A male has been charged with aggravated arson “purpose to destroy forest,” jail records say, in connection with a New Jersey wildfire that reportedly is one of largest in the state over the last 20 years.

Joseph Kling, 19, of Ocean Township also was charged Wednesday with arson, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release.

The cause of the fire was ‘determined to be incendiary by an improperly extinguished bonfire.’

There is no bail listed for Kling, jail records also say.

The wildfire was first located Tuesday morning in Ocean Township, officials said, adding that emergency personnel observed a fire within the Forked River Mountains Wilderness Area of the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust. The area is about 60 miles east of Philadelphia and about 10 miles west of the New Jersey shore.

The prosecutor’s office’s Major Crime Unit-Arson Squad, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, the Ocean County Fire Marshal’s Office, and New Jersey State Fire Marshal’s Office plotted the origin of the fire through GPS and said the cause of the fire was “determined to be incendiary by an improperly extinguished bonfire.”

Kling set wooden pallets on fire and then left the area without fully extinguishing the fire, the prosecutor’s office said.

Kling was taken into custody at Ocean Township Police Headquarters and then taken to the Ocean County Jail, where he awaits a detention hearing, officials said.

The wildfire is one of largest in the New Jersey over the last 20 years, Patch reported. The wildfire has been 50% contained, officials said Thursday.

— (@)

You can view a video report here about the arrest.

Anything else?

WPVI-TV said it’s “peak forest fire season” in the Pinelands wilderness area, which covers more than 1 million acres and is about the size of the Grand Canyon.

New Jersey Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way (D) declared a state of emergency in response to the wildfire, the station said.

The growing wildfire forced 5,000 residents to evacuate Tuesday night, WPVI said, citing the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. As 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, all evacuation orders were lifted, the station said.

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​New jersey, Wildfire, Bonfire, Wooden pallets, Joseph kling, Arson charge, Aggravated arson charge, 19-year-old male suspect, Arrest, Crime 

In December 2021, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) met with multiple individuals linked to a $250 million COVID-19 fraud scheme that centered on stealing taxpayer funds intended to feed hungry children. After the meeting, he and his son Jeremiah, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, received campaign donations from multiple individuals connected to the fraud scheme.

Audio from the meeting, which came up during a recent court hearing, has prompted questions about Ellison’s links to the fraudsters, and in turn, an effort on his part to cure the narrative.

Background

The Department of Justice announced criminal charges in September 2022 against dozens of individuals linked to a $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland indicated at the time that it was the “largest pandemic relief scheme charged to date.”

The New York Post noted that of the 70 people charged in connection to the scheme, the Justice Department has so far secured 44 convictions or guilty pleas. Two of the fraudsters, Aimee Bock and Salim Said, were convicted by a federal jury last month.

During the pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture dropped some of the standard requirements for participation in the Federal Child Nutrition Program. For-profit restaurants could now participate in the program, and off-site food distribution to kids outside of educational programs was permitted.

Bock, Said, and scores of other bad actors in Minnesota rushed to exploit the loosened rules.

According to the Justice Department, Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit organization that was already a sponsor participating in the nutrition program, opened 250 program sites throughout the state of Minnesota to “receive and launder the proceeds of their fraudulent scheme.”

The nonprofit, run by Bock, went from disbursing roughly $3.4 million in federal funds in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021.

‘I’m not here because I think it’s gonna help my re-election.’

Feeding Our Future employees recruited various individuals and entities to open sites under the program that falsely claimed to be serving meals to thousands of kids daily.

Bock and Said, then-owner of Safari Restaurant, apparently created fake meal counts on the basis of fake attendance rosters replete with the names and ages of kids who were supposedly fed at taxpayers’ expense.

The fraudsters used the proceeds of their scam to buy luxury vehicles, fund international travel, and buy real estate. The fraudsters not only bought property in Minnesota, Ohio, and Kentucky but in Kenya and Turkey, as well.

The meeting

The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that Ellison met with people connected to the Feeding Our Future case on Dec. 11, 2021. Audio of the meeting, which took place one month before the FBI raided the nonprofit and the fraud case was publicized, was caught on tape.

The group that met with Ellison, which partly consisted of individuals under FBI investigation, reportedly complain in the recording published by the Center of the American Experiment that they were being targeted by state agencies and that this unwanted attention was fueled in part by racial animus.

During the meeting, the group vowed to throw its financial and political weight behind Ellison, who was then running for re-election, if he would — in the words of Abshir Omar, a Feeding Our Future consultant — be a “true and steadfast partner to fight for basic justice.”

Ellison expressed sympathy for the group — at that point already embroiled in litigation with the state — and indicated he would take their concerns to his staff, state agencies, and potentially the governor, reported the Tribune.

On the tape, Ellison can apparently be heard telling the group, “I’m not here because I think it’s gonna help my re-election.”

In the days that followed, individuals who attended the meeting, along with their family members and others connected to the Feeding Our Future case, dumped over $20,000 into the campaigns of Ellison and his son Jeremiah.

‘I did nothing for them and took nothing from them.’

Among the many donors linked to the case who made maximum donations to Jeremiah Ellison were:

Salim Said, an individual reportedly present at the meeting who ran the fraud scheme with Bock;
Ikram Mohamed, a Feeding Our Future consultant present at the meeting facing multiple criminal charges in the case;
Gandi Yusuf Mohamed, another defendant accused of fraudulently receiving and laundering over $1.1 million in nutrition program funds who also donated $2,500 to Keith Ellison’s campaign;
Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud;
Abdulkadir Nur Salah, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud;
Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for defrauding the U.S. government of $46 million; and
Khalid Omar, director of the Dar Al-Farooq mosque, one of the sites where fraudsters falsely claimed to have distributed 18.8 million meals.

Brian Evans, a spokesman for the Democratic AG, told the Tribune, “Nothing improper happened whatsoever.”

Republican lawmakers don’t appear entirely convinced of the innocence act.

Minnesota House Republican Floor Leader Rep. Harry Niska stated earlier this month, “It’s disturbing to learn that Attorney General Ellison met with and offered verbal support to criminal defendants at the heart of the largest pandemic fraud scam in the country. He was even offered campaign contributions in this meeting, which he later accepted.”

“Earlier this session, Democrats voted to block legislation that would give taxpayers more transparency into the operations of the AG’s office,” continued Niska. “This incident underscores the need for that legislation and raises questions about why Democrats blocked it in the first place.”

“Minnesotans just heard their attorney general offering support to individuals who were orchestrating the largest pandemic-related fraud scheme in the nation,” said state Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee. “This demands additional scrutiny, as (the) attorney general’s duty is to defend state agencies and provide rigorous oversight of Minnesota businesses and charities.”

Additional scrutiny might provide answers to the questions the Tribune raised in a 2022 report about Ellison’s failure to flush out the fraudulent activity sooner. The report noted:

If Ellison’s office had used its investigative power to pull bank records, it could have found that the alleged conspirators paid at least $524,579 in bribes and laundered $3.2 million in program funds between July 2020 and March 2021, prior to the FBI’s involvement.

The narrative curation

In an op-ed Monday, Ellison insisted that his meeting with suspected fraudsters ahead of an FBI raid “was routine” and that he “made no promises” when they asked for help.

The Democratic AG did his best to downplay the meeting, writing, “If you read nothing else in this piece, here’s what you need to know: I took a meeting in good faith with people I didn’t know and some turned out to have done bad things. I did nothing for them and took nothing from them.”

Ellison curiously omitted any mention of the campaign donations that poured in after the meeting. He alternatively suggested that when the “scammers” suggested that they would contribute to his campaign if he helped them, he “shut that down immediately.”

The op-ed is carefully worded.

For instance, Ellison does not claim that the fraud scandal had not taken shape until after his meeting but rather that it had not taken “shape in earnest” until the following month. He also does not assert that the FBI did not share anything about their investigation prior to January 2022 but that it wasn’t until January that the FBI “shared with my staff attorneys anything about the size of their investigation or the individuals they were targeting.”

This carefully chosen language conveys that he went into the meeting blind about the nature of those in the room with him — even though his office stated in September 2022: “Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and his office have been deeply involved for two years in holding Feeding Our Future accountable.”

“As for the meeting — if I had had any way of knowing beforehand who those people were and what they’d done, I never would have agreed to it,” wrote Ellison. “But I’m not going to stop meeting with folks in good faith because a few bad people tried — and failed — to run their scheme on me.”

Evans, Ellison’s spokesman, suggested to the New York Post that the FBI was partly responsible for the Democratic AG meeting with the fraudsters.

“The FBI shared almost no information with other state officials about its investigation, including the targets of the investigation,” said Evans.

The spokesman noted further that “the campaign has no intention of keeping contributions from anyone indicted in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.”

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​Corruption, Keith ellison, Minnesota, Democrat, Democratic, Fraud, Fraudster, Feeding our future, Somalian, Somali, Politics 

It’s a familiar pattern. Wealthy, self-righteous elites who crisscross the globe by private jet turn around and shame others for doing the same — so long as it’s done with less glamor and more purpose. The latest target of their selective outrage? Six women who took a private spaceflight last week aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket.

You’d think such a moment — an aerospace engineer, an entrepreneur, and other accomplished women making history on a suborbital mission — might warrant celebration. Instead, it drew scorn. According to Hollywood’s self-appointed moral authorities and their Instagram followers, this was a grave offense against the planet and the poor.

These flights are more than joyrides. They’re test beds for innovation, job creation, and future scientific breakthroughs.

What the climate elites ignore — again — is that progress for women, on Earth or in space, depends on one thing they take for granted: energy.

Access to reliable, affordable energy is the cornerstone of women’s liberation in the developing world. It means light to study at night, clean water, safer childbirth, personal security, and a future that doesn’t begin and end with gathering firewood. The freedom to dream big, like flying to space, starts with the freedom to flip a switch.

Classic virtue-signaling

Gayle King, one of the passengers and a trailblazer in journalism, rightly called the backlash “elitist and sexist.” But she left something out: it’s not just sexist. It’s sanctimonious, selective, and suffocating. These are the trademarks of climate virtue-signaling.

Here’s how the game works in today’s inverted moral order: Jet to Davos or Cannes to lecture the public on climate change and you’re hailed as enlightened. Board a rocket as a civilian scientist or entrepreneur, and suddenly you’re a villain — a carbon criminal with the wrong pedigree.

