A transgender woman who worked as a CIA intelligence briefer describes serving Mike Pence during Trump's first term, then facing potential retaliation when Trump returned to power in 2025 and immediately issued a policy denying recognition of transgender identities.

• The author briefed Vice President Pence nearly daily for a year, building a working relationship with someone whose political career opposed same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, yet Pence treated her professionally and later affirmed her identity.
• Trump's second-term inauguration included an immediate executive order declaring only two genders exist, creating direct professional jeopardy for the author despite her senior intelligence position.
• The author chose to stay in her White House role despite warnings from CIA leadership that she had a target on her back and should resign before the new administration took power.

Milo Yiannopoulos was deported by ICE after his former ally Laura Loomer claimed credit for turning him in, exposing how right-wing factions are now using government enforcement to settle internal disputes. The incident reveals a troubling pattern where influencers with access to Trump are weaponizing state power against their enemies.

• Loomer publicly boasted about siccing ICE on Milo over a visa overstay, suggesting she used her Trump connections to orchestrate the deportation as retaliation in a MAGA factional split
• Loomer previously met Trump in the Oval Office in April 2025 and urged NSC staff purges; at least three senior officials were fired the next day, establishing a track record of her influence over personnel decisions
• The article warns this pattern signals broader danger: as factions jockey for position in Trump succession planning, expect escalating doxxing, lawfare, and kompromat releases among allies-turned-enemies

The Trump administration overstated New York’s Medicaid personal care users as 5 million when the real figure is about 450,000, undermining its own fraud probe. CMS head Dr. Oz based a high-profile investigation on that incorrect data, drawing criticism from analysts and state officials even as the review continues.

• CMS/Dr. Oz overstated New York's Medicaid personal care users as ~5 million (74%) when the actual figure is about 450,000 (6-7%), a data error CMS blames on misapplied billing codes.
• Despite admitting the error, CMS is continuing its fraud investigation into New York, part of a broader probe targeting at least five states (including California, Florida, Maine, Minnesota) led by VP JD Vance's task force, which already froze $243 million in Minnesota Medicaid payments.
• Oz's claim that New York accepts "easily distracted" as a qualifying condition is contradicted by state regulators, who say September rules actually tightened eligibility screening and that phrase appears nowhere in them.
• Critics, including a disabled New Yorker who relies on paid aides, call Oz's comparison of aides to unpaid family helpers insulting and warn the administration's adversarial approach undermines genuine anti-fraud collaboration.

Jack Clark, Anthropic’s co-founder and head of public benefit, confirmed the company briefed the Trump administration on its withheld Mythos model due to its powerful cybersecurity capabilities. He downplayed the Pentagon’s “supply-chain risk” label while defending continued government engagement and also discussed AI’s potential impact on jobs and higher education.

• Anthropic confirmed it briefed the Trump administration on Mythos, an unreleased AI model withheld due to its powerful cybersecurity capabilities, and will keep briefing officials on future models.
• Trump officials reportedly pushed major banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley) to test Mythos, which Clark confirmed.
• Anthropic is simultaneously suing the DOD over a "supply-chain risk" label tied to a contract for mass surveillance/autonomous weapons work that OpenAI won, which Clark calls a narrow contracting dispute rather than a sign of broken government ties.
• Clark downplayed CEO Dario Amodei's warnings of Depression-era job losses from AI, citing only early signs of weak graduate employment in a few industries.