President Trump has repeatedly claimed that major U.S. cities are overrun with crime, specifically targeting Democrat-run cities as “unsafe” and “crime-ridden.” But according to a report by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, violent crime decreased in cities across the country in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period last year.

In June 2025, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump announced the launch of Trump Mobile, which promised to release “a sleek, gold smartphone” that would be “made in the USA” and available in August 2025 for $499. It has collected $100 deposits for the devices since last summer while quietly dropping its pledge to produce them domestically. As of the beginning of May, no products have been sent to customers. (On May 13, Trump Mobile claimed on X that phones, which resemble a Chinese phone available for $200, would “start shipping this week.”)

This week, acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst told legislators that the Iran War is estimated to have cost $29 billion so far. Other estimates, however, have found that the cost is likely much higher. A Popular Information estimate found that the U.S. spent nearly $72 billion on the war in the first 60 days. Nevertheless, many major media outlets repeated the $29 billion estimate as if it was credible.

The best of the rest

RFK Jr. is quietly pushing anti-vaccine research. Multiple people told the New York Times that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pushing “for government scientists and federal data contractors to examine his long-held theory that vaccines are helping to fuel an epidemic of chronic disease.” (New York Times)

DOJ investigating media leaks after Trump complaint. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche reportedly “vowed to secure subpoenas specifically targeting the records of reporters who have worked on sensitive national security stories” after Trump complained to him about media leaks about the Iran War. The Wall Street Journal received subpoenas for the records of reporters. (Wall Street Journal)

Judges have ruled against ICE detention policies 90% of the time. An analysis by Politico found that federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention practices around 90% of the time. Judges have ruled over 10,000 times that these practices were illegal. (Politico)

Eric Trump joins Trump on China trip amidst business links. Eric Trump joined Trump on his visit to China this week. At the same time, a company with financial ties to one of the Trump family’s business ventures, World Liberty Financial, is exploring “a deal with a Chinese chipmaker that American lawmakers have warned is connected to the ruling Communist Party.” (Financial Times)

Numerical information

$13.1 million: The amount the Interior Department said it is planning to spend on repairs on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Trump originally said it would cost $1.8 million.

3.8%: The inflation rate in April reached its highest level in almost three years. This means that “prices are now rising faster than wages for the first time since 2023.”

$4.53: The average price of a gallon of gas nationwide as of Thursday, according to AAA.

Quote of the week

Reporter: “When you’re negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are Americans’ financial situations motivating you to make a deal?”

Trump: “Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”

Photo of the week

Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, posted a group photo that included Eric Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Now we think it’s closer to 29 [billion],” Hurst said. “That’s because of updated repair and replacement of equipment costs and also just general operational costs.” There was no explanation of how this figure was calculated or documentation of any kind. The only thing Hurst provided was his brief verbal statement.

Two weeks ago, CBS News reported that the Pentagon’s internal estimate was “closer to $50 billion.” Writing for Popular Information, analyst Stephen Semler estimated the Iran War cost $72 billion in the first 60 days. Semler provided a detailed methodology of his calculations. Other independent estimates are even higher.

Congressman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) asked Hegseth when a “formal accounting on the cost” would be available. Hegseth was non-committal, saying only he would share more information “when it’s relevant and required.”

It was an odd thing for Hegseth to say, since it is explicitly Congress’ job to approve and oversee federal spending. All departments are required to share information about how they spend allocated funds with Congress.

According to a report in the Washington Post, “Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment.” Under questioning from Congressman Ed Case (D-HI), Hurst acknowledged that none of the damage to military sites was included in his estimate.

“We have a lot of unknowns there,” Hurst said. “We don’t know what our future posture is going to be. We don’t know how to construct those bases.” Semler estimates the cost of military assets damaged or destroyed during the Iran War to be at least $11.9 billion. Hurst also said he would need to “double check” if arms transfers to other countries were included in his cost estimate. According to Semler, arms transfers to Israel, which is waging the war in concert with the U.S., cost about $2.9 billion in the first 60 days.

The biggest flaw with the Pentagon’s estimate is the way it calculates spending for munitions. (Hurst testified that spending on munitions accounted for $24 billion of its $29 billion estimate.) Semler explains:

The cost to fire one SM-2 interceptor is approximately $1.2 million. If 50 are withdrawn from the stockpile and fired, the Pentagon’s ledger would show $60 million in expenses from consuming those munitions… The Pentagon no longer buys SM-2s; the interceptor is being replaced by the more advanced and expensive SM-6. So each time an SM-2 is fired in the ongoing war, the Pentagon’s accounting system registers a cost closer to the SM-2’s $1.2 million unit cost from 2010 than the $6.3 million unit cost budgeted in 2027 for the SM-6 that will replace it. For US taxpayers, the cost of firing 50 SM-2s isn’t $60 million; it’s $315 million.

There are many more examples of expended munitions (or destroyed equipment) that are budgeted to be replaced by much more expensive variants.

Nevertheless, most major media outlets simply repeated the $29 billion estimate as if it was credible.

Popular Information reviewed articles or updates about the new estimate in the New York Times, USA Today, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, NOTUS, Stars and Stripes, New York Post, CNN, Politico, and Reuters. All of these publications put the $29 billion estimate in the headline.

The CNN article notes that a “source previously told CNN that a more accurate estimate is closer to $40-50 billion.” The Politico piece said the $29 billion estimate is “still significantly lower than outside projections.” None of the other publications mentioned that other estimates put the cost of the war much higher than $29 billion. Four of the articles did not even mention that the estimate excluded damage at U.S. bases.

A large network of prominent regional newspapers has posted thousands of low-quality articles promoting gambling and prediction markets — and is pretending it's journalism.

A Popular Information investigation found that Advance Local, which owns The Oregonian, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Star-Ledger, and several other award-winning newspapers, has quietly published more than 17,000 online articles since 2022 pushing promo codes for sports books, online casinos and, more recently, prediction markets.

The Patriot-News, for example, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for its landmark reporting on the sex crimes of Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky and publishes online at PennLive.com. On May 9, The Patriot-News published an article headlined, “Kalshi promo code PENNLIVE: UFC 328 Preview.” The piece noted that UFC 328, scheduled for that evening, was “an awesome opportunity for new users to grab the Kalshi promo code PENNLIVE and get a $10 bonus when they trade $10+.” Special Correspondent Christopher Feery then detailed the five steps required to “claim the Kalshi promo code and land a bonus in a flash.”

Feery published a nearly identical article about UFC 328 for The Star-Ledger, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 and 2011. He described the bout as “a fantastic time for new users to claim the Kalshi promo code NJCOM and receive a $10 bonus when they trade $10 or more” and outlined the five steps to claim the promotion in “mere minutes.” Another similar version of the UFC 328 piece with Feery’s byline appeared on the website of the The Birmingham News, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and 2018.

According to the “Gaming Policy“ that appears on all three websites, Feery’s article about Kalshi and UFC 328 meets “the highest journalistic standards.” It was also purportedly “reviewed by an experienced editor for adherence to editorial protocol and accuracy.” Each piece, according to the policy, is “unique“ and “created specifically” for the website where it appears.

The UFC 328 article is one of more than 17,000 pieces published across Advance Local’s network of news websites in less than five years. An analysis of the websites’ archives reveals the promotional articles for sports books began appearing on Advance Local sites in 2022, accelerating dramatically beginning in 2024.

In 2025, the Advance Local network added online casinos and this year, it added promo codes for the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket. At the current pace, the award-winning outlets in the Advance Local network will publish more than 14,000 pieces of gambling-related slop in 2026.

In response to a request for comment, Advance Local’s Executive Director for Communications, Christine deWit, said that the company considered everyone who produced this gambling-related content a journalist. DeWit also maintained that it was accurate to describe each piece of content as “unique” to each website.

How promo codes translate into dollars

DeWit also said that Advance Local disclosed how it was compensated for promoting the promo codes. At the very bottom of these articles, in small print, is a disclosure: “If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.”

The history of the program reveals more details of how the scheme works. Initially, Advance Local outsourced the production of this content to third parties. A March 2024 news release by Catena Media discloses that the company “published content in collaboration with media partners including Advance Local, owner of NJ.com and other news websites.” Catena Media describes itself as an “affiliate marketing specialist.” The company’s business model, according to its website, is to “attract and deliver players to operators of online casino gaming and sports betting platforms.” Once a player is signed up, Catena is compensated through a flat referral fee or a percentage of how much the player loses on the platform.

Crucially, Catena Media says it attracts players to gambling sites by “leveraging the visibility we gain from… high rankings on popular search engines.” This is why Advance Local is such an attractive partner for this kind of operation. Publications like The Oregonian and The Cleveland Plain Dealer rank very highly in search results because of the authority they have established through decades of producing high-quality journalism. These articles leverage that authority, and high placement in search engines, to attract new bettors.

The strategy is more apparent when you dig into the details of the individual articles. For example, on March 20, 2026, The Post-Standard, a news outlet in the Advance Local network that serves the Syracuse, New York, metro area, published a piece with the headline, “Arkansas DraftKings promo code launches $300 bonus!“ The article, published on The Post-Standard’s website, Syracuse.com, is about a DraftKings code that is available for “new users in Arkansas.”

It doesn’t seem likely that many readers of Syracuse.com live in Arkansas. But because The Post-Standard has been producing legitimate journalism for many years, it has a high Google search rank. Therefore, when an Arkansas resident searches for “DraftKings promo code,” the Syracuse.com article will appear near the top of the results. Articles about the Arkansas DraftKings promo code by the same author appeared in two other Advance Local properties, silive.com (Staten Island, New York) and newyorkupstate.com.

More recently, Advance Local has moved much of its promo code operation in-house. Advance Local now “employs a staff of experienced sports betting and iGaming reporters” who publish across the network. There are two dozen people dedicated to producing this content.

Many of the individuals producing Advance Local’s gambling and prediction market content previously worked for Catena Media or similar operations. One of the writers, Matt Boecker, worked at Catena Media for more than two-and-a-half years before joining Advance Local. While at Catena Media, Boecker “[c]reated SEO-friendly sports betting stories from ideation to publishing across three of Catena Media’s largest media partnership sites (NJ.com, AL.com, and OregonLive.com),” according to his LinkedIn profile. Another writer, Joseph Kata, was employed at Catena Media from November 2018 to August 2024 before joining Advance Local. According to Kata’s LinkedIn profile, while at Catena Media he “[t]ripled traffic on average across the board by tapping into regional authority for each site.”

