<On Friday night, February 21, the Pentagon was rocked by a major bombshell when President Donald Trump fired Gen. C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump, on his Truth Social platform, announced that he was "nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan 'Razin' Caine" as a replacement.

Trump, despite having fired Brown, didn't say anything insulting about him in the Truth Social post. The president wrote, "I want to thank General Charles 'CQ' Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family."

Trump did, however, insult former President Joe Biden in his post, writing, "Despite being highly qualified and respected to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the previous administration, General Caine was passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden. But not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military."

The purge was detailed in Tom Nichol's "A Friday Night Massacre at the Pentagon.'

The firing of Brown also inspired a great deal of reactions on X.com, formerly Twitter.

Democratic consultant David Axelrod tweeted, "So the president who dodged the draft with 'bone spurs' fires the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — a decorated fighter pilot and Four-Star General — because he's not a 'warfighter?'"

Journalist Tara O'Grady, formerly of KTVN Channel 2 News in Las Vegas, wrote, "Trump fires top military leaders in unprecedented shakeup. The Friday night terminations include Chair of the Joint Chiefs Gen. C.Q. Brown. The firings are so Trump can replace them with Generals that will place loyalty to him over loyalty to the Constitution."

O'Grady also said of Trump, "He's taking control of the military so he can eventually use them against American citizens."

CNN's Anderson Cooper noted Rahm Emanuel's reaction, posting, "'I think it's very, very reckless'" Former Ambassador to Japan and WH chief of staff @RahmEmanuel reacts to President Trump firing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown, his top military adviser."

Gopal Sengupta, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, tweeted, "Trump fires senior military leadership in unprecedented Pentagon purge. The president fired Joint Chiefs chairman moments before his defense secretary fired the Navy chief and others."

U.S. Marine Corps veteran Jurgen Blick commented, "Trump you are starting to show your colors. I bet trump you haven't got a clue how hard this General worked to get where he saw your lies."

Gavin Barrett, a law professor at University College Dublin in Ireland, commented, "Trump’s political purge of potential opposition spreads to the military Trump/Hegseth -fire the top US military officer for political reasons. -fire the top military lawyers for political reasons. -fire thousands of civilian staff (as a start)."

Politico's Paul McLeary posted, "WIPED OUT: Trump gutted the Joint Chiefs Friday night, firing Chairman Gen. CQ Brown - while he was visiting troops in Texas - and @SecDef said he will also replace Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti and UASF vice chief Gen. James Slife."

Democratic activist/content creator Harry Sisson wrote, "Donald Trump just fired Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown and provided no reason for doing so. This is part of Trump’s attempt to purge the military of anyone who isn’t loyal to MAGA. Absolute insanity."

Former Pentagon official Chris Meagher tweeted, "Sad day for America. Trump fired CQ Brown and several other proven warfighters and leaders of the US military. Glad to join @kaitlancollins to discuss what our country will be losing in Chairman Brown - a calm, prepared, focused mil advisor on critical natl security matters."

Political strategist Chris D. Jackson lamented, "BREAKING: President Trump just fired Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown—no reason given. That’s another highly qualified African American official ousted, only to be replaced by a white guy. This is what "America First" looks like? So sad.">

This once, Hump deviated from his standard programme of taking shots at the departed leader. One must, however, be a good little maggat or there is no place in this 'administration'.

<I keep reading — not just in the depths of the MAGA cesspool but increasingly in the mainstream media — that history will remember Trump as a “great” president, the most “consequential,” the most “commanding,” the most “prominent,” and so on.

John F. Harris, founding editor of Politico, calls Trump “the greatest American figure of his era.” Harris continues:

“It is now simply an objective description about the dimensions of his record. He began a decade ago by dominating the Republican Party. He soon advanced to dominating every discussion of American politics broadly. Now, his astonishing comeback after his defeat by Joseph Biden in 2020 and the notoriety of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot makes clear [he] is someone with an ability to perceive opportunities that most politicians do not and forge powerful, sustained connections with large swaths of people in ways that no contemporary can match. In other words: He is a force of history.”

