MASTERBAKER All things Politics thread

New York Post

2h ·

JUST IN...
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Things You Don't Know ·
Follow​

22h ·


Nothing is left behind, literally.
Vladimir Putin is reportedly protected by an extraordinary security measure during foreign travel. His bodyguards are said to collect and transport his bodily waste back to Russia.
The goal is to prevent foreign intelligence services from analyzing biological material. In modern espionage, even health data is treated as strategic information.
 

Rockaway Primetime Reporting

10h ·

BREAKING: Doctor Claims Trump, 79, Suffered Serious Medical Issue

Donald Trump suffered a stroke several months ago and has kept it from the public, a prominent medical expert has suggested.

Professor Bruce Davidson of Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine made the bombshell claim about the 79-year-old president’s health while laying out “lines of evidence supportive” that have also been reported on by the Daily Beast over the past year.

“I think his stroke was on the left side of the brain, which controls the right side of the body,” Davidson told biographer Sidney Blumenthal and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz on their podcast, The Court of History.

“I think the stroke was six months ago or more, earlier in 2025,” he continued. “There are videos of him shuffling his feet, which is not what we’d seen previously when he was striding on the golf course. We’ve seen him holding his right hand cradled in his left. Earlier in 2025, he was garbling words, which he hadn’t done before and which he’s improved upon more recently.”

Davidson also pointed to what he described as “marked episodes of excessive daytime sleepiness,” known medically as hypersomnolence, which he said is common among stroke patients. Trump is now routinely appearing to nod off in public appearances such as White House events.

He further suggested that footage showing Trump gingerly descending the steps of Air Force One while gripping the banister with his left hand, despite the president being right-handed, is “consistent with having had a stroke on the left side of the brain.”

Speculation about the mental and physical decline of Trump, who is on track to become the oldest president in U.S. history, has circulated for months.

The president has frequently appeared in public with large, visible bruises on his hands, which he desperately attempts to conceal with blotches of makeup.

Trump has also taken steps to hide from public view his swollen cankles, a symptom of the medical condition chronic venous insufficiency, which the White House admitted the president had in July 2024.

Additional concerns were raised after Trump appeared at an event commemorating the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks with his face drooping to one side. Multiple social media users speculated at the time that the appearance could be a sign of a stroke, though no diagnosis has been confirmed.

In a candid interview with The Wall Street Journal published this month, Trump acknowledged several health issues and treatments, including briefly wearing compression socks to help manage swelling in his legs.

He also made the startling admission that he takes more aspirin than his doctors recommend for “cardiac prevention.” Trump and the White House have repeatedly attributed the unsightly bruising on the 79-year-old’s hands to his daily aspirin use, combined with his frequently shaking people’s hands.

Elsewhere during his podcast appearance, Davidson suggested that Trump’s erratic and aggressive governing style during his second term could also be consistent with post-stroke behavioral changes.

“It’s a very serious, concerning, life-threatening, upsetting, scary event, and people react in different ways,” Davidson said. “Some people respond with humility and gratitude. Others become euphoric—‘I was at the cliff of death, and now I’m back.’ And some think, ‘That was my chance to die, and I didn’t—so now I’m going to do everything I wanted to do, because the next one may be fatal.’”

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Carville predicts GOP ‘wipeout’ in 2026 midterms​

The Hill
Sophie Brams
Sat, January 17, 2026 at 2:57 PM EST
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Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville predicted Saturday that the 2026 midterm elections will be a “wipeout” for Republicans, with Democrats picking up 25 seats “at a minimum.”

“Frankly, it’s going to be a wipeout,” Carville told host Kayleigh McEnany on Fox News’s “Saturday in America.”

“Your viewers need to know that the Democrats are going to pick up at a minimum 25 seats, maybe as high as 45. In all likelihood, the Democrats will carry the Senate,” he added.

