The FBI's ability to get a search warrant to seize all of the 2020 election ballots and information in Fulton County, Georgia came down to one FBI agent who spoke to one supporter of President Donald Trump. Now, the FBI wants to hide that agent from answering questions under oath.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance flagged the court filing on Friday, in which Fulton County said that Agent Hugh Raymond Evans is a central part to their motions to quash. The federal government wants to keep the FBI agent from testifying, she explained.

The FBI raided the Fulton County headquarters at the end of January. At one point, the FBI agent told the county staff that they weren't leaving without the ballots, whether they had the proper paperwork or not. Once the documents showing how the FBI was able to get a search warrant were exposed, legal experts pounced on the legitimacy of the FBI's claims.

"His affidavit — which misstated and omitted key facts that if accurately disclosed would have undermined any pretense of probable cause — provides the sole support for the warrant at issue," wrote the county.

Fulton County is arguing that the Justice Department is trying to hide the truth behind how it got its search warrant.

Vance noted that Fulton County did one important thing in its promise to respect any "relevant privileges" that could prevent him from answering a question. Still, however, the DOJ refused.

"That won’t help their credibility with the Judge," wrote Vance.

"The 2020 election has been litigated, relitigated and its result confirmed. Given all of that and the affidavit's reliance on a discredited source to resuscitate the argument something criminal happened, it’s hard to imagine the government was pursuing a legitimate concern," wrote Vance on BlueSky.

"Trump is throwing voter suppression spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks," she added. "Everything from the SAVE Act to trying to control places like Fulton County."

Fulton County wants all of its documents back and went to court to get them. There were no copies made of the ballots, so no one will ever know what the FBI had, what they kept or even whether the documents are real.

Rich Logis was a full follower of President Donald Trump to the degree that one person who heard him speak called it a "cult." He's left that life behind, and now is talking to people about how to help their friends and family to get out too.

His story began in 2015 when he was sick of both parties. The idea of burning the system down appealed to him. When he went to his first rally it was like being surrounded by life-long friends, he described. It filled the void that even a happy life couldn't, he told The Palm Beach Post.

"MAGA was exciting," he told a crowd of progressives who gathered to hear him speak this week. "It was exhilarating, and it was enthralling. It was new. It was novel. And, most importantly for myself, it was a community."

"It was my being. It was my personhood," Logis said. "I had a second family, my MAGA compatriots who sometimes — I'm embarrassed to admit this — took precedence over my own blood family."

He's been a hardcore grassroots organizer for the far-right and spoken on Fox News. He created podcasts and told people that Democrats were coming for their guns and would indoctrinate their children.

"When I was in MAGA, I was certain of everything," Logis said. "I was on the right side. Everyone against us, they were on the wrong side. We needed to crush our enemies before they crushed us."

Reality and facts were pointless because anything that conflicts with their beliefs is "liberal propaganda." It was, as MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace calls it, Earth 1 and Earth 2.

What pulled him out at first was Gov. Rick DeSantis (R-Fl.). He'd never been an anti-vaccine person. So, when the pandemic hit, he started reading news outside of the right for the first time in years.

"As I incorporated more and more news sources, I started to have this painful realization that so much of what I believed turned out to be false," he said.

"I would listen to Trump talk about January 6, and I would say, 'I'm out. This is not for me,'" he said. "But then I would look at a photograph of an event at Mar-a-Lago that I went to, and I would think, 'No, no, this is exactly where I belong.'"

The final straw was the mass shooting at Uvalde Elementary School in Texas that killed 19 children. Once he turned, his MAGA family turned on him. He was no longer welcome. His email inbox was filled with people eager to reconnect with him as if he'd been away for years.

So, he put his organizing to work and started an ex-MAGA support group. They meet for 90 minutes over Zoom once a week.

One of the major problems, he said, is that there are a lot of MAGA people who want to leave but who are scared of being made fun of.

"Because folks, I'm telling you: That's one of the reasons people who want to leave MAGA might not," he said. "They feel they're going to be judged."

He thinks there are many more who could leave MAGA if only they had the love and support to do it.

President Donald Trump has been at war with the judiciary branch for years, but he really saw an uptick after he lost over 60 lawsuits trying to stop his 2020 election loss. Since then, he's deployed the same process of attacking judges by name, prompting supporters to broadcast their homes and family information.

The Christian Science Monitor noted on Friday that after years of only speaking out through their rulings, judges are coming forward in an effort to appeal to the public.

The U.S. Judicial Conference, which oversees the federal judiciary, recently issued an advisory opinion clarifying that judges may speak beyond their written rulings if they choose.

Jeremy Fogel, the executive director of Berkeley Judicial Institute, wrote last year that one issue is that many of these threats remain unknown to the public. He noted that it's tempting to brush it off as merely part of a new polarized society, but urged people not to minimize it.

The concern is that the threats will work and judges will begin to consider not the law in their rulings but the safety of their family, Fogel explained.

A forum organized by Speak Up for Justice brought together four judges willing to publicly call out the violence. "Serious threats" have doubled in the years since the 2020 election.

“Judges are traditionally cautious about speaking publicly. But this moment makes a strong case for why engagement is not only appropriate, but is necessary,” said U.S. District Court Judge Beth Bloom, for the Southern District of Florida.

Judge Esther Salas was targeted by an irate "men's rights" activist who went to her home with a gun. Her son stepped in front of her as the man fired. Since his death, people have been sending pizzas to the home of judges using the name of her slain son. It's a way of telling the judge that they know where they live and that what happened to Judge Salas' son could happen to them.

“It’s a matter of course now that when you issue an opinion that some people don’t like, you’re going to get threats and you’re going to get death threats,” said Judge Anna Reyes.

Judge Michelle Williams Court revealed that she received threats from someone saying that they knew where she lived and where her children went to school. She never thought anything would come of it, but she did tell the school and the local law enforcement.

“One Saturday morning, I looked out the window in my living room and there were four sheriff’s cars and four people sitting in handcuffs in my driveway,” she said.

It wasn't about a specific ruling, merely general anger and political opposition.

She continued, saying that people think, “Well this person was appointed by this person or that person, and I don’t like that decision, so I’m going to do X.' That’s a very dangerous place to be because it’s very unpredictable.”

The report recalled that last month, she read some of the death threats in open court. One said, “The best way you could help America is to eat a bullet.”

Last month, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down some of Trump's tariffs, the president lashed out at Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch. He called them “a disgrace to our nation” and “an embarrassment to their families." He claimed, without proof, that they were “swayed by foreign interests.”

“The problem sometimes is that the criticism can move from a focus on legal analysis to personalities,” said Chief Justice John Roberts this week when speaking at Rice University. “Personally directed hostility [toward judges] is dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”

It isn't merely Trump's anger toward the judiciary. CSM recalled Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), who announced he was starting a task force to “unite members in exposing judicial activism, with the ultimate goal of impeaching rogue, activist judges.”

"The view of a judge as someone who avoids trouble by following faithfully the direction of those in power is a hallmark of an authoritarian society, not a democratic one," Fogel wrote in his column.

One of President Donald Trump's big plans has been to open risky investment markets for anyone who wants to participate using their retirement funding. Now there is a fear that doing so could push markets teetering over a cliff.

Politico opened Friday with a bombshell: the financial markets are starting to crack amid Trump's troubled economy.

"The Labor Department is planning to roll out a long-awaited proposal that would offer workers invested in retirement products like 401(k)s access to the so-called private markets — a class of highly coveted but risky investments that have historically been walled off from the masses," Politico explained.

It's coming at the worst moment, however, as the private credit industry faces "a reckoning from investors." Politico noted that some even refer to it as a "shadow banking system." The industry is made up of companies that buy loans from Wall Street firms that aren't part of a typical home or car loan. It's a $2 trillion industry.

