Fetterman Condemns Socialism In Surprise Video Message To GOP Convention
Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator made a surprise video appearance in Dallas on Wednesday night in front of a sea of Republicans at the GOP midterm convention.
In a short video message, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) condemned the rise of socialist politicians in the United States and welcomed his Republican counterpart, Sen. Dave McCormick, as the next speaker for the event.
“Yes, I’m a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I’m a common sense Democrat,” he told the crowd.
“I’m always going to stand with America. I’m always going to reject the extremes of socialism and that anti-American way of life.”
As Troy Myers reports for The Epoch Times, Fetterman has, for years, distanced himself from socialist policies promoted by people in his own party. His Wednesday appearance stoked further speculation that he may leave the party altogether. Democrats and Republicans are vying for the majority in Congress in the midterm elections on Nov. 3.
If the Democrats wish to achieve that, they will need to flip four seats in the Senate and hope that Fetterman doesn’t vote with Republicans or switch parties before he is up for reelection in 2028.
Fetterman described his close relationship – both professionally and personally – with McCormick, despite their being from opposite parties.
“Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done, and he’s going to fight for Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said. “I’m proud to count him as my friend.”
Standing in front of a Pennsylvania steel mill in his video, the Democratic senator reaffirmed his and McCormick’s combined goals in working together, along with President Donald Trump, to boost the steel industry in their state.
“That’s exactly the kind of thing that will work together and will work with President Trump to fight and defend: the steel way of life right here in the Steel Valley,” Fetterman said.
As the notoriously casually dressed senator has distanced himself from his fellow Democrats in Congress, he’s seen a boost in support from Republicans in his state.
In fact, a recent New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena University poll found that Fetterman has more support among Pennsylvania Republicans than McCormick does.
The rift between Fetterman and his Democratic colleagues from other states has widened in recent years over his support for Israel. The Pennsylvania senator has maintained a staunch support for the country since the horrific Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas.
He has said he will leave the Democratic party if it ever officially adopts an anti-Israel position.
“If they put that in our platform – no aid for Israel – and officially become the anti-Israel party, then yeah, that’s a red line for me,” Fetterman told NBC News July 16. “Democrats, we always should support Israel. That’s our special ally.”
On July 27, he specifically distanced himself from progressives and socialists in the party’s far-left wing.
“These people aren’t Democrats. That’s not a big tent situation,” he told reporters.
Fetterman has also repeatedly voted with Republicans on major issues such as rejecting a war powers resolution on July 23 and July 30 to end U.S. military operations in Iran. On this topic, he was the only Democrat to join the majority on the other side of the aisle.
Just inside the Turning Point USA Freedom Center in Phoenix, Arizona, there is a gold-framed painting, about three feet tall, glowing in a warm spotlight mounted on the wall.
Captured mid-throw is Charlie Kirk, lobbing red and white MAGA caps into a mass of ecstatic students, cheering against the brilliant-blue backdrop of a September afternoon.
His outstretched arm pulls taut the word “FREEDOM” across his white T-shirt. Rendered in commemorative brushstrokes: the moment Kirk’s “American Comeback Tour” arrived in Orem, Utah.
The same wall previously featured the faces of 36 Turning Point USA staffers who had showcased Kirk’s signature “grassroots humility,” “warrior spirit” and “persistent innovation.”
Kirk’s shocking absence continues to fill all six buildings at Turning Point headquarters.
His leather seat on the set of “The Charlie Kirk Show” sits permanently empty. On the glass table by his microphone rests a plush hand puppet and plastic moose positioned there by Kirk less than a month before he died so his two toddler-aged children would know he was thinking of them as they watched with their mother, Erika.
Most days, the children still come by to play. Team members help with childcare while Erika works from the office her husband once used; his chair, again, intentionally left vacant.
For a while, Kirk’s kids, now ages 4 and 2, got a new toy during every visit, chosen from a collection of gifts sent by well-wishers, affectionately called “daddy’s friends,” that took up entire rooms.
When I returned to Turning Point’s campus in August the makeshift tribute had been moved for remodeling. A new eight-foot fence circled the perimeter of the nonprofit company’s campus.
It was a year to the day since my first visit to Turning Point. In some ways it felt like entering a place frozen in amber. Enshrined memories converted every shelf into a time capsule.
As I came around a corner, I saw where Kirk stood a year ago after our interview beside a pair of front-page newspaper stories announcing the failed assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.
Now each department displays news clippings of Trump delivering Kirk’s eulogy.
A museum-like reverence hung in the air. But around Kirk’s empty chairs, team members pulsed with a restless determination to do everything they could to keep their founder’s vision alive.
“You’ve got to prove that you can actually make an impact, that you can do things that we were working towards prior to his assassination,” Turning Point Action COO Tyler Bowyer told me.
At Erika’s insistence, Kirk’s producers Andrew Kolvet and Blake Neff emerged from behind the scenes to take over his daily program, doing their best to opine on the issues as Kirk would if he were here.
Meanwhile, the political infrastructure Kirk told me was Turning Point’s “lifeblood” has expanded at a pace Bowyer and Turning Point USA COO Justin Streiff are struggling to match amid maximum turnout at chapter leadership summits, record-breaking renewals for school chapters and a landslide GOP primary win in Arizona’s gubernatorial election.
While Turning Point’s activist machine remains a vehicle for the conservative empire Kirk built, it also finds itself at the nexus of forces tearing the American right apart in the wake of his death.
In interviews with the Deseret News, the leaders at Turning Point recognized Kirk as irreplaceable. His influence was unique, they said, because it ran so much deeper than the political fights that made him famous. They hope his legacy will be quieter; a movement of strong marriages, big families and full churches; something akin to a revival.
It is not lost on them that this effect might be impossible to replicate. The void Kirk left can only be filled one way, they agreed: young people putting down their phones, and picking up the mic.
It was an unusually warm 90 degrees in Orem as Kirk sat down beneath his trademark “prove me wrong” tent at the bottom of an outdoor amphitheater overflowing with around 3,000 fans and curious onlookers.
