Dead Troop’s Father Calls Out Pete Hegseth’s Lies on Iran War

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the media that the families of troops killed in the war on Iran offered their full support, telling him to “finish the job.” The father of one of the U.S. service members told NBC News that that was an outright lie.

“What I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength, and through unbreakable resolve was the same from family after family. They said, ‘Finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done,’” Hegseth said Thursday morning.

Charles Simmons—father of 28-year-old Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, one of six service members who died in a refueling plane that crashed in Iraq last week—told a very different story.

“I can’t speak for the other families. When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about,” he told NBC News later Thursday, rejecting Hegseth’s claim that he told him to keep fighting. “No, I didn’t say anything along those lines.… Who wants war? … Sometimes it’s a necessity, and I just don’t know what’s going on.”

While Simmons did note that both Hegseth and President Donald Trump extended genuine compassion and condolences to him, it’s impossible to ignore that Hegseth lied about “family after family” coming up to him to tell him to keep bombing Iran. He used flowery, sentimental language—while misrepresenting the voices of at least one grieving parent—to continue to drum up support for an incredibly unpopular war that has already killed thousands of civilians in Lebanon and Iran.

Republican Senator Katie Britt tried to claim that New York City requires identification to shovel show in an attempt to defend the SAVE Act Thursday.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill, the Alabama politician tried to argue that because many regular parts of daily life require people to produce identification, Republicans’ extreme voter ID bill is just par for the course.

“You can’t rent a home, you can’t go to work, you can’t shovel snow in New York City without an ID, and you can’t get into [Senator] Jon Ossoff’s campaign event. So, I’m pretty sure as we look to try to achieve the American dream, whether that’s getting insurance, whether that’s getting a car, whether that’s signing your kid up for school, you need an ID,” Britt said.

Leaving aside the fact that most Americans don’t have an aspirational dream of buying an insurance policy, Britt is likely piggybacking on Republicans’ jab at a specific New York City government program to help clear the city of snow.

That program hired temporary snow shovelers in severe weather, and, thanks to federal employment laws, required two forms of identification as the job pays up to $30 an hour—a living wage Britt and her fellow Republicans are unfamiliar with. You can shovel all the snow you want in the city without an ID—you just won’t get paid by City Hall.

And all of the parts of the “American dream” Britt mentioned, including getting insurance for some reason, aren’t rights enshrined in the Constitution. Voting is a right guaranteed to all eligible American citizens, and requiring people to produce their passports, passport cards, or their birth certificates, as the SAVE Act mandates, is costly, burdensome, and an illegal poll tax.

Say what you will about our grifter in chief, but during his second term, Donald Trump has managed to slap his name and likeness on more objects than anyone could have imagined.

The newest entry in the crowded field of Trumpjunk, reports The Washington Post, is a commemorative gold coin, approved on Thursday by the Commission of Fine Arts. The coin features an unusually svelte Trump bending over to press his fists down onto a flat surface—presumably a desk, but with some imagination, one could also see it as a railing overhanging a steep cliff face, or a pommel horse that Trump is preparing to vault.

It should be unsurprising to hear that the Commission of Fine Arts, one of the few federal arts commissions Elon Musk didn’t take the time to gut, is entirely filled with Trump appointees. These include Roger Kimball, whose “commentary” on Trump has for years been impressively servile, as well as one of Trump’s former assistants, a 26-year-old named Chamberlain Harris judged by the Post to have “no notable arts expertise.”

But it was another commission member, James McCrery II, who earned the title of Biggest Trump Bootlicker by reportedly spearheading the effort to approve the coin. McCrery told his fellow coin-heads that Treasury officials should print the coin “as large as possible, all the way to three inches in diameter.”

Thankfully, the American people may be spared from having a physical Trump coin in their lives, as the bipartisan Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, or CCAC, also needs to sign off on the design before it can go to the U.S. Mint—and that committee rejected the coin last month. While Trump could theoretically try to produce the coin anyway, he “would probably face legal challenges,” according to the Post.

Retired basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who served on the CCAC a decade ago, told the Post he was “not enthusiastic about memorializing Mr. Trump on a coin because he has done so much damage to our country.” Michael Moran, a Republican first nominated to the CCAC in 2011 and reappointed by Senator Mitch McConnell in 2025, similarly denounced the coin. “It goes against American culture and the traditions that drive what we put on our coinage,” Moran said. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Join the club, Mike!

The federal government is dropping its case against Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen with autism and a traumatic brain injury who was dragged from her car and arrested by ICE agents while on the way to a doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis in January.

