# Monday, May 18th, 2026 - Trump Extorting the IRS, Ebola Health Emergency, Hantavirus Czar Does Penile Implants, Taiwan Invasion Timeline

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/morning-announcements-1365801/monday-may-18th-2026-trump-extorting-the-irs-ebola-health-emergency-hantavirus-czar-does-penile-implants-taiwan-invasion-timeline
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/morning-announcements-1365801/monday-may-18th-2026-trump-extorting-the-irs-ebola-health-emergency-hantavirus-czar-does-penile-implants-taiwan-invasion-timeline.md
Podcast: [Morning Announcements](https://stenobird.com/podcast/morning-announcements-1365801)
Published: 2026-05-18T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pdst.fm/e/titlepl.us/redirect.mp3/BETCHES/3/traffic.megaphone.fm/BMLLC8478980489.mp3
Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/titlepl.us/redirect.mp3/BETCHES/3/traffic.megaphone.fm/BMLLC8478980489.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/morning-announcements-1365801/episodes/monday-may-18th-2026-trump-extorting-the-irs-ebola-health-emergency-hantavirus-czar-does-penile-implants-taiwan-invasion-timeline
Duration seconds: 810

## Resource

Today's Headlines: Trump is reportedly willing to drop his $10 billion IRS lawsuit in exchange for a $1.7 billion government slush fund to pay out political allies — including $230 million for himself, a waiver on all family tax audits, and a public IRS apology — totally extortion. Meanwhile, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, one of the only Republicans who voted to convict Trump after January 6th, lost his primary and became the first senator in 12 years to lose one, because minimal backbone has a price in today's GOP. Because hantavirus clearly wasn’t enough to worry about, the WHO declared Ebola a global health emergency after outbreaks in Uganda and the DRC with 246 suspected cases, no available vaccine, and no functioning USAID to help — and the person Trump put in charge of the hantavirus response is a urologist who specializes in penile implants and has promoted pandemic conspiracy theories, so we're in great hands. In other news, Trump's new counterterrorism strategy ranks drug cartels above Islamist militants, considers leftists on par with al-Qaeda, and doesn't mention far-right extremism at all, though Sebastian Gorka did find time to call out Tucker Carlson specifically. In global matters, a commander of Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah was charged with plotting attacks on 20 Jewish sites across the US, Europe, and Canada, a drone struck a UAE nuclear power plant with no injuries, and Trump told Axios Iran will get "hit much harder" despite having no leverage — while US officials now believe China will invade Taiwan within four years, Cuba has acquired 300 military drones from Russia and Iran and is reportedly eyeing Guantanamo Bay or Key West, and Ukraine launched its largest drone attack of the entire war — 600 drones across 14 Russian regions — in r…

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