JD Vance Completely Undercuts Pete Hegseth on Qatar Military Base

Vice President JD Vance appeared desperate to claim “fake news” Sunday about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s wild announcement that a Qatari Emiri air force facility would be built in Idaho.

Last week, Hegeth announced that the United States would build a facility in America’s heartland to “host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots,” summoning a tidal wave of disapproval from both sides of the aisle over the first foreign airbase to be built on U.S. soil.

But in an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Mornings Futures With Maria Bartiromo, Vance tried to backtrack the secretary’s claim, saying the whole thing was the sad product of “misreporting.”

“What is the function of this Qatar facility? People are wondering is this an airbase? What is Qatar gonna be developing in Idaho?” Bartiromo asked.

“Yeah, I saw some reporting about this, Maria. I actually talked to the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this morning. This is largely a fake story,” Vance said.

“We continue to have, with countries that we work with, we have relationships where sometimes their pilots work on our bases, sometimes that we train together, sometimes we work together in other ways. The reporting that somehow there’s going to be a Qatari base on United States soil, that’s just not true,” he said.

“We are continuing to work with a number of our Arab friends to ensure that we are able to enforce this peace, but we’re not gonna let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil, so there was a bit of misreporting on that, as there often is, as you know, Maria.”

But there was nothing to misreport. Hegseth clearly said Friday that the Pentagon was “signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri air force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho.”

Within days, either the White House seems to have shifted the goalposts on this deal, or Vance is simply lying to calm the angry mob. Or maybe no one knows what the hell is going on. Either way, the Trump administration is being less than transparent about its deal with Qatar, a country whose gifts the White House has readily accepted.

Try as he might, Vivek Ramaswamy will never be fully accepted by MAGA world.

The Ohio gubernatorial candidate and former DOGE co-chief came face-to-face with the racism rampant among American conservative youth culture Tuesday when he headlined a Turning Point USA event in Montana.

Speaking at Montana State University, Ramaswamy fielded disturbing questions about how he believed he could adequately participate in electoral politics when his religion and ethnic identity don’t align with stereotypical white American ideals.

“Jesus Christ is God, and there is no other God,” said a male student. “How can you represent the constituents of Ohio who are 64 percent Christian if you are not a part of that faith?”

“If you are an Indian, a Hindu, coming from a different culture, different religion than those who founded this country, those who grew this country, built this country, made this country the beautiful thing that it is today,” he continued. “What are you conserving? You are bringing change. I’ll be 100 percent honest with you—Christianity is the one truth.”

A female student asked Ramaswamy why he chose to “masquerade as a Christian.”

Before he became an alternative fixture in Trumpworld, Ramaswamy was a biotech investor, an entrepreneur, and a 2024 Republican presidential candidate. But none of those notches on his belt could atone for the color of his skin or his religion with some members of the Turning Point USA crowd, which was apparently more fixated on Christian nationalism than honoring the First Amendment’s allowances for freedom of religion.

“I’m an ethical monotheist, that’s the way I would describe my faith,” Ramaswamy said in another jarring exchange with a student. “Do you think it’s inappropriate for someone who’s a Hindu to be a U.S. president?”

“No I think it’s—” another male student started, before stopping himself. “But isn’t Charlie Kirk’s organization founded on Christian values as well? And isn’t America based on what Protestantism is and based on how those values are? Wouldn’t that contradict what your beliefs are?”

The tour stop had been scheduled before Turning Point’s founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September. Kirk launched Turning Point to spread conservative ideology among America’s youth.

There are some 900 official college chapters and around 1,200 high school chapters of Turning Point USA across the nation, but the conservative advocacy nonprofit received more than 54,000 inquiries for new campus chapters in the 48 hours after Kirk’s assassination, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet announced last month.

Stephen Miller may have just accidentally confirmed that he, not President Donald Trump, is the one calling the shots in regard to deportation raids and National Guard deployments.

“Illinois governor says we’re provoking actions that are unlawful,” Miller said on CNN on Monday. “Why would the mere presence—just think about this for a second. If I put federal law enforcement and National Guard into a nice sleepy Southern town, is anyone gonna riot?”

Miller’s use of the first person is alarming here, suggesting that he—an unelected deputy chief of staff—has either the complete authority or an outsize influence on the administration’s most authoritarian decisions.

“Miller says quiet part out loud,” one user wrote on X. “He determines where to put ICE, CBP & other federal agencies, but he is also doing the same for various National Guards. An unelected staffer making these decisions, where is the president? Both Miller and Vought are running this admin.”

Additionally, Miller misrepresents small Southern towns and the actions of the National Guard. If hundreds of armed military members descended on some remote Southern locale and started violently rounding up neighbors, employees, and friends, I’d be willing to bet that it wouldn’t go so peacefully.

Miller made the remarks in the same interview where he claimed Trump has “plenary authority,” after being asked whether the administration would abide by court rulings blocking his deployment of troops to American cities.

GOP congressional leaders on Friday smeared an upcoming anti-Trump protest in Washington, D.C., in the most hysterical, demonizing terms.

