We have seen a massive spike in the number of attacks on ICE agents over the course of the last six months, since President Trump took office and decided we were actually going to enforce our border.
On Monday morning, a 27-year-old man with a rifle and tactical vest was killed after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-gunman-in-tactical-gear-killed-after-opening-fire-on-border-patrol-agents?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=BREAKING%3A+Gunman+In+Tactical+Gear+Killed+After+Opening+Fire+On+Border+Patrol+Agents">exchanging fire</a> with law enforcement officers at a border patrol facility in McAllen, Texas.
Border Czar Tom Homan has said attacks on ICE agents are up nearly <a href="https://grabien.com/story?id=535014">700%</a>. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said Left-wing anti-police rhetoric is having something to do with the uptick in violence, <a href="https://grabien.com/story?id=535050">asserting</a>, “All of the rhetoric and the false information that&#8217;s been put out by the Left is just increasing violence against our agents, and it&#8217;s just unacceptable.”
The Left has been claiming for a very long time that if you use rhetoric that is too colorful, if you say things that are borderline, this can lead to “stochastic terrorism.” What you&#8217;re doing is creating a permission structure for terrorism.
As I&#8217;ve said before, unless you are actually excusing or inciting violence, you are not responsible for that violence. With that said, when you raise the temperature, there will be people who bubble over.
That doesn&#8217;t mean Bernie Sanders is responsible for the congressional baseball shooter, for example, but what it does mean is that when you keep saying over and over and over that Republicans are going to kill your grandparents when they take away Medicare or some other such nonsense — and then somebody goes and shoots a bunch of Republican congresspeople for playing baseball — at the very least, you should consider whether the language you used was well-calibrated.
This is the problem. The language currently being used by the Left with regard to ICE or Border Patrol is extraordinary. It sets up a permission structure that causes people who are unhinged to take their behavior to the next level.
In the same way, if you keep saying President Donald Trump is Hitler, at some point, someone might take you seriously and go and try to kill Hitler.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2233?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Here are just a few examples of members of the high-ranking Left going after ICE and Border Patrol in language that is completely unhinged.
Failed Vice-Presidential candidate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVOrOkxeCD4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tim Walz</a>: “Donald Trump&#8217;s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They&#8217;re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons. No chance to mount a defense. Not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye.”
Boston Mayor <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1930630848832831496">Michelle Wu</a>: “I don&#8217;t know of any police department that routinely wears masks. We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks.” 
Los Angeles Mayor <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/newsom-files-emergency-motion-to-block-military-deployment-in-la/">Karen Bass</a>: “Which is why I say that I feel like we have all been in Los Angeles a part of a grand experiment to see what happens when the federal government decides they want to roll up on a state, or roll up on a city, and take over.&#8221;
Rep. <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2025/06/12/dem-rep-goldman-dhs-agents-are-using-gestapo-like-tactics/">Dan Goldman</a> (D-NY): “The combination of these Gestapo-like tactics with the fact that these are nonviolent, non-criminal immigrants doing things the right way &#8230;”
Rep. Alexandria <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-blasts-conditions-at-migrant-detention-centers">Ocasio-Cortez</a> (D-NY): “I mean, in that last facility, I was not safe from the officers in that facility.”
Rep. <a href="https://x.com/DailyCaller/status/1933172641646416273">Stephen Lynch</a> (D-MA): “You know, my dad served in the Second World War. He fought the Nazis in Northern Africa. He fought the Nazis on the Italian peninsula. And I think he&#8217;s looking down right now, and he&#8217;s happy that I&#8217;m fighting today&#8217;s Nazis.”
There are a lot of prominent Democratic figures using this kind of rhetoric, and that language is going to have some sort of consequence.
It doesn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;re responsible for a person trying to shoot Border Patrol agents, but if you keep increasing the temperature and if you keep excusing violence on the other end — which, by the way, the Democrats have been doing for quite a long while, ranging from the sort of violence we saw during the BLM riots of 2020 to excusing the alleged murderous actions of Luigi Mangione on the streets of New York — you&#8217;re obviously going to lead to an uptick in violence.
You may not like President Trump&#8217;s immigration policy; that is your prerogative. But it is also the law of the land. You are not allowed to cross our southern border illegally and simply live here.
That is the law of the land. If you don&#8217;t like that law, you should talk to your member of Congress. If you don&#8217;t like that law, then you should try to change that law.
That&#8217;s how it works in a democracy.
You don&#8217;t get to simply call the people who are enforcing the law “Nazis” and “Gestapo agents” and then act surprised when people attack the supposed Nazis and Gestapo in our midst.

Local New York Officials Observe Immigration Court Proceedings Amid ICE Arrests

From Words To Bullets: The Cost Of Calling ICE ‘Nazis’

From Words To Bullets: The Cost Of Calling ICE 'Nazis'

Border Patrol

Democrats

Donald Trump

illegal immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Nazis

Opinion

President Trump

For most American families, the Fourth of July is a joyful celebration — grilling burgers in the backyard, watching fireworks light up the summer sky, and reflecting on the freedoms we’re fortunate to enjoy. We honor liberty, independence, and the founding ideals that shape this country.
For our family, it’s a reminder of the freedom that’s been denied to our son for far too long.
Omer is an American citizen — a kind, optimistic, sports-loving 21-year-old who grew up on Long Island. He was the kind of person who lights up a room, instantly makes new friends, and goes out of his way to include everyone. For over 600 days, Omer has been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, alongside 49 others. He was taken from his army post on October 7, 2023. And to this day, no deal has brought him home.
The Fourth of July was always one of Omer’s favorite holidays. He loved everything about it — the spirit, the energy, the sense of unity it brought. One of his most vivid memories was joining a small-town Independence Day parade in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, during a cross-country Jewish youth trip. He soaked in the atmosphere — the music, the laughter, the feeling of belonging to something bigger than himself.
Omer had every reason to take a traditional path after high school. He was accepted to SUNY Binghamton and could have started a comfortable American college life. But instead, he chose to serve. He took a gap year in Israel and enlisted as a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. His final post was near the Gaza border, where his mission was to protect nearby civilian communities.
The values we honor on Independence Day — freedom, justice, and human dignity — aren&#8217;t just words we say once a year. They are the foundation of this country. And when those values are threatened — when Americans are held by terrorists for nearly two years — they demand more than celebration. They demand action.
<div id="attachment_942937" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-942937" class="size-large wp-image-942937" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2199158540-864x576.jpg" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 12: Ronen Neutra and Orna Neutra speak about their son, Omer Neutra, who was killed by Hamas during a roundtable discussion with the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on February 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. Three more hostages were released on Feb. 8 as part of a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2199158540-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2199158540-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2199158540-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2199158540.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images</div>
We have witnessed America&#8217;s incredible power in recent months. President Trump and his administration have shown that this nation can achieve the impossible when it sets its mind to it. We watched with profound gratitude as they secured the release of so many hostages, including American Edan Alexander. This is what America does — we fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. We are a nation that stands up for the vulnerable. We leave no one behind.
President Trump recently said it&#8217;s time to bring all the hostages home — and time for the war to end. We agree. Immense strength has been shown over the past 21 months. Incredible military achievements against Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Now, it is time for that strength to deliver peace.
But peace cannot begin until every hostage comes home.
There is no real end to the fighting in Gaza while 50 hostages remain in underground tunnels, cut off from the world, and while families like ours live in daily anguish. Peace cannot be built on the backs of unresolved suffering.
This is not a partisan issue. This is not just an Israeli issue. It is an American issue — and a human issue. Omer is one of our own, but so are the other 49 souls still trapped in darkness. If we mean what we say when we salute the flag or sing the national anthem, we cannot remain silent while any innocent person is held by a U.S.-designated terror group.
&#8220;Peace through strength&#8221; isn&#8217;t just a slogan. It&#8217;s a principle — one that must now lead to freedom for the living, dignity for the dead, and closure for families still waiting. The United States has influence, and it has leverage. It has shown it can move mountains when it chooses to act.
We call on President Trump to press regional leaders, allies, and stakeholders to come to the table and finalize a comprehensive deal. Not in phases, not with half-measures — but a deal that brings every hostage home. A deal that leaves no one behind — not the Americans, not the Israelis, not the Thai workers, not the elderly, not the men — every single one.
Omer is not a symbol or a headline. He is a son. A friend. A teammate. A young man who has always stood up for others. In that sense, he represents the very ideals we celebrate each Fourth of July. And he represents every hostage still waiting for freedom.
So this year, as Americans gather in backyards and parks, as fireworks light up the sky and flags wave proudly — we ask you to think of Omer. And of the 49 others still waiting to come home.
Don&#8217;t just wave the flag. Live its meaning. Call your elected officials. Say Omer&#8217;s name. Say all their names. Remind your representatives that freedom is not complete until it reaches every corner of human suffering.
Let this Independence Day be more than a celebration. Let it be a declaration of conviction—and the beginning of the end of this nightmare.
Because freedom means nothing if we stop fighting for those who’ve lost theirs.
* * * 
Orna and Ronen Neutra are the parents of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The 2024 Republican National Convention

