President Donald Trump revealed Monday that Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL) had been diagnosed with terminal heart disease, a diagnosis so severe that, in Trump's words, the Florida congressman would have been dead by June without intervention.
Trump shared the story at a convening of the Trump-Kennedy Center Board at the White House, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) seated directly to his right. Johnson confirmed the gravity of the situation, acknowledging that the diagnosis had never been made public.
"I think it was a terminal diagnosis."
That was Johnson's unvarnished assessment. When Trump pressed him on the details, Johnson conceded with a half-laugh: "OK, that wasn't public, but yeah, OK." Then, more soberly: "It was grim, that's what I was going to say."
Trump said Johnson first brought Dunn's condition to his attention, according to the Washington Examiner. What happened next moved fast. After calling two White House doctors, they went to see Dunn and had him on the operating table in what Trump described as "two hours."
Johnson filled in the sequence from there:
"Within a number of hours, they took him to Walter Reed emergency surgery."
Trump described the procedure as extensive. "It was a long operation; they gave him more stents and more everything that you could have," he said, adding with characteristic directness, "I think he's got everything that you could have."
Then the call came from the doctors: "Sir, I think he'll be fine."
Trump's reaction: "You've got to be kidding."
What struck both Trump and Johnson wasn't just the medical outcome. It was what Dunn did afterward.
Dunn announced earlier this year that he plans to retire at the end of his term. But he didn't walk away from the job when the diagnosis hit. Trump noted that most people in that position would tell the Speaker they were done immediately. Dunn didn't.
"Most of them are going to say, 'Mike, I'm retiring immediately.' That's the end. He didn't do that. It really is really impressive."
Trump was candid about his dual concerns when he first learned of Dunn's condition. "No. 1, it was bad because I liked him," he said. "No. 2, it was bad because I needed his vote." The honesty landed the way Trump's honesty usually does: bluntly, without apology, and with the kind of self-awareness that his critics never credit him for.
Johnson expanded on the story, describing the moment Dunn walked back into a conference meeting after surgery. The reaction from colleagues captured the scale of what had happened:
"The man has a new lease on life. He acts like he's 30 years younger, and he walked into the conference meeting, and we thought we'd seen a ghost, and I spoke with him over the weekend, and he's encouraged and thankful, and he thanks the president for his leadership and intervention."
That last detail matters. Dunn credits the president. Not vaguely. Not as a formality. As the man who picked up the phone, called his doctors, and put the machinery of Walter Reed into motion before a terminal diagnosis became a death sentence.
Trump also offered a broader window into how he uses the medical talent surrounding the presidency. "White House doctors are incredible, and they've helped me with other people," he said, before adding: "They're helping me with people right now, people that are very sick. They're miracle workers."
It's a side of the presidency that rarely makes headlines. The commander in chief has access to some of the best physicians in the country, and Trump, by his own account, deploys them not just for himself but for people around him who need urgent help. There's no bureaucratic committee. No six-month wait for a referral. A president who sees a problem and acts on it.
Neal Dunn was facing a terminal prognosis. Now he's walking into meetings looking, by Johnson's account, like a man three decades younger. The doctors did the surgery. But someone had to make the call.
Trump made the call.
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie, has been missing for almost six weeks after she was last seen at her Arizona home on January 31. She was reported missing the following day. Authorities believe she was kidnapped, and drops of her blood were found on the front porch of her house.
The FBI last month released surveillance images of a masked man on Nancy Guthrie's porch on the night she disappeared. Authorities have not publicly identified the person, whom they called a suspect, but described him as a male about 5-foot-9 or 5-foot-10 with an average build carrying a 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack. Alleged ransom notes were sent to multiple news outlets. The family is offering a $1-million reward for information leading to her recovery, with a separate reward of more than $200,000 for information about her whereabouts or that could lead to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved.
Nancy Guthrie also needs vital daily medication, adding an urgent medical dimension to an already desperate situation.
This week, retired FBI agent Maureen O'Connell offered a striking analysis of the blood evidence found at the scene, telling NewsNation's Brian Entin that the pattern of the droplets suggests Guthrie did not leave on her own.
"What I do believe is she was carried out. I don't believe she walked out. I believe she was carried out by two people and I say that because of the blood droplets, the fact that there's no void, the fact that there's no footprints, it's almost like two guys carried her and her head tilted in some way shape or form and it just came out right there."
That analysis, if accurate, reshapes the picture considerably. It implies planning, coordination, and at least two perpetrators. It also suggests violence occurred inside the home before Guthrie was removed from it.
Meanwhile, April Stonehouse, a forensics professor at Arizona State University and a former DNA analyst for government crime laboratories, told Entin she was "hopeful" investigators would find usable DNA samples from the scene. She noted that blood, semen, and saliva are the most useful substances for DNA analysis and described the presence of biological evidence as "a good thing" for the investigation.
Stonehouse acknowledged the limitations, noting that "you are at the mercy of what the suspect left behind," but said investigators would be looking for items that they think the suspect handled or used.
"I would be hopeful that they found at least a few items of evidence. It's just a matter of locating it and finding it."
She also referenced the use of DNA analysis in the Golden State killer case, a reminder that even cold trails can eventually yield identifications when the forensic work is thorough.
On February 27, the Pima County Sheriff's Department issued a statement signaling a shift in how it is allocating resources to the case, according to Newsweek:
"This remains an active investigation and will continue until Nancy Guthrie is located or all leads have been exhausted. The Pima County Sheriff's Department is refocusing resources to detectives specifically assigned to this case. As leads are developed and resolved, resource allocation may fluctuate. PCSD will maintain a patrol presence in the Guthrie neighborhood."
