Judge Throws Out Trump’s Lawsuit Over Epstein Birthday Letter

A federal judge has tossed out President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over their reporting on his salacious birthday letter to infamous sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

The Journal successfully argued that Trump “fail[ed] to adequately allege that the statements in the Article are false or defamatory, actual malice, or special damages for his defamation per quod claim,” the judge noted, as he dismissed the case.

The infamous letter showed the silhouette of a woman containing a poem addressed to Epstein, in which Trump allegedly wrote “a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret. Donald J. Trump.”

There is also a signature at the bottom of the woman’s figure, potentially mimicking pubic hair. It reads “Donald.”

This is a developing story.

President Donald Trump’s troubling prediction for the upcoming midterm elections appeared to shock Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo.

“So, do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections?” Bartiromo asked the president during a phone interview on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures.

“I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be, it could be. Or the same. Or maybe a little bit higher. But it should be around the same, I think this won’t be that much longer,” Trump said.

As Trump warned that prices could go even higher, Bartiromo’s eyebrows shot up, her eyes widening. She blinked in apparent disbelief, but said nothing as the president continued to rant.

“They’re wiped out, Maria. They’re wiped out. And you don’t get a—you don’t get a fair shake. You know, we need a free and fair press in this country ...”

Trump continued to ramble as the camera panned over to a board that displayed that the price of crude oil had nearly reached $100 per barrel.

The average price of gas at U.S. service stations nationwide has topped $4 a gallon for most of April—in February the average was just below $3. Gas prices continued to climb Monday after Trump said he would install a military blockade on all ships entering or exiting the Strait of Hormuz following failed peace talks with Iran.

A recent poll from CBS News/YouGov found that 51 percent of Americans found gas prices presented a significant financial hardship. Trump’s approval rating on the economy and his overall job performance ticked down slightly, with those who said they struggled the most with gas prices having the biggest problem with Trump’s handling of the economy.

If Trump’s reckless war in Iran continues to yield disaster for average Americans’ wallets, MAGA Republicans won’t have an easy time getting reelected come November. But Trump already seems more than content with alienating his base in every possible way.

Donald Trump’s negotiators scuttled talks with Iran at the last minute, according to Iran.

In a post on X Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that his country “engaged with U.S in good faith to end war.”

“But when just inches away from ‘Islamabad MoU’, we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade,” Araghchi posted. “Zero lessons earned. Good will begets good will. Enmity begets enmity.”

Trump claimed in an angry Truth Social post earlier that day that “IRAN IS UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS!”

“In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our Military Operations to conclusion, but all of those points don’t matter compared to allowing Nuclear Power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people,” Trump posted.

“My three Representatives, as all of this time went by, became, not surprisingly, very friendly and respectful of Iran’s Representatives, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Abbas Araghchi, and Ali Bagheri, but that doesn’t matter because they were very unyielding as to the single most important issue and, as I have always said, right from the beginning, and many years ago, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Trump continued.

Iran has been a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1968, and its terms require them not to seek nuclear weapons. Since the Iran war broke out this year, though, Iranian lawmakers have pushed for the country to pull out of the agreement, citing the war and Trump’s decision to scrap the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by President Barack Obama.

Iran’s former supreme leaders, the late Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, each made religious rulings against developing and using nuclear weapons. But facing a relentless bombing campaign from the U.S. and Israel, as well as broken deals and failed negotiations, Iran’s new clerical leadership might rule differently.

Boos and jeers erupted at New York Representative Mike Lawler’s town hall as he faced constituents frustrated with the Trump administration—and with his support for the chaotic, expensive U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Lawler, who claims to be a moderate but legislates as a MAGA Zionist, remained firm in his support for Trump and the war, stating that “we need to do everything we can to ensure that this regime never gets a nuclear weapon.” The crowd was unconvinced.

One man was escorted out of the Sunday night town hall after shouting that the Republican Party is “morally bankrupt” and led by “spineless liars” while the crowd cheered him on. “You must impeach. He’s a fraud, he’s corrupt, he’s an incompetent psychopath,” the man yelled, referring to Trump. “The Republican Party and you are enabling him.... He makes genocidal threats against millions of innocent Iranian civilians.... Don’t be spineless, impeach him!”

“Respectfully, you have abdicated your responsibility to the majority of the constituents in District 17,” another constituent who identified as a “military mother” told Lawler. “You have in fact endangered our young people, our service members of our country and killed civilians by not standing up to Trump on this unjustified war.”

This is just one of many rough town halls that Lawler has held, as his constituents grow tired of deference to an administration that they—and much of the country—are fed up with. The midterms can’t come soon enough.

MAGA treated Donald Trump like a messiah. Now they’re mad he’s comparing himself to Jesus Christ.

Trump leapt into hot water with his Christian fans Sunday, when he posted an AI-generated image of himself as literal Jesus on Truth Social. In the image, Trump appeared dressed as a biblical figure, healing a sick man in a hospital bed, surrounded by bald eagles, soldiers, fighter jets, and whatever this winged creature is floating in the background behind him.

After enduring a few hours of the firestorm, Trump removed the post Monday morning. A statement blaming the post on some imaginary staffer shouldn’t be far behind.

Former MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene decried the implication he was “replacing Jesus.”

“It’s more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit,” Greene wrote in a separate post. (Greene directly compared Trump to Jesus during his hush-money trial in April 2023.)

Riley Gaines, an anti-trans activist, struggled to make sense of the president’s post.

“Why? Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this?” she wrote on X Monday. “Either way, two things are true. 1) a little humility would serve him well 2) God shall not be mocked.”

Megan Bashem, a culture reporter for the conservative outlet Daily Wire, also seemed confused.

“I don’t know if the President thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this OUTRAGEOUS blasphemy. But he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God,” she wrote on X Sunday night.

Mandy Arthur, a Christian influencer, made a plea directly to the creator. “God, we might have made a mistake and accidently elected the Antichrist. Send help,” she wrote on X Monday morning.

Sean Feucht, a Christian activist in Trump’s MAGA coalition who has performed worship music services at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, also condemned the post. “This should be deleted immediately,” he wrote on X Monday. “There is no context where this is acceptable.”

In a separate post, Feucht tried and failed to justify the president’s blasphemy. “Does Trump legitimately think he’s Jesus to America? No. Is he trolling the Pope with the AI image? Maybe,” he wrote. “ Is the Pope a woke Communist (like most recent prior Pope’s have been)? Yes. Should Trump have posted that image even as a joke? No.”

But Trump’s behavior should not come as a surprise. The president’s apparent God complex is the inevitable result of MAGA’s unwavering support and outright idolatry. These are some of the same people who insisted that Trump was saved from assassination by divine intervention for the purpose of saving the nation. Now they’re disgusted that he’s taken them seriously?

Trump’s blasphemous post comes amid a veritable fall from grace, as the president continues to plummet in the polls amid his increasingly unpopular war in Iran.

Monday’s post, made on Orthodox Easter, was only slightly more ridiculous than his actual Easter post: a threat to Iran proclaiming, “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

This story has been updated.