This July 4th, Freedom Demands We Bring The Hostages Home

Gaza

Hamas

Hostages

Israel

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

New York City

October 7

Elon Musk and President Trump are at it again.
A rift has emerged in the Republican caucus between some of the tech bros and populist economists in the Trump coalition.
The Senate passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” but you have the economic populists who&#8217;d like lower taxes and big spending, and then you have the tech guys, and what they&#8217;re mostly concerned about is deregulation; they would like some subsidies aimed at things like AI and green energy.
Thus, we are seeing that all break out into the open with regard to Elon Musk.
“Critics say that President Trump&#8217;s mega bill amounts to an abject surrender in the battle for the future of energy,” <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/01/trump-clean-energy-tax-credits-renewables">Axios reported</a>. “The consequences for U.S. jobs, electricity prices and the arms race could reverberate for decades.”
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1939390933205991585">tweeted</a>, “A massive strategic error is being made right now to damage solar/battery. That will leave America extremely vulnerable in the future.”
Jason Bordoff, who leads the Columbia University energy think tank, said the bill could <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/01/trump-clean-energy-tax-credits-renewables">hinder the United States</a> in the AI race with China. He said, “Winning that race is going to require we increase electricity generation capacity in the US really fast by a lot. That soaring demand is creating tailwinds for natural gas and nuclear. But even those great sources cannot ramp up fast enough to meet the urgent near-term needs of data centers and AI infrastructure.&#8221;
He&#8217;s saying you need to throw everything at energy, including so-called renewable energy.
So this is a major battle that&#8217;s broken out again inside the tech-centric part of the Republican Party.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2230-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Beyond that, there was supposed to be an amendment to the &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; in the Senate that was going to protect the development of AI in the United States by creating a federal moratorium to bar state-level experimentation with regulation on AI. Florida couldn&#8217;t have its own AI rules; California its own AI rules.
The idea was that there would be a federal ban on state-level legislation. The federal government could still legislate and regulate with regard to AI, but you don&#8217;t want AI companies having to navigate the thickets of 50 different state regulatory structures in order to develop, because we are in a national competition with China on the development of AI.
But the Senate voted 99-1 to strip a provision that would have blocked states from regulating artificial intelligence for the next ten years.
This is definitely going to hold up the development of AI on a national level.
All of this led to the massive clash now occurring between President Trump and Elon Musk. What exactly happened?
Musk decided that he was going to go to war with the bill again. He threatened to primary senators and congresspeople who voted for the bill. He also vowed to help Thomas Massie — the Republican congressperson who truly gets on President Trump&#8217;s nerves by voting against everything Trump wants — saying he&#8217;s going to help him in a primary.
President Trump then hit back with a long social media post of his own, seeking to frame Musk&#8217;s opposition as a bid to cling to his electric vehicle subsidies. <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114776149269773065">He wrote</a>:
<blockquote>Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!</blockquote>
He went right at Elon&#8217;s jugular, basically saying, “Listen, you started DOGE. Why don&#8217;t we examine the cost structure on the Tesla EVs? Why don&#8217;t we examine the cost structure on SpaceX and all the rest?”
This followed Musk pledging he would form a new party he calls the America Party. He wrote, “Nearly the entire House and Senate GOP will lose their primary next year if it&#8217;s the last thing I do on this earth.” He went out of his way to call out House Republicans who call themselves budget hawks, such as Andy Harris of Maryland, and Chip Roy of Texas, as well as Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
Trump is saying, “Listen, buddy, you know, we are friends. We&#8217;re on the same side of this. But if you keep going after this bill and you&#8217;re doing so because you want a subsidy, we could just remove all of those subsidies.”
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1940025317701148864">responded</a> on X/Twitter, “So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now.” 
 
There are a few different factors clashing here, as I’ve said before. On an ideologically and politically pure level, Elon complaining about the “Big Beautiful Bill” is not wrong. It spends far too much money.
But that&#8217;s true for virtually every bill passed at the federal level. That&#8217;s just the reality.
I wish the American people approved of Elon&#8217;s spending plans. I do. I wish we were restructuring our entitlements in a serious way. I wish we weren&#8217;t going to sleepwalk our way like Thelma and Louise right over the cliff, that fiscal cliff that is going to come sometime in the next few years.
I wish we did all these things, but the American public simply is not prepared to do any of those things. And that&#8217;s where you enter the realm of the pragmatic, where President Trump lives.
Is this fight really about EV subsidies? Is this fight truly about political purism, or is it something more personal?
As I&#8217;ve suggested before, the fact that the Trump administration decided they were going to get rid of Elon&#8217;s hand-picked head for NASA — which Sergio Gore was apparently behind — is what ticked Elon off. He hasn&#8217;t let go of it. He&#8217;s still going after the bill. Because of that incident, as well as Elon&#8217;s idealistic view of how politics should work, it should not be a shock that Elon is now attempting to wield his power in a kind of blunderbuss fashion.
It&#8217;s also not a shock that President Trump is slapping back, essentially saying, “Listen, I&#8217;m the president of the United States. Thank you for your help. But I&#8217;m the president. I&#8217;m the one who has to do all this stuff. I&#8217;m the one who has to cut the deals, and I&#8217;m the one who has to live with it if we don’t make the tax cuts permanent.”
This bill indeed has a lot of pork, but so does every single government funding bill of my lifetime. There has yet to be a major government bill that is not a big-spending government bill because the American people lie to themselves all the time. We say we want lower spending, but when asked what we would cut, we start scratching our heads and looking around.
That is the problem if you wish to build a cohesive movement for serious cuts to the government.
That was never the MAGA movement. It wasn&#8217;t. I’ve been speaking publicly about not loving that about MAGA since 2016. President Trump was the one candidate declaring back in 2015 and 2016 that he was not going to touch entitlements. Although I am indeed a big fan of Trump, I’ve criticized him for that position for a decade, because I would love to touch the entitlements.
I think entitlements are a disaster area. They are bankrupting the country. They&#8217;re wildly ineffective as they currently stand. I think there are fixes that could be made to them. I think many of them can be delegated back to the state or local level. And I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s the proper function of the federal government to be involved in three-quarters of this stuff.
But my opinion is not the MAGA opinion. If you&#8217;re going to be politically pragmatic about this, you have to recognize that what this bill effectively is about, more than anything else, is making sure the tax cuts don&#8217;t go away, making sure defense is paid for, and making sure immigration is paid for, among other things.
Is Elon going to force Trump to fight again? I want to know what the endgame is. What is it that Elon is really looking for here?
If he wants to build a popular movement outside the government in favor of slashing and burning large swaths of the federal government, sign me up today. But if we are talking about the idea that someone like Chip Roy is unsuitable for big government, or if we&#8217;re saying the choices here are letting the tax cuts expire and taxes radically increase, and you still don&#8217;t get lower spending, I think most Americans will choose the bill.
That doesn&#8217;t mean that the bill polls particularly well, because the bill&#8217;s been criticized every which way.
But I guarantee you: If Republicans don&#8217;t get this done and the taxes do increase, that&#8217;s going to be even more unpopular.

