Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Monday that he’s gutting the panel that advises on vaccination safety and efficacy, arguing that it’s another step toward restoring public trust.
Kennedy, whose department has already made <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cdc-stops-pushing-covid-shots-for-healthy-pregnant-women-children-common-sense">several moves</a> to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hhs-investing-500-million-to-develop-universal-vaccines?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=HHS+Investing+%24500+Million+To+Develop+Universal+Vaccines">shake up</a> vaccination research and recommendations, said he’s “retiring” all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, known as ACIP.
“Today, we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP),” RFK <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/rfk-jr-hhs-moves-to-restore-public-trust-in-vaccines-45495112" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. “We are retiring the 17 current members of the committee, some of whom were last-minute appointees of the Biden administration.”
Kennedy said he had to remove these panel members or the Trump administration wouldn&#8217;t be able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028.
RFK Jr. suggested the panel effectively works as a rubber-stamp and is plagued with conflicts of interest.
ACIP, he highlighted, has never recommended against a vaccination it’s been asked to advise on, even vaccines that were later withdrawn for safety reasons. “It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women,” he wrote.
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“To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust,” RFK said.
Kennedy cited a 2000 investigation that found enforcement of ACIP conflict-of-interest rules were “weak to nonexistent.”
“Committee members regularly participated in deliberations and advocated products in which they had a financial stake,” he wrote. “The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) issued conflict-of-interest waivers to every committee member.”
Citing a 2009 HHS inspector general report, Kennedy added that not all committee members completed full conflict-of-interest forms, and of the ones who did, it was found that 97% of the forms had omissions. Additionally, the CDC – which is the agency ACIP passes along its recommendations to – “took no significant action to remedy the omissions.”
“The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies,” Kennedy said. “This will ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.&#8221;
As previously reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hhs-investing-500-million-to-develop-universal-vaccines?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=HHS+Investing+%24500+Million+To+Develop+Universal+Vaccines" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>, HHS, under Kennedy&#8217;s leadership, is investing half a billion dollars into a project that seeks to develop universal vaccinations for numerous viruses, called &#8220;Generation Gold Standard.&#8221;
Moreover, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kennedys-cdc-to-reportedly-study-potential-link-between-vaccines-and-autism?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Kennedy’s+CDC+To+Reportedly+Study+Potential+Link+Between+Vaccines+And+Autism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CDC is studying the sharp rise in autism rates</a>, which reportedly includes research on whether there&#8217;s any link between vaccinations and the rise in autism.
And, last month, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cdc-stops-pushing-covid-shots-for-healthy-pregnant-women-children-common-sense">CDC rescinded guidance</a> that pregnant women and children should receive a vaccine against COVID. “I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that, as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” RFK said at the time.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cdc-stops-pushing-covid-shots-for-healthy-pregnant-women-children-common-sense" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CDC Stops Pushing COVID Shots For Healthy Pregnant Women, Children: ‘Common Sense’</a>

Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Delivers Address To Jewish Community In New York

RFK Jr. Guts CDC Vaccine Panel, ‘Retiring’ All 17 Members

COVID

Health

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

U.S.

Vaccines

Former New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would focus his attention on fighting the Trump administration and spend &#8220;eight years in Washington&#8221; if he wins his election for mayor of New York City.
In a piece published by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/03/cuomo-reportedly-under-probe-by-trumps-doj-wants-to-organize-dems-nationally-00381794">POLITICO</a> on Tuesday, Cuomo, 67, revealed his strategy to use the mayoral office to push back against Trump&#8217;s policies and campaign for Democrats to retake the House. Cuomo, who resigned from his position as governor over allegations that he sexually harassed numerous women, is being <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/justice-department-probe-takes-aim-at-andrew-cuomo-amid-his-nyc-mayoral-bid">investigated</a> by the Department of Justice for allegedly lying to Congress over a report that covered up the number of COVID deaths at nursing homes during the pandemic.
Asked how he would &#8220;handle working with the president while potentially under criminal investigation,&#8221; Cuomo replied, “I would spend eight years in Washington — go to that U.S. Conference of Mayors, go to the National Governors Association. [Trump&#8217;s] cutting Medicaid. Medicaid is not a blue-city, blue-state situation. That is in every state. That is a lot of red Congressional districts. And he could lose the House on cutting Medicaid if you organized it and got it moving.”
“You’re going to have to be a spokesperson, advocate, organizer,” he added. “This is what Medicaid means in Mississippi, this is what Medicaid means in Texas. … And you organize that, they don’t have a lot of Congressional seats left to lose.”
Trump, whose second term in office will end in less than four years, has <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-medicaid-were-not-touching-anything">promised</a> that Republicans are &#8220;not touching anything&#8221; when it comes to Medicaid benefits, adding, &#8220;All I want is one thing. Three words. We don&#8217;t want any waste, fraud or abuse. Very simple — waste, fraud, abuse.&#8221;
Cuomo has also faced scrutiny over an order he issued as governor in 2020 requiring New York nursing homes to accept patients even if they tested positive for COVID. In the interview with POLITICO, Cuomo described the DOJ investigation as &#8220;laughable&#8221; and &#8220;purely political nonsense.&#8221;
According to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), there is “overwhelming evidence” that Cuomo knew about an audit that undercounted COVID nursing home deaths in New York by 46%. A report from New York Attorney General Letitia James also found that Cuomo&#8217;s nursing home policy &#8220;requiring nursing homes to take in patients from hospitals who had COVID-19 and were stable enough to be discharged had likely contributed to the loss of life,&#8221; according to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cuomo-undercounted-nursing-home-deaths-by-as-much-as-50-report-finds">ProPublica</a>.
Cuomo initially claimed that he was not involved in the report that undercounted COVID nursing home deaths, but now he says that he doesn&#8217;t recall reviewing the report, according to POLITICO.
“My thing is, I don’t recall. There’s no incorrect statement in, I don’t recall,” he said.
The former New York governor is currently leading in the polls to replace incumbent NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a registered Democrat running as an independent this election cycle, but Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is receiving <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nycs-mayoral-race-takes-sharp-turn-putting-muslim-socialist-neck-and-neck-with-cuomo">surging</a> support and cutting Cuomo&#8217;s lead in the Democratic primary, according to a PIX11/Emerson College poll released last week.
In the poll, Cuomo stands at 54.4% to Mamdani&#8217;s 45.6%, a massive swing from late March when Cuomo was ahead 38% to 10%.

