strait of Trump,” while misspelling “strait” itself.

He continually invites chaos and potential catastrophe by diabolical typing in ALL CAPS.

The offshoot of Trump’s recklessness is a terrifying pivot in the global balance of power. While the world has spent years obsessing over Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear warhead, Tehran has discovered a weapon far more effective and immediately deployable than any bomb — an absolute, unchecked leverage over the world’s oil super-highway.

And Iran now understands that Donald Trump is nothing more than a social media blowhard.

Because of Trump’s irresponsibility, Iran may find that it doesn’t actually need a nuclear weapon to bring the West, and the world, to its knees. Why bother with the international pariah status of uranium when you can simply prompt U-turns from cargo ships in the Strait?

By weaponizing the world’s oil supply in response to Trump’s digital diplomacy, Iran has found a way to bypass traditional diplomacy and upend carefully calibrated treaties, and what might be called the world’s decades-long slavish deference to Iran’s hold on trafficking black gold.

And the Iranians are clearly relishing the irony. Iran has reciprocated with Trump’s Truth Social negotiations by posting Lego-character AI videos of American and Israeli officials. They aren’t afraid of us, particularly if the dialogue initiated by Trump is a series of wacky Truth Social posts, some of which are more like 900-word opinion pieces.

Although his diatribes are not as thoughtful and articulate as this column.

Iran is mocking us. And the tragedy is that Trump, a man so thoroughly incapable of distinguishing between being feared and being laughed at, cannot tell the difference. And the evil empire that is Iran understands this about Trump.

That’s what makes them dangerous, because Trump has no understanding of Iran, its leaders, or its history.

The domestic fallout of this precarious situation is already gutting the proverbial American pocketbook. Seven weeks into this conflict, U.S. gas prices have soared past $4m a gallon, spiking grocery and other costs and causing a slump in discretionary spending.

Economists are now sounding the alarm about the risk of a global recession this year, with inflation proving impossible to dislodge as long as 20 percent of the world’s oil remains hostage to Iranian whims.

Meanwhile, our alliances are being shattered under the weight of Trump’s go-it-alone, social media–driven insults. When Trump demanded NATO allies “take care of” the passage, he was met with a resounding no (if they were responding like Trump on social media, it would have been in all caps) from nations across Europe and elsewhere, who refused to be dragged into his whim of a war.

While a fragile coalition of 22 nations led by the UK has agreed to help clear mines and restore traffic, the damage is done. Trump’s Truth taunts, calling our closest partners “COWARDS” and NATO a “paper tiger,” have only reinforced the idea that the U.S. is no longer a reliable guarantor of global security. Nations abroad are figuring out ways to move forward without the U.S.

Here is what our allies understand, and what Trump never will — the Strait of Hormuz is not a way to capture the latest news cycle. It is not a creativity award for AI-generated images. It is a 21-mile-wide choke point through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil flows every single day.

Nations have spent decades building entire military doctrines, diplomatic frameworks, and economic contingency plans around keeping that waterway open.

The moment you start treating it as a random opinion screed that you hope goes viral, you don’t just lose a negotiation, you lose years of carefully constructed diplomacy that held up global stability.

That is the once-and-future danger of the Trump doctrine. It isn’t just about the mistakes of today, but the unprecedented chaos that looms in the future.

When you treat a delicate strategy like a social media feud, you teach your enemies that the old rules of deterrence, steady diplomacy, and predictable consequences are out the window.

You teach them that the American superpower is the real “paper tiger,” because at its core it is just a very loud, knock-off Twitter-like account with a short attention span.

In other words, Iran is treating Trump like an obsessed teenager who can’t let go of his phone long enough to pay attention to the urgency of what’s going on around him.

Iran knows that in the real world, when the Strait closes, the block button doesn’t just silence an obtuse opponent. It blocks everyone.

The Iranians have learned something profound from this catastrophe that will linger: you don’t need a nuclear warhead to bring a superpower to its knees. You just need a stupid social media addict as the leader of its arch nemesis.

There is an old American idiom for a group so collectively inept they couldn’t organize a one-car parade, as another axiom goes. We call them the Three Stooges. They were a legendary comedy trio famous for their chaotic, physical slapstick and for being a cultural shorthand for lovable but total incompetence.

After watching JD Vance (Mo), Steve Witkoff (Curly), and Jared Kushner (Larry) stumble out of Islamabad empty-handed, having failed to end a six-week war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or extract a single meaningful concession from Iranian hardliners, the comparison feels apropos.

