Maryland Governor Wes Moore sat across from CNN's Kasie Hunt on Wednesday and did something politicians do when the facts aren't on their side: he changed the subject.
The Daily Mail reported that Hunt asked Moore directly about a Washington Free Beacon report challenging his oft-repeated claim that the Ku Klux Klan forced his family out of the United States and into exile in Jamaica in the 1920s.
The Free Beacon's reporting, published February 4 by reporter Andrew Kerr, cited church records that appear to show Moore's great-grandfather, Rev. Josiah Johnson Thomas, publicly accepted a transfer to a church in Jamaica to replace a pastor who had passed away unexpectedly.
Not a flight from terror. A professional appointment. Hunt laid the question out plainly:
"They say that the story is - they report - they look at church records, they say the story is not true, that the Ku Klux Klan did not force your family to leave, your family left voluntarily."
Moore's response was not to address the records. It was to redirect:
"They should really ask the Ku Klux Klan about what their activities were during the 1920s."
Hunt had initially raised the matter two minutes earlier. She pressed again, asking whether the church records showing a voluntary departure were wrong. Moore dismissed the Free Beacon entirely, calling it "a right-wing blog" and insisting there was no truth to its reporting.
"There is no truth to what a right-wing blog writes about me. No. There is not. Because I know my family's history."
What Moore calls a smear from a "right-wing blog" is actually documented church history. The Free Beacon's report cited records that appear to indicate an ordinary professional transfer, not a desperate escape from racial violence. A Virginia Commonwealth University map referenced in the reporting suggested there was no KKK chapter operating in Pineville, South Carolina, the family's hometown, at the time of the departure.
Moore has built this narrative into the architecture of his public identity. The story of ancestors fleeing the Klan, forced into exile, is not some minor biographical footnote. It is a centerpiece. He has told it repeatedly. It carries weight in the political marketplace because it is designed to.
And when confronted with documentary evidence that contradicts it, the 47-year-old governor offered no counter-evidence. No competing records. No family documents. Just an appeal to the general horrors of the 1920s South and a dismissal of the outlet that did the reporting.
That is not a rebuttal. That is a deflection.
Moore pivoted to his grandfather, James Joshua Thomas, who was described as a toddler at the time of the 1920s departure. The governor spoke with evident emotion:
"He still returned to this country. He became the first black minister in the history of the Dutch Reform Church. He died while I was in Afghanistan, fighting for this country. And he had a deep Jamaican accent his entire life. And he's maybe the most patriotic man I've ever met."
None of that is in dispute. No one has questioned his grandfather's service, his faith, or his patriotism. The question is narrower and more specific: Did the KKK force the family to leave, or did Rev. Thomas accept a church posting in Jamaica?
Moore told Fox News on Thursday that he stood by his story, adding that the scrutiny was "hurtful" and "offensive." The Free Beacon has stood by its reporting.
There is a pattern in American politics where personal biography becomes political currency, and the temptation to embellish or dramatize that biography grows in proportion to its usefulness. We've seen it before. The details get sharper, the villains clearer, the stakes higher with each retelling.
And when someone pulls the thread, the response is almost always the same: attack the questioner, invoke broader historical suffering, and hope the emotion drowns out the evidence.
Moore denied rumors of a 2028 presidential run back in September. Whether or not those denials hold, his national profile has been rising since he was sworn in as governor in 2023.
A story about ancestors exiled by the Klan is not just a family memory in that context. It is a political asset, carefully deployed, and it demands the same scrutiny that any candidate's biographical claims receive.
Hunt, to her credit, did not let Moore skate on generalities. She pointed to the specific church records. She asked the specific question. Moore chose not to answer it specifically. That choice tells its own story.
When a politician says "ask the Klan," what he really means is: don't ask me.
President Trump told Iran's leaders they "better negotiate a fair deal" during a White House briefing this afternoon, as the United States military surges combat power into the Middle East at a pace not seen since the opening days of major conflicts.
The Daily Mail reported that an additional 50 fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s, have been deployed to the region in just the past 24 hours. Over 150 U.S. cargo flights have transported weapons and ammunition into the theater. A second aircraft carrier strike group, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is expected to reach the eastern Mediterranean within days.
This is not posturing for the cameras. This is a force structure moving into position.
Earlier this morning, Trump told governors at a working breakfast in the State Dining Room that he is "considering" a limited military strike on Iran. Defence officials have reportedly briefed the president that the U.S. will be ready to begin a war by Saturday.
When a reporter at the packed briefing room asked Trump what his message was to the Iranian people, the president drew a sharp distinction between the regime and the population it governs.
"The people in Iran are a lot different than their leaders, and it is a very sad situation. 32,000 people were killed in a short period of time."
Trump also referenced his previous intervention against Iran's campaign of executions, claiming the regime had planned to hang 837 Iranians by crane.
"I said if you hang even one person… and they gave up the hanging. I feel very badly for the people of Iran they have lived like hell."
