Month: February 2020

Just days after banning Zero Hedge, Twitter has announced it’ll also be implementing new rules to address deepfakes and “other forms of synthetic and manipulated media” as we head closer to the 2020 election.

Because we can’t have a repeat of 2016, right?

The company said it is going to not allow users to “deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm,” according to CNBC. The rules go into effect after March 5 this year, where the company will now label some Tweets containing synthetic or manipulated media. 

Social media can, and will, have a profound effect on the state of the election heading into November this year. Altered media often shows up, with candidates words sometimes parroted or mocked in certain ads that seek to undermine them. Lawmakers have been trying to figure out a way to hold social media companies accountable for the spread of misinformation.

According to CNBC, last month the “House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce held a hearing where experts shared warnings of both deepfakes and potential over-regulation of tech platforms that host them.”

Twitter is now going to test media in three different ways to see if it meets parameters that violate its policy. 

• Is the media synthetic or manipulated?

• Was it shared in a deceptive manner?

• Is it likely the content will cause serious harm?

The article notes that if all three of these come back “yes”, that Twitter said it would be likely to remove the content. 

But we’re willing to bet – and we know from experience – that Twitter is just going to remove the content it wants to, regardless. 

In fact, the new policy is broad enough that it’ll allow the company to even take action against “cheapfakes”, which are low-tech edits meant to deceive other users. And what example is immediately brought up in CNBC’s article? One video where a Twitter user simply slowed down a video of Nancy Pelosi:

The doctored video of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that circulated on social media last year, for example, would be an example of such amateur editing, since the video was simply slowed down to give the effect that her speech was slow and slurred. More sophisticated deepfakes can involve transposing a person’s face on a video of another person, for example, which could give false impressions of a person’s words or actions.

So we guess we won’t be seeing any videos of her tearing up the State of the Union Speech in slow motion.

🚨 NEW LOW FOR NANCY PELOSI: She ripped up @realDonaldTrump’s #SOTU speech for the cameras on national TV.

This speech was about American heroes and American workers. She decided THAT was worth literally tearing apart.

Absolutely disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/Cp0tg3AE1W

— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) February 5, 2020

Twitter also said that some world leaders would be exempt from some of its policy standards. They company said it’s because “it’s important for users to see and be able to debate their messages.” But we know it’s likely because Twitter doesn’t want to lose the traffic they drive and popularity they bring to the site.

Again it seems like a case of Twitter enabling itself for purely arbitrary and discretionary bans of whomeever it wants, whenever it wants.

Recall, we wrote about Facebook implementing similar censorship policies, alongside of YouTube, heading into the 2020 election. We wonder if these social media sites realize that, instead of helping the public make informed decisions, they are giving them an excuse to vote for the party with the least government outreach.

Authored by RJ Reinhart of Gallup

Americans’ views on their personal financial situation have been climbing since 2018 and are now at or near record highs in Gallup’s trends. Nearly six in 10 Americans (59%) now say they are better off financially than they were a year ago, up from 50% last year.

These data come from Gallup’s annual Mood of the Nation survey, conducted Jan. 2-15. The survey was completed after months of historically low levels of unemployment and as the Dow Jones Industrial Average neared the 30,000 mark for the first time.

The current 59% of Americans who say they are better off financially than they were a year ago is essentially tied for the all-time high of 58% in January 1999. That was recorded during the dot-com boom, with conditions similar to the current state of the economy — a stock market rocketing to then-record highs and unemployment at multidecade lows — though GDP growth was higher at that time.

From 1998 to 2000, at least half of Americans rated their financial situation better than that of a year ago. However, in most surveys from 2001 to 2018, the percentage saying their personal finances were better off than the previous year was under 50% — with a low of 23% in May 2009, during the Great Recession.

Record-High Level of Optimism About Financial Future

In addition to U.S. adults’ highly positive report on their current financial situation, Americans are also expressing peak optimism about their future personal financial situation. About three in four U.S. adults (74%) predict they will be better off financially a year from now, the highest in Gallup’s trend since 1977.

Since Gallup began asking this question in 1977, Americans have consistently been more optimistic than pessimistic about where their personal financial situation is headed, with more saying their finances will be better in a year than they are now. The previous record high, 71%, was seen in 1998 during the dot-com boom.