I’ve been reading comment sections of stories about Trump’s 21st century trio of clowns, and I’m not the only one who has labeled them after the indelible comedy trio.

With that said, let’s do a little review about the strengths - err weaknesses - of each of the foolish players.

JD Vance arrived in Pakistan as Vice President of the United States, a title he has held longer than he held his Senate seat, which he won a mere three years ago. His previous experience in high-stakes negotiation consists largely of brokering peace between childless cat ladies and their felines who took umbrage at his offensive jab.

In June of last year, Vance’s stupidity reared its bulbous, bearded head when he tried to explain the concern around the U.S. first foray into Iran. "I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives".

Well, of course we can laugh about Trump understanding national security objectives, but Trump was among the presidents during those last 25 years — along with other Republicans.

Then there is Jared Kushner, whose legendary negotiating prowess consists primarily of leveraging his proximity to his father-in-law to attract billion-dollar investment deals from foreign sovereign wealth funds to enrich himself. A chip off the old father-in-law.

In a January 2020 interview with Sky News Arabia, Kushner defended his qualifications to lead the Trump administration's "Peace to Prosperity" plan by stating:."I’ve been studying this now for three years. I’ve read 25 books on it." This from the same guy whose memoir was reviewed by the New York Times as a "queasy-making" slog that reads more like a college admissions essay than a serious political account.

And Steve Witkoff. As Trump himself might say, “Who in the hell is this guy?” Prior to Trump designating him a diplomatic savant, Witkoff was focused on luxury real estate development in Manhattan and Miami. Seemingly, it’s this background that presumably explains why he reportedly confused enrichment facilities with “industrial reactors” and referred to the Strait of Hormuz as the “Gulf of Hormuz.”

He and his boss just can’t get the lingo “straight” about Hormuz.

Somewhere among the rows of tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery, revered diplomat Henry Kissinger is pounding furiously on the lid of his coffin, demanding to be let out.

Just about everyone in the world is probably scratching their heads as to why these three numbskulls were leading the way on such consequential matters, and wondering what could have possibly been involved in the three’s preparation, and whether they truly understood the stakes and consequences of what they were doing.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, required two years of intense negotiation, a coalition of six world powers, teams of nuclear scientists, career diplomats fluent in Farsi and the theological contours of the Islamic Republic, and marathon sessions in Lausanne and Vienna.

In other words, it was exhausting and comprehensive.

The foundational principle, agreed upon by all sides, was that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” The Islamabad talks lasted 21 hours before collapsing into mutual recrimination. Only a fool, or someone who has spent his career flipping luxury condominiums, or someone who thinks women should stay in violent marriages, would believe a nuclear and geopolitical settlement forged in decades of hostility could be resolved between sun up and sun down.

The backdrop to this failure is even more damning. Early in Trump’s second term, the State Department was systematically gutted - Middle East and Iran - with more than 3,800 employees shown the door, including the bulk of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, its dedicated Iran office, 13 Arabic speakers, and four Farsi speakers.

The ambassadorships to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE sat vacant as the region ignited. The institutional memory, the language skills, the quiet back-channel relationships that make diplomacy possible, were summarily dismissed because Trump’s “gut” knows more than they all collectively knew and understood.

What was sent to Islamabad in their place? A neophyte and narcissistic vice president, a money-thirsty son-in-law, and a real estate developer who surely spells “Straight of Hormuz” wrong like his boss.

The Iranian delegation was composed of ideologically committed, strategically patient officials who have spent decades enduring sanctions, threats, and negotiations. No one, besides China and Russia, are rooting for the Iranians, but let's be honest, they must have struggled to keep straight faces during negotiations.

Now here we are, with no hope in sight. The ceasefire deadline is not receding. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Iran remains firm in clinging to their uranium and nuclear program. The region sits on tenterhooks.

And, perhaps even more worrisome, the same three bumbling fools who walked away empty-handed in Islamabad are, as far as we know, still in charge of what comes next.

In the original Stooges shorts, the chaos always resolved itself. Someone got a pie in the face, furniture got destroyed, and by the final scene, everything was improbably fine.

That is the reassuring cinematic fiction of the undying genre of slapstick comedy. In real geopolitics, when the Three Stooges leave the stage, they truly look like a trifecta of losers. And their next foray into diplomacy will likely end in the same, proverbial pie in the face thrown at them by Iranian extremists.

Moe, Larry, and Curly always got another chance. So do these three stooges, and that prospect is more of a horror show than a comedy short.