Lee Enterprises, a competing network of local news sites, has produced a smaller volume of articles that is formatted similarly to Advance Local’s promo code content. But when articles with headlines like “DraftKings promo code: $200 bonus for Chiefs vs. Lions + deposit match up to $1,000“ appeared on Lee Enterprises sites, they included a disclaimer at the top: “If you make a purchase after clicking on links within this article, Lee Enterprises may earn affiliate commissions. The news and editorial departments had no role in the creation or display of this content.”

Most of the gambling slop published by Lee Enterprises was written by employees of Catena Media.

Since his return to the White House, President Trump has repeatedly claimed that major cities across the United States are overrun with crime. Trump has specifically targeted cities run by Democrats, calling them “unsafe” and “crime-ridden.”

“The ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” Trump said in a September 2025 speech to military leaders in Virginia. “This is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.”

Trump has argued that crime in major cities is so bad that the federal government needs to step in to help reduce crime rates. “I mean, honestly, the crime ridden cities are all Democrat run cities… But if they want help, they can ask for it. And they’re gonna need help,” Trump said to reporters in January 2026. In February, Trump said, “Frankly, if these radical left lunatic Democrats would come and say, please help us, please, we’d stop crimes all over the place.”

But contrary to Trump’s claims, violent crime was at a historic low when he was inaugurated. According to a report by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), in 2026, violent crime has decreased further in cities across the country, including many of the Democratic cities Trump has targeted.

The report used preliminary data collected from 67 law enforcement agencies in major cities and metro areas across the country. The report found that, from January 1 to March 31, 2026, homicides dropped 17.7%, rape dropped 7.2%, robbery dropped 20.4%, and aggravated assault dropped 4.8% compared to 2025.

Trump has falsely claimed that he inherited “rampant crime” from the Biden administration. But crime rates plummeted while former President Joe Biden was in office. After an increase in crime occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, violent crime decreased in 2023 and 2024, according to FBI data. In 2024, “[e]very category of crime decreased in frequency” and reported violent crime “dropped to levels not seen since the 1960s.”

Nevertheless, Trump has continued to push the narrative that many American cities are “hellholes.” The data tells a much different story.

Baltimore

In September 2025, Trump claimed that “you can’t walk across the street [in Baltimore] without being shot.” Trump has called Baltimore a “hellhole” and a “horrible deathbed” and claimed that it is “one of the most unsafe places anywhere in the world.” Last fall, Trump claimed that Baltimore has “crime that’s at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.” In August 2025, Trump said he would not go for a walk in Baltimore with Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) until they “clean[ed] up” their crime.

But contrary to Trump’s claims, Baltimore has been seeing a historic decline in violent crime. In 2025, Baltimore saw the fewest homicides recorded in “nearly 50 years” and the “largest year-over-year percentage decrease in homicides ever recorded.” According to the MCCA report, robbery is down 21.6% in Baltimore during the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025. Homicides in Baltimore are also slightly down, while rape is the same as last year and aggravated assault has gone slightly up, with a 12.9% increase compared to last year.

New York City

Trump has argued multiple times this year that New York should ask the government for help with lowering its crime rates. In May 2026, Trump said that the federal government and the National Guard would “love to help” cities including New York. “We’d get crime numbers down 70 percent, 80 percent, 90 percent in a matter of months,” Trump said.

But according to the MCCA report, crime in New York City is already on the decline. Between January 1 and March 31, 2026, New York City saw a 31.7% drop in homicides compared to the same period in 2025. New York City also saw an 8% decline in robbery, while aggravated assault and rape stayed relatively consistent. On May 4, the New York Police Department (NYPD) announced “the fewest murders in recorded history for the first four months of the year and the month of April.” In 2025, New York City saw a 20.2% decline in murders compared to the year before, according to the NYPD.

Oakland

In August 2025, Trump said that “[w]e don’t even mention [Oakland] anymore” because it is “so far gone.” But according to the MCCA report, Oakland has seen a decline in violent crime in the first quarter of this year, with homicides decreasing 22%, rape decreasing 17.6%, robbery declining 42.7%, and aggravated assault dropping 10.1% compared to the same period last year. Oakland also saw a historic decline in homicides in 2025, reaching the lowest level since 1967.

Los Angeles

Trump has said that “[p]arts of Los Angeles are terrible” and that crime in Los Angeles is “bad.” In March 2026, Trump claimed that Los Angeles “should call and probably will” to ask the federal government for help fighting crime.

But Los Angeles has seen a decline in most violent crimes during the first quarter of 2026, according to the MCCA report. From January 1 to March 31, Los Angeles reported a 23.3% decline in homicides. Los Angeles also saw a decline in rape and robbery, while aggravated assault saw a slight increase. In 2025, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) reported a 19% decrease in homicides compared to the year before, the lowest number of homicides reported since 1966.

Portland

Trump has called Portland, Oregon, a “burning hellhole” and “war ravaged.” In October 2025, Trump said, “There’s a huge problem in Portland. I’ll tell you what the problem is, crime.” Trump has claimed that “Portland’s been on fire for years.” But according to the MCCA report, homicides in Portland have declined 63.6%, rape has decreased 12%, robbery has decreased 16.6%, and aggravated assault has decreased 11.1% during the first quarter of 2026.

On June 16, 2025, President Trump’s two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, announced the launch of Trump Mobile. The new venture’s flagship product was “a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance“ called the T1 Phone. The pair announced Trump Mobile at Trump Tower in New York City on the 10th anniversary of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign announcement.

According to the press release, the T1 phone would be “proudly designed and built in the United States” and available in August 2025 for $499. Trump’s sons promised that the new service will feature a “best in class customer service team, based in the United States” that “will be available 24 hours a day to assist.”

The Trump Mobile website, which launched the same day, encouraged customers to deposit $100 to “pre-order” the “MADE IN THE USA ‘T1 Phone.” According to the website, the T1 would be available in September 2025.

A spokesman for Trump Mobile told the Wall Street Journal on launch day that “manufacturing for the new phone will be in Alabama, California and Florida.” Appearing on “The Benny Show,” Trump Jr. said the T1 phone was “American hardware, built in America, without the potential of…[a] backdoor into the hardware that some of our adversaries have installed in there.”

Although Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. announced the phone at Trump Tower and promoted it during media appearances, a disclaimer on the website says that neither the Trump Organization nor any of the Trump family are making or selling the products:

Trump Mobile and all its products and services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed, or sold by The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals. T1 Mobile LLC uses the Trump name and trademark pursuant to the terms of a limited license agreement, which may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.

This is a typical arrangement for The Trump Organization, which remains wholly owned by President Trump. (Although, technically, the company currently is held by a revocable trust run by Trump Jr., the trust has no legal significance.) Trump earns millions of dollars annually from similar agreements.

A reporter from 404 Media, Joseph Cox, pre-ordered the phone on launch day and was initially charged $64.70. Cox was told he would receive a notification when the phone had been shipped but he had not provided a shipping address. In July, Trump Mobile placed two additional charges on Cox’s credit card, one for $100 and another for $64.70, without explanation. When Cox called the customer service number, the representative could not assist him. A Reuters reporter who called the line in June 2025 was greeted with, “Omega Auto Care, how can I help you?“

In July 2025, Pat O’Brien, an executive working on the Trump Mobile venture, said that the company had “gotten a lot of pre-orders“ but would not disclose how many.

A $499 “MADE IN THE USA” phone was always a fantasy. There is only one phone that is currently assembled in the United States, the Liberty Phone. It costs $2000 and “has specs that would have been more impressive a decade ago.” It includes parts made in China and other Asian countries. The T1 promised high-end specs including Android 15, a 50 megapixel camera, a 6.8 inch screen, and 12 gigabytes of RAM.

By June 25, 2025, the description of the T1 changed dramatically. The phone was no longer promoted as “MADE IN THE USA.” Instead it was “Proudly American” and “designed with American values in mind” — two phrases that mean little.

In October 2025, a call center operator told NBC News that the T1 phone would be shipped on November 13, 2025. That did not happen. The reporter was then told the phone would be available in early December. On December 31, 2025, a reporter from Fortune was told the T1 would be available in “mid to late January.” The Trump Mobile representative told Fortune that the phone had been delayed “due to the government shutdown.”

In January 2026, a Trump Mobile representative said that the company was “in the final stages of certification and field testing” and would ship “sometime in Q1 2026,” a window which closed on March 31.

Then, on April 6, 2026, Trump Mobile updated its terms. According to the new terms, the $100 deposit was not actually a pre-order but “a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale.” Further, the deposit “does not lock in pricing, promotions, service plans, taxes, fees, shipping costs, or other commercial terms.” The terms claim that “[e]stimated ship dates, launch timelines, or anticipated production schedule are non-binding estimates only.” The terms do say customers can receive a refund by making a request to customer service which will “take several business days to process.”

Popular Information called Trump Mobile’s 24-hour customer service number to ask for an updated release date and more information about the refund process. The number played a recorded message saying Trump Mobile was closed and to call back Monday through Friday between 8AM and 5PM Central Standard Time.

As of May 2026, no T1 phones have been sent to customers and the Trump Mobile website currently provides no estimate of when the T1 will be available.

T-Mobile and conflicts of interest

Despite the lengthy delays and the lack of a current timeline, Trump Mobile is showing some signs of life. A ‘T1’ phone from Smart Gadgets Global, LLC — a company whose CEO, Eric Thomas, is a Trump Mobile executive — received FCC clearance in January. That’s necessary before any new phone can be used by consumers.

In February, two Trump Mobile executives showed a Verge reporter a prototype of the phone over video conference. Notably, the phone will not be “Made In the USA,” which was touted by Trump’s sons as its key distinguishing feature. Instead, it will receive “final assembly” in Miami. The Trump Mobile executives would not disclose where the phone is assembled before that final step.

Beyond manufacturing, a critical step for the release of the phone is to get certification from a company that owns a cellular network. In February, the Trump Mobile executives said they were waiting on approval from T-Mobile. Trump Mobile operates as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) that uses the T-Mobile network. So T-Mobile has to review and approve any new devices that Trump Mobile wants to deploy.

This creates a serious conflict of interest. T-Mobile is regulated by the Trump administration and regularly seeks Trump administration approval for key business activities, including acquisition of additional spectrum. Now, the Trump Organization, which is owned by President Trump, is pitching a phone that depends on T-Mobile’s approval. T-Mobile will feel immense political pressure to clear the device for use on its network.

