Iran Has Damaged Mind-Blowing Number of U.S. Military Bases

The majority of U.S. military positions in the Middle East have been damaged by Iranian strikes, according to a CNN investigation released Friday.

At least 16 American installations across eight countries have been struck as part of Iran’s retaliatory strikes against the U.S. and Israeli military onslaught. A U.S. source familiar with the situation told CNN that the scale of the damage was unprecedented.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before.… These are rapid, targeted strikes, with [advanced] technology,” the source said.

The main targets appeared to be multimillion-dollar aircraft. At the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, a Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft, which provides surveillance, command, control, and communications to the U.S. military, was destroyed. That aircraft is worth nearly half a billion dollars, and is currently out of production.

Other targets of Iranian strikes include critical communications systems. At Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, satellite photographs showed that Iran had destroyed all but one ray dome, a structure designed to protect satellite dishes.

Radar systems will also prove the most difficult to replace. “Our radar systems are our most expensive and our most limited resource in the region,” a congressional aide familiar with damage assessments told CNN.

It was previously reported that 13 U.S. bases in the Middle East had been rendered all but uninhabitable, forcing U.S. military service members to work remotely from hotels and office spaces. Within the first two weeks of the war, Iran’s attacks on U.S. military bases caused an estimated $800 million in damage, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a BBC analysis.

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Undersecretary of Defense Jules Hurst finally produced a price tag for Donald Trump’s military campaign: $25 billion. But that number does not include the cost of repairing the damage to bases, CNN reported Thursday.

At the same time, Trump has continued to claim that the U.S. has nearly obliterated all of Iran’s military assets—though reports indicate that’s just not true.

The Trump administration exposed the private Social Security numbers of dozens of health care providers while setting up a new Medicare portal.

The Washington Post reports that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, which is run by Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, made the error while creating a directory last year to help senior citizens find doctors and medical providers that accept certain insurance plans. In the process, the agency ended up using a publicly accessible database that contained some of the providers’ Social Security information, linked to their names and other personal data.

The numbers were publicly exposed for weeks until the Post flagged it for the agency on Tuesday. CMS did not respond to the paper’s inquiries on whether it had notified any of the providers, or exactly how many numbers were exposed (the Post identified at least dozens).

A CMS spokesperson did tell the Post that the agency was working to fix the problem, blaming it on the providers for entering their information in the wrong fields.

The problem “stems from incorrect entries of provider or provider-representative-supplied information in the wrong places,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The agency has taken steps to address it promptly and reinforce safeguards around data submission and validation.”

“I don’t even know how [Medicare officials] would get my Social Security number,” one doctor told the Post anonymously out of fear of identity theft.

The issue may have been created thanks to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which laid off hundreds of CMS employees last year, including those who assisted the elderly. On top of that, the directory was full of errors when it was introduced last October, displaying contradictory and incorrect information.

All of this is a recipe for disaster for the disabled and elderly Americans who rely on Medicare, not to mention those whose personal information was leaked to the public. It’s another black mark on the record of Oz, the snake-oil salesman and daytime TV host tapped by President Trump to head the agency.

Alex Jones’s final meltdown on InfoWars was a defiant rejection of the company’s new ownership.

Satirical outlet The Onion bought the far-right conspiracy network, ending what was arguably Jones’s most successful endeavor and marking the beginning of his descent into irrelevancy. But as the minutes ticked down to dead air, Jones vowed to return to the limelight—even if he doesn’t make a dime.

“They’re turning the power off at midnight,” Jones said, surrounded by people toasting the network. “Private detectives are coming in to close the doors. And they’re gonna act like they’ve got their big ass victory.”

Jones pledged that he already had a new venture in the works where he would continue to air his controversial and baseless beliefs.

“And I will sit there and live in a modest house with a modest car, which I love. And they think, ‘Oh, we’ll take your money,’ Joe, shut up. I’m ready to die for this,” Jones said. “You think taking money from me does something? It makes me want to strangle you spiritually. It’s a joke. It, like, empowers me.”

As Jones rose from his seat to exit, he declared: “The next phase starts, the real war begins now. It’s the nuclear age.”