Carville was responding to an op-ed in the New York Times by David Plouffe, a former senior advisor to former President Obama, in which Plouffe argued Democrats had “no credible path to sustained control of the Senate and the White House.”

“After the adjustments to the Electoral College map that look likely to come with the next census, the Democratic presidential nominee could win all the states won by Kamala Harris, plus the blue wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still fall short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win,” Plouffe wrote. “An already unforgiving map becomes more so.”

McEnany asked if Carville had “as dim of a view” on the path forward for Democrats as Plouffe, to which Carville responded that Plouffe’s outlook was more focused on 2028 and beyond than the upcoming midterms.

After calling Carville’s prediction “bold,” McEnany argued that an “economic revival” coming from the Trump administration could actually lead Republicans to overperform in November.


“Well, I guess anything is possible,” Carville replied, before blasting comments Trump made earlier in the week in an interview with Reuters, suggesting “we shouldn’t even have an election” because of how much he had accomplished.

“We might disagree on who’s going win, but I think you and I can agree we got to have the election, right? That’s the important thing, is to have it,” Carville said.

McEnany brushed off Trump’s remark as being “in jest,” echoing a similar defense made by press secretary Karoline Leavitt during a Friday press briefing.

“The president was simply joking. He was saying we’re doing such a great job. We’re doing everything the American people thought, maybe we should just keep rolling, but he was facetiously,” Leavitt told reporters when asked about Trump’s election comment.

Trump has publicly worried that he could be impeached if Democrats regain control of the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.

In a sign of momentum for Democrats, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted 18 House races in the party’s favor this week, citing Trump’s unpopularity in polling and a recent streak of Democrat wins in special elections nationwide.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
 
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Brian Tyler Cohen

2h ·

BREAKING: Trump just sent the following letter to the Prime Minister of Norway:

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”

Yes, this is real
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Author
Brian Tyler Cohen


Source (yes, it’s real): https://www.nytimes.com/.../trump-norway-greenland-nobel...
 

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MeidasTouch

·


JUST IN: The Canadian Armed Forces have modelled a hypothetical U.S. invasion of Canada and how Canadians might respond if the unthinkable ever happened. This is new reporting from from the Globe and Mail and the CBC. This isn’t a military plan, but a conceptual exercise, and the first time in a century Canada has even considered such a scenario involving the United States.
Trump has repeatedly talked about Canada becoming the “51st state,” threatened allies over Greenland, and attacked NATO partners. Canadian officials say an invasion is unlikely, but they’re now forced to assess it anyway in case it comes to fruition. Trump posted an image just last night depicting Canada as part of the United States.
The model reportedly assumes the U.S. military could overwhelm Canada quickly in a conventional fight. Canada’s response would rely on unconventional resistance: small units, sabotage, drone warfare, and hit-and-run tactics — the same kinds of insurgency strategies used in Afghanistan and Ukraine.
This is real. One of America’s closest allies is quietly planning how it would resist an American occupation.
 

PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton ·​

The racist video President Trump shared depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes was vile and indefensible.
Even Republicans condemned it. Blaming a nameless staffer is an insult.
Accountability won’t come from Trump — it will come from voters at the ballot box this November.
 
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Rockaway Primetime Reporting

1h ·

Never Trump Republicans Are Still Issuing Dire Warnings. Is anyone listening?

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Over and over, the Republicans and former Republicans who gathered just outside Washington this weekend warned that President Donald Trump and his allies in Congress are tearing at the very fabric of American democracy.

A former congressman described the president’s party as an “authoritarian-embracing cult.” A prominent conservative writer said Trumpism is an “existential threat.” And a retired Army general, his voice shaking with emotion, cited post-Nazi Germany as a roadmap for the nation’s post-Trump recovery.

It’s unclear how many people are listening.

The main convention hall at the sixth annual Principles First summit on Saturday and Sunday was half empty.

About 750 chairs were set up in a room that could have fit thousands, and many were unfilled. Not a single current Republican elected official participated in the two-day program.

