Sunday Talks: Secretary Scott Bessent Discusses Inflation and “Affordability”


Posted originally on CTH on December 7, 2025 | Sundance 

Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent appears on CBS’s Face the Nation for an inflation and affordability debate with narrative engineer Margaret Brennan.

The primary narrative can be seen in Brennan’s emphasis of the new democrat catch phrase “affordability.”  Having gaslit the American electorate over the issues of Joe Biden’s economic/energy policy which created record inflation, the same media who ran cover for Joe Biden have switched during the Trump administration to calling the subsequent high costs an “affordability” crisis.

In essence, Biden’s economic, energy and monetary policies drove 2021/2022 inflation to record levels, this made all prices rise massively.  Those high prices are now the “affordability problem.”  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face The Nation.’ We have a lot of news to get to, and we begin with the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. Good to have you here.

TREASURY SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Morning, Margaret.

SEC. BESSENT: Mr. Secretary, a lot of people are out there holiday shopping. Here is how the President described back in April, what to expect from this season.

[SOT]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.

[END SOT]

MARGARET BRENNAN: Was the President’s prediction then, correct?

SEC. BESSENT: Margaret, it’s actually been a very strong holiday season, and the- you know, we’ve seen across all the income cohorts thus far. And so there’s nothing to say that there are two dolls instead of 30 dolls.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The President was wrong to predict lower numbers of purchases and higher prices?

SEC. BESSENT: The economy has been better than we thought. We’ve had the 4- 4% GDP growth in a couple of quarters. We’re going to finish the year, despite the Schumer shutdown, with 3% real GDP growth.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the maker of Tonka Trucks, their CEO, said it’s going to cost 40 bucks for their toys right now because of tariffs and inflation, it was 30 bucks the year before that, 25. Prices in the toy space are accelerating, and people are feeling that.

SEC. BESSENT: Well, Margaret inflation is a composite number, and it’s roughly the same year over year. And if we were to look at all imported goods, imported goods inflation is below the inflation number.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The inflation number, you mean the–

SEC. BESSENT: The PC- the PCE number which is about 2.9%. Imported goods inflation is about 1.8. It’s the service economy that’s generating inflation, which actually has nothing to do with tariffs.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But when we hear from for example, the President, when he says that affordability is a con job by Democrats, that seems to just not be resonating with consumers that have been polled by CBS. 60% of Americans polled by this network told us President Trump makes prices and inflation sound better than they really are, and his approval rating in the economy is now down to 36% in our latest poll. On inflation, approval is even lower, 32%. Don’t you need to show that you feel the pain?

SEC. BESSENT: Well, Margaret, I think the President’s frustrated by the media coverage of what’s going on–

MARGARET BRENNAN: This is the polling of average Americans.

SEC. BESSENT: –No, no- yeah, but I think the average Americans, they are hearing a lot from media coverage. And I will tell you that affordability has two components, there is inflation, and then there is real incomes. Real incomes are up about 1% and what we’re not going to do is say that Americans don’t know what they’re feeling. We’ve been working on it every day. I was on your show on March talking about affordability. The- we’ve made a lot of gains, but remember, we’ve got this embedded inflation from the Biden years, where mainstream media, whether it’s Greg Ip at the Wall Street Journal, toxic Paul Krugman at New York Times or former Vice Chair, Alan Blinder, all said it was a vibecession. The American people don’t know how good they have it. Now, Democrats created scarcity, whether it was in energy or over regulation, that we are now seeing the- this. affordability problem, and I think next year we’re going to move on to prosperity.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You do think there is an affordability problem?

SEC. BESSENT: Sorry?

MARGARET BRENNAN: You do believe there’s an affordability problem?

SEC. BESSENT: Oh, I think the Biden administration created a terr–

MARGARET BRENNAN: No, but now we’re nearly 12 months in, you said the President would own the economy at this point.

SEC. BESSENT: I said that the Biden administration created the worst inflation in 50 years, and maybe for working Americans, the worst inflation of all time. And we have pulled that number down- that Strategas research does something called the common man index. Under Biden, the accumulated inflation number, as measured by CPI, was about 20%. Their index showed 35. This year for the first time, the common man index is below the inflation index because the basket of goods for working Americans, food, gasoline, rent is coming down. So I wrote an essay March 12, 2024, and it talked about the three I’s, immigration, interest rates and inflation. Immigrant- mass, unfettered immigration, depressed wages caused housing prices to go up. President has closed the border that is fixed. Interest rates have come down. The bond market just had the best year since 2020 and now we are working on inflation, and I expect inflation to roll down strongly next year.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I mean, grocery prices are up nearly 3% compared to last September. The President seems to be acknowledging that grocery prices, or at least beef prices, are a challenge, because he put out this order just yesterday saying they’re going to investigate corporate price gouging for high beef prices. Isn’t suing the food companies the same thing the Biden administration did, and it didn’t really work? How is this any different?

