Throughout the first year of Donald Trump’s second administration, Vanity Fair writer Chris Whipple has interviewed Wiles amid each moment of crisis. This insider’s account joins a portfolio of portraits for an unflinching, up-close look at power—and peril.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Sen. Chris Murphy after boat strike briefing: There’s ‘no fentanyl’ and ‘no legal justification’
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5651822-trump-administration-strikes-questioned/
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Tuesday’s classified briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirms the Trump administration has no legal or national security justification for the strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Murphy said in a video on the social platform X that the two Cabinet officials admitted to lawmakers that the accused drug-trafficking vessels are believed to be smuggling cocaine, not fentanyl. He also said Rubio and Hegseth said intelligence suggested the boats were going to Europe, not the U.S., contradicting the administration’s public justification for the strikes.
6 takeaways from Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles’ unvarnished interviews
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/16/politics/takeaways-susie-wiles-interview
The money quote from the interview might be Wiles saying that Trump – a known teetotaler – has an “alcoholic’s personality.”
(Wiles denied those quotes to The New York Times, but the Times says Vanity Fair played its tape of Wiles saying these things.)
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Rav Yitzchok Abadi zt”l – A Light That Illuminated Generations
https://vinnews.com/2025/12/16/rav-yitzchok-abadi-ztl-a-light-that-illuminated-generations/
Rav Yitzchok Abadi zt”l was not simply a rav—he was an embodiment of what Torah greatness looks like when combined with brilliance, courage, humility and unwavering dedication to truth.
MAGA leaders warn Trump the base is checking out. Will he listen?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/15/trump-base-maga-midterm-voters/
Savanah Hernandez, a conservative commentator who serves as a Turning Point USA contributor, described the second Trump term so far as “underwhelming,” while crediting Trump with making positive, lasting changes to the conservative movement.
“All we’ve really seen is punchy tweets, cool video edits, but really no follow-through on any of the promises,” she said of the messaging coming from the White House.
“And if he listened to his base and he was connected to us, even just through social media, you would see that the average person is still struggling to buy groceries, that the housing crisis is still on the mind of everybody, that inflation is still a really big issue, and when Americans see billions of dollars going overseas to any country, it really feels like a betrayal when we’re struggling here at home,” Hernandez said.
Monday, December 15, 2025
Trump says looking into whether Israel violated ceasefire by killing Hamas leader
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-880379
US President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration was looking into whether Israel violated the Gaza ceasefire by killing a Hamas leader on Saturday.
The White House sent a scolding message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, expressing
Washington’s anger over the assassination of senior Hamas official Sa’ad Ra’ad, which it described as an Israeli violation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, two American sources told Axios.
Donald Trump’s Response to Rob Reiner’s Death Sparks MAGA Backlash
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-response-to-rob-reiners-death-sparks-maga-backlash-11214421
"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood," Trump wrote in a Monday morning post on Truth Social, his preferred method for communicating directly with the American public."Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS," the president continued.Trump's Monday post about Reiner concluded: "He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"
Listen to the people, President Trump — they really DO feel economic pain
President Trump is stepping out of his White House bubble to address economic gloom; we expect he’ll make time to listen as well as speechify.
He needs to be careful: Slamming Democrats’ talk of “affordability” as a “con job” is readily twisted to make it seem like he doesn’t think people are suffering.
We realize that he means that Dems are responsible for the nation’s current woes; they can’t credibly claim to be the party of strong economic growth, which is the only way out of this box.
The prez can and should offer genuine assurances, but must admit the frustration is painfully real: Three-quarters of Americans view the economy negatively, a Fox News survey found last month.
RFK Jr.’s lunatic war on vaccines puts kids at risk
https://nypost.com/2025/12/14/opinion/rfk-jr-s-dangerous-war-on-vaccines-puts-kids-at-risk/
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is still chipping away at one of the biggest public health wins of the last century: the widespread use of disease-eradicating vaccines.
On Dec. 5, his handpicked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices tossed the recommendation for universal hepatitis B vaccines for infants at birth, instead advising it only for babies whose mothers tested positive for the disease — and recommending that babies who don’t get the jab at birth don’t receive it earlier than 2 months.
But … why?
The hep B vaccine has a stellar safety record, and relying on testing is a bad plan; it’s usually done in the first trimester or during birth, but can go wrong in plenty of ways — like moms being exposed post-test, or not getting tested at all.
Universal at-birth vaccination is a low-risk, very effective strategy for preventing a disease that has a 90% chance of becoming a chronic, liver-damaging, possibly deadly illness for babies who get infected.
Bondi Beach Terror Attack: At Least 16 Killed as Gunmen Target Jewish Holiday Event
https://time.com/7340702/bondi-beach-shooting-terror-attack/
At least 16 people have been killed and dozens injured after two gunmen opened fire on a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, in what officials have described as the deadliest mass shooting to hit Australia in 30 years.
The shooting, which Australian authorities have declared a terror attack, targeted hundreds of people celebrating Hanukkah at the beach. One witness said people who were not part of the Hanukkah event were ushered aside by the shooters. The victims were aged between 10 and 87.
At least 40 people were confirmed wounded in the shooting, which began around 6.45 p.m. on Sunday at one of Sydney's most popular tourist destinations. One gunman was shot and a second was arrested.
Sunday, December 14, 2025
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