In July 2025, three Democratic Members of Congress — Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Doris Matsui (D-CA), and Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY) — sent a letter to T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert highlighting these concerns. The letter states that T-Mobile’s business relationship with Trump Mobile “creates the appearance of significant conflicts of interest between your company and the executive branch, and likely will raise actual conflicts as more details come to light.” The Members of Congress stated that T-Mobile was in a position “to gain favorable regulatory decisions affecting the company—such as spectrum allocations, merger approvals, or enforcement actions—without any regard as to whether those decisions are in the public interest.”

Last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told Congress that the cost of the Iran War through the first 60 days was $25 billion. But a cost estimate conducted by Popular Information found that the U.S. spent an estimated $71.8 billion on the Iran War through the first 60 days, or $1.2 billion per day on average.

State Farm markets itself as a reliable company that will always be there for its customers. But the company’s California customers had a different experience during the 2025 wildfires. This week, the California Department of Insurance “announced a major enforcement action against State Farm General Insurance Company after an expedited investigation uncovered significant mishandling of insurance claims filed by survivors of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.”

The best of the rest

Only a small percentage of users take home the majority of the winnings on prediction markets. On Polymarket, the Wall Street Journal found that “67% of profits go to just 0.1% of accounts,” meaning “less than 2,000 accounts netted a total of nearly half a billion dollars.” (Wall Street Journal)

An Air Force facility in Maryland spilled thousands of gallons of jet fuel without informing the state. A Maryland Air Force facility, Joint Base Andrews, was spilling jet fuel into a nearby creek that feeds into the Potomac River for an unknown amount of time. Between December and April, the facility lost around 32,000 gallons of fuel. But despite state regulations requiring the disclosure of leaks, the state of Maryland did not hear about any issues until late March. (NOTUS)

Satellite images show that Iran has damaged more U.S. military sites than previously reported. A Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery found that airstrikes by Iran have caused more damage than what the government has publicly acknowledged. According to the report, airstrikes have “damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began.” (Washington Post)

Soil the Trump administration dumped at golf course tests positive for contaminants. Data released by the National Park Service found that soil at a public golf course in Washington, D.C., “tested positive for lead, chromium and other toxic metals.” The Trump administration used the golf course as a dump site for the debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing. While the level of the contaminants was relatively low, it raises questions about the Trump administration’s decision to bypass environmental laws and dump debris at the golf course. (New York Times)

Numerical information

$1 billion: On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a funding package that included $1 billion in Secret Service funding that could cover security measures for President Trump’s ballroom.

$4.55: The average price of a gallon of gas nationwide as of Thursday, according to AAA.

62%: Trump’s disapproval rating reached a new high, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll that surveyed U.S. adults at the end of April.

Quote of the week

Photo of the week

US President Donald Trump shows a rendering of the upcoming “UFC Freedom 250” event as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on May 6, 2026, in Washington, DC. The June 14 event has been dubbed “UFC Freedom 250,” in reference to the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations this summer. (Photo by Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)

In an ad campaign that has blanketed the airwaves this year, State Farm compares itself to a sleazy fictional competitor, Halfway There Insurance. The commercial features two popular comedic actors, Danny McBride and Keegan Michael Key, riffing to the Bon Jovi classic, Livin’ on a Prayer.

“There’s damage to your home on this block,” McBride and Key croon. “We won’t make things right, cuz filing a claim is tough.” The comedy duo stresses that, unlike State Farm, their pretend company will not live up to its promises and does not care about customer satisfaction. “So forget what we told you. It ain’t worth squat. It doesn’t make a difference if you’re happy or not,” they sing.

A website created by State Farm, HalfwayThereInsurance.com, jokes that Halfway There Insurance will just claim that home damage is not their responsibility. For “actual home protection,” the website advises, “we’d say go with State Farm.”

No expense is spared on the campaign, which debuted during the Super Bowl. The ad concludes when Jon Bon Jovi himself, riding in a red convertible with State Farm pitchman “Jake,” offers a disgruntled Halfway There customer, played by actress Hailee Steinfeld, a lift. “Stop living on a prayer and get State Farm,” Jake says.

The Halfway There campaign is one of countless ads with a similar message: State Farm is a relatable and ethical company that will be there to assist you when you need them. “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” is the company’s iconic slogan. According to a document filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and obtained by Popular Information, State Farm spent an astounding $1.139 billion on advertising in 2025.

According to an enforcement action filed by the California Department of Insurance (CDI) this week, the experience of being a State Farm customer has little in common with the advertising copy. CDI “announced a major enforcement action against State Farm General Insurance Company after an expedited investigation uncovered significant mishandling of insurance claims filed by survivors of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.” According to CDI Commissioner Ricardo Lara, “State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives.”

As part of the investigation, CDI examiners reviewed a sampling of 220 claims. In more than half the claims (114) CDI determined that State Farm violated state law. In a legal filing known as an “Order to Show Cause,” CDI summarized State Farm’s violations:

The examination showed a troubling pattern of claims handling practices by [State Farm], including: slow and inadequate investigations of claims; underpayment of claims; numerous instances where multiple claims adjusters were assigned, over a short period, causing policyholder confusion; a lack of reasonable standards for prompt investigation and processing of claims, including in regards to smoke damage; and/or, delayed or inadequate communication with policyholders. These practices failed to comply with applicable laws regulating the fair handling of claims and related regulations resulting in unfair and unlawful burden to policyholders during a declared state of emergency.

The CDI is seeking authority to suspend State Farm’s license in California for up to a year. That would mean the company could not write new insurance policies during that time.

State Farm flatly rejected the conclusions of the CDI investigation. “California’s homeowners insurance market is the most dysfunctional in the country, and State Farm has worked to be part of real solutions,” the company said in a statement. “Wildfire survivors deserve real solutions - not a distorted picture of State Farm’s response.”

The investigation revealed a more nuanced picture. State Farm denied fault in some cases but admitted fault in others, “often saying that the problem was due to issues with specific adjusters.”

According to CDI, State Farm could face $2 million or more in penalties. $2 million represents less than one day of State Farm’s annual ad budget.

State Farm aggressively pursued the California home insurance market

In the years before the wildfires, as other insurers were more cautious in California, State Farm blitzed the market, even while being aware of the risks.

A 2025 report from the Wall Street Journal found that, in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic, State Farm “gobbled up market share… by insuring high-value homes in the Pacific Palisades and other Los Angeles neighborhoods that many of its competitors rejected as too vulnerable to wildfires.” In 2023, the company took in “$2.7 billion of home-insurance premiums in the state,” a 70% increase compared to five years earlier.

“State Farm was the only—and I mean the only—big insurer that would take everything” during that time period, an owner of an independent insurance agency told the Journal. One insurance agent said that the only quote that he could get for a high-value home in 2022 was $20,000, until State Farm insured it for $6,000.

State Farm knew about the risks even as it expanded. According to the Journal, consultants told State Farm that there was a high risk of a fire. State Farm also knew it was selling policies that had unsustainably low premiums. But it continued to ask California “for a fraction of the increases that would be needed to bring its rates up to the necessary levels” in 2021 and 2022.

In 2023, that abruptly changed. State Farm began asking the state for much higher increases in home-insurance rates. Shortly after, the company announced that it would no longer be accepting new home-insurance policies in California.

In March 2024, State Farm announced that it would be dropping coverage for a total of 72,000 houses and apartments in the state beginning that summer. A CDI spokesman told CBS that around “1,600 policies in Pacific Palisades were dropped by State Farm in July.” An analysis by CBS News San Francisco found that State Farm dropped over 2,000 policies in two other zip codes in Los Angeles. Customers whose policies were not being renewed were advised to get insurance through California’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) Plan, which is used as a last resort and typically offers less coverage for a higher price.

In January 2025, State Farm reversed course and announced that it was offering to renew residential policies that it had intended to drop in Los Angeles County. But the decision only applied to policies that were still held by customers before the Los Angeles fires. Customers whose coverage had already been dropped before the fire are out of luck.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Acting Comptroller Jules Hurst told Congress last week that the Iran War had cost $25 billion through the first 60 days. The next day, CBS reported that officials familiar with the Pentagon’s internal assessments estimated the cost was actually closer to $50 billion — double the amount department leadership had just stated publicly. However, even the figure reported as the war’s “true cost” is at least $22 billion too low.

Popular Information conducted a cost estimate of the Iran War based on officials’ statements, military procurement and operations data, and reporting on deployments and armament use. Through 60 days, the US spent an estimated $71.8 billion on the Iran War, or $1.2 billion per day on average. This includes the cost of operations, munitions, combat losses, and arming co-belligerents. Like the estimates from Pentagon leadership and unnamed officials, this figure refers only to direct war costs — near-term expenses for military operations, munitions, and the like — and not indirect costs, which include broader economic impacts, interest on the national debt and longer-term expenses like veterans’ care.

Why this figure is higher than the Pentagon’s internal estimate

Why is Popular Information’s estimate so much largest than even the Pentagon’s internal figure? Factors include incomplete accounting of damaged or destroyed military assets, the exclusion of costs outside the department (including billions of dollars in State Department-funded military aid to Israel), and a flawed method for tracking munition expenditures. The last is likely the biggest factor.

The Pentagon tracks munition “burn rate” costs by merging operational logistics (what munitions are fired, and in what quantities) with financial values (how much each one costs). The issue lies in how the Pentagon determines unit cost. The war costs that show up on the Pentagon’s ledger — and that media outlets report — are much lower than the costs the US public will ultimately be forced to pay.

For example, the largest categorical munition cost is for interceptors, which are missiles designed to shoot down other missiles. The cost to fire one SM-2 interceptor is approximately $1.2 million. If 50 are withdrawn from the stockpile and fired, the Pentagon’s ledger would show $60 million in expenses from consuming those munitions. The $50 billion cost estimate unnamed officials gave lawmakers likely reflects this accounting method, as it’s the department’s standard.

This accounting can lead to undercounts when a rapidly consumed munition like the SM-2 isn’t planned to be purchased in the future. The Pentagon no longer buys SM-2s; the interceptor is being replaced by the more advanced and expensive SM-6. So each time an SM-2 is fired in the ongoing war, the Pentagon’s accounting system registers a cost closer to the SM-2’s $1.2 million unit cost from 2010 than the $6.3 million unit cost budgeted in 2027 for the SM-6 that will replace it. For US taxpayers, the cost of firing 50 SM-2s isn’t $60 million; it’s $315 million.

