The search for a new secretary of defense is on, NPR reported
on Monday, as controversy surrounding the current secretary, Pete Hegseth, continues to mount.
Hegseth is bleeding staff, with former aides going on record
to say Hegseth’s leadership has led to “chaos” and “dysfunction” in the Pentagon.
And a new report on Sunday revealed that Hegseth was sharing classified intelligence
on future military attacks in a Signal chat with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer—who had neither the clearance nor the need to know about imminent military strikes. It’s the second known time Hegseth shared classified attack-planning information on an unsecured messaging app—the kind of behavior Hegseth himself has said should lead to prison time
.
Publicly, President Donald Trump is sticking by Hegseth.
“Ask the Houthis how much dysfunction there is. There’s none. Pete’s doing a great job. Everybody’s happy with him,” Trump said
at the White House Easter Egg Roll event, referring to the Iran-backed militant group that the military is still battling
.
Trump also repeated the ridiculous White House talking point that an apparent deep state within the Pentagon is conspiring against the former Fox News host.
“It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You know, he was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people, and that’s what he’s doing. So you don’t always have friends when you do that,” Trump added
.
But apparently, in the background, White House aides are starting the process of looking for Hegseth’s replacement less than 100 days into his tenure
.
Those who haven’t blacked out the first four years Trump was in office may remember that it was a trend for him to claim he had confidence in one of his Cabinet officials immediately before firing them. For example, Trump said he had confidence
in crackpot Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, only to fire him hours later.
Ultimately, polling shows voters want heads to roll over the Signal chats Hegseth was part of.
A Civiqs survey
conducted for Daily Kos found that 51% of registered voters think those responsible for sharing classified information in a Signal chat should be fired.
Democrats were already calling for Hegseth to resign. But now some Republicans are joining that bandwagon, with Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska—one of the most vulnerable GOP House members in the 2026 midterm elections—saying on Monday that Hegseth should step down
.
“He’s acting like he’s above the law—and that shows an amateur person,” Bacon told Politico.
It’s unclear whom Trump would replace Hegseth with.
But on Monday he was bragging about how he single-handedly brought religion back to America.
“It brings the country together. It’s so important that we can do that,” Trump told reporters at the newly corporate-sponsored White House Easter Egg Roll
. “Religion, I said bring religion back. Religion keeps you together. It’s such a great thing.”
The famously philandering
Trump, who reportedly discovered “his faith”
while watching Christian television, seems to be a work in progress. This Easter he apparently decided to skip church in favor of golfing
at his Sterling, Virginia, course and attacking his perceived enemies.
“Melania and I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter!” Trump wrote
on his Truth Social site Sunday morning. “Whether you are heading out to Church or, watching Service from home, may this day be full of Peace and Joy for all who celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. HE IS RISEN!!”
Instead of spending what is arguably the most important Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ, Trump and his henchman Musk spent time waving to other wealthy patrons of the president’s 800-acre private golf club
.
“What would Jesus do?” is a common refrain
among faithful Christians. It’s safe to say that golfing with Musk, who Trump proudly introduced
as “the world’s richest man,” would likely rank very low on the Lamb of God’s list of priorities.
But as evidenced by the chart below, golf remains one of Trump’s biggest priorities.
Stephen Miller, who serves as White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser for President Donald Trump, appeared on the right-wing Newsmax network on Friday and demanded that immigrants pay the United States “reparations.”
The wild demand came amid a rant about immigration that Miller delivered to host Rob Schmitt.
“For the love of God, where are the damages for Americans?” Miller yelled. “We used to have a functioning public school system in this country. Then we had open borders. Now our schools are in chaos and disarray. We need hundreds of translators. Nobody’s learning how to read or write.”
He then claimed cities like Los Angeles had “entire neighborhoods” that are “occupied and controlled by foreign gangs.”
“Where do all the residents that have been displaced, who have been forced out of Los Angeles—where do they go to get their reparations?” Miller asked.
Everything Miller asserted was false or a distortion of reality, and his shrill tone is how he always communicates
. The public school system continues to function—though the Trump administration is trying to dismantle
the Department of Education. And there have never been open borders to the U.S., and children continue to learn reading and writing. There are also no neighborhoods controlled by foreign gangs.
Reparatives have been discussed and debated
for years as people try to contend with the disadvantages caused by hundreds of years of racist policy like slavery, Jim Crow, and the like. And by invoking the idea, Miller is taking a serious issue and perverting it to serve the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant zealotry.
Despite the extreme worldview Miller espoused and the odd way he expressed it, he is not an outside figure. He is the principal architect
of Trump’s harsh immigration policies, reprising a role he served in during Trump’s first time in office.
The centrality of Miller was on full display during the April 14 meeting at the White House between Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. While discussing the case of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s detention in El Salvador, Trump called on Miller
to explain why his administration continues to resist efforts to return the father of two as Democrats have demanded.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia in an undated photo provided by CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization
Miller lied
and claimed the Supreme Court had sided with the administration in its ruling on the Abrego Garcia case. In reality, the court—even the conservative members—came down in favor of returning Abrego Garcia, which the administration has refused to do.