This is what remains of the Grand Old Party’s Never Trump movement, a coalition of Republicans, former Republicans and independents who banded together as Trump consolidated power. They largely remain political exiles — not quite at home among Democrats yet disgusted by how the president has abandoned Republicans’ longstanding commitments to free trade and limited government.

John McDowell, 69, who was a lifelong Republican before Trump’s emergence, acknowledged that the diminished group had virtually “zero” political clout within his former party.
“It’s just a fact. We’re losing good people,” said McDowell, a former Capitol Hill staffer and county Republican official from San Carlos, California. “The party is becoming more and more MAGA-fied.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed all the criticism from what she called “a bunch of deranged has-been politicians.”

“The only people who will pay attention to this event are the journalists who are forced to cover it,” she said.

Virtually everyone who gathered at the hotel in National Harbor, Maryland, said they are rooting for Democratic victories in this fall’s midterm elections. One of the only Democrats there was Conor Lamb, a former congressman from Pennsylvania who lost his party’s primary to John Fetterman four years ago.
Despite dire concerns, there was a slight sense of optimism among the half-empty convention hall and quiet hotel hallways.

Several people cheered last week’s Supreme Court decision to strike down Trump’s tariffs, the economic tool he has wielded without congressional approval in his attempt to force friends and foes around the globe to bend to his will. Trump insisted he would implement a new round of tariffs despite the ruling.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a former Trump adviser, highlighted recent AP-NORC polling showing that 1 in 4 Republicans nationwide do not approve of Trump’s job performance.

“It’s like any show that’s on TV for a long time — the ratings start to go down. And the ratings are going down,” Christie said. “I am willing to bet you that by next February, this room is going to be twice the size of what it is now. After the midterms, you watch.”

Ex-MAGA diehard Rich Logis, wearing a red “I left MAGA hat,” hopes to see “an electoral revolt against MAGA” in the midterms.
“I think there’s a shift in our country right now,” he said. “It happens slowly.”

Logis was promoting support groups for friends and family of Trump loyalists at a table outside the convention hall. Nearby, someone was selling books about how to escape cults.

At the podium, former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh implored Trump’s critics not to downplay the seriousness of the threat the president poses to the nation.

“He’s everything our founders feared. Say it. Believe it,” Walsh said. He said his former party is “an authoritarian-embracing cult” and “a threat to everything I love.”

Retired Gen. Mark Hertling, who once commanded the U.S. Army’s European forces, said he’s “haunted” by allies who ask him “whether American institutions ever can be trusted again.”
“Our nation’s institutions have been shaken. Our alliances have been strained. Our credibility has been damaged. And our nation’s values have been cast aside,” Hertling said. He suggested the U.S. should look to the reconstruction of Germany after the defeat of Nazism if it hoped to to restore the damage caused by Trump and his allies.

The nation’s recovery, he said as his voiced cracked, would be something people have to earn over many years.

Bill Kristol, who worked in previous Republican administrations and helped found the Weekly Standard magazine, described Trump and his Republican supporters in Congress as “an existential threat” to the nation. But he was also optimistic about the upcoming midterm elections.
Kristol said Democrats are “almost certain to win the House,” “could possibly win the Senate,” and have “a good chance to win the presidency” in 2028.

Brittany Martinez, executive director of the host organization Principles First, also tried to cast an optimistic tone, even after describing the many reasons why she couldn’t bear to continue her career as a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill.

“I hope that Republicans continue to wake up,” she said. “I do think that those folks exist. And I hope that they exist in greater numbers.”
 
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I Fucking Love Australia

4h ·


Ohhh here we fucking go.

Well. Well. Well.

Would you look at this flaming shitshow. Look who has their dick caught in the jet engine of international warfare.

Let me lay this out for you like a murder scene, because what just happened might go down as the single dumbest, most pants on head, brain dead military blunder in the last half century, and I want you to taste every drop of this political diarrhoea smoothie.