The issue is that investors are pulling their money after a "string of blow-ups," as Politico described. At the same time, the world of artificial intelligence has posed a risk to some software companies. So, investors are growing so worried that they're pulling their money out to such an extreme that they hit withdrawal limits.

It's making financial experts recall the lead-up to the 2008 crash. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is now sounding the same alarm as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, saying that retirees could be in potential danger.

“It’s the perfect storm,” investor Danny Moses told Politico. He was among those who bet against the subprime mortgage debt and became the inspiration for the book and film "The Big Short."

“They’ll have no choice but to bail out this entire industry if it goes off a cliff. It will impact retail investors, the banks, certainly private equity and private credit," he said.

Market freakouts aren't new for Trump, however, as he was at the helm of the COVID-19 pandemic that set about a global financial catastrophe. Luckily, the quick sell-offs have rebounded, but these recent concerns might be the ultimate test as to whether Trump is willing to completely deregulate Wall Street.

The private markets can be high reward for some but they're also high risk and "less transparent than the stocks and bonds that drive many Americans’ retirement accounts," the report explained.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that there is a concern that these markets could simply become a "dumping ground" for bad assets. He wants people to have the freedom to throw their money into it but hopes it can be dome in "a safe, sound and smart way."

However, the private credit industry assumes Congress will have its own thoughts on the matter, particularly because every issue is up for grabs in an election year.

As Sen. Warren explained it, “this is the worst possible moment” to open these markets to retirement investments. She, like many, are concerned about the lack of transparency and the reality of the returns.

As the report continued, it explained that the industry is desperately trying to assuage those fears.

Darren Indyke is one of the lawyers who serves as the executor of the estate for Jeffrey Epstein, one of several lawyers who swears he "had no knowledge whatsoever" of the crimes. Democrats claimed he perjured himself with the statements, revealing in real time that he had knowledge.

Indyke spoke to the House Oversight Committee on Thursday over the work he did for Epstein, where he testified, among many things, that he did have some concerns about Epstein after he was caught by law enforcement in Florida and became a convicted sex offender. After that, Indyke said that Epstein swore he "didn't know she was underage," CNN reported on air, citing Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.).

Brianna Keilar reported on air that Indyke said "Epstein told him it was a mistake, meaning after the 2008 plea deal that he agreed to. He said it was a one-time deal. He didn't know the girl was underage — the one that he got convicted of in West Palm Beach. And Indyke said he [Epstein] convinced him he would never do it again and that he had remorse."

The Guardian confirmed the reporting, saying that after Epstein pleaded guilty and served his light one-year sentence, Epstein appeared to him “to be devastated and extremely contrite."

“He was adamant that he had no idea anyone involved was underage, and personally assured me he would never again let himself be in that position,” Indyke said. “I believed him, and I made the mistake of believing Mr. Epstein that he would not again commit a crime. I deeply regret doing so.”

Indyke concluded the opening remarks, saying, “That I did not know what my client did in his private life may be difficult for some to believe, but it is true.”

Democrats didn't understand how both things could be true.

Rep. David Min (D-Calf.) told reporters that the statement claimed Indyke knew nothing, "and yet that doesn't account for the fact that numerous women have described how he helped them fix their problems. One woman described how ... he had helped her get an apartment. He helped women with their immigration issues."

James Marsh, attorney for some of the Epstein accusers, told CNN that by 2008, anyone who could Google would see what Epstein was up to.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Democrats say that the Republicans who claimed they wanted an investigation into possible corruption at the Department of Homeland Security aren't that serious about it.

The Bulwark reported on Thursday that Democrats who spoke to them believe it is a ruse because they've been frozen out of all parts of the process.

Outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem and her aide and her former aid Corey Lewandowski are linked to several allegations of personal ties to government contracts. A report Thursday cited several people who claim they were told there had to be money going to one of Lewandowski's many consulting companies to secure the government contract. Lewandowski denies this.

In a separate report Thursday from Politico, other questions surround whether both Noem and Lewandowski profited from the $220 million spent on ads promoting ICE and border patrol while featuring Noem prominently. One company, Safe America Media, was founded days before it was awarded the government contract. It was founded by someone at the same address as a Republican operative Mike McElwain. He and Patrick McCarthy "have ties to a firm that did extensive media buying on President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign."

Democrats sent a letter to Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security chairs demanding accountability.

In a letter to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) called on Republicans to change course if they’re serious about holding Noem and her former lieutenant Corey Lewandowski accountable.

“Now that House Republicans have finally decided to investigate the inappropriate use of funds by Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski,” wrote Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and given to The Bulwark.

“I request that the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Judiciary Committee include Democrats in the full investigation, as is the precedent. Furthermore, I once again call on Congress to conduct a thorough investigation into Secretary Noem’s unlawful and potentially impeachable actions," she said.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) pledged an investigation and said they'd get to the bottom of the contracts. He claimed that they'd already requested documents.

“I think Corey had his hands in a lot and probably should not have,” Garbarino said during a Republican retreat in Miami last week. “We are looking into a lot of contracts.”

Democrats find that "laughable," the report said, citing Ramirez. She said that she has been asking Republican members for nearly a year about shady contracts and questionable spending. It was only after public reporting revealed the $220 million spending on the Noem-focused ads that Republicans began discussing the matter.

The Bulwark recalled that "Garbarino even went out of his way to 'commend' Noem at an oversight hearing in December."

“Six, seven weeks ago, not one of those Republicans critiqued her for mismanagement of funds. They thanked her, congratulated her, and uplifted her,” Ramirez told the site in an interview. “But now they’re feeling the pressure because voters are tired of corruption and don’t care if it’s a Republican or Democrat.”

Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) said that she is just as frustrated with Republicans over the probe.

“I haven’t gotten anything personally from House Republicans, I’ve read articles about the inquiry just like you,” McIver told the reporter.

She called the GOP's sudden interest a joke.

“Trump is done with her so now Republicans are picking up and doing their job, which they were supposed to have been doing, but they threw that to the side to focus on cruelty against the American people and kissing Trump’s butt,” she said.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calf.) clashed with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and other intelligence appointees about the definition of "imminent" when asking whether Iran was an "imminent threat" against the United States.

Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were asked whether they agreed with statements made in the Senate hearing on Wednesday, and if the president is the only person who can determine whether there is an "imminent threat."

"Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president," Gabbard answered.

Legal experts and national security analysts were quick to refute that reply, saying that it was categorically untrue.

As with Senators on Wednesday, Gomez questioned the specifics about the reasons for going into Iran. Gabbard's threat assessment claimed that Iran constituted no imminent threat. Trump has told the press Iran was "weeks" away from firing a nuclear weapon at the United States.

"Were they weeks away or not?" Gomez asked. The American people need to know if this was an imminent threat or not. None of this dodging. Were they in imminent threat? Yesterday, you said that the president is the only person who can determine what is an imminent threat. Do you stand by that statement?"

Gomez asked Gabbard again whether she stands behind that statement, and she said that she did. He asked Ratcliffe whether he did. Both dodged.

"It's a serious question that requires the totality of information—" Gabbard said.

"As commander in chief, he gets to make a decision on that threat. The intelligence community, the intelligence—" Ratcliffe said before he was cut off.

"I reclaim my time," Gomez shouted over them. "Reclaim my time. Reclaim my time. Why do you even have a job? Why do you even advise him? You are saying the president of the U.S. can say China is an imminent threat. No matter what the intelligence says. He can take his own actions. That is basically what you're saying."

President Donald Trump welcomed the new Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, where the two discussed the aid Japan can provide to the United States regarding the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump explained that 90 percent of the oil Japan gets is from the Strait of Hormuz. Japan agreed to step in and work on securing the strait and helping ships get through, but only once fighting stops.

