The Wall Street Journal — owned by Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump’s most loyal media ally — just published one of the most damning portraits of a president in crisis ever to appear in the American press.
His tirade became such a distraction — such a hindrance to the people actually managing the crisis — that his own aides physically removed him from the situation room and opted to brief him at intervals instead. Let that sink in: the commander-in-chief was kicked out of his own war briefing by his own staff.
While his team worked to rescue two American airmen in hostile territory, Trump was “wailing throughout a nearly empty West Wing” about gas prices and European allies who wouldn’t join his war. He was obsessed with one thing above all else — not the safety of the airmen, but his own political fate.
Specifically, he was terrified of becoming Jimmy Carter. “If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter… with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump had said in March. “What a mess.
” So, as two American pilots were missing in Iran, the president’s primary concern was whether this would cost him politically — the same calculation he made when he ignored his generals’ advice and launched the war in the first place. The pilot was rescued later that day.
The second crew member took two more days to recover. Hours after learning of the successful rescue, Trump celebrated Easter Sunday by posting a profanity-filled Truth Social message demanding Iranians “open the F—n’ Strait, you crazy b—–ds, or you’ll be living in Hell” — and signed it “Praise be to Allah.
President DONALD J. TRUMP. ” When advisers expressed alarm, Trump explained he was deliberately trying to seem “unstable and insulting” to scare Iran to the negotiating table.
Then — in perhaps the most revealing detail in the entire story — he immediately asked: “How’s it playing? ” He threatened a civilization. Signed it with a religious salutation on Easter Sunday to provoke his own Christian base.
And his first question was about his ratings. Then on Tuesday, he posted that “a whole civilization will die tonight. ” Then he backed down for the fourth time.
Then he told reporters Iran “had agreed to everything” and declared “a great victory. ” Then, less than 12 hours later, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard ship fired on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Journal that Trump “remained a steady leader our country needs” — that is, of course, if you think the country needs a leader who was kicked out of the briefing room by his own aides.
Fifty-one lawmakers have introduced legislation to invoke the 25th Amendment. Marjorie Taylor Greene called his civilization threat “evil and madness. ” Alex Jones called it a war crime.
And now Rupert Murdoch’s own newspaper is publishing accounts from senior officials describing a president in hours-long freakout, removed from crisis management by his own staff, asking “how’s it playing? ” while American pilots were missing in Iran.
I Mailed My Husband Divorce Papers While He Sat With His Mistress—Hours Later, a Hospital Call Made Him Realize What He Had Lost
“I Mailed My Husband Divorce Papers While He Sat With His Mistress—Hours Later, a Hospital Call Made Him Realize What He Had Lost
I sent my husband divorce papers while he was sitting beside the woman he chose over me. He thought I was simply walking away. What he didn’t know was that only hours later, I would be rushed to a hospital carrying the twins we had spent years praying for. By the time he understood the damage he had caused, one phone call was about to shatter everything he thought he still had.
My name is Emily Whitman, and this is the day my marriage finally died.
For months, I watched my husband become a stranger.
At first, the changes seemed small.
Late nights at work.
A phone glued to his hand.
Secretive smiles.
Excuses that never quite made sense.
Then came the perfume.
A scent that definitely wasn’t mine.
Every instinct told me something was wrong.
But I kept making excuses.
We had fought so hard to build our family.
Years of doctor appointments.
Treatments.
Disappointments.
Heartbreak.
Then one miracle changed everything.
The day I showed Michael the positive pregnancy test, tears filled his eyes.
“We’re finally going to be parents,” he whispered as he wrapped me in his arms.
Months later, we learned we were having twins.
A boy and a girl.
“Aiden and Savannah,” he said, laughing as we stood outside the clinic in Jackson, Mississippi.
“My perfect family.”
I believed him.
I believed every word.
I believed the man who spent weekends building cribs with his own hands.
The man who kissed my stomach every night and talked to our babies before bed.
But that version of Michael slowly disappeared.
One humid summer evening, I sat alone in our bedroom staring at the clock.
11:47 p.m.
The babies kicked gently beneath my hand.
Aiden first.
Then Savannah.
“It’s okay,” I whispered through tears.
“Mommy’s here.”
An hour earlier, Michael had sent another text.
Working late. Don’t wait up.
No heart emoji.
No joke.
No love.
Just words.
Cold.
Distant.
Empty.
That night, I called my best friend Nicole.
“Emily?” she answered immediately.
“What happened?”
My voice broke.
“I think he’s cheating.”
The silence on the other end told me everything.
The next day, Nicole arrived carrying proof.
Hotel receipts.
Photographs.
Messages.
Evidence that ripped apart every lie I had been telling myself.
I stared at the photographs until my vision blurred.
There was no denying it anymore.
Michael wasn’t just drifting away.
He was already gone.
That was the day I stopped being his wife.
Three weeks later, I signed the divorce papers.
Then I disappeared.
What Michael didn’t know was that the documents arrived at his office while he sat with Jessica Monroe—the woman he had chosen over his family.
The courier simply dropped the envelope on his desk.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing loud.
Just paper.
But those papers changed everything.
Jessica smiled when she saw the envelope.
“Important?”
Michael opened it casually.
Then froze.
The color drained from his face.
Jessica picked up one page that slipped onto the floor.
Her smile vanished instantly.
The heading was impossible to miss.
Emily Whitman v. Michael Whitman.
Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
Beneath my signature was a message written specifically for him.
You made your choices. Now I’m making mine. Do not contact me except regarding our children or through my attorney.
According to Jessica, Michael called me immediately.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
My location was disabled.
The house security system had been disconnected.
I had vanished.
“She’s overreacting,” Jessica reportedly said.
“Pregnant women get emotional.”
Michael slowly looked at her.
For the first time, he seemed to understand what he had destroyed.
“Get out.”
Jessica blinked.
“What?”
“Get out of my office.”
“You said you wanted this.”
His voice shook.
“I said a lot of things.”
Then he looked back at the divorce papers.
“And every one of them brought me here.”
Meanwhile, I was driving through a violent rainstorm outside Jackson.
The roads were slick.
Visibility was poor.
And my contractions had started far earlier than expected.
At first, I convinced myself it was stress.
Then the pain intensified.
Suddenly, panic took over.
Within an hour, I was being rushed into St. Joseph Medical Center.
Doctors surrounded me.
Machines beeped.
Nurses shouted instructions.
Everything blurred together.
Across town, Michael’s phone rang.
When he answered, a nurse spoke calmly.
“Mr. Whitman?”
“Yes.”
“Your wife was admitted about an hour ago.”
His voice immediately cracked.
“What happened?”
A brief pause followed.
“How are my babies?”
The silence stretched endlessly.
Then the nurse spoke again.
“Sir… you need to come immediately.”
The phone slipped from his hand.
Fear unlike anything he had ever known flooded through him.
As he sprinted toward the elevator, only one thought remained.
The last words I had written weren’t I love you.
They weren’t goodbye.
They were:
You made your choice. Now pray it wasn’t too late.
And as Michael raced through the storm toward the hospital, another call suddenly came through to his phone—one from a doctor already inside the delivery room.
The expression on his face changed instantly.
Because whatever the doctor had just said made him stop running and lean against the wall as if his entire world had collapsed.
What news could possibly terrify him that much?