Read that carefully. "Refocusing resources to detectives specifically assigned" is bureaucratic language for tightening the circle. It can mean the department is moving from a wide canvas to a more targeted pursuit, which could indicate they have leads worth concentrating on. It could also mean exactly what critics might fear: the visible, large-scale response is being scaled back.
Either way, six weeks into a kidnapping case with blood evidence, surveillance footage of a suspect, and no recovery, the pressure on law enforcement is enormous. The public has a right to expect urgency that matches the severity of the crime.
Last week, Savannah Guthrie posted on Instagram with a message that was equal parts gratitude and plea:
"We feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, from the Tucson community and from around the country.…Please don't stop praying and hoping with us. bring her home."
There is nothing political about a daughter asking the country to help find her mother. There is nothing partisan about the expectation that law enforcement will devote every available resource to bringing a kidnapped woman home alive. But the case raises questions that conservatives have been asking for years about public safety, the adequacy of local law enforcement resources, and whether communities across America can count on swift and sustained investigative attention when violent crime strikes.
It seems as though despite the time that has passed, someone knows something about what happened to Nancy Guthrie. The question is, will investigators discover it before it's too late?
Tennessee Republicans are advancing a bill that would make it a state-level crime for illegal immigrants to remain in the state more than 90 days after receiving a final federal deportation order. The measure, sponsored by Tennessee House Majority Leader William Lamberth, would classify the offense as a Class A misdemeanor and would also apply to those who intentionally enter the state after being ordered removed.
The bill includes a trigger mechanism: it would activate only if federal law changes or the Supreme Court overturns its 2012 ruling in Arizona v. United States, which limited state authority over immigration enforcement. In other words, Tennessee is loading the legal chamber now and waiting for the Court to hand it the green light.
Lamberth made no apologies for the approach during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
"When someone has exhausted all their options and they've been told to leave the country, it is illegal for them to stay, both under federal law, and if this bill passes, it would be a misdemeanor for them to enter in, or remain in, the state of Tennessee."
When pressed about constitutionality under the Arizona precedent, he didn't flinch: "I like our track record with the U.S. Supreme Court."
He has reason for that confidence. Tennessee has already watched the Court uphold conservative state policies, including its ban on gender-affirming care for minors and a post-Roe abortion trigger law. The trigger mechanism in this immigration bill follows the same playbook. Lamberth described it as a design that "respects constitutional boundaries while ensuring we are prepared if states' authority is restored."
The immigration advocacy complex responded on cue. Spring Miller, senior legal director at the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, told Newsweek that the bill would produce "a chilling impact" and characterized it as unconstitutional overreach, as Newsweek reports.
"Established law dating back well over a century prohibits states creating their own immigration laws, but Tennessee legislators are attempting to create a state-level immigration regime with this bill that would lead to chaos and disorder throughout the country."
Miller also argued the bill would be nearly impossible to enforce, claiming there is no centralized database tracking everyone who has received a final order of removal and that some people with such orders could be adjusting their status through legal pathways.
State Representative Gloria Johnson offered a more colorful objection, calling it a "Stephen Miller bill" and warning the committee that "everything that I've read, everyone that I've talked to, said that this is currently unconstitutional."
Notice the framing. Opponents aren't arguing that people with final deportation orders should be allowed to stay. They're arguing that Tennessee isn't allowed to do anything about it. The distinction matters.
The constitutionality objection rests entirely on Arizona v. United States, a 2012 ruling that struck down parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law on preemption grounds. It's a real precedent. Nobody disputes that.
But the legal landscape has shifted considerably since 2012. The current Supreme Court has shown a willingness to revisit settled assumptions about federal supremacy when states present compelling interests. Tennessee's trigger mechanism is a direct acknowledgment of that reality. The bill doesn't pretend Arizona doesn't exist. It positions the state to act the moment the legal door opens.
Miller argued that taxpayer resources would be diverted from healthcare and education to "imprison people for simply being or passing through the state and having been issued a piece of paper that they may or may not have been aware of."
A final order of removal is not "a piece of paper." It is the conclusion of a legal process in which an immigration judge has determined that an individual has no legal right to remain in the United States. Describing it as something someone "may or may not have been aware of" is the kind of rhetorical sleight of hand that reduces the rule of law to an inconvenience.
Tennessee is not acting in isolation. It joins a growing bloc of states that have decided the federal government's failure to enforce immigration law does not require them to sit idle.
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center called this a "dangerous trend" in a 2024 policy assessment. Dangerous to whom? Not to the citizens of these states, who have watched for years as the federal government treated enforcement as optional. The trend is dangerous only to the legal fiction that states must remain passive while federal authorities decline to act on their own deportation orders.
The opposition to this bill, and to the broader state-level enforcement movement, ultimately rests on a single premise: that only the federal government may enforce immigration law, and if the federal government chooses not to, then nobody does.
That's not a legal principle. It's a policy preference dressed up as constitutional law.
For decades, the left has relied on federal inaction as a de facto amnesty mechanism. The federal government issues a deportation order. The individual ignores it. No one enforces it. Time passes. Advocates then argue the person has "built a life" and enforcement would be cruel. The cycle repeats. States like Tennessee are trying to break that cycle by removing one of its key ingredients: the guarantee that nothing happens when you ignore a judge's order.
Johnson accused the legislature of advancing this bill "at taxpayer expense," as if the cost of enforcing the law is an argument against having laws. By that logic, every criminal statute is a waste of money.
The bill's trigger mechanism makes it legally disciplined. It doesn't dare the courts to strike it down tomorrow. It plants a flag and waits. If the Supreme Court revisits Arizona v. United States, or if Congress acts to expand state enforcement authority, Tennessee's law snaps into effect without another vote.
Lamberth is betting that the legal window will open. Given the Court's trajectory and the growing political consensus around enforcement, it's not a bad bet.
