Pete Hegseth Brings in Worst Person Ever on Paranoid Hunt for Leakers

Far-right extremist Laura Loomer says that she is now working with the federal government to identify individuals within the Department of Defense who are leaking information to the press.

Speaking with CNN in an interview published Monday, Loomer claimed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had personally turned to her for help quieting down the noise coming from his department. The self-appointed “loyalty enforcer” has had enormous success influencing the Trump administration from the outside: An analysis by The Daily Beast found that at least 16 individuals were fired from the federal government after Loomer singled them out.

And the White House has noticed her efforts: Following months of Loomer blasting federal employees and political appointees to her 1.7 million followers on X, the president praised her Sunday as a “patriot.”

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told the Beast that Hegseth “appreciates Laura Loomer’s outside advocacy.”

“Personnel is policy, and Laura has taken that motto to heart. At the Department of Defense, we will never stop working to deliver on the President’s America First agenda,” Parnell said. “Qualified individuals who love our country and support the Administration’s priorities will continue to be integral to our efforts.”

Hegseth’s tenure atop the Pentagon has been riddled with scandal. The reputed alcoholic’s foray into national politics started on a dour note, when the former Fox News star was accused of sexual assault. Nearly a dozen of his former network co-workers also claimed that Hegseth’s drinking habits were “concerning.”

Some of Hegseth’s failures include Signalgate—when Hegseth shared sensitive military plans about an imminent bombing in Yemen in a group chat that accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor in chief—and his failure to notify the president before he stalled aid to Ukraine. He also was “reamed out” by Trump over the president’s seriously expensive and lackluster military birthday parade in June, fumbled questions from lawmakers regarding Trump’s authority (or lack thereof) to deploy troops to Los Angeles to quell the city’s anti-ICE protests, and refused to tell Congress that he wanted Ukraine to win in its ongoing offensive against Russia’s invasion, among countless other seismic offenses.

The 45-year-old’s world has continued to shrink in recent months, with Hegseth reportedly only trusting his wife and a small inner circle, as paranoia over his department’s nonstop scandals has consumed him. Mounting frustration and fear has compelled Hegseth to do outrageous things, such as mandate polygraph tests for his own staff. (The polygraphs have ceased since the White House intervened.)

MAGA isn’t MAGA enough anymore for Marjorie Taylor Greene, who seems as surprised as we do at her break with the party that gave her a pulpit.

“I don’t know if the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I’m kind of not relating to the Republican Party as much anymore,” she told The Daily Mail over the weekend. “I don’t know which one it is.”

“I think the Republican Party has turned its back on America First and the workers and just regular Americans,” she added.

Greene has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump since she was elected to Congress in 2020. A megaphone for the conspiracy-addled, she’s promoted a number of antisemitic and white supremacist theories, and recently introduced a bill to ban “weather modification.”

She told The Daily Mail that her fellow Georgia Republicans are just a “good ole boys network,” and expressed frustration at perceived sexism within the party.

“I think there’s other women in our party that are really sick and tired of the way men treat Republican women,” she said. Greene specifically mentioned Elise Stefanik, whose nomination for U.N. ambassador Greene thinks was unjustly rescinded. The post ultimately went to Mike Waltz, who accidentally included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg in his Signal chat.

“How does he get awarded after ‘Signalgate?’” Greene asked. “Isn’t that weird?”

Greene was careful not to criticize Trump specifically, and largely directed her frustration at the party. But she feels that her priorities, such as eliminating funding for the “Obama/Biden/Neocon Ukraine Russia war,” are no longer the priorities of the GOP.

“Like what happened to all those issues?” she asked. “You know that I don’t know what the hell happened with the Republican Party. I really don’t.”

Greene has recently split from Trump on major issues, including continued military aid to Israel and releasing the Epstein files.

Representative Jasmine Crockett has struck a nerve in the MAGA-verse after calling President Trump a “piece of shit” at a Sunday event by the progressive group MoveOn.

The Texas representative spoke about the need for Democrats to get “aggressive” with their reform, for example, by reining in the Supreme Court with a code of ethics.

