The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani was blasted for “corrupting history” about the creation of Israel in a vile social media post paying tribute to Palestinians – sent out just before Jewish New Yorkers observed Shabbat.
Mamdani, a staunch critic of Israel, honored “Nakba Day” – marking what Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of the Jewish State’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948 – in a Friday night post, that included a polished video interview with “Nakba survivor” and city resident Inea Bushnaq.
“Today marks Nakba Day, an annual remembrance to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed,” Hizzoner wrote in an X post on his official mayoral account.
“Inea is a New Yorker and a Nakba survivor. She shared her story with us – one of home, tradition and memory over generations.”
In the video, Bushnaq details fleeing her home at age nine because “the Zionists were coming into Jerusalem.”
The shocking video goes on to claim that the displacement of Palestinians “continues to this day.”
“Mamdani is dangerous, he’s evil, he is stirring the pot of hate,” Americans Against Antisemitism founder Dov Hikind told The Post, stressing how Jewish communities are being targeted in attacks.
“He is corrupting history. He doesn’t know his f—king history,” he blasted, adding that the United Nations voted to create the State of Israel and a Palestinian state, with Jews accepting the plan while five Arab nations – Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq – “rejected it and went to war with Israel.”
Israel ultimately won the war, and the Arab nations later created a day to commemorate the loss.
Mamdani’s outrageous post quickly triggered a firestorm online, with critics slamming him for firing off “political propaganda masquerading as compassion” and accusing him of erasing history.
“He ignores that roughly 850,000 Jews were expelled or forced to flee Arab countries in the years that followed,” one digital naysayer raged on X.
Israel ultimately won the war, and the Arab nations later created a day to commemorate the loss.
Mamdani’s outrageous post quickly triggered a firestorm online, with critics slamming him for firing off “political propaganda masquerading as compassion” and accusing him of erasing history.
“He ignores that roughly 850,000 Jews were expelled or forced to flee Arab countries in the years that followed,” one digital naysayer raged on X.
“He presents ‘Nakba Day’ as though it is about grief, when in reality it is a movement that rejects Israel’s existence (and along with it millions of Jews). In a city where Jews are already facing rampant harassment and violence, this kind of one-sided historical revisionism fuels hostility toward Jews.”
“This video provokes and justifies acts of revenge and hate on Jews and Jewish Synagogues across NYC,” one commenter raged, as another blasted him for “leaving out some key historical facts.”
Ok!! I’m done being nice… You are putting Jews everywhere at risk by not providing historical context for this,” United Jewish Teachers President Moshe Spern fumed on X.
“You are putting Jews in harms way!! Enough is enough!!”
Mamdani has had a strained relationship with Jewish leaders since he ran for office last year, as he was criticized for controversial comments and stances including outspoken criticisms of Israel.
Critics have also expressed concern over the mayor’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” rallying cry for violence against Jewish people.
California remains the largest offender of DHS sanctuary jurisdictions violations
House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Chairman Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) chaired a high-stakes hearing Thursday exposing the deadly consequences of so-called sanctuary policies, using Fairfax County, Virginia, as a case study in how local officials prioritize illegal aliens over public safety.
In his opening statement and pointed questioning, McClintock dismantled the “nullification” doctrine embraced by sanctuary jurisdictions, likening it to John C. Calhoun’s failed states’ rights theory that once threatened the Republic. “These nullification or sanctuary jurisdictions now extend to 11 states–coincidentally the same number as the old Confederacy,” he stated.
One third of the country live in sanctuary jurisdictions.
McClintock zeroed in on Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano and Sheriff Stacey Kincaid, both of whom have openly limited cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are registered Democrats. Descano has boasted that his office makes “charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid immigration consequences,” arguing that deportation as a consequence of crime is a “perversion of justice.” McClintock called this a true perversion of equal justice under the law, noting it has triggered a Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigation.
The hearing featured the tragic case of Stephanie Minter, a 41-year-old woman stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on February 23, 2026. Her accused killer, Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant with a lengthy criminal record including trespass, drug possession, theft, larceny, and multiple malicious wounding arrests, had been in Fairfax custody at least 18 times between January 2023 and February 2026. Descano dismissed nearly all charges, and Sheriff Kincaid released him despite an ICE detainer. Fairfax County Police had warned Descano that Jalloh had “stabbed multiple people, sexually assaulted at least one woman,” and that it was “not a question of if, but rather when he will maliciously wound (or worse) again.” McClintock noted that three of Fairfax County’s seven homicides last year were committed by illegal aliens who could have been deported.
In a heated exchange captured on video and shared by the House Judiciary GOP, McClintock grilled Descano on another case involving an illegal immigrant who attempted to rape a 4-year-old girl. “I understand he was later taken into custody by ICE and deported. I’m just curious, did you notify ICE of that release?” McClintock asked. Descano admitted, “We did not call ICE.” McClintock replied pointedly: “The 4-year-old’s mother had to call to get him out of your community.”
McClintock also dismantled the officials’ excuse that they require a federal judicial warrant to honor ICE detainers. Turning to former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, McClintock confirmed that such warrants are legally impossible for civil immigration matters. “So they’re basically lying to the public,” McClintock stated. “They’re counting on the public not understanding that what they’re asking for is legally impossible.”
