Trump Energy Sec. Deletes Post Saying Oil Tankers Are Sailing Again

Energy Secretary Chris Wright deleted a social media post Tuesday claiming that the U.S. Navy had begun escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, where hundreds of ships have been stopped amid Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran. Apparently, it wasn’t true.

Wright’s now-deleted post claimed that the U.S. Navy escorted a ship “to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.” But no U.S. assets had escorted oil tankers through the Persian Gulf’s essential passageway, military sources told Fox News’s Jen Griffin.

At a White House press briefing Tuesday afternoon, press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed she hadn’t had a chance to speak with Wright about the post.

“I know the post was taken down pretty quickly, and I can confirm that the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time,” she said. When pressed on whether there would be consequences for the errant announcement, Leavitt deferred questions to the Department of Energy.

Last week, Trump offered to send the U.S. Navy to escort ships through the essential passageway, but the surplus of stopped ships is likely too great for American assets to assist. On Sunday, more than 1,000 vessels waited to sail through, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Wright pledged on Sunday that “energy will flow soon” through the Strait of Hormuz, and that energy prices were only rising out of concerns that the conflict could become a “drawn-out crisis.”

But the Trump administration has done little to assuage those fears. It’s still unclear how long Trump intends to keep his military campaign going, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying that the bombing could last up to eight weeks, while U.S. Central Command has been preparing for a campaign that lasts until September. Hegseth announced that Tuesday “will be the most intense day of strikes,” just hours after Trump claimed the war “was very complete.”

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal offered an alarming message regarding the growing likelihood of U.S. boots on the ground in Iran and the looming prospect of yet another forever war in the Middle East.

“I emerged from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate,” Blumenthal said after a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday. “I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war. My questions have been unanswered, and I will demand answers because the American people deserve to know.”

“I am most concerned about the threat to American lives, of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran,” he continued. “We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran, to accomplish any of the potential objectives here. And there is also—as disturbingly as anything else—the specter of active, Russian aid to Iran, putting in danger American lives. Literally, Russia seems to be aiding our enemy actively and intensively with intelligence.” Blumenthal alleged that China was helping Iran, as well.

This is the most compelling warning from a government official to date, and directly contradicts President Trump’s claim on Monday that he was “nowhere near” a boots on the ground invasion of Iran. But that statement also pushes back on White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s assertion that Trump “does not remove options off of the table” regarding U.S. military presence in Iran.

This war is already incredibly unpopular, and Americans across the political spectrum are questioning what the actual aims and plan of action are here, if not just blatant regime change. If what Blumenthal says is true, national disapproval for the Trump administration could skyrocket.

Donald Trump’s war in Iran is weakening U.S. military resources and weapons surpluses around the world.

The Washington Post reports that military assets are being rerouted to the Middle East, including from East Asia, where high-end weapons systems are typically kept to defend against possible action from China and North Korea. Parts of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system are now being moved from South Korea, and Patriot missile interceptors are also being moved from East Asia to defend against Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.

An unnamed official told the Post that the moves were precautionary to defend against a possible increase in Iranian retaliatory attacks, and not due to an immediate weapons shortage in the Middle East. But this puts the U.S. at risk in the places now missing these air defense systems, which are considered the most advanced in the world.

“The more THAADs and Patriots you shoot, the more risk you assume in the Indo-Pacific and in Ukraine,” Mark Cancian, who monitors American weapons inventories at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Post.

Last year, during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, the U.S. used about 25 percent of its THAAD interceptors, as well as large amounts of ship-borne interceptors. A THAAD battery usually needs 95 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors (eight for each launcher), one radar system, and a fire control and communications component. As of the middle of last year, there were only nine active THAAD batteries worldwide. One of them costs anywhere from $1 billion to $1.8 billion.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president last month that a protracted war with Iran could deplete U.S. weapons stockpiles, especially considering other U.S. military actions in at least seven countries, as well as U.S. support for Ukraine. If the U.S. runs low on these systems and needs to buy more, it will cost taxpayers billions of dollars and put national security at risk. It’s abundantly clear that Trump didn’t factor this into his decision to go to war.

Yet another massive piece of anti-Epstein class protest art has appeared on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall—this time depicting President Donald Trump and disgraced sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein embracing in the Jack and Rose pose from the movie Titanic.

The statue is titled “The King of the World.” Trump stands right up behind Epstein, holding out his outstretched arms while slightly nuzzling his cheek. The accompanying plaque reads, “The tragic love story between Jack and Rose was built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches. This monument honors the bond between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship seemingly built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches.”

This is at least the fourth piece of protest art placed by a group called the Secret Handshake, whose members choose to remain anonymous. They also placed a poop statue in critique of the January 6 insurrectionists, a statue of Trump and Epstein holding hands, and most recently a giant replica of Trump’s unsettling birthday letter to Epstein.

This statue comes as questions swirl around an FBI interview mentioned in the Justice Department’s Epstein files, in which a woman says she was assaulted by Trump when she was around 13 years old. The DOJ has withheld some files related to the allegation and removed other documents that also mention Trump.