That framing matters. Trump isn't building a case against the Iranian people. He's building a case against the regime itself, and doing so by cataloguing its brutality toward its own citizens. The 86-year-old Ali Khamenei presides over a government that kills protesters, hangs dissidents, and runs joint military exercises with the Russian Navy while claiming it's all about "maritime security."
When the president of the United States says he can "destroy a country," that's not bluster from a man who has now deployed two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, and hundreds of fighter jets to the region.
The military buildup runs parallel to a diplomatic track that appears to be sputtering. Trump's designated negotiators, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, met this week in Geneva with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The talks lasted three hours. Both sides claimed they "made progress," which in diplomatic language often means neither side moved.
Araghchi reportedly said on Morning Joe that Witkoff and Kushner did not ask Iran for zero uranium enrichment during the discussions.
If true, that signals the administration is taking a staged approach rather than demanding maximum concessions upfront, a negotiating posture that keeps the door open while the military buildup applies the real pressure.
Trump himself had previously considered military action as early as January, following the killing of thousands of protesters inside Iran. Anti-government protests erupted in Tehran around that same period. The regime's response was predictable: violence.
Sources described the ongoing situation as "existential for the regime," and it isn't hard to see why. When a government's primary tool of domestic governance is the execution crane, every challenge becomes a survival question.
The scale of the deployment deserves its own accounting:
The United States military has reportedly drawn up advanced plans for a potential strike on Iran, including options to target specific individuals and actively pursue regime change in Tehran.
The White House is drawing up detailed military plans involving the use of both Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, though the UK has not yet granted permission for use of those sites, according to a report in The Times.
Last week, reports indicated the Pentagon is actively gearing up for a sustained, weeks-long military blitz. Sources warned this could have a "dramatic influence on the entire region."
Israel, which coordinates with the U.S. on Middle Eastern security, has over 200 combat aircraft at its disposal, including F-35s, F-16s, and F-15s. Combined with American assets now in theater, the concentration of air power aimed at Iran is staggering.
There is a school of foreign policy thought, popular on the left and in European capitals, that says escalation provokes conflict.
The competing theory, demonstrated repeatedly in the real world, is that overwhelming force is the only thing that brings regimes like Iran to the table in good faith. You don't negotiate from a position of weakness with a theocracy that hangs its own citizens from cranes.
Trump told the briefing room that Iran is "not allowed to charge them a little fee," a reference to the broader economic and geopolitical leverage Tehran attempts to wield through its nuclear program and regional proxy networks. The implication is clear: the era of paying Iran to behave is over.
The Supreme Court's decision to strike down his sweeping worldwide tax earlier in the day added a domestic frustration to a presidency already operating on multiple fronts simultaneously. But foreign policy is where executive power is least constrained by judicial interference, and the Iran portfolio reflects a commander-in-chief using every tool available to him.
A State Department insider told the Daily Mail that Trump is weighing advice from his cabinet and mulling options on military action. The president, the insider indicated, would provide the "green light" for actions in Iran.
Iran's leadership faces a straightforward calculation. Negotiate seriously and abandon the nuclear ambitions that have destabilized the Middle East for two decades. Or watch the largest concentration of American military power since last year's 12-day conflict continue to build on every horizon.
The carrier groups aren't coming home empty-handed. Either they come home with a deal, or they don't come home soon.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a full stay on Thursday, halting California's ban on masks for federal law enforcement agents, temporarily preventing the state from enforcing a law that would have made it a misdemeanor for ICE agents to conceal their identities during operations.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the ruling on X:
"The 9th Circuit has now issued a FULL stay blocking California's ban on masks for federal law enforcement agents."
The stay keeps the law frozen while litigation continues, marking the second consecutive legal defeat for Sacramento in its effort to dictate how federal officers conduct immigration enforcement on California soil.
Newsmax reported that California's law took effect Jan. 1 and made it a misdemeanor for many law enforcement officers, including federal agents, to wear a mask or other disguise while interacting with the public during official duties.
Medical protection, such as N95 respirators, was exempted, but the thrust of the law was clear: strip federal immigration agents of the operational anonymity they use to protect themselves during enforcement actions.
Supporters dubbed the legislation the "No Secret Police Act." California state Sen. Scott Wiener authored the bill, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law.
The framing tells you everything. Sacramento wasn't concerned about transparency in policing. It was building another legal obstacle between federal agents and the illegal immigrants California has spent years shielding from enforcement.
Masked federal immigration operations drew protests and public scrutiny in 2025, and California's Democratic leadership responded not by cooperating with federal law but by criminalizing the agents enforcing it.
The Justice Department sued California in November, arguing the state cannot regulate federal officers' duties and that the law violates the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. The Trump administration argued the measure would endanger agents and intrude on federal authority.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder in Los Angeles blocked California from enforcing the mask restrictions against federal officers. Snyder concluded that the law unlawfully discriminated against the federal government.
She did allow California to enforce a separate state requirement that law enforcement officers display visible identification showing their agency and badge number, except when working undercover.