Opponents will file lawsuits. Advocacy groups will issue press releases about "chilling impacts." Cable news panels will debate whether states can do what the federal government won't.
Meanwhile, people with final deportation orders will still be in Tennessee. The only question is whether that will remain consequence-free.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has reportedly backed out of a scheduled interview with CBS News, and the reason tells you everything you need to know about how the new Democratic mayor handles scrutiny.
According to Vanity Fair, Mamdani had been in discussions to sit down with Robert Costa on "CBS Sunday Morning." Those discussions collapsed after CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss reacted on social media to pointed remarks from Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, activist, and new CBS News contributor. Weiss's offense? She posted a fire emoji.
That single emoji, sources told Vanity Fair, was the "nail in the coffin" for the interview.
Fox News reported that on Feb. 28, during CBS News' breaking news coverage of the conflict, Alinejad slammed Mamdani's condemnation of Operation Epic Fury against the Iranian regime. She urged the mayor to shift his "hatred" away from President Donald Trump and toward the people who actually threatened her life. Her remarks were direct and personal:
"Mr. Mamdani, you are more than welcome to come to one of my safe houses."
Then she turned the mayor's own rhetoric against him:
"Where were you when they sent killers here in New York City? You were crying for your aunt because she has stopped using the subway for simply — in an illusionist statement you made saying she didn't feel safe, for wearing a hijab. Really? I stopped using subways because of the would-be assassins being sent to beautiful New York City by the Islamic Republic."
That's not a political pundit manufacturing outrage. That's a woman who lives under the constant threat of assassination by a theocratic regime, responding to a politician who chose to condemn American military action against that same regime. And when Weiss signaled approval of those remarks, Mamdani's team decided the interview was off, as Fox News reports.
Vanity Fair reported that Mamdani had already been "averse" to appearing on the Weiss-run network. The fire emoji simply gave his team the excuse they were looking for.
This is a familiar playbook from a certain strain of progressive politician. They demand media access when the cameras are friendly. They run the moment an interviewer might ask a question that requires more than talking points. Mamdani isn't avoiding CBS because he fears unfair treatment. He's avoiding it because he fears fair treatment.
A former CBS producer offered Vanity Fair this assessment:
"Bari and her people have a clear ax to grind with him."
The same producer then made a broader admission:
"It's not just Zohran. It's really hard now to get people to come on CBS."
Read that again. Since Weiss took over as editor-in-chief and signaled that CBS would pursue something closer to actual journalism, the people who benefited most from the old arrangement don't want to show up anymore. That's not an indictment of CBS. It's an indictment of the politicians who can only function inside a media ecosystem designed to protect them.
The deeper problem isn't a scheduling dispute with a Sunday morning show. It's where Mamdani's sympathies land when American forces are directed at a regime that exports terrorism and assassination plots to American soil.
Alinejad lives in safe houses. She stopped riding the New York City subway not because of generalized urban anxiety, but because the Islamic Republic sent operatives to kill her. When Mamdani condemned Operation Epic Fury, he placed himself opposite a woman whose life is in danger from the very government he chose to defend from American criticism.
That contrast is devastating, which is precisely why Mamdani doesn't want to sit across from anyone at CBS who might draw it out on camera.
There is something deeply unserious about a mayor of the largest city in America pulling out of a major network interview because the network's top editor posted a fire emoji. Not a hit piece. Not an editorial demanding his resignation. A single Unicode character.
If that's the threshold for retreat, New York is in for a very long administration. Governing a city of eight million people requires facing critics who do more than post emojis. It requires answering for your positions when the audience isn't pre-sorted to applaud.
Neither CBS News nor Mamdani's office responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comment. The silence is consistent. When the questions get uncomfortable, the mayor disappears.
The broader subplot here matters. For years, legacy network news operated as a de facto communications arm for progressive politicians.
Interviews were negotiated, questions were softened, and the final product rarely left a Democrat worse off than when they sat down. Bari Weiss's arrival at CBS disrupted that arrangement. Not because she turned CBS into a conservative outlet, but because she introduced the radical concept that journalists might challenge powerful people regardless of party.
The former CBS producer's complaint is revealing. The problem isn't that CBS is unfair. The problem is that CBS is no longer reliably favorable. Politicians who built their media strategies around sympathetic interviewers now face a network where an Iranian dissident can challenge a Democratic mayor on air, and the editor-in-chief won't pretend it didn't happen.
That's not an ax to grind. That's journalism recovering a pulse.
Mamdani can avoid CBS for as long as he wants. But the questions Alinejad raised aren't going away. Where was his outrage when the Islamic Republic targeted a woman on American soil? Why does his compassion extend to a regime that murders dissidents but not to the military operations aimed at stopping it?
He can dodge the interview. He can't dodge the record.
Charlotte Manley, the woman who served as Prince Andrew's private secretary and treasurer for years, has emerged as what royal watchers are calling a "key witness" in the investigation into the disgraced royal's conduct. Manley told The Times she would be willing to speak with police, offering a telling caveat in the process.
"I would rather talk to the police than the press, not that I would have much to tell them."
That last clause may prove to be the understatement of the year.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, stripped of his royal titles and now referred to by his legal name, was arrested on February 19 on suspicion of misconduct in public office in relation to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The investigation, dubbed Operation Ironville, has since widened. Current and former staff are being questioned by police. And Manley, who held her position from 1996 through 2003 and frequently accompanied Andrew on trips abroad during his tenure as the U.K.'s special representative for trade and investment, sits at the center of it all.
British broadcaster and photographer Helena Chard told Fox News Digital this week that Manley is the "talk of the town" and that those connected to Andrew "are feeling increasing public expectation and pressure to come forward." Chard described Manley as a "dutiful British citizen" and predicted she would "offer a few gems which will lead to further investigation and more people coming forward."
