Trump Jokes "I'd Be Greatest Communist In History", Dem Elites Panic Over Socialist Hijack

 A series of high-profile Democrats and party strategists this week sounded the alarm that socialists have hijacked the Democratic Party, with radical left-wing revolutionaries increasingly gaining power not just in local elections across the country, but most notably in far-left-controlled New York City.

Let's begin with President Trump's overnight comments on Truth Social, in which he told the anti-American, pro-globalist radical left:

The Communists are finally making their move. I've been waiting and preparing for this for a long time. It's easy to be a Communist — All you have to do is say, "I'll give you everything," but that means you're taking it away from others that have earned it. Over thousands of years, that Ideology has not worked once. The game is on.

Trump also fired off another Truth Social post early Friday afternoon, joking that:

"Communism is very easy to sell. I’d be the Greatest Communist in History. I’d give free rent, free houses, free food, everything is free. Unfortunately, after two or three years, the Country where this is taking place would fail."

He concluded by taking aim back at the Democrats:

"These are not social Dumocrats; these are hard-core, godless Communists. This is the most serious threat to our Country since its existence 250 years ago."

We have been warning readers for some time about the radical left's expanding power footprint and how they operate, from alleged foreign influence networks such as the China-linked Neville Roy Singham network, to billionaire- and union-funded left-wing NGOs, to the Democratic Socialists of America that are hellbent on crashing capitalism and the nation.

The wake-up call this week came in NYC, where Democratic Socialists scored closely watched House primary victories, beating out candidates backed by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

After Democrats allowed socialists and Marxist wolves into their DEI kingdom, the party is now facing an internal power struggle between its traditional establishment wing and the revolutionary left. This infighting has been obvious for some time, but until now, Democrats were unwilling to admit it publicly.

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville was on News Nation on Thursday, blasting the DSA for hijacking the party to advance its far-left and anti-American agenda instead of launching its own party.

New York (D) Congressman Tom Suozzi joined Fox and addressed the growing division within the Democratic Party.

"Like I said, we're capitalist, not socialist. We believe in safety, not lawlessness. We're proud of America, not ashamed of it. We believe in fiscal discipline, and we have to organize better," Suozzi said.

Hakeem Jeffries joined CNBC on Thursday, as it only appears Democrats are in full-blown damage control mode, in addressing the parasitic nature of DSA hijacking the party.

The damage control continued with New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), blaming far-left NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani for "blowing up" the party...

"Some of the candidates that he [Mamdani] has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic," James told CNN.

James warned that Democratic Party officials have expressed concern and are "disappointed" in Mamdani's push to overhaul the party (really, it's the nonprofits behind Mamdani).

"All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don't blow it up. That's what MAGA has done," James told CNN.

In case you're wondering what DSA stands for ... 

Even deep state Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich, warned on SiriusXM's "Straight Shooter": "That's why I believe we need significant new leadership. The old models are no longer working, and that includes the Democratic Party."

Putting this together, the Democratic civil war appears to be finally emerging this summer - just ahead of midterms. Democratic Socialists and Marxist-aligned factions, most visibly through the DSA, are gaining uncomfortable levels of power inside the party, posing a direct challenge to old-school Democratic elites. The DSA's agenda seeks to push the party toward an anti-capitalist, anti-Western, and increasingly radical ideological posture that remains far outside the mainstream voter and does not resonate with most working-class Americans.

Democrats are absolutely terrified when the unofficial spokesperson of the DSA, Hasan Piker, calls for his followers to kill capitalists: "Yeah, kill them! Kill those motherfuckers and murder those motherfuckers in the streets. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood, dude."

We have profiled this emerging radicalization fomenting like cancer within the Democratic Party, one that appears increasingly aligned with foreign influence networks, including the China-linked Neville Roy Singham network and, potentially, communist-linked actors in Cuba.

• Is There A "Cuba Connection" Behind The Radicalization Of America's Nonprofit Left

In circles at the highest levels of government, from Washington to Brussels, there is a clear and new understanding, only in the last month, that this left-wing revolutionary movement has created a very troubling pattern of radicalization among the youth:

• Troubling Pattern Of Left-Wing Revolutionaries Targeting "Capitalists" Raises Alarm Over Youth Radicalization

But get ready for an action phase because it appears Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been watching:

• Bessent Signals Crackdown On Dark-Money Funded NGOs In "Weeks, Months Ahead"

Rubio as well:

• "No Longer Tolerate Radical Marxists": Rubio Sanctions Revolutionary Cuban Influence Network Tied To U.S. Left-Wing NGOs

Circling back to Trump's overnight comment against communists: "The game is on."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democratic-elites-sound-alarm-socialists-hijack-party-trump-declares-war-communists-game

"Perfect Storm": Bond Traders "Stunned" How Quickly SpaceX Bonds Sell Off

 Media reports earlier this week about SpaceX's inaugural post-IPO investment-grade bond (and we mean inaugural, as the company rushed to tap the corporate bond market just days after going public with a low-IG rating of Baa1/BBB) which priced on Tuesday, had it as almost 4x oversubscribed, at roughly $90BN in orders for the $25 billion offering (upsized from $20 billion), signaling relentless demand for the paper. Alas, it took just 48 hours for the myth of sterling demand to crash and burn, with Bloomberg reporting today that the "blockbuster bond sale is weakening so quickly in the secondary market that traders say they can’t recall another recent deal that widened this sharply."