Rahman was recently arrested by Capitol Police for “disruption of Congress” while attending the State of the Union as Representative Ilhan Omar’s guest. She was facing up to six months in prison for her silent protest.

“The government did the right thing today when it ultimately decided not to file any criminal charges against Aliya,” Jessica Gingold, Rahman’s lawyer, told HuffPost, which first reported the news. “Aliya should never have been arrested in the first place—she committed no crime and did nothing wrong.… While we celebrate that no criminal case will go forward, the experience of being singled out for standing and roughly arrested has not been without its costs to Aliya and is now yet another thing from which Aliya must heal.”

“The impact of this arrest has been a weight on me since the State of the Union,” Rahman said in a statement, “a particularly heavy weight considering the fact that for the second time in two months I was arrested in a heavy-handed way for committing no crime.” Rahman said, “I am grateful that the government chose not to file charges. I will continue my steadfast focus on helping my community in Minneapolis and healing from the wounds inflicted on me by my own government.”

A 19-year-old Mexican teenager arrested over a minor traffic infraction died in an ICE facility in south Florida this week.

Royer Perez-Jimenez died on Monday of a “presumed suicide” in his cell at Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, Florida, according to a statement from ICE. His official cause of death remains under investigation.

Perez-Jimenez was arrested on January 22 after police officers spotted him crossing multiple lanes of traffic on a scooter without using a crosswalk, according to the Miami New Times. When officers tried to arrest him, the teenager refused to stop and provided false names. He was charged with felony fraud for impersonation and misdemeanor resisting an officer.

Perez-Jimenez eventually told police he had overstayed his visa, and ICE placed a detainer on him. He was moved to ICE custody on February 21, and then into Glades County Detention Center a few days later. During his intake, he denied having behavioral health issues and answered no to all suicide screening questions.

Perez-Jimenez is the thirteenth person to die in ICE custody this year, and the thirty-sixth person to die in detention since Donald Trump launched his sweeping immigration crackdown. He is also the youngest to die in custody since Trump resumed office.

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 web page 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.

Republicans in Congress may not be on board with sending hundreds of billions of dollars in additional funding for the war with Iran.

The Department of Defense asked the White House for over $200 billion in additional funding for the war, and that price tag is proving to be too steep for even Donald Trump’s allies. Representative Lauren Boebert told CNN Thursday that “I am a no. I have already told leadership. I am a no on any war supplemental. I am so tired of spending money over there.”

“I have folks in Colorado who can’t afford to live. We need America first policies right now,” Boebert added. While other Republicans haven’t come out as a firm no like her, they are expressing misgivings with the staggering cost attached to the war, which could make the Pentagon request dead on arrival.

“What are we doing? We’re talking about boots on the ground. We’re talking about that kind of extended activity. Now we’re in a whole ‘nother zip code,” Representative Chip Roy said to the news outlet. “They got a whole lot more briefing and a whole lot more explaining to do on how we’re going to pay for it, and what’s the mission here?”

One of Trump’s few Republican critics in Congress, Representative Thomas Massie, echoed concerns about the cost and the time frame of the war.

“It begs the question, how long do they plan to be there? What are the goals? Is this the first $200 billion? Does this turn into a trillion?” Massie asked.

Senator Lisa Murkowski said that she wouldn’t approve any more funding for the war until the Trump administration explained its plans to Congress.

“The people in Alaska are asking me how long is this going on? Are there going to be boots on the ground, how much is this going to cost?” Murkowski told CNN Thursday. “The answer to most of this is I don’t know.”

Trump’s actual goal for the war still isn’t clear, as members of his administration—and Israeli officials—have offered shifting explanations. In a Thursday congressional hearing, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard admitted that the U.S. and Israel aren’t aligned on the war’s endgame, saying that Trump is more focused on Iran’s offensive weapons capability while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking total regime change, which would require more funding and more time.

If that means ground troops, more Republicans may openly come out and oppose the war going any further. Representative Tim Burchett told CNN, “I think we need to find an exit strategy as fast as possible. I don’t want to put Americans on the ground out there in any shape, form or fashion.”

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard admitted that there are key differences in the Israeli and U.S. goals in their joint war on Iran.

At a House hearing on Thursday, Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro asked Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and a panel of other intelligence operatives if the U.S. and Israel are “aligned” on the war. Gabbard used a lot of words to confirm that the answer was essentially “no.”