One gem in particular has already attracted scrutiny: a £75 cheque Manley signed from Buckingham Palace funds to pay a masseuse. The Times reported the massage was arranged by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000 and paid for from a Buckingham Palace account. The masseuse in question, Monique Giannelloni, a woman who ran a massage clinic in London, told The Daily Mail last year that she was "embarrassed" when Andrew appeared nude for the appointment.
"He did not do anything or suggest anything untoward, but I was very uncomfortable, and a bit shocked that he had acted like that."
Royal expert Ian Pelham Turner cautioned that the "innuendo of a masseur is a euphemism for a sexual act as similar to the Epstein stories, but in reality it could have been a normal massage by a trained professional for an injury." He noted Andrew goes horseback riding most mornings and might simply be prone to back pain. Fair enough. But a massage arranged by Ghislaine Maxwell, paid with palace money, and signed off by a secretary who now wants to cooperate with police does not exactly scream routine physiotherapy.
Royal expert Hilary Fordwich suggested Manley could share details about Andrew's off-camera behavior during trade envoy trips abroad, where she accompanied him frequently. Fordwich raised pointed questions about "who approved payments linked to travel, hospitality, or services arranged by Maxwell's network." She also suggested Manley "might attempt to reshape the narrative, shifting from Epstein introductions to patterns of palace-enabled impropriety."
Perhaps most significantly, Fordwich said Manley likely maintained detailed logs of Andrew's activities during her years of service, records that could help authorities corroborate other allegations and reveal "how access to Andrew was arranged and who facilitated such."
Fordwich added that Manley "might well feel compelled by a sense of duty" now that King Charles III has publicly stated the "law must take its course." That royal endorsement of full cooperation changes the calculus for anyone sitting on information. Loyalty to Andrew is one thing. Loyalty to a man your own king has declined to shield is quite another.
The investigation's blast radius now extends well beyond Andrew himself. Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said Andrew's daughters, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, are "increasingly to be moving into the line of fire as more details of their parents' links to Epstein emerge." Fitzwilliams noted that Eugenie has already stepped down as patron of Anti-Slavery International, a move that carries its own grim irony given the nature of the allegations surrounding her father's associates.
Fitzwilliams added that The Mail reported neither princess will join the royal party at Royal Ascot or appear at royal events "foreseeably," calling it what it likely is:
"This almost certainly marks the beginning of the end of their royal appearances. Questions are also being asked about how their jet-set lifestyle was funded in earlier years."
Royal commentator Meredith Constant went further, citing a source who said the palace is planning to distance itself from both daughters. Constant said she was told, "they wouldn't be surprised if titles for the girls and the use of royal housing were stripped." She also raised a question that has apparently circulated for some time.
"There have been people sounding the alarm for years that Andrew and Sarah might have gotten their daughters involved in some of the family business."
Constant framed the core issue plainly: "What it comes down to, as it does with every Royal, quite frankly, is financial transparency. Is everything above board? Where is the money coming from and why?"
The scale of the institutional damage is becoming difficult to contain. Turner described the situation as the "biggest mess of the twenty-first century for the Royal family," noting that both King Charles and Prince William were heckled by protesters at the Commonwealth service in London on Monday. The crowd voiced not just anger over the Andrew affair but broader calls for the end of the monarchy itself.
Turner called the police questioning of current and former royal staff "an unprecedented move that has ever happened before," adding that it "just goes to show how seriously this investigation is being treated by the authorities."
And there lies the uncomfortable truth for anyone still invested in the institution. For decades, the British establishment operated on the assumption that proximity to the crown carried a kind of ambient immunity. Scandals could be managed. Embarrassments could be absorbed. Awkward friendships could be explained away with enough time and enough silence.
That assumption died on February 19.
Now the cheques are being traced, the logs are being requested, and the secretary who signed the paperwork says she's ready to talk. Some people close to Andrew worry, as Constant put it, that he "will evade accountability like he has his entire life." Operation Ironville appears to be testing that theory.
Charlotte Manley spent seven years managing Andrew's schedule, his finances, and his travel. She knows where the money went. She knows who arranged the meetings. And she knows what happened behind closed doors at Buckingham Palace when the cameras were off, and the masseuse arrived.
The police, it seems, would very much like to hear about it.
The FBI distributed a memo to local law enforcement agencies across California warning of an unverified Iranian plot to launch drone attacks against the state from a vessel off the U.S. coast. The memo, issued approximately a week ago, described intelligence suggesting Iran "allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" against unspecified California targets in the event the United States conducted strikes against Iran.
President Trump confirmed the government was investigating the alleged plot. On Thursday, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson posted the full text of the memo on X, putting the details squarely into public view.
The key passage from the memo reads plainly enough:
"We recently acquired unverified information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from an unidentified vessel of the coast of the United States homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran. We have no additional information on the timing, method, target or perpetrators of this alleged attack."
Unverified or not, the FBI took it seriously enough to push it to cops in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland. That alone tells you something.
According to KCRA3, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) told reporters Wednesday he was aware of the claim but insisted there was no "imminent threat." He later echoed that assessment on social media.
What Newsom did share was that the state had activated its coordination apparatus. He referenced the State Operations Center, which he said was established after the war began, and described ongoing collaboration with the Office of Emergency Services and local agencies.
"Drone issues have always been top of mind and we have assembled some work groups, specifically around those concerns. But that's all I will share at the moment."
Work groups. For a potential drone attack launched from a boat off the American coastline.