This is what we mean.

Confirming the TRACE data shown above for the company's bonds due 2056, Bloomberg says that a large dealer was quoting the SpaceX bonds at levels as much as 0.32 percentage point wider than the issue price of 1.75 percentage points above Treasuries.

Parallel selling across the entire SpaceX bond complex means that paper losses on the company's $25 billion offering have mounted since the debt broke for trading Wednesday and totaled roughly $400 million as of Friday, relative to Treasuries. The longest-dated SpaceX bonds, which drew more skepticism than those with shorter maturities, have erased all the tightening from underwriters that followed as orders swelled to nearly $90 billion.

So much for that oversubscription.

Traders who spoke to Bloomberg said the moves suggest fast-money accounts, rather than traditional buy-and-hold investors, piled into the deal looking to flip it for a quick profit. In other words, the momentum monkeys who have dominated stonks, decided to try their hand at flipping bonds. It didn't work out well: the selling pressure stands out even more because SpaceX shares have been largely stable since the bonds priced on Tuesday, after lurching 16% lower the day before, which it not say that the stock has been especially stable and it once again broke below its first day of trading price earlier today when it briefly dipped below $150.

Even if there are more technical reasons behind the selling - hedge funds covering or hedging short positions, for example - the unprecedented magnitude of the rapid selling points to SpaceX’s unique profile. The company, which at its peak this month had a $2.64 trillion market value, won investment grades despite expectations for years of negative cash flow and a dependence on Elon Musk that Fitch Ratings deemed a “key rating constraint.”

“We expected SpaceX to widen from issuance level, but not this much,” said Tony Trzcinka, a portfolio manager at Impax Asset Management. “That magnitude is likely a perfect storm of the stock shedding $600 billion+ since launch, weak technicals from the upsized supply, and investors still scratching their heads over how to price its unique risk profile.”

SpaceX's selling is a rare move compared with how other recent mega bond sales have traded in the secondary market.

Take Nvidia, which raised $25 billion in a seven-part high-grade offering this month. The spreads on its 5.55% bonds maturing in 2046 have widened by just 11 basis points since issuance, while the spreads on its 5.625% bonds maturing in 2056 are 12 basis points wider. The spread on Alphabet’s longer-dated bonds issued in February have broadly tightened.

Meanwhile, after weakening, SpaceX’s credit curve is now trading more in line with those of similarly rated Oracle, whose longer-dated bonds also widened soon after they were first sold. 

One way to track the SpaceX relative credit performance is through CDS, as Credit-default swaps tied to the company began actively trading after the company sold high-grade bonds this week for the first time, allowing investors to hedge against potential losses or to speculate on the creditworthiness of the firm. And yes, SPCX CDS has blown wider since breaking for trading, indicating the market is not as hopeful on the company's "otherworldly" ambitions, as Elon Musk or the friendly Wall Street sellside, which expects 100x higher revenues by 2030. 

But here a bigger problem emerges: as we have been pounding the table since last October, when we said that "AI Is Now A Debt Bubble Too, Quietly Surpassing All Banks To Become The Largest Sector In The Market" and most recently two weeks ago when we profiled "The $1.8 Trillion Off-Balance Sheet Time Bomb At The Heart Of The AI Supercycle", bondholders have been inundated with massive hyperscaler bond sales this year as tech giants race to raise billions of dollars to finance artificial intelligence projects (read: pay memory chip makers ridiculous prices for their commodity product). US high-grade supply of $180 billion as of Wednesday has set a new June record, surpassing 2020’s $169 billion haul, according to Bloomberg calculations. Morgan Stanley's internal calcs are even more insane: the bank's latest Debt Financing Tracker (available to pro subscribers) found that YTD $236BN in AI-linked debt has been issued, a 357% increase from the same period last year. By year-end, MS expect this number to more than double to $570 billion.

Source 

Even more amazing is the recent explosion in hyperscaler gross leverage, which has surged from 0.9x in Q3 '25 to 1.8x currently, doubling in just over two quarters, and surpassing the gross leverage of the entire energy sector. At this rate, hyperscaler debt is growing at about 0.3x turn per quarter.

