The Department of Justice charged a 70-year-old Air Force veteran with felony assault after a video showed a Department of Homeland Security agent pushing him to the ground.
In a video captured by writer Amanda Moore on Saturday, Dana Briggs was seen participating in a protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Illinois.
Moore described the incident: "After conducting another arrest, agents were backing into the facility, nearing the gate to the grounds. Just as they reached the fence, they changed course and began moving forward, yelling at protesters to get out of the road. Briggs asks why, and an agent appears to push him, knocking him to the ground."
The Justice Department alleged that Briggs "made physical contact with an agent’s arm while the agent attempted to extend the safety perimeter around the facility."
A charging document claimed Briggs' actions caused the agent to "experience pain" in his wrist.
Three other protesters were also charged with felony assault. Another faced misdemeanor charges of forcibly resisting, opposing, impeding, and interfering with a federal officer.
A combat veteran had a sharp warning after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's comments about women in the military and suggested "ripple effects" would come after his big speech, asking, "Are people going to stay in?"
Major Kyleanne, a retired combat veteran and CEO of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told CNN anchors Brianna Keilar and Boris Sanchez that using a "culture war" is "distracting from real military readiness." Hegseth's comments could also impact recruiting — a top priority.
"There's real concerns about recruiting, these big recruiting booms that we've seen are largely driven by women joining the military," she said. "But there's also a lot of concerns about retention. Are people going to stay in if that's what's going to happen? But also what it does to our veteran population."
Hunter also pointed to veteran mental health as a major concern. She suggested that Hegseth's comments could have a negative message for struggling veterans.
"We are hearing from veterans, men and women alike, that remarks like this have a real impact on veteran mental health and how they feel about their own services, you know, their own service. And were they actually worthy to be in the service? And so, you know, while there's a focus on the active duty right now, we absolutely need to be focused on that aspect," she added. "We also need to be looking at what are the ripple effects of this rhetoric due to the mental health of our veteran population, as well."
She pointed to current Pentagon changes as concerning, especially for women in the military.
"I have deep concerns about the shutting down of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services," or DACOWITS, she said.
"I had the honor of serving on DACOWITS twice. And what I can say is that the recommendations that we made for women in the services benefited everyone, and increased military readiness increased the authority and increased unit cohesion, whether it was on ensuring there was properly fitting gear and equipment for everyone who goes downrange into harm's way, or ensuring that there is adequate familial support so people retain and stay in the military. These are our actions that impact everyone. And I think with the loss of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women's Services and with these statements that, you know, show that women may not be adhering to the same standards, which is just blatantly not true."
She also argued that merit-based, skill level and achievement are important in the military, not implicit or explicit bias.
"I think it's unfortunate when statements like this get made because it leads to division," she said.
It should be a meritocracy, she explained, and initiatives under DACOWITS removed pronouns from fitness reports or officer qualification records so people would be promoted based on their skills, achievements, and merit.
"And I will say from my time in the military, I had the opportunity that I was judged objectively against my peers. And where I succeeded, I succeeded all my merits and where I fell short, I fell short of my own shortcomings."
The military has tried to make it more common for women to enter the military. But Hegseth's words were the opposite.
"And so the very claims that they're wanting, if they want a better meritocracy system, they are dismantling the offices and the programs that made it a meritocracy to begin with, which is a little counterintuitive in my mind," Hunter said.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced late Monday night that his office had officially requested of the Trump administration that the National Guard be deployed to major Louisiana cities, a request that saw the governor promptly mocked online by critics as “cringy and pathetic.”
“Tonight, we're sending the Department of War a request... asking them to deploy the National Guard here in Louisiana into our cities like New Orleans,” said Landry, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News. “We're not going to tolerate this uptick in violence that's going on right now."
Landry’s request was submitted in writing to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, where he asked for 1,000 National Guard troops to be deployed to Louisiana cities through October 2026. He went on to cite “elevated violent crime rates” in the state’s major cities, particularly New Orleans, despite the state’s most populous city seeing a significant reduction in violent crime since 2023.
“Watching Jeff Landry lick Trump's boots and then get completely disregarded by Trump is very entertaining, if also cringy and pathetic,” wrote Peter Cook in a social media post on X, who describes themselves as an education reformer and progressive, and has amassed more than 3,600 followers.
