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Can Trump’s Fed Pick Stand Up to the Man Who Picked Him?
Kevin Warsh went in front of the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, and Elizabeth Warren ripped into him from the opening bell. She called him Trump’s sock puppet. And she wasn’t alone. Even Republican John Kennedy asked Warsh if he’d be the president’s human sock puppet. Warren then asked Warsh one simple question. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? Warsh wouldn’t answer. He hid behind a line about keeping politics out of the Fed. Then Warren pressed him on more than 100 million dollars in assets he’d failed to detail on his financial disclosure forms. Warsh is worth somewhere between 130 and 210 million dollars, which would make him the richest Fed chair in American history. And GOP Senator Thom Tillis says he’ll block the vote until the DOJ drops its criminal probe into Jerome Powell. Meanwhile Trump is out there screaming for lower interest rates. This is how they strip a central bank of its independence. Quietly, and in plain sight.
Have Trump and Netanyahu Just Blown Themselves Up Together?
That’s the question everyone’s asking after a brutal piece in The New Republic. Trump’s approval rating is hitting second-term lows every week. Support for the Iran war is below 40 percent. The Wall Street Journal reports his public bravado is covering up private panic about the November midterms. Over in Israel, Netanyahu’s coalition is tanking in the polls because he couldn’t say no to Trump’s pressure to end the war. More than 3,375 Iranians are dead. Thirteen American service members are dead. Taxpayers are out over 50 billion dollars. And all they got for it was a shipping corridor that was already open before they started the bombing. History’s going to judge this one hard. Two strongmen, one catastrophic war, and they’ve got nobody to blame but each other.
Is Trump About to Bail Out His Family’s UAE Business Partner with Your Money?
The Wall Street Journal reports the United Arab Emirates is asking the White House for a wartime financial lifeline. Something like a currency swap, because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is hammering their economy. UAE central bank governor Khaled Balama raised it directly with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. And Kevin Hassett at the National Economic Council says the Trump administration would be happy to help. Well, isn’t that convenient. Jared Kushner took 200 million dollars from the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund for his investment firm. Then he pulled down another 1.5 billion from an Abu Dhabi outfit and Qatar’s wealth fund. The UAE dumped 2 billion into the crypto venture run by Eric and Don Junior, and Trump promptly lifted chip export restrictions. There’s also a Trump hotel going up in Dubai. Meanwhile, other countries hurt by this war have been told flat out they’re on their own. Pay the Trumps, get bailed out. Don’t pay, go pound sand. That’s the business model now.
Who’s Raking in Millions on Donald Trump’s Iran War?
Right before Trump posts a market-moving Truth Social update about Iran, huge anonymous bets keep showing up on the exchanges. On March 23rd, over 500 million dollars in crude oil futures traded in the 15 minutes before Trump announced a pause in hostilities. On April 7th, somebody placed a 950 million dollar bet that oil would crash. Fifteen minutes later Trump announced a ceasefire and oil dropped 15 percent. Senators Warren and Whitehouse want a CFTC probe. Congressman Ritchie Torres put it best. He said the only two explanations are God, or an insider trader, and God doesn’t make bets on Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts. The White House quietly warned staff to stop betting on prediction markets. Somebody inside this administration is getting rich off a war that’s bleeding working people dry. Don’t Americans deserve to know who this is?
Will the Press Finally Stand Up to the Man Trying to Destroy Them?
The White House Correspondents’ Association is getting hammered by its own members. Ann Curry, Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson, and Bill Press signed a letter demanding the WHCA use this weekend’s dinner to forcefully oppose Trump’s assault on the First Amendment. They’re listing the receipts. Retaliatory access bans. Coercive FCC investigations. Frivolous lawsuits. Defunding public broadcasting. Dismantling international broadcasting. Arresting journalists. Pardoning people who committed violence against reporters. And Trump is coming to speak at their dinner. FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who’s threatening to yank broadcast licenses over coverage he doesn’t like, is coming too. Washington Monthly’s Bill Scher calls Trump the biggest peacetime threat to the First Amendment in American history. One critic, Mark Jacob, nailed it. When you invite fascists to dinner, they devour you. The corporate press needs to decide right now whether it stands for a free press or for its own access. Should Americans turn their backs to this event?
What’s the FBI Director Hiding in That Whiskey Bottle?
And finally, the watchdog group Democracy Forward just handed the FBI a 20-day deadline. They want internal records on FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged drinking and unexplained absences. This follows that bombshell Atlantic report from Sarah Fitzpatrick alleging Patel shows up hungover, drinks to obvious intoxication, and vanishes for stretches while time-sensitive operations wait. One former official said Patel is rightly paranoid he could lose his job at any minute. Agents have reportedly needed SWAT-style breaching equipment because Patel wouldn’t answer his door. There’s even a story about Patel freaking out, calling people and claiming he’d been fired, when really he just couldn’t log into his work computer. Patel slapped the Atlantic with a 250 million dollar defamation lawsuit, which now opens him up to full discovery. Democracy Forward wants every FBI email containing words like alcohol, drunk, hungover, and passed out. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI has to cough them up. The man running the nation’s top law enforcement agency can’t hide forever.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday April 21st, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
