There’s a pattern hiding in plain sight. Each story today reads like a separate news cycle. A military standoff in the Persian Gulf. An election office captured by loyalists. A congressman accused of rape. A new pope who refuses to blink. A Canadian prime minister reshaping the Western alliance. But pull back and look at all five at once, and what you’re watching is a single crisis playing out across five fronts simultaneously — the story of a government that has isolated itself from the world, captured its own institutions, and is now confronting the consequences.

Zev Shalev and former Republican congressman Denver Riggleman broke it all down on today’s FIVESTACK. Here’s what they found.

🚨 BREAKING: China Defies the Blockade

The numbers tell the story before anything else does. Before the Iran war began, more than 120 ships per day were moving through the Strait of Hormuz. In the past 48 hours: 28 total.

That is what a blockade looks like — until a sanctioned Chinese tanker pushed through it today anyway.

China has warned it will keep the Strait open. And Denver Riggleman, who spent years in NSA intelligence, isn’t treating this as posturing. He flagged that China may be arming Iran with FN-6 MANPADs — infrared, shoulder-fired missiles. The reason that matters: radar warning systems don’t detect them.

“That’s how you shoot down jets,” Riggleman said.

Meanwhile, the strategic picture is darkening for Washington. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is in Beijing. Saudi Arabia is pressing Trump to stand down. The coalition Trump needed to make the blockade stick is not there — because Trump spent years systematically alienating the people who might have been in it.

“Xi and Putin don’t like him anymore,” Riggleman said. “He’s isolated who he wanted to be our new allies.”

Zev Shalev brought it back to the money — as he always does, because the money is always the thread. Trump’s net worth went from functionally broke to $6.5 billion, plus $10 billion in crypto. There’s the “Board of Peace” — $1 billion per country entry fee, nine or more countries in, $1.25 billion of USAID funds funneled into it, with contracts flowing back to Trump-linked companies. Eric Trump invested in Israeli drone company Extend eleven days before the Iran war started. There’s a $750 million contract vehicle, and a $20 billion Andurel contract awarded in March.

Zev’s framing: “A criminal organization inserting itself into every global monetization process.”

The blockade isn’t just a military story. It’s the business model.

5. The Swalwell Accuser

A woman held a live press conference in Beverly Hills today with attorney Lisa Bloom. She is a model and software entrepreneur. She says she met Eric Swalwell in 2018, that she knew his wife was pregnant, and that he offered to help her software company make connections.

On their third encounter, she says she believes he drugged her drink. She arrived at his hotel room incapacitated. She says he raped her, and that he choked her until she lost consciousness.

“I thought I died,” she told the press conference.

Denver Riggleman had history with Swalwell — he went after him hard over the Fang Fang Chinese intelligence story, and Swalwell reached out to him directly during that period. Riggleman was careful about the legal dimensions of today’s accusation, but he didn’t hedge on the pattern.

“Past performance is indicative of future performance,” he said.

Zev was blunter: “Of all the politicians you would have hoped would have turned out to be a decent guy, he ain’t.”

For the record: Swalwell has not been charged. But the press conference was on the record, with counsel present, and the specificity of the allegations was not vague.

4. ProPublica: Trump Gutted Every Election Safeguard

ProPublica published the receipts today. Seventy-five career election integrity officials are gone. They were replaced by twenty-four loyalists. Ten of those twenty-four actively worked to overturn the 2020 election results.

Running point on “election integrity” for the federal government is now Heather Honey. Zev’s assessment: “She made this s**t up. Everything she said was completely false.” She was present at Michael Flynn’s February summit where activists pressured Trump to declare a national emergency to seize control of the midterm elections.

Denver Riggleman, who has tracked election interference architecture since January 6th, walked through what’s coming next: Executive Order 14248, being drafted by the same Sidney Powell, Cleta Mitchell, and Patrick Byrne network that tried to overturn 2020. The draft order would nationalize elections, authorize the seizure of voting machines, and mobilize ICE in election contexts.

