“No One Asked You”: Trump Advisers Lash Out at GOP Over Iran Deal

The Iran war continues to divide Donald Trump’s social media cultists.

After reports that the Trump administration was finally getting around to ending its incredibly expensive and pointless military campaign, Republican Senator Ted Cruz criticized the peacemaking on X.

“I am deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal,’” Cruz wrote Saturday. “If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’—now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.”

MAGA influencer Alex Bruesewitz jumped on Cruz for daring to question Dear Leader: “Cool, Ted. No one asked you, bro. Stop trying to undermine the President and his administration.”

“Hush, child,” Cruz replied. “The adults are talking. I’m not your ‘bro.’ And young political grifters pushing Iran appeasement are not remotely helping the President.”

Bruesewitz, a 29-year-old Trump adviser who helps the administration post memes on social media, was ready with a fittingly immature reply.

“Sorry you’re still salty that I prevented you from getting a picture with Nicki Minaj after you came running after her like a school girl,” he wrote. “You’re going to get wiped out in 2028, clown.”

Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo received similar treatment on Saturday after he mused that “the deal being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman–Robert Malley–Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] to build a [weapons of mass destruction] program and terrorize the world. Not remotely America First.”

This time, it was White House spokesman Steven Cheung who “clapped back,” or whatever.

“Mike Pompeo has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about,” Cheung said. “He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He’s not read into anything that’s happening, so how would he know.”

The fact that this is how the White House communications director speaks to people is both shocking and kind of funny. While Cruz’s and Pompeo’s neoconservative bloodlust is despicable, it’s hard to see Bruesewitz’s and Cheung’s ridiculous fealty to Trump as any better. Their insistence that Trump knows what he’s doing in Iran is also provably false. One supposes the silver lining here is that the MAGA coalition is sadder and more dysfunctional than ever.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie has vowed to go scorched earth on the Trump administration—by unveiling previously unmentioned names related to the Epstein files.

The rogue Kentucky lawmaker pointed fingers at Donald and Melania Trump during an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press Sunday, claiming that the first lady is well aware that the Justice Department’s public rollout of its investigation into the pedophilic web is incomplete.

Acting Attorney General “Todd Blanche is violating the law; there’s still millions of files they haven’t released,” Massies said. “We know from talking to the victims’ lawyers that their own 302 forms haven’t been released. We know the files have been over-redacted.

“I have released at least three names of billionaires who are implicated in this. I don’t think it’s possible to get to convictions with Todd Blanche at the top, and with the FBI Director Kash Patel at the top, because they’ve effectively both perjured themselves by saying that there’s nobody else in the files.

“Even Melania doesn’t believe that: The first lady knows that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t act alone,” Massie said.

Last month, Melania delivered an oddly timed public address that surprised even the president. In a short speech, she denied having any sort of relationship with Epstein or his longtime girlfriend and criminal associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. She also criticized media coverage that tied the three of them together (despite their having been photographed together), and called on Congress to allow Epstein’s victims to testify.

Trump was reportedly not informed of what his wife would tell the public ahead of time, but said afterward that the content of Melania’s speech didn’t “bother” him and that she “had a right to talk about it.”

Massie underscored that the Epstein Files Transparency Act “is a law” that will force the files’ release “for years.”

“So, if we can’t get this attorney general and this FBI director to do the right thing, the next ones who take those seats are obligated by law to release the files that these individuals are not releasing now,” Massie concluded.

Massie—a longtime critic of the president—lost his primary race last week to a Trump-backed candidate. But even before the primary vote, Massie had become increasingly unbeholden to MAGA loyalties, voting (and speaking) his mind, much to the president’s chagrin.

A federal court in Alabama has struck down Republicans’ attempt to redraw the state’s congressional map, on the grounds that it intentionally discriminates against Black voters.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court ruled that the state could not switch to its 2023 congressional map, which had previously been blocked in court three years ago, even after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act earlier this month. That earlier map only had one majority-Black, Democratic-leaning district, as opposed to the current two.

