AOC Mocks Pete Hegseth for Successfully Keeping His Mouth Shut on Iran

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not impressed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sudden ability to keep his mouth shut about U.S. military plans.

Newsmax host Todd Starnes offered his congratulations to Hegseth Saturday for pulling off sweeping strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities without giving up the game.

“Not a single leak. Well done, @SecDef,” Starnes wrote in a post on X.

The New York Democrat didn’t see that as quite the cause for celebration.

“This is like applauding a grown man for being able to wipe their behind,” Cortez responded in a post on X. “Not exactly a vote of confidence.”

Earlier this year, Hegseth sent sensitive details about a U.S. military strike on Yemen to one Signal group chat that had the editor in chief of The Atlantic, and another chat that included his wife, brother, and attorney.

Hegseth’s Pentagon has become “consumed” by the search for leakers, according to Colin Caroll, who served as the chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary before being ousted as the result of a leak investigation. Some believe Caroll’s removal was motivated by an explosive power struggle between defense aides.

“If you look at a pie chart of the secretary’s day, at this point, 50 percent of it is probably a leak investigation,” Carroll said in April.

Iranian lawmakers are considering ending their cooperation with a U.N. nuclear watchdog in the wake of a U.S. attack on several key nuclear sites.

Iran’s Parliament is looking to pass a bill that would “suspend Iran’s cooperation” with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a global consortium focused on limiting the use of nuclear power for military purposes, “until we have objective guarantees of the professional behavior of this international organization,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Monday.

“The world clearly saw that the Atomic Energy Agency has not fulfilled any of its obligations and has become a political tool,” he added.

For months, top American intelligence officials have said that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” In a June report, the Congressional Research Service underscored that “Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.”

But in the days leading up to the Saturday night attack, Donald Trump flagrantly disregarded the advice of his key advisers, opting to believe another narrative instead.

“I don’t care what she said,” the president told reporters on Tuesday on Air Force One, referring to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s March testimony that Iran was not close to having a nuclear weapon. “I think they were very close to having one.”

​​IAEA Director Rafael Grossi said that the damage dealt by America’s weekend airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was expected to be “very significant.”

Iran has argued that it is seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. It has undergone years of nuclear site inspections by the IAEA, and as of last week was allowing IAEA inspectors to remain in the country, according to Grossi.

The only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is presumed to be Israel, which will not confirm or deny possessing what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates are approximately 90 nuclear weapons.

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, chastised Israel during an emergency U.N. Security Council Sunday for not being subject to the same IAEA inspections as a non-signatory on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty. The envoy condemned the American attack on Iran, and said that “accepting the recent U.S. actions would undermine all the progress the international community has made in the field of nuclear non-proliferation,” according to the Middle East Monitor.

Key allies are shunning the U.S. after it bombed Iranian nuclear sites with Israel.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Monday both announced their intentions to skip the upcoming NATO summit at the Hague. South Korean sources confirmed that Jae-myung’s decision was in part due to Trump’s attack on Iran, while the Japanese prime minister has cited “various circumstances.”

“Despite the pile of issues to deal with on the home front, the administration had seriously considered attending this year’s NATO summit,” South Korea’s presidential office told reporters on Sunday. “However, considering various pending national issues and uncertainty in the Middle East, the president has decided not to attend the summit.”

Japan’s leader has attended every NATO summit since 2022, making this a significant snub.

This move shows that the U.S. is growing increasingly isolated due to its support of Israel and its unprovoked aggression towards Iran. This escalation shows our allies that the U.S. is no longer as committed to the traditional principles and customs of the Western world.

Japan and South Korea aren’t the only ones. Trump’s demands for increased NATO defense spending and his sweeping retaliatory tariffs have caused other traditional European allies like Britain, France, and Canada to draw closer together and work without the United States. It’s clear that U.S. diplomatic power is eroding on a worldwide scale with each passing day, as our leadership is viewed as unserious and unreliable.

A judge in Tennessee eviscerated the government’s case for keeping Kilmar Abrego Garcia detained ahead of his trial for criminal charges alleging that he transported undocumented immigrants around the country.

Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville said Sunday that “the government failed to prove” that Abrego Garcia had endangered any minor victim, a claim not included in the official charges but that was used to justify his ongoing detention.

In a 51-page ruling, Holmes explained that not only had the government’s evidence included “double hearsay” but that some of it also defied logic.

Holmes wrote that Special Agent Peter Joseph of ICE Homeland Security Investigations had presented “hearsay statements of cooperating witnesses” to establish that Abrego Garcia had endangered minors, including one cooperator who was “a two-time, previously-deported felon, and acknowledged ringleader of a human smuggling operation” who’d cut a deal for early release from the government. Testimony from a second cooperator was similarly unreliable because “his requested release from jail and delay of another deportation depends on providing information the government finds useful.”

The government had not been able to prove that Abrego Garcia transported immigrant minors, but both male cooperators had claimed that he had endangered his own children.

