What Happened Today - 12 Jan 2026
What Happened Today – 12 January 2026
Minneapolis Update
Jerome Powell Indictment
Syria Strike/Iran
Tapper/Noem Interview this weekend
Weird Oil Meeting Friday in the WH
Venezuela Update
Epstein Update
Trump’s Truth Social Circus this weekend
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Minneapolis Update
Minneapolis has been on fire this weekend in every sense – huge protests in the streets, a massive federal buildup, and an absolutely disgusting MAGA smear campaign trying to drag a dead woman and her kids through the mud instead of owning what ICE did.
What happened on the ground
Over the last few days, people have been out in force in Minneapolis and across the country protesting after an ICE agent shot and killed 37‑year‑old Renee Good in her SUV in a south Minneapolis neighborhood, not far from where George Floyd was murdered. Video from multiple angles shows agents surrounding her vehicle, yelling conflicting commands, her trying to move the car, and then an ICE agent – identified as Jonathan Ross – firing into the car at close range before her SUV crashed. Vigils, marches, and direct‑action protests have been going all weekend, with people calling this exactly what it is: another federal killing of a resident in a city already traumatized by police violence.
1,000+ agents and the federal surge
Instead of stepping back and de‑escalating after killing a woman, the Trump DHS is flooding the Twin Cities with even more federal muscle under the banner of an “immigration and fraud crackdown.” Between the surge already underway and new deployments, reporting says the operation could involve around 2,000 federal agents in the Minneapolis area – ICE deportation teams, Homeland Security Investigations, and Border Patrol‑type tactical units – on top of thousands already cycling through. Officials are openly talking about this as a 30‑day “Operation Metro Surge” style push, which basically turns Minneapolis into a federal occupation zone at the exact moment people are trying to mourn and demand accountability.
Renee Good’s reputation versus the smears
Everything coming out from neighbors and people around her lines up with the reality you’d expect: Renee Good is being remembered as a mom and community member who was sitting in her Honda Pilot when the feds swarmed her, barked over each other, and then shot her dead in front of people on a normal city block. That hasn’t stopped MAGA world from doing what it always does – immediately digging for anything they can twist into a “she was dangerous” narrative and then filling in the gaps with straight‑up fabrications to justify lethal force after the fact.
A big part of the ugliness this weekend has been far‑right accounts and pro‑Trump influencers pushing posts that try to paint her as some kind of child abuser or negligent parent, throwing around claims that her kids were “endangered,” “abused,” or “taken away,” with zero credible evidence and no actual reporting behind it. It’s the same playbook they’re using in Minnesota more broadly – like when Trump recently amplified a conspiracy video blaming Democratic leaders for an unrelated political assassination, forcing the victim’s kids to publicly beg him to take down the lies – weaponizing fake stories about grieving families to feed the base.
The abuse toward her children
Her kids are now stuck in the middle of all of this: they just lost their mother in a federal shooting, and instead of being allowed to grieve, they’re watching strangers online invent horrific stories about them as props in a MAGA narrative. The crap being pushed about them – that they were somehow “rescued,” “removed,” or “saved” from her – is not backed by any legitimate outlet, but it spreads like wildfire in right‑wing spaces where “evidence” is optional as long as it fits the storyline that the killing was justified.
What makes it even more vile is that these are the same people screaming “family values” while targeting actual children with smear campaigns, all to protect an ICE agent and a president whose whole political project is built on criminalizing immigrants and anyone who looks like they might stand in the way. The result is exactly what you’d expect: the family’s pain is multiplied, local communities are retraumatized, and federal officials feel even less pressure to tell the truth because the propaganda machine is working overtime for them.
Why this is so awful – and what it says
The pattern is clear: kill first, flood the city with more agents, and then let the MAGA ecosystem fabricate a backstory to make the victim and their family look like they somehow “deserved” it. In Minneapolis, that now means Renee Good is dead, her kids are dealing with state violence and online character assassination at the same time, and thousands of federal agents are being sent in as if the community is the problem instead of the people pulling the triggers. And MAGA influencers and politicians are once again proving they will gladly endanger grieving families and spread fake garbage about children if it helps deflect from what this administration is actually doing on the ground.