Leonardo DiCaprio can bounce between islands on a yacht to “save the seas,” and no one complains. John Kerry can cross the Atlantic alone in a jet to accept a climate award, and the hypocrisy goes unmentioned. But let six women go to space without the blessing of the green aristocracy, and the mob lights its torches.

Companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX aren’t just about space tourism. They’re pushing technological boundaries that benefit everyone — from global internet access to environmental monitoring. These flights are more than joyrides. They’re test beds for innovation, job creation, and future scientific breakthroughs.

And here’s the larger truth: Abundant, affordable energy is the single most powerful engine of human progress. Societies with the highest energy access are the ones where women thrive. Education, health care, and economic opportunity all expand when energy is plentiful. When the climate movement demonizes innovation and blocks energy development, it’s not saving the planet — it’s stunting the dreams of billions, especially women and girls.

But the climate elites aren’t interested in nuance. Their worldview leaves no room for liberty or aspiration — only guilt, rules, and control.

No apologies

What makes this worse is their arrogance. As if launching six women into space is somehow a threat to “equity.” These women didn’t beg permission from the climate commissars. They didn’t issue carbon apologies. They didn’t buy indulgences from Greenpeace. They flew — because they could. That’s what really infuriates their critics.

The same people who shame Americans for driving pickups or heating their homes sip imported oat milk and scold others from first-class lounges. They claim to speak for justice, but their double standards always circle back to their own comfort.

Instead of condemning these women, we should be applauding them. In an age where pessimism is the norm and grievance is currency, their boldness reminds us of what ambition without apology looks like.

We should be asking: How can we empower more women — not just to fly to space, but to lead in science, business, and technology? The answer is energy. The free market — not fearmongering — will launch the next generation of pioneers.

This was a win for human achievement. No amount of Hollywood hand-wringing can diminish it.

To the ladies of Blue Origin: Don’t let the sanctimonious elites pull you down. While they stare at the sky, you’ve already touched it.

​Opinion & analysis, Blue origin female flight, Katy perry, Gayle king, Jeff bezos, Space travel, Energy, Innovation, Green hypocrisy, Hollywood elite, Feminism, Leftism, Environmentalism, Carbon, Indulgences, Greenpeace, Science, Technology 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ripped into a report claiming he had a makeup studio at the Pentagon and took a jab at failed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

The report said that Hegseth ordered modifications to a room next to the Pentagon press briefing room to install a makeup studio. The retrofitting was reportedly intended to prepare him for television shots and would cost thousands of dollars, according to sources who spoke to CBS News.

‘The leftist “news” media would have loved that.’

Hegseth denied the report on social media Wednesday.

“Totally fake story. No ‘orders’ and no ‘makeup’ — but whatever,” he wrote.

“We should have installed tampon machines in every men’s bathroom at DoD instead — the leftist ‘news’ media would have loved that,” he added.

The jab was seemingly a reference to a popular talking point against Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who ran for vice president in the 2024 election. During the campaign, Republicans mocked him for signing a law requiring public schools in his state to provide tampons and menstrual pads to all students, including boys.

Democrats have been calling for Hegseth’s resignation since an embarrassing leak of defense plans related to an attack on the Houthi terror group. Far-left Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas pounced on the makeup studio report to mock Hegseth and the Trump administration.

“Pete Hegseth is treating the Pentagon like it’s a Fox News set—ordering a makeup studio while leaking sensitive information in Signal chats,” she posted. “This is what happens when you put clout-chasers in charge of national security.”

President Donald Trump has dismissed the criticism and said he stands by Hegseth.

Since the devastating election for Democrats, Walz has said that the country just wasn’t ready for the supposedly positive tone of the Democrats’ messaging.

“We were pledging to be inclusive. We were pledging to bring people in,” he said in December. “Donald Trump has said that that isn’t what he wants, and so if that’s what America is leaning towards, I guess for me, it’s to understand and learn more about America because I thought that they were going to probably move towards a more positive message.”

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​Pete hegseth makeup studio, Pete hegseth controversy, Tampon tim walz, Dems vs hegseth, Politics 

Almost two-thirds of all adults in California, and even more parents of children in public schools, think kids should play in sports based on sex.

A new study from the Public Policy Institute of California showed the reality of how parents feel in the state, despite legislators not backing them on the issue.

The recent survey of nearly 1,600 California adult residents saw that 65% of adults and 71% of public school parents supported the idea of requiring children with gender dysphoria to compete on teams that match with their sex. The study noted that while the majority agreed with the sentiment across regions and demographic groups, there was less of an agreement across political lines. While 91% of Republicans said boys should not be in girls’ sports, the number dropped to 71% for independents, with Democrats virtually split on the issue at 49%.

Even though the debate on the issue seems all but over, Democrats in California’s legislative assembly shot down two recent Republican bills to ban males from female sports, and according to Politico, are expected to do the same for an upcoming state Senate proposal.

The lack of protective legislation has left some young female athletes vulnerable in the state, including Taylor Starling from Martin Luther King High School. Starling spoke at a state assembly meeting recently and told state legislators she was “replaced” on her track team by a male student.

“I was removed from my varsity girls’ team and replaced by a newly eligible male transfer student who received favorable treatment,” the 16-year-old claimed.

Starling has a lawsuit against her school district and California Attorney General Rob Bonta; a court date is set for May 15.

School safe zones

In the same survey, Californians revealed bizarre views regarding the removal of illegal immigrants, specifically those who are public school students (and their families). Sixty-five percent of adults and 74% of public school parents said they are “very concerned or somewhat concerned” about the enforcement of immigration policy, with 63% and 72%, respectively, in favor of public school districts refusing to cooperate with federal authorities and acting as a “safe zone” for illegal immigrants.

Perhaps ironically, most Californians were also concerned that young children who do not speak English are not prepared for kindergarten. This likely would include those same “undocumented” students.

At the same time, around 40% of those surveyed said there were not enough resources for students whose first language is not English.

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​Fearless, California, Women’s sports, Transgenderism, Sports 

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will be meeting with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic who most recently broke the now-infamous “Signalgate” story.

Trump asserted that Goldberg had previously published “fictional stories” about the president and his administration. Despite this, Trump will be interviewed by Goldberg and other journalists from the outlet for a story entitled “The Most Consequential President of this Century.”

‘I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be “truthful.”’

“Later today I will be meeting with, of all people, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor of The Atlantic, and the person responsible for many fictional stories about me, including the made-up HOAX on ‘Suckers and Losers’ and, SignalGate, something he was somewhat more ‘successful’ with,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

One “hoax” Trump is referring to includes Goldberg’s article from September 2020 that claimed the president called Americans who died in combat “suckers” and “losers.” The article relies on anonymous sources who alleged that Trump talked down on fallen soldiers during a 2018 trip to France, which was heavily refuted by over a dozen on-the-record sources, including several administration officials.

“Jeffrey is bringing with him Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, not exactly pro-Trump writers, either, to put it mildly!” Trump added. “The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, ‘The Most Consequential President of this Century.”

Although Goldberg’s journalistic career has not always been flattering to the president, Trump said he was open to the interview for personal reasons.

“I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful.’ Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘TRUMP’? The way I look at it, what can be so bad – I WON!”

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​Donald trump, Signal chat, Signal leak, Signal gate, Jeffrey goldberg, The atlantic, Fake news, Legacy media, Mainstream media, Trump administration, Politics 

The Trump administration has explicitly threatened, and in some cases suspended, the funding of universities across the country, citing violations of federal law and policy.

Amid this governmental campaign to fight anti-Semitism on campus, keep men out of women’s sports, maximize viewpoint diversity, eliminate discriminatory DEI practices, and kick divisive critical race theory programming to the curb, Harvard University has emerged as the administration’s white whale.

Democrats and other leftists have, through their overreactions to the administration’s handling of Harvard, given away their own suspicions that the 389-year-old institution’s neutralization as a political entity and restoration to former glory would mark a turning point — perhaps not an end to the left’s long march through the institutions but certainly a landmark arrest of the American campus slide into lawlessness, lunacy, and identitarianism.

This concern appears to ground Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s (N.Y.) statement, “The Trump administration is making unprecedented demands of universities aimed at undermining or even destroying these vital institutions.”

‘Tactics like these likely will have massive long-term consequences.’

“Universities must do more to fight antisemitism on campus, but the administration should not use it as an excuse for a broad and extra-legal attack on these institutions,” continued Schumer. “Harvard is right to resist.”

The concern similarly lurks in the background of Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop’s assertion that “the assault on Harvard is part of a broader Trumpian assault on elite universities, which is itself part of a yet broader federal assault on progressive institutions and groups deemed enemies of the president.”

Prokop added, “Tactics like these likely will have massive long-term consequences, forever transforming the relationship between the federal government and academia.”

Despite the alarmist rhetoric peddled by activists and Democratic lawmakers, the Trump administration’s insistence that institutional beneficiaries of federal funding hold up their ends of the bargain — especially in the case of Harvard University — appears to be neither unlawful nor unprecedented.

While the Trump administration is less ambiguous in its language and more confrontational with its actions — which have in a number of cases already borne fruit — it is simply exercising muscles previously flexed by previous governments to ensure federally funded universities comply with federal civil rights law and public policy.

Now

The Trump administration has threatened, frozen, and/or temporarily suspended federal funding to a number of schools in recent months. For example, the administration:

temporarily paused U.S. Department of Agriculture funding to the University of Maine System while ensuring its seven universities and law school were in compliance with Title IX and Title VI, which ban sex and race-based discrimination;
brought Columbia University to heel by announcing the end of $400 million worth of grants and contracts after the institution failed to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic attacks;
froze over $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and around $790 million for Northwestern University amid investigations of anti-Semitism and racial discrimination;
threatened to freeze $510 million of Brown University’s federal funding amid investigations into the institution’s DEI initiatives and alleged anti-Semitism;
paused around $210 million in research grants to Princeton University pending an investigation — reportedly opened by the Biden Department of Education in 2024 — into anti-Semitism on campus; and
suspended approximately $175 million in grants and contracts to the University of Pennsylvania over its policies enabling men to compete in women’s sports.

While the Trump administration has taken a similar approach to Harvard, the country’s oldest university has proven a tougher nut to crack.

Blaze News previously reported that the administration notified Harvard University President Alan Garber and Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, on April 11 that billions of dollars in federal funds were at stake unless the institution agreed to implement a number of “critical reforms.”

‘Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions.’