Newsom called Snyder's decision upholding the identification requirement "a clear win for the rule of law." A partial ruling that still stripped the core of his own legislation, rebranded as a victory. That's Sacramento in a sentence.
Wiener said after the district court ruling that he would move quickly to revise the law to apply more uniformly across law enforcement agencies. In other words, the law was so poorly drafted that a federal judge found it singled out the federal government for unique burdens, and the author's response was to promise a second attempt.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli weighed in Thursday with a pointed reminder:
"The state of California needs to familiarize itself with the Supremacy Clause. It does not have the authority to regulate federal agents. This is another key win for the Justice Department."
This is not a close constitutional question. States do not get to dictate the operational protocols of federal law enforcement. They do not get to decide which protective equipment federal agents wear. They do not get to impose misdemeanor charges on officers executing federal warrants.
The Supremacy Clause exists precisely to prevent states from waging guerrilla legal warfare against the enforcement of federal law.
California keeps pretending otherwise, and the courts keep telling them no.
Bondi framed the stakes plainly:
"Law enforcement officers risk their lives for us, only to be doxxed by radical anti-police activists. Unacceptable."
That's the part of this story that doesn't make it into the "No Secret Police Act" branding. Federal agents conducting immigration operations in hostile jurisdictions face real threats. Their names and faces, once exposed, become targets for harassment, intimidation, and violence.
Masks aren't theatrical props. They are protective measures for officers working in communities where local politicians have spent years encouraging resistance to federal immigration law.
California created an environment where agents need anonymity, then passed a law stripping it away. The contradiction isn't accidental. It's the strategy.
Bondi added:
"This crucial ruling protects our brave men and women in the field. We will not stop fighting bad laws like these in California and across the country."
The dispute is the latest flashpoint in a long-running clash between the Trump administration and California's Democratic leadership.
Sacramento has turned obstruction of federal immigration enforcement into something between a governing philosophy and a hobby. Sanctuary policies, non-cooperation mandates, and now criminal penalties for the equipment federal agents wear.
Each new law forces the Justice Department to spend time and resources in court rather than in the field. Each new law signals to illegal immigrants that California will fight to keep the federal government from enforcing the law. And each new law, when it inevitably fails in court, gets quietly revised and resubmitted.
The 9th Circuit, not historically known for siding with federal enforcement priorities, issued a full stay. When even the 9th Circuit tells California it has gone too far, the overreach speaks for itself.
Sacramento will try again. The DOJ will be waiting.
President Donald Trump announced Friday he will not ask Congress to vote on imposing his tariffs following the Supreme Court's decision striking them down as unconstitutional. Speaking at a White House press conference, Trump made clear he sees no need for legislative action and intends to pursue alternative authorities instead.
"I don't have to," Trump said. "I have the right to do tariffs, and it's all been approved by Congress, so there's no reason to."
The Washington Examiner reported that the declaration came days after the House voted last week to repeal the president's tariffs on Canada, with six House Republicans joining almost every single Democrat to end the duty on Canadian goods.
Trump signaled the ruling won't slow his trade agenda, pointing to other tools at his disposal.
"Other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected. We have alternatives. Great alternative, could be more money. We'll take in more money and be a lot stronger for it."
The House vote on Canada tariffs exposed a narrow fault line in the Republican conference. Three Republicans voted with all Democrats to stop an extension of a ban on tariff-repeal votes, which had been in place since last year and expired at the end of January. That procedural move opened the door for the full House to vote on repealing the Canada tariffs.
Trump downplayed the defections, though he misstated the number of Republicans who bucked him on the vote. Six House Republicans ultimately sided with Democrats.
"We lost two Republicans or three Republicans, because they're not good Republicans. We have great unity. There's great unity in the Republican Party."
Speaker Mike Johnson and other House Republicans had previously said they wanted to defer on voting to repeal tariffs until the Supreme Court's ruling was decided, so as not to act prematurely. That strategy effectively shielded members from having to take a difficult vote for months. Now that the Court has ruled, the political cover is gone.
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the Republicans who has vocally challenged the tariff approach, told the Washington Examiner he sees the Court's ruling as vindication.
"I've been saying this for 12 months. Article 1 gives Congress the authority for tariffs. Our constitutional checks and balances still work."
Bacon's argument is a straightforward textualist one: the Constitution assigns tariff authority to Congress, and no amount of executive creativity changes that foundational arrangement. It's the kind of argument that, in a different context, most conservatives would embrace without hesitation. The tension here isn't really about constitutional principle. It's about whether the trade policy goals justify the means used to pursue them.
Trump said he "would probably get it" if he went to Congress for a vote. Whether that's true remains untested, and the White House clearly has no interest in testing it.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wasted no time framing the ruling as a rebuke of what he called "Trump's harmful tariff regime."
"For more than a year, Republicans repeatedly blocked Democrats' efforts to overturn these clearly illegal taxes that have burdened American families."