Rubbish.

The underlying fallacy of this sort of gibberish is to confuse presidential power with presidential greatness. They’re very different animals.

Hitler was powerful, but he was not someone who decent people consider great.

Especially when it comes to the American presidency, one should never conflate power with greatness.

A truly great American president accomplishes two things:

He (or, one day, hopefully, she) significantly improves the well-being of the American people (and not to the detriment of others in the world).

Second, he strengthens the processes and institutions of American democracy.

These two goals require that a president be a moral leader. A president inevitably helps set the moral tone of the nation.

America’s worst presidents have exemplified and elicited the worst of America (other than Trump, I’d nominate James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren G. Harding for the worst).

America’s greatest presidents have exemplified and elicited the best (Abraham Lincoln, FDR).

The values a president enunciates and demonstrates ricochet through America, increasing or destroying the common good, strengthening or undermining democracy.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Trump was accused of failing to pay his income taxes. His response was, “that makes me smart.”

That comment conveyed a message to millions of Americans that paying taxes in full is not an obligation of citizenship.

Trump boasted about giving money to politicians so they would do whatever he wanted. “When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me.”

In other words, it’s perfectly okay for business leaders to pay off politicians, regardless of the effect on our democracy.

The peaceful transfer of power is a central feature of a democracy. Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election despite all evidence of its fairness — followed by his efforts to reverse the results, inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol, and then lying that Biden persecuted him for trying to hold him accountable — will remain a shameful stain on this nation forever.

The essence of Trump’s failure of leadership is not that he chose one set of policies over another, not only that he divided rather than united Americans, nor even that he behaved vindictively, but that he sacrificed the processes and institutions of American democracy to achieve his personal goals, including aggregating more power than any president before him.

Trump has abused the trust we place in a president to preserve and protect the nation’s capacity for self-government.

Trump may be powerful, but I have no doubt that he will be remembered as by far the worst president in American history — assuming history will be written by people who have access to the truth.>

<President Donald Trump keeps lying not only about the 2020 election he lost but the 2024 election he won.

In a Saturday speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump correctly noted that he earned 77 million votes in 2024 — then falsely said his vote total was “actually much more than that,” since unspecified people “cheated like hell.”

There’s no basis for this claim. Trump’s official vote total is his actual vote total, and there is no evidence of unsuccessful cheating by vote counters or by his Democratic foes.

Trump made the claim less than two weeks after he baselessly cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the vote total of his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, who received more than 75 million votes.

Trump made various other false claims at CPAC, most of which have been debunked before. Here is a fact check of some of them.

Biden and hostages in Gaza: Trump touted the Hamas release of six hostages from Gaza on Saturday, saying, “We got six more back.” But he then falsely claimed, “Biden got none back, by the way, just so you understand: none, zero.”

Leaving aside the question of whether Trump or former President Joe Biden deserves more credit for the current ceasefire-for-hostages deal, which was secured under the Biden administration in partnership with representatives for the incoming Trump administration, it’s a fact that 105 hostages were released by Hamas during a brief 2023 truce brokered in part by the Biden administration about a year before Trump’s election victory.

Trump’s poll numbers: Trump repeated a false claim he made on Friday, saying his “poll numbers” are the highest “that any Republican president has ever had.” He didn’t specify what numbers he was referring to, but his approval rating has been in the 40s and 50s in major recent polls, not even close to the best of all time for a Republican president. George W. Bush hit 92% shortly after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001; George H.W. Bush hit 89% at the end of the Gulf War in 1991; and the peaks for Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower ranged from the high 60s to the high 70s, according to data collected by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University.

US aid to Ukraine vs. European aid to Ukraine: Trump repeated a false claim he made earlier in the week and many times prior, saying that Europe has given Ukraine just $100 billion in aid while the United States has given Ukraine $350 billion. He claimed this disparity happened “because we had a stupid, incompetent president and administration.”