Jones, of “they’re turning the friggin’ frogs gay” fame, was forced out of his studio as The Onion proceeded with its purchase. The parody company had hoped to obtain legal approval to license the network’s name and brand to turn it into a mockery of itself by Thursday, but instead, the legal case passed to the Texas Supreme Court in what The Onion CEO Ben Collins described as an “insane, unprecedented legal stalling.”

Proceeds from the sale of the network were intended to go to families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, whom Jones still owes some $1.3 billion in damages after he repeatedly branded the tragedy a “hoax.”

The Onion tapped veteran Adult Swim comedian Tim Heidecker to reinvent the conspiracy network. So far, Heidecker has floated a multi-stage redesign, which would first see InfoWars become a parody of itself, mocking Jones’s various money-making schemes in which he aggressively advertised “hacky supplements” or bilked “grandparents out of their life savings.”

“Then we just think that that’s going to get old, but we’ll have built this little brand, or sort of re-established a brand and turn it into a destination for good comedy—a new streaming site, a new comedy platform,” Heidecker told Time.

It’s official: Donald Trump’s war in Iran is less popular than some of the least popular wars of all time.

Sixty-one percent of Americans said that using military force in Iran was a mistake, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll Friday, placing how Americans feel about Trump’s campaign in Iran on par with attitudes about the Iraq and Vietnam wars.

In May 2006, three years after U.S. forces invaded Iraq, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 59 percent of Americans said that the war was a mistake.

By that point in the war, more than 2,400 U.S. troops had died and the U.S. military was embroiled in some of the bloodiest fighting of the entire conflict. But the Iraq War was still more popular than Trump’s so-called “excursion” into Iran, which has killed an estimated 13 service members.

In January 1973, the same year that U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, 60 percent of Americans believed that it had been a mistake to send troops there in the first place, according to a Gallup poll.

Trump has repeatedly bragged about how quickly he would have ended the war in Vietnam—despite the fact that he dodged the military draft multiple times—because of his supposedly resounding success in Iran. But only 19 percent of Americans say that the U.S. military campaign in Iran has been successful, according to the Friday poll.

It’s not entirely clear how that 19 percent arrived at that conclusion. While Trump has repeatedly declared victory, so has Iran.

One Republican governor isn’t going along with President Trump’s attempt to redraw congressional maps around the country.

Georgia’s Brian Kemp said Friday that he isn’t going to cancel the state’s May 19 primary elections in order to draw new maps in time for November, following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais Wednesday, which severely weakened the Voting Rights Act.

Kemp still praised the decision, telling The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the ruling “restores fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to pass electoral maps that reflect the will of the voters, not the will of federal judges.” But it’s too late for the midterms, he added.

“Voting is already underway for the 2026 elections,” Kemp said. “But it’s clear that Callais requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle.”

Several Republican-run states, particularly in the South are scrambling to make changes to their congressional maps due to the high-court ruling, including Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry even announced that he was suspending his state’s May 16 primary elections in order to redraw the state’s congressional map.

Still, Trump is not likely to be happy that one Republican governor won’t follow along with his efforts, especially in Georgia, where the president still claims that Joe Biden winning the state in 2020 was rigged due to fraud. Kemp was in his first term as governor at the time, and Trump held him responsible for not overturning the results. Kemp might see an angry Truth Social post directed at him pretty soon.

The president’s elder sons are making money hand over fist off of their father’s office.

At least two companies tied to Don Jr. and Eric Trump have won large government contracts, setting the stage for the Trump family to make a sizable chunk of change from their involvement in the federal government.

Powerus, a drone manufacturer led by former U.S. Army Special Operations veterans, was founded last year. Trump’s two sons became tied to the company’s board after it merged with a golf club in March, a decision that took the company public via a reverse merger. The brothers’ investment firm, American Venture, has backed the combined entity, and their boutique investment bank, Dominari Securities, was also involved in the transaction.

This past week, the U.S. Air Force agreed to buy an undisclosed number of drones from Powerus as America’s war with Iran hits the 60-day mark. The company’s co-founder, Brett Velicovich, claimed the decision had nothing to do with its investors’ obvious ties to the White House.

“They’re not going to pick a system because of who’s on an investor list,” Velicovich told Bloomberg. “They’re picking because they need it now.”

