In it, he compared military deaths across America’s wars, ending with, “Iran Military Conflict: 4 months, 18 DEAD.” He presented it as evidence of his success, and a win for the American people because the number was lower than in previous wars. Hours later, at 9:28 p.m., he doubled down, posting a new graph comparing those same wars, again highlighting the lower death toll and declaring, “These are the real facts.” before demanding “REPORT THEM!”

The graph itself gives us a deep look into his mind and how it works. He divided it into two columns: “Other Presidents” and “Trump.” Red bars for their wars, blue bars for his. He formatted the deaths of more than one hundred thousand Americans across decades of conflict into a basic infographic, placing his name on the winning side. He used those fallen Americans as props for his argument and proof that his wars are better than everyone else’s because so far, fewer people have died.

In both posts, he was also careful with the labels he used. Iran was identified as a “ Military Conflict.” Not a war. After 4 months of bombing, eighteen dead Americans, untold numbers of injuries, Iranian civilian casualties, and instability around the world, he will not call it what it really is: a war. Because calling it that triggers congressional authorization requirements, and a level of public accountability he does not want to meet. But Venezuela, where the death toll was zero and the optics served him well, he labeled the “Venezuela War.”

This is part of the pattern that has been building for months. CNN published an analysis noting that when U.S. troops die, Trump reaches immediately for politics, calling it “a real blind spot.” But it is much more than a blind spot. It is a window into how he sees his fellow Americans. After two service members were killed in Jordan on Friday, Trump spent the weekend golfing at Bedminster and attending the World Cup final. When NewsNation correspondent Hannah Brandt called him directly because he had not yet issued a public statement, he said: “It’s a very sad thing. We hate to see it happen. It’s in service to our country... we’re never, they’re never going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” After the first three American deaths were reported in March, he told NBC News: “We have three, but we expect casualties. But in the end, it’s going to be a great deal for the world.” Sixty-eight percent of Americans now say this war is not worth fighting. Those are worse polling numbers than Iraq or Afghanistan ever had.

That wasn’t the only thing Trump posted today. He shared much of the same complaints and demands he has become known for. But the one he shared earlier this morning, at 8:22 and re-shared again at 8:27 a.m., also received a lot of pushback. In it, Trump declared that rich people and companies are “pouring out of Dumocrat run Blue States” and that if the trend continues, those states will become the “Ghettos of the Future.”

The word “ghetto” carries a lot of weight. The walled Jewish quarters in Nazi occupied teritories, where those locked inside were forced to survive by eating shoes until they died of starvation, disease, or after transfer to concentration camps, were called ghettos. Then there are the more recent “ghettos” where Black, brown, and immigrant communities across American cities have settled after generations of segregation, redlining, exclusion, and deliberate economic assault; the word has never been neutral. For a sitting president to use it as an insult and threat against entire states is reckless and a direct call for further fear and division.

The claim itself is another one of the Trump Administration’s lies. California’s GDP reached 4.3 trillion dollars in 2025, making it the fourth-largest economy on the planet, behind only the United States as a whole, China, and Germany. New York and California are the two largest net contributors to the federal government, collectively sending back billions of dollars more than they receive. Between 2018 and 2022, blue states contributed approximately sixty percent of all federal tax revenue while receiving only about fifty-three percent of federal spending directed to states. States with Democratic governors pay an average of ten billion dollars more in federal taxes than they get back. States with Republican governors receive an average of four billion dollars more in federal benefits than they contribute. The states he is calling ghettos are the ones funding the states he praises. The “Dumocrat” states are carrying the country on their backs.

The entire Republican Party has abandoned the very principles they once claimed to stand for. They have replaced them with Trump-style performances. We saw it today when House Majority Leader Steve Scalise went on CNBC to defend the SAVE America Act, Trump’s voter suppression bill, and said in all seriousness: “For God’s sake, you can’t go get pasta at Olive Garden without a picture ID.” And yesterday, Rep. Virginia Foxx said the same thing on the House floor: “Heck, you even need to present a photo ID to utilize the Olive Garden’s never-ending pasta pass.”

This is what the United States Congress is spending its time doing. Comparing the constitutional right to vote to a chain restaurant’s promotion for unlimited pasta, salad, or soup and breadsticks. If this weren’t such a dangerous time for the continuation of our government, we might laugh at what they are doing, but taken in the context of how serious this issue is, it is not funny; it is disappointing.

Like most days, Trump gave me more than I could possibly talk about in one post, because there are no guardrails left to stop him from saying and doing whatever pops into his mind. And that is dangerous not just for the country, but also for the world. But the story I keep coming back to is one that received some attention but faded quickly into the background noise. Because this isn’t just about corruption in the moment; it is something that will shape the future of our country as long as Trump is the president. On July 16, we learned that Trump Media and Technology Group would be offering a new paid service that will give Wall Street trading firms millisecond-early access to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts, including the president’s, before the general public sees them. It launches next month, and the company says it has already secured paying customers.

This is deeply concerning. The president of the United States often posts about wars, tariffs, sanctions, and military strikes on Truth Social, along with so many other topics that move markets every which way. His posts make oil prices drop, and defense stocks soar. Billions of dollars respond instantly to his words. And now his own company, in which he remains the largest shareholder, is selling early access to those announcements so that paying clients could potentially trade on presidential decisions before the rest of the world even reads them.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse formally asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate after oil futures trading surged dramatically in the minutes before Trump’s Iran-related posts on multiple occasions. On March 23, billions of dollars in oil and stock-market futures changed hands just sixteen minutes before Trump posted that the United States would postpone strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure. Someone who shorted one million dollars in oil futures during that sixteen-minute window could have netted nearly $170,000 in profit. On April 7, approximately $950 million in bets on falling oil prices appeared hours before Trump announced a ceasefire, which sent prices plunging roughly 15 percent.

People were already suspected of trading on advance knowledge of his posts. Now the President of the United States of America’s company is offering it as a product. It is designed for the wealthiest firms in the country, the ones who already have every advantage, creating yet another divide between those with access to power and money and those who don’t.

When you stop and look at everything Donald Trump is doing from the outside, the big picture is that there’s nobody left in this government who cares what the United States used to stand for. Nobody to tell him no. No one to remind him what the office of the presidency is supposed to be. No one to stop him from acting out his worst impulses. No one to fight for our country or the American people. Because of that, there are no limits to what Donald Trump will do next.

Today, historian Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny and one of the most respected scholars of authoritarianism alive, posted this: “Trump is pursuing this war in the hope that Iran carries out an act of terror in the US. And even if it doesn’t, which I doubt it will, consider the possibility that Trump’s people would fake one.”

His words reminded me of the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, burned on February 27, 1933. Shortly after, Hitler used it to justify the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended civil liberties, eliminated freedom of the press and the right to assembly, and gave the government authority to detain citizens without trial. Whether the Nazis set the fire themselves or simply exploited it has been debated for decades, but the outcome was the same either way. It was the mechanism for emergency powers that became permanent. Donald Trump and his enablers carrying out their own Reichstag moment is something I have feared since he was re-elected, and it feels as though we are moving closer to that possibility the closer we get to the midterm elections.

That is the warning Snyder was sounding. The infrastructure is already built in this country for this to happen. Donald Trump’s personal military force, ICE, already operates with extraordinary powers and billions in federal funding. The judicial branch is holding the line in many lower courts, but the highest court has been overtaken by Trump loyalists. What used to be considered independent agencies have been stripped bare or had their leadership replaced by Trump sycophants. And our elections are already being undermined by the firing of members of the Election Assistance Commission, and they face an even greater threat if Donald Trump succeeds in pushing the SAVE Act through Congress. The only thing Donald Trump still needs is a moment he can manipulate.

So what do we do? We start by not letting the absurdity of comparing unlimited pasta access to being able to vote distract us from the fact that we are watching our democratic norms be hollowed out from the inside. We do not let the sheer volume of daily outrages numb us into treating any of this as normal. It is not normal. And every time we remind ourselves of that, we make it harder for them to pretend otherwise.

We protect the midterms. The SAVE Act is designed to suppress the votes of eligible Americans before November. We must make sure every eligible voter we know has their documentation in order. We double-check our own registrations, and we help others check theirs, so that we are ready for whatever this administration throws at us next.

We support each other. You have all been beyond supportive of my work. Your paid memberships are the reason I’m able to keep every single post free, with no paywall, so that anyone who needs this can find it. I’m so grateful for that support. And tonight, I’d like to ask you to go beyond supporting me and my work.

Please consider supporting those who are going to bear the greatest cost of everything this administration does next, the men and women serving in our military and the families who love them. Trump won’t even call this a war. He calls it a “conflict.” But the families of the eighteen Americans who are never coming home know exactly what it is, and what it should be called, a war. As he escalates his forever war, with no congressional authorization behind it, no clear objective beyond nuclear weapons that were not an imminent threat to start with, those families and the ones waiting for their loved ones to come home safely are carrying the heaviest of weights.

So please, look for ways to support them. Join efforts in your community to aid military families. Donate time and money to organizations like Blue Star Families, Operation Homefront, and the USO, all of which provide direct assistance to military families. Write to deployed service members through organizations like Letters to Soldiers and A Million Thanks. Look for military family appreciation events in your community, and celebrate with them.

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Trump turned their sacrifice and those who are coming home in caskets into a victory lap. We can be the ones who actually honor them in the ways that count. And we can remind them that even when their commander-in-chief treats their lives as a number on a chart, the rest of this country sees them as heroes who deserve so much better than what they are getting from this president.

As dark as today was, we’re starting to see more glimmers of light breaking through. Just hours ago, a federal judge in Miami ruled that the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust must surrender detailed financial records to the BBC as part of Trump’s own ten billion dollar defamation lawsuit over their January 6 documentary. He filed this suit to bully the BBC into silence. He claimed the documentary destroyed his brand, his properties, and his businesses. And today, the court told Trump to open his books and prove it. The judge noted that Trump’s legal team had produced only 735 pages of documents, described by the BBC’s lawyers as a “sham production” of news articles pulled from the internet, while the BBC had turned over 87,000 pages. The judge also denied Trump’s attempt to block dozens of subpoenas sent to members of his inner circle. He tried to weaponize the courts against the First Amendment and the free press, and the courts turned it around on him. His own lawsuit is now being used to force his financial records into the light.

We need to remember that as much as Trump thinks he is impermeable, the courts are still holding him accountable. This was a blow to him, but it is a signal to the rest of us that he is not untouchable. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: It is so warm in San Diego that puppies are melting out of their beds.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/21/world/live-news/iran-war-trump

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-casualties-us-military-operation-iran-khamenei-rcna261212

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/20/politics/iran-war-unpopularity-iraq-vietnam

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/21/republicans-use-an-olive-garden-pasta-promotion-push-stricter-voter-id-laws/

https://time.com/7222411/blue-states-are-bailing-out-red-states/

https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/warren-whitehouse-probe-suspicious-oil-trades-surrounding-trump-iran-announcements

https://www.alternet.org/trump-bbc-lawsuit-financial-records/

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/2026-07-18/iran-attack-2-americans-kia-22299945.html

Just after 1 pm, Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s “Border Czar,” walked toward the press on the White House driveway with a script. He wanted to talk about body cameras, arrest numbers, and how ICE agents are “moms and dads.” He wanted to use the attack on a Manhattan federal building as proof his agents are the real victims. And he might have gotten away with it, if not for reporters who kept asking why the administration gutted the very body camera program it now claims to support, and why an agent whose own ex-wife raised concerns about his mental fitness was ever given a badge and a gun. Homan grew visibly agitated with every question until he blurted out that he can’t even buy a quart of milk without a security detail, then stormed off without a glance back. But before he left, he said something that will matter far longer than his outbursts. Asked to describe his role, he finally admitted: “I’m here; I help Steven Miller. We, we, we develop strategies to send down to the programs for implementation.” On camera, he confirmed what reporters have pieced together for over a year. Stephen Miller is the architect. Homan is the enforcer.

Stephen Miller was never confirmed by the Senate. He holds no title that required a vote. Yet he reportedly runs daily 10 am calls, including Saturdays, demanding arrest numbers, once described as running them “less like a government adviser and more like a wartime general.” He demanded ICE hit 3,000 arrests per day and told field directors to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens.” After two American citizens were killed in Minneapolis, Miller went on Fox and told every ICE officer they have “federal immunity” and anyone who obstructs them “is committing a felony,” what legal experts called an open invitation for abuse. Homan let another truth slip. When asked about the mistakes in Minnesota, he said, “I don’t think they were mistakes.”

The man delivering this performance is himself the subject of one of the most damning corruption allegations in modern federal law enforcement. In 2024, the FBI recorded Homan on hidden cameras accepting $50,000 in cash, in a bag, from undercover agents, after indicating he could help them win contracts. The investigation stalled the moment Trump was inaugurated, and appointees closed the case. Meanwhile GEO Group, the private prison giant that once paid Homan as a consultant, signed new ICE contracts worth over $130 million. Every word was aimed at the midterms, building the frame that ICE agents are under attack and questioning them puts officers at risk. There is a small comfort. None of these men, not Miller, not Homan, not Mullin, have presidential immunity. They act as though the power they wield now will protect them forever. It will not. They are building their own case files. They just do not realize it yet.

See the full story in the video.

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We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available HERE, and based on the events of 7-20-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:
WATCH: Homan says people killed in fatal ICE shootings ‘failed to comply with law enforcement‘: PBS NewsHour YouTube Video

https://abcnews.com/Politics/homan-body-cameras-ice-officers-scrutiny-mounts/story?id=134929103

https://abcnews.com/US/man-custody-after-setting-off-incendiary-device-federal/story?id=134916208

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/17/nx-s1-5897460/maine-ice-shooting-brouillette

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/houston-ice-shooting-death

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/29/politics/stephen-miller-trump-immigration-minneapolis

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-aide-homan-accepted-50000-bribery-sting-operation-sources-say

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/09/22/border-czar-bribery-allegations-the-controversy-around-the-dojs-dropped-investigation-into-tom-homan-explained/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/11/12/us/el-salvador-torture-of-venezuelan-deportees

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kristi-noem-out-as-secretary-of-homeland-security-markwayne-mullin/

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/immigration-ice-deportations-stephen-miller

On this episode of Rational Response, we cover a war with no exit, a “national security” excuse that poisons the air, and a reminder that the American people are far better than the politics dividing them.

First, the Iran war is expanding again, and the administration still has no credible way out. After the latest ceasefire collapsed, the U.S. resumed large-scale strikes on Iranian ports, radar, and missile sites, and Iran hit back at American forces and U.S.-aligned countries including Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted, and Trump refuses to rule out seizing Kharg Island, the hub handling roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports, an operation that would put American troops 20 miles off the Iranian coast. Iran has reportedly told the Houthis to prepare to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, threatening a second global chokepoint. Meanwhile, it is reported that the Pentagon withheld information about attacks in Jordan that injured dozens of service members, and 17 Americans have now died since the war began. Every escalation Trump presents as leverage creates new Iranian leverage in return.

Second, the administration is invoking “national security” to let major chemical manufacturers postpone protections that keep cancer-causing pollution out of surrounding communities. A new proclamation gives 20 petrochemical facilities a two-year exemption from the EPA’s 2024 hazardous-air rule targeting ethylene oxide and chloroprene, protections the EPA itself estimated would cut nearby cancer risk by up to 96 percent. A ProPublica investigation found companies could request relief by email with almost no input from EPA scientists, and roughly 250,000 people live within a mile of previously exempted facilities, disproportionately communities of color. This is a transfer of costs from corporations to the families who breathe the air, and it is part of a broader trend with the Trump administration.

Third, we are a country being divided, on purpose, by people who profit from the fight. Republican strategists are openly discussing a midterm plan built around a “hate election,” but the World Cup just showed who Americans really are: 6.7 million people in stadiums, millions more at public festivals, and visitors who expected a hostile country finding warmth and generosity instead. The ugliness is real, but it is not the whole country, and we do not have to let the people who profit from division decide who we are.

See the full story in the video.

Subscribe now

We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:
Trump on Fox News - Interview - July 14, 2026

AP: https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-hormuz-strait-war-july-20-2026-8b37952906cbec6351fdcc47a0fa6297

AP: https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-us-soldier-deaths-jordan-attack-1fd99826dfd511913b63d0b033b262d9

The Philadelphia Inquirer: https://www.inquirer.com/news/nation-world/iran-us-war-militaey-injuries-unreported-cenrtal-comman-hegseth-trump-20260720.html

Axios: https://www.axios.com/2026/03/20/iran-invasion-kharg-island-strait-hormuz

AP: https://apnews.com/article/us-iran-war-kharg-island-oil-industry-a4332ecc6500070c1e1929b9a734218f

Investing.com (Reuters exclusive): https://www.investing.com/news/world-news/exclusiveiran-tells-houthis-to-close-red-sea-gateway-if-us-hits-power-network-sources-say-4795625

AP: https://apnews.com/article/yemen-saudi-arabia-maritime-embargo-fd7c4a3911f7eee18251483fc8af768c

Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/articles/trumps-iran-deal-has-collapsed-leaving-the-u-s-with-few-good-options

Segment 2: “National Security” Is Being Used to Suspend Toxic-Air Protections

White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/07/regulatory-relief-for-certain-stationary-sources-to-promote-american-chemical-manufacturing-security-be40/

White House (facility annex): https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/ANNEX-I.pdf

ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/clean-air-act-exemptions-trump-emails

AP: https://apnews.com/article/3207b752c9e0e9d6e3e7e715be92e8eb

Environmental Defense Fund: https://www.edf.org/media/trump-administration-hands-out-unlawful-air-pollution-exemptions-more-petrochemical

AP: https://apnews.com/article/trump-coal-zeldin-mercury-epa-emissions-b770d6efd05f19ed24b179511c726196

AP: https://apnews.com/article/epa-pfas-trump-drinking-water-maha-b49abd7d0b8460b9a76d28dc4e49319c

AP: https://apnews.com/article/a3b5f3a0206a43d3cff450a6ae3d1dc9

EPA: https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-rescission-greenhouse-gas-endangerment

Segment 3: We Are a Country Being Divided

Hunter Biden’s Substack Post

Axios: https://www.axios.com/2026/07/19/republicans-midterms-hate-election

Time: https://time.com/6990721/us-politics-polarization-myth/

Brookings: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/americans-are-not-as-divided-by-race-as-it-seems/

AP: https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-united-states-fans-tourists-0cbe947fdfd7560490864ff6b88f9ccf

FIFA: https://vod.fifa.com/organisation/media-releases/packed-stadiums-record-digital-reach-world-cup-2026-numbers-unprecedented-scale

AP: https://apnews.com/article/us-democracy-poll-economy-justice-system-89a3b60f50adf1fee7d9873d36aa9506

When asked whether ICE needed to change the way it trains its agents, Homan brushed aside the question with a lengthy response, eventually insisting, “All they had to do is simply comply with law enforcement,” referring to the men killed during recent ICE encounters.