“These policies seem reckless, dangerous, crazy, wanton and cruel,” McClintock declared. “A long list of violent crimes perpetrated by criminal illegal aliens these officials had in their custody and refused to prosecute and refused to remove from their communities answers that question with poignancy.”
McClintock highlighted how similar sanctuary policies plague his home state, where sanctuary laws forbid local cooperation with ICE. Santa Clara County stands out with the worst ICE detainer compliance record in the nation. Public records obtained by America First Legal reveal that, from January 1, 2025, through January 2026, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office received 529 ICE detainer requests and honored none of them, releasing all 529 criminal aliens that ICE sought to detain back into the community.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Robert “Bob” Jonsen, a registered Democrat elected in 2022 with strong support from Democratic leaders and organizations. During his 2022 campaign, his team explicitly stated he was “the only Democrat and only pro-choice candidate on the ballot.” He received the endorsement of Planned Parenthood and has been vocal in defending the county’s non-cooperation. Jonsen has repeatedly stated that his office does not enforce civil immigration detainers or notify ICE of upcoming releases, in accordance with California’s sanctuary law (SB 54) and county policy. “We do NOT enforce civil immigration actions or detainers,” the Sheriff’s Office has emphasized under his leadership. Jonsen has also publicly refused to support ICE operations, including during major events like the Super Bowl, declaring his department “will not be working or supporting ICE Immigration Enforcement.”
This complete non-compliance stems directly from California’s sanctuary state law, the California Values Act (SB 54), which severely restricts local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities on civil detainers.
These policies have drawn legal challenges, such as El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells’ lawsuit against Attorney General Rob Bonta over SB 54’s restrictions on local police assisting federal ICE officers. McClintock himself has long warned of the dangers, famously stating that sanctuary policies amount to “No Borders, No Country.”
California remains the largest offender of DHS sanctuary jurisdictions violations, with over 100 counties and cities — including 48 of 58 counties — listed by the Department of Homeland Security for undermining federal immigration enforcement. As of early 2026, an additional 33,179 criminal illegal aliens with active ICE detainers remained in California jails, facing charges that included 399 homicides and 3,313 assaults. The Department of Homeland Security has urgently called on Governor Gavin Newsom to halt their release into communities without notifying ICE.
The hearing comes as McClintock continues pushing the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act, legislation aimed at withholding federal funds from jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE on criminal illegal aliens. With violent crimes linked to released offenders mounting nationwide, McClintock made clear that the era of unaccountable sanctuary nullification must end.
And we’re back again for another week and for another Fourth of July on the podcast. I think it’s the fourth time an episode has landed square on the holiday — at least our fourth. So happy Independence Day for those of you here in the States. If the inbox is any indicator, questions over politics, patriotism, and the pulpit are perennial concerns. When better to broach the topic than on a day like today?
Jamison, a pastor in Virginia, writes in to ask this: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast! I admire your approach to politics and patriotism. You seem to be very careful here. Even when the heat is turned up in election times, and pastors feel social pressure to endorse specific candidates, you notoriously refrain from participating. As you have watched this impulse in American Christian life for many decades, this impulse among Christian leaders to periodically endorse candidates and to get involved in politics, what observations have you drawn from your decades of refraining?”
Maybe the most important or helpful thing that I can do in response to this question is to point to passages of Scripture that capture the emphasis I think is needed, not just in the American church, but in the global church, the church around the world. Because the tendency to confuse and combine Christian identity and its earthly expression, the church, with political identity, ethnic identity, national identity, or any other earthly identity — that conflating tendency is so strong, and I think so destructive to the radical call of the gospel, that it needs steadfast resistance generation after generation.
Christian Identity in a Politicized World
So my burden is to join forces with the Bible (as I understand it), and millions of faithful Christians, to encourage and nurture a faithful Christian identity that will survive and thrive with faith and hope and joy and love and purity, whether America survives, or Brazil survives, or Britain survives, or China survives, or Russia survives, or India survives — or not.
So let me point to six kinds of passages that shaped my passions in that direction.
1. Not of This World
Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). From which I infer that we’d better be very, very careful before we undertake any processes that involve force or coercion to put the kingdom of Christ in place. Any identity that we can put in place by force or weapon or law is not the kingdom of Christ. In this age, King Jesus is creating a people a very different way. That’s number one.
Paul said in Colossians 1:13, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And again,
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1–4)
“Our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth.”
So our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth. It is the right hand of God, not the right hand of any earthly power. Our most essential life is Christ, and only when he comes will we be openly known for who we really are.
Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
So no earthly citizenship, whether American or Russian or Chinese, has any ultimate allegiance over those who are in Christ Jesus. Our political allegiances are to Jesus. No party, no nation, no ethnicity, no ideology has any ultimate claim on us. Our decisive constitution is the word of God, and no human document.
Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” These are ethnically and politically shattering words. Born-again Christians, real Christians, are a chosen race (genos eklekton), a holy nation (ethnos hagion). The kind of human we are and the kind of nation we belong to is not any longer our essential identity. We are a new kind, a new nation. None of the existing human realities, ethnic or national, is God’s chosen and holy people. Christians are a new thing, a new reality, a new people, a new nation, a new ethnicity and race. And we should bear witness to it.