After House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise referred to the peaceful “No Kings” protest planned for October 18 as a “Hate America rally,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer went one step further, calling it a “terrorist” event.

At a press conference, Emmer accused Democrats of causing the government shutdown in order to “score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold … a ‘Hate America’ rally in D.C. next week.”

Earlier, Johnson had also baselessly attributed the shutdown to the event. Calling the prospective protesters “pro-Hamas” and “antifa,” he told Fox News that Democrats will not “reopen the government until after that rally, ’cuz they can’t face their rabid base.”

“No Kings” events have taken place in towns and cities across the country since President Donald Trump was elected. On June 14, when Trump held a massive military parade in the streets of Washington, D.C., millions of people—of varying political stripes—peacefully protested against his antidemocratic second-term agenda.

The upcoming event will take place nationwide. According to Ezra Levin, who co-leads Indivisible, one of the organizing groups, it is set to be “the largest peaceful protest in modern American history.” And as emphasized on an organizing page, “A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action.”

That hasn’t stopped Republican fearmongering.

Emmer’s remarks echo the ongoing, authoritarian efforts by the Trump administration, spearheaded by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, to crack down on the Democratic Party and political left based on ludicrous accusations of ties to “terrorism.”

President Donald Trump’s administration announced Friday that the government initiated sweeping layoffs of furloughed federal employees—but they might have some trouble actually delivering termination notices amid the government shutdown.

White House budget director Russell Vought announced that the reductions in force were finally underway, after he’d warned federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs as means to force Democrats to approve a stopgap funding measure.

But federal employees sent home on furlough are typically barred from accessing their email accounts, except for in limited cases, CNN reported Friday. The Antideficiency Act—the same law that places some constraints on whether Trump can actually fire federal workers during a shutdown—bars federal employees from doing any work during the shutdown.

One employee at the Department of Agriculture suggested this could delay workers receiving termination notices. “So I guess we won’t find out we’re laid off until after the shutdown ends?” the person told CNN.

Trump administration officials said that employees would also be notified by mail, and that furloughed employees were permitted to use government-issued equipment to check for updates on the reductions in force. So, rather than waiting indefinitely with an axe over their heads, they may know in just a few days, as USPS has not been affected by the shutdown.

Responding to the announcement that layoffs were underway, the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 820,000 government workers, wrote on X, “The lawsuit has been filed.”

The Trump administration’s approval of a Qatari air force base in Idaho isn’t popular with either of America’s political parties.

Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the forthcoming Qatari Emiri Air Force facility in America’s heartland Friday morning, thanking the Middle Eastern nation for playing a “core part” in negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Palestine. Mountain Home Air Force Base will host Qatari F-15 fighter jets and pilots, and allow Qatari forces alongside American troops for F-15 pilot training.

The move, which stands in stark contrast to the president’s “America first” agenda, seriously rattled some of Donald Trump’s most outspoken supporters.

“Never thought I’d see Republicans give terror financing Muslims from Qatar a MILITARY BASE on US soil so they can murder Americans,” posted far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who has operated as Trump’s informal “loyalty enforcer” since August. “I don’t think I’ll be voting in 2026. I cannot in good conscience make any excuses for the harboring of jihadis.”

“This is where I draw the line,” she wrote.

Other conservatives were left bewildered by the seemingly nonsensical decision.

“What’s the strategic rationale for this? Either ours or Qatar’s?” posted the National Review’s Noah Rothman. “You could rattle off all the problems/risks we’re inviting easily. But I have no idea what the steelman case for this would be? I’m sure we don’t need to import any more Qatari covert assets into this country.”

And still others pointed out the inconsistent hypocrisy of the administration’s policies.

“Joe Biden was criticized for a Chinese balloon flying over our airspace,” wrote GOP consultant Mike Madrid. “They’re giving Qatar an entire f’ing air base.”

Dan Caldwell, who was forced out of the DOD during Hegseth’s Signalgate disaster, wrote on X that the joint air force operation was being blown out of proportion.

“The freak out around this is of course totally unwarranted since this is actually a pretty common practice with countries that buy and operate a lot of U.S. military aircraft. Singapore has a similar facility and detachment for its F-15 training unit at this very same airbase,” Caldwell said.

But even beyond the Air Force base, Qatar appears to have bought itself a very sweet spot in Trumpworld. Just months ago, Qatar solidified a deal with the Trump Organization to build a Trump-branded golf course and a beachside project as part of a $5.5 billion development project. The tiny nation also bestowed a wildly controversial super luxury jumbo jet on to Trump, all in an apparent attempt to shore up its relationship with the U.S.’s notoriously flighty leader.

Those transactions began to pay off earlier this month, when Trump signed an executive order that pledged to give the tiny, energy-rich, non-NATO ally the same level of protection from the U.S. as some of America’s most powerful allies.

Virginia Republican gubernatorial hopeful Winsome Earle-Sears seems to have a very loose definition of what is and what is not discrimination. 

Earle-Sears and Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger got into a back-and-forth exchange about transgender people and bathrooms during the Virginia gubernatorial debate on Thursday, before moving on to Earle-Sears’s record on discrimination. 