The government specifically asked for Harvard’s cooperation in implementing these reforms:

foster “clear lines of authority and accountability,” empower tenured professors who are devoted to the scholarly mission of the university, reduce the power held by students and untenured faculty, and reduce forms of governance bloat;
adopt merit-based hiring and admissions policies and cease all discriminatory admissions, hiring, promotion, and compensation practices;
“reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism”;
commission an external party to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity;
reform programs with “egregious records of anti-Semitism or other bias”;
eliminate DEI-based policies; and
clamp down on student disruptions and misconduct.

The university, which has an endowment of $53.2 billion, initially responded by suggesting the necessary reforms were already underway and that the Trump administration’s demands were unlawful.

Barack Obama, a Democrat whose administration threatened its fair share of universities’ federal funding, was among the liberals who celebrated Harvard’s defiance, writing, “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect.”

‘That stops under the Trump Administration.’

Evidently not interested in playing Obama-supported games, the Trump administration provided the Massachusetts university with a steady stream of bad news.

For starters,

the administration reportedly launched a review of
around $9 billion in grants and contracts with the university over
possible violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act;

the Education Department’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a $2.2 billion freeze in multi-year grants and a $60 million freeze in multi-year contract value to Harvard;
the National Institutes of Health reportedly
told grant managers to halt disbursements to Harvard;
the Department of
Homeland security
announced the cancellation of two six-figure grants
and indicated the university’s ability to enroll foreign students was in jeopardy; and

the administration appeared
poised at the time of writing to pull $1 billion of Harvard’s funding
for health research.

Julie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, told Blaze News in a statement, “The Department has given Columbia and Harvard every opportunity to come into compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws.”

“On March 10, OCR sent letters to both universities reminding them of their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus,” continued Hartman. “ED has also attempted multiple times to engage in negotiations with both of these universities, and the Department hopes to continue negotiating with them to protect students’ civil rights.”

“In the past, educational entities were allowed to violate Title VI with little to no enforcement action from the federal government,” added the ED spokeswoman. “That stops under the Trump Administration. We will not allow taxpayer funds to sponsor discrimination against American students.”

After the administration began derailing the school’s gravy train, Harvard doubled down on its defiance.

When announcing the university’s lawsuit against the administration on April 21, Harvard President Alan Garber suggested that the pause on injections of taxpayer dollars into his wealthy institution were “unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.”

“These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world,” wrote Garber.

Garber is hardly the first in recent weeks to suggest the Trump administration’s handling of Harvard’s defiance was somehow unlawful, harmful, or unprecedented.

Andrew Tyrie, senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, previously told the Harvard Gazette, “This is weakening the United States and imperiling the prosperity and the security of millions of Americans.”

‘This is the first time an administration has tried something like this.’

Joshua Cherniss, an associate political theory professor at Georgetown University, said, “I study, to some extent, authoritarian regimes, and I think that some of what we’re seeing — while it’s not equivalent to fully formed authoritarianism — is starting to approach it in terms of trying to have the government dictate the ideas that are taught, that can be expressed and that can’t be expressed.”

While there has been much of this pearl-clutching about threats to Harvard’s gravy train, there has also been shirt-rending over the Trump administration’s threat to Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Trump recently wrote, “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”

“To my knowledge, this is the first time an administration has tried something like this,” said R. William Snyder, a professor at the business college of George Mason University, told CNN. “The whole purpose of higher education is to educate the masses. Just because they educate in a way that you don’t like, is that grounds to terminate their tax-exempt status? I’d say no.”

Contrary to these critics’ suggestions, this was not, however, the first time an administration threatened tax-exempt status or funding.

Then

Like Synder, many critics of the president’s proposal to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status appeared to strategically develop long-term memory loss.

Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo and Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett were, however, happy to remind such critics that should Harvard lose its tax-exempt status over alleged noncompliance with federal law or policy, it wouldn’t be the first.

Bob Jones University, a private university in Greenville, South Carolina, had racist policies on its books in the mid-20th century — including prohibitions on interracial dating and marriage. Determining that the school’s discriminatory policies did not serve a public purpose and were contrary to established public policy, the IRS revoked the school’s tax-exempt status in 1975. This decision prompted a heated legal battle.

Ultimately, in Bob Jones University v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in 1983 that the IRS had authority to deny status to Bob Jones University, Goldsboro Christian School, and other institutions with racist policies.

Powerline recently noted that Harvard, like BJU, has already been found by the Supreme Court to engage in illegal race discrimination — meaning the path to status revocation might be an altogether simpler matter, assuming an activist judge isn’t ready to throw more caltrops before the administration.

Just as revoking a misaligned university’s tax-exempt status would be nothing new, the Trump administration’s threats to universities’ federal funding are similarly business as usual.

While the Trump administration has followed through by suspending or freezing funding to a number of universities for their alleged noncompliance with federal law and policy, the Biden administration appeared keen to do something similar — efforts that in a number of cases resulted in agreements and resolutions.

In the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the Biden Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened hundreds of investigations into complaints about anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While such investigations are customarily backed by the implicit threat of suspending noncompliant schools’ federal funding, NPR noted that Biden officials expressly threatened to cut funding to schools that failed to take aggressive remedial action.

The Education Department noted in its 2024 fiscal year annual report that the University of Illinois, Drexel University, and Brown University remedied compliance concerns identified by the OCR, thereby preserving their funding.

While concerns were expressed about the possibility that these investigations could chill free speech on campus, critics were not up in arms as they are now.

There also does not appear to have been leftist apoplexy when years earlier, the first Trump administration’s Education Department OCR took the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to task after concluding on the basis of nearly 400 reports of sexual harassment and sexual violence that the institution was out of compliance with Title IX. The government ultimately secured a resolution agreement with the school in place of fines or denial of funding.

The Obama administration similarly threatened federal funding for schools that fell out of line with federal law and policy without the same volume of uproar seen today.

For instance, the Obama Education Department’s OCR came after Tufts University for Title IX violations, specifically with regard to its handling of sexual harassment and misconduct complaints. It also notified schools that noncompliance with Title IX could result in the OCR initiating “proceedings to withdraw Federal funding by the Department or refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for litigation.”

In 2016, the Obama administration circulated guidance stating that so-called gender identity was protected under Title IX.

Politico noted at the time that the advisory included “a threat that the Obama administration has leveled against North Carolina in the standoff over the state’s law blocking legal protections for gay and transgender individuals: If a state fails to comply with the administration’s interpretation of the law, it runs the risk of being sued by the federal government and losing federal funding, particularly for education.”

In April 2011, the Obama ED OCR established mandates requiring universities to reduce students’ due process rights. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression indicated that failure on the part of universities to heed the regulations, which were announced in a letter from then-Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali, faced federal investigation and a potential loss of federal funding.

Obama also proposed shifting federal funding away from universities perceived as failing to keep net tuition down.

The previous two Democratic administrations appear to have liberally threatened schools’ funding without the accompaniment of a chorus of doomsdayers warning of the coming peril and civilizational harms. Their threats also paved the way for those issued in recent weeks by the Trump administration.

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Residents in Purcellville, Virginia, appeared to successfully pressure the town council on Tuesday to backtrack from its plan to dissolve the local police force.

Purcellville Town Council members voted on April 9 to eliminate the police department, citing multiple reasons, including staffing issues. They argued that the move would save the town more than $3 million after falling into $50 million of debt to construct a wastewater treatment plant.

‘The four of you snuck agenda items in at the end of the meeting and took away my lawful right to comment on them.’

The town council hinged its support for the department’s elimination on the fact that Purcellville is rated as one of the safest towns in the state, and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office already patrols the town from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. The sheriff’s office also manages school resource officers.

However, locals felt that the town council concocted the plan to dismantle the police force behind closed doors and failed to seek input.

“The four of you snuck agenda items in at the end of the meeting and took away my lawful right to comment on them,” one resident told the council, according to WJLA.

The sheriff’s office released a statement that appeared to support residents’ concerns.

“Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman has neither been consulted about nor agrees with the representations in the document published in the Purcellville Town Council meeting packet describing the dissolution of its Police Department and replacement with services provided by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office,” the statement read. “Unfortunately, nothing in the published document has been discussed with Sheriff Chapman or the LCSO’s Leadership Team.”

“While the LCSO is willing to provide law enforcement support and services to the Town of Purcellville, the Town Council has no jurisdiction to place conditions or requirements on the LCSO should its Police Department be dissolved,” the sheriff’s office added.

Outraged residents packed the town council’s Tuesday meeting to express their disapproval of the plan. Locals also launched a recall effort to remove several council members and Vice Mayor Ben Nett.

During the meeting, the council members seemed to cave under the community’s pressure, voting instead to fund the police force through next year. However, members plan to hold a full budget session to consider the department’s future.

The vote to keep the police force followed news on Monday that the Office of Attorney General authorized the state police to open a criminal investigation into Nett over a potential conflict of interest — while serving as vice mayor, Nett was also employed with the Purcellville Police Department. He was terminated from the force earlier this month.

Commonwealth’s attorney Bob Anderson stated that Nett has been “prevented from accessing all police department records, voting on all matters involving the PPD and attending all meetings involving discussions about PPD.”

Anderson claimed that Nett’s support of disbanding the department appeared to be a “retaliation” over his recent termination and “a blatant conflict of interest.”

Nett did not respond to WTTF’s request for comment.

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In a major shock to all pro-life Texas conservatives, the Republican-led Texas House just tried to honor the life of Cecile Richards — a former Planned Parenthood president.

While memorial resolutions are a long-standing tradition that involve honoring the lives of people who have passed in their district, this one stood out. The resolution was submitted by Democrat Representative Donna Howard.

“They wanted to honor Cecile Richards, the former president of the Planned Parenthood of America, that was the intention. That is diabolical. This woman was responsible for the deaths of millions of unborn babies, and the Texas House was set to honor her memory,” Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” explains, disgusted.

“Texas, the very same state that is supposed to be pro-life. We are supposed to be a pro-life state with a Republican legislature voted in by your constituents,” she continues, noting that they made a “conscious decision to honor the ringleader of baby killers” and a “woman who made her career” on the idea that babies don’t always deserve to live.

“Tell me how a pro-life state could even consider something like that? And yet, there it was on the Texas House floor,” she adds.

While the resolution was shot down by his Republican colleagues, Texas Republican and House Representative Jared Patterson was also in favor of memorializing Richards.

