Republican Rep. Caught Admitting Iran War Is Going to Screw Them Over

Republican Representative Ashley Hinson was caught on tape last week saying that President Trump’s Iran war will be a “political liability” if it continues any longer.

Politico reports that Hinson, who will be the likely Republican nominee in Iowa’s Senate race after Tuesday’s primary, told voters in a private meet and greet in the state on Thursday that she hopes a peace deal in the war can be “done by the next couple of weeks.

“If it drags on beyond that, it’s a political liability for us too, because we’ve lost Iowa soldiers. I’ve been to four funerals since December, it’s awful,” Hinson said in Webster County, responding to a question about a timeline for the war.

Hinson has been a staunch supporter of the president and the war, voting against war powers resolutions to limit Trump’s military authority. In her Thursday remarks, she stressed that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” and that the families of fallen Iowa soldiers “all said that we need to finish the job.”

Her remarks are a clear admission that Trump’s war is not helping Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, and is contributing to his, as well as the party’s, flagging poll numbers. Trump endorsed Hinson last year, and repeated his support for her in a Truth Social post on Monday.

“I know Ashley well, and she is a WINNER! A Loving Wife and Proud Mother of two sons, Ashley is a wonderful person, has ALWAYS delivered for Iowa, and will continue doing so in the United States Senate,” Trump posted.

Hinson is expected to handily win Tuesday’s primary election, but early general election polls show only a couple of percentage points between her and a Democratic challenger, which will be either state Senator Zach Wahls or state Representative Josh Turek. If the Iran war stretches longer or produces a peace deal disliked by Trump’s MAGA base, not only could Hinson lose her race, but Republicans could lose control of Congress.

The fight inside 60 Minutes is tearing CBS News’s venerated broadcast to shreds.

A staff editorial meeting reportedly flew off the rails Monday morning when longtime host Scott Pelley tore into Bari Weiss’s new pick to run the news magazine as its new executive producer: Nick Bilton, a former Vanity Fair writer with next to no formal experience in broadcast journalism.

Weiss announced Bilton’s hire the same day that she fired a large swath of the show’s crew, which some at 60 Minutes are referring to as “Black Thursday.” The axed staff include correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi (who criticized Weiss’s decision to delay Alfonsi’s report on a notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador), correspondent Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich.

The meeting was intended to introduce Bilton to the show’s team, though Weiss herself was conspicuously absent. With the chief of CBS News missing, the meeting devolved into hostilities, including one particularly heated moment in which Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” the show, according to audio of the meeting obtained by Status News.

“Bari loves this institution,” Bilton told staffers during the meeting. “She loves 60 Minutes.”

“She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley countered. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it—and she’s doing exactly that.”

“You come into our house and expect to be welcome?” Pelley asked Bilton. “Why was Tanya Simon fired? Why was Sharyn fired? Why was Cecilia fired? Why Draggan? Do you know the names of the people that were fired?” He openly questioned Bilton’s credentials and said, “We don’t trust you.”

CBS News managing editor Charles Forelle attempted to intervene in the exchange to no avail. The exchange reportedly left staffers wondering whether Pelley would resign from his post, reported Status.

Bilton, nonetheless, did not have satisfactory answers for the producers and crew, according to two staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Washington Post. At one point, he unintentionally made staffers laugh out loud when he claimed he would bring in people who are already capable of doing the work of a 60 Minutes correspondent, one of the most revered jobs in the industry.

When asked if the show could expect more layoffs, Bilton said, “Not right now.”

Weiss has only been in charge of CBS News for seven months, but her business decisions have already cratered its legendary reputation. Once the “gold standard” of broadcasting, and home to some of journalism’s most venerable names, such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, the outlet is now making news for all of the wrong reasons.

This year, the first day of June doesn’t just mark the beginning of Pride Month in Tennessee, it marks the start of a new holiday: In April, Governor Bill Lee signed a House joint resolution designating June as “Nuclear Family Month.” The bill was first introduced in February 2025 by state Representative Bud Hulsey, of Kingsport, who claimed that the traditional family structure was “under attack.”

According to the bill, “the nuclear family is God’s perfect design for humanity and is aligned with the long-held traditional values of Tennessee.” It consists of “one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children.”

