Iran Forgot One Thing: Trump Doesn't Care

Here are the news stories that deserve your attention for the week August 9, 2026:

#1) War on Iran

At the start of the US–Israeli war on Iran, I made a social media video about how Iran's strategy was to embrace the idea of asymmetric warfare to force the US into defeat.

Its very name, of course — asymmetric — signals that the two sides are not equal. The tactic involves the "weaker" side (Iran) using unconventional strategies and white-knuckling it long enough for the stronger side (the US and Israel) to grow tired and walk away because of everything it has to lose. I compared it to a "Home Alone" strategy — which, if you're of a certain age or have kids, you'll remember: an 8-year-old Kevin McCallister warding off middle-aged burglars with homemade booby traps involving paint cans, glue, fans, bird feathers, toys, and a clothing iron — proving you don't have to be bigger, just strategic, with an unnerving resolve to defend your homeland.

Iran calculated that after weeks — maybe even a couple of months — of economic and political instability threatening his approval ratings and his party's midterm election chances, Trump would give in, gaslight the world into thinking he'd achieved victory, and walk away – hopefully never to bother with Iran again. And yet, despite numerous opportunities to do so over the last five months, he hasn't.

What I — and Iran, apparently — underestimated is just how much Trump doesn't care. But also, how much he overestimates his ability to fix things in his favor.

The war's toll has been devastating. High gas prices. Skyrocketing grocery bills. A stalling economy. His own dismal approval ratings and his party's flailing midterm chances. Eighteen dead US troops and hundreds more wounded. Thousands of dead Iranian civilians, including 120 children in a single school strike in Minab, Iran — an attack that, according to numerous independent investigations, the US carried out and has yet to take responsibility for.

Trump is unmoved.

Maybe it's because he thinks he can "fix" everything — and by "fix" I don't mean repair, I mean rig: from quietly stealing your voting rights (more on this below), to manipulating numbers so the war doesn't look as bad as it is, to simply gaslighting you into believing that what you see with your own two eyes — or hear first-hand — isn't real.

The toll of the war and Trump's attempts to shape the narrative around it were on full display in the biggest story this week: Thousands of US service members who continue to serve in Trump and Netanyahu's endless, meandering, illegal, stupid war are suffering as they live and breathe. And Trump? He doesn't care... And he wants you to think it's not real.

• The USS Abraham Lincoln, with 5,000 service members on board, has been deployed for 268 days as of this writing — two months longer than they were told – and it hasn't made a port call in roughly 200 days, setting a record for consecutive days at sea, according to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The ship left port in November, made a port call in December, and hasn't pulled into one since. Axios reports that port calls should happen every 30–45 days.
  • Last week, MS NOW reported that frustrated military families met with acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao in a "combative face-to-face" confrontation in early August. Their loved ones aboard the Lincoln were suffering from mental health issues and dealing with unsanitary conditions, a lack of proper nutrition, safety concerns, and mail disruptions "which have caused many care packages en route to the ship to be lost in transit for months," they said. One parent told Cao their daughter was so distraught she said she thought she would "die on the ship."
  • At the time, MS NOW reports that "Cao was unable to specify when that relief would come, citing operational security." But two sources said Cao told them the Lincoln would be replaced by the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
  • Then, Stars and Stripes reported first-hand accounts that "describe sailors struggling with exhaustion and declining morale, including reports of suicidal thoughts and at least one instance where a crew member was prevented from jumping overboard."
  • The wife of one crew member who tried to jump overboard but was stopped — it's unclear whether this is the same incident — Annabelle Loma, told the Military Times:

"'He's scared,' Loma said. 'He thinks he'll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out, his 13-year career is ruined, just like that. That's not fair, that's not right. That's not what he should be worrying about right now.'" Her husband is currently on a "medical hold."