But the betrayal gets worse.

“So there was another layer if you will to how deep this disgusting act goes, because it also happened to be in the same memorial resolution as conservative pro-life activist Jill Glover, who unfortunately passed away from cancer last year,” Gonzales explains.

“Now, being a conservative activist, she quite literally fought against everything that Cecile Richards stood for,” she continues, asking, “So how could a true conservative, in good conscience, sign off on a resolution honoring a woman who made it her life’s work to kill as many babies as possible in the womb? How could a true conservative even send this to the floor?”

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Nina Jankowicz, the former czar of the Biden administration’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board and briefly also an adviser to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, addressed the European Parliament this week, telling members to “stand firm against another autocracy: the United States of America.”

Fresh off
telling the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the “censorship industrial complex is a fiction,” Jankowicz concern-mongered before foreign leaders about the Trump administration’s fight against censorship efforts at home and abroad.

Jankowicz stressed that Europeans should persist in their
efforts to regulate content on social media, claiming that doing so while also throwing additional support behind Ukraine would be “the clearest signal the European Union could send to Russia and other adversaries that it will not stop fighting to preserve democracy at home and around the world.”

Like Democrats in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election and those European elites challenged in recent years by ascendant populist parties, Jankowicz appears to use “democracy” to denote a state of play preferable to the ever-weakening liberal establishment.

‘Rubio gleefully announced he was obliterating the office.’

Jankowicz, who previously emphasized that “freedom of speech does not necessarily mean freedom of reach” and registered as a foreign agent in 2022, appeared especially concerned about the threats supposedly posed to “democracy” by the Trump administration. In particular, she is vexed by the administration’s opposition to the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which critics have dubbed a “censorship law,” as well as by the administration’s shuttering of the censorious Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub, formerly the Global Engagement Center.

“Just last week in the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gleefully announced he was obliterating the office tasked with tracking and responding to foreign information, manipulation and interference,” complained Jankowicz, referring to Rubio’s April 16 announcement that the Hub was no more.

The Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub was a rebrand of the Global Engagement Center, a multi-agency entity housed within the U.S. State Department that was
credibly accused of working with domestic and foreign organizations to silence conservative voices.

Jankowicz
tried gaslighting Congress about the GEC during an April 1 hearing, claiming, “There was no censorship going on at the Global Engagement Center at the State Department.”

Contrary to the foreign agent’s suggestion, Rubio noted last week that the GEC “cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year and actively silenced and censored the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.”

The GEC worked with Jankowicz’s fellow travelers in the censorship industry, backing, for instance, the Disinformation Index Inc. — the American component of the British think tank
Global Disinformation Index — and NewsGuard Technologies.

Blaze News
previously reported that these two outfits generated blacklists of supposedly misleading news outfits with the aim of getting them demonetized and directing funds to news organizations that parrot approved narratives. While liberal publications like the Washington Post and NPR were labeled as the “least risky sites,” Blaze News, Reason, the Federalist, the New York Post, and other websites carrying content apparently unpalatable to the liberal establishment made the top-10 list of “riskiest sites” and were smeared as having the “greatest level of disinformation risk.”

‘We will never restrict our citizens’ right to free speech.’

“Many other U.S. government institutions have been similarly dismantled in the months since President Trump took office under the guise of protecting free speech and allegedly ‘ending censorship,'” continued Jankowicz in her address this week to the European Parliament. “Now the European Union has become the subject of the Trump administration and tech executives’ ire.”

During his Feb. 11 speech at the Paris Artificial Intelligence Summit, Vice President JD Vance
declared that social media platforms developed and/or based in the U.S. would remain free from ideological restraints, stating, “We will never restrict our citizens’ right to free speech.”

One of the key European censorship initiatives at issue is the EU’s Digital Services Act, which is
touted as part of a regulatory strategy to “prevent illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation.”

The European Commission
has taken aim at Elon Musk and X for supposed content moderation violations under the DSA and has threatened monster fines. The commission slapped Meta and Apple with hundreds of millions of dollars in fines on Tuesday with parallel tech regulation, the Digital Markets Act.

‘The Trump administration is undoubtedly preparing a pressure campaign to force EU institutions to roll back regulation like the DSA.’

Ten days after Vance’s speech, President Donald Trump
signed a memorandum “to defend American companies and innovators from overseas extortion,” in which he noted “regulations that dictate how American companies interact with consumers in the European Union, like the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, will face scrutiny from the Administration.”

Despite this threat, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently
told Politico that Europe is going after American companies anyway.

“We apply the rules fairly, proportionally, and without bias. We don’t care where a company’s from and who’s running it. We care about protecting people,” said von der Leyen.

Jankowicz, apparently enraged by the Trump administration’s refusal to allow the regulation of American content by foreign powers, stated, “Neither Washington nor the social media platforms at his capture are interested in protecting democracy. They are interested in maintaining their power and hoarding profits.”

“The Trump administration is undoubtedly preparing a pressure campaign to force EU institutions to roll back regulation like the DSA, to end support for Ukraine, to stop holding Russia to account. Do not capitulate. Hold the line,” said the
self-described “Mary Poppins of disinformation.”

According to Jankowicz, social media regulation and cooperation from platforms are needed especially because the Kremlin is supposedly taking “advantage of decreased tech platform regulation and attention to foreign influence campaigns” and “using emerging technologies, including generative artificial intelligence, to infect our public discourse.”

“If Europe wishes to stand firm against Russia and defend its democracy and sovereignty, it must start by standing up against the bullies in the White House,” concluded Jankowicz.

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The fight for women to maintain their spaces without males infiltrating them is important and only just beginning — but they’re not the only ones whose sacred spaces are being threatened.

“We’ve had this debate here over the past few years about women’s-only spaces and how guys who say that they’re women seem to be invading them quite a bit, and I think that’s set off the appropriate amount of outrage,” Stu Burguiere of “Stu Does America” tells Independent Women’s Forum senior legal analyst Inez Stepman.

“We’ve been having this huge national conversation mostly spurred by people of one sex who claim to be the opposite sex, and of men, biological men, invading women’s spaces. And of course, that’s a big deal in some ways, more sort of direct or obvious or urgent, when we see girls losing sports competitions and in a totally unfair way,” Stepman explains.

“Or even we see women’s safety threatened in prisons because we’re putting male sex offenders who claim that they’re women in women’s prisons,” she continues, noting that when the tables are turned and it’s men losing their spaces, it’s a “slower burn.”

“Slowly, one by one, since the 1990s and early 2000s, there have been virtually no organized spaces where men can gather together and know that there won’t be any women around, and I think that’s been a negative,” she adds.

And this has been affecting their social lives gravely, as one in four men under 30 don’t consider themselves to have any close friends.

Stepman believes this to be a consequence of not only having fewer and fewer male only spaces, but also the modern obsession with sexualizing male friendships.

In a piece she wrote for National Review on this topic called “Men Need Single-Sex Spaces Too,” Stepman uses Frodo and Sam from “The Lord of the Rings” as an example.

“There’s all those gay jokes; it seems homoerotic to people because we’re so unfamiliar with the idea of close bonds and close friendships,” she explains, adding that even the military has now been infiltrated by women.

But it doesn’t stop there. Once just for boys learning survival skills and, ultimately, how to be men, the Boy Scouts are now allowing girls to join.

“I just think we have lost a lot by making sure that even the Boy Scouts is not allowed to be just for boys to learn how to be boys and grow up into men,” Stepman says.

“I think it’s really time to reconsider that cultural push,” she adds.

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According to several recent reports, including one from the National Catholic Register, we’ve seen a huge surge in Catholic conversions — especially among younger generations. A recent New York Post article highlighted the “growing number of young people turning to the Catholic Church from other denominations, religions and even no faith at all.”

What’s behind this sudden flocking to Catholicism?

Glenn Beck says that people are drawn to Catholic rituals because they offer order and meaning in this era of progressive chaos.

He reflects on Michelle Obama’s infamous 2008 speech, during which she claimed that “we are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history.”

A decade and a half later, and it’s clear that uprooting tradition results in division, displacement, and disorder.

Tradition, Glenn explains, is “deeply human” and serves to “mark moments that matter in our lives” and “helps organize things in our mind.”

Catholicism, which is predicated on tradition, can restore the emptiness our current culture has adopted.

“Rituals in Catholicism — the Eucharist or the confession — elevate this instinct, this need to the sacred, so it’s not just a routine; it is a bridge to meaning,” says Glenn. “That matters because when you have meaning and there’s a storm in your life, it gives structure so it doesn’t feel like the storm is just going to wipe you out entirely.”

Modern worship doesn’t seem to offer the same stability as traditional worship. The Post article notes that “Gen Z crave clarity and certainty” and are therefore “rejecting lax alternatives of modern worship.”

“Why? Because modern worship tells you you can believe anything; there are no real rules,” says Glenn.

The problem is, that kind of progressive doctrine lacks substance, which is what the human soul is designed to thirst for. Ritual and tradition can offer a solution because they “build communities — like a congregation singing together in unison or a neighborhood block party,” says Glenn.

“We now live in a world of screen and rush,” he explains. But rituals and traditions “will slow you down, make you present in the moment.”

“They’re not about rules; they’re all about meaning if you do it right. This isn’t about recognizing one faith over another. This is about recognizing what rituals do for us.”

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the clip above.

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A 15-year-old student stabbed another student, 16, during a fight inside a Washington, D.C.-area high school Wednesday — and cellphone video of the fight caught an adult walking past the altercation while appearing to take a photo of it.

The fight started around 9:40 a.m. between three students at West Potomac High School in Fairfax County, authorities told WJLA-TV.

‘Why would a teacher just stare and then walk off?’

Cellphone video shows a student wearing a red T-shirt repeatedly punching a student wearing a black T-shirt, who’s curled up and lying on the floor by a wall in a hallway.

The video shows a third student with a dark backpack attempting to intervene, but the student wearing the red T-shirt begins punching him as well and backing him up to another wall.

With that, video shows the student wearing the black T-shirt getting up, approaching the student wearing the red T-shirt, and apparently using a knife to stab him.

A separate, blurred clip in the video shows what WTTG-TV described as a male on the ground “surrounded by a pool of blood.” A separate still image as part of the overall video shows the student wearing the black T-shirt holding a knife.

The 16-year-old was rushed to the hospital with injuries described as life-threatening, WJLA said, but Fairfax County Police hours later said the severity of the student’s injuries were downgraded to stable.

