Podcaster Joe Rogan this week described how President Donald Trump's upcoming 80th birthday — making him the oldest American president to date — has revealed something else about him.
Rogan, who voted for Trump, was talking to British political commentator Konstantin Kisin on Wednesday for his podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" and asked if the now slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would potentially see the president and say 'let's f--- with that guy," The Hill reported.
"Right, he’s 80, he doesn’t have much to lose. That’s the scary thing about old leaders — it’s like, death is imminent. It’s within a decade, if you’re lucky," Rogan said. "That’s spooky."
"You’re making decisions for babies and children and the future of the world, and you’ve got maybe 10 years left on Earth if everything goes great," Rogan said.
Trump's health has been called into question throughout his second term. The White House has tiptoed around sharing information about the president's health and has claimed that he has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, which can cause swollen ankles. His administration has also stated that the president's frequent handshaking has caused hand bruising.
Law enforcement is responding to an active shooter situation at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, on Thursday afternoon, CBS is reporting.
West Bloomfield police, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, and Michigan State Police have responded to the scene. Emergency personnel are working to evacuate the synagogue.
The public has been instructed to avoid the area. Multiple schools in the region—West Bloomfield High School, West Bloomfield Middle School, Doherty Elementary School, and Bloomfield Hills Schools—are currently in secure mode as a precaution.
Michigan State Police confirmed the incident in a post on X, stating: "We are aware of an active shooting incident that is ongoing in West Bloomfield. We are asking for community members to stay away from the area to allow for police response."
State police have increased patrols at other places of worship throughout the district.
This story will be updated as more information is released.
Iran’s new supreme leader issued his first message Thursday through Iranian state media and did not appear on camera or read the statement — a move that reveals he was wounded, a CNN correspondent said.
CNN international reporter Nick Paton Walsh signaled that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could be seriously injured as a result of the U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed his father and left several of his other family members dead.
"It's what we didn't hear and what we didn't see," Paton Walsh said.
"We didn't hear much Mojtaba Khamenei's voice and we did not see his face and we did not see this statement delivered on video," Paton Walsh explained. "And while it's important to point out that we have no evidence that he is incapacitated or deceased, this was a key moment where Iran really, I think, had to meet the doubts as to his health and his capacity to govern. It's clear that he has been injured in some way the part of the speech he talked about the loss of his wife, his sister, those close around him and how he visited the body of his deceased father. This is the man who President Trump has said he does not want to lead Iran, and his appointment clearly a way of hard liners thumbing their nose ultimately back at the White House."
Mojtaba is not from a clerical background like his father and has not appeared on any video or in public view since the attack.
"We are hearing a big vacuum still at the top of Iranian leadership," Paton Walsh said. "Here's a message, seven chapters, read on state television by a female anchor, no sign of him, no sign of his voice and the moment for the proof of life that many need, or proof of health, not met."
President Donald Trump's new choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), once employed a convicted felon at his personal business who committed a weapons felony on the premises, according to The Washington Post — and may have committed a federal crime himself in the process.
"The employee, Timothy L. Saylor, was previously convicted of felonies, barring him from owning firearms. He said Mullin knew his criminal history but nonetheless allowed him to store the weapons at Mullin Plumbing in Oklahoma," said the report. "'Markwayne knew I was a felon,' Saylor said in an interview with The Washington Post. 'Of course he knew. Because I told him.'"
This incident was known and heavily discussed when Mullin first ran for Congress in 2012, but at the time he claimed to have no knowledge of Saylor's criminal past, and that he hadn't run a background check because Saylor had been an existing employee at a business his company had purchased. Saylor's claims to The Post cast doubt over this.
"Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly provide a weapon to a felon," noted the report. "Mullin told authorities at the time that he gave Saylor guns 'to clean.' Mullin was never charged, according to court records."
Mullin is stepping in to replace former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who was unceremoniously fired amid a mountain of scandal after testifying in Congress that Trump authorized her to contract a $200 million ad buy of herself with government money.
A report this week indicates a potential deeper web of self-dealing, as a former DHS official was involved in steering the bidding process to a firm that subcontracted with another company owned by a man she later married.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s threat to derail his party’s agenda until Republicans ram through new voting restrictions in an expanded SAVE America Act has some key GOP lawmakers scratching their heads.
“It's his priority. I don't know how many others share it,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Raw Story at the Capitol. “It's hard to see it being a top 10 issue for people. It almost never comes up, and I talk to thousands of North Dakotans.”
