Trump Threatens to Charge Reporters With Treason as Iran War Spirals

Donald Trump is accusing media outlets of committing treason over their Iran war coverage.

On Truth Social Sunday, Trump made a long-winded post accusing Iran of using AI to create fake videos of attacks on U.S. ships and American publications of “false reporting,” calling out The Wall Street Journal by name. In one instance, he cited a fake video of the USS Abraham Lincoln “burning uncontrollably in the ocean.”

“Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at — Iran knows better than to do that! The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” Trump ranted. “The fact is, Iran is being decimated, and the only battles they ‘win’ are those that they create through AI, and are distributed by Corrupt Media Outlets. The Radical Leftwing Press knows this full well, but continues to go forward with false stories and LIES.”

Trump went on to praise FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr for threatening “the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.” Carr on Saturday threatened to revoke the broadcasting licenses of local outlets that he determined to be sharing “fake” news.

The president has long attacked media outlets for even the slightest bit of critical coverage against him, but the weaponization of the FCC in his second term adds cause for concern with this post. Under Carr’s tenure, the FCC has attacked multiple TV networks including NBC, ABC, and CBS, citing various excuses including DEI and new interpretations of existing statutes.

Trump officials such Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are also lashing out at the media, openly gloating as right-wing ownership gets closer to running CNN. As Trump’s war with Iran continues to go poorly, he will continue to lash out at anyone who points out the obvious. Will this come with an attempt to censor the press?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday that the United States is “fine” with allowing Iranian oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz—due to the surging oil prices thanks to Trump’s war.

“The Iranian ships have been getting out already, and we’ve let that happen to supply the rest of the world,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan. “We think that there will be a natural opening that the Iranians are letting out, and for now we’re fine with that. We want the world to be well supplied.”

Asked whether the Trump administration will take any additional actions to address skyrocketing oil prices, Bessent said “it will depend on the duration of the conflict.” Iran, however, is very much profiting, as they’ve maintained their ability to move oil around the world—mostly to China.

This comes just hours after President Trump virtually begged China, France, and other U.S. allies for help ushering oil through the strait.

The United States doesn’t seem to be “allowing” anything here. The Strait of Hormuz is lined with explosives and under Iranian control. Bessent’s admission seems like panicked capitulation based on skyrocketing oil prices rather than some kind of diplomatic tactic.

An Afghan man who worked with the United States military for more than a decade was dragged away from his two children at the preschool drop-off line. A day later, he was dead.

Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal was detained by federal immigration agents in Richardson, Texas, Friday while dropping off his two children at preschool, according to his brother, Naseer Paktiawal, who spoke to CBS News.

“He was arrested in front of these kids while taking them to school at seven in the morning. Some people surrounded him, put him in the car, and drove him away while they were screaming, asking for help,” Naseer Paktiawal told CBS News.

Before emigrating to the United States in 2021, Paktiawal was a member of the Afghan special forces who was hired by the U.S. government. He worked with them for more than a decade. “He was a hero to his family, to his people, and to his country,” his brother told CBS News.

According to ICE, Mohammed Nazeer Paktiawal was “paroled into the U.S. by an immigration officer,” or granted temporary permission to enter the country under Operation Allies Refuge, an evacuation effort for allied Afghan nationals that took place under the Biden administration. ICE told CBS News, however, that Nazeer Paktiawal had provided no record of his military service. His parole had expired in August 2025, the agency said.

ICE claimed that he had previously been arrested for SNAP fraud and theft.

The evening of his arrest, in the processing room of ICE’s Dallas field office, Paktiawal complained of shortness of breath and chest pain. He was then transferred to Parkland Hospital, where he received treatment and a doctor bade him to stay for observation. The next morning, medical staff observed that his tongue had become swollen. Later, after cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other lifesaving measures, Paktiawal was declared dead.

“All I want,” said Naseer Paktiawal, “I want justice for my brother. I don’t need anything else from this government.”

The number of detainee deaths at ICE facilities has significantly increased as nearly 70,000 people are currently held in detention and the agency has stopped paying for health care altogether.

ICE has repeatedly failed to disclose information about detainee deaths, according to Zeteo.

As of Monday, ICE’s detainee death reporting webpage only lists two deaths in 2026. But ICE has published press releases documenting nine deaths since the beginning of 2026—a year that began with one detainee being choked to death by a guard.

Just two weeks into the war that he started, Donald Trump has resorted to begging other countries for assistance in securing the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump claimed that other regions of the world—such as China—depend more on the Middle East waterway than the U.S. does, and should therefore be leading the charge in reopening the bomb-laden strait.

“I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory. It’s the place from which they get their energy. And they should come and they should help us protect it,” Trump said. “Why are we maintaining the Hormuz Strait when it’s really there for China and many other countries? Why aren’t they doing it?”