Andrew Cuomo

Cuomo Says He’ll Spend ‘Eight Years In Washington’ Fighting Trump If He Wins NYC Mayor’s Race

Department of Justice

Donald Trump

Medicaid

New York

New York City

Trump Administration

Washington D.C.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has rescinded guidance that pregnant women and children should receive a vaccine against COVID.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced the change in guidance on Tuesday. Kennedy in a video statement was flanked by National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.
“I couldn&#8217;t be more pleased to announce that, as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy then slammed the Biden administration for pushing COVID shots and boosters on healthy children “despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children.”
Bhattacharya jumped in: “That ends today. It&#8217;s common sense and it&#8217;s good science.”
Makary added: “There&#8217;s no evidence healthy kids need it today, and most countries have stopped recommending it for children.”
“We&#8217;re now one step closer to realizing President Trump&#8217;s promise to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’”  Kennedy finished.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from <a href="https://twitter.com/CDCgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CDCgov</a> recommended immunization schedule. Bottom line: it’s common sense and it’s good science. We are now one step closer to realizing <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a>’s promise to Make America Healthy Again. <a href="https://t.co/Ytch2afCLP">pic.twitter.com/Ytch2afCLP</a>
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecKennedy/status/1927368440811008138?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
The announcement follows the release of a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bombshell-biden-admin-covered-up-adverse-covid-vaccine-reactions-including-myocarditis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> earlier this month from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on the potentially deadly side effects associated with COVID vaccines and the Biden administration’s lack of action to notify the American people.
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The report is titled: “Failure to Warn: How Federal Health Agencies Downplayed the Risk of Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Following COVID-19 Vaccination.” The investigation into the Biden administration’s handling of COVID vaccines found that officials “knew about the risks of myocarditis,” “downplayed the health concern,” and deliberately “delayed informing the public about the risk.”
Committee chair Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said that the Biden administration covered up vaccine side effects to prevent “vaccine hesitancy,” but “in being concerned about that, they violated the inviolable principle of informed consent.”
Amanda Prestigiacomo contributed to this report.

CDC Stops Pushing COVID Shots For Healthy Pregnant Women, Children: ‘Common Sense’

COVID-19 Vaccine

Jay Bhattacharya

The Biden administration was aware of potentially deadly side effects associated with COVID vaccines and chose not to alert the public about the risks for months, according to a bombshell Senate report obtained by The Daily Wire.
According to the report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, officials knew as early as February 2021 that the vaccines were associated with myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the thin sac surrounding the heart). Still, they waited to warn the public until June as they pushed the vaccine on Americans. 
The report concludes that U.S. health officials &#8220;knew about the risks of myocarditis,&#8221; &#8220;downplayed the health concern,&#8221; and deliberately &#8220;delayed informing the public about the risk.&#8221;
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who chairs the committee and will lead a hearing on it later this afternoon, told The Daily Wire that Biden officials delayed reporting the side effects because they were concerned about &#8220;vaccine hesitancy.&#8221; 
&#8220;But in being concerned about that, they violated the inviolable principle of informed consent,&#8221; Johnson said.
READ THE FULL REPORT:
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&nbsp;
&#8220;The federal government was very well aware of the myocarditis signal, particularly in young men, as early as February [2021],&#8221; Johnson told The Daily Wire, adding that Israeli officials were informing the United States about side effects they were noticing.
In late February, a CDC official named Lauri Markowitz, who co-led the Vaccine Safety Technical Work Group (VaST), sent an email concerning the “draft minutes and summary report from the VaST call this week” and stressed that “all VaST documents and communications are confidential.”
According to that email, the call included an update about nearly 1,000 death reports to VAERS following vaccination. Notably, the email said that in the cases where cause of death was “known,” it was “often cardiovascular”:
<blockquote>There have been 19536 VAERS reports (Moderna: 7092 PfizerBioNTech: 12444), including 1287 reports of COVID-19 disease after vaccination and 980 death reports to VAERS. Of the death reports, 470 were from long term care facilities. Where known, the cause of death was often cardiovascular.</blockquote>
Israel rolled out vaccinations quicker than the United States, so Israeli health officials saw adverse effects sooner.
The report states that the Israeli Ministry of Health notified Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials of “large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following the administration of the Pfizer vaccine.”
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Johnson said the report — &#8220;Failure to Warn: How Federal Health Agencies Downplayed the Risk of Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Following COVID-19 Vaccination&#8221; — documents this apparent cover up in over 2,400 pages of attachments, which largely derive from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
&#8220;For a number of months, they were talking about these things. At some point in time, they actually internally said, &#8216;Is there a signal of myocarditis, a safety signal?&#8217; And the answer was &#8216;Yes,'&#8221; Johnson explained. &#8220;And yet, a couple of days later, they decided not to issue a warning on the Health Alert Network (HAN).&#8221;
&#8220;Rather than provide informed consent, the federal health agencies, the Biden administration, covered it up,&#8221; Johnson charged. &#8220;They downplayed the signals.&#8221;
The report notes that the Biden White House &#8220;distribut[ed] talking points to top U.S. health officials,&#8221; including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, downplaying the risk of myocarditis:
<blockquote>Rather than provide the public and health care providers with immediate and transparent information regarding the risk of myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, the Biden administration waited until late June 2021 to announce changes to the labels for the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines based on the “suggested increased risks” of myocarditis and pericarditis. Even though CDC and FDA officials were well aware of the risk of myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination, the Biden administration opted to withhold issuing a formal warning to the public for months about the safety concerns, jeopardizing the health of young Americans. </blockquote>
An executive summary of the report notes that Johnson&#8217;s committee was effectively stonewalled by the Biden administration when requesting documents, seeking transparency. Under the Trump administration, that changed.
&#8220;Now, under a new administration and a new HHS secretary, HHS is beginning to produce records, pursuant to the chairman’s subpoena, that should have been provided years ago, without redactions, to Congress and the public,&#8221; the report said.