A Japanese press person asked, "Japan and the U.S. are very good friends, but one question: Why didn't you tell U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, like Japan, about the war before attacking Iran? So, we are very confused..."

Trump responded, saying that it was a strategic decision and that he didn't want to signal to anyone that they were going to strike.

"We went in very hard and we didn't tell anyone about it because we wanted surprise," Trump said. "Who knows better about surprise than Japan. Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor?"

Trump withdrew embassy staff from Israel but not those in other countries around the Persian Gulf. U.S. soldiers also were not all in secure locations. Six American soldiers were killed while working in a triple-wide trailer when a drone hit them from above.

Americans are suffering under hefty gas prices as the United States has begun a war with Iran. One Republican candidate endorsed by the GOP is telling Americans that this is their sacrifice to make.

"Maybe you take one less trip to Starbucks, so that gas goes a little further until this thing is over and these gas prices come back down again. Let's just try to be patriots about this," said Minnesota senatorial candidate Michele Tafoya.

Tafoya has made gas prices a key piece of her campaign.

"I think Minnesota is in a crisis," Tafoya told CBS Minnesota station WCCO in an interview. "I think we have a crisis in leadership and I think the career politicians that got us here are not going to get us out."

"In terms of policy, we've got a middle-class crisis," Tafoya said. "We've got families struggling to pay rent, to pay mortgages, to put groceries on the table. Energy costs need to come down. Schools need to do better."

Since petroleum is traded on a global market, removing a key source of that petroleum from the market raises gas prices everywhere.

Currently, the Strait of Hormuz is shut down as oil tankers fear that their ships will be blown up either by Iranian drones or U.S. missiles. Oil coming from the Persian Gulf has been fully stopped. Trump had initially asked NATO and other European allies for help, but each refused. German leaders went so far as to tell Trump that he caused the mess himself. Japan has stepped in, saying that they will help escort tankers, but only after the bombing ends.

Congress was not consulted about the war, nor did Congress vote to authorize it.

Last week, reports revealed the U.S. government has redesigned the Great Seal of the United States to use on the dime for the country's 250th birthday. And on Thursday, coin aficionados are set to commence the next great coin debate: whether President Donald Trump will get his own official U.S. government gold coin.

The Washington Post reported that the Commission of Fine Arts will meet Thursday and decide whether to approve a 24-carat gold coin showing the president leaning on a desk. As the report notes, every member of the committee was nominated by Trump.

In the past year, Trump has made vast strides to leave his mark on Washington D.C., including tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build a monstrous ballroom and planning to build the Arch de Trump — a large arch resembling the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. More recently, Trump appointed his own board to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and had them vote to add his name to the building.

The coins, typically sold for several thousand dollars, would be made available at a time when the economy is taking a serious hit, and families are struggling to afford housing, fuel and groceries.

The barrier might come when the coin has to go before the second panel of deciders, a bipartisan Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, which last month refused to consider Trump's gold coin

"In interviews, members opposed putting a sitting president on currency, saying it would break with democratic norms and reek of subservience to royalty," the report said.

It would also break with the laws that mandate someone be dead before they go on currency.

Republican coin collector Michael Moran, who was appointed to the panel by by former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said, “It’s wrong. It goes against American culture and the traditions that drive what we put on our coinage. I didn’t sign up for this."

The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee includes people who regularly collect coins, along with a historian and an artist specializing in medallic arts.

Retired basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was once on the committee; he's an avid coin collector. He said he was disheartened by the Trump coin, the Post reported. "He believed well-designed coins could inform and inspire. He cited as examples a 1998 silver dollar that honored Crispus Attucks, who was enslaved, escaped and was killed in the Boston Massacre in 1770, and a 2017 gold coin that depicted Lady Liberty as an African American woman."

“I’m not enthusiastic about memorializing Mr. Trump on a coin because he has done so much damage to our country,” said Abdul-Jabbar. “It takes a huge consensus to get agreement on something like this, and I’m not inclined to be supportive of the president’s request.”

Last year, the commission approved a $1 Trump coin, which Democrats tried to stop.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Navada) called it "embarrassing."

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Or.) added, “Monarchs and dictators put their faces on coins, not leaders of a democracy."

A 2005 law restricts presidents from appearing on a $1 coin unless they are dead. Trump is getting around the law by making it a "gold coin."

“They can definitely make the coin without our review. But it would be an illegal coin,” said Donald Scarinci, a Democratic appointee on the committee. “It’s not about Donald Trump. It’s about whoever the president is. It’s not something done in a democracy.”

At least four companies are complaining that a longtime Homeland Security aide to Secretary Kristi Noem tried to shake them down if he agreed to give them government contracts.

NBC News reported Thursday that even President Donald Trump got involved at one point when one of his big donors was approached with the requirement that he pass "de facto chief of staff" Corey Lewandowski some money under the table.

One of the most contested Department of Homeland Security contracts is the $220 million spent on advertising to promote ICE, Border Patrol, and Noem herself. "Trump has also recently asked aides whether Lewandowski profited personally from the advertising campaign," NBC News also reported. At one point, Trump allegedly told advisers, “Corey made out on that one.”

The case of Lewandowski was raised by members of Trump's inner circle, who feared Lewandowski was raking in the dough on the backs of American taxpayers.

"GEO Group and several other companies in government contracting have complained to officials in Trump’s inner circle that Lewandowski, as a special government employee, has directly or indirectly stood to personally profit from the DHS contracting process, according to four senior White House officials," the report said, citing a former White House official.

Another top White House official told NBC News that there had been a “dozen” complaints about Lewandowski from at least four companies. All of them cite Lewandowski's involvement in the contracting process and all of them have allegations against the former aide.

Salus Worldwide Solutions inserted itself in a potential government contract negotiation. The company is owned by a big donor to the America First Institute, which Mark Meadows started after Trump's first term.

A marketing firm up for two possible DHS contracts said it was asked specifically to pay Lewandowski indirectly, one person involved in the matter said.

"The marketing firm official recounted the experience to an official in the Trump administration about two months later. That Trump administration official later confirmed the discussion with NBC News," the report said.

Salus asked the marketing firm whether they wanted a $20 million contract to create materials for an agency under the DHS umbrella.

"Getting in as a government subcontractor, which could lead to future deals, seemed to the marketing firm owner like a potentially lucrative opportunity, the person said. Salus representatives laid out most of the details on a September conference call with the marketing firm," NBC reported, citing a person familiar with the discussions.

There was one hitch: the marketing firm had to hire a subcontractor to "manage the relationship" with the government. The owner of the company had no idea what they were talking about. He had a lack of experience in federal contracting, so he was genuinely asking to understand.

“We are guaranteed this contract, but we need to make sure we are properly thanking the person who gave it to us,” the Salus representative told the owner, according to the report. That person: Corey Lewandowski. The marketing firm could hire any of his many consulting firms.

In a later call, the representative explained to the marketing firm owner that the contract would be worth $40 million to $50 million. They would get their $20 million, while the representative managing the relationship with the government would get its $20 million, the source told NBC.

"In both cases, the Salus representative made it clear to the marketing firm owner that hiring a Lewandowski-linked consultant was a condition of winning the contract, according to the person familiar with the discussions," the report says.

Salus lawyers and Lewandowski denied any conversation like that ever happened.

In both cases, “had a prospective subcontractor made us aware of such an alleged communication, Salus would have taken every step to identify whomever had misrepresented themselves as an agent of the company and turned that individual over to law enforcement,” the lawyer said. “Salus did not authorize anyone to hire or promise to hire any consultant in connection with any Salus subcontract, let alone as a condition of issuing such a subcontract.”

Yet the marketing firm turned down the deal, fearful "it might run afoul of the law."

Lewandowski's spokesperson called the allegations “patently false. Mr. Lewandowski had no conversations with anyone regarding a marketing contract.”