5. Resident Aliens on Earth
Therefore, Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Christians are not first Americans, or Canadians, or British, or Russians, or Nigerians. In every nation, we are exiles. Let that sink in. I want to scream that from the top of the buildings to every nationalistic tendency. In every nation, we are exiles.
Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). If you are going to run for office, be sure to inform your constituency that you are a resident alien. Your primary citizenship and allegiance are the kingdom of Christ.
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
In other words, realize as Christians that you are free — free from emperors, free from governors, free from presidents, free from worldly powers and parties. We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding. And when the human state tells us to pay our taxes and keep the speed limit and shovel the snow off of our sidewalks, we do it, not because the state is our authority, but because God is. We submit for his sake and in his limits.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Now that does not mean, “Go and turn pagan cultures into whitewashed tombs with the paint of so-called ‘Christian’ externals.” We know that. We know it doesn’t mean that, because Jesus defines “discipling nations” — which is the neuter plural Greek word ethne, “nations” — by “baptizing and teaching them,” and the “them” is masculine plural. That’s crucial. You don’t disciple political entities. You don’t disciple ethnic corporate realities. You disciple “them” — autous, plural in Greek — people that you can baptize.
“We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding.”
In other words, our job is to so magnify Jesus and his saving work, among all the peoples of the world, that individual human beings are brought from death to life and formed into the image of Christ. In every race, ethnicity, nation, this new people, this chosen race, this holy nation among all the nations are to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).
You Don’t Need to Know It All
Now I have no illusions, Tony, that until Jesus comes, Christians will ever agree on precisely what it looks like in professional life, and political life, and cultural life for the church to be the kingdom of Christ — a kingdom, Jesus says, that’s not of this world.
But my encouragement to pastors is that you don’t need to figure that out. You don’t need to figure that out for all of your amazingly diverse people invested in a thousand ways, in all kinds of cultural and professional and political endeavors. You don’t need to be the expert to figure all that out. We’re not smart enough. Speak these biblical truths and others that you see as relevant from Scripture. Call your people to radical allegiance to King Jesus. Set them on a quest of lifelong learning, and trust the Spirit of God in their lives.John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.
With Iran militarily decimated and economically squeezed, Trump holds all the cards. But is a deal possible or worthwhile with a fragmented regime?
Something has changed in the Iran nuclear negotiation that many analysts are not fully accounting for. The military balance between the United States and Iran has shifted more dramatically than at any point since the Islamic Republic acquired its first centrifuges. Iran’s air defense shield, the infrastructure that for years effectively concealed and protected its nuclear program, has been destroyed. Its proxies are severely degraded. Its economy is under sanctions and naval blockade pressure that is genuinely unprecedented. Its nuclear sites have been damaged. Trump built leverage that no American president has come close to matching, and he is bringing it to the table.
The question is not whether Trump will press for his terms. He has made clear he will, and those terms—principally the physical removal of enriched uranium from Iranian soil and a permanent prohibition on nuclear weapons—are the deal the United States and the broader Middle East need. The question is whether Iran will accept them. And beneath that sits a harder one: Will the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has its own theory of deterrence and its own institutional equities in the nuclear program, allow any agreement to hold?
Both questions matter. Neither has a clean answer.
The strategic landscape today bears almost no resemblance to 2015, when the last deal was struck. When the Obama administration concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s regional power was intact. Hezbollah was the most formidable non-state military force in the Middle East. The Houthis were an insurgency, not a force capable of threatening Red Sea shipping lanes. Hamas governed Gaza with operational freedom. Iran’s air defenses, built over decades with Russian and Chinese assistance, provided real protection for nuclear infrastructure deep inside Iranian territory. The pressure on Tehran was economic—real, but not existential.
None of that is true today.
Iran’s air defense network has been dismantled. The S-300 batteries and radar infrastructure that once raised the cost of strikes on Iranian territory are gone. Its navy has been largely destroyed. Its air force is severely degraded. Command and control infrastructure, Revolutionary Guard facilities, and intelligence networks have all been struck. What remains of Iran’s conventional military capacity is a fraction of what existed before the conflict began. That is a fundamental change in the military equation.
The proxy network has taken severe damage. Hezbollah suffered shattering losses in the 2024 campaign, its command structure broken, its missile stockpiles depleted, its grip on southern Lebanon fractured. It regrouped and that matters. Hamas still exists and has proven difficult to dislodge, but it no longer governs Gaza or projects power as it did before Oct. 7. The Houthis retain the capacity to do real damage and should not be underestimated. What has changed is that the entire architecture Iran built over decades to extend its deterrence outward, at enormous cost, is under simultaneous pressure. That window will not stay open on its own. It is one more reason why a deal, or a decisive continuation of military pressure, has to happen now rather than later. Yet the Strait of Hormuz remains what it has always been: the choke point through which a third of the world’s oil passes, and a potential Iranian pressure valve that Trump’s blockade is curtailing but has not yet fully neutralized. Any deal must not end with Iranian interdiction capacity in the strait intact.