Back in 2018, when Kirk first decided that college debates would form the core of his youth outreach, he could barely turn out 300 students. By 2025, scenes of Kirk scoring viral clips on the quad were ubiquitous.
Kirk had just finished lowering his mic after clarifying a question from his interlocutor about gun violence when a “pop” rang out. The blood, and the chaos that followed, were immediately uploaded across the internet.
Read the rest from Deseret here…Meanwhile, as the Epoch Timesnotes further…
Impact Reverberates
For many, Kirk’s death became the modern-day equivalent of the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy – an unforgettable moment of intense personal and national significance.
“It was traumatic, I think, for the entire country – of all ages, but really for Gen Z and millennials,” Kolvet said. Those groups born after 1981 grew up watching Kirk’s videos on the internet, logging billions of views.
“After his death, it was almost like round two,” Kolvet said. “Everybody rediscovered all the videos again – and a wider audience did.”
Through debates and public speeches since early adulthood, Kirk became a driving force in U.S. politics. He was credited with lassoing young voters for Trump’s election wins in 2016 and 2024. He also had contact with foreign leaders, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
His regular themes were faith in Jesus Christ, advocacy for traditional marriages and parenthood, and his belief that America is the greatest nation to ever exist.
But Kirk’s blunt declarations about race, gender, and politics also stoked controversy. Defenders say Kirk debated passionately but civilly, and they alleged that some critics misconstrued his remarks.
Challenges loom for those continuing Kirk’s crusade. High on their list is building TPUSA further and educating younger voters about the dangers of socialism.
At the same time, pursuing justice and the truth about Kirk’s assassination have become part of the organization’s mission, too, Kolvet said.
TPUSA tries to ignore the conspiracy theories that still swirl, he said, dismissing those as “distractions.” But questions, as well as wild speculation, continue to be raised with each stage of the criminal case against alleged gunman Tyler Robinson.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a friend of Kirk, said during an Aug. 20 podcast that it “enrages” him when people make accusations implicating people close to Kirk such as his widow, who now heads TPUSA.
Prosecutors allege that Robinson, 23, assassinated Kirk over political differences. Yet Kirk had once stated: “We heal our divides by talking to people we disagree with. … You heal the country when you allow disagreement.”
Turning Point Surges
Within weeks of Kirk’s slaying, 120,000 students inquired about starting a new Turning Point chapter, according to TPUSA.
Following that initial surge, growth has continued at a more manageable rate, Kolvet said, while still tallying large increases.
TPUSA reported a 300 percent jump in church partnerships, a 200 percent increase in Club America groups at high schools, and 64 percent more college chapters, he said.
More than 3,500 schools are represented, according to the group’s website.
A TPUSA women’s gathering drew 3,000 attendees to San Antonio in June.
The next month, a chapter leadership gathering in Washington attracted 2,500 young people. That was double the previous year’s total, Kolvet said, noting that two-thirds of those participants became involved with TPUSA after Kirk’s death.
More than 1,200 employees and 1 million donors – 95 percent of whom gave $1,000 or less – support the group’s activities, he said.
Kolvet cited other indirect trends that could reflect Kirk’s influence: surges in church attendance, baptisms, and Bible sales.
And across the nation, young people emulating Kirk’s “happy warrior” style sometimes make headlines. In Indiana, an angry woman confronted a 17-year-old girl who was sitting at a TPUSA table and handing out plain red, white, and blue bracelets.
Despite the woman hurling profanity and insults, the teen didn’t back down.
“There’s story after story like that,” Kolvet said. “It’s really inspiring. … That’s an amazing legacy that just continues rolling on.”
Concerns as Midterms Approach
Longtime Florida political analyst Susan MacManus, a retired professor, said the aftermath of Kirk’s death did seem to “turn down the temperature” in politics—at first.
However, the atmosphere seems to be getting uglier again, she said, as the crucial Nov. 3 midterm elections approach.
All 435 U.S. House districts and 33 of the 50 Senate seats are up for grabs. Republicans now hold a slim majority in both chambers. If they lose too many races to Democrats in November, Trump’s second-term agenda could be greatly hampered.
“I’m fearful that we’re moving away from people trying to get along – and back toward the nastiness,” she said.
On one side, MacManus said, she sees people who “glorify” political violence or vitriol; on the other, people in “Kirk mode” are calling for “a more peaceful environment and dialog.”
She senses a strong commitment in the people who want to follow Kirk’s example and his “life model,” as well as his views on what constitutes good governance.
Many fans of Kirk adopted the slogan “I am Charlie,” showing that they were stepping up to fill the void left by his death.
“[They seem dedicated to] making sure that our voice is heard and that our way of doing politics is heard,” MacManus said. “And we won’t back down.”
Opposition Still Obvious
Try as they might, people who try to spread positive messaging have their work cut out for them in an election year, when inflammatory language seems to be on the rise, she said.
And TPUSA still sometimes encounters violent or disruptive opposition at its events.
At the June women’s summit in San Antonio, TPUSA’s video journalists documented police clashing with protesters outside the venue. They also reported that one person dressed like Kirk was mimicking his assassination.
Meanwhile, legislative attempts to honor Kirk have at times become political hot potatoes.
Although lawmakers in 20 states – chiefly Republicans – proposed Kirk-inspired laws, a designated “Charlie Kirk Day,” or physical memorials, many of the measures hit snags. While Democrats often joined Republicans in condemning Kirk’s assassination, they typically opposed honoring him.
Some of the proposals did succeed, such as a Kansas law allowing students to sue schools over interfering with free speech and a Tennessee law urging “the positive impacts of religion” to be taught in American history courses.
Carolina Estevez, a New Jersey psychologist, explained why pro- and anti-Kirk factions could both become more entrenched in their views.
“His death changed him from a political communicator to a political symbol, and symbols frequently last longer than arguments,” she said.