SEC. BESSENT: Well, nothing- nothing the Biden administration did worked–

MARGARET BRENNAN: So why are you doing it?

SEC. BESSENT: Because this isn’t the same thing. If they- if they had done this, if they’d done it properly, we’d be in a different spot. And like, beef is one component. Thanksgiving Turkey was down 16%.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I know you are working on the trade front, and for American farmers and the prices that they are experiencing, that they’re feeling a pinch about not having a market to sell into, necessarily.

SEC. BESSENT: Not- not anymore.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the agricultural Secretary just said that the President is going to announce a bridge payment for farmers this week to give them short term relief while you’re working on these- finalizing these trade packages. There are these low crop prices, and the soybeans in particular, I know you spoke with China’s Vice Premier Friday. Are they going to speed purchasing up?

SEC. BESSENT: Well, they’re not going to speed purchasing up. They’re in the cadence that we agreed to. Soybean prices are up about 12 or 15% since the agreement with the Chinese. They are going to buy 12.5 million metric tons. But Margaret, I’m involved in the agricultural industry. I run a soybean farm, and I can tell you–

MARGARET BRENNAN: You own one, you invest in it.

SE. BESSENT: Sorry?

MARGARET BRENNAN: You own or invest in–

SEC. BESSENT: –People in my family go out and work on it. I actually just divested it this week as part of the- my ethics agreement, so I’m out of that business. But I probably know more about any Treasury Secretary than- about agriculture since the 1800s and I can tell you that what farmers need is certainty, and we have put that in place with this trade deal. 12 and a half million metric tons this year, 25 million metric tons for the next three years, for soybeans, also sorghum, the- and lumber.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So those purchases, just to clarify, those will be this year, because I heard you say this past week that some of the purchases wouldn’t take place until February.

SEC. BESSENT: Well, for the- for the season, so the crop year.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The season year?

SEC. BESSENT: Yep.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. But why- if everything’s fine, then why do farmers need a bridge payment from the Agricultural Department?

SEC. BESSENT: Sorry?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why would farmers need a bridge payment from the Agriculture Department, then?

SEC. BESSENT: Because these prices haven’t come in, because the Chinese actually used our soybean farmers as pawns in the trade negotiations. And we are going to create this bridge because, again, agriculture is all about the future. You’ve got to start financing for planning next year when things will be very good.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about something that was announced this past week, the Trump accounts, and building on this concept so parents, as I understand, are going to be able to open these accounts via the Treasury for their kids, their tax deferred investment vehicles to U.S. citizen children under 18, get $1,000 from the government for babies born between 2025 and 2028. So there are going to be restrictions on what the money can be used for college tuition or their first house, is that right?

SEC. BESSENT: No, it is- the federal government for children born in the period you just described, is going to put $1,000 into these Trump accounts, it will be invested in a widely diversified, low cost index, and then it will be available–

MARGARET BRENNAN: In the stock market, in an exchange traded fund or mutual fund.

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: So in essence, it is a trust fund. It is a piece of the American economy for every child, and they will be able to take it out when they’re 18, or they can convert it to a more IRA-type program and keep it for their retirement.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So there won’t be the restrictions I mentioned there about how they use the money?

SEC. BESSENT: No.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, so there was also a broadening of this- this past week, with the Dell Foundation making a significant investment in the American children. So how is this going to work? Why structure it this way, instead of a savings account, for example?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, a savings account just gets interest. This is the compounding power of the stock market. As Warren Buffett says, don’t- don’t bet against the American stock market, don’t bet against the economy. And this is going to bring a whole group of new investors into the market. We’re going to couple it with a big amount of financial literacy, so that children understand what they own. The incredible gift by Michael and Susan Dell will be the- is a program that philanthropists’ foundations can do to top up these accounts. And we are expecting, we’re already at- Treasury is already in discussions with foundations, with major philanthropists to top up these accounts. It could either be for all children, or you can specify it by zip code, a school district, or you can do what the Dells did, and say that it will be- won’t apply to the zip codes of the top 20% of earners.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And more information is going to be coming out on how to use this and access it?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Yes, in the coming weeks, we’ll do that, and then the official kickoff will be July 5.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, I want to ask you about this massive fraud out in Minnesota, and the state welfare program has been under federal investigation since all the way back in 2022. The President told you, though, this week, to look into Somalis who, quote, ripped off that state for billions of dollars. He said they contribute nothing. What exactly are you investigating?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, Margaret, to be clear, the initial fraud that was discovered by the IRS for which I’m the Acting Commissioner- is discovered by IRS Criminal Investigations Unit. This was not an endogenous thing that the state of Minnesota decided. We had to go in and clean up the mess for them, and this is part of the continued cleanup. A lot of money has been transferred the- from the individuals who committed this fraud, including those who donated to the government- Governor, donated to Representative Omar and donated to AG Ellison, but they’ve been transferred to something called MBs–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mortgage backed securities, what–?

