The Iran War entered its 20th day on Thursday following a report from The Washington Post that the Pentagon will seek $200 billion to fund the war. The news seemingly clashes with multiple statements from President Donald Trump that the United States has already “won” the war.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed the budget request on Thursday morning adding that “that number could move.” Hegseth added, “it takes money to kill bad guys.”
Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Aragchi responded to the reported budget request, warning Americans about what he called “the trillion-dollar ‘Israel First tax’ that’s about to hit the U.S. economy.”
The U.S. government has not yet released its findings on an investigation into the U.S. strike on a school in Minab, Iran which killed at least 170 people, mostly young schoolgirls. Trump has suggested that the U.S. might not have been responsible for the attack, despite reporting that found otherwise.
Following a Wednesday attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field, Tehran followed through on its commitment to retaliate against the energy assets of Gulf states, with extensive damage reported across the region. Early Thursday morning, Iran struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex, which provides a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas, causing energy prices to surge.
QatarEnergy, which owns Ras Laffan, told Reuters that damage to two LNG trains, co-owned with ExxonMobil, may take three to five years to repair, cost about $20 billion annually in lost revenue, and force the cancellation of long-term supply contracts with Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China.
The price of Brent crude oil briefly climbed to $119 on Thursday morning. U.S. gas prices continued to rise with AAA reporting the national average gas price at $3.88.
In response to the Iranian attack, Trump posted on Truth Social that “if Qatar’s LNG is again attacked,” the U.S. “with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field.”
Trump claimed that it was “Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East,” which “violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran,” adding that “the United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.” Trump’s statement contradicted reporting from Axios on the U.S. role in Israel’s strikes.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday the U.S. may allow roughly 140 million barrels of Iranian crude stranded on tankers to reach market in an effort to ease soaring prices. Commenting on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Bessent claimed that “we anticipated this” adding that the potential plan will only target “oil on the water.”
Journalist Steve Sweeney of Russia Today was wounded when an Israeli airstrike hit a bridge in southern Lebanon while he was reporting, with video showing the strike landing moments after he crossed. Sweeney and his cameraman remained conscious and were being treated for apparent shrapnel wounds. The attack comes a day after Israel said it would target all crossings over the Litani River linking southern Lebanon to the rest of the country.
Amnesty International on Thursday called on Israel to cease its attacks on healthcare workers in Lebanon, declaring that “Israel is deploying the same deadly playbook it used in 2024 in Lebanon to kill dozens of health workers and devastate healthcare services.”
Exhibition of military equipment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force. Photo: Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Since the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began, Iran has been holding the world’s oil supply hostage in the Strait of Hormuz and has been launching missile and drone strikes on its neighbors. While critics argue that this is a response to the allied strikes on Iran, these attacks are directed at countries other than the United States and Israel, which by definition matches the definition of terrorism.
Closing or threatening the strait does not hurt the United States or Israel. The U.S. is energy-independent, and Israel does not depend on the strait. The countries harmed are European nations, as well as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and developing economies across Asia and Africa that import the majority of their energy through that chokepoint. Those countries have no involvement in the U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran whatsoever. Iran is holding their economies hostage to coerce a political outcome that benefits Tehran.
That is state-sponsored terrorism under the Academic Consensus Definition, the most widely accepted framework, consistent with definitions used by the U.S. State Department, the United Nations Security Council under Resolution 1566 (2004), and the European Union under its Council Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (2002/475/JHA), updated by EU Directive 2017/541.
All of these define terrorism as criminal acts against civilians or uninvolved parties committed with the intent to intimidate a population or compel a government or international organization to act or abstain from acting.
In a war, a country launches attacks and counterattacks against the country it is fighting. In terrorism, a country launches attacks against other countries in the hope of bringing about a negotiated solution that provides benefits to Tehran and leaves the regime in a position to close down the strait or sponsor the Houthis to do the same in the Red Sea any time it wishes.
Critics of the U.S. actions against Iran claim that the Trump administration failed to demonstrate that the United States was under an imminent threat of attack from Iran. However, Iran’s threat to the United States was real, documented, and had been building for years before the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28, 2026. The threat operated on three levels: an active proxy network killing Americans on a continuous basis, a proven missile and drone arsenal that Iran had already used in combat, and a nuclear program advancing toward weaponization with inspectors blocked from monitoring it.