Even so, the president’s far-right allies are all-in on his new calls to expand the SAVE Act beyond requiring proof of citizenship and an ID to vote federally.
With the midterms approaching, Trump is demanding that the measure also include ruby red cultural issues, like restricting gender-affirming care for children and outlawing transgender women from participating in female sports, along with a federal ban on mail-in-voting.
“Oh, it's over if we don't get the SAVE Act passed, you know, for people running right now, because we're getting the blame for everything,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story.
“It's all the things the Democrats don't believe in, so you might as well get all of 'em at the same time so we don't have to walk over here and get it voted down four or five times, you know?”
But with Trump calling to federalize elections, Democrats are braced for battle.
“He is adamant about controlling our elections and steering them to the benefit of himself and his party,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) told Raw Story. “That's a concern.”
‘A hard enough lift’
Last month, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — aka the SAVE America Act — along party lines, with just one Democrat supporting it.
Since then, the SAVE Act has, like most House-passed measures, sat untouched in the Senate. That’s angered Trump, who’s pressured Republican leaders to blow up the 60-vote filibuster, so Democrats would have to physically take to the Senate floor to derail bills they oppose.
While rank-and-file Republicans have felt the White House-induced pressure, GOP leaders — from Senate Majority Leader John Thune down — say there just aren’t the votes to overhaul the rules and institute a talking filibuster, let alone to heed the president’s new call to lard the SAVE Act with Republican red meat.
“This is a hard enough lift, to be honest,” Cramer told Raw Story. “I support every single policy that's in the SAVE America Act. I think some of it's unnecessary, and almost all of it's going to be difficult to pass, to say the least.”
Like many Republicans, Cramer’s ready to back a talking filibuster but questions the gains, if any, of the gambit.
“If somebody wants to do a talking filibuster, I'm ready to lock myself up for a few months,” Cramer said. “So we do a talking filibuster, you hand the floor over to the Democrats for as long as they want to hold it. It just doesn't seem like a high priority.
“And furthermore, for me, I look at the 2024 election and think, ‘I don't know if it gets much better than this.’”
Cramer questions Trump’s new call to eradicate most mail-in voting.
“At least half of North Dakota's counties are mail-in counties. That's how they vote. It's not an exception, it's what they do — it's what we do,” Cramer said. “I've never loved mail-in-voting. I think a ban on mail-in-voting altogether is probably not passable, particularly in rural America, which is Trump country.”
While Cramer’s a reliable Trump ally, he’s also worried about expanding the federal government’s role in local elections.
“I'm not crazy about so much federal oversight of our elections at all,” Cramer said.
“But I, again, I support all those same principles. I supported them in the state legislature, I'll support them in this, but I just think, as the pragmatic person that I am, it seems like it's a lot of time being burned up. And the most valuable commodity we have is our time.”
The last remaining moderates in the GOP fear time is dwindling as Election Day approaches.
‘Far-flung places’
Other Republicans agree with Cramer that mail-in-voting is just a part of life for their voters.
“We have a huge military population that, you know, is scattered all over, and we have people in far-flung places where you never know what's going to happen on Election Day,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told Raw Story.
Upending mail-in ballots would punish the president’s base in parts of Murkowski’s state. In the 2024 general election, 51,212 Alaskans voted by mail — a whopping 23 percent of the vote — while 9,504 mail-in ballots were cast in the primary, according to the Alaska Division of Elections.
“So what happens with early voting, what happens with voting by mail, this is how we have allowed for access to voting,” Murkowski said.
“So no, I am not good with the SAVE Act as is currently written, because implementation in a rural state like Alaska is pretty close to impossible for some people, and I'm not willing to disenfranchise those folks.”
Moreso, when it comes to Trump’s calls for filibuster reform, Murkowski says the 60-vote threshold is a vital backstop for tiny, if expansive, land-wise states like hers.
“We've heard bluster about the filibuster, and he's going to keep it up,” Murkowski said. “But there are certain institutional safeguards in this body that I'm going to stand firm on.”
‘Expect him to abuse his power’
Internal Senate politics aside, Democrats say Trump’s demand to expand the SAVE Act to ban mail-in-voting is part of a troubling trend.
“It is him attempting in various ways and opportunities to control our future elections,” Sen. Cortez Masto of Nevada told Raw Story.