“Both male cooperators stated that, other than three or four trips total without his children, Abrego typically took his children with him during the alleged smuggling trips from Maryland to Houston and back, some 2,900 miles round-trip, as often as three or four times per week,” Holmes wrote.

“The sheer number of hours that would be required to maintain this schedule, which would consistently be more than 120 hours per week of driving time, approach physical impossibility. For that additional reason, the Court finds that the statements of the first and second male cooperators are not reliable to establish that this case ‘involves a minor victim.’

“There is no dispute the offenses of which Abrego is charged are not crimes against children and the involvement of a minor child is not an element of the charged offenses,” Holmes wrote, disputing the government’s claim that Abrego Garcia’s alleged criminal activity technically “involves minor victims.”

Holmes scheduled another hearing for Wednesday to discuss the conditions of Abrego Garcia’s release, but the government is expected to detain him upon release. The government has already filed a motion to appeal Holmes’s decision and asked her to stay her order, arguing without evidence that Abrego Garcia could be deported in the future.

Donald Trump is kicking Representative Thomas Massie out of the MAGA tent for daring to object to war with Iran.

“GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, re-sharing a lengthy screed he had posted about Massie the day before.

Trump had written that “Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is.” “Actually, MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him. He is a negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO,’ no matter how good something may be,” the far-right leader posted on Truth Social Sunday.

The sudden rift followed accusations by Massie that war with Iran was “not constitutional.” Massie also chastised House Speaker Mike Johnson for practically handing over Congress’s sole authority to declare war to the White House, questioning online why the leading Republican lawmaker did not “call us back from vacation to vote on military action if there was a serious threat to our country.”

Massie offered Trump a full-throated endorsement in the 2024 race on the basis that he would prevent “needless wars abroad.”

“He’s a simple minded ‘grandstander’ who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level Nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ at every chance they get,” Trump continued in his brutal laceration of Massie on Sunday. “We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the ‘bomb’ right out of their hands (and they would use it if they could!) but, as usual, and despite all of the praise and accolades received, this ‘lightweight’ Congressman is against what was so brilliantly achieved last night in Iran.”

But Trump’s framing defies the reality of Iran’s nuclear program. For months, American intelligence officials have asserted that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” In a June report, the Congressional Research Service underscored that “Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.”

Instead, Iran has argued that it is seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is presumed to be Israel, which will not confirm or deny possessing what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates are approximately 90 nuclear weapons.

But American intel is apparently disposable to the Republican president. Instead—just as his campaign had promised prior to the election—loyalty remains his chief internal interest. In his Truth Social post, Trump attempted to tear Massie down as “weak, ineffective,” and “disrespectful to our great military, and all that they stand for.”

“Massie should drop his fake act and start putting America First, but he doesn’t know how to get there—he doesn’t have a clue!” the president continued, calling on Massie to advance the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that would gut Medicaid, make the wealthy wealthier and the poor poorer, increase the deficit by nearly $2 trillion over the next four years, and raise it much more in the years after that, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate. Massie was one of two Republican lawmakers to vote against it last month.

“MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague!” Trump added, threatening to unseat Massie in the midterms. “I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard.”

By the end of the day, Trump and his extraordinarily well-funded political machine had formed a super PAC aimed at kicking Massie out of national politics for good.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday condemned Israel and U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.

Iran sent Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Moscow on Monday to lobby Putin for more support against Israel’s act of war. 

“The absolutely unprovoked aggression against Iran has no basis and no justification,” Putin said to Araghchi during the meeting. “We have long-standing, good, reliable relations with Iran. 

Russia and Iran are old allies. And while Putin has offered mediation and rhetorical reassurance, he has stopped short of fully joining the war or offering more concrete assistance, likely due to fear of further alienating President Trump and the U.S. in the midst of his own war on Ukraine.

On Sunday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a top Putin ally, noted in a series of X posts that “a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.” This news, if true, could have cataclysmic implications. 

Iran is reportedly still weighing retaliation options against Israel and the United States. And how much actual support Russia can and will provide remains to be seen.  

Donald Trump’s major edge, per his administration, is that he’s not “dumb” like our other presidents.

Speaking with NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Vice President turned war salesman JD Vance attempted to sway Americans on the America’s sudden involvement in attacking Iran by asking for more blind faith in its most powerful convicted fraudster.

“I simply empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” Vance said. “I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives.”

The war, Vance continued, “is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing.”

“We’ve got in, we’ve done the job of setting their nuclear program back,” he said. “We’re going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years, and that is what the president has set out to do. Simple principle: Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

For the record: The majority of Americans do not want to be at war with Iran. Just last year, that lot would have likely included the vice president.

Vance is possibly the most unlikely person to pitch the war effort. In 2023, the Ohio lawmaker spoke effusively about Trump’s aversion to global conflict during his first presidential term, and endorsed Trump in the 2024 race under the pretense that the MAGA leader wasn’t “starting any wars.”