Situated between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important energy transit point in the world, funneling approximately one-fifth of all crude oil shipments. Iran began laying mines across the passageway last week, effectively sealing in the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman from the rest of the open ocean.

Trump insisted that China gets about 90 percent of its crude oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz, though analysts that spoke with CNBC disagree, noting to the business network that “Beijing has spent the past two decades diversifying energy supplies and building strategic reserves to mitigate potential disruptions.”

In 2024, the U.S. imported roughly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the strait, accounting for roughly seven percent of total U.S. crude imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, the president insisted that nations “affected by Iran’s attempted closure” of the strait would be sending warships to the area. He specifically named China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the U.K. as countries he hoped would contribute.

Nonetheless, some of America’s named allies have already rejected Trump’s plea. French President Emmanuel Macron said he would send the French navy to escort tankers, but only after the conflict stabilizes. Leaders from the U.K., Germany, Poland, and Spain have outright refused to get involved.

The U.S. president is attempting to strong-arm Beijing into the matter, openly weighing the possibility of delaying his planned summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping if his economic adversary does not participate in his war plan, reported the Financial Times Sunday.

Trump still has yet to receive Congress’s approval for the war, or formally address the American public about the deadly conflict. In failing to do so, he has broken tradition with every other president before him.

So far, 13 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. More than 1,200 Iranian civilians have been killed, including dozens of children at a girls’ school in the country’s south. Some 3.2 million people have been displaced as U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran have damaged more than 42,000 civilian sites, including homes, hospitals, and schools, according to Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani.

President Donald Trump really doesn’t want to talk about sending more U.S. servicemembers to die in the Middle East, after he’d already claimed the war was won. 

The Pentagon is moving 5,000 additional Marines and several warships to the Middle East, amid Iran’s continued attacks on the Strait of Hormuz that have paralyzed global trade and sent oil prices skyrocketing.

Speaking to the press aboard Air Force One Sunday, Trump cast aside questions about the deployment. 

“Can you explain why we’re sending 5,000 Marines and sailors?” asked one reporter. “Can you explain why you’re—”

“You’re a very obnoxious person,” Trump said, before quickly moving on. 

He also appeared to sidestep questions about the U.S. servicemembers who had already been killed in retaliatory attacks. 

“Do you have a comment on the six servicemembers who passed?” asked another reporter.

“Who else?” Trump said, searching for another question before quickly departing.

Trump’s refusal to speak about these servicemembers is the clearest sign that the president is unable—or unwilling—to grasp the human cost of the U.S. and Israel’s military onslaught on Iran.  

Last week, Trump confusedly claimed the war was “won” but that the U.S. must stick around to “finish the job.” On Thursday, he insisted that rising gas prices are actually good—surely a winning political message. Now, it seems that Trump’s increasingly expensive and divisive war will continue. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged Friday that the U.S. military had opened a comprehensive investigation into the attack on an Iranian elementary school.

Yet seconds after he tacitly acknowledged evidence indicating America’s role in the bloodshed, Hegseth insisted that the United States “never” targets civilians during foreign conflicts.

Responding to a reporter’s query about the February 28 incident, which left at least 175 dead—most of them children, Hegseth said that the department would not let leaks to the press “lead us or force our hand into indicating” what occurred, “because the truth matters.”

He did, however, reveal that U.S. Central Command “has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation.”

“The command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident, and the investigating officer is from outside CENTCOM and is a—is a general officer,” Hegseth said. “But I will note to this group and to the world, there’s only one entity in this conflict between us and Iran that never targets civilians, literally never targets civilians.”

In the weeks since the attack, a growing mountain of evidence has suggested that the U.S. military was responsible for the strike in Minab, a city in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan.

A U.S. assessment report leaked last week found that the strike was “likely” the fault of an American Tomahawk missile. It noted that American forces did not intentionally target the school and could have hit it in error. One hypothesis included the possibility that the U.S. had relied on dated intelligence that incorrectly assumed the school was part of an Iranian military base.

“The Pentagon does not typically conduct such investigations of another country’s military operations,” reported The Washington Post.

Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gave a border wall contract to a company that illegally smuggled workers into the country, provided them guns, and ignored them when they got involved in a shootout. 

The Daily Beast reports that the Texas-based SLSCO Ltd. has two contracts with DHS worth a total of $1 billion to build the border wall in Laredo and Del Rio, Texas. Noem personally approved the contracts. The company also has a contract to build the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility in Florida, and during the first Trump administration, won bids of close to $2 billion to build the border wall. 

But SLSCO, a major Republican donor, was accused in court of smuggling Mexican nationals into the country as workers, later giving them guns to work as guards. Two of the company’s former security contractors, an ex-FBI special agent and a former sheriff’s deputy in San Diego, filed a lawsuit against SLSCO over alleged “human and weapons smuggling” over the U.S. border with Mexico. 