Partisan Divide in Optimism

Given today’s highly politically polarized environment, it is perhaps not surprising that Republicans and Democrats see their personal finances differently. There is a 33-percentage-point gap between Republicans’ (76%) and Democrats’ (43%) reports of being financially better off today than they were a year ago.

There is also a partisan gap when it comes to optimism about one’s future finances, though it is smaller than the difference seen in attitudes toward current conditions. Among Republicans, 83% say their personal financial situation will be better in a year, compared with 60% of Democrats.

Independents fall in between on both measures, with 58% saying they are better off now than a year ago and 76% reporting they will be better off next year.

Bottom Line

Americans’ levels of optimism about both their current financial situation and where it will be a year from now are at or near record highs. These views align with President Donald Trump’s contention that Americans are doing better under his presidency, and with his use of the economy and job growth as key selling points for his reelection. Republicans’ positive views on their finances are something of a given for a GOP president, at least during good economic times.

The majority levels of optimism among political independents are more significant for Trump’s reelection prospects — and something Trump will want to maintain in 2020 to stay competitive.

There was a time when the merest mention of gold manipulation in “reputable” media was enough to have one branded a perpetual conspiracy theorist with a tinfoil farm out back… and immediately banned from social media.

That was roughly coincident with a time when Libor, FX, mortgage, and bond market manipulation was also considered unthinkable, when High Frequency Traders were believed to “provide liquidity”, or when the stock market was said to not be manipulated by the Fed, and when the ever-confused media, always eager to take “complicated” financial concepts at the face value set by a self-serving establishment, never dared to question anything.

That has now changed…

In November 2018, a former JPMorgan precious-metals trader admitted he engaged in a six-year spoofing scheme that defrauded investors in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts.

John Edmonds, 36, of Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty under seal on Oct. 9 in the District of Connecticut to commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities price manipulation, and spoofing. As Justice notes in a statement:

“From approximately 2009 through 2015 John Edmonds engaged in a sophisticated scheme to manipulate the market for precious metals futures contracts for his own gain by placing orders that were never intended to be executed,” said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. 

“The Criminal Division is committed to prosecuting those who undermine the investing public’s trust in the integrity of our commodities markets through spoofing or any other illegal conduct.”

That was followed, a year later, by the DOJ charging the entire precious-metals trading desk at JPMorgan of being deeply involved in what prosecutors described as a “massive, multiyear scheme to manipulate the market for precious metals futures contracts and defraud market participants.”

The DoJ charged Michael Nowak, a JPMorgan veteran and former head of its precious metals trading desk and Gregg Smith, another trader on JPM’s metals desk, in the probe. (Blythe Masters was somehow omitted).

“Based on the fact that it was conduct that was widespread on the desk, it was engaged in in thousands of episodes over an eight-year period — that it is precisely the kind of conduct that the RICO statute is meant to punish,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski told reporters.

Here’s where it gets extra interesting: according to Bloomberg, the unusually aggressive language language embraced by prosecutors reminds legal experts of indictments utilizing the RICO Act – a law allowing prosecutors to take down ‘criminal enterprises’ like the mafia by charging all members of the organization for any crimes committed by an individual on behalf of the organization.

Prosecutors charged the head of JP Morgan’s global metals trading operation and two other traders with “conspiracy to conduct the affairs of an enterprise involved in interstate or foreign commerce through a pattern of racketeering activity” – language that is typically used to describe a RICO charge.

And now, 5 months later, Bloomberg reports that things have escalated even further.

According to two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports that U.S. authorities that accused six JPMorgan Chase & Co. employees of rigging precious-metals futures are building a criminal case against the bank itself.

So more than 11 years after the farce began, this previously unreported investigation of the global bank’s parent company – part of a wide-ranging federal clampdown on market manipulation – raises the prospect of criminal charges and significant fines against America’s largest bank.

Additionally, Bloomberg notes that, according to a third person familiar with the matter, authorities are conducting a similar racketeering investigation of a second financial firm involving spoofing.