The spokesperson added, “Any insinuation that someone was speaking on behalf of Mr. Lewandowski was completely unauthorized and if undertaken, it was done so without his knowledge.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) was caught in a "discrepancy" in his biography on Wednesday, which left lawmakers scratching their heads. The decision was ultimately to go to a classified setting, where Mullin said he could answer their questions about his "special assignment," which he told the Senate he couldn't talk about.

Mullin's tale dates back to the Jan. 6 attack when he told C-SPAN he was able to spring into action because “I’ve been in those situations before overseas." He claimed, “I recognized that there was an issue really quick.” When asked for specifics, he refused to go into it.

More recently, Mullin described the “smell of war.”

“War is ugly, it smells bad, and if anybody’s ever been there and been able to smell the war that’s happened around you and taste it and fill it in your nostrils and hear it, it’s something that you’ll never forget, and it’s ugly,” he said.

Mullin has never been to war nor has he been in any kind of military service. He was a UFC wrestler. As The New Republic's Edith Olmsted noted Wednesday, it has raised questions about "stolen valor."

Ultimately, Mullin was forced into a secure setting where the senators could discuss classified matters about what Mullin said was a secret. After leaving, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who nominated Mullin officially, said that what Mullin called "classified" was actually more of a nondisclosure agreement (NDA). Mullin was never recruited by any government agency for any overseas mission.

"There’s still a lot of unanswered questions about what 'special missions' Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) was engaged in such that he could not disclose to the committee in a public setting," wrote Politico's Homeland Security reporter Eric Bazail-Eimil. Lankford, he said, made it clear the issue is not classified.

"Democrats are confused," Bazail-Eimil said. "Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said it was a 'weird' situation and said he has more questions."

"Lankford also told us the trip was related to a follow up on a whistleblower. But Mullin said earlier he received SERE training," wrote Courthouse News Congress reporter Benjamin S. Weiss. SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training, according to the U.S. Air Force.

Weiss recalled that Mullin also told the Senators he would only talk to people in the classified setting with "top secret" or "SCI clearance." What he did, Lankford said, was under an NDA.

"Things look even less clear," Weiss assessed.

Mullin backed himself into a corner once Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) began questioning Mullin on which agency classified his trips. Mullin answered that the House did, but the House doesn't have that power.

NBC News reporter Melanie Zanona reported that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was in the hearing audience to support Mullin in his nomination.

She relayed that McCarthy said Mullin's claims about being approved to take a classified trip to an undisclosed location in 2016 as a House member are '100% true.'"

McCarthy further said he checked with Speaker Paul Ryan at the time and "former staff." Mullin testified that only four people in the House knew about the mystery mission.

Weiss noted that after the classified questioning, Lankford tried to dismiss the matter about the SERE training as a “mountain and molehill” situation. When pressed on it, however, Lankford's account contradicted Mullins', and he refused to go into more details discussed in the classified setting.

“If you knew more of the story, which is small, in this point, then it would make more sense, on it," said Lankford, according to Weiss.

Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney said that the discrepancy between top secret classified information and an NDA "makes a lot more sense, but raises the question of why Mullin kept describing it as some kind of classified venture."

"Whether Trump’s DHS pick gets confirmed before 3/31 could come down to whether Senate Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has a bone to pick with Mullin over comments Mullin made about the 2017 assault against Paul, will proceed with tomorrow’s markup as planned," said Bazail-Eimil.

The Washington Post reported ahead of the hearing that Mullin has been telling this story for at least five years. The story is one that "most laymen would assume meant he served in foreign battle," wrote the Post's congressional reporter, Paul Kane.

David J. Bier, the Cato Institute's director of immigration studies, noted that while in her role, Secretary Kristi Noem's "biggest problems were that she and her staff were habitually dishonest, deceptive, and unaccountable. If you want to see how Sen. Mullin will be exactly the same, watch this 8-second exchange: Dishonest. Evasive. No accountability."

An independent journalist has been letting federal agents speak anonymously so they can trash the higher-ups without fear of retribution.

Karl Loftus spoke with WIRED about his project in Minneapolis under @deadcrab_films that aims to capture the moment in history of federal agents as they carry out President Donald Trump's mass deportation plans.

One agent bashed outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as nothing more than a "DEI" hire, a reference to "diversity, equality and inclusion," which conservatives have warred against.

A Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) filmed a confession where they "expressed concerns about DHS colleagues violating the law, and complained of having to pause investigation into child sexual abuse cases to focus on immigration work," the report said.

“If they gave child exploitation cases a fraction of the attention, funding, resources, personnel, analytical support, etc. that they’re now giving immigration enforcement, we could do so much good,” the investigator said.

Loftus said he's never done any immigration reporting before and simply happened to be visiting family in Wisconsin when the shooting of Renee Nicole Good unfolded. He went to Minneapolis. After filming the protests, he asked his large following of military veterans about one of the first cell phone videos uploaded of the shooting of Good.

“Hey, any of the veterans out there that follow my page, I want to know your opinion on this. Watch the video, what do you think? Was this wrong, was this just? What would you have done in this scenario?” the prompt asked.

He then got connected through a network of federal agents that work for HSI, Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"I was like, 'Man, no one has interviewed ICE agents. I don't know how exactly I would pull it off, but it would be interesting,'" he said.

The reality, however, is that federal agents won't speak out frankly with a reporter. "They will be fired instantly," said Loftus.

He has inside the agency that can confirm whether the person is who they say they are. If there is a question about the authenticity, the inside source gives them a question only someone in that specific agency would know.

The response from even ICE critics has been that it's "eye-opening." Those for and against the immigration crackdown are mostly saying the same things.

"I think eventually I'm going to get subpoenaed by the DHS," the reporter said. He assumes that DHS will eventually tell agents to stop doing the interviews, but it hasn't happened yet.

"These people have confided a lot of really sensitive information with me, so I don’t worry they’ll dox me or something, but you hear all these things about the DHS subpoenaing people's Instagrams, so that could be a real concern," Loftus closed. "But some of the HSI agents have really helped me on my opsec [Operations Security]."

In a bombshell moment at the end of the confirmation hearing for Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), it appeared he was caught in some potential resume padding that Democratic Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said he wanted to find out about.

Appearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Mullin promoted work that he had done, claiming it was "classified" in conjunction with the Defense Department under a missionary program in Afghanistan.

"You stated your special assignments occurred intermittently between 2006 and 2011," Peters said. "My letter did not exclude official travel and it also give you explicit instructions for providing classified information, how we could do that, and do it in a way that protects the classified information. You did not provide any of that. Today is the first time I'm hearing about your classified activities from 2015 to 2016. Quite frankly, as we have these conversations, you have not been forthcoming with me and the committee."

"The story always seems to kind of change," Peters continued. "As you know, candor, honesty, transparency are absolutely critical to try to build trust as the secretary of Homeland Security. We have to clear this up. We feel pretty strongly we have to understand exactly what this is."

Peters then noted, "We've checked, and the SCIF is available," referring to a secure facility where officials can discuss and read classified information. "We would love to have you come into the SCIF and tell us exactly what you are talking about. That will put my colleagues' minds at peace. Would you be willing to tell us the classified activities you are talking about?" Peters asked.

Mullin refused.

"Sir, I think this committee made it clear with the paperwork they give me that I do not have to disclose my official travel. That was part of the documents," said Mullin. "It went over two or three times. I complied exactly with what the committee said. There is no area for mission work and mentorship that was a volunteer basis [that] I did on my own time. It was specific, over and over again, that you do not have to claim official travel."

In earlier comments, Mullin was asked about one of the trips to Afghanistan: "That was an official trip that is classified."

There appeared to be a discrepancy about what was missionary and what was "official."