“My opponent was asked about her record of discrimination,” Spanberger began. “And importantly, my opponent has previously said that she does not think that gay couples should be allowed to marry—” 

“That’s not discrimination!” Earles-Sears interrupted defensively. 

“She is quote unquote ‘morally opposed’ to same sex marriage—”

“That’s not discrimination!” Earles-Sears interrupted again. 

“My opponent has also previously said that she thinks it’s OK for someone to be fired from their job for being gay, that is discrimination—” 

“That’s not discrimination, nooo,” Earles-Sears said yet again.

Earles-Sears did not immediately respond to Spanberger’s examples, instead accusing her of wanting to defund the police. 

If being “morally opposed” to gay marriage and supporting firing people for their sexual orientation isn’t discrimination, what is? 

Sears has been a vocal right-wing firebrand long before she joined Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin as his lieutenant governor. The state’s first Black lieutenant governor has suggested it’s time to move on from slavery, supported making abortions illegal at six weeks and threatened violence against reproductive rights activists, held an assault rifle in her 2021 campaign posters, and thinks “critical race theory” creates “morale problems,” among other things. She and Spanberger are currently fairly close in the race for Virginia’s gubernatorial seat, as The Decision Desk has Spanberger at 51 percent and Earles-Sears at 44 percent.   

The election is on November 4.  

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, announced that the administration has begun firing federal workers en masse.

Vought warned last week that “consequential” layoffs were forthcoming amid the ongoing government shutdown. On Friday, he tweeted, “The RIFs have begun,” referring to “reductions in force.”

Vought, as anticipated, is now using the government shutdown to cull the federal workforce, fulfilling Trump’s recent vow to cut “vast numbers of people out,” as well as slash programs that he says Democrats “like.”

An unnamed White House official told MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard, “We expect thousands of people to unfortunately be laid off due to the government shutdown.” CNN’s Alayna Treene reports that a White House official said that fired workers have begun receiving notices and, “It will be substantial.”

Agencies poised to be affected, according to Politico, include the Departments of the Interior, Treasury, Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Reacting to Vought’s four-word social media announcement, the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 820,000 government workers, shot back: “The lawsuit has been filed.” The AFL-CIO told Vought, “America’s unions will see you in court.”

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize Friday—but that isn’t stopping him from trying to make the prestigious award all about himself.

The president took to Truth Social to share a video of Russian President Vladimir Putin criticizing past winners and praising Trump’s peace efforts on long-standing crises.

“There have been cases where the committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to people who have done nothing for peace,” Putin said, according to the AP’s translation. “A person comes, good or bad, and [gets it] in a month, in two months, boom. For what? He didn’t do anything at all. In my view, these decisions have done enormous damage to the prestige of this prize.

“[Trump’s] really doing a lot to resolve such complex crises that have lasted for years and even decades,” Putin added. The Kremlin had announced earlier Friday that it would support Trump’s bid for a peace prize—but clearly Moscow’s efforts were too little, too late.

“Thank you to president Putin!” Trump wrote when resharing the video.

Trump also shared an X post from this year’s winner, María Corina Machado, a pro-democracy activist and the leader of the opposition party in Venezuela, where she partially dedicated her win to Trump for supporting Venezuela.

“We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” Machado wrote on X. “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”

Trump then proceeded to go back to posting about his efforts to prosecute his political enemies, namely New York Attorney General Letitia James, who was indicted Thursday for mortgage fraud by the president’s (seemingly incompetent) former lawyer who was recently installed as a prosecutor in Virginia.

While Trump seemed to avoid having a total temper tantrum (for now, but he’s speaking late Friday afternoon), the White House didn’t spare fighting words.

In announcing the award Friday morning, the Nobel Committee warned about the dangers of unchecked leaders. “When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” the committee said.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson thinks the “No Kings” rally planned for next week is a “Hate America” rally meant to extend the government shutdown—something someone who has never been to a “No Kings” event would say. 

“We’re so angry about it. I’m a very patient guy, but I have had it with these people. They’re playing games with real people’s lives,” Johnson said Friday morning on Fox News, in his usual monotone voice. “The theory we have right now: They have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people, they’re all coming out. Some of the House Democrats are selling T-shirts for the event. It’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally, ’cuz they can’t face their rabid base. This is serious business hurting real people.… I’m beyond words.” 

The “No Kings” rally is a nationwide action with a very simple goal: oppose the blatantly authoritarian tilt of the Trump administration. The protests are supported by groups like the Human Rights Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the College Democrats of America, among others. The rallies have been very tame, and I have run into veterans, federal employees, and mostly older, liberal white people who love America but hate what President Trump is doing. No one there is particularly close to being pro-Hamas, and antifa (whoever that is) would likely consider the action to be insufficiently leftist for them. 

But Johnson can say ridiculous things like this because his party can’t fathom that not everyone who opposes them is some militant anarchist with a Molotov cocktail locked and loaded. The government is shut down because Republicans refuse to negotiate with Democrats on extending health care subsidies millions of Americans rely on, not because Democrats want antifa to destroy the government.