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Jerome Powell Indictment
Jerome Powell is now staring down a criminal indictment from Trump’s DOJ, and his video response this weekend made it crystal clear that this is about Trump trying to bully the Fed into doing his political bidding on interest rates, not about some building renovation paperwork issue.
What the “Powell indictment” is about
Federal prosecutors, with political appointees at the top, have opened a criminal investigation into Powell tied on paper to his testimony last June about renovating the Fed’s historic headquarters in D.C. DOJ served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas on Friday, signaling they’re actually willing to threaten him personally with indictment over how he answered those questions about a multi‑year office project.
At the same time, this suddenly appears after years of Trump raging at Powell for not cutting rates as fast and as deep as he wants, and after Trump’s allies took over key DOJ posts, which is why so many lawmakers and market people are reading this as an attack on the Fed’s independence dressed up as a renovations case. In other words, the official pretext is “headquarters refurb budget,” but the real conflict is about who controls monetary policy – professional central bankers or a president chasing short‑term political sugar highs.
Powell’s video response this weekend
Powell dropped a video statement Sunday night, which is not something Fed chairs do unless the house is on fire. He said straight up that the subpoenas and possible indictment are “unprecedented” and tied them directly to ongoing “threats and persistent pressure” from the administration over interest rates, making it clear this is about policy retaliation, not some minor disclosure dispute.
He also spelled out the core issue: the Fed is supposed to set rates “based on our most informed judgment about what serves the public interest, rather than adhering to the preferences of the President,” and criminalizing that disagreement is a line that has never been crossed in modern U.S. history. The fact that he went on camera, in a prepared video, and essentially called out the administration for weaponizing the justice system against monetary policy shows how dangerous he thinks this moment is.
Trump’s whiplash: he hired Powell, now trashes him
Trump is the one who put Powell in the job back in 2017, selling him as a solid, steady hand at the Fed – and then, once Powell wasn’t cutting rates fast enough to juice Trump’s stock market and growth numbers, Trump turned on him publicly. For years now he’s been calling Powell “dumb,” “stupid,” “a stubborn MORON,” and ranting that “Too Late Powell” refuses to slash rates, even posting on social media that the Fed’s Board should “assume control” and force through big cuts if Powell won’t do it.
That’s why the whole “whoever put this guy in place was an idiot” line is so rich – Trump is essentially insulting his own choice, pretending Powell just appeared out of nowhere instead of being the guy Trump hand‑picked and then publicly humiliated whenever he didn’t fall in line. Now, with this investigation, the message from Trump world is: if the Fed chair doesn’t give the president the low‑rate, high‑sugar environment he craves, he gets dragged into a criminal case over something totally ancillary to actual monetary policy.
Why Trump’s rate‑cut obsession is so dangerous
The danger here isn’t just that Trump wants lower rates; it’s that he’s willing to blow up central bank independence and threaten criminal charges to get them. When the Fed is bullied into cutting rates too far or too fast to satisfy a president’s political timeline, you get short‑term sugar rushes: markets and cheap borrowing look great for a minute, but inflation can flare back up, asset bubbles inflate, and the ability to respond to real crises gets destroyed because you have no room left to cut later.
Long term, this kind of strong‑arm approach has three big fallout risks:
• Investors start pricing in political interference instead of economic fundamentals, which raises risk premiums, rattles the dollar, and ultimately makes borrowing more expensive for everyone even if the headline rate is low.
• If the Fed caves and slashes rates in a non‑data‑driven way, you can reignite inflation or push people into riskier assets, setting up a crash that hits workers and retirees hardest when it finally pops.
• Other countries look at the U.S. and see a captured central bank, which undermines confidence in Treasuries and U.S. leadership in the global financial system.