President Biden Receives His Updated Covid-19 Booster Vaccine

BOMBSHELL: Report Lays Out How Biden Covered Up Deadly Side-Effects Of COVID Vaccine

Bombshell: Biden Admin Covered Up Adverse COVID Vaccine Reactions, Including Myocarditis

Anthony Fauci

COVID-19

Joe Biden

Politics

Ron Johnson

Vaccine Mandate

On Thursday, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee announced that it received bombshell evidence that suggested Pfizer executives pushed to delay full testing for their company&#8217;s COVID vaccine until after the 2020 election.
British drugmaker GSK informed the panel that Philip Dormitzer, a former Pfizer executive who became a senior scientist at GSK, told colleagues at GSK that &#8220;in late 2020, the three most senior people in Pfizer R&amp;D were involved in a decision to deliberately slow down clinical testing so that it would not be complete prior to the results of the presidential election that year.&#8221;
The Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), said that it had sought information from GSK after The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/pfizer-covid-vaccine-2020-election-probe-2f3ec247" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in March that U.S. prosecutors were looking into a tip from the company that came in &#8220;soon&#8221; after President Donald Trump won a second term in 2024.
The Journal noted that Trump, who lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential contest, &#8220;for years has claimed that Pfizer sat on the positive results of clinical trials, which could have reflected well on his management of the pandemic and reassured voters as they headed to the polls. There has never been evidence to support the accusation, and the development of the Covid vaccines is widely viewed as a medical miracle, coming faster than any other vaccine in history.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
:rotating_light: HUGE :rotating_light:
New Information Suggests Senior Pfizer Executives Conspired to Delay COVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Testing to Influence 2020 Election.
One exec was so scared about this being investigated that he asked to be relocated to Canada!
MASSIVE SCANDAL uncovered by <a href="https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Jim_Jordan</a>. <a href="https://t.co/pZKLAz1Wmx">pic.twitter.com/pZKLAz1Wmx</a>
— House Judiciary GOP :us::us::us: (@JudiciaryGOP) <a href="https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1923046327136485732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
As relayed by the Judiciary Committee, GSK responded to the panel&#8217;s inquiry in mid-April. In another part of the reply given to congressional investigators, GSK said Dormitzer had requested a transfer over concerns about what the new Trump administration might do to him.
&#8220;In November 2024, shortly after the election, Dr. Dormitzer approached a representative from the GSK human resources team to speak about a potential relocation abroad. As the human resources representative recalls, in their meeting, Dr. Dormitzer was visibly upset; he requested that he be relocated to Canada due to concerns that he could be investigated by the incoming Trump Administration over his role in developing Pfizer&#8217;s COVID-19 vaccine,&#8221; GSK said. &#8220;According to the human resources representative, when asked what prompted his request, Dr. Dormitzer made a comment to the effect of: &#8216;Let&#8217;s just say it wasn&#8217;t a coincidence, the timing of the vaccine.'&#8221;
The Journal reported in March that GSK and Pfizer, who are rivals in the pharmaceutical industry, have sued each other over patent rights tied to vaccines.
Dormitzer, who has since left GSK, provided a statement to the newspaper.
&#8220;My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to get the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization at the very first possible moment,&#8221; Dormitzer said. &#8220;Any other interpretation of my comments about the pace of the vaccine’s development would be incorrect.&#8221;
The House panel sent a <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-05-15-jdj-to-dormitzer-re-vaccine-delay.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to Dormitzer requesting documents and a transcribed interview by May 29. Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla was the recipient of another <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-05-15-jdj-to-pfizer-re-vaccine-delay.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> that sought records by the same date.
In response to a request for comment, a Pfizer representative told The Daily Wire that the company received the letter asking about the allegations in the Wall Street Journal report and &#8220;will respond directly&#8221; to the House Judiciary Committee.
Pfizer also provided a statement that said: &#8220;The COVID-19 vaccine development process was driven by science and guided by the U.S. FDA back in 2020. We have consistently and transparently reiterated the facts and the timeline of the tireless work of scientists, regulators, and thousands of clinical trial volunteers who made the vaccine possible. Theories to the contrary are simply untrue and being manufactured.&#8221;
The Judiciary Committee emphasized that it is &#8220;unclear which Pfizer R&amp;D employees were involved with Dr. Dormitzer in the decision to delay the clinical testing,&#8221; but did note that he &#8220;represented to GSK that Pfizer&#8217;s CEO was not aware of the delay.&#8221;
A GSK spokesperson declined to comment.
Jordan (R-OH), a close ally to Trump, <a href="https://x.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1923046662139785572" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on X in response to the information obtained by his panel: &#8220;Did Pfizer executives conspire to delay COVID-19 vaccine testing to influence the 2020 election? Based on our oversight, it sure looks like it.&#8221;

Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19

Pfizer May Have Plotted To Delay COVID Vaccine Until After 2020 Election, Congress Says

