Why I’m Not Leaving Twitter

Yesterday afternoon, right after Trump announced he planned to nominate Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, my phone rang endlessly, as yours probably did too.

One particularly funny friend in DC, who I will refrain from naming because sometimes he tells me important things in confidence, asked “So, how old are your kids now?” “21” I replied. “Oh, good,” he said, “So they, too, are qualified to serve as Attorney General.”

Of course it’s funny precisely because it isn’t.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

It’s Two Years Since The Idaho Four Were Murdered

Today is November 13th.

It’s the two year anniversary of the brutal murders of four students at the University of Idaho, a case that captured the nation’s attention and about which many questions remain.

Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, pictured above, were found stabbed to death in their bedrooms, in the house they lived in at 1122 King Road, in the small college town of Moscow, Idaho. The house has controversially been demolished but it was in the middle of college housing and you could see it from the classrooms. Two of the roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke (also pictured above) survived.

Next summer you will read their story and the seismic impact of the murders on the the small town of Moscow, Idaho in my upcoming book co-authored with James Patterson.

It’s not appropriate for me to share the details now, but, as I did last year, I do want to take a moment on this day to remember the four beautiful souls who should be still among us.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Elon rides, Trump golfs…

I love golfing and talking.

Some in my circle would say I’m OK at the former and that I excel at the latter.

And yet even I do not love to play golf with a chattering non-golfer sitting in the cart beside me. I don’t even want to play golf with a chattering golfer sitting in the cart beside me. The only thing I want to discuss when I am playing golf is…my golf. And on that topic I am voluble, particularly when I reach the green and my putt is not worth describing.

I am not the only golfer who feels this way. Very few people who truly love the sport want to spend a round learning about how their companion’s kids are doing in fifth grade, who they are sleeping with, who their spouse is sleeping with, and so on. But there are people who feel that a round of golf is the moment to unload their personal problems. Not only is the chat distracting, typically, the chatterers are the ones who stand over their ball for hours, taking 9 practice swings…meanwhile I am already wondering how quickly we can finish and what’s for dinner.

Donald Trump is a very good golfer. And by reputation he is also a very fast golfer. (I am still waiting for my invitation to experience this first-hand but I do know many people who have played with him.)

So, when I heard from the disgruntled Trump groupies down at Mar-a-Lago that Elon Musk is NOT actually golfing with Trump (per the headlines), no he is now riding around in Trump’s golf cart, chatting with Trump while Trump golfs…I thought…

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

It’s MBS’s World…

They say a picture can be worth a 1000 words, and so today I bring you two, which, together show the diametrically opposed world view which Donald Trump is going to have to adjudicate.

I am told by multiple well-placed sources, Trump already has “people” on the ground in the Middle East – never mind that’s not supposed to happen before he’s president. This isn’t that sort of government. Trump wants peace and he wants it sorted asap.

Above is the official AP photograph from today’s Arab summit in Riyadh, convened by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) to discuss Israel’s “continued aggression” towards the Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon. (The prince amped up his position, called on Israel to respect Iran’s sovereignty and accused Jerusalem of genocide.)

So, you want to look carefully at everyone’s positions to ascertain the new hierarchy in the region. It’s doubtful that MBS said to his guests, “Just find a mark and stand there…”

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

The Democrats’ Disastrous Disconnect

Yesterday, Sam Nunberg and I chewed over Trump’s victory.

The biggest take-aways to me are :

1 – Trump’s off-the-wall behavior like “the weave”, and the dancing at rallies, may well be part of a strategy taught to him by his mentor, the late Roy Cohn. “Drive Your Enemies Crazy and they’ll end up making mistakes and it will help you.” It worked.

2 – Trump overrode his advisers to go to rallies in places like New York, New Jersey, California and New Mexico, where he knew he wouldn’t win, because he wanted to win the popular vote.

3 – The majority of Americans have moved on from January 6th and are tired of hearing about it.

4 – If the Democrats and the media don’t find a different way to frame Trump, they are on a path to irrelevance.

The transcript, edited for clarity, and the audio are below:

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Who’s Gonna Win?

It’s here. The phone is ringing off the hook. No rumor is too off-the-wall not to take seriously, especially after David Plouffe’s pronouncement last night on CNN that Kamala Harris is well positioned to take all seven swing states

So in the Trump universe, the operatives yawned and said, “That’s just David doing his job, to keep hope alive.” But in the New York Times newsroom, they want to believe him.

I’ve even heard this morning that the Harris campaign believes Indiana is in play. And that if Trump loses North Carolina (which he may, courtesy of the disastrous recent remarks of Governor Mark Robinson, who looks likely to be defeated), then what?

I spoke today, as my readers know I do most days, to Trump’s first campaign adviser Sam Nunberg, who has been plugged in since the early hours. (At the end he has to hop off to take one more campaign call).