So this isn’t just about Powell’s job or some renovation subpoenas; it’s about whether the president can effectively say: “Cut rates the way I want, or I’ll send my prosecutors after you,” which is exactly the kind of thing that wrecks economies in less stable countries and is now being tested in the U.S.
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Syria Strike/Iran
The Syria strike is basically the U.S. trying to send a warning shot to Iran’s network of militias without sliding straight into a full‑blown war, at the exact same time Iran is killing people in the streets for protesting and threatening to hit back at the U.S. and Israel if we go any further.
Why the Syria strike happened
• The U.S. has been looking at Iran‑backed militias in Syria and Iraq as a direct threat to American troops, bases, and partners, especially after waves of rocket and drone attacks on U.S. positions over the last year and a half.
• The pattern has been: militias linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard hit U.S. installations, and Washington responds with “narrowly tailored” airstrikes on depots, command sites, and weapons hubs to show that if you keep targeting Americans, you’re going to pay a price.
So this latest Syria strike fits that playbook: hit Iran’s proxy infrastructure, try to deter the next attack, and signal that the U.S. is willing to use force even while Iran is internally unstable and boiling with protest.
Iran’s response and risks to Americans
• Iran’s line right now is basically: if the U.S. or Israel hits us or our forces again, we’ll retaliate, and they’re making that threat while openly accusing Washington of fueling the protests and trying to destabilize the regime.
• That kind of rhetoric always translates into real risk for Americans: U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq are obvious targets, but U.S. diplomats, contractors, and even civilians in the region become more vulnerable when Tehran gives its militias political cover to “hit back.”
On top of that, Trump is talking about “strong” military action as the death toll in Iran rises, and getting briefed on strike options inside Iran itself, which is exactly the kind of escalation talk that feeds regime paranoia and makes them more likely to lash out at soft U.S. targets and partners.
Protesters being killed in Iran
• Inside Iran, this is one of the bloodiest waves of unrest in years: rights groups and activists are talking about hundreds of protesters killed – numbers in the 500 range – as people take to the streets over economic collapse, corruption, and repression.
• Amnesty and others have documented at least dozens of confirmed deaths in specific cities in just a few days – including children – with videos showing security forces and Basij and IRGC units firing live rounds and metal pellets into crowds that are unarmed.
The regime has shifted from calling people “rioters” to flat‑out labeling them “terrorists,” which is their green light to treat protests as a military problem, not a policing issue – meaning more live fire, more dead and injured, and an open invitation to the security apparatus to do whatever it takes to crush dissent.
How all of this fits together
• You’ve got a regime in Tehran that is under enormous internal pressure, responding with lethal force at home while warning that any U.S. move will be met with retaliation, and using the “foreign enemy” narrative to justify the crackdowns.
• At the same time, the U.S. is hitting Iran‑linked targets in Syria to protect American troops and signal strength, while Trump publicly threatens “strong” action over the killings, which adds fuel to the regime’s story that this is a U.S.‑orchestrated uprising.
That combination is what puts Americans and U.S. forces at real risk: Iran is scared and brutal at home, angry and defensive abroad, and sitting on a proxy network that can hit U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq, or go after American interests and allies, whenever the leadership decides it needs to prove it’s not backing down.
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Tapper/Noem Interview this weekend
The Tapper–Noem interview this weekend was basically a live dissection of MAGA spin: Tapper walked her step‑by‑step through her own words, the video, and basic logic, and she still tried to gaslight everyone watching – which is exactly why it landed so badly outside the hardcore Trump bubble.
How Tapper boxed Noem in
Tapper’s whole approach was to trap her with her own prior statements and the actual footage. He reminded her that, within hours of Renee Good being killed, she went out and labeled Good a “domestic terrorist” who “weaponized her vehicle” and tried to run over ICE agents – before any real investigation had even started. Then he contrasted those claims with the video everyone has now seen: agents surrounding a stuck SUV, shouting over each other, the car turning away, and the ICE guy still firing into the vehicle.