When KCRA 3 Political Director Ashley Zavala asked Newsom whether he had spoken to President Trump about the threat, Newsom said he had not. That's a revealing detail. A governor whose state is named in an FBI threat memo about a foreign adversary's aspirations to strike American soil hasn't picked up the phone to coordinate with the commander-in-chief. Whatever political tensions exist between Sacramento and Washington, the security of 39 million Californians should override them.
While Newsom assembled work groups, police departments across the state moved to operational footing. Oakland police acknowledged they'd spoken with federal partners about a "heightened risk due to the conflict in the Middle East" and said they were evaluating whether to increase police presence. San Francisco police said they were "closely monitoring events in the Middle East and around the world."
The Los Angeles Mayor's Office offered the most direct assessment:
"As always, the Mayor's Office and LAPD are coordinating closely with state and federal partners to keep Angelenos safe. At this time, there is no specific or credible threat to Los Angeles."
The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services stuck to boilerplate, assuring residents that federal, state, and local coordination "happens every day to keep people safe." Meanwhile, Sen. Alex Padilla requested information from the Trump administration on federal efforts to counter potential threats.
The intelligence is unverified. The FBI said so explicitly. There is no confirmed timing, no confirmed method, no confirmed target, no confirmed perpetrators. That matters, and no one should panic based on an aspirational threat assessment with this many unknowns.
But what also matters is the nature of the aspiration itself. Iran, according to this intelligence, has been contemplating a retaliatory drone strike on American soil. Not against a military installation overseas. Not against a diplomatic outpost. Against civilian targets inside a U.S. state. From a boat parked off the coast.
This is the threat environment that years of inconsistent deterrence create. When adversaries begin gaming out attacks on the homeland, even aspirationally, it reflects a calculus about what they believe they can get away with. The Trump administration's investigation of the plot is the correct response: take it seriously, run it down, and make clear that the consequences of attempting such an attack would be catastrophic for the regime that ordered it.
Deterrence doesn't work through work groups. It works when adversaries believe, down to their bones, that the cost of striking America exceeds anything they could gain.
There's a deeper issue here that extends beyond one memo. California has spent years positioning itself as a kind of autonomous political entity, a state that sues the federal government more often than it cooperates with it. That posture becomes a liability when the threat isn't a policy disagreement but a foreign adversary allegedly plotting to launch drones at your population centers.
Newsom established the State Operations Center. He coordinated with emergency services. He briefed local agencies. All fine. But he didn't call the president. The federal government controls the military assets, the intelligence apparatus, and the coastal defense capabilities that would actually stop a drone attack launched from an offshore vessel. Work groups don't intercept UAVs.
The FBI memo went out, the local departments responded, and the federal government is investigating. The system, at the federal level, appears to be functioning. The question is whether California's leadership is prepared to work within that system when it counts, or whether the instinct to maintain political distance from Washington will persist even when the threat crosses from domestic policy into national security.
Iran's aspirations remain unverified. But the memo is real, the FBI distributed it for a reason, and the investigation is underway. California's residents deserve leaders who treat that with the seriousness it demands, not with work groups and social media reassurances.
Supreme Court Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Brett Kavanaugh squared off over the court's emergency docket during a rare, candid discussion at an annual lecture honoring the late Judge Thomas Flannery of the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., on Monday night. The exchange, which played out in a courtroom with several federal judges looking on, including Judge James Boasberg, laid bare a fundamental disagreement about how the court handles the flood of emergency cases that have defined this legal era.
Jackson, a Biden appointee and one of three liberal justices, signaled that the court's willingness to side with President Donald Trump on the emergency docket was a "problem." Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, pushed back directly, noting the court's approach to emergency requests was not unique to this administration and that the justices handled the Biden administration the same way.
The split tells you everything about where each justice stands, and why the emergency docket has become the left's newest institutional grievance.
Jackson framed the issue as one of process, according to Fox News. She argued the Trump administration is forcing the court's hand by implementing policy and demanding immediate effect before legal challenges can be resolved.
"The administration is making new policy ... and then insisting the new policy take effect immediately, before the challenge is decided."
She went further, calling the uptick in emergency docket activity "a real unfortunate problem" and declaring it is "not serving the court or this country well."
Then came the rhetorical flourish that revealed the real frustration. Jackson invoked "Calvinball," the game from the comic strip where rules change on the fly:
"This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins."
This is a striking claim from a sitting justice. It essentially accuses her own colleagues of rigging outcomes. But the charge collapses under the weight of the court's actual record.
The Trump administration has brought about 30 emergency applications to the Supreme Court and secured victories about 80% of the time, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. That's a strong record, but it's not the rubber stamp Jackson implies. The court has ruled against the administration on notable occasions.
Consider what the court has actually done through the emergency docket:
That last item is important. A court that "always" sides with the administration doesn't block the National Guard deployment. A court playing Calvinball doesn't impose additional notice requirements on deportation proceedings. The wins are real, but so are the losses. The 80% figure means roughly one in five emergency applications went against the president.
What Jackson is really objecting to is that the court isn't blocking the administration more often. She wants the emergency docket to serve as an additional veto point against executive action. When it doesn't, she calls it broken.
Kavanaugh's response was measured but substantive. He noted that presidents "push the envelope" more with executive orders because Congress is passing less legislation. That observation deserves more attention than it received.
The emergency docket didn't become prominent because the Supreme Court changed. It became prominent because the other branches did. Congress has spent years punting on major policy questions, from immigration to federal spending to military readiness. Presidents of both parties have filled the vacuum with executive action. Opponents of those actions have raced to friendly courts for injunctions. And the Supreme Court has been forced to sort out the mess on an accelerated timeline.
"Some are lawful, some are not."
That was Kavanaugh's assessment of executive orders generally. It's not a defense of every Trump action. It's an acknowledgment of legal reality. The court evaluates each case. Sometimes the president wins. Sometimes he doesn't.