• This week, CNN reported that one desperate service member actually did jump overboard, but was later rescued.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's response? He called the reports "completely misrepresented."
• Trump said he didn't think the carrier had been deployed "nearly long enough." When asked about military families worried about their loved ones on board the ship, Trump replied: "No, they're not."
• On Friday, Cao said the Lincoln would "return home" on a "planned rotation" — the same one he couldn't tell families about just two weeks ago? "Mission accomplishment. Troop welfare. This is how we lead," he said, accusing the "media" of "trying to paint our warriors as victims." No — their families and the media know they're human.
• The WSJ reported on Friday that it won't be the Roosevelt — as Cao reportedly said earlier — but the USS George Washington that will replace the Lincoln. MS NOW reports that the switch was made because of public pressure. Maybe the Washington can get there faster than the Roosevelt, but the switch carries risks, too:
  • The Washington, based in Yokosuka, Japan, had been operating in the South China Sea in recent weeks — even making a port call in Vietnam — as part of how the US counters Chinese influence in the Pacific. Moving it to the Middle East leaves a temporary void in the Pacific, where China has deployed its own aircraft carrier and is working to exert influence over its neighbors, especially amid concerns that Beijing could one day try to take Taiwan, which the US has vowed to defend. "Having an aircraft carrier permanently based in the Indo-Pacific improves the time it takes a Navy carrier to respond to a threat in the area by more than two weeks, according to the Navy," MS NOW reports.
• Blumenthal sent a letter to Hegseth and Cao to "express serious concerns" about the Lincoln and the fact that this appears to be a pattern.

"The Lincoln is not an isolated case. Recent carrier deployments have repeatedly stretched beyond their originally anticipated durations, suggesting that extended deployments may be becoming a feature rather than an exception of the Navy's force-generation model. The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) spent 326 days at sea before returning home in May — nearly twice the length of a traditional six-month carrier deployment and the longest modern U.S. carrier deployment since the Vietnam era."

What will these troops have to say then they return home? All 5,000 of them? And will Trump be loud enough to drown them all out?

Also, this week we learned that:

• As he was leaving the NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye last month, Trump boarded Air Force One in full view of the cameras, disappeared from view, then hopped onto a catering truck parked on the other side of the plane. He was driven to another plane, which he secretly boarded to fly to the UK. When he landed, he discreetly got off that plane, somehow made it back to Air Force One, and walked down the stairs in front of cameras as if he'd been there all along, The Washington Post reported. 🎁 (You are probably better off reading this than me trying to explain it – and there are pictures!)

"The clandestine mission, which has not been reported previously, was carried out unbeknownst to journalists and some White House staff members who believed they were on the same plane as the president," the paper reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.

• Presidents have done this kind of thin before just not to this degree and it makes for a good story. But, the important part is why this happened.
  • Reuters reports that the US was responding to a threat from Iran. The intel came from Israel — which has peddled similar threats to Trump over the past year, all around the times when the US and Iran seemed close to a deal and to ending the war. Remember: Netanyahu and his cabal of cabinet ministers benefit from a handicapped Iran, and who better to do the dirty work for them — while they destroy Lebanon in the shadows — than a Trump-led US? Netanyahu convinced Trump 🎁 to launch the war on Iran in February — and has since tried to keep him bogged down in it.

The pattern: "The warnings, passed to U.S. intelligence agencies and in some cases relayed directly by Israeli officials to senior White House officials, included possible plots to shoot Trump with a sniper or recruit someone to attack him with a knife at a large public event, the sources said. The tips began in the lead-up to the 12-day war in June 2025 and intensified prior to the U.S. decision to go to war in Iran in February, the sources said."

• Reuters adds that the CIA "has not been able to corroborate some of the specific threats against Trump's life shared by Israeli intelligence since early last year, the officials said." (Emphasis added here by me).

Related:

• War Continues to Deplete US Weapons Arsenal. The US has lost 25% of its arsenal of MQ-9 Reaper drones in its war on Iran, The Washington Post reports. The low-flying, remotely piloted drones are useful for intelligence gathering but can also strike high-value targets, according to the Air Force. Each costs about $30–50 million, and replacing the roughly 45 that have been destroyed — deployed near the Strait of Hormuz — will cost taxpayers at least $1.3 billion. "The shortages have appeared to embolden Iran, which has intensified its demands for control of the Strait of Hormuz and reparations for damage the country has sustained since Trump ordered the start of hostilities on Feb. 28," the Post reports. The Pentagon wouldn't comment on the story.
  • This is part of a broader pattern of dwindling munitions needed to protect the US and its allies from various threats. "In the Iran campaign's first month, U.S. forces fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles and more than 1,000 Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles, significantly cutting into stockpiles of a key long-range strike capability and the military's most in-demand air-defense systems, The Post reported previously."
  • It will take years to replace what has been lost in an illegal, ill-conceived, poorly planned war that has done nothing to keep anyone safer. We're burning through munitions — needed for both offense and defense — far faster than they can be replaced. The Pentagon is now asking Congress for $67 billion to replenish the stockpiles it has used up.