President Trump Attends NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship In Philadelphia

Elon Musk, Trump, And The Future Of The GOP

Ben Shapiro

Debt Ceiling

Elon Musk

Federal Government

National Debt

The following excerpt is taken from the new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Butler-Untold-Assassination-Americas-Heartland/dp/1546009140/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38ZQJ31BTXE78&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yBjqsViUcuzSmJ0JQfFO_9pbEehSi-8OfBIfkv9uv-Eg2YesGVnshEb31LRcm_VyNV90yUlv9buV5-Eg4h3ANjvLeboA5BuUjGHF1yBXHxfXZoSn8Vchp7NkJJKFCPPN0JdICFPkw8GWPPCc2BBMMPqe_qSkBWh_hh_CkKUxGhVJA_Ayn3SjyWBemTcvmDq42l4iaEdSi5Ih0Lab_rtq0w.UQCO-toWBwgEMYzS_IK8UvoFWqL6oOP4CgnKEYfwSsE&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=salena+zito+butler&amp;qid=1751464363&amp;sprefix=salena+zito+butle%2Caps%2C170&amp;sr=8-1">Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America&#8217;s Heartland,&#8221;</a> by Salena Zito (July 2025, Center Street/Hachette Book Group)
* * *
<h3>They Shoot Presidents in Butler</h3>
George Washington was less than pleased.
It was December 26, 1753, well past dusk and the temperature had dropped dramatically as darkness fell. Thanks to the drop in temperature, the mix of sleet and snow would make travel perilous in the deeply forested wilderness of what is now present-day Butler County.
But Washington and his guide Christopher Gist were left with little choice; they had to move, and move quickly.
They needed to make their way to the forks of the Ohio River. Days later, Washington, then a young major in the Virginia militia, would write in his journal that fear coursed through his veins and spurred the urgency of their flight after he was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet that whizzed past his ear just hours earlier.
Both he and Gist knew his assassin would be back to finish the job.
<div id="attachment_942151" style="width: 417px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/salena-zito/butler/9781668649909/?lens=center-street"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-942151" class="wp-image-942151 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-02-Jul-2025-09-02-AM-8755-407x576.jpg" alt="Cover credit: Center Street/Hachette Book Group" width="407" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-02-Jul-2025-09-02-AM-8755-407x576.jpg 407w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-02-Jul-2025-09-02-AM-8755-212x300.jpg 212w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-02-Jul-2025-09-02-AM-8755-768x1086.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-02-Jul-2025-09-02-AM-8755-1086x1536.jpg 1086w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-02-Jul-2025-09-02-AM-8755-1448x2048.jpg 1448w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/MixCollage-02-Jul-2025-09-02-AM-8755-scaled.jpg 1810w" sizes="(max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px" /></a>Cover credit: Center Street/Hachette Book Group</div>
At twenty-one years old, Washington was on his first diplomatic mission, with direct orders from the Crown tucked in his saddlebag to basically tell the French to get off King George II’s land or face war with England.
In 1753, the British and French Empires were in the early stages of clashing over their colonial possessions. Britain’s North American colonies were mostly packed along the Atlantic coastline and then moved westward toward the Allegheny Mountains.
France’s colonial holdings were in the center spine of the country that began in New Orleans and ran up along the Mississippi River into the Great Lakes region toward the St. Lawrence River. Both empires claimed control of the vast expanse of what was then known as the Ohio Country, which began in present-day western Pennsylvania and West Virginia and spread due west across the states of Ohio and Indiana.
Washington was at the center of that clash of royal aspirations, which were largely spurred by greed in the form of an immense royal grant to the Ohio Company, whose largest investor was Robert Dinwiddie, Virginia’s royal (lieutenant) governor and the man who sent Washington on the mission.
The young Virginian’s destination was Fort Le Boeuf, just fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. In Washington’s possession was a note from London, signed by King George II, that read: “If the French were found to be building forts on English soil, they should be peacefully asked to depart. If they failed to comply, however, we do hereby strictly charge and command you to drive them off by force of arms.”
The trip from Virginia had been a daunting 250 miles of untouched wilderness. It involved scaling high ice-crusted ridges, slogging through thick brush, swamps, and dense forests with mounds of heavy snow, and navigating icy waterways. The journey was as difficult as one could imagine, not just because of the terrain but also because of a weather system that had pummeled Washington and Gist the entire way.
Washington arrived at Fort Le Boeuf on December 11. The fort system was rudimentary at best, made of scrap bark and planks and consisting of four buildings. The young soldier and French commander Capt. Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre had a cordial, diplomatic conversation despite Washington’s delivery of the Crown’s demand that the French vacate the Ohio Valley immediately.
Saint-Pierre made clear that he was not intimidated by the British and retained every right to arrest their traders who were poaching on French territory. “As to the summons you sent me to retire, I do not think myself obliged to obey it.”
Four days later, Saint-Pierre handed Washington a sealed message for Dinwiddie. It was then that Washington discovered that, although Saint-Pierre had filled Washington’s canoe with a generous amount of supplies for the journey home, the French commander had also bribed Washington’s Indian guides with food and drink to stay behind.
Washington was furious. He had not only been deceived by Saint-Pierre; he had also observed enough during his four-day wait for the commander to respond to Dinwiddie to know that France was building a large-scale fort system throughout the disputed territory. He also observed that they were building a formidable military operation, which was prepared to defend the land the French would take over.
Washington and Gist set off, anxious to deliver the news to Dinwiddie. However, their horses were so debilitated by the journey to Fort Le Boeuf that the men had to abandon them and continue on foot.
On the journey toward the outpost known as Murdering Town (in present-day Butler), they were heavily burdened by their backpacks. Along the way, they encountered several French Indians who quickly — probably too quickly, in hindsight — offered to help get them to the forks of the Ohio River. The battering snow and sleet, freezing cold, and rough terrain had worn Washington down, and when one of the Indian guides offered to carry his backpack, he took him up on it.
Gist, a skilled surveyor and frontier guide, immediately sensed something was off about the situation. He wasn’t wrong. As soon as the group came to a clearing, one of the Indians sprinted ahead of them into a meadow and then turned to face the two men before firing point-blank at Washington from fifteen paces.
The exact amount by which the French-aligned Indian missed Washington is unclear. Washington’s diary entry is vague, but the intent was obvious. The Indian guide wanted the young Virginian dead.
If muskets had contained rifling — grooves inside the barrel to make a bullet travel more accurately — 270 years ago, everything in the world would have changed at that moment.
There would have been no skirmish several months later in present-day Fayette County, Pennsylvania, between Washington’s regiment and French soldiers — a skirmish that led to the first shots fired in what would quickly escalate into the French and Indian War. It was a war that ultimately led to the Revolutionary War, when the British Crown tried to tax the colonists to pay for debt incurred during the first true world war.
There would have been no General Washington, no President Washington, and we might not have the country we call America today if that bullet had been only an inch closer.
* * *
Salena Zito is a veteran political reporter with more than twenty years of award-winning experience in print and broadcast journalism. With her trusty Jeeps that have clocked well over 400,000 miles on their odometers and a refusal to travel on interstates, Zito is a reporter who harkens to an older generation of journalism, one who listens to the stories of everyday Americans in places far outside the artificial bubbles of Manhattan and the Beltway. One of the last scribes of middle America, she famously popularized the root cause of their failed coverage and underestimation of Donald Trump by the phrase coined by Brad Todd saying, “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Zito is a national political reporter for the Washington Examiner, and a special contributor to the Washington Post. She has been a columnist for the New York Post and has contributed to The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Excerpted from &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Butler-Untold-Assassination-Americas-Heartland/dp/1546009140/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38ZQJ31BTXE78&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yBjqsViUcuzSmJ0JQfFO_9pbEehSi-8OfBIfkv9uv-Eg2YesGVnshEb31LRcm_VyNV90yUlv9buV5-Eg4h3ANjvLeboA5BuUjGHF1yBXHxfXZoSn8Vchp7NkJJKFCPPN0JdICFPkw8GWPPCc2BBMMPqe_qSkBWh_hh_CkKUxGhVJA_Ayn3SjyWBemTcvmDq42l4iaEdSi5Ih0Lab_rtq0w.UQCO-toWBwgEMYzS_IK8UvoFWqL6oOP4CgnKEYfwSsE&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=salena+zito+butler&amp;qid=1751464363&amp;sprefix=salena+zito+butle%2Caps%2C170&amp;sr=8-1">Butler,</a>&#8221; by Salena Zito. (Copyright 2025) Used with permission from Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA – July 13: Former president Donald Trump r

