DHS Secretary Says Democratic Senator Deserved to Get Pepper-Sprayed

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed New Jersey Senator Andy Kim for being attacked by federal law enforcement.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Mullin pointed the finger at Kim, who was among dozens of demonstrators who were pepper sprayed outside of Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in Newark. The crowd was protesting in solidarity with immigrant detainees engaged in a hunger strike over their conditions.

“Now you have one of the senators complained because he got splattered with a, you know, with a pepper ball,” Mullin said. “I’m sorry, you probably shouldn’t have been there.”

Mullin also offered an outrageous denial to reports of the ongoing hunger strike that was as ridiculous as it was racist.

“There was only a handful of individuals that was refusing to eat, because they want their ethnic group—or their ethnic-right food. Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want,” Mullin said. “The fact is, we’re giving them the calories they want. This isn’t Holiday Inn. We’re giving them sanitation.”

In reality, demonstrators have alleged that the detainees at Delaney Hall have been denied sufficient food, sanitary facilities, and medical care.

One Guatemalan man held at Delaney Hall told the group of protesters via video call Monday that nearly 300 other detainees had decided to “stop eating and stop working” indefinitely, in order to demand improvements to the inhumane conditions inside the facility, according to NJ.com. “But that’s not all we demand,” the man said. “We are also doing this to demand freedom.”

Selenia Destefani, a managing attorney and CEO of Nova Law Group, which is representing the detainees at Delaney Hall, also described the “brutal” conditions. “People just sleep on the floor—overcrowded rooms, cold showers, no food, extremely cold in the cells with no blankets,” she said. “Not sound conditions to live in.”

Soto Hernandez, one of the detainees held at the privately operated immigration detention facility, has been served spoiled food with worms in it, according to Destefani.

Kim, who visited Delaney Hall Monday, reported that the bathrooms were “filthy,” that it was difficult to get hot water, and that each room housed 12 to 16 people.

Other members of Trump’s administration haven’t gone so far as to deny the hunger strike. Speaking on Fox News Tuesday night, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan appeared to confirm that there was a hunger strike. “Hunger strikes never work. We’re not gonna change what we do because someone goes on a hunger strike,” Homan said, adding that if conditions were dire enough, federal immigration enforcement would obtain a court order to “force feed” detainees.

Half a year since a 60 Minutes segment on torture in Salvadoran prisons was cut last-minute by CBS News boss Bari Weiss, the journalist reporting the piece has lost her job.

Sharyn Alfonsi had worked with 60 Minutes for over a decade. On Wednesday morning, she told The New York Times that CBS News allowed her contract to expire while ignoring her agent for weeks, and that her dismissal was a “deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting.”

CBS News has not publicly commented on the news so far.

Since Weiss, a former opinion columnist, took over as editor in chief of the TV network’s news division, her tenure has been marred by clashes with CBS’s more experienced reporters. The biggest of these came in December 2025, when she pulled a report on the suffering of Venezuelans deported to CECOT prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration, arguing the story wasn’t balanced enough. She also suggested the reporters reach out to Stephen Miller, the fascist curmudgeon behind Trump’s deportation policies, for an interview.

Alfonsi wrote an angry email bashing the decision that was subsequently leaked to the press. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct,” Alfonsi wrote. “In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

Alfonsi alleged it was not explained to her why the story was killed, and noted that she had tried to get comment from the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the White House, but was rebuffed each time.

“If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interviewed,’ then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast,” Alfonsi concluded.

Weiss’s tenure has also coincided with the departure of the most famous 60 Minutes staffer of all: Anderson Cooper, who bounced in February. In his final episode, Cooper stressed the importance of the program’s editorial freedom, in remarks seen as a jab at Weiss and CBS.

CBS News has long permitted 60 Minutes to work independently of the rest of the network, but Alfonsi told the Times she saw the tides turning. “For the last 60 years it’s been the same formula: Tell the truth, hold the power accountable, don’t blink,” she said. “It’s unclear what next season looks like.”

Alfonsi is technically still employed at CBS but doesn’t plan to work without a contract. Instead, the longtime correspondent is hunkering down. “I’m not resigning,” she told the Times. “If they want me gone because I did my job, they’ll have to fire me.”

After his third medical checkup in 13 months, and a delusional all-out blitz from his social media team defending him, President Trump has once again fallen asleep on camera in the middle of a Cabinet meeting, on Wednesday.

The president could be seen with his eyes closed for a prolonged period of time while sitting right next to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And he seemed to struggle to keep them open while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke, as well.

This comes just one day after the administration’s Rapid Response 47 X account spent hours lambasting various CNN hosts for blinking or looking down, equating it to Trump’s obvious naps. But people aren’t that stupid—the president is an old man, turning 80 in a matter of days, and sometimes he’ll doze off in a meeting. And we should be having these conversations about his health because his naps, swollen ankles, and mysterious bruises, as well as the constant denial from his team about them, only makes the situation more alarming.

