U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a post-meeting media briefing in Bahrain following talks with Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers. Secretary Rubio begins with an outline of the U.S. crisis response to the requests from the Venezuela government, the Iran peace process, regional security, U.S.-Italy relations involving Giorgia Meloni, questions regarding JD Vance, and broader diplomatic priorities shaping Washington’s foreign policy agenda. WATCH:

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President Trump held a private meeting with the Republican party members of the Senate.  Several GOP Senators are firmly standing in the way of President Trump’s legislative agenda and promising to continue blocking any efforts to pass the Save America Act.

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Against the backdrop of President Trump, Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth pointedly telling NATO of the U.S. intention to draw-down U.S. military operations from Europe, NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte flies to Washington DC to make the pro-NATO sales pitch directly to President Trump.

In one of the most transparent appearances in oval office history, a passionate, self-interested and professionally demure Mark Rutte pours on the praise for President Trump and puts on a massive sales pitch.  You can tell from President Trump’s demeanor, tone and general ambivalence, he too can see how over the top the praise and back-slapping is.

Secretary Rutte was intensely and diplomatically focused on not allowing any accurate criticism or statement of disappointment from President Trump be left unchallenged to frame the tone and context of the meeting by the media. This is quite a desperate spectacle to witness when you understand the stakes for Europe which were carried by Rutte. WATCH:

CTH readers can see through the professionally demure motivations of the NATO secretary, and it was obvious from President Trump’s response that Rutte was transparently playing to the U.S. audience and DC stakeholders.  That said, you’ve got to give Rutte credit for tap-dancing that fine line.

It was a great sales pitch, and President Trump was very courteous and respectful of the showmanship, but I doubt President Trump was moved much.  The G7 assembly in Turkey will be very interesting.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio continues his trip through the Middle East talking to U.S. allies and stakeholders about the terms and conditions of the ceasefire with Iran.   Today Secretary Rubio is in Kuwait.

Arriving in Kuwait, Secretary Rubio discusses his previous conversation with the UAE and sets the baseline for the discussions moving forward.  As noted by Rubio, these are strategic partners in the region who have a vested interest in the outcome of the Iran negotiations. Rubio is in the region to listen to their concerns and affirm the U.S. strategic partnership.

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Even as House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republican leadership assembled for a news conference touting the recently passed Housing bill, President Trump cancelled the signing ceremony.

[SOURCE]

President Trump appears very serious about facing down both the Senate and the House on their intransigence to pass the Save America Act to secure national elections.  President Trump is now on a direct collision course with Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Trump was scheduled to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing bill on Wednesday afternoon, which passed both chambers with wide bipartisan support. (Politico)

This is the second legislative priority being blocked by President Trump due to Legislative friction.  The FISA (702) reauthorization in the Senate is also stalled as Senator’s demand Trump withdraw Acting DNI Bill Pulte.

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CBS is reporting on events within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  As CTH previously outlined, Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte is following a very predictable path. {GO DEEP}

The part of the CBS report that tells the story is: “Six career and political intelligence staff were terminated and 45 were sent back to their home agencies, according to three sources familiar with the personnel moves.” … “One source characterized the cuts as thoughtful and methodical. No staffers have been removed from the counterterrorism group.”

So, who was removed?  Well, I’m certainly not the Nostradamus of USIC, but if I were to hazard an educated guess it looks like the National Intelligence Council – Directorate of Analysis, just lost six political staff, and 45 people from the various liaison desks were ‘sent back to their home agencies.’

As we noted last year, Tulsi Gabbard took the National Intelligence Council (NIC) out of the CIA – fired the heads, then putting the assembly back under the control of the ODNI.  However, highly political operatives within the former CIA-controlled Directorate of Analysis (the former home of Eric Ciarmella) were still problematic.  It looks like Director Pulte just eliminated the remaining DoA rats.

The 45 returned to their ‘home agencies‘ were certainly from the liaison desks inside the DNI.

I’m not sure if that represents 45 from across all the desks, or the complete elimination of some overstaffed liaison desks.  That said, given the nature of the leaking was recently to CNN (State Dept leaks to CNN), I am somewhat confident the State Dept liaison office inside the DNI is now empty office space.  [Just a hunch 😂]

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Upon arrival in Reading, Pennsylvania, President Trump held an impromptu press availability.  There were numerous questions on the topic of Iran, the economy and current events. WATCH:

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I have a half-day of travel that takes me offline until later today; however, President Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks on the economy today in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania.

President Donald Trump will deliver a speech during his visit to the Mack Trucks manufacturing plant in Lower Macungie Township.  The event is scheduled for 2:00pm ET with livestream links below.

UPDATE: VIDEO ADDED

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I previously saw an interesting discussion with NVIDIA Jensen Huang where in the context of AI he was asked: who is the smartest person you ever met?

Jensen Huang paused for quite a few moments thinking about the question before he answered.

Huang then redefined the word “smart.”

‘Smart’ is a word we have historically used in reference to ‘intelligence’.  If a person was intelligent, we say that person is smart. However, in this era of AI at your fingertips, we must break this connection.

Intelligence, the assembly of knowledge about a particular matter of discussion, is no longer limited to educational or real-life training or study by people who focus intensely on subject material.

All of the knowing about a system, any system, process, history or discussion topic is now available almost instantly to anyone in this era of artificial intelligence.

The NVIDIA CEO then continued, therefore, once we break our historic reference connecting ‘intelligence’ and the generalized term ‘smart’, we can properly address the question you present.

Who is the smart man? Or, in the context of the originating question, “who is the smartest person?”

With this baseline established, Jensen Huang then outlined the traits of the smartest person.  The smartest person is not the person with the greatest knowledge; the smart individual is the person who can tune into the frequency of the universal moment, look at the human reality of what is factually taking place that has not yet become an input into the AI capture record, and then predict the material outcome – the destination of knowledge that has not yet arrived.

Essentially, Huang explains the smart person is alone, tuning themselves into the vibration that is the consequence of human activity, financial interests, geopolitical movement, social transformation, economic shifts and cultural modifications.  Then, positioning their interests at the place in the future where they predict all the activity will arrive.

The accuracy of prediction, or predictive positioning, then determines the scale of smart.  The more accurate a person is under this perspective, the smarter they are.

I agree with this perspective.

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Following an oval office signing event where President Trump signed two executive orders intended to speed up the implementation of Quantum Computing within the U.S. Government, President Trump took questions from the assembled press pool on current events.

The Q&A begins at 16:24 of the video below (prompted): 

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