"We want to know what this supposed classified work was. I have real questions about it. I asked the FBI yesterday and said, 'If someone had appeared in any classified document, any document, would that be in this report?' And they said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'I do not see anything for Sen. Mullin, why is that?' They said, 'Nothing showed up.' We queried the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and other intel folks. So, you are in no classified document the federal government has, according to the FBI. And yet you are telling us you did all this classified work."

"Sir, I didn't say 'all,'" Mullin argued. He claimed that he complied with everything the document said, insisting it was "official travel" and a "classified trip."

Paul chimed in, saying that he too asked the FBI about any "classified work" and the FBI told Paul Mullin would have a "separate folder."

"So, it's confusing to us because there may have been some papers that said your official trips were excluded," Paul said.

"I can cancel the vote tomorrow," Paul continued." I'm willing to have the vote, get this done and get it over with. Just to make clear — it does not sound like it is a secret you are too concerned about divulging."

"If you would spend one hour or 30 minutes and just tell the ranking member and the others, it would be private. It would get this over with," Paul suggested.

Mullin then said he had no problems as long as the senators could get "cleared."

"That would be on you. We're not going to try and figure out who the four people are and whether we can have access to it," Paul said as Mullin tried to speak over him. Paul ultimately concluded that it was something they should be able to discuss.

Mullin said he didn't have any authority to release the information. Mullin wouldn't even say who assigned him the program in the Senate because it too was classified.

There is an attack on Americans predicted for Thursday in Iraq, and no one is doing anything to help evacuate them to safety, alleges one defense contractor.

The Guardian reported on Wednesday that there are 200 Americans currently stranded in Iraq and that there could be a post-Ramadan assault.

“With more than 200 American nationals on the base, the site is considered a high-value target, and the absence of visible preventative measures leaves us feeling exposed and vulnerable,” one employee of defense contractor V2X on the base told The Guardian. “All of us are pretty much sitting ducks at the moment."

V2X wouldn't speak on the matter when the paper reached out.

According to the Americans, Iraqi workers have been warning about the Islamic Resistance, which is planning to attack once the Muslim holy month is over. It ends later this week on Thursday upon the crescent moon's rise.

"Some Iraqi military and contract employees on the base have links to the militants and have been passing information to them in preparation for an attack," they told The Guardian.

The roads are too dangerous to travel on, and the airspace is closed amid the fighting between Iran and the U.S.

“One of the biggest challenges of the Iraqi state is there has been an increase in these groups gaining senior and significant positions in the security sector in the last few years,” said senior research fellow Renad Mansour, who is at the policy institute Chatham House.

“It’s very much a hybrid model in which they have one foot in the state and one foot out of the state," he added.

One of the two V2X employees said the militants are gathering information. “They are asking questions about how many foreigners and Americans are on base."

The Islamic Resistance is a collection of several militias and armed groups linked to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the report explained. It is an umbrella network of mostly Shiite militias. They previously ran part of Iraq's state security.

Mansour noted that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani lacks the authority to stop their rise in power.

V2X security emails claimed that there have been no drones flying over the base, but contractors said they've heard them while military forces shoot at them.

“People are seeing the UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]," one V2X employee said. "We hear this shooting every day, sometimes multiple times, and they have the nerve to say there’s not UAV activity in the vicinity of the base. I believe the danger is higher than they’re saying and they’re minimizing it to the United States Government.”

“We are not safe. The war is not ending, and the company refused to evacuate us,” the employee continued. “They are very poorly equipped. Our lives are in great danger.”

In the hours leading up to the bombing campaign against Iran, many countries began evacuating their people from the region. China, the U.K., even Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry advised its people to get out. Questions remain as to why the U.S. only evacuated its embassy in Israel.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, where she was asked about her recent report on threats against the U.S. But one Democrat couldn't help but notice what Gabbard left out.

New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush posted on X, "Gabbard is refusing to explain why she omitted any threat assessment of foreign interference in US elections."

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) probed Gabbard on the specifics of her threat document, noting that the ODNI's 2026 annual threat assessment was the first since 2017 to not even mention foreign interference in U.S. elections.

"Last year, when you were already confirmed, it mentioned that at a high level," said Warner. "Are you saying there is no foreign threat to our elections in the midterms of this year?"

Gabbard said that her threat assessment only references the "prioritization of threats."

Warner interrupted. "Please answer yes or no. Is there a foreign threat of interference in our elections this year?"

Gabbard spoke over him, ultimately saying, "Please allow me to answer the question, sir." She then discussed ongoing data collection.

"Ma'am, you," Warner tried to cut in. "Excuse me, ma'am. If you wanted to ask the questions, you should have stayed in Congress. Please answer the question."

"I didn't ask you a question. I'm trying to answer your question," Gabbard said.

She never answered his question.

"So you're saying that the failure to provide any reports or the failure to have any mention of a foreign threat assessment, I would draw the conclusion that must be no foreign threat to our elections in 2026," Warner said. "So, that brings the question I have about you and [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel. There are reports that in 2020, the president was preparing an executive order potentially to seize ballots — bring in federal forces. There is a published report that there is a similar [executive order] being drafted right now about 2026, citing China. Director Patel, do you have any knowledge of that draft EO?"

Warner previously alleged that Gabbard is “not interested in protecting American democracy.”

“Both Kent and Gabbard have had less and less influence,” one House Republican told Politico, referring the recently resigned aide Joe Kent, who worked under Gabbard. “They’ve been sidelined.”

At the opening of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) made it clear that he believes Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), President Donald Trump's pick for director of Homeland Security, has a history of being a hot-head and embracing violence.

Paul's open statement recalled that he first came into office the year that Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot in the head. He was also in the batting cage when officials were fired on at the congressional baseball game. Paul has faced off against his own violent encounters with an irate neighbor who broke several of the senator's ribs.

Paul also recalled a policy disagreement over a refugee program in which Mullin called him "a freakin' snake" and said he "understands why [Paul] was assaulted."

"I was shocked that you would justify and celebrate this violent assault," said Paul.

Mullin said "regrets" his statement and told the Republican senator "I've had to pray about my attitude."

But Paul wasn't having it.

"The record should show, and I think the record will show, a lack of contrition and no apology or no regrets for your support," the senator said. "You understand the violence on me. The only thing you quibble about it is whether I met you somehow when you were in the House. I don't think we ever met. This idea that the only thing you are upset about is not that you abhor violence. What you are upset about is I called you a liar because you said it to my face, which is more about this machismo you have."

Paul hit on Mullin's "low impulse control," noting he spoke to Mullin personally and, even then, Mullin never apologized.

"You just said we can let our political difference go by, and you said a few minutes ago we can just set it aside. Political differences we can. But when you say you agree with a felon, a Trump-hating felon who attacked me, sometimes you think I'm just going to set that aside? Oh, it's no big deal? I lay in pain for two months, had six ribs broken, three of them separated, grinding upon, bone on bone, for months had part of my lung removed, and you think that is great and should be extolled?" Paul continued.

"The sheer lack of any kind of self-awareness that you're going to be leaving thousands of men and women who have the use of force and there's been great questions about how that will be used, and you think a violent attack is just fine," he added.

When Mullin responded, denying his outbursts.

"It was not heated, and I am not apologizing," said Mullin.

Paul replied by playing a supercut of videos showing Mullin's documented outbursts.

Fortune reported Wednesday that Republicans are starting to ask the White House when President Donald Trump is going to walk away from the war in Iran.

After the resignation of MAGA loyalist Joe Kent, Republicans are seeing the cracks in the GOP coalition of the right and the far-right. Now, "Republicans are becoming more open in their dissent against the war," the report said.

According to Axios, however, the problem is that the war is heading in very different strategic directions. Trump wants to take out Iran's military, which he claims he has already done. Israel, meanwhile, is "hunting down Iran regime members in their hideouts," the Wall Street Journal reports.