During the 13 minutes and 27 seconds that Homan spent speaking to the press, he grew visibly more agitated with every question until he could no longer keep the conversation focused where he wanted it. He eventually became overwhelmed by his emotions and blurted out, “I can’t even go get a quart of milk at a grocery store without a security detail. Why? Because I’m enforcing laws of this country. It’s pathetic, and it’s disgusting,” before abruptly walking away without so much as a glance back at the reporters still waiting to ask more questions.

It was all a performance. Homan came to that driveway with a script. He wanted to talk about body cameras and arrest numbers. He wanted to convince the country that ICE agents are “mom and dads” who fight for their country every day. He wanted to use the Federal Plaza attack, a man who set fire to the steps of a federal building in Manhattan this morning using fireworks and gasoline, as proof that his agents are the real victims. And he might have gotten away with it, if not for the reporters who kept asking questions about issues like why the administration gutted the very body camera program it now claims to support, and about why a man whose own ex-wife raised concerns about his fitness for the job was ever given a badge and a gun in the first place. And Homan, unable to answer any of them, did what people like him always do when the truth gets too close. He lashed out, blamed everyone else, and then he left.

The Federal Plaza attack earlier this morning was a launching pad for everything Holman wanted to say. What we know so far is that the suspect, Andrew Arrabaca, launched fireworks at a federal building, poured gasoline on its steps, and set them on fire. Three people were injured. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating. Violence is always wrong, and it should be condemned without qualification. And what Homan did with that attack is what this administration always does. He weaponized it. He said he would not comment because it was too early, then immediately commented, calling it “just another example of someone attacking ICE because of the constant mis-messaging and vilification of the men and women of ICE.” In a single breath, he turned a criminal act into a political indictment of everyone who has ever questioned how ICE operates. And he used it as the emotional backdrop for every answer that followed, so that every question about ICE accountability could be heard not as journalism but as an extension of the violence his agents face. The question we have to ask is not who lit that fire this morning. The question is who has been raising the temperature in our country, and the answer is standing on the White House driveway.

But before he stormed off, Homan said something that will matter far longer than his outbursts. Asked to describe the difference between his role and that of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a question he tried to dodge twice, Homan finally answered: “I’m here; I help Steven Miller. We we, we develop strategies to send down to the programs for implementation.” On camera, from the White House driveway, the man running the largest domestic enforcement operation in modern American history confirmed what reporters have been piecing together for over a year: Stephen Miller is the architect. Tom Homan is the enforcer. And Markwayne Mullin, like Kristi Noem before him, is just the yes man.

Stephen Miller was never confirmed by the Senate. He holds no title that required a vote. He is Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, an unelected adviser who has, by every credible account, seized control of immigration enforcement in this country. It’s been reported that he runs daily conference calls at ten in the morning, including Saturdays, where he demands arrest numbers, deportation figures, and detention capacity updates from every relevant agency. The Atlantic described him running those calls “less like a government adviser and more like a wartime general.” One senior official who participates told The Atlantic, “He pushes everybody to the absolute limit because he knows that the clock is ticking.” Another said, “He gets on the phone and he yells at everybody. Nobody is spared from his wrath.” He demanded that ICE hit three thousand arrests per day. When the numbers did not move fast enough, he called an emergency meeting with ICE’s top fifty field office directors and told them, according to The Wall Street Journal, to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens.” He directed agents to target Home Depot parking lots where day laborers gather for work. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons was hospitalized at least twice due to stress-related episodes brought on by the pressure, and had to be relieved of duty during the Los Angeles operations. A source on those calls told the Daily Mail, “Stephen was just crushing him.”

After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Miller went on Fox News and addressed every ICE officer in the country directly. “To all ICE officers,” he said. “You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.” Legal experts called it “utterly chilling.” Critics called it a greenlight for abuse, an open invitation for agents to act without fear of consequence. And that is exactly what has happened.

Steve Bannon called Miller Trump’s “prime minister.” Trump himself said Miller is “at the top of the totem pole.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Atlantic, “He oversees every policy the administration touches. I can’t tell you the number of times a policy matter is discussed in the Oval and Trump will say, ‘Where’s Stephen? Tell him to get that done.’” This is the man Homan just confirmed he works for. Not the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the President. Stephen Miller.

When a reporter asked about the ICE officer in Maine whose own ex-wife has publicly raised concerns that he had severe mental health challenges that would not be compatible with the work of any law enforcement agency, let alone one conducting armed vehicle stops on American streets, Homan shut it down: “That’s a question for ICE. That’s under investigation.” When another reporter asked whether the administration is more concerned about the quantity of ICE operations than the quality, Homan could not even bring himself to answer directly. “I can’t speak for everybody in the administration,” he said, “but quality agents are very important.” He cannot speak for everyone in the administration. Because the administration’s priority has never been quality. It has been volume.

Homan said something else on that driveway that he clearly did not intend to become the headline. When a reporter pressed him on the Democrats’ claims about what went wrong in Minnesota, the operation that resulted in the deaths of two American citizens, Homan responded: “All the mistakes they say happened in Minnesota… I don’t think (they were) mistakes.” What Homan was saying, even as his words tripped over themselves, was clear: the killings were not errors. They were the expected output of the system they built.

He tried to walk it back moments later, acknowledging the operation “was not perfect” and that he had problems with the “targeting” and “chains of command.” But you cannot hold both positions. You cannot tell the country that the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were not mistakes and then say the operation was imperfect. What he said tells us everything about how this operation views human life.

And then came the heartbreaking claim. “All they had to do is simply comply with law enforcement,” Homan said. “If they did, they’d be alive today.” Comply or die. That is the operating principle of the United States government’s immigration enforcement. But the videos tell a different story. The majority showed compliance, and it did not matter.

Throughout the gaggle, Homan referred to the people ICE is targeting as “aliens.” Not undocumented immigrants. Not migrants. Aliens. He dehumanized them and used the language of invasion. It is designed to make us picture something other than a person, something foreign, something threatening, something that does not belong. It is the same rhetorical trick authoritarian movements have used for a century: strip the humanity from the target before you strip their rights. When they are “aliens,” it becomes easier to accept that they can be arrested without body cameras, deported to countries they have never lived in, or shot during a traffic stop and blamed for their own death.

And that is the part we are still not talking about enough. This operation is not just arresting and deporting people. It is kidnapping them and sending them to third countries, not their countries of origin, but third countries. People whose offense is being in the country without documentation, often a civil violation equivalent to jaywalking, are being sent to El Salvador torture prisons. We still do not have those people back. We do not know what has happened to them. Their families do not know where they are. And the administration does not care, because to them, these are not people. They are “aliens.”

And underneath all of it sits something even darker. The man delivering this performance, the man telling America that ICE agents are heroes who “don’t hang their heart on a hook every day to do this job,” is himself the subject of one of the most damning corruption allegations in modern federal law enforcement. Between Trump’s two terms, Homan launched a consulting firm called Homeland Strategic Consulting, which boasted on its website about “a proven track record of opening doors and bringing successful relationships to our clients, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts to private companies.” He earned three hundred and sixty thousand dollars in consulting fees. He was paid by GEO Group, the private prison giant that operates immigrant detention facilities across the country. And on September twentieth, 2024, six weeks before the election, the FBI recorded Homan on hidden cameras accepting fifty thousand dollars in cash, inside a bag from the fast-casual restaurant chain Cava, from undercover agents posing as government contractors. He had indicated he could help them win contracts in a second Trump administration.

The FBI planned to wait and see if Homan would follow through on the alleged promise once he took office. But the investigation stalled the moment Trump was inaugurated. Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal lawyer turned acting deputy attorney general, called it a “deep state” probe. Trump appointees officially closed the case. The recordings have never been released. Congressional Democrats demanded them. They were ignored.

Homan’s denials evolved. First it was, “I did nothing criminal.” Then it became, “I didn’t take fifty thousand dollars from anybody.” The White House said he “never took the fifty thousand.” Vice President Vance defended him while sidestepping whether the payment was accepted at all. And while all of this was unfolding, GEO Group, Homan’s former client, entered new contracts worth over one hundred and thirty million dollars with ICE in 2025 and projected that increased detention could generate between five hundred million and six hundred million dollars for the company annually.

Every word Homan spoke on that driveway today was aimed at one audience: the voters who will decide the midterms. The frame he is building is simple. ICE agents are under attack. Democrats and the media are getting people killed with their rhetoric. The only solution is more agents, more power, and for us to leave ICE alone and stop talking about the atrocities they are committing. Because in their eyes, if you question any of it, you are putting officers’ lives at risk. That is the frame they intend to carry through November.

But the frame they are terrified of is the one that keeps breaking through: unqualified agents are killing people because an unelected ideologue demanded impossible quotas, the man translating those quotas into operations is credibly accused of taking bribes, the body cameras that might have told the truth were deliberately withheld, and the entire apparatus exists not to protect the country but to enrich private contractors and consolidate political power. That is the truth underneath the performance. And every question those reporters asked today brought it one inch closer to the surface.

While listening to him talk, I kept thinking about what this one man is the face of and what it is doing to communities across our country and to our children. The sweeps have gotten quieter since the early months. They are not on the news the way Minneapolis and Los Angeles were. But they have not stopped. They are moving through more and more neighborhoods, including mine, where unmarked cars circle and the fear settles in without a single headline being written about it. You see them, and you wonder who they will grab, because the reality is they can grab anyone. They have. And it is not just the arrest that does the damage. It is the in-between. The father who stops walking his kids to school. The mother who skips the grocery store. The teenager who watches the vehicles and wonders if today is the day someone does not come home.

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Our children have already been through enough. They lost years of their childhood to a pandemic, separated from friends, classrooms, graduations, and so many of the moments that were supposed to shape them. We asked them to make those sacrifices because we believed it was necessary to protect one another. That crisis was real. It was largely out of our hands once it began to spread.

This is different. This does not have to happen. There is no national emergency demanding that masked agents patrol our communities, that families live in fear, or that children grow up believing this is simply what America looks like. This fear is being manufactured by one man’s ego and sustained by a Congress that refuses to do its job. And every day lawmakers continue to fund this machine instead of dismantling it, they are telling our children that this is normal. That this is what America is now. That armed federal agents confronting people in our neighborhoods, and deadly encounters that follow, are simply the way government operates. They are wrong. This is not who we are. And it does not have to be who we become.

I find myself grasping to small comforts to get through the day. One of them is this: Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Markwayne Mullin, and the others do not have presidential immunity. None of the people executing this operation, setting the quotas, stripping the oversight, and sending people to foreign torture prisons do. None of them are protected by the shield that covers the presidency. They seem to forget that. They act as though the power they wield right now will protect them forever. It will not. There will be a reckoning, hearings, and investigations. They are building their own case files. They just do not realize it yet. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

Subscribe now

Share

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: My daughter made a friend tonight. Thankfully, they were on their way to a different destination and didn’t hang out too long.

Sources:

WATCH: Homan says people killed in fatal ICE shootings ‘failed to comply with law enforcement‘: PBS NewsHour YouTube Video

https://abcnews.com/Politics/homan-body-cameras-ice-officers-scrutiny-mounts/story?id=134929103

https://abcnews.com/US/man-custody-after-setting-off-incendiary-device-federal/story?id=134916208

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/17/nx-s1-5897460/maine-ice-shooting-brouillette

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/houston-ice-shooting-death

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/29/politics/stephen-miller-trump-immigration-minneapolis

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-aide-homan-accepted-50000-bribery-sting-operation-sources-say

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/09/22/border-czar-bribery-allegations-the-controversy-around-the-dojs-dropped-investigation-into-tom-homan-explained/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/11/12/us/el-salvador-torture-of-venezuelan-deportees

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kristi-noem-out-as-secretary-of-homeland-security-markwayne-mullin/

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/immigration-ice-deportations-stephen-miller

Shortly before a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, U.S. Marshals shocked everyone in attendance when they arrested the event’s co-host, Andrew Tate, along with his brother Tristan, handcuffing both men in front of cameras before beginning the process of extraditing them to the United Kingdom, where they face 59 charges including human trafficking, assault, and organized exploitation. But nothing is straightforward these days. Because a year earlier, while the brothers were still under judicial supervision in Romania, one of Trump’s special envoys personally pushed for their release, and the rest of the administration only learned about it after the fact. Once on American soil, the Tates were not just tolerated, but they were embraced. They were hosted at the D.C. home of another Trump envoy, Paolo Zampolli, the man widely credited with introducing Melania to Donald Trump, who admitted on camera that he knew Jeffrey Epstein had underage girls around him.

And that same refusal to hold its own people accountable is becoming the policy of the United States government itself. On Thursday, FBI managers received written guidance directing the bureau to stop investigating confrontations involving ICE agents. Until now, when ICE agents were involved in violent encounters, including fatal shootings, the FBI opened an investigation that created a federal record and evidence that could later support civil rights or criminal prosecutions. Without the FBI, oversight of ICE falls to a division of DHS itself. ICE investigating ICE. A closed loop designed to produce silence and ensure impunity. This is how authoritarian governments have always operated, building parallel forces that answer directly to those in power and operate with fewer restraints.

Here is what this administration keeps forgetting. Removing federal oversight does not stop the states, and Donald Trump cannot pardon state crimes. The reason they are building this infrastructure of impunity is visible in everything else that happened last week. The walls are closing in, and he knows it. Justice has a strange way of working itself out. It is rarely fast enough and almost never arrives the way we want, but it arrives, just as it caught up with the Tate brothers on a Saturday evening in Miami after years of dodging it. Even Senator Lisa Murkowski published an op-ed this week explaining why she will vote against his signature SAVE America Act. When members of his own party start dismantling his efforts, the cracks are showing again. Leaders who feel their grip slipping become more reckless, not less. We should also expect more Republicans willing to speak up, more institutions refusing to bend, and more Americans deciding they have had enough. That is what losing power looks like.

See the full story in the video.

Subscribe now

We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available HERE, and based on the events of 7-19-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/18/us/tate-brothers-arrested-miami

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/tate-brothers-arrested-us-face-additional-rape-charges-uk-rcna588210

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/18/g-s1-134475/tate-brothers-arrested-miami

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/27/nx-s1-5311621/andrew-tate-brothers-romania-florida

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/paolo-zampolli-epstein-underage-girls-interview-1792917

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-other-man-who-links-melania-directly-to-epstein/

https://prospect.org/2026/04/23/diplomat-fashion-channel-jeffrey-epstein-paolo-zampolli/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/23/uk/peter-mandelson-arrested-gbr-intl

https://abcnews.com/International/lord-peter-mandelson-arrested-suspicion-misconduct-public-office/story?id=130417766

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/murkowski-slams-door-shut-on-supporting-save-america-act/

This comes after the Tate brothers have spent years facing allegations of violence against women and running an organization built around exploitation. The brothers, who hold both American and British citizenship, moved to Romania in 2016, where Andrew built his following as one of the most polarizing figures on the internet, promoting hypermasculinity, misogyny, and what he openly described as male dominance. In December of 2022, Romanian prosecutors arrested both brothers and accused them of forming a criminal organization to sexually exploit women, luring them through false promises of relationships and then forcing them into producing pornographic content. They spent months under house arrest near Bucharest. Andrew also faced separate charges of rape. The brothers denied everything. The prosecution stalled after Romanian courts found procedural defects in the case, and a Romanian court eventually dropped the last of its judicial control measures against them in April of 2026, though investigators kept the file open. Separately, British authorities had been building their own case for years, with Bedfordshire Police compiling evidence of alleged crimes committed in England between 2010 and 2017. And now, with fifty-nine charges authorized, the Crown Prosecution Service wants them extradited to stand trial.

But nothing is as straightforward as it seems these days. In February of 2025, while the Romanian charges were still active and the brothers were still under judicial supervision, Richard Grenell, one of Donald Trump’s special envoys, personally approached Romania’s Foreign Minister on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference and pushed for the brothers to be released. No one else in the Trump administration was notified. A senior White House source later told the New York Post, “We learned about the Tate brothers after the fact.” Shortly after that, they boarded a private jet and landed in Fort Lauderdale. Whether that was incompetence, plausible deniability, or something worse, one thing became clear: these men were welcomed onto American soil.

Once back on American soil, the Tate brothers were not just tolerated by the Trump administration; they were embraced. Paolo Zampolli, Trump’s Special Envoy for Global Partnerships, hosted the brothers at his Washington, D.C. home this past month. He threw a party for them and brought them to a D.C. venue.

If Paolo Zampolli’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he is the man widely credited with introducing Melania Trump to Donald Trump in 1998. He founded ID Model Management and ran in the same circles as the most powerful men in New York for decades. And in an interview with Italian state broadcaster RAI 3 that aired on April 19, 2026, Zampolli admitted on camera that he knew Jeffrey Epstein had underage girls around him. His lawyers tried to block the broadcast and failed. In the early 2000s, Zampolli and Epstein discussed buying a modeling agency together. Zampolli was a named partner in the TerraMar Project, the now-defunct ocean charity founded by Ghislaine Maxwell. His former partner of nearly two decades, Amanda Ungaro, has said she flew on a private jet linked to Epstein at the age of seventeen in 2002. She has offered to testify before the House Oversight Committee. And this man holds an official diplomatic title in the Trump administration.

One thing I keep going back to over and over again as I am writing these nightly pieces is just how connected everything is in the Trump administration. Trump’s envoy pressured Romania to release two men facing rape and trafficking charges. Trump’s envoy with deep and documented ties to Jeffrey Epstein hosted those same men and connected them to a sitting member of Congress. And when accountability finally came, it did not come from the United States. It came from the United Kingdom, from Bedfordshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which spent years building a case our government still has never attempted.