In fact, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank that closely tracks wartime aid to Ukraine, the European Union and individual European countries had collectively committed far more total wartime military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine through December (about $258 billion) than the US had committed (about $124 billion). Europe had also allocated more military, financial and humanitarian aid (about $138 billion) than the US had allocated (about $119 billion).

The US did have a slim lead in one particular category, military aid allocated, providing about $67 billion to about $65 billion for Europe. But even that was nowhere close to the giant gulf Trump described.

The prevalence of autism 15 years ago: Trump again grossly exaggerated the increase over the past two decades in the prevalence of autism among children — correctly saying it is now 1 in 36 but falsely saying that, 15 years ago, it was in the “vicinity” of 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 20,000. In fact, public statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the known prevalence in 2010 was 1 in 68 children, not even close to Trump’s figures....>

<....Panama Canal deaths: Trump repeated his false claim that “38,000 people died, from our country, building the Panama Canal.” That figure, too, is not even close to accurate, experts on the canal’s construction say. While the century-old records are imprecise, they show about 5,600 people died during the canal’s American construction phase between 1903 and 1914 — and “of those, the vast majority were Afro-Caribbeans,” such as workers from Barbados and Jamaica, said Julie Greene, a history professor at the University of Maryland and author of the book “The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal.” The late historian David McCullough, author of another book on the building of the canal, found that “the number of white Americans who died was about 350.”

Iran and terror groups: Trump repeated his false claim that when he was president the first time, Iran provided no funding to terror groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, saying “they had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah, they had no money to give, everybody knows that.” Iran’s funding for terror groups did decline in the second half of that presidency, in large part because his sanctions on Iran had a major negative impact on the Iranian economy, but the funding never stopped entirely, as four experts told CNN in 2024. In fact, Trump’s own administration said in 2020 that Iran was continuing to fund terror groups including Hezbollah. You can read a longer fact check here.

The US trade deficit with China: Trump repeated his false claim that the US trade deficit with China was over $1 trillion last year under Biden. The last available full-year figure for the goods and services deficit with China, for 2023, was about $252 billion — lower than in any year of Trump’s presidency. While the 2024 goods and services deficit scheduled to be revealed in March might end up slightly higher than the 2023 figure, goods-only trade data shows it will be nowhere close to $1 trillion.

Harris’ border role: Trump repeated his false claim that Harris was the Biden administration’s “border czar.” She wasn’t; the Biden White House always emphasized the label was inaccurate and that Harris was never in charge of border security. In reality,  Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related assignment in 2021, asking her to lead diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an attempt to address the conditions that prompted their citizens to try to migrate to the US.

Biden and electric vehicles: Trump repeated his false claim that Biden imposed a mandate “where everybody has to have an electric car.” Biden did make a legislative and regulatory push to get automakers to reduce emissions and adopt electric vehicles, but there was never a mandate requiring American consumers to have electric cars; the tailpipe rules for automakers that were unveiled by the Biden administration in 2024 aimed to have electric vehicles make up 35% to 56% new vehicles sold in 2032.

Tariffs and wealth: Promoting the idea of tariffs on foreign imports, Trump repeated his false claim that the “richest” period for the US was a high-tariff era from 1870 to 1913. The US is far richer today than it was back then; per capita gross domestic product is now many times higher.>

<On the wall overlooking the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office is a portrait of the 40th president, Ronald Reagan. If it could move, it would likely turn its back in shame at the words and actions this week by the 47th president.

“Absolutely obscene,” said Tom Nichols, a self-described Reaganite and former Naval War College professor, about Trump’s capitulation to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. “He ought to take that picture down.”

Reagan labeled the Soviet Union “the evil empire” for its human rights abuses and expansionist foreign policy. Trump regularly praises Putin as a “strong” leader.

Reagan pushed for freedom for Eastern Europe from Soviet hegemony. Trump victim-blames Ukraine, saying the former Soviet republic brought Putin’s invasion on itself.

Reagan in 1987 stood in Berlin, at the Brandenburg Gate between East and West and, in a speech in a speech that marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, demanded of its final leader: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Trump in 2025, when pressed on whether Putin was mainly responsible for the destruction in Ukraine, answered: “I get tired of listening to that, I’ll tell you what.”

