The Terrifying Person Who Bankrolled Trump Jr.’s Wedding

Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish destination wedding was bankrolled by a member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, ProPublica reported Monday.

Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch, dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on Don Jr.’s big day, according to records reviewed by ProPublica, as well as three people familiar with the event who spoke with the outlet.

Kremlev rented out a private island where the reception was held, and guests were housed for $100,000 per night. He paid an estimated $70,000 for a massive fireworks display, and his team even helped to plan the festivities.

Kremlev is president of the International Boxing Association, which is financed by Gazprom, a Russian state-owned energy company. The wedding payments were sourced from an entity in Dubai that IBA uses for financial transactions.

The event was small—just 18 people attended the ceremony, and around 50 attended the reception—which made it all the more conspicuous that there was a large delegation of Russians wandering around. None of the family’s pictures showed Kremlev, but the top of his bald head could be spotted in a group picture posted by a friend of the bride.

Kremlev has extensive ties to Putin: The Russian president has positioned Kremlev as a central figure in the sports-betting industry and chosen one of his companies to run the national lottery. In 2023, Putin nationalized Russia’s largest car dealership company—and Kremlev promptly became its owner.

“Umar is guided by Putin. It was using the sport for soft political power,” a former IBA board member told ProPublica. “It’s geopolitics. That it’s boxing is just happenstance.”

The previously unreported relationship between Don Jr. and a Russian oligarch should raise serious concerns about the level of access Putin’s inner circle has to President Donald Trump and his family. Also in attendance at the wedding was Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who has held a central role in negotiating a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

It’s not clear why Kremlev would bankroll Don Jr.’s wedding, considering that the president’s son already has a net worth of $300 million. Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles, told ProPublica that the arrangement reeked of quid pro quo. “If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” he said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

A spokesperson for Trump Jr. did not dispute that his wedding was paid for by a Russian oligarch, insisting that Kremlev was a “personal friend” and “not someone he has a business relationship with.” Kremlev’s press office said, “Mr. Kremlev and Mr. Trump Jr. have a friendly relationship” and they first met “a couple of years ago.”

President Donald Trump didn’t seem to remember the January 6 Capitol insurrection when asked about one of his Truth Social posts by a reporter Sunday.

On Friday, Trump posted a video of his speech on the White House lawn from January 6, 2021, urging rioters to go home. Why he chose to post that video on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is unclear, and when he was asked about it a few days later, he was clueless.

“Well, I posted about 30. Which one are you talking about?” Trump replied to a reporter on Air Force One. When the reporter tried to explain the video to him, he asked, “Who?” and then said, “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

It’s another example of what appears to be Trump’s ongoing cognitive decline. He’s forgotten how to spell the word “dumb,” repeatedly told a fake 9/11 story, and keeps falling asleep in public. Why can’t he remember one of the final moments of his first term as president, and one of the worst, at that? Is another symptom of his declining mental state that he goes on posting binges without realizing what he’s putting on social media? He somehow remembered posting 30 videos, so he can’t pawn this off on an aide.

Either Trump is lying about the January 6 post and trying to play dumb, or he legitimately does not remember. In either case, he should not be occupying America’s highest seat of power.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick thinks Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe can be paid for with funds from the so-called “Trump Platinum Card,” which hasn’t even been launched yet.

Lutnick shared this ridiculous idea with NBC News on Thursday.

“Together we’re going to deliver that plan and we’re going to pay that money to the Americans, and not from taxpayer money.... We have a waitlist of more than 100,000 people who want to come,” he said, referring to the Platinum Card applicants. “That’s $500 billion.”

The Platinum Card is a $15,000 application and $5 million donation to the government for extremely wealthy immigrants looking to expedite their citizenship process. The program would allow applicants to live in the U.S. for nearly the entire year without paying taxes on foreign income.

At the Republican midterm convention on Wednesday, Trump vowed to “issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000” if the Republicans win the House and Senate in November. Since then, the administration has scrambled to propose different ways to pay for the promise, which would cost an estimated $1.3 trillion.

Vice President JD Vance thinks they’ll be able to use tariff revenue to deliver their promise. (Tariff revenue would cover only a fraction of that sum.) National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett thinks that Congress will be able to foot the bill. Either way, Lutnick and every other administration official involved has tried to explain their way out of it, or frame the promise as some galaxy-brained moment from a genius president. In reality, they are obviously covering for a desperate president willing to say and do anything to win in November.