The installation will be on the Mall until Friday, March 13.

Florida gubernatorial hopeful James Fishback is a hero of the Republican Party’s growing sect of young white nationalists. He’s also a laughingstock among his own staffers, according to a series of text messages obtained by The Bulwark.

Fishback is $200,000 in debt due to a legal battle with his former employer Greenlight Capital, a hedge fund at which he was reportedly a low-achieving junior “research analyst.” When he started his own firm, that title was mysteriously bumped to “head of macro”—a promotion his former employer evidently did not appreciate. Fishback’s legal bills could balloon to nearly $2 million, and his staffers are concerned about their boss’s ability to pay.

Bryant Fulgham served as Fishback’s county outreach chair before departing the campaign on February 18 after being threatened with what he believed was a demotion. Now he’s sent The Bulwark texts and photographs from his time at the campaign.

“Jesus Christ,” Fulgham told The Bulwark, “I’ve created Frankenstein.” (He likely meant Frankenstein’s monster.)

In a conversation over text in February, campaign manager Emma Wright claimed that Fishback’s couch had been repossessed by debt collectors.

“Oh my god shit. We’re gonna be sleeping on the floor soon up there,” Fulgham wrote, adding two weeping emojis.

Wright joked that Fishback’s Tesla would be next. “Telsa (also being seized): STAY STRONG COUCH,” she wrote, adding a black fist-up emoji.

Last week, Greenlight Capital asked a judge to determine that the Tesla which Fishback drives on the campaign trail belongs to him and not his father. If the judge concurs, the car could be repossessed.

In another conversation in February, Wright lamented that her boss should “just give [Greenlight] the Rolex and call it a day.” Fishback denied ever owning a Rolex.

“He claims he lost it or something idk,” Wright added.

“Yeah I lost it in my safety deposit box,” Fulgham joked.

The text messages are not particularly flattering toward Fishback. In other messages to Fulgham, Wright complained that Fishback gave her an “ass blasting” over campaign plans. Whatever that means, Fishback did it twice, Wright said.

The texts revealed that staffers also used racial epithets and homophobic rhetoric. At another point, Wright dismissed holding events for college students—who provide a lot of enthusiasm for Fishback’s campaign—because they’re too “broke.”

Yet more evidence has emerged from the Epstein files suggesting that Donald Trump was well aware of the child sex trafficker’s criminal empire.

The Justice Department has slow-rolled the congressionally mandated release of the Epstein files, only releasing a fraction of the sweeping investigation to the public despite the December deadline. The agency held onto one particularly disturbing allegation until last week, when it released an FBI memo detailing an interview with a victim of Epstein’s who accused Trump of practically being in the same room while she was abused.

Epstein assaulted the Chilean-born Jane Doe on several occasions. In 2004, the pedophilic financier took her—then a 16-year-old girl—up the elevator of his seven-story Manhattan townhome, into the massage parlor, where he forced her to strip and rub his body as he spoke to Trump on speaker phone, the victim told federal investigators.

The victim claimed that she was a high school junior at the time. The FBI interview, which took place July 15, 2020, records the unidentified woman’s birth year as 1986.

“EPSTEIN got on the massage table and was on a speakerphone call with DONALD TRUMP,” the FBI memo reads. “[The victim] started getting undressed, and they started massaging him. (The victim) started massaging EPSTEIN’s feet and pointed to his back.”

The White House vehemently denied that Trump had any involvement with Epstein’s criminal activities, claiming that the unnamed woman was mentally unwell.

“These are completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence, from a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

It’s far from the only time Trump appears in the Epstein files. Trump is mentioned more than 38,000 times in the document cache, according to a New York Times review. All in all, Trump was flagged in more than 5,300 files in the document cache, according to the Times.

In another nauseating victim interview, the FBI noted allegations from a victim who claimed that Trump attempted to force her into giving him oral sex.

She remembered that Trump didn’t like the fact that she was a tomboy, and told her something to the effect of, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.” He then unzipped his pants and put her head “down to his penis.” She “bit the shit out of it,” and Trump “struck her,” saying something to the effect of “Get this little bitch the hell out of here,” according to the interview. She was between 13 and 15 years old at the time.

Recent reports indicate that the DOJ has only released a fraction of the Epstein files, potentially holding onto upward of 50 terabytes that the agency has not yet disclosed. The recent releases, which include millions of pages of documents, amount to roughly 300 gigabytes, or 2 percent of the estimated total.

One of Donald Trump’s most outspoken attorneys is facing discipline over ethics violations. 

Ed Martin, an employee at the Justice Department, is in trouble with Washington, D.C.’s professional conduct investigator for sending a letter to the dean of the Georgetown University Law Center last year saying his DOJ office wouldn’t hire any graduates from the law school due to its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. 

A complaint was filed by Hamilton Fox, who serves as disciplinary counsel for the district, giving him prosecutor-like powers on disciplining attorneys. Professional conduct proceedings will now begin for Martin, where he could face sanctions or even lose his law license. It’s the first such action against a lawyer in the Trump administration. 