Others, like X user “Russell Crow”, who frequently posts content critical of Trump and has amassed nearly 1,000 followers, suggested Landry’s request was merely an attempt at “posturing,” alleging the governor of “groveling to make a name for himself and advance his political career.”
Landry’s request comes on the heels of Trump’s announcement to deploy troops to both Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, which themselves come not long after Trump’s military deployment to Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, California.
“Does Gov. Jeff Landry know he can activate his own state National Guard himself?” wrote Alex Cole on X, a self-described pilot and software engineer who’s amassed more than 322,000 followers. “MAGAs are dumb [as f---].”
Matthew Wollenweber, a security engineer and progressive organizer, painted a grimmer picture of Landry’s request, one that continues what he described as Trump’s “war” against American citizens.
“Jeff Landry and Donald Trump are going to war against the citizens of New Orleans,” Wollenweber wrote on X to his nearly 5,000 followers
Lawmakers and influencers are taking Secretary Pete Hegseth's speech to heart after he railed against "fat" generals and admirals in the military.
“It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon, and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look," said Hegseth in his speech on Tuesday.
"I guess the Commander in Chief needs to go!" he wrote on X. Newsom included a photo of Trump from his volunteer shift at McDonald's from the 2024 election season.
"Psst: Whiskey @PeteHegseth thinks that Trump is too fat to be Commander in Chief. Pass it on," needled national security expert Marcy Wheeler.
She then wondered, "What would happen if a credentialed DOD reporter asked @SeanParnellUSA if it was permissible to report that @SecWar thinks Donald Trump is too fat to be Commander in Chief?" speaking about the DOD spokesperson.
"It's a bad look...except for our Commander in Chief and my personal hero, Donald Trump, who wears his fat beautifully. I gaze in awe at his corpulent majesty," former active duty Marine Sergeant Harrison Lansing wrote, making up a fake quote from Hegseth.
"Yeah, Obama could bop down stairs because he was in his late 40s as president not a fat geriatric 80 year old. It’s hilarious to me that he’s so old that he’s amazed at when much younger presidents had the ability to do things Trump could only do in his dreams. But do go on Hegseth about fat generals …" constitutional conservative Camille MacKenzie wrote on X.
"When Hegseth went on his ‘fat troops & fat generals’ rant did he think about the BF% of an average Trump rally? Or has he ever seen the dude he was opening for? Donnie Meatloaf wears a ‘fn’ girdle," asked stand-up comedian Noel Casler.
Longtime radio host David Waldman also had his own fake Hegseth quote to summarize the speech: “You’re all too fat! And now, ladies and gentlemen, President Donald J. Trump.”
President Donald Trump is reportedly putting pressure on Republicans to redraw district maps, warning that "there could very well be consequences" if they don't take action.
Trump has taken an aggressive stance in his efforts to redesign the House of Representatives going into the 2026 midterm elections, Politico reports.
“The base is onto this. If you are a Republican perceived to be in the way of Republicans, there could very well be consequences,” said a national Republican official, who shared the information with Politico under the condition of anonymity.
That same source indicated that the Trump administration expects each GOP state to follow his command on redistricting. He has even considered repercussions for Republicans who do not follow his directives, including New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who has shown independence from his campaign.
It's part of the latest "loyalty test" under the president, who desperately wants to gain as many as 18 House seats across nine states where he's vying for more Republican representation and a "razor-thin majority" in 2026. He's expecting that Republicans will fall in line, and warned of retaliation for those who hesitate or move against him.
California voters could upend Trump's plan and add five more Congressional seats if California voters approve Gov. Gavin Newsom's move in November.
Pro-MAGA host Benny Johnson promoted "white rage" as the secret to military success after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave an unprecedented speech to top military brass about ending "woke" policies.
During his Tuesday podcast, Johnson appeared fired up by Hegseth's speech.
"Woke is a religion for people that don't believe in God," he ranted. "And that's what they did in the military. Right? And what Pete Hegseth is doing there is bulldozing that diseased temple into the ground, desecrating their idols before them, listening to the weeping and lamentations of their women."