And all of this is occurring as more and more investors realize the value of gold as a hedge against the idiocy of politicians and policy-makers… in other words, just as manipulating precious-metals prices lower would be at its most use to the banking elites.

Conspiracy theory becomes conspiracy fact… and we wonder whether any of this would be public had Twitter’s newly-minted “censor anything we don’t like” policies been in place?

Via SaraACarter.com,

Two top Republican Senators are expanding their probe into potential conflicts of interest “posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden” as the Senate investigative committees continue to probe former Vice President Joe Biden’s son’s business activities overseas during his father’s tenure in the Obama Administration.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Finance Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson, who already have an ongoing investigation into numerous White House meetings during the Obama Administration with senior Ukrainian officials, sent a letter Wednesday to Secret Service Director James M. Murray requesting information “about whether Hunter Biden used government-sponsored travel to help conduct private business, to include his work for Rosemont Seneca and related entities in China and Ukraine.”

Grassley and Johnson say they want the information no later than February 19, according to the letter sent to Murray.

“The Committee on Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (“the committees”) are reviewing potential conflicts of interest posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden and his associates during the Obama administration, particularly with respect to his business activities in Ukraine and China,” the letter states.

The two powerful GOP chairmen want “Hunter Biden’s travel arrangements to conduct business related to his dealings in Ukraine and China, among other countries, while he received a protective detail.”

1. Please describe the protective detail that Hunter Biden received while his father was Vice President.

2. Please provide a list of all dates and locations of travel, international and domestic, for Hunter Biden while he received a protective detail.

3. Please provide a list o f all dates and locations o f travel, international and domestic, for Hunter Biden while he received a protective detail. In your response, please note whether his travel was on Air Force One or Two, or other government aircraft, as applicable and whether additional family members were present for each trip.

The Senators also stated in the letter that they have sent other letters to other government agencies questioning ‘potential conflicts of interest’ regarding the deal during the Obama Administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approval to sell off 20 percent of U.S. uranium from the Canadian company that had assets in the U.S. to to the Russian energy giant Rosatom.

 The transaction required the the approval of CFIUS, the multi-agency approval committee. At the time Hillary Clinton was head of the State Department, which was a voting member of the CFIUS board.

“In addition to several letters that the committees have sent to other agencies as part of that inquiry, the Committee on Finance also has written to the Department of Treasury regarding potential conflicts of interest in the Obama-era CFIUS- approved transaction which gave control of Henniges, an American maker of anti-vibration technologies with military applications, to a Chinese government-owned aviation company and China-based investment firm with established ties to the Chinese government.

That transaction included Rosemont Seneca Partners, a company formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, Christopher Heinz, and others.”

The letter goes on to state that “in December of 2013, one month after Rosemont Seneca’s joint venture with Bohai Capital to form BHR, Hunter Biden reportedly flew aboard Air Force Two with then-Vice President Biden to China. While in China, he helped arrange for Jonathan Li, CEO of Bohai Capital, to “shake hands” with Vice President Biden.

Afterward, Hunter Biden, met with Li for reportedly a “social meeting.” After the China trip, BHR’s business license was approved.6 Then, in 2015, BHR joined with Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to acquire Henniges, which was the “biggest Chinese investment into US automotive manufacturing assets to date,” Johnson and Grassley’s letter revealed.

Read full letter:

As Robert Wenzel concluded earlier, it really made no sense for Democrats to go after Trump if they didn’t have an open and shut case that would cause the entire public into wanting him removed from the White House. A big mistake.

A wounded enemy is a very dangerous enemy. Now, it’s Trump’s turn.

While the market today soared to just shy of new all time high amid a return of the “coronavirus is contained” euphoria following unconfirmed speculation overnight that drugs are in the pipeline, the reality is that China, and the world, are at best months away from a lab setting and actual human usage. But while a vaccine will eventually emerge, the more important question for markets is what is the impact on the Chinese and global economy from the coronavirus pandemic which has effectively shut down much of China’s production capacity, crippling supply chains critical to keep not only the second largest economy in the world humming, but the world itself.