"The result is chaos," Axios reported. "Israel doesn't hate the chaos. We do. We want stability. [Benjamin] Netanyahu? Not so much, especially in Iran. They hate the Iranian government a lot more than we do," a White House official told Axios.

It's creating a kind of "butterfly effect" that goes beyond the Strait of Hormuz and affordable oil.

Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos told Fortune, “First, a disruption to chip production in Taiwan, given the industry's reliance on Middle East energy production, including helium. Disruptions to the semiconductor supply chain could be highly relevant given the importance of AI in driving equity valuations."

He told clients in a note that he is keeping an eye on “the broader knock-on influence on the credit cycle.”

Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly evident that there was no real plan ahead of the war from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Trump.

Two weeks after Iran responded by attacking other countries in the region, the State Department issued notices that U.S. embassies should double-check their security, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Americans are still scrambling to get out of the region after the U.S. only began evacuations from the Gulf states in the wake of the bombing. A Tuesday report revealed that Trump was warned by intelligence that there was a high likelihood that Iran would do whatever it could to attack the countries in the region, Reuters said on Tuesday. He ignored those warnings and evacuated only the U.S. embassy in Israel. There were reports that other U.S. embassies were evacuating ahead of the bombing, but they proved to be false.

It meant that even U.S. soldiers stationed in the Gulf states weren't working in secure facilities. Six U.S. soldiers who were killed had been working out of a triple-wide trailer in Kuwait. There was no shielding against overhead attacks. So far, more than a dozen U.S. soldiers have died. Hegseth is now using their deaths to invoke a retribution campaign.

Meanwhile, Trump is furious that NATO and other global allies want no part of his war. It comes after years of bashing their countries and leaders in the press.

Trump has spent several days trying to get U.S. allies to step in and help, only say on social media Tuesday night, "WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!"

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has officially subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to appear before his committee, said CBS News.

Comer teased that his committee might vote to demand Bondi appear to address the department's failures around the release of the documents about the investigation into trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. On Tuesday, he made good on that threat.

"As Attorney General, you are directly responsible for overseeing the Department's collection, review, and determinations regarding the release of files pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and the Committee therefore believes that you possess valuable insight into these efforts," Comer wrote.

Bondi will be required to give a deposition to the committee on April 14.

The committee approved the subpoena with five Republican votes in favor and all Democratic members.

In his letter, Comer teased that in their oversight capacity, the committee "is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, the ways in which Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell sought to curry favor and exercise influence to protect their illegal activities, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials."

Bondi could opt to ignore the subpoena, which might then result in a vote to hold her in contempt of Congress. The problem, however, is that Bondi would decide whether to prosecute herself for contempt of Congress.

The last time Bondi appeared before Congress, it didn't go very well, with the top Cabinet official to President Donald Trump losing it over questions from the Judiciary Committee.

Bondi came prepared with a binder of insults about each committee member and read through attacks on them. At one point, when a Democrat was probing her over failures to release the full Epstein files to the House committees, she demanded to know why they weren't celebrating Trump for the stock market. "The Dow! The Dow is over 50,000 right now!"

The comment came as the Dow fell under 50,000. Her outburst prompted laughter from the members and the audience as Bondi appeared to grow increasingly frustrated with them. The rant resulted in weeks of mockery of Bondi with memes and comedians lambasting her for desperately trying to distract from the DOJ's failures on the Epstein files. One critic even turned the testimony into a song in which both Democrats and Republicans peppered her with questions and her answer each time was

Another Justice Department prosecutor is facing off against an angry judge, and this time, he was thrown out of court.

“You have lost the confidence and the trust of this court. You have lost the confidence and the trust of the New Jersey legal community, and you are losing the trust and confidence of the public," said Judge Zahid Quraishi, an appointee of President Joe Biden in 2021.

According to the New York Times, the issue was that the judge grew frustrated with the Justice Department's head of appeals, Mark Coyne. It seems Coyne hadn't "formally disclosed that he would appear, and fiercely interrogated a more junior prosecutor about whether the former interim U.S. attorney, Alina Habba, still had some role in operating the office."

"Are you here for moral support? Because you're not going to speak," the judge asked at one point, according to the transcript.

"All right. So I've ruled. I'm not going to hear from you, Mr. Coyne. If you want to sit there for moral support or hand Mr. Rosenblum Post-its or whisper in his ear, I'll let you do that as supervisor," the judge said, referring to line prosecutor Daniel Rosenblum.

As the discussion continued and Rosenblum began speaking to the judge about why there were three U.S. Attorneys, Coyne stood to try and speak about Habba not working for the office any longer. The judge repeatedly told Coyne to "sit down."

"Sit down, Mr. Coyne. If you speak again, I'm going to have you removed. I already told you not to speak." Coyne tried to protest, but the judge continued to tell him to sit down, noting that he didn't file a notice of appearance before the meeting.

Finally, after a back and forth, the judge said, "I'm directing the court security officers to remove Mr. Coyne. Mr. Coyne, I told you not to address this court. You didn't file a notice of appearance. You don't get to blindside this court. I'm going to ask you to leave. I'm going to ask you to leave. Kindly, I'm going to ask you to leave, or I'll have you removed."

Habba was dismissed after the U.S. Senate did not approve her appointment before the deadline. She ultimately resigned in December after courts determined she could not legally sign onto cases.

Coyne was thrown out of court.

Last week, three leaders of the New Jersey office was found to be "occupying their positions unlawfully." Judge Quraishi demanded they appear next month to testify about what's happening in their office. The three-person team came from Attorney General Pam Bondi directly, who decided that the U.S. Attorney post would be occupied by three people. Judge Matthew W. Brann, the judge who disqualified Habba, found that the panel was unlawful.

There's a concern from Brann that “scores of dangerous criminals” could have their cases dismissed amid the Justice Department's disorganization.

The DOJ has faced off against several jurisdictions where it couldn't get U.S. Attorneys confirmed. One came from the Eastern District of Virginia, where the acting U.S. Attorney resigned. One was then installed, but only after the deadline to have someone confirmed. She, too, was found to be disqualified.

Some of the new DOJ lawyers have come under fire with ethics complaints from their state bar associations. In response, the DOJ proposed a new regulation that would suspend any state ethics proceedings against a current or former Justice Department lawyer without first conducting its own review, Democracy Docket reported last week.

The DOJ also clashed with a judge who threw out subpoenas of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as part of a criminal investigation the department lodged against him under U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.

President Donald Trump has lost his appeal in his libel lawsuit against the cable news outlet CNN.

The appeal went before the full panel of judges at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida cases. Trump had specifically asked for the decision be en banc, meaning the full panel would rule on it. The reason may have been that many judges were appointed by Trump himself to the appeals court. Still, the verdict was unanimous, Politico legal reporter Josh Gerstein posted on X.

Trump filed the lawsuit in 2022 as a private citizen after the network used the term "Big Lie" to refer to false claims about fraud around the 2020 election.

The case was thrown out first in 2023 by one of Trump's own appointed district court judges. Trump appealed to the 11th Circuit, where the case was thrown out again. Trump's lawyers then requested that the full panel reconsider, and he was denied there, too.

The one-page response makes it clear that not only did Trump lose the first judge in the district court, but he also lost six of the 12 Trump-appointed judges on the court of appeals.

"The Petition for Rehearing En Banc is DENIED, no judge in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc," the court said.

It's unclear whether Trump will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to silence the use of the phrase "Big Lie" on television, but he has been known to take his lawsuits all the way to top. Justice Clarence Thomas is the Supreme Court Circuit Justice responsible for overseeing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. It means Thomas could review the case and decide whether or not the high court should rule on the matter.

The one major barrier, however, is that Thomas has been "decisive" in First Amendment expression cases, the Free Speech Center said. However, when it comes to the press, Thomas has been a long-time critic of the 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan, which set a higher bar for public figures to claim libel. Both he and Trump agree on the issue.

