Today in Politics, Bulletin 115. 4/21/25 Ron Filipkowski Apr 21 ∙ … SecDef Pete Hegseth reportedly created a new group Signal chat of 13 people where he discussed sensitive DOD operations including bombing Houthi targets in Yemen. The NYT reported that the group included his brother and personal attorney. His wife was part of Signal Chat Scandal 1. He called the group “Team Huddle.” … Hegseth’s former spokesman John Ullyot then published an editorial in Politico where he said the DOD has been in “total chaos” since Hegseth took over: “Unfortunately, Hegseth’s team has developed a habit of spreading flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out the door. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president—who deserves better from his senior leadership. It’s hard to see Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.” More from Ullyot’s editorial: “Hegseth is now presiding over a strange and baffling purge that will leave him without his two closest advisers of over a decade — Caldwell and Selnick — and without chiefs of staff for him and his deputy. More firings may be coming, according to rumors in the building. In short, the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership. Last week, a month after leaving my public affairs role, I respectfully declined the secretary’s generous offer for a new position and informed him of my decision to leave the department, wishing him all the best. I value his friendship and am grateful for his giving me the opportunity to serve. Yet even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration. There are very likely more shoes to drop in short order, with even bigger bombshell stories coming this week, key Pentagon reporters have been telling sources privately.” … Hegseth was ranting and raving about the allegations on the WH lawn today during the Easter egg hunt: “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from DISGRUNTLED former employees, and they try to SLASH AND BURN PEOPLE and ruin their reputations. It’s not going to work with me.” … They aren’t all anonymous sources and it isn’t the media. These are his closest advisors who he hired to work for him at the Pentagon. Even they couldn’t take his recklessness and incompetence any longer. … Minister of Propaganda Karoline Leavitt: "The President stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon. This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and against monumental change that you are trying to implement.” … Trump: "It's just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that's what he's doing. You don't always have friends when you do that. Pete’s doing a great job. Everybody’s happy with him.” … NPR reported: “The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.” … But the WH social media account responded to NPR’s report: “WRONG. Fake News!” … Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN): “Deep State leakers inside the Pentagon are trying to sabotage SecDef. They’re terrified of the bold, America-First reforms President Trump is delivering. The D.C. cartel is in full-blown panic mode. Their desperation says it all: we’re winning—and history will prove us right.” … Don Jr says Ullyot is a traitor and will be excommunicated from MAGA: “This guy is not America First. I’ve been hearing for years that he works his ass off to subvert my father’s agenda. That ends today. He’s officially exiled from our movement.” … Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK): “I will lead the breach. I will lay down cover fire. I will take the high ground. I’ll expose myself to enemy fire to communicate. We must bring back integrity, focus, and put the Warfighter first inside DOD. I stand with Pete Hegseth.” … Mullin never served in the military. He is a plumber. … Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who is a former Air Force General, was the only Republican to speak out today. To Politico: “I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience. I like him on Fox. But does he have the experience to lead one of the largest organizations in the world? That’s a concern. If it’s true that he had another Signal chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s totally unacceptable.” … Bacon: “I’m not in the WH, and I’m not going to tell the WH how to manage this, but I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge. Russia and China put up thousands of people to monitor all these phone calls at the very top, and the No. 1 target besides the president would be the Sec of Defense. Russia and China are all over his phone, and for him to be putting secret stuff on his phone is not right. He’s acting like he’s above the law - and that shows an amateur person.” … Pope Francis died one day after his meeting with JD Vance at the Vatican. The Vatican described the meeting as “brief” where Vance said to the Pope: “I know you have not been feeling great but it's good to see you in better health.” Vance’s motorcade left the Vatican after just 17 minutes. … Conspiracies swirl on whether Vance had something to do with the Pope’s death. Pope Francis has never been popular with MAGA, who dislike his statements on immigration along with other policies and reforms he has made to the church. Right-wing talk show host Ann Coulter: “Good work, JD.” … Rep. Marge Greene (R-GA): “Today there were major shifts in global leaderships. Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.” … Joe who writes ‘Joe’s Junk Food’ column on Substack: “I don't think JD Vance killed the Pope, I think meeting JD Vance probably drained the Pope's will to live. It's subtly different.” … Trump posted that he is looking forward to the funeral: “Melania and I will be going to the funeral of Pope Francis, in Rome. We look forward to being there!” … DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had her purse stolen while dining at a DC restaurant last night. CNN reported that the Secret Service, which provides security for Noem, reviewed security camera footage at the restaurant and saw an unknown white male wearing a medical mask steal her bag and leave. The bag contained Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and $3,000 in cash.” … Scripps News: “A DHS spokesperson confirms to Scripps that Sec Noem had a large amount of cash on her that was stolen because her entire family was in town and she was using the withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities, and Easter gifts.” … Most people have focused on the cash she had. I’m more interested in what the “medication” was. … AZPM reported that 19-year-old US citizen Jose Hermosillo was arrested as he was walking by a Border Patrol office in Tucson, AZ. He was not carrying any ID on him at the time to prove he was a citizen. A family member drove 70 miles to the detention center to explain who he was, but they refused to release him. A family member later provided his birth certificate and social security card, but Hermosillo remained in ICE custody for 10 days until a judge dismissed the case. … Hermosillo’s girlfriend’s aunt, who he was visiting at the time: “He did say he was a U.S. citizen, but they didn't believe him. I think they would have kept him. I think they would have if they would have not got that information yesterday in the court and gave that to ICE and the Border Patrol. He probably would have been deported already to Mexico.” We are back to our regularly scheduled programming after my trip to Connecticut on Friday and then my stories on Sunday about the top signs at the protests this weekend and the 55 campaign promises that Trump has broken already. Thank you again to the paid subscribers for supporting my work and the free subscribers to read and share it. … China’s Commerce Ministry is warning countries that if they make a trade deal with the US that includes provisions to hurt them, it "will take countermeasures in a resolute and reciprocal manner" against those countries. Bloomberg reported previously that the US is pressuring countries during negotiations to reduce their trade with China if they want a deal with the US, essentially coercing them into joining Trump’s trade war against China. … Trump posted this: “Since our announcement of LIBERATION DAY, many World Leaders and Business Executives have come to me asking for relief from Tariffs. It’s good to see that the World knows we are serious, because WE ARE! They must right the wrongs of decades of abuse, but it won’t be easy for them. We must rebuild the Wealth of our Great Country, and create true RECIPROCITY. But for those who want the easiest path: Come to America, and build in America!” … Trade Advisor Peter Navarro announced on Fox the day the latest round of tariffs were announced that the Admin’s goal was to make 90 new trade deals over the next 90 days with countries around the world. It has now been 10 days. 0 deals have been announced so far. … The Trump Admin has been teasing a major deal with Japan after recent talks, but the Japanese PM Ishiba just issued a statement that he won’t agree to any changes to the deal they negotiated with Trump in 2019, and says he has “grave concerns” about the US position constantly changing with no consistency in the negotiations. … Guardian reported that a 737 MAX Boeing jet just delivered to China’s Xiamen Airlines has been returned to the company in Seattle. China has already halted all purchases of aircraft and parts from the US. Boeing had 130 more jets scheduled to be delivered to Chinese companies in the near future, which have all been put on hold. The value of those contracts is around $500 million. … Michael O’Leary, CEO of the Irish airline Ryanair, told the Financial Times last week that the company was due to receive 25 Boeing aircraft in August but “we might delay them and hope that common sense will prevail.” … NYT reported that US soybean farmers will be amongst the hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs. The US sells $12.8 billion in soybeans to China every year, more than any other single product. Soybeans were 9% of all US exports to China last year. Chinese farmers feed American soybeans to their chickens and hogs. … China is now looking replace those soybeans with increased imports from Brazil and Argentina. Brazil and Argentina combined grow 52% of the world’s soybeans compared to 28% from the US. Neusa Lopes, with Brazil’s Girassol Agricola: “Once they can’t get it from the US, they’ll need to take more from Brazil.” … Michigan soybean farmer Heather Feuerstein: “Farmers deal with bad weather. We deal with pests. We deal with tractors breaking. That’s our lives. But tariffs are a threat to our continued way of life.” … As the stock market nose-dived again today, Trump rage-posted another attack on Fed Chair Powell: “Preemptive Cuts in Interest Rates are being called for by many. With Energy Costs way down, food prices (including Biden’s egg disaster!) substantially lower, and most other ‘things’ trending down, there is virtually No Inflation. But there