There are at least 187 drone manufacturers based in the United States, according to a November report from Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

But that isn’t the Trump family’s only financial coup this week: A shell company backed by Don Jr. and Eric agreed to merge with a major tungsten mine in Kazakhstan that just last year secured $1.6 billion in U.S. government support.

The two brothers bought into a construction company, Skyline Builders, last August, through a special-purpose vehicle arranged by Dominari Securities, sources told the Financial Times.

Weeks later, in September, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told Donald Trump that he intended to award a major tungsten project to U.S. investment group Cove Kaz Capital, an entity backed by the U.S. government, to compete against Chinese and Russian mining companies. That story emerged in the press on October 21.

By October 28, Eric and Don Jr. had added almost $24 million to their Skyline investment. On October 31, Skyline paid $20 million for a 20 percent stake in Kaz Resources, a subsidiary of Cove Capital, an investment company that controls Cove Caz.

Cove Capital’s deal with the National Mining Company of Kazakhstan became public on November 6, with an announcement that they would jointly develop “the largest known undeveloped tungsten resource in the world.”

Cove Kaz Capital and Kaz Resources agreed to merge with the brothers’ investment firm, Skyline, on Thursday, reported the Financial Times, which noted that there was no mention of either Trump brother in the merger announcement.

A representative for Don Jr. denied that he had any knowledge of his father’s dealings prior to the initial investment or the merger.

“Don is a passive investor in American Ventures and has no operational involvement in the company,” his spokesperson told the Financial Times. “He does not interface with the federal government on behalf of any company he invests in or advises.”

Some Republican lawmakers aren’t buying Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s excuse to skirt congressional authorization for Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

The War Powers Act Resolution of 1973 states that the president can deploy armed forces in a hostile environment for up to 60 days, but must withdraw if he does not then receive congressional approval for an extension.

As that deadline arrived Friday, Hegseth claimed that the clock on Trump’s 60 days had actually paused when a ceasefire was announced halfway through April. But Republican lawmakers aren’t convinced, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“It stopped from the ceasefire? Which ceasefire? Does the ceasefire still count if they don’t cease firing?” Indiana Senator Todd Young told the Journal Thursday. “I don’t know. Is there any legal precedent to this? I mean, these are the sorts of questions members would ask.”

The U.S. tested the boundaries of the ceasefire by installing a military blockade on Iranian ports, and even seizing an Iranian cargo ship. Meanwhile, Israel, America’s ally in its joint military operation, did not stop its intense strikes in Lebanon.

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis questioned whether Hegseth understood the legal guardrails placed on his military campaign.

“I’ll let my legal experts tell me if they agree.… I felt like the War Powers Resolution says in 60 days you have to take some action,” Tillis told the Journal.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley also pushed back on Hegseth’s casual delivery of the claim that congressional approval would apparently not be needed. “The right way to make that argument to Congress would be to put that in writing and send that up here to us,” he said.

Hawley said that if the White House did not officially request an extension, it would be up to Congress to debate legislation to authorize the war. “I don’t really want to do that, because I don’t want to open up further conflict. I want to wind it down,” he said.

Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death—ruled a suicide by a New York City coroner—has been pored over by conspiracy theorists. The financier was arrested for running a child sex-trafficking ring, and was friendly with many politicians and celebrities. His trial could have led to the arrest of an entire network of elites. And he was supposed to be in a high-security cell with guards nearby to prevent him from harming himself. How could this even happen?

Answers since then have been hard to come by, but on Thursday, another sliver of information was revealed: Epstein may have written a suicide note the previous month. The New York Times interviewed a cellmate of Epstein, Nicholas Tartaglione, who claimed he found a note after an incident in which Epstein was found unresponsive a few weeks before his actual death.

The note said it was “time to say goodbye,” Tartaglione said, and contained a line similar to, “What do you want me to do, bust out crying?” Tartaglione said it was written on a legal pad and found in the pages of a graphic novel.

Epstein survived this first incident, and in fact told jailers afterward he was not suicidal and the marks on his neck came from Tartaglione. Then he walked that accusation back, telling Bureau of Prisons investigators on July 31 he did “not have any issues” with his cellmate.

Epstein’s purported suicide note has not been reviewed by the public. The Times found that it was sealed by a federal judge during Tartaglione’s own criminal case. (Tartaglione has been charged with a life sentence for a quadruple homicide, and is appealing his conviction.)