When Noem tried to insist “everything I have stated is backed by facts and is truthful,” Tapper read her own quotes back to her and said, bluntly, “That is not what occurred. We all witnessed the events.” He also hit her on process, asking if she wasn’t doing a disservice to the officer by prejudging the case and tainting the investigation, which she dodged by ranting about Mayor Frey and AOC instead of answering the actual question.
The logic that really cut through
Tapper’s sharpest move was forcing her to apply her own “domestic terrorism” logic consistently. He showed January 6 footage of MAGA rioters beating police and asked, essentially: if hitting law enforcement with weapons or vehicles is “domestic terrorism,” do you call those Trump supporters terrorists too – and do they deserve the same treatment she’s justifying for an ICE shooting in Minneapolis? Noem wanted the label for a dead woman in a car but not for the people who actually attacked cops on Trump’s behalf, and that double standard came through loud and clear on air.
He also pinned her down on the “facts” timeline: she claimed nothing had changed and that she had all the information early that morning, but Tapper pointed out that she was making conclusions before even local officials had been properly briefed and while DOJ is still blocking Minneapolis from participating fully in the investigation. Every time she tried to move the goalposts – saying viewers hadn’t seen all the footage or that media were the real problem – he pulled her back to the basic question: what exactly was Renee Good doing at the moment the agent fired, and how do you know that?
How it landed with viewers
Outside the MAGA base, the reaction was basically: she got caught lying and then doubled down. Clips of Tapper saying “We’ve all seen the footage. I don’t need to go over it again” and “But that’s not what you said” blew up on social and were being shared with captions flat‑out calling her a liar and a hypocrite. Comment threads and coverage from mainstream and even some center‑right outlets focused on how she kept changing her story mid‑interview while insisting she was just “sticking to the facts,” which only made her look more slippery and more desperate to protect ICE than to get to the truth.
Within the administration/media bubble, right‑wing spin tried to paint it as Noem “standing up” to CNN, but even coverage from places like the New York Post framed it as a clash where Tapper “grilled” her about rushing to call Good a domestic terrorist and defending the ICE agent before an investigation. And the broader political context makes it worse for her: public sentiment is turning hard against ICE, there’s talk of abolishing it, and the administration is flooding Minneapolis with federal agents, so watching the DHS secretary go on TV and gaslight what people can see with their own eyes only reinforces how out of control and unaccountable this whole operation is.
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Weird Oil Meeting Friday in the WH
Trump’s oil meeting on Friday was basically a reality‑TV pitch session where he tried to auction off Venezuela’s future to Big Oil on live camera, and the guys in suits mostly nodded politely and refused to actually bite.
What the meeting was
• Trump hauled in CEOs and top execs from Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and a bunch of other giants to the East Room to push them to pour tens of billions into “rebuilding” Venezuela’s oil sector now that the U.S. helped take down Maduro.
• He talked like he already owns the place – telling them the U.S. is “empowered to make that deal,” guaranteeing “total safety, total security,” and promising they’ll be “there a long time” if they sign on.
He staged it as a televised spectacle, bragging on Truth Social that there were “25 companies” waiting to take anyone’s place if they didn’t play ball and even whining that his new White House ballroom isn’t finished yet to fit more oil execs.
What actually came out of it
• The big takeaway: almost no one gave him what he wanted. Exxon’s CEO flat‑out called Venezuela “uninvestable” right now and said they’d send a technical team but weren’t committing real money.
• Chevron was the most eager, signaling it’s ready to ramp up quickly, but even they stopped short of promising anything like the $100 billion Trump keeps talking about.
• Trump then got on a plane and publicly trash‑talked Exxon, saying he “didn’t like Exxon’s response” and they were “playing too cute,” and started hinting that he’s “inclined” to freeze them out of Venezuela in favor of more compliant companies.
