Episode Details

Jon Herold comes in Thursday on a slow news day that gets spectacularly un-slow mid-show. Trump posts a detailed plan to bomb Iran and take Kharg Island, Jon raises a Sun Tzu objection, and then within the hour Trump posts again canceling everything because a peace deal has been approved by every party in the region. Chris Paul had predicted the reversal in the Badlands private Telegram chat before it happened, and Jon finds that deeply satisfying. Jon also spends significant time on the New York Times Epstein book video and arrives at the opposite conclusion the Times intends: the entire narrative confirms the Epstein story was a coordinated op against Trump, not evidence of a coverup. MTG going on CNN to call Trump a traitor over the files does not help his read on her. Federal prosecutors issued subpoenas to JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo in a criminal political debanking investigation, and Jon says expand it immediately to PayPal, YouTube, Instagram, and every platform that kicked people off for political speech. The USPS just proposed new ballot tracking standards tied directly to Trump's election integrity order, and Jon connects it to the USPS blockchain voting patent that has been sitting quietly for years. Senate Democrats are apparently wargaming how to stop Trump from stealing the midterms, and Jon calls it the most telling projection he has seen in months.