Donald Trump, a man who thinks geopolitics is a type of pizza, sat around a table with his Looney Tunes Cabinet of crypto bros and ex reality TV contestants, and cooked up this brilliant plan:

"We will just bomb Iran, kill the Supreme Leader, and the whole country will say, thank you Daddy America, please come give us Starbucks and freedom fries. We will be done by Thursday, everyone is home for golf and Diet Coke by the weekend."

That was the plan. Four to five days. Like it was a plumbing job. Like they were quoting for a pergola.

Spoiler alert. It is not going to plan.

Because apparently, when you drop a bomb on a country of 90 million pissed off people, during Ramadan, on a Monday morning, and then go, hey, truce, via Italy, the country most famous for switching sides like it is a World Cup match, turns out people do not just lie down and open their legs.

Nope. They told America to go suck a cactus. Flat out. Get fucked.

You know what Iran did? They did not splinter. They did not collapse. They did not say, oh no, our Supreme Leader, we are lost without him.

They got turbocharged. Martyrdom mode activated. Streets packed. Rage dialled to eleven. Suddenly everyone is locked in, unified, chanting death to the Great Satan with the kind of coordination you only see at Taylor Swift concerts.

And the US? They are sitting there like the dog that caught the car. What do we do now? No plan B. No clue.

Their backup strategy is apparently just: Post unhinged threats on Truth Social and pray to the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

And let me hit you with the real kicker: This is the most powerful military in history. Commanded by a man whose combat experience is yelling at a cheeseburger. Who dodged Vietnam with a made up bone spur, but now thinks he is Patton because he once played Call of Duty on easy mode.

He assembled the biggest war machine in the Middle East since the Iraq disaster, rolled in two aircraft carriers, bombed Iran, and now cannot back out without looking like an absolute dickless wonder.

He is like the schoolyard bully who finally swings on the wrong nerd, and that nerd turns out to be a black belt with emotional issues.

He has to keep swinging now. But he has no idea what he is swinging at.

And here is the part that makes this even more insane. He literally just watched Vladimir Putin try this exact same macho fantasy in Ukraine.

Remember that? Three day operation. In and out. Kyiv falls. Government collapses. Parade uniforms pressed and ready. Quick decapitation, install a friendly regime, job done.

How did that work out?

Years later, Ukraine is still standing. Putin is bogged down in trenches. Sanctions everywhere. Casualties through the roof. And the so called quick operation turned into a grinding, humiliating quagmire that reshaped European security for a generation.

The lesson was sitting right there. Neon sign flashing.

Do not assume a nation rolls over because you killed someone at the top. Do not assume pride, identity and fury evaporate on schedule. Do not assume your own propaganda is reality.

And yet here we are. Same movie. Different ego.

Meanwhile, back in reality:

Iran is hurling missiles at US bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. Oil tankers are getting smashed in the Strait of Hormuz. One is already sinking like the plan itself. Shipping is down 70 percent. Goldman Sachs is warning about 100 dollar oil. JPMorgan is whispering 120. The markets open Monday and it is going to look like someone set Wall Street on fire and pissed on the ashes.

And all because this idiot thought you could wrap up a war with Iran, let me repeat that, Iran, a nation that has been preparing for this day since before Friends went off the air. Three times the size of Iraq. More missiles. More allies. More hate for the US than a 9/11 truther Reddit thread.

But no, according to Team Dipshit: Just do it faster than last time, bro.

This is the equivalent of saying the Titanic would have been fine if it had just hit the iceberg at a better angle.

You would think after Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and watching Putin face plant in Ukraine, they would stop playing America’s Next Top Regime Change, but nope. This time it will be different. This time we have a four day plan.

FOUR. FUCKING. DAYS.

He cannot back out, he cannot win, and every tick of the clock is setting fire to the global economy, but hey, at least he got to post in all caps about unseen force on Truth Social like a diaper wearing Mussolini.