In this vein, last week Goldman estimated that the coronavirus outbreak is set to reduce Chinese GDP growth in the first quarter of 2020 by 1.6% in year-over-year terms, or 6.4% in quarter-on-quarter annual rate terms, resulting in a sub-5% GDP Q1 print. However, with Goldman expecting the outbreak to be contained by Q2, it then sees GDP surging and making up for almost all of the Q1 shortfall. Whether or not this is an optimistic take remains to be seen.

What does that Chinese GDP “shock” mean for the rest of the world?

In a follow-up note published this week, Goldman also provides its first preliminary estimate of the impact of this shock on global GDP growth.

According to Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius, the assumed hit to Chinese growth will directly subtract about 1% from global GDP growth in Q1. In addition, spillover effects to the rest of the world will take just under 1% off global growth, for a total hit of nearly 2% in the first quarter. The spillover effects consist of reduced exports to China (worth about 0.3%) and reduced spending by Chinese tourists abroad (worth about 0.6%).

As shown in the next chart, both channels of transmission to the rest of the world have increased greatly in importance since the 2003 SARS epidemic because of the breathtaking growth of the Chinese economy over the past two decades. Exhibit 3 shows that several Asian countries are now particularly exposed to China. As a result, our Asia team has cut its growth forecast in Thailand due to its tourism exposure and has signaled downside risk in Korea and Taiwan due to their trade exposure.

Using these two transmission channels, Goldman then calculates the overall impact on global growth. The next chart shows a hit of about 2% in Q1. Roughly half of that impact reflects the direct effect of weaker growth in China while the other half reflects spillover effects, with effects of about 0.3% from reduced Chinese goods imports and 0.6% from reduced tourist flows.

Why is the hit confined to just the first quarter? Because as Goldman explains, its baseline assumption is that the “aggressive response from the authorities in China and elsewhere will bring the rate of new infections down sharply by the end of Q1.” If so, global economic activity should normalize in subsequent quarters, with positive GDP growth effects of about 1½% in Q2 and ½% in Q3. For the year as a whole, Goldman concludes this would imply a modest hit to annual-average global GDP growth of 0.1-0.2pp but still allow for a slight reacceleration from 3.1% in 2019 to 3¼% in 2020.

What if Goldman’s baseline assumption is too optimistic? Well, in a more severe scenario, the bank’s Asia Economics team assumes that it would take until “sometime in the second quarter for the rate of new infections to peak.” If so, the predicted Q2 recovery would obviously be delayed and the hit to global GDP growth in 2020 would likely rise to about 0.3%, which while modest, would likely be the best case outcome for markets as it would prompt global central banks to engage in more aggressive easing, boosting risk assets around the globe. It also means that the reacceleration of full-year global growth that Goldman now expects to take place in 2020 would likely be delayed until 2021.

Of course, if the epidemic can’t be contained by the end Q2, then the world will have a far bigger problem than what GDP will be in the second half of the year, or any other time in the future for that matter.

With all that said, Hatzius is adamant that the coronavirus outbreak “does not change our baseline view that underlying global growth has bottomed and the next leg is likely to be higher, driven by a reduced drag from the trade war and the past easing in financial conditions.” For this reason, the Goldman economist thinks monetary policy easing in the largest advanced economies is probably behind us, and rate cuts in 2020 will be largely confined to a minority of EM central banks.

That said, with every passing day that China fails to contain the pandemic, the less confident Goldman is, with Hatzius saying that at least “the near-term risks to both our growth and monetary policy views are clearly on the downside until the outbreak is contained.”

As for Goldman’s forecast that there will be no more rate cuts, just remember that in December 2018 Goldman predicted 4 rate hikes in 2019. Instead the Fed went on to cut 3 times, and it didn’t need a global viral pandemic for justification.

Finally, we are curious why Goldman did not account for the crunch that global supply chains are already sustaining: while Chinese tourism and exports are certainly important economic pathways, we wonder what will happen to both vendors and customers of intermediate goods that rely on Chinese factory tolling for output and for downstream products. Or perhaps that will be the topic of a subsequent Goldman report looking at how badly corporate earnings will be hit as the GDP hit impacts the corporate top and bottom line. We eagerly await such a report not only from Goldman but the other banks who have been oddly mute on the topic. Perhaps they are just waiting for the wave of guidance cuts that will inevitably be unleashed in the coming weeks by S&P500 member companies.

