Justus Knight – RR News Update! September 3rd, 2026

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President Donald Trump erupted Thursday over media reporting surrounding America’s ammunition supplies and the Iran war, ultimately using the extraordinary phrase “TREASONOUS SCUM.”

But the confrontation didn’t begin yesterday.

Weeks earlier, Trump ordered an investigation into leaks involving sensitive information about U.S. munitions inventories after reports raised questions about military stockpiles. Now those reports are back—and so is Trump’s fury.

Meanwhile, Maria Bartiromo was abruptly removed from Fox News, Congress is demanding answers involving more than $1 billion in Los Angeles homelessness funding, DHS has opened voter-fraud investigations involving nine states, and a Columbia Journalism Review investigation has exposed a massive new government-to-influencer communications network in New York City.

Tonight, we connect the pieces—and separate what has been confirmed from what remains one enormous unanswered question:

Who is feeding whom the information?

COMMUNITY POST

🚨 TRUMP JUST ERUPTED: “TREASONOUS SCUM!” But here’s the REAL question…WHO DO YOU THINK FED THE MEDIA THE INFORMATION? 👀

🅰️ Pentagon / Military Insider
🅱️ Intelligence Community Source
🅲️ White House Insider
🅳️ Media Is Exaggerating the Entire Story

References

TRUMP — “TREASONOUS SCUM” / IRAN / MUNITIONS

Mediaite — Trump Fumes Over Iran Coverage

ZeroHedge — Trump Rages Against “Treasonous Scum”

Reuters — U.S. Long-Range Precision Missile Stocks

Reuters — Trump Discusses Replenishing U.S. Munitions

MARIA BARTIROMO / FOX NEWS

TheWrap — Bartiromo and Alleged Internal Fox Guidance

Status — Bartiromo’s Fox Departure

Reuters — Bartiromo Departs Fox News Media

KAREN BASS / LAHSA

RedState — House Republicans Seek Answers From Bass

Los Angeles Times — Bass Asked to Testify Before Congress

BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

Reuters — Federal Judge Blocks Latest Trump Order

MAMDANI INFLUENCER NETWORK

Columbia Journalism Review — Mamdani’s Influencer Network

DHS ELECTION INVESTIGATION

ZeroHedge — DHS Voter Fraud Probe in Nine States

CENK UYGUR

RedState — Cenk Uygur Chair Incident

Trump Erupts: “TREASONOUS SCUM!” — But the Bigger Question Is Who Fed the Media the Information?

Something changed in Donald Trump’s language Thursday.

The President has spent years calling unfavorable coverage “fake news.” He has accused journalists of dishonesty, bias and deliberately misleading the American public.

But this time he reached for another word.

Treasonous.

Then he turned the temperature up even further:

“TREASONOUS SCUM.”

Trump was raging over media reports questioning the condition of America’s ammunition stockpiles following months of military operations against Iran.

But the most interesting part of this story may not be whom Trump attacked.

It may be where the information that enraged him came from in the first place.

Because weeks before Thursday’s explosion, Trump had already ordered an investigation into leaks involving America’s munitions inventories.

And suddenly a very different question emerges:

Who has been talking?

A Strange 24 Hours in the Information War

Look across Washington and American politics over the past day and a common thread emerges.

It is information.

Who possesses it.

Who controls it.

Who distributes it.

And who ultimately gets to decide what Americans believe.

In Los Angeles, congressional Republicans are demanding answers about homelessness spending under Mayor Karen Bass, including records and communications surrounding a system that has received more than $1 billion in federal homelessness funding since 2021.

Bass has been asked to appear before Congress later this month as lawmakers investigate allegations involving waste, fraud and mismanagement. Her office says it is preparing a response.

Whatever those investigations ultimately establish, the principle is straightforward:

Show the records.

Then consider New York City.

Columbia Journalism Review recently examined Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rapidly expanding relationship with social-media influencers.

Researchers identified 189 influencers with ties to the administration, while participants said an administration-created Signal group contains more than 200 creators.

Importantly, membership in that group does not itself mean the influencers are being paid. CJR reported that some creators separately receive compensation from city agencies for particular public-information campaigns.

But the broader phenomenon matters.

Government no longer needs newspapers, television networks or traditional reporters to communicate with millions of people.

It can build its own distribution network.

Talking points become clips.

Clips become posts.

Posts become narratives.

And government, journalism, advocacy and influence begin occupying increasingly overlapping territory.

That makes the question of where information originates more important than ever.

Then Fox News dropped another bombshell.

Maria Bartiromo Is Suddenly Gone

On Thursday, Fox News Media announced that Maria Bartiromo had departed the network after more than 12 years.

Effective immediately.

Fox publicly described her departure as a “business decision” and did not disclose a specific reason.

Bartiromo had become one of the network’s most recognizable personalities and one of the television journalists most closely associated with Trump’s political movement.

Her sudden exit immediately triggered speculation.

That speculation should remain exactly that unless additional evidence emerges.

