Random YouTube Livestream Pops Up on White House Website

A livestream of a bearded man who goes by “Real Matt Money” inexplicably took over the White House home page on Thursday night, leading the public to ask if the page had been hacked or if the Trump administration was getting financial advice from a self-described “shepherd for individual investors.”

As Bloomberg reported, the livestream appeared and disappeared on the White House website in about an hour.

Real Money Matt seemed to be just as surprised as the rest of us.

“If I had known I would be live for the WORLD to see, I likely would have had a different message than personal finance,” he wrote Friday on X. “Let me meet the @POTUS.”

While Matt took it in stride, the randomness of his live appearance on the White House website does lend itself to questions regarding just how serious the Trump administration is about security, especially since it brought us the Signalgate scandal just one month in.

The White House has yet to publicly comment.

The more details that emerge about Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, the clearer it is that the two shared a wildly unconventional—and creepy—relationship.

Hours after The New York Times reported Thursday that Epstein and Trump bonded over “trophy hunting,” investigative reporter Nicholas Confessore told MS NOW that Epstein frequently allowed his friends and associates to listen in on private phone calls where he and Trump shared details of their “sexual conquests.”

“So we spoke to several former assistants and employees of Jeffrey Epstein’s,” Confessore said. “And he had a habit of putting Donald Trump and other famous friends on the phone. It was partly a power play and partly a way that he groomed people. ‘See how powerful I am. I can put this person on the phone. I can get them on the phone, I can put them on speaker. We’re friends. That’s how powerful I am.’

“It was a way that he groomed people and he would put Donald Trump on the phone. They would talk about sex,” he added.

Trump has vehemently denied this year that he had any sort of meaningful connection to the deceased child sex trafficker, but that wasn’t always the case. Over the last couple of decades, Trump has switched his tune on Epstein several times. In 2002, Trump told New York magazine that Epstein was a “terrific guy.” He wrote a repugnant and allusory letter to Epstein for the sex trafficker’s 50th birthday. They were spotted socializing together, with young women many times, and even ended up living in the same Florida neighborhood.

But since ascending to the forefront of American power, Trump has claimed that he had “no relationship” with Epstein, pitching—despite troves of evidence to the contrary—that he was “not a fan of his.”

People around the pair of socialites, however, were under the impression that Epstein and Trump were each other’s closest friends, and Epstein reportedly believed it too.

“I think that Jeffrey Epstein thought he was Donald Trump’s closest friend for a period,” Confessore said. “They spent a lot of time talking on the phone about women and sexual conquests. They spent time at Trump Tower or over at Jeffrey Epstein’s offices nearby on Madison Avenue. They flew on each other’s planes, and they partied together a lot. And a lot of parties with women, people who are younger than they are.”

The phone calls were an instance of Epstein using Trump, wielding the real estate magnate’s name to advance his own social standing and access, according to Confessore.

Trump has not been charged with any crimes related to Epstein or his longtime associate and sex-trafficking partner, Ghislaine Maxwell.

But the country is on the precipice of knowing just about everything there is to know about the pair’s scandalous relationship. The administration is preparing to release the totality of the Epstein files Friday, as required by a law passed by Congress last month.

So far, the administration has already attempted to waylay public expectations that the files will be exposed to the full breadth of the document load, with FBI Director Kash Patel claiming that his agency is doing everything it can to release the portions of the files that are “lawful,” despite the fact that Congress mandated their entire release.

A Wisconsin judge has been convicted of obstructing federal government proceedings by allowing an immigrant man to exit her courtroom through a side door.

Judge Hannah Dugan was acquitted Thursday night of a lesser charge of obstructing an arrest, but she still faces up to five years in prison. Having now been convicted of a felony, she is likely ineligible to continue serving from the bench. The judge’s lawyers have vowed to appeal the ruling.  

Witnesses testified that Dugan sent away several plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who came to the Milwaukee County Courthouse to detain Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. She then told Flores-Ruiz’s lawyer that she would reschedule his hearing and directed them to exit her courtroom through a door typically used by the jury. 

In an audio recording played in court, Dugan could be heard conferring with the court reporter. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll get the heat.”

Flores-Ruiz then used a public courthouse hallway, walked past a couple of DEA agents, got into an elevator, and exited the building before ICE officers could stop him.

Dugan’s lawyers had cited Trump v. United States in arguing that their client had judicial immunity for official acts and broad authority over her own courtroom. 

The ruling is a victory for President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, which seeks to paint judges who don’t greenlight his immigration crackdown as “deranged” rogue actors.