Moments ago, China’s National Health Commission released the latest daily coronavirus epidemic numbers for February 5.

What they showed is that the total number of deaths jumped by the biggest daily total since the start of the epidemic, rising by 73 to 563, while the total number of cases on the mainland rose by 3,694, surprisingly a welcome modest decline from the 3,890 increase reported yesterday, which nonetheless brought the total Chinese cases to the highest yet, or 28,018.

This dynamic is shown in the chart below.

And while the slowdown in cases will likely be cheered by the market, we wanted to make two observations.

First, one can’t help but wonder if China is goalseeking either the number of deaths or the number of news cases, because every single day, the death rate has been steady at 2.1% +/- 0.1%. a surprisingly stable relationship.

However what is far more curious is that a secondary data series which is far less popular yet is just as important, the number of people under medical observations, was surprisingly low. In fact, one almost wonders if this number wasn’t fudged. What we mean is that after rising between 15,000 and 22,500 every single day since Jan 27, the number of people under observation rose to just 186,354, which is just 799 cases higher than the day before, which the China National Health Commission represented was 185,555.

Why is this bizarre? The following chart will make it clear. The highlighted box shows that paltry increase in today’s official numbers of people under observation. Needless to say, unless somehow China overnight stopped observing any new cases, this makes no sense.

And just so we are not accused of making up the numbers, here is a screengrab of the official, google translated, National Health Commission website as of Feb 4, 2020…

… And here is what it looked like today, today, Feb 5:

Incidentally, all the latest official daily coronavirus “statistics” can be pulled from the following page on the Commission’s website:

Which begs the question: did China suddenly succeed in conquering the epidemic, even as virtually every official admits there is no vaccine or drug that can cure the novel Coronavirus, or did someone in China once again get sloppy with the data release, as they did over the weekend via Tencent, and were caught by the Taiwan Times.

We hope to have an answer shortly.

Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

Last night’s State of the Union was particularly noteworthy for its showmanship. Scholarships were given away, medals were awarded, families reunited. At a time when national politics is bad theater, President Trump is clearly its most gifted star.

Trump also knows what sells. As a political figure, he’s motivated not by any consistent ideology but rather transactional legislation. Following the performance, an MSNBC pundit noted that the speech was a “microtargeted ad” to various demographics aimed at expanding his base before next year’s election.

Combined with his Super Bowl ads highlighting criminal justice reform, his focus on charter schools and honoring 100-year-old Tuskegee Airman are aimed at eroding away the Democrat’s 90% control of black voters. His cameo by Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaidó was an appeal to Hispanic families who fled communist regimes – a perhaps a poke at Bernie Sanders. Paid family leave, a policy focus of his daughter, is intended to help him with suburban women.

What doesn’t sell? Fiscal responsibility.

The political equivalent of Crystal Pepsi, the Republican Party has given up its long-standing façade of budgetary restraint. As Donald Trump told donors earlier this year, “Who the hell cares about the budget?”

Of course some people do care, particularly those that understand the real costs of runaway spending. Unfortunately, politics isn’t about the economic literacy of the few, but the prevailing ideology of the masses. As Jeff Deist noted in 2016, the implicit ideology of the American population is much closer to Bernie Sanders than it is than Ludwig von Mises. As such, it should be no surprise that the policies of the country align closer to the “deficits don’t matter” vision of Modern Monetary Theorists than sober analysis of Austrians economists.

Of course, the popularity of political positions cannot shield a society from the consequences of their actions.

A recent CBO forecast now has America on track for a 98% debt-to-GDP ratio by the end of the decade, and that’s with a built in assumption that spending trends won’t significantly increase – a bet I wouldn’t feel comfortable making.

Left out of this measure, of course, are the true costs of the current American government – including unfunded liabilities built into to America’s entitlement system. For example, social security has a projected long-term deficit of over $13 trillion. Medicare adds another $37 trillion. Factor in federal pensions and veterans benefits and the number gets to $122 trillion.

Working in DC’s benefit is that American debt is still treated globally as one of the world’s most secure assets. Global demand for US Treasuries remains strong, and directly subsidizes our leviathan state, even as we simultaneously weaponize it against the rest of the world. While it’s impossible to predict exactly how long this status will continue, history informs us that it would be foolish to assume it will go on forever.