And there is a broader truth in what happened outside that boxing venue in Miami. Justice has a strange way of working itself out. It is rarely fast enough. It almost never arrives the way we want it to. But it does arrive. The Tate brothers spent years moving between countries, dodging investigations, and surrounding themselves with powerful people who were willing to look the other way. And on a Saturday evening in Miami, it caught up with them anyway. That should be a warning to everyone in Trump’s orbit, and to Trump himself. Because we still have allies in the world who are doing the work. The United Kingdom is not just prosecuting the Tate brothers. It is confronting the Epstein legacy head-on. Keir Starmer’s government collapsed after the scandal surrounding Peter Mandelson’s ties to Epstein, including $75,000 in documented payments. Mandelson was arrested in London on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The British are pulling at the same threads we are, and they are following them wherever they lead. Maybe they will be the ones who crack the Epstein files wide open. Maybe they will be the ones who issue the warrants that our own government refuses to pursue. And those warrants could reach anyone, including a president, once he is out of office. That is something Donald Trump must think about often. It would explain why he never wants to leave. It would explain why his administration is working so aggressively to dismantle the International Criminal Court. And it would explain what he did next.

And that same refusal to hold its own people accountable is not limited to the people in Trump’s inner circle. It is becoming the policy of the United States government itself. Because on Thursday, FBI managers received written guidance directing the bureau to no longer investigate confrontations involving ICE agents. Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the directive told the New York Times and other outlets that agents around the country were informed of the change by their FBI counterparts. The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint statement denying any policy change, claiming the relationship between the two agencies “has not changed.” But the denial contradicts what agents were told internally.

When ICE agents were involved in violent encounters, including fatal shootings, the FBI opened what is known as an “assault on federal officer” investigation. That investigation created a federal record. It generated evidence under oath. It produced witness testimony that could be reviewed by independent investigators. And critically, the evidence gathered in those cases could later form the basis for civil rights investigations or criminal prosecutions of agents who used excessive force. The Department of Homeland Security does not have jurisdiction to investigate civil rights violations. Without the FBI, oversight of ICE falls to Homeland Security Investigations, which is a division of DHS itself. ICE investigating ICE. That is a closed loop designed to produce silence and ensure impunity. The timing is not coincidental. It came less than four months before the midterm elections.

Without FBI oversight, ICE agents can act knowing that the only people who will ever review their conduct are colleagues within their own department, people who report to the same chain of command, and people who answer to the same political appointees.

ICE has already been deployed in cities and communities that have openly challenged this administration. We’ve watched raids become media spectacles. We’ve watched federal agents show up in places where the political message was almost impossible to ignore. And we’ve even seen a sitting member of Congress pepper-sprayed during one of those operations.

Now imagine what that looks like in the months leading up to November. Imagine heavily armed federal agents conducting high-profile operations in swing districts or neighborhoods where elections are decided by a few thousand votes. They don’t have to stand outside polling places to influence an election. They don’t have to tell anyone not to vote. If people become afraid to leave their homes, afraid to gather, or afraid that any interaction with law enforcement could put them or someone they love at risk, the damage is already done.

That’s why oversight matters. That’s why independent accountability matters. Because when the same people carrying out these operations are no longer subject to meaningful outside review, we’re simply being asked to trust that power will never be abused. History tells us that’s not a gamble democracies should ever make.

And for the people who speak out, the journalists, the organizers, the writers, the people sharing the truth online, the threshold for being targeted drops the moment FBI scrutiny disappears. They do not need a legal justification that would survive outside review. They need a name, a list, and the confidence that no one outside DHS will ever examine what happened.

This is how authoritarian governments have always operated. They don’t rely solely on the military, because the military has its own chain of command, its own traditions, and at least some institutional checks. Instead, they build parallel forces that answer directly to the people in power and operate with fewer restraints. Nazi Germany had the SA. Mussolini had the Blackshirts. They were both presented as forces that existed to keep order and protect the public. But their real purpose was to intimidate political opponents and make people afraid to challenge those in power. And they were able to do it because there was little or no independent oversight of what they did.

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That’s why this matters. It’s not because ICE suddenly becomes the SA or the Blackshirts overnight. History doesn’t repeat itself that neatly. It’s because removing independent oversight from an armed federal force creates the same dangerous incentive structure we’ve seen before. That’s the direction we’re moving in, and it’s happening here in the United States.

But here is what this administration keeps forgetting: this won’t stop the states from investigating and prosecuting. State investigators can build cases on their own terms, using their own jurisdiction. And if crimes are committed and convictions are made, Donald Trump cannot pardon state crimes. And the reason they are building this infrastructure of impunity is visible in everything else that happened this past week. The walls are closing in. And he knows it. Every move he is making right now is the move of a man who can feel the ground shifting under him and is preparing to use everything available to him, including force, to hold his position or unchecked power.

On Friday, Senator Lisa Murkowski published a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “Why I’m Voting Against the SAVE America Act.” “While I support the bill’s core tenets—ensuring that only American citizens vote and requiring identification when voting—I remain opposed to it.” she wrote. She explained that the bill would force more than 25,000 Alaskans into just six regional offices to register in person, and that for many rural and Native communities, making that trip could cost $1,000 or more. When members of his own party start publicly dismantling one of his signature efforts to reshape elections, it’s a sign that the cracks are starting to show again.

That doesn’t mean he’s going to back down. If anything, history tells us the opposite. Leaders who see their grip on power slipping often become more reckless, not less. As the midterms get closer, we should expect more attempts to intimidate, distract, and divide us. But we should also expect something else. More Republicans willing to speak up. More institutions refusing to bend. More Americans recognizing what’s happening and deciding they’ve had enough.

That’s what losing power looks like. A steady erosion of the fear and unquestioning loyalty that once held everything together. And we are already seeing it. This is why I still have hope for America. And you should too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

Subscribe now

Share

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: Saw another great sticker today.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/18/us/tate-brothers-arrested-miami

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/tate-brothers-arrested-us-face-additional-rape-charges-uk-rcna588210

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/18/g-s1-134475/tate-brothers-arrested-miami

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/27/nx-s1-5311621/andrew-tate-brothers-romania-florida

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/paolo-zampolli-epstein-underage-girls-interview-1792917

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-other-man-who-links-melania-directly-to-epstein/

https://prospect.org/2026/04/23/diplomat-fashion-channel-jeffrey-epstein-paolo-zampolli/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/23/uk/peter-mandelson-arrested-gbr-intl

https://abcnews.com/International/lord-peter-mandelson-arrested-suspicion-misconduct-public-office/story?id=130417766

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/murkowski-slams-door-shut-on-supporting-save-america-act/

While more than 800 wildfires burned across Canada and over 100 million Americans in 18 states sat under air quality alerts, the President of the United States decided to weigh in, not with sympathy or support, but with an attack. He blamed the natural disaster on Canada, accused the country of “Willful Negligence,” and declared that “the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air.” He threatened additional tariffs while the fires were still burning. That is what he chose to do while an entire First Nation community burned to the ground in less than an hour, with no warning and no assistance, its residents fleeing by boat with almost nothing. “They survived it,” the chief said, “but now we have nothing.” And he was not alone. Republican members of Congress sent hostile letters, one senator drafted sanctions legislation, and another, who happens to have founded a firefighting company that received more than $235 million in government contracts, used the crisis to attack his competitors.

And here is what makes it worse than hypocrisy. Just days before Trump’s attack, a 56-year-old Canadian pilot named Nicholas Dale was killed fighting a wildfire in Colorado. He was here for us, fighting our fire. Hundreds of Americans lined a highway to honor him as his body was carried home. He did not check which side of the border the fire was on before he went in. The cross-border firefighting partnership has saved lives on both sides since 1982. During the LA fires last year, Canada sent water bombers, and Mexico sent 72 firefighters. Both nations this administration treats as adversaries, showed up when we needed them. And while Trump blamed Canada for the smoke, his own administration was dismantling the very scientists whose job is to understand wildfire smoke, shutting down the world’s only laboratory studying its health effects and slating dozens of research stations for closure. The same government that gutted the agencies meant to protect us is now calling our closest ally negligent.

Because this was never really about wildfires, smoke, or tariffs. It is about isolation. Trump has threatened to annex Greenland, mocked Canada with 51st-state taunts, and threatened military action against Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia. Authoritarian regimes fear strong alliances because they create accountability and allow the outside world to see what they are doing. When he attacks Canada during a wildfire, he is trying to make Americans believe our neighbors are our enemies. But we are bigger than our government and bigger than one man. Millions of Americans see this for exactly what it is, and we are not okay with it. Trust has to be earned through what we do next, and we will vote these people out, hold them accountable, and rebuild what they have broken. Because the real America is not the voice screaming on Truth Social. It is the people who lined a highway with flags to honor a Canadian pilot who gave his life for us.

See the full story in the video.

Subscribe now

We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available HERE, and based on the events of 7-18-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/17/politics/trump-canada-wildfire-smoke-tariffs

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-fumes-canadian-wildfire-smoke-issues-tariff-threat-rcna588122

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/17/trump-canada-wildfire-tariffs.html

https://krdo.com/news/2026/07/17/they-thought-there-was-no-immediate-danger-then-a-wall-of-smoke-arrived/

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5972839-moreno-sanction-canada-wildfires/

https://www.propublica.org/article/tim-sheehy-bridger-aerospace-forest-service-inspection

https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-governor-jared-polis-firefighting-pilot-killed-flags-half-staff/

https://ca.usembassy.gov/statement-by-u-s-ambassador-to-canada-pete-hoekstra-on-the-wildfire-situation-in-canada/

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/12/nx-s1-5819899/president-trump-is-taking-aim-at-forest-and-wildfire-research-just-as-the-west-is-poised-to-burn

https://www.aol.com/canada-wildfires-choke-us-smoke-132634608.html

He called it “Willful Negligence.” He accused Canada of refusing to engage in “basic Forest Management and Debris Removal.” He said the costs “must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.” And he announced he would call Prime Minister Mark Carney “to find out what they are going to do about it.” As if the leader of a sovereign nation fighting hundreds of wildfires across his country needed to explain himself to the man who dismantled our own wildfire research.

That is what the President of the United States chose to do while more than eight hundred wildfires burned across Canada. While more than 100 million Americans in 18 states and the District of Columbia sat under air quality alerts. While the smoke from those fires turned the skies over Washington, New York, and Detroit orange and pushed air quality to hazardous levels. While an entire First Nation community lay in ashes.

On July 13, a fast-moving wildfire overwhelmed Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, also known as Collins First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, roughly 250 kilometers north of Thunder Bay. The community burned to the ground in less than an hour after flames jumped natural fire breaks. There was no advance alert from provincial authorities. No pre-positioned support. Residents evacuated by boat, escaping with almost nothing. Chief Helen Paavola later told the Assembly of First Nations that her community was destroyed without warning and without assistance. “They survived it, but now we have nothing,” she said. “The whole community burned down within less than an hour.”

That is the country and people he threatened with tariffs while their homes were still burning. And he was not alone. Before Trump even posted, four Republican members of Congress from Michigan had already sent a letter to Prime Minister Carney titled “Canada’s Apologies Won’t Clear Michigan’s Skies.” Representatives Jack Bergman, John James, Lisa McClain, and John Moolenaar declared that their “patience has run out.” They wrote, “We are done accepting apologies in place of action. If Canada will not manage its forests to prevent these fires, the United States will look elsewhere, and act on our own, to protect our people.” They threatened to reconsider “how much benefit of the doubt this relationship continues to earn.”

Then came Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, a close Trump ally, who announced he would introduce legislation to sanction Canada. He called the wildfires “this atrocity.” The bill is titled the “Countering Atmospheric Nuisances Arising from Drifting Airborne Foreign Incendiary Residual Emissions Act,” or the CANADA FIRE Act. It would sanction Canadian officials responsible for the fires, block their assets, revoke their visas, and declare Canada’s ambassador persona non grata until wildfire smoke no longer affects the United States. He wants to sanction Canada and Canadians with economic warfare.

And then came Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana, who posted that Canada “routinely blocks U.S. firefighting companies from attacking fires in Canada” and compared the cross-border firefighting relationship to “a Chinese protectionist racket.” What Sheehy did not mention is that he founded Bridger Aerospace, an aerial firefighting company that has received more than $235 million from the U.S. Forest Service since 2021. When he resigned from the company to run for the Senate, he owned 21 percent of it, making him its largest individual shareholder. A ProPublica investigation revealed that in March 2025, just months into his Senate term, Sheehy asked the Secretary of Agriculture to stop Forest Service airworthiness inspections of private firefighting aircraft. A draft executive order to eliminate those inspections leaked from his office the following month, and metadata showed it had been edited by his policy adviser and a lobbyist for Bridger. That same month, a Forest Service inspector discovered a crack in the wing of an aircraft Bridger had presented as ready for service. And his own company’s website states that Bridger Aerospace “conducts aerial firefighting operations across the United States and Canada.” He is not defending American interests. He is protecting his financial ones.

That is the coordinated response. The president threatening tariffs. Members of Congress sending hostile letters. A senator drafting sanctions legislation. And a former firefighting CEO with a nearly quarter-billion-dollar government contract using the crisis to attack his competitors. All of it aimed at Canada. All of it happening while families in northwestern Ontario had nowhere to go.

And here is what makes this more than just a reckless and morally reprehensible stunt. Just days before Trump posted his attack, a 56-year-old Canadian pilot named Nicholas Dale, from Sooke, British Columbia, was killed fighting a wildfire in Colorado. His helicopter crashed into Silver Jack Reservoir while he was battling the Gold Mountain Fire. He was there for us. He was fighting our fire. And hundreds of Americans lined U.S. Highway 50 in Montrose, Colorado, holding flags to honor him as a procession carried his body more than 100 miles from Gunnison to Grand Junction. Those Americans understood something the President of the United States does not: that Nicholas Dale did not check which side of the border the fire was on before he went in. He was there to help others in need.

During the LA wildfires in January 2025, Canada deployed water bombers from Quebec, firefighters from Alberta, and senior technical staff from British Columbia. Mexico sent 72 firefighters and military personnel to help fight the Palisades Fire. Governor Newsom said, “Emergencies have no borders. We are deeply grateful to our neighbors in Mexico for their unwavering support during one of our greatest times of need.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told her firefighters, “You carry with you the courage and heart of Mexico.” Both of those countries, Canada and Mexico, the two nations this administration treats as threats and adversaries, have sent their people to help us.

The cross-border firefighting partnership between the United States and Canada has been in place since 1982. It is not just a favor, and it is certainly not charity. It is a mutual aid agreement, built on decades of trust, that has saved lives on both sides of the border. In 2023, the United States sent 2,774 wildland firefighters to Canada during a historic fire season. In 2025, the USDA Forest Service deployed an airtanker to Alberta and mobilized over 150 firefighters and support personnel. Last summer, Trump’s own Ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, issued a statement saying he was “proud of the more than 800 U.S. firefighting personnel who stepped up to assist Canada.”

And just three days before Trump’s attack, that same ambassador issued another statement about the current fires. “This is a shared challenge, and it demands a shared response,” Hoekstra wrote. “I commend the outstanding cooperation between the United States and Canada as we confront these fires together. Our two governments are monitoring and sharing information in real time, coordination that reflects our partnership at its best.”

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And then there is the part that exposes this entire attack as something even worse than hypocrisy. While Trump was blaming Canada for the smoke, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration was dismantling the very scientists whose job was to understand wildfire smoke, protect public health, and help communities prepare for disasters like this.

The Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in Seattle, which produces the Fire and Smoke Map that millions of Americans rely on to track fire activity and smoke exposure, is on a list of 56 of 90 research stations slated for closure under the administration’s Forest Service reorganization. The EPA’s Office of Research and Development, which operated the world’s only laboratory for controlled human-exposure studies on the health effects of wildfire smoke, has been shut down. A drone-mounted sensor called Kolibri, the only tool in the world capable of flying into smoke plumes and measuring airborne pollution, has been effectively grounded by the reorganization. Up to 75 percent of the EPA’s research staff could face layoffs. Scientists warned in May that these cuts could hinder efforts to protect people from wildfires as soon as this summer.

It is this summer. And the smoke is here. The same administration that dismantled our wildfire smoke research is now blaming Canada for wildfire smoke. The same president who pulled the United States out of climate agreements is attacking Canada for the consequences of climate change. The same government that gutted the agencies designed to protect Americans from exactly this kind of crisis is now standing on a propaganda platform calling our closest ally negligent. Climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center noted: “If anything, Canada should be blaming the U.S. for their increased fires.” The United States remains the world’s largest historical contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the hotter, drier conditions making these fires worse every single year. And instead of acknowledging that, this administration destroyed the research, withdrew from the agreements, and blamed the neighbor.

Prime Minister Carney, when asked about the Republican criticism, did not raise his voice. He simply said, “Climate change is everyone’s responsibility, truly everyone’s, including the United States.”

And Ontario Premier Doug Ford, responding to the wave of attacks from Republican politicians, said what many of us have been thinking. “If there are some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help, because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends, and that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

And to be clear, no one is saying that wildfires do not need to be addressed. They do. Climate change is accelerating fire seasons across North America, on both sides of the border, and every government, including Canada’s, has work to do on forest management, prevention, and response. The destruction of Collins First Nation, a community that received no warning and no help, is proof enough that Canada’s own systems failed its most vulnerable people in this crisis. Those are fair conversations to have. But you do not have those conversations by threatening tariffs, and certainly not while the fires are still burning. You do not sanction an ally while its families are fleeing by boat. You do not send hostile letters to a prime minister whose country just lost a pilot fighting your fire. You offer help first. You grieve with them. You send resources, not threats. And then, when the smoke clears and the displaced are home, you sit down together and figure out how the entire continent can prevent the next devastating fire. That is what leaders do. That is what neighbors do. And it is worth noting that the United States has the exact same problem. We are fighting fires in Colorado right now. We have lost four firefighters there this summer. Our own forest management challenges are well documented, and this administration has done nothing to address them. It has done the opposite.

This isn’t just about wildfires. It is not about smoke. It is not even about tariffs. What Trump and his enablers are really focused on is isolation. It is about severing every bond of trust, partnership, and alliance that connects the United States to the democratic world. Trump has threatened to annex Greenland. He mocked Canada with claims of 51st statehood. He has threatened military action against Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, and beyond. He has pulled out of climate agreements and international partnerships. Every one of these moves follows the same logic.

Authoritarian regimes do not want strong alliances because alliances create accountability. They do not want mutual aid because mutual aid builds trust. They want isolation because isolation means control. It is what North Korea does. It is what Russia does. It is what every government that fears the outside world does, not because the outside world is dangerous, but because the outside world can see what they are doing. When Trump attacks Canada during a wildfire, he is not trying to solve a problem. He is trying to make Americans believe that our neighbors are our enemies. That the people who sent their firefighters to die alongside ours are somehow exploiting us. That the countries who showed up when we needed them most are the ones we should punish. And if we let him succeed, if we let this administration convince us that we are alone in the world, we will be. That is the goal. And nothing good comes from it. Nothing good has ever come from it.