2020 Election

Congress

House Judiciary Committee

Jim Jordan

Pfizer

U.S. House of Representatives

President Donald Trump took action on Monday to stop federal money going toward gain-of-function research, a controversial practice linked to the COVID origins debate, in China and other countries.
The move came in the form of an executive order, which Trump showed off in the Oval Office of the White House, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya, and others in attendance.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a big deal,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;It could have been that we wouldn&#8217;t have had the problem we had if we had this done earlier,&#8221; he continued, alluding to the COVID pandemic, which began during Trump&#8217;s first term.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨 BREAKING: <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> just signed an executive order protecting Americans from dangerous gain-of-function research.
The order:
— Ends any present and all future Federal funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in countries of concern like China and Iran and in foreign… <a href="https://t.co/4Cn7iQ4i3L">pic.twitter.com/4Cn7iQ4i3L</a>
&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1919497045204992144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/improving-the-safety-and-security-of-biological-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">order</a> halts federal funding for &#8220;dangerous&#8221; gain-of-function research conducted in China — which is believed to be ground zero for the COVID-19 outbreak in 2019 that led to millions of deaths and various lockdowns around the world — and other foreign countries with &#8220;insufficient&#8221; levels of oversight, citing risks to public health and national security.
Gain-of-function research — in which viruses are enhanced by scientists, often to study potential treatments or prepare for future outbreaks — has become a major focus of the lab leak theory <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cia-assesses-chinese-lab-leak-responsible-for-coronavirus-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increasingly</a> favored by U.S. agencies.
Last year, the federal government <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hhs-moves-to-defund-ecohealth-alliance-says-action-needed-to-protect-the-public-interest" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspended</a> funds to EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based nonprofit group that was receiving <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/health/ecohealth-alliance-peter-daszak-nih-grants.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">millions</a> of dollars in grant money as it faced intense scrutiny for its collaboration with a lab in Wuhan, China, suspected in the COVID outbreak.
Dr. Anthony Fauci denied under oath that NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, but he did not convince Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who accused the longtime health official of lying to Congress with a criminal <a href="https://x.com/RandPaul/status/1685370259451109376" target="_blank" rel="noopener">referral</a> to the Department of Justice.
While President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-issues-last-minute-pardons-for-fauci-mark-milley-and-jan-6-committee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issued</a> Fauci a preemptive pardon before leaving office, the Trump administration may yet have more to say on the matter. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-reveals-when-her-team-will-pinpoint-exact-moment-of-covid-lab-leak" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> her team is working with Bhattacharya and hoped to release information &#8220;very soon&#8221; on gain-of-function and the COVID outbreak.
Trump&#8217;s executive order also mandates stricter oversight, transparency, and enforcement mechanisms for federally funded life-science research, while demanding frameworks for regulating non-federally funded research and nucleic acid synthesis to prevent misuse.
&#8220;Anthony Fauci essentially restarted the bio-weapons arms race and did it under the pretention [sic] of developing vaccines — eventually moving his experiments offshore, mainly to the Wuhan Lab,&#8221; Kennedy <a href="https://x.com/SecKennedy/status/1919543281349734858" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on X. &#8220;[The president] today moved to shut down this kind of research in this country and to stop funding it abroad.&#8221;

President Trump Signs Executive Orders

Trump Signs Order To Cut Funds For Gain-Of-Function Research

China

Executive

Science

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday called for the United States to stop funding gain-of-function research at biolabs around the world.
Gabbard made the comments during an interview with podcast host Megyn Kelly, as they discussed the likelihood that the United States directly funded the research that led to the creation of COVID-19 and the state of the ongoing probe into the lab leak that released the virus. It is now widely accepted by American officials that a lab leak stemming from gain-of-function research triggered the 2020 pandemic.
“The reason why this is so important is not just what has happened in the past, it&#8217;s because this gain-of-function is happening in biolabs around the world,” Gabbard <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMKTSYxto_Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, pointing to her previous warnings about U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
“In order to prevent another COVID-like pandemic or another major health incident that could effect us in the world, we have to end this gain-of-function research and provide the evidence that shows exactly why and how it’s in our best interests, the American people’s best interest, to bring an end to it,” she added.
Gain-of-function research is a process in which scientists genetically alter an organism to study how it responds under specific conditions. It can involve increasing transmissibility, virulence, and other characteristics of a pathogen.
Gabbard did not specifically name which American-funded labs she said were performing gain-of-function research.
Gabbard told Kelly that she still had an intelligence team working with National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate direct links between U.S.-funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, and the pandemic.
Kelly asked when the public could expect to find out the &#8220;exact experiment&#8221; that led to COVID. Gabbard replied that her team was working on it with Bhattacharya and would release the information &#8220;hopefully very soon.&#8221;
Based on the increasing consensus that the lab leak was the cause, Gabbard said she was not surprised that Dr. Anthony Fauci had been pardoned preemptively as President Joe Biden left office. “Is it any wonder that he sought a preemptive pardon for anything during a certain period of time by President Biden before he left office?” she said.
In May 2021, Fauci <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/20/if-anybody-is-lying-here-senator-it-is-you-fauci-tells-sen-paul-in-heated-exchange-at-senate-hearing.html">said</a> that the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” However, later evidence from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic determined that the EcoHealth Alliance used NIH dollars to fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan. EcoHealth is currently under investigation by the Justice Department and has been barred from receiving any further federal grant dollars.
Gabbard said that much of the research her team has conducted can be found at <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID.gov</a>, where the Trump administration has compiled a page explaining how the coronavirus is believed to have originated in a Chinese lab.
In addition to the COVID investigation, Gabbard said that her team was looking at other instances of the United States funding &#8220;dangerous&#8221; gain-of-function research that &#8220;in many examples has resulted in either a pandemic or some other major health crisis.”