It's a convenient talking point, but it deserves scrutiny. Democrats spent years cheering executive overreach when it served their policy goals. The idea that they suddenly discovered a passion for Article I authority on trade is about as convincing as their rediscovery of fiscal responsibility every time a Republican occupies the White House.
It remains unclear whether Democrats will continue to force votes on repealing Trump's tariffs against Mexico and Brazil. The Washington Examiner reached out to Meeks's office on the question. If Democrats truly believe this is a winning issue, they'll push forward. If they go quiet, it tells you everything about whether this was a principle or positioning.
The real story here isn't the Court ruling itself. It's what happens after it. Trump's promise of "great alternatives" that could bring in "more money" suggests the administration has already identified other statutory authorities or executive mechanisms to continue pursuing its trade agenda. The specifics remain to be seen, but the posture is unmistakable: this is a detour, not an off-ramp.
For congressional Republicans, the situation is more uncomfortable. The procedural ban that shielded members from tariff votes is gone.
Every trade measure that comes to the floor now requires a public vote and a public position. No more waiting for the Court to decide. No more deferring to the White House while quietly hoping the issue resolves itself.
Six Republicans already showed they're willing to break ranks on Canada. The question is whether that number grows when Mexico and Brazil come up, or whether the party closes ranks behind whatever alternative the administration rolls out next.
The Constitution won a round. The trade fight isn't over.
U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts, the former two-term Republican governor of Nebraska and one of the more reliable conservative voices in the Senate, is endorsing a Democrat for the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. That Democrat happens to be his wife.
Breitbart reported that Susanne Shore, Nebraska's former first lady, is running for an Omaha-area seat on the Board of Regents to complete the final four years of a term vacated by former Regent Elizabeth O'Connor.
She is running as a Democrat, with her own Democrat political consultant and her own campaign operation. Ricketts, for his part, is not pretending otherwise.
"I usually vote straight Republican, but Susanne will be my one Democrat exception in 2026!"
That's a line designed to charm. Whether it should is another question entirely.
Ricketts called Shore "an outstanding voice for the university" and praised her as "seeking to keep higher education affordable and accessible." He added that her "deep love for Nebraska is clear." Shore herself described Ricketts as "nothing but supportive" of her campaign, even as she acknowledged the two often hold opposing political views at home.
Shore's stated focus is on ensuring students from rural and urban backgrounds receive the academic and social support needed to complete degrees or certificates. She framed her pitch in broadly agreeable terms:
"It's not just about being able to get into school. It's being able to get out without being burdened by a massive debt … work-study programs and internships."
Affordable education. Support for rural students. Reduced debt burdens. None of that sounds controversial on its face. But the Board of Regents doesn't just set tuition rates. It governs the ideological direction of one of the state's most powerful institutions. And on that front, Shore's answers get thinner.
The Nebraska Examiner reported that Shore did not directly answer whether her campaign focus might mean she would advocate for embattled diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, which have been political targets in Nebraska and elsewhere. That silence is worth noting. Candidates who intend to oppose DEI rarely struggle to say so.
What makes this endorsement so strange is the man making it. This is the same Pete Ricketts who, as governor in 2021, publicly excoriated the University of Nebraska-Lincoln over its "Journey for Anti-Racism and Racial Equity" plan. He didn't mince words at the time:
"While the University has repeatedly denied that their plan includes Critical Race Theory, their own records reveal that the consultant behind their efforts is a critical race theorist."
He described the plan as reaching "into every corner of campus" and called it "legally questionable, intellectually flawed, and politically charged." In a separate interview with Breitbart News in December 2021, he went further:
"Critical race theory is talking about resegregation. A betrayal of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King."
That same year, Ricketts held town halls across Nebraska to expose what he called "the gender ideology" embedded in proposed sex education standards. He described the content as "crazy stuff" and "sexualization of our children." He told Nebraskans that the path to reform ran through personnel decisions:
"To make real change, we have to replace those people on the school board with people who believe the parents are responsible for a kid's education."
His closing argument at the time was as clear as it gets: "To change the policy, you have to change people."
Now he is asking voters to put a Democrat on the board that governs the very university system he once fought to reform.
Nobody begrudges a man for supporting his wife. Marriage involves compromise, loyalty, and the occasional decision to hold your tongue at Thanksgiving. But a U.S. senator's endorsement is not a private act. It carries institutional weight. It directs voter behavior. It tells conservative Nebraskans that this candidate has been vetted and found acceptable.
And what do those voters actually know about Shore's positions? That she wants college to be affordable. That she supports work-study programs. That she won't say where she stands on DEI.
The Board of Regents race is officially nonpartisan, but Shore chose to run as a Democrat. She hired a Democrat consultant. She is competing in a Democratic primary against at least four other candidates, including Michael Skocz, a University of Nebraska at Omaha employee; Drew Leisy, the current UNO Student Regent; Justin Solomon, a former UNL Student Regent; and Larry Bradley, a perennial candidate. The top two finishers from the May 12 primary advance to the November 3 general election.