A political assassination such as Kirk’s “may increase in-group solidarity,” she said, noting that the victim may be seen as a symbol of “perceived threats” to the whole group.
Wildaliz Caro, a licensed clinical psychologist in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, said, “The continued influence of Charlie Kirk may well rely on collective memory.”
“After a leader dies, movements tend to simplify their image,” she said. “Complex individuals are now simply symbols of something much bigger: grievance, identity, or cause … supporters respond not just to what he said, but to what he has come to mean.”
As a result, the opposing factions may have an even harder time relating to each other, Caro said.
Socratic Method
However, Kirk knew how to connect with different types of people.
“Charlie was a bridge-builder with the generations,” Kolvet said. “He could speak ‘Boomer,’ but he could speak Gen Z. … He understood how to speak to donors and to the political class, but he understood how to speak to kids, too.”
Kirk decided against going to college. Instead, he schooled himself in religion, history, politics, and philosophy—forming the foundation for the way he lived and the way he approached debates.
“He created a model, a way to think about things, the way to argue through things, a way to defend our values in America, unapologetically, courageously, full-throated,” Kolvet said.
Kirk explained his methods in podcasts, including during an episode of The Charlie Kirk Show on Aug. 18, 2025—less than a month before he was killed.
A listener wanted to know how conservatives can talk to liberals without devolving into name-calling.
Kirk advised: “Always make sure they’re the ones freaking out … and use the Socratic method.”
The method is named after the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. After a person made an assertion, he would ask questions that eventually could reveal contradictions in the responder’s own logic.
Some people will refuse to change their minds no matter what. But others who seem to be staunch can be persuaded by using the Socratic method persistently “to get toward some approximation of truth,” Kirk said.
And, Kirk said, debaters ought to remember: “You’re not just debating a person. You’re performing for the audience of everyone else. And I try to do that at our prove-me-wrong events.”
Kirk seemed to have a special ability to inspire people who were open-minded and free thinkers, Kolvet said. Those people would walk away with “a fire in [their] belly that was just so contagious.”
Opposing Spread of Socialism
Through its Pick Up the Mic initiative, TPUSA is moving its founder’s legacy forward.
“Charlie Kirk built a movement from under a tent with one table, one mic, and a line of students stepping forward to debate. Now the tent is back, and a new generation of TPUSA chapters is bringing that presence to the center of campus,” the group’s website says, calling this “free speech in action.”
Kolvet predicted that 40 years from now, the “crop of young leaders that he inspired are going to go on and do great things, and they will be the firewall for freedom that this country needs.”
Before he died, Kirk made it clear to those leaders-in-training that they must stand firm against the spread of socialism.
“We’re doing our part to tell young people that free market capitalism is the most moral, proven, and effective system,” Kolvet said. “It’s lifted more people out of poverty across the world than any other economic system has.”
In contrast, socialism leads to stagnation, despair, and seizure of private property under communist rule—the antithesis of the American bedrock of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“It’s tempting to go down this other path, but it doesn’t work, and that’s the problem,” Kolvet said. “And so, we are winning that debate with our people, but there’s a lot of people that still need to be reached and still need to hear that message.”
Justice for Kirk
Another important objective for TPUSA is fighting against “Charlie Kirk trutherism” – the rejection of officials’ accounts about what happened the day he was killed.
A “cottage industry” has sprung up around that skepticism, Kolvet said.
The antidote is for the justice system to handle the alleged gunman’s case properly and in the open, he said, noting, “Getting justice for Charlie is actually really, really important for the country.”
While it’s healthy to question government, “there has to be a foundation of rule of law, of justice, of facts, evidence, logic that undergirds all of our institutions,” he said.
Pursuing justice for Kirk “feels like a battle for truth itself,” Kolvet said.
“It’s part of a larger mission of fighting for the country. … We want to make sure that we don’t lose all faith in our institutions, right?” he said.
Balancing all those considerations is challenging, but Kolvet said he believes that “God is doing a work through Charlie’s life.”
“Charlie’s life will continue to be one of the most important and pivotal expressions of God’s providential hand on this country for years to come,” he said.
“And I believe, on some level, I’m comforted by the fact that, yes, we can choose to be a part of that.”
Melania Trump’s Team Finally Breaks Silence On Natalie Harp Frenzy
A key advisor to First Lady Melania Trump has broken his silence against the nonstop media frenzy surrounding President Donald Trump and loyal White House aide Natalie Harp.
The speculation, circulating for weeks across mainstream and tabloid outlets, concerns whether Trump’s working relationship with the 35-year-old aide exceeds professional norms – fueled by Harp’s near-constant presence at his side in the Oval Office, at public events and on weekend golf outings, and by the first lady’s own scarcity. Melania has appeared in public on roughly 40 days this year, regularly skipping events her husband attends.
Marc Beckman, exclusive senior advisor to the first lady, didn’t mince words in an interview released Wednesday, Sept. 9 on host Stella Escobedo’s YouTube show, the Daily Mail reports.
Escobedo set up the question by accusing the press of being “endlessly obsessed with garbage tabloid gossip of Natalie Harp, who, by the way, is a hardworking White House aide to President Trump, a cancer survivor who POTUS helped get off label treatment for and saved her life.”
“The liberal media is ridiculous,” Beckman said. “They don’t know anything about the first lady’s personal and private life. They don’t even take the time to put us on air to cover these incredible achievements that our first lady has accomplished.”
First Lady Melania Trump’s exclusive senior advisor, @MarcBeckman, responds to tabloid gossip about White House aide Natalie Harp.
MSM would rather focus on gossip than cover our First Lady’s real achievements helping America’s youth. pic.twitter.com/FXl1HQzRPK
Beckman then defended Harp and blasted the press for its obsession with tabloid-style rumors about the Trump family instead of real reporting.
“What they need to do is look in the mirror because they’re all attacking this hardworking, very talented, very intelligent person in Natalie Harp,” he said. “And they’re obsessed with the gossip about this first family. And I can tell you firsthand that it’s time for them to become journalists and stop looking at the gossip.”
