• Trump backpedals: Last week, Donald Trump, frustrated with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in his efforts to reach a peace deal to end the war, said that Ukraine “should have never started” it. Of course, it is not in dispute that Russia invaded Ukraine, starting the war. On Friday, Trump walked back his statement, stating, “Russia attacked, but [the Biden administration] shouldn’t have let them attack because they wouldn’t have attacked if you had people that knew what they were doing. Joe Biden is a very dumb man. … He had no idea what he was doing, and everything he said was wrong.” Trump added that Russian President Vladimir Putin “could have been talked out of that so easy.” Trump is likely angling for a deal regarding Ukraine’s mineral resources.

• Dan Bongino named FBI deputy director: Yesterday, newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel named former NYPD cop and Secret Service agent Dan Bongino to be the FBI’s next deputy director, thereby immeasurably upgrading the position once held by sniveling Russia collusion hoaxer and CNN personality Andrew McCabe. While the AP tried to dismiss Bongino as having “[run] unsuccessfully for office and gained fame as a conservative pundit with TV shows and a popular podcast,” it won’t work. Bongino is a serious man and a serious conservative, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from CUNY and an MBA from Penn State. Yesterday, the Disruptor-in-Chief called Bongino “a man of incredible love and passion for our Country” who’ll work to bring “Fairness, Justice, Law and Order … back to America, and quickly.”

• Germany moves decisively rightward in national election, but… Yesterday, the German people spoke loudly and clearly in the country’s national elections, in which the top two vote-getters were the Christian Democratic Union and the upstart Alternative for Germany (AfD). The CDU is essentially the GOP of Germany, while the AfD is — wait for it! — a “far-right” party that ran on a strongly anti-immigration, anti-warming, pro-energy platform. Donald Trump congratulated the winners, calling it “a great day for Germany, and for the United States,” noting that the German people “got tired of the no common sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration, that has prevailed for so many years.” This seems like great news, but 69-year-old CDU leader Friedrich Merz, poised to become chancellor, is already tacking left instead of right, talking to the enfeebled Social Democrats to form a coalition government and freeze out the ascendant AfD.

• Will Trump release the Epstein Files? We’ll believe it when we see it, but it does seem like we’re closer to the release of the so-called Epstein Files than we ever have been. Attorney General Pam Bondi has long been an advocate of releasing the files, and she said Friday that the Epstein client list is “sitting on my desk right now” and that she’s also reviewing the JFK and MLK files. We’re not sure what the latter two have to do with the former, but we’ll wait and see. Epstein, of course, was the sick-puppy millionaire financier with the private island on which he entertained Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and other rich, famous, and well-connected reprobates at the monstrous expense of underage girls. Sadly, not sadly, Epstein didn’t kill himself in his jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.

• Joy Reid out at MSNBC: The most ardently anti-Trump of the cable news networks is continuing to thrash around in its desperate search for relevance. MSNBC has announced that it’s canceling Trump-deranged race-baiter Joy Reid’s 7 p.m. program, “The ReidOut,” as part of a major shakeup at the network. The joyless show has struggled mightily on the viewership front, averaging only 973,000 total viewers this month compared to 1.3 million during February 2024. Reid never fully recovered from that time when her old blog was, ahem, hacked and peppered with anti-gay slurs. Reid’s slot will be filled by a show featuring former Kamala Harris spokesperson Symone Sanders-Townsend, “Gold Bar” Bob Menendez’s daughter Alicia, and failed former RNC chair and inveterate Trump-hater Michael Steele. If you’re interested in reliving some of Reid’s most disgraceful moments, Fox News has you covered.

• LA’s DEI fire chief dismissed: It was inevitable that heads would roll following the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history. LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley was the city’s first female and openly gay individual to fill the top LAFD position in the city’s history. But none of that saved her on Friday, as embattled LA Mayor Karen Bass fired Crowley. Bass blamed Crowley for failing to notify her of the dangerous wind and wildfire conditions before the mayor left on a trip to Africa, as well as claiming, “One thousand firefighters who could have been on the job fighting the fires were sent home” under Crowley’s leadership. Meanwhile, the firefighters union blasted Bass, contending that Crowley is “being made a scapegoat … without the benefit of a full investigation into what actually happened.” Will Bass’s blame-shifting actions be enough to save her own position?

• AP sues Trump officials over ban from WH events: The Associated Press cares about language manipulation so much that it declared to the Trump White House that only it is entitled to engage in such provocative behavior and label it “truth.” In that light, the AP has raised a lawsuit against three White House officials — Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budwich — for blocking the Leftmedia outlet from access to media events in the Oval Office and covering Donald Trump on Air Force One. At issue is the AP’s deadnaming of the “Gulf of America” following Trump’s renaming of it. The AP laughably cited its commitment to maintaining precise language. This is the same media outlet that has engaged in a myriad of agenda-laden language manipulations on everything from pronouns to immigration to abortion.

• Border Patrol takes over USAID DC headquarters: At least 1,600 U.S.-based jobs within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are to be eliminated, the Trump administration announced on Sunday. Furthermore, the remaining USAID workforce will be folded under the State Department, with USAID employees now answering to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The U.S. will still provide foreign aid at some level, though certain programs will be eliminated. “The goal of our endeavor has always been to identify programs that work and continue them,” Rubio explained. This move includes USAID exiting its Washington, DC, headquarters building, and that space will now be filled by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. A CBP spokesman explained, “CBP has signed a license agreement to occupy approximately 390,000 usable square feet in the USAID tower.”

Headlines

• Judge blocks parts of Trump executive orders targeting DEI (Fox News)

• DOGE, EPA cut $67 million in grants for “environmental justice” mandate (NY Post)

• Apple unveils historic $500 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, innovation (Fox Business)

• GOP email system infiltrated by Chinese hackers last summer (WSJ)

• Education Department launches investigation into Maine over boys in girls’ sports (The Federalist)

• Shiri Bibas’s body has been returned to Israel (Townhall)

• IDF deploys tanks in West Bank for first time since 2002 (Times of Israel)

• Humor: Trump claimed, without evidence, that 2+2 makes 4. Not so fast, experts say. (Babylon Bee)

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