They Shoot Presidents In Butler

assassination attempt

Books

Butler

George Washington

Pennsylvania

Presidency

Right now, the West is in its ascendancy, not in its decline.
Over the weekend, President Trump championed a peace deal that is now cut between Congo and Rwanda, brokered by the White House to stop the bloodshed in Congo, where a militia allegedly backed by Rwanda occupies huge areas of land.
President Trump explained that he is brokering peace throughout the world, saying, “This is a tremendous breakthrough. In a few short months, we&#8217;ve now achieved peace between India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, and the DRC and Rwanda. And a couple of others also, Serbia was getting ready to go to war with a group I won&#8217;t even mention because it didn&#8217;t happen. We were able to stop it.”
He&#8217;s right about that. He also continues to maintain his strength in the face of an Iran that has pledged further nuclear development. He said to Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, listen, you keep lying and saying that you won? You didn&#8217;t. You got your ass kicked.
“I&#8217;m putting out a little statement,” <a href="https://x.com/breeadail/status/1938650917127233987">he stated</a>. “I&#8217;m going to respond to the Ayatollah’s statement yesterday that ‘We won the war.’ Won the war? And I said, ‘Look, you&#8217;re a man of great faith, a man who&#8217;s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth, you got beat to hell … It would be great if they (Iran) didn&#8217;t have that hate. But the last thing they&#8217;re thinking about is nuclear weapons right now.”
“Would you consider bombing the country again?” <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgenq599kwo">he was asked</a>. “Sure. Without question. Absolutely. That would be unbelievable,” he answered. “But, you know, our incredible fliers; I call them the shots. These guys are unbelievable. Think. From 52,000 feet, they hit the equivalent of a refrigerator door. They actually hit it right in the center, so it&#8217;s much smaller than that.”
But at a time when the West should be resurgent and on the upswing, instead you have America&#8217;s major cities: New York City, L.A., and Chicago, being run by full-scale left-wing nutcases who are deeply ensconced with hatred for their own civilization. The same thing has happened in London in the UK. It&#8217;s been happening in France as well.
It&#8217;s a serious threat to the West. And the biggest threat to the West is not external at this point.
The biggest threat to the West is internal: the Red-Green Alliance, the communists/socialists, and the Hamasniks coming together in hatred of their own civilization.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2228?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
All of this ties into July 4. It&#8217;s going to be great. I hope you&#8217;re going to have a wonderful Independence Day, celebrating the foundation of the greatest country in the history of the world, but we should talk about a myth that has been purveyed about July 4 and about the United States in general.
This, of course, is the 1619 myth that “America was founded on slavery and that the Revolutionary War was fought for the preservation of slavery.”
There are many lies that are told about our civilization, particularly about the foundation of our civilization, in order to somehow claim that our civilization should be torn down.
If you were to poll the morons of Glastonbury in the UK who chanted “Death to the IDF” and mocked white Britons by chanting “I hear you want your country back. Well, shut the f*** up,” or the Democratic primary voters for Zohran Mamdani in New York about what they think of the United States, they would surely agree with the myth that America was founded on slavery.
It&#8217;s not true.
A huge number of the Founders overtly opposed slavery in principle. Even those who held slaves themselves did not provide significant defenses of slavery. That included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Washington said, “There&#8217;s not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for its abolition.” Thomas Jefferson&#8217;s original draft of the Declaration of Independence called the slave trade an “execrable commerce” and “an affront against human nature itself.” John Jay said, “It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished, to contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others involves an inconsistency not to be excused.” Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton spoke against slavery as well.
Why was slavery included in the Constitution of the United States originally? Because there were still slave-holding states in the United States. Many of the northern states were not slave holding states, but the southern states were. And the question was, could you get together a coalition to defeat the British, or could you not?
This was not a fight on behalf of promoting slavery. Slavery remained legal in the British Empire until 1833. So this was not a fight in which one side was pro-slavery and one side was anti-slavery. Far from it. The leaders in America ideologically were not in favor of slavery. There was a practical on-the-ground consideration, which was that many of the southern states were reliant on slave labor. 
Again, that&#8217;s an evil not to be excused, but to claim that the Revolutionary War was about slavery is to be ignorant of history. In fact, as soon as the Revolution began, there were eight states that immediately came out and started abolishing slavery: Vermont, 1777. Pennsylvania, 1780. Massachusetts and New Hampshire, 1783. Rhode Island and Connecticut, 1784. New York, 1799. New Jersey 1804.
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As the Claremont Institute&#8217;s Arthur Milikh once <a href="https://www.heritage.org/american-history/commentary/1776-not-1619">pointed out</a>:
<blockquote>The Founders laid the constitutional ground for abolishing slavery. One example is <a href="https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/60/slave-trade">Article I, Section 9, Clause 1</a>, which states that Congress could prohibit importation of slaves starting in 1808. On the first day that this clause became operative, Congress passed, and President Thomas Jefferson signed, this prohibition into law. Congress took additional steps to restrict slavery. It passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territories. Seven years later, Congress made it illegal to build ships for the purpose of the slave trade.</blockquote>
It&#8217;s important to debunk some of these myths, because those myths become the basis for claiming that the West is uniquely evil. Slavery has indeed been an evil institution, but it has also been virtually universal. 
The question isn&#8217;t whether the Founding Fathers were hypocrites about slavery. Some were; some weren&#8217;t. The question truly is: Why did it take the West to end slavery?
In fact, slavery is still practiced in many of the areas that are favorites of the Glastonbury crowd. Many of the places that they are claiming are “havens of freedom,” that require “less of a heavy Western hand,” are places that are still practicing slavery.
A huge part of the Middle East still engages in slavery. Not Israel, but many of its opponents. That is the point.
July 4 spells a clarion call for human freedom, and it has been seen that way by right-minded people ever since.
This is why the very famous Frederick Douglass speech about what July 4 meant to the slave doesn&#8217;t say that July 4 is bad. It says that the problem with the 4th of July is that the principles that the Founding Fathers sought to instill had not yet been realized.
That is the right approach, a historically accurate and mature approach, instead of the leftist scumbag wing that simply suggests the West is uniquely evil when in reality the West is uniquely good.