This is at least the eighth time President Trump has fallen asleep on camera this year.

After campaigning on a promise of “no new wars,” President Donald Trump just threatened to bomb yet another country.

During a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, a reporter asked Trump whether he would accept a short-term deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that would allow Iran and Oman to control the essential passageway for global trade. Trump claimed that “nobody” would control the Strait of Hormuz, but that the U.S. would “watch over it.”

“It’s international waters, and Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow ’em up,” Trump said. “They understand that, they’ll be fine.”

The so-called peace president’s remarks were shockingly violent, and at odds with other reports.

The U.S. and Iran are reportedly finalizing a draft “memorandum of understanding” that would require the U.S. military to withdraw its forces from the region and lift the blockade on Iranian ports, according to a report on IRIB, Iranian state television. In return Iran, in cooperation with Oman, would restore trade through the Strait of Hormuz to prewar levels within one month.

The White House pushed back against the report Wednesday morning, calling it “a complete fabrication.”

A Democratic House candidate running in Texas raised eyebrows when she promised to turn an ICE detention facility into a “prison for American Zionists.” It turns out she was bankrolled by a major GOP fundraiser.

Maureen Galindo’s candidacy was anything but normal: The sex therapist faced national criticism for her antisemitic remarks, which involved pledging to turn ICE centers into “castration processing” facilities “for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists.”

Galindo nonetheless shocked state Democrats when she placed first in the March 3 primary—although not by enough to avoid a runoff.

Shortly afterward, Galindo’s small campaign—which had just a few thousand dollars in the tank—was infused with nearly $1 million from a mysterious super PAC, Lead Left, which was formed on April 24. The enormous donation forced Democrats to contend with the possibility that Galindo could actually win the Democratic nomination in Texas’s 35th congressional district, which was recently gerrymandered in order to heavily favor Republican candidates.

Lead Left went to great lengths to conceal the identities and political affiliations of its backers, though it proudly announced on its website that it “stands against MAGA extremists who will infect our country with Donald Trump’s agenda.” New reporting, however, reveals that’s not so likely.

Galindo’s windfall came by way of Caleb Crosby, the treasurer of the Congressional Leadership Fund, which serves as the primary super PAC of the House Republicans, Judd Legum reported via his Popular Information substack Wednesday. Crosby also serves as the treasurer of the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC for Senate Republicans.

Several details ultimately tie Crosby to the fundraising venture: Some of his other entities, connected to his political compliance firm Crosby Ottenhoff Group, share the same address as Lead Left, according to Legum.

Nebraska Public Media also found that the original Lead Left website included a snippet of code that linked out to WinRed, the predominant Republican fundraising website.

But the race to fill the Texas House seat isn’t the only campaign where Lead Left has inserted itself. The secretive super PAC also intervened in Democratic primaries in critical races in Nebraska and Pennsylvania, and has spent more than $2.4 million to date on political ads targeting Democratic primary races across the country.

Earlier this month, the Campaign Legal Center, or CLC, accused Lead Left PAC of violating federal reporting rules by funneling its money through two newly formed shell companies, Piruzi LLC and OTG Media LLC, in what the CLC claimed was an attempt to “conceal the actual vendors” and undermine “crucial electoral transparency for voters.”

President Trump’s America 250 celebrations on the National Mall will feature military demonstrations, a 110-foot ferris wheel, and a slew of performers who are questionable at best.

Flo Rida, Milli Vanilli, Martina McBride, and Vanilla Ice will headline the “Great American State Fair” in Washington, D.C., which runs from June 25 to July 10. Young MC, the Commodores, C+C Music Factory, Morris Day and the Time, and Bret Michaels will all also perform.

Flo Rida, Milli Vanilli, and Vanilla Ice are not people who come to mind when considering which artists would best represent American art, history, and culture on its 250th birthday. But those people—from Stevie Wonder, to Bruce Springsteen, to Taylor Swift, to Beyoncé—probably wouldn’t be caught dead performing for this administration. We’ll have to wait and see who the next wave of performers brings.

Everyone’s favorite federal prosecutor is back in the White House, albeit in a far less important role.

Pam Bondi has been appointed to an advisory committee on AI policy by President Donald Trump, Axios reported on Tuesday.

The committee, officially called the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, includes 13 members, most of them tech billionaires. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen are all part of the club.

Bondi doesn’t appear to have a background in AI policy. Panel co-chair David Sacks—another wealthy white tech bro—wrote on X that she will “advise the President on legal and regulatory barriers” in her new position.

Trump tapped Bondi as attorney general in 2025, but she soon came under extreme criticism for mishandling one of the most important prosecutions of modern times.

After the Epstein Files Transparency Act was pushed through Congress—despite Trump dismissing his friendship with the deceased sex trafficker as a “hoax”—Bondi led a sloppy, incomplete rollout of the files, leading to ongoing accusations that the Department of Justice is covering up Trump’s involvement with Epstein.