The economic damage may be the most severe Iran has faced since the revolution. Sanctions, oil export restrictions, and blockade enforcement have driven the rial past 1 million to the dollar. Even by Tehran’s own count, airstrikes hit more than 23,000 factories and firms, costing over 1 million jobs directly, according to Iran’s Deputy Work and Social Security Minister. The Iranian publication Etemad Online has estimated another million pushed out of work by the spillover. Unemployment insurance applications have run at roughly three times last year’s pace. For a population already living with inflation above 40% and a currency that has lost nearly all its value, the consequences reach into every household in the country.
The Obama-era deal accepted Iranian enrichment on Iranian soil, imposed limits on enrichment levels and centrifuge counts, relied on an inspection regime that Iran learned quickly how to limit and evade, and included a sunset provision that would have permitted Iran to pursue a full nuclear weapons capability after roughly 15 years. It left the underlying infrastructure intact. That is why Iran was able to surge toward weapons-grade enrichment so quickly after the agreement collapsed. Trump is seeking something categorically different: physical removal of enriched uranium stockpiles, a genuine rollback of centrifuge capacity, verification with real teeth, and a permanent prohibition on nuclear weapons, no sunsets, no phaseouts. That is the right framework. The leverage to demand it has never been stronger.
The question is whether Iran will accept those terms. Its negotiators will continue to probe, offer tactical concessions, and try to run out the clock, attempting to relieve enough pressure to survive without surrendering the program. That is the playbook from every previous round. Iran’s most recent offer was, by Trump’s own public assessment recently, garbage.
But coercive leverage is useful only if there is someone on the other side capable of accepting its terms and making them stick.
On the Iranian side, the question of who can deliver on a commitment is emphatically open.
When was the last time you actually saw Mojtaba Khamenei? Not a statement attributed to him. Not a still photograph. Not him moving or speaking on camera. No video of him has been seen since his appointment. That question opens onto a larger one about who is running Iran.
Start with how he got there.
Ali Khamenei was killed on Feb. 28. Within a week, the Assembly of Experts formally named his son Mojtaba as successor, under what Iran International reported as direct IRGC pressure on individual clerics, including in-person visits and phone calls that sources described as psychological and political. At least eight Assembly members boycotted the final session in protest. The objections were not only about hereditary rule, which Ali Khamenei himself had condemned in 2017 as monarchical restoration. They were also about Mojtaba’s clerical rank: He is a mid-level cleric, three ranks short of the grand ayatollah status the Iranian constitution requires of a supreme leader. Ali Khamenei had reportedly opposed his son’s elevation during his lifetime. Within days of his father’s death, the IRGC pushed it through anyway.
Since then: no public appearances. Reuters, citing three sources close to his circle, has reported severe facial and leg injuries from the strike that killed his father. Iranian state media has used the word Janbaaz, the honorific for an injured war veteran, in references to him. Statements appear in his name. Surrogates speak on his behalf.
The honest counterargument deserves its weight. A wartime leader staying hidden after his father was killed in a strike may be practicing disciplined survival rather than signaling incapacity. Israeli and American intelligence are presumably hunting for targeting opportunities. Staying out of view during an active conflict is what a competent regime would do. Iranian officials say his injuries are limited. The Iranian president reportedly claims to have met him. That reading is available, and it should not be dismissed. But survival and authority are different things. A leader in hiding is not a leader in command.
What exists now in Tehran is a set of overlapping factions: Mojtaba at the apex on paper, the IRGC running operations, the Supreme National Security Council coordinating, the Foreign Ministry providing the diplomatic interface. The wartime succession has made the fragmentation deeper and not legible from the outside, or from within Iran itself. There is also a possibility worth naming directly: Mojtaba was elevated precisely because he could preserve continuity while remaining beholden to, possibly controlled by, possibly entirely subservient to, the security establishment that installed him. There is a harder possibility still that cannot be ruled out: Whether he is alive and functioning at all remains genuinely uncertain.
When Iran’s foreign minister signs an agreement, the question is not only whether he intends or has the power to honor it. It is also whether that signature binds the IRGC commander who controls the nuclear facilities. Whether it binds the Quds Force officer managing proxy networks. Whether it binds the engineers at the enrichment sites who may answer to a chain of command that runs through the Guards, not through the Foreign Ministry. The JCPOA, negotiated when Iran had a functioning and consolidated supreme leader, was still contested inside the IRGC from day one. The hard-liners who opposed it moved to dismantle its constraints the moment political cover appeared. That was the counterparty problem with a strong leader in place. The counterparty problem now is structurally more severe.
Trump did not inherit this negotiating position. He built it through sustained military and economic pressure that degraded Iranian capabilities to a degree no previous administration achieved. Israel’s military operations were indispensable to that result. He arrives at the table with more leverage than any American president has held on this issue since the revolution.
The problem is that leverage is only as durable as the pressure sustaining it, and a deal is only as durable as the authority of the party committing to it. Whether Iran currently has a supreme leader who can make the system honor a commitment, or whether what exists is a set of competing factions that could fracture the moment pressure lifts or internal power dynamics shift, is genuinely unclear.
