Once again Trump and his team, which I’ve decided to start calling Team Clown Shoes, has told on themselves:
QUINTANILLA: Do we think the Russians have shared intel about US military assets, and if so, why would we be giving waivers on oil sanctions?
WITKOFF: I can tell you that on the call with POTUS, the Russians said they have not been sharing. That’s what they said. We can take them at their word.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 10, 2026 at 12:08 PM
It is important to remember that a significant portion of Witkoff’s wealth comes from doing business with Russian oligarchs and organized crime leaders investing in the retail properties he develops. Just as Jared’s and his family’s, as well as Trump’s, is from Russian oligarchs and organized crime members using their purchases of Kushner and/or Trump properties to launder their money, as well as to have their wives, mistresses, and girlfriends live in while pregnant so their children are born in the US so they’re US citizens. Kushner’s family’s companies actually market not just to wealthy Russians using this as a perq of buying one of their properties, they do the same thing with wealthy Chinese citizens. All while Trump rails against birthright citizenship.
Remember as I covered last week, Witkoff, Kushner, and whomever works for them refused to read the documents the Iranians prepared for them in English to ensure that there would be no confusion or misunderstanding during negotiation because reading three to five pages of bullet point was too hard and too much to read. Today we found out from new reporting that these geniuses didn’t understand the intelligence and information they were given about Iran’s nuclear program and went right to the Iranians were driving quickly towards building an viable functional nuclear weapon. From MSNow:
The Trump administration has cited Iran’s Tehran Research Reactor as a central justification for its military strikes, but has provided no evidence that the facility — built by the United States and used for civilian research for nearly six decades — was being used to develop nuclear weapons. Multiple nuclear scientists and nonproliferation experts told MS NOW that the reactor does not have the capacity to serve as an easy conduit to a bomb as asserted by the administration.
The gap between the administration’s numerous claims about Iran and the available evidence has become a focal point of criticism as questions mount over the decision to launch strikes rather than continue negotiations.
Just 36 hours before the United States opened its military assault, Iran’s nuclear negotiators, along with Oman’s foreign minister as mediator, presented the U.S. with a seven-page proposal for a potential nuclear deal, according to U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff. But the American negotiators, Witkoff and Jared Kushner — who, according to a senior Middle East diplomat with knowledge of the talks, chose not to include nuclear technical experts in the negotiations — balked at Iran’s request to continue using 20%-enriched uranium at the reactor, a facility for civilian nuclear development that the U.S. first built and provided to Iran in 1967.
“The [International Atomic Energy Agency] had evidence that they were stockpiling there and they had enough fuel to run TRR for the next seven or eight years without any additional fuel being delivered,” Witkoff said on “The Mark Levin Show.” “They were stockpiling again at the 20% level.”
Witkoff alleged that the International Atomic Energy Agency director general, Rafael Grossi, who was a part of the final round of talks just before the military incursion, told Iran that it had stopped “burning anything” at the reactor and, instead, claimed that “all of the fuel is stockpiled.” Witkoff said it was their “‘Perry Mason’ moment.”
“This is spin, it just isn’t true, and the conversation that did take place with Director General Grossi present has been taken completely out of context by Mr. Witkoff,” a Persian Gulf diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations said in response to the claim.
Several nuclear experts who spoke to MS NOW questioned the extent to which Witkoff and Kushner — who led the nuclear negotiations and described the Iranian position to Trump — understood the technical details of the enrichment programs at the heart of the deliberations.
Elena Sokova, the executive director of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, called the administration’s assessments of the Tehran Research Reactor “confusing and misleading” and riddled with “technical errors.”
“It mixes up different elements of the nuclear program and their potential proliferation capabilities,” Sokova said. “Research reactors are not capable of doing enrichment of uranium, whether for civil or military purposes.”
Witkoff and Kushner did not bring technical experts from the U.S. to sit in on their talks in Geneva, according to a senior Middle East diplomat with knowledge of the talks, and the White House opted to forgo scheduled technical talks set for this past Monday in Vienna, where more detailed nuclear details were expected to be addressed.
More at the link.
Speaking of Team Clown Shoes:
For ordinary civilians who don’t follow the news closely, modern drone warfare might seem new and unreal.
But officials, who have access to all the intelligence and whose duty was to plan an attack on Iran, have no excuse.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 2:39 PM
> Ukrainians had to make a PowerPoint presentation for US officials to articulate the threat of Iranian drones, Americans dismissed it as just “Ukrainian things” but then their 2 collective neurons finally connected after a shahed above a US military base
— Mira of Kyiv 🇺🇦 (@reshetz.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 6:32 PM
“Three Ukrainian teams have departed for Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, and their arrival is expected later this week.” – Zelenskyy.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 12:53 PM
Despite the inanity, the Ukrainians are on their way to help. As President Zelenskyy detailed in his address today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