This is our moment to step up for our friends around the world. We carry the torch ourselves. Because the government has abandoned its role as a good neighbor, and that means the responsibility falls to us. As something each of us does, in our own communities and across borders, every single day. There are so many families with ties on both sides of that border. So many people who share more with their Canadian and Mexican neighbors than they will ever share with the people running this government. And it is on us right now to be the America that those neighbors remember when all of this is over. It is on us to support our neighbors here and across borders. To refuse to let the cruelty of one administration define who we are as a people. To show the world, person by person and community by community, that the United States is not the voice screaming on Truth Social. It is the people who lined a highway in Colorado with American flags to honor a Canadian pilot who gave his life for us.

And to those of you reading this from Canada, I want to say something directly to you. I know none of this surprises you. By now, you know exactly who this president is, exactly how this administration operates, and exactly how quickly they will turn another country’s suffering into material for a political performance. But knowing what to expect does not make it hurt less. So I want you to hear this from someone who writes every single night about what is happening in this country, and who sees the scale of the damage being done in our name: millions of Americans see this for exactly what it is. We see the cruelty, and we see the lies. And we are not okay with any of it.

We cannot ask you to trust us simply because we say the right words tonight. Trust does not work that way. It has to be earned through what we do next, through the people we elect, through the alliances we repair, through the promises we keep, and through the courage we show when cruelty is being carried out in our name. We will vote these people out. We will hold them accountable. We will rebuild what they have broken. And we will find our way back to one another. I know that may take years. I know it may take decades before we prove that this country will stop placing its most selfish, reckless, and morally empty people in its highest offices. But we will prove it. The American people are still here, still fighting, still speaking, and still refusing to surrender our country to the men who confuse power with greatness. This is not a promise from the government that betrayed you. It is a promise from the people who know that Canada has been our neighbor, our ally, and our friend, and who understand that friendship means showing up when the smoke is thick, the flames are rising, and someone needs us.

Because that is what I keep coming back to, night after night, and especially tonight. We are bigger than our government. We are bigger than one man. There are more of us, and this will catch up to him. Donald Trump will not be in office forever. Every enabler, every senator who drafted sanctions against a country while its communities turned to ash, every representative who sent a hostile letter to an ally instead of sending help, will be held accountable for what they did. History will record their names. And we will outlive their cruelty. We will outlive their destruction. And even if it takes us generations, we will rebuild the trust and become good neighbors again. Because that is who we actually are. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the Day: My middle daughter and I were up in LA tonight to see the Spin Doctors, Gin Blossoms, and Blues Traveler. They were all great, but the real reason we were there was to see Chris Barron, the lead singer of the Spin Doctors. As part of my personal economic resistance, I am choosing to spend my money on people and businesses who are taking a stand against what is happening in this country. Chris is a prominent voice on the Threads app who never misses an opportunity to call out the corruption and cruelty in the Trump administration. The Spin Doctors have been one of my favorite bands since I was a teenager, and it means a lot to know that Chris is on the right side of history.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/17/politics/trump-canada-wildfire-smoke-tariffs

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-fumes-canadian-wildfire-smoke-issues-tariff-threat-rcna588122

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/17/trump-canada-wildfire-tariffs.html

https://krdo.com/news/2026/07/17/they-thought-there-was-no-immediate-danger-then-a-wall-of-smoke-arrived/

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5972839-moreno-sanction-canada-wildfires/

https://www.propublica.org/article/tim-sheehy-bridger-aerospace-forest-service-inspection

https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-governor-jared-polis-firefighting-pilot-killed-flags-half-staff/

https://ca.usembassy.gov/statement-by-u-s-ambassador-to-canada-pete-hoekstra-on-the-wildfire-situation-in-canada/

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/12/nx-s1-5819899/president-trump-is-taking-aim-at-forest-and-wildfire-research-just-as-the-west-is-poised-to-burn

https://www.aol.com/canada-wildfires-choke-us-smoke-132634608.html

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin walked into the Indian Treaty Room, stepped up to the podium, and over the next 27 minutes, he reminded the room repeatedly that his loyalty to Donald Trump was total, that there was no daylight between them, that they had been texting that very morning. But loyalty was not the point. Speaking of people he claimed had broken election laws, he declared, we will hunt you down, we will find you, and he threatened election officials with fines, penalties, and prison if they failed to act on information his department would release in 30 days. This was not a plan to secure elections. It was a plan to rig them, dressed up as a national security threat.

The centerpiece was a claim that DHS had identified 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote in four states, California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada, all Democratic strongholds Trump lost. Even if the number were real, and it is not, registration is not voting. In California, officials verify registration and signatures before any ballot counts, and researchers who have studied noncitizen voting find it statistically insignificant. When Georgia checked the names DHS flagged, only 150 of 2,549 had ever voted. The Heritage Foundation’s own fraud database found 77 instances of noncitizen voting across all elections between 1999 and 2023. Mullin’s own letters admit the numbers are unverified, and David Becker explained the figure came from commercial data that routinely produces false matches. Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center noted he offered no evidence for where the numbers came from. He brought up 400,000 deceased registered voters as a scheme, when it is only the paperwork of people who cannot notify anyone they have died. Then he insisted his claims were not even for debate, because saying something loudly is the only play left when there is no proof to show.

The real danger arrived when he described making security enhancements mandatory, threatening states with lost federal election funding, and, as ABC News reported, previously threatening FEMA counterterrorism grants to force compliance. He promised to scrub voter rolls before and after the election with no oversight over who gets removed, less than four months from the midterms. And he threatened election officials themselves with prosecution and prison, the exact tactic authoritarian movements always use to replace independent judgment with fear. If poll workers can be jailed for doing their jobs, the entire system of election administration begins to collapse. He went after judges too, calling them “activist” and demanding that any “god-fearing” person support him, even as 15 courts, including six Trump appointees, have already blocked these demands. Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote that the government had knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of citizens and the sacred right to vote.

Yet the truth kept breaking through. John Solomon, handpicked for Trump’s own election task force, said the Intelligence Committee has zero evidence any foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, 2022, or 2024. Governors and secretaries of state from both parties refused to be intimidated. If Democrats could rig elections, Trump would not sit in the White House with Republicans controlling Congress and the courts. They resort to threats precisely because they cannot win enough legitimate votes to hold power, which means they are not yet in control. November will be here soon, and until then we keep the pressure on, speak the truth, and show up for one another.

See the full story in the video.

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We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

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I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available HERE, and based on the events of 7-17-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

Markwayne Mullin holds a press conference on election security: YouTube Video

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/homeland-security-mullin-threaten-state-election-officials-voter-registration-save/

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/most-of-trump-dojs-voter-roll-losses-have-come-from-gop-appointed-judges/

https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/06/22/judge-rules-against-trump-overhaul-save-database-noncitizen-voters/

https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/07/07/trump-department-justice-letter-noncitizens-voter-rolls-election-officials/

https://us.cnn.com/2026/07/17/politics/election-officials-voting-mullin-save

https://www.factcheck.org/2026/07/factchecking-trumps-election-security-speech/

https://newrepublic.com/post/213185/trump-election-fraud-guy-john-solomon-found-no-proof

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-mullin-holds-news-conference-on-election-security-after-trumps-address-to-the-nation

https://abcnews.com/Politics/mullin-threatens-withhold-aid-states-dont-comply-dhs/story?id=134854708

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/tulsi-gabbard-scrutiny-showing-fbi-raid-georgia-election-hub-rcna256525

By the time his 27 minutes were up, Mullin had reminded the room multiple times that his loyalty to Trump was absolute. “When I was sworn in just over a hundred days ago by President Trump... I haven’t quit smiling.” Later, he assured the room there was “no daylight” between himself and the president, even mentioning they had been texting that morning before praising Trump’s “remarkable team.”

But it wasn’t all about Trump. Speaking about people he claimed had violated election laws, Mullin declared, “We will hunt you down. We will find you.” He threatened election officials with “fines, by penalties, and even depending on how far it goes, prison time” if, after receiving what he described as new election information from the administration, they failed to act on it. He said that information would be released in 30 days, just before the midterm elections. He also criticized what he called “activist judges,” adding another target to the minds of an already radicalized Trump follower base.

What we watched today was not about securing our elections. It was about rigging them. It is a warning that every American needs to hear. Markwayne told us exactly how they plan to make sure the Trump Administration never loses unchecked power.

He started with a lie. “This isn’t about rehashing the 2020 election,” he said. “This is just exposing what took place and to make sure it never happens again.” That is exactly what it was about. He was told to get up to that podium and make it look legitimate, to dress up a fabricated crisis to look like a national security threat. He said that because that is the only play they have left.

He framed it the way authoritarians always frame it: as something no reasonable person could oppose. “This should be something that every American, regardless if you’re a Republican, you’re a Democrat, you’re an independent, you’re a Libertarian, regardless if you live in a blue state, or you live in a red state, everybody should know that their vote counts.” He was offering a simple solution to a complex problem, except this time it was a problem that doesn’t actually exist. He was trying to make it sound like anyone who questions what the Trump administration is doing does not care about elections, that they are un-American. That is what he was really saying.

And here is the thing that cuts through every single claim he made today. If Democrats could actually rig elections, or if there was some massive voting problem in this country, Donald Trump would have lost. Republicans would not have control of both chambers of Congress. They would not have been able to stack the Supreme Court. That is the proof. That is the only response any of us need when they say these things. The actual, real evidence is right in front of us, in every court case, audit, and investigation that has already been done. This is not a real crisis. This is just another step in their authoritarian takeover. And they are just ramping it up.

Mullin then laid out his centerpiece claim: “Department of Homeland Security, we’ve identified 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote in just four states. Mind you, we have 46 other states. And just four states, we’ve identified 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote in California and Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada.”

He opened with Democratic states. The ones Trump needed and lost in 2020. The ones he is most bitter about. And even if the number were true, which it is not, it would not matter. Registration is not the same thing as voting. In states like California, election officials are required to confirm each voter’s registration status and verify their signature before a ballot can be counted. A name appearing on a registration list does not mean that person cast a ballot, and it does not mean an unlawful vote was counted. When researchers have actually investigated how many noncitizens voted, the amount has always been so small it was statistically insignificant. Every illegal vote that occurs should be investigated, and we should form barriers to prevent it. But our actual election integrity is extremely strong. The only real risk to it is people like this man and his boss, the president, trying to take over our country because they know they cannot get enough legitimate votes to hold power.

His own letters to the states acknowledge the numbers are unverified. When Georgia actually checked the names DHS flagged, only 150 out of 2,549 had ever voted in the state. The Bipartisan Policy Center of the Heritage Foundation’s election-fraud database found only 77 instances of noncitizen voting across all U.S. elections between 1999 and 2023. Seventy-seven. In 24 years. David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, attended a White House briefing the day before and said the 250,000 figure was based on comparisons with commercial data, which is less detailed than actual voter records and routinely produces false matches.

Wendy Weiser, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice, said: “Pay attention to what Mullin did not provide: any evidence to back up his wild numbers or even an explanation as to where those numbers came from. They are almost certainly false or wildly overstated.”

Mullin then added: “We also worked with proactive states to identify 28,000 noncitizens on their voter roles plus 400,000 individuals that are still registered to vote that are deceased.”

Deceased people are not intentionally trying to vote and neither are the people checking their mail as their affairs are wrapped up. People die every single day, and the fact that their names are still on voter rolls does not mean anything. It does not mean they or anyone else would vote. It means they are dead and they cannot notify the voting authority that they are dead. Voter rolls are updated on rolling timelines. This is paperwork, not fraud. And it is shameful that he would use this statistic to make it sound like some deliberate scheme when he has no proof of that. It is exploitative of the reality of people who die and the families they leave behind.

Throughout the press conference, Mullin appeared to use the numbers 250,000 and 278,000 interchangeably for the same claimed group, never once explaining the discrepancy. He could not remember which four states he was talking about and had to check his notes. He said “FOYA” when he meant FOIA. He said “catched” instead of “caught.” He said “he has gave” instead of “he has given.” This is the man who is telling us he is going to secure our elections.

As I watched him, I couldn’t help but think about the legacy he is choosing to leave behind. Markwayne Mullin built a life working for his family’s plumbing business before making his way to Congress. His family should be an American story that represents hard work and opportunity. Instead, he now stands at the head of one of the most powerful departments in the federal government, not because he built a reputation for independent judgment or expertise in homeland security, but because he has demonstrated unwavering loyalty to one man. There is a difference between serving a president and serving power itself. History remembers those who were willing to trade their dignity and American spirit for proximity to power just as clearly as it remembers the people who demanded it.

Then he said something that revealed the strategy behind the entire event. “One thing that I love about numbers and I love about facts is they don’t lie. This isn’t something that I’m trying to tell you to spin a narrative. This is what is going on.”

It is obvious what he is doing here. He is not introducing evidence for the audience to examine. He is asking the audience to accept his conclusions before they have seen the evidence, because there doesn’t appear to be any. Throughout the press conference, he repeatedly insisted, “we know,” and declared that his claims were “not even for debate,” as though saying something often enough transforms it into fact.

That is not how facts work. Facts are established by evidence that can be examined, challenged, and independently verified. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Yet during those 27 minutes, no public evidence was presented to support the sweeping assertions he was making. Instead, Americans were told to trust that the evidence exists and to accept the conclusions. In a democracy, that is backwards. Government officials do not establish truth by declaring it. They establish credibility by showing their evidence and allowing it to withstand public scrutiny.

There is no doubt that we are susceptible to outside influence, just like every country is. Our system is set up so that there are thousands of jurisdictions in control of voting. To say that a foreign adversary could infiltrate one small jurisdiction and somehow affect the entire federal election system is not how this works. But since they do not have proof, they are going with a strongman approach: you are not allowed to question it. That shows how weak their case is and how weak this man is.

Then Mullin moved to the operational threats. “Working with Secretary Lutnik, we are going to make our security enhancements mandatory,” he said. “Meaning that if these states want a grant and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they’re going to have to implement security issues. Just security issues. We’re not trying to get into anything else, but we’re saying that the machines have to be secured and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed.”

This is where the picture became much bigger than Markwayne Mullin. He made it clear that states choosing not to participate in the administration’s new election security program could face consequences. He also indicated that states declining to participate could risk losing access to certain federal election funding.

ABC News reported that DHS has also previously threatened to withhold FEMA counterterrorism grants unless states complied with election security mandates. So this is not just about election reimbursement. They are holding public safety funding over the heads of the states.

Mullin then said something deeply alarming: “Before and after the election, we will scrub all election records looking for illegal aliens and those who are ineligible to vote, including those that somehow voted yet they were deceased.”

We are less than four months away from the midterm elections, and the federal government wants to come into the states and scrub voter rolls. Who decides how those rolls are scrubbed? Who decides who gets removed and who does not? Where is the oversight? If they are in control of this process, there is no one watching, and they can do whatever they want. They could remove any voters they do not want voting.

Then came the moment in the question-and-answer session that is rightfully drawing the most attention. In response to a question from a Daily Caller reporter, Mullin said:

“I will tell you if the states that choose not to participate with the state program and they choose not to participate in securing the elections, we will make sure that we make those states a priority to look at who voted in their states and hold them, the election officials, accountable. If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even depending on how far it goes, prison time.”

This is the kind of rhetoric that has defined fascist and other authoritarian movements throughout history. When governments begin threatening election officials with fines, criminal penalties, or prison for refusing to carry out the ruling party’s preferred policies, they are no longer relying solely on persuasion. They are relying on fear. We have seen this pattern before. The details change. But the tactic remains the same: pressure the people responsible for administering elections until independent judgment gives way to political obedience.

The deeper damage is the part not being talked about. If election officials can be threatened with prosecution for doing their jobs, who is going to want to work the polls? Who is going to volunteer? If government officials can construct a narrative and then threaten the people who refuse to accept it, the entire system of election administration begins to break down. That is how trust in democratic institutions erodes. That is how fear replaces independent judgment. And history has shown us where that road can lead.

He also went after the judiciary. “What’s interesting to me is we’re getting pushback from activist judges,” he said, conflating the SAVE Act, which is a congressional bill, with the SAVE program, which is the DHS immigration database. He said: “This should be that any judge and any god-fearing individual that loves this country should want to make sure that our elections are secure.”

This is one of the most concerning things he said. They are preemptively discrediting the courts. They know they are going to lose. A federal judge has already blocked the expanded SAVE database. Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote in her seventy-five-page ruling that “the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.” Fifteen courts have now blocked the administration’s election demands, including six judges appointed by Donald Trump. This is why they are poisoning the well now, months before the midterms, so that when judges rule against them, they have already told their base those judges are corrupt. They are not just attacking one judge. They are attacking the entire concept of an independent judiciary in preparation for what comes after November.

He also said: “What’s frustrating again in this is that the Biden administration knew this and our intel community knew this. And not only did they withhold it from President Trump in his first term.”

There was no Biden administration during Trump’s first term. The president in 2020 was Donald Trump. He served for four years before the election he lost. If there were any issues with election security during that time, they are on Donald Trump, not on Joe Biden. This administration loves to point to other people. They love their scapegoats. Transgender people. Immigrants. Biden. Obama. It does not have to make sense. It obviously is not true. But they do not care, because they know their base does not care either.

Today forced me to confront the two things I worry about most: the press and our elections. Without a free press, we do not know what is happening. We cannot hold anyone accountable. Without free and fair elections, we lose the one peaceful way we have to change our government.

On days like today, it is easy to let my mind drift to the worst-case scenario. But strangely, those are also the days that give me hope. Because as dark as things can feel, they remind me that we are not at the end of this story. There is still time to resist. There is still time to change course.

Every once in a while, the Trump administration surprises me, and it is often when I least suspect it, because we had a moment when the truth was still able to break through from within.

John Solomon, a conservative media figure who now serves on Trump’s own election task force, was handpicked by the administration to investigate the very claims they are peddling as facts. And on Friday night, after Trump’s primetime address, Solomon said this on camera: “The Intelligence Committee has zero evidence that someone, that a foreign power, flipped the vote in 2020, ‘22 or ‘24.”

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When asked specifically whether Venezuela had tampered with U.S. voting machines, a conspiracy theory that election deniers have been spreading for years, Solomon said: “No. The intelligence is very clear. They did it on their own machines.”

The Washington Post reported that even in Thursday’s primetime speech, Trump “never claimed to have any evidence of altered votes or compromised machines.” FactCheck.org confirmed the speech “offered no evidence that widespread fraud had occurred.”