• US Oil Reserves are in Danger. On March 11 — just under two weeks after the US and Israel attacked Iran and Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil used to pass — Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued a press release announcing that Trump had approved the release of 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) over the coming months. "Rest assured, America's energy security is as strong as ever," Wright said.
  • At the time, Wright also claimed that "the United States has arranged to more than replace these strategic reserves with approximately 200 million barrels within the next year — 20% more barrels than will be drawn down — and at no cost to the taxpayer." (The government never said how it planned to replenish those stockpiles — and as best I can tell, the US has never once added 200 million barrels in a single year.)
  • More than five months later, the SPR's reserves have fallen below a critical fail-safe point, nothing has been added, the war is still ongoing, and the Strait of Hormuz is still blocked.
  • The government has released 116.6 of the 172 million barrels so far. The amount of oil stored in the SPR is now below 300 million barrels — the lowest since January 1983, 43 years ago. If they release the remaining 55 million barrels, that number will drop to around 243 million.
  • The oil is stored in 60 salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas. As this CNBC article clearly explains, those salt caverns must be kept filled to a minimum level of oil to maintain their structural integrity. The Trump administration claims that floor is 70 million barrels. "'Don't believe the people out of the government that are saying the SPR can go to 70 million barrels. It's nonsense,' former Biden official Amos Hochstein told CNBC's 'Squawk Box' Thursday. At that level, the reserve would be depleted to 'the point of never resurrecting it,' he said. Depleting the reserve below 300 million barrels risks damage to the caverns," he warned.

"Both sides of the political aisle have voiced worries about the integrity of the salt caverns. Republican lawmakers raised those concerns when the Biden administration released a record 180 million barrels in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The SPR fell below 350 million barrels in 2023 under Biden. It was refilled to around 415 million barrels before the Iran war."

• And there's a seasonal wrinkle: the SPR sits on the Gulf Coast, right in hurricane alley and next door to nearly half of America's refining capacity. A major storm could take those refineries offline and spike demand for exactly the kind of emergency release the SPR exists for — just as the reserve hits a 43-year low.
• Meanwhile, Wright claimed this week that the US is averaging 9 million barrels of oil a day out of the Strait — except no one can verify that. In fact, they say it's much lower. "Just 84 total vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz last week — including only nine on Sunday, according to Kpler, an oil-market data service that uses satellite imagery and shipping transponders to provide up-to-date crude-flow information. That's down from more than 100 transits a day before the war, and not nearly enough to carry the 9 million barrels per day that Wright claims has been traveling through the waterway," CNN reports.
• The US military killed at least 153 civilians in Yemen and injured 243 more across three strikes targeting Houthis last April, the AP reports, citing a Pentagon assessment. "Civilian casualties from U.S. military operations have drawn concerns, including from lawmakers in Congress, after a U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school in the opening days of this year's war, killing up to 168 people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is said to have slashed the size of an office focused on reducing civilian harm, the AP has reported."
• Gulf allies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait are frustrated with Trump's manic handling of the war — so much so that they "have begun to debate the utility of continuing to host large U.S. military installations on their territory… These dynamics are unlikely in the near term to significantly reorder the region, analysts say, but some countries have begun to explore their options," The Washington Post reports.
• So, like, are we working on peace with Iran? Apparently, we're letting peace come to us. Last week, Trump said he's "low-keying" it in an interview with Axios. "We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money."
• Meanwhile, Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz, despite Trump's claims that it's open for business.
• Oh, and also the administration's goals for the war keep changing. On Thursday, JD Vance told Fox News that the primary goal of the war is to "keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country… And then, obviously, goal number two is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon." Keeping nukes out of Iran's hands is now number TWO?

2) The occupied West Bank + Gaza

Israeli settler-terrorist violence is escalating in the illegally occupied West Bank, while Israel continues to violate the ceasefire deal and — as predicted — keeps moving the goalposts, because peace was never part of the plan.