The most immediate and lethal threat came from Iran’s proxies. Hezbollah, Hamas, Kata’ib Hezbollah, the Houthis, and affiliated militias across Iraq and Syria had been killing Americans for years. Between October 2023 and November 2024 alone, Iran and its proxies conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East, wounding more than 180 service members.
In January 2024, Kata’ib Hezbollah killed three Army Reserve soldiers from Georgia and wounded 34 others in a drone strike on Tower 22, a U.S. logistics base in Jordan, the highest death toll for U.S. troops in the region in at least a decade.
In March 2023, an Iranian drone killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. service members at a coalition base in Syria. On October 7, 2023, Iran-backed Hamas killed 46 Americans and kidnapped at least 12 more. The Department of War had previously documented that Iranian-backed militias killed at least 608 U.S. troops in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, roughly one in six American combat fatalities during that period. What changed in the decade before Epic Fury was the weapons. EFPs and IEDs gave way to drones, rockets, and ballistic missiles.
Iran fired direct ballistic missile and drone strikes at Israel in April and October 2024, penetrating regional air defenses. U.S. officials stated Iran was producing 100 missiles per month, with the goal of ramping production to the point where the volume of incoming projectiles would overwhelm defensive systems. Israel calculated that Iran aimed to expand its ballistic missile inventory capable of reaching Israel from roughly 2,000 to 10,000, a threshold at which interception becomes unreliable.
China was supplying propellants, guidance systems, and missile components to sustain and accelerate that buildup. Iranian-supplied drones had also been used in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and by Russia against Ukraine, demonstrating both the scale of production and Iran’s willingness to transfer weapons to active combat theaters.
The nuclear program added a longer-range dimension. By February 2025, Iran’s breakout time, the period required to produce enough fissile material for a weapon, had fallen from more than one year under the JCPOA to one week or less. Iran had accumulated 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity by early 2026, enough for up to 10 weapons if further enriched to the 90 percent weapons-grade threshold. The Institute for Science and International Security calculated that Iran could have converted that stockpile into weapons-grade uranium for nine nuclear weapons in three weeks at the Fordow facility alone, with the first quantity achievable in two to three days. Iran had no civilian justification for producing 60 percent enriched uranium at that volume.
Diplomacy had also collapsed. Khamenei rejected nuclear talks in early 2025, restricted IAEA inspectors, and announced a new hardened enrichment facility. The IAEA could not verify the status or location of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile because Iran had withdrawn the designation of experienced inspectors in a move the agency described as political and contrary to the intent of the safeguards framework.
The nuclear threat would have compounded everything else. Iran’s calculation, visible in the pattern of its investments, was to rebuild its nuclear program behind the cover of an expanded missile arsenal, using missile volume to deter another strike while centrifuges spun. A nuclear-armed Iran would have made its proxy network and missile forces effectively untouchable. The U.S. acted before that window closed.
Critics argued the administration did not demonstrate imminence under international law. However, Secretary of State Rubio offered a different framing: Israel was going to strike Iran regardless, and when it did, Iran would target U.S. assets, making a preemptive U.S. strike justified on those grounds. The administration offered multiple justifications at different times, which critics noted undermined the legal case even where the underlying threat data was solid.
The threat record stands on its own. Iran had killed Americans continuously through proxies, had fired ballistic missiles directly at a U.S. ally, was producing missiles at scale with Chinese assistance, had blocked international nuclear inspections, and had accumulated enough near-weapons-grade uranium for multiple bombs. Whether that constitutes legal imminence is a question of international law. Whether it constitutes a serious and compounding threat to American forces and interests is not in dispute.
Spacey is constantly dealing with accusations of sexual misconduct.
This time, Spacey decided to pay to avoid yet another trial.
Once upon a time, Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey was at the top of the game, starring in the critically acclaimed series ‘House of Cards’, where he portrayed a US president who is a murderer and corrupt to the core, but always manages to get away with his multiple crimes.
Then, of course, came the #MeToo movement, and an avalanche of accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against him, leading him to be utterly canceled by Tinseltown.
Since then, his life has become a permanent defense of his professed integrity, and while Spacey has won court cases, other allegations against him keep emerging.
The Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey has settled out of court with three men who had accused him of sexual assault between 2010 and 2013. pic.twitter.com/tTaVX4WTkt
“Oscar-winning U.S. actor Kevin Spacey has reached a confidential settlement with three British men who had filed civil lawsuits at London’s High Court accusing him of sexual assault between 2000 and 2013, according to a court order made public this week.