That is not a reason to walk away from negotiations. It is a reason to build any agreement on the assumption that the counterparty may not hold. Verification cannot depend on good faith. Enforcement cannot require a trip to the U.N. Security Council, where some have historically shielded Tehran from consequences. Europe cannot be a decision-maker here. Its track record on Iran enforcement is a history of deference dressed as diplomacy, and it has spent two decades prioritizing engagement over accountability. Consequences for breach need to be automatic, pre-agreed, and executable by the United States. If Iran breaks a deal, the response cannot hinge on whether those with a Security Council vote are having a cooperative month.
The best hand in a generation is worth playing. But you need a table and cards and players across from you who can cover their bets. Right now, at least one of those conditions remains genuinely in doubt.
Jason D. Greenblatt was the White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration.
The Trump administration has blocked $60 million in fraudulent student loan applications since launching a new risk assessment tool last month, the Daily Caller has learned exclusively.
The Department of Education launched a new risk assessment tool on April 26 to screen federal student aid applicants for fraud. Since the tool launched two weeks ago, the administration has found about 300,000 fraudulent applications that amounted to $60 million in student loans, officials told the Caller.
“We’re using best in class technology, and we’ve been able to stop a lot of those fraudulent activities that are there,” a senior administration official told the Caller.
The department will also now be instructing colleges across the country to also screen applications for fraud, the official shared with the Caller.
“We kind of started this entire process around identity verification. We provided institutions flexibility on how they verify identities that they can do online, through Zoom, or in person,” the official shared.
“We continue to work with institutions to provide as much flexibility as they identify identities,” the official added.
Tackling fraud has become a focus of the Trump administration. The White House recently launched an Anti-Fraud Task Force, led by Vice President J.D. Vance. The Department of Justice also added an assistant attorney general dedicated to rooting out fraud across the country.
The effort has been largely inspired by YouTube Nick Shirley, who exposed nearly a dozen Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota that were not actually providing services.
The vice president and his task force are investigating Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar for alleged immigration fraud. “So we actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” the vice president told conservative personality Benny Johnson in an interview. “And I talked to [White House deputy chief of staff] Stephen Miller about this, actually, recently. We’re trying to look at what the remedies are.”
“That’s the thing that we’re trying to figure out is what are the legal remedies now that we know that she’s committed immigration fraud? How do you go after her? How do you investigate her? How do you actually do the thing? How do you build the case necessary to get some justice for the American people?” he added. “There’s a related issue, Benny, which is she has been at the center of a lot of the worst fraudsters in the Somali community.”
Here is a prediction. The GOP holds the House in November, wins Michigan’s Senate seat, and the balance of power doesn’t change much. Don’t bet your house on my prediction, but I feel pretty good about it.
Why do I feel good about it? Because the Democrats are getting crazier by the minute. Let me explain by sharing this from Jamelle Bouie, who I believe used to frequently appear on MSNBC panels, before they changed the name to whatever it is now. Here is Jamelle’s take:
The immediate consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais is that Republican-led states in the South can destroy their majority-minority districts and, in turn, deprive their Black residents of federal representation by politicians of their choosing…
Shad White, the Mississippi state auditor, also posted on X: ‘We’re fighting so that Bennie Thompson’ — who represents the state’s 2nd District — ‘and Hakeem Jeffries are not in charge. We’re fighting for a country that is safe, where our taxes don’t go up, where our border is secure.’
To watch this whole spectacle is to put the lie to the idea — seen in the court’s opinion as well as among the court’s apologists — that the South has changed so much since 1965 that a strong Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary.
There you have it. We are still living in 1965, or something like that. I guess that Jamelle sees everything through the race lens. It’s always about black and white rather than character, as someone said in a famous 1963 speech. In the meantime, a white Democrat defeated a black Republican in Virginia. And two black Republicans may defeat white Democrats for governor in Michigan and Florida. And we have Wes Hunt in Texas, a black man representing a majority white district. In other words, a lot of white voters are voting for black candidates, confirming that positions on issues are more important than skin color. The late Dr. King would be proud of that, and confirm that this ain’t 1965.
So why is it always about race for Jamelle’s side? I don’t know, but maybe it’s because they have nothing else to offer except telling black voters that only a black Democrat is capable of representing them. And worse than that, they want The Supreme Court to guarantee that a black Democrat is going to have a seat in Congress.
Memo to Jamelle: You are out of touch with reality. I guess that’s why I feel optimistic about the November elections, because Jamelle is not the only one saying these weird things on the other side.
The situation in Cuba may be at or near a breaking point. Many experts — real ones whom I trust and learn from regularly, not just whoever the MSM could dig up — are calling today the “beginning of the end” of the regime that has been in power for 67 years.
On Thursday, the country’s energy minister, Vicente de la O Levy, said on state media, “We have absolutely no fuel and absolutely no diesel. We have no reserves.”
Of course, he went on to blame the U.S. “blockade,” which prevents other countries from sending oil to Cuba via secondary tariffs, but we all know that’s not the real problem.
Even when the regime was receiving super cheap oil from Venezuela or Mexico, it was selling most of it to foreign countries and using what was left to keep its own interests up and running. The Cuban people were still dealing with blackouts. And the lack of oil wasn’t the only issue. The infrastructure there is crumbling, and the regime refuses to fix or maintain it.