Catherine Cortez Masto. Picture: Shutterstock
Coupled with recent FBI raids on election offices in battleground states that Cortez Masto said were “looking for records from the 2020 election that we know the courts have all said was not stolen,” there’s a full court press from Trump to manipulate this year’s midterms.
Cortez Masto fears the administration is readying to deploy federal assets — whether the National Guard or Immigration and Customs Enforcement — to local voting precincts.
“My other biggest concern is, he's got now a police force that is a deportation force, but I can see him sending in that same police force around the elections to try to do something,” Cortez Masto said.
“It is a concern, and people should be aware he is trying to control our future elections to his benefit.”
Cortez Masto is far from alone in such fears.
“The president tried to cling to power last time he lost an election, and we would be naive not to expect him to abuse his power to try to foil the will of the people this time,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Raw Story.
Ossoff’s up for reelection in Georgia, where the last U.S. Senate contest, in 2022, saw upwards of $515 million in campaign spending.
He’s banking on Trump’s ploy backfiring this time around.
“In Georgia, with the history of voting rights struggle, attacks on voting rights only galvanize the will of the people to make their voices heard,” Ossoff said.
“I hear serious concerns about attacks on elections and determination to answer them with unprecedented mobilization and turnout.”
A statement from the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination suggested the US should investigate the president and several high-profile politicians, as their language in public could incite hate crimes. The UN Watchdog also noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity could further incite racial hatred across the US. A report released by the intergovernmental organization confirmed further action should be taken by the US government.
It reads, "The Committee was deeply disturbed by the growing use of derogatory and dehumanizing language, and the dissemination of negative and harmful stereotypes targeting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
"It underscored that the systematic use of racial profiling and arbitrary identity checks by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) against people of Hispanic/Latino, African or Asian origin has resulted in widespread arrests of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and people perceived as such.
"The Committee also raised alarm that the lives and physical integrity of the above vulnerable groups are jeopardized by the excessive use of force and violence by enforcement officers during immigration operations.
"It cited that at least eight people have died since January 2026 during ICE operations or while in ICE custody, including protesters exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and detained refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants."
A spokesperson for the committee also noted the rhetoric from the government, including from Trump, has affected migrants and asylum seekers negatively.
“Portraying them as criminals or as a burden, by politicians and influential public figures at the highest level, particularly the President,” the Committee said, “may incite racial discrimination and hate crimes.
"Racist hate speech by political leaders, including the President, combined with intensified immigration crackdowns in the United States, notably near schools, hospitals and faith-based institutions, has sparked grave human rights violations."
The panel also suggested an internal review from the Trump administration. They wrote, "The Committee urged the US to conduct a human rights-based review of its legislative measures adopted since January 2025, including by suspending immigration enforcement operations, such as identity checks and arrests, in and around schools, hospitals, and faith-based institutions."
White House spokesperson Olivia Wales told Axios the UN's findings were filtered by an "extreme bias" that "continues to prove why no one takes them seriously."
"President Trump is delivering on his promise to make our country safe again: the murder rate has plummeted to a 125-year low, with last year marking the biggest one-year drop in recorded history, crime categories are dropping across the board, and we have the most secure border in history."
The FBI has warned California law enforcement that Iran could retaliate against American strikes by launching drones on the West Coast of the United States, including locations in California, ABC News reported.
The outlet said it had reviewed an alert showing the warning from recent days.
“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,” according to the alert late February.
"We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack,” the alert stated.
Iran has launched multiple retaliatory drone strikes at locations across the Middle East following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that began 12 days ago.
A man in Florida who allegedly threatened President Donald Trump, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was indicted this month, NBC News reported Wednesday.
Diego Villavicencio now faces a four-count indictment, which was filed last week in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida Tallahassee Division. The indictment alleges that Villavicencio threatened Swalwell and wrote "I’ll kill you and your family and you won’t do anything about it" and also threatened an unnamed person and wrote that they would "be shot and killed September 23."
Villavicencio allegedly also threatened Trump and wrote the following: “I’ll be driving there to take a couple of shots at trump and some other corrupt plutocrats.”
Swalwell, a current 2026 candidate for California governor and vocal critic of the president, has confirmed that an unnamed member of Congress cited in the indictment was him, according to NBC News. Swalwell was an impeachment manager in Trump's second impeachment trial and has been the target of multiple threats. Swalwell also said that Attorney General Pam Bondi had "refused" to prosecute threats against him and discussed it with her during her testimony to congressional leaders.
