Girth Tater spent Sunday at his Virginia golf course posting AI-generated images mocking a CNN reporter and a rock star while an oil tanker detonated in the Strait of Hormuz and a Saudi refinery continued to burn. The posts included a photoshopped image of Kaitlan Collins morphed with Dylan Mulvaney and a cartoon of Bruce Springsteen wearing a shirt that read 'I'm stupid,' alongside an obese Chris Christie offering a high five.
The memes began appearing on the former president’s social media account shortly after he stormed out of the White House and barred the press from the grounds. One aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the former president had been “in a mood” and was working on his short game. The aide confirmed the former president shot an 89, three strokes worse than his usual score, and blamed the putter.
Meanwhile, Iranian state media confirmed that a commercial tanker struck a naval mine after ignoring warnings to stay within the country’s designated shipping lane. The Jazan refinery in Saudi Arabia, attacked by Houthi forces two days earlier, was still engulfed in flames. Satellite images showed thick black smoke drifting over the Red Sea.
As the crises unfolded, the administration quietly acknowledged it had exhausted its stock of key missile interceptors. A senior defense official confirmed the U.S. could no longer guarantee simultaneous protection of allied assets and American forces. The official said the situation had forced Washington to open backchannel talks with Iran through Oman, Pakistan, and Qatar. The stockpile of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors dropped to 42 units, down from a required 340 to defend forward-deployed forces, according to a Pentagon report circulated last week. The same report noted that THAAD interceptors were 'effectively depleted' because of a software bug that accidentally launched them during a routine test in May.
A White House spokesperson defended the president’s focus. “The president is using all available platforms to communicate directly with the American people and our adversaries,” the spokesperson said. “It is a form of psychological operations that saves physical ordnance.” The spokesperson cited internal studies showing that AI-generated memes had a 'documented deterrent effect' on Houthi ballistic missile launches.
The Pentagon’s comptroller noted the munitions shortage had saved the government $340 million in the past quarter. A budget official described the savings as “a difficult but necessary dividend of the pause.” The talks, the spokesperson clarified, were contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords. “The president remains committed to historic normalization,” the statement read. “This has not been a distraction.”
The former president was briefed on both the tanker mine and the refinery blaze by the national security advisor at 9:14 a.m. The meeting lasted seven minutes. The president then asked his staff to find better AI tools for making the Dylan Mulvaney image more realistic. “He said it needed to look more convincing and less like a Photoshop job from 2008,” one staffer recalled.
The Pentagon confirmed that the briefing document was recovered from the clubhouse trash, resting beside a half-eaten hot dog. The Pentagon initially denied the document had been found in the trash. In a follow-up statement, a spokesperson said the hot dog had been 'properly disposed of' and the document was recovered for 'record-keeping purposes.'