Two of the claimants were complainants who gave evidence during Spacey’s 2023 criminal trial in London, where the now 66-year-old actor was acquitted of all charges.”
Spacey hasn’t been able to restart his carreer, as much as he tried.
A court order stated that the lawsuits have been ‘stayed’ because of the settlement, and the trial scheduled for October will not take place.
“The men alleged that Spacey had assaulted them between 2000 and 2013, and in November it was determined that the actor would face a new trial. Details of the settlement were not given.
Spacey, who has denied all allegations against him, was previously acquitted of sexual assault charges brought by four men in a U.K. criminal trial in 2023. Two of those men then filed civil cases at London’s High Court.”
Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) is turning up the heat on Senate leadership after his resolution to withhold senators’ pay during government shutdowns sailed through committee unanimously only to stall at the hands of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).
The resolution, S.Res.526, sailed through the Senate Rules and Administration Committee with a unanimous vote late last year, proving that even some of the most entrenched politicians recognize the basic fairness of this common-sense measure.
As Kennedy himself put it, when federal employees, troops, and border agents go without paychecks because Congress can’t do its job, why should senators keep cashing in?
Yet, despite overwhelming support and the glaring hypocrisy of Congress exempting itself from the consequences of its own failures, RINO Sen. John Thune continues to sit on the legislation.
In a recent interview, the fiery Louisiana senator didn’t mince words about his frustration with the slow-walking leadership.
Desirée Townsend: I want to ask you about your legislation to withhold senators’ pay during a shutdown. I know I’ve asked you a few times—do you think there’s any way we can move this bill forward? Unanimous consent, even, and just see who objects to it?
Sen. Kennedy: Well, my bill came out of the Rules Committee unanimously. The only thing stopping it from passing—I’m not saying everybody will vote for it, but I think most senators will—is that Senator Thune has got to bring it to the floor. And because it’s in the form of a resolution, you can’t really—it’s difficult to put it on another bill.
And so, I have chased John like he stole Thanksgiving to try to get him to do it, but so far he hasn’t agreed. But I’ll keep pounding him.
Desirée Townsend: So DHS employees could maybe reach out to Thune’s office and try to help push forward a mechanism to bring it to the floor?
Sen. Kennedy: Sure.
WATCH:
@cheerleader4changeSenator John Kennedy on his legislation to withhold senators’ pay during a government shutdown.
All but a very small handful of countries require voter ID or preregistration with identification.
The Democrats oppose voter ID laws and are in favor of mail-in voting, while calling Republicans fascists for not agreeing with them.
However, a review of voting laws around the world shows that the overwhelming majority of countries, at least 176 nations and jurisdictions, require voter ID.
Many have no mail-in voting at all, while others allow only very limited domestic mail-in voting restricted to those who are hospitalized, and no country allows illegal aliens to vote.
While a small number of countries permit long-term legal residents to vote in local elections under strict residency conditions, even fewer allow non-citizen residents to vote in national elections.
No countries besides the United States allow jurisdictions, states, provinces, or cities to prohibit poll workers from asking voters for ID.
Most other democracies use automatic civil registration through national ID systems, making same-day walk-in voter registration an unknown concept abroad.
No nations accept ballots days or weeks after an election, regardless of postmark date. None allow ballot harvesting. Very few nations grant birthright citizenship, only around 33 countries, and most of these require at least one parent to be a citizen or permanent resident. Many also restrict passing naturalized citizenship to children if both parents are non-nationals.
According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), 34 countries or territories allow mail-in voting.
Of those, 12 allow all voters to vote by mail, while 22 permit only some voters to do so. And over 100 countries allow some form of out-of-country postal voting, though specifics vary greatly.
Countries that have banned or restricted mail-in voting due to fraud concerns include France (banned in-country postal voting in 1975), Mexico (banned in 1991, partially restored in 2006), and Belgium (banned domestic mail-in voting in 2018).
Russia does not allow mail-in voting for citizens abroad or residents.
Sweden and Italy do not permit mail-in voting. Ukraine does not permit it either. Canada, the UK, and Switzerland require application or registration before receiving a mail ballot. Switzerland mails ballots to all registered voters but requires ID and a polling card for anyone who then votes in person.