“Acting in his official capacity and speaking on behalf of the government, he used coercion to punish or suppress a disfavored viewpoint, the teaching and promotion of ‘DEI,’” said Fox in the complaint. “He demanded that Georgetown Law relinquish its free speech and religious rights in order to continue to obtain a benefit, employment opportunities for its students.”

Trump tried to name Martin as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia early in his second term, only for him to be removed after it became apparent that the Senate would not confirm his appointment. Martin, a former political operative in Missouri, right-wing talk show host, and January 6 apologist, has had a rocky tenure in the Trump administration. 

Martin threatened anyone who criticized Elon Musk’s DOGE effort in its early days with legal action, and the methods he used to target prominent Democrats for criminal charges worried Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche so much that he reportedly “encouraged” a federal grand jury to investigate Martin for potential misconduct.  

Now it appears his attacks on DEI in service of the Trump administration have led to legal trouble. It would be quite the story if Martin ends up facing sanctions or losing his law license for attacking DEI, something every Republican, led by Trump, is doing these days. It might even end up protecting DEI initiatives. 

The Pentagon spent an estimated $5.6 billion on munitions alone during the first two days of Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran, three U.S. officials told The Washington Post. And every dollar of that was spent without congressional approval.

This figure, which was delivered to Congress Monday, significantly dwarfs the Pentagon’s preliminary cost estimate of $1 billion per day. Some GOP lawmakers told Politico they’d received estimates that were closer to $2 billion.

The Post report comes as Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Tuesday “will be the most intense day of strikes,” just hours after Trump claimed the war “was very complete.”

The officials who spoke to the Post did not disclose what kinds of munitions were fired in the U.S. military’s opening salvo, but U.S. Central Command confirmed that the U.S. has fired more than 2,000 munitions and struck more than 5,000 targets.

Multiple outlets have reported the use of precision weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles, which cost $2.2 million each. Reports indicate that the U.S. may have used one of these missiles in a deadly strike at a girls’ primary school that killed 175 people, many of whom were children.

But munitions aren’t the only costs, according to the Center for American Progress. Elaine McCusker, who served as deputy undersecretary of defense during the first Trump administration, estimated that it cost $630 million to assemble the largest force of U.S. military assets to the Middle East in decades before the first shot was even fired. Only days into the fighting, a friendly fire incident downed three F-15 fighter jets, costing roughly $351 million.

Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine told reporters last week they would transition away from precision munitions in favor of laser-guided bombs, which are far less expensive. Still, as the fighting drags on, the cost to U.S. taxpayers continues to balloon.

The Trump administration is expected to submit a supplemental defense budget in the coming days—asking for billions more to keep dropping bombs.

The Democratic National Committee is suing the Trump administration for some clarification on any plans to send armed federal agents to polling places amid the president’s threats to “nationalize” elections.

“To ensure that the American people obtain timely knowledge of potential threats to free and fair elections and to enable the D.N.C. to take appropriate action to ensure voting rights are protected, the D.N.C. now seeks this Court’s aid to enforce” Freedom of Information Act requirements, reads the lawsuit, filed on Tuesday.

While President Trump himself hasn’t made public plans to send agents to ballot boxes, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have both refused to rule it out. And Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to nationalize voting. This lawsuit would compel the administration to confirm or deny under oath any “plans” to send federal agents to the polls this election.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We wanna take over, we should take over the voting in at least 15 places’; the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast last month. “We have states that I won, that show I didn’t win … like the 2020 election, I won the election by so much. Everybody knows it.”

Donald Trump opted not to attend the dignified transfer for the seventh U.S. service member killed during the war with Iran.

Several prominent Trump officials attended Sergeant Benjamin N. Pennington’s funeral procession at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Monday, including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine. But Trump—who earlier this week was lambasted for wearing a self-aggrandizing baseball cap to another dignified transfer—was noticeably absent.

Instead, Trump was at his golf club in Doral, Florida, with lawmakers for the House Republicans’ annual policy retreat. His schedule indicated that he was flying back to Washington at the time of the procession.

Pennington died Sunday after sustaining injuries earlier this month at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. He was the seventh U.S. military member to die amid the current Middle East conflict. Six other slain troops were transferred to U.S. soil on Sunday, though the honorary service was overshadowed by Trump’s fashion choices, which included wearing a Trump-branded, white-and-gold baseball cap that he kept on even as the flag-covered coffins passed by.

The president has not been shy about his casual and callous disregard for America’s troops. He has requested that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades; refused to visit a World War II graveyard; derided deceased soldiers as “suckers” and “losers”; and claimed that the Presidential Medal of Freedom he awarded to one of his billionaire donors was “much better” than the nation’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor. Trump doesn’t have any military experience of his own thanks to a conveniently timed bone spur diagnosis that helped him skirt the Vietnam War draft in 1968.

Meanwhile, the president is privately warming to the idea of deploying U.S. troops on the ground in Iran, showing “serious interest” in the possibility of keeping a small contingent there for “specific strategic purposes,” NBC News reported. Trump’s vision for Iran involves controlling the government, securing its uranium, and leeching off its oil supply, similar to how the White House infiltrated Venezuela in January, according to internal sources that spoke with NBC.