To his credit, Donald Trump seemed to instinctually understand this as a candidate. While running, he was remarkably honest when he talked about the need for American creditors to eventually take haircuts. The self-dubbed “king of debt,” he compared it to his own approach in business:

I’ve borrowed knowing that you can pay back with discounts. And I’ve done very well with debt. Now of course I was swashbuckling, and it did well for me, and it was good for me and all of that. And you know debt was always sort of interesting to me. Now we’re in a different situation with a country, but I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed you could make a deal. And if the economy was good it was good so therefore you can’t lose. It’s like you make a deal before you go into a poker game. And your odds are much better.

While his comments shocked (shocked!) the Very Serious pundits at the time, they reflected a refreshingly honest look at America’s future. As is often the case with Trump, he was attacked by the press for saying aloud the things you are supposed to keep quiet – like his reportedly saying “yeah, but I won’t be here,” when given a briefing on America’s growing debt crisis in 2017.

Of course, while any sort of default from the American government would be a major chaotic event for the global financial system, it’s something we should embrace and prepare for. Peter Klein has noted, “the US can never restructure or even repudiate the national debt — that US Treasuries must always be treated as a unique and magical “risk-free” investment — is wildly speculative at best, preposterous at worst.” Murray Rothbard advocated for the repudiation of the national debt, which he viewed as a “part of the American tradition.”

At the end of the day, however, whether one agrees with the idea of debt default is inconsequential. The political system today is inherently unprepared to tackle this issue. The incentive structures of democracy actively work against restraint and responsibility. So long as the economic profession is dominated by bad economists, and our education system is dedicated towards government indoctrination rather than economic literacy, we will continue to lack the political will to make the difficult choices necessary to get our fiscal house in order.

Luckily, America’s political disorder doesn’t mean American citizens have to unprepared. Awareness of the real problems we face doesn’t require taking the blackpill, it simply means being aware of practical steps we can take as individuals to best prepare for the future.

Just as we can arm ourselves to protect ourselves against inept law enforcement, we can safeguard our wealth outside of the American financial system to protect ourselves against inept fiscal management. Be it gold, silver, Bitcoin, or whatever, the future may very well belong to those who refuse to leave their destiny in the hands of politicians, bureaucrats, and central bankers.

In what the administration has described as an “off-the-record lunch” on Tuesday, President Trump told television anchors hosted at the White House that war with Iran was “closer than you thought,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

It’s an annual tradition for the president to host television anchors from major networks just ahead of the State of the Union address, which was delivered last night.

The private luncheon marks the first time the president gave candid remarks confirming the US stood very close to entering another major war in the Middle East, which was on the heels of the Jan.3 assassination of IRGC Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani and subsequent Iranian ‘retaliatory strike’ on Jan.8 against a US base in Iraq. 

During that time in early January the hashtag WWIII was trending on Twitter, along with countless social media viral memes warning the US stood on the brink of major war with Iran. 

In apparent confirmation that the public’s fears were justified, the WSJ describes further of the president’s off-the-cuff comments:

The president’s comment on Iran came after one attendee asked him how close the U.S. came to going to war with Iran earlier this year, after the U.S. killed a top Iranian military commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Iran responded with a missile barrage on Iraqi bases housing U.S. and allied military forces. The Iranian strikes didn’t result in any U.S. deaths.

And further, the report notes: 

Mr. Trump didn’t elaborate on why war with Iran was “closer than you thought,” the people said.

A reassuring list of trends for the start of #2020 #WWIII etc pic.twitter.com/IkJiGUrVYY

— Bel Trew (@Beltrew) January 3, 2020

During the lunch, the president spoke mostly about conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who later in the evening received the Presidential Medal of Freedom award during the State of the Union address itself. 

He also briefly addressed the controversy over the belatedly rising troop injuries from the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Ain al Asad Air Base, telling anchors he’d seen “worse injuries”.

This is consistent with his previously dismissing reports of scores of US troops suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) as a result of the missiles’ impact and blasts as but a few mere “headaches”.