President Donald Trump implored GOP lawmakers on Tuesday to “UNIFY” in support of an 18-month extension of a particular spying power that, while ostensibly limited to foreigners, has already been weaponized against American citizens — including Trump.

The warrantless surveillance authority of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was both used to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign and exploited in recent years by the FBI hundreds of thousands of times to spy on U.S. citizens. However, Trump has now determined that it is presently “right for our Country” and needed by the military.

Background

Section 702 is a provision of FISA enacted by Congress in 2008 that enables the state to spy on foreign nationals located outside the U.S. with the compelled aid of electronic communication service providers. The surveillance is authorized programmatically such that the government doesn’t have to bother seeking a court-authorized warrant for every person it targets.

‘Do what is right for our Country.’

Although individuals targeted under 702 are supposed to be foreign nationals believed to be outside the U.S., the FBI has acknowledged that “such targets may send an email or have a phone call with a U.S. person,” resulting in the warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

Numerous Republicans, including Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Mike Lee (Utah), were especially critical of Section 702 after the FBI admitted there had been 278,000 “unintentional” backdoor search queries of the 702 database for the private communications of Americans between 2020 and 2021 alone.

Jan. 6 protesters, donors to a congressional campaign, and BLM protesters were among the American citizens subjected to the warrantless searches.

New circumstances

Trump, who advocated in 2024 for killing FISA, said on Tuesday that he was working with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other Republicans to “get a clean extension of FISA 702 through the House of Representatives this week.”

RELATED: ‘Clear abuse’: Appellate court thwarts Judge Boasberg’s plan to investigate top Trump officials

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The president noted that he “was a victim of the worst and most illegal abuse of FISA in our Nation’s History, by Radical Left Lunatics, who lied to the FISA Court to spy on my 2016 President Campaign in their attempt to RIG the Election in favor of Crooked Hillary Clinton. Their use of this instrument in the 2020 President was even worse!”

“When the Dirty Cop, James Comey, the failed Head of the FBI, went after me, he was using FISA Title I, the Domestic Collection, not FISA 702, the Foreign Collection, which needs to be extended to,” continued Trump.

The Obama FBI utilized FISA Title I authority to target the 2016 Trump campaign during the bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane frame-up.

The FBI submitted multiple applications to authorize FISA surveillance of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen then serving as an adviser to Trump. The applications that were approved were loaded with “17 significant inaccuracies and omissions,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General.

Trump acknowledged that FISA authority has been used against him in the past and may be weaponized against him in the future but stressed that he is “willing to risk that as a Citizen in order to do what is right for our Country.”

According to the president, the military “desperately needs FISA 702, and it is one of the reasons we have had such tremendous SUCCESS on the battlefield, both in Venezuela and Iran.”

“The fact is, whether you like FISA or not, it is extremely important to our Military,” continued Trump. “I have spoken to many Generals about this, and they consider it VITAL.”

Trump’s Tuesday message greatly resembles a Truth Social message he shared last month, in which he also said that he wanted “the Critical and Common Sense Reforms that were made in the last Reauthorization of FISA” to “remain intact to protect the American People from abuses.”

The House Rules Committee advanced a clean extension of the surveillance powers on Tuesday, setting the stage for a floor vote on extending Section 702 ahead of the April 20 deadline, reported The Hill.

While some Republican critics of Section 702 have reversed their stances like the president in light of the reforms added to the provision, it remains unclear if Johnson presently has the votes to see it pass. Politico reported that several GOP lawmakers are planning to vote “no.”

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​702, Crossfire hurricane, Fbi, Fisa, Foreign intelligence surveillance act, House rules committee, President donald trump, Section 702, Us department of justice, House speaker mike johnson, Surveillance, Warrantless, Spyying, Domestic spying, Domestic surveillance, Politics 

Last Sunday, President Trump posted an AI-generated meme of himself dressed in white and red robes, his hand appearing to hold a glowing orb, while healing a sick person in a hospital bed. Many interpreted the image as Trump depicting himself as Jesus and were deeply offended by what they perceived as religious blasphemy. Others defended the post as an innocent joke.

But Glenn Beck says all of these reactions are missing the bigger issue.