In just a single week, Trump has repeated Putin’s talking points that Ukraine, not Russia, was somehow responsible for Russia’ now three-year-long invasion of its neighbor. He called Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a “dictator” while offering kind words for Putin, who has had political opponents and critics murdered. He pushed Ukraine to pay protection money, in the form of handing over mineral rights, if he wants American help going forward. And he has demanded that Ukraine offer several concessions to bring about the end of the war, including giving up territory Putin has seized, while asking nothing of Russia.

Trump justified that approach by arguing that the Russians “have the cards” because they seized Ukrainian land, openly rewarding Putin for his aggression.

And while during his first term Trump’s pro-Putin tendencies were tempered by others in his administration — including national security adviser John Bolton and his own vice president, Mike Pence — those voices are gone now.

Trump’s new national security adviser, Mike Waltz, had as a member of Congress stated that Putin was to blame for the Ukraine war the same way that Al Qaeda was to blame for the Sept. 11, 2021, terrorist attack. Asked this week, Waltz literally “both-sided” the question.

“There has been ongoing fighting on both sides,” he said in a White House press briefing, and went on to defend Trump for calling Zelenskyy a dictator in the same way Republicans have been defending Trump on indefensible words and deeds for going on a decade. “Look, President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelenskyy,” Waltz said, as if describing a cranky toddler who would be fine after a snack and a short nap.

Of course, as appalling as Trump’s siding with a murderous dictator is, it should not come as a surprise.

Trump’s fascination with autocrats generally and Putin in particular has been well documented for more than a decade. In 2013, he posted on social media that his hosting of a beauty pageant in Russia might win him Putin’s approval.

“Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?” he wrote.

That was followed by years of attempts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow — an effort that continued straight through his first run for president in 2016, it came out later. Trump asked for Russian help to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton that year, and then knowingly used the hacked and stolen emails that Russian spies released during the final month of the presidential campaign.

Then, as both special counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee investigated Russia’s role in his victory, Trump eagerly bought into a conspiracy theory concocted by Russian operatives that — contrary to the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia helped Trump win in 2016 — it was actually Ukraine that had tried to help Clinton win.

Trump sent his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to Ukraine to collect evidence — an effort that ultimately led to Trump’s attempt to extort Zelenskyy into announcing an investigation into the Democrat he most feared in the 2020 election, Joe Biden, using U.S. military aid as leverage. Trump was ultimately impeached for that act, but the Republican-led Senate declined to remove him from office.....>

<....Trump’s personal antagonism toward Zelenskyy, perhaps stemming from that episode, seems to have continued unabated. Three years ago, when Putin first invaded, Trump called it “genius” and “savvy.” This week, in both a social media post and then in prepared remarks delivered to a Miami audience, Trump insulted Zelenskyy as “a modestly successful comedian” who needed to hurry and end the war or face losing his country.

To Nichols, the author of six books about the Soviet Union, Trump is playing with fire. Nichols sees Putin as far more dangerous than any of the Soviet leaders, all of whom had to contend with competing power centers in the Politburo bureaucracy.

“Putin is a thug and an experienced intelligence agent and he knows how to manipulate Trump,” Nichols said.

Be that as it may, Trump seems to have the party formerly of Reagan fully behind him as he abandons Ukraine. At the Conservative Political Action Conference this week — the annual gathering where, in 1974, Reagan gave the keynote speech — House speaker Mike Johnson was asked whether Congress would approve any more U.S. aid to Ukraine, as lawmakers had done under former President Joe Biden.

“There is no appetite for that. What do you think?” Johnson said with a laugh, encouraging the crowd to boo in response. “Uh, no.”

“I guess I’m no longer surprised. It’s not so much a party’s ideological transformation as it is the abandonment of good character and values of any kind as an attribute of statesmanship,” said Mark Salter, a longtime senior aide to former U.S. Sen. John McCain, who famously said in his 2008 presidential run that when he looked into Putin’s eyes, all he could see were the letters “K-G-B.”