First, the DOJ blew past the 30-day deadline it was given to release the files in November, claiming it needed more time after it coincidentally discovered new records. Then Bondi was caught lying about the files. She bragged to Fox News in February 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 key information on the criminals was redacted. The DOJ withdrew thousands of files, blaming the mistake on “technical or human error.”

Since the release, no one has been arrested in the U.S. for involvement in Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring. There are also 2.5 million documents that are still under wraps, meaning tons of information about Epstein’s circle continues to be withheld from the public.

Trump fired Bondi in April, though reports suggest this was more because she failed to prosecute enough of the president’s political rivals than it was about the Epstein files.

Axios also reported that Bondi was diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly after leaving the Trump administration. Bondi herself confirmed this to CNN on Wednesday, adding that she had surgery a few weeks ago and is “doing well, though.”

President Donald Trump can try to pour billions of additional dollars into the U.S. military, but restoring the country’s weapons systems will still take years.

A new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies published Wednesday found that munitions depleted during Trump’s military onslaught against Iran have created a multiyear “window of vulnerability” for the United States in potential future conflicts. 

The study estimated it will take until at least 2030 to replace the more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles the U.S. fired deep into enemy territory. While Raytheon aims to produce more than 1,000 missiles a year, the current production rate is less than 200. It will also take until at least 2029 to restore the interceptors used in U.S. air defense systems, as well as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, and Patriot missiles, according to the study.  

Earlier this month, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost roughly $24 billion to replace the munitions expended on Trump’s military campaign alone. Trump has moved to deliver a record-breaking $1.5 trillion to the U.S. military for the fiscal year 2027, by sapping taxpayer dollars from other federal agencies. But the report says, “The problem today isn’t money; it’s time.

“It takes time to expand production capacity and to build these complex systems,” the report said. “Thus, there will be a window of vulnerability for several years until inventories return to their previous levels and another several years before they get to the levels that war planners desire. The DOD will need to make plans for dealing with this gap.”

The report warned about potential future conflicts in the Western Pacific, but said that the outlook was “not all bleak.” The U.S. military’s major show of force in Iran and in operations against Venezuela and the Houthis could act as deterrence against China, which has “no recent combat experience.”

The Trump administration is planning to drastically reduce military provisions to NATO allies.

An envoy of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Alexander Velez-Green, shared details of the forthcoming recissions with senior officials of NATO member states during a meeting in Brussels last week, reported German news outlet Der Spiegel.

The proposed plan is much more drastic than European diplomats had predicted: It involves decreasing the number of U.S. fighter jets, warships, drones, and aerial refueling tankers available to the alliance, according to the briefing. The number of available fighter jets, for instance, could be diminished by a third, and the number of strategic bombers halved.

All submarines will be pulled out, and the number of available destroyers will also be cut.

Washington also intends to substantially scale back its previous commitments to NATO’s “Force Model,” which was agreed upon in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The model stipulates which units the Supreme Allied Commander Europe is allowed to directly access from NATO member states in defensive strategies. 

European countries are expected to fill in the resulting gaps themselves, Der Spiegel reported.

Donald Trump has been threatening such an action for weeks, specifically since the European continent refused to support his invasion of Iran and the subsequent blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

Last month, Trump claimed he was open to the idea of pulling troops from Italy, Spain, and Germany, accusing NATO members of being “cowards” and “terrible” for refusing to assist in his Middle East war.

At the time, the sudden Oval Office announcement stunned the Pentagon as much as it did America’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.

But the president has been on the offensive against NATO since the early days of his first term in office. He regularly baselessly insists that other members have failed to pay their dues and argues that the U.S. has been shortchanged by other NATO countries, even though that’s not how the alliance operates.

It is unclear who in the Western world benefits from the dissolution of NATO. John Bolton,  Trump’s first-term national security adviser and a policy hawk who also served under Ronald Reagan’s administration, has said that the consequences of exiting the alliance could be dire. A U.S. withdrawal from the pact could effectively be the death of NATO, leaving behind a fractured and significantly weakened European alliance, while devastating America’s international credibility as an ally.

President Trump is publicly fuming after former President Joe Biden sued the Justice Department in an attempt to block the release of audio and transcripts from his interviews with his memoir ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in 2016 and 2017. The president called his predecessor a “Crooked Politician!!!” Wednesday on Truth Social.

The interviews in question were used in the 2023 special counsel investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. That investigation concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing, but that Biden was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden’s attorneys argue that the interviews were private conversations that should not be released retroactively by the Trump DOJ.

“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” Biden’s attorneys wrote. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”

They also noted that the DOJ spent two years properly protecting these transcripts in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, until they switched up in February, telling Biden they’d be releasing them “without any formal explanation.”