Vance’s own sales pitch comes with a heaping dose of delusion: “We’re not at war,” he told NBC. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

Iran has argued that it is seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is presumed to be Israel, which will not confirm or deny possessing what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates are approximately 90 nuclear weapons.

War with Iran goes against the recent advice of America’s intelligence officials. Speaking with lawmakers in March, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard left no room for doubt: “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” she said. In a June report, the Congressional Research Service underscored that “Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.”

But Trump flagrantly disregarded his own appointee’s intel ahead of the attack.

“I don’t care what she said,” he told reporters on Tuesday on Air Force One. “I think they were very close to having one.”

Meanwhile, Trump has tapped Thomas Fugate, a 22-year-old fan with no national security experience, to run America’s counterterrorism hub, along with an $18 million grant program to combat extremism, ProPublica reported.

It seems that Donald Trump is interested in more than simply upending Iran’s nuclear capabilities: Now he’s signaling he wants a new government, setting the stage for a drawn out conflict in the Middle East. 

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Sunday.  

Trump’s post represents a departure from his administration’s rhetoric about his decision to drag the United States into the conflict between Israel and Iran with massive strikes on three nuclear facilities over the weekend. 

Vice President JD Vance insisted on NBC News’s Meet the Press Sunday that a regime change was not the objective of the U.S. military operation. “We’re not at war with Iran,” Vance said. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

But ever since shrugging off his own government’s intelligence telling him that Iran did not have nuclear capabilities, Trump has been in lockstep with another state entirely: Israel, which has insisted on the threat of Iran’s nascent nuclear capabilities, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has openly pushed for a new regime. 

Last week, Netanyahu said that assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was “not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict.”

Axios reported that Trump has been more reluctant to target Khamenei. A senior administration official described his thinking to Axios as: “It’s the Ayatollah you know versus the Ayatollah you don’t know.”

But Trump certainly hasn’t strayed away from threatening him. 

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote in another post on Truth Social last week. “He is an easy target, but is safe there—We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

It seems that Trump may be unsure of the results of his strike, which he claimed was a success, though Vance would not confirm with 100 percent certainty that all of Iran’s nuclear sites had been destroyed. It seems that the Trump administration could be setting the stage for more military action in Iran—which has vowed to respond to the U.S. strike. 

Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his claim that Tulsi Gabbard is wrong about Iran’s supposed nuclear capabilities.

After disembarking Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, the president played dumb when confronted with a major discrepancy between his claims about Iran and what U.S. intelligence had to say.

“So you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon,” one reporter said. “Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.”

“Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?” Trump asked.

“Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,” the reporter replied.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said.

Earlier this year, Gabbard testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that according to the Annual Threat Assessment, Iran was years away from acquiring nuclear weapons of their own.

When asked about this discrepancy earlier this week, Trump replied, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it.”

In an effort to back Israel’s sweeping military operation in Iran, Trump has continually ignored intel provided by his own government. And Gabbard has made desperate attempts to rewrite her previous statements to get in line with the president’s newfound beliefs about Iran.

Trump has continued to play dumb (or maybe just be dumb) when asked any question about Iran. He repeatedly claimed that he would give Iran two weeks to weigh U.S. involvement—a timestamp he often uses to push things off until people forget about them—and said that he “might” support a ceasefire.

Mahmoud Khalil is finally being released from ICE custody, more than three months after he was detained for his involvement in Columbia University’s pro-Palestine protests.  

In a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz found that Khalil did not present a flight risk or a danger to his community and that the government should release him on bail, according to Lawfare’s managing editor, Tyler McBrien. 

Farbiarz asserted that there were extraordinary circumstances surrounding Khalil’s detainment, including a chilling effect on his First Amendment rights. The judge also noted that Khalil’s invocation of a due process punishment claim, meaning that the government was attempting to use immigration law as a punitive measure, was substantial enough to warrant his release. 

The judge has asked the government to determine conditions for Khalil’s release, which has been set to take place later Friday.

Dr. Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, released a statement in response to the judge’s order. “After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” she said, referring to the couple’s infant son. 

“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”

Last week, Farbiarz ruled that the government could not deport the green card holder on the grounds that he was a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests or would create a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” if released. But Farbiarz then sided with the government, which argued that it could continue to detain Khalil because he had supposedly lied on his green card application. 

The U.S. government alleged that Khalil purposefully failed to divulge his work as an unpaid intern for the United Nationals Relief and Work Agency and “withheld his membership of certain organizations” when applying for a visa, which was grounds for his removal. The U.S. government also claimed Khalil had failed to disclose his work with the Syria office in the British Embassy in Beirut, as well as his involvement with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian activism group at his school. 

Khalil entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 and applied for permanent residency in 2024. He is married to an American citizen.

Across the country, federal judges have ordered the release of multiple students and faculty detained as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. Khalil has remained in ICE custody since March, forcing him to miss the birth of his child. 

This story has been updated.