“The aim of this threat was to silence me,” Swalwell told NBC News. “Political violence has never been the answer. And it never will be. My family and I are grateful to the Department of Justice for their attention to this violent threat.”
Powell appeared to be another unnamed person in the criminal complaint. An FBI affidavit revealed that one of the posts had read "Jerome is next." That threat, which came before the Sept. 23 Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce 2025 Economic Outlook Luncheon where Powell was a speaker, was reported to the FBI by a senior agent.
Villavicencio was arrested last month. His trial is scheduled for May.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) had an angry confrontation with an NBC film crew after he changed course on his support for the filibuster to attempt to push through a voting bill backed by President Donald Trump.
In a Wednesday op-ed for the New York Post, Cornyn admitted that he had changed his mind on the filibuster as he was hoping for an endorsement from the president in his tight Senate race.
"For many years, I believed that if the US Senate scrapped the filibuster, Texas and our nation would stand to lose more than we would gain," the Texas Republican wrote. "Today, Democrats are weaponizing the Senate's rules to block the SAVE America Act, defund the Department of Homeland Security, and hurt the American people — all to spite President Donald Trump."
"The president has made the SAVE America Act his 'number one priority,' and he is right," the senator added. "After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats' obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president's desk for his signature."
Later on Wednesday, NBC News confronted Cornyn about why he had changed his position.
"You previously said that nuking the filibuster would be taking a wrecking ball to Senate rules," an NBC reporter noted. "Is that no longer true?"
"Um, I said I'd be open to reforms," Cornyn insisted.
"What would you say to those who say you just changed your mind to win the president's endorsement?" the reporter asked.
"I'd say, uh, that's not true," the Republican stated, adding, "I think we're through. Go ahead. Go away."
The interview ended with Cornyn placing his hand over the NBC camera to obstruct its view.
The Republican candidate for governor of New York was scheduled to speak at an event headlined by far-right extremists and rioters convicted over the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a Raw Storyinvestigation.
Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive running against incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, was featured on promotional materials for a January event associated with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser.
🇺🇸 Stay Awake America National Tour THIS WEEKEND 🇺🇸 Mission: Unite, engage, activate local action for national impact!
Join 17+ nationally recognized experts in health, civics, faith, education, and more, including Bruce Blakeman, Treniss Evans, Dr. Judy Mikovits, Amir… pic.twitter.com/M4thJBBUjy — The America First Warehouse (@americafirstwh) January 7, 2026
The Stay Awake America event took place at the Trump-themed America First Warehouse in Ronkonkoma on Long Island from Jan. 10-11, though ultimately Blakeman did not attend, said Teresa Helfrich, director of operations for the America First Warehouse.
“He didn't end up showing up,” Helfrich said.
“Apparently, he was really busy, but unfortunately, he did not come, and people were a bit disappointed, but we tried our best.”
Helfrich said she was under the impression Blakeman was unable to attend because he was preparing for his inauguration the following day, for his second term as county executive.
In a statement to Raw Story, Blakeman attempted to distance himself from the event.
“Kathy Hochul told 5.4 million Republicans to leave New York,” Blakeman said through a campaign spokesperson, referring to 2022 remarks in which the governor named GOP figures including Trump, rather than every Republican in the state.
“Now she’s inventing distractions about events I never attended and people I’ve never spoken to because she can’t defend her tax hikes and soaring utility bills. She’s so bothered by her record she’s becoming delusional. I’m trying to make New York affordable.”
A poster for the event circulated by the America First Warehouse and Stay Awake America organizer prominently featured Blakeman as a speaker.
Flynn shared an X post promoting the event, which referenced Blakeman.
Long Island will be the focus on January 10–11 as the Stay Awake America Tour comes to the America First Warehouse in Ronkonkoma. This two-day gathering brings together powerful speakers, live music from the Caspar McCloud Band, and a special tribute honoring Tina Peters. It is a… pic.twitter.com/aRkvt5D0Cw — General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) January 2, 2026
Also featured were Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia leader whose 18-year sentence for sedition was commuted by President Trump; Treniss Jewell Evans III, who pleaded guilty to entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; and Ivan Raiklin, a Flynn associate who campaigns to punish Trump’s enemies.
The event was advertised as a tribute to Tina Peters, a Colorado county clerk sentenced to nine years in prison for her role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Trump is pressuring Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to grant Peters clemency.