Running as a Democrat in a nominally nonpartisan race is itself a signal. It tells a coalition what to expect.
Higher education governance is not a ceremonial post. University boards set the terms for hiring, curriculum review, and the institutional culture that shapes a generation of students.
Conservatives have spent years fighting to reclaim these institutions from ideological capture. Ricketts himself made that case more forcefully than almost any governor in the country.
The question is not whether Susanne Shore is a good person. The question is whether a Democrat candidate who declines to answer questions about DEI will govern the University of Nebraska in a direction that aligns with the values Ricketts spent his governorship defending.
Ricketts told Nebraskans that to change policy, you have to change people. He was right then. The principle doesn't bend because the person is family.
An 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy waived his preliminary hearing Thursday after being charged as an adult with criminal homicide in the shooting death of his adoptive father. Fox News reported that Clayton Dietz, who allegedly killed 42-year-old Douglas Dietz in their Duncannon home on Jan. 13, appeared at the Perry County Courthouse in New Bloomfield. His case will now proceed to the Court of Common Pleas.
The facts of this case are as disturbing as any you will encounter. They demand seriousness, not sensation.
According to court records cited by WHP, the sequence of events began shortly after midnight on Jan. 13, when Jillian Dietz, Douglas's wife, said the couple went to bed after singing "Happy Birthday" to Clayton. What followed was methodical.
The boy allegedly searched for his Nintendo Switch, then found keys to a gun safe. He opened the safe, retrieved a revolver, loaded it, pulled back the hammer, and shot his adoptive father while he slept. Court records cited by WHP indicate Douglas Dietz suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
Jillian Dietz told investigators she woke to a loud noise, tried to wake her husband, found him unresponsive, and discovered blood on the bed. When Clayton entered the room, she yelled words to the effect of "Daddy's dead." The boy allegedly ran downstairs shouting, "My dad's dead."
A state trooper reported that Clayton told him plainly:
"I killed Daddy."
Court records cited by WHP also noted that Clayton indicated "he had someone in mind who he was going to shoot." This was not described as an accident. It was not described as a spontaneous act. By every account in the court documents, an 11-year-old located keys, unlocked a safe, loaded a weapon, and fired it into his sleeping father's head.
Pennsylvania State Police responded at approximately 3 a.m. to a report of a male with a gunshot wound, according to a news release from the Perry County District Attorney's Office.
Troopers found Douglas Dietz deceased. Clayton was charged with criminal homicide as an adult. Bail was denied that same day, and he remains confined at the Perry County Prison.
On Feb. 19, the criminal docket was marked "waived for court" after Clayton waived his preliminary hearing. His defense attorney, Dave Wilson, has signaled the fight to come:
"My goal is going to be to try to get him into juvenile court."
That effort will become the center of this case. And it raises questions that the legal system will struggle to answer cleanly.
There is no comfortable place to stand when an 11-year-old is accused of premeditated murder. The instinct to protect a child collides with the reality of what that child allegedly did. Both impulses are human. Only one can govern the legal outcome.
Conservatives have long argued that the juvenile justice system, when misapplied, prioritizes the offender's age over the gravity of the offense and the safety of the community.
Lenient treatment for violent juvenile offenders has produced headlines across the country: repeat offenders cycling through systems designed for truancy and shoplifting, not homicide. The pressure to treat every young defendant as a candidate for rehabilitation, regardless of the crime, is a progressive impulse that often ignores the victim entirely.
But this case resists easy categories. This is not a 16-year-old gang member with a rap sheet. This is an 11-year-old in a rural Pennsylvania home. The details suggest premeditation, deliberation, and a chilling calm. They also describe a child who, under any framework, was not old enough to drive, vote, sign a contract, or buy a soda at some school vending machines.
The conservative position is not cruel. It is accountability proportional to the act. And the act here, as described in court records, was the deliberate killing of a sleeping man by someone who planned it, armed himself, and carried it out.
Douglas Dietz was 42 years old. He adopted Clayton. He was celebrating the boy's birthday hours before he was killed in his own bed. Whatever failures, pressures, or darkness led to that moment, a man who chose to be a father to a child who needed one is dead.
That fact should anchor every conversation about what happens next.
The legal system will argue over jurisdiction, competency, and sentencing frameworks. Defense attorneys will push for juvenile court. Prosecutors will point to the evidence of planning and intent. Both sides will make arguments grounded in law.
But the man who sang "Happy Birthday" that night never woke up. The system owes him an answer that takes that seriously.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked California from enforcing a law that would bar federal immigration agents from wearing masks during operations. The full stay halts the state's mask ban while litigation continues, preserving a lower court's earlier decision that found the law unconstitutionally singled out federal officers.
Newsmax reported that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the ruling on X:
"The 9th Circuit has now issued a FULL stay blocking California's ban on masks for federal law enforcement agents."
She followed with a pointed message about the stakes involved:
"Law enforcement officers risk their lives for us, only to be doxxed by radical anti-police activists. Unacceptable."