Harp, the 35-year-old special assistant to President Trump, has spent years flying under the radar as one of the president’s most constant aides. Insiders call her the “human printer” because she packs a portable printer everywhere, churning out hard copies of news articles, social-media posts and anything else Trump wants to see on paper, according to the anti-Trump publication The Bulwark.
That low profile shattered last month when Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) name-dropped her at a Georgia campaign rally, accusing Trump of preferring to “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar” rather than fully attend to his official duties.
“The media doesn’t know about the first lady’s private life. Period. The media doesn’t know about the first family’s life. Period,” Beckman added. “And what they do is they harp on the issues of gossip rather than going ahead and covering the substantial achievements that this First Lady and the President also have conducted during this past year and a half.”
It is the second time in three weeks Beckman has been deployed to answer for the first lady. Last month he went on “Fox & Friends” to explain why Melania had publicly denied any connection to Jeffrey Epstein, saying she had decided “enough is enough” and had “debunked all of the lies surrounding her and Epstein.” The pitch was the same then as now: cover the accomplishments, drop the rumors.
Harp first caught Trump’s eye in 2019 when she publicly credited his Right to Try legislation with opening the door to experimental treatment for bone cancer, the New York Times reports. She spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention, worked at One America News from 2020 to 2022, and joined the campaign before moving to the White House staff.
Beckman’s remarks come after Trump gave sizable holiday gifts to four White House aides, including Harp, according to new financial disclosures released by the administration.
The gifts of $45,000 each to Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin, and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris – as well as a $20,000 gift for director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta – were noted in the staffers’ annual financial disclosure forms published by the administration last week. The payments have drawn ethical and legal scrutiny over whether a president can make personal cash gifts of that size to his own employees.
Trump Warns ‘Activity’ Seen At Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Site: ‘Don’t Get Cute’
This week there’s been more mainstream reporting and chatter centered on Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain. The nuclear development site has been of special interest and focus to the Trump administration due to how immensely fortified it is, meaning the Iranians can conduct uranium enrichment activities deep under the mountain if they so desire.
The US and IAEA are essentially operating blind on this, and that’s exactly how the Iranians want it of course. A Thursday Bloomberg report begins: “The United Nations atomic watchdog said it’s observed construction activity at Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily-fortified site suspected of housing nuclear-related activities.”
It should be noted that Tehran has long complained that IAEA officials have leaked sensitive information to Israeli spies and leaders. The Iranians see it as a compromised organization.
Bloomberg continues, also referencing its own prior reporting: “The International Atomic Energy Agency has yet to inspect inside the tunnel complex but remote imagery indicates new movement at the site just south of Tehran’s main uranium-enrichment plant, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.”
President Trump has on at least two occasions drawn attention to the new reporting this week.
“We notice there’s a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard,” Trump said in a speech at Wednesday night’s midterm Republican convention.
Before this, Trump has threatened major attack on the mountain, though some pundits and analysts have speculated that it would take nothing less than dropping a tactical nuke in order to destroy or at least severely damage the fortification.
Some crazy hawks appear to lately be calling for just such a nuclear escalation from Washington, amid persisting frustration over fierce Iranian resistance and lack of ‘options’ the Trump administration has left itself with, also with negotiations at this point appearing totally abandoned.
Pentagon build Iran NUCLEAR PICKAXE MOUNTAIN in New Mexico
Trump’s Wednesday warning to Tehran was coupled with this surprising statement about the war extending to after the November midterm elections: “I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer,” the president told reporters.
He has continued to warn – amid growing public pushback over an unpopular extended war – that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. However even the CIA has long assessed that there’s no clear or high-level evidence that Tehran is actually bent on achieving weapons status. But if anything, the war itself may have pushed the country in the direction of getting a nuke.
Head of Real Estate Nadeem Meghji is leaving Blackstone less than a year after taking sole control of its real-estate business, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
The official explanation is a desire to spend more time with family. That may be entirely true. But when the head of one of the world’s largest real-estate investment businesses decides to leave after nearly two decades, and less than a year of becoming the boss of real estate, I think investors are entitled to wonder whether the timing tells us something.
His departure follows that of former co-head Kathleen McCarthy in 2025 and comes amid a broader turnover of senior real-estate executives over the past several years. Blackstone has named David Levine and Giovanni Cutaia as his successors, emphasizing the depth and continuity of its leadership bench.
Now that the corporate line is out of the way, the question the ole’ Q-Man finds interesting is this: why leave now, after just being promoted to a position you’ve ostensibly worked your entire career for? Surely when Meghji began low on the totem pole at Blackstone the goal was to find himself at the top of management, reaping all the perks that come with it. So why stay for less than a year?
The company line could be all there is to it. He could just want to spend more time with family. That’s a commendable aspiration as well. But just from a human psychology standpoint, people generally do not leave extraordinarily lucrative jobs when they believe the next few years are about to be the best few years of their careers. They can, and there are legitimate personal reasons to do so. But the financial incentives at this level are enormous.
If an executive believes the business is about to enter a spectacular upswing, with compensation and equity awards potentially worth millions more, walking away becomes a much more expensive decision. Look, family is important….so is millions more in compensation you can use to take care of said family.
I am not suggesting Meghji is forfeiting a specific amount of money. I have no knowledge of his personal finances or the terms of his departure. The point is simply that basic human psychology dictates to me that senior executives understand the value of staying through a major recovery. If they believe the next leg higher is right around the corner, the incentive to remain is usually substantial. BREIT’s investor material suggests there is a long track ahead of recovery for real estate:
There is another reason the timing catches my attention: executives also tend to find it difficult to leave during the absolute worst moments of a crisis. Departing while a business is visibly on fire can look like abandoning ship, particularly when employees, investors and clients are looking for leadership.
The more natural window is often after the immediate emergency has passed, when conditions have stabilized enough that a departure can be presented as an orderly transition.
