Pentagon Outlines Ways to Punish NATO Over Refusal to Join War

The Department of Defense is brainstorming ways to punish NATO members who didn’t support President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.

Reuters, citing an unnamed U.S. government official, reports that the federal government is considering suspending Spain from the transatlantic alliance and reevaluating the United Kingdom’s claim to the Falkland Islands. The official told the news agency that these options were laid out in an internal Pentagon email.

The Trump administration is upset at NATO countries who have refused to grant the U.S. access to their bases or rights to their airspaces for the Iran war. The email, circulating at the highest levels of the DOD, reportedly said that those rights are “just the absolute baseline for NATO.”

If the U.S. wants to suspend member countries like Spain, it will likely run into pushback from other NATO members. One NATO official told Reuters that “NATO’s Founding Treaty does not foresee any provision for suspension of NATO membership.”

When asked about the email, the Pentagon’s press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, replied, “As President Trump has said, ​despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us.”

“The War Department will ensure that the President has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part. We have no further comment on any internal deliberations to that effect,” Wilson said.

Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO even prior to the Iran war, repeatedly threatening to leave the alliance over petty grievances such as countries rebuffing his desire to “take” Greenland. In recent weeks, he has complained that NATO members won’t help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. On April 1, he again told Reuters that he was “absolutely, without question” considering leaving the organization.

But that would likely require approval from Congress, and Trump would have to go around them and invoke presidential authority over foreign policy, which would face legal challenges. And taking punitive action against our own allies would result in backlash domestically and abroad. But Trump does not respect longstanding alliances, and if he feels slighted, blowing them up is a strong possibility.

Donald Trump would get around to ending the bloody conflict in Iran, but come on—we all deserve a break once in a while!

That was essentially what the president told reporters on Thursday when asked about the ongoing war. After Trump falsely claimed the United States had been involved with Iran for only “five and a half weeks,” a reporter piped up.

“It’s [been] eight weeks that the U.S. now has been involved with Iran,” the reporter said. “You initially had said it would be four to six weeks and it would be over.”

“Well, I hoped that, but I took a little break,” Trump retorted. “I gave them a break.”

If true, the idea that Trump took a two-week-long break from dealing with the war is pretty insane. What was he doing during that period? Watching TV? Brushing up on his figure drawing? DoorDashing McDonalds to the White House? (He actually did do that last one.)

In terms of Trump’s claim that we’ve been at war for less than six weeks, we should note how easily the man elected to lead our country finds it to lie to the public. The reporter is correct in that the U.S. and Israel began launching military strikes on Iran on February 28. Including that day, it has been 55 days since the conflict began, or one day less than eight weeks.

If you wanted to be kind to Trump, you could argue that the ceasefire he announced on April 7—after threatening to destroy Iranian civilization earlier that day—means he is technically correct and the war is already over. Trump indefinitely extended the ceasefire on Tuesday.

But the Strait of Hormuz is still closed amid contentious peace talks, and the Marines fired at and seized an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday. While there is potential for both sides to come to an agreement soon, the conflict isn’t over yet.

Trump admitted as much when a different reporter asked how long he was willing to wait to get a response from Iran during his peace talks.

“Don’t rush me,” Trump said. “We were in Vietnam for 18 years. We were in Iraq for many, many years.” Oh well. At least now he’s actually calling it a war.

Our nearly 80-year-old president appears to have nodded off during a meeting, for the umpteenth time. 

President Trump’s eyes grew visibly heavy around the halfway point of his televised announcement of a deal with drug company Regeneron on Thursday afternoon, closing fully and reopening multiple times while suited Cabinet members and pharmaceutical executives stood behind him in the Oval Office. 

This is the same man who keeps calling former President Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe.” 

The last time Trump dozed off publicly was last month during a Cabinet meeting while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ranted against the media’s coverage of the U.S.-Israeli joint war on Iran and Lebanon. And just days before that, he seemed to fall asleep at a press conference about his Memphis Task Force. From the power naps to the unhinged, genocidal Truth Social posts, there is a wealth of evidence that would—at the very least—lead us to question Trump’s present mental acuity.  

The Department of Justice is auditing itself over the chaotic rollout of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was pushed through Congress by an eclectic bipartisan group even after Donald Trump dismissed it as a “hoax,” made millions of government files on the convicted sex trafficker publically available.

