Trump’s State Department in Shambles as Advisers Tear Into Each Other

Tensions inside the Trump administration are heating up, and the president’s appointees are at each other’s throats.

Deputy Secretary of State Chirstopher Landau and State Department special envoy Paolo Zampolli have been trading insults and allegations for nearly a year, according to messages obtained by Politico. Zampolli, a former modeling agent who incidentally introduced Donald Trump to his wife Melania, has had some trouble “staying in his lane,” according to Landau.

“I am hereby ordering you—once again—to immediately stop all work on ANY issues not directly tied to cultural diplomacy, including every one of the issues you mentioned in your recent emails,” Landau wrote to Zampolli in November 2025. “You have no authority to engage in ANY issues of foreign policy outside of cultural diplomacy, including all the issues you have named.”

Landau continued the email chain the following day, copying an additional 15 administration colleagues on the message. Landau wrote that Zampolli had “no intention of staying in the cultural diplomacy lane that you were assigned and accepted, and that you fully intend to continue undertaking unauthorized and possibly unlawful ventures in commercial and economic matters.”

In response, Zampolli spoke to Politico: “Definitely, he has a problem with me,” the special envoy said of Landau in an exchange reminiscent of a reality TV confessional. “It’s out of control what he’s doing, and I serve at the pleasure of the president of the United States of America. The only person that can give me this job and can terminate me is the president of America.”

Since Zampolli introduced Trump to Melania at a party in the 1990s, he has remained on the coattails of the president’s political rise. Trump named Zampolli to the board of the embattled Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2020, and now, in Trump’s second administration, Zampolli is the U.S. special representative for global partnerships, a position whose primary objective is to “represent the United States at global cultural events and to form global cultural partnerships.”

A scroll through Zampolli’s Instagram will show that he has taken a liberal approach to his assignment, meeting with the energy minister of Romania, attending meetings for the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund, meeting the United Arab Emirates’ director of foreign direct investment, and engaging in discussions to send Argentine astronauts to space.

Zampolli has also accused Landau of leaking a story to The New York Times that he said “caused irreparable harm to the First Lady and to my family,” likely referring to reporting in March that he had asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and deport his ex-girlfriend in an effort to win a custody battle over their son.

“Your threats and accusations are getting more and more bizarre, defamatory, and inappropriate for broad dissemination on email,” Landau replied in a message. “I have no idea what you are talking about and categorically deny being the source of anything.”

One official familiar with the email exchanges called the back-and-forth “cartoonish and embarrassing.” It’s a fair review of the chaos in the backrooms, or in this case, the inboxes, of Trump’s State Department.

President Trump is backing down from plans to livestream the execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Malik Hasan.

“I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device. He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday morning. “That said, the execution may be viewed in person by the immediate families of the victims, if they so choose. They deserve to witness JUSTICE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s announcement last week that the military firing squad execution would be livestreamed set off a backlash from religious leaders and politicians from both parties. Even some of Trump’s staunchest supporters came out against the move.

Timothy P. Broglio, archbishop for the military services, said earlier this week that Catholic service members should not take part in the livestream execution, calling it “contrary to the teaching of the Church.”

“The US military generally enjoys a good reputation in the world. Is there really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheel chair to the whole world? Does this decision reflect the dignity of the human person?” Broglio said in a statement.

Republicans in Congress also voiced their disapproval. Representative Austin Scott said on X that “I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” while Senator Thom Tillis said the livestream would be “beyond disgusting.”

“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America,” Tillis posted. Even House Speaker Mike Johnson, not one to clash with the president, said in an interview he was concerned “that it would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists.”

Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, opened fire at the Fort Hood military post in Texas in 2009, killing 13 soldiers and wounding 32 others. Trump supported livestreaming the execution only last week, but the backlash seems to have finally swayed him. About 80 percent of Americans oppose livestreaming the execution.

This story has been updated.

Katie Zacharia’s latest approach to handling the scandal around her boosted legal credentials involves pretending the whole thing never happened.

The new White House press secretary told The New York Times Wednesday that she had misinterpreted a reporter’s question earlier this week about where she passed the bar exam. At the time, Zacharia answered: “When I moved to China.” Cue pandemonium.