SEC. BESSENT: Sorry?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Transferred to what?

SEC. BESSENT: These are money- the- bureau services, and they are wire transfer organizations that are outside the regulated banking system, and that money has gone overseas, and we are tracking that- the- both to the Middle East and Somalia to see what the uses of that have been.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, but you have no evidence of that money being used to fuel terrorism, which is what some conservative writers are alleging?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: That’s why it’s an investigation. We started it last week. We’ll see where it goes. But I can tell you that, you know, it’s terrible. You know, Representative Omar tried to downplay it. Said, oh, it was very- the- it was very tough to know how this money should- should be used. She was gaslighting the American people.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we’ll talk to her.

SEC. BESSENT: Yeah. But, you know, when you come to this country, you got to learn which side of the road to drive on. You got to learn to stop at stop signs, and you got to learn the- not to defraud the American people.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, there are plenty of- plenty of criminal behavior from communities well beyond the immigrant community, but we’ll talk about this with Representative Omar shortly. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. BESSENT: Good.

[End Transcript]

USTR Jamieson Greer Outlines U.S. Trade Strategy, Free Trade Agreements and Trade Policy


Posted originally on CTH on December 6, 2025 | Sundance | 

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is questioned about the Trump administration strategy or lack thereof. “Yes, there’s a strategy,” Greer says in this new interview. “First of all, you don’t change 70 years of trade policy overnight. And second of all, when some people say, ‘Oh, well, this is chaos. What’s your strategy?’, what they really want to know is can we go back to how it was before? And that’s not going to happen.”

The interview is in an audio file presented by Politico and shared below. This is some really good information on the various free trade agreements and the regions represented by some of our largest trade partners. Well worth listening to as you go about your day and travels today. Embed below:

USTR Greer notes how the tariffs are being used, the upcoming Supreme Court decision, the need for congress to codify the tariff regime in legislation and the various regional strategies for the deployment of countervailing duties.

CNN Reports J6 Pipe Bomb Suspect as Trump Supporter Angered by Stolen Election


Posted originally on CTH on December 6, 2025 | Sundance

You know a deep state cover-story operation is underway when Natasha Bertrand and Evan Perez are pushing the narrative.

The narrative is laughable, claiming the 30-year-old black North Virgina resident, working for a bail bond company that supports illegal aliens, whose father previously sued the Trump administration and claims racism against their company opposition, is a Trump supporter.

Alas, that’s the story -according to FBI people familiar with the matter- and CNN are sticking to it.

(VIA CNN) – During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter told CNN. (read more)

If you are to believe this narrative and simultaneously overlay the indictment evidence, the pipe bomber had remarkable predictive abilities in purchasing the explosive components for his devices before the 2020 election took place.  Somehow, according to CNN, Brian Cole Jr knew the 2020 election would be “stolen” and was prepared for the outcome.

Ridiculous, all of it.

Meanwhile, Brian Cole Jr’s grandmother, Loretta, tells an entirely different story.

(Via Daily Mail) – […] ‘He’s not politically affiliated with anything,’ the grandmother told the Daily Mail during an interview at her home in Gainesville, Virginia. ‘He has no social media contacts. He’s never online going back and forth with politics or anything like that. He says he don’t like either party.

‘He’s borderline autistic,’ she added. ‘He’s slow. He may be 30, but he’s got the mind of a 16-year-old. That’s why we’re thinking – What the hell? What’s going on?’

[…] ‘We’re terrified,’ she said. ‘They say they’ve got all this evidence. Whatever happened, we’ve still got to fight it. We have to figure out what to do.’

She said she had no idea her grandson may have been gathering parts for months to build the bombs from area businesses, stored them in the home, then allegedly tried to carry out a terrorist attack.

Cole was charged with laying explosives outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters, which did not detonate.

She said she doesn’t believe the charges.

‘This young man is very calm and quiet,’ she said. ‘He just stays to himself. Nobody bothers him because he doesn’t bother anybody.

‘He doesn’t have a girlfriend,’ she added. ‘That’s how slow he is. He’s just off in a little world on his own. He stays downstairs and he used to be with his dog all the time.’

‘That’s why everything is so messed up with us because he’s a good kid,’ she said. ‘If you knew him, you would say that he couldn’t have done it.’

‘And if he did, it was just him trying to prove a point or whatever,’ she continued. ‘He probably doesn’t even know the magnitude of what he’s done, if he did it.’

‘He’s a data entry clerk in the office and answers the phones,’ she said. ‘He’s right in the reception area up front. We have a business, so we have to put him to work. And he understands that. He’s good with data entry.’