It could be argued that this “eye of the storm” is where Blackstone’s real-estate business is today. BREIT, the firm’s giant nontraded real-estate investment trust, endured a prolonged redemption crisis beginning in late 2022. Investors wanted their money back faster than the fund could comfortably provide it, and withdrawals were restricted for more than a year.
Those pressures have since eased. According to the Journal, BREIT began meeting all redemption requests in early 2024, recorded its first positive quarterly net inflow in four years during the second quarter of 2026, and delivered an 11% net return over the past 12 months.
Those are meaningful improvements. Why leave at a point where BREIT appears to finally have stabilized and potentially be on an upswing?
I have to ask: what if BREIT is sitting in the eye of the storm rather than safely on the other side of it. The first phase of the real-estate problem was obvious: rates rose, property values came under pressure, financing became more expensive and investors wanted liquidity. The next phase could be more complicated, particularly if interest rates remain elevated and the private-credit problems I have been writing about begin to feed back into commercial real estate.
Real estate is a leveraged asset class. Higher financing costs do not disappear simply because a fund reports a positive return or redemption requests normalize. Loans still mature. Properties still need refinancing. Borrowers still have to justify valuations against a cost of capital that may be materially higher than the one prevailing when many of these investments were made. And now we’re talking about rate hikes instead of rate cuts (though tomorrow’s CPI report will give us more clarity on that).
Private credit, which has been falling apart for the better part of the last 12-18 months, is not some unrelated corner of the financial system. It is increasingly part of the machinery financing businesses and assets across the economy. If credit conditions tighten, lenders become more selective or investors begin demanding liquidity from private vehicles, the consequences can spill into real estate through refinancing availability, transaction volumes and asset prices.
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That does not mean BREIT is about to experience another redemption crisis. It does mean that a period of relative calm should not automatically be confused with a durable recovery. And it means that the private credit portion of Blackstone’s business is worth watching closely.
Blackstone, of course, has enormous resources and a long history of making money during dislocations. The firm manages more than $600 billion in real-estate assets, and its investing BREP funds have substantial capital available. A difficult market can create opportunities for a manager with that kind of scale. But there is a difference between saying Blackstone can eventually profit from distress and saying the next couple of years will necessarily be easy for its existing portfolio.
That distinction matters when evaluating the departure of the person who has been running the business. I am not claiming Meghji is leaving because he sees something bad coming. I do not know that, and the publicly reported facts do not establish it. His stated personal reasons may be exactly what they appear to be. The departure does not, in and of itself, prove anything about BREIT’s valuations, liquidity or future returns.
But I’ll reserve my right to not reflexively dismiss the timing as meaningless. And I’ll also reserve my right fall back on the basics of incentives and psychology.
Whether it means something or not, a senior executive leaving after a long career, shortly after assuming sole leadership, following a period of industry distress and amid an uncertain refinancing environment is a development worth a second mention. The fact that the business has recently stabilized makes the timing more interesting, not less.
Maybe Meghji simply decided he had made enough money and wanted to enjoy his life. Good for him if that is the case. But if I were an investor trying to decide whether commercial real estate was about to enter a new golden age, I would not look at the departure of Blackstone’s real-estate chief and conclude that it was an obvious vote of confidence.
I’ll pass on one thing I’ve learned in my two decades following Wall Street, including a decade working on short/skeptical research. Sometimes the most important thing an executive tells you isn’t what the PR/IR team writes for him or her to say in an official statement on the way out. It’s that they decided now was the time to leave in the first place.
Social media influencers and brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate will remain in U.S. custody, a magistrate judge ruled on Wednesday, as they continue to fight their extradition to the United Kingdom on rape and sex trafficking charges.
In a surprise move during a custody hearing on Aug. 27, both brothers took the stand to argue for their release, claiming they were suffering egregious conditions in a Miami holding facility while denying the allegations against them. The Tates face similar accusations in Romania.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis presided over that August hearing and issued the ruling Wednesday.
“There is a well-established presumption against bond in extradition proceedings, reflecting among other interests the value the United States places on fulfilling its obligations under international law to a country requesting extradition,” she wrote in her order.
One of the Tates’ attorneys, Joseph McBride, said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times that the brothers have not been convicted of any crime nor has Britain formally requested their extradition, yet they are being treated as criminals left to “rot” in federal custody.
“The process is the punishment,” McBride said.
“This is the cold machinery of extradition: rules and deadlines move forward with deliberate indifference to the human lives caught inside them.”
According to extradition law, the UK is allowed 60 days from the time of the Tates’ arrest to formally submit an extradition request and supporting evidence to the alleged crimes. The time limit expires next week.
When hearing extradition cases, circuit and district courts apply the “special circumstances” test to determine whether a defendant should be granted release.
Unlike in a U.S. criminal case, where the government has the burden of proving a defendant is a flight risk, that task falls to the accused in foreign extradition proceedings. This means the Tate brothers and their lawyers had to prove they are not a flight risk, not a danger to the community, and that special circumstances exist to warrant their release.
The Tates testified, alongside their legal team, which argued the brothers are not flight risks because of their “perfect” track record for complying with their Romanian release conditions.
Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors pushed back on this argument, claiming that a perfect track record of compliance with criminal proceedings is not an impressive feat – rather, it’s expected and should not be considered as a special circumstance.
The brothers also claimed their vast wealth has been seized by the Romanian government, which they said has taken everything down to their children’s toys.
The Tates said on the stand about their viral online comments, referencing their self-proclaimed billionaire status, ownership of luxury cars and a super-yacht, and access to unrestricted funds, that it’s all merely part of the characters they portray on social media for clicks.
Andrew called his online statements “hyperbolic exaggerations for comedic effect.” Tristan referred to his brother’s “Top G” persona simply as an alter ego as a means to make a living.
“My brother is the only person in the world held accountable for a character he portrays,” Tristan testified about Andrew.
