A staged White House ceremony celebrating tech companies agreeing to pay for their own electricity became yet another exercise in presidential image-building, complete with construction hardhats in the audience and a parade of flattery from executives representing Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others. Meanwhile, the administration worked overtime to suppress scrutiny of American military deaths in Operation Epic Fury, with Pete Hegseth dismissing fallen service members as "tragic things" and Karoline Leavitt deflecting questions about press coverage of the war.

Trump opened an energy roundtable by boasting about war efforts while six U.S. service members have died in Operation Epic Fury. Tech executives from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI pledged to cover their own data center energy costs in a ceremony designed to boost Trump's image. AI Czar David Sacks praised Trump's leadership and claimed the president "knows more about AI" than he does. Pete Hegseth called military deaths "tragic things" and accused the press of only wanting to make the president look bad. A bipartisan House Oversight Committee majority voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Epstein files. Six percent of Vanguard participants are now taking hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) plans to cover medical bills, evictions, and other urgent financial needs.

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