President Trump Speaks On Recent Supreme Court Rulings At The White House

The Resurgent West: Why Today’s Triumphs Outweigh Our Critics

Europe

Founding Fathers

Iran

Middle East

Slavery

Western Civilization

Iran&#8217;s senior Shiite cleric has declared war on the President of the United States. The Islamic Republic’s Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi issued a <a href="https://x.com/mdubowitz/status/1939343304836911200">fatwa</a> stating that threats against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — particularly by President Trump — constitute a war against Islam. &#8220;Any collaboration,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;is forbidden. Muslims must respond with &#8216;severe punishment.'&#8221;
This is not empty rhetoric. It’s a directive. The regime is using religious law to justify action against American political leadership. This fatwa is not an outlier — it is state-sanctioned pretext for terror.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨 FATWA: Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi — one of the most senior Shia clerics in Qom — has issued a ruling declaring that threats against Khamenei by President Trump and others amount to a “war against Islam.” Remaining silent is “haram,” he says, and Muslims must… <a href="https://t.co/2jbgPjpW0l">pic.twitter.com/2jbgPjpW0l</a>
&mdash; Mark Dubowitz (@mdubowitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/mdubowitz/status/1939343304836911200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Islamic Republic has a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-princeton-scholar-was-once-a-high-ranking-iranian-official-why-is-he-still-here?author=Aidin+Panahi&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=This+Princeton+Scholar+Was+Once+A+High-Ranking+Iranian+Official.+Why+Is+He+Still+Here%3F">documented history</a> of carrying out extraterritorial operations: assassinations in Europe, surveillance of U.S. targets, plots against dissidents, and support for militant proxies. Now, after President Trump ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and humiliated Khamenei in his press conference, the regime is escalating. It is signaling its operatives — at home and abroad — that retaliation is not just permissible. It is required.
This fatwa gives legal and religious cover for future attacks. It sets the stage for proxy operations, lone actor violence, and state-sponsored terror framed as divine justice. The regime has already <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/from-fordow-to-freedom-a-strategy-for-ending-the-islamic-republic?author=Aidin+Panahi&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=From+Fordow+To+Freedom%3A+A+Strategy+For+Ending+The+Islamic+Republic">authorized</a> retaliation against American and Israeli targets. The network is active. The planning is done. All that remains is execution. The regime’s intentions are not hypothetical. In the months leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Iranian operatives were actively plotting to assassinate Donald Trump, according to Western intelligence sources.
<div id="attachment_941273" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-941273" class="size-large wp-image-941273" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1988734032-864x576.jpg" alt="Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi is delivering a sermon during a turban-wearing ceremony at a seminary in the holy city of Qom, 145 km (90 miles) south of Tehran, on February 8, 2024. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1988734032-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1988734032-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1988734032-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1988734032.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi is delivering a sermon. February 8, 2024. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images.</div>
These networks are not limited to Iran or the Middle East. They are embedded inside the United States. The regime has exploited Palestinian solidarity movements, college encampments, and so-called cultural centers to build cover and infrastructure for future operations. What appears to be activism is, in many cases, ideological and logistical preparation. The Islamic Republic has skillfully used progressive activists, woke institutions, and even elements of the Democratic political class as unknowing tools — shielding itself behind civil rights rhetoric while laying the groundwork for subversion and violence. In <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/two-men-charged-alleged-plot-assassinate-saudi-arabian-ambassador-united-states">2011</a>, an Iranian-American working for the Quds Force was charged with plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C. That was over a decade ago. The capabilities have only expanded since.
This is not a theoretical risk. It’s an operational doctrine.
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The United States must respond accordingly.
First: Federal authorities must treat this fatwa as an actionable threat. DHS, FBI, Secret Service, and intelligence agencies must identify and dismantle regime-linked cells, proxies, and influence networks operating inside the United States under cultural, religious, or diplomatic cover.
Second: Islamic Republic’s top officials who issue or endorse calls for violence must be designated as enablers of terrorism and sanctioned accordingly. That includes financial, digital, and travel restrictions without exception.
Third: The regime must not outlast this escalation. The U.S. must adopt a policy of full support for regime change led by the Iranian people. That means providing technical, financial, and political support to Reza Pahlavi, who has accepted the responsibility of leading the transition after millions of Iranians — both inside the country and abroad—have chanted his name and called on him to represent their national will.
Fourth: The U.S. must support Israel’s precision operations targeting the regime’s nuclear, military, and intelligence assets — and where necessary, extend that support to neutralizing select political and religious officials who are operational leaders in the regime’s state-directed terror infrastructure. This must be framed and executed as counterterrorism.
Fifth: The U.S. must initiate immediate and comprehensive <a href="https://www.hstoday.us/featured/perspective-the-u-s-must-investigate-iranian-regime-networks-inside-the-homeland/">screening</a> of Iranian nationals already inside the country — including visa holders, green card recipients, and naturalized citizens — who maintain any connection to regime institutions, propaganda networks, or clerical systems. If the U.S. accepts that it is under asymmetric threat, it must respond accordingly. A national emergency declaration should be on the table.
<div id="attachment_941281" style="width: 824px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-941281" class="size-large wp-image-941281" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221794644-814x576.jpg" alt="28 June 2025, Hesse, Frankfurt/Main: Mainly exiles and German-Iranians protest against the Mullah regime in Iran at a rally at the Hauptwache in Frankfurt. One man holds a photo of Reza Pahlavi II, who is living in exile. Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa (Photo by Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images)" width="814" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221794644-814x576.jpg 814w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221794644-300x212.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221794644-768x544.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221794644.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 814px) 100vw, 814px" />28 June 2025, Hesse, Frankfurt/Main: German-Iranians protest against the Mullah regime in Iran at a rally at the Hauptwache in Frankfurt. One man holds a photo of Reza Pahlavi II, who is living in exile. Photo: Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images</div>
These actions are not optional. They are overdue. If left unchecked, this regime will act on its threats.
There is no negotiation pathway. There is no moderation. The Islamic Republic is not a government. It is a transnational threat actor. It issues religious rulings as operational orders. It does not fear diplomacy; it fears consequences.
The fatwa against President Trump is a signal. September 11th began with similar rhetoric. Now, another one has been issued — and this time, the target is named. If the U.S. ignores it, the next attack will not be a press release. It will be a body count.
* * *
Dr. Aidin Panahi is an Iranian-American research professor, energy expert, and political activist. He is the cofounder of the “From Boston to Iran” initiative and his analyses on security and policy issues have appeared in outlets including The Jerusalem Post, Washington Times, the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, Middle East Forum, Homeland Security Today, and Visegrád24. X: @Aidin_FreeIran
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Iran-Pro-Hezbollah-Funeral

The Islamic Republic Issued A Fatwa On Trump. The U.S. Must Prepare Accordingly.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Islamic Jihad

Muslims

Secret Service

As the state representative for Tennessee’s 65th District, I’ve heard loud and clear from the hardworking people of Williamson County: They want a government that delivers results — not excuses.
Right now, Congress has a golden opportunity to do just that by passing President Donald J. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This transformative legislation, which passed the House by a narrow 215-214 vote on May 22, is a bold blueprint for prosperity, security and opportunity.
Unfortunately, this important bill — one that cuts taxes, secures the border, and begins undoing the spending excesses of the Biden presidency — is now stalled in the Senate. The Senate should act immediately: Pass this bill and send it to President Trump’s desk by July 4. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a direct response to the 77 million Americans who re-elected President Trump in 2024, including thousands of my constituents in Tennessee.
At 1,116 pages, this legislation is Big. And it is Beautiful because it delivers on the America First agenda. It extends the 2017 tax cuts, eliminates taxes on tips and overtime, and creates new deductions for American-made vehicles. It establishes “Trump savings accounts” to give newborns a financial foundation and raises the child tax credit to $2,500 for working families. These provisions put money back into the pockets of servers, truck drivers, young families and small-business owners — the folks who keep Tennessee’s economy running.
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Security is another cornerstone, and it aligns with one of my top priorities: addressing illegal immigration. The bill provides $46.5 billion to complete the border wall, funds 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and allocates $6 billion to hire and retain Border Patrol agents.
Here in Tennessee, we know the devastating impact of unsecured borders — human trafficking, fentanyl, and crime spill into our communities. In the Tennessee General Assembly I’ve been working to “demagnetize” our state from illegal immigration. This bill furthers that goal. It sends a clear message: We will enforce our laws, and we will secure our borders.
The bill also invests in our military and funds the Golden Dome missile defense system. That means peace of mind for Tennessee families — and a stronger, safer America in an increasingly dangerous world.
Some Democrats have falsely labeled this bill a “tax scam” and claim it kills programs like Medicaid and SNAP. Let&#8217;s be clear: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act modernizes these programs to ensure they serve those truly in need — not those gaming the system. Work requirements for able-bodied adults, starting in 2026, reinforce the dignity of work — a value Tennesseans understand and respect.
A number of Senate Republicans have expressed their concern about the bill’s cost or specific provisions. I respect their caution. As a fiscal conservative who has run a small business and met payroll, I understand the need for restraint. But we cannot let minor disagreements derail a bill of this importance. And we can’t ignore the consequences of inaction. Letting the 2017 tax cuts expire would result in a $4.5 trillion tax increase.
My constituents are tired of Washington’s gridlock. They want lower taxes, secure borders, and a government that works for them — not against them.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act delivers. I urge Congress to pass it without delay and I appreciate President Trump’s leadership in advancing these priorities for Tennessee and the nation.
* * *
Lee Reeves represents Tennessee’s 65th House District and serves on the Education and Finance, Ways and Means Committees.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