"I mean, again, it was a contagion, a wokeness contagion that traveled through the ranks of the military at light speed by design because they were able to perform institutional capture and try and convert this entire organization to their religion. That's what they did," he continued.
Johnson pointed to Gen. Mark Milley's desire to understand the history of "white rage" during former President Joe Biden's time in office.
"Who attacks white rage?" Johnson shouted. "White rage is how you win a war! That's how America has always won wars! Idiots! Attack white people!"
"Young white men don't want to sign up for leadership that doesn't know what a man is or that hates white people," he added. "This is what they've done to the military. And this is what's being undone right now."
President Donald Trump's new letter to naturalised U.S. citizens hints at his disturbing agenda for America, according to Salon's Chauncey DeVega.
Trump's letter, released on Sept. 17, tells migrants they are taking an oath to "forge a sacred bond with our Nation, her traditions, her history, her culture and her values."
Whereas other presidents in their letters traditionally celebrated a "hopeful and inclusive vision" of what it means to be an American — premised on shared ideals, not creed and fixed attributes — Trump's letter strikes a very different tone, wrote DeVega.
"He is, symbolically and ideologically, the country’s first White president, and his understanding of what it means to be an American is very different from his predecessors," he said.
Trump’s letter reflects how he is "growing in power as the country’s first White President," wrote DeVega, with the president not celebrating the contributions migrants have made to America, but stressing their obligations to America, and what America has given them.
"The letter must be understood as part of a revolutionary right-wing political and social project: One where a real American is white and patriotism means loyalty to Trump and his MAGA movement. Nonwhite people can aspire to that identity, but their acceptance is conditional on aligning with Whiteness and its norms," writes DeVega.
DeVega pointed to other aspects of Trump's agenda that illustrate his commitment to xenophobic nationalism, such as his hardline migration policy, his attempts to "whitewash" American history to downplay the achievements of Black and Brown Americans, and the recent UN summit speech, where he railed against migration.
"In total, Trumpism models limited, circumscribed versions of citizenship and political belonging known as blood and soil nationalism, where 'racial stock' determines human worth, rights and citizenship," DeVega wrote.
DeVega argued that Trump's policies are part of a deeper history of racism, including slavery, violence and discrimination towards non-whites, and polices in the 1920s that banned non-white migrants and restricted citizenship to white people.
"Trump’s letter, his UN address and other policies are daily affirmations that he and his MAGA allies are seeking to return us to the country’s darkest past. In their eyes, being a real American means being the right kind of white American," wrote DeVega.
Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) expressed his "intense frustration" with the Republican Party on Tuesday, leading to a shakeup in which he decided not to seek re-election, ultimately testing President Donald Trump's "tight grip" on the GOP, according to a report.
Schweikert announced Tuesday his campaign for Arizona governor, leaving his seat in the competitive Arizona 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives and a vacancy that could impact control of Congress, according to The Washington Post.
“I’ve grown to believe Washington ... is unsavable. I do believe Arizona is savable,” he told Axios Arizona, describing his run as due to "intense frustration" after more than a decade in the House.
"Schweikert, who represents the Phoenix suburbs, enters a gubernatorial primary where Donald Trump has already weighed in, testing the president’s tight grip on the Republican Party. He is campaigning as a more traditional Republican, trumpeting a focus on fiscal conservatism that has faded under Trump," The Post reports.
The GOP lawmaker described Congress as “intellectually calcified." His longtime priority has been addressing the national debt, and he says that leaders are uninterested in seriously fixing it.
Schweikert previously received an endorsement from Trump but says his run for governor would not focus on the president. He would instead face off against another Republican, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs — a MAGA favorite endorsed by Turning Point USA's political action committee, Axios reports.
Schweikert claims he is not confident that Biggs or Karrin Taylor Robson, who has established herself as a Trump loyalist, can win the general election in November 2026.
Democrats are eyeing the vacancy as a path to obtain another seat in Congress, as his exit from the race leaves Republicans without a Congressional candidate in the swing state.
Marlene Galán-Woods, Amish Shah, Mark Robert Gordon, Rick McCartney and Jonathan Treble are all Democrats contending for the Congressional district.
With the federal government all but certain to shut down at midnight Tuesday, White House aides and one senior official sounded the alarm on what they say is a golden opportunity for the Trump administration to complete what it started in hollowing out the federal government.