Kavanaugh also offered a human note, saying of the emergency workload that "none of us enjoy this." That rings true. Emergency applications demand rapid review without the full briefing and oral argument that characterize the court's normal process. No justice, conservative or liberal, prefers that to the regular order.
The left has branded the emergency docket the "shadow docket" for a reason. The term itself is designed to delegitimize. It implies secrecy, when in reality the court's emergency orders are public. It implies deviation from norms, when emergency applications have existed for as long as the court has.
What has changed is volume. The Trump administration has faced hundreds of lawsuits. Many of those lawsuits produce sweeping lower-court injunctions that freeze federal policy nationwide. When the government appeals those injunctions on an emergency basis, the Supreme Court has to decide: does the policy stay frozen, or does the elected executive get to govern while litigation proceeds?
Emergency decisions have often broken 6-3 in favor of the president. Jackson, as one of three liberal justices, has been perhaps the most vocal dissenter. In August, she lambasted the Supreme Court majority for "lawmaking" from the bench in a dissent to an emergency decision that temporarily allowed the National Institutes of Health's cancellation of about $738 million in grant money.
Her dissents are consistent. They are also consistently on the losing side. And that is what drives the "Calvinball" complaint. When you lose most of the time on a court with a 6-3 conservative majority, the temptation is to blame the process rather than reckon with the fact that your legal position simply doesn't command a majority.
Kavanaugh identified the real culprit: a Congress that won't legislate. If Congress passed a clear immigration law, presidents wouldn't need to push the envelope with executive orders. If Congress funded or defunded agencies with specificity, courts wouldn't have to sort out the boundaries of executive discretion on emergency timelines. If Congress did its job, the emergency docket would shrink on its own.
But blaming Congress doesn't generate the same headlines as accusing your colleagues of rigging the game. Jackson chose the headline.
The exchange Monday night was illuminating, not because it revealed some crisis at the court, but because it showed exactly where each side wants the pressure applied. Jackson wants the court to be a bigger obstacle to executive action. Kavanaugh wants the other branches to stop dumping their failures at the court's doorstep.
Only one of those positions asks the system to work the way it was designed.
Two teenagers who pledged allegiance to ISIS tried to detonate bombs outside Gracie Mansion on Saturday, hurling improvised explosive devices into a crowd of protesters. The bombs failed to go off. A five-count federal complaint was unsealed Monday afternoon, charging Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, with using a weapon of mass destruction while supporting a foreign terror group, among other charges.
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch was direct about what happened. She called it "ISIS-inspired terrorism" and made clear these were not toys or props.
"These were not hoax devices, nor smoke devices. It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death."
The devices contained triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, an explosive compound known as the "Mother of Satan." Cops initially believed the devices were merely homemade smoke grenades. The FBI took over the investigation on Sunday and searched both suspects' homes in Bucks County, just outside Philadelphia.
According to the complaint, Balat allegedly told detectives he hoped the casualty count would surpass that of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. When informed that the attack killed three people, his response was chilling.
"No, even bigger. It was only three deaths."
That is the voice of someone who wanted a body count.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York City, first addressed the attack on Sunday, the New York Post reported. His statement opened not with the bombing attempt, not with the ISIS allegiance, not with the fact that two individuals tried to murder people outside his own residence. It opened with the protest.
"Yesterday, white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism. Such hate has no place in New York City. It is an affront to our city's values and the unity that defines who we are."
The protest, organized by far-right agitator Jake Lang and dubbed "Stop the Islamification of NYC," was an anti-Muslim demonstration. Mamdani called it "a vile protest rooted in white supremacy." He said he found it "appalling" but would not waver in defending its right to occur. Fine. That's a reasonable position on free speech.
But notice the structure. The protest received four sentences of specific moral condemnation. The bombing attempt that followed got folded into the passive construction of "what followed was even more disturbing." The two men who allegedly tried to kill New Yorkers in the name of ISIS were described in the language of a parking violation.
"Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are."
No mention of ISIS. No mention of radical Islam. No mention of the ideology that animated the attack. Just "violence at a protest."
By Monday morning, when Mamdani delivered prepared remarks at a press conference, the federal complaint had not yet been unsealed, but the nature of the attack was already well understood. Tisch had already identified it as ISIS-inspired terrorism. Mamdani acknowledged the suspects threw devices at the crowd and that police had determined they were improvised explosive devices "made to injure, maim, or worse." He said the pair were "suspected of coming here to commit an act of terrorism."
"Let me say this plainly: Anyone who comes to New York City to bring violence to our streets will be held accountable in accordance with the law."
After the federal complaint was unsealed Monday afternoon, Mamdani issued another statement.
"Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi have been charged with committing a heinous act of terrorism and proclaiming their allegiance to ISIS. They should be held fully accountable for their actions."
He managed to say ISIS. He managed "heinous." He managed "fully accountable." What he did not manage, across three separate statements over three days, was to name the ideology. Not once did the words "radical Islam" or "Islamic extremism" cross his lips. He dodged questions on Monday. He treated the ideological motivation like furniture in a room he was trying not to bump into.
Consider what Mamdani was willing to name and what he wasn't:
The mayor had no trouble diagnosing the ideology of the protest. He had every word he needed for that. But when two ISIS supporters allegedly tried to blow people up outside his home, ideology suddenly became unspeakable. The specificity vanished. "Terrorism" stood alone, scrubbed of its modifier, as if the attack emerged from nowhere in particular.
This is a familiar pattern in progressive politics. Hate has a name when it comes from the right. When it comes wrapped in a crescent, it becomes "violence" or "extremism," stripped of origin, floating free of any ideology anyone might be expected to confront.