President Trump Hosts One Big Beautiful Event At White House

A Beautiful Opportunity: Why Trump’s Big Bill Deserves A Big Yes From Tennessee

Congress

Tennessee

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

The legacy media have stonewalled letting President Trump have the win he deserves for his strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities. What President Trump did in Iran is one of the most historic wins of my lifetime.
Just to recap, Israel launched an overwhelming aerial assault on the Iranian facilities, nuclear and missile-based. They were going after ballistic missile development factories in Iran — their ballistic missile stockpiles, their missile launchers — as well as their nuclear facilities.
For nearly two weeks, Israel hammered the Iranians. But there was one facility in particular, Fordo, which was some 250-300 meters underground. And Israel did not have the ordnance capable of penetrating that facility. So President Trump authorized a B-2 strike using 30,000 pound bombs on Fordow, and in his words, “obliterated” the site.
The media won&#8217;t let that be the case, that President Trump used force to end the Iranian nuclear program and then declared the war over — and it was over.
It was, in fact, a historic win, and a win that we haven&#8217;t seen in American foreign policy in my lifetime: One strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities, a complete reshuffling of the deck in the Middle East with Israel as a regional powerhouse and Iran a supplicant, and no continuous war between Israel and Iran, no hot war continuing.
With no American casualties, by the way.
An amazing accomplishment.
But the media just won&#8217;t let President Trump have it. They won&#8217;t. They keep claiming over and over and over that, actually, maybe Fordo wasn&#8217;t destroyed. In fact, Fordo is fine. Maybe the Israeli-American effort was completely for naught, they claim.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2227-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
They have no basis upon which to say this, other than the word of Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been tweeting that everything is hunky dory from his bunker, presumably in Tehran, <a href="https://x.com/khamenei_ir/status/1938180907887698222">claiming</a> with astonishing chutzpah: 
<blockquote>With all that commotion and all those claims, the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic.</blockquote>
You have to be high on drugs to believe this. He was literally hiding in a bunker for the entirety of the war. His regime was so weak that the Israeli Air Force was flying continuous sorties unhindered over Iranian airspace, with zero casualties on the IAF side, zero, for two weeks.
And yet <a href="https://x.com/khamenei_ir/status/1938184845873844536">he says</a> that, in reality, the “Zionist regime,” Israel, was practically knocked out and crushed:
<blockquote>My congratulations on our dear Iran’s victory over the US regime. The US regime entered the war directly because it felt that if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed. It entered the war in an effort to save that regime but achieved nothing.</blockquote>
The Baghdad Bob aspect in the Middle East is always absurd to Westerners. Ayatollah Khomeini trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, at least in terms of public perception, does not mean that he was not, in fact, hammered or that the nuclear program is intact.
But Khamenei <a href="https://x.com/khamenei_ir/status/1938185956793761808">tweeted out:</a>
<blockquote>The Islamic Republic delivered a heavy slap to the US’s face. It attacked and inflicted damage on the Al-Udeid Air Base, which is one of the key US bases in the region.</blockquote>
Nope. Actually, he called and he whined and begged the Qataris and the Americans to allow him to send a few missiles at the base, none of which actually hit.
Why am I telling you what Khamenei is saying? Because you&#8217;re hearing it echoed by the media. The New York Times and CNN reported that there was a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate that Fordo had not been knocked out, not been obliterated, not even been severely damaged.
It turned out that that was a low-confidence assessment by one of 18 intelligence agencies under the DIA. It didn’t matter. The media ran with it anyway. This became the top story in the media.
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How do we know that it&#8217;s stupid? According to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/world/middleeast/centrifuges-fordo-damage-iran.html">UN nuclear watchdog</a> head, the director general of the IAEA, there was “no escaping significant physical damage after the U.S. strike on the Iranian facility.” Barak Ravid of Axios, a front man for Left-wing and isolationist agitprop coming out from various leak-driven parts of various administrations, <a href="https://x.com/BarakRavid/status/1938229914244682140">tweeted</a>, “I told Jake Tapper that a senior Israeli intelligence official told me that other than the word ‘obliterated’ the reality regarding the results of the attack on Iran is much closer to where Trump says it is than to where the initial DIA report said it was.”
All of this came to a head yesterday when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did a press conference. He crushed the fake news that&#8217;s been targeting President Trump, declaring:
<blockquote>Because you cheer against Trump so hard — it&#8217;s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad — you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes. You have to hope maybe they weren&#8217;t effective. Maybe the way the Trump administration represented them isn&#8217;t true. So let&#8217;s take half-truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it. Spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful.
This was an historically successful attack. We should celebrate it as Americans, and it gives us a chance to have peace, a chance to have a deal and an opportunity to prevent a nuclear Iran, which is something President Trump talked about for 20 years.</blockquote>
He was correct.
Hegseth wasn’t done. He called on Jennifer Griffin of Fox News, who&#8217;d been one of the people who reported this particular DIA assessment.
<blockquote>Griffin: Do you have certainty that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordo mountain, or some of it, because there were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days in advance. Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved?</blockquote>
<blockquote>Hegseth: Of course, we&#8217;re watching every single aspect. But, Jennifer, you&#8217;ve been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally what the president says.
Griffin: I was reporting about the ventilation shafts on Saturday night. And in fact, I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy. So I take issue with that.
Hegseth: I appreciate you acknowledging that this was the most successful mission, based on operational security, that this department has done since you&#8217;ve been here. I appreciate that. So, we&#8217;re looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was what.</blockquote>
Hegseth got feisty with the media, and a lot of it was deserved. Some of the questions he was asked were absolutely ridiculous. He was asked by a reporter about the fact that he had suggested that it was “brave boys” who flew the plane when one of the people in the plane was a woman, and here was his response:
<blockquote>So when I say something like our boys and bombers, see, this is the kind of thing the press does, right? Of course. The chairman mentioned a female bomber pilot. That&#8217;s fantastic. She&#8217;s fantastic. She&#8217;s a hero. I want more female bomber pilots. I hope the men and women of our country sign up to do such brave and audacious things.
But when you spin it as, because I say “our boys,” — and bombers is a common phrase — I&#8217;ll keep saying things like that, whether they&#8217;re men or women. Very proud of that female pilot. Just like I&#8217;m very proud of those male pilots. And I don&#8217;t care if it&#8217;s a male or a female in that cockpit, and the American people don&#8217;t care. But it&#8217;s the obsession with race and gender in this department that&#8217;s changed priorities. And we don&#8217;t do that anymore. We don&#8217;t play your little games.</blockquote>
You could see how deeply, deeply annoyed Hegseth was along with the entire administration, having to explain that when you drop 12 bunker-busters on an Iranian nuclear site and destroy their nuclear facilities — or at the very least render them completely inoperable — and then the media lie about it and seek any speck of information to discredit that — it is deeply annoying.
And it should be deeply annoying. The media refuse to give President Trump the win he deeply deserves.
Simply put, they are trash.

Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth Holds Pentagon Press Conference On Iran Strikes

