Ukraine Blames Trump Administration for Russian Missile Intel Blunder

Washington may have intentionally withheld military intelligence from Ukraine about a barrage of Russian missile strikes.The Russian Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that it had successfully carried out a “massive” strike against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, slamming two plants supplying heat and electricity to Kyiv and the surrounding region. The missiles also damaged a residential building in the capitol. At least nine people died in the attacks, reported Al Jazeera.But Ukrainian officials have since suggested that the strikes could have been prevented—if they received the proper intelligence. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy noted in a statement on X that his government had obtained “no advance warning from our partners” about the attack.Multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News that U.S. officials blamed the communication lapse on the clouds, claiming that the equipment they use to detect Russian missile launches failed to work because of “bad weather.”Ukrainian officials that spoke on the condition of anonymity said they did not buy Washington’s excuse. They instead believed that the Trump administration was “playing” with the system, according to CBS.The officials also claimed that Elon Musk’s SpaceX had restricted Starlink access within the region around the same time, upending Ukraine’s primary internet connection.Days earlier on Friday, Donald Trump brokered an eyebrow-raising deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy diesel from Moscow, effectively offering the country an economic lifeline to continue the war.Zelenskiy torched the deal, arguing to American officials that the arrangement exhibited “weakness.” Trump, apparently, did not appreciate the language choice.A multi-day harassment campaign ensued in which the Trump administration called European capitals and Kyiv, threatening to cut off military intelligence sharing and weapons deliveries unless Ukraine stopped attacking Russian oil refineries.Speaking with reporters as he departed the White House Tuesday, Donald Trump insisted that the U.S. had not stopped sharing military intelligence with the eastern European country.“No, we haven’t. We help them, but we’re really helping them get to a final answer. We want the war ended,” Trump said.When Russia lobbied another round of strikes against Ukraine around 3 a.m. Wednesday, the American detection system was spontaneously working again.Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was forced to resign as U.S. Ambassador to Greece amid a series of scandals, reportedly has been keeping a diary with all kinds of incriminating secrets on the Trump family.Guilfoyle, formerly engaged to Donald Trump Jr., has a “burn book” with all kinds of dirt on President Trump and his family, reports the Daily Mail tabloid. According to the publication, the president’s close advisers were trying to keep her at her post in Greece, worried about the secrets she knows about.Now that Guilfoyle has been asked to resign, the Mail’s sources said that she plans to burn bridges with the Trumps and release contents of the diary. Guilfoyle and Trump Jr. were together from 2018 until 2024, and she was present at most, if not all, of the Trump family’s major events. Her return to the U.S. is making the Trump family and inner circle nervous, according to the Mail.“Having her back in America would be a nightmare. Kimberly knows where the bodies are buried. She knows the people, the secrets, the fights, the relationships,” an unnamed source told the publication. “Nobody wants an angry Kimberly back home with nothing to lose.”“Kimberly knows everything. She was way inside that family and political operation for years,” said another insider.Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Guilfoyle begged a Republican donor to send $100,000 to pay her credit card bill in exchange for favors from the Trump administration. Guilfoyle also promoted one Greek construction and energy organization while inviting its lobbyist into private meetings. All the while, she bragged about how two wealthy Greek businessmen were paying for her travel around the world on private jets.While the Daily Mail’s report ought to be taken with a grain of salt, dating the president’s son for six years would yield a lot of ugly secrets. Whether or not Guilfoyle chooses to release them depends on how happy she is with the Trump family after she was forced to quit. Will she seek money and attention from blowing up her relationship with them, or will she try to get that from staying in their orbit? More on that credit card bill:Ahead of the midterm elections, the Trump administration is withholding detailed information that will illustrate how President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act hurt millions of Americans.The data from the IRS was initially scheduled to be released in July and updated in September, but the agency hasn’t filed either, Politico reported Wednesday. The IRS claims it is still waiting for approval to release the figures from the Treasury Department. The data will reveal the real impact of Republicans’ tax policies—and whether they fell short of their promises.Nina Olson, a former national taxpayer advocate, accused Frank Bisignano, the IRS’s chief executive officer, of purposefully withholding the data. “I think they are hiding stuff that doesn’t line up with all the crowing the CEO has been doing,” she told Politico.Barry Johnson, a former top IRS official, told Politico that by the law, the IRS can determine when to release the data, not the Treasury Department. “It’s unusual,” he said.Data detailing which tax breaks were claimed by people in different income brackets and how much they paid in taxes could become embarrassing if it reveals that the tax burden shifted between income groups, or that a suspicious number of people claimed certain breaks, Johnson told Politico. The reason could also be unremarkable.