Trump’s Truth Social, Already in Shambles, Loses Its Top Execs

Executives at Trump Media & Technology Group have been forced out in the wake of internal allegations that the company’s CEO, former California Representative Devin Nunes, is mismanaging the company.

Several sources that spoke anonymously with ProPublica believed that the forced exits, which include Chief Operating Officer Andrew Northwall and Chief Product Officer Sandro De Moraes, were retaliation for a “whistleblower” complaint regarding Nunes that was sent to the company’s board of directors.

Nunes, a Trump loyalist, has helmed the company since it launched in 2021. Trump Media has generated practically no revenue, and its singular major property, Truth Social, has failed to attract the interest of the general market or become even close to a competitor of platforms like X (formerly Twitter) or Threads.

As its chief executive, Nunes had penned a TV streaming deal to bring cable content onto the site and, for no clear reason explained by the company, traveled to the Balkans to meet with the prime minister of North Macedonia.

Four Trump Media employees were sent packing after the company enlisted a lawyer to investigate and interview the alleged misconduct, reported ProPublica. Alongside Northwall and De Moraes, the company also reportedly let go a human relations director and a product designer. An unidentified source said that the cohort were granted severance pay in exchange for their silence about the situation.

On Thursday, Northwall publicly announced his departure on Truth Social, writing that he had “decided to resign from [his] role at Trump Media” and that he was “incredibly grateful” for the opportunity.

A spokesperson for Trump Media completely brushed off the allegations of retaliation in a statement to ProPublica claiming that the story “utterly fabricates implications of improper and even illegal conduct that have no basis in reality.”

“This story is the fifth consecutive piece in an increasingly absurd campaign by ProPublica, likely at the behest of political interest groups, to damage TMTG based on false and defamatory allegations and vague innuendo,” the statement said, adding that “TMTG strictly adheres to all laws and applicable regulations.”

The report is just another sign that one of Trump’s financial assets may not last for much longer. One of the largest shareholders of the shaky company offloaded its stock as soon as insider-trading restrictions were lifted last month, dumping 11 million shares worth somewhere between $128 million and $170 million. Trump Media fell dramatically in the days following lock-up expiration, with shares spiraling to a fraction of their value at the company’s initial public offering in March.

Donald Trump—who owns roughly 57 percent of the company, with 115 million shares—has insisted he has no intention of selling off his stock, though doing so could be a quick and easy profit for the legally hamstrung Republican presidential nominee. Choosing to do so, however, would devastate investors’ confidence in the Trump-led company and could spell the end for Truth Social.

Trump Media has been criticized as another iteration of a long line of grifts this year as the former president has fought off numerous legal charges that have added up to half a billion dollars in expenses and debt. Other Trumpian hustles included launching a remarkably ugly sneaker, an equally hideous line of watches, and NFT trading cards of himself dressed in superhero costumes and astronaut suits. He also made some quick cash on a limited edition, $60 God Bless the USA Bible co-promoted by “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood, and stamped his name on a new cryptocurrency platform headed by his two sons, Eric and Don Jr., that even Trump’s allies have criticized as a “huge mistake.”

Donald Trump is losing it over Kamala Harris’s latest batch of campaign ads touting the Republican nominee’s links to Project 2025.

“Lyin’ Kamal Harris, who refuses to do interviews or press conferences because she has no idea how to answer the questions, and is now losing in the polls, continues to make a thing called Project 2025 the central theme of her campaign, advertising and all,” Trump ranted in a post on Truth Social Friday.

“Lyin’ Kamala has been informed, legally, that I have, and had, nothing to do with it, NEVER READ IT, NEVER SAW IT, but her ads continue, full blast,” he continued, seemingly threatening legal action against Harris.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and at least two dozen Trump allies created Project 2025 as an in-depth Christian nationalist policy roadmap for a second Trump presidency. A recent 30-second ad spot from the Harris campaign promises that “Trump’s Project 2025 agenda will give him unchecked political power with no guardrails.”

While Trump has insisted he has nothing to do with Project 2025—and the federal abortion ban it advocates—the plan’s architects have said exactly the opposite.

Paul Dans, the former director of Project 2025, once boasted about having “great relationships” with Trump and other Republicans, and has spoken with members of Trump’s campaign staff several times at Mar-a-Lago. Dans explained that Project 2025 focused on a presidential transition team, adding, “So ultimately, yes. I think, you know, President Trump’s very bought in with this.”

Dans also called Project 2025 an “instruction manual” for a second Trump presidency, and said that while the plan was not formally linked to Trump’s campaign, when it came to policy ideas “you’ll see one-to-one mirroring.”

Trump has even lifted some of his particularly authoritarian policy ideas straight from its pages, including a plot to dismantle the Department of Education.

Still, Trump has continued to try and distance himself from the far-right playbook—even though it was designed just for him. “When you see them talking about Project 2025, remember, Kamala is lying,” Trump wrote Friday.

Days after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, U.S. government officials were warning about the potentially dire humanitarian cost of Israel’s reprisal in Gaza—warnings that were ignored and that have sadly since come true.