“A whole civilization will die tonight.” Is this something Jesus would have said?

At a White House Easter event last week, Donald Trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White-Cain, compared him to Jesus Christ, invoking betrayal, false accusations and even a kind of political “resurrection.” The remarks were blasphemous. So was Trump’s own doomsday threat to bomb Iran back to the “Stone Age.”

Trump is openly contemplating devastation so complete it would erase the basic infrastructure of an entire nation — its power, its bridges, its ability to function. His threat would cause immeasurable suffering and death, amounting to the destruction of a civilization.

This is where we are now. We are threatening civilizational collapse as if annihilation were just another Truth Social post from the “Jesus-in-Chief.” While Trump exalts in destruction, many conservative Christians remain conspicuously silent, seeking instead to view the war as a “holy” one.

For decades, the United States has defined itself in opposition to regimes like Iran’s, governments where religion and power are fused, where clerics hold ultimate authority, where divine law justifies repression.

Since 1979, Iran has operated under a system in which the Supreme Leader is both political authority and religious figure, claiming legitimacy that flows from God as much as from the state. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has built an identity around martyrdom and sacred duty.

Fighters are taught that death in service to the Republic is not just honorable, but holy — sound familiar? A gateway to eternal reward. Dissenters are cast as enemies of God. Protest becomes heresy. Opposition becomes sin.

This is what we in the United States have long called fanaticism. It is what we have historically opposed.

And yet, as this war escalates, the language coming out of Washington is beginning to echo it.

Start with the effort to cast political leadership in explicitly religious terms. Influential figures within Trump’s orbit have compared his struggles to the suffering of Jesus Christ, not as a metaphor, but as a narrative of persecution and vindication.

I guess they forget that Trump was born in wealth, never suffered for anything, has a history of not sharing that wealth, for example the defunct Trump Foundation, and using that wealth to discriminate against Black people.

Then there is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has described military operations in overtly biblical terms, turning real-world events into spiritual analogies. A downed American airman becomes “reborn,” his ordeal wrapped around Easter Sunday, his rescue framed as a miracle.

Hegseth invokes Jesus while speaking in the language of lethality, creating a dangerous fusion of faith and militarism. It’s an un-Godly version of Christianity that promotes power rather than humility — something Hegseth has none of.

Further, U.S. service members have alleged that commanders are casting the war with Iran as a divine “end-times” mission, presenting the conflict as part of a biblical prophecy and even suggesting Trump is “anointed” to carry it out.

In Hegseth’s official briefings about the war, he routinely invokes “divine help.” Calls for “overwhelming violence” are delivered in the name of Jesus Christ. Telling listeners to get down on “bended knee.”

For years, American officials pointed to this exact mindset within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as evidence of extremism, and the belief that war is divinely ordained, that enemies are theological, that death carries sacred meaning.

That used to be called radicalization. Now the United States sounds like a religious fundamentalist government.

This is no longer a conflict between a secular democracy and a religious theocracy. It is more volatile, two sides invoking God, each claiming righteousness, each convinced that heaven is on their side.

To bottom-line it, it’s Jesus versus Allah. Victory for the righteous or annihilation for the heathens.

Which brings us back to Trump’s threat and the destruction of a “whole civilization.” Not a military target or a regime palace, but a civilization.

International leaders have warned that targeting civilian infrastructure on that scale would be a war crime. But in a conflict all about religious certainty, such warnings are dismissed as atheist.

History shows religious wars do not end well, if they end. They harden and expand. They become generational. From the Crusades to modern sectarian conflicts, once God is invoked to justify violence, the conflict becomes unbounded.

And once people are convinced God is on their side, it becomes nearly impossible to stop.

If we continue down this path, fusing military action in religious language, elevating leaders into instruments of divine purpose, framing war as sacred, then the line between “us” and “them” will disappear.

On Easter Sunday, Pope Leo XIV continued to speak out against the war. He tore apart the dangerous attempt to frame the war in Iran as a holy crusade of "Jesus vs. Allah," reminding the world that the Divine cannot be used to justify killing an “entire civilization.”

By declaring that "no one can use Jesus to justify war," the Pope stripped the conflict of its religiosity, exposing it instead as a failure of human diplomacy.

His chilling warning that God simply "does not listen to the prayers" of those whose hands are stained with the blood of combat, serves as a firm warning about weaponization of faith.

If we continue to invoke the name of Christ to justify the destruction of our adversaries, he said, we risk not only a global "irreparable abyss" but a profound spiritual bankruptcy where our prayers fall on deaf ears.