Nearly two months after the United States launched its war with Iran, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is calling on European allies to join the fight.

The Strait of Hormuz has quickly become a point of contention in the conflict, significantly constraining the world’s oil supply. President Donald Trump eventually ordered the United States Navy to blockade the strait while attempts to negotiate with Iran continue.

‘They need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do.’

Although America initiated this war along with Israel, Hegseth echoed Trump’s earlier calls to European allies to fend for themselves. This comes just days after the former Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired by the administration.

“This should not be America’s fight alone,” Hegseth said during a Friday press briefing. “We barely use the Strait of Hormuz as a county. Our energy doesn’t flow through there, and we have plenty of energy. Just look at the new global Congo line headed to Texas. A beautiful picture.”

RELATED: Trump lashes out at crumbling NATO alliance following ‘frank’ closed-door meeting

Hegseth noted that our European allies, who have long enjoyed protections from the United States, are the ones disproportionately affected by the energy crisis sparked by America’s war, urging them to “get in a boat” to resolve the conflict themselves.

“Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free riding is over,” Hegseth said. “America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal, and who understand that being an ally is not a one-way street. It’s a two-way street.”

“We are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do,” Hegseth said. “And might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat.”

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​Donald trump, Energy crisis, Europe, Israel, Pete hegseth, Strait of hormuz, Blockade, Iran war, John phelan, Politics 

The U.S-Iran conflict is unpopular at home with 58% of American adults signaling opposition in a recent Economist/YouGov poll, and surveys conducted both prior and immediately after the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes in late February revealed a general aversion to getting dragged into another foreign entanglement.

While the military intervention is unpopular in the U.S., the opposition to it is significantly greater in Europe, particularly in Spain, where such opposition has proven politically expedient for the ruling Socialist Party.

‘No worries.’

In addition to criticizing the conflict, leftist Spanish officials have in recent months publicly underscored their unwillingness to materially assist the U.S., going so far as to refuse the U.S. to use the jointly run bases at Morón and Rota to strike Iran.

A U.S. official claimed to Reuters that, in an internal email, the Pentagon has floated the idea of pushing Spain out of NATO and punishing allies that failed to toe the line on the Iran conflict.

The email reportedly expresses annoyances over certain allies’ reluctance or outright refusal to permit the U.S. access, basing, and overflight rights for the Iran conflict, which the official said were altogether described as “the absolute baseline for NATO.”

RELATED: Navy secretary abruptly fired despite ongoing Iran blockade

President Donald Trump and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez shake hands. Suzanne Plunkett – Pool/Getty Images

The email identifies a number of sanctions for such noncooperation that might serve to “decreas[e] the sense of entitlement on the part of the Europeans,” including suspending “difficult” countries from important positions at NATO, the official claimed.

While base closures in Europe were not among the proposed responses, ousting Spain from the alliance — a move the email said would be symbolic but have a limited impact on U.S military operations — is on the table, the official added. It’s unclear how such an ouster would be accomplished given NATO’s founding treaty does not contain a formal mechanism to eject a member.

The email reportedly also raises the possibility of rethinking U.S. diplomatic support for European “imperial possessions” such as Britain’s Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina.

When asked about the email, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told Reuters, “As President Trump has said, despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us.”

“The War Department will ensure that the President has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part,” said Wilson. “We have no further comment on any internal deliberations to that effect.”

President Donald Trump said in a March interview with the New York Post that Spain “is a loser” and “very hostile to NATO.”

“Not a team player, and we’re not going to be a team player with Spain either,” added Trump, suggesting elsewhere that the U.S. could just co-opt the Spanish bases and slap Madrid with a trade embargo.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose country’s defense spending has chronically fallen short of NATO targets, brushed off the email, telling Politico, “No worries.”

“We are fulfilling our obligations toward NATO,” said Sánchez.

“The Spanish government’s position is clear: absolute cooperation with our allies, but always within the framework of international law,” added the socialist prime minister.

Following the report about the Pentagon memo, a spokesman for the German government suggested that Spain’s membership was safe, reported the BBC.

“Spain is a member of NATO. And I see no reason why that should change,” said the German spokesman.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told NATO members on Friday to stick together, noting the alliance is a “source of strength.”

“We must work to strengthen NATO’s European pillar … which must clearly complement the American one,” added Meloni, who was recently criticized by Trump over her defense of Pope Leo XIV.