But the slow, sloppy, and still incomplete rollout of the files led to serious questions about what the hell the Department of Justice was doing under then–Attorney General Pam Bondi. The DOJ continues to face accusations it is covering up evidence of Trump’s involvement with Epstein.

Now the department’s Inspector General’s Office is looking into the matter, particularly “how the department collected, reviewed and redacted materials in preparation for their release.”

The first issue relating to the rollout of the files is that the DOJ blew past the 30-day deadline it was given by Congress in November, claiming it needed more time as it had coincidentally discovered more records.

Bondi was also caught lying about the files. She bragged to Fox News in February 2025 that Epstein’s client list was “on her desk”—only for the DOJ to backtrack months later and say the list never existed.

In January, the department released approximately three million files. Great—except nearly 100 victims’ names and nude pictures were mistakenly left visible, while information that might have actually led to some justice being done was redacted. The DOJ withdrew thousands of the files, vaguely blaming the mistake on “technical or human error.” (When an individual releases dozens of nude photos of someone without consent, they go to jail. When Trump’s DOJ does it, no one is even fired!)

The aftermath of the rollout has also been frustrating. No one has been arrested in the U.S. for involvement in Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, even with all the documents outlining his crimes as potential evidence. There are also 2.5 million files that have not yet been released, meaning tons of information about Epstein’s circle is still being withheld from the public.

In a perfect world, this audit would determine what went wrong and be the first step to a full release of the files. But the fact that the review is coming from inside the DOJ gives one little hope that anything will change within the department. Trump has also fired or demoted over 20 inspectors general during his second term, greatly limiting who is able to watch over his corrupt government.

President Donald Trump professes to be tough on crime, yet his administration has let go over 4,000 federal law enforcement employees.

Reuters, citing records it obtained from the Department of Justice’s management unit through the Freedom of Information Act, reports that several agencies have significantly cut their workforce. The FBI has lost 7 percent of its employees, 2,600 in all, since the 2024 fiscal year, while the Drug Enforcement Administration has lost about 6 percent. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has lost 14 percent of its employees.

The DOJ division that handles intelligence and terrorism, the National Security Division, has lost 38 percent of its workers, and told Congress in its last budget request that it had “unprecedented personnel constraints.”

Even the Bureau of Prisons hasn’t been spared: It lost 6 percent of its workforce, or 2,200 employees, with no reduction in the prison population. The bureau now has a staffing crisis, and has been forced to use teachers and nurses as prison guards, while leaving other posts empty.

“The administration talks a big game when it comes to crime and terrorism, but the fact ​that it’s hollowing out agencies tasked with addressing them shows that they don’t stand behind their words,” Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer, told Reuters. She now leads Justice Connection, a group that offers support to departing DOJ staff.

In addition to having fewer employees, many of these agencies have been tasked with assisting the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda instead of conducting their agency’s specific duties. Drug prosecutions are at their lowest levels in over 20 years. Meanwhile, the budget for the Department of Homeland Security has gone up by billions, with ICE becoming the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history.

On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was once again confronted with his elaborate lie regarding his close personal and business relationship with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. His answer was pathetic.

“In October, you told the New York Post with colorful narration that the last time you saw Jeffrey Epstein was in 2005 when you took a tour of his house, which happened to be right next door to yours,” Democratic Representative Madeleine Dean said during Lutnick’s hearing before the House Appropriations Committee. “You claimed you and your wife were ‘so grossed out’ by this disgusting person, you swore you would never go back. But when the Epstein files came out, it turned out that was a lie.… You had visited Epstein’s private island in 2012, four years after Epstein pled guilty [to] soliciting a minor for prostitution and was labeled a sex offender. You brought along your wife, your kids, your nannies to the predator’s island.”

Dean also noted that just days after that 2012 island visit, Lutnick and Epstein signed a business deal together as “coinvestors in a digital advertising company,” collaborating on it until 2018.

“Secertary Lutnick, why did you lie to the New York Post about your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?” Dean asked.

Lutnick began to offer a canned nonanswer, but his microphone was not turned on.

“Please don’t repeat your gracious offer to speak behind closed doors, not under oath, without the ability of this committee to question you,” Dean quipped. “The American people want to know. Why did you lie about your relationship with Epstein?”

Lutnick offered the canned nonanswer again, looking a bit uncomfortable.

