Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have converted the presidency into a family hedge fund, sinking money into military startups that have since raked in at least $3.2 billion in direct government business, per a Washington Post investigation. The contracts arrived after the sons bought in — a straight conversion of public office into private profit. The pattern extends beyond the first family: a federal judge blasted the Trump DOJ's "slush fund," and a former Florida lawmaker called it a "troubling pattern."
While the Trumps cash in, the administration drives toward another Middle East war. Mary Trump, a psychologist and the president's niece, warned Monday that his mental and physical decline is revealing "more of who he has always been," with talk of restarting the Iran war turning "unhinged." Even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board concluded Trump was "taken for a ride by Iran" over a memorandum he sold as peace. CNN's Erin Burnett aired a supercut of Trump repeatedly claiming he had "eviscerated" Iran's military — rhetoric untethered from reality. When CNN's Kaitlan Collins pressed him on new war strikes, Trump rage-quit his own press conference rather than answer.
The war drive comes with a domestic crackdown on dissent. U.S. agents seized journalist Max Blumenthal's electronic devices and interrogated him upon his return from reporting in Tehran, acting under Israeli pressure after a doxxing campaign by Laura Loomer and an Israeli outfit. Simultaneously, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a joint task force to "identify and prosecute" leakers — a dragnet aimed at silencing anyone who challenges the war narrative.
In North Carolina, a different logic prevails. Wake County launched a $22 million "Wake at Home" initiative to move 400 people from encampments into permanent housing over 18 months. It is a modest investment in human survival — a fraction of what the Trump sons' military startups have extracted from the public purse — and a reminder that public resources can serve people instead of profit.