And somewhere, right now, in a room full of sycophants and empty Diet Coke bottles, a bloated orange lunatic is asking his staff:

"So, are we winning yet?"

No, Donny. You are not.

Buckle the fuck up.
 

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Rockaway Primetime Reporting

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Favorites ·23m ·

BREAKING: Don Lemon Denounces 'Motherf*cking Liar’ Kristi Noem Following Heated Hearing: ‘How Does This Woman Look in the Mirror?’
Don Lemon went off on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, calling her a “motherf*cking liar” and even ripping into her appearance on Tuesday.
On The Don Lemon Show, Lemon blasted Noem’s heated Senate hearing where she was grilled on everything from DHS spending to her past statements on federal immigration agents shooting and killing American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Lemon was outraged by Noem pushing back against lawmakers saying she called Pretti and Good “domestic terrorists” following them being shot and killed. Noem separately accused both of domestic terrorism. During one heated exchange, Noem denied calling Pretti a domestic terrorist, but said she was relying on early “information from the ground” for her initial statement.
Noem originally said Pretti’s actions were the “definition of domestic terrorism.” She also claimed early on that Pretti brandished a weapon, something quickly disproven by video.
“She is a goddamn liar. She is a motherf**king liar is what she is. And these people operate like [President] Donald Trump, as if there is no video evidence of what they’re saying. As if we’re not supposed to see and hear. What our eyes and ears are showing us,” Lemon said.
The former CNN host continued:
“We saw the video of Renee Nicole Goode We saw that that goon was not in the front of the car, that he shot her from the side. We saw with Alex Pretti that he never went for his gun, that he never pulled a gun, that he had a right to carry, his Second Amendment right, which Republicans believe is sacrosanct. And so they try to shape a lie into a reality. How does this woman sleep at night? How does his woman look in the mirror? She probably looks in the mirror, she doesn’t recognize herself obviously because she has an entirely new face in the last couple of years. But, I mean, how does she do that? And how do most of these people who are in, if not all of them who are in this administration, how do they sleep at night? I don’t understand how they do it.”



 

CBS News

17m ·


President Trump on Saturday left open the possibility of sending ground troops into Iran if it were for a "very good reason."
"I would say if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level," the president told reporters aboard Air Force One.

 

New York Post

1h ·

The miniaturized microwave device was allegedly secretly purchased from a complex Russian criminal network for about $15 million.

US News

US military tests on secret weapon bought from Russian criminal network reveal Havana Syndrome-like symptoms: report​

By
Zoe Hussain
Published March 9, 2026, 1:07 a.m. ET
47 Comments

Undercover US agents obtained a mysterious Russian weapon that could finally explain a baffling cluster of brain injuries suffered by American diplomats, spies, and military officers for nearly a decade that’s been deemed “Havana Syndrome,” according to a report.

The miniaturized microwave device was allegedly secretly purchased from a complex Russian criminal network for about $15 million in a Pentagon-funded operation by undercover Department of Homeland Security agents, confidential sources told CBS News’s “60 Minutes.”

The Pentagon building is seen in Arlington, Virginia, with the U.S. Capitol building and other city buildings in the background.3
Undercover US agents obtained a mysterious Russian weapon that could finally explain “Havana Syndrome.”REUTERS
The programmable weapon is designed to be concealed and silent, but doesn’t create heat like a traditional microwave oven. It can be controlled remotely and can penetrate several hundred feet through windows and drywall, according to the outlet.

The programming of the weapon shapes a unique electromagnetic wave that rises and pulses abruptly, which can target soft brain tissue — possibly tied to sudden attacks of debilitating neurological symptoms reported by hundreds of American personnel stationed overseas and within the US since at least 2016.


The cluster of incidents became known as “Havana Syndrome,” after early cases surfaced among US diplomats in Cuba. The symptoms include vertigo, hearing loss, migraines, vision problems, and cognitive impairment.