‘All I can tell you is I love my grandson,’ she said. ‘He’s not a bad kid and he’s not affiliated with any gangs or anything like that. He’s not a political anarchist, or whatever they’re calling him. People could pull unnamed sources out of the sky. I don’t believe that. I don’t know.’ (read more)

I personally am not ascribing operational motive (or outcome) to the intents of either Kash Patel or Dan Bongino because as I have said from the outset of their selection, neither of these two men have the intellectual or discernment skillset needed to confront the corrupt institutional intent of the FBI as an organization.

Both Dan and Kash have easily identifiable ‘attack vectors’ which can be exploited by those skilled in the dark arts of manipulation.  Kash’s open weakness is his ego and lust for lifestyle, Bongino’s open emotional weakness is his need to be cherished and appreciated.  Both mindsets are easily influenced by those who know how to do such things.

Was/is Brian Cole Jr a patsy or was he a secretly hiding from his family a high functioning intellectual skillset capable of strategic thinking, foresight and developing covert plans.  Something just doesn’t add up.

The media’s need to ascribe a pro-Trump spin to the motives and intents is typical of their fake news status, pumping toxic fuel into the minds of those who genuinely believe some form of credibility in DC reporting still exists.  When CNN pushes a narrative the domestic Intelligence Community is generally behind it.

♦ The overall FBI angle is EXTREMELY SKETCHY (noted in Fox video below) as the “new FBI” investigative unit simply used Brian Cole’s cell phone and geolocation as part of the evidence against him.  This cell phone geolocation and ID are exactly what all of the J6 pipe bomb researchers have been shouting about for five years.

For five years the FBI couldn’t exploit the cell phone use for identification, then suddenly they were able to exploit the cell phone use for identification.  Something doesn’t add up here and is really hinky, despite Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino claiming the FBI’s investigative efforts were excellent.

European Union Fines X (Twitter) $140 Million for Violations of Europe’s Digital Services Act


Posted originally on CTH on December 5, 2025 | Sundance 

The European Union has fined the X social media platform (formerly Twitter), owned by Elon Musk and his investment group, $140 million (usd) for violations of the EU Digital Services Act.  The decision by the EU is likely to create even more friction between President Trump and the European Union.  However, this problem is not difficult to solve.

The collective government within the EU accuse Elon Musk and X of permitting misinformation, disinformation and malinformation to appear on the platform.

The European DSA is ultimately designed to control information, that reality should not be debated. All efforts to control traditional and social media are efforts to control information.

The specifics of the reasoning for the fine are typically European.  (1) Twitter allows ordinary people to deliver information at the same level as people who should be defined as more important.  (2)  Advertisers of those who pay for promotion of information on X are not easily identifiable – people need to figure it out on their own.  (3)  It is too difficult to figure out who is providing the information.

Basically, all of the EU concerns center around information control.  It’s really an ideology issue.  In the outlook of the EU, bureaucrats and elites feel they are superior and must rule/protect the people under them.  Ordinary people having access to information that may or may not be approved by the EU is the underlying issue.

EUROPE – […] Before Musk acquired X, when it was previously known as Twitter, the checkmarks mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians and other influential accounts, such as Beyonce, Pope Francis, writer Neil Gaiman and rapper Lil Nas X.

After he bought it in 2022, the site started issuing the badges to anyone who wanted to pay $8 per month.

That means X does not meaningfully verify who’s behind the account, “making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with,” the Commission said in its announcement.

X also fell short of the transparency requirements for its ad database, regulators said.

Platforms in the EU are required to provide a database of all the digital advertisements they have carried, with details such as who paid for them and the intended audience, to help researches detect scams, fake ads and coordinated influence campaigns. But X’s database, the Commission said, is undermined by design features and access barriers such as “excessive delays in processing.”

Regulators also said X also puts up “unnecessary barriers” for researchers trying to access public data, which stymies research into systemic risks that European users face.

“Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU. The DSA protects users,” Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a prepared statement. (more)

Stopping this nonsense is not complicated.

Attach a $1,000 free speech support fee to every European automobile sold in the USA.

Their pontificating ideology is less important than their need for money.

DHS Secretary Kirsti Noem Supports Full Travel Ban on All Countries Sending ‘killers, leeches and entitlement junkies’


Posted originally on CTH on December 2, 2025 | Sundance

Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem endorses plans for a ‘full travel ban’ on countries that are sending ‘killers, leeches and entitlement junkies’ to the United States after a meeting with President Donald Trump.

[SOURCE]

There is no haystack, it’s all needles.

Noem’s announcement comes after President Trump announced a halt to all immigration from Afghanistan, including decisions on refugee status in the wake of the terrorist attack in the nation’s capital last Wednesday.

President Trump has also vowed to ‘permanently pause migration’ from all Third World countries and has announced that immigrants who hail from 19 countries covered by his travel ban will have their cases re-examined.  The countries include Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Haiti, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Venezuela among others.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio affirmed, “the Trump Administration will protect our people and preserve our national identity.”

