Trump Has Mindblowing Reaction to Soldier Allegedly Betting on Maduro

Insider trading is of no concern to the Trump administration.

Federal prosecutors have charged Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old active-duty Army soldier involved in the planning and capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, with using confidential intel to win $400,000 on Polymarket predictions related to the raid.

But Donald Trump practically shrugged off the illegal activity while speaking with reporters Thursday evening, suggesting to the room that there was no issue with making extra cash off of insider knowledge so long as the soldier was betting on the U.S. to win.

“Mr. President, apparently there was a special forces soldier involved in the capture of [Maduro] who was arrested by federal authorities today on suspicion of insider trading and betting on Polymarket,” stated a reporter. “Are you concerned that federal employees are betting on these reduction markets and potentially getting rich?”

“Well, I don’t know about it,” Trump said, taking a long pause. “Was he betting that they would get him or they wouldn’t get him?”

“It sounds like he was betting on his removal from office, that Maduro would be removed,” the reporter clarified.

“That’s interesting. That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team, it’s a little like Pete Rose,” Trump said, referring to the former Cincinnati Reds manager.

Rose was permanently blacklisted from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989 after he was caught betting on his team to win. Rose’s behavior also spurred the Hall of Fame’s board of directors’ eponymously titled 1991 baseball rule, barring anyone on the permanently ineligible list from running for election in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

“If he bet against his team, that would be no good,” Trump added, referring to Van Dyke.

In the same press conference, Trump lamented that “the whole world has become somewhat of a casino.”

“I was never very much in favor of it, I don’t like it conceptually,” said Trump, whose social media company Truth Social is in the midst of launching its own prediction platform, Truth Predict. “It is what it is.”

Van Dyke was arrested Thursday and faces up to 60 years in prison. In a statement posted on social media, Polymarket said that “insider trading has no place” in its betting services, and claimed it had appropriately coordinated with law enforcement and the Justice Department investigation to hold Van Dyke accountable.

Yet despite the clear parameters of the law prohibiting such activity, some corners of Washington are already divided on what justice looks like for the soldier. Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna has already asked Trump to pardon Van Dyke, claiming in a social media post that “unless the DOJ plans on going after all the crooks in Congress currently insider trading, this is simply skewed justice.”

“I don’t agree with what he did and he should be required to disgorge all the profits; however, unless the DOJ plans on doing Congress next, this is not justice,” she affirmed.

It looks like Kash Patel’s major meltdown over The Atlantic’s humiliating report on his excessive drinking and unexplained absences has only made things worse for the embattled FBI director.

Last weekend, The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick reported that Patel was known to drink in excess, routinely delayed meetings and time-sensitive operations, and was often unreachable, raising concerns about the potential for foreign coercion and other national security risks. His behavior had also grown increasingly erratic as he became worried he might lose his job.

In response, Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit Monday alleging that the article was “replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.” Within a day of filing, he already managed to undermine his own lawsuit.

While speaking to Radio Atlantic Thursday, Fitzpatrick was asked about Patel’s lawsuit. “I stand by every single word of this report,” she said, noting that aside from Patel, the response to the article has been overwhelmingly supportive.

“And I think one of the things that has been most gratifying, after—immediately after the story published was, I have been inundated by additional sourcing going up to the highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work, providing additional corroborating information,” Fitzpatrick said.

The sources Fitzpatrick spoke with to produce the original report were “people who felt that not only was this conduct embarrassing, unbecoming, but that it was a national security vulnerability, and that Americans were perhaps less safe as a result,” she said.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is still living in a waterfront home on a Washington, D.C., military base nearly two months after she was fired, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal.

Noem moved into the home—usually reserved for the Coast Guard commandant— after the previous commandant, Linda Fagan, was fired. It is not typical for Cabinet members or civilians to live in military housing. While other Trump Cabinet members have opted for military housing in his second term, allegedly due to threats they received, Noem is no longer a Cabinet member and should be living in civilian housing. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the new homeland security secretary on March 23, over a month ago, and Noem was ousted before that.

Admiral Kevin Lunday, the current Coast Guard commandant, has plans to move into the home Noem is occupying very soon, according to sources close to the situation.

Corey Lewandowski, Noem’s former aide and alleged affair partner, has been spotted at the home multiple times, even as recently as this month. Neither Noem nor DHS has commented.

President Donald Trump is backing down from his vendetta against Jerome Powell.

The Justice Department announced Friday that it is dropping its criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve chief over the renovation of the central bank’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

“This morning the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns—in the billions of dollars—that have been borne by taxpayers,” U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro posted on X. “Accordingly, I have directed my office to close our investigation as the IG undertakes this inquiry.”

“I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so,” Pirro added, appearing to suggest that there was not a factual basis for the previous investigation.

Powell’s term expires on May 15, and Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh to fill the position has faced roadblocks, with Republican Senator Thom Tillis threatening to hold up Warsh’s confirmation over the trumped-up investigation of Powell. Tillis’s vote against Warsh would have been enough to sink his nomination.

Trump has threatened to fire Powell for months, citing the made-up headquarters scandal and complaining about interest rates not being lowered enough. Earlier this month, Trump said he would fire Powell if he stayed past his term, even though Powell is legally allowed to remain as chair “pro tempore” until Congress confirms his replacement.

At his Senate confirmation hearings earlier this week, Warsh dodged questions about his financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein and whether Trump had discussed lowering interest rates with him. While a significant roadblock to his confirmation has just been lifted, those questions could still deter his appointment.

This story has been updated.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is hoping to get around Florida’s Constitution in order to redraw the state’s congressional map and give Republicans nationally a big advantage.

The Florida Constitution bans legislators from drawing districts with “the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.” DeSantis, who has called a special session of the state legislature to vote on the new maps on Tuesday, plans to get around that provision in three ways, Axios reports.

First, DeSantis’s office has redrawn the new congressional districts in secret, rejecting state legislators’ calls for an open process during their regular session in January. DeSantis is the first governor in state history to submit his own secretly drafted maps, and as of Thursday night, Florida lawmakers still haven’t seen them. The hidden process frustrates legal challenges, making it hard for plaintiffs to access records and prove intent.

Second, since DeSantis’s staff are the ones drawing the maps, he can claim executive privilege as a legal defense to court challenges. He did so in a 2022 court challenge to new legislative maps. In that case, he also invoked the “apex doctrine,” which requires plaintiffs to first depose low-level staff members before higher ones, to shield his staff from depositions. Ultimately, the maps were upheld in federal court.

That doctrine would waste time and help the Florida governor run out the clock on any court challenges to his districts, which is the third part of DeSantis’s plan. The U.S. Supreme Court generally abides by the “Purcell principle,” which limits lower courts from changing election laws too close to an election to protect voters. By running out the clock in court, DeSantis can then invoke that principle to force his maps through in time for November’s midterm elections, although this could backfire if the courts decide DeSantis’s changes are too close to the midterms.

Republicans hope Florida can offset a Democratic redistricting win in Virginia earlier this week, when voters passed a state constitutional amendment to temporarily allow the Democratic-run legislature to redraw the state’s maps. But even if DeSantis successfully gets his new maps approved, there’s no guarantee that Republicans will gain seats.

“The enemy gets a vote,” a Republican consultant involved in the redistricting process told Axios. “And in an environment like this, where independents are breaking hard against us and our people aren’t showing up and Democrats are pissed, we could wind up losing a net number of seats.”