All-postal voting, in which all electors receive ballots by post without requesting them, is used in several U.S. states, and Switzerland. Outside these narrow examples, no comparable democracy routinely mails unsolicited ballots to all registered voters as standard national practice.
Only four countries in the world currently grant equal voting rights to foreigners in national elections: New Zealand, Chile, Malawi, and Uruguay. In New Zealand, permanent residents can vote after one year of residence. Chile allows legally present foreign-born adults to vote after five years, while Malawi requires seven years and Uruguay eight years.
Some countries permit noncitizen voting only in limited contexts. Ecuador allows legally present noncitizens to vote after five years, and Norway allows foreign nationals to vote in local elections after three years of residence.
Non-citizens cannot vote in national elections or referenda in Finland, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, or Sweden — only in local elections under specific residency conditions.
Of the 47 nations in Europe, all but one require a government-issued photo ID to vote. Among the 38 member nations of the OECD, 33 require government-issued photo ID at the polls. The requirement spans every continent and nearly every style of government.
The four OECD member countries that did not require a photo ID were the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. Japan instead uses barcode-verified voter tickets, while Australia does not require any ID. New Zealand does not require ID for voting, but a New Zealand driver’s license, passport, or a RealMe-verified identity is required to enroll online. The United Kingdom has since introduced photo ID requirements for most elections.
No other democratic nation has a system comparable to certain U.S. states where jurisdictions are actively prohibited from asking voters for ID, and where ID-free voting is codified as a legal protection rather than an administrative default. California law prohibits poll workers from asking for voter ID for in-person voting. A Kern County elections official stated it plainly: “Poll workers should never be asking for an ID.”
Governor Newsom reinforced this at the state level. California’s Senate Bill 1174 prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification when casting ballots at the polls. When Huntington Beach attempted to require ID anyway, a California appeals court ruled that the measure violated state law.
In Canada, same-day registration is permitted. Since 2012, voter registration in Chile is automatic. Denmark also allows same-day corrections to voter rolls. Most other democracies do not need same-day registration because they use automatic or compulsory registration systems.
In Argentina, Chile, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, voter registration is automatic, based on government records such as census counts. In Germany, all residents must register their address with local authorities; anyone turning 18 before an election is automatically added to voter rolls with no separate registration required.
Automatic voter registration tied to driver’s licensing is primarily an American debate; most peer democracies already register voters through population registers and have no need for a DMV trigger.
The only country other than the United States that provides automatic voter registration tied to a driver’s license is Canada. If a citizen applies for a driver’s license in a new province and checks a box allowing data sharing, provincial motor vehicle registrars can transfer their information to federal election authorities, automatically updating voter registration without any further action.
Ballot harvesting, gathering and submitting completed absentee or mail-in ballots by third-party individuals, occurs in some U.S. states where voting by mail is common, but some states have laws restricting it. As of July 2020, 26 states allow specified agents to collect and submit ballots for another voter.
There is no documented peer democracy with a system equivalent to unrestricted ballot harvesting as practiced in California. Most countries that allow absentee voting require ballots to be returned directly by the voter or a strictly defined family member. The vast majority of countries ban absentee ballots for people living in their country. While some European countries allow proxy voting, the safeguards used to prevent fraud are generally far more stringent than those used for absentee ballots in the U.S.
Regarding post-election ballot acceptance: In the U.S., five states had a receipt deadline between one and four days after the election; seven states and D.C. had a deadline between five and ten days after Election Day; two states, Illinois and Washington, had a deadline between 14 and 20 days after the election. Every state that accepts ballots after Election Day requires that the ballot carry a postmark on or before Election Day.
California accepts mail ballots received up to 22 days after Election Day, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. In Canada, roughly 99,988 special ballots in the 2021 election were not counted because they arrived after the receipt deadline of 6 p.m. on election day. No comparable democracy accepts ballots arriving 30 days after an election.
According to the CIA World Factbook, at least 33 countries provide automatic citizenship to anyone born within their borders. Virtually every nation that offers unconditional birthright citizenship is located in North or South America, a pattern traced to colonial-era European policies designed to populate New World settlements.
Australia and New Zealand formerly had unconditional birthright citizenship but both shifted to conditional systems between the 1980s and 2000s. Today, children born there qualify only if at least one parent is a citizen or permanent resident.
Most European, Asian, and African countries follow jus sanguinis principles. Germany and France offer citizenship to children born on their soil only if their parents meet certain residency or legal-status requirements.