The 15-year-old suspect, a male, was taken into custody and is being charged with malicious wounding, WTTG said, adding that officials said the suspect and victim know each other.

The third student, also 15, wasn’t hurt and is not expected to be charged, although he was questioned, reports stated.

The knife used in the stabbing was found, and an investigation is ongoing, police told WJLA.

What about the adult seen in the video?

In a separate story, WJLA-TV reported that cellphone video of the fight appeared to show an adult walking by during the altercation without intervening.

“There was a teacher there when they were fighting, but he just walked off,” a sophomore told the station. “Why would a teacher just stare and then walk off?”

What’s more, the station said the adult appeared to snap a photo of the altercation before walking away. WJLA said it wasn’t clear if the adult eventually went to get help.

“There was a kid on the floor getting beaten,” Shelly Arnoldi, whose daughter is a senior at the school, told the station. “I know he didn’t know the severity, but it’s impossible to imagine that’s OK.”

Michelle Reid, superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools, told WJLA in regard to the adult seen in the video that “it’s never acceptable to walk by behavior that is dangerous. What I will say is this whole situation is currently under investigation. We’ll be reviewing all the video, both the school video and law enforcement investigative details, and we’ll take any appropriate actions as necessary.”

You can view a video report here about the stabbing and its aftermath.

Weapons detectors installed

A day after the stabbing, weapons detectors were installed at West Potomac High School, the station said.

WJLA said a pilot security program had been in place with several district schools being part of a gradual rollout, but officials said the stabbing accelerated the timeline for West Potomac.

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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Wednesday that she referred two “deep-state criminals” to the Department of Justice.

She noted that a third criminal referral is “on its way.”

The accused individuals allegedly leaked sensitive information to the press, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. It is unclear at this time what specific materials were turned over to the news outlets.

‘These deep-state criminals leaked classified information for partisan political purposes to undermine POTUS’ agenda.’

Gabbard stated that the individuals are within the intelligence community and are accused of sharing classified information.

She wrote in a post on social media, “Politicization of our intelligence and leaking classified information puts our nation’s security at risk and must end. Those who leak classified information will be found and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Today, I referred two intelligence community LEAKS to the Department of Justice for criminal referral, with a third criminal referral on its way, which includes the recent illegal leak to the Washington Post,” Gabbard continued. “These deep-state criminals leaked classified information for partisan political purposes to undermine POTUS’ agenda.”

She added that she plans to partner with the DOJ and the FBI “to investigate, terminate and prosecute these criminals.”

The Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security have also opened similar internal investigations to clamp down on leaks to the press.

An official with the Office of DNI told Fox News Digital that Gabbard’s referrals should serve “as a warning” to the intelligence community. The official noted that the recent actions were only the first step in “holding these individuals accountable.”

“We are aggressively investigating other leaks and will pursue further criminal referrals as warranted,” the official told the news outlet. “Any intelligence community bureaucrat who is considering leaking to the media should take this as a warning.”

Last month, Gabbard stated that the Trump administration planned to “aggressively” pursue any leakers within the intelligence community. She also provided a list of recent examples of information that had been shared with the press.

“A leaker who has been sharing classified information with the Huffington Post,” she said. “A leaker within the IC sharing information on Israel / Iran with the Washington Post.”

Gabbard noted that an intelligence community leaker also provided information to NBC News about foreign relations with Russia.

“Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such,” Gabbard remarked.

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A new illegal alien sob story has emerged that may prompt liberals to pivot from the failing “Maryland man” story regarding MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Around 9 a.m. on Tuesday, federal agents arrested Martin Majin outside his barber shop in Pomona, California, located midway between San Bernardino and Los Angeles. Majin’s son, Miguel Majin, shared video of the apprehension on Instagram, pleading for “help.”

Miguel also admitted to KABC that his dad came to the US illegally in 1987.

The video shows two federal vehicles boxing Martin in just after he arrives at his business. Several agents then alight from their vehicles, and most appear to be carrying a weapon. Martin raises his hands as at least one agent briefly points his weapon in Martin’s direction, but the rest appear to keep their firearms angled toward the ground.

Calo News, an outlet dedicated to the “Latino/a/x communities,” reported that “all” the agents “point[ed] their guns at” Martin. The outlet also included a screenshot of the surveillance footage with the caption “seven agents pointing guns at Martin Majin Leon,” even though the screenshot does not show seven agents pointing guns at him.

Nevertheless, Miguel Majin repeatedly insisted that his dad was taken away by Border Patrol at “gunpoint” and characterized the agents’ actions as “excessive force.” A 2024 Customs and Border Protection policy regarding use of force implies that carrying firearms is standard protocol for agents.

Miguel also repeatedly claimed on the Instagram video that his father had not broken any laws. “You know my dad’s not a criminal,” he said.

“My dad’s not a criminal,” he stated again a minute or so later. “He has a family business. He does his taxes and pays taxes, and this is how he’s treated.”

“We knew, we knew this was going to happen to criminals, to rapists, to people that really have a bad record. Donald Trump wants to deport those people,” he told KABC. “But why my dad? He is a working man.”

However, Miguel also admitted to KABC that his dad came to the U.S. illegally in 1987. Martin and his wife then opened a barber shop and raised seven children in the U.S. Whether Martin’s wife and their children are U.S. citizens is unclear.

Martin Majin must have eventually applied for a green card, because his application was denied and he was deported from the country in 2009. If KABC learned the reason for the denial of Martin’s green card application, the outlet did not report it.

But the outlet did euphemistically mention that three years after his deportation, Martin Majin “returned” to the U.S. and “has lived a quiet life ever since.” Since Martin was a previous deportee whose green card application was denied, he almost assuredly crossed the border illegally again when he “returned” in 2012.

The Mexican Consulate called the Majin family to let them know that Martin was taken to a holding facility in Calexico.

Miguel suspects that the DMV may have tipped off federal agents about his dad’s illegal status after Martin visited the agency to renew his driver’s license earlier this month.

“We are not sure if they [gave] information to Border Patrol or something, but he barely got his renewed license, not even a week ago, and then this happens,” Miguel said, according to Calo News.

“We are confident the DMV is working with Border Patrol,” Miguel added to KABC.

The California DMV did not respond to a request for comment from Calo News and told KABC that it was preparing a statement.

Miguel also pointed a finger at Pomona police, who denied any involvement in an immigration-related raid at Home Depot that likewise occurred in Pomona on Tuesday morning. CBP claimed that multiple criminal illegal aliens were apprehended in that raid.

“Agents conducted an operation in Pomona targeting an illegal alien with an active arrest warrant. During the operation, nine additional illegal aliens were encountered and taken into custody. Several of those apprehended had prior charges, including child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, immigration violations, and DUI,” CBP said in a statement.

An individual who reportedly managed to evade capture during that raid later sobbed to the news about his experience. “I arrived here, and when I started seeing the scene, I started crying. The tears started leaving,” the man said in a language other than English. “We are here. We are human beings. We’re only here to support ourselves and maintain our families.”

Border czar Tom Homan warned back in January that even though the Trump administration was targeting violent criminals for deportation, no illegal immigrants could consider themselves safe. The administration has since strongly encouraged illegal immigrants to self-deport, even promising that those who self-deport may have the chance to return legally.

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Former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland had choice words for the women who were selected by Jeff Bezos’ fiancée to fly to the edge of outer space.

The New Shepard program launched by Bezos’ Blue Origin featured an all-female crew that consisted of singer Katy Perry, CBS host Gayle King, activist Amanda Nguyen, scientist Aisha Bowe, filmmaker Kerianne Flynn, and Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez.

Heralded as an all-time event to advance space exploration for women, the celebrity crew took an 11-minute trip 62 miles above Earth to the Karman line, the official boundary of space.

Upon the flight’s return, Perry and others were mocked for their over-the-top dramatics, which included Perry kissing the ground and raising a daisy to the sky to signal to her daughter of the same name. Perry also told reporters she felt “super connected to life” and “so connected to love.”

Perry not only sang “What a Wonderful World” while suspended in space, but she took the opportunity to show the set list for an upcoming tour on one of the spacecraft’s cameras.

Backlash from the publicity stunt has been swift and strong, including from Strickland, who did not hold back when it came to criticizing Perry’s actions.

“Yall just realizing the girl you love for writing a song ‘I kissed a girl and liked it’ is a f**king idiot lmao,” Strickland wrote on his X page. “What do you expect a group of mentally stunted famous women are going to do in space?”

— (@)

While the harsh words may be expected from Strickland at this point, he was by far not the only celebrity to mock the situation. Female celebrities especially did not care for the pageantry of the ordeal, with several criticizing the idea of the event being a historical accomplishment for women.

Actresses Olivia Wilde and Olivia Munn both took shots at the female crew for their lack of self-awareness.

“Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous,” Munn said in an interview.

“Billion dollars bought some good memes I guess,” Wilde wrote.

Model Emily Ratajkowski called the event “beyond parody” and said she was “disgusted, literally, I am disgusted.”

Singer Camila Cabello specifically mocked Perry for promoting her tour on the all-important space trip and posted a slow-motion parody video of her own tour dates. The video was captioned, “didn’t have the budget to fly to space to promote my tour dates so I made this TikTok instead.”

The space flight was indeed meant to serve as a groundbreaking event to showcase the importance of women in space. Instead, it has been received as a shameless promotion of the lives of wealthy women who were able to take an ultra-exclusive trip, which in 2025 equates to outer space.

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Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck sat down Wednesday with President Donald Trump to discuss the first 100 days of his second term. They broached a variety of topics in the interview, including artificial intelligence, American energy, cost-saving deregulation, potential military action in Mexico, and Democrats’ efforts to protect a foreign MS-13 associate with human trafficking ties.

While forthcoming on these and other issues, Trump certainly minced no words on the matter of tariffs and trade, telling Beck that he negotiates with other countries out of respect, not necessity — that at the end of the day, the U.S. is still calling the shots and will not suffer abuse at the hands of lesser nations.

Trump declared April 2 “Liberation Day,” indicating in advance that sweeping reciprocal tariffs were inbound. Sure enough, when the day came, the president held a ceremony at the White House where he displayed the new rates of tariffs for the European Union and for numerous countries including China, Japan, and Ukraine.

‘People don’t talk about that. Even I don’t mention it enough.’