Blakeman did recently speak at the Queens Village Republican Club’s Lincoln Dinner, on March 1. That event honored John Eastman, a now-disbarred attorney who advised Trump and played a central role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, Politico reported.
In a statement, Blakeman denied knowing “who John Eastman is or what he stands for.”
Jacob Neiheisel, an associate professor of political science at the University of Buffalo, told Raw Story “association means a lot in politics,” and candidates make calculations about the costs and benefits of being linked with individuals or groups.
“You can distance yourself quite a bit. Trump's been effective at it,” Neiheisel said.
“It works for Trump. It can work for other people.”
Amy Young, director and organizer of Stay Awake America, did not respond to requests for comment.
The January event at which he was advertised to speak promised more than 17 “nationally known expert speakers in health, civics, faith, education, threat of Islam in America and child sex trafficking.”
Being associated with far-right figures doesn’t help Blakeman’s chances of winning in the blue state, Neiheisel said, adding that Republican gubernatorial candidates in New York “have to at least outwardly appear centrist to the bulk of voters, but that's not where the energy in the party is. The energy is typically on the far right.”
But such associations do “make you viable for other positions elsewhere, and put you on the radar of other people in the party, particularly if MAGA is able to continue beyond Trump,” Neiheisel said.
“I think that this also might be a play [by Blakeman] to stay relevant and stay in some of those circles even after he loses.”
Trump endorsed Blakeman in December after Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), dropped out of the Republican primary.
Larry Levy, a former political journalist and associate vice president and executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said “at some point, Blakeman will have to pivot to the middle — there just aren’t enough Republican voters in the state for him to win without a goodly number of moderate independents and soft Democrats — and Gen. Flynn certainly wouldn’t help him build bridges to them."
Flynn was briefly national security adviser to Trump in his first term before being fired for lying about contacts with Russian officials.
The Stay Awake America Tour is inspired and endorsed by Flynn and grew out of an earlier roadshow, the ReAwaken America Tour, that prominently featured his work as a far-right campaigner and promoted conspiracy theories and Christian nationalism.
On a recent podcast, Young said the tour came about as a result of a conversation between Flynn and Caspar McCloud, an English musician who performs at the events, about the need to mobilize support for Trump.
‘Secretary of Retribution’
Rhodes, whose name was originally listed at the bottom of the January event poster but whose photo is the first featured for a Stay Awake America event on March 20, founded the Oath Keepers, an anti-government group that recruited military veterans and retired law enforcement during the Obama administration.
The Oath Keepers, alongside the Proud Boys, provided the engine for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Rhodes was freed from prison after Trump’s second inauguration but did not receive a pardon.
Raiklin, then an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, promoted the so-called “Pence Card” argument, holding that Vice President Mike Pence possessed the authority to set aside the results of the 2020 election.
The expectation that Pence would comply inflamed Trump’s supporters and helped fuel the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, when the former vice president refused to bend to pressure.
As Trump mounted his 2024 election bid, Raiklin launched a campaign as self-appointed “secretary of retribution,” featuring veiled threats of violence against perceived enemies.
Evans pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol and drinking Fireball whisky in a congressional conference room.
During the 2024 campaign, he joined Raiklin for a press conference, calling for “live-streamed swatting raids” against Trump’s enemies.
Raiklin met with law enforcement officials in Texas to detail his plans for recruiting sheriffs to arrest Trump’s enemies, Raw Story reported.
As Nassau county executive, Blakeman has hired armed citizens as special deputy sheriffs — what critics have called an unlawful personal militia, the New York Timesreported.
In January, Rhodes and Raiklin held a press conference at the White House calling on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop Democrats winning the 2026 midterm elections and retaking Congress.
Raiklin has worked closely with Flynn, serving on the board of America’s Future, an organization led by Flynn and his sister. Raiklin took part in a 2024 tour to promote a documentary about Flynn.
Helfrich told Raw Story the America First Warehouse supports those who participated in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and she said she believes “the real insurrection happened on November 3 of 2020 when the deep state and the powers that be tried to overthrow a US presidential election.”
“We are 100 percent behind our fellow Patriot brothers and sisters who took a First Amendment stand that day to let Congress know that they didn't want a stolen election to be certified,” she said.
“We are extremely supportive advocates of the J6 community, and we do not see them as felons. We see them as politically persecuted patriots.”