President Trump Presides Over Cabinet Meeting

Tulsi Gabbard Reveals When Her Team Will Pinpoint Exact Moment Of COVID Lab Leak

Communist China

Medical Research

Megyn Kelly

Tulsi Gabbard

World

Wuhan Institute of Virology

As we lay to rest <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pope-francis">Pope Francis</a>, a man entrusted with the astonishing task of leading <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/262883/worldwide-catholic-population-hits-14-billion#:~:text=Concretely%2C%20there%20has%20been%20a,to%20281%20million%20in%202023." target="_blank" rel="noopener">1.4 billion</a> Catholics worldwide, we must acknowledge that he was a pope who inspired devotion and yet also disillusionment.
The first non-European pope in over a millennium, the first Jesuit to hold the Chair of Peter, and the first to take the name Francis — after the saint of humility and radical poverty — he came to the papacy with the power of symbolism already at his side. But symbols alone do not make a legacy. His pontificate has been marked by deep paradoxes, extraordinary global events, and the unrelenting scrutiny of a digital age that magnifies every gesture, every silence, and every word into global significance.
Pope Francis led the Catholic Church at a time when questions of identity, history, and moral authority were being fiercely renegotiated across every sphere of public life. From the rise of “woke” ideology and the deconstruction of long-standing societal structures, to the counter currents of cultural revivalism and nationalist pushback, the world around the Church was changing — faster and more fundamentally than ever.
To that world, he showed incredible, compelling pastoral sensibility by embracing the very sick, the downtrodden, before the eyes of the world, making him a beloved figure among so many.
No moment captured the spiritual loneliness and universal leadership of Francis more than the evening of March 27, 2020. As the world reeled from the shock of a global pandemic, Francis <a href="https://catholicvote.org/when-pope-francis-became-a-solitary-beacon-of-hope-during-the-worst-days-of-the-covid-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stood utterly alone</a> in the rain-drenched emptiness of St. Peter’s Square. His solitary figure, small under the weight of a sodden white cassock, illuminated by the flickering torches before the Eucharist, became an icon of global grief — and hope. He did not thunder. He prayed. He did not offer a solution. He stood there in the silence of that unforgettable moment.
<div id="attachment_911243" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-911243" class="size-large wp-image-911243" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-1024x576.jpg" alt="Pope Francis gives an extraordianry urbi et orbi blessing in St. Peter's Square, March 27, 2020. | Credit: Vatican Media" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-23-Apr-2025-11-10-AM-5561-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Vatican Media</div>
Yet while he insisted Church doctrine could not and would not be changed, many weary Catholics saw how he loosened the uniquely stalwart position of the Catholic church on issues related to marriage and family. 
On one hand, he condemned abortion, equating it to <a href="https://catholicvote.org/throughout-his-pontificate-a-look-at-pope-francis-statements-on-abortion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;hiring a hitman&#8221;</a> and <a href="https://catholicvote.org/pope-francis-strongly-warned-against-ideological-colonization-gender/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denounced gender ideology</a>; but more than once he gave a <a href="https://catholicvote.org/pope-francis-writes-preface-fr-james-martins-book-about-lazarus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disturbing nod</a> to ministries aimed at changing Church doctrine over gay &#8220;marriage&#8221; and transgenderism, including his brief <a href="https://outreach.faith/2022/05/pope-francis-speaks-to-lgbtq-catholics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exchange</a> with Father James Martin, the founder of the LGBT Catholic ministry, Outreach.
Pope Francis’ handling of clerical sex abuse was also marked by troubling contradictions. On one hand, he <a href="https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/pope-issues-updated-vos-estis-text-handling-abuse-cases" target="_blank" rel="noopener">established clearer procedures</a> for investigating abuse and holding bishops accountable and publicly condemned the culture of cover-ups that protected abusers. On the other hand, his actions in high-profile cases like those of <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/father-marko-rupnik-accused-of-abuse-and-returned-to-ministry-a-timeline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fr. Marko Rupnik</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/argentine-catholic-bishop-gustavo-zanchetta-sentenced-sexual-abuse-pope-francis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta</a> raise serious questions about consistency and impartiality.
Perhaps more than any other pontiff before him, Pope Francis lived his entire papacy inside the glass house of modern social media. Every homily, every off-the-cuff remark, and even every carefully crafted document was instantly dissected by millions across ideological, religious, and national divides, though it was often his informality in communication that blurred clarity, allowing ideologues across the spectrum to weaponize his words.
In the echo chambers of the internet, he was often cast simultaneously as a reformer and a betrayer, a prophet and a populist, a revolutionary and a regressive. The speed with which opinions formed around his leadership was unprecedented — and sometimes uncharitable.
In his many interviews and press conferences that often required follow-ups or clarifications, it is clear that he perceived himself as a pope who stood at the crossroads of history amidst the noise of clashing narratives.
In many ways, his legacy will be as divided as his papacy. To his supporters, he will be the “Pope of the Peripheries,” to his critics, the Pope of Ambiguity, leaving behind a trail of confusion and even division that his successor in the papacy will have to deal with.
Francis reminded us that the Pope is both a man and a sign — fragile, flawed, and beloved. We now pray not only for his soul but for the Church he leaves behind: wounded in places and always in need of shepherds who speak with both his tenderness but also with the clarity of truth.
* * *
Kelsey Reinhardt is Director of Media and Evangelization for CatholicVote.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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The Pope Of The Peripheries And Of Paradox