Canada is one of the few countries outside the United States that adheres to unconditional birthright citizenship. Under Canada’s Citizenship Act, a child born in Canada is granted citizenship even if neither parent is a citizen or permanent resident, provided neither parent is a diplomat. The nationality or immigration status of the parents does not matter. However, there is active political pressure to change this, with some Conservative Party members seeking to end birthright citizenship for the children of tourists and illegal aliens.
Mexico and most Latin American nations also extend birthright citizenship with no parental-status requirement. Article 30 of Mexico’s Constitution states that persons born in Mexican territory are natural-born citizens regardless of their parents’ nationality. Outside the Americas, this unconditional extension of birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants is rare to nonexistent among developed nations.
Given the restrictions imposed on voting and immigration in other countries, by liberal standards, it is not just Trump but the whole world that qualifies as Fascists.
(Note: Thank you for supporting businesses like the one presenting a sponsored message below and working with them through the links below which benefits Gateway Pundit. We appreciate your support!)
In the spring of 2020, Dr. Peter McCullough sat across from patients who were terrified.
They were sick. They were scared. And the official answer from the medical establishment was: go home, wait, and hope for the best.
Dr. McCullough wasn’t willing to accept that.
While other doctors kept their heads down and followed orders, he did something radical — he actually looked for solutions. He pored over studies. He talked to colleagues around the world. He treated patients with every tool available to him.
And what he found was something that powerful people did not want you to know about.
A Drug That’s Been Hiding In Plain Sight
It’s not new. It’s not experimental. It’s not some fringe remedy cooked up in somebody’s garage.
Ivermectin has been prescribed by doctors for over 30 years. It won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. It has been used by hundreds of millions of people around the world to wipe out parasite infections, treat stubborn skin conditions, and restore people’s health when nothing else worked.
And now cutting-edge research is showing something even more exciting — potential applications that scientists are only beginning to fully understand.
Dr. McCullough knew about this. And he told his patients.
For that, he was attacked. Ridiculed. Investigated.
He told the truth anyway.
That’s the kind of doctor he is. And that’s the kind of company The Wellness Company is built around — doctors who put you above their own careers.
But Here’s The Problem Nobody Is Talking About
Let’s say you’re convinced. Let’s say you want ivermectin for yourself and your family.
Where do you get it?
Here’s something that should make you stop and think: 75% of the ivermectin sold globally comes from Asia. When you order from most online pharmacies, you have no idea where that product was actually manufactured, what quality controls were in place, or what’s really inside that capsule.
You’re trusting your health — and your family’s health — to a supply chain you know absolutely nothing about.
Made here. In American facilities. Under American quality standards. With American accountability.
When you hold a bottle of The Wellness Company ivermectin, you know exactly what you’re getting — and you know exactly where it came from.
Now Here’s Where It Gets Really Good
You’d expect to pay a premium for American-made quality. And most people do.
Walk into most pharmacies right now and you’ll pay $5 per tablet for ivermectin. Sometimes more. Often for lower-dose formulas that leave you wondering if you’re even getting enough.
Here’s what The Wellness Company is offering:
18mg capsules — a higher dose — at just $3.57 per tablet.
Let’s do that math slowly, because it’s worth it:
Other guys: $5.00 per tablet, lower dose
The Wellness Company: $3.57 per tablet, higher dose
That’s not just cheaper. That’s better product at a lower price.
The Doctor Who Wouldn’t Back Down. The Company That Stood Behind Him.
Dr. McCullough didn’t go looking for a fight.
He went looking for answers — for his patients, for his family, and for you.
The Wellness Company was built by people who share that same commitment. People who believe you deserve access to safe, effective, affordable medicine that actually works — without having to fight the system just to get it.
This is that medicine. Made here. Priced right. Backed by doctors who proved they have your back when it mattered most.
Don’t Wait On This
Supply of American-made ivermectin is limited by definition — there simply aren’t as many domestic manufacturers as there are overseas ones.
When you find American-made quality at a price this low, you stock up.
Note: The information provided on this website is intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice or used as a substitute for professional healthcare guidance. It is your responsibility to comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and guidelines regarding the purchase, possession, and use of prescription medications.