The pushback to both Trump and Mullin came quickly. Governor Gavin Newsom responded to Mullin directly: “California has free, fair, and secure elections and we will fight for them. Try us.” Senator Chuck Schumer said: “They are losing, and they know it. Election officials will not be intimidated.” Senator Raphael Warnock said: “He knows he’s a failed president. He knows that his popularity is faltering. He knows that he is on course to lose in 2026. And instead of doing something for the people, he’s trying to interfere in our elections.” Representative Jerry Nadler said: “The Trump administration’s own review of the 2020 election determined it was safe, a finding reaffirmed by countless audits and court cases. The only person refusing to accept reality is Donald Trump.” Pennsylvania’s Republican Secretary of State Al Schmidt said: “All evidence has shown that noncitizen voting is extremely rare across the country, including in Pennsylvania.” Nevada’s Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said: “We can affirm that on its face, we refute these claims. These numbers are wildly speculative at best and the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t shared anything that backs it up.”

This was another week where Trump and the people enabling him showed us just how far they are willing to go to hold onto power. But they also showed us something else. They are not in complete control, or they would not be resorting to these kinds of extreme measures.

We are less than four months away from the midterm elections. The pressure will only build from here, but so will the resistance. We have a very real chance to slow this down and stop the worst of what they are trying to do. November will be here before we know it. Until then, we just have to keep the pressure on, keep speaking the truth, and keep showing up for one another. I know we will. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: These might be the most “Southern California” resistance stickers I have ever seen. Especially the surf one. I was behind this legend on the road today. I hope I see him again so I can thank him for doing his part.

Sources:

Markwayne Mullin holds a press conference on election security: YouTube Video

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/homeland-security-mullin-threaten-state-election-officials-voter-registration-save/

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/most-of-trump-dojs-voter-roll-losses-have-come-from-gop-appointed-judges/

https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/06/22/judge-rules-against-trump-overhaul-save-database-noncitizen-voters/

https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/07/07/trump-department-justice-letter-noncitizens-voter-rolls-election-officials/

https://us.cnn.com/2026/07/17/politics/election-officials-voting-mullin-save

https://www.factcheck.org/2026/07/factchecking-trumps-election-security-speech/

https://newrepublic.com/post/213185/trump-election-fraud-guy-john-solomon-found-no-proof

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-mullin-holds-news-conference-on-election-security-after-trumps-address-to-the-nation

https://abcnews.com/Politics/mullin-threatens-withhold-aid-states-dont-comply-dhs/story?id=134854708

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/tulsi-gabbard-scrutiny-showing-fbi-raid-georgia-election-hub-rcna256525

Last night, Donald J. Trump stood in the East Room of the White House and for 25 minutes told the American people that they could not trust their own elections. It was not a speech about a foreign attack or a national emergency. It was a speech about the election he lost in 2020, delivered less than four months before a midterm his party is widely expected to lose. He claimed the intelligence community had been lying for years, that China had carried out the largest compromise of election data in history, that the media was part of a conspiracy, and that anyone who opposed his election bill “wants to cheat.” Stripped of its theatrics, the address had one purpose: to convince millions of Americans to distrust the results of the next election so that Trump can cling to power when Republicans lose it at the ballot box.

The claims kept collapsing under their own weight the longer he spoke. He described classified “burn bags” supposedly handed off by “President Barack Hussein and Obama to be burned,” bags that survived only because “maybe we got lucky.” He said China acquired 220 million voter files from 18 states, without noting that voter registration data is publicly available in most of them, and without a single document showing that any vote was altered or any machine breached. The 2021 intelligence assessment produced under his own Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, concluded with high confidence that China did not try to influence the 2020 outcome and found “no indication that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process.” He revived the Venezuela and Dominion machine conspiracy that cost Fox News a $787 million settlement, and he buried, as a throwaway line, the staggering allegation that China manufactured illegal ballots for Joe Biden, then never returned to it.

Trump ordered DHS to push states to purge voter rolls, directed the FBI to investigate, demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act immediately, and told supporters to flood their representatives with calls, softening his voice to ask, “How easy is that to do unless you want to cheat?” He threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC, NBC, and CNN because they declined to air him, networks that had watched what these same claims cost in court and recognized a political operation dressed as a national security briefing. Yet the man accusing everyone else of fraud is the only person on tape asking a state official to “find 11,780 votes.”

See the full story in the video.

Subscribe now

We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available HERE, and based on the events of 7-16-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

President Trump Delivers an Address to the Nation, Jul. 16, 2026: YouTube Video

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/16/nx-s1-5896448/trump-election-address

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/16/politics/takeaways-trump-election-speech

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/trump-congress-iran-blanche-doj-ice-2026-maine-senate-live-updates-rcna587765

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5973430-democrats-alarm-trump-election-fraud-claims/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/media/fox-news-settles-dominion-defamation-lawsuit-rcna80285

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/17/key-takeaways-from-donald-trumps-speech-on-election-security

This week on Rational Response, we open with an exclusive MS NOW investigation into the Secret Service detail protecting JD Vance and his family. Reporters describe a growing morale problem driven by costly, last-minute travel demands, including a plan to fly Vance and his young son on Marine Two so the child could attend a golf lesson. Agents say the constant off-the-record trips force them to rewrite security plans and cancel leave, and their frustration has gotten so deep they reportedly made coins and stickers reading “Bobcat OTR Survivors Club.” J.D. Vance claims this is an administration about efficiency while he leans into the VIP perks and expects royal treatment.

From there we turn to a State Department grant program offering European organizations one to three million dollars each for work on migration, censorship, national sovereignty, and “lawfare,” framed around a “shared political philosophy” and “common Western civilizational heritage.” That is not neutral language. It echoes the way Trump, Vance, and Europe’s nationalist right talk, and while the grants cannot go to political parties, they can flow to think tanks, conferences, legal groups, and media projects that shape a country’s politics from the outside. Germany’s chancellor has already warned Washington to stay out of German elections, which makes the contradiction hard to miss: Trump condemns foreign interference at home while his administration openly tries to build a MAGA-aligned network abroad.

Finally, we break down three confirmation hearings that were really three versions of the same loyalty test. Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, wants to be permanent attorney general and slipped into calling himself “his lawyer” before catching himself. Jay Clayton wants to lead the entire intelligence community with no intelligence background and would not simply say that Biden won in 2020. And Dr. Erica Schwartz could not commit to defying RFK Jr. when his directives collide with science. All these nominees appear to have more loyalty to Trump than the American people.

See the full story in the video.

Subscribe now

We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

MS NOW: https://www.ms.now/news/veeps-security-detail-fed-up-with-hastily-arranged-personal-and-family-travel-requests

MS NOW: Television report

The Independent: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-secret-service-travel-helicopter-b3015964.html

The Daily Beast: https://www.thedailybeast.com/jd-vances-own-secret-service-agents-leak-jaw-dropping-diva-demands/

AP: https://apnews.com/article/vp-vance-boating-ohio-river-level-raised-de4c773cfffd6cac0b82e96787fea951

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/06/jd-vance-ohio-lake-water-levels

Mike Rowe: Vance interview

Segment 2: The United States Is Funding MAGA’s Expansion into Europe

Grants.gov: https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/22c22279-5d25-4e9f-8cc8-77b7c583c0fb

State Department: https://www.state.gov/drl-nofo-developing-civilizational-bonds-democratic-resilience-and-rule-of-law-in-europe

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/germany-warns-against-election-interference-as-us-offers-funding-to-maga-aligned-causes-in-europe

German Federal Government: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/summer-pk-merz-2026-2447148

Segment 3: The Trump Loyalty Hearings

AP: https://apnews.com/article/blanche-justice-department-senate-epstein-b01b56923edcba5722e89163684dbdbf

CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/todd-blanche-confirmation-hearing-senate-attorney-general/

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/todd-blanche-confirmation-hearing-attorney-general

Senate: Padilla questioning clip

AP: https://apnews.com/article/clayton-intelligence-director-trump-senate-1532baf2e182ede8d67e2d5561f296a8

CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jay-clayton-trumps-dni-nominee-senate-confirmation-hearing/

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/jay-clayton-senate-intelligence-committee-hearing

Senate Intelligence Committee: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2026/06/10/closed-briefing-intelligence-matters-74/

AP: https://apnews.com/article/cdc-director-erica-schwartz-25b3317e2ce111ba399ce8dc9697b983

ABC News: https://www-cdn.abcnews.com/Health/dr-erica-schwartz-senate-committee-confirmation-hearing-cdc/story?id=134740574

Senate: Full Schwartz hearing video

As troubling as the speech had already become, it somehow kept getting stranger the more he talked. At one point he claimed investigators had discovered classified “burn bags” from the Obama administration and then said they had been “given by President Barack Hussein and Obama to be burned.” He followed that by explaining that these bags, which supposedly contained proof of the biggest election conspiracy in American history, had only survived because, in his words, “Maybe we got lucky.” He offered no evidence.

The contradictions only became more unbelievable from there. After spending nearly twenty minutes telling Americans that their elections were catastrophically broken, that China had compromised election data, that voting machines could not be trusted, that intelligence agencies had covered it all up, and that “hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls,” he looked into the camera and said, “Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in election, but to earn that confidence.”

But the conspiracy theories, as bizarre as they were, were not the most important part of the speech. The most important part was what came next. He directed federal agencies to investigate. He ordered the Department of Homeland Security to push states to remove people from voter rolls. He demanded Congress pass his election legislation immediately. He insisted that anyone who opposed it “wanted to cheat.” And then he told Americans to pressure their elected officials until they complied. That was the real purpose of tonight’s address. Everything else was simply there to justify what comes next.

But the conspiracy theories, as bizarre as they were, were never the point. They were the justification for everything that came afterward. After telling Americans their elections could no longer be trusted, Trump announced that he had ordered the Department of Homeland Security to “notify every state about non-citizens on their voter rolls and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from the lists immediately.” He directed the FBI to investigate what he described as election crimes. He promised a federal effort to “fix and patch” election systems before the midterms. These weren’t the words of a man simply reliving the past. They were the actions of a president using the powers of his office to reshape the next election.

Then he said something that deserves far more attention than it received. “Great damage has been done to our country. Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen and the trust of the American people was lost.” But the election he is talking about is 2020. Donald Trump was the President of the United States. The federal government was under his control. His attorney general, his FBI director, his intelligence agencies, and his Department of Homeland Security all served under him. If the election had truly been “rigged and stolen,” it would have happened on his watch. But it wasn’t. Dozens of courts rejected his claims. His own administration found no evidence of fraud that could have changed the outcome. The American people voted against him, and he lost. That’s the reality he is still trying to rewrite.

But this time he did not just complain to the American people. He announced a plan, and he based it all around supposed evidence. But let’s look at what he actually released tonight, because the documents do not say what he told America they say.

Trump claimed that China carried out “the largest compromise of election data in history,” acquiring 220 million voter files from 18 states. He called it “an unprecedented election security nightmare.” But voter registration data is publicly available in most states. Trump did not explain how China acquired this data “illicitly” because he could not. Nothing in the declassified documents released tonight indicates that China altered a single vote, accessed a single voting machine, or changed the outcome of any election.

And the claim that China actively worked to prevent Trump from winning is not the consensus view of the intelligence community. The 2021 intelligence assessment, produced under the leadership of John Ratcliffe himself when he served as Director of National Intelligence, concluded with “high confidence” that China did not attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 election. One intelligence official held a “minority view” with only “moderate confidence” that China sought to denigrate Trump. That minority view is what Trump presented to the country tonight as though it were established fact. It is not. And the same assessment’s core finding, which Ratcliffe himself did not dispute at the time, stated plainly: “We have no indication that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 election, including voter registrations, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.” That conclusion has not changed. What changed is that Donald Trump needed it to change, four months before a midterm election his party is expected to lose.

He claimed that members of the “deep state, very very famous group of people” suppressed intelligence about China’s election activities, that analysts “deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing” to withhold information, and that an FBI official was running “a shadow government” to keep the truth from him and from the press. These are explosive allegations. And yet tonight, as CNN reviewed the hundreds of declassified documents posted to the White House website, their analysts found that a decent chunk of them rehash information that was already public and widely understood within the intelligence community. The vulnerabilities are real. They have been real for years. The intelligence community has been warning about them publicly since at least 2016. Congress has appropriated billions of dollars to help states upgrade their election security. States across the country have implemented paper ballot backups, post-election audits, and air-gapped systems to address exactly these threats. A 2020 National Intelligence Council report noted that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea “have the capability to access and potentially manipulate” election data, but it also concluded that because American elections are decentralized and run by thousands of state and county jurisdictions, any breaches would likely remain localized and it “would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to alter the election outcome.” None of that context appeared in tonight’s speech, because including it would have collapsed the entire premise.

Trump claimed that approximately 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in federal elections. But that number came from commercially available databases, which the White House itself acknowledged are less reliable than government data. Being registered on a voter roll does not mean a person has voted. It is already a federal crime for noncitizens to vote, and every comprehensive study ever conducted on this question has found that it almost never happens. Georgia has conducted multiple audits of its voter rolls. A 2022 audit found 1,634 noncitizens who attempted to register and were blocked before any of them could vote. A 2024 audit of 8.2 million registered voters found 20 noncitizens who had gotten through, out of 8.2 million.

He also spent a portion of the speech on a voter registration fraud case in Muskegon, Michigan. He described it as “pay, play, and cheat,” claiming that Michigan State Police raided a Democratic get-out-the-vote organization in 2020, that canvassers admitted to signing voter registration forms in other people’s names, and that the Biden Department of Justice “slowwalked the investigation and killed it.” What he did not say is that the case involved fraudulent voter registration applications, not fraudulent votes. Submitting a fake registration form is a crime, and it was investigated. But a fraudulent registration form that gets flagged and rejected is not the same as a fraudulent vote being cast and counted. These are different things, and Trump either does not understand the difference or does not care, because conflating them serves his purpose.

He claimed the CIA had obtained reporting of a plot by the former Maduro regime in Venezuela to “digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not be detected even with an audit.” This is the same foundational claim that Sidney Powell made about Dominion voting machines in 2020, the conspiracy theory that Fox News amplified on its airwaves until it cost them $787 million in a defamation settlement. Trump is reintroducing it through the backdoor of a foreign country’s domestic election, hoping the audience will connect it to American voting machines without him having to say so directly.

And buried in the middle of all of this, delivered as a throwaway line between paragraphs, was perhaps the most staggering claim of the evening: “Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China’s activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden.” If that were true, it would be the single largest national security scandal in the history of the American republic. It would merit an independent investigation, emergency hearings, and criminal prosecutions at every level of government. Instead, he mentioned it once and moved on with no evidence. That tells you everything you need to know about whether it is real. If you had proof that a foreign government manufactured ballots for your opponent, you would not bury it in the middle of a 25-minute speech and never return to it. You would hold it up with both hands and demand the world look at it. He did not do that because he cannot do that.

And then there was the garbled, incoherent language that kept breaking through the teleprompter performance. At one point he said, “This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes like levels never thought possible the hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.” That is not a sentence. He was trying to describe China’s opposition to his reelection, he said, “They did naught [sic] not want and they just didn’t want it. They fought like hell not to have it. Donald Trump to win and for good reason.” He referred to himself in the third person mid-thought and the thought collapsed entirely. This was a man struggling to read words off a screen that someone else had written for him, and failing at it on national television.

But maybe the biggest question we should be asking ourselves is that if our elections are so broken, so corrupt, so catastrophically compromised, then how did Donald Trump win in 2024? How did Republicans win the House? How did they win the Senate? How did they sweep every competitive race they needed to take full control of the federal government?

Congressman Jim McGovern put it plainly: Trump says Democrats forgot to rig the election in 2016, successfully rigged it while he was president in 2020, then forgot how to rig it again in 2024. So the only election Democrats supposedly stole was the one Trump himself controlled. You have to be, as McGovern wrote, “a special kind of stupid to believe this bullsh*t”

Fox 5 Atlanta caught another version of the same contradiction: Trump placed heavy blame on China while claiming members of the “deep state” and U.S. intelligence agencies failed to intervene. But Trump appointed the very people who led those intelligence agencies in 2020. Ratcliffe was his Director of National Intelligence. The FBI was under his attorney general. The Department of Homeland Security answered to him. If the system failed, it failed under his leadership. And he did nothing about it until he needed a weapon to use against the next election.

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie went even further: “I don’t think the problem is that our elections aren’t secure, because we control the House, we control the Senate, we control the White House, and in some degree, we control the Supreme Court. So I ask my Republican colleagues, why are you complaining about election fraud? We won all the damn elections.” The fraud that’s going on is we’re not holding ourselves to the promises that we made.” That is a sitting Republican, on the record, saying what the rest of them will not. The fraud is not in the elections. They won everything. And he is not alone in his frustration. The Hill reported that some House and Senate Republicans were not enthused about Trump rehashing the 2020 election in a primetime address and see little benefit to focusing on the past while competitive midterms lie ahead. Some of these senators and representatives have hopefully started to wake up and realize that if they want long careers in politics after Trump is gone, they need to do some major work to distance themselves from this. They cannot keep enabling this and expect to survive what is coming.

Senator Raphael Warnock explained it another way: “Look at this from a common sense perspective. I won two elections, in ‘21 and ‘22. Our congressional delegation is majority Republican, so are you saying that on the same ballots that elected my Republican colleagues, their ballots are legitimate and the ballots that elected Ossoff and myself are illegitimate?” The answer, of course, is that the ballots are only illegitimate when Democrats win.

And if the question is whether there was fraud or attempted election fraud, maybe Donald Trump should sit with what he himself has done. Because we have the recording. On January 2, 2021, Donald Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and spent an hour pressuring him to overturn the results of the state’s presidential election. Joe Biden had won Georgia by 11,779 votes. Trump told Raffensperger: “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.” One more than the margin. He was not asking anyone to investigate fraud. He was telling a state election official the precise number of votes he needed fabricated. When Raffensperger refused, Trump threatened him: “That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.” He also said, “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.” The entire call is on tape. It was published by the Washington Post.

And the phone call was only one piece of it. We have the video of January 6th, the president’s supporters storming the United States Capitol to stop the certification of the election he lost. We have the fake elector schemes, where Trump allies in multiple states submitted fraudulent slates of electors to overturn the legitimate results. We have the federal indictments. We have the state RICO indictment in Fulton County, Georgia. We have the convictions of people who participated in the plot. Every single time Donald Trump accuses someone else of election fraud, he is describing what he himself has done. He is the only person in this story who has been recorded on tape asking a state official to manufacture votes. He is the only person who incited a mob to attack the Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. He tried to steal an election. He failed. And tonight he stood in the East Room and accused everyone else of the very crime he committed, on camera, in a formal address to the nation.