The weirdness of the whole thing
• The vibe was surreal: Trump sitting with a “happy Trump” cartoon pin on his lapel, cracking jokes about them writing off billions they already lost in Venezuela – “Nice write‑off” – and telling Conoco’s CEO they’ll “start with an even plate” and not worry about what they were expropriated for in the past because “that was their fault.”
• He openly framed it as a kind of loyalty test: if these huge companies don’t jump fast enough into his Venezuela plan, there are supposedly endless others waiting to cash in, and he’ll decide who gets access.
On top of that, he signed an executive order to “protect” Venezuelan oil money under U.S. control from court claims, which is basically the U.S. government acting as escrow agent for a country we just helped flip and then immediately turning around to line up private companies to control their main asset.
Why this matters beyond the circus
• This is Trump using state power and military leverage to create a new petro‑playground, then inviting friendly corporations into the White House to divvy it up while he personally signals which companies he likes and which ones will be punished for not moving fast enough.
• It sets up exactly the kind of crony, captured energy policy that locks the U.S. into a Venezuela‑centered oil strategy tied directly to Trump’s personal relationships and whims, not to climate, human‑rights, or long‑term stability concerns.
So the “weird” part isn’t just the happy‑face pin and the blowhard sales pitch; it’s a U.S. president turning regime change into a live‑streamed business development meeting, where access to an entire country’s oil future depends on how well you play along with him in the room.
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Venezuela Update
Trump is treating Venezuela like his new personal reality show, right down to posting a fake Wikipedia screenshot that calls him the “Acting President of Venezuela,” when the actual country is trying to navigate a post‑Maduro transition with its own interim president in place.
Where Venezuela stands right now
After U.S. forces grabbed Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York on drug‑terrorism charges, Venezuela’s vice president Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as interim president under the Venezuelan constitution and is, in reality, running the government in Caracas. Her government is talking about reopening diplomatic missions with the U.S. and is in active talks with State Department officials, trying to stabilize the country and keep some basic sovereignty while Washington openly angles for long‑term leverage over their oil.
At the same time, Trump and his team are working up a sweeping plan to control Venezuela’s state oil company, PdVSA, and have already announced that U.S. firms will invest up to $100 billion to rebuild the sector, with up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude “turning over” to the U.S. under terms Trump says he will control. In other words: Venezuela is in a fragile transition, has an interim president on paper, and the U.S. is trying to lock in long‑term control over its main asset.
Trump’s dumb “I’m the president of Venezuela” meme
Into that mix, Trump jumps on Truth Social and shares a doctored image of his own Wikipedia page, showing a fake entry that lists him as “Acting President of Venezuela” starting January 2026, with JD Vance as his “deputy.” The real Wikipedia page, of course, only lists him as U.S. president, but he pushed the fake one as a flex and a jab at Rodríguez – basically mocking the idea that Venezuelans have their own leader and signaling to his base that he’s the one really in charge down there now.
This is exactly who he is: he literally told the world after the intervention that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela until the U.S. decides it’s ready for elections, then followed it up with a meme crowning himself their acting president, while his own Secretary of State Marco Rubio tries to walk it back and pretend there’s a “committee” managing the transition. It’s colonial cosplay – a U.S. president joking about owning another country’s presidency, at the same time he’s negotiating which American oil companies get to carve up their resources.
Why this matters beyond the cringe
Underneath the dumb joke is a very real power grab: Trump has publicly said the U.S. will “run” Venezuela and control not just security but the flow of Venezuelan oil, with himself bragging that the money will be “controlled by me” to benefit both countries. When you pair that with a fake Wikipedia screenshot making him “acting president,” you’re not just looking at trolling; you’re looking at a guy advertising to his base – and to oil execs – that he sees another sovereign country as something he can personally manage and monetize.