President Trump again calls for the state of Colorado to “FREE TINA PETERS”. On Wednesday night, President Trump again called for the state of Colorado to free Tina Peters: FREE … Read more
War Secretary Pete Hegseth responded to questions on how the US was going to prevent a “forever war” in the quest to denuclearize Iran and why the Pentagon asked for an additional $200 billion to fund the war.
The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a $200 billion supplemental package to continue the war, though it must be approved by Congress.
The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to Congress to fund the war in Iran, according to a senior administration official, in an enormous new ask that is almost certain to run into resistance from lawmakers opposed to the conflict.
That number would far surpass the costs of the administration’s massive airstrike campaign to date and instead seek to urgently increase production of critical weaponry expended as U.S. and Israeli forces have struck thousands of targets over the past three weeks, according to three other people familiar with the matter, who confirmed that the Defense Department is seeking packages of that size.
It remains unclear how much the White House will ultimately ask congressional lawmakers to approve. Some White House officials do not think the Pentagon’s request has a realistic shot of being approved in Congress, the senior administration official said. The Pentagon has floated several different proposed funding requests over the past two weeks, according to the official and three other people familiar with the matter.
The cost of the war in Iran has rapidly grown, exceeding $11 billion in the first week alone, according to multiple officials. Shortly after the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign began late last month, the Trump administration started preparing an additional funding request to help cover the costs, a process often required to ensure the military can maintain its readiness to defend against threats around the world even during wartime.
The Daily Caller’s Reagan Reese pressed Hegseth on the funding request and the question of “How do you denuclearize the country while also avoiding this, you know, forever war?”
Hegseth presented the Trump Administration’s justifications for the war, but he did not answer specifically how the war would come to an end. He only reiterated the Trump Administration’s position that Iran was continuing their nuclear and ballistic missile development after the US launched Operation Midnight Hammer, destroying three Iranian nuclear facilities last Summer.
As for the $200 billion request, he said, “I think that number could move, obviously,” adding “It takes money to kill bad guys, so we’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future.”
He further compared President Trump’s stewardship of the money to that of former President Joe Biden. Trump, he said, is still working to “rebuild the military,” but the US is “still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was, which was depleting those stockholds and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine,” he said.
WATCH:
Reese: The Vice President has often emphasized that the goal of this war is to do denuclearize Iran while also avoiding a larger quagmire. I know that you touched on this. I’d like you to expand on how do you do that? How do you denuclearize the country while also avoiding this, you know, forever war? And then there was a report last night that the Pentagon asked the White House for $200 billion for Iran war supplemental. Can you confirm this and can you explain why a package this large is necessary?
Hegseth: Well, first of all, none of this would have been possible without Midnight Hammer, without that audacious mission, with very clear goals that did obliterate their ability to enrich and the capabilities they have in those facilities. So, it created the conditions for Iran to step forward and say, “Okay, you can reach out and touch us like that in our nuclear ambitions, you can see that we’re still trying to do this. Let’s make a deal.”
And President Trump put our two best folks on it, Steve and Steve and Jared, and they worked diligently, earnestly— I watched it— to try to pursue that deal. And ultimately, I think the whole time, Iran sort of said, “Well, we’ll talk as we build more missiles and as we build more UAVs, and we create this conventional umbrella so that, if we chose to, we could try to reconstitute the program,” and sort of naively thinking that President Trump wouldn’t do something about it. And that’s why, as Secretary Rubio has said and I’ve said, it’s the conventional umbrella that was growing, and growing, and growing that was meant to protect that nuclear capability. So, you have to address both what happened with Midnight Hammer and what happened with that as well.
As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys, so we’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is— everything’s refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond. I mean, President Trump, as he said, rebuilt the military in his first term, didn’t think he’d use it as dynamically in his second, but he had. So, thank goodness he did that. And an investment like this is meant to say, “Hey, we’ll replace anything that was spent, and now that we’re reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the arsenal of freedom and cutting deals, like our great deputy secretaries here is doing, long lead times on exquisite munitions, we’re going to be refilled faster than anyone imagined.”
And I think, you know, we’re also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was, which was depleting those stockholds and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine, which is— every time we reach back and look at any sort of a challenge we have, it goes back to “Well, send it to Ukraine.” Ultimately, we think this should be these— these munitions are better spent in our own interests at this point, and this kind of funding bill is going to ensure that we’re properly funded going forward.
Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent questioned the narratives surrounding the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and the attempted assassination of President Trump at a 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday.