Among the defining sagas early in Trump’s second term was his effort to cut government spending, an effort spearheaded by Elon Musk, whom he tapped to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
And, while Musk and others wildly overinflated the savings DOGE recouped – savings that were entirely eradicated with Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act – a senior White House official warned that the government shutdown would be the Trump administration’s chance to finish “what DOGE couldn’t do.”
“He’s wanted to hurt the bureaucracy; he’s wanted to shrink the bureaucracy,” a senior White House official told The Atlantic in a report published Tuesday, specifically referencing White House budget director Russell Vought, and speaking with the outlet on the condition of anonymity. “This might be his chance.”
Trump has already signaled as much: in a memo from the White House, the Trump administration outlined reduction-in-force plans in the event of a government shutdown, plans that essentially mean mass firings are on the table. As to who might be targeted in said mass firings, multiple White House aides said positions that don’t align with Trump’s agenda would likely be the target.
“Voluntary-resignation programs were broadly available to most federal workers earlier this year,” The Atlantic report reads.
“Now Trump is using the threat of permanent job cuts to specifically target jobs that don’t align with his priorities, aides told us. The president, who in recent weeks has been firing federal prosecutors who don’t bend to his will, has become bolder in his push to reshape the government to suit his preferences. And he’s empowered Russell Vought, the White House budget director who has long been an evangelist of slashing the government, to cut away.”
According to a spokesperson from the Office of Personnel Management, around 275,000 federal workers, more than 10% of the entire federal workforce, will have voluntarily left their positions by the end of December, the spokesperson told The Atlantic.
“[This will have been] the largest and most effective workforce-reduction plan in history,” the spokesperson said, speaking with The Atlantic via email on the condition of anonymity.
Armando Iannucci, the Scottish writer and producer behind the hit HBO series "Veep," is working on a project that takes on President Donald Trump — but there's a snag, Deadline reported on Tuesday: potential backers of the project fear becoming targets of MAGA hate.
Iannucci confessed as much at a Creative U.K. event in Liverpool, the article stated, as he "revealed that he was developing a screen project based on Trump’s speeches, but was warned that he would not be able to pull together finance in America."
“I got a lot of, ‘Yeah, you wouldn’t get the money for that at the moment, I’m afraid.’ So I said, ‘Why not?’ [They replied] ‘Well, you know, if you want what comes with it…'” said Iannucci. “[I’ve been] talking to journalists out there who say, ‘If you’re on the list, your life is made miserable.’" What they told him, he said, was "the inland revenue will come calling, you better lawyer up, you will spend the next four years just weighed down by legal issues you have to get through.”
Trump has spent much of his career, even before the presidency, suing media outlets that report on him unfavorably and has demanded America "open up" libel laws to make speech-retaliation suits easier to do.
Beyond that, Trump supporters have pushed for boycotts of any company that is not just perceived as anti-Trump, but also too culturally liberal, famously spooking Bud Light's parent company with a huge loss of sales over their partnership with a transgender influencer. Far-right legal strategist Leonard Leo reportedly had a hand in driving the action, although in recent months Trump has fallen out with Leo.
The president has also successfully cowed a number of media and tech companies into settling with him, with one of the most controversial being a CBS settlement over Trump's suit for supposedly deceiving the public by editing former Vice President Kamala Harris' "60 Minutes" interview — litigation experts broadly dismissed as frivolous, but that CBS reportedly wanted to resolve amicably to expedite the Trump administration's approval of their merger.
In an interview published Tuesday morning, Sargent singled out Leavitt for doubling down on Donald Trump’s knee-jerk response that it was an attack on Christianity, that led her to tell reporters a day earlier, “And as the president rightfully put, in his Truth Social yesterday, this appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians and the Trump administration is fully committed to not only investigating these crimes, but prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.”
According to author Sara Posner, “There’s a lot of problems with the top official in the United States—the president—and his surrogate, Karoline Leavitt, saying these things publicly before we know more about what happened.”
Noting the president’s war on free speech in academia and in the media, Posner suggested a new war may be in the offing for any criticism of Christians or Christianity.
“After saying this appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians, she then said the Trump administration is fully committed to not only investigating these crimes, but prosecuting them. I think that’s highly suggestive language,” Sargent prompted his guest.