Reuters reports that only a few days after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 last year, a senior Department of Defense official warned that the early Israeli bombing of the area could lead to war crimes, in an email to senior White House officials.

Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, relayed concerns from the International Committee of the Red Cross that Israel’s order of mass evacuations of more than one million Palestinians from Gaza would be a humanitarian disaster, which left her “chilled to the bone.”

“ICRC is not ready to say this in public, but is raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes,” Stroul said in her October 13 email, describing a conversation with the ICRC Middle East director. “Their main line is that it is impossible for one million civilians to move this fast.”

Reuters gained access to three sets of email exchanges between U.S. government officials from October 11 to October 14, showing that both State Department and DOD staffers had early concerns about the civilian death toll in Gaza, violations of international law, and increasing the flow of humanitarian aid. There were also internal warnings that a perceived lack of sympathy with the Palestinians could hurt ties with Arab countries.

After Israel bombed hospitals, schools, and mosques in Gaza, the top public diplomacy official at the State Department, Bill Russo, told his superiors that the U.S. was “losing credibility among Arab-speaking audiences,” according to an October 11 email.

Later, Russo wrote that Arab media reports being monitored by U.S. diplomats in the Middle East were accusing Israel of genocide and the U.S. of being complicit in war crimes.

“The U.S.’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” emailed Russo.

In another email, he said that if the Biden administration didn’t change its policy of unconditional support for Israel and its war in Gaza, “it risks damaging our stance in the region for years to come,” he wrote. Russo would later resign in March for personal reasons.

While White House officials say that their pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu early on prevented a worse disaster in Gaza, the death toll today exceeds more than 42,000 Palestinians, including 16,500 children. The Biden administration continues to reject calls to use its billions of dollars in aid to Israel as leverage to push for a humanitarian cease-fire, even though an arms embargo could end a conflict which has since expanded to southern Lebanon.

Donald Trump’s Bible grift is about to pull in some stateside cash.

Oklahoma’s Department of Education on Monday opened bids to fill a 55,000 unit order of Bibles for classrooms across the state, but Superintendent Ryan Walters’s parameters for the allowed Bibles has become eyebrow-raisingly specific.

Bid documents indicate that the Bible must meet strict expectations, including that the text itself be the King James version, that it includes both the Old and New Testaments, and that the copies include core, historical elements of the U.S. educational system, including the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Oklahoma is also stipulating that the text be bound in leather or a leather-like material.

Curiously, that narrows the pool of applicants down to just one apparent choice: Trump’s God Bless the USA Bible.

“The RFP on its face seems fair, but with additional scrutiny, we can see there are very few Bibles on the market that would meet these criteria, and all of them have been endorsed by former President Donald Trump,” Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice Executive Director Colleen McCarty told The Oklahoma Watch.*

Trump made some quick cash on the rollout of the limited-edition, $60 Bible earlier this year when he co-promoted it alongside “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood. Another version, signed by the Republican presidential nominee, retailed for $1,000 a pop. The selling point for the print boiled down to a callback to Trump’s campaign: “We must make America pray again.” Prior to the Oklahoma bid, the far-flung grift raked in $300,000 in royalties, according to financial disclosures released by the former president.

In July, Walters unveiled new guidelines for teaching Bibles in classrooms—and consequences for districts that refused to participate.

“Every teacher, every classroom in the state, will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom,” Walters said at the time.

* This post originally misidentified the outlet that obtained the quote.

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has reportedly chatted with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman several times since leaving the Trump White House.

A source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that Kushner had discussed normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but would not specify whether the conversations were before or after the start of Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza.

Last month, Saudi Arabia said that it would not recognize Israel until the creation of a Palestinian state, which if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to be believed, is a long way off. This is in sharp contrast to Kushner’s pitch to move Palestinians to the Negev Desert and transform Gaza’s “very valuable” “waterfront property.”

Kushner served as a top Middle East adviser during Trump’s time in office, and was instrumental in installing the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize ties with two other Gulf countries.

Kushner’s cozy relationship with MBS highlights how Donald Trump might choose to work with Saudi Arabia should he be reelected in November. Three sources close to Kushner said that they expect Trump’s son-in-law to be involved in any Saudi talks in an unofficial capacity. A spokesperson for Kushner denied that he was seeking any such role.

It’s not clear, however, that Kushner has any leverage in his relationship with MBS.

Last month, the Senate Finance Committee found that Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, had yet to return any profit to its foreign investors after receiving billions from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and other foreign governments.

In his report, Senator Ron Wyden wrote that “sovereign wealth fund investments and prospective real estate deals give foreign governments leverage over the Trump family.”

Wyden explained that “a potential future Trump administration will have financial motives to make foreign policy decisions that may be counter to the national interest in order to ensure Kushner and Ivanka Trump continue to collect millions of dollars in fees from foreign governments through Affinity.”

When asked for more details about Kushner’s friendship with MBS, the source with knowledge of their conversations declined, saying, “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to share that.”