He yelled into the cameras that Americans need to call their representatives tomorrow and tell them that “Congress must pass the SAVE America Act.” Then he softened his voice and said, “How easy is that to do unless you want to cheat? The only reason you wouldn’t do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad and your candidates are so pathetic that you can’t get elected any other way.”

He also accused the media of being “part of a plot” to “continue this fraud” and “protect the radical left” and then, in the next breath, said that their refusal to air his speech “should mean a revocation of their licenses” because “they use our public multibillion dollar in value airways for absolutely no money. They pay nothing.” That is the president of the United States of America threatening to strip broadcast licenses from news organizations because they made an editorial decision not to air his propaganda. Three major networks, ABC, NBC, and CNN, declined to carry the speech tonight. They did not refuse because they do not care about election security. They refused because they most likely recognized the speech for what it was: a political operation disguised as a national security briefing. And they refused because every network that amplified these same claims about stolen elections and rigged voting machines in 2020 faced devastating legal consequences. Fox News paid $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems. The networks learned that lesson. And tonight, Trump punished them for learning it.

Earlier today, before the speech even began, we received a preview of what was coming. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held her first briefing since returning from maternity leave. NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake asked her directly why the president is “unable to let this go,” noting that the 2020 election “had dozens of recounts, lawsuits, audits” and that the 2024 election was “widely believed to be safe and secure.” Leavitt’s response was not an answer. She told Garrett he was “jumping ahead to the conclusion in the speech before you hear yourself” and said the findings would “shock you if you have an honest eye listening to the president tonight.”

CBS News’ senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe asked her another important question: “Will the president accept the results of November’s election?” Leavitt did not say yes. She said, “Look, you should tune into the president’s speech tonight before you jump ahead about what is in the speech. I have seen a lot of reporting and misreporting about what the president will say.” That was a non-answer. And it was something very easy she could have and should have been able to answer. A single word. “Yes.” It would have taken less than a second. She chose not to say it.

We can fact-check every word of this speech, line by line, claim by claim, and it will not matter. Because Donald Trump does not operate on facts. He never has. The speech was not designed to survive scrutiny. It was designed to create a feeling: that the system is broken, that someone stole something, that only he can fix it. Once that feeling exists in enough people, the specific claims become irrelevant. This is how every authoritarian movement in history has operated.

What he is hoping this does is stoke enough fear in his supporters that they flood their representatives with calls demanding the SAVE Act. He is counting on them not reading the documents. He is counting on them not understanding that the intelligence community’s own conclusions contradict his claims. He is counting on them hearing “China” and “hacked” and “stolen” and feeling afraid, and then channeling that fear into political pressure.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner responded to the speech with this: “I’m not saying this as a senator or a Democrat, but as an American, I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that the President of the United States tried to speak to the whole nation with a whole series of falsehoods and accusations, I believe, aimed at undermining America’s confidence in our system.” And then he said the really damning part: “This is probably a prelude, because if we have a free and fair election in 2026, he and his allies will lose in a dramatic fashion.” And: “If we simply blow this off as another Donald Trump rant, we do that at our own peril.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Trump “a feeble, unhinged conspiracy-peddling 80-year-old failed President.” Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts called for Trump’s impeachment “for undermining and subverting our free and fair elections.”

Warner is right. We cannot blow this off. This is not just another rant. This is the blueprint for the next four months. And what we saw tonight demands something more than outrage. It demands action.

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So what do we do? We make it too big to rig. Not just enough to win, but enough to make the outcome undeniable. Turnout so overwhelming that no amount of interference, suppression, conspiracy theory, or midnight Truth Social post can change the outcome of the elections. That is what November demands.

Tonight we watched a president use the full power of his office to attack the foundation of the country he swore to protect. But we also watched the networks refuse to carry it. He is losing. He knows it. The desperation is the evidence. A man who believed he was winning would not need to commandeer a primetime address to relitigate a defeat from six years ago. A man who believed he was going to win would not need to threaten, purge, and intimidate his way through the next four months. A man who had the truth on his side would not need to slur through someone else’s words on a teleprompter while his handlers stood behind him hoping the performance held together long enough to make it to air.

He showed us his hand tonight. And now we know exactly what to watch for, exactly what to fight, and exactly where to apply pressure between now and November. And that is exactly what we are going to do. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

Subscribe now

Share

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: This cutie had the zoomies, ran throughout the entire house, did multiple laps, and then practically collapsed into a deep sleep for the rest of the afternoon. I think most of us would love to be able to nap like that!

Sources:

President Trump Delivers an Address to the Nation, Jul. 16, 2026: YouTube Video

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/16/nx-s1-5896448/trump-election-address

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/16/politics/takeaways-trump-election-speech

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/trump-congress-iran-blanche-doj-ice-2026-maine-senate-live-updates-rcna587765

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5973430-democrats-alarm-trump-election-fraud-claims/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/media/fox-news-settles-dominion-defamation-lawsuit-rcna80285

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/17/key-takeaways-from-donald-trumps-speech-on-election-security

At the U.S. Army War College, an institution founded to educate the nation’s most senior military leaders, the President of the United States spent nearly 55 minutes talking about a range of absurd talking points, including magnets. “I’ll tell you how to make money: do magnets.” He moved on to Caterpillar tractors, to a friend who bought a private jet he didn’t need just for the tax write-off, and called affordability, the single biggest economic crisis facing American families, a “fake word” that Democrats invented. And whenever someone else took the podium, his eyes grew heavy, and he repeatedly appeared to nod off, only regaining attention after Pete Hegseth addressed him directly. On a day when the United States is already engaged in a new war with Iran, he used a serious defense summit to campaign, attack his opponents, and joke, at the Army War College, about pardoning service members convicted of killing civilians.

That last part was the most damning, because it revealed who is running the war machine they are building. Trump laughed as he described pardoning soldiers “trained to kill,” blaming Hegseth for lobbying him to do it. The men Hegseth championed on Fox News include a SEAL turned in by his own team for reportedly shooting a young girl and an old man, and an Army officer nine of his own platoon members testified against for ordering fire on unarmed civilians. This is the same Defense Secretary who just announced mandatory testosterone screening for male troops over thirty, branding it “The High-T Department of War,” while blocking the promotions of seven senior Navy officers, five of them women or people of color. For the first time in nearly two decades, no active-duty women serve as four-star generals or admirals. He is not building a stronger military. He is building a boys’ club with a war machine attached.

On Capitol Hill, two confirmation hearings revealed the other half of the project: filling every position of power with people loyal to one man, not the Constitution. Trump’s attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche, asked if he and the president are friends, replied, “I’m his lawyer,” before catching himself. His nominee for director of national intelligence refused to say who won the 2020 election, questioning the “audit trail” of American elections, laying the groundwork for the fraud narrative.

See the full story in the video.

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We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

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I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available here, and based on the events of 7-15-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-trump-touts-battlefield-technology-investments-at-army-war-college-in-pennsylvania

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/15/nx-s1-5895105/todd-blanche-senate-confirmation-attorney-general-takeaways

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/15/health/hegseth-troops-testosterone

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cyclosporiasis-7000-cases-us-cdc-parasite-explosive-diarrhea-rcna587445

https://time.com/7176342/pete-hegseth-donald-trump-pardon-war-crimes-military/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-80-struggles-to-stay-awake-as-pentagon-pete-hegseth-sucks-up-at-pennsylvania-defense-summit/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/06/nation/female-navy-officers-hegseth-promotions/

https://www.ms.now/news/veeps-security-detail-fed-up-with-hastily-arranged-personal-and-family-travel-requests

The purpose of the 2026 Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit was straightforward: strengthen America’s military, announce billions of dollars in defense investment, showcase advances in emerging technologies, and prepare the workforce needed to build them. It was supposed to be a serious discussion about the future of our national defense.

Instead, the President of the United States spent his time talking about magnets. “I’ll tell you how to make money: do magnets.” Then came Caterpillar tractors. “I watch more tractors than any human being on Earth,” he said, describing how they “rip right through rock.” He moved on to windmills, then to a wealthy friend who bought an expensive private plane he did not need because, as Trump explained, “You can write that sucker off in one year. Can you believe it?” He called affordability, one of the biggest economic concerns facing American families, a “fake word.” He mocked Joe Biden as the audience laughed. “Don’t fall down the stairs like Biden.” He invented a story claiming companies had to hire transgender executives to qualify for CHIPS Act funding. And at the U.S. Army War College, he drifted into the Battle of Gettysburg and observed, “What a war that was, when you read about it.”

He made a juvenile joke about Democrats and the letter “B” in the word “dumb.” He praised Pete Hegseth because “all he wanted to talk about was war,” before joking about pardoning service members convicted in high-profile war crimes cases, including one involving the killing of a young girl. At one point he paused to ask the room, “I hope I’m not boring anybody,” while also telling the room, “I’ll tell you how to make money: do magnets.”

And as animated as he became whenever it was his turn to speak, the moment someone else took the podium, his eyes grew heavy. His face went blank. He repeatedly appeared to nod off during the rest of the summit, at one point only seeming to regain his attention after Pete Hegseth addressed him directly: “President...”

The President of the United States was at the U.S. Army War College, an institution founded in 1901 to educate the nation’s most senior military leaders. It is where strategy is studied, doctrine is written, and the lessons of every American conflict are preserved so future generations don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. On a day when the United States was already engaged in what many are calling our newest forever war against Iran, a conflict that has reportedly depleted stocks of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot and THAAD interceptors to levels analysts say could take years to replenish, Donald Trump used the moment to campaign for the midterm elections, attack his political opponents, and repeat claims that had nothing to do with the reason everyone in that room had gathered.

Today was also the day CBS News reported that senior Pentagon officials have been quietly examining military options for a potential assault on Cuba, including an operation involving thousands of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division. It was the day the man nominated to lead the Department of Justice sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and accidentally referred to himself as the president’s personal lawyer. It was the day the man nominated to oversee the nation’s intelligence community refused to say who won the 2020 election. And it was the day Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced mandatory testosterone screening for male service members over thirty, proudly branding it “The High-T Department of War.” It was another day under the reign of Donald J. Trump.

And when he was not talking about magnets, he was telling the room how his friend, a man who had never flown on a private plane in his life, went out and bought a very expensive one he did not even need, just for the tax write-off. Then he turned to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and said, “Jamie can expand his bank,” and pointed to the building and said, “You can write that sucker off in one year. Can you believe it?” And then he complimented a steel contractor on the construction. “I want to know that steel contractor. He did a good job, a great job actually.”

He called affordability a “fake word.” He said Democrats invented it. This is the president of the United States dismissing the single biggest economic crisis facing American families as a linguistic trick, minutes after bragging about a friend’s unnecessary private jet, in a room full of people who will never have to choose between groceries and rent.

He praised a journalist he called “Selena,” who is Salena Zito, a national political reporter for the Washington Examiner and special contributor to the Washington Post. “That’s only because she writes so well about me,” he said, grinning. “You know, if she wrote badly, I’d say, ‘Get her the hell out of here.’ Selena, thank you, honey, very much.” He said this at a defense summit, out loud, on camera. Write favorably and you are “honey,” “a talent,” “a really amazing person.” Write honestly, and you are “stupid,” “nasty,” or a “Piggy,” which is what he has called reporters in the past.

He attacked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, saying, “Shapiro doesn’t have what it takes.” And then he added, reading directly from his script, “I tell the truth.” From a man who lies about everything, constantly. That line was no doubt added for him to read because his enablers know how repetition with propaganda works. You say it enough times, in enough rooms, and it stops sounding like a claim and starts sounding like a fact to the people who want to believe it.

But maybe most damning was his accidental admission about who is running the war machine they are building. “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. He’s been amazing. Pete, thank you very much. Great job. He’s been really amazing. You know, he used to do interviews. All he wanted to talk about is war. Sir, would you give a pardon to 19 soldiers? Why? Why? Well, they killed a lot of people. They were trained to kill and that’s what they did. And he pardoned a lot of people, but they’ve all been well behaved, right? Okay, good. Otherwise, it’ll be a big story. Trump shouldn’t have let him go. But I’m blaming you, Pete.”

He was laughing as he said it. Joking. At the Army War College about pardoning people who killed civilians. Some of the people Trump pardoned or reversed demotions and restored ranks, at Hegseth’s lobbying, included a Navy SEAL who was turned in by their own fellow SEALs for a series of crimes they said they witnessed in Iraq, where a young girl and an old man were shot with a sniper rifle. The same SEAL allegedly also walked up to a wounded teenage fighter who was being treated by a Navy medic and stabbed him to death with a hunting knife. They were acquitted of the murder charge but convicted of posing for a photograph with the dead teenager’s body. Trump reversed their demotion after Hegseth, then a Fox News weekend host, lobbied for them on air and in private. The former SEAL went on Fox and Friends afterward and thanked Hegseth and Fox News for “being with us from day one.”

Another was an Army First Lieutenant, convicted in 2013 of second-degree murder for ordering his soldiers to open fire on unarmed Afghan civilians. Nine members of his own platoon testified against him at trial. One of his subordinates told the New York Times, “One of the first things he said to us was, we are going to go in Gestapo-style with night raids, pull people out of houses, make them afraid of us.” He was serving a nineteen-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth when Trump pardoned him.

A third was an Army Major, a Green Beret charged with murdering an unarmed Afghan detainee in 2010. He took the man off base, shot him, buried the remains, then later dug up the body and burned it in a trash pit. He admitted to the killing during a CIA interview.

In all three cases, Hegseth personally lobbied the president. He called them “warriors, not war criminals.” He said on air that pardoning them would be “heartening for guys like me” and that it “could’ve been me.” He said, “You train someone to go and fight and kill the enemy, then they kill the enemy the way someone doesn’t like, and then we put them in jail.”

That is who is running the Department of Defense. A man who was chosen because “all he wanted to talk about is war.” The man who announced that the Pentagon will begin mandatory testosterone screening for all active-duty male service members over thirty, branding the program “The High-T Department of War.”

I support gender-affirming care. Testosterone replacement therapy is hormone replacement therapy, and hormone replacement therapy is health care. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about whether female troops would be screened for estrogen; so far, they appear to be excluding women entirely. This is the same Defense Secretary who has said women should not serve in combat roles, who has blocked military promotions for women, and who has fired senior women in military leadership.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost both legs in combat, called the announcement “gender-affirming care to me.” Representative Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran, said it “proves that Secretary Hegseth takes direction from the far corners of the manosphere.” Both called on Hegseth to make hormone testing available for women. He has not.

Current medical guidelines recommend against blanket testosterone testing. Accurate readings require fasting and morning blood draws. Testosterone replacement therapy can create lifelong dependency by shutting down natural production. When treatment is stopped, men can experience withdrawal, severe depression, and the permanent inability to naturally produce testosterone. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about what research or studies support the program.

The logic of a government chemically enhancing its soldiers for battlefield performance is not new. During World War Two, the Wehrmacht distributed Pervitin, a methamphetamine, to millions of German soldiers. Military physiologist Otto Ranke championed the program, saying it would help “defeat the enemy with chemically enhanced soldiers, soldiers who could give Germany a military edge by fighting harder and longer than their opponents.” Between April and July of 1940 alone, German servicemen received more than thirty-five million methamphetamine tablets. The Temmler factory pressed as many as 833,000 per day. The framing was identical to what Hegseth said today: maintaining the “biological foundation” to fight, keeping troops on the “leading edge of lethality.” The consequences were devastating. Exhaustion. Psychosis. Heart failure. Suicide. Lifelong dependency. The government decided that soldiers’ natural biology was insufficient and intervened chemically, and the long-term health consequences were downplayed or ignored. The substances are different. The logic is the same.

And while Hegseth was announcing testosterone screening for men and excluding women from the program entirely, he was also personally blocking the promotions of seven senior Navy officers to two-star admiral. Five of the seven were women or people of color. All seven women selected by the promotion boards were removed. No white men were removed. For the first time in more than a decade, no female active-duty naval officer will be promoted to admiral this year. Among those blocked was Rear Admiral Amy Bauernschmidt, the first woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. For the first time in nearly two decades, there are no active-duty women serving as four-star generals or admirals in the United States military. Hegseth fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy and the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He fired Admiral Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead a military branch. He fired two additional female three-star admirals. No explanations were given for any of it. When the New York Times asked for comment, the Pentagon accused the paper of having “a toxic obsession with race and identity.”

He is not building a stronger military. He is building a boys’ club with a war machine attached to it. And he is hollowing out the force by driving out a quarter of the talent pool while simultaneously planning new wars with the portion that remains.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the two confirmation hearings that ran simultaneously with the summit revealed the other half of the project: filling every position of power with people whose loyalty runs to one man, not to the Constitution.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a desk draped in black cloth and flowers honoring the late Senator Lindsey Graham. When Republican Senator John Kennedy asked Blanche point-blank whether he and the president are friends, Blanche replied without hesitation: “I’m his lawyer.” He caught himself and corrected the tense, but the truth had already left his mouth. Senator Chuck Schumer called it “an all-time Freudian slip and completely disqualifying.” Senator Dick Durbin told Blanche, “Your tenure can be summed up in the four words you said: ‘I love you, sir.’”

And when pressed on whether he would commit to keeping federal agents away from polling locations in November, Blanche stopped short of making that pledge. He said he was “not aware” of armed agents at polling places. That is not a commitment. That is a non-answer designed to leave the door open.

His confirmation is not assured. Graham’s death left the Judiciary Committee with just one Republican vote to lose. Senator Cornyn has not committed. Senator Tillis, who is not seeking reelection, has not committed. Mitch McConnell remains out for health reasons. More than twelve hundred Department of Justice alumni have signed a letter opposing Blanche’s confirmation.

In another committee room, Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee and was asked repeatedly, by multiple Democratic senators, whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Clayton said he was “not an election denier” and that Biden “was certified” as president. But he would not say who won. He also said, “The audit trail that we have available for our elections in a number of places is not the kind of audit trail that you would expect in something that is this important.” That is the man who would oversee the entire intelligence community, including its election security assessments, validating the foundation of Trump’s fraud narrative while carefully avoiding the words that would make it explicit.

Clayton also defended his role in authorizing subpoenas of New York Times reporters over the weekend, after the outlet reported on security concerns regarding Trump’s new Air Force One. He said he was “absolutely committed to and respect our First Amendment” while simultaneously going after the reporters who exercised it.