“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges said in their ruling. Two of the three judges were appointed by President Trump himself.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to redraw its maps, sending the redistricting process down to the lower court. Republicans will almost certainly appeal Tuesday’s ruling, sending it back up to the high court.

Alabama Republicans have ignored protests and even natural disasters in order to force through a new congressional map as primary elections draw near. Governor Kay Ivey last week delayed four of the state’s congressional primaries in anticipation of the new map. For now, though, three federal judges are blocking their attempt.

“There is no convincing evidence that it is necessary for us to allow Alabama to pivot to the 2023 Plan in the middle of an election, and substantial evidence that it is not,” the judges ruled.

This story has been updated.

To be a Donald Trump–endorsed political candidate, you must possess many qualities: integrity. Empathy. Intelligence. A love of the United States and all who inhabit it.

Just kidding! You don’t have to have any of those things. You just have to suck up to him more than the other guy.

The president made that clearer than ever in a post to Truth Social Sunday, in which he explained the complex reasons behind his endorsement of Ken Paxton in the Texas Republican Senate primary.

Paxton was “very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” Trump wrote. “Ken’s opponent was VERY disloyal to me.”

Trump’s obsession with fealty over everything is quite pronounced in the case of Paxton, an awful person with a long history of scandals.

Paxton cheated on his wife, was impeached by the state House on corruption charges, and illegally helped donors by targeting their enemies as state attorney general. Last month, his office offered a sweetheart plea deal to a repeated child molester that would see the offender spend just one day in jail.

Paxton should never be able to get the endorsement of a sitting president. It’s not even like his Republican rival, John Cornyn, doesn’t suck up to Trump. But Paxton has given the president lavish, consistent support over the years. It’s as simple as that for our commander in chief.

Paxton will face Cornyn in a runoff Tuesday night that is projected to go Trump’s way. The winner will advance to the general in November against Democrat James Talarico, a progressive Christian with a quiet cadence and the face of a Boy Scout.

Talarico won a close primary of his own against Representative Jasmine Crockett in March. He will have an uphill battle in a state as red and as anti-abortion as Texas, but is actually ahead in recent polls. Election pundits such as Nate Silver are giving Talarico a good shot, particularly if the controversial Paxton wins Tuesday.

President Trump went on yet another Truth Social posting spree over the holiday weekend, sharing Facebook-style memes into the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday. This comes as he is set to get his third medical check up in 13 months at Walter Reed Medical Center on Tuesday. 

He began the morning with a stream of low effort, low quality memes that look straight out of the bot-filled comment section of any of Trump’s Truth Social posts. At 5:52 a.m., he criticized Obama’s Iran deal and then posted affirmations about being the “dealmaker in chief” and the “man who saved America. And at 6:01 a.m, he posted an AI meme depicting former President Joe Biden slumped over sleeping at his desk, melted ice cream in front of him, and Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leering behind him with an autopen—perhaps the worst post of them all given that Trump has fallen asleep on camera in a similar position countless times in his second term. 

Since Monday evening, Trump twice posted an image about how the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., is larger than multiple skyscrapers—something that no one with real problems should care about, especially given that he’s comparing a pool in the ground to Ground Zero and the Empire State building. 

He also shared a basic oil painting of a suburban house with a white picket fence covered in American flags, captioning it “Trump’s America in 2026.” The image communicates virtually nothing while ignoring the fact that the reality of Trump’s America right now is extremely bleak. 

Trump then posted another meme, this time stating that Former President Barack Obama’s Iran strategy was just “pallets of cash,” while his grand solution is dropping bombs in the Gulf. Yet Trump is doing both—he’s reportedly considered offering Iran $20 billion for their uranium stockpiles and attacked Iranian ships on Monday. And there is still no real end to the war in sight, as warhawks from both the Democratic and Republican Party come out against Trump’s most recent proposed deal. 

The president’s strange posting marathons appear to be increasing as his approval ratings on the economy and the Iran war absolutely tank.