Trump has sued the Wall Street Journal and owner Rupert Murdoch personally, the New York Times/Penguin Random House, the BBC, The Des Moines Register, the Pulitizer Prize Board, writer Bob Woodward and his publisher Simon and Schuster, as well as his case against CNN.

President Donald Trump wants more countries to help with his war in Iran, but so far, he hasn't had any takers. According to CNN data analyst Harry Enten, there's a good reason for that.

Speaking about the growing disgust with the United States, Enten said that the global community is out.

"The people in those countries hate, hate, hate the U.S. military action in Iran," said Enten.

In Canada, that number is -27 percent. Japan is -73 points. The U.K. is -34 percent.

"The people in those countries absolutely despise the U.S. military action. Iran. No wonder the leaders in those countries are, let's just say, a little apprehensive about helping out the U.S.," he added.

Indeed, most U.S. allies rejected Trump's requests for help, even countries that rely on Iran for oil. Others haven't indicated one way or the other.

CNN host John Berman compared the Iran war to the Iraq war in 2003. During that war, President George W. Bush had administration officials court allies' involvement and made the case before the United Nations.

Canada is now 27 points less in its support for Iran over Iraq. Japan is 45 points down from its support of the 2023 war, and the U.K., which went to war with the U.S., is down 48 points from those 2003 numbers.

One of Trump's campaign comments in 2024 was that the global community doesn't "respect" the United States. Now it has become clear the world likes America a lot more under President Joe Biden than under Trump. Support for the U.S. under Trump has dropped by 79 percent.

"The bottom line is this: the folks overseas are far less likely to view the U.S. favorably. And those chickens are coming home to roost in this situation, as there's very little support abroad for the U.S. military action in Iran," Enten closed.

- YouTube youtu.be

The United States remains under a cloud of international criticism after it bombed a girls' school in Iran and tried to blame it on Iran itself. Now it's being revealed that the CIA gave President Donald Trump the false intelligence, but made it clear after 24 hours that it was a U.S. bomb. Still, Trump ran with the allegation that it was Iran that hit their own people.

According to The Guardian, the CIA believed that the missile may not have been from the U.S. because "the fins appeared to be positioned too low for it to be a Tomahawk cruise missile." But they quickly realized it was, in fact, a Tomahawk missile from the U.S., and the sources said they briefed the president on the reality.

The truth didn't matter to Trump, however, as he "had already settled on the explanation that Iran was responsible for the strike." Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refused to say one way or another so as not to contradict Trump. Instead, he told reporters that it was under investigation.

Trump's biggest problem with the lie is that he accepted the reality that it was a Tomahawk, and falsely said that Iran had such missiles when it is "used only by the US and a handful of allies, including the U.K., Japan and Australia," the report explained.

“Giving Trump preliminary information is dangerous because he can turn it into a total embarrassment,” a former CIA officer told The Guardian. “If the principal asks you a question, the best thing to say is you don’t know. Knowing how hard it is to go back later to correct the record.”

Former intelligence members blame the briefers and Trump for the public embarrassment.

The most recent numbers show that at least 175 people, mostly children, were killed in the blast at the school.

The report said that the updated numbers mean that the strike is "one of the deadliest targeting errors in recent decades."

The investigation Hegseth referenced is trying to uncover why the intelligence claimed that it was a military target when it was well-known that it was a school. The Australian version of ABC News reported that it was even clear on Google Maps that the IRGC naval base was separated from the colorfully painted school by a large wall. The wall has been there since 2013. The school was converted sometime between 2013 and 2016, The Guardian said.

The Pentagon investigation has been focused on why the intelligence was outdated and whether it was double-checked.

International humanitarian law (IHL) is a set of rules designed to protect those who are not directly involved in the conflict. It includes aid workers, medical professionals, the sick, injured and children. The U.S. has signed and ratified Geneva Conventions of 1949. Breaking those rules is considered a war crime.

The Guardian explained that the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency look at imagery to build a "target database" using a program called Maven Smart System.

A former senior defense official explained that there are years of analysis that go into the system and "layers of oversight." However, once "entered into the database as a possible target, it may not necessarily be reviewed again until a strike is considered." The target list is generated by the system using Maven and "artificial intelligence tools such as Claude, Anthropic’s large language model," the report explained.

In late February, around the time Trump decided to go to war, he instructed all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic's AI technology. PBS News reported at the time that Anthropic has long demanded that the government not use its system for "fully autonomous weapons systems" and mass surveillance.

On Feb. 23, five days before the bombing, Axios reported that the Pentagon and Elon Musk's AI company, Grok, had reached an agreement under which his AI tools would be used instead. xAI agreed to allow its system to be used for everything, including military and warrantless surveillance. So, it's unclear which systems were responsible for putting the girls' school on the target list.

The head of Centcom, Adm. Brad Cooper, told reporters last Wednesday the United States is “leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools" for the attacks.

The Washington Post reported last week that two Israeli officials claimed the girls' school "was not cross-checked or discussed with the Israel Defense Forces before it took place."

Human Rights Watch has called for a war crime investigation.

President Donald Trump and his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr have a pretty big barrier to their threats to pull network broadcast licenses after negative coverage of the war against Iran.

In a post on X Saturday, Carr wrote that broadcasters “that are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

He complained that it was "time for change" because "legacy media" had "fallen to an all time (sic) low of just 9 percent and are ratings disasters."

Carr didn't get into the specifics of which program had fallen to 9 percent, when it fell, what the numbers were before and after, nor did he include any additional context about competition. One of the biggest competitors of network TV news has been cable news, streaming and social media.

"The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves. It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news. When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory after in the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong. It means the public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen."

In a Truth Social post on Sunday night, Trump agreed, saying he was “thrilled” that Carr was “looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations. They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES …”

FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez released a statement saying that Carr and Trump can threaten all they want, but that their licenses aren't up until 2028.

"Once again, this FCC pretends it has the power to control news coverage," Gomez said in her statement. "In reality, the FCC has vanishingly little power over national news networks. It licenses local broadcast stations, not networks, and no licenses are up for renewal until 2028. Early renewal attempts are exceedingly rare, and the process is so demanding that any effort would almost certainly fail, especially given the well-documented First Amendment violations underlying these moves. These threats are grounded in neither reality nor law and would not survive judicial scrutiny, just as other recent attempts by this Administration to push beyond constitutional limits have repeatedly failed in court."

"The concern over the chilling effect of these actions, however, is very real. Over the past year, this FCC has attacked the media as part of a years-long campaign by this Administration and its allies to discredit factual, independent coverage while blaming the press for growing public distrust. Meanwhile, it is the FCC's own credibility and public trust that are rapidly eroding," she continued.

She went on to cite politically motivated investigations of critics and commentators; however, none have resulted in any actual action. She called it a pattern from the Trump administration, where there are threats that chill behavior and others "capitulate in advance."

Trump complained that images and videos from artificial intelligence had flooded social media and are fooling Americans about the realities of what's going on in the Middle East. One of those videos criticized by some came from the White House, which used clips from video games interspersed with military videos to promote U.S. bombing.

Global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier isn't at all surprised to see President Donald Trump being completely abandoned by international leaders.

Thus far, the only country willing to entertain some help has been France. Trump revealed on Monday afternoon, while speaking at the Kennedy Center, that he has spoken with the U.K. and called them out for not being receptive to helping the U.S.

"He didn't give allies any heads up that this was about to happen," she said about the attacks on Iran. "He didn't do any of the things that you normally do before a major military operation to build a coalition of support, at least, support diplomatically. So, now he's asking through a tweet demanding that they step in. Germany has just gone on record saying you started this war, it's not our problem."

Indeed, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius released a statement saying, "What does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do that the powerful US Navy cannot? This is not our war, and we didn't start it."