Sorry to break it to you, but New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weren’t actually cracking up at the 9/11 memorial ceremony.

Conservatives were outraged Friday after a video circulated on social media showing Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez laughing and smiling at the ceremony in New York City.

Michael Ragusa, an aide for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who also attended the event, claimed the reports about Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez were “not true.”

“I was standing next to them the whole time. The camera just caught her greeting him hello,” Ragusa wrote on X. “Multiple other politicians were laughing and joking behind me. Republicans and Democrats.

“And for the record I am a life long republican who has been very critical of these two,” Ragusa wrote in another post. “I’m just sick of this fake news and people just saying whatever they want.”

It appears that the short video clip was taken out of context. In fact, Mamdani was reportedly the only senior elected official to stay until after all the names were read.

Still, Republicans are keeping a tight grip on their pearls.

“Mamdani and AOC seem to be having the time of their lives while everyone else is paying respects to the deceased,” wrote Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on X.

“How the hell do you laugh while the names of those murdered on 9/11 are being read aloud? Why would you do so?” wrote Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who infamously “liked” a pornographic tweet on 9/11 several years ago.

I don’t recall the same level of outrage when Trump was spotted laughing with former President Barack Obama at late President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

Surely, Republicans were just as upset after seeing the flood of images showing President Donald Trump dozing off onstage during the memorial ceremony at the Pentagon Friday. Oh wait, Republicans didn’t care at all? For God’s sake, even former President Joe Biden looked more awake than he did!

Security at the Republican National Convention kicked a trio of Epstein survivors out of the event after a journalist they were accompanying dared to ask a House candidate about the Epstein files.

Independent journalist Tara Palmeri went through the proper channels to attend the event, acquiring a press pass and event credentials to enter the unprecedented “Trump-a-palooza.” Palmeri’s four guests—her producer and the three survivors, who were already in town to attend the Epstein Files Reading Room—did the same.

But the full authorization wasn’t enough to protect them from being spontaneously escorted out of the Dallas arena. Palmeri also documented what happened to them on her Substack.

The group hit a snag just three minutes after they walked into the event space. That’s when Palmeri questioned Robert Burke, a Republican running to represent the greater Boston suburbs, about his position on Epstein’s crimes and the government’s protracted rollout of the files.

“That’s a great topic,” Burke said, as soon as Palmeri informed him she was surrounded by several Epstein survivors. “Because we really need to know what actually happened.”

Burke then prompted the survivors to throw him some questions. One approached the microphone and asked if he would support holding anybody that participated in Epstein’s crimes accountable, regardless of their party affiliation.

“I don’t care who they are, unlawful touching is unlawful touching. Consent is consent,” Burke said. He then added, unprompted, that one of his friends represented Epstein as well as Ghislaine Maxwell, though he declined to offer up the name of the individual.

Palmeri then redirected the conversation back toward the unreleased files, asking why Donald Trump “didn’t want to release the Epstein files.” The Justice Department has released roughly three million pages from the collection, but officials have also admitted that the sprawling investigation collected more than six million pages, suggesting that a mere 50 percent of the documents have been released since Congress ordered the administration to do so last year.

But Burke only wanted to speak about Joe Biden.

“But here’s the thing—the buck stops where?” asked Palmeri in response.

“The Department of Justice,” said Burke.

“And who controls the Department of Justice?” she pressed.

“Trump does,” said Burke, though he noted that he disagreed with the “premise” of Palmeri’s argument.

Burke then said that those who participated in Epstein’s crimes should be held accountable, “no matter who they are.”

“What if it’s President Trump?” asked Palmeri. “He was friends with [Epstein] for years, he’s mentioned thousands of times in the files. What if it’s him?”

“What happened with him? Didn’t they drag him to court about that?” asked Burke, before reversing course and claiming that it was an “unfair question.”

Burke then said he would support a second iteration of the Epstein Files Transparency Act—which was introduced to the House earlier this week—and would call for more hearings related to the prolific human trafficker’s crimes and associates.

The interview lasted approximately eight minutes. Almost immediately afterward, security approached the group, accusing them of carrying signs and protesting the event.

Palmeri said she explained that she was a credentialed member of the press, and that she had been admitted as such.

“We’re allowed to talk to guests, we’re allowed to talk to people. That’s why we’re here, we’re media,” Palmeri told the guard.

By 2:40 p.m., Palmeri said their entire group was thrown out of the building—just 35 minutes after they had arrived.