Turns out, you can dodge the War Powers Act with a rebrand—if you’re creative enough.
New reporting confirms the Pentagon didn’t just glitch its casualty count from 18 to 14 last week; it quietly invented a second, separate “war” to reset Trump’s legal clock on congressional authorization. Same conflict, new folder.
Meanwhile in Venezuela, Trump’s been bragging about a 97 percent drop in drug trafficking. But behind closed doors, officials have told Congress that, after 67 strikes and 221 people killed, the cocaine supply hasn’t budged; the cartels just bought bigger boats.
Back home, Michigan is now the epicenter of the country’s largest cyclospora outbreak, with more than 8,100 cases and no end in sight. Trump’s own former FDA food safety chief says the federal response is “approaching catastrophic.” So gutting public health funding makes it harder to trace a foodborne illness—who knew?
And then there’s the manosphere problem nobody in Trump World wants to talk about. Andrew Tate, one of the online figures who helped deliver young men to Trump in 2024, is sitting in federal custody fighting extradition on trafficking and rape charges. Suddenly the White House wants nothing to do with him, despite reportedly intervening on his behalf before. Now there are questions about what Barron Trump knew. We talk with Ross Morales Rocketto—who’s building an alternative vision of masculinity for the same young men Tate spent years courting—about what happens when the movement’s biggest star becomes radioactive.
And finally, we welcome Houston into our DEFIANCE, after residents there reminded everyone what actual solidarity looks like. Over 50 businesses shut down this weekend to demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was killed by ICE agents in his own neighborhood. Well done, Houstonians.