Citing a Washington post article that framed the meme as the cause of rare, strong backlash and blasphemy accusations from Trump’s evangelical and Catholic supporters, Glenn begins by calling out the outlet for politically capitalizing on a tasteless joke in order to rile up and divide Trump’s supporters.

“It’s not like Jesus is Muhammad. You can do whatever you want to Jesus in this country and nobody cares, it seems,” he says. “Since when did the Washington Post care about something that could be looked upon as blasphemy for Christians?”

“They only care because it’s political,” he argues.

Glenn explains that social media has become a powerful tool that enemies — domestic and foreign — use to push propaganda, stir up dissent, and manufacture outrage.

Research has just shown that foreign powers are doing this in America right now.

Glenn cites recent data showing that “60% of the most viral posts on X about Iran in the first weeks of the fighting came from accounts based outside of the US. Foreign accounts generated 155 million views compared to 93 million from real American viewers.”

“That’s not organic outrage, okay? That’s Iran. That’s Russia. That’s China flooding the zone with deepfakes, doctored images of sunken ships, scripted narratives designed to make us fight one another,” he argues.

These foreign powers “don’t care if you love Trump or hate Trump,” Glenn continues.

“They just need everybody at each other’s throats.”

The biggest issue with Trump’s Jesus meme, says Glenn, isn’t what it might or might not have conveyed; the biggest issue is that it served as fuel for the social media outrage machine that keeps us fighting one another, which is exactly what our enemies want.

“[Social media] is a .50-caliber machine gun aimed at your head and this civilization every single day. It’s a nuclear weapon,” he warns.

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Aigenerated meme, Blaze media, Blazetv, China, Divide trumps supporters, Foreign powers, Iran, Manufacture outrage, Political capitalizing, President trump, Propaganda, Religious blasphemy, Russia, Social media, The glenn beck program, Trump, Trump jesus meme, Trump jesus post, Viral posts, Washington post 

A tough pressure campaign from high-profile Democrats has failed to persuade other members of their party in Maryland, where a new congressional map is now off the table.

Democrats enjoy a super-majority in both the Maryland House of Delegates and the Senate, and Democrat Wes Moore has been governor since 2023. Nevertheless, a redistricting proposal that would have threatened the lone Republican congressional seat died in the Maryland Senate when the legislative session ended Monday night.

‘At some point, I am going to have to have a conversation with him if he continues to stand in the way of an up or down vote.’

The Maryland House passed the map overwhelmingly in early February, 99-37.

Gov. Moore pressed hard to pass the map through the state Senate and onto his desk as a way to combat Republican redistricting efforts in Texas and North Carolina, spearheaded by President Donald Trump.

“I think Donald Trump is actively trying to manipulate and change the rules around the November election and beyond because he knows he cannot win on his policies,” Moore told the AP.

Moore also told Rev. Al Sharpton last week: “If the rest of the country is going to have this conversation about mid-decade redistricting, then so should Maryland, and so should every other state. Because until it is done nationally, we have to make sure that this election is not stolen right before our face so this pain is made permanent.”

RELATED: Hakeem Jeffries pressures Maryland Democrat over one Republican-held congressional seat

– YouTube

Even U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) promised to pressure Democratic Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson to bring the map up for a vote.

“All we are asking Senate President Ferguson to do is allow democracy to prevail. What that means is an up or down vote,” Jeffries said in February. “At some point, I am going to have to have a conversation with him if he continues to stand in the way of an up or down vote. But, hopefully, over the next few days, he will change his mind.”

But Ferguson did not change his mind.

Ferguson has consistently resisted efforts to vote on the map, claiming that passing a new map could jeopardize the current map by prompting judicial review.

“Any redrawing of the current map could reopen the ability for someone to challenge the current map and give the court the opportunity to strike it down, or even worse, redraw the map itself,” Ferguson wrote in a letter back in October.

“That means that Maryland’s potential gain of one seat is immediately eliminated, and, in fact, worsens the national outlook.”

A judge already tossed a Maryland congressional map that passed in 2021, calling it “a product of extreme partisan gerrymandering.” The current map was passed in 2022.

Jeffries’ office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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