One detail that deserves attention: Mamdani was not home when the bombs were thrown at his residence on Saturday. He and his wife spent the day at the New York City Sign Museum in Brooklyn. There is nothing wrong with a mayor being away from Gracie Mansion. But the fact that ISIS-aligned attackers targeted the home of America's first Muslim mayor, and that mayor then declined to name the ideology behind the attack, tells you something about the distorted incentives of progressive identity politics.
Mamdani acknowledged as much himself, noting that "anti-Muslim bigotry is nothing new to me, nor is it anything new for the 1 million or so Muslim New Yorkers." He's right about that. And one of the most corrosive forms of that bigotry is the assumption that Muslim communities cannot withstand honest conversation about extremism within their own ranks. The refusal to name radical Islam doesn't protect Muslim New Yorkers. It insults them by implying they can't distinguish between their faith and its most violent distortions.
Mamdani said the right things about accountability. He said the suspects should be "held fully accountable." He said New York would "not tolerate terrorism or violence." These are fine sentences. They are also the bare minimum expected of any mayor whose city was just targeted by ISIS supporters carrying bombs nicknamed the Mother of Satan.
The question isn't whether Mamdani condemned the attack. He did. The question is why the condemnation was so carefully hollowed out. You cannot fight what you refuse to name. You cannot lead a city through a threat you will only describe in the vaguest possible terms while reserving your sharpest language for the protest that preceded it.
Two men came to New York City to kill in the name of ISIS. The bombs didn't go off. Next time, they might. New Yorkers deserve a mayor who will say so plainly, all of it, including the part that makes progressive coalition politics uncomfortable.
President Trump declared Sunday that he will refuse to sign any legislation until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, putting election integrity at the front of the Republican agenda and daring lawmakers to blink.
The president posted the ultimatum on Truth Social, calling the bill "an 88% issue with ALL VOTERS" and demanding the full version of the legislation, not what he called "THE WATERED DOWN VERSION." He outlined exactly what he expects in the final product: voter ID, proof of citizenship, tight restrictions on mail-in ballots, a ban on men in women's sports, and a prohibition on what he termed "transgender mutilization for children."
Two words closed the post: "DO NOT FAIL!!!"
Trump's move is extraordinary in its simplicity. By refusing to sign anything else, he transforms every piece of pending legislation into leverage for the SAVE America Act. Every appropriations rider, every bipartisan pet project, every must-pass authorization now sits behind a single gate. If Republican lawmakers want the president's pen on anything, they know what has to come first.
The post also singled out election integrity activist Scott Presler, praising his advocacy for the bill and his appearance on "Fox & Friends," where Presler discussed using the filibuster, or a talking filibuster, to force the act through the Senate. Presler, who serves as founder and executive director of Early Vote Action, has been working to get the legislation across the finish line. His case for urgency is blunt. In February, he put it this way:
"If we don't change the way that we vote and fight fire with the gosh darn flame thrower, well, we're going to keep losing elections."
He's not wrong. Republicans have watched election after election where the rules of engagement favored mass mail-in voting, loose verification, and legal gray zones that made accountability nearly impossible. The SAVE America Act is designed to close those gaps before the next cycle, Breitbart reported.
This isn't a fringe priority. A February 25-26 Harvard-Harris poll of 1,999 registered voters found that 71 percent support the SAVE America Act. The breakdown is striking:
When half the opposing party's voters agree with you, you're not looking at a partisan wish list. You're looking at a consensus that Washington has been too slow or too cowardly to act on. The political class treats voter ID and proof of citizenship as controversial. Actual voters treat them as common sense.
The gap between elite opinion and public opinion on election integrity has been one of the defining features of the post-2020 landscape. Media outlets treat any call for verification as coded voter suppression. Voters across party lines treat it as basic civic hygiene. Trump is betting, correctly, that the public is on his side.
Trump has reportedly told Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. John Cornyn that he wants the SAVE America Act on his desk before he will make an endorsement in the Texas Senate race. That's not a casual aside. A Trump endorsement in a contested primary carries enormous weight, and withholding it creates a vacuum that concentrates minds.
According to Breitbart News, Trump considers the legislation a "must-do," calling it "a Country Defining fight for the Soul of our Nation." The outlet noted that with Trump still weighing the Texas endorsement, "all eyes turn to Cornyn and Senate GOP leadership to see whether they take action on the SAVE America Act, which has robust bipartisan support among registered voters."
The specifics Trump outlined in his post tell you what he considers non-negotiable. Voter ID. Proof of citizenship. Mail-in ballots are limited to military personnel, the ill, the disabled, and travelers. These aren't exotic demands. Most functioning democracies worldwide require some form of identification to vote. The United States is an outlier, and not in a way that inspires confidence.
Perhaps the most telling line in Trump's post is the insistence on the full bill. Washington has a long tradition of passing headline-friendly legislation that sounds tough but changes nothing. A voter ID bill without proof of citizenship requirements. A mail-in ballot reform that exempts the states where it matters most. Trump is telling Congress he's not interested in a symbolic win he can hold up at a rally. He wants the substance.
That distinction matters. Republican voters have watched their party campaign on bold promises and govern on cautious compromises for decades. The frustration isn't abstract. It's the accumulated weight of every bill that got softened in committee, every provision that got traded away for a floor vote, every reform that arrived at the president's desk so diluted it barely qualified as change.
The legislative calendar just reorganized itself. Every senator with a priority bill now has a personal reason to push the SAVE America Act forward. Every committee chair who wants floor time for their own legislation understands the sequencing. Nothing moves until this moves.
For Democrats, the calculus is uncomfortable. Opposing voter ID when half your own voters support it is a losing position. Opposing proof of citizenship when the country is watching millions of illegal immigrants interact with government systems strains credibility. The usual playbook of calling election integrity "voter suppression" works in editorial boards and faculty lounges. It polls terribly everywhere else.