“The objectives that have been laid out by the president are different from the objectives that have been laid out by the Israeli government,” Gabbard testified. “We can see through the operations that the Israeli government has been focused on disabling the Iranian leadership and taking out several members, obviously beginning with the ayatollah, the supreme leader, and they continue to focus on that.”

“How does that differ from our goals?” Castro continued.

“The president has stated that his objectives are to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile–launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability, and their navy, the IRGC navy, and mine-laying capability,” Gabbard replied.

While both options are destructive, it seems that the stated Israeli objective is a long, drawn-out regime change war—as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing for for decades—while the United States, at least initially, seemed to leave the option of an off-ramp open. These two competing aims can only coexist for so long.

Donald Trump claimed Thursday that $200 billion more going to an unpopular, illegal overseas war wasn’t all that big a deal.

During a White House meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Trump was asked about the Pentagon’s request to Congress for $200 billion to support the ongoing war in Iran. The request was first reported on Wednesday by The Washington Post.

After waffling about how good U.S. anti-air equipment was at shooting Iranian missiles down, Trump said that the money was “a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy-top.”

The Pentagon’s request may struggle to pass Congress, as even some Republicans are beginning to balk at the amount being spent on the unpopular war.

The first six days of the war cost taxpayers over $11.3 billion. In addition to this $200 billion request, Trump has petitioned Congress to increase the defense budget by $500 billion to $1.5 trillion in 2027, which would be by far the highest figure ever. (The Pentagon has yet to submit its official 2027 budget request.)

It all looks like a slap in the face for average Americans, who face a struggling economy at home: Inflation is rising, job creation is low, and gas prices are through the roof. Trump has blown through the money saved by cutting medical research grants and food bank programs, leaving “America First” feeling more and more like a pipe dream.

As President Donald Trump bragged once again Thursday about how the war was essentially over, Iran is believed to have hit its first U.S. military jet since the war began.

A U.S. military aircraft flying a combat mission was struck by what is suspected to be an Iranian missile and forced to make an emergency landing in the Middle East. A U.S. F-35 fighter jet costs upward of $100 million. “The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,” said Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command. “This incident is under investigation.”

Additionally, fallen shrapnel struck the Bazan oil refinery in Haifa, Israel, but did not cause “significant damage,” according to Israel’s energy minister. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said that it had targeted refineries across Israel, but it wasn’t clear if another refinery had been hit.

While Iran continued to launch retaliatory attacks, Trump continued to claim a premature victory.

Speaking to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi Thursday, Trump once again bragged about the destruction of Iran’s military capability.

“We’ve demolished—their country is close to demolished,” Trump said. “The only thing is the Strait. It’s very hard, you could take two people and they could drop little bombs in the water, and they’re holding things up. But we don’t want that to happen.”

Trump was referring to the Strait of Hormuz, where global trade has come to an abrupt halt due to the threat of Iranian strikes and mines.

FBI Director Kash Patel doesn’t want to take responsibility for his decision to fire an entire team of Iran experts days before the Trump administration attacked the country.

On Thursday, Patel was called to testify about national security before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and Democratic Representative Steve Cohen confronted Patel and asked him when he knew about the administration’s plans to attack Iran.

Initially, Patel said that he’d answer that question in a classified setting, but when Cohen pressed him further, he admitted he knew more than a month before. Cohen then got to the heart of the problem.

“With that knowledge, why did you fire at least a dozen agents in Counterintelligence Unit 12 that specializes in Iran counterintelligence, which makes us much less secure and safe with this war going on from Iranian attacks potentially against our country?” the Tennessee congressman asked.

“I don’t work on timelines when these terminations occur,” Patel replied, saying the firings were the result of unethical or inappropriate behavior. Cohen pressed Patel on whether the people fired were Iran experts, to which Patel said he didn’t believe so.

“They worked in counterintelligence, did they not?” Cohen replied, his voice rising. Patel replied, “I’m taking you at your word sir, I’m not familiar with—”

“You’re the director, I’m not,” Cohen interrupted. “You should know the answer. You fired the people. Where did they work?”

Patel said that the employees were fired for ethical violations, to which Cohen asked if those ethical violations concerned classified documents found in Donald Trump’s bathroom at Mar-a-Lago. Patel said he wouldn’t comment on pending litigation.

It’s hard to believe Patel was intimately familiar with the employees’ ethics violations but had no information about what their jobs even were. Throughout his tenure at the FBI, Patel has done little but promote himself, party on the taxpayer’s dime, and give Trump whatever he wants, including revenge for the bureau’s criminal investigations into the president. Evidently, protecting the American public from threats is a lesser priority.