Major Protests Break Out as Regime Cuts Communication Lines
Blackouts in many neighborhoods are now reaching 22 hours a day, which has set off a new wave of protests this week. People are losing their fear of the regime — they can no longer live like this — and they’re begging the United States to end it. There have been some photos and videos posted on social media, and advocates for a free Cuba, like Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), are asking people who can to spread the word about the protests. Why? The regime has now reportedly cut off all lines of communication in the country, including phone and internet service. They do not want the outside world to see what’s really going on.
With that in mind, I’ll share a few videos from Wednesday night. Most of the captions are in Spanish, but they all basically say the same thing, explaining that people are in the streets protesting.
Record High Political Prisoner Numbers
While people are losing their fear and taking to the streets, they’re still not safe from the regime. The human rights organization Prison Defenders released its monthly report on the number of political prisoners in Cuba, and in April 2026, it hit a record high of 1,260 detained.
To make matters worse, 14 are minors, 142 are women, 449 have serious medical conditions, and 51 have untreated severe mental health issues.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is currently on travel with President Donald Trump to China, but he sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on the way there, and one topic they discussed is what’s going on in Cuba. He didn’t say anything particularly new. He’s been saying all along that Cuba has no economy and the current people in charge aren’t competent enough to fix that.
“There is no economy in Cuba,” he said. “To the extent there’s any wealth in Cuba… forget about it doesn’t go to the people. It doesn’t even go to the government. The wealth is controlled by a private company owned by military generals. They take all the money. They’re sitting on billions of dollars, okay? This is a country where people are literally now eating garbage from the streets, but they have a company that controls all of the moneymaking there that’s sitting on $15-16 billion.”
The one thing Cuba would enjoy is an enormous expatriate community, Cuban Americans that would go back and invest. But I think there would be interest globally. Look, they have significant mineral deposits in Cuba — some of the rare earth minerals, some of the best in the world. They have, obviously, an incredible opportunity with tourism, with agriculture – very rich farmland. So Cuba should not be a poor country. Its people should not be starving. Its people should be prosperous. And what’s most interesting is you see Cubans everywhere in the world – in the United States, but you see them in Europe, you see them in Panama. Cubans leave Cuba, they go to other countries, and they become successful. The only place in the world where Cubans can’t seem to prosper and succeed is in Cuba.
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What’s All This About $100 Million in Aid?
While in Italy last week, Rubio spoke about how the United States has tried to give the Cuban people $100 million in aid, but the regime wouldn’t allow it. Of course, it wouldn’t go directly to the regime — the Cuban people would never see it if it did — but it would be handled through Catholic charities as we’ve done previously with smaller amounts.
The United States continues to seek meaningful reforms to Cuba’s communist system, which has only served to enrich the elites and condemn the Cuban people to poverty. As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, the United States has also made numerous private offers to the Cuban regime to provide generous assistance to the Cuban people, including support for free and fast satellite internet and $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance. The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime.
Today, the Department of State is publicly restating the United States’ generous offer to provide an additional $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people that would be distributed in coordination with the Catholic Church and other reliable independent humanitarian organizations. The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical living-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance.
Initially, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s foreign minister and long-time Rubio foe, denied this, saying the U.S. never offered any such thing and calling it a “fable” and a “lie,” but when the State Department put it in writing, he changed his tune a bit.
It remains unclear whether it will be cash or material aid, and whether it will be allocated to the most urgent needs of the moment for the people, such as fuels, food, and medicines.
In any case, even taking into account the incongruity of the apparent generosity from the party that subjects the Cuban people to collective punishment through economic warfare, the Cuban government does not have a practice of rejecting foreign aid that is offered in good faith and with genuine aims of cooperation, whether bilateral or multilateral.
Nor does it have any objections to working with the Catholic Church, with which it has a long and positive experience of joint work through its cooperative efforts.
We are willing to hear the details of the offer and the manner in which it would be implemented.
We hope it is free of political maneuvers and attempts to exploit the shortages and suffering of a people under siege.
The best aid that the U.S. government could provide to the noble Cuban people at this or any time is to de-escalate the measures of the energy, economic, commercial, and financial blockade, intensified as never before in recent months, which severely affects all sectors of the Cuban economy and society.
John Ratcliffe Goes to Havana
Here’s something I didn’t have on my bingo card for today: CIA Director John Ratcliffe hopped on a plane to Havana on Thursday to meet with senior officials, including Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the elder Castro’s grandson, and Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas. This is huge.
According to CIA officials, Ratcliffe was on a personal mission from Trump to deliver a message: The U.S. is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes. The idea that Cuba can no longer be a haven for our adversaries (Iran, China, Russia, etc.) was a major point on the agenda.
Oh, and get this: Ratcliffe also reportedly reminded them of what happened in Venezuela on January 3 and that it can happen again if something doesn’t change swiftly.
The regime also confirmed the visit, claiming the U.S. requested it and “the Leadership of the Revolution approved the carrying out of this visit.”
Indicting Raúl Castro?