Trump has made his position clear, public, and absolute. No hedging, no fallback, no quiet negotiation. The SAVE America Act goes to the front of the line, or the line doesn't move.
Congress has its orders.
President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Saturday formally launching the "Americas Counter Cartel Coalition" at a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders in Doral, Florida, vowing to destroy drug cartels with lethal military force and warning that Cuba's communist regime is next on the list.
The "Shield of the Americas" summit at Trump National Doral brought together leaders from over a dozen countries, including Argentinian President Javier Milei, Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, Chilean President-elect Jose Antonio Kast, and Honduran President Tito Asfura. The gathering carried unmistakable momentum, arriving on the heels of the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and ongoing U.S. military action in Iran.
Trump did not mince words about what comes next in the Caribbean.
"Cuba's at the end of the line. They're very much at the end of the line. They have no money. They have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that's been bad for a long time."
He went further, framing the island's future in stark terms:
"But Cuba's in its last moments of life as it was. It'll have a great new life, but it's in its last moments of life the way it is."
No operational details were offered. None were needed. The message landed on its own.
The Americas Counter Cartel Coalition represents something Washington has struggled to build for decades: a multilateral commitment in the Western Hemisphere anchored not in diplomatic niceties but in the willingness to use hard power against transnational criminal networks. The coalition's stated core is a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy cartels and terrorist networks, as ABC News reports.
Trump put it plainly to the assembled leaders:
"The heart of our agreement is a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks once and for all. We'll get rid of them. We need your help."
The roster of attendees tells its own story. Presidents and prime ministers from Paraguay, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Guyana, Costa Rica, and Trinidad and Tobago all appeared alongside Trump. Even Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who had traded barbs with Trump earlier, was present in spirit if not body. Following the Jan. 3 Venezuela raid, the two appeared to patch up their differences, with Trump inviting Petro to the White House and the two issuing complimentary statements.
That trajectory is worth noting. When American strength is visible, even reluctant partners find reasons to cooperate.
The summit also formalized a significant personnel move. Trump announced he was removing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from her post and shifting her to a new role as special envoy for "The Shield of the Americas." Noem emailed DHS staff overnight Thursday, stating that her official final day at the department would be March 31.
In her email, Noem framed the transition as a natural extension of the work she had already been doing:
"In my new role, I will be able to build on the new partnerships and national security expertise I forged over my time as Secretary of Homeland Security."
At the summit's working lunch, Noem outlined the mission in direct terms:
"Our objectives are going to be to destroy the cartels, to go after these narcoterrorists that are destroying our people, killing our children and our grandchildren. We're also going to keep our adversaries at bay."
She offered to give attending leaders her personal cell phone number, a gesture that sounds informal but signals something operationally significant: short lines of communication between sovereign leaders and the person Trump trusts to coordinate hemisphere-wide counter-cartel operations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced Noem to the assembled leaders and made clear she would not be a figurehead. He told the room, "You will see a lot of her," and elaborated:
"She'll be very involved with each of you at a personal level and on a daily and weekly and monthly level to ensure that what we talk about here today and the work we do together continues on, and we can build upon that."
Trump used the summit to connect the dots between the administration's various military engagements, framing them not as scattered interventions but as the natural output of a rebuilt fighting force. He pointed to U.S. military action in Iran and the operation to capture Maduro as proof of concept.
"We're doing something. I built the military and rebuilt it and made it really strong. And my first administration, along with a lot of other things we did, we had a great first term, and now we're using it, unfortunately, we have to, but you're seeing how great it is."
The tone was confident but measured. Trump acknowledged the necessity of force without glorifying it, a distinction that matters when addressing a room full of leaders whose domestic populations are watching closely.
He also singled out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth with characteristic directness, telling him, "we want your personality for war" and adding simply, "you're just perfect."
The administration's approach to the hemisphere is now visible in full. It rests on three pillars:
For years, Latin American policy in Washington oscillated between two modes: neglect and lectures. Republican administrations focused elsewhere. Democratic administrations showed up with condescending talking points about "root causes" and development aid that evaporated into the bureaucracies of corrupt governments. Neither approach dislodged the cartels, slowed the flow of fentanyl, or gave regional leaders a reason to align with American interests.
What Saturday's summit offered was something different. Not a promise to study the problem. Not a pledge of foreign aid contingent on progressive benchmarks. A room full of national leaders, a signed proclamation, and a commitment to kill the people poisoning two continents.
Trump's Cuba remarks carried the most forward-looking weight of the day. He tied them explicitly to the Venezuela operation, framing Havana as the next domino:
"As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we're also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba."
He offered no timeline and no specifics. But the phrasing, "great change that will soon be coming," was not the language of a man issuing a diplomatic communiqué. It was a warning delivered in front of the hemisphere's most consequential leaders, with the credibility of a recent military operation backing it up.
Cuba's regime has survived on two things for sixty years: Soviet subsidies and then Venezuelan oil. The Soviets are gone. Maduro is gone. Trump's assessment that Cuba has "no money" and "no oil" is not rhetoric. It is an inventory of a regime that has run out of lifelines.
What happens next depends on whether Havana reads the room. Over a dozen hemispheric leaders just sat in a conference room in Florida and agreed that lethal force against the cartels is on the table. The man hosting the summit captured a sitting head of state two months ago. Cuba's leadership can do the math, or they can wait for the math to be done for them.
The Shield of the Americas is not an aspiration. It is a structure, with a signed proclamation, a dedicated envoy, and a coalition of willing partners. For the first time in a generation, the Western Hemisphere has an organizing principle that isn't built on wishful thinking.