“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” Zacharia told the Times in a brief phone call.

“That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” she continued. “And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president kept me from moving closer to hear the question.”

The Times did not repeat the original question, or press Zacharia about her credentials.

The 42-year-old obtained her J.D. from Pepperdine Caruso Law in 2011, according to her LinkedIn profile, but how she built her career after school appears to be legally dubious. For years, Zacharia made a name for herself as a legal expert on conservative airways. Her LinkedIn also lists her as “general counsel” for a California-based organization run by longtime Trump ally Ric Grenell. The caveat: She shouldn’t have been able to do either without passing the bar.

Zacharia told the Times that she had consulted with Pepperdine’s president as to how she should identify herself in the news, and shared that she was warned against using labels such as “attorney” or “esquire,” but that “lawyer” was fine.

After analyzing state bar association databases from all 50 states and Washington, Popular Info’s Judd Legum found that Zacharia never actually passed the qualifying legal exam anywhere in the country. And despite her claim earlier this week, she couldn’t have passed the Chinese equivalent of the bar exam, either, as it’s actually forbidden for foreigners to do so.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after she obtained her law degree, but she did not pass.

A watchdog group in the state called for an investigation into Zacharia’s résumé on Wednesday, stating that she “repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practice law without a license to do so,” conduct that they noted “California law treats as a crime.”

President Trump is fighting attempts to make him testify and produce documents related to his takeover of the Kennedy Center.

In a court filing Wednesday, Trump asserted executive privilege, claiming that in her lawsuit, Kennedy Center board member and Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty initiated “overbroad discovery requests that expressly implicated the President’s involvement in the Kennedy Center’s management and operations, and called for information, documents, and communications concerning that involvement.”

“Those requests are improper, and this Court should deny Plaintiff’s motion to compel. Plaintiff’s arguments to the contrary fail to convince,” the president’s deputy assistant and deputy counsel, Joshua Hoyt, wrote in the document.

Beatty sued Trump late last year over his attempts to take over the center, add his name, and shut it down for repairs. Since then, the president has pressed on with his handpicked board of trustees, rebranding the center with his name and closing it so it can be renovated to his liking, defying multiple court orders along the way.

Now Trump is refusing to testify or provide documentation about his involvement, asserting executive privilege over a pet project that shouldn’t be anywhere near his top priorities as president. His takeover has not so coincidentally coincided with the center’s financial collapse, with most of its cash reserves gone. Donations and pledges are drying up, and ticket sales have plummeted.

“The burst happened up the pipe,” said Andrew Taylor, director of the arts management program at American University, to The Washington Post last month. “The water stopped flowing into the organization because of the choices the administration was making.”

Trump claims that only his name and takeover can save the center from physical and financial ruin. But it seems that things have only gotten worse since he got involved, much like everything else in the U.S.

President Trump would let his friend who “looks like shit” die at his rally.

“I travel with more doctors than any human being. If people get sick in the audience, they leave ’em alone. You know what they call them? Collateral damage,” Trump said at his Wednesday rally in Arizona, receiving some chuckles from the crowd. “If that person right over there, a friend of mine—he looks like shit, actually. He looks like he’s ready to have a heart attack. If he actually had a heart attack, you know what my doctors would do? … They would leave him alone!”

“I say, ‘Please help him!’ They’d say, ‘No sir, we can’t leave your side.’ But he’s dying of a heart attack! ‘Sir, he’s collateral damage,’” he continued. “Can you believe it? They got like six ambulances, and they won’t use one for anybody else.”

It’s unclear who exactly Trump was saying “looks like shit.” But the crowd full of his most loyal supporters just laughed along with him—as if they weren’t collateral damage to him too.

Some commentators pointed to Trump’s lack of filter as a sign of dementia, and indeed shortly before his remarks, Trump was bragging about acing a dementia test.

CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner challenged Trump’s notion that doctors would ignore sick people or refer to them as collateral damage.

“This is completely untrue, and an actual insult to the fabulous doctors, nurses, and PAs of the White House Medical Unit,” he wrote online. “Over the years I’ve been honored to get to know many members of the WHMU and I know that they would never call a spectator ‘collateral damage’. They would save their life.”