“Well given their track history, so given how during his campaign he promised a task force to combat anti-Christian bias, and I think they established such a task force, although I’m not sure what it has been doing—it’s very menacing and troubling,” Posner admitted. “Because we know from past things that they’ve done in their supposed combating of anti-Semitism, for example, that they are keen on violating people’s First Amendment rights in their supposed quest to end anti-Semitism, right?”
She elaborated that it goes deeper than that.
“And so if they’re going to use law enforcement to combat what they see as anti-Christian bias—and they see that as preventing crimes motivated by anti-Christian bias—I mean, you can’t… you know, somebody saying something that you think is anti-Christian. And remember, they think it’s anti-Christian to, say, disagree with a pastor who’s against same-sex marriage. They think that that’s anti-Christian to say that,” she explained.
Admitting she doesn't know exactly what they have in store, she suggested, “Given their track record, and given how they’re over-policing and militarizing the policing of cities, given how they have no compunction about violating people’s First Amendment rights—taking these things together—it’s very troubling that they are talking about this.”
"The radical left is going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people," the message on the HUD website reads.
Republicans have control of the House, Senate and White House and can pass a debt ceiling increase without the votes of Democrats.
Speaking to MSNBC about the matter, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) called the move on a government website "out of control."
It's "stunning," she said. "And if you look at the bigoted, outrageous fake, AI post that the president of the United States posted yesterday about our Democratic leaders you get a sense of how outofcontrol this administration is, these Republicans are, and it is exactly why we have to fight back. We can't allow them to continue to do this.
"They are abusing every executive power that has been given, and Republicans in Congress have to stand up and fight for their constituents. You know, I've got 14 rural hospitals in Washington State that are already slated to close."
She noted that a mother with two children who have autism will lose her access to Medicaid thanks to the budget the GOP passed. So, part of the debate is that Democrats will agree to help Republicans if Republicans eliminate the Medicaid cuts and bring back the healthcare subsidies called for in the Affordable Care Act.
"And I think that the fact that [Speaker] Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent all the Republicans home should tell you everything you need to know. They don't believe in bipartisanship. They don't understand that they need some votes, at least in the Senate, if not in the House, to be able to do anything and govern. And so a shutdown is on them, not on us. But it is a travesty that this is what the White House is doing and how they're using their platform."
President Donald Trumpunveiled a new peace plan Monday to end Israel’s siege on Gaza and, while the plan had initially received buy-in from top Arab leaders, last-minute changes made just moments before its unveiling have infuriated Arab officials, according to a report Tuesday from Axios.
Trump’s 20-point peace plan was developed over several weeks, and in conjunction with top Arab leaders such as those from Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. However, during Trump’s meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, last-minute changes were introduced to the plan, and at the behest of Netanyahu, changes that very well could compromise its initial support among Arab leaders.
“Netanyahu managed to negotiate several edits into the text, in particular on the conditions and timetable for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza,” wrote Axios reporter Barak Ravid, an Israeli journalist who spoke with multiple Arab officials on the condition of anonymity.
“Officials from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey were furious over the changes, according to sources with knowledge. The Qataris even tried to convince the Trump administration not to release the detailed plan on Monday due to those objections. The White House released it anyway, and pushed the Arab and Muslim countries to support the plan.”
Under Trump’s peace plan, Hamas would return all of the remaining Israeli hostages – 20 believed to be living of 48 total – and in return, Israel would begin a phased withdrawal of its military occupation, as well as release 250 Palestinians currently serving life sentences, and 1,700 who were detained after Oct. 7, 2023. Israel currently holds an estimated 9,500 Palestinians, and around 3,660 of them without criminal charge.
However, Israel would reserve the right to “finish the job” should they find Hamas to be in violation of the agreement, which Trump said on Monday would receive the United States’ “full backing.”
Even with the last-minute changes, a “senior Arab official” told Axios that the plan “still has a lot of very positive elements for Palestinians,” and may very well bring about an end to the hostilities that have claimed the lives of some 1,200 Israelis, and an estimated 61,000 Palestinians, though some estimates put the Palestinian death toll as high as 680,000, which would amount to 30% of Gaza’s population prior to Oct. 7, 2023.