“The GOP is no longer the party of Reagan because so few of its office holders possess a sense of honor that Reagan would recognize as such. It’s a moral rot causing the ideological decay,” Salter added.

The next logical step could well be for Trump to start sending U.S. military assistance to Russia instead, using his same stated rationale of ending the war quickly.

If that sounds outlandishly, over-the-top impossible, so did much of what Americans saw over the past week — right up until it happened.>

<Mary Trump, the estranged niece of President Donald Trump, issued a warning on Friday as Trump's administration enters "new territory" with the confirmation of Kash Patel as the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Newsweek has reached out to the FBI via email for comment on Saturday morning.

Mary Trump, a psychologist and media personality, has long been a staunch critic of her uncle's, often issuing dire warnings about the risk he poses to the government and the country. Through her podcast, books, Substack and mainstream media appearances, she has built much of her personal brand around opposition to her uncle and his political movement.

Patel, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, was widely considered one of Trump's most vulnerable nominees, facing questions about his previous criticism of the FBI's investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal, which involved allegations that Trump's 2016 presidential campaign coordinated with Moscow's efforts to interfere in the election, with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe later finding no collusion. In addition, Patel pledged to fire top agency personnel who investigated Trump during his first term and after.

While many Democrats, and other Trump critics raised these concerns, ultimately only two GOP Senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against his nomination on Thursday.

In response to Patel's confirmation, in a Substack post on Friday titled, "Jack-booted Thugs," Mary Trump warned how the Trump administration is entering "new territory" as she condemned Patel and raised concern over the new state of the FBI.

"This is new territory—it's all new territory. And I hate to end on a truism, but I think it's apt: This is all going to get so much worse before it gets better. And we need to be prepared. Stay vigilant, everybody," she wrote.

Mary Trump continued: "The FBI is now in the hands of the man who for months now has claimed that the agency is part of the deep state; that he has an enemies list comprised of those who have stood up to and spoken out against his pathetic boss."

Patel had a number of testy exchanges with Democratic senators during his confirmation hearing. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii grilled him on reports that he had an "enemies list," asking him if he planned on investigating former FBI directors Christopher Wray and James Comey.

Patel responded that he has "no intentions of going backwards."

Previously, Patel had called to root out government employees deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump in which he singled out many of those people in his book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, published in 2023.

Patel also faced criticism over his alleged ties to Russia, after he submitted financial disclosures which showed he was paid $25,000 last year by a U.S.-Russian film company tied to Kremlin-backed conspiracy content.

Documents obtained by The Washington Post show that Patel received the money from Global Tree Pictures, a Los Angeles-based company run by Igor Lopatonok, a Russian national who also holds U.S. citizenship, whose previous projects include a pro-Russian campaign funded by a program created by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has also produced programs promoting "deep state" conspiracy theories and anti-Western views advanced by the Kremlin.

The confirmation of Patel is only the latest of other contentious confirmation hearings including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was recently confirmed for secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed as the next secretary of defense when Vice President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote last month.

This is not the first time Mary Trump has warned against Trump's incoming administration as she took to her Substack last week to warn of a possible "catastrophic outcome" following the confirmation of new director of national intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard, who was one of Trump's most controversial picks with critics accusing her of previously voicing pro-Russian points and raising concerns about her visit with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017, was confirmed by the Senate in a 52-48 vote. As the DNI, Gabbard oversees America's 18 intelligence agencies and organizations. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against her confirmation.

"One of the most powerful people in the cabinet is a known Russian asset, a defender of the murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad, and enemy to our ally (?) Ukraine," Mary Trump wrote last week.....>

<....Gabbard has suggested that Russia was justified when it launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's government as a "corrupt autocracy."

"There are many reasons Gabbard is unfit, but they lead to one potentially catastrophic outcome—having her in such a sensitive position will give our allies pause," Mary Trump added last week on her Substack page.