Federal Judge Dismisses Cases Against James Comey and Letitia James


Posted originally on CTH on November 24, 2025 | Sundance 

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie has dismissed the cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, under the grounds that U.S Attorney Lindsey Halligan was illegally appointed to the role of prosecutor when she secured the grand jury indictments. [SEE RULING HERE]

James Comey was charged with lying to and obstructing Congress, relating to his 2020 Senate testimony about the FBI’s investigation into President Trump and Russia. Letitia James was charged with bank fraud and making false statements.

WASHINGTON – […] U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie concluded that Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia violated laws that limit the ability of the Justice Department to install top prosecutors without Senate confirmation.

“Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025,” Currie concluded in opinions simultaneously filed Monday in both cases. “All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment … constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside.”

However, Currie dismissed the cases “without prejudice.” That could allow prosecutors to attempt to obtain new grand jury indictments in each case. But Comey’s attorneys have already indicated that they will argue that he cannot be re-indicted because the statute of limitations in his case expired on Sept. 30. And Currie agreed that the deadline had passed without a valid indictment. (more)

President Trump Furious About Democrats Proudly Calling for Military and Intelligence Rebellion Against Trump Administration


Posted originally on CTH on November 20, 2025 | Sundance

President Trump: – “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET. President DJT”

First Backfire – Former Clinton/Obama Official Goes into Hiding After Exposure of Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein


Posted originally on CTH on November 18, 2025 | Sundance 

Emails released as part of the legislative effort to deliver sunlight onto the creepy network of Epstein, now shows Larry Summers as one of Jeffrey Epstein’s affiliates. Emails show Epstein was one of Summer’s “wingmen” as the Harvard alumni chased a romantic relationship with the daughter of a senior Chinese Communist Party officials.

Harvard Crimson – […] “In a sequence of texts and emails between November 2018 and July 5, 2019, Summers turned to Epstein for advice on his pursuit of the woman. Epstein was quick to chime in with assurance and suggestions, describing himself in one November 2018 message as Summers’ “wing man.”

The messages became public after House Republicans released more than 20,000 files from the Epstein estate on Wednesday. Summers’ correspondence with Epstein, a financier who pled guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, ends just one day before Epstein was arrested on new sex trafficking charges.

Together, the messages show Summers — who served as Treasury Secretary under former United States President Bill Clinton — placing an extraordinary degree of trust in Epstein, asking him for help in navigating a relationship that blurred the boundaries of his professional and personal lives.

Summers, who has been married since 2005, told Epstein he thought the woman was reluctant to leave him because she valued his professional connections. Epstein told him in one June 2019 text, “She is doomed to be with you.” (read more)

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers said on Monday evening, adding “I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”

VIA POLITICO – The statement leaves question marks hanging over the fate of several positions Summers occupies, which include a board seat at OpenAI, a tenured position at Harvard, an unpaid nonresident fellow position at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank and a paid contributor role at Bloomberg News. A Summers spokesperson declined to answer a direct question about those roles.

The 2025 MAGA Fracture and the Benefactors Behind It


Posted originally on CTH on November 15, 2025 | Sundance

BUMPED: Today is a travel day; however, I see the efforts to divide the MAGA base are in full swing.  So, I remind everyone to be prudent in your discernment of who is antagonizing, what topics and processes they are using and ultimately who benefits from it.  Don’t take the bait – Remember, “there are trillions at stake!”  

On March 3rd through March 6th 2016, the Republican presidential primary was at the precipice of a key inflection point (Super Tuesday) when a large group of political leadership, tech titans, bankers and political influence agents assembled at the AEI summit in Sea Island, Georgia.

Citation Here – Citation Here and Citation HERE (w/itinerary details)

In the decade that passed, you have seen me reference this Sea Island group frequently, because the origin of where we are today can only be understood if you followed the outcome of that 2016 Sea Island meeting and the decade of activity therein.

In 2016 the agenda of the group, though they gently denied it at the time, was to figure out a way to remove the disruption Donald Trump represented from the business model of DC politics.  The Sea Island confab discussed how to stop him, or at the very least manage the potential damage he could deliver to the system – specifically, to the Republican wing of the UniParty apparatus.

Here in 2025, we are currently witnessing an outcome of activity from essentially the same group. For this phase, the intention is to fracture the baseline of support that underpins President Trump’s movement; what is reasonably called MAGA and the America-First movement.

What follows below is a review that might help people understand what exactly is behind the various pressure narratives we see being introduced into this narrative operation.   The attacks against Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, various iterations of Qatar vs Israel as espoused by voices like Mark Levin, the claims of antisemitism shouted against any voice that doesn’t put the interests of the Israeli government at the forefront, and the various alignments therein.

In the biggest picture, this is not a battle against individual voices, but rather the positioning of interests to maintain the same objective that was discussed in the aforementioned Sea Island confab.

A few points are needed for context as this discussion enlarges.  First, I am only 80% finished with the year-long tracking of the participants; however, due to the severity of the issue and the urgency therein, this is one of the few times I will outline something that is not yet fully developed.

Second, this is not the first rodeo for this activity.  After the Tea Party rose in 2010, we saw this same institutional response from almost identical participants to control the threat of a leaderless organic grassroots movement.  President Obama, the DNC/RNC and the Republican power apparatus all opposed the Tea Party, as they do MAGA for exactly the same reason.

The need for control is a reaction to fear.

You might remember supporters of the various patriot or Tea Party grassroots organizations being targeted by the Obama DOJ and IRS. Simultaneously John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell labeled Tea Party supporters as political jihadists, extremists and hobbits.  The targeting operations to isolate, ridicule and marginalize the movement was both a DNC and an RNC operation.

Republicans and Democrats worked together to eliminate the Tea Party, and Republicans were more than willing to lose elections to stop Tea Party supported candidates from winning.  This is important to remember, because that type of activity both evidences the UniParty apparatus and the opposition to the modern iteration of the Tea Party in the larger MAGA voting base.  In short, the DC professional political apparatus hates all versions of the same uncontrollable electorate regardless of label.

When they departed Sea Island, eventually the professional Republicans (GOPe) ended up settling on supporting Hillary Clinton, because Donald Trump could not be defeated within the confines of the party apparatus and became the presumptive nominee.   The tech group from Sea Island was already part of the Hillary Clinton alignment, and the “political influence agents” also saw Hillary as the comfortable, predictable and non-disruptive candidate. The key underpinning all of them was “anyone but Trump.”

Hillary then walked toward November with party Democrats, party Republicans, tech, Silicon Valley and the never-Trump conservatives.  However, Hillary encountered a major minus in the electorate when the Bernie Sanders group discovered the origin of the DNC control operation.  Hillary Clinton gained the party Republicans, but Hillary Clinton lost a lot of Bernie voters; many of them went to Trump.

[NOTE: It’s a little funny, but the five-year-long RNC -vs- TP/MAGA fight is essentially what we are now watching within the other wing of the UniParty, the DNC wing.  The grassroots left against the DNC professionals.  The “progressives” or “socialist democrats” are taking Democrat scalps the same way the grassroots right took down Republicans.  The old guard Democrats are quitting.]

All of this is said to frame the context for 2025, and the objectives of the political influence agents to break up the MAGA movement into smaller digestible pieces.  The wedge issue is not accidentally Israel.

Israel has been selected as a wedge issue to divide MAGA, because Israel-First influencers viewed themselves in a vulnerable position.  This too needs context.

♦ QATAR.  All year long I have been watching the Qatar vs Israel battle surface on social media.  At first it was a very odd dynamic to watch, because it did not make sense.  Then a few things became more visible that made it evident why the U.S-Israel groups were concerned.

In the decade that preceded 2025, you cannot find too many examples of Qatar ever having a positive headline outside the praise from Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  While Obama had always embraced Qatar (ex. bank for the Muslim Brotherhood), it was Joe Biden who labeled Qatar a major non-NATO ally.  The Obama/Biden administration liked Qatar, the first Trump administration not so much.

Prior to 2025, Qatar had a history of bad influence operations, where “bad” is defined as them doing really bad things; like funding radical Islamic extremists (creating the Arab Spring), giving safe haven to the exiled Islamist Egyptian leadership, financing Al-Jazeera, shipping covert CIA/State Dept weapons to the al-Qaeda operatives in Libya and Syria, being the bankers for Iranian money, supporting Hamas leadership, etc.

In the first Trump term, President Trump confronted Qatar and told the Gulf Cooperation Council (Egypt, Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia) to maintain pressure on Qatar. So, it was quite a reversal to see the second Trump term reverse course entirely and begin praising Qatar.  However, if you think about the issue of the Israeli war in Gaza, and how that changed the landscape, things begin to take on a new context.

This new 2025 positive-Qatar vibe created anxiety for the pro-Israel elements inside the USA.  It wasn’t a matter of direct policy that seemed to unnerve them, but rather a change in influence priority.  Influence is a tenuous game of position.

In early 2025, Israel-first voices started to seem visibly worried their White House influence operation may be diminished by a positive Trump message toward Qatar.  In my opinion, that influence fear was actually substantive, and yet part of an intentional Trump foreign policy agenda; akin to a soft brushback pitch against the U.S-Israel influence shop who had become very comfortable taking their Trump influence for granted.

Friendly messaging toward Qatar’s influence shop was viewed by U.S-Israeli voices as a betrayal. However, given the nature of the Trump transition team having former lobbyists for Qatar, the friendly messaging was understandable; however, x2, that set of facts didn’t make it palatable for the Israeli coalition. Ergo, an influence battle began very early in the Trump administration, and the internecine Qatar vs Israel issue was visible to those of us who watch things closely.