Riggleman pushed back against the simple version of the “steal” narrative, but his nuance made the danger more precise, not less:

“You can’t steal 50 states. But when you’re talking about specific swing districts — 70 to 80 districts that really matter, down to one county — that’s where you have trouble.”

Why is Trump doing this now? Riggleman had a direct answer: “He’s doing this to stop the investigations that are going to come out of the House if Democrats take over — the impeachment process. He knows how much corruption, how much grifting is going on.”

The conclusion isn’t pessimistic, but it is blunt: “If it’s too big to rig, there has to be an overwhelming mobilization of voters in 2026.”

3. Pope Leo XIV Doesn’t Flinch

Trump attacked Leo XIV on Truth Social. Called him “WEAK on Crime.” Claimed credit for his election. Then posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, deleted it, and told people it was “me as a doctor.”

Leo’s response: “I have no fear of the Trump administration.”

Today, Leo sent a formal letter warning of “majoritarian tyranny.”

Denver Riggleman has watched the Trump movement from the inside — he has family members who believe Trump is “the imperfect vessel executing spiritual warfare.” He watches the Jesus meme and reads something important in it: “I think he believes now what’s being said about him. He’s drank a lot of his own bathwater. The Jesus meme is a tipping point.”

Zev saw the strategic self-destruction clearly: “He’s giving away the mantle of moral authority to the Pope. Saying to Pope Leo, yeah, you go tell everyone what’s right and wrong, I’m just going to keep being the criminal.”

And for those worried about Leo’s durability in this fight: “The papacy survived Attila, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler. It will survive Truth Social.”

2. Carney Wins the Majority. Canada Builds What America Abandoned.

Mark Carney secured a parliamentary majority through Monday’s by-elections — 174 of 343 seats. The man who ran explicitly on “Canada is not for sale” now has a mandate.

Zev said what used to be unthinkable to say on an American broadcast: Canada could become “an adversary, a competitor to the United States. I can’t even believe we’re saying those words.”

Riggleman was specific about what’s been lost: “Canada could be the leader as a trusted partner of NATO, because right now America is not trusted by any country in the world.”

On Friday, Starmer and Macron host a Paris summit — forty nations. The description: basically doing NATO without the United States, against the United States.

Riggleman’s verdict on where MAGA’s isolationist project has landed: “MAGA wanted a nationalistic, isolated government. And they got all they voted for.”

On JD Vance specifically, Riggleman — a military veteran — did not mince words: “A Lima Delta. He doesn’t have the moral compass to be a true American on the world stage. He’s a joke. He’s an embarrassment.”

1. The Blockade (The Full Picture)

Everything in today’s show runs back through the blockade — the Iran war, the drone contracts, the Board of Peace grift, China’s defiance, Lavrov in Beijing, Saudi Arabia pressing Trump to stand down.

Zev’s closing read: “Donald Trump is about as isolated and alone in the world” as the blockade cracks around him.

Denver Riggleman, who has spent years learning to follow money through intelligence networks, stripped it to its core: “The main objective of the Trump family is to make money. The longer he can draw this out, the more money they pour into their pockets.”

The blockade isn’t holding. But that might not be the point. For the people profiting from the conflict, every day it continues is a revenue event.

The Pattern

Step back. Look at all five stories at once.

A military blockade the world refuses to honor. A Congress in active ethical collapse. An election apparatus being captured in broad daylight, piece by piece, loyalist by loyalist. A pope who became the moral authority Trump created by attacking him. And Canada, with Europe, quietly building the new Western alliance — without Washington at the table.

These are not separate news cycles. They are one story about a government that has systematically dismantled every check that might have stopped it, alienated every ally that might have supported it, and is now discovering that the world doesn’t actually need its permission to keep moving.

The blockade is the metaphor. And it’s cracking.

THE FIVESTACK airs weekdays on Narativ.

SUBSCRIBE TO Denver Riggleman, former U.S. Congressman (R-VA) and former NSA intelligence officer.

Thank you Lev Parnas, Natasha K., Robin Payes,