Conspiracy theories
Stay Awake America’s “sizzle reel” to promote upcoming events features Cathy O’Brien, a conspiracy theorist who claims to be the victim of government mind control, and Judy Mikovits, a controversial virologist who equates vaccination with "extermination and sterilization.”
Mikovits was billed on the event where Blakeman was scheduled to appear.
Flynn appeared in the promotional video encouraging people to participate in the Stay Awake America movement.
Helfrich told Raw Story, “We love the people at the Stay Awake American tour,” and the warehouse has “the same mission.”
“The reason why we love their work is because we do believe that there's a lot that America is facing right now,” Helfrich said.
“Obviously, all of us are big President Trump supporters, and we love what he's doing, but he's only in office for another three years, and we do believe, a lot of us, that the country needs to stay awake and keep fighting beyond this term.”
Young’s X posts promoting the Stay Awake America tour frequently include the phrase “blitz 2026 midterms.”
Young frequently reshares posts from X accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy theory, including one that in January revived the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed that Democrats ran a child sex trafficking operation in the basement of a DC pizzeria.
Q the Plan video 2018 then Out of Shadows film & Fall of the Cabal series exposed everything. This was & is the wake up call. 🎥🎞️☎️ Stay Awake America ⚔️🇺🇸 the battles have just begun. Unite, Engage and activate local action for national impact. This is how we Take Back our… https://t.co/PvLG8jgyHd — 4everYoung (@4everAYoung17) February 2, 2026
Young shares QAnon beliefs with staff at the America First Warehouse, the Trump-themed event space in Ronkonkoma.
Speaking in January on the podcast she co-hosts at the America First Warehouse, Helfrich said she decided to go to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 after a friend admonished her: “Where we go one, we go all.” Helfrich said she and her co-host, “Angie the Patriette,” have that QAnon slogan “tattooed on our bodies.”
Young has also re-shared posts on X that promote election denialism, celebrate Russian President Vladimir Putin, and push Islamophobia and antisemitism.
One post from QAnon promoter Liz Crokin that Young re-shared less than a week before the Ronkonkoma event insinuates that illegal tunnels discovered underneath the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn link Jews to child exploitation.
The tunnels were reportedly built by a radical offshoot of the Hasidic Jewish movement seeking to expand the site. There is no evidence of human trafficking at the site.
A war Donald Trump started, allegedly to distract from the ongoing release of Jeffrey Epstein's files, could deal his administration a harsher blow according to Jimmy Kimmel.
The talk show host believes the war with Iran is a distraction tactic utilized by the president to reduce focus on the release of convicted sex offender Epstein's files. Being named or pictured in the files is not an indication of wrongdoing, and many of those identified in the files or in previous releases related to Epstein have expressly denied any wrongdoing.
Trump's name appears frequently in the files, with Kimmel dubbing it the Trump-Epstein files. In the opening monologue of his show, the talk show veteran suggested the president had caused a bigger problem for himself than the Epstein files would have been by launching into a war with Iran.
He said, "He's going to make a huge mess and then walk away like it's the toilet in the Lincoln bathroom. Trump claims we are way ahead of schedule on the war. He's got a schedule, which means it should be over just around the time we see his taxes and the rest of the Trump-Epstein files.
"Ironically, this war he launched to distract us from those could turn out to be more damaging to him than the Trump-Epstein files themselves. They're saying this could be worse, and that would mean he would have to come up with another distraction from the war."
Kimmel went on to give Trump a new distraction tactic, joking that to distract from the war with Iran and the economic consequences, the president could release the remaining Epstein files.
Kimmel added, "If you do need that [distraction] Mr. President, I got a good one. You know what would distract us from the war? Release the unreleased Trump-Epstein files. That would be a shiny object we could gather around."
President Donald Trumpsaid the US Navy chose to sink an Iranian frigate, killing more than 100 sailors last week, because it was “more fun” than capturing the vessel, even though the ship posed no threat.
Though death tolls vary, Iran’s state media organization, the Islamic Republic News Organization, reported on Sunday that 104 crew members were killed in the attack and that 32 others were injured when a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean on March 4 as it departed from the Milan Peace 2026 naval drills hosted in India.
The Dena was more than 2,000 miles away from the Persian Gulf when it was attacked, far from the hostilities unleashed last weekend when the US and Israel launched a war against Iran. Contradicting US claims, Iranian and Indian officials have said it was not armed.