As I’m writing all of this on Thursday evening, CBS is reporting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken steps to indict Raúl Castro for the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shooting. At that time, Castro reportedly ordered the military to shoot down two civilian planes in international waters, killing four people, three of whom were U.S. citizens and one a permanent resident.
Earlier this year, several members of Congress wrote a letter to the Trump administration requesting exactly this. I won’t rehash it all, as I wrote a lot about it in February, which you can read here: Could Trump Go After Castro?
Apparently, all it needs is a grand jury approval. With that, the 94-year-old Castro would be a U.S. fugitive from justice, and the Castro family would see an end to its decades of perceived impunity, even if it just turns out to be a symbolic move.
Keep in mind, this is an “anonymous sources” story with no confirmation from the DOJ, but because of the nature of the issue, I wouldn’t expect the DOJ to comment on it anyway until it’s a done deal.
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I know that’s a lot, but it proves that the regime is in its most desperate position yet, and the Trump administration is ramping up a lot of pressure all at once — pressure that was already near its maximum. The coming days and weeks will be interesting to watch, and I will keep you posted every step of the way.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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Sarah Anderson is a Georgia-based freelance writer and journalist, specializing in foreign policy, with a passion for Latin America and the Caribbean.
When she’s not writing, you can find her chasing animals on her small hobby farm, swimming every chance she gets, traveling, gardening, reading, or yelling at a Georgia Bulldogs or Atlanta Falcons football game like any good Southerner.
You might also catch her watching State Department briefings to unwind.
The FBI is offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension and prosecution of Monica Witt, a former U.S. service member and counterintelligence agent.
Witt was indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia in February 2019 on charges of espionage, including transmitting national defense information to the government of Iran.
Witt, a former active-duty U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, served in the military between 1997 and 2008 before working as a U.S. government contractor until 2010.
FBI Washington Field Office Announces $200,000 Reward for Information Leading to Arrest of Former U.S. Counterintelligence Agent Monica Witt: In 2013, Witt defected to Iran and then allegedly provided national defense information to the Iranian government.
Her military service and contracting employment provided her access to SECRET and TOP SECRET information relating to foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, including the true names of U.S. Intelligence Community undercover personnel.
According to the indictment, she subsequently provided information to the government of Iran, placing at risk sensitive and classified U.S. national defense information and programs. Witt allegedly intentionally provided information endangering U.S personnel and their families stationed abroad. She also allegedly conducted research on behalf of the Iranian regime to allow them to target her former colleagues in the U.S. government.
Witt’s defection to Iran has benefitted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has elements responsible for intelligence collection, unconventional warfare, and providing direct support to multiple terrorist organizations targeting U.S. citizens and interests.
While Witt has been indicted for her alleged crimes, she remains at large. The FBI continues to actively work to locate Witt and bring her to justice.
“Monica Witt allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information and likely continues to support their nefarious activities,” said Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division. “The FBI has not forgotten and believes that during this critical moment in Iran’s history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts. The FBI wants to hear from you so you can help us apprehend Witt and bring her to justice.”
Anyone who has information about Witt should contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. You can also contact your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate or submit a tip via tips.fbi.gov.
Abu Dhabi is accelerating construction of the new West-East pipeline to Fujairah as it looks to expand its oil export capacity and bypass the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint.
The project, expected to come online in 2027, will double the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (ADNOC) export capacity.
The second pipeline project comes as global energy supplies remain under pressure, flows through the Strait of Hormuz are severely limited, and repeated attacks on energy infrastructure and shipping have curtailed the UAE’s ability to restore normal output.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Friday called for faster delivery of the pipeline to meet rising global energy demand.
ADNOC is “well positioned as a responsible and reliable global energy producer, with the operational flexibility to responsibly increase production to meet market needs when export constraints allow,” the Crown Prince said during a meeting of the company’s executive committee.
The Emirates announced earlier this month it would depart the producer group OPEC, of which it was a member since 1967, before the UAE was even founded. The UAE has been investing heavily via ADNOC to increase its production capacity.
Before the war, the UAE was producing just over 3 million barrels a day — broadly in line with OPEC+ targets. Abu Dhabi has targeted a capacity to produce 4.9 million BPD. Now, due to the war, the UAE is producing between 1.8 and 2.1 million barrels per day.
The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop) — also known as the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline — is the only existing pipeline through which the UAE can export its oil and diverge from the Strait of Hormuz. It can carry up to 1.8 million barrels.
The chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee is urging the Justice Department to ask federal courts to dismiss with prejudice all prior criminal prosecutions against President Donald Trump, putting a permanent end to a 10-year legal assault by the Obama-Biden era FBI against the man twice elected president by the American people.
“It’s probably time that this all just ended,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Wednesday night after Just the News reported new documents it obtained revealed the FBI at the end of the Biden presidency secretly took the rare step of preserving evidence from a dismissed January 6 prosecution until 2030, raising alarm the bureau could revive its prosecution after Trump leaves office.
The agents in the controversial Arctic Frost case also wrote a new memo insisting they believed Trump violated laws, creating a fresh roadmap for prosecution after Trump’s presidential immunity from prosecution ends in 2029.