“There’s all sorts of things it could be—you can’t know until you see the data whether it’s they don’t like the answers, or whether the data themselves really isn’t useful,” he said.Another possible explanation for the delay is that the many carveouts and exemptions implemented by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts have potentially complicated the tax codes, so the IRS has more trouble producing the numbers in the first place.The IRS has already faced criticism for withholding its report on the so-called “tax gap,” which details how many taxes are owed and remain unpaid.Even without the IRS data, we already know that Trump’s 2025 tax cuts have kneecapped millions of Americans by saving money for high-income taxpayers, estate heirs, wealthy business owners, and corporations—all while driving Social Security toward insolvency. The Trump administration is giving California 48 hours to purge its voter rolls of people it thinks are noncitizens, or else. A letter first obtained by Reuters details the administration’s demand for “immediate action to ensure that noncitizens do not vote in the upcoming federal election.” The Department of Justice wants California to scroll through a flash drive of “likely noncitizen” voters that it provided. It’s not clear what evidence the administration is basing that off of. The move comes just a few weeks after the Supreme Court ruled to allow Homeland Security to revive the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, also known as SAVE. The Trump administration states it’ll have “no choice but to seek emergency relief” if California doesn’t comply. That could include purging voters before the midterm elections, which will take place in less than three weeks. Early voting began in California on October 5.While the administration hasn’t revealed how large the thumb drive file is, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin thinks that there are over 190,000 noncitizens registered to vote in California, a number that California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said she had “serious doubts” about the “reliability” and “accuracy” of. This is just the most recent chapter of President Trump’s monthslong campaign to sue states for their voter registration data in order to target undocumented immigrants. In reality, noncitizen voting remains incredibly marginal. A Census Bureau analysis of voting in the 2020 election found that roughly 24,000 noncitizens were included in a report that examined over 128 million voting records. In 2016, meanwhile, noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Republican Representative Andy Harris couldn’t handle a debate audience laughing at his explanation for high gas prices.On Tuesday night, during a debate in Cambridge, Maryland, with his Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz, both candidates were asked about President Trump’s recent deal with Russia for diesel fuel.“Making a deal with Russia to lift sanctions on their diesel when they are actively working with Iranian forces to kill our troops is not only wrong; it’s disgusting,” Schwartz said, “and it follows the pattern of this administration pardoning criminals.”The audience didn’t interrupt Schwartz, but they had a problem with Harris’s answer.“The facts are diesel prices have gone up. There’s no question about it. Why has it gone up? Because the Democrats have environmental regulations—” Harris tried to respond, only for audience members to groan, laugh, and shout at the Maryland first district congressman and chair of the right-wing House Freedom caucus.“See this is the problem,” Harris complained to the crowd. “You all say all believe in the First Amendment, but only if you agree with you. You should let me finish the sentence, ma’am. You are rude!”WATCH: Andy Harris has a crash out after his constituents laugh at him for trying to blame higher gas prices on... Democrats. "You are rude!" #MD01 https://t.co/Ug3xBKTstW— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) October 13, 2026 Glenna Heckathorn, president of the League of Women Voters of the Mid-Shore and the debate’s moderator, told the crowd to remain civil and asked the two candidates to calm their supporters.“It’s very important that you guys are able to hear from both of us tonight,” Schwartz said. Harris didn’t oblige.“My people aren’t interfering with Mr. Schwartz. It’s only one way,” Harris said.Harris was clearly avoiding the real reason for higher fuel prices: President Trump’s ill-advised Iran war. Before the war, diesel prices were less than $3 per gallon, but now, they are well over $6 per gallon. Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, and fighting between the Houthi militia and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have disrupted the flow of oil from the Middle East.Shortly after the debate, Harris, a staunch MAGA Republican who has avoided in-person town halls since 2023, tried to get a reporter arrested for recording his speech to a group of journalists. Harris incorrectly stated the reporter was breaking the law as she asked about his support for the war.Republican Rep. Andy Harris incorrectly told a reporter they were breaking the law as the reporter and others recorded an exchange with him last night. Harris had just wrapped up a debate with Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz. https://t.co/J0pWnt2lki— The Baltimore Banner (@BaltimoreBanner) October 14, 2026