Source 

Echoing Bloomberg's observation that the borrowing spree is starting to weigh on corporate bond spreads, pushing average high-grade risk premiums out of a historically tight range, Morgan Stanley noted that hyperscalers are drifting wider, and after trading insider AA spreads for much of 2025, are now on top of A, and as MS warns, "may widen further on supply." And it's not just outlier Oracle: META is now trading wider to CDX IG. 

Source 

Not surprisingly, Bloomberg reported earlier this week that demand for the SpaceX bond sale was strongest for the five-year notes, i.e. the lowest duration part of the offering, which let the company cut borrowing costs more on that portion of the deal than on the longer maturities. Interest was weaker in the 20-year and 30-year bonds, which saw the biggest drop-off in demand. Ironically that's precisely where the bulk of the "shareholder value" is concentrated, deep in the future when SpaceX is expected to be colonizing Mars, flying through worm holes, and enjoying other activities that push its EBITDA north of $1 trillion, or something. 

SpaceX’s long-dated bonds are widening despite “some initial excitement and demand,” with bondholders “seemingly concluding that there may be plenty more debt issuance to come, as the loss-making company finances its future path to profitability,” Mark Dowding, CIO for fixed income at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, wrote in a note.

Mark is undoubtedly correct, and we expect both SpaceX and other IG names to continue flooding the market until spreads eventually blow up like they did one year ago, and shut the debt issuance window for good, at which point the capex cycle will end as there is no more free cash flow, and in a few months, there will be no more debt either. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/perfect-storm-bond-traders-stunned-how-quickly-spacex-bonds-are-selling

Historic' Ceasefire Deal Reached By Israel & Lebanon, But Fine Print Confirms Fragile Reality

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the new agreement signed between Israel and Lebanon, hosted in Washington on Friday, as a major blow to Iran. He has said Israeli forces will remain in southern Lebanon so long as Hezbollah does not disarm: 

"I want to announce a great achievement for the State of Israel. The most important thing is that, first of all, Israel remains in the security zone in southern Lebanon. This is a great achievement, and we will maintain it as long as Hezbollah does not disarm, as long as there is a danger to the State of Israel."

Mideast regional media is also calling the 'trilateral framework agreement' (given it was also signed by the US) as likely the most significant agreement between the two enemy countries in decades.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated at the signing ceremony that it was aimed at achieving "lasting peace and security". The US top diplomat proclaimed, "Today is a good day in that we are happy to announce a framework agreement between the sovereign government of Lebanon and, of course, the government of Israel, with a mediation and support of the United States of America that begins to put in place a framework for lasting peace and security."

via Reuters

He added: "And that’s what these two nations deserve." Following on this, the State Department also said officially, "The two sides agreed with the guidance of the United States to swiftly advance the creation of pilot zones in which the Lebanese Armed Forces will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors."

Ultimately, it shows a serious effort by the Trump administration to scramble behind the scenes and ensure events in Lebanon can't derail the fragile peace and ceasefire achieved with the MoU signing between the US and Iran earlier this month.

Iran has insisted that a broader peace deal bring Lebanon into it, after small Mediterranean country suffered relentless aerial attacks by Israel, which is seeking to eradicate Hezbollah while occupying more territory in the south.

But the hard reality is that without Hezbollah going along with this, it only remains symbolic. In the below is seen the crucial fine print:

The agreement, which came as a result of talks mediated by the United States, calls for the implementation of a ceasefire between the two nations.

That ceasefire is contingent on a complete cessation of fire by the paramilitary group Hezbollah and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives from the South Litani Sector, an area in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah was not a party to Friday’s agreement. It is not clear whether the group will abide by any ceasefire.

As for some of the key details, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will hand over control of two areas within its six-mile southern Lebanon buffer zone to Lebanese forces. Al Jazeera says this is a prelude to a full Israeli withdrawal later on.

Having already cleared Hezbollah infrastructure from these sectors, Israeli forces are prepared to step back. The prior clearance operations included leveling entire border villages - a move Israel defended by claiming Hezbollah used the civilian infrastructure as staging grounds for attacks.

Prior agreements have come and gone though - given things usually devolve into sporadic exchange of fire to start, and then move to intensified conflict. But the Trump admin has high hopes that this one will stick, truly earning the 'historic' label that many officials are currently attaching to it.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/historic-ceasefire-agreement-reached-israel-lebanon-fine-print-reveals-tenuous-nature

Acadia gets positive EMA CHMP opinion backing EU approval of DAYBU for Rett syndrome

 

Acadia gets positive EMA CHMP opinion backing EU approval of DAYBU for Rett syndrome in patients aged five and older

• CHMP positive opinion follows re-examination and covers treatment of neurobehavioral symptoms of Rett syndrome with DAYBU.

https://finviz.com/stock?t=ACAD&p=d

Trump Says Iran Violated Ceasefire With Hormuz Drone Attack On Cargo Ship

 Update (11:55am ET): While today's announcement by Dubai that the UAE was under missile attack proved to be a false alarm, the US ceasefire it nonetheless becoming increasingly unstable. Following yesterday's attack by Iran drones on a cargo ship next to Oman, we were wondering how long until Trump responds (and how), and he did just that moments ago when he posted on Truth Social that Iran shoting "at least four One Way Attack Drones at Ships transversing the Strait of Hormuz" is "a foolish violation of our Ceasefire Agreement." 