This week in the West Bank:

• Israeli settler-terrorists surrounded the homes of three families in the West Bank — including one owned by an American — cutting off their access to electricity and water while the Israeli military watched, refusing to act for days.
  • Instead of helping, The Washington Post reports, the Israeli "soldiers drank coffee and prayed with the assailants." Days later, the soldiers tried to disperse the settlers but didn't succeed — or perhaps didn't try that hard.
  • In an interesting turn, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee — a staunch Israeli ally and Zionist — called the situation a "horrific act of terror" and defended the US against claims that it did nothing to stop it. After about six days, the settlers left.
  • This is just one of hundreds of attacks on Palestinians in the illegally Israeli-occupied territory this week.
• At least 355 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, the UN reported this week, "facing harsh conditions, mistreatment, and inadequate nutrition."
• Israel is holding as many as 1,700 Palestinian bodies as "bargaining chips," Haaretz reports. The paper says "the vast majority of the remains are of Palestinians who participated in the October 7 massacre, but some are of noninvolved Palestinians and 13 are of Israeli citizens."

In Gaza:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a plan brokered between the US-led, Trump-controlled Board of Peace and Hamas, under which Hamas would gradually disarm as Israel withdraws from Palestinian land in Gaza. Netanyahu said Israel "will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed." It's unclear what he means by "genuinely."
  • Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner — who, I'll remind you, is a real estate developer with zero diplomatic or regional expertise, and who refuses to disclose his financial records as he's required to when acting as a government official — is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to discuss what to do next, Al Jazeera reports. At least one representative from Hamas is expected to attend. Kushner has also been running the Iran talks alongside Steve Witkoff — and we see how well that's going.
  • Why won't Israel leave Gaza? Probably because it has bigger plans. Drop Site News reports that Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Netanyahu have green-lit a plan to build what are essentially concentration camps in Gaza for Palestinians that "Israel deems outside Hamas control." It's being referred to as "Green Rafah." Netanyahu's office disputed the report. Netanyahu also faces re-election in October, and part of his coalition will not support him if he gives an inch in Gaza.
• Netanyahu also continues to violate a US-brokered October 2025 ceasefire agreement with Hamas: Israel keeps killing people, occupying more land and blocking humanitarian aid.
  • Doctors Without Borders reports this week that Israel is blocking parts needed to run hospital generators (Israel has cut electricity significantly), ambulances, and water pumps. The price of what is available has skyrocketed.
  • Cancer patients in Gaza are dying at a rate two to three times higher than before Israel's genocide began, Reuters reports. Israel — after destroying hospitals, including the enclave's only cancer center — is blocking people from traveling to Egypt for treatment. Compounding the situation, one doctor tells Reuters that cancer is "spreading at a faster rate due to the presence of toxic materials from Israeli explosives dropped on Gaza."

Related:

• In Lebanon — where there is supposed to be a ceasefire — Israel is deliberately starting wildfires, The Guardian reports. "On Tuesday, the Israeli military dropped flares in a wooded area outside Khiam, in south Lebanon, sparking blazes. When firefighters attempted to extinguish the flames, a drone struck close by, forcing them to withdraw, said the head of the civil defence in the Nabatieh region, Hussein Fakih."

• When asked whether he'd considered declaring a "national security emergency" for November's elections — in an interview with some guy named Wayne Allyn Root — Trump said "stranger things have happened," implying it's a possibility. (Skip to about 25:22 at the link above to hear it.)
  • Under the Constitution, states run elections. Declaring a national emergency would hand that control to the federal government (read: Trump). That could look like deploying the National Guard and/or ICE to intimidate people at the polls, prevent others from voting, or impose requirements individual states don't currently have. It would inject chaos and fear into a process that — until Trump came into the picture — was imperfect but effective and good.
  • Dismissing this as Trump bluster is a mistake. We know he has regrets about 2020 — an election he still claims to have won, despite not having done so. In January, Trump told The New York Times that he regrets not using the National Guard to seize voting machines and ballots in swing states in 2020, so that he could oversee a "recount." You know what they say — hindsight is 20/20. And now, Trump is also surrounded by like-minded sycophants, the competent kind.
  • Trump is also running out of time for a game plan and desperate people call for desperate measures. Congress will likely not pass the SAVE Act — which would require proof of citizenship to vote — something Trump was banking on to rig the midterms. Even Republicans aren't sold on it, and Congress is on recess until mid-September.
• Trump issued an executive order calling to overhaul the childhood vaccination schedule.
  • The order "recommends" cutting the number of childhood vaccinations from 18 diseases to 11 (falsely claiming they cause autism) and splitting the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) into three separate shots given at separate visits (falsely claiming the combined shot is "quite lethal"). But there are currently no standalone single-disease vaccines for measles, mumps, or rubella in the US — only the combined MMR shot exists — so splitting it into three is not medically possible as things stand.
  • The order also directs the Justice Department and HHS to make sure anyone they work with adheres to it, and to take legal action against any state laws that interfere.
  • The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) called the order "unscientific" and "dangerous." AAP President Dr. Andrew Racine said: "There is no new evidence to justify significant changes to childhood immunization guidance."
  • Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of HHS, said the order was "wrong" and that Trump doesn't have the "expertise to make these changes."