There are many more examples of expended munitions (or destroyed equipment) that are budgeted to be replaced by much more expensive variants.

Foreseen consequences

The $25 billion war cost given by Pentagon Secretary Hegseth and acting Comptroller Hurst before Congress was a lie. It was a denial of the Iran War’s spiraling costs, one of several foreseen consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to go to war. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz is another predictable consequence. As nonproliferation expert Joe Cirincione told Popular Information last June:

There’s a whole list of things [Iran] could do, including closing the Straits of Hormuz. By closing the Straits of Hormuz, you cut off one-fifth of the world’s oil supply overnight. That will send stock markets crashing. That could tip the world into a global recession, even a depression.

This is why no previous president has attacked Iran. There’s a reason for it. It’s not because they weren’t courageous enough. It wasn’t because they didn’t have the capabilities. It’s because they understood that the enemy gets a vote. You could have stunning initial tactical success, and you could still end up in a quagmire with global consequences that will sink you.

Now, in May 2026, the US is in the quagmire phase of its war with Iran. The Trump administration’s plan, based on its 2027 budget request with its record $1.5 trillion in military spending, is to throw money at the problem. It will be up to Congress and its power of the purse to decide whether to enable Trump’s doubling down on another endless war.

A detailed methodology for the $72 billion estimate is available HERE.

On October 3, 2025, the Trump administration abruptly stopped paying third-parties for medical care provided to detainees in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Third-party providers are used to provide “medically necessary” care including “dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, [and] chemotherapy,” according to ICE.

A document posted to an official government contracting website by ICE on November 12, described the situation as an “absolute emergency” that needed to be resolved “immediately” to “prevent any further medical complications or loss of life.”

According to the ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC), payments to third parties were supposed to resume on April 30, 2026. ICE has contracted with a private firm, Acentra Health, to process reimbursements.

But when April 30 arrived, payments to third party medical providers did not resume. Instead, Acentra quietly updated its website stating that “[c]laims payment services are estimated to begin during the second quarter of [sic] 2026 calendar year (April — June).”

For decades, routine processing of third party medical reimbursement were processed for ICE by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), through the VA Financial Service Center (VAFSC). This did not divert resources from the VA as it was compensated by ICE for this service. The arrangement was terminated with no notice after the VA’s role was criticized by right-wing activists.

In a statement, a VA spokesperson says the department is ensuring claims are being processed during the transition. “[The Department of Homeland Security] has signed a new contract to process these claims and is currently onboarding the vendor,” VA spokesperson Pete Kasperowicz told KFF Health News in February. “Meanwhile, VA is supporting this transition until May to ensure claims are processed appropriately.”

A source at the VA with direct knowledge told Popular Information that this is false. “No claims are being processed,” the VA source said. “We’ve done zero work to support [ICE] since they couldn’t pay us.” The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Kasperowicz’s claims are also directly contradicted by the IHSC website, which stated in an April 24 update to providers, “[p]lease continue to hold all claim submissions while IHSC works to bring the new system online in the interim.” The IHSC website announced on October 3, 2025, “Do not mail or submit electronic claims to the VAFSC until further notice. All mail will be returned to sender.” All subsequent communications about the VA’s role repeated this guidance.

For more than seven months, third parties have not been able to be reimbursed for medical services provided to ICE. This has coincided with a massive spike in detainee deaths and medical crises.

As ICE cuts off payments for medical care, detainee death skyrocket

The decision to stop reimbursing third parties for the medical care of ICE detainees has coincided with a significant spike in deaths, according to data released by the agency.

From 2018 to 2024, the average number of people who died in ICE custody annually was 8.9. That includes a spike in 2020 related to the onset of the COVID pandemic. In 2025, 33 people died in ICE custody, including 12 after the medical reimbursements stopped.

The trend is accelerating. In the first four months of 2026, 18 people have died in ICE custody. Since ICE stopped medical reimbursements on October 3, 2025, people have been dying in ICE custody at a rate of 51.7 people annually. This is more than five times the death rate before the policy was implemented.

The ICE detainee population has increased since Trump took office in 2025, from about 40,000 to 60,000 people. But even adjusting for the population increase, the current death rate is many times the historical average.

In a few cases, the deaths were attributed to a violent incident at a facility. But most deaths were attributable to a medical condition. Beyond the data, there are numerous examples of individual cases that suggest essential medical care is being denied to ICE detainees.

On December 3, 2025, Francisco Gaspar-Andrés died at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Fort Bliss, Texas of liver failure. According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, for two months before his death Gaspar-Andrés “went to the medical unit nine times, complaining of symptoms including bloody stool and bleeding gums.” But he “was sent back from visits to the medical unit with allergy, heartburn and indigestion medications and diagnosed with influenza despite repeatedly testing negative.” By the time he was finally transported to a hospital on November 16, doctors were unable to save his life.

After touring the Camp East Montana detention facility on April 6, Congressman Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) said that the “conditions that I saw inside the detention facility today are beneath our American values.” Vasquez heard from detainees who said “you practically have to be down on the ground, dying… before you receive medical care.”

On January 27, attorney Eric Lee said that at the Dilly Immigration Processing Center in Texas, one of his clients “had appendicitis, collapsed in the hallway, was vomiting from pain, and the officials told him, take a Tylenol and come back in three days.” Hayam El Gamal, another one of Lee’s clients held at Dilly, “was refused a CT scan by center officials for a lump in her chest.” According to an April 15 federal court filing, El Gamal, a mother of five, “has been pleading for medical attention for the abnormal growth, which has caused severe pain, since February 15.” The court filing alleges ICE is “are systematically denying Ms. El Gamal medical care” and the denial “poses an urgent threat to Ms. El Gamal’s health and potentially her life.”

Andrea Pedro-Francisco, an asylum seeker from Guatemala, was detained by ICE on February 5 and eventually sent to El Paso Service Processing Center. According to Amnesty International, she “has a large ovarian cyst and was scheduled for surgery on February 11.” But since being placed in detention, “she has not received adequate medical care.” There are indications that the cyst has grown considerably and Pedro-Francisco “is experiencing severe abdominal and lower back pain.”

An April 13, 2026, report in The Detroit News suggests that detainees at the North Lake Processing Center, which holds about 1500 people, are not receiving necessary care. Ruth Pujols Beltre, a detainee at the facility with a history of cardiovascular issues, said she has “swollen legs, a tingling sensation in her hands and trouble breathing at times.” When she reported her symptoms to North Lake staff they “only offered her over-the-counter pain relievers like Ibuprofen and acetaminophen.” Ruby Robinson, managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said one client detained at the same facility “wasn’t receiving any care for a festering wound that remained after an amputation as a result of diabetes.”

Meanwhile, ICE has defended the standard of medical care provided to detainees. “For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives,” a spokesperson told ABC News.

In an interview with CBS News’ ‘60 Minutes’ on Sunday, Trump said that No Kings protests were to blame for the latest assassination attempt against him. But the No Kings rallies have been one of the most peaceful protest movements in history.

Last week, the Department of Justice indicted Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke for using classified information to turn a $400,000 profit on Polymarket. The prediction market industry claims that the arrest proves the system works, but Van Dyke was caught because of his own hamhandedness, not a robust system protecting against insider trading.

In April, a startup backed by Peter Thiel launched an AI service offering to help people discredit journalists. Objection AI employs former intelligence officials to investigate the journalists and their reporting. Then, the findings are reviewed by an “AI jury” which will decide whether the reporter is in the wrong. While Objection AI claims to be unbiased, Thiel has long campaigned against the media and bankrolled lawsuits against news outlets.

Updated Information

In March, Popular Information reported on the appointment of Kai Schwemmer — a far-right Utah streamer who has supported white nationalist Nick Fuentes — as political director of College Republicans of America.

Now, Schwemmer is running for treasurer of the Utah GOP. Rob Axson, the Utah GOP chair, has called Schwemmer a “valuable candidate.”

The best of the rest

The Trump administration signals willingness to limit contraceptive access. Birth control has long been thought of as politically untouchable. But now, under pressure from different factions of the MAGA base — MAHA wellness influencers, religious conservatives, and pronatalists — the Trump administration has issued new guidance that deemphasizes contraceptives like the birth control pill and prioritizes natural family planning, which is far less effective. (Politico)

The dismantling of the EPA’s research arm. Over 1,500 scientists and other experts at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development “have been laid off, reassigned or pressured to retire.” Only 124 researchers remain. According to an internal memo obtained by the New York Times, if they choose to stay, future research must “align with agency and administration priorities.” (New York Times)

The Trump administration is hiring “deportation judges” with no immigration law experience. The DOJ has fired over 100 immigration judges during Trump’s second term. The Trump administration is now on a hiring spree to replace them, and has appointed over 140 new judges so far. But many of these judges “have no stated experience practicing immigration law” and “are receiving less training than previously offered.” (Washington Post)

American taxpayers are on the hook for the FIFA World Cup, but host cities may not see a return. An investigation by the Houston Chronicle of the contracts between host cities and FIFA revealed that while taxpayers are providing massive subsidies for the tournament, the economic returns are uncertain. Host cities and local organizing committees for the tournament are expected to pay for security, stadium modifications, and fan events. FIFA, meanwhile, is expected to make billions. (Houston Chronicle/Texas Tribune)

Numerical Information

$400 million. This week, a group of Senate Republicans introduced legislation to authorize spending $400 million to build Trump’s ballroom.

$4.30. The average price of a gallon of gas nationwide as of Thursday.

$25 billion: This is the amount that has already been spent on the war in Iran, according to the Pentagon’s acting comptroller Jay Hurst. Other estimates, however, found that the cost could be as high as $50 billion.

Quote of the week

“The Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.” — Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting from a 6-3 ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act

Photo of the week

President Trump photographed with King Charles III during his visit to the White House this week. The photo was posted to X by the official White House account with the caption, “TWO KINGS. 👑”

A Peter Thiel-funded startup launched this month will use an “AI jury” to “subject the media’s claims to systematic investigation and judgment.” That same system of AI adjudication assigns a numerical value — the so-called “Honor Index” score — grading the trustworthiness of individual reporters. And for a starting price of $2,000, anyone can pay for the company to review and adjudicate complaints they may have about a news outlet or reporter.