Hegseth Wrecks Trump-Hating Media

Department of Defense

Iran Airstrike

Legacy Media

Pentagon

Pete Hegseth

Hollywood stars have taken a knee on the “Trump is Hitler” meme, pivoting to the men and women of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/immigration-and-customs-enforcement-ice">ICE</a> (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
A gaggle of notable names have ridiculed ICE for daring to enforce the nation’s immigration laws — laws supported by a majority of U.S. voters.
The agents, to date, have mostly focused on the worst offenders. Think illegal immigrants accused of heinous crimes who managed to remain free during the Biden administration.
Now, they’re being targeted by President Trump’s no-nonsense border czar Tom Homan. And progressive stars are raging everywhere they can against Team Homan. Late-night TV. Social media. Interviews.
<div id="attachment_940257" style="width: 872px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-940257" class="size-large wp-image-940257" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2170596134-862x576.jpg" alt="TORONTO, ONTARIO - SEPTEMBER 06: Stephen King attends the premiere of &quot;The Life of Chuck&quot; during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival at Princess of Wales Theatre on September 06, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Olivia Wong/Getty Images)" width="862" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2170596134-862x576.jpg 862w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2170596134-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2170596134-768x513.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2170596134.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 862px) 100vw, 862px" />Olivia Wong/Getty Images</div>
Stephen King played <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:h7obn4tkp47wn7gqh4oe5eij/post/3lrxwo2xx322u?ref_src=embed">the Nazi card</a> against ICE officials from the progressive Utopia known as BlueSky, including a misspell of “Gestapo.”
<blockquote>ICE looking more and more like the American Gestpo [sic].</blockquote>
Comedian Patton Oswalt used less incendiary rhetoric, by comparison, to light up ICE during a recent “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” appearance.
Oswalt called them “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YISQeVMl7RE">Pillsbury Stormtroopers</a>,” comparing their alleged physiques to his own lumpy form.
<blockquote>Your knees are hurting, your hips are screaming, and your back is aching … And you’re thinking, ‘Why didn’t I just stay home and play Red Dead Redemption and eat Sun Chips instead of coming out here in the heat where everyone’s booing me and I’m realizing that I’m the biggest douchebag on the planet?’</blockquote>
Oswalt’s rhetoric grew uglier when it came to Trump’s border czar. The “Ratatouille” star, after hearing about death threats tied to Homan, weighed in <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bwvd55e4hsxpuxa5ikrfgqgo/post/3lshyjaky722d?ref_src=embed">via BlueSky</a>.
<blockquote>good. i hope it gets so much worse for this rancid pile of polenta.</blockquote>
The far-Left hosts at “The View” couldn’t let the ICE raids go unnoticed. The ABC squad saw the chaos encircling Los Angeles earlier this month during the open borders protests and found the <a href="https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/06/10/view-la-riots-were-peaceful-days-ice-brought-crisis">source of the problem</a>.
They pointed to the ICE agents, not the protesters burning cars and hurling bricks at law enforcement officers.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg says the city’s pro-illegal immigration rallies were “mostly peaceful” until ICE agents arrived on the scene. She leaned on impeccable sources for her wisdom.
<blockquote>…suddenly these guys showed up and flipped everybody out. So, that&#8217;s what my family is saying.</blockquote>
Sunny Hostin chimed in, playing the “mostly peaceful” card and backing up Goldberg’s anti-ICE assessment.
Credit pop superstar Lizzo with the most deranged take on the matter.
She claimed “illegal” immigrants <a href="https://news.meaww.com/lizzo-sparks-backlash-over-no-such-thing-as-illegal-no-borders-anti-ice-rant-avoid-this-thinking">aren’t real</a> because no one actually owns land.
<blockquote>When people finally understand that these terms and ideas are tools for racism and capitalism we can truly be free. We can finally see the oppressors for who they are.</blockquote>
Sometimes, profanity is a celebrity’s best friend. Take Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny. He <a href="https://variety.com/2025/music/news/bad-bunny-calls-out-ice-video-puerto-rico-raids-1236434813/">blasted ICE agents</a> as “motherf****rs” in a Spanish screed on Instagram, tied to a video of agents interrogating unnamed people.
“Look, those motherf——s are in these cars, RAV-4s. They’re here in Pontezuela,” he posted in Spanish.
<div id="attachment_940265" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-940265" class="size-large wp-image-940265" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221235471-864x576.jpg" alt="The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Rep. Maxwell Frost during Thursday's June 19, 2025 show. (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221235471-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221235471-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221235471-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2221235471.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images</div>
Not to be outdone, “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert didn’t step in when one of his guests promoted extreme rhetoric from the show’s signature CBS couch. Instead, he piled on.
Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) told the far-Left host ICE agents are <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/06/20/stephen-colbert-parrots-dem-rep-max-frosts-claim-ice-illegal-alien-arrests-look-like-kidnapping/">“kidnapping people.”</a>
<blockquote>We have ICE federal agents pulling up, terrorizing our communities, hopping out of unmarked vans, stealing and yes, kidnapping people, not giving them their day in court and yes, human trafficking them to other nations.</blockquote>
Colbert nodded along, doubling down on the kidnapping verbiage.
<h3><a href="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/">JULY 4 SALE: Get Six Months Of DW+ Free</a></h3>
Pop superstar and “Wicked” alum Ariana Grande <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/fans-call-deport-ariana-grande-223000803.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAF9fz-2bDSEpBRzMDd4UR-7ykCkPfQfpu70OuyRrt3j4byjEGiYJ3tGZZOMNgKx5mQICLWu2lzofdi-_5RFeduexyS7EZfd74zFjiJkwBUN-GTzEmNG613Ev4_ZAoYBEHxv4XH70AONldMD0nHVsHaRm4uZa-6iw905c5TO7gsOH">conflated illegal immigration</a> with lawfare attacks against President Trump to her 270+ million Instagram followers.
<blockquote>Could someone explain which crimes get you deported and which ones get you elected president? It’s so confusing.</blockquote>
Veteran singer Shakira leaned into the fear-mongering part of the celebrity playbook, also conflating legal and illegal immigration during a BBC interview.
She described the immigrant experience as “<a href="https://variety.com/2025/music/news/shakira-immigrant-united-states-constant-fear-1236432560/">living in constant fear</a>.”
<blockquote>Now, more than ever, we have to remain united. Now, more than ever, we have to raise our voices and make it very clear that a country can change its immigration policies, but the treatment of all people must always be humane.</blockquote>
Mark Ruffalo, one of the most outspoken stars in the Hollywood galaxy, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/mark-ruffalo-jimmy-kimmel-more-stars-protests-no-kings-1236291157/">railed against ICE efforts</a> during California’s “No Kings” June 14 protest.
<blockquote>We see a president who has made himself a king and dictator, and we don’t see an opposition that’s powerful enough to stand up against the trampling of our rights and the trampling of the Constitution that’s happening every single day with executive orders, with the refusal to obey court orders, kidnapping of immigrants, people who are here legally, people who their children are being taken from them.</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_936573" style="width: 903px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-936573" class="size-large wp-image-936573" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Mark-Ruffalo-893x576.jpg" alt="Mark Ruffalo" width="893" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Mark-Ruffalo-893x576.jpg 893w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Mark-Ruffalo-300x194.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Mark-Ruffalo-768x495.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Mark-Ruffalo.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 893px) 100vw, 893px" />Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival</div>
Celebrity Nation decried the January 6 riot and demanded protesters pay a stiff price for battling beleaguered Capitol Police officers. Things are different now, apparently. They could have objected to ICE raids on different grounds, suggesting that hard-working illegals should find a path to citizenship, not a one-way ticket out of the U.S.
Instead, in the grand “Spinal Tap” tradition, they turned the incendiary rhetoric up to 11.
Worst of all, none of this is happening in a vacuum. The Department of Homeland Security says attacks on ICE agents have shot up <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/assaults-on-ice-agents-increase-500?author=Catherine+Maxwell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Assaults+on+ICE+Agents+Increase+500%25">500% in recent weeks</a>. ICE agents are routinely doxxed, forcing them to mask up to protect their loved ones.
The stars won’t stop their incendiary rhetoric, apparently, even if it gets someone hurt. Or worse.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation’s Pioneer Dinner Honoring Greta Gerwig

The ICE Men Cometh — And Hollywood Comes Unglued

Ariana Grande

Celebrities

Hollywood

Lizzo

Mark Ruffalo

Patton Oswalt

Stephen King

Tom Homan

Anyone following the news in recent months has likely heard that there is a constitutional crisis going on. Anyone paying close attention, not to the hysterical headlines but to the actual legal issues at play, should understand that there is indeed a constitutional crisis, but it has nothing to do with Trump being a tyrant. No, the real crisis is not in the executive branch. The crisis stems from <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#3">Article III</a> of the U.S. Constitution, which states that “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” (emphasis added). In case it isn’t clear, judicial power is invested in the Supreme Court. All other federal courts are created by statute (they have no necessary constitutional right to exist) and are inferior to the Supreme Court.
Yet, an observer might be forgiven for thinking this is not the case. The federal district courts (which have jurisdiction over a particular district within a state and are subject to the rulings of the higher courts, especially the U.S. Supreme Court) seem to have almost unlimited control over the rule of law in America today. This is indeed a crisis.
It is a problem when district courts, who are supposed to decide particular cases about the parties before them, somehow have jurisdiction to issue nationwide rulings that thwart the president’s agenda all across the country. But it is quite another problem, a more dire and disturbing one, when district courts not only attempt to govern the country but directly subvert the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, to whom these district courts are inferior.
There are many egregious instances of federal district courts running wild. For example, on April 4 the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a910_f2bh.pdf">vacated a decision</a> by a Massachusetts district court. The district court attempted to apply a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Trump administration from terminating various education-related grants. The district court’s order also required “the Government to pay out past-due grant obligations and to continue paying obligations as they accrue.” The Court reasoned that the administration’s order should stay in place until the final resolution of the case, because if the administration prevailed they would never see those grant funds returned and the education programs had sufficient money to continue operating without those disputed grants. Therefore, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court’s restraining order and allowed the administration to freeze the grant funds until the final decision was made.
Yet the fight to stop the Trump administration from defunding and dismantling the Department of Education continues. Just a couple weeks later, a Connecticut <a href="https://ctmirror.org/2025/04/24/dei-education-funding-trump/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">district court blocked</a> the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to schools that continue to implement DEI programs. And in May, another district judge in Massachusetts <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/judge-blocks-trumps-executive-order-to-dismantle-education-department">blocked</a> the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
In the most recent and perhaps most troubling example, on June 23 the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_l5gm.pdf">stayed a preliminary injunction</a>. The injunction attempted to stop the administration from holding suspected illegal immigrants in “third countries” (neither the United States nor the country of origin, which often will not take these people back). Yet after the Supreme Court vacated the district court injunction, the district judge <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2025/06/sotomayor-outlawyers-supreme-court-majority-in-shadow-docket-deportation-ruling/">immediately &#8220;clarified&#8221;</a> that his pause on these third country deportations is still in effect. How? Well, he relied on Justice Sotomayor’s dissent from the Supreme Court ruling and claimed that his order was not properly before the Supreme Court in the first place.
We are watching a dangerous game playing out here. The Supreme Court (the court with actual judicial authority under the U.S. Constitution) says that a district judge may not stop the Trump administration from freezing Department of Education funds, then district courts continue stopping those types of actions. The Supreme Court says the district court may not stop the removal of illegal aliens to third countries, then the district court claims that its orders preventing those same deportations remain in effect. One can quibble about procedure, but the reality is the Supreme Court’s rulings are being boldly and disturbingly undermined by inferior courts.
Two things to note. First, it is troubling that the lower courts are relying on dissents to thwart the rulings of the Supreme Court. That is not how law works. Dissenting opinions simply do not have force of law and they cannot be relied upon in undermining the majority opinions of the Supreme Court.
Second, the Supreme Court’s actions in these cases are quite modest: the court is vacating the lower courts’ extreme choice to stop the Trump administration’s actions while the cases are still being decided. The Supreme Court is not issuing final decisions; it is simply saying that lower courts need to stop interfering with every action the administration takes until the courts actually rule on these cases. This is a prudent action in the face of activist courts trying to thwart the actions of the people’s president.
The Supreme Court has the power to decide what the law says. The Court is doing just that and, often, what the Court is saying is that the Trump administration has the power to make executive decisions that cannot be stopped by activist district court judges.
Federal district courts are frankly out of control. The U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/122-contempt-of-the-supreme-court">has the power</a> to hold people in contempt who disobey the Court’s orders. That power should extend to lower court judges who are clearly doing just that. Perhaps desperate times call for desperate measures and this is what it will take to rein in the out-of-control actions of renegade district judges.
* * *
Frank DeVito is Senior Counsel and Director of Content at the Napa Legal Institute. His work has previously been published in The American Conservative, the Federalist, Public Discourse, the Daily Wire, First Things, and several other publications. He lives in eastern Pennsylvania with his wife and children. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily his employer.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