• The CIA secretly attacked fishing boats off the coast of Ecuador near the Galapagos Islands, The Washington Post reports. At least 8 men aboard one of the boats that was attacked are still missing. At least two survived in another attack. The US denied involvement.

"In interviews with The Post, survivors said that small quadcopter drones either dropped munitions on the vessels or detonated by crashing into them. The men said they were then taken aboard a nearby ship, hooded and cuffed by armed men, and transported to El Salvador — only to be returned later without explanation to Ecuador."

• The Justice Department has concluded that communications between Trump and both government aides and outside advisers about "presidential decisionmaking" are covered by "executive privilege." Why? Per Axios: "Democrats have been planning to bypass expected White House stonewalling by subpoenaing companies, colleges and private citizens if they win enough seats in November. The new opinion could create a new hurdle for Democrats should they retake Congress." Punchbowl broke the news. The decision — if it's allowed to stand — "would let any president, including President Donald Trump, wall off a broad swath of communication from congressional scrutiny. It lands as Democrats look increasingly likely to win back the House — and subpoena power."
• The ACLU has filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship — issued earlier this month — after the Supreme Court told him doing so would violate the 14th Amendment. The civil rights group said Trump's EO is "an improper attempt to evade the US supreme court's 30 June rejection of his first, more sweeping bid to deny automatic citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents."
• ICE is spending $20 million to equip its agents and officers with gloves that electrically shock people on contact with skin, the AP reports. The agency plans to start using them in March 2027. The gloves must be activated by the user first; the company says they don't cause harm but require training and recertification every two years, and should not be used on people who are merely verbally belligerent, or on children, the elderly, or pregnant women.

"Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the public should have no confidence that ICE officers will use the devices appropriately. She questioned why the devices would be necessary for civil immigration enforcement and noted those getting shocked might have no advance warning."

• Despite being ordered to wear body cameras after the shooting deaths of innocent civilians, ICE says it won't release the footage unless it's in their "best interest," the AP reports. The policy "gives its director discretion to release recordings that reflect well on the agency's image while working to keep others secret, experts on body camera policies said."
• Meanwhile, a third person has died at the Delaney detention center in New Jersey since May 2025, The Guardian reports.
• Trump is planning at least $900 million in White House construction projects — and taxpayers will foot most of the bill, The Washington Post reports. This includes the nearly $600 million ballroom, a new helipad, and a visitor screening center. The helipad needs repair — even Biden was working on it. The issue with Trump is that he awards no-bid contracts to unqualified contractors… just look at the Reflecting Pool disaster. (See below)
• BTW, Trump is now asking the Supreme Court to let him build his ballroom, after lower courts ruled he can't without congressional approval. The government wants the Court to let it continue construction while it prepares a full appeal. "Justice Department lawyers, in their filing, echoed Trump's contention that the ballroom project is a security necessity. Citing numerous assassination attempts against Trump, the lawyers described the project as 'vitally required by national security.'"
• Trump has ordered the Navy to ditch a complex, high-tech system for launching jet fighters and go back to… steam, The Wall Street Journal reports. "By doing so, Trump is making good on a promise he made almost 10 years ago to go back to the steam system after hearing a sailor praise it while visiting a ship during his first term." Gee, that seems like a really good reason!

"'I've launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a master's degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot, and even I wouldn't suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships,' said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona."

