News Vérité

When Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, political observers scrambled to find historical precedents for his unconventional executive style. But the answer may have been hiding in plain sight all along—not in presidential history, but in the owner’s box at Yankee Stadium. Donald Trump and former New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (“The Boss”) shared a well-documented relationship forged in 1970s Manhattan nightlife and sports culture. Trump frequently cited Steinbrenner as a mentor and close friend, drawing heavy inspiration from Steinbrenner’s public executive persona. The question isn’t whether Trump admired Steinbrenner’s approach—it’s whether he simply transplanted it wholesale from baseball operations to the executive branch of the United States government. Personalities: Larger-Than-Life Outer-Borough Titans Similarities Brash New York Personas: Both built dominant public identities centered on raw willpower, tough-guy aesthetics, and an obsession with winning. Their outer-borough roots (Trump from Queens, Steinbrenner from Cleveland but adopted by the Bronx) shaped a particular brand of aggressive, unapologetic ambition that became their calling card. Pop Culture Mainstays: Each crossed over from business into mainstream media—Steinbrenner became a recurring caricature on Seinfeld and hosted Saturday Night Live; Trump embraced reality television with The Apprentice and hosted SNL. Both understood that celebrity amplified power,

After news over the weekend that President Trump was stopping his planned bombing attack on Iran because a deal looked imminent, Iran held a press conference denying it was in any negotiations with the U.S. Trump even went so far as to announce that he had the “perimeters” of a deal with the Islamic Republic, when he clearly meant parameters. Iran is notorious for covering up what’s really going on, so we can choose to believe or dismiss their denial of talks. However, the sad truth is that our president is also quite comfortable with making stuff up to put a good spin on things. According to Trump, talks were to begin today. He announced yesterday: “Now, what we’re doing is talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon.” I haven’t read any news about Steve Witkoff or Jared Kushner catching flights to the Middle East to resume negotiations, so it’s anybody’s guess what he meant. Iran does admit to ongoing talks with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, but even in that case, I read a report last week saying that Iran had ended the talks because the two sides couldn’t come to an

The Reflecting Pool roosters came home to rest after Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., opted to drop charges against an alleged vandal who helped turn the pool’s water from blue to green. President Trump, who was the one who originally chalked up Reflecting Pool problems to vandals, is furious over Pirro’s action, which in effect lays blame for the pool’s problems on the contractors who rebuilt it. According to Pirro’s filing, the court concluded that the bottom of the Reflecting Pool had “[a]lmost immediately” begun peeling after the work was completed, because of “overspraying and a failure of the coatings to bond.” As a result of the filing, Olympian David “Davey” Hearn, the alleged vandal, will go free. Trump on Truth Social continued to push the vandalism narrative: “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area.” Trump’s pool politics reflect a recurring presidential pattern when confronted with events and

A cyberattack on U.S. water facilities this week has driven a federal watchdog agency to issue a warning about the safety of our water supply. Iran is believed to be the perpetrator — except in the eyes of Donald Trump, who says it was Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s fault. “I think Minnesota is behind it,” Trump told reporters Friday. “I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack.” Trump, of course, is the granddaddy of deny-and-deflect. Though Minnesota’s water system was hit hard, so were systems in Michigan and other states. In all, seven states are known to have been targeted so far. On the Iran War front in general, Trump is still adamantly refusing to admit that Russia and China are helping the Islamic Republic with missiles and technology, and with geomapping of U.S. forces. His fellow strongmen, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, he maintains, would never lie to him, and they swore to him that their policy is hands off in the Iranian conflict. Wanna buy the Brooklyn Bridge for $24, Mr. Trump? Anyway, on the water issue, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in the alert it issued that “[t]hese threat actors are targeting water entities