In a statement announcing she would not support Kash Patel, GOP Senator Susan Collins of Maine said that "recent personnel actions" at the Justice Department indicate that there is "a compelling need for an FBI Director who is decidedly apolitical."

"While Mr. Patel has had 16 years of dedicated public service, his time over the past four years has been characterized by high profile and aggressive political activity," she said.

"Mr. Patel has made numerous politically charged statements in his book and elsewhere discrediting the work of the FBI, the very institution he has been nominated to lead," the Maine senator continued. "These statements, in conjunction with the questionnaire sent to thousands of FBI employees, cast doubt on Mr. Patel's ability to advance the FBI's law enforcement mission in a way that is free from the appearance of political motivation."

Frank Montoya Jr., a retired FBI agent, told CNN that Patel's confirmation is a "radical" change to the bureau: "I served under four directors in 27 years in the FBI and no one came in with these few qualifications, with this guy's background, with the conspiracy theory angles. Just all of the things that he has said on podcasts and written in his book, it makes you wonder where the bureau is going to be heading next. It's just, I don't know, befuddling to me."

Democratic Senator Peter Welch of Vermont told CNN of Patel's confirmation: "It's the end of the FBI as we know it. Patel is an instrument of Donald Trump. Donald Trump's policy towards the Justice Department and the FBI is retribution and Kash Patel has signed onto that full throat."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, praised Patel on the Senate floor Thursday: "I look forward to working with Mr. Patel to restore the integrity of the FBI and get it focused on its critical mission."

Patel's confirmation tightens Trump's grip on the federal government, placing a staunch loyalist in charge of the federal law enforcement agency of which Trump has been highly critical. While there are still a few Cabinet picks yet to be confirmed, those nominations are less likely to face strong opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate.>

<Some liberal critics of the New York Times in the past have accused the paper of "sane-washing" President Donald Trump by using euphemisms that downplay Trump's routine dishonesty and seeming detachment from reality.

However, a piece written by the New York Times' Peter Baker that was published on Sunday used unusually direct words to describe some of Trump's most recent statements as "lies and distortions."

At the start of the piece, Baker runs through multiple demonstrably false claims that Trump has made in recent weeks, including that the Biden administration sent tens of millions of dollars worth of condoms to Gaza and that Ukraine was responsible for Russia's military invasion.

"In the first month since he returned to power, he has demonstrated once again a brazen willingness to advance distortions, conspiracy theories and outright lies to justify major policy decisions," Baker writes. "Mr. Trump has long been unfettered by truth when it comes to boasting about his record and tearing down his enemies. But what were dubbed “alternative facts” in his first term have quickly become a whole alternative reality in his second to lay the groundwork for radical change as he moves to aggressively reshape America and the world."

New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who is an expert on authoritarian movements and leaders, tells the Times that Trump's willingness to repeat falsehoods constantly without any regard for their veracity makes him "one of the most skilled propagandists in history."

Hunter College historian Benjamin Carter Hett, meanwhile, told Baker that there was a direct link between Trump's campaign of lies and the sort of propaganda that Nazis used to gain power nearly 100 years ago.

"Exactly the same kind of thing happened in the very diverse and lively German press of the 1920s and 1930s," he said.>

<Volodymyr Zelensky had an explosive tiff with a senior member of the Donald Trump administration amid war negotiations, insiders claim.

The outburst came during discussions between Zelensky and Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who jetted off to Kyiv to propose a deal involving the trade of Ukraine's billions of dollars worth of minerals. Bessent was reportedly shaken by the encounter.

The Trump administration demands that Kyiv hand over its minerals, including oil and gas, in exchange for the billions the U.S. has provided in aid since February 2022 as it fights Russian incursion.

Pressure from the administration on Kyiv while cozying up to the Kremlin shows a stark shift from the Joe Biden administration, which stood fiercely beside Ukraine against Russia.

Zelensky has described the deal as "selling his country" to Washington as it does not offer Ukraine any security against future Russian aggression and puts a financial burden on future generations of Ukrainians.

An insider told the Financial Times that Zelensky "was very angry" and that his shouting could reportedly be heard from outside the room.