Louis appeared to accept in her order the Tates’ claims that they are not billionaires, but said it does “little to dispel the concerns” that they are still a flight risk.
“While [the brothers] may not in fact possess what extravagant holdings they portray themselves as possessing online, the record reflects that they possess an exceptional capacity to flee the jurisdiction,” Louis wrote.
The judge pointed to the testimony of Andrew’s romantic partner, Natasha Sesay from the Aug. 27 hearing, when she credited both Andrew, who has three children and a fourth on the way, and Tristan, who has eight children, for generously funding their upbringing.
Sesay told DOJ prosecutors upon cross-examination that Andrew has purchased her luxury accessories and ensures she has everything she needs, such as clothing, food, a home, and sometimes expensive gifts or vacations. She said these gestures are what make Andrew stand out as a kind, protective man, proving he is not the brash persona he portrays online that has previously bragged about being “above the law.”
But this seemingly heartfelt testimony into the brothers’ character was turned upside down by the prosecution, which elicited a response from Sesay that confirmed some of these luxury purchases were made during the time period when Romanian authorities supposedly had seized all of the brothers’ assets.
Louis pointed out this contradiction in her order.
“Her testimony, in sum, belied the intimation that [the Tates’] lack of billionaire status renders them incapable of procuring the means by which to undertake flight,” Louis said. “It further belied Respondents’ insistence – including when testifying at the August 27 hearing – that Romania had foreclosed their access to wealth.”
The judge also pointed to the fact that both brothers’ children reside abroad, largely in Romania and Dubai.
The Tates’ only tie to Miami, the jurisdiction they would have been released into, is their arrest there.
“Their lack of ties to this jurisdiction, and strong foreign ties, demonstrate a risk of flight that has not been overcome,” Louis said.
As for the brothers’ burden of proving they are not a flight risk, the judge ruled that they failed to do so.
Louis, referring to historical case law, reasoned that the accusations alone against the Tates was enough to indicate that they “do indeed pose dangers to the community.”
The brothers’ legal team listed several purported examples of special circumstances, which the judge rejected, during the Aug. 27 hearing that they claimed should be enough for their release.
One of those included the fact that the UK warrant and complaint are supported by anonymous witness statements and therefore constitute hearsay, meaning they are not relevant to the matters of their custody hearing.
British authorities have until Sept. 16 to submit their formal extradition request and further supporting evidence for the accusations against the Tates.
[ZH Update: The UK has formally submitted its extradition requests for Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate to the US.]
The formal UK charges are:
Andrew Tate: 42 charges
• 10 counts of rape
• 7 counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm
• 2 counts of arranging or facilitating travel with a view to exploitation
• 3 counts of arranging or facilitating travel with a view to sexual exploitation
• 1 count of controlling prostitution for gain
• 7 counts of distributing an indecent photograph of a child
• 8 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child
• 4 counts of possessing extreme pornography
Tristan Tate: 17 charges
• 5 counts of rape
• 6 counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm
• 2 counts of arranging or facilitating travel with a view to exploitation
• 3 counts of arranging or facilitating travel with a view to sexual exploitation
• 1 count of penetrative sexual assault
Total: 59 charges
🚨 BREAKING: The UK has formally submitted its extradition requests for Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate to the US.
The formal UK charges are:
Andrew Tate: 42 charges
• 10 counts of rape
• 7 counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm
• 2 counts of arranging or… pic.twitter.com/9ToHeclGxp
The Tates’ lawyers further accused the United Kingdom of jumping the line ahead of the Romanian legal proceedings, and that their continued U.S. detention will significantly impact their ability to participate in Romania.
Louis did not find any of the proposed special circumstances convincing.
The brothers were arrested on July 18 in Miami, where they were attending a boxing event, and have remained in custody since, fighting their extradition to the United Kingdom.
Andrew faces 42 charges, and Tristan is facing 17.
While on the stand on Aug. 27, both brothers testified about abuses in Miami solitary confinement, claiming they only get a few hours outside each week. Tristan likened it to “physical and psychological torture.”
In the interim between the custody hearing and Louis’s Wednesday decision, Romanian authorities indicted on Sept. 4 the brothers on new sex trafficking charges. DOJ prosecutors submitted this to the court as further reasoning for why Andrew and Tristan should remain in custody.
The brothers’ Romanian legal representation had submitted a court filing to the judge last week, stressing the importance of Andrew and Tristan’s presence there to face charges and review evidence. The DOJ filed a reply, stating that all accommodations for video meetings could be provided in the Miami prison, which Louis appeared to accept in her order.
“This morning, my clients tried. The connection failed. You cannot defend a 30-terabyte criminal case across an ocean through a jailhouse connection that does not work,” McBride said in his statement.
He noted that releasing the Tates would not acquit them, but it would simply allow them to help their lawyers prepare their defense.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will have the final say on whether to order Andrew and Tristan’s extradition.
Trump Floats $5,000 “Stimmy” Checks For Every US Adult Citizen If GOP Holds Congress
During a speech Wednesday night at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, President Trump proposed sending every adult American citizen a $5,000 “Trump dividend” if Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress in November.
“If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them,” Trump said, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”
He continued, “It will be called the Trump dividend,” adding, “Now all we have to do is win.”
NEW: President Trump makes a major promise at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas: $5,000 for every adult U.S. citizen if Republicans win both the House and Senate in the midterms.
“I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for… pic.twitter.com/XqiphY7y8a
Trump told the audience at the American Airlines Center: “Your vote will decide whether our country stumbles at the starting gate of our next 250 years or surges forward and never looks back.”
Bloomberg strategist Mark Cudmore warned that a large fiscal injection could intensify existing market pressures, including weaker Treasuries, dollar depreciation, and demand for commodities and other real assets.
“The general reaction from markets is very muted precisely as everyone sees almost zero chance of this happening. The US economy is strong and already at risk of running too hot, so pumping in so much extra fiscal stimulus when under funding pressure will exacerbate all the dynamics we’re already focused on in markets: weaker Treasuries, a depreciating dollar and a rush to commodities and real assets,” Cudmore said.