For Venezuelans, it’s one more reminder that their transition is happening under the shadow of a foreign leader who jokes about being their head of state while his government decides who gets their oil and on what terms. And for everyone else watching, it’s the same pattern: Trump uses memes and “jokes” to normalize something outrageous – in this case, being the self‑declared boss of Venezuela – while the actual machinery of policy is already moving to make as much of that joke real as possible.
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Epstein Update
The Epstein Files are the clearest, loudest example right now of how this Justice Department is trying to run out the clock on accountability, and it absolutely cannot be allowed to get buried under all the other chaos and noise.
Where the Epstein Files actually stand
Congress passed the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act and gave DOJ a hard deadline: release all unclassified Epstein‑related records by December 19, 2025, with victim identities protected. That deadline is now weeks in the rear‑view mirror, and DOJ has admitted it has released less than 1% of the Epstein material it holds, while millions of pages are still sitting behind the curtain.
DOJ is now talking about 2 million, then 5.2 million “documents” or “pages,” constantly shifting the numbers and blaming the scale of the job, even though the law already gave them an extended window to prepare and explicitly did not give them a delay button. The tiny trickle they’ve put on their new “Epstein Library” site is a rounding error compared to what Congress ordered them to release.
The “we’re overwhelmed” excuse and how DOJ went dark
After missing the deadline, DOJ sent letters and court filings saying they’ve only managed to review around 12,000 documents out of millions and will need hundreds of lawyers “over the next few weeks” to review and redact the rest, while also suddenly “finding” another million files they hadn’t counted before. Lawmakers from both parties – including Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna – are now openly questioning whether DOJ is inflating and hiding behind these numbers and have asked a judge to appoint a special master because they do not trust the department to police itself here.
At the same time, DOJ and the White House have basically gone radio silent in public: no regular briefings on the release schedule, no transparent calendar, just vague references to “protecting victims” while they slow‑roll documents that name powerful clients, facilitators, bankers, and enablers who weren’t kids and don’t need their identities hidden. That’s what “going dark” looks like in D.C.: miss the deadline, dribble out a token batch, then hide behind process language while hoping the news cycle moves on.
Why this absolutely reeks of a cover‑up
This is not subtle anymore. Republicans and Democrats voted almost unanimously to force these files out, and Trump himself signed the transparency bill after years of resisting, which tells you how strong the public pressure was. Congress has already been releasing its own piles of material – tens of thousands of pages from the Epstein estate and new photos of Epstein with Trump, Bill Clinton, Gates, Dershowitz, Bannon, Larry Summers, and other powerful men – and they are flat‑out accusing the White House and DOJ of a “cover‑up.”
When both parties pass a law, victims want transparency, Congress is demanding compliance, and the only people dragging their feet are the Justice Department and a White House full of names that appear in these orbit photos and documents, it stops looking like “bureaucratic delay” and starts looking like protection of the club. Even some MAGA‑aligned voices have been screaming for the full files for years — and now they’re watching their own DOJ and Trump administration slow‑walk the release they claimed to support, which should make it obvious even to them that the system is guarding itself.
Why this cannot fade into the background
Every day the Epstein story gets bumped down the page by Minneapolis, Iran, Powell, Venezuela, or whatever the next Trump‑created fire is, DOJ gets exactly what it wants: more time, less attention, and a better chance to bury or “lose” the most explosive material. Meanwhile, survivors are still waiting for the truth about who helped traffic them, who paid, who arranged the flights and hotels, who looked the other way inside government and finance – and those are the names that remain shielded while we argue over deadlines and page counts.
The bottom line: a law was passed, the deadline has been blown, the department is stonewalling, and both parties in Congress plus the public are being treated like they’re too distracted to notice. At this point, calling it anything other than an attempted cover‑up – of powerful men, powerful institutions, and decades of complicity – is just playing along, and that goes for everyone, including the MAGA crowd that swears it’s against “elite pedophile rings” while their own government drags its feet on releasing the receipts.