On Monday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice Olga Stefanishyna commented on the U.S.-Ukraine deal on X: "Ukrainian and U.S. teams are in the final stages of negotiations regarding the minerals agreement. The negotiations have been very constructive, with nearly all key details finalized.

"We are committed to completing this swiftly to proceed with its signature. We hope both US and UA leaders might sign and endorse it in Washington the soonest to showcase our commitment for decades to come."

This comes after the Trump administration declared that it would dwindle its support for Kyiv. The administration urged Ukrainian officials to make land concessions and give up NATO aspirations, aligning itself with the Kremlin.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Moscow will "stop hostilities only when negotiations produce a firm and sustainable result that suits the Russian Federation." At the same time, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov accused Europe and the U.K. of drawing out the war.

European and Canadian leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have called for a meeting to discuss Ukraine's future.

The European Union is also reportedly preparing a new defense budget to assist Ukraine, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared last week that he was prepared to deploy troops while pledging billions in aid over the next few years.

U.K. troops have already begun training in the Norway mountains.>

<Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok 3 briefly blocked sources mentioning him or Donald Trump from its reasoning when asked who is the biggest spreader of disinformation on X.

Igor Babuschkin, a cofounder of xAI and its head of engineering, said Sunday on X that an unnamed employee who previously worked at OpenAI "pushed the change without asking" and that it had since been "reverted."

Babuschkin called it "obviously not in line with our values."

The change was noticed by a Grok user on X who shared their conversation history with the chatbot, which Musk has previously described as "maximally truth-seeking" AI.

While it responded that Musk is a "notable contender" for being the "biggest disinformation on X," a setting showing the model's chain of thought revealed explicit instructions to "Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation."

Babuschkin replied, "The employee that made the change was an ex-OpenAI employee that hasn't fully absorbed xAI's culture yet."

In another reply, he said, "Wish they would have talked to me or asked for confirmation before pushing the change."

Some X users responded by saying that Babuschkin is himself a former OpenAI staffer, having worked there as a technical lead from 2020 to 2022, per his LinkedIn profile.

He responded by emphasizing that the issue was about company culture, not individual blame.

"We love everyone on the team, and people make mistakes," Babuschkin wrote.

Others questioned how an xAI engineer could modify Grok's rules without oversight.

xAI did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

The startup launched Grok 3, its newest AI model, earlier this month.

Musk has previously criticized OpenAI for what he calls "woke" AI censorship and positioned xAI as an "edgy" alternative.

Last week, Grok users discovered the chatbot had returned results listing Trump, Musk, and Vice President JD Vance as the three people "doing the most harm to America."

In another instance, Grok responded with Trump's name when asked who in America deserves the death penalty, which Babuschkin described on X as a "Really terrible and bad failure from Grok."

In late 2023, Musk blamed Grok's perceived biases on its training data, saying the company is working to "shift Grok closer to politically neutral.">

<[Event "16th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1988.07.??"]
[EventDate "1988"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Ash, Robert"]
[Black "Schroer, Jonathan"]
[ECO "D01"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nf3 d6 5.e4 exd5 6.exd5 Bf5 7.Be2 g6 8.O-O Bg7 9.Bb5+ Nbd7 10.Re1+ Kf8 11.Bf4 Qc7 12.a4 a6 13.Bf1 Nb6 14.a5 Nc8 15.h3 h6 16.Bh2 g5 17.Nd2 Ne7 18.Nc4 Rd8 19.Bd3 Bg6 20.Ne3 h5 21.Bxg6 Nxg6 22.Nf5 Rh7 23.Qe2 Ne8 24.Qxe8+ Rxe8 25.Bxd6+ Qxd6 26.Nxd6 Rb8 27.Rab1 Be5 28.Nde4 f6 29.Nxc5 Rc8 30.N5e4 Rhc7 31.Rbd1 Rd7 32.g3 Kf7 33.Rd2 Bc7 34.b4 Be5 35.Na4 Rdc7 36.Nac5 Rd7 37.Nxd7 1-0>