Tonight I stood in my kitchen for far longer than I should have, trying to figure out what was safe to feed my family. It is the middle of July. This is peak season for fresh fruits and vegetables. Normally we would have a big salad and berries or grapes with dinner. Instead, I found myself standing there thinking through what to have instead and reaching for frozen vegetables instead of fresh. Not because of a drought or a supply chain crisis. But because the government that is supposed to track the safety of our food supply decided it was not worth the money.

Nearly 7,000 confirmed or suspected cases of cyclosporiasis have now been reported across thirty-four states. One hundred and forty-one people have been hospitalized. No definitive source has been identified. Michigan health officials point to lettuce and salad greens, but nobody knows for certain, because the tools that were supposed to tell us have been taken apart.

When the Trump Administration said smaller government and less waste, most Americans heard “less red tape, more personal freedom.” But that is not what smaller government means to this administration. What it means is fewer people doing the work we need to stay healthy. Fewer food safety inspectors. Fewer scientists tracking parasites in the food supply. Fewer independent agency heads. Fewer career professionals at the Department of Justice who might refuse an illegal order. Fewer guardrails between a president and unchecked power.

Smaller does not mean freer. Smaller means easier to capture and control. And once you capture it, you can do whatever you want with it. They are tearing down everything that serves the people. Food safety. Environmental protection. Voting rights. The independence of the courts. The Department of Justice. The intelligence community. The career federal workforce. And they are building up the one thing that serves power: the war machine.

That is their whole strategy. When they talk about shrinking government, they are not shrinking the government’s power. They are shrinking the parts of government that serve the public and act as a check on the people in charge. If the only people left leading the departments that remain are Trump loyalists, there are fewer people who can push back, expose corruption, refuse an illegal order, or tell the American people the truth. Those jobs don’t simply disappear. They are either left vacant or filled by people chosen because they are loyal to the administration rather than to the mission of the agency.

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At the same time, the money doesn’t disappear either. It gets redirected. Instead of paying for the work that protects Americans, more of it flows into the priorities of the people in power through defense spending, tax breaks, government contracts, and programs that benefit the politically connected. The government becomes smaller where it serves us and larger where it serves them. The concentration of power makes government easier to control. The concentration of money makes it easier to funnel taxpayer dollars, tax breaks, and government contracts toward Trump, his family, and the network of enablers who keep him in power.

What happened today, across multiple rooms and multiple institutions, took the United States one step deeper into authoritarianism. Everyone enabling Donald Trump is complicit in what has happened and in whatever comes next. History will remember every one of them for the choices they made in this moment. And if history is any guide, accountability has a way of arriving, even if it takes far longer than any of us would like.

It took years, and in some cases decades, to hold the people who carried out the crimes of Nazi Germany accountable. But the evidence survived. The documents. The photographs. The testimony. The names. And history did what history always does. It remembered. Not the version the regime tried to write. The real one.

No pardon will change that. No man, no matter how powerful he believes himself to be, can outrun the record of what he did or what he asked others to do. Propaganda fades when the machine that produces it is dismantled. But evidence endures. And history is patient. This is why I still have hope for America. And you should too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

Subscribe now

Share

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: Today I was focusing on the little things in life that spark joy, so I bought a twelve-pack of our cat’s favorite toy and watched her have the best time ever. This was the moment she finally took a little break before going right back at it.

Sources:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-trump-touts-battlefield-technology-investments-at-army-war-college-in-pennsylvania

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/15/nx-s1-5895105/todd-blanche-senate-confirmation-attorney-general-takeaways

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/15/health/hegseth-troops-testosterone

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cyclosporiasis-7000-cases-us-cdc-parasite-explosive-diarrhea-rcna587445

https://time.com/7176342/pete-hegseth-donald-trump-pardon-war-crimes-military/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-80-struggles-to-stay-awake-as-pentagon-pete-hegseth-sucks-up-at-pennsylvania-defense-summit/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/06/nation/female-navy-officers-hegseth-promotions/

https://www.ms.now/news/veeps-security-detail-fed-up-with-hastily-arranged-personal-and-family-travel-requests

At 7:57 last night, Donald Trump shared three images in the same minute, and they told the truth more plainly than any speech ever could. In each one, he stood beside Chinese President Xi Jinping. In the first, they walked shoulder to shoulder down a red carpet, presented as equals. In the second, both men appeared composed and comfortable before an arch, a private moment between friends. The third was the most troubling of all. In that black-and-white photo, Trump stands behind Xi, his face drooping, confusion in his eyes, looking diminished, while Xi radiates energy and control, smiling, sharp, every inch a leader. But the photographs themselves almost do not matter. They could have been golfing or shaking hands at a summit, and the conclusion would be identical. The President of the United States once again chose to align himself publicly with one of the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders while continuing to alienate the democratic allies who stood beside America for generations. Earlier the same day, he shared an altered image from the Oval Office, replacing the display behind him with a map showing Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela draped in the American flag, as if they were ours to claim.

None of this is accidental, and none of it is some hidden long-game strategy. This is who he is and who he has always been. He praised Vladimir Putin while Russia bombed civilians in Ukraine. He traded letters with Kim Jong Un and told the world they fell in love. He called Viktor Orban a true friend and a winner while Orban dismantled press freedom in Hungary. He calls Xi one of the world’s great leaders, and Xi crushed democracy in Hong Kong, herded an ethnic minority into internment camps, and built the most advanced surveillance state in human history. These are the men Trump admires, the men he wants standing beside him when the world is watching. Democratic leaders want nothing to do with him.

But his choice does not have to be ours, and the roadblocks are multiplying. Senate Democrats blocked the $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that has passed for sixty-six consecutive years and never once failed to advance to debate. The vote was fifty to forty-six, short of the sixty needed, and it happened because Trump started a war without authorization, without a strategy, and without an exit. Democrats did not write a letter or issue a statement. They voted, and the line held. In Wisconsin, a bipartisan elections commission voted five to one to find probable cause that Elon Musk violated state election bribery laws during the 2025 Supreme Court race, dangling million-dollar prizes and giant novelty checks before voters. A federal judge has ordered Musk to testify, and the Brown County District Attorney has forty days to decide on criminal charges. That referral came from a state commission doing exactly what the founders built it to do when the federal system fails. We are on the wrong side of history right now, but we are not at the point of no return. Trump has made his choice. He does not get to make ours. He will be remembered for the dictators he embraced. We will be remembered for what we did to stop him.

See the full story in the video.

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We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available HERE, and based on the events of 7-14-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5967878-senate-democrats-block-ndaa/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/politics/elon-musk-wisconsin-supreme-court-1-million-checks

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/04/01/elon-musks-pac-gave-1-million-to-college-republican-leader-in-wisconsin-giveaway-why-that-might-not-be-a-coincidence/

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5941842-musk-america-pac-lawsuit/

https://www.newsnationnow.com/world/russia-at-war/macron-says-chance-us-will-betray-ukraine/

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jul/8/denmark-pushes-back-donald-trump-remarks-says-ready-defend-greenland/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-told-stop-pursuing-people-cars-pressure-arrest-blamed-fatal-shooti-rcna587458

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/23/nx-s1-5868599/senate-iran-war-powers-resolution

In this episode of the Rational Response Podcast, we cover Trump gutting protections for Utah’s national monuments, the administration’s campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court, and a new investigation documenting the misuse of crowd-control weapons against ICE protesters.

Trump Slashes Utah National Monuments. Trump just cut federal protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by about 90%, shrinking more than 3.2 million acres of protected land down to under 303,000 acres. Bears Ears includes sacred tribal sites, ancient cliff dwellings, and petroglyphs that Native nations fought for years to protect. Grand Staircase-Escalante includes canyons, fossils, recreation land, and major coal reserves. Trump and Utah Republicans are framing this as “rightsizing” and local control, and at the signing Trump even falsely suggested the land couldn’t be used for hunting, fishing, and camping. Standing behind him was Senator Mike Lee, the same man who proposed selling off 3,200 square miles of federal land in the One Big Beautiful Bill before bipartisan backlash killed the idea. The real story here is vast tracts of land being opened up to mining, logging, and drilling, and once that extraction happens, these landscapes are permanently ruined. Legal challenges are almost certain.

Rubio Tries to Dismantle the International Criminal Court. Marco Rubio and the Trump administration have launched a campaign to weaken, disable, or dismantle the ICC, the permanent court in The Hague that prosecutes individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. Rubio claims it threatens American sovereignty, but the U.S. never even ratified the Rome Statute, so the sovereignty framing is misleading. What the ICC can do is claim jurisdiction when alleged crimes occur on the territory of one of its 125 member countries, which include the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and Venezuela. That’s what has the administration worried: scrutiny of the Caribbean and Pacific “drug boat” strikes, potential operations against Venezuela, and Israel’s exposure over Gaza, where an arrest warrant is already out for Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s February 2025 executive order authorized sanctions, asset freezes, and travel bans against ICC officials, and Rubio is now escalating that campaign. This isn’t about protecting Americans from a rogue global court. It’s about making sure the U.S. and its allies can act without accountability, and it’s a continuation of Trump’s attacks on courts at home.

Crowd-Control Weapons Used Against ICE Protesters. A new investigation from Physicians for Human Rights and UC Berkeley documents a nationwide pattern of law enforcement misusing crowd-control weapons at immigration-enforcement protests. From June 2025 through May 2026, the report documented 412 misuse-of-force incidents across 13 states and 16 cities, including 97 head-shot incidents and 148 close-range incidents. Those hurt included 209 demonstrators, 177 journalists, 12 minors, 7 bystanders, and 4 legal observers. The injuries included blindness, traumatic brain injuries, fractures, and lacerations. These weapons are often called “less lethal,” but that label doesn’t matter to the person who loses an eye. Much of this happened around ICE and DHS operations, which makes this a free-speech issue, not just a policing issue. The First Amendment protects the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and a democracy does not answer protest with projectiles to the face.

Listen or watch the full episode for the clips, the details, and the discussion.

Subscribe now

We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:
AP (via PBS News): https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/what-to-know-about-trump-shrinking-2-national-monuments-in-utah

White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-modifies-two-national-monuments-restoring-sensible-land-management/

Trump Executive Order signing video

SUWA: https://suwa.org/suwa-statement-on-trumps-illegal-reductions-of-grand-staircase-escalante-bears-ears-national-monuments-7-13-26/

State Department: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/07/state-department-launches-campaign-to-dismantle-international-criminal-courts-threat-to-american-sovereignty

Marco Rubio ICC Video

CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/rubio-dismantle-international-criminal-court

Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/13/trump-administration-vows-to-disable-international-criminal-court

Euronews: https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/14/marco-rubio-launches-sweeping-campaign-to-dismantle-icc-threat-to-us-sovereignty

PHR: https://phr.org/charting-the-crackdown/

PHR: https://phr.org/news/widespread-misuse-of-crowd-control-weapons-by-law-enforcement-at-immigration-enforcement-protests-new-report-finds/

The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5967724-immigration-protests-violence-report/

But the photographs themselves almost don’t matter. They could have been smiling together over dinner, playing golf, or shaking hands at a summit, and the conclusion would have been exactly the same. What mattered wasn’t the composition of the pictures. It was what they represented. The President of the United States once again chose to publicly align himself with one of the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders while continuing to alienate the democratic allies who have stood beside America for generations.

Because earlier today, he also shared a different type of image. One with him seated at his desk in the Oval Office, with European Leaders, who used to be our closest allies, seated in front of him. The image is from 2025, but it had been altered to once again antagonize some of our closest allies. He mocked Canada, taunted Greenland, and threatened Cuba and Venezuela by replacing the original display in the picture with a map showing Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela covered by the American flag as if it were American territory.

He posted this image with the American flag draped over land that does not belong to us, to once again test the waters to see how far he can push threats of military action and territorial conquest before someone finally makes him stop. Piece by piece, Donald Trump is reshaping what the United States represents to the rest of the world. For 250 years, despite all of our flaws and all of our failures, America was at least supposed to stand on the side of democracy against authoritarianism. Tonight, that’s no longer true. For the first time in our history, the United States is on the wrong side of history. We’re no longer the country that eventually comes to help. Or the country that was always working to be better. We’re becoming the country standing beside the dictators.

Nothing he posted was accidental, and it was not a diplomatic strategy being played out over a longer timeline that we cannot see. This is who he is. This is who he has always been. He praised Vladimir Putin while Russia bombed civilians in Ukraine. He exchanged letters with Kim Jong Un and told the world they “fell in love.” He called Viktor Orbán “a true friend” and “a winner” while Orbán was dismantling press freedom and consolidating power across Hungary. He has called Xi Jinping “one of the World’s Great Leaders.” And tonight, three photographs, posted in the same minute, showing the President of the United States beside the leader of a country that crushed democratic movements in Hong Kong, targeted an entire ethnic minority into internment camps, and built the most advanced surveillance state in human history.

These are not random friendships. These are the men the President of the United States chooses to align himself with. The men he admires. The men he wants standing beside him when the world is watching. The men he wants history to remember him alongside.

Donald Trump doesn’t fill his social media feeds with carefully staged photographs of himself alongside the leaders of thriving democracies. He doesn’t post black-and-white legacy portraits with the people defending democratic institutions or protecting a free press. He posts them with the dictators, the authoritarians, and the fascists. And there is a reason for that. Democratic leaders increasingly want nothing to do with him. They see exactly who he is. They see what many Americans are only beginning to recognize. They know he does not see authoritarianism as something to resist. He sees it as something to emulate.

The democratic world has already made its assessment. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has openly rebuked him. French President Emmanuel Macron warned European allies that the United States could betray Ukraine. NATO leaders had to strategize about how to protect their countries from an American president they no longer believe is acting in the interest of the democratic world. They are not treating us as a partner anymore. They are treating us as a threat to manage. Because we have become one.

And while Donald Trump was posting those photographs tonight, the rest of us were still trying to process another series of ICE killings. Another family grieving. Another community searching for answers. Another round of official statements insisting the agents had no choice. Another set of names that most Americans will never hear because the news cycle has already moved on. This has become the rhythm of our country. Violence. Denial. Forgetting. And then it happens again.

Earlier today, I had one of those moments where I genuinely couldn’t catch my breath. I was reading about the latest ICE killings and thinking about the victims, their families, and the people still being held in inhumane conditions inside detention centers. And for a moment, the weight of all of it became almost unbearable. I allowed myself to stop thinking like a writer gathering facts and started thinking only like an American trying to understand what we’ve become.

This is happening on our watch. In our country. Our government is killing people who were simply on their way to work. People who weren’t even the ones they were looking for. Families are waking up to phone calls that will change the rest of their lives forever. And while all of that grief was unfolding, the President of the United States spent his evening posting glamour shots with one of the world’s most powerful dictators.

I know I’m not the only one carrying this feeling tonight. I know so many of us are struggling to reconcile the country we believed we were with the country we’re becoming. Not because America has always gotten it right. It hasn’t. We built this nation on slavery. We imprisoned Japanese Americans in internment camps. We have committed atrocities against Native Americans, looked away during genocides, and too often arrived far too late when the world needed us. But despite all of that, I still believed we were a country trying, however imperfectly, to move toward something better. Toward more freedom. More democracy. More justice.

That’s why this feels so different. Not because all of us chose this. We didn’t. Millions of Americans are fighting against it every single day. But it is still our country. And for the first time in my lifetime, I find myself looking at the United States the way we’ve so often looked at other countries throughout history, wondering how ordinary people lived through something like this while feeling powerless to stop it. How so many stood by and let it happen.

Every authoritarian regime in modern history has eventually built a force loyal not to the constitution but to the leader. A force that operates outside normal law, answers to no independent authority, and uses violence to enforce compliance. In Nazi Germany, it was the SA and later the SS. In Haiti under the Duvaliers, it was the Tonton Macoutes. In Iran under the Shah, it was the SAVAK. In Romania, it was Ceaușescu’s Securitate. The pattern never changes. The force begins by targeting the most vulnerable, the people with the least power to fight back. And once the public tolerates that, it expands to anyone who resists.

That is what ICE has become under Donald Trump. Not an immigration agency. A domestic enforcement arm that operates without body cameras, conducts raids in unmarked vehicles with agents who do not identify themselves, kills people who were not even its targets, and pressures witnesses into leaving the country. And when it is challenged, the government lies, deflects, and blames others for the lack of oversight it never wanted in the first place.

We can’t let ourselves think, even for a moment, that what is happening is just confusion or incompetence. This isn’t just a man with cognitive decline or someone simply being manipulated by his enablers. We have to accept something far more disturbing. Donald Trump has chosen a side. And it isn’t ours or our country. It isn’t the side of democracy. It isn’t the side of our allies. It isn’t the side of the people risking their lives to defend freedom. He has chosen the side of the dictators, the authoritarians, and the strongmen. The men who imprison dissenters, silence journalists, crush opposition movements, and rule through fear. Those are the leaders he admires. Those are the leaders he wants standing beside him. Those are the leaders he believes history should remember him with.

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But his choice doesn’t have to be our choice. Because his dreams of unchecked authoritarian rule are meeting more roadblocks than he bargained for. Today, Senate Democrats blocked the $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act. That bill has passed every single year for more than six decades. It is one of the most consistently bipartisan pieces of legislation in American history. Today, Democrats broke that tradition because the situation demanded it. The vote was fifty to forty-six. It fell short of the sixty needed to advance. The bill could still pass in some form later in the process, but what happened today has never happened before. In the sixty-six years this bill has existed, no Senate has ever failed to advance it to debate. Democrats did not kill the NDAA. They used the only leverage they had to force a reckoning over a war the president never asked them to authorize. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer was direct: “Trump started this war without authorization, without a strategy, and without an exit.” Senator Chris Murphy called it what it is: an authorization for a war nobody in this country wants. Democrats also objected to provisions that would deepen the integration of the United States and Israeli militaries without debate, and to the administration’s push to balloon military spending while programs that serve American families are being gutted.

Congress has voted multiple times on war powers resolutions to halt hostilities. The administration has ignored every one. So today, Democrats used the only tool powerful enough to force the question. They did not write a letter. They did not issue a statement. They voted. And the line held.

And in Wisconsin, a bipartisan elections commission voted five to one to find probable cause that Elon Musk violated state election bribery laws during the 2025 Supreme Court race. Wisconsin law bans offering anything of value exceeding one dollar to induce someone to vote. Musk and his America PAC dangled million-dollar prizes in front of ordinary voters who signed a petition and participated in the election. He showed up in Green Bay, handed out giant novelty checks on stage, and spent more than twenty million dollars trying to flip the court in what became the most expensive judicial election in American history. The candidate he backed lost by ten points.