The lawsuit states that the pair started working for the company in 2019 and discovered migrants working illegally for SLSCO at border wall sites in southern California, as well as armed Mexican nationals working as guards. In July of that year, those guards reportedly got into a firefight with a different group of migrants who were trying to steal from SLSCO construction sites. 

But after the two contractors raised the issue with their superiors, nothing happened. The ex-FBI agent then told the bureau about the smuggling and the shootout, and shortly afterward, the two contractors were fired, which they allege was retaliation. But the lawsuit never made it to court because the two plaintiffs dismissed the case voluntarily. SLSCO doesn’t seem to have ever commented publicly about it, according to The Daily Beast.  

It’s yet another black mark on Noem’s disastrous tenure at DHS. The agency shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis on her watch while carrying out the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation agenda. Noem also faced criticism for hiring an eight-day-old company for a $220 million ad campaign for ICE, spending millions on luxury jets, and buying 2,500 trucks for ICE that the agency can’t even use, among numerous other misdeeds. What other ill-advised purchases has she saddled taxpayers with? 

A federal judge has quashed the Justice Department’s subpoenas directed at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

In a scathing 27-page opinion, Judge James Boasberg said Friday that the government has produced “essentially zero evidence” to substantiate its criminal case against Powell.

“A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” Boasberg wrote. “On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime.”

Donald Trump’s myriad tweets railing against the Federal Reserve chief—and their clear correlation to the DOJ’s probe—did not help the government’s case.

“The President spent years essentially asking if no one will rid him of this troublesome Fed Chair,” the judge continued. “He then suggested a specific line of investigation into him, which had been proposed by a political appointee with no role in law enforcement, who hinted that it could be a way to remove Powell. The President’s appointed prosecutor promptly complied.

“Those facts strongly imply that this investigation was launched for an improper purpose, as were the resulting subpoenas,” Boasberg wrote.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, a Trump appointee whose office is leading the investigation, promised to appeal the decision.

The judge “has neutered the grand jury’s ability to investigate crime; as a result Jerome Powell today is ​now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve,” Pirro claimed, accusing Boasberg of being an “activist judge.”

“This is wrong and without legal authority,” she added.

Powell has been the subject of the president’s ire for months, facing enormous Oval Office criticism for his repeated refusal to cut interest rates as Trump sees fit. The investigation was ostensibly about the cost of renovations to the Fed’s office buildings, which occurred under Powell’s stewardship but which were nonetheless wildly exaggerated by the president as a pretext to attack Powell.

The law mandates that the Fed be politically independent, yet Powell has argued that Trump is attempting to diminish confidence in the central bank in order to gain more influence over America’s monetary policy.

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” Powell said in January when the subpoenas were first announced.

This story has been updated.

The U.S. is deploying to the Middle East a Marine expeditionary unit that can conduct ground operations if needed.

Multiple outlets reported Friday that the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, which is based in Japan, is being sent to the Middle East, along with multiple other warships and fighter jets. The attached 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has thousands of Marines and sailors and can offer land, amphibious, and aviation support.

The move could be to potentially aid the U.S. Navy in escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz—but it does not inspire faith in the success or point to the conclusion of the war on Iran, especially given that it will take the Marines 10 days to two weeks to reach the region. Just hours ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated, “We’re on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before … their missile force is shrinking daily.”

Iran’s retaliatory blockade and oil tanker attacks on the Strait have cost the United States $11 billion so far, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Donald Trump rambled about immigrants’ bad “genetics” Friday, during an unfiltered white supremacist rant. 

Speaking on the phone to Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, Trump complained that while some immigrants simply shouldn’t have been let into the United States, others “go bad.”

“There’s something wrong there. The genetics are not exactly your genetics, it’s one of those problems, Brian,” Trump said. “It’s a terrible thing, and it happens, it happens too often.”

Critics slammed Trump’s comment as blatantly racist and speculated that the president might admire more about Adolf Hitler than just his economic and political machinations.  

“Trump is an old school eugenicist nativist. He actually is fine with immigrants as long as they have the right ‘genes,’” David J. Bier, director of immigration for the Cato Institute, wrote on X. “This argument was the basis of the creation of the restrictive US immigration system 100 years ago.”

“He’s a white supremacist. He doesn’t hide it,” Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan wrote on X. 

This isn’t the first time Trump’s fearmongering about immigrants has crossed the line into talk of genetics. 

Speaking to a conservative radio show host in October 2024, Trump claimed that former Vice President Kamala Harris had allowed murderers with “bad genes” to live in the United States. The year before, Trump channeled the language of Hitler while suggesting that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”