On Thursday, the paper asked the judge to unseal the note. “Investigators scrutinizing Mr. Epstein’s high-profile death lacked what could have been a key piece of evidence,” the Times concluded.

A Department of Justice spokeswoman told the paper that the agency had not seen the note. It was also not mentioned in the DOJ’s investigations into Epstein’s death.

Information surrounding Epstein’s death continues to fuel a conspiratorial fire. Back in 2019, a 4chan user posted about his death before any media outlets had gotten word of it. In Donald Trump’s second term, the administration released an 11-hour surveillance video, which they claimed proved no one entered Epstein’s cell on the night he died. Reporters quickly found discrepancies in the footage.

The way the White House is operating, it seems that the United States doesn’t want allies.

Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday that he’s open to the idea of pulling troops from other allies Italy and Spain due to the European continent’s lacking support for his invasion of Iran and the subsequent blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump already threatened Wednesday night to withdraw from Germany, and verbally attacked German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“You talked about possibly pulling some troops out of Germany. Would you be considering the same thing for Spain and Italy?” asked a reporter.

“Yeah, probably,” Trump said. “I probably will. I mean, look, why shouldn’t I?

“Italy has not been of any help to us, and Spain has been horrible,” he continued. “Absolutely horrible. As has NATO.

“It’s not even the fact that they’re better, it’s one thing if they said it nicely, or if they said, ‘OK, we’ll help but the help’s a little slow,’ but the level. And we helped them with Ukraine. You know they made a mess out of Ukraine, a total mess. Ukraine is nothing to do—we’re an ocean apart, it has to do with them,” Trump said, calling it “insane” that former President Joe Biden provided aid to the war-torn, Russian-invaded country.

“But uh, when we needed them they were not there. We have to remember that,” Trump continued. “And so if we ever have a big one, because we didn’t need any help with Iran. We had Iran right from the first day, it was over. It was over.”

That’s not true. The war with Iran is currently in its eighth week with no end in sight. The ramifications of the war, including the total blockade to Iran’s oil trade, have thrust the world into a global energy crisis that has raised the cost of living practically everywhere.

Furthermore, Trump has repeatedly asked for assistance from America’s European allies to help reopen the strait. Just yesterday, the Trump administration floated the possibility of building an international coalition in order to restore freedom of navigation along the critical waterway.

Within the same answer, Trump then claimed that he only asked for foreign participation in the effort to “see if they’d do it.”

“In all cases, they said, ‘We don’t want to get involved,’” he said.

Trump’s Wednesday announcement that he was considering pulling U.S. troops out of Germany stunned the Pentagon as much as it did U.S. allies.

The Defense Department “was not expecting it and has not been planning any kind of drawdown,” a congressional aide familiar with the situation told Politico. “But we have to take him seriously because he was serious about it during his first administration.”

In July 2020, Trump proposed pulling 12,000 troops out of Germany in order to punish Berlin for its low defense spending. That order was never implemented.

Republicans in Congress voted to fund the Department of Homeland Security Thursday, effectively ending the 76-day shutdown of the department.

The bill, passed by a voice vote in the House, is a win for Democrats, as it still includes no money for ICE or Border Patrol, and is now headed to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law. House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly decided to finally support the bill after a private meeting with his fellow Republican leaders earlier in the day, where they agreed that the situation couldn’t continue.

The GOP will still try to fund ICE through the reconciliation process, which takes much longer but only requires a simple majority in both chambers of Congress. Previously, House Republicans had criticized their counterparts in the Senate for passing the measure with a voice vote, which doesn’t record individual members’ votes, only to adopt the same method on Thursday.

Conservatives were not happy with the decision, but didn’t see any good options. Representative Chip Roy said, “I think it’s asinine that we’re funding the government this way,” but Representative Clay Higgins said, “The speaker, I think, handled, under the circumstances, very well.”

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin complained last week that the department was almost out of money and soon wouldn’t be able to pay its employees. Now, assuming Trump doesn’t veto the bill, employees will still be paid. But the question of ICE’s future is still unanswered, as Democrats want the agency reformed at a minimum, with some calling for its abolition, and Republicans seem to be fine with the violence it visits on American cities. For now, at least, ICE won’t get any more money.