can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW. Powell has always been ‘To Late,’ except when it came to the Election period when he lowered in order to help Sleepy Joe Biden, later Kamala, get elected. How did that work out?” … The Dow closed down 971.82 (2.48%) today. … Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, told Bloomberg that there is now a 90% chance of a recession unless tariffs are lifted very soon. … Trump now has a 43% approval on the economy with a 55% disapproval in a new CNBC poll. That is the first time Trump has ever been in negative numbers specifically on his handling of the economy at any point in either term in their poll. … Trump also posted in all caps that he wants the war to end in Ukraine so the US can exploit the situation: “HOPEFULLY RUSSIA AMD UKRAINE WILL MAKE A DEAL THIS WEEK. BOTH WILL THEN START TO DO BIG BUSINESS WITH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WHICH IS THRIVING, AND MAKE A FORTUNE!” … Special Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg was asked on Fox how Trump’s mineral deal will benefit the US: “They provide us precious metals we don't have here in the US. For example, titanium. We import it. They export it. We can use them for our industries, and that’s very important.” … ProPublica reported that a startup company called Ramp, which is backed by Peter Thiel, the Kushner family and others, may be awarded a massive new contract to manage govt credit card processing. Trump and Musk want to transfer the govt’s $700 billion internal expense card program SmartPay over to Ramp. But the company may have its eyes on something even bigger - taking over management of the $1.5 trillion in Social Security payments made each year to recipients. … Fox Business Analyst Charles Gasparino: “Tesla investors are expecting guidance during Tuesday's earnings call from Elon Musk on his future involvement in DOGE, and whether he will stay engaged with the White House in some capacity after the end of May when his government work was expected to end.” … Wall Street obviously thinks a bad earning report is coming from Tesla tomorrow. The stock fell a whopping 14.39 (5.96%) today. … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) talked about his El Salvador trip on Fox: "My whole point here is if you deprive one man of his constitutional rights, you threaten the constitutional rights of everybody. If you threaten the rule of law for one person, you threaten if for everybody in America. I'm not vouching for the individual, I'm vouching for his rights. I'm not vouching for the man - I'm vouching for the man's rights. His constitutional rights to due process." … Senior WH Policy Advisor Stephen Miller disagreed: “If you were an American falsely accused of wrongdoing on January 6th it wasn’t merely difficult to get ‘due process’, it was impossible. The entire system was rigged against you. All of it. Those persecuted Americans could only dream of the ‘due process afforded illegal aliens.” … J6 defendants all had lawyers, most got pretrial release, they had jury trials, got discovery, could testify in their own defense, could call witnesses, could cross-examine witnesses, could present mitigation at sentencing, had the right to appeal, and then they all got pardoned. The fact that Miller thought they were all “patriots” who shouldn’t be prosecuted doesn’t mean they were denied due process. PERSONAL NOTE: STEPHEN MILLER IS A NAZI WITH A LENGTHY HISTORY - FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE OTHER SWAMP DWELLERS! … Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump Admin for freezing research funding: "The consequences of the govt’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting. Research that the govt has put in jeopardy includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield. As opportunities to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson's disease are on the horizon, the govt is slamming on the brakes. The victims will be future patients and their loved ones who will suffer the heartbreak of illnesses that might have been prevented or treated more effectively. Indiscriminately slashing medical, scientific, and technological research undermines the nation’s ability to save American lives, foster American success, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation.” … The Dept of Education will start garnishing the wages of 5.3 million borrowers next month who are in default on their student loans. They don’t have enough IRS workers anymore to audit the millionaires and billionaires anymore, so the govt has to make up revenue from rich tax cheats somehow. Forbes reported that number will likely rise to 9 million people if there is a recession. … Former talk show host and current FBI Dep. Director Dan Bongino: “FYI, Adam Goldman of the NYT is getting ready to run another one of their exposé pieces about me spending time in our FBI training facility ground fighting with our dedicated and skilled defensive tactics instructors. Their big news ‘hook’ is that after a solid few rounds of grappling, I injured my shoulder. The instructor I was grappling with got the best of me, because he’s incredibly talented. That’s why he’s there. And it was my not an ‘injury’ but a bit of swelling in my right elbow, not shoulder, because I’m 50 years old and I can’t recover like I used to. But I felt it was important to get on the mats any way, because that’s what men do.” … That’s a lot of words just to avoid admitting you got your ass kicked and embarrassed yourself.