Episode Details

1️⃣ THE CABINET MEETING THAT WASN’T

On Tuesday the White House posted that Donald Trump’s six-month physical had “checked out PERFECTLY.” On Wednesday at 11:56 AM the president sat down at his own Cabinet table and proved otherwise. Within the hour he threatened to bomb a US security partner — “Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up” — confused Oman with Iran, then confused Venezuela with Iran in the same answer, then claimed America produces double the oil that Russia and Saudi Arabia produce combined, a number that is not real. He looked gaunt. Dean called him a skeleton with a wig. The shoulders sunken, the cadence slow, the pauses long enough that the room had time to wonder whether the sentence was coming. Cardiologist Jonathan Reiner is on the record about “extreme somnolence.” Rick Wilson said it plain on television this morning — the president is dying. Marco Rubio looked at the wall. Pete Hegseth looked at the floor. The Secretary of State responsible for the Iran negotiation and the Secretary of Defense responsible for the war it followed sat shooting darts with their eyes trying to get the president to stop talking. He kept going. Trump told the country that allowing the cameras in was the most transparent thing any administration had ever done. He may well be right. Every American who turned on a television at noon today saw exactly what his staffers have seen for months: the president who leads the free world cannot lead a meeting.

5️⃣ KENNEDY CATCHES SNAKES, BLAMES CIRCUMCISION

While the Cabinet meeting unfolded, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services uploaded a video of himself catching two snakes barehanded on Dr. Mehmet Oz’s Palm Beach patio. His wife, Cheryl Hines, can be heard begging him to stop — Bobby, please. Bobby told the camera the snakes were water moccasins, venomous; they were Black Racers, non-venomous; he did not know what he was holding. They were mating, which is why they bit him. Forty-eight hours later the same Bobby Kennedy sat at the Cabinet table and told the country circumcision causes autism, citing two studies whose lead reviewer called their methods “truly appalling.” This is the same Bobby Kennedy who cut the head off a whale and drove it home on his Jeep, who staged a dead bear in Central Park as a bike-accident victim, whose Vice President admitted yesterday he is on the “RFK nutrient diet” but will not say what is in it because “I’ll get in trouble for it.” The pseudoscience used to be a podcast bit. Now it is federal health policy. And the man delivering it does not know a Black Racer from a water moccasin.

4️⃣ TEHRAN TURNS THE INTERNET ON

Eighty-seven days after Iran cut its national internet — the longest national shutdown ever recorded — Tehran flipped the switch back on Wednesday. Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref called it “the first step toward free and regulated access,” the word regulated doing the work. A regime does not reopen its country when it has lost. Iran has been letting only 25 ships through the Strait of Hormuz in a 24-hour window against a pre-war average of more than 100 — Tehran controls the tap. Their people will see the videos the regime wants them to see: the 42 US military aircraft downed, the USS Gerald Ford in dry dock for two years, more than two-thirds of US munitions and interceptors in the region depleted. Trump told his Cabinet “we don’t need oil, we don’t need the straits, we don’t need anything.” His allies in Europe and Asia need the straits. Inflation needs the straits. If Trump thinks he forced regime change in Tehran, he is delusional. The new leaders of Iran are the same — if not worse — than the ones before.

3️⃣ ALFONSI WALKS, CBS BURNS

Sharyn Alfonsi’s last day at 60 Minutes was Saturday. She left after nearly twenty years at CBS and published a statement today naming editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as the executive who killed her CECOT