In what political commentator Adam Schwarz described as “the most blasé admission of a war crime by a US president in history,” Trump on Monday casually recounted the US Navy’s decision to attack the ship before a gathering of Republicans at a Congressional Institute event, a GOP-aligned nonprofit retreat organizer. He suggested that the Navy blew the boat up not to neutralize a threat, but purely for its own sake.
After making the exaggerated boast that Iran’s navy is “gone” following aggressive US bombing, Trump said at first he “got a little upset” with the military brass who ordered the sinking of the Dena, which he said they described as a “top-of-the-line” vessel.
Trump said he asked: “Why don’t we just capture the ship? We could have used it. Why did we sink them?”
He said that an unspecified official told him, “It’s more fun to sink them.”
As the crowd laughed, Trump went on, chuckling himself: “They like sinking them better. They say it’s safer to sink them. I guess it’s probably true.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, described the ship as operating in a purely “ceremonial” role and said it was “unloaded” and “unarmed” at the time of the attack last week.
Rahul Bedi, an independent defense analyst in India, told the Associated Press that while the ship may have used some limited non-offensive ammunition during naval exercises, drill protocol requires “the participating platforms to be unarmed.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has claimed the vessel was a “predator ship,” while the US Indo-Pacific Command has said claims that the ship was unarmed are “false.” However, it has provided no evidence that it posed a threat at the time of the attack.
The attack itself was likely legal under the rules of naval warfare, even if the ship was unarmed, though its ethical and tactical justification has been called into question.
“A military ship might be a lawful target,” Phyllis Bennis, the co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ New Internationalism Project told Common Dreams. “But firing on any ship—any people, anywhere—for ‘fun’ represents the kind of immoral depravity that this White House is infamous for.”
Bennis added that “failing to do everything possible to rescue those aboard is certainly a war crime,” as the Second Geneva Convention requires militaries to take all possible measures to search for and collect the shipwrecked, wounded, and sick.
The Dena’s 32 survivors, as well as dozens of dead bodies, had to be pulled from the water by a Sri Lankan joint rescue operation following a distress call. The survivors were quickly rushed to a local hospital in Galle City.
Hegseth has previously come under fire for reportedly ordering a second strike on shipwrecked sailors who survived the bombing of an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean.
Many have described that attack on September 2 as an exceptionally blatant war crime in a broadly illegal campaign that has extrajudicially killed at least 156 people.
In carrying out its war against Iran, Hegseth has emphasized that the US would not abide by what he called “stupid rules of engagement.”
Thousands of civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, and residential areas, have reportedly been attacked by US and Israeli strikes, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.
As of Monday, Iranian Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian said at least 1,255 people have been killed, including 200 children and 11 healthcareworkers.
Though it may have still technically been legal, journalist Mark Ames, the co-host of the geopolitics podcast Radio War Nerd, argued that attacking a ship that posed no threat shows that Trump is “cowardly scum” who “gets his kicks killing those who can’t fight back.”
“The ship was unarmed. That’s why Trump and Hegseth chose to murder them,” Ames wrote on social media. “Tormenting those who can’t fight back is its own sadistic pleasure.”
Bennis added that even if attacking the ship itself was lawful in a vacuum, it took place before a backdrop of brazen “illegality.”
“This entire shocking episode represents a clear US violation of what the Nuremberg trials identified as the ‘supreme international crime’: the crime of aggression,” she said. “The US had no legal right to go to war against Iran. The [United Nations] Security Council had not authorized the use of force, and there was no ‘armed attack’ from Iran against the US that required immediate self-defense.
“Without either of those, the UN Charter is very clear that no country may attack another country,” she continued. “To do so, as the Nuremberg judges found, constitutes the crime of aggression—the ultimate crime.”
NOTE: This piece has been updated following publication to include additional comments.
President Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk, the widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, to be one of 16 people to sit on the Air Force Academy's Board of Visitors.
As a board member, Erika Kirk will make recommendations to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about potential changes at the Air Force Academy. Her husband also served on the board before being assassinated.
"It's imperative that these cadets know that we are the greatest nation ever," Charlie Kirk said during an August board meeting before his death.
A spokesperson for TPUSA told The Denver Gazette that Erika Kirk was not available for comment.
The Gazette noted that the "board did not announce her appointment. But her name now appears on the list of members."
Erika Kirk also took over as CEO of TPUSA following her husband's killing.
Catherine Cortez Masto. Picture: Shutterstock