After announcing a baseline 10% tariff against nearly 90 countries and higher reciprocal tariffs for the European Union and other regions, Trump told the audience at the Rose Garden, “From this day on, we’re not going to let anyone tell us American workers and families cannot have the future that they deserve.”

Beck suggested to the president Wednesday that while his “Liberation Day” evoked the end of World War II, it was perhaps less a historical appeal and more a historic repeal.

“I’m wondering, because of all of the moves you’ve made — NATO, the endless wars, everything else that goes along with this — are you signaling to the world that this is not just tariffs — this is an end to the order that we built after World War II?” said Beck. “Because it might have been good after World War II for everybody, but we’re not the suckers any more. That’s long past. It’s time to transform.”

The president was receptive to the idea that April 2 marked an end to the postwar consensus.

“You’ve said it so well, because people don’t talk about that. Even I don’t mention it enough. We helped countries after World War II. We helped them rebuild,” responded Trump. “… And we never stopped. And they became very successful. And they stole our businesses.”

Trump emphasized that the U.S. — thanks to the complicity of his predecessors and the opportunism of friends abroad — has been “ripped off by every country” on trade as well as in terms of nonreciprocal military relationships such as NATO.

The president noted, for instance, that after the U.S. long guaranteed Europe’s safety, continentals were prickled by his suggestion that they might have to front more of the cost of their security.

‘They all want to come in and they want to take our product.’

The U.S. has been the leading payer of NATO’s bills. As of December, its cost share of the alliance’s civil budget, military budget, and NATO Security Investment Program was nearly 16%. In addition to pouring cash into the alliance, the U.S. also has over 100,000 troops deployed across Europe and routinely sinks cash into related defense initiatives.

“And they said, ‘Well, does he really mean that?'” Trump told Beck. “And they said, ‘You mean, if we don’t pay the bill, you’re not going to be here?’ ‘Nope, I’ll be gone.'”

“We were defending them, and they were killing us with the European Union, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States,” said Trump. “And I said, ‘This isn’t going to go on.'”

The conversation turned back to the matter of tariffs, which Trump evidently figures are a means to settle scores where perceived trading imbalances are concerned.

“How do you negotiate with a group of elites who were for the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’?” asked Beck.

Trump responded with a dose of cold reality: “I don’t have to negotiate. I don’t have to negotiate. I’m talking to people out of respect, but I don’t have to.”

“We’re this giant store that people want to come in and buy from. We’re the United States. We have the richest consumers, etc., right?” said Trump.

While acknowledging that the financial health of this “giant store” is far from guaranteed, Trump indicated that for the time being, “they all want to come in and they want to take our product.”

“To take our product, they’re going to have to pay, and we’ll either make a deal with them or we’ll just set a price,” continued Trump. “We’re negotiating with 70 different countries. We’re negotiating; we’re showing great respect. But in the end, we may make deals — but either that or I just set a price. I said, ‘Here’s what you’re going to pay for the privilege of servicing the United States of America.'”

“They don’t have to shop at this big store, or they can shop. But in any event, they’re going to have to pay,” added the president.

— (@)

Scores of countries have approached the U.S. to rectify trade imbalances. Citing this interest to make a deal and select countries’ lack of retaliation, Trump announced a 90-day delay on reciprocal tariffs on April 9. He raised the tariff charged to China, one of the customers apparently contemplating their patronage of the American store.

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AI development companies like OpenAI and Google DeepMind are in a “reckless race” to build smarter AI systems that may soon become an “army of geniuses.” While that may seem like a good idea to those behind the technology, it might spell disaster for mankind.

“It’s going to be very thrilling — and also very scary,” former OpenAI researcher and AI Futures Project Executive Director Daniel Kokotajlo tells Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“It’s the stated intention of the CEOs of these companies to eventually build superintelligence,” he continues, noting that “superintelligence is fully autonomous AI systems that are better than humans at absolutely everything.”

“That sounds like a movie that we’ve all seen,” Glenn comments, concerned.

“They totally have seen those movies,” Kokotajlo says of those behind the push for superintelligence. “And they totally think, yes, it could go really bad. In fact, that’s part of the founding story of some of these companies.”

“Lots of people at these companies, especially early on, basically had similar thoughts of, ‘Wow, this is going to be the biggest thing ever. If it goes well, it could be the best thing that ever happens. If it goes poorly, it could literally kill everyone or do something similarly catastrophic like lead to a permanent dystopia,’” he continues.

One major issue that could lead to the latter is that those who end up running these companies or are in high-up positions at them are not the ones who are concerned about where this is all headed.

Those who are concerned — like Kokotajlo — are the ones who quit who walked away from millions in equity.

Kokotajlo tells Glenn that he walked away when he was told there was going to be a large focus on addressing questions like, “How do we make sure that we can control the AI when they’re smarter than us?” As time went on, he noticed there was little to no effort being put toward addressing these questions.

“That’s just an example of the sort of thing that made me quit,” he explains. “We’re going to build anyway, even though we don’t understand it, don’t know how to control it, and, you know, it’s going to be a disaster. That’s basically what caused me to leave.”

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Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck sat down with President Donald Trump Wednesday for an exclusive look at the first 100 days of his return to office — the first such presidential return after a loss in more than 130 years. They touched on a range of topics, including Mexico’s rocky status as a failed narco-state, the potential need for military intervention, the onslaught of executive orders, the ongoing battles in the courts, and, of course, the unsteady, barbed status of Ukraine war negotiations. The interview has been edited for clarity.

“Mr. President, your first 100 days,” Beck began, holding up a thick stack of executive orders. “This is the first 89 days.”

“Yeah,” Trump grinned. “We work hard.”

Glenn Beck: So, I remember when I was at Fox [during President] Barack Obama. … It was shock and awe. We couldn’t keep up with it; it was going too fast. You have put that to shame. Blew them all away. Blew them all away. Was that by design?

Donald Trump: No, there were just so many things that the country needed. I mean, honestly, this country? What [the Biden administration] did in four years was so disastrous for the country. I wish I didn’t have to do so much! But they did things that were just horrible.

With energy: They terminated [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge], which is the biggest [oil] find in the world, in the whole world, in Alaska. They terminated it.

‘I don’t have to negotiate. I don’t have to negotiate. I’m talking to people out of respect, but I don’t have to.’

They did things on the border that are shocking, just absolutely shocking. You know, we have the best border we’ve ever had now, and three months ago it was the worst border in history — probably for any country, not just here.

There was no border! There’s never been a border like that, where prisons and gangs and drug dealers and murderers are allowed to walk in without being checked or vetted. So it wasn’t by design. It was just that they have so many things. I mean, we’re doing a lot more. There [is] a lot more to come.

GB: I want to get into this a little later, but this seems appropriate to bring it up here. Where the hell is Congress? Where are the Republicans?

DT: Well, I think they’re working hard. I think you’re going to see that if we pass the — as I go — the big, beautiful bill. You know, we’re talking about one bill. As you remember, it was a debate on: Should we do one big one, or should we do three or four? Or two? And we’re doing it in one bill, which I thought was much more beautiful, because it’s everything — it’s everything. It’s tax cuts, it’s regulation cuts, it’s things that you wouldn’t believe. … It’s big, and we get that done. It’s beautiful, and we are getting along very well.

I will tell you: The Republicans? We had a majority a few months ago of one in the House [of Representatives]. Now we have seven. That’s a lot. We won two races and picked up a couple of others, in addition. But we’re up to seven. That’s a big difference.

GB: Will all your work go away, however, if they don’t codify?

DT: So we’re going to codify, and we’re going to wait till after the bill is passed, and then we’re going to work on nothing but codifying. As an example, the other day I did shower heads and sinks. Isn’t it nice? You go into a new building, a hotel, and no water comes out, no water comes out of the sink. All of that’s done …

And we did a little thing, very little thing, but it was a big thing to some people: straws. We are now making … plastic straws, as opposed to paper that melts in your mouth. And so many different things. It’s been really amazing. A lot of them [are] common sense.

GB: What is the one thing that you think is maybe overlooked, that you think is the most significant thing that you did?

DT: I really think we’ve done a lot … the biggest tax cuts. We had a tremendous four years.

GB: But I mean the thing that you think yourself, “Why isn’t this getting more attention? This is big!”

DT: Well, if you look at — and this is not the biggest thing, but it’s a big thing: men in women’s sports. How these people can be promoting it even now is unbelievable. The men playing in women’s sports. When you know, we put a whole thing out on that, and that’s no longer a part of our fabric, hopefully.

We have a couple of people like … the governor of Maine, who wants to play the game, and she’s going to lose an election if she runs. I don’t know if she runs. I couldn’t care less, but she was one that wanted to take it on …

… Open borders, to me, are amazing. We had open borders. We have nice, closed borders. Now, people can come into our country, but they have to come in legally. But how amazing is that when you have — because you’re asking about things that I see that are amazing — that’s amazing that you can have an open border, where prisoners from all over the world are allowed to come into a country.

We had 11,888 murderers allowed into the country. We’re taking them out as rapidly as we can. And by the way, we’re being met with strong resistance from judges that are — I don’t know where they come from.

GB: So let me go there. There are some amazing stats that I looked up. I don’t think most Americans know this. Bill Clinton turned away 12.3 million people; formally returned home 1 million. …

George W. Bush: 10.3 million people; 2 million, he turned around formally. Six injunctions.

Barack Obama: 5.5 million; 3 million, he formally turned around, and he had 12 injunctions.

You have 60, yeah. Thirty last time, 30 this time. You’re 100 days in, and you have 190 cases against you.

DT: It’s obstruction, and what they’re doing to the country is unbelievable, but we’re getting it done, and we’re winning. But it’s so much more difficult than it should be when you have a murderer that people are protecting. … You read so much about the wonderful man from Maryland, who was just wonderful, but he had on his, he had on his knuckles, tattooed, MS-13. Like we didn’t know he was MS-13? And the Democrats are working hard to protect him.

And … I don’t want to get into his reputation, but it’s not exactly stellar, and when they do that, that’s like … how they protect open borders, as I said, or so many of the other things, you know — transgender for everybody!

GB: What does it tell you that the Democrats are trying to protect him, stop you at the border, and when you shut down USAID, which a lot of their money was coming from — all the color revolution money was there and coming back here for color revolution — that they immediately respond to that, to Tesla, or to Elon?