Protests and event messages about ICE could now be grounds for domestic terrorism investigations by the FBI.

The Guardian reports that the bureau has launched cases in 23 regions across the U.S. related to “threats against immigration enforcement activity.” The investigations fit into the new NSPM-7 national security strategy targeting supposed anti-American activity on the left. That document referred to protests against ICE in Los Angeles and Portland as examples of “political violence.”

The investigations were laid out in an internal report drafted by the FBI in November and shared with other law enforcement agencies. The report mentions that using encrypted messaging apps to discuss ICE was considered an indicator of whether a person would engage in terrorism, as well as “stockpiling or distributing firearms” but also “conducting online research” about agents.

The document has alarmed privacy advocates and civil rights groups, who said that it confirmed their fears that the NSPM-7 document would be used to crack down on dissent. In over 30 states, the FBI has opened cases related to anti-ICE activity or NSPM-7, a map in the document shows.

“[The FBI document] is infused with vague and overbroad language, which was exactly our concern about NSPM-7 in the first place. It invites law enforcement suspicion and investigation based on purely first amendment-protected beliefs and activities,” Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, told The Guardian. “People who are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing can be subjected to surveillance or investigation. That imposes stigma. It can wrongly [enmesh] people in the criminal legal system.”

Coupled with its declaration that antifa, or anti-fascism, is a terrorist organization, these actions by the Trump administration seek to clamp down on any protests or dissent against its policies. It’s not far-fetched to imagine federal law enforcement cracking down on President Trump’s political opposition, using these documents to justify its actions, all in the name of fighting terrorism.

Right-wing commentators Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson used their speeches at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest to take shots at each other, only further emphasizing the right’s growing divide on Israel, conspiracy theories, and Jeffrey Epstein.

In his speech Thursday, Shapiro called out Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, and Steve Bannon for being “frauds and grifters.”

“The conservative movement is in serious danger,” he said, claiming it was rife with “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”

“When Steve Bannon, for example, accuses his foreign policy opponents of loyalty to a foreign country, he’s not actually making an argument based in evidence,” Shapiro continued. “He’s simply maligning people that he disagrees with. Which is indeed par for the course, for a man who was once a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein.”

The TPUSA crowd reacted with an “oooh.”

This attack on Bannon—the right-wing provocateur instrumental in getting Trump elected to his first term—elicited mixed reactions.

“Shapiro constantly defames Jews who hold liberal politics or who oppose Israel’s policies as not really Jewish,” Zaid Jilani wrote. “Good for the goose good for the gander.”

“Shapiro is slamming Bannon for his ties to Epstein, but is SILENT about Trump having ties to Epstein. The irony …” wrote another.

Shapiro moved on to attacking Tucker for his platforming of Candace Owens—who has pushed the theory that Charlie Kirk was murdered for his rejection of Israel and AIPAC—and Nick Fuentes, who is a Nazi.

“The people who refused to condemn Candace’s truly vicious attacks—and some of them are speaking here tonight—are guilty of cowardice,” Shapiro said, obviously referring to Carlson. “If you host a Hitler apologist, Nazi-loving, anti-American piece of refuse like Nick Fuentes … you ought to own it.”

Carlson was apparently laughing backstage during this.

“That guy is pompous,” he said, according to Politico. “Calls to deplatform at a Charlie Kirk event? That’s hilarious.”

Carlson addressed the crowd afterward, attacking the rampant Islamaphobia present in Shapiro’s pro-Israel wing of the movement. (Carlson has recently been accused of being anti-American for his ties to Qatar, his criticism of Israel, and his acknowledgment of its genocide in Palestine. He has also faced criticism for his platforming of neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.)

“Most Americans have more in common with each other than they disagree on … and almost everyone is willing to tolerate a good-faith argument about how to get there,” he said. “Except a few. And they’re the ones running around calling everyone an antisemite.”

“Attacking millions of Americans because they’re Muslims? It’s disgusting. And I’m a Christian!” he continued. “I’m not a Muslim, I know there’s a lot of effort to claim I’m a secret jihadi, I’m not.… What the hell are you doing? What you’re doing is trying to divide the country. All these fake race wars that they’re always promoting?”

Regardless of where you fall on this rift, it’s clear that there is no unified MAGA front right now, at least at the punditry level. People like Carlson are tired of Trump governing as a neocon while campaigning as a populist, continuing to fund endless wars for Israel, trying to do regime change in Venezuela, and spewing racism. Those like Shapiro have a more traditional view of the situation. Only time will tell whose voice is the loudest by 2028.