Objection AI was founded by Aron D’Souza, a lawyer best known for leading the Thiel-funded lawsuit that bankrupted the digital news outlet Gawker in 2016. D’Souza has described Objection as a private arbitration court, which individuals can turn to when they feel they have been unfairly maligned by reporters or pundits. “Your reputation takes years to build and seconds to destroy online,” the company wrote in a recent post on X. “Objection makes adjudication fair, fast, and affordable.”

The company is funded with millions of dollars in funding from Thiel, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and other investors.

Although it carries no legal or formal weight, Objection has put significant effort into making its judgments appear authoritative.

Its AI jurors are fed information and evidence gathered by human investigators whose collective work history the company frequently cites as a source of legitimacy. We have “a team of FBI, CIA, former agents, who will investigate the story that’s been written… line by line, sentence by sentence,” D’Souza told a British news show earlier this month.

For those unmoved by spycraft, Objection hypes the purported capabilities and impartiality of its AI jury, which is comprised of models from xAI, Anthrophic, OpenAI, Google, and Mistral.

“Artificial intelligence adjudicates through a scalable, auditable, incentive-free process,” the company states on its website. “Diverse foundational models debate adversarially - advocates build cases, cross-examiners expose flaws, a neutral ensemble verifies with explicit standards and Bayesian reasoning… AI can be trained to exclude emotion, bias, and ideology. Model diversity cancels blind spots. And it never gets tired.”

Objection also leans heavily on judicial trappings to dress up its reviews, including case numbers and official-sounding case names. “Public v The Wall Street Journal,” reads a label that Objection assigned to its pending investigation of a story the paper published on Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

To promote Objection, D’Souza has claimed that leading AI models apply “law consistently 100% of the time,” adding, “It’s become obvious that lawyers are probably the most displaceable profession, but judges are, too.” However, large language models used by lawyers frequently produce factual errors and hallucinations filed in court. Last week, Sullivan & Cromwell, a top Wall Street law firm, had to apologize after it submitted a key filing that contained erroneous case citations generated by AI.

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“AI-assisted dispute resolution for when you speak to the press”

Objection is Thiel’s latest campaign against the press. He previously spent $10 million secretly bankrolling the lawsuit that the late wrestler, whose real name was Terry Bollea, brought against Gawker for publishing a sex tape. Thiel appeared to hold particular animosity toward Gawker due to a 2007 article it published identifying him as gay.

Objection, meanwhile, appears to be a direct response to the Silicon Valley elite’s growing hostility toward reporting on their business, personal, and political exploits.

Elon Musk has repeatedly accused the “legacy media” of lying “relentlessly.” David Sacks, a venture capitalist who recently served as the White House’s AI and crypto czar, has described the “legacy media” as “spokespeople for the Democrat Party.” And Jason Calacanis, a tech investor who hosts a podcast with Sacks, recently fantasized on X about executing an “epic” hostile takeover of the New York Times so that he could force one of the paper’s tech reporters to “pitch me three stories of technology improving people’s lives every Monday at 730am.”

In another post, Calacanis offered a succinct description of his cohort’s feelings about the press. “FOUNDERS: DON’T ENGAGE WITH THE MEDIA,” he wrote. Musk cosigned that advice.

Objection advises potential clients to require that journalists who want to interview them first sign a standardized contract agreeing to have the company arbitrate any “media disputes” that may arise from the exchange. “Fast, fair, AI-assisted dispute resolution for when you speak to the press,” reads ad copy promoting the contract template on Objection’s website.

One example shared by Objection features the founder of an AI company asking a reporter from the New York Tribune (a long-defunct paper) to sign the contract before an interview. “Sure, no problem, signed,” the fictitious reporter replies.

There is also the Honor Index, the aggregate scoring system that Objection uses to grade individual journalists. So far, the company has not publicly assigned grades to any real journalists. But an example template showed that reporters will be docked if they do not participate in the company’s investigations of their reporting.

It is doubtful that any serious reporter would participate in an AI-led judgment of their work. Further, as part of the company’s push to have the media take part in its tribunals, D’Souza has said that journalists would need to upload information identifying anonymous sources they cite in their reporting directly to Objection’s AI systems. “The AI will read that set of data and say, okay, this is high-quality reporting,” D’Souza told TechCrunch in an interview. D’Souza also suggested that Objection could provide journalists who share information about confidential sources “a certificate to say you can use that anonymous source in a certain way, and it’s been independently verified in a fully trustless, open source system.”

This process, according to Objection, is actually a service to the news media, as AI adjudication will free journalists from being “forced to act as judges.”

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“A global AI arbitration court”

Is Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France and a mother of three, “definitely a man?”

Officials at Élysée Palace will be pleased to learn that following weeks of research and computation, one model used by Objection has ruled, with 89% confidence, that Brigitte is not a man.

The case, which stems from a conspiracy theory popularized by right-wing podcaster Candace Owens, is one of numerous claims that Objection is evaluating for “public interest,” rather than an investigation conducted for a paying client seeking to rehabilitate their image. In fact, despite launching more than two weeks ago, every single claim the company has investigated publicly was initiated by one of Objection’s employees.

In addition to its “transvestigation” of Brigitte Macron, Objection has issued rulings on two other cases: That sexual abuse took place at a Christian summer camp in Missouri and that podcaster Joe Rogan did not recommend the use of livestock dewormer to combat COVID-19. Once the company’s AI adjudicators complete their analysis, Objection shares a link to the ruling on X, alongside an AI-generated face-off poster featuring the two opposing parties.

The company is also investigating New York Times reporting on David Sacks using his White House access to augment his investments, a CBS Miami report on abuse faced by detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, and whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal.

Objection does not plan to stop at journalism. The company’s goal is to one day become “a global AI arbitration court” capable of resolving “contract conflicts, commercial disagreements, reputational claims, scientific and technical disputes — all adjudicated at dramatically lower cost, far higher speed, and greater accuracy than medieval court systems built for a pre-digital age.”

President Jimmy Carter placed his peanut farm in a blind trust.

And President Barack Obama limited his assets to index funds, treasury bonds, and cash to avoid financial conflicts.

President Trump, on the other hand, has used the nation’s highest office to promote businesses that he and his family own 110 times in the last 16 months, a Popular Information investigation reveals.

Popular Information comprehensively analyzed Trump’s Truth Social posts, public remarks, and event locations during his second term. The investigation found that since taking office for a second term on January 20, 2025, Trump has promoted his family’s business interests 59 times on Truth Social and 30 times while speaking on camera. Further, since January 2025, Trump has held 21 events at properties he owns.

As president, Trump has promoted a diverse array of business interests, including Trump-branded golf courses, crypto tokens, and consumer products.

For example, Trump has publicly promoted his memecoin, $TRUMP, six times as president — including five posts on Truth Social and one event for the top memecoin holders held at his golf course in Virginia.

Trump also uses Truth Social to make official announcements, such as his decision to extend his blockade of Iranian ports. Trump’s use of Truth Social as president promotes his business interests. Truth Social is owned by Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), and Trump is the largest shareholder, owning 53% of the company.

Trump has posted 8,452 times on Truth Social since his inauguration on January 20, 2025. That’s an average of more than 18 posts per day. On December 1, 2025, Trump posted 166 times on Truth Social.

Trump also frequently promotes Trump-owned properties at official events, using the prestige of the presidency to burnish the reputation of his hotels and golf courses. During a White House press conference with the Irish head of government, Micheál Martin, last month, Trump spoke extensively about the quality of the golf course he owns in Ireland:

We have a great -- a great golf complex in Ireland, one of the best in the world, called Doonbeg. It’s in Doonbeg. And it’s been amazing. And Rory McIlroy loves it. They all love it… And it was chosen for the Irish Open, which is a big deal. That’s a big event… [I]t was a great honor to be chosen. They only choose the best courses in the world for the -- you know, for the big opens. That’s one of the big ones, the Irish Open. It’s really become one of the most important tournaments in the world… I think it’s going to be a fantastic success… Very hard course, though.

Trump has also continued to promote his branded consumer products as president, for example, using Truth Social to promote a line of Trump-branded fragrances, Victory 45-47. One bottle of cologne or perfume costs $249.

During his second term, Trump has repeatedly held official events at properties he owns. Even on the rare occasions that he does not explicitly praise the properties, these events are valuable promotional opportunities.

Last month, Trump launched the “Shield of the Americas,” a new organization of Western Hemisphere countries that Trump says will fight drug cartels. The event was held at Trump’s resort and golf course in the Miami area, Trump National Doral.

The Trump administration has aggressively defended Trump’s conduct, denying that he is attempting to profit from the presidency. “The president is abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws that are applicable to the president,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in May 2025. “And I think everybody, the American public, believe it’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency. This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.”

Ethics experts do not believe this is true.

“Every other president since the Civil War has divested from business interests that would conflict with official duties. President Trump has done the opposite,” Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said on December 22, 2025.

Since December 22, Popular Information’s investigation reveals, Trump has promoted his business interests another 43 times.

On Monday, Cole Tomas Allen, an educator from California, was charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump. Allen was apprehended on Saturday night outside of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was attended by Trump and much of his cabinet.

According to law enforcement officials, a note written by Allen said he was targeting most of the Trump administration officials in attendance. The note appeared “to express deep anger at the administration and the president.” In an interview with law enforcement, Allen’s sister reportedly said that he had attended a “No Kings” protest in California.

Trump was asked about the suspect and his motivations during an interview with CBS News’ ‘60 Minutes’ on Sunday. In response, Trump said the “No Kings” protests were to blame. “The reason you have people like that is you have people doing No Kings,” Trump said. “I’m not a king… if I was a king I wouldn’t be dealing with you.”

The truth is that the No Kings rallies have been some of the largest and most peaceful protests in history.

The No Kings movement was created to “oppose the Trump administration’s growing authoritarian actions.” Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, there have been three major No Kings events. According to estimates by organizers, the three events had a total of 20 million protesters, with 5 million people attending the first rally in June 2025, 7 million people attending in October 2025, and 8 million people attending the most recent rally in March.

The No Kings movement describes itself as “nonviolent opposition.” In an effort to avoid violence, the organizers have held de-escalation trainings and a session on “non-violent documentation techniques.”

Their efforts have been largely successful. Conflict monitoring group ACLED found that “over 99%” of the protests during the March event were peaceful. ACLED also found that the October 2025 No Kings protests were “essentially entirely peaceful, and police intervened in only a small handful of demonstrations for non-violent offenses.”