DT: Well, they don’t want to do anything about it. When you look at the kind of money that we found, fraud, waste, abuse; when you look at billions of dollars given to people that had nothing. I mean, Stacey Abrams was given $2 billion into an environmental account where she had $100. Two billion! Now, $2 million is a lot; $200,000 is a lot, right? Giving $2 billion out of that grouping? … And that was nothing compared to some of the ones that we found, and the press doesn’t want to write about it, by the way.

GB: I hear from … my audience … every day. They’re concerned about tariffs … but they’re also concerned about justice and not seeing the wheels of justice turn. Like, Stacey Abrams, if she did something illegal, she should go to jail. Is [the Department of] Justice going to be pursuing these people in Russiagate or whatever the crimes might be?

DT: Well, I think [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is doing a fantastic job. She’s our law enforcement person who’s doing outstanding work. I really think so. I think [FBI Director] Kash [Patel] … is doing a really great job. Now, it’s very early, so I can’t really tell you, but I think a lot of the things that you’re talking about have to be looked at. They have to be looked at.

GB: Let me go back to the border here for a second. Mexico. It seems that it is a failed narco-state. Is Mexico a failed state? A narco-state?

DT: I would say, with all due respect, and I really like [Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum] a lot. I’ve gotten to know her, and I really like her. She’s an elegant, beautiful woman. But I think it’s run by the cartels, yeah, and they have so much control over it. And I think the politicians are … they’re afraid. I think the police are probably afraid. A lot of them are shot!

GB: I had a guy, an ATF agent, reach out to me, and he said, Glenn … people in our ATF actually trace the numbers. He said they keep talking about all these guns that are in the hands of cartels and how they get them across the border from America, right? All of those numbers correlate with the numbers that come from the Pentagon, from the arms that we officially ship to their military. And he said it: They’re taking the military guns and using those.

DT: Nothing surprises me. When you see the kind of drugs coming in, it comes in from China. You know, we tax them 20% because of what they’ve done with fentanyl. But it goes through Mexico, largely. And it goes through Canada too, by the way, right? A lot goes through Canada, but it comes through Mexico and Canada. But when you watch Mexico, what’s happening, it’s pretty amazing.

And we’ve shut down the border! We’ve shut it down. And I didn’t need laws passed; we just needed a new president. He said, “shut down the border”; we shut it down, and we shut it down tight. But yeah, Mexico has got some very big problems.

GB: If I were in Mexico, and I was living in a failed narco-state, and everybody I voted for was being killed, and my family was being threatened, I would try to get across the border as well. It would only make sense! But when your government won’t do anything about it, or can’t do anything about it, honestly, I would be in bed at night next to my kids, praying that special forces might just pay some people some visits in the middle of the night.

DT: And I’ve asked. I said, “Would you like some help? I’d be glad to give you help.” “No, no, no, we don’t want help.” They really don’t want help. But, “Please, please, we do not want help.”

GB: But isn’t it, at some point, doesn’t it —?

DT: Well, I can’t tell you about that, because that would be breaking news, but you know, you could say at some point maybe something’s gonna have to happen. It can’t go on the way it is.

Look, when we closed the borders, that was a big deal, and we had to fight very hard to close. That was not just as simple as I said. It happened, but there were lots of skirmishes that went on because that was a big revenue source for some people, a lot of people.

But we’re here to help Mexico, if we can. I like the president very much. I like the people, so many of their representatives, but it can’t be easy for them. Really, I think it’s a very dangerous job.

GB: The last administration — they didn’t want to check anybody’s ID or ask any questions on the way in. In the height of COVID, we don’t even check them for that. Don’t check them; bring them in! Now they all seem to want to check them on the way out. And the judges are — I think it was Sen. Mike Lee who said this is a “judicial insurrection.”

I’m not a big fan of Andrew Jackson. I know you are. Andrew Jackson took care of this constitutionally, right? Would you consider taking care of this some way or another with the judges in a constitutional way?

DT: I hope we don’t have that problem, and I hope we don’t have to get into it, but I will say we have millions of people in this country right now that are criminals, and you see how fast we’re getting them out, and we’re going to get them out even faster.

But when you have to get out and do court cases for individual people, and you would have, in theory, millions of court cases, you know what that means? If you had one court case, it takes forever. Millions of court cases? They’re really saying you’re not allowed to do what I was elected to do? I was elected, for a very big part of it, [to address] the border and get people out, because I said — and the stats reveal it — when you look at Tren de Aragua, when you look at MS-13, when you look at these gangs and just really bad criminals coming in.

You know, we have many murderers — 50% of them killed more than one person. They put them into our country through open borders, and now we have to go to court to get them out. I don’t think the people of our country are going to stand for it.

GB: You were elected for several things, one of which was to reduce the size of the government. And thank you for the Department of Education. Thank you for USAID. Thank you for the things you’re doing on that.

It was announced, I think, yesterday, that Elon [Musk] is possibly reducing his role — not leaving, but reducing his role in May. [The DOGE’s goal] was to cut $2 trillion. It was reduced to $150 billion. Are lawsuits [cutting that number]? Is that the deep state?

DT: Well, that’s money found, and it’s a lot of money, you know? It’s $150 billion, and think of it: That’s a lot of money. Now that’s continuing, and it will continue. You know, it’s not easy. These are thieves. In many cases, thieves. In some cases, it’s incompetence and all, but it’s also thieves. The number [of cuts] is continuing.

But if you just stopped at that number, that’s a tremendous number. We found things that you wouldn’t believe, and then there’s others that you look at, certain roles of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, where people who don’t exist are on … a ride. That’s just building up. That number’s building up very rapidly.

GB: I think you’re going to be remembered as the AI president. I don’t know if you feel this way at all, but AI is going to define the next [generation], and you are the first one to really talk about it, really take it on, and surround yourself with people who know what this is. Has Elon been helping you at all on AI?

DT: He probably knows more than anybody else that I know about it. We have some great people here. I don’t know if that’s how I’m going to be defined, but AI is certainly very important. And we’re pressing it very hard.

We have trillions of dollars being invested, and whatever it is, it’s big, because the biggest people are coming in and companies with more money than anything else you can imagine — more than even the car plants.

But AI is one of the biggest things I’ve ever seen. You know these places that they’re building, if you said $200 million, $300 million, that’s for a corner of the building, right? These are the biggest things, and I’m making it possible, as you probably know, with AI.

The one thing is you need massive amounts of electricity, and I’m getting it for them … and I’m letting them build their electric plant. In other words, they’re becoming a producer of electricity. They can use nuclear if they want for the energy they need to create electricity,

GB: As Sen. Eric Schmitt [R-Mo.] said, we use 3% of the power. They’re going to need, by 2027, 99% of the power.

DT: They need more electricity than we have right now in our country powering everything.

GB: And you’re going to cut all of the red tape and get that built?

DT: We’re going to get it done very quickly. We’re going to let them become utilities, actually. We’re going to let them build their own electric plant. Because when they first came to me, I heard this number — that we have to double electricity.

And we’re way ahead of China right now. … Way ahead on AI, and they don’t have the problem with electricity, because, you know, that takes one person’s approval, right? We have to go through a process, and I call it a national emergency. We have to be — we’re going to be — number one. We’re going to be number one on everything. We have to be everything — we have to be, or we’re going to lose our spot.

That’s not going to happen if we have competent presidents. We will do great if we don’t have competent presidents. We just witnessed four years of the most incompetent human being anyone’s ever imagined, and it really hurt this country. But we’re bringing it back fast.

GB: You say “if we don’t have competent presidents.” You and I have talked before about tariffs, and I give you the benefit of the doubt, because you’re the best negotiator this country has ever had, probably the best the world has seen. And you’ve earned the right. It concerns me that Congress is not stepping up. Regulations and tax cuts — those things have to go through to be able to complete all of this.

DT: I think you’ll be surprised! Now, when I say Congress, [I mean] Republicans. Because we have majorities. They’re not big majorities. In the Senate, we’re up three, which is OK. And in the House, we’re up seven, as I said, and we are going to be coming forward with the biggest bill, I think, in history. And I think you will say that if we get that passed, you’re going to give them very good marks. Good, because everything’s in that, OK? And then all we have to do is work the bill; work the magic.

But it’ll be the biggest tax cut in history, but it’ll be the biggest regulation cuts in history. It’ll be so many other things. … We will get no votes from Democrats. It’s horrible. The divide is so incredible when you look at what’s going on. I mean, [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] did the right thing, and he ends up being excommunicated from his party when you think about it, right? Well, the level is just so bad. Their policy is so bad.

They’re great at cheating and they’re great at certain things, but they are so bad on policy. They’re so far off when I watch them trying to prosecute the same things that they’ve just lost an election in a landslide [over], and they’re still going through the same things. It’s crazy, and they don’t know who their leaders are. They have a new one, [Rep. Jasmine] Crockett [D-Texas]. Have you ever seen her talk? This is going to be their leader!

GB: Oh, I hope she’s the next candidate for president.

DT: We can hope in one way. … It’s demeaning to our country. But you don’t see anybody out there [leading].

GB: This is pure conjecture here, but in trying to understand you and the moves that you made, when you called the tariff day “Liberation Day,” that hearkened to me back to the end of … World War II.

And I’m wondering, because of all of the moves you’ve made — NATO, the endless wars, everything else that goes along with this — are you signaling to the world that this is not just tariffs — this is an end to the order that we built after World War II? Because it might have been good after World War II for everybody, but we’re not the suckers any more. That’s long past. It’s time to transform.

DT: You’ve said it so well, because people don’t talk about that. Even I don’t mention it enough. We helped countries after World War II. We helped them rebuild. And the Korean War, [we rebuilt] with South Korea. And we never stopped. And they became very successful. And they stole our businesses.

Look, South Korea took our car business, our shipbuilding business — so many different businesses, technology, electronics. If you look at Japan — and I’m not knocking them, I think it’s great what we did for them. The one I’m knocking, and the people I’m knocking, are our presidents and our leaders — that we allowed all of that to happen.

GB: I was talking to somebody last night who’s around the economy and knows it quite well, and I said to them, “I’m not a fan of tariffs. I’ve talked to the president about it. However —”

DT : You might be.

GB: I might be, in the end. However, I don’t see anyone else with another option, and I feel like this is our last chance. And if you can’t get it done, if we can’t make this turn, then we’re done. And this individual reached out and put their hand on my shoulder and said, “No, Glenn, we’re done.” How serious is the situation that America is in if we don’t turn this corner?