Argentina

Catholic Church

Catholicism

Catholics

LGBT

Opinion

Pope Francis

The Vatican

Federal agencies appear to be obstructing the release of documents that could provide vital insights into the Biden administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and its broader global health agenda.
The <a href="https://gateway.zscalertwo.net/_sm_ctn?_sm_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.phralliance.org%2F&amp;_sm_rid=0kNJfQq1Jt3Vss1PNfNQFtvvn7McsctQP4Jq0TN&amp;_sm_cat=Miscellaneous%2Bor%2BUnknown">Public Health Reform Alliance</a>, an organization that advocates for increased transparency in the public health bureaucracy, submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in October 2024, asking for the communications of Biden’s United States Global Health Security Coordinator, Stephanie Psaki. Psaki is the sister of Jen Psaki, who was Biden&#8217;s White House press secretary.
The government has thus far prevented the release of information, with the OSTP and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) each denying that they have the documents, and redirecting the requester to the other agency.
There has been a massive political and social backlash to the secrecy, and apparent lies, regarding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Americans&#8217; lives were upended in the wake of the virus and the ensuing response from the government. Years after businesses were shuttered, vaccines were mandated, and students were held out of schools, Americans are still largely in the dark about what science it was all grounded in and how we&#8217;re working to make sure it never happens again.
The Public Health Reform Alliance has run into a series of roadblocks as its attempted to obtain documents that it says would shed light on the prior administration&#8217;s approach to an issue that intimately impacted the lives of everyday Americans. Its director, Martin Hoyt, told The Daily Wire that Psaki’s communications could be vital for understanding the government’s approach to global health issues, and for forecasting how the government might respond to future crises.
“After enduring the most serious public health emergency in a century, these communications may be an integral part of the U.S. government&#8217;s next response to a pandemic or health security threat. This is an issue of transparency,” Hoyt explained. “We need to understand the extent to which our public health establishment was aligned with, followed or bucked the guidance of unaccountable, politicized and possibly compromised bodies like the WHO.”
The younger Psaki served as a Senior Advisor on Human Rights and Gender Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services&#8217; Office of Global Affairs before taking her post at OSTP.
The Biden administration explained the <a href="https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Global-Health-Security-Strategy-2024-1.pdf">role</a> of the OSTP, writing in one report that it is tasked with leading “interagency science and technology policy coordination efforts” while also serving “as a source of scientific and technological analysis and judgment for the President with respect to major policies, plans, and programs of the Federal Government.”
OSTP rerouted the request from the Public Health Reform Alliance, informing the organization that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) would handle the request for the documents.
“OSTP was unable to locate any responsive records because they have been transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration,” the office said in a February 19 email viewed by The Daily Wire.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" wp-image-906571 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/OSTP-FOIA-300x300.png" alt="" width="625" height="625" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/OSTP-FOIA-300x300.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/OSTP-FOIA-150x150.png 150w" sizes="(max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px" /></div>
NARA then told the Public Health Reform Alliance on March 3 that it had received the request, before going on to inform the organization that it did not have custody of the documents in a follow up email on March 19. NARA then directed the Public Health Reform Alliance back to the OSTP, despite the White House office previously stating that the documents had already been transferred.
“I have confirmed this morning that the National Archives does not yet have legal custody of the records from the Office of Science and Technology Policy from the Biden administration,” the March 19 email read. “I apologize for routing you back to them, as I know they sent you to us, but until such time as legal custody is transferred, the Office of Science and Technology Policy must be the agency to respond to you.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" wp-image-906581 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NARA-FOIA-300x148.png" alt="" width="857" height="423" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NARA-FOIA-300x148.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NARA-FOIA-1024x505.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NARA-FOIA-768x379.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NARA-FOIA.png 1278w" sizes="(max-width: 857px) 100vw, 857px" /></div>
Then, after being directed to NARA by OSTP and back to OSTP by NARA, OSTP told the Public Health Reform Alliance again that it would have to receive the documents from NARA in a March 20 email.
“We submitted a search to the e-discovery component prior to the final letter. That search returned zero hits because the files have been transferred to NARA as indicated in our final correspondence,” that email from OSTP to the Public Health Reform Alliance read.
“The American public lived and, tragically, died by the government&#8217;s edicts and recommendations,” Hoyt told The Daily Wire. “The American public deserves to know how they were formulated as well as the true intent and direction that this government planned to lead the nation for the next five years.”
Neither the OSTP nor NARA responded to a request for comment.

Biden getting vaccine

They Went Looking For Biden’s Global Health Strategy Plan. It’s Nowhere To Be Found.

Biden Administration

Coronavirus

The Biden administration reportedly hid a 2022 report from the Defense Department that stated seven military members might have contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, as early as October 2019.
The <a href="https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2019-World-Military-Games-Report-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">December 2022 report</a> from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness examined “the number of United States athletes and staff who attended the 2019 World Military Games and became ill with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-like symptoms during or shortly after their return to the United States.”
It added, “The Department of Defense (DoD) has concluded through correspondence with the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and United States of America Medical Director in charge of the safety and health of the participants in the 2019 World Military Games, that 7 Service members who attended the games exhibited COVID-19- like signs and/or symptoms during the timeframe of October 18, 2019 through January 21, 2020. The COVID-19-like symptoms could have been caused by other respiratory infections. All 7 Service members&#8217; symptoms resolved within 6 days.”
“The December 2022 report, which the Biden administration was required by law to release to the public over two years ago but didn’t, reveals for the first time that seven U.S. military service members contracted COVID-19-like symptoms during or after their participation in the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019—contradicting the Biden administration’s public claims in 2021 that there was no evidence that any American participants contracted the virus at those games,” <a href="https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-administration-concealed-congressionally-mandated-report-on-earliest-suspected-american-covid-cases/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Free Beacon</a>, which broke the story, noted, adding, “The revelation adds to a mounting body of evidence that the virus was circulating in Wuhan for months before China disclosed it to the world in December 2019 and further bolsters the growing consensus that it could have leaked into the human population from a Chinese lab.”
The report was not made public until last month when the Trump administration uploaded it to the Department of Defense website.
“The U.S. team used chartered flights to and from the games via Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Washington was one of the earliest states to show a spike in COVID-19,” The American Prospect<a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/did-the-military-world-games-spread-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> reported</a> in June 2020.
In May 2020, The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8327047/More-competitors-reveal-ill-World-Military-Games.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that athletes from different countries suspected they might have contracted COVID-19 at the 2019 World Military Games. French pentathlete Elodie Clouvel said she and her partner Valentin Belaud contracted COVID-19 at the Games. Italian fencer Matteo Tagliariol claimed everyone in his Wuhan apartment got “symptoms that looked like those of Covid-19.” Jacqueline Bock of the German volleyball team said, “After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill. I got sick in the last two days. I have never felt so sick. Either it was a very bad cold or Covid-19. I think it was Covid-19.”
“Taxpayers deserve to know the truth about COVID-19 origins, but the Biden administration concealed this information from the American people for years,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) told the Free Beacon. “This report should have been made public immediately and not restricted to Washington insiders. If Americans visiting Wuhan were potentially infected with the COVID-19 virus in October 2019, those claiming the pandemic began in a wet market just two months later would be completely off base.”