An analysis by the Crowd Counting Consortium, a project by the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut that collects data on political protests, found that during the June 2025 No Kings rallies, “over 99.5 percent of reported protests had no injuries or property damage.” In October 2025, multiple major cities that hosted No Kings protests, including New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., reported no protest-related arrests.

Violence at No Kings, in context

While the No Kings protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, there have been a handful of violent incidents.

Several of these incidents have involved counter-protesters. In Nashville, for example, a man was arrested for brandishing a weapon during a confrontation with protesters in June 2025. On the same day, a man in Virginia was arrested for intentionally driving his SUV through a group of protesters and hitting at least one person. An armed counter-protester was arrested last month during a Dallas No Kings rally for punching a 71-year-old man. Other assaults on No Kings protestors have occurred, but it is unclear whether the attacks came from counter-protesters.

There has been one death associated with a No Kings rally, which took place in Salt Lake City in June 2025 when a protester was killed by an armed volunteer working with local No Kings organizers. The volunteer saw a man assembling a rifle. Thinking that the man was about to commit a mass shooting, the volunteer fired three times in his direction. A nearby protestor, who was not armed, was struck and killed. The man with the rifle, who was carrying it legally and has not been charged with a crime, was also hit. The volunteer has been charged with manslaughter.

On the same day, there were reported clashes between protesters and police in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, when some lingering protestors refused to disperse. LA and Portland also saw further tension between protesters and police at the most recent No Kings rally.

On March 28, 74 demonstrators were arrested outside of an LA Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility for failing to disperse. These demonstrators had broken off from the larger No Kings rally that day, which finished hours earlier. Some outside the ICE facility also threw rocks, bottles, and chunks of concrete at federal officers. A similar incident occurred that day in Portland. Three people were arrested at an ICE facility after a group of protestors moved there after the main No Kings protest, which was peaceful, ended. According to the Portland Police Bureau, protesters threw rocks at officers, burned an American flag, and trespassed on the ICE property.

Trump’s “day of love”

In comparison to other protests, these violent incidents make up a very small part of how the No Kings rallies have played out. In recent years, other protests with far fewer attendees — in the hundreds or thousands, instead of millions — have resulted in more injuries and property damage.

Trump has described the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol as a “day of love” and said that his supporters acted “patriotically and peacefully.” Yet the January 6 riot caused far more harm than the No Kings protests, despite having just a fraction of the attendance. About 10,000 people were on the Capitol grounds during the riot and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that up to 2,500 entered the building. Over 140 police officers were injured by rioters and one officer died shortly after of a stroke. The attack cost the government $2.7 billion, including repairs for property damage and investigations.

Similarly, at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, attendance was in the hundreds, yet dozens were injured and one counter-protester was killed when a self-identified neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd.

Last week, the Justice Department indicted Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke for misappropriating classified information to profit on the prediction market Polymarket. Van Dyke was a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces unit that captured former President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026. Over the span of eight days just before the operation, Van Dyke allegedly leveraged his access to classified information to make more than $400,000 on Polymarket.

According to the prediction market industry and its advocates in the Trump administration, Van Dyke’s arrest is proof that the “system works.” In reality, Van Dyke’s experience is highly unusual. Van Dyke was not caught because of a robust system that protects prediction markets against insider trading. Rather, it was a combination of the specific kind of information that Van Dyke exploited and his own hamhandedness.

Van Dyke allegedly became aware of Maduro’s impending capture around December 8, 2025, when he was assigned to the team planning the operation. According to the indictment, on December 26, 2025, Van Dyke personally created an account on Polymarket, funded it with about $35,000, and began placing bets on Maduro-related markets under the username “Burdensome-Mix.” For example, Van Dyke allegedly placed large “YES” bets on “Maduro out by… January 31, 2026” and “Will the U.S. invade Venezuela by… January 31,” among others.

Van Dyke made these bets, according to the indictment, after he signed non-disclosure agreements in which he promised “to never divulge, publish, or reveal by writing, words, conduct, or otherwise . . . any classified or sensitive information.”

Polymarket claimed this was a validation of the integrity of its platform. Neal Kumar, Polymarket’s Chief Legal Officer, posted on X that Van Dyke’s arrest “proved just how easy it is to find & charge criminal insider trading when markets are onchain.” A separate X post by the official Polymarket account says it was the company that “identified a user trading on classified information.”

Kumar said that others who tried to trade on insider information “will be found just like this guy.”

Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan posted: “We flagged this, referred it, and cooperated throughout the process.”

Polymarket’s story does not add up. The indictment credits “reports of unusual trading in Maduro-related contracts on Polymarket [that] appeared in the press and on social media” with bringing scrutiny to Van Dyke’s conduct. Polymarket’s internal systems are not mentioned.

The issue was that, according to the indictment, Van Dyke did not take basic steps to conceal his activity. He opened brand-new accounts to place trades and immediately placed large bets on a narrow range of contracts, all related to Maduro. Had Van Dyke spread smaller bets across several accounts with established betting histories, his conduct would have been difficult or impossible to detect. An even more effective tactic would have been to pass the information to a third party who would execute that strategy. Van Dyke allegedly took none of these precautions.

Further, all the charges in the indictment rest on the fact that the information used by Van Dyke was classified and that he had a duty not to disclose or misuse it. Many of the markets offered by Polymarket do not involve this kind of information.

For example, Polymarket is currently taking bets on whether Clavicular, a “looksmaxxing” online influencer, “announces that he and a partner are expecting a baby through pregnancy between market creation and December 31, 2026.”

Clavicular has no obligation to keep the timing of any potential pregnancy announcement secret. Similarly, if Clavicular informed a friend in advance of an announcement, the friend would have no “duty” not to share or act on that information. In other words, the roadmap for prosecuting Van Dyke would not apply to insiders gaming the Clavicular market — or the vast majority of markets offered on Polymarket and Kalshi.

Notably, Coplan told 60 Minutes in November 2025 that trading on insider information was beneficial. “I think that people going and having an edge to the market is a good thing,” Coplan said. “Obviously… you need to be really clear and stringent on where the line is drawn… But it’s sort of an inevitability that this will happen, and there’s a lot of benefits from it.”

The truth about Kalshi

Kalshi, Polymarket’s chief rival, attempted to use the indictment to portray itself as the prediction market with real protections against insider trading. CNBC reported that Kalshi “blocked Van Dyke from opening a Kalshi account.” Notably, a Kalshi spokesperson “could not give details of when the 38-year-old Van Dyke tried to open an account or why he was prevented from doing so.”

While creating an account on Kalshi is marginally more difficult, there is no indication that Kalshi blocked the account because it knew Van Dyke was a member of the Special Forces. If that were the case, Kalshi would almost certainly say so publicly. More likely, Van Dyke’s own reckless conduct thwarted his efforts to create a Kalshi account.

For example, according to the indictment, Van Dyke attempted to create the accounts while on a military base in Fort Bragg and then tried to use a VPN to conceal his location. This is the kind of behavior that can thwart account creation. Had Van Dyke established the account outside a military base, he may not have run into this issue.

More fundamentally, Van Dyke could have had someone else place bets on Kalshi on his behalf, eliminating the need to create a new account entirely. It was his inability or unwillingness to do so, not the rigor of the Kalshi system, that prevented him from trading on inside information on Kalshi.

Did Trump defend insider trading?

Prosecutors emphasized the seriousness of Van Dyke’s alleged crimes. “Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said. “The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States Government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation, all to turn a profit.”

Trump, however, appeared to defend Van Dyke, suggesting that his behavior was less problematic because he bet that the Venezuela mission would succeed. “That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team… Pete Rose, it kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team,” Trump said. Trump later lamented that “the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino” and said he would “look into it.”

Donald Trump Jr. is an advisor to Polymarket and Kalshi.

On Tuesday, Trump indicated that he was open to offering the United Arab Emirates (UAE) a financial bailout to offset the economic fallout caused by the war in Iran. The UAE has partnered extensively with the Trump Organization and has multiple business ties to the Trump family.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has represented the U.S. in negotiations with Iran while engaged in a multi-billion-dollar business relationship with the Saudi government. Despite the brazen corruption, Kushner’s connection to the Saudis has received very little media attention. A Popular Information analysis of media coverage of Kushner’s diplomatic role from February 28 to April 19 found that 97% of the coverage from a variety of major media outlets did not mention Kushner’s financial conflict of interest.

Last week, The Atlantic published an article alleging that FBI Director Kash Patel has “alarmed colleagues” with a pattern of excessive drinking. Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, calling the article “a sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece.” The complaint actually confirms several key aspects of The Atlantic’s reporting.

The best of the rest

An analysis of satellite data shows the scale of damage done by strikes on Iran. Major damage has been done to Tehran after over a month of military conflict. An analysis by Bloomberg of radar imagery of “land use within damage clusters in Tehran” found that at least 2,816 buildings have been hit since the start of the conflict on February 28. Of the 2,816 buildings, “around 32%... were linked to the military, 25% to industry, 21% to civilians, while 19% were commercial and 2% governmental.” (Bloomberg)

The CDC blocked publication of a report showing the efficacy of the covid vaccine. The Washington Post reported this week that a report showing “the efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine” was blocked from publication in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s scientific journal. The blocked report found that the covid-19 vaccine reduced hospitalizations and emergency room visits among healthy adults last winter. (Washington Post)

NYT uncovers the origins of the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket.” The Supreme Court’s shadow docket has been used to rapidly deliver major policy wins to the Trump administration with little explanation. This week, the New York Times published an investigation, including memos between the justices, that sheds light on how this practice originated in 2016. (The New York Times)

Sexual misconduct by state and federal lawmakers is widespread, according to a new report. The National Women’s Defense League found that 162 state-level officials have been accused of sexual misconduct since 2013, and 30 members of Congress have been accused since 2006. Authors of the report say this is likely a significant undercount. While two members of Congress resigned last week over sexual misconduct allegations, the report found that there is generally little accountability for lawmakers. Forty-five officials identified in the report are running for election in 2026. (The 19th)

Numerical Information

$1 billion+

The amount that Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, has lost since the company went public two years ago, according to the company’s most recent annual report. Trump is TMTG’s largest shareholder. This week, TMTG announced it was replacing its CEO, former congressman Devin Nunes, with interim CEO Kevin McGurn.

Over 5,600

The number of people who have been killed throughout the Middle East since the beginning of the war in Iran, according to NBC News.