The Department of War did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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​Defense spending, International law, Iran conflict, Military intervention, Nato, Nato sanctions, Pentagon, President donald trump, Trade embargo, Us official, War department, Politics 

A new report claims that internal memos at Meta say the company will be harvesting data from employees to train artificial intelligence.

The training software Meta plans on using will go directly onto employees’ computers and will track what the employees are doing at work.

‘Agents primarily do the work and our role is to direct.’

The new directive will track U.S.-based employees’ activities on their computers, Meta reportedly told staffers, capturing mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes. In turn, this data will train Meta’s AI models so that the automated agents can perform work tasks autonomously, Reuters reported.

In a statement to Return, a Meta spokesman said that if the company is “building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them.”

This includes not only the aforementioned mouse movements and clicks, but also “navigating dropdown menus,” for example.

The recent report stated that Meta will use a Model Capability Initiative that runs on work-related apps or websites and takes snapshots of what appears on the employees’ screens.

Meta described the initiative as launching an internal tool that will capture the mouse clicks and movements “on certain applications to help us train our models.”

At the same time, the spokesman said employee data would remain safe.

RELATED: West Virginia Republicans are betraying their voters for AI special interests

Artur Widak/NurPhoto/Getty Images

“There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content, and the data is not used for any other purpose,” the spokesman asserted in his statement.

The data is only collected for “model training purposes” and will “not be used in performance reviews, and managers cannot access it,” the statement concluded.

Meta was asked to clarify what “everyday tasks” they were looking to have their AI agents perform and if this amounted to tasks that would otherwise be performed by a human, but the company did not provide an answer to those questions.

While the internal memos have not been published, Reuters claimed to have reviewed multiple, including one that was posted internally to the Meta SuperIntelligence Labs team.

“This is where all Meta employees can help our models get better simply by doing their daily work,” it allegedly said.

RELATED: Mother-daughter farmers reject eye-popping Big Tech bids: ‘I’ll stay … and feed a nation’

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, allegedly shared a different memo this week that told employees internal data collection would increase at the company, as roles transform into directing AI agents to do work.

“The vision we are building towards is one where our agents primarily do the work and our role is to direct, review, and help them improve,” Bosworth reportedly stated.

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​Ai, Artificial intelligence, Automated agents, Automated work, Meta, Model capability initiative, Software, Superintelligence labs, Tech, Training, Return 

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama, indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering for allegedly defrauding donors by secretly funneling over $3 million (2014–2023) to paid informants associated with extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan without disclosure.

Glenn Beck, calling the SPLC a “tool of the progressive engine,” sums up the charges like this: “They were bankrolling the very racists [they were] denouncing on the evening news.”

The question is: Why?

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn unpacks why he believes the SPLC would allegedly fund the very “extremism” it claims to fight.

If true, the revelations about the SPLC, Glenn says, follow the same pattern of “controlled extremism” that we see in “really ugly political systems” all over the world.

“First, you help create or intensify the very danger you publicly are claiming to fight. … Money flows in quietly to radicals and to dangerous people, and it helps them become louder and more active,” he explains.

“The public then sees a bigger threat. The organization points that threat out and makes more money, more moral authority, media defense, and political leverage. And it’s just lather, rinse, repeat, lather, rinse, repeat.”

Step two involves “[turning] labels into weapons” so that “extremist, terrorist, [and] foreign agent” become tools to “isolate opponents.”

“You chill people’s association. You cut off funding. You make the public afraid to defend the target,” says Glenn, pointing to how Russia’s Supreme Court recently declared the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial an “extremist” organization and banned its activities in the country.

The third step, he says, requires cultivating “a climate where the map becomes territory.”

“Once a group is publicly targeted as hateful or extremist or subversive, the press, the foundations, the bureaucracies can begin treating the label as proof,” Glenn notes.

“This is where soft totalitarianism systems are born. You don’t start with gulags. You start with reputational death, which kind of becomes a soft blacklist. You start funding the choke points and public fear. That’s what the Southern Poverty Law Center was [allegedly] doing,” he continues, claiming it looks suspiciously like a “color revolution.”

He explains that “if an institution can inflate or steer the public perception of extremism, then it can help manufacture a crisis atmosphere,” which it can then use to delegitimize political opponents, pressure the media into conformity, justify surveillance and deplatforming, scare donors, churches, business, and individuals away from supporting the “wrong side,” and create moral permission for “extraordinary countermeasures” — even violence.

“Is that what the Southern Poverty Law Center was doing?” asks Glenn.

While he refuses to make premature judgments, Glenn says he “could sure make the case.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

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