But the winners were never chosen at random. America PAC’s own director admitted under oath in a separate case that the recipients were vetted and selected based on their “suitability to be spokespeople.” One of the Wisconsin winners was the chairman of the state’s College Republicans, with ties to multiple campaigns and to Turning Point USA. He was not a lucky voter. He was a Republican operative handed a million dollars on stage. The ordinary people who signed up believing they had a real chance got nothing but their personal information harvested. A class action fraud lawsuit is now underway, a federal judge has ordered Musk to testify under oath, and the Brown County District Attorney has forty days to decide whether to bring criminal charges against the richest man on the planet for trying to buy an American election with a rigged lottery disguised as democracy.

That referral did not come from Congress or from a federal court. It came from a bipartisan state commission doing exactly what the founders built state-level institutions to do when the federal system fails.

We are on the wrong side of history right now. But we are not at the point of no return. Trump has made his choice, but he does not get to make ours. Across this country, in ways large and small, people are deciding that his version of America is not theirs. He will be remembered for the dictators he embraced. We will be remembered for what we did to stop him. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: We are melting with high temperatures and high humidity here in San Diego, so there has been a lot of hanging out on the couch and trying to stay cool.

Sources:

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5967878-senate-democrats-block-ndaa/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/politics/elon-musk-wisconsin-supreme-court-1-million-checks

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/04/01/elon-musks-pac-gave-1-million-to-college-republican-leader-in-wisconsin-giveaway-why-that-might-not-be-a-coincidence/

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5941842-musk-america-pac-lawsuit/

https://www.newsnationnow.com/world/russia-at-war/macron-says-chance-us-will-betray-ukraine/

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jul/8/denmark-pushes-back-donald-trump-remarks-says-ready-defend-greenland/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-told-stop-pursuing-people-cars-pressure-arrest-blamed-fatal-shooti-rcna587458

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/23/nx-s1-5868599/senate-iran-war-powers-resolution

Last night in the Oval Office, the President of the United States sat at his desk and signed away protections for nearly 3 million acres of public land in Utah. This was just one part of his busy day. Across a single Monday, over two interviews, 35 Truth Social posts, and this signing, Trump constructed and reconstructed reality so many times that no one, not his allies, not the press, not foreign governments, could say what was real.

And some of it was dangerous. On live radio, he announced a potential military target on an Iranian nuclear complex, saying “we’re going to hit them very hard tonight,” while dismissing the peace deal he signed as merely “a test” that the “sleaze bags” failed. He described the aortic dissection that killed his friend Lindsey Graham as “a certain part of his body literally blowing up.” Meanwhile, in Biddeford, Maine, an ICE agent shot and killed a 26-year-old man authorized to work in this country, reportedly in front of his three-year-old daughter in Bluey pajamas. DHS first claimed he was the target, then admitted hours later they killed the wrong person. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a campaign to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court “brick by brick,” which raises the obvious question: why destroy a body with jurisdiction over war crimes unless you know your people are committing them?

But the most alarming revelation was what Trump’s Thursday primetime address is reportedly about: the 2020 election. According to reporting, he plans to claim newly “declassified” intelligence reveals foreign interference in the election he lost six years ago, the one every court, including judges he appointed, said was valid, and may even declare sitting senators illegitimate. Four months before the midterms, he intends to use the full weight of the presidency to tell 330 million Americans their elections cannot be trusted. He knows the midterms are the one thing that can stop him.

The country also pushed back. A federal judge voided his corrupt IRS settlement and sanctioned his attorneys. For now, the law still holds.

See the full story in the video.

Subscribe now

We are living through a pivotal moment for our country, and my goal is to reach as many people as possible with clear, factual information about what is happening. The more people who understand what is unfolding, the better our chances of pushing back against chaos, cruelty, and corruption ahead of the midterms.

Thank you for your continued support. Your paid subscriptions have enabled me to add a video editor and reach more people.

Independent journalism is under attack. You can make a difference with a $5/month paid subscription. Your support allows me to keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in our country, defend myself from constant pressure from MAGA extremists, and ultimately spread the message to more people.

Subscribe now

I’m fighting to save our country (before it’s too late).

I’ll see you tomorrow,

Heather

This video is based on my written post, available HERE, and based on the events of 7-13-2026.

*This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/darline-graham-nordone-south-carolina-trump

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/us/live-news/maine-ice-shooting-houston-minnesota

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/trump-irs-judge-ruling-settlement-sanctions

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/13/judge-trump-irs-settlement-anti-weaponization-fund

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/rubio-dismantle-international-criminal-court

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5966795-ron-johnson-mitch-mcconnell-photo

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-will-use-primetime-speech-to-claim-newly-declassified-intel-reveals-foreign-plot-to-interfere-in-2020-election-ms-now

For more than twenty minutes, Donald Trump spoke about Utah and public lands, but mostly about things that were either not real or simply made no sense.

“When you see a young former soldier, walking around with no legs, no arms, a face that’s been horribly, horribly hurt. That was done by Iran.”

“The flags are at hask, half, mask until Saturday evening.”

There was even a moment that caused awkward concern when, just minutes after introducing Utah Governor Spencer Cox, Trump finished signing the executive action, looked around the room, held up the ceremonial pen, and asked, “Who should I give this to? Maybe the governor’s representative, right?” Before handing the pen directly to Governor Spencer Cox.

The governor had already spoken. He had been standing in the same place the entire time. No one had moved. Yet the President of the United States no longer appeared to recognize the man he had just introduced only minutes earlier.

This was not the only thing Donald Trump said today. It was not even the most alarming. Over the course of a single Monday, across two separate media interviews, 35 Truth Social posts, and this Oval Office signing, the President of the United States constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed reality so many times that by the end of the day, no one, not his allies, not his enemies, not the press, not foreign governments, nobody could say with confidence what was real and what was fabrication. And that is no longer just his problem. It is ours.

There is a clinical term for what we are watching. It is called confabulation. I was recently reminded of it by a retired physician who emailed me after reading one of my posts. He suggested that much of what Donald Trump says might be better explained by confabulation than by intentional lying.

Confabulation can happen when a deteriorating brain fills in gaps with fabricated information the person genuinely believes to be true. It is not lying. A liar knows the truth and chooses to say something different. Confabulation is a mind constructing its own reality to paper over what is missing.

And tonight, after watching Donald Trump cycle through an entire day of public appearances, I think we are watching confabulation, deliberate lies, and political spin merge into something indistinguishable. Something that has poisoned the entire government and that has trickled down to every one of us. And is now being aimed directly at the midterm elections.

It started this morning with a phone call to Fox & Friends. Trump called in to honor Lindsey Graham. He called Graham a “nice man” and a “great guy” who “loved playing golf,” and then promptly insulted his golf game. Within two minutes, he had veered into a rant about terminating the filibuster, the SAVE America Act, voter ID, and mail-in ballots. The hosts tried four separate times to steer him back to the subject of his dead friend. He talked over every one of them. At one point, he turned his attention to Spencer Pratt, the reality television star from The Hills, and his failed bid for mayor of Los Angeles. “Look what happened to the kid in California,” Trump said. “They sent a million ballots. Nobody knew where they came from.” He claimed Spencer Pratt had come to his office and told him he thought he won. He said “they found millions of ballots.” There is no evidence of this. None of it is true.

While Trump was rambling, Fox aired a memorial montage of Graham photographs. He talked through the entire thing. When the montage ended, the producers had nothing left to show, so they put up a static photo of Trump with the words “On the phone: President Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States.”

He gave Graham a “99 out of 100” friendship score. He docked him one point for the moment after January 6, 2021, when Graham stood on the Senate floor and said about Trump, “Count me out. Enough is enough.” There was increased concern for Trump’s health online after this call. The Mirror reported that even his own conservative base thinks he is about to get “crazier.”

And that was just the warm-up. Because later in the day, Trump called into the Salem Radio Network for an interview with Hugh Hewitt, and that is where the day turned dangerous.

“Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right in the front door,” Trump said, describing a potential strike on an Iranian nuclear mountain complex. He was announcing a military target on live radio. “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight and we’re going to hit them hard tomorrow and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it,” he continued. “They have nothing going other than they have big mouths. I got to know them, and they’re stone cold crazy people.”

He called the Iranians “cuckoo.” He said, “These people are crazy. To them, deals are made to be broken. They are extremely unreliable people, and, frankly, if they ever had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it within one day.” His own intelligence agency said that there was no evidence to support that claim.

When asked about the Memorandum of Understanding he had signed with Iran to end the war, Trump dismissed it entirely.

“It was a test,” he said. “We didn’t know. Look, memorandums of understanding when you’re dealing with sleaze bags don’t mean much. It was sort of a test, and they weren’t there. They didn’t honor the test.”

So either he knew the agreement was never meant to succeed, meaning the signing ceremony was little more than political theater while diplomacy took a back seat, or he is rewriting history in real time to explain why his own peace agreement collapsed. Either way, he is constructing a version of reality that cannot be reconciled with the facts. And he is doing it on the same day the United States is actively bombing Iran.

And then came the moment about Graham. When asked about his friend’s death, Trump said, “They talked about a certain part of his body literally blowing up.” That is how the President of the United States described the aortic dissection that killed his friend of nearly a decade. As if he were narrating an action movie.

And then Hewitt asked about Thursday. Trump had announced earlier in the day on Truth Social that he would be delivering a primetime address to the nation at 9 p.m. Eastern. When asked what the speech would be about, Trump said something odd, even for him.

“I’d rather not say,” he told Hewitt, “because if I say maybe, it’s going to take some of the guilt off.” Guilt. That was the word he chose. Maybe it was a revealing slip. Maybe it was just another cognitive misfire from a man who increasingly struggles to hold a coherent thought. Either way, it left more questions than answers.

(Edited to add: A number of readers have pointed out that the word he was reaching for may have been "gilt," not "guilt." His speech was slurred and difficult to make out. I heard "guilt." But if the word was "gilt," that is just as revealing, because gilt means a thin gold coating over something cheaper underneath. Either he is telling us he feels guilt about what he is planning, or he is telling us the whole thing is gold paint over something hollow. Both are equally concerning.)

Between the Fox call and the Hewitt interview, Trump posted 35 times in approximately 90 minutes. He shared the same three-week-old Newsmax story six times. He reposted a month-old clip of Jack Posobiec calling for him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He shared a meme comparing a sitting Democratic senator to Pee-wee Herman. He posted a photograph of a UFC cage fight on the White House lawn, on the same day that American flags were flying at half-staff for Lindsey Graham, on his orders. He thanked Dr. Phil for an article in The Epoch Times about the “deep state,” as though shadowy forces are working against him 18 months into controlling every branch of government. He posted a photograph of his algae-covered reflecting pool with new allegations of sabotage to cover for his own botched construction project. And he shared a post from Benny Johnson, a far-right influencer, that read: “There has been an energy shift. Did you feel it? We are going to win. Libs have been set back 1000 years by this. They have no answer. And yes, Patriots are in control.”

And then he reposted a tweet from Senator Rand Paul, dated June 18, that read: “The same voices now attacking Trump’s Iran deal are the architects of every failed intervention of my lifetime. This war must end. I stand with President Trump on peace.”

He shared this while actively bombing Iran. The deal is dead. He killed it. And he reposted praise for the peace he never actually delivered because his brain cannot hold the contradiction. Or will not. And we can no longer tell the difference.

He also posted: “To show the importance of the Slaughter Case, 90 years of precedent has been COMPLETELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY OVERRULED, greatly increasing Presidential Power at a time when it is most needed! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

He was referring to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter on June 29, which gave the president the authority to fire the heads of nearly all independent agencies and regulatory bodies at will, for virtually any reason.

But it was one phrase that stood out above all the rest. “At a time when it is most needed.” That is the language of emergency authority. It is the language leaders use when they are preparing the public to accept extraordinary powers. The obvious question is: needed for what? What is he planning to do next?

And all of this happened on the same day that another person died from a bullet shot from an ICE officer’s gun. In Biddeford, Maine, at approximately 7 a.m., an ICE agent shot and killed a 26-year-old man named Joan Sebastian Guerrero. He was from Colombia and was authorized to work in the United States. He had a Social Security number. He was reportedly heading to work. An eyewitness says he was killed in front of his three-year-old daughter, who was wearing Bluey pajamas.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin initially told Senator Angus King that Guerrero was the target of the warrant. Hours later, Mullin called King back to correct himself. The victim was not the target. They killed the wrong person. ICE is a rogue agency. The president’s own military force, and people are dying.

Hundreds of people gathered in the streets of Biddeford afterward. They marched to the office of Senator Susan Collins, just a seven-minute walk from the intersection where the shooting occurred. They chanted “Vote her out!” and “ICE out now!” Collins voted last month for a $70 billion funding package for ICE and Border Patrol. She is running for her sixth term and is one of Democrats’ biggest flip targets in the midterms. Several Democratic Senate candidates showed up at the protest.

And while people were laying flowers on the sidewalk in Biddeford, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, announced a “whole-of-government campaign” to “systematically disable” the International Criminal Court. “We will dismantle the ICC, brick by brick, if necessary,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Sanctions. Travel bans. Visa revocations. Threats to cut foreign aid to any nation that cooperates with the court. He accused the ICC of being “backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments.” And he specifically rejected allegations that the administration’s deportations to El Salvador and its deadly boat strikes violated international law. He rebuffed calls for the ICC to investigate alleged war crimes in Iran.

Why would you want to dismantle an international body with jurisdiction over war crimes unless you know your people are committing them?

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And still, the McConnell situation hangs over all of it. Senator Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized since June 14. His office released a photograph of him on Sunday, alongside his wife, Elaine Chao, apparently in a hospital bed, holding a copy of the Washington Post. The photo was supposed to silence the speculation. But it had the opposite effect. MAGA influencers and Democratic Content Creators called it fake or AI-generated. TMZ ran it through OpenAI’s detection tool and found no signs of AI. But it did not matter. Because the environment has been so thoroughly contaminated by Donald Trump that no one knows what is real anymore, and everyone is primed to be lied to. Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin even went on Real America’s Voice and said, “I just heard from some other source that was an older photo. So, I really don’t know,” about the authenticity of the image.

The most alarming revelation to come out of today arrived when both MS NOW and Washington Reporter reported what Trump’s Thursday primetime address could actually be about. MS NOW reported what Trump’s Thursday primetime address is actually about. The 2020 election. According to MS NOW’s Jake Traylor, Trump will use the address to claim that newly declassified intelligence reports reveal foreign interference in the 2020 election. The election he lost six years ago. The election that every court in the country, including judges Trump himself appointed, said was valid.

As Nicolle Wallace put it: “Donald Trump appears to be taking his assault on the truth, and democracy, and American elections, to primetime.” She noted that these claims “conveniently obscure that he was the President of the United States. All of his handpicked people ran every facet of the government in 2020. His handpicked Attorney General Bill Barr ran the Justice Department. His handpicked replacement for Jim Comey, Chris Wray, ran the FBI. Both of them have repeatedly and publicly debunked these lies that there was any foreign interference.”

The Washington Reporter, a far-right publication that has shared insider information in the past about the White House, posted on X, “President Trump is planning to announce that Georgia’s two senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are illegitimate because of fraud, a well-placed source in Georgia tells us. Announcement could come as soon as tonight.”

On Thursday night, at 9 p.m. Eastern, he is going to go on national television and claim that American democracy itself has been compromised by foreign governments, using “intelligence” declassified by his own handpicked people, to tell 330 million Americans that their elections cannot be trusted. Four months before the midterms. He might also tell us that we have fraudulent senators serving right now. Neither is true. The actual crime is what he is doing: spreading these lies.

He knows the midterms are the one thing that can stop him. If he loses either chamber, subpoena power comes back. Oversight comes back. Investigations come back. The arrangement falls apart. And so he is going to use the full weight of the presidency, on primetime television, to build the case that elections themselves are broken. And he is going to dress it up as intelligence, patriotism, and national security. But he already told us how he really feels about what he is about to do. He used the word himself. Guilt.

Today Donald Trump unleashed his next attack on our country and our constitutional republic. And also today, our country pushed back. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams voided Trump’s IRS settlement. She sanctioned his attorneys. She referred his personal lawyer, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida Bar for disciplinary action. She sent her order to the bar associations where Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward are members. She blocked attorney Daniel Epstein from practicing in her district for a year. She barred Trump and the government from even calling the deal a “settlement.” And she found that the lawsuit was never about seeking justice or resolving a dispute. It was, in her words, “an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law.”

The suit, she wrote, was “improperly employed.” The “action was never about a party seeking judicial resolution of a legal issue or a factual dispute.”

She wrote that “even the Fund amount, $1.776 billion, speaks of a ‘branding’ effort rather than a deliberate and thoughtful calculation of damages.”

When Trump’s lawyers tried to escape consequences by dropping the case, she held firm, ruling that a court retains power over sanctions even after a case ends. Because otherwise, she wrote, a party could “abuse the judicial system” and “get off scot free” by pulling the plug.

And she closed with the words of John Adams. “Facts are stubborn things. Thus, whatever may be the Parties’ wishes, inclinations, or the dictates of their passion, they cannot alter the state of the facts or evade the rule of law.”

Tonight the law still holds. There are still people in this system who are willing to look at the full weight of corruption and say: this was wrong, and there will be consequences. And on Thursday, the President of the United States of America will go on television and try to convince this country that its own elections are a lie. That its democracy is broken. That the truth is whatever he says it is. But today, a judge proved him wrong. Facts are stubborn things. And so are we. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.

Heather Delaney Reese

I built a blog that reached millions, now I'm fighting for America's future and survival. I expose MAGA lies and the government's failures, cut through the propaganda, and say what we're all thinking.

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: What appeared to be a young crow on flying lessons with its parents and nestmates came crashing into our glass window today. It was dicey for a while as it lay upside down in distress on the ledge of our roof, but after about 30 minutes it made its way to a nearby tree before flying tree to tree back to its parents, who were there nearly the entire time. They disappeared for a few minutes with the other young birds and then came back, just the two of them. Hoping for the best for this little guy, and for all of the animals that will be negatively impacted by Trump's assault on protected lands.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/darline-graham-nordone-south-carolina-trump

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/us/live-news/maine-ice-shooting-houston-minnesota

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/trump-irs-judge-ruling-settlement-sanctions

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/13/judge-trump-irs-settlement-anti-weaponization-fund

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/13/politics/rubio-dismantle-international-criminal-court

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5966795-ron-johnson-mitch-mcconnell-photo

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-will-use-primetime-speech-to-claim-newly-declassified-intel-reveals-foreign-plot-to-interfere-in-2020-election-ms-now