The still-classified stealth weapon has been tested at a US military lab for more than a year — with tests on rats and sheep showing injuries similar to those of people with Havana syndrome, three sources told the outlet.

Classified security footage described to the outlet has also been collected, showing Americans being hit with the weapon. In one, a camera captured two FBI agents on vacation in a restaurant in Istanbul, sitting at a table with their families.

Dr. David Relman, Chris, and Heidi during a 60 Minutes interview discussing weapon-causing Havana Syndrome.3
Hundreds of American personnel stationed overseas and within the US since at least 2016 have reported debilitating neurological symptoms associated with Havana Syndrome, including Chris and Heidi.CBS
After a man with a backpack walks in, everyone at the table suddenly grabs their head in pain, the outlet reported.

In another video from the US Embassy in Vienna, two people suddenly collapse on a stairwell to a secure facility.

Dr. David Relman, a Stanford University professor whom the government asked to lead two investigations into the phenomenon, concluded the most likely explanation for some Havana Syndrome cases was “a form of radiofrequency or microwave energy,” he recalled.

“In both of our investigations, we found the large majority of work to have been conducted in the former Soviet Union,” Relman told “60 Minutes,” noting that Russia appeared to have been perfecting the concept for decades.

Illustration of the human body with labels for acute and chronic symptoms of Havana Syndrome.3
Videos described to “60 Minutes” reportedly showed US personnel being hit with the microwave weapon.AP
Researchers in the Soviet Union discovered that microwave frequency could cause effects ranging from “loss of consciousness to seizures to memory lapses, inability to concentrate, headaches, intense pressure, pain, disorientation, difficulty with balance,” similar to the troublesome symptoms experienced by Havana Syndrome victims.

“What the Russians spoke about was the importance of the energy being pulsed in order to have biological effects on humans,” Relman said.

“When you produce pulses like this, you can actually stimulate electrically active tissue like brain tissue and the heart, for that matter, mimicking what the brain normally does, but now you’re driving it with your pulses from the outside,” he explained.

Chris, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who worked on classified spy satellite programs, told the outlet that he experienced a series of symptom attacks in his Northern Virginia home over several months in 2020 that left him needing to take neurological drugs daily.

“Very first incident occurred in August of 2020. And what it felt like was that– someone punched me in the throat, and my left ear was clogged. And I started to get sharp shooting pains going down my left arm,” he recalled.

His wife, Heidi, whom he met at the Air Force Academy, also began developing severe medical problems, she told the outlet.

“Right at the beginning of January, I woke up with immense joint pain everywhere. With shoulder pain in my left shoulder out of the blue, no trauma,” she said, recounting that doctors found bones in her shoulders were dissolving due to a condition known as osteolysis, requiring surgery.

Despite stories of harrowing medical episodes, the US government has long questioned whether the bouts of mysterious symptoms were actual attacks.

A 2023 assessment concluded it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible for Havana Syndrome — though some scientists and intelligence officials believe otherwise.

A former CIA officer who worked on the agency’s internal probe told “60 Minutes” he believed the investigation into Havana Syndrome was downplayed.

“One of the very first things that I heard when I arrived at the AHI Unit was, ‘Our job is to bring down the temperature on AHI at headquarters,’” he said. The government refers to the cases as “anomalous health incidents,” or AHI.

The former officer said leadership wanted to treat the cases as an “atmospheric and environmental issue,” rather than a state actor.

He ultimately resigned after the probe became “a moral issue.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence told the outlet in a statement that “the team conducting the review of AHI intelligence has been and continues to be relentless in its work and pursuit of the truth to complete the assessment.”

47
What do you think? Post a comment.
“ODNI’s review of this issue will be comprehensive and complete before it is released. DNI Gabbard has provided the time, resources, and support needed to ensure the review is fulsome and accurate,” they wrote.

“We remain committed to delivering the truth that the American people deserve.”
 
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