A sudden personnel move at a major television network does not automatically prove some extraordinary conspiracy behind it.

But placed against everything else happening in the information ecosystem, the timing was impossible to ignore.

Because hours later, Trump was about to launch one of his most ferocious attacks on the media of his presidency.

Then Trump Exploded

Trump’s target was reporting surrounding America’s ammunition supply.

Media organizations have reported that months of operations involving Iran have placed substantial strain on portions of the American weapons inventory.

Reuters reported in August that the United States had used “virtually all” of its inventory of certain long-range precision weapons during the Iran conflict, according to people familiar with the situation.

Those concerns have not disappeared.

Recent reporting has also described pressure on Patriot interceptors and other precision-guided weapons, while defense contractors have been pushed to dramatically increase production.

The Trump administration sharply disputes portrayals suggesting America is dangerously short of ammunition.

Trump says American production has surged, inventories remain enormous and the country possesses more than enough weaponry to defend itself.

On Thursday he went much further.

He accused people and media outlets reporting that America was running low on ammunition of being “treasonous.”

Minutes later he called those responsible for what he considered inaccurate reporting about the Iran operation “treasonous SCUM.”

Those are extraordinary words coming from a President.

But they also require an important factual distinction.

Trump did not, in those posts, publicly identify a White House official, military officer or intelligence employee as the “treasonous scum.”

His direct target was the media coverage.

That does not end the story.

It opens another one.

The Leak Investigation

Trump’s anger over ammunition reporting did not suddenly appear Thursday.

Weeks earlier, after stories began circulating about depleted weapons inventories, Trump ordered investigations into leaks concerning Pentagon munitions information.

The administration publicly argued that disclosures involving classified military capabilities could damage national security and potentially benefit American adversaries.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was furious about the disclosures and wanted the source of the information identified.

And there is the piece that changes everything.

Reporters did not independently walk through Pentagon warehouses and count missiles.

Reuters’ reporting relied on people familiar with the underlying information.

So regardless of whether the resulting articles perfectly characterized America’s overall military readiness, somebody was providing reporters information about the condition of specific weapons inventories.

That creates several questions the public still cannot answer.

Who provided it?

Was the disclosed information classified?

Was it complete?

Was it current?

Did reporters accurately characterize what they were told?

And perhaps most importantly:

Was Trump furious because the reporting was false, because the underlying information was sensitive—or because both could be true simultaneously?

Those questions remain unresolved.

Two Things Can Be True at Once

This is where political coverage normally collapses into tribal warfare.

One side hears Trump say America has virtually unlimited ammunition and concludes every report about weapons shortages must therefore be fabricated.

The other side reads reports about stressed missile inventories and concludes Trump must therefore be lying about American military strength.

Reality can be considerably more complicated.

America can possess an enormous overall arsenal while simultaneously experiencing shortages in specific highly specialized weapons systems.

Those aren’t contradictory propositions.

Precision weapons are not interchangeable widgets.

A shortage of Patriot interceptors, long-range precision missiles or another specialized platform does not mean the United States has somehow “run out of ammunition.”

Conversely, saying America possesses huge quantities of military equipment does not automatically answer concerns involving individual weapons categories.

The Pentagon is clearly moving to expand production.

Reuters reported in July that major defense contractors Lockheed Martin and RTX raised forecasts as the government pushed to replenish weapons stocks, while Trump has proposed enormous increases in defense and munitions spending.

Trump also said Thursday that the United States would prioritize rebuilding its own inventories before resuming certain foreign weapons sales.

That suggests the underlying supply question deserves serious examination—not slogans from either political camp.

The Bigger Story Is Information

And that brings us back to where this strange 24-hour cycle began.

Government records.

Internal communications.

Influencer networks.

Television networks.

Anonymous sources.

Military inventories.

Leaks.

Every story eventually arrives at the same battlefield:

information.

Trump has now publicly accused media organizations of behaving treasonously by reporting information that he says is false and damaging to the country.

Media organizations maintain that they are reporting information obtained through legitimate journalism and sources familiar with military conditions.

Meanwhile, Trump’s own administration has been trying to determine who provided some of that information.

Those are three very different disputes.

They should not be lazily mashed together.

Reporting something the government dislikes is not automatically treason.

Leaking genuinely classified military information, however, can raise extremely serious legal and national-security concerns.

And inaccurate reporting about American military readiness during an active international conflict can carry consequences far beyond normal political journalism.

Which means the next development may matter far more than Thursday’s social-media eruption.

If investigators eventually establish that sensitive ammunition information was improperly disclosed from somewhere inside the government, the story changes dramatically.

If they don’t, that matters too.

For now, Trump has identified the people he believes are behaving disgracefully.

The media.

What he has not publicly identified is potentially much more interesting:

Who fed them the information in the first place?

And until that question is answered, the real story is far from over.

Categories: Politics

Tags: #breakingnews, #congress, #constitution, #democrats, #DSA, #Election2026, #Midterms2026, #politics, #socialism, #supremecourt, #trump