Keep in mind, historically within the GOPe apparatus, this was a lucrative financial tug-of-influence game. The neocon/intelligence wing (Bolton/McCain) had one foot in pro-Qatar and one foot in pro-Israel, with ¹both sides funding for influence and delivering affluence.  So much so that their interests from a USA viewpoint were virtually indistinguishable, see Libya.  Additionally, behind this financial set of motives, this confab of influence beneficiaries was/is the core of that Sea Island meeting.

[¹President Obama played this dynamic brilliantly to the benefit of his Muslim Brotherhood allies.]

♦ THE RACE – At this point in the analysis, it is worthwhile dropping the traditional viewpoint of U.S. politicians as “candidates” and start thinking about them in the more accurate term as “horses.”  The horses race in the Kentucky Derby, but it is the owners who win the prize money.

When you view U.S. politicians as horses in the various races, we start to think more clearly about who their owners are. This is the key to understanding U.S political candidates.

You might be able to remember the name of the horse who won the Triple Crown, you might even remember the jockey who rode the horse, but less likely you remember who owned it.  In U.S. politics, it’s the owners within the political races who control the horses not the horses who control the owners.

Donald J. Trump represented a serious threat to this dynamic.  Trump is a horse who is also his owner; this is a major disruption in political sport.

The owners assembled in Sea Island, March 2016, to discuss this disruption.

By the time we get to 2020, the ‘anyone but Trump’ theme was clearly at play.  The Intelligence Community assisted, Big Tech assisted, corporate media assisted, our ever-predictable Republicans were once again purposefully and willfully blind, and with mail-in ballots all the rage, Trump was all alone against the entire apparatus with only voters trying to offset the American political control operation.   In the aftermath of the ridiculous outcome, all of the participants circled the wagons, and Nancy Pelosi provided the literal fence.

In 2021, the Big Tech sub-segment of the Sea Island confab then went full combat against MAGA elements, banning, deplatforming, demonetizing and removing any countervailing voices.  Meanwhile, anyone associated with Trump was targeted by the collaborating government mechanisms, DOJ/FBI and the media once again ran cover.

In the 2023 version of ‘anyone but Trump,’ 43 billionaires together with an assist from Sea Island attendee, Elon Musk, tried to launch Ron DeSantis as a MAGA alternative.  However, the Tea Party-hardened MAGA voters looked at their scars, and when they saw the $100 bill on a fishing line being dragged through the MAGA community, they refused to chase it.

By then, the 2016 Cruz Crew had switched to 2024 Alligator emojis, but even the “Evangelicals” with unlimited funding couldn’t fuel the DeSantis starship.

The Ron launch was as wobbly as DeSantis’ head during speaking engagements; and Casey wearing Melania’s heels, Duck Dynasty skinny pants and Sarah Palin’s ‘Grizzly Mama’ T-shirt couldn’t compensate.

What a hot mess.

The MAGA alternative was as structurally inauthentic as Ron’s boots, even with the lifts.

Hey, be thankful.  No one has ever accused the Republican consultant class of accurately assessing the political landscape around them.

Their inauthenticity is what helps us to know who they are.  It’s a net positive.

I would make the argument that if Ron’s owners had somehow pulled it off, Biden would have been yanked fast and replaced with Newsom, and we’d be looking at the “future in hindsight” right now.

♦ 2025 – That Sea Island crew doesn’t quit.  The “anyone but Trump” operation is back in full swing despite the 2024 victory message.

Step #1 in the control process is to lose the 2026 election and put the Republican wing of the uniparty bird back into the minority.  Again, this isolates our people’s president.

However, they can’t just lose 2026 and call it a day.  They still need to manage the problem that President Trump represents for another three years.  There are Trump policies to undermine, Trump executive orders to let sit non-legislatively supported, and all of this inaction must take place while Trump supporters are distracted with maximum shiny things.

This is where the “political influencers” come into play as mercenaries and advanced operative messengers for a very useful dynamic to emphasize – the operation that began as Qatar vs Israel.

Tucker Carlson representing the face of JD Vance’s support network becomes a target for Mark Levin et al.  Candace Owens is labeled as the female face of Nick Fuentes, who, for some odd reason, is being algorithmically boosted by the same tech platforms that banned his account as an identified racist, extremist and antisemitic content producer.

This Fuentes boosting, again not coincidentally by the same elements who attended that 2016 Sea Island confab including Google, began in July 2025, about a month prior to TPUSA head Charlie Kirk telling his pro-Israel friends (billionaire Bill Ackman) that the content messaging on behalf of the Netanyahu government was backfiring amid Gen-Z.  To wit, Netanyahu said, ‘not to worry’ my good friends of Israel, Larry Ellison and David Ellison, have things under control with TikTok, Twitter and Paramount. CBS’s Bari Weiss announced shortly thereafter.