Here’s his take on where we are. I think he sounds less confident than he was a couple weeks ago but he says the Trump campaign thinks Pennsylvania is “doable” and, says they are optimistic.

And yet the Harris team says the same thing.

You can read the transcript below or listen to it here:

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

The Jeffrey Epstein Tapes and Donald Trump

Michael Wolff has got a new book on Trump coming out, and I am looking forward to it immensely.

I am sure that like his previous three Trump books, this new one will be the kind of fast-paced yarn you devour in one sitting.

I’m particularly looking forward to reading about the morning in August when I’m told Trump woke up and said to his startled campaign team: “I’ve decided I am pro-choice…deal with it…”

Michael is a very shrewd marketer and one presumes that’s why Thursday, on his podcast Fire and Fury, he aired a snippet of a recording of Jeffrey Epstein in 2017 discussing the way Trump played his senior White House lieutenants against each other, and why today, he’s releasing more in which, according to the Daily Beast, Epstein talks about his friendship with Trump – he says that for ten years he was Trump’s closest friend – and he also meanderingly talks about Trump’s salesmanship, Trump setting up his friends with models and recording the conversations for their wives to hear, in order to seduce them himself, and Trump having a scalp reduction.

The Trump campaign has called the tapes “false smears” and “election interference,” and described Michael as “a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics.”

Ok, for my money, what’s interesting about these tapes, so far, is not what they tell us about Trump – which is not really anything new. It’s all variations on a theme.

I could have told you, for instance, that Epstein and Trump were often together when meeting beautiful women, and I could have told you that Trump was a good salesman and doesn’t spend his spare time reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I reported here and for Rolling Stone that Melanie Walker, one of Epstein’s proteges, who became a neuroscientist and close associate of Bill Gates, originally met both Trump and Epstein in New York’s Plaza Hotel, over tea in 1992…

No, what’s interesting about the tapes is what they reveal about Epstein: they show something that’s crucial to understanding why he was able to inveigle himself into the world of the plutocracy: they show what a consummate con-artist he was.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Beware The Yard Sign Thieves!

It’s count-down to Election Day and we are all feeling the heat.

Some more than others…

How else to explain the flurry of yard sign thefts that are going on reportedly around the country, particularly out on the eastern end of Long Island.

In Bellport, a small bucolic town where I rent a little writer’s cabin, I opined at a dinner party last weekend that I was surprised by the vast number of Trump/Vance signs along the highway, because the community is full of liberal writers and artists.

My fellow dinner guests were quick to explain: there’s a dearth of Harris/Walz signs because they keep being stolen in the middle of the night. And when the frustrated owners have replaced them – forking out another $20.00 – they’ve disappeared again.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

It’s Celebrity-Election-Line-Up!

This morning as I walked like a granny to my office, I was listening, as usual, to Morning Joe. Suddenly, Jennifer Lopez was in my ear, urging me to vote for Kamala Harris. Lopez is energized, apparently, because of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s jokeabout Puerto Rico being a “floating pile of garbage” at the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden; so, she’s now going to perform at the Harris/Walz rally in Las Vegas tomorrow.

And, within an hour of listening to Lopez, I’m at my desk and a news alert flashes on my screen: I read that …oh my god…Arnold Schwarzenegger is endorsing Harris.

But, swiftly on the heels of that, news breaks of another celebrity endorsement… Buzz Aldrin.

Buzz Aldrin? I didn’t know he was still alive…but yes, he is (at 94)…and he is endorsing Trump because Trump (well, Elon really) is big into the extremely pressing voter issue of space exploration. Footballers Brett Favre and Nick Bosa have also come out for Trump. But the rapper Bad Bunny is for Harris. So too is Barbara Bush…and on it goes. It’s the game of Election Celebrity Line-Up, in which there are no real shocks – and, I’d argue, no real impact.

Are you going to change your mind about who you will vote for because of Jennifer, Arnold, or Buzz? Do let me know if so, and send in your reasoning. If space exploration is your top priority I’d be fascinated to hear all about that…

More seriously, I’m reminded that in 2016, instead of knocking on doors, Hillary Clinton disastrously spent the Friday before the election, at a concert in Cleveland, hobnobbing with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Chance the Rapper, J. Cole – and Diddy.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Ivanka Hands the Microphone to Jared

Greetings from the ER.

Ok, so I know that sounds a bit melodramatic, but my bosses at Substack tell me that part of the appeal of a Substack is rawness and authenticity. They tell me that Substack readers like to know how the proverbial sausage is made – or not made – which is what happened today.

I was racing to my office with all sorts of ideas for today’s column when I did a face-plant on the sidewalk. How it happened, I have no idea. But I will say this: the kindness of the people who rushed to help me was one of the most heartwarming things I’ve experienced in these past few weeks, a time in which I think we’ve all felt unusually anxious.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates