2 months ago
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PULSE POINTS:
❓ What Happened: Several members of President Donald J. Trump’s National Security Council (NSC) were fired on Thursday following a visit from independent investigative reporter Laura Loomer highlighting neocon infiltrators on the team.
👥 Who’s Involved: Laura Loomer pressed the administration to act, while a U.S. official and a source familiar confirmed the firings, with up to 10 NSC staffers, including senior directors, reportedly axed.
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📍 Where & When: The firings hit Washington, D.C., on April 3, 2025, one day after Loomer’s Oval Office visit on April 2, 2025.
💬 Key Quote: A U.S. official said Loomer was “furious that ‘neocons’ had slipped through the vetting process,” calling the firings a “bloodbath.”
⚠️ Impact: The shakeup signals Trump’s intent to root out establishment hawks.
IN FULL:
President Donald J. Trump’s National Security Council was rocked by a string of firings on Thursday, just 24 hours after conservative firebrand Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office. Sources say Loomer handed Trump “research and evidence” targeting “neocons” on the Council—holdovers from the Bush-era foreign policy establishment. By the next day, multiple NSC members, possibly as many as 10, including senior directors, were out the door.
A U.S. official said that Loomer was livid about “neocons slipping through” the administration’s vetting process, and while it’s not yet confirmed her visit directly sparked the purge, the timing indicates a possible connection. The source called it an “anti-neocon move,” while the official warned of an ongoing “bloodbath.” still unfolding.
The firings also follow “Signalgate,” which saw National Security Advisor Mike Waltz accidentally loop an anti-Trump journalist into a group chat about strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. However, no connection between the firings and this misstep has been established.
A 50-year-old man has been arrested after apparently attempting a suicide car bombing in the Netherlands on Thursday morning. The unnamed suspect’s car burst into flames in Amsterdam’s Dam Square, where a Ukrainian from the partially Russian-controlled Donetsk region carried out a mass stabbing last Thursday.
Video footage from the scene shows the suspect emerging from his blazing vehicle, on fire, and rolling on the ground in an attempt to put out the flames. Later video footage shows him shuffling around the square, still partly on fire, until law enforcement steps in and douses him with fire extinguishers.
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Police say they “suspect that the driver caused the fire himself,” but a motive for the possible attack is unknown or undisclosed as of the time of publication. He is described as a Dutch national, although his ethnic and religious background is unclear.
The authorities report no injuries to bystanders are known, although some eyewitnesses describe glass flying “into our necks” when the car’s windows blew out.
Last week, a Ukrainian named Roman D. carried out a mass stabbing in the same square, wounding five people, including a 67-year-old American woman and a 69-year-old American man, before he was detained by bystanders, including a British tourist who pinned him down until police arrived.
The Ukrainian reportedly had bogus papers for multiple false identities, and an investigation into his possibly terroristic motives is ongoing.
BREAKING:
Video of the moment the failed car bomb exploded at the main square in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
A car is on fire after a small explosion. The police believe it’s a deliberate attack.
It’s the same location where 5 people were stabbed a few days ago. pic.twitter.com/6xmudcjXE4
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 3, 2025
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A 50-year-old man has been arrested after apparently attempting a suicide car bombing in the Netherlands on Thursday morning. The unnamed suspect's car burst into flames in Amsterdam's Dam Square, where a Ukrainian from the partially Russian-controlled Donetsk region carried out a mass stabbing last Thursday. show more
PULSE POINTS:
❓What Happened: Christine Grady, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the wife of Anthony Fauci, was notified of a layoff amidst a restructuring at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
👥 Who’s Involved: Christine Grady, Anthony Fauci, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NIH officials including Clifford Lane and Emily Erbelding.
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📍 Where & When: The layoffs were announced on Tuesday; related locations include NIH and Indian Health Service field offices in Alaska, Montana, and Minnesota.
💬 Key Quote: An NIH official described Grady as “a good person with a major conflict of interest,” referring to ethical challenges faced during the suppression of the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis.
⚠️ Impact: The restructuring could mean significant changes in administration at NIH.
IN FULL:
Christine Grady, a prominent bioethicist and the wife of controversial former National Institutes of Health (NIH) official Anthony Fauci, is among several health officials who received layoff notifications on Tuesday, according to reports. This move comes as part of a post-pandemic restructuring effort by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
These layoffs aim to consolidate administrative roles and modify what has been perceived as an ineffective status quo in the U.S. health administration. Alongside Grady, Clifford Lane, deputy director of clinical research and special projects at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Emily Erbelding, director of the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, have also been dismissed.
Like her husband, Grady is controversial. In 2002, she co-authored a paper with him arguing for lower care standards for medical trial participants in the Third World. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in which her husband played a prominent role, she published a paper defending the ethics of corporations “pressuring employees to get vaccinated” and “embarrass[ing] vaccine resistors,” and pushed for children to be enrolled in vaccine trials.
An NIH official cited a potential conflict of interest involving Grady, stating her marriage to Fauci impacted the ability of NIH to address ethical issues openly, especially on critical episodes like the Wuhan lab leak—which he denied or minimized for years.
Anonymous comments by an NIH source revealed that Grady was caught in a “conflicted role” due to her personal ties. “One of the problems when the coverup was going on of the Wuhan lab leak, that whole fiasco, was that they were not listening to anyone giving ethics advice,” the source explained. “If they had had someone at the table with knowledge of this, they would have said: ‘Hey do you want to play it this way, or be more transparent?’… That’s something Christine Grady could have, or should have, done. She wasn’t able to do it because she was Fauci’s wife.”
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