The bill’s a clear jab at Pride Month. Though it does not explicitly mention same-sex couples, it’s a reactionary effort against the month-long holiday that celebrates people who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. Tennessee was ranked as one of the least safe states for LGBTQ+ people to live. Of course, many in Tennessee will still celebrate Pride Month, with major events planned in Nashville, Knoxville, and Memphis.

But in addition to sidelining the LGBTQ+ community, fixating on the nuclear family like this erases the roles of extended family members: aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

One can scarcely imagine what a Nuclear Family Month event would look like. Luckily, there don’t seem to be any planned. The holiday is a cheap trick to score culture-war points, courtesy of a party taken over by pronatalism and phony economic populism.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is continuing his discriminatory campaign to remake the U.S. military in his image. Last month, a list of nearly two dozen one-star promotions included no women and only two nonwhite officers. On Monday, The New York Times was able to reveal exactly how that happened.

Hegseth personally intervened to block the promotion of several senior Navy officers, including at least two female officers and two Black male officers, four current and former defense officials told the paper.  

This is not the first time Hegseth has moved to block or delay the promotion of female and Black military officers. He did the same thing to Army officers in March, and has reportedly thwarted the advancements of more than one dozen female and Black officers across the Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Marines. 

The result of Hegseth’s continued intervention is a military leadership that does not reflect its members: 21 percent of active-duty Navy officers are women, and 38 percent are minorities. Women and minorities currently account for less than 20 percent of all generals and admirals in the U.S. military. 

Pentagon rules say that the secretary can only block promotions if there is an issue related to a service member’s fitness to lead—not their identities, or whatever other problem Hegseth seems to have with them. 

This latest reporting is sure to ruffle feathers at the Pentagon, where Hegseth has lashed out at the press and spiraled about leaks. The DOD officially banned journalists from the Pentagon’s press office Monday, declaring it a “classified space.”

People of myriad sexual and gender identities across the U.S. will spend June celebrating Pride Month, a commemoration of the decades-long fight for civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community. But in Arkansas, residents will instead be celebrating a new invention.

Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders bestowed a new name on June, dubbing it “Fidelity Month,” per a new declaration.

The effort is intended to cultivate “fidelity to God, family, community, and country,” and to a “healthy, stable, well-ordered society.” The memo underscores the values of faith, liberty, and patriotism, which Sanders’s office argue are the country’s founding principles, and notes the commemorative month aims to elevate “spiritual and civic institutions” at the core of the state’s “collective identity.”

It’s hard not to see the move as a direct attack on the LGBTQ+ community and everything it’s achieved.

Pride has been the preeminent June celebration since 1970. The protests and parades that take place throughout the month commemorate the history of the Stonewall Uprising, which lasted for six days but began on June 28, 1969, when police raided one of the city’s most popular gay bars, the Stonewall Inn. Incensed by the incursion, New York City’s LGBTQ+ community rebelled, marching through the streets in one of the most significant acts of civil rights disobedience in U.S. history.

At the time, homosexuality was criminalized in every U.S. state save Illinois, which granted individuals the right to express their sexuality in private in 1962.

Sanders’s order comes at a complicated time for gay rights. There are currently 530 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the country, according to a legislation tracker created by the American Civil Liberties Union. They include attempts to censor school curriculums, redefine sex, create anti-transgender health care barriers, prohibit drag, and force minors out of the closet in school settings.

In Arkansas specifically, state laws do not protect LGBTQ+ people from being fired, evicted, or denied services due to sexual orientation or gender identity. The state Supreme Court ruled against nondiscrimination ordinances in 2017, blocking local, voter-approved referendums to create a more explicitly LGBTQ+ friendly community.

But Arkansas isn’t the only state making an unsubtle jab at gay rights. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee recently signed a similar resolution, marking June as “Nuclear Family Month.” The bill’s text defines the nuclear family as “consisting of one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children” as intended by “God’s design.”

Meanwhile, marriage equality is nationally upheld by the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, a protection that seems increasingly fragile in light of the court’s decision to overturn abortion access via its 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

At the time, Justice Clarence Thomas penned a concurring opinion in Dobbs, arguing that the court “should reconsider” its substantive due process precedents, including its rulings on contraception, same-sex marriage, and even same-sex relationships.