$24 million

The value of a Pentagon contract awarded to Foundation Futures Industries earlier this month. Eric Trump, who became the company’s “chief strategy officer” in March, appeared on Fox News this week to brag about the deal.

Quotes of the week: “Different” math

“President Trump has a different way of calculating… If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction.” — RFK Jr.

“I’d say 500%, 600%, but we also say sometimes 50%, 60%, different kind of calculation… and people understand that better, but there are two ways of calculating it, but either way it doesn’t make any difference.” — Trump

Visual Information

​​President Trump poses with the University of Georgia women’s tennis team to celebrate their recent NCAA championship. Trump and a group of Georgia staffers and coaches stand in front of the women. The photo was posted to X by Margo Martin, a White House aide.

(Sorry that receive is misspelled. If I fix it now, it will erase all the existing votes. — Judd)

On March 5, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, a small Native American tribe based out of the Rumsey Indian Rancheria in California, donated $2 million to MAGA Inc., President Trump’s Super PAC. It was one of the largest donations MAGA Inc. has received this year and particularly remarkable, given that there are only 41 people on the Rumsey Indian Rancheria, according to the latest Census survey.

The story behind the Yocha Dehe’s extraordinary political contribution illustrates exactly how business is done in Trump’s Washington.

The Yocha Dehe operates the Cache Creek Casino Resort on the 185-acre Rumsey Rancheria in Brooks, California. For nearly a decade, the Yocha Dehe has been engaged in a legal dispute with the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, which is trying to build a casino on a 160-acre parcel in Vallejo, California, about 60 miles away.

Whether Scotts Valley can build its casino hinges on a technical determination by the Department of the Interior (DOI) about whether the site qualifies as “restored lands” — property with both a historical and modern connection to the tribe. On January 10, 2025, in the waning days of the Biden administration, Scotts Valley received some good news from the DOI. After many years of consideration, the DOI issued a detailed 30-page memorandum declaring the parcel qualified as restored land eligible for gaming.

But the Yocha Dehe was not ready to give up. Since 2019, the Yocha Dehe has been represented by Miller Strategies, a lobbying firm.

Jeff Miller, the founder of Miller Strategies, is one of the most powerful men in Trump’s Washington. In 2020, Miller bundled $11.2 million for Trump’s reelection campaign and raised another $100 million combined for Trump’s nominating convention and super PAC. In 2024, Miller co-hosted a fundraiser with Donald Trump Jr. that raised over $2 million for Trump. Miller also served as the finance chair of Trump’s 2025 inauguration, which raised nearly $250 million. Since Trump took office, Miller has been helping Trump raise hundreds of millions from corporations to construct a giant ballroom.

Miller himself says he works “the phones every single week to raise money, whether it’s for the House, the Senate, or for President Trump.” Politico suggested Miller was “the most powerful unelected man in DC.”

Before Trump’s 2024 election, the Yocha Dehe typically paid Miller Strategies about $50,000 per quarter. According to government filings, the Yocha Dehe was paying Miller Strategies exclusively for issues related to “COVID-19 financial relief legislation.” But after Trump won in November 2024, the Yocha Dehe began paying Miller Strategies $150,000 per quarter. The lobbying also concerned a new topic: The DOI’s “reconsideration” of its decision on Scotts Valley.

On January 7, 2025, the Yocha Dehe donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

As soon as the new administration took office in January 2025, the Miller Strategies team sprang into action. Emails and other documents obtained by Popular Information provide a rare glimpse into the Washington, D.C., influence industry under Trump. These documents were disclosed as part of the ongoing litigation between Scotts Valley and the DOI.

On January 31, 2025 — just 10 days after Trump took office — Ashley Gunn, a Miller Strategies lobbyist, emailed Alexander Meyer, the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Gunn was well-positioned to navigate the Trump White House because she was Senior Director of Cabinet Affairs in the first Trump administration. She attached a white paper advocating for a reversal of the DOI’s January 10 decision. Gunn asked Meyer if he could help set up a meeting between the White House point person for Native American issues and Yocha Dehe leadership.

When Meyer didn’t immediately respond, Gunn followed up with a more urgent message on February 3, 2025: “Hate to bug you. If Scotts Valley Pomo Indians break ground before this is withdrawn it will be a terrible situation.”

The second email appeared to have the desired effect.

Later the same day, Gunn emailed Christine Glassner, the White House point person for issues related to local and tribal governments at the time. “Thank you so much for jumping on this. So grateful,” Gunn wrote. Glassner forwarded Gunn’s email to Laura Rigas, the DOI’s White House liaison, and Daniel Gustafson, the DOI’s Deputy Director for External Affairs, and asked them to “shed some light on this situation and the urgency of it.”

That got the ball rolling at the DOI, but Miller Strategies left no stone unturned. Miller Strategies also has a partnership with Checkmate Government Relations, another lobbying shop that has gained currency in D.C. because its founder, Ches McDowell, has a close relationship with Donald Trump Jr.

On February 5, 2025, McDowell emailed Wynn Radford, then Chief of Staff to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, with the subject line, “Scotts Valley Withdrawal Request.” Along with the white paper previously sent by Gunn, McDowell attached a draft of the letter that the Yocha Dehe wanted the DOI to issue: “Scotts Valley Draft Reconsideration Letter for Trump DOI (Final).” Radford forwarded the draft to other senior political appointees at DOI and asked if they could prepare “a letter for administrative stay” of the decision by “this evening.”

Some details of what happened over the next few weeks remain unknown because the DOI has refused to disclose various memos on the topic, citing deliberative privilege. But it’s clear that Gunn continued to press the issue.

Ken Bellmard, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, met with representatives from Yocha Dehe and another lobbyist, Aurene Martin, in early March. On March 19, 2025, Gunn spoke on the phone with Bellmard and followed up with an email. “Thank you so much for speaking with me today,” Gunn wrote, “[W]e appreciate your focus on this.”

In the March 19 email to Bellmard, Gunn requested that the DOI take “a two-step approach, where the first step is a letter informing Scotts Valley of the reconsideration and the second step is the substantive reconsideration process.” Gunn emphasized that “it’s important for the notice (the first step) to go out quickly.”

On March 20, 2025, according to internal DOI emails, Bellmard assigned two DOI lawyers a “task” related to Scotts Valley. That evening, the lawyers sent Bellmard a draft letter informing Scotts Valley that a reconsideration was underway — the exact approach Gunn had requested the previous day. After various DOI officials coordinated on a roll-out plan, it was finalized and released on March 26, 2025, less than a week later. (Due to a typographical error, a revised version was released on March 27.)

The letter informed Scotts Valley that the DOI was “temporarily rescinding the Gaming Eligibility Determination” while it reconsidered the issue. It warned that “[d]uring the pendency of this reconsideration, neither the Tribe nor any other entity or person should rely on the Gaming Eligibility Determination.”

Scotts Valley sued the DOI in federal court, arguing that the process that the DOI pursued was illegal. (Many of the documents in this article were disclosed during the discovery process.) On October 30, 2025, the court sided with Scotts Valley, finding that the DOI violated the tribe’s due process rights and reinstated Scotts Valley’s gaming eligibility. “While leaving Scotts Valley in the dark, the [DOI] communicated several times and even met with the neighboring tribes before the March rescission,” the court wrote in its order.

It was, however, a hollow victory. While the court formally reinstated Scotts Valley’s gaming eligibility for now, it allowed the DOI to continue its “reconsideration.” Until the DOI makes a final decision, Scotts Valley, as a practical matter, cannot build a casino because its gaming eligibility could be revoked at any time. The DOI is expected to issue a final decision later this year.

The Yocha Dehe donated $2 million to MAGA Inc. on March 5, 2026 — while the DOI was in the middle of its reconsideration process.

In many respects, Scotts Valley and the Yocha Dehe are very similar. Both are small California tribes seeking to preserve or expand their gambling revenue. Both employ high-powered lobbyists and make donations to politicians to advance their interests. But only the Yocha Dehe is aggressively greasing the wheels of the Trump machine — donating millions to Trump’s political operation and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a lobbyist who doubles as a top fundraiser for Trump. That approach has given the Yocha Dehe a decisive upper hand.

On Tuesday, President Trump said he is considering a financial bailout for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an autocratic state experiencing an economic downturn due to the war in Iran. If the Trump administration does use public resources to rescue the UAE, it will be assisting a country that has partnered extensively with the Trump Organization and the Trump family.

On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that UAE Central Bank Governor Khaled Mohamed Balama “raised the idea of a currency-swap line” during meetings in Washington, D.C., last week with Treasury Department and Federal Reserve officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Officials from the UAE said that they “had so far avoided the worst economic effects of the conflict but might still need a financial lifeline.” According to the Journal, a formal request has not yet been made.

UAE officials argued that the war between the U.S. and Iran could damage the country’s economy and harm its global financial standing. The war has already damaged the country’s oil and gas infrastructure, and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off oil shipments that are a key source of dollar revenue.

If the U.S. agreed to the UAE’s proposal for a currency-swap line, the UAE central bank would get “inexpensive access to dollars to support its currency or shore up its foreign reserves in case of a liquidity crisis.” While swap lines are usually offered by the Federal Reserve, officials told the Journal that it is unlikely that one would be approved for the UAE. But the Trump administration has also provided financial bailouts through the Treasury Department.

In September, for example, Bessent announced a $20 billion swap line to bail out Argentina. That bailout benefited billionaire hedge fund manager Rob Citrone, a former colleague and close friend of Bessent.

Bailouts are typically reserved for countries with deep economic ties to the U.S. to avoid adverse consequences for the American economy. But the UAE is not a major trading partner of the U.S. In 2024, the goods and services trade between the U.S. and the UAE “totaled an estimated $47.9 billion.” In comparison, trade between the U.S. and Canada totaled $909 billion, and trade with the U.K. was $340.1 billion.

Nevertheless, Trump administration officials appear to be open to the idea. On Monday, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, one of Trump’s top economic advisors, was asked about the potential bailout during an interview with CNBC. “The UAE has been an incredibly valuable ally throughout this effort, and I’m sure the Treasury Secretary will make every effort to help them out should that be necessary,” Hassett said, noting that he had not talked to Bessent directly.

The UAE has not been that helpful. For example, in January 2026, the UAE announced that it will not allow “its airspace, territory or territorial waters be used for any hostile military actions against Iran.”