Kent made his first interview appearance since departing the Trump Administration with Tucker and gave a somewhat tell-all behind-the-scenes account of many of his experiences as a top intelligence official, especially with regard to the war in Iran, Israel’s influence, and the factors driving the war.
He is also expected to join Mark Levin, who holds an opposing viewpoint and has clashed with Tucker for the last several months, for an interview.
During the discussion with Tucker, Kent spoke of the circumstances surrounding the would-be Trump assassin and the Charlie Kirk assassin, as well as the roadblocks he’s faced trying to get to the bottom of it at the National Counterterrorism Center.
Kent notably suggested that President Trump may feel like he is “under threat” due to “unanswered questions” surrounding the attempts on his life and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
“By no means am I saying, like, you know, the Israelis did this or any of that,” Kent told Tucker before highlighting the bizarre timing and circumstances surrounding the shooting at Trump’s rally in July 2024, after the FBI used a confidential human source to arrest Iranian national Asif Merchant in a foiled assassination plot. Just one day after Merchant was arrested in the murder for hire scheme on July 12, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire after sneaking onto a roof at the Trump rally on July 13, 2024.
But shockingly, Kent told Tucker, “We’re not allowed to ask, basically, was there any linkage between what took place with Asif Merchant, who was recruited by the Iranians to come to America to recruit proxies to kill President Trump.”
“Crooks, according to the official narrative, anyways, is an enigma. We don’t know anything about him. We can’t get into his devices. If we did get into his devices, maybe there’s nothing there. No more questions are allowed to be asked about Thomas Crooks,” he said. “The DHS IG is currently being blocked from investigating Butler as well. That’s out in the media, that’s all well known. Your investigative journalists found that crooks did indeed have an online persona, online footprint, he was talking to people. So it’s like, why aren’t we investigating this? You know?”
Kent went on to describe the “multiple public breaches of President Trump’s security over the last year” before highlighting Charlie Kirk’s very public assassination by Tyler Robinson, which “we’re not really even allowed to look into that at all,” he said.
Last time he saw Charlie Kirk before his murder, Kent said, “He said, ‘Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran,’ very loudly. And he walked off, and he went, I believe, into the Oval.”
“So, when one of President Trump’s closest advisors, who is vocally advocating for us to not go to war with Iran and for us to rethink, at least, our relationship with the Israelis, and then he’s suddenly publicly assassinated, and we’re not allowed to ask any questions about that, it’s a data point. It’s a data point that we need to look into,” Kent continued before explaining what he means by “not allowed to look into” the assassination.
“We’ve been told that this individual, Robinson, is a lone gunman, and maybe he is. But the investigation that I was a part of, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was a part of, we were stopped from continuing to investigate. And the FBI will say that they stopped that because they wanted to have— turn everything over to the Utah State authorities, everything’s going to trial, it’s very, very sensitive, but there was still a lot for us to look into that I can’t really get into, but there was still linkage for us to investigate that we needed to run down,” he said.
“I’m just saying there’s unanswered questions. We know the pressure, because of the text messages, the text messages that have been made public, that Charlie was under a lot of pressure from a lot of pro-Israel donors. And again, we know Charlie was advocating to President Trump against this war with Iran. And we knew at the end of the 12-day war, at the end of midnight hammer, that the Israelis were going to come back and ask us to go back to war again. So, we have a lot of data points between Butler, the assassination attempts against President Trump, the breaches of his security, what happened to Charlie Kirk.”
Kent then revealed, “The National Counterterrorism Center’s mandate is to investigate any foreign ties, to see if there’s potentially any foreign ties. If we don’t find any foreign ties, we back off. What I’m saying about getting into too much detail is there was more for us to investigate.”
Kent added that the FBI and DOJ “basically cut off our access to be able to get into that information” before clarifying, “Look, I didn’t even say necessarily that I believe there’s 100% foreign ties. There were data points that we needed to investigate.” He continued, “We still had a lot more leads to run down that pertain to some kind of a foreign nexus that we were stopped from investigating.”
While it would appear that Charlie Kirk being killed by a foreign country is highly unlikely, Kent has long been a defender of Israel and taking action in Iran. It does not seem likely that he would accuse Israel of killing Charlie Kirk, nor did he. What he did reveal is an alarming refusal by the government to allow the leading authority on national and international terrorism in the United States to further investigate an act of terrorism.