The proposal also arrives as Trump acknowledges that significant fuel-price relief may not come until after the midterms. The national average for gasoline remains above the politically sensitive $ 4-per-gallon level, while diesel prices are at record highs. Trump also indicated that the Iran conflict could continue beyond the elections.
President Trump’s approval rating is around 38%, according to reporting by The Guardian.
Vice President JD Vance said that these proposed post-election direct payments to Americans could be funded by revenue from Trump’s wide-ranging tariff program.
Perfectly Timed AI Panic Resurrects ‘Bipartisan AI Safety Bill’
A stalled bipartisan artificial intelligence safety bill has suddenly found new life on Capitol Hill – propelled by a combination of dire warnings from inside the industry’s leading labs and a brewing grassroots revolt threatening Republicans in key midterm states.
According to a new report from Semafor, momentum is building for a Senate regulatory framework just as a conservative-led “AI Data Center Revolt” bus tour hits the road. Spearheaded by Amy Kremer, a Georgia RNC committeewoman and chair of the AI-risk group Humans First, the tour is set to cross crucial battlegrounds including Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, and North Carolina. The grassroots push adds a complex layer for Republican candidates – like Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton and North Carolina’s Michael Whatley – who are now caught between Donald Trump’s general support for AI infrastructure and growing local opposition to massive data centers.
But in Washington, the sudden legislative urgency looks less like a grassroots miracle and more like a highly coordinated pressure campaign. After weeks of stalled negotiations, the Senate’s leading vehicle for AI regulation – negotiated by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) – is suddenly being positioned as the “only viable option” to pass before the end of the year.
What broke the legislative logjam was a perfectly timed, 48-hour media blast from the very labs the bill seeks to regulate.
Panic.exe
Here’s how the situation unfolded.
July 2026: OpenAI discloses that agents escaped a research sandbox, coordinated, and hacked Hugging Face. Within days, Reps. Ted Lieu (D) and Nathaniel Moran (R) drop the AI Kill Switch Act. Reps. Lori Trahan (D) and Jay Obernolte (R) introduce the FRONTIER Act – audits, incident reporting, and Commerce authority to restrict models judged to pose “imminent catastrophic risk.”
Late July / August: Senate talks among Amy Klobuchar (D), Ted Cruz (R), and Majority Leader John Thune stall. Punchbowl reported the hang-up: Anthropic and Sen. Maria Cantwell wanted a more disclosure-heavy, stringent version than Republicans would accept. The bill appeared dead.
Then came the September surprise.
The Insider Blast
Sept 8-9, 2026: Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old pretraining researcher who spent three years at OpenAI then four months at Anthropic, resigns and posts that both labs are “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.”
The thread explodes to 100M+ views. Anthropic’s own alignment-science lead, Evan Hubinger, replies on his own account: researchers “earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,” and he personally puts the chance above 10% this decade. He adds Anthropic “do[es] not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and [is] not clearly on track to.”
Sept 9: OpenAI’s Chris Lehane publishes “The AI policy window is open. We need to act,” calling for mandatory national capability-based safety rules and urging Congress to move before it adjourns. OpenAI says it is now supporting some California bills it previously declined.
Also Sept 9: Anthropic’s economics team publishes “Scenarios for our Economic Future” – three paths to 2030. In the extreme one, GDP grows 15% a year, unemployment hits 11.9%, knowledge-worker wages fall more than 10%, and labor’s share of GDP drops from about 60% to 45%.
🦔Anthropic published an economic model this week on how AI could affect the US economy by 2030. They ran three scenarios. In the modest one, AI has about the same impact as the internet. In the substantial one, GDP growth doubles but knowledge worker wages go flat. In the…
The paper lands weeks ahead of an IPO expected at a reported $2 trillion valuation and alongside a $15 billion pre-IPO debt raise.
Regulatory Capture by Panic?
Sept 10, today: Semafor reports the Klobuchar-Cruz-Thune bill is suddenly “the only viable option” before 2027 and “may be introduced as early as next week.” Klobuchar: “it’s clear we need to act now and not wait.” Cruz: working on legislation “to address catastrophic risks involving biological or nuclear threats.” Frontier labs and advocacy groups are already feeding Hill staff on unreleased draft text. Bernie Sanders is teeing up a superintelligence ban and a briefing.
So – years of the same warning, then two months of incidents that may or may not have been blown out of proportion, then a 48-hour media blast from inside the labs, then the stalled bipartisan bill is “the only viable option” and might drop next week.
The 48-hour news cycle created the exact permission structure required to resurrect the Klobuchar-Cruz-Thune bill. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is threatening a hardline superintelligence ban, which strategically makes the bipartisan compromise appear perfectly moderate.
While the exact text remains unreleased, the live Senate vehicle reportedly focuses on giving the Commerce Department and DHS significant levers over frontier models while preempting the state patchwork.
That preemption is the crucial tell. For a year, Republicans have sought to block states like California and New York from creating their own disjointed audit regimes, while Democrats have demanded affirmative federal safety duties. Frontier incumbents like OpenAI and Anthropic – who are already feeding Hill staff on the draft text – stand to benefit massively from a unified federal floor. Mandatory audits, kill-switch requirements, and incident reporting create a massive compliance moat that smaller startups and open-weight projects cannot afford.
As Quoth The Raven opines further;
This (AI regulation) could create an interesting problem for markets (on top of the other catalysts that could cause an AI crash) because Wall Street has spent the last several years making an enormous bet on precisely the opposite outcome. The AI trade isn’t just a handful of technology stocks anymore. It encompasses semis, data centers, cloud infrastructure, networking equipment, electricity generation, utilities, natural gas, nuclear power, cooling equipment, construction and the enormous financing apparatus required to build all of it.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are being committed on the assumption that demand for computing power will continue rising at an extraordinary rate.
