THE WAR ROOM: President Trump, who repeatedly bragged that he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, failed to make progress yesterday in a two-hour call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. 

  “The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social in a message void of breakthroughs. “If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later.”

  More tellingly he told reporters in the Oval Office that he might just give up; “I tell you, big egos involved, but I think something’s going to happen. And if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going.” 

  As always, Trump looks at the end of the war as a business deal rather than a moral matter of right and wrong, and national security for Ukraine and the West. The President wrote; “Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED.” 

  Asked whether he might tighten the screws on Putin if he continues to dead leg talks, Trump said, no, “Because I think there’s a chance of getting something done, and if you do that, you could also make it much worse.” 

UNPROTECTED: The Supreme Court yesterday allowed the Trump administration, at least temporarily, to remove protections from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan illegal immigrants who were harbored by the Biden administration to remain in the US without risk of deportation.

  The court’s brief and unsigned order gave no reasons, although Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that she would have denied the administration’s request.

  This means that the Trump administration may proceed with deportations of these Venezuelans while they appeal in lower courts. A lawyer for the immigrants told the NY Times the court’s order was “truly shocking,” especially because it was announced “in a two-paragraph order with no reasoning.”

BROADCAST NEWS: CBS News continues to melt down under pressure from Donald Trump and Shari Redstone, the controlling owner of parent company Paramount.

  CBS News chief executive Wendy McMahon was pushed out following conflict with the Paramount management. She said in a memo to employees that, “It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward.” This follows the resignation last month of “60 Minutes” Executive Producer Bill Owens under similar circumstances.

  CBS News has been trying to maintain its independence and integrity while Paramount considers settling President Trump’s legally dubious lawsuit against the broadcaster, accusing “60 Minutes” of election interference with what he claims was manipulated editing of a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount, and in particular its major owner Shari Redstone, want a merger with the company Skydance, that requires approval by the Trump administration.

  Redstone has been expressing disapproval of some CBS News stories, including coverage of the war in Gaza and President Trump. The tradition at CBS News is that, “You might own us, but you can’t tell us what to report.” 

METASTASIS OF RUMOR: Former President Joe Biden’s announcement that he has cancer was immediately met with sympathy and conspiracy theories. President Trump said, “I’m surprised the public wasn’t notified a long time ago.” 

  Bien’s cancer is so advanced that critics with no direct knowledge can’t believe he didn’t know. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer posted, “He has been classified as TERMINALLY ILL since July 2024. That means he got his diagnosis at the beginning of his illegitimate Presidency.”

  Donald Trump Jr. posted, “What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup???” Jill Biden is a PhD, not a medical doctor, and there is no such thing as Stage 5 cancer.

REPLACEMENT THEORY: Aneesh Raman, the chief economic opportunity officer at  the LinkedIn business and employment social media site writes in The NY Times that, “There are growing signs that artificial intelligence poses a real threat to a substantial number of the entry-level jobs that normally serve as the first step for each new generation of young workers.”  Raman says: “We saw what happened in the 1980s when our manufacturing sector steeply declined. Now it is our office workers who are staring down the same kind of technological and economic disruption.”

  He writes that “bottom rung” employees in such fields as tech and law are being replaced by AI. “And across retailers,” he says, “A.I. chatbots and automated customer service tools are taking on duties once assigned to young associates.”

THE TRUMP REPORT: President Trump is on a tear about celebrity endorsements of Kamala Harris during the presidential campaign, this time passing along a report that Harris  paid the pop star Beyoncé  $11 million to appear on stage to endorse Harris,and never sing a song. Trump provided no evidence and didn’t cite which news organization reported this.

  Nevertheless, Trump ranted on; “Remember, the Democrats and Kamala illegally paid her millions of Dollars for doing nothing other than giving Kamala a full throated ENDORSEMENT. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ELECTION SCAM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! IT IS AN ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION! BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, OPRAH, BONO AND, PERHAPS, MANY OTHERS, HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!!!”

THE SPIN RACK:  Louisiana authorities are still searching for six of ten inmates who cut through a wall of the New Orleans city jail and escaped. —  New Jersey Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, had been charged with “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” outside an ICE detention center. McIver said, “The charges against me are purely political — they mischaracterize and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight.”

BELOW THE FOLD: Actress and Goop entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow who sells expensive stuff people don’t need is marketing a $75 candle that’s called “This Smells Like My Vagina.” She said in an interview, “We are beautiful and we are awesome and go fuck yourself.’” 

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