That word, "doxxed," is doing a lot of work. And it should. Because that's exactly what California's law was designed to facilitate, whether its authors admit it or not.
California's law took effect Jan. 1. Dubbed the "No Secret Police Act" by supporters, the measure signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom made it a misdemeanor for many law enforcement officers, including federal officers, to wear a mask or other disguise while interacting with the public during official duties. It carved out exceptions for:
On its face, the law presented itself as a transparency measure. In practice, it was a weapon aimed squarely at federal immigration enforcement. Masked federal immigration operations drew protests and public scrutiny in 2025, and Sacramento responded not by engaging the underlying policy debate but by trying to strip agents of basic operational safety.
The Trump administration argued the measure would endanger agents and intrude on federal authority. The Justice Department sued California in November, contending the state cannot regulate how federal officers carry out their duties and that the law violates the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder blocked California from enforcing the mask restrictions against federal officers. Her reasoning was straightforward: the law unlawfully discriminated against the federal government because it exempted certain state law enforcement agencies while applying to federal agents.
Read that again. California wrote a law that let its own officers mask up in certain situations but criminalized the same conduct by federal agents. That's not a transparency principle. That's a targeting mechanism.
Snyder did allow California to enforce a separate state requirement that law enforcement officers display visible identification showing their agency and badge number, except when working undercover. Newsom called that portion of the ruling "a clear win for the rule of law." A curious bit of spin, given that the central feature of his own law was just struck down.
The 9th Circuit's full stay now keeps Snyder's block firmly in place while the case moves through the appellate process.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli put it plainly:
"The state of California needs to familiarize itself with the Supremacy Clause."
"It does not have the authority to regulate federal agents. This is another key win for the Justice Department."
This is a foundational point that California's political leadership keeps pretending doesn't exist. States do not get to dictate the operational procedures of federal law enforcement. They never have. The Supremacy Clause is not ambiguous on this question, and no amount of progressive branding changes the constitutional math.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, the bill's author, said after the district court ruling that he would move quickly to revise the law to apply more uniformly across law enforcement agencies.
In other words, the state already conceded the discrimination problem at the heart of the statute. The fix Wiener is proposing is not a principled defense of the original law. It's an admission that the law was built on a double standard.
This was never about masks. California has spent years constructing an elaborate legal infrastructure designed to obstruct federal immigration enforcement. Every new bill, every new regulation, every new "sanctuary" policy serves the same purpose: make it harder, more dangerous, and more politically costly for the federal government to enforce the law within California's borders.
The mask ban was one more brick in that wall. By exposing the identities of federal agents conducting lawful operations, the state was effectively outsourcing intimidation to activist networks. Officers who arrest illegal immigrants in communities where that enforcement is politically unpopular become targets. Their names circulate. Their faces appear online. Their families face threats.
Bondi framed the stakes correctly:
"This crucial ruling protects our brave men and women in the field. We will not stop fighting bad laws like these in California and across the country."
The Justice Department has now won at the district level and secured a full stay from the 9th Circuit, a court not historically known for its enthusiasm for federal enforcement actions. That tells you how far outside the constitutional lines California wandered with this law.
Sacramento will keep testing boundaries. The courts will keep drawing them. But for now, the agents enforcing federal law in California can do their jobs without the state government painting targets on their backs.
Robert De Niro wants you to know that Donald Trump will never leave the White House. He has wanted you to know this since at least May of 2024. He wanted you to know it again in October of 2025. And now, in a forthcoming podcast appearance with Nicolle Wallace, he wants you to know it one more time.
Breitbart reported that the actor is set to appear on a podcast sponsored by MS NOW, the far-left news network, where he delivers a familiar refrain. According to a preview reported by The Wrap, De Niro once again insists that Trump will refuse to vacate the presidency when his second term ends in 2028.
"Let's not kid ourselves. He will not leave. It's up to us to get rid of him."
Wallace, for her part, tried to emphasize that such a movement should be "peaceful." A reassuring qualifier, given the temperature of the rhetoric preceding it.
This is not new material. De Niro has been delivering this warning on a loop since the 2024 election, and the quotes are almost interchangeable at this point. In May of 2024, the actor offered this:
"Elections? Forget about it. That's over. That's done. If he gets in, I can tell you right now. He will never leave. He will never leave. You know that. He will never leave."
Then, in October of 2025, he kept the streak alive:
"We can't let up. Cannot let up on him because he is not going to leave the White House. He does not want to leave the White House. He will not leave the White House. Anybody thinks he, oh, he'll do this, he'll do that, it's just deluding themselves."
And now, from the podcast preview:
"He will never leave. We have to make him leave. He jokes now about nationalizing the elections. He's not joking. We've seen enough already."
Four statements across two years, all saying the same thing, with the same evidence behind them. Which is to say: none.
There is a rather large problem with the theory that Trump will barricade himself in the Oval Office and refuse to yield power. He already lost an election and left.