Jordan, who played a crucial role in debunking Russia collusion allegations against Trump and chronicling FBI abuses in the targeting of conservative figures since 2016, reacted to the report by saying Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche should declare “this thing is done, over with. A-B see you later.”
He said DOJ asking the courts to discard all prior prosecutions with prejudice — meaning they couldn’t be re-filed — was “the right approach.”
“When you think about what’s it now been over 10 years? I mean, remember this all started when we learned here from your good reporting and other good work, that we’ve learned that the whole thing was a hoax from the beginning when they used the (Steele) dossier that was manufactured and paid for by the Clinton campaign and all that. So, yeah, it’s probably time that this is all just ended,” he said,
FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News the decision — before he took over the bureau — to keep evidence from the dismissed Arctic Frost prosecution was wrong, abusive and not normal FBI procedure. He noted the special FBI unit that worked on the case has been disbanded,
“The American people deserve to know how this egregious weaponization of power to target political opponents and President Trump happened inside an institution meant to protect them,” Patel said. “We shut down the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we are going to keep following the facts until there is full accountability. The FBI exists to protect the country, not to preserve political prosecutions for a future administration.”
The FBI memos and emails closing out the controversial Arctic Frost investigation – obtained by Just the News – show the bureau chose not to relinquish the evidence it gathered after Smith went to court to dismiss charges against Trump, even though that is the normal practice for agents. Instead, they created a preservation order keeping the evidence in FBI custody for two years after Trump’s second term ends, claiming it was necessary to do so because of ongoing litigation, the memos show.
FBI emails and memos obtained by Just the News dating back to early 2025 show how the FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who had been working on the criminal prosecutions aimed at Trump and his allies worked to close the 2020 election-related case against the incoming president, while also seemingly leaving open the door for the criminal case to be revived once Trump leaves office and a Democrat again holds the reins at the Justice Department.
“The American people deserve to know how this egregious weaponization of power to target political opponents and President Trump happened inside an institution meant to protect them,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News. “We shut down the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we are going to keep following the facts until there is full accountability. The FBI exists to protect the country, not to preserve political prosecutions for a future administration.”
Following Trump’s victory in November 2024 over Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to dismiss his January 6 related case against Trump “without prejudice” – leaving open the possibility that the charges could be refiled in the future.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama, pointed to the Office of Legal Counsel’s position that a sitting president could not be prosecuted by his own DOJ and granted Smith’s request to dismiss the case without prejudice.
One of the key “Case Closing” documents obtained by Just the News – originating from the FBI’s Washington Field Office’s CR-15 team – was dated a couple of weeks into Trump’s second term, on February 5, 2025, when many holdover FBI agents and leaders were still in place.
The newly-released closing document from early 2025 repeated the extensive claims of criminality against Trump, which had been pursued by Smith and the bureau, and it sought to retain all of the evidence for a half decade until at least February 2030, when Trump would be a former president once more and thus when the DOJ guidance prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president would no longer be in force.
The document was titled “Arctic Frost – Election Law Matters – Sensitive Investigative Matter” and its synopsis was “To Document the Closing of Captioned Investigation.” The listed enclosures buttressing the document were a “Deputy Special Counsel Concurrence” and the “Retention of Evidence Approval.”
The FBI record states, “This Electronic Communication seeks approval to close the captioned full Sensitive Investigative Matter investigation” and argued that “because this was a SIM opened by a Field Office and involved a presidential candidate, the same level of approval required to open the investigation is also required to close the investigation.”
Evidence released last year showed that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, then-Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray signed off on the launch of the Arctic Frost inquiry into Trump related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Garland also quickly said he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” for the FBI’s unprecedented raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022. The Biden White House was also directly linked to the classified documents investigation into Trump, despite its denials, previously-released records show.
“The approval roles on this closing EC match those of the opening EC and, as such, Washington Field Office is seeking approval up to and including the Director of the FBI to close this investigation,” the newly released FBI document said.
The document included a “Summary of the Results of the Investigation” into Trump, which had been pursued by Smith and the FBI, arguing that “the captioned FBI investigation was opened based on specific and articulable facts and circumstances that individuals affiliated with Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (the ‘Trump Campaign’) engaged in activity that violated federal law.”
The FBI memo alleged that “the investigation revealed that when Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With various co-conspirators, Trump launched a series of plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.”
The bureau record also alleged that “Trump and his co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud in furtherance of three conspiracies: 1) a conspiracy to interfere with the federal government function by which the nation collects and counts election results, which is set forth in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act; 2) a conspiracy to obstruct the official proceeding in which Congress certifies the legitimate results of the presidential election; and 3) a conspiracy against the rights of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted.”
The section on the “Disposition of Evidence” related to Smith’s anti-Trump investigation argued that “this investigation is subject to a litigation hold and is on the freeze list; as a result, no evidence can be returned or destroyed and must be retained.”
The FBI memo said that FBI assistant special agent in charge approval “to retain all evidence notwithstanding closure” of the case was obtained “as required” by the FBI’s Field Evidence Management Policy Guide.
“The Retention EC specifies that the evidence will be retained until at least February 1, 2030, but in no case prior to the lift of the freeze and litigation hold and that the Special Counsel’s Office concurred with the retention of evidence,” the FBI memo said.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 