“The House Oversight Committee and I have agreed—”

That was quickly shot down by Dean. “Reclaiming my time, I do not accept that answer,” she said. “We’ve heard that one.… Please answer the question. Why did you lie to the Post?”

“I have voluntarily agreed to spend the time and talk about it,” Lutnick replied, as if he was doing Dean some favor by offering to speak off the record about the massive, damning lie he told.

“Let the record reflect you’re dodging the question,” Dean replied. “The cover-up continues.”

Lutnick also refused to answer the other two direct questions Dean asked him about his connection to Epstein—particularly his financial connections, and whether President Trump was “concerned” about the commerce secretary’s chummy relationship with perhaps the most infamous predator of the century. It’s an absolute embarrassment that he is still operating in full capacity as commerce secretary.

The Trump administration is reupping its efforts to denaturalize U.S. citizens it sees as unworthy.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the Department of Justice has named 384 foreign-born Americans from whom it plans to revoke citizenship. The DOJ also told civil litigators to prepare to file suit against the individuals in 39 regional attorneys’ offices.

While 384 people is a small number compared to the more than 818,000 who became American citizens in 2024, the DOJ’s new focus on denaturalizations sets a dangerous precedent that could lead to new citizens having their passports revoked en masse in the future.

Naturalized residents who commit crimes, or who are found to have received citizenship illegally—such as through a fake marriage—can have their status taken away. While it is legal for the government to revoke someone’s citizenship, it is typically rare, happening an average of 11 times per year between 1990 and 2017. Those numbers then went up slightly after Donald Trump took office for the first time, to about 15 times a year.

But this year, the government has looked to denaturalize Americans at a level not seen since the early nineteenth century, as Trump wages war against the melting pot. The Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security was told earlier this year to find more than 200 denaturalization cases a month for the DOJ to prosecute.

The good news for naturalized citizens is that, besides being unable to run for president, they have essentially the same rights and protections as those born in the U.S. The government must prove its case for denaturalization through either a civil or criminal trial, a legal process that the Times calls “challenging and time-consuming.” Each person can also appeal their decision, meaning the government’s efforts will further tax an already overwhelmed court system full of immigration cases.

While the Trump administration has spoken about only denaturalizing those who have committed crimes or fraud, the president’s racist rhetoric and moves such as classifying antifa as a terrorist organization have created some concern that Trump could use denaturalization as a weapon against certain groups of immigrants.

“The government has used this power in the past to target people it views as political opponents,” Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, told the Times.

Donald Trump’s pick to be secretary of the Navy has said some crazy things.

The Pentagon confirmed that failed congressional candidate and current undersecretary of the Navy Hung Cao would be replacing John Phelan, who was abruptly fired on Wednesday. It’s an appalling move, given that Cao once made a poor joke about the KKK in an interview with Steve Bannon.

“I know I’ll be attacked by the left, and call me a white supremacist, but I have one ask for them, it’s just than when you give my hood, make sure it’s got the little slits and not the circles so I can see better,” Cao said on Real America’s Voice during his failed 2024 campaign for Senate.

Cao has also claimed in multiple interviews that he was “shot at” and “blown up” while serving in the Navy, and and has “scars,” describing himself as “100% disabled,” but his service record doesn’t show him receiving a Purple Heart, which is given to service members who have been seriously injured by enemy fire, or the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon. When USA Today asked him about his service record in 2024, he issued an angry statement.

“I want to give you all a window into what it’s like being a combat veteran who had the gall to run for public office against a career politician. Any veteran will read this with the same disgust. Imagine being asked to provide documentation of the dates and times Al Qaeda shot at you. Imagine being asked, if you’re a disabled veteran, why don’t you have a Purple Heart?” Cao posted.

In a 2023 interview with a right-wing pastor, Sean Feucht, Cao claimed that witchcraft was occurring in California.

“There’s a place in Monterey, California, called Lover’s Point,” Cao said. “The original name was ‘Lovers of Christ Point,’ but now it’s become—they took out the ‘Christ,’ it’s Lover’s Point, and it’s really—Monterey’s a very dark place now, a lot of witchcraft, and the Wiccan community has really taken over there,” Cao said. “We can’t let that happen in Virginia.”

In the same interview, Cao joked that “I’m African American because I grew up in Africa too,” referring to when his family lived in Niger when they worked for USAID.