Democratic leaders have traveled to El Salvador, undermining the administration’s
argument that it is unable to secure Abrego Garcia’s release.
Miller is making absurdist arguments about reparations and lying on Trump’s behalf because that is the lane he has built for himself in politics.
From early in his political career, Miller has been entrenched in white supremacist politics. While working as an aide to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2015 and 2016, Miller regularly pushed white nationalist
talking points, ideas, and stories purportedly bolstering the case of white nationalism in emails to the far-right site Breitbart News.
Not only did Miller fill his emails with white supremacist talking points, but in a review of those emails, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted they were “unable to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.”
Miller continued his extremist work in the Trump administration, constructing
the family separation policy that took migrant children from their families. The operation opened up the United States to criticism from around the world on human rights abuses.
Trump’s immigration policies and strategies are as bigoted and xenophobic as they are because the man creating much of them is in lockstep with Trump’s zealotry, and translating that hateful bile into policies hurting thousands of families.
Donald Trump’s White House opened the door for sponsorships to slap their logos across the South Lawn’s festivities Monday, and big tech came calling. Tech giants
like Meta, Amazon, YouTube (owned by Google), and the New York Stock Exchange donated
anywhere from $75,000 to $200,000.
According to the administration
, the money raised by these billionaires will go to the White House Historical Association.
While this isn’t the first time the event has had some sort of sponsorship, it’s definitely the first time it’s been marketed to this degree. In the past, the White House has accepted private donations with minimal branding.
At the event, children posed in front of pastel-colored, logo-plastered photo backdrops. “Expand your world with Meta AI,” one reads. Another photo area, listed as Amazon’s “reading nook,” is a photo area for children and parents to sit on a couch in front of the Amazon and White House logo alongside emojis reading books.
“During my years as ethics czar in the White House, when my duties included overseeing these kinds of compliance issues … I never would have allowed this,” Norm Eisen, a longtime Trump critic who served as President Barack Obama’s special counsel for ethics and government reform, told Politico
.
Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and Elon Musk arrive at the 60th Presidential Inauguration that they helped pay for in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, on Jan. 20.
However, tech owners like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Google’s Sundar Pichai have more reasons than the spirit of “He is Risen” to donate six figures to a children’s event.
The three tech bros have taken big hits
to their wallet thanks to Trump’s “Liberation Day
” tactics, despite the president’s promise to omit tech companies from reciprocal tariffs. Given the convicted felon’s track record of acting out of spite, it doesn’t hurt to pony up.
As for the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Jeffrey Sprecher, who is married to Trump-appointed leader of the Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler, he also donated
$1 million to Trump’s inaugural campaign.
First lady Melania Trump reads a book to children during the White House Easter Egg Roll at the White House on April 21.
Speaking of big money, Melania Trump is finally coming out of the woodwork to show face on the South Lawn. The first lady has been virtually nonexistent at the White House since her husband’s inauguration, which seems like a great deal for her.
Given the company footing the bill for her big documentary
, Amazon Prime, is one of the sponsors for the Easter event, it only makes sense for her to put on a smile and “Be Best” for all of the children.
The first lady’s office also announced that the White House would be using real eggs in place of plastic eggs this year despite the insane rise of consumer prices of eggs.
“In addition to the classic Egg Roll and Egg Hunt—both featuring real, small- and medium-sized eggs donated by American egg farmers—guests will enjoy a wide array of entertaining activities thanks to the White House Historical Association and its partnerships,” Melania’s office said in a statement
to Politico.
Overall, the administration used approximately 30,000 eggs during the event Monday.
“Trump’s White House is using 30,000 real eggs worth over $15,500 for their Easter Egg Roll,” the DNC tweeted
in response to the choice. “Meanwhile, Americans dyed potatoes instead of eggs this Easter to save money.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly
had her bag stolen while dining at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., on Sunday night—and the items she was carrying around are raising some eyebrows.
According to Noem’s Secret Service detail, security camera footage revealed a masked man absconding with ICE Barbie’s
bag, raising an obvious question
: How did a petty thief get so close to a Cabinet-level official with a personal security team?
Law enforcement officials told CNN
that the stolen bag contained her driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, her passport, her Department of Homeland Security access badge, a makeup bag, blank checks, and around $3,000 in cash.
Wowsers.
Noem later told Newsweek
that she was carrying those wads of cash in order to “treat her family to dinner, activities, and Easter gifts.” How many chocolate bunnies was she planning on buying, exactly? And was she planning on flying those bunnies out of the country?
Critics were quick to note that the Trump administration cast suspicion on the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia
for many bogus reasons—including the fact that he was carrying $1,178 in cash
during a 2019 arrest that did not result in any charges. The Maryland man was detained in March, accused of being an MS-13 gang member, and sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison where he continues to be held while Democratic lawmakers fight for his release.
So brown man carrying a lot of cash = violent gang member, but white woman carrying more than double the amount = nothing to see here?