• After admitting to a judge that a government contractor's shoddy work was likely responsible for damage to the Reflecting Pool, the White House is looking for other ways to prosecute a scapegoat David Hearn, an Olympic canoiest who visited the Reflecting Pool during a bike ride, the WSJ reports.
  • The original charges against Hearn were dropped after US Attorney Jeanine Pirro told the court it was likely the contractor's fault after reviewing "newly released documents" from the Interior Department, led by Doug Burgum.
  • Now, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is "demanding communications between their offices and the White House, along with all documents related to the case, including what was presented to the grand jury," The Hill reports.
• Todd Blanche — Epstein protector, slush-fund defender, and Trump's immoral fixer and former personal attorney — was sworn in this week as the official Attorney General after winning confirmation by one vote.
• Speaking of which, a federal judge is losing patience with Trump's DOJ over its handling of the Epstein files. At a hearing on Thursday, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan pressed government attorneys on whether they'd complied with his orders to justify the redactions in the released files, and reminded them he's held DOJ lawyers in contempt before. When a DOJ official said the information would be "forthcoming," Sullivan shot back, "Christmas is forthcoming," and asked, "You want me to issue another order and say, 'I really mean it this time'?"
  • The case stems from an April lawsuit by journalist Katie Phang, who says Blanche's DOJ violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act — botching redactions, over-redacting others, and withholding documents that refer to Trump. Her attorney calls the strategy "endless delay."
• A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against Harvard University accusing it of antisemitism. The White House filed the suit hoping to claw back billions in government grants paid to Harvard. "Trump officials argued they had a right to recoup the money under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law barring discrimination based on race or national origin… The cases were 'too isolated and episodic' to prove a persistent civil rights violation at the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the judge said."
• Remember when a federal court ruled that Trump couldn't legally rename the Kennedy Center to include his name — that it would take an act of Congress — and the letters had to be removed? Now the Trump-appointed board has voted to inscribe the building with "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump," which would mean it's technically not renamed but has his moniker on the building anyway. "The move appeared to attempt to find a creative workaround to a provision in the federal law governing the Kennedy Center that says "no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas," The New York Times reports. The board also voted to shutter the center for two years' worth of repairs — which is probably an excuse to shut it down because no one wants to perform there.
• A group of Palestinian students from Columbia has filed a class action lawsuit against the school, accusing it of failing to protect them from harassment on campus.
• White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt — who just returned from maternity leave after the birth of her second child — announced she is leaving her post at the end of the month. In a separate post, Trump said Leavitt will become one of his "top outside advisors." No word yet on who will take her place.
  • Some have speculated that Leavitt resigned in anger after she was unwittingly left on the decoy plane while Trump took another young aide with him. Snopes says there's no evidence Leavitt was even on the plane, citing a report from The New York Times' Maggie Haberman.

"Leavitt is the fifth woman in a high-ranking position to leave the Trump administration this year, following Pam Bondi as attorney general, Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer as labor secretary and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. All four have been replaced by men," NBC News points out.

• Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito tells The Wall Street Journal that he is not retiring, despite rumors and speculation that he was going to step down. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that Alito has made up to nearly $3 million from "fossil fuel interests" over the last 19 years and hasn't recused himself from cases where he could stand to benefit. "The findings come as the [S]upreme [C]ourt prepares to take up a case in which the oil companies Suncor Energy and Exxon asked the justices to find that federal law prevents subnational governments from filing lawsuits against fossil fuel producers for the climate-warming effects of their products."

A few midterm and 2028 stories:

• Democrat Abdul El-Sayed won his primary for Michigan's Senate seat — even though the state's establishment Democrats backed his opponent, Haley Stevens, who was also supported by at least $30 million in AIPAC money. If El-Sayed wins in November, he'll be the first Muslim senator in the country's history — and could tip control of the chamber to Democrats.
• Racist, bigoted, and Trump-endorsed candidate Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) lost his primary to Charlie Hatcher. Ogles has said — among many other nasty things — that Muslims "don't belong in American society." When asked "if he had seen footage of Palestinian children killed by US-funded bombs, he said: 'You know what? I think we should kill them all, if that makes you feel better.'" Al Jazeera
• MyPillow founder and Trump friend Mike Lindell lost his primary in Minnesota's gubernatorial race and still refuses to concede, despite trailing by around 11 points.
• The DNC finalized its 2028 primary calendar on Saturday.
  • South Carolina will go first, on January 22, followed by Nevada on February 1.
  • New Hampshire (February 8), New Mexico (February 15), Michigan (February 22), and Virginia (February 29) follow before Super Tuesday on March 7.
  • "Officials including former DNC chair Donna Brazile cited the Supreme Court's dismantling of Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters in advocating for South Carolina to hold the first primary. Democrats in the West made a similar case for Nevada, highlighting its diverse electorate of Latino, Black, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, and Native American voters," The Washington Post reports.
  • The DNC says the new calendar will give more than 5 million more Black and Latino voters a say in selecting candidates than before.

Are you enjoying The Fifth? Please consider sharing it with a friend!

Have suggestions, feedback, questions? Email me at huma@fromthefifth.com