Dozier noted that one of the problems is that the U.S. has the strongest Navy in the world, and those countries do not.

"The British Prime Minister is, of course, in conversations with the White House, but remember, only in the last week or so, President Trump had said of Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, that he's no Churchill, because they were angry that the initial assault had been denied the use of British airfields to launch attacks," she added.

She's unsure whether anyone will come to the U.S.’ aid and noted it might depend on how long the war and the blockade last.

"At this point, I think you're going to have to see the White House exercise some more humble pie, at least behind closed doors, to get people on board, because their populations are watching this and they don't want to see their governments be become patsies to what they see as a bully in the White House," Dozier explained.

She also explained that Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth might see Iran as completely decimated because they don't have the military akin to the States'. However, Iran has a powerful asymmetric warfare operation. Those are tactics that are different from typical bombs like hacking or tapping sleeper cells abroad, suicide bombers etc.

Iran, for example, is using $20,000 to $50,000 drones that they are using as bombs themselves, explained ABC News. Hegseth made it clear last week that the drones are making their way through the protections that the U.S. has in place.

"Air defense systems like the Patriot missile system used to intercept drones and other projectiles can cost around $4 million per shot, according to the data on the CSIS website," ABC Said.

So, the U.S. is spending $4 million to take out $20,000 drones.

Ukraine has devised a $1,000 drone interceptor that they have used against Russia, Military Times reported. They offered it to the United States, but in an interview with NBC News, Trump said the "last person we need help from is Volodymyr Zelenskyy."

President Donald Trump may be about to cause a global economic crisis, warned Matt Randolph, a Forbes contributor and energy expert.

"What will happen is all of these countries around the world will all go to the Strait of Hormuz and do whatever they have to do to force those tankers through that Strait. Because if they don't, beyond three weeks is a complete, global, economic disaster," said Randolph last week..

According to Randolph, the "three-week rule" means that at the end of the third week of the Strait being closed, a complete economic shutdown will begin.

Trump announced over the weekend, “I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory. It’s the place from which they get their energy. And they should come, and they should help us protect it."

“Why are we maintaining the Hormuz Strait when it’s really there for China and many other countries? Why aren’t they doing it?” he asked.

As international singer-songwriter Mohit Chauhan pointed out, going country by country, most of the major nations want nothing to do with Trump's war. Only France seemed open to it. The U.K., the Netherlands and South Korea refused to make a commitment.

The Nation's Jeet Heer pointed out, "The strategy here was to tell all your allies they are stupid parasites who should f—— off and die, then create a big mess that requires allied help, then beg them for aid. Surprisingly, it did not work."

Turkey Bureau Chief of the Middle East Eye Ragip Soylu announced that Germany was out too.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius asked, "What does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do that the powerful US Navy cannot?"

"This is not our war, and we didn't start it," Pistorius said.

"Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe," Trump posted Saturday morning on Truth Social.

"We have already destroyed 100 percent of Iran's Military capability, but it's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are," Trump's post continued. "Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated."

Reporters have spent the past week asking both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth why there was no plan for the Strait of Hormuz and for evacuating Americans in the region. While Trump did evacuate the U.S. Embassy in Israel, it wasn't until this weekend that the U.S. Embassy told Americans they should probably leave Iraq after the embassy was attacked.

Hegseth was particularly shaken when confronted by reporters asking, "How did you not plan for this?"

One woman lamented on Facebook last week that her family was stuck in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and that folks in Washington were saying one thing while those on the ground were telling them something else. An embassy staffer there said Washington was less than communicative.

There are millions of Americans in the path of a potentially dangerous storm system on Monday, the Weather Channel reports.

There are already about half a million customers across the central U.S. without power Monday morning after storms moved through east of the Mississippi River overnight.

Tornadoes are also touching down Monday in Georgia. In North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington D.C., there is a chance of hurricane-force winds. That's going to mean a high likelihood of falling trees and downed power lines.

One of the best explanations of the differences between a tornado watch and a tornado warning follows the taco rule. A tornado watch is when you have all of the things to make a taco, and they're ready to go. A tornado warning is when there is a taco. The warning means that either a tornado is on the ground or there is a funnel cloud that is turning above you and could drop down at any minute.

For those who aren’t accustomed to having to dodge funnels, here are some tips:

1. Have the weather on the TV or streaming all day. Make sure the emergency alerts are set up on your phone. Some folks turn these off.
2. Keep your shoes on today. If a storm hits, you don't want to be shoe-less afterward because there will be all sorts of debris and glass on the ground.
3. Have a safe spot picked out. It should be the lowest level of your home and the center part of your house. You want as many walls between you and the outside as you can if you can’t get below ground. No windows. Not a lot of glass. Usually, this is a bathroom, even if you have a large mirror or a glass shower door.
4. Get in the bathtub
5. Children who might be home alone after school should not to put water in the bathtub.
6. Have pillows and blankets over you to protect from any flying debris. If you’re in a bathroom with glass, grab more pillows and blankets. Bicycle and motorcycle helmets are great protection, too.
7. Gather important documents, medication and electronic charges in a backpack to keep in your safe spot. Make sure your phones are charged. Put the backpack on when you start sheltering.
8. Think about things you can grab that will keep kids calm, like books to read, music to listen to.
9. Keep your animals leashed and harnessed while you’re sheltering. It means you can loop the leash on your leg or arm while you’re holding onto them and the family. If a tornado rips your roof off, your furry friend could get torn out of your arms. Having the leash attached to you means you've got a little extra protection.
10. Do not stay watching the weather on TV if you need to shelter. Take shelter and turn up the sound up as much as you can so you can hear it from the shelter. Your safety is more important than knowing exactly which neighborhood will be hit and when.
11. Check the weather before leaving the house. If you can avoid leaving the house Monday, do it. If you need to run errands, wait until everything has passed. Even if no tornadoes are expected to hit your area, if winds are strong, you could end up on a road when a tree falls on your car. Someone on the George Washington Parkway died in Northern Virginia last week when a tree fell on them during a storm.
12. If you've got school pickup Monday afternoon, keep an eye on the storm's timing. Several of the storm's bad parts north of South Carolina are scheduled to hit between 2 p.m. EDT and 5 p.m. EDT. This might mean you should leave work early or late. It might mean going to pick up the kids, parking, and staying at the school for half an hour just to be safe. School bathrooms are great places to shelter because they're often interior rooms and surrounded by cinderblocks. Stay up against the wall, cross your legs, bend down, and put your hands over your head if you don't have a helmet. Use any extra clothing you have to wrap over your head, hands, and around you.
13. Other great places to shelter if you can't get home include basements or central staircases. Parking garage staircases on the bottom floor are good spots. If you're in a public place like a big-box store, staff should know where to tell you to go. Convenience stores sometimes have large freezers that have been known to protect people. So if it is between your car and the convenience store, go inside. Get far away from windows.
14. If you're staying at home and you have a large tree in your yard, think about where that tree will fall if it comes down. Will it fall on the house right where you sit on the sofa? Will it fall right on your bedroom? Don't sit there.
15. Have a phone buddy, particularly if you're alone. Make sure your parents/siblings/kids all know that you’ll call them when you’re safe. That way, they know if you don’t call, that it's because you need help. They can contact your city's first responders with your address.

Do not get out of your car and climb under an underpass. The videos that show people doing that were only slightly swiped by the tornado. If one comes over you while you're under the underpass, it will make the wind worse. You can either get sucked out, or debris will be sent flying at you at hundreds of miles an hour. In the EF5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, in 2011, a piece of wood pierced a concrete curb.

Don't waste time opening your windows. The damage from storms doesn't come from the plummeting pressure exploding your house; it comes from wind and debris. You're wasting time taking shelter when you're running around the house opening windows.