7th CISM Military World Games

Biden Admin Reportedly Hid Report That Service Members May Have Gotten COVID In Wuhan — In Oct 2019

Athlete

Joni Ernst

Wuhan

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) top vaccine official, who played a key role in Operation Warp Speed, has reportedly been pushed out of the agency.
Dr. Peter Marks, who served as the Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the FDA, submitted his resignation letter on Friday, after he was informed he would be fired if he didn&#8217;t resign, sources <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/top-vaccine-official-out-at-fda-f39a5a16" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Wall Street Journal.
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“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks said in his resignation letter, referring to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“My hope is that during the coming years, the unprecedented assault on scientific truth that has adversely impacted public health in our nation comes to an end,” Marks added.
An unnamed HHS official suggested Marks was pushed out because he refused to get on-board with Kennedy&#8217;s agenda. “If Peter Marks does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy,” the official told the Journal.
Marks was with the FDA since the Obama administration, starting in 2012. During his tenure, he oversaw vaccines, biotech drugs, and blood products, and helped ensure that vaccines were effective and safe. His resignation takes effect on April 5.
The ouster follows numerous vaccine-related moves from RFK. As previously reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mahas-latest-wins-on-fluoride-food-and-vaccines" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>, under Kennedy&#8217;s leadership, the National Institutes of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/03/10/vaccines-nih-rfk-research-canceled/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Health</a> will stop spending money to find out why Americans are hesitant to take vaccines. Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is studying whether there is any link between vaccinations and the rise in autism.
Kennedy announced this week that he’s restructuring HHS and terminating tens of thousands of employees. “What I found when I came to HHS, is really a sprawling bureaucracy. We have over 100 communications departments — we should have one. We have 40 IT departments, 40 procurement departments, dozens of HR departments,” Kennedy <a href="https://x.com/michaeljknowles/status/1905403551024554014" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Daily Wire host Michael Knowles</a>. “And that is where we’re doing the cuts. We’re going down from 82,000 personnel to 62,000.”
“We’re keeping the scientists, we’re keeping the front-line providers,” he added. “We trying to do our best, not only to serve as stewards of the taxpayer money, but also to make the agency more efficient.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doge-meets-hhs-rfk-jr-to-terminate-20000-bureaucrats-restructure-department" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘DOGE Meets HHS’: RFK Jr. To Terminate 20,000 Bureaucrats, Restructure Department</a>
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Dr. Peter Marks