All of this was known during Cao’s confirmation hearings as Navy undersecretary last year, and the Senate still voted to confirm his nomination. Now he’ll be in charge of the military branch in the midst of a war.

Outbound Republican Senator Thom Tillis has warned that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is in “dangerous waters.”

The retiring North Carolina lawmaker promised early Thursday to stand in the way of Blanche’s confirmation if he’s tapped to take over the lead Justice Department role.

Tillis was reacting to comments that Blanche made at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, in which America’s temporary top cop boasted about how he “cleaned house” and fired federal prosecutors who had worked to pursue cases relating to the 2021 Capitol riot. At the time, Blanche also boasted about the mass Inauguration Day 2025 pardon that Donald Trump issued to his supporters who participated in the bedlam, claiming that “when folks say, ‘You’ve done nothing,’ I say you have a very short memory.”

Tillis has the power to block any nominee before the Senate Judiciary Committee: As long as all Democrats are united against a nominee, Tillis’s vote is enough to tip the scales. And he plans to wield that power against Blanche if it comes down to it. In an interview with Semafor Thursday, Tillis said that “the principle here is that anybody who didn’t back the blue on January 6th is disqualified from consideration for me in the Judiciary Committee.”

He added that Blanche is “not a politician in his current state. But when you start acting like a politician, you get treated like one.”

“The more recent comments are really what drew my attention,” Tillis told Semafor. “So that I have to parse through. The minute you give somebody slack, then you’ve lost the principle, right?”

Blanche joined the Trump camp in 2023, when he was hired as Trump’s defense attorney in his criminal trials. However, Blanche has since risen through the ranks of the second Trump administration, first as Pam Bondi’s number two and then by landing in the vacancy left behind by her firing. 

Bondi was ousted earlier this month for failing to break the parameters of American government in order to unquestionably do Trump’s bidding, specifically with regard to prosecuting Trump’s political enemies and  handling the Epstein files, which remain Trump’s biggest and most indelible scandals to date.

In her wake, it seems that Blanche has learned the lesson. In the few short weeks since he became acting attorney general, Blanche has worked overtime to please the president. He has accelerated investigations into Trumpian conspiracies, fired prosecutors who enforced laws that protected abortion clinics, defended the White House’s intimate involvement in DOJ affairs, and initiated a controversial indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center for aiding local and federal law enforcement investigating political extremism.

“Blanche knows Trump wants action in the cases Trump has publicly targeted,” John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney in Virginia, told MS NOW. “It is always a challenge to audition for a job for Trump, but Blanche is moving the chessboard at DOJ to try and get results that will satisfy the president.”

Back in February, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was desperately trying to get Cabinet officials to lock in.

Politico reported Wednesday that amid uproar over Donald Trump’s unpopular tariffs and the havoc wrought by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the nation, Wiles told his Cabinet to focus on domestic travel and reaching out to voters ahead of the midterms rather than frivolous foreign ventures.

This mandate came after certain Trump officials had racked up tons of airline miles—Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, for example, had an “aggressive international travel agenda” in 2025 that saw her visit Vietnam, Japan, India, Peru, Brazil, and the U.K.

Rollins’s team defended her jet-setting to Politico, arguing she successfully negotiated multiple trade deals while abroad. But some people agree with Wiles.

“It’s like, why is Brooke going to the U.K.?” one source familiar with the discussions told Politico.

Did anyone listen to Wiles? Kind of—the chief of staff now reportedly approves all Cabinet-level international travel herself. “All trips are run through Cabinet Affairs,” one source told Politico. “The international ones are on a case-by-case basis, but they definitely want you to focus on domestic travel.”

But Trump’s decision-makers have not exactly shifted their focus to domestic issues. A week after Wiles told the Cabinet to get serious, Trump and company started a war with Iran. With gas prices spiking, service members getting killed, and vague reasons being given as to why we’re at war in the first place, Wiles’s fears have been justified: Trump and the GOP’s approval ratings have plummeted.

Republicans holding onto power come November would take something miraculous at this point. With Democrats fighting back through redistricting, and the GOP losing basically every special election since the turn of the year, the House appears likely to turn blue. Oddsmakers give the Senate about a 50-50 chance of going the Dems’ way, as well.

The biggest worry at this point for Democrats is that America has a president who throws a temper tantrum whenever he loses, and will try everything he can to stay in power.