On Tuesday, Trump also indicated that he was open to the proposal during an interview with CNBC. Trump was asked if a currency swap with the UAE was under consideration. “It is,” Trump responded. “It’s been a good country, it’s been a good ally of ours. And you know these are unusual times,” Trump said, noting that the UAE has been targeted particularly hard by Iranian missiles. “They’re very good for this country, so yeah, if I could help them I would.”

The UAE’s business ties with Trump

Since retaking office, Trump and his family have benefited greatly from deals with UAE officials and businessmen.

Just days before Trump was inaugurated in 2025, for example, Emirati royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan secretly purchased a 49% stake in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Financial. Half of the sale was paid up front, resulting in a windfall of $187 million for entities tied to the Trump family. An additional $31 million went to the family of Steve Witkoff, who is a World Liberty Financial co-founder and Trump’s envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff has been involved in negotiations with Iran throughout the war. It is unclear how much the two families will make from the second half of the payment.

Five months after Tahnoon bought into the company, MGX — a state-backed UAE investment fund chaired by Tahnoon — used $2 billion worth of USD1, a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, to finance an investment in the crypto exchange Binance. The deal will generate hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump and his family members.

Two weeks after the USD1 purchase, the Trump administration made a deal to give the UAE hundreds of thousands of advanced computer chips that the country had been seeking for years. According to the New York Times, Tahnoon secured this agreement, and many of the chips went to G42, a tech firm under his control.

The Trump family has brought in additional millions by licensing the Trump name to a golf course and a real estate development in the UAE. The golf course, which opened shortly after Trump was inaugurated for the first time in 2017, was built outside Dubai by developer DAMAC, which reportedly pays the Trump Organization $6 million per year to use the Trump name. The Trump Organization signed a similar licensing agreement with developer Dar Global in April 2025 to construct a Trump-branded hotel and residential building in Dubai.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who Trump has placed in a top diplomatic role, has also profited from investments from the UAE. In 2021, Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners received a $200 million investment from the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund and another $1.5 billion from entities controlled by the Qatari and Emirati governments in late 2024. Exactly how much of the $1.5 billion came from the UAE is undisclosed.

On Friday, The Atlantic published a story alleging that FBI Director Kash Patel has “alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”

According to the report, Patel “is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C.” He has also allegedly been seen drinking “to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas.” In several instances over the last year, The Atlantic reports, “members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated.” Further, “[s]ome of Patel’s colleagues at the FBI worry that his personal behavior has become a threat to public safety” because “Patel is often away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions needed to advance investigations.”

The story is based on interviews with “more than two dozen people,” including “current and former FBI officials, staff at law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, hospitality-industry workers, members of Congress, political operatives, lobbyists, and former advisers.” All of The Atlantic’s sources spoke “on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and private conversations.”

On Monday, Patel sued The Atlantic and the story’s author, Sarah Fitzpatrick, for defamation, seeking $250 million in damages.

According to Patel’s lawsuit, The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick published “a sweeping, malicious, and defamatory hit piece.” The article, according to the complaint, is “replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.” Patel argues that The Atlantic acted with “actual malice” because it was warned that “the central allegations were categorically false” and there was “abundant publicly available information contradicting those allegations.”

In a post on X, Patel described the lawsuit as “a legal lay up.”

But Patel faces an uphill battle in court. Not only must he meet a high bar to prove defamation as a public figure, but Patel’s complaint suffers from several glaring legal deficiencies.

Patel’s complaint strengthens several Atlantic claims

The most basic criterion for any defamation claim is that the underlying speech must be a false statement of fact. Patel’s lawsuit, however, appears to provide factual support for several of the statements he claims are defamatory.

Patel’s lawsuit says it was defamatory for The Atlantic to publish that “[d]ays before the United States launched its war with Iran, Patel fired members of a counterintelligence squad that was devoted, in part, to Iran.” But the lawsuit also states that “the squad referenced was within Counterterrorism—not a dedicated Iran counterintelligence squad—with only three affected individuals even tangentially working on Iran-related matters.” So there is really no dispute that individuals who devoted some of their time to Iran-related matters were fired days before the start of the war with Iran.

Similarly, the Atlantic article begins with an anecdote from April 10, 2026, when Patel “struggled to log on to an internal computer system.” According to the story, Patel “became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach.” Two of The Atlantic’s sources described Patel’s conduct as a “freak out.”

The complaint confirms that on April 10, “Patel had a routine technical problem logging into a government system, which was quickly fixed.” This strengthens the factual underpinning of The Atlantic’s article.

Patel, however, states that The Atlantic was informed prior to publication that the “freak out” claim “was fabricated.” But the impression that Patel had a “freak out” in response to getting locked out of his computer system is not an “objective fact” that is “provably false.” There are no standardized behaviors that constitute a “freak out.” Rather, it is the opinion of two of The Atlantic’s sources, based on their subjective impression of Patel’s conduct. In Milkovich v. Lorain Journal, the Supreme Court held that there is “full constitutional protection for a statement of opinion having no provably false factual connotation.”

The high bar

As a public figure, Patel must not only prove that The Atlantic published statements that are provably false, but also that it did so with “actual malice.” The legal standard established by New York Times v. Sullivan requires Patel to prove that The Atlantic published a defamatory statement “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

The biggest barrier Patel faces is that The Atlantic says it interviewed more than two dozen people for the story. That is evidence of journalistic rigor — not a reckless disregard for the truth. Fitzpatrick is a longtime investigative journalist who held senior roles at 60 Minutes and NBC News.

The complaint emphasizes that The Atlantic published its story “despite being expressly warned, hours before publication, that the central allegations were categorically false.” Patel argues that his categorical denial should have alerted The Atlantic that its sources were not credible.

But courts have rejected the idea that publishing a claim that the subject denies is accurate is sufficient to establish actual malice. In Edwards v. National Audubon Society, a federal appeals court found that “mere denials, however vehement… are so commonplace in the world of polemical charge and countercharge that, in themselves, they hardly alert the conscientious reporter to the likelihood of error.”

The Kavanaugh factor

Patel filed his lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Washington, DC, has a strong anti-SLAPP statute, a law that protects journalists against frivolous defamation claims. Under DC’s law, defendants can file an expedited motion to dismiss within 45 days of being served with a complaint. During that time, discovery is stayed. If the defendant wins, the plaintiff cannot refile and is usually required to pay the defendant’s attorney’s fees.

But in 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that, in federal court, DC’s anti-SLAPP procedures were unavailable to defendants because they conflicted with the federal rules of civil procedure. The opinion was written by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is now a Justice of the Supreme Court.

This does not mean that Patel is any more likely to ultimately succeed in his lawsuit, but it does mean that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is the court where his defamation lawsuit is most likely to survive for the longest period of time. And that may be all Patel is after.

Fitzpatrick’s story alleged that Patel “is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy.” An active defamation lawsuit puts Trump in a difficult position. If Trump fires Patel now — or at any point while the case is active — it effectively confirms The Atlantic’s reporting that Patel was on the chopping block.

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, is leading U.S. diplomatic efforts with Iran while engaged in a lucrative, ongoing, multi-billion-dollar business relationship with the Saudi government. This brazenly corrupt arrangement is being completely ignored by most major media outlets.

In 2021, Kushner raised $2 billion from the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) for his private equity fund, Affinity Partners. Since that time, Kushner has collected more than $110 million in management fees from the Saudi government, according to calculations by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA). Even as he has assumed a central diplomatic role in negotiations with Iran, Kushner has reportedly sought billions more from the Saudis.

Accepting payments from a foreign government while leading diplomacy for the U.S. would be a glaring conflict of interest under any circumstances. But in this case, Kushner was on the Saudi payroll as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of the country, reportedly lobbied Trump both to initiate and continue the war.

Popular Information analyzed coverage of Kushner’s diplomatic role from the outset of the war with Iran on February 28 to April 19. During that period, 202 articles mentioning Kushner’s role representing the U.S. in negotiations with Iran were collectively published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CNN Wire, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The Los Angeles Times.

Only six of the 202 articles covering Kushner’s diplomatic role mentioned his financial conflict of interest with the Saudi government. That means more than 97% of the coverage ignored Kushner’s conflict. Of the six articles that covered the conflict, five appeared in the New York Times. The other article originally appeared in Foreign Policy and was republished by the Washington Post.

The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, CNN Wire, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The Los Angeles Times collectively published dozens of articles about Kushner’s diplomatic role in the war with Iran but never mentioned the conflict.

Among the publications analyzed, The New York Times has had the most substantive coverage of Kushner’s conflict. Still, the vast majority of the New York Times coverage of Kushner’s diplomatic role does not even briefly mention his financial conflict.

Notably, some publications that have completely ignored Kushner’s conflict produced the reporting that established the factual predicate. For example, The Wall Street Journal produced the foundational reporting on how Kushner raised billions from foreign governments to fund Affinity Partners, including $2 billion from the Saudis. The Washington Post, meanwhile, broke the story on MBS lobbying Trump to initiate the war in Iran, but did not mention Kushner’s financial relationship with the Saudis — even though MBS controls the Saudi PIF.

Kushner is expected to return to Pakistan today for further talks with the Iranians. Will the news media continue to ignore or downplay his financial conflict?

The Congressional investigation

As the media largely ignores the Kushner corruption scandal, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, just launched an extensive investigation.

In an April 16 letter to Kushner, Raskin writes, “your decision to act in these two roles—one public for the government and one private for personal profit—creates a glaring and incurable conflict of interest.” Raskin argues that MBS’s “desire to prolong the war imposes obvious financial pressure on you to prolong this war of choice, risking further harm to American servicemembers, deepening the military morass and draining tens of billions from American taxpayer dollars each week on behalf of your investor and benefactor.” Raskin argues that Kushner “cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own.”

Raskin informs Kushner that the investigation seeks “information critical to reforming our bribery laws, conflict of interest provisions, other statutes and rules governing the conduct of government and special government employees, and [the Foreign Agents Registration Act].” The letter demands Kushner supply detailed information including, “[a]ll communications between you and any Saudi official, intermediary, or agent— including state-linked investment funds or businesses—between January 2022 and the present day” and “[a]ll communications with the White House and Trump campaign, including your father-in-law, regarding your role within the government from July 1, 2024, to the present day.”

Should Democrats retake control of the House next year, the investigation could gain more teeth, as Raskin would become chairman and have the ability to issue subpoenas.

As of this writing, none of the publications in Popular Information’s analysis has published a story on Raskin’s investigation.