“Listen, Donald Trump is a piece of shit, we know that. He is,” Crockett said, to applause. “But in a functioning democracy, he still would not be able to get away with this. But he’s been able to get away with this because the House Republicans are complicit. He’s been able to get away with this because Senate Republicans are complicit. But most importantly, the courts, especially the Supreme Court, is complicit.”

Crockett’s characterization of Trump has since been shared widely on X, incensing right-wing users, who have, in turn, attacked her demeanor, appearance, and outfit (Crockett was wearing—brace yourself—ripped jeans). Many, of course, also stooped to gutter racism.

Conservative commentator Kyle Becker said Crockett “has absolutely lost her mind.” The website Conservative Brief wrote that she is “unhinged” and “showing clear signs of Trump Derangement Syndrome that prevents her from wearing decent clothes.” “Very classy,” wrote an “America First” user.

Another prominent MAGA account called Crockett an “attention whore,” and apparently attempted to get X’s chatbot, Grok, to make a lewd joke about how she “may have gotten knee holes on her Black Jeans.” When Grok failed to produce the user’s clearly desired joke about fellatio, the account requested that it “be more creative and remove the woke crap.”

Pro-Trump commentator David Freeman (known on X by the alias Gunther Eagleman) called the congresswoman “Ghetto Trash.” “Tell me she is not ghetto!!” wrote another popular right-wing account.

It’s all a bit rich coming from a crowd who will defend to the last breath a president who’s done more than any individual to make political language more unhinged and coarse.

Trump, after all, is a byword for name calling and repeatedly employs four-letter words in his public remarks. At his 2024 Madison Square Garden campaign rally, for instance, he called Kamala Harris a “shit vice president.” He has a penchant for calling Crockett (and, frequently, other critics of his who are Black) “low IQ.”

This is to say nothing of the countless reports, some notorious, of Trump using vulgarities in closed-door settings.

A visa to the land of the free may soon cost you $15,000.

The State Department issued a notice Monday saying that it will require bonds of up to $15,000 to secure some tourist and business visas.

The high bond fees, which would be kept as insurance and then refunded when visitors leave the country, will be levied against tourists from countries with high rates of overstays, according to the notice. The administration has not yet specified what those countries will be.

The 12-month pilot program is set to go into effect this month, and joins other recent visa restrictions, such as the reinstatement of in-person interviews.

Donald Trump tried this once before: In 2020, during the final months of his presidency, he instituted visa bonds for travelers from a number of African countries. However, the Covid-19 pandemic dampened travel so severely that it didn’t have much impact and the measure was struck down by President Joe Biden when he took office.

This move will likely make travel to the U.S. unaffordable for many at a time when the number of international visits to the U.S. is already plummeting. Forbes projected that Trump’s policies will cost the U.S. up to $29 billion in lost tourism and put millions of jobs at risk—and that’s without visa bonds.

The Trump administration will no longer distribute disaster relief funds to states—unless their cities pledge not to boycott Israeli companies.

The revision targets the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to curb Israel’s violence in Gaza by peeling financial support away from the nation and its businesses.

Trump’s condition will affect $1.9 billion that is supposed to be distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and that would apply to grants for search-and-rescue equipment, emergency manager salaries, backup power systems, and other emergency-related equipment, according to nearly a dozen grant notices reviewed by Reuters. More than a quarter of the funds—approximately $553.5 million—are earmarked for terrorism prevention in high-risk areas such as New York, which stands to receive the largest chunk at $92.2 million.

In order to access the funds, states or cities must certify that they would not avoid or end “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies,” the grant notices state.

But the FEMA notice is just the latest in a long line of warnings from the Trump administration regarding its alliance with Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Department of Homeland Security announced in April that boycotting Israel was forbidden for any state or city intending to receive federal funding, and the White House has rescinded billions of dollars from universities around the country for failing to meet Trump’s metric of support for America’s genocidal Middle Eastern ally.

Specifically targeting New York is another way to challenge New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s chances of running the country’s most populous city. Mamdani’s support for the divestment movement has fueled the ire of the president, who has issued several sharp threats to Mamdani since the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist swept the primary. Those include telling the Queens lawmaker that he “better behave” or face “big problems.” Trump has also baselessly accused Mamdani of being an illegal immigrant.