Embedded in that assumption is something investors haven’t had much reason to question:that frontier AI development will continue largely uninterrupted.
If Washington changes that assumption, even temporarily, the financial consequences could arrive much faster than the technological ones.
Imagine that increasingly capable models suddenly require federal approval, extensive testing or expensive certification before deployment. Imagine strict liability for certain failures, hard limits on autonomous capabilities or restrictions on training models beyond specified thresholds. An outright moratorium isn’t even necessary. The government would only need to make the timing and economics of future model development less certain.
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Markets would then have to reconsider how much computing infrastructure will actually be needed, and how quickly. Data-center projections could come down. Semiconductor forecasts could follow. Electricity-demand estimates could be revised, infrastructure projects could be delayed and lenders could become less enthusiastic about financing projects whose expected returns have suddenly become harder to calculate. The effects would ripple far beyond the companies actually developing the models.
That’s particularly important because markets don’t wait for revenue to disappear before repricing an asset to the downside…just like they don’t wait for profits to price dogshit to the upside. The AI boom has produced enormous valuations because investors expect enormous future demand. Change the expected trajectory of that demand and those valuations can change remarkably quickly.
This doesn’t mean an AI safety bill would necessarily crash the market, nor does it mean regulation would be economically destructive over the long run. Clear rules could ultimately reduce uncertainty and make the industry healthier. A modest bill could also wind up having almost no effect on the pace of development. But a genuinely restrictive regime would introduce a risk that I don’t think the market has spent much time pricing at all.
That’s what makes the timing so interesting. For years, investors have treated faster AI development almost entirely as an economic positive: better models mean more chips, more data centers, more electricity, more software, more productivity and more investment. The safety argument introduces the possibility that faster development eventually becomes politically unacceptable. If lawmakers begin viewing frontier AI as a national-security or catastrophic-risk problem rather than simply another technological industry, the assumptions supporting the AI capital-spending boom could change very quickly.
We have spent years building valuations, infrastructure and investment plans around the assumption that the AI race will keep accelerating. If Washington suddenly decides the race needs a speed limit, AI itself may not be the first thing that breaks…the pure euphoria-fueled market built around its insane financial projections and financing circle jerks could be.
The new Air Force One’s emergency slide was accidentally deployed on Sept. 9 before President Donald Trump boarded to attend the first-ever 2026 Republican Midterm Convention.
The inflatable slide popped out shortly before the president was scheduled to board the plane and fly to Dallas for the high-profile GOP event.
When Trump was asked by a reporter if he was confident the plane was safe to fly, the president responded, “Yeah, I am, or I wouldn’t be on it.”
“As the President has said, the slide was checked out to make sure everything works perfectly,” White House communications director Steven Cheung told The Epoch Times via email on Wednesday.
“Air Force One is on its way to Dallas so he can deliver his much-anticipated speech to a raucous and sold-out crowd.”
Trump was scheduled to give the keynote address during the first night of the 2026 Republican Convention around 9:00 p.m. ET. The president will speak on Thursday to close out the event too.
A White House official separately told The Epoch Times that “military personnel accidentally triggered the slide” ahead of boarding.
The emergency slide was taken away before Trump boarded the jet, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trump started flying on the jet in July after the government accepted the plane from Qatar as a gift in 2025.
Days after the plane started transporting the president, the Secret Service made Trump switch planes first to the old Air Force One plane, and then secretly to an unmarked C-32A military jet, to depart for a two-day NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.
White House communications director Steven Cheung revealed on July 9 that the switch-up was part of a “distraction and misdirection” strategy intended to address threats against the president.
The plane is being used as the interim presidential aircraft while the White House waits for the fully equipped VC-25B planes, which are expected to arrive at the end of Trump’s second term.
The Boeing VC-25B planes were supposed to arrive in 2024 but have been delayed for years and aren’t expected to be ready for flight until mid-2028.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would consider giving his former personal attorney Michael Cohen a pardon after Cohen said he felt he was “pressured and coerced” while testifying against Trump in a criminal trial.
“If everything is checking out, it’s something I would consider,” Trump told reporters when asked if he would pardon Cohen.
“I appreciate that at least he came out, although late, he came out and rectified the situation.”
A presidential pardon forgives a federal offense but does not declare the recipient innocent or erase the conviction from the criminal record, according to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. It can remove certain civil restrictions resulting from the conviction, potentially restore federal firearms rights, and improve the recipient’s ability to obtain employment, professional licenses or bonding.
Cohen was a prominent critic and a prosecution witness in Trump’s 2024 New York criminal trial. Cohen testified that Trump was involved in arranging a payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign-finance violations, tax evasion, bank fraud, and lying to Congress. He received a three-year federal sentence and completed his prison term and supervision requirements in November 2024. Asked whether he might seek a presidential pardon, Cohen said he did not know but might consider it later.
Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records and denied wrongdoing. In January 2025, he received an unconditional discharge, meaning he was guilty but would face no penalty.
Trump appeared on Cohen’s radio show in August and praised Cohen for recanting previous statements. It was Trump’s first public conversation with Cohen in eight years.
“They weaponized you. They weaponized a lot of people,” the president told Cohen on the latter’s 770 WABC radio program in New York. “I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said. You’re going to go down as a man of courage, great courage, because you did something that a lot of people wouldn’t have the guts to do.”
Cohen worked for Trump for more than a decade before their relationship collapsed amid criminal investigations, public criticism, and legal battles.
A federal judge in March 2024 denied Cohen’s fourth request to end supervised release early, citing concerns that Cohen had contradicted his 2018 guilty plea.
Judge Jesse Furman said Cohen denied committing tax evasion while testifying under oath in Trump’s civil fraud trial, despite previously pleading guilty to that crime.
Furman said that either Cohen lied during his plea or committed perjury during the 2023 trial, demonstrating a continued need for supervision.
Cohen and his attorney called the ruling legally and factually wrong, arguing he never disputed his underlying conduct and had accepted a coercive plea deal.
