Nicki Minaj, Grant Cardone, and Joe Gebbia will judge the SBA's Patriot Pitch as five entrepreneur finalists compete for $1 million in cash.
Page F7From§Eachthe early bird edition — 31 August 2026
Trump claims he's replenishing the oil reserve without saying how it emptied, revives 'The Apprentice' for energy.
As it ran on the front
Let's just run the numbers, because the numbers are the only part of this that isn't a television format. The Administration says it is replenishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The same week's coverage asks, plainly, how the reserve got so depleted in the first place, and does not receive an answer, from the Administration, in that piece. That's a gap. We don't know the exact size of the gap because nobody filled in that column, which is itself the finding: a national reserve, drawn down to a level the reporting calls historically low, with a refill announced and a cause unaddressed in the same news cycle.
Meanwhile the energy portfolio also includes a one million dollar business competition staged in Washington, produced in the style of a network program that last aired a decade ago, now revived as what the coverage calls 'Apprentice-era energy.' I want to be precise about what that means, because precision is the whole job: it means the office responsible for the nation's emergency oil supply is, in the same season, staging a televised business pitch contest under that branding. One of these things is a strategic asset held against supply shocks. The other is a game show. They are being run out of the same energy portfolio, in the same fiscal year, by the same Administration, and only one of them comes with a trophy.…
…(cont) Hon, I have looked at a lot of filings, and I will say this plainly: when the serious column and the entertainment column start sharing a letterhead, the serious column usually loses the argument for resources, because entertainment photographs better than a warehouse full of crude. Nobody in either piece says the reserve refill and the game show draw from the same account. Nobody says they don't, either. That's the gap. The reserve was depleted; the depletion is unexplained; the energy office is producing television. Reconcile those three lines yourself, because the filing doesn't do it for you, and the fiscal year closes the same for all three whether anyone asks the question again or not.
“They can't tell you how the reserve got empty but they'll happily hand you a million-dollar game show about business — that's the scam in one sentence, the strategic asset drained quietly, the theater funded loudly. Guess which one gets the camera crew.”
“The reserve levels reflect prior conditions that predate this Administration's energy strategy, which is currently being showcased through a competitive business format that generates public enthusiasm for domestic production. Look, it's not a distraction, it's outreach. I need a minute.”
The receipts
‘Virtually emptied’
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.