Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Will Epstein break MAGA? 🪓

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NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

Must read 📚: My friend Buck Sexton is out with a new book, "Manufacturing Delusion: How the Left Uses Brainwashing, Indoctrination, and Propaganda Against You"

‼️Order here
My take: In a world where the next war will likely be fought (or already is being fought) with information, there could be no more important conversation.

‼️A man with a Nazi tattoo reportedly shot up a Rhode Island hockey rink, killing two and injuring three others — the story led two evening newscasts last night and then instantly disappeared from the news cycle.

☝️There is only one reason for that — the Nazi tattoo-wearing man is transgender.
The facts📃: Yesterday, Robert aka Roberta Esposito –– a man living as a woman with some wild social media pictures — reportedly killed his ex-wife and adult son and then himself.
👀Last week, we predicted that the Canadian transgender shooter who killed 9 and injured a dozen would disappear. Look … it did.
- 📺Go back and watch the segment here
- ☝️Last week, we noted and will again tonight the growing list of shootings carried out by transgender folks
  - Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota
    - Two killed plus the gunman and 30 injured
  - Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee
    - Six killed
  - Club Q - an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado
    - Five killed and 25 injured
  - STEM School Highlands Ranch in Denver, Colorado
    - One killed and eight injured
  - A Rite Aid distribution center in Aberdeen, Maryland
    - Three killed and three injured
- 🤷If there was a common characteristic among these people other than transgenderism — like I don't know, Swastika tattoos — we would hear about it nonstop, and we should.
- 🗣️There would be a national conversation about it.
💸Anyone wanna take a bet on how long this story is going to disappear from the media — it's a hard bet to make because the story never really appeared in American mass media.
Consider this🤦: For the media, it's okay to be a mass shooter with a Nazi tattoo if you are transgender
- There is something profoundly wrong with that statement, but I challenge anyone to tell me I am wrong.

Kabuki Diplomacy🤝: For some reason, Team Trump keeps up the charade of diplomacy and "talks" with Iran.

Clarity 🗣️: The Iran talks are a bunch of Kabuki theater — they are doing what they always do, lying and playing for time so they can stay in power and murder more of their own people.
🚨There is no good deal with Iran, there's only bad ones.
- 🚢Maybe Trump knows this because he keeps sending more and more military hardware to the Middle East
- ✈️The U.S. has moved dozens of fighter jets towards the Middle East, says The Times of Israel.
- Be fair⚖️: Trump kept up the same idea of talks before hitting Iran in June.
✏️President Trump should do what George H.W. Bush did: Draw a line in the sand.
- 📅The ayatollah and revolutionary guard must go by a certain date — and if not, we will force them out.
Watch tonight 📺: Ambassador John Bolton, the only person in D.C. more hawkish on Iran than I am, on what Iran's deadline should be.

Money, Love or Revenge?🚨 It's been 17 days since Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her home in Arizona in the middle of the night — and we have no idea where she is, who did it, and what the motive is.

‼️The case remains unsolved as authorities are searching for WHO and WHY Nancy was kidnapped
- 💸Was it for money? — We haven't heard anything about her bank accounts. Nor any meaningful negotiation with kidnappers
- 💔For love? — Did she have a partner?
- 👿Was it revenge? — Who would hate an 84-year-old woman? Did it have something to do with her daughter?
No Match‼️: DNA found on a glove 2 miles away from Nancy's home — matching the glove the suspect was seen wearing on her doorbell camera — returned no match in CODIS and did not match DNA found at the property.
- 🔬The DNA found at Nancy's home is being analyzed and tested, says the Pima County Sheriff's Office.
Heartbeat search💓: Investigators are working to locate Nancy's pacemaker around the Tucson desert using a signal-sniffer, which is a high-tech Bluetooth signal detector.
- 🗺️The CEO of the sniffer, David Kennedy, says it has a range of up to 800 feet
- Do the math‼️: If it can only search 800 feet, it's going to take YEARS to search all of Tucson
Keystone Cops🚓: FBI agents have been visiting gun stores around Tucson with a list of 40 names and photos, asking whether any of them have been seen there or purchased a weapon
- 🗣️But the sheriff told Fox News that wasn't happening — yet another keystone cops moment!
- If this wasn't so serious, it would be a TV show about a sheriff's office that could never do anything right.
Watch tonight: NewsNation's Brian Entin on the ground in Tucson, Arizona
- Plus: Former FBI Special Agent Chris Swecker and retired NYPD officer Jillian Snider

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The Epstein Split 🪓

‼️For 10 years, Democrats have been trying to figure out how to break apart MAGA. And they may have just figured it out — the Epstein files.

🗣️We told you yesterday Trump is losing control of the story
And now Democrats think they can break apart MAGA over it — and Republicans are agreeing
- 🎤Rep Thomas Massie, R-Ky.: "What's happening is that the retirement caucus is growing and primary days are coming up and passing. Once we get past March, April and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you're going to see more defections. Because quietly and privately, people are telling me they agree with me."
  - Good Read📰: Politico headlines "You're Going to See More Defections': Thomas Massie's Ominous Prediction for the GOP"
- Rep Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is going to the CIA to get all records and materials they have that are related to Epstein
  - ✏️Mace: "Congress needs to know what, if any, relationship the CIA had with Jeffrey Epstein and what information they're sitting on. Classified or not, we want to see it. The American people deserve answers about whether our intelligence agencies had connections to a child sex trafficker."
- 🚨Even a prominent MAGA podcaster, Shawn Ryan, is sounding the alarm
  - 🎤Ryan: "I guess the whole 'drain the swamp' campaign promise was another f*cking bullshit lie. Man, the lies are stacking up fast. I've never seen so many f*cking lies…It's only been a f*cking year. Look at all the f*cking lies."

Watch tonight📺: Buck Sexton joins us on the fight over Epstein tearing MAGA apart, why Trump lost control of the story and if he can ever get it back.

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Every night during On Balance, Leland Vittert asks "why?" about the most pressing matters of the day, with an intellectual, balanced and sometimes irreverent take on the news.

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