Top FDA Official, Who Played Key Role In COVID Vax, Reportedly Forced Out

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set today to discuss peace and “dividing up assets” with Ukraine. Trump pushes ahead with deporting violent gang members, despite legal efforts to bring them back to the United States. And new reports show both British and German intelligence believed COVID-19 was created in a lab, but chose to suppress those findings.
It’s Tuesday, March 18, and this is news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/trump-putin-phone-call-covid-lab-leak-coverup-3-18-25/id1576594336?i=1000699614850" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2> Putin/Trump Face-off</h2>
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Topline: President Donald Trump is set to hold a potentially pivotal phone call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin today as the two sides move closer to a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Last week, the Trump administration proposed a 30-day pause in the fighting to allow for formal peace negotiations to kick off. The Ukrainians accepted that deal, prompting the United States to renew weapons shipments to Kyiv, but the Russians were more hesitant to agree on a ceasefire. At the moment, it seems that Putin will only agree to the deal if he has assurances that the United States would pause new weapons shipments to Ukraine and that Ukraine would not be allowed to mobilize new forces during the 30 days.
Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters that &#8220;the Russians say &#8216;We support a ceasefire, but …&#8217; And then after the &#8216;but,&#8217; they start coming with various details to delay the process.” He says Putin is well aware that Western support for Ukraine is starting to dwindle and wants to drag out the ceasefire process to allow his forces to gain as much territory as possible ahead of negotiations, so he’ll have more leverage.
To that point, Moscow has recently launched a counteroffensive in the Kursk region — a territory in Russia that had fallen into Ukrainian hands last summer after a surprise incursion. Putin claims thousands of Ukrainian troops there are currently surrounded — he called on them to “lay down their arms and surrender” in exchange for their lives. The longer a ceasefire is delayed, the more time Putin will have to close in on those troops. For that reason, among others, Zelensky is calling on Trump to exert pressure on Moscow to accept the ceasefire. Over the weekend, he issued a plea for &#8220;maximum additional sanctions&#8221; on Russia if they continue to stall — for his part, Trump said “we can” do that, but “I hope it’s not necessary.”
The Terms: Putin has shown a clear willingness to continually throw Russians into the frontlines and is unlikely to end the war if it means coming back empty-handed. Specifically, he wants to formally retain control of Crimea and the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine. Zelensky has insisted that he’ll never cede land to Putin, but at this stage, it’s all but guaranteed he’ll have to agree to some land being lost in order to end the war.
The potential deployment of peacekeeping forces to Ukraine will likely be another point of contention in negotiations. Putin has made clear from day one that he will never agree to a deal that includes NATO membership for Ukraine — Europe and the United States seem to have conceded that point. As an alternative, Ukraine has pushed for European peacekeepers within its borders after the war. European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have already agreed to provide boots on the ground, although it remains unclear if Putin will accept a European-backed security guarantee.
<h2>Trump Deports Illegal Gang Members</h2>
<div id="attachment_892595" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-892595" class="size-large wp-image-892595" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2204881261-864x576.jpg" alt="SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR - MARCH 16: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY - MANDATORY CREDIT - 'EL SALVADOR PRESIDENCY / HANDOUT' - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) More than 250 suspected gang members arrive in El Salvador by plane, including 238 members of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang and 23 members of the MS-13 gang, who were deported to El Salvador by the US in San Salvador, El Salvador on March 16, 2025. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele confirmed they will be sent to the country's infamous mega-prison at CECOP facility prison. San Salvador forces took heavy security measures. (Photo by El Salvador Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2204881261-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2204881261-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2204881261-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2204881261.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />El Salvador Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images</div>
Topline: A showdown over a planeload of suspected Tren de Aragua gang members has pitted immigrant activists against Trump. The administration is moving forward with the deportation of more than 250 individuals despite legal moves from the ACLU.
On Friday night, President Trump signed an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allowed suspected gang members in the country illegally to be deported without a judicial hearing. The signing wasn’t promoted, but the media caught wind of it on Saturday morning. The ACLU quickly filed a lawsuit trying to stop the deportations &#8212; a court order issued by federal Judge James Boasberg temporarily barred the Trump administration from deporting illegals under the 18th-century statute. By Saturday afternoon, however, the planes were already in the air, having departed from Texas to El Salvador, where the deported were to be housed in a prison for gang members. The Trump administration claims that by the time Judge James Boasberg’s order was issued, the flight was already outside United States airspace.
Border czar Tom Homan dismissed Judge Boasberg’s order, saying he and Trump will not stop until America is safe. “Every day, the men and women of ICE are going to be out there arresting criminal illegal aliens,” Homan said. “I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the Left thinks. We’re coming.”
The Trump DOJ filed a response to Boasberg’s order contesting the authority of a single judge to halt national policy efforts. “Plaintiffs cannot use these proceedings to interfere with the President’s national-security and foreign-affairs authority.” One senior official told Axios that there were discussions in the administration about whether the planes needed to turn back, but after meeting with legal counsel, they decided they could proceed with the deportations.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that “if the Democrats want to argue in favor of turning a plane full of rapists, murderers, and gangsters back to the United States, that&#8217;s a fight we are more than happy to take.” Trump and his team are testing the limits of executive power and likely expect this to be settled by the Supreme Court.
Judge Boasberg told the DOJ to provide details on the flights in a sworn declaration by noon ET today.
The Numbers: In the first 50 days of the Trump administration, ICE made more than 32,000 enforcement arrests, just a hair shy of the total number of arrests made in all of fiscal year 2024. Nearly half of those arrested were convicted criminals and about a third had pending criminal charges, meaning 75% of those arrested were accused or convicted criminals. Illegal border crossings also fell by 94% in February compared to the previous year, and illegal encounters at the Del Rio Sector declined by 99% since 2023.
<h2>Covid Lab Leak Proof</h2>
<div id="attachment_893205" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-893205" class="wp-image-893205 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Lab-Leak-Image-1024x540.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="540" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Lab-Leak-Image-1024x540.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Lab-Leak-Image-300x158.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Lab-Leak-Image-768x405.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Lab-Leak-Image-1536x810.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Lab-Leak-Image-2048x1080.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />(Photo by Kobus Louw via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: We learned this week that the former head of the U.K.&#8217;s foreign intelligence agency told the British prime minister in early 2020 that COVID-19 escaped from the infamous Wuhan lab. The revelation follows reports out of Germany showing that its government allegedly had similar information, as did the United States and China.
This week, a memo sent by the former head of MI6 to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed that as early as 2020, British intelligence believed that COVID was leaked from a Chinese lab and that the Chinese government was conducting an international disinformation campaign to avoid taking responsibility for an outbreak that would go on to kill millions of people.
The memo says, beyond a reasonable doubt, “the Wuhan Institute of Virology retro-engineered a bat virus in January 2020. We surmise that this was done to align with COVID-19 to sustain the natural causation narrative.”
The German Connection: A few days before the British announcement, two major newspapers in Germany revealed that the German foreign intelligence service, their version of the CIA, had also believed that there was an 80 to 90 percent chance that the coronavirus had leaked from a Chinese lab.
“The implications of this conspiracy &#8212; I think it&#8217;s the correct word in this case &#8212; are pretty significant,” independent journalist Michael Shellenberger told Morning Wire. “It would suggest that the U.S., U.K., Chinese, and German governments all knew that the virus escaped from the lab, arguably as early as January, and we had reported that the U.S. intelligence community had known, in fact, the names of the first three people to be infected by the Covid virus, and that didn&#8217;t come out.”
Congressional investigations <a href="https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114270/documents/HHRG-117-GO24-20211201-SD004.pdf">found</a> that the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where COVID-19 is thought to have originated, received funding for gain-of-function research on coronaviruses from the American National Institute of Health.
Shellenberger told Morning Wire that the memo “obviously implicates a number of senior American officials, including Anthony Fauci, but it may have meant that our response to the virus may have been different had we known that it had come from a lab.” Fauci was issued a preemptive pardon by former President Joe Biden shortly before President Trump took office. Trump has argued that Fauci’s blanket pardon is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-declares-pardons-biden-gave-during-his-final-days-in-office-void">“void”</a> because it was signed with an autopen.

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Morning Brief: Trump And Putin Talk Terms, Deportations Continue, And The Lab Leak Gets More Proof

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