Trump lost his first re-election bid to Joe Biden in 2020. He left the White House without hesitation when he lost. There is no indication that he won't do so again in 2028. The Twenty-Second Amendment exists. The transfer of power has a date on the calendar. None of this requires Robert De Niro to organize a citizen resistance movement from a podcast studio.
But facts have never been the point of this exercise. The point is the performance.
De Niro also went on to claim that Trump is somehow threatening polling places, suggesting citizens may need to physically show up on "the other side" to ensure people can vote safely. His exact words:
"We have to make sure that like what he's trying now, that all the polling places have people that can come there safely. That might mean citizens on the other side."
What Trump is "trying now" at polling places is never specified. No incident is cited. No evidence is offered. It is the kind of claim that sounds urgent precisely because it is vague, a shadow on the wall that the audience is invited to fill in with their own anxieties.
This is the engine of modern progressive fearmongering. You don't need proof. You need tone. You need a famous face saying "you know that" with enough gravity that the listener nods along without asking what, exactly, they know.
The broader pattern here is worth noting, not because De Niro is uniquely influential, but because he represents a type. The celebrity who mistakes volume for moral authority.
The cultural figure who, having spent decades in rooms where everyone agrees with him, genuinely cannot fathom that the democratic process might produce outcomes he dislikes and then self-correct on schedule.
Some even made the same "he'll never leave" claim in 2020. Trump left. The prediction failed. Nobody recalibrated. They simply moved the goalpost to 2028 and kept going.
This is not political commentary. It is a ritual. The conspiracy refreshes itself every cycle, immune to the fact that its core prediction has already been disproven by observable reality. The left spent years warning that democracy was about to end, watched it continue functioning, and concluded that they simply hadn't warned hard enough.
De Niro telling Nicolle Wallace that Trump "will never leave" is not brave. It is not insightful. It is a man reciting the same line to the same audience and receiving the same applause. The podcast drops Monday. The next one will sound identical.
Iranian and Russian naval forces conducted joint exercises Thursday in the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean, staging what they dubbed "Maritime Security Belt 2026" as President Trump contemplates airstrikes against Iran and American warships tighten their presence across the region.
The drills involved units from the Iranian Navy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Russian Navy special units, employing both air and surface craft. Two days earlier, the IRGC, a designated terrorist organization, temporarily shut down the Strait of Hormuz for live-fire drills involving ship- and shore-launched missiles.
Iran also issued warnings to airline pilots operating in the southern part of the country that rockets would be launched during the exercises. None of this is routine, no matter what Tehran claims.
As reported by Breitbart, the Kremlin insisted the drills were "planned exercises and agreed upon in advance," a familiar line from a government that has perfected the art of pre-scheduling provocations. Video published by the Russian military showed the corvette Stoiky arriving at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, presumably before joining the exercises.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov offered the kind of diplomatic language Moscow deploys when it wants to appear above the fray while actively stoking it:
"We are currently witnessing an unprecedented escalation of tensions in the region, but we still expect that political and diplomatic tools will prevail."
He followed that with a call for "restraint and prudence" directed at "our Iranian friends and all parties in the region." The word "friends" is doing considerable work in that sentence. Russia is not a neutral observer counseling calm. It is a participant sailing warships into contested waters alongside a regime that just closed one of the world's most critical shipping lanes to practice firing missiles.
Iranian Navy commander Rear Adm. Shahram Irani dispensed with any pretense of the exercises being defensive or routine. He complained publicly about "threats, noise, propaganda, and the presence of extra-regional fleets in West Asia," then escalated:
"If the extra-regional fleet feels it has come with power, it should know that the Iranian people will confront them with greater power. The faith of the people and missiles are the Islamic Republic of Iran's deterrent weapons against the enemy."
Iranian state media described the drills as "routine" and said they included "the liberation of a hijacked ship," aerial reconnaissance, surface operations, and "the capture of simulated pirates." The gap between "routine anti-piracy exercise" and "we will confront you with missiles and faith" tells you everything about where Tehran's head is.
Iranian spokesman Capt. Hassan Maqsoudlou confirmed that participating units included "special operations units" from both the Iranian Navy and IRGC naval forces, and spoke of strengthening relations between the two countries' navies. China was reportedly supposed to participate, but little information was made publicly available about the presence of any Chinese ships. Whether Beijing quietly pulled back or simply kept its involvement out of the press is an open question worth watching.
The joint drills unfold against a backdrop of significant American force projection. The USS Abraham Lincoln and its battle group are currently within striking distance of Iran. The USS Gerald R. Ford, America's largest and most advanced warship, is headed for the Strait of Gibraltar and could be in position as soon as this weekend. Some 50 additional American combat aircraft have been moved into position this week.
If those figures hold, Iran could be facing one of the largest U.S. aerial deployments since the Cold War.
That is the context in which Tehran chose to close the Strait of Hormuz for missile drills and then stage joint exercises with Russia. These are not the moves of a regime confident in its diplomatic position. They are the moves of a government that sees the board clearly and is scrambling to project strength it may not possess.