However, Trump's post follows earlier reports that the US and Iran had set up a deconfliction hotline involving precisely such events in the Gulf, so we doubt that there will be much if any follow through from this latest round of jawboning, especially now that Trump is set on maintaining the flow of oil through Hormuz as much as possible, which has allowed oil to tumble to pre-war levels.

* * * 

With each week and month that passes since the start of Trump's Operation Epic Fury, more and more reports have come out revealing the massive extent of damage to US military facilities in the Mideast region based on Iran's retaliation across the region. 

This is often based on fresh satellite imaging and analysis, despite US government pressure for these research entities to refrain from publishing such data, and to censor open source photographs. After a series of deep investigative reports, it has been proven time and again that the Pentagon and Washington officials have been downplaying and covering up the real extent of devastation caused by Iranian missiles and drones.

More fresh reporting in the Wall Street Journal once again adds confirmation to this, referencing satellite imagery which shows far more serious damage at a key naval base in Bahrain than the US has publicly acknowledged.

WSJ featured newly publicized images of whole US military command & communications buildings belonging to the US Navy in Bahrain obliterated, via AIRBUS

The damage is said to be bad enough that the Pentagon is mulling shrinking its troop presence there and elsewhere in the Gulf, including a potential reduced troop footprint in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Iran is hailing this reported pullback as a significant strategic victory produced by its retaliation.

Unnamed officials were cited in the report as saying American forces could retreat as far westward as Israel, after some bases essentially became unusable or uninhabitable altogether.

Concerning the Bahrain base details, WSJ writes:

The U.S. Navy base in Bahrain was repeatedly targeted between late February and June. Strikes that got through caused extensive damage, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of satellite imagery, social-media footage and interviews with current and former servicemembers—damage that the Pentagon hasn’t publicly acknowledged. Hit hard were the command headquarters and at least a dozen other buildings, along with two satellite communications terminals. 

The military said no one was killed at the base, known as Naval Support Activity Bahrain, and that the strikes didn’t significantly impact operations. The U.S. evacuated most personnel but has kept a small staff on the ground. 

Notably in Bahrain the headquarters building for the US Navy in the Middle East was struck and seriously damaged, along with sensitive communications centers being destroyed.

But here is a key, somewhat unexpected line in the Journal report: "The extensive damage done to America’s sole naval base in the Middle East - along with hits to at least 20 U.S. sites across the region, including military installations and diplomatic facilities - has the U.S. re-evaluating its entire footprint in the region, according to U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.

This means that damaged structures and bases may not be rebuilt at all, and the sites may just be abandoned as future key US military hubs, WSJ says.

The draw-down of expensive Pentagon comms centers could include from Bahrain: "The military is now considering revamping the base in Bahrain, reducing the U.S. presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and moving some bases or base functions west, farther from the reach of Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officials familiar with the deliberations," WSJ writes.

Reconstruction costs would be staggering, per the same report:

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated in a report published Tuesday that the total cost of the war was about $40 billion. That estimate included their calculus of $2.2 billion to $5.1 billion in damage to U.S. bases, based on structures that CSIS identified as damaged. 

The Journal used satellite images and social-media footage to identify which buildings on the Bahrain base were damaged. To estimate what it would cost to construct buildings of the same types today, the Journal reviewed a publicly available Defense Department cost model as well as procurement reports. The estimates only cover construction, and don’t include other costs that ​could factor into the total if the buildings were to be rebuilt, such as debris removal and reinforcement. ​ 

"The estimated construction costs at NSA Bahrain totaled about $400 million," it continues. But ultimately a draw-back from these locations would be based on the proven reality that Iran can easily hit them at any time.

Some further implications to all this are that in any future flare-up or even return to all-out war between the US and Iran, American forces would find themselves executing a conflict much further away from the theatre itself. For example, dozens of major Air Force refueling tankers have already had to be relocated far away from the Gulf, to places like Tel Aviv. Many were destroyed in the opening weeks of the war while parked at Gulf airfields, clearly over-exposed as it seems Iran knew exactly where to target.

Back in late March, US officials admitted to the NY Times that Iran's significantly retaliation damaging US bases was "a war that is much harder to prosecute."

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/damage-losses-key-us-bases-gulf-so-extensive-pentagon-may-not-rebuild-them