DT: So we have one big chance to become really amazing, and that’s on me, whether we like it or not. I hate to put that weight on my shoulders, but that’s what we have, because we were ripped off by every country. I always say, friend and foe — and honestly, the friend was oftentimes worse than the foe — ripped us off on trade, ripped us off on the military too.

Hey, Glenn, when I got involved with NATO, I wasn’t a big expert in NATO, but I have a lot of common sense, and I figured it out in about two minutes: Nobody was paying. I mean, they weren’t paying their bills.

So we were defending Europe, and we were getting ripped off by Europe with trade. It was massive — no country can sustain that. We were paying most of the bill. When I say most, I mean, 80%-90%, and maybe 100%. And I got involved, and I said, “You’re going to have to pay your bills, or we’re not going to be here for you any longer.”

And they said, “Well, does he really mean that?” And they said, “You mean, if we don’t pay the bill, you’re not going to be here?”

“Nope, I’ll be gone.”

GB: Good for you.

DT: And they said, “Hmm.” The secretary general of NATO, [Jens] Stoltenberg — good guy — said he has done something that I’ve never witnessed before, because [George W.] Bush would come in, give a speech, and leave. Obama would come in, give a speech, and leave.

Joe Biden let it get out of control. But he said, “Trump came in, didn’t give a speech, made a nice speech, but he didn’t care about it. What he cared about was the fact that nobody was paying.” They weren’t paying their bills.

So we were ripped off. We were defending them, and they were killing us with the European Union, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States. And I said, “This isn’t going to go on.” And so I’m not so popular in Europe because of what I’ve done, but in many ways I am popular. People don’t want to see.

GB: I think if it wasn’t for their press, which is worse than ours because most of it is state-run, I think you would be popular because the people are in the same position.

DT: They get it.

GB: Yeah, they get it. It’s happening in their country. And I don’t understand how —

DT: It is happening over there.

GB: Oh, I mean, I just read a report that they said Sweden, the Netherlands, could be out by 2030. You know, I talked to [former British Prime Minister] Liz Truss just a couple of weeks ago, and she said, “Glenn, England is a failed state.” How are the —

DT: She’s been very nice. She’s been saying good things about me. Yeah, you know, she got —

GB: The shaft.

DT: I think so. I mean, she basically said, “I want to reduce taxes.” And they threw her out. And she was right. You know, I reduced taxes. It’s one of the things that made us do so well, because we had the strongest economy in history during my first four years. You know, my first four years were incredible. I think we’re going to do even better now. But we have a chance to do something that’s monumental, and I’m in the process of doing it.

GB: But how do you negotiate with a group of elites who were for the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset”?

DT: I don’t have to negotiate. I don’t have to negotiate. I’m talking to people out of respect, but I don’t have to.

So we’re this giant store that people want to come in and buy from. We’re the United States. We have the richest consumers, etc., right? But we’re not going to be that way for long if we don’t do something. But we’re this giant store, and they all want to come in and they want to take our product, but to take our product they’re going to have to pay, and we’ll either make a deal with them or we’ll just set a price.

Because some countries are worse than others. Some countries have ripped us off really badly, and some countries have just ripped us off a little bit, but almost all of them have ripped us off, because we’ve had really poor leadership.

We’re negotiating with 70 different countries. We’re negotiating; we’re showing great respect. But in the end, we may make deals — but either that, or I just set a price. I said, “Here’s what you’re going to pay for the privilege of servicing the United States of America.”

And they have an option. They can maybe talk to me a little bit or they cannot shop. You know, they don’t have to shop at this big store, or they can shop. But in any event, they’re going to have to pay.

Look, we owe $36 trillion for a reason. The reason is trade. Also the endless wars, the stupid wars that we fought — we go into the Middle East, we blow it up, we leave, we don’t get anything. And you, you’re a big fan of exactly what I’m saying.

GB: Let’s not do that. It doesn’t work.

DT: It’s stupid. Endless wars, endless wars that — they don’t even want us. So — all of that stuff. You know, when I left four years ago, we had no wars. We had no Israel and Hamas [war], and by the way, it would have never happened because Iran was broke. They were broke. I had sanctions that were so strong on Iran. They were totally broke. They had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah.

We didn’t have Russia-Ukraine. That would never have happened, either.

We didn’t have the Afghanistan embarrassment, one of the great embarrassments in the history of our country.

We didn’t have any inflation. Don’t forget, I charged China hundreds of billions’ worth of tariffs. They talk about inflation — we had no inflation because that doesn’t cause inflation. Stupidity causes inflation. High energy caused inflation. When they took over my energy, we were making it like nobody’s ever seen. And then the prices doubled. By the way, because of that, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin went in. … You see what’s going on with —

GB: Yeah, I do.

DT: It makes it much harder for Putin to prosecute the war. So we have a lot of great things on the horizon.

GB: One of your spokespeople came out today and said that you’re tired, getting fatigued, with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. I think he treated you poorly in the Oval [Office], myself. He’s kind of a punk. But is he the problem?

DT: You said it.

GB: Yeah, is he the problem? Is Putin the problem? Or is Europe the problem?

DT: So, look: Russia is a very big military force, and Ukraine isn’t. Without Ukraine — and I’m the one that supplied the Javelins [anti-tank missiles] to them, so, you know, I did a lot for them, because the tanks got stuck in the mud, and then they got Javelined, right? And they always say, “Trump gave the Javelins,” and it was, in that case, “Obama gave sheets.” He gave sheets! They said nothing.

But Biden gave money like nobody’s ever seen — $350 billion! He gave military equipment, gave storage. We had massive storage bins full of ammunition — buildings as long as the eye could see.

… But this war is so bad. And it’s — and remember this — I say it here. I say it every time. This is Biden’s war, not my war. I’m just trying to end it. And I’m actually ending it. Yes, for money, but I’m not ending it for that. Number one, I’m ending it because they’re losing 5,000 people a week. Young soldiers are being killed, Russian and Ukrainian both. But in the end, Russia has a lot of soldiers, and they have a very big military.

And things were said, like when Zelenskyy was in the Oval Office, I was talking about getting it done, and he starts screaming, “But we need security!” Meaning: security after the fact. I said, “Security? I don’t even know if we can get this deal done.” He’s asking for more, just more and more and more. And he doesn’t have the cards, as you know, because you see what’s happening over there. He doesn’t have the cards. So hopefully he’s going to get it done.

Because I don’t believe that Vladimir Putin would be doing this for anybody else but me. A lot of people have said it too. I think he had the idea of going all the way through. I think he’s willing to make a deal, and I would say thus far he’s been easier to deal with than Zelenskyy. Thus far.

GB: Mr. President, I have to tell you, I didn’t understand why gold was going up so fast until I walked into the Oval. You have transformed the Oval.

DT: It’s good. And I think I’ve transformed it — maybe more importantly — in what we’re doing with our ideas, our policies, because we had some really bad things happening to our country. And we now have a strong border; we’re now respected.

When you take a look at the money that’s pouring in through the tariffs, you’re going to see. … That would be an ambition: I’m going to make you a fan of it.

GB: I would love to be a fan.

DT: Not that I want to do, you know, tariffs.

GB: Yes.

DT: But I want to save our country. Yes, we were losing $5 billion a day. You can’t do that. It’s not sustainable. So we’ll be doing another interview in a year or two years from now, and you’re gonna say, “You know, you were right on that.” I’ve been right about a lot of things.

GB: I have been corrected by your actions before, so thank you.

DT: It’s a great honor to be with you.

GB: Always. Thank you.

DT: Thank you. Thank you very much.

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​Opinion & analysis, Politics 

My grandfather was born on a farm in the American West.

This was during WW1. No phone, no cars, no electricity, no indoor toilet. Today we’d describe it as “third-world conditions.”

One day you’re a kid plowing a field behind an ox, then you’re cruising 40,000 feet above the Arctic Ocean piloting a killing machine with the power to vaporize cities.

He was one of 10 kids. Somehow he and all his siblings made it to adulthood.

He was tap dancer. Worked in vaudeville (which means he opened for a stripper). That’s how he paid for college during the Depression. First member of the family to go.

He was a pilot in the war. Learned to fly, operate radios — skills that barely existed before he was born.

After the war he got married and started a family. He worked as a stockbroker for a time, but his old boss asked him to come back during the Berlin Airlift. So he joined the U.S. Air Force.

Eventually he went back to school and got a master’s in international relations. For a time he worked for the NSC in the Eisenhower White House. He wrote the president’s daily intelligence brief. He was very proud of that.

Mostly he was stationed in Europe. That’s where my mom mostly grew up. Earning U.S. dollars in postwar Europe made for a good lifestyle. Servants, vacations on the French Riviera, nice things.

He ended his career flying B-52s for Strategic Air Command.

The 20th century was an odd time. One day you’re a kid plowing a field behind an ox, then you’re cruising 40,000 feet above the Arctic Ocean piloting a killing machine with the power to vaporize cities.

I became his caretaker at the end of his life. He was 101 years old. His doctors were amazed he was still alive.

He’d outlived his wife, outlived three out of four children, and outlived most of his siblings. But he kept hanging on. And nobody could figure out why.

He kept asking to go home, near the farm where he grew up.

I didn’t want him to go, because there was no one there to take care of him. No close family. I didn’t want to put him in a nursing home in another state.

But he kept insisting. So finally I relented. I found a nursing home that would take him.

He was too frail for the drive, so we got an air ambulance. It was a little Learjet. I went with him.

The pilots asked if he was a vet. I told them that he was indeed, that he was a retired colonel.

Both the pilots were Air Force Reserve. The addressed him as Colonel. Gave him a salute. He was weak, but he saluted back.

He had tachycardia by that point. His resting pulse was typically about 130. But as we took off, his pulse came down to the 70s. It hadn’t been that low in years.

He felt at home in the sky. Flying was something he could only dream about when he was a kid. He was relaxed and calm, and he slept.

We made it to the assisted living facility in his home state. I got him settled in his room, met the nurses, then walked down the street to grab a fast-food dinner.

I came back an hour later, and he was dead. He wanted to come home to die, and that’s what he did.

Our grandparents lived in a world of what must have been mind-boggling change. But it was also a world of opportunity, where a poor farm kid could grow up to fly jets and have European servants and work in the White House.

That world is gone, and it’s not coming back. The question is what we will build in its place.

​Grandfather, B-52, 20th century, World war 2, America, Rambo van halen, Remembrance