There is a pattern with regimes under pressure. They hold military parades. They fire rockets into open water. They invite a fellow pariah state to sail alongside them for the cameras. The spectacle is the point, because the spectacle is all they have.
Russia gets to remind Washington that it has relationships in the region. Iran gets to claim it isn't isolated. Both governments get footage for state television. But none of it changes the correlation of forces. Two carrier strike groups, dozens of advanced combat aircraft, and the full logistical weight of the American military do not become less formidable because a Russian corvette docked at Bandar Abbas.
Tehran's strategy appears to be deterrence through rhetoric and symbolism: missiles and faith, as Rear Adm. Irani put it. That formulation tells you what's missing from the list. Modern air defense systems. A navy capable of contesting blue water. Allies are willing to fight rather than issue press releases about restraint.
Russia will call for calm. Iran will fire rockets at imaginary pirates. And American carrier groups will continue closing the distance. The Gulf of Oman is getting crowded, and only one side chose to be there from a position of strength.
Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) went on CNN International Thursday and said the quiet part out loud: Democrats have almost no cards to play in the DHS shutdown standoff, and the White House knows it.
Appearing on "The Brief," Correa laid out a remarkably candid assessment of his party's negotiating position. The $170 billion Congress gave DHS through the reconciliation bill last year means ICE and CBP can keep operating regardless of the partial shutdown. The agency Democrats want to constrain is already funded to do exactly what it's doing.
Correa's solution? Hold firm anyway.
The California Democrat's appearance was a masterclass in self-defeating political messaging, Breitbart noted. In the span of a few minutes, he managed to acknowledge that the administration holds the leverage, that the shutdown is "very small," and that the funding Democrats themselves voted on gives the White House the resources to continue enforcement operations without interruption.
Then he argued Democrats should dig in harder.
"Big, beautiful bill, $170 billion, they can continue moving forward on this very small shutdown and continue to do what they're doing. They have the cards. We have very few cards, and that's why we have to hold firm on this one."
Read that again. The reason to hold firm is precisely that they have no leverage. This is not a negotiating strategy. It's a coping mechanism dressed up as resolve.
Correa framed the Democratic position as a simple request for "guardrails" on immigration enforcement. He attributed the effort to "Hakeem," a reference to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who he said was asking that ICE obtain warrants, respect churches, and protect citizens' rights during operations.
On the surface, these sound reasonable. Nobody objects to constitutional protections. But the framing does a lot of heavy lifting. What Correa and his colleagues are actually demanding is a set of procedural restrictions designed to slow enforcement to a crawl. Requiring warrants for every immigration arrest, carving out broad sanctuary zones around churches, and layering new bureaucratic requirements onto agents already doing their jobs. These aren't guardrails. They're speed bumps engineered to make enforcement impractical.
The tell is in the rhetoric surrounding the request. Correa didn't just ask for procedural reforms. He accused ICE of going "after anybody that gets in their way, including Americans" and described Homeland Security as having become "a police force" rather than a national security agency. He referenced individuals in his district who he said were "beaten, arrested, jailed by ICE," though he offered no names, no case numbers, and no documentation.
Correa referenced two individuals, "Mother Good" and a nurse he called "Pretti," as having been killed. He provided no details about when, where, how, or by whom. He didn't connect these deaths to any specific enforcement action. He simply dropped the names and moved on to broader accusations that the administration would "kill more individuals" if left unchecked.
This is a serious pattern in the immigration debate. Elected officials make grave accusations on camera, offer no specifics, and trust that the emotional weight of the claim will do the work that evidence should. If ICE agents are genuinely brutalizing citizens in Correa's district, that demands specifics: names, dates, incident reports, lawsuits. Not vague gestures on an international news broadcast.
The contrast with the administration's actual stated goal is striking. Correa himself acknowledged that President Trump "promised to deport the most serious of criminals." That's the mandate. That's what the $170 billion is funding. If Democrats believe enforcement is exceeding that mandate, the answer is oversight with evidence, not a shutdown standoff they've already admitted they can't win.
What Correa's interview actually revealed isn't a path forward for Democrats. It's the depth of their strategic bind. They voted for the funding. The enforcement apparatus is operational. The shutdown affects a narrow slice of DHS operations, and the public isn't clamoring for ICE to stop arresting illegal immigrants.
So Democrats are left arguing that:
This isn't a policy disagreement. It's a party watching its own prior decisions play out and objecting to the results.
The White House has little reason to make concessions. Correa said it himself: they have the cards. ICE is funded. CBP is funded. The "very small shutdown" is a nuisance, not a crisis, and every day it continues, Democrats are the ones who have to explain why they're holding out for restrictions on an agency that most voters want to see doing its job.
Correa's honesty, however unintentional, did his party no favors. When your own members go on international television and explain that you have no leverage, the other side tends to believe them.
Democrats wanted a fight over immigration enforcement. They got one. They just forgot to check whether they had any ammunition first.