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Trump’s Truth Social Circus this weekend
Trump’s Truth Social weekend was exactly what you’d expect from a guy drowning in crises: a firehose of denial, projection, flexing and distraction that runs from Minneapolis to Iran to Venezuela to the Epstein files – all designed to keep his base spun up and the focus off accountability.
Minneapolis and “domestic terrorists”
On Minneapolis, he leaned hard into defending ICE and the agent who killed Renee Good, blasting out posts that describe her as essentially a terrorist with a car and framing protests as “thugs” and “domestic terrorists” threatening law and order. He didn’t acknowledge the contradictions in the video or the fact that his own DHS secretary got ripped apart on national TV for calling her a terrorist before the investigation – he just doubled down, because painting protesters and dead civilians as the enemy is central to his second‑term brand.
Iran, Syria and tough‑guy posturing
On Iran, he used Truth Social to tease “very strong” options if Tehran keeps killing protesters, positioning himself as the moral guardian of Iranian demonstrators even as he cheers or excuses deadly force against protesters at home. The tone is all chest‑thumping and red‑line drawing – promising the U.S. is “ready to help” the Iranian people while also signaling more strikes in Syria and beyond – which feeds both his hawk base and the Iranian regime’s narrative that the protests are a U.S. project.
Venezuela and the “acting president” nonsense
Venezuela was another obsession: he bragged about the raid that snatched Maduro, claimed his voters “loved” the Venezuela operation, and pushed the line that America will “run” Venezuela until he decides it’s ready for elections. Then he posted that fake Wikipedia screenshot calling himself “Acting President of Venezuela,” treating the whole thing like a meme while his administration is literally trying to lock up long‑term control over Venezuelan oil and extract tens of millions of barrels for the U.S.
He paired that with posts hyping a supposed $100 billion oil investment wave and taunting oil giants that didn’t jump fast enough after his White House meeting, bragging that there are “plenty of companies” ready to step in if Exxon and others drag their feet. It’s the same mix of ego and extraction: meme himself as their president, then blast out posts that frame Venezuela as his personal turnaround project and ATM.
Epstein files and shifting the blame
On the Epstein files, he fell back on his usual trick: blame Democrats and pretend he’s the one who wants transparency while his own DOJ sits on millions of pages. In recent posts he’s suggested DOJ should “release all the Democrat names” and move on, insisting Republicans weren’t involved and casting the whole Epstein story as a “witch hunt” meant to distract from his “success.”
Meanwhile, the actual reality is that DOJ has missed the bipartisan deadline and released less than 1% of the files, and members of both parties are accusing the administration of slow‑walking the law – but his feed is all about turning outrage toward “radical left” prosecutors and away from the fact that his own government is the one blocking full disclosure.
Ego metrics, culture war and pure noise
Threaded through all this were the usual ego‑hits and sideshows: posts bragging about billions of TikTok views and “one of my biggest victories,” raging at media for not praising his tariffs, and attacking individual politicians who cross him. He also dipped back into standard culture‑war red meat – from shots at institutions changing how they present his legacy, to familiar gripes about “witch hunts,” “fake news,” and enemies at home who supposedly hate America more than its foreign adversaries.
Taken together, the weekend’s Truth Social binge is the playbook in miniature:
• Escalate and justify state violence (ICE, Syria)
• Flex over foreign interventions (Venezuela, Iran)
• Muddy accountability (Epstein files, DOJ)
• Feed the base with grievance and ego content
All of it in all caps and exclamation points, so there’s never a quiet minute for people to stop and connect the dots on what he’s actually doing with that power.
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So…what a weekend. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Speak Truth! Keep speaking TRUTH!
Don’t Give up the Ship!
Go Cause Good Trouble, with Your Elbows Up!
These are facts that I researched and verified – AI helped put together some sentence structure, but the words and tone are mine. These are my views based upon facts, research and thoughtful consideration using logic. I own the copyright to any images used. I’m comfortable to stand alone to uphold truth. Feel free to check me, but do not attack me. I am only causing good trouble.