U.S. Supreme Court Allows South Carolina To Block Medicaid Funds To Planned Parenthood

Tyranny From Below: How Activist Judges Defy The Supreme Court

Courts

Judiciary

Leftists

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

The Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions suffered a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-israeli-intel-confirms-total-obliteration-of-iranian-nuclear-sites">serious blow</a> last weekend but its hold over the Iranian people has only tightened. Mistaking tactical success in striking nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan for strategic victory would only repeat decades of Western policy errors. Deterrence alone is insufficient without a clearly articulated policy of sustained pressure. Now is not the time for withdrawal.
The recent strikes were necessary but not regime-ending — they served as a tactical check. True deterrence requires sustained, visible consequences. The Islamic Republic is regrouping.
Abroad, Tehran didn’t just issue threats — it launched missiles at the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-weighs-retaliation-against-us-strikes-nuclear-sites-2025-06-23/">U.S. base</a> in al-Udeid, Qatar. The regime also sent a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/u-s-officials-iran-threatened-terror-attacks-inside-u-s-242058821681">warning</a> to the Trump administration via G7 intermediaries, threatening to activate sleeper cells on American soil. The Department of Homeland Security has placed regime-linked individuals under watch, while <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-urges-americans-sweden-remain-vigilant-citing-threat-attack-2025-06-23/">the State Department</a> confirmed Tehran is mobilizing operatives in Sweden to target Americans and Israelis — signaling its intent to export terror across the West.
At home, the regime has escalated repression, militarized cities, and launched an aggressive surveillance campaign. Inside Iran, fear dominates daily life. Armed IRGC <a href="https://x.com/RichardGrenell/status/1936771750106390725">checkpoints</a> every kilometer control movement. Phones are searched, homes raided, and civilians arrested without due process. The regime has executed dozens over the past several days — some accused of spreading protest videos, others targeted for mere association with opposition voices. These are not signs of strength — but symptoms of a regime in existential panic, terrified of its own population.
Compounding its repression, the regime <a href="https://www.fdd.org/in_the_news/2025/06/21/iranian-regime-launches-nationwide-internet-blackout/">imposed</a> an unprecedented information blackout. Internet access has been severed and landline usage severely restricted. Millions are sealed inside a controlled propaganda bubble, told only that Israel and America attacked without provocation. Cut off from truth and external leadership, Iranians face the regime’s lies alone.
Strategic clarity, not caution, must guide American policy now. This is not a call for American boots on Iranian soil but rather a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-tactical-trap-why-its-time-to-flip-the-script-on-iran?author=Aidin+Panahi&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=A+Tactical+Trap.+Why+It%E2%80%99s+Time+To+Flip+The+Script+On+Iran.">strategic opportunity</a> to amplify internal resistance, weaken the regime’s regional terror infrastructure, and shape Iran’s post-regime landscape to serve American and global interests.
First, Israel must have American diplomatic backing to continue surgical operations targeting IRGC facilities, cyberwarfare centers, and proxy command hubs in strategic locations in the Middle East. These strikes are stabilizing, not escalatory. Eliminating terror infrastructure strategically denies the regime asymmetric retaliation options, directly enhancing American and Israeli security.
Second, Washington must actively counter Tehran’s information warfare. The Iranian people cannot mobilize or resist oppression without access to truth. The Trump Administration and Congress should urgently authorize <a href="https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/internet-access-can-complement-maximum-pressure-on-the-iranian-regime">satellite-based internet</a> coverage over Iran’s urban centers. This effort can be funded using Iran’s frozen assets — redirecting the regime’s own resources to empower its people. Under the existing Iran Human Rights and Democracy Promotion Act, Congress has both the legal authority and the moral obligation to provide these resources without delay.
Third, the U.S. and its allies must coalesce around a credible Iranian transitional figure to minimize post-collapse chaos. <a href="https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/the-u-s-must-engage-with-reza-pahlavi">Reza Pahlavi</a>, whose consistent advocacy for secular democracy, human rights, and a national referendum has won respect among diverse Iranian demographics, offers exactly that credibility. Recognizing him publicly as part of a transitional governing council provides clarity to the Iranian opposition movement and stabilizes the inevitable regime transition.
For Americans who ask, &#8220;Why should we care?&#8221; — the answer is starkly evident. The Islamic Republic directly undermines American interests globally. It funds militias killing American servicemen in Iraq, orchestrates terror plots in Europe and Latin America, and destabilizes oil markets critical to U.S. economic security. A liberated Iran would cease destabilizing the Middle East, ending costly American military deployments aimed at containing Iranian aggression.
A free, stable Iran could emerge as a critical U.S. partner, anchoring stability in a troubled region rather than fueling its conflicts. No longer under IRGC control, Iran would abandon terror networks and normalize maritime trade in the Persian Gulf — directly enhancing global economic stability and reducing burdens on American naval forces.
President Trump’s decision to authorize precision strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites was strategically prudent and tactically effective. However, this is only the first step. The regime’s nuclear infrastructure is damaged, but its radical ideology and authoritarian apparatus remain firmly entrenched. America’s response should now be escalatory pressure, not premature diplomacy or concessions.
If America hesitates now, history proves the price of inaction: prolonged conflict, strengthened terror proxies, and sustained threats to regional stability. The regime has not been this vulnerable since the 1979 revolution. Failure to capitalize on this vulnerability would perpetuate instability, embolden Tehran’s hardliners, and sustain conflicts draining American resources.
America does not need to rebuild Iran; Iranians themselves will handle reconstruction. They simply require the opportunity. No more negotiations with a regime that systematically abuses human rights, supports terrorism, and openly mocks diplomatic engagement. A free Iran, aligned with Western values and open markets, would attract massive global investment — and American businesses will be among the first to benefit.
This strategy does not mean invasion or occupation. It represents coordinated external pressure combined with an internal Iranian awakening. Without deploying American troops, the United States can ignite the spark that ends one of the last ideological threats on earth.
Now is the time to finally make Iran great again — for the sake of freedom, regional stability, and American strategic dominance. A free Iran advances the MAGA agenda by eliminating a major source of global chaos. History will remember those who acted decisively when the regime was weakest and liberty was within reach.
* * *
Dr. Aidin Panahi is an Iranian-American research professor, energy expert, and political activist. He is the cofounder of the “From Boston to Iran” initiative and his analyses on security and policy issues have appeared in outlets including The Jerusalem Post, Washington Times, the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, Middle East Forum, Homeland Security Today, and Visegrád24. X: @Aidin_FreeIran
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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