Kent explained that his agency was “cut off” because it’s just “the way the bureaucracy works” and that interagency data-sharing failures effectively stonewalled the NCTC’s investigation of various leads.
He further slammed the FBI’s investigation of Kirk’s assassination for not going far enough to investigate or arrest potential coconspirators or others with knowledge of Tyler Robinson’s plot. As The Gateway Pundit reported, Robinson was discovered to be a member of online communities, including one where users appeared to foreshadow the shooting, suggesting Kirk’s death was no lone-wolf act but potentially part of a planned operation within radical left-wing circles.
“I just think, considering they knew the guy, they knew Charlie was going to be assassinated, and there was enough of them that it wasn’t just some rando who maybe he tags every TPUSA post with that, there was enough of them that there’s something there,” Kent said.
“To me, there’s more work to be done, and because that could have been posted from anywhere, that would be in the purview of the FBI or NCTC if they’re overseas. And to me, I, personally, did not see any effort being taken to continue to run that down,” he continued, describing himself as “very bothered by it.”
“There was people publicly posting; they had prior knowledge of this. And I’m here telling you, as someone who’s involved in the investigation, there was more stones for us to overturn, and every time we asked, we were blocked. And then they, you know, leaked to the New York Times that we had a blow-up, and we had to throw them out of the room because they’re crazy, etc. So, it’s incredibly frustrating that there’s not more, especially considering how pivotal Charlie was to the MAGA movement and to President Trump, that there hasn’t been a more concerted effort to find the truth and to find justice.”
“I pray there is. I hope this helps. I know we know you, and I will probably take some flak for it,” he added.
Tucker chimed in, “I don’t know why, and I doubt I’ll be— at a certain but I’ve really tried not to say anything about it because I don’t, I don’t know the answers and but I want them to be found because I believe in justice and because I love Charlie, but I think everything you have said, you know, may be dismissed as crazy or evil. Tell me how. With reference to the words you’ve just spoken, I don’t see how someone could level a legitimate attack on you; it won’t stop them.”
An immigration judge has ordered the deportation of a former New York City Council staffer identified by federal authorities as a Venezuelan national with an assault arrest and no legal right to remain in the United States, Fox News reported.
Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, 53, who worked as a data analyst for the City Council, was first detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in January after appearing for what he believed was a routine immigration appointment.
Federal officials quickly revealed that Rubio Bohorquez had overstayed a tourist visa he entered on in 2017 and had been living in the country unlawfully ever since.
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Rubio Bohorquez is a “criminal illegal alien” with a prior arrest for assault in New York.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the arrest of a criminal illegal alien from Venezuela and New York City Council employee, Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez. This illegal alien’s criminal history includes an arrest for assault in New York. He had no work authorization and was illegally employed.
Rubio entered the United States on a B2 tourist visa in 2017 that required him to depart the U.S by October 22, 2017. He had no legal right to be in the United States.
“A criminal illegal alien with no authorization to work in the U.S. being employed by the New York City Council is shocking. This takes sanctuary city to a whole new level,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This criminal illegal alien has no authority to be in the U.S. and has a previous arrest for assault. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, the United States is no longer a safe haven for criminals.”
Despite those findings, New York City Democrats rushed to defend the staffer, insisting he was a law-abiding employee who had passed background checks and was authorized to work.
Democrat city officials even claimed he had no criminal record, directly contradicting DHS statements that pointed to his prior arrest and immigration violations.
“Today, Judge Conroy ordered the removal of Rafael Rubio, our City Council employee, from the United States. We are outraged and will continue to pursue every legal avenue to secure his release and ensure his case is properly heard on appeal.
“This outcome does not change the fundamental facts of this case: Rafael had legal authorization to remain in the United States, he followed the rules, and he showed up for a routine immigration appointment — only to be detained and held for months now.
“Today’s ruling appears to hinge on a procedural issue related to his asylum application. That is extremely troubling. A technical error should not determine the fate of a man who has done everything right and poses no risk to anyone.
“Let me be clear: Rafael should not continue to be detained while this is sorted out.
“An appeal will be filed, and we demand that Rafael’s case be properly heard by the deadline on April 17. At a minimum, he should be released pending that appeal. There is no justification for continuing to hold him under these circumstances.
“Rafael is a valued public servant and a beloved member of the City Council team. His continued detention is unjust, and we will not accept this outcome.”