While the inside White House influence game continues, all of these various 2025 interests again find their origin in Sea Island, Georgia, at the March 2016 AEI conference.  Remember, think “owners” not “horses.”

♦ HORSES:

• Vice President JD Vance – Heir apparent to the MAGA endorsement of President Donald Trump.  Groomed from the stable of billionaire influence agent and one time (no more) friend of President Trump, Peter Thiel.  A more libertarian co-founder of Palantir, a skyrocketing AI software platform creator with billions in new federal contracts and likely more to come.  Palantir CEO Alex Karp, a key industrialist applying the very best of AI creator systems to the merging targeting and identity tracking technology of the future.

Without Peter Thiel, there is no Senator JD Vance in 2022.  Without Senator JD Vance there is no VP nominee in 2024.  Oh, and despite their stealth separating in 2017, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel remain BFF influencers in 2025.  And without Larry Ellison in 2022, there is no liquidity Musk to capture the Twitter Platform, which not coincidentally became a launch vehicle for the Ron effort shortly after Ellison said he would not allow Musk to fail.

So, where does that put JD Vance’s collar?  Who knows? We’ll keep watching as Mr Ellison, having successfully moved beyond the X operation, now moves to the TikTok/Paramount phase while simultaneously owning the Oracle system operation that X utilizes.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio – For the first time in his political career, Marco is in a position where he is not directly accountable to voters.  Having risen through the Florida legislature, state house and on to a federal Senate seat representing Florida, for the first time Rubio is applying himself without any election worries.  His constituent base consists of President Trump.

Rubio is seemingly giving the appearance of having turned Maverick, having fun poking back at his previous owners, while running amuck in the free-range of Trump’s well-manicured landscape.  Is Rubio required to return to a previously designated stable?  Again, who knows. It’s super fun to watch this new less groomed, yet well maintained, stallion running in the wild.  However, his pedigree is as trained as a Lipizzaner stallion. Will he tire of the free-range? We’ll keep watching.

• Governor Ron DeSantis – The one constant political hot mess in an ever-consistent GOPe playbook.

You might say that DeSantis could never stand a chance given his failure to launch in 2024.  However, do not underestimate the stupidity of the professional consultant class who have a way of convincing owners that horse can run.

Ron’s only problem is he needs very narrow blinders and can’t turn corners.  Other than that, he’s solid in the straights when all the obstacles are removed and the track is groomed specifically for his platformed shoes.

The issue for Sea Island, with DeSantis, is that despite his extremely managed exteriors, and despite the massive amount of money spent on the influence operations and appearances, only a specific type of Jockey can fit that little saddle.

[I mean someone had to tell Casey what to wear in Iowa the last time, and, well, think about it….  They both looked in the mirror that morning and thought, “Awesome – this will get em’.”  How’d that work out?]

SUMMARY:  Underneath all of what we are visibly seeing and witnessing, especially the outrage du-jour, is an underlying political background that consistently tries to control outcomes through various methods.  This effort to split the MAGA base, using Israel or (insert_next_thing_here) as a wedge issue within the America First movement – only benefits one larger apparatus, the Sea Island billionaire control system.

This billionaire control system, a public-private partnership, previously deconstructed and co-opted the Tea Party returning the system to status quo.

The billionaires in finance and tech are set; their influence operation only varies slightly depending on the challenge, because they know they can purchase every horse in the race, and they are working earnestly through various iterations of the same owner playbook, with the end goal the same – control.

Just reject it.

Live your best life, and pray.

Democrats Delete False Claim of Trump Spending Thanksgiving with Epstein – Trump Announces Request for DOJ to Review Epstein Relationship With Democrats


Posted originally on CTH on November 14, 2025 | Sundance

Whenever an echo-chambering mob assembles, a frequent occurrence within the leftist tribe, often they cannot stop themselves from taking their ordinary crazy to new levels of insane nonsense.  The Democrat Party making a claim that Donald Trump spent Thanksgiving 2017 with Jeffrey Epstein is one of those cases.

Donald Trump was President Trump in November of 2017 and the entire press pool travels with him or sits in wait for his next move.  Dozens of journalists were with President Trump in November of 2017 when Donald and Melania Trump spent the day with the U.S. Coast Guard in Florida for the holiday.  Any quick reference check would discover this day’s events.

President Trump even did a video conference with ♦Army: 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan; ♦Marines: Direct Support Team Golf (2ndMarine Raider Battalion) in Iraq;  ♦Navy: The USS Monterey 5th Fleet at sea;  ♦Air Force: 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron in Incirlik Turkey; and ♦Coast Guard*: USCG Wrangell at Kuwait Navy Base, and held a press conference.  Then they went to the Florida Coast Guard for dinner.

The Democrat Party deleted their claim after people began laughing at their stupidity and ridiculing them.  However, President Trump turns the issue upon the DNC, and announces his request for the DOJ to investigate exactly who Jeffrey Epstein was associated with.

[SOURCE]