Good morning, everyone. Pete Hegseth is under major fire this morning, and I have exclusive new reporting from service members in the Middle East who are struggling right now in ways the Pentagon does not want you to see.
I’ve been told directly that this reporting has made the Pentagon furious. They do not want this getting out. I’m not naming names, because I will always protect the people who trust me with their stories. But I will not stop. We got this into the mainstream conversation, and we’re not backing off now.
Meanwhile, Hegseth is embracing what can only be called a holy war mentality, injecting Christian nationalism into how this war is being run. At the same time, government surveillance of left-wing groups is expanding. And there’s a lot more.
Here’s the news:
Pete Hegseth Under Fire:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing accusations of lying after claiming reports about worsening conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, including sailors attempting to jump overboard, shortages of basic supplies, and mental health struggles, were “completely misrepresented,” per the Daily Beast. Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Iraq War veteran, said he’s in direct contact with a spouse forwarding her husband’s texts and told Hegseth to “stop lying and fix the problem,” while Rep. Seth Moulton called Hegseth’s comments not credible, noting “this is the guy who lied about his own misuse of classified information” and argued the Navy wouldn’t be rushing to replace the ship if there weren’t a real problem.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for dismissing reports that sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln attempted to jump overboard during the ship’s deployment tied to Trump’s Iran war, calling Hegseth’s response “a disservice and profoundly disrespectful.” Blumenthal warned that the carrier’s record-breaking deployment of more than 200 days, along with the dire conditions crew members have described, is undermining U.S. military readiness.
Family members interviewed by me have described a ship doctor warning the crew needs to reach port before people start “losing their minds,” alongside out-of-service toilets, laundry rooms closed for weeks, and multiple reported overboard attempts, one of which the Navy Times confirmed through a service member’s wife. Hegseth, for his part, told reporters in Panama the military ensures “every ship, every crew, every captain, has everything we can provide,” and said he wants sailors “rotated as quickly as possible.” Here are more testimonials from family members of service members on aircraft carriers:
A service member on another aircraft carrier alongside the Lincoln confirms that the horrific conditions are real:
More from a service member who recently was able to get off of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier:
A mother with three children in the United States military tells me they have not received a single care package sent to them. She tells me their supplies are “extremely low and the living conditions are horrible.” She has one child on the USS Bush, one on the Lincoln, and one on a submarine.
The conditions that service members are experiencing aren’t just at sea. They are on land as well:
Hours later, U.S. Central Command issued a statement that didn’t directly address the specific claims about food or toilets but did confirm one sailor “fell” overboard on August 3 and was safely recovered, while denying separate viral claims that seven sailors died in an onboard brawl or that there’d been a spike in suicidal ideation, calling those specific reports “FALSE.” CENTCOM said the crew “remain resilient and resolved after more than 260 days at sea” and that no service members have died, calling the broader coverage “a disservice to our men and women in uniform.” The Lincoln, carrying 5,000 sailors and Marines who expected to be home by May, is now being relieved by the USS George Washington, according to CNN.
Trump signed a national security memorandum Thursday ordering the Pentagon to redesign the Ford-class carrier USS Doris Miller, already two years behind schedule, replacing its electromagnetic aircraft launch system and advanced weapons elevators with steam and hydraulic systems, fulfilling a complaint he’s made annually since at least 2017 about digital catapults being “too complicated.” Trump has retold a version of the same story, involving an unnamed “catapulter” who told him steam is easier to fix with “a hammer and a blowtorch,” at events ranging from a 2018 Thanksgiving call with troops to a 2024 town hall with Tucker Carlson to a speech last month at the Army War College.
General Atomics, which builds the electromagnetic system and says its work on the new carrier is nearly 50% complete, warned the switch “warrants careful reconsideration” and would introduce “significant cost, schedule, and integration risks,” while Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and test pilot, mocked Trump’s qualifications to weigh in, saying he “should stick to what he knows best: ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit.” The order gives Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao 60 days to produce a redesign plan. The announcement lands as reports mount of an intensifying mental health crisis among the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines enduring a record-breaking deployment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln amid the war with Iran.
Hegseth said Thursday the U.S. military can maintain its naval blockade on Iranian ports “indefinitely” by rotating ships in and out of the region, remarks made in Panama after addressing the crew of the USS Gridley, according to Reuters. The comments echoed Trump’s Wednesday claim that the U.S. has “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz, which he called a “WALL OF STEEL” that “there is nothing Iran can do about,” after Iran effectively shut the strait, a route for roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG shipments, following the February 28 start of U.S.-Israeli strikes. Since imposing the blockade, the U.S. has redirected more than 55 commercial vessels attempting to run it, disabling three ships and boarding two, including an incident this week in which a Navy helicopter fired Hellfire missiles into a Panama-flagged ship’s engine room after it ignored warnings. Despite months of U.S. strikes that have hit Iranian leadership and damaged its military, including its navy, Tehran has retained its grip on the strait and continues striking back with missiles and drones against U.S. allies and commercial ships in the region. Trump has alternated between threatening escalation and claiming a peace deal is near, while resisting steps like deploying ground troops, as he faces pressure to end a war that’s unpopular at home ahead of the November midterms, with high fuel prices weighing especially on rural voters who have backed him.
Hegseth’s Holy War:
Pete Hegseth is waging what amounts to a holy war inside the Pentagon, and Mother Jones traces it directly to his spiritual mentor, Christian nationalist Pastor Doug Wilson, who preaches that “God has called men to be aggressive leaders” and who Hegseth personally invited to deliver a sermon to troops and officials at the Pentagon this year. Wilson teaches that empathy is a weakness undermining Western civilization and the military, and that belief runs straight through Hegseth’s own writings and policies: his 2024 book arguing the U.S. should abandon the Geneva Conventions and fight “by its own rules,” his purge of DEI programs and women from senior command, and his new initiative to screen troops for low testosterone. At the close of Wilson’s Pentagon sermon, which compared spiritual warfare to legendary Marine “Chesty” Puller surrounded by enemies on all sides, Hegseth thanked him for “your leadership, for your mentorship... your willingness to be bold,” calling it “the type of thing we’re trying to exercise here.” Wilson also preaches that patriarchy is a religious mandate and has called women serving in the military “loathsome” to God, teachings historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez says directly inform Hegseth’s hostility to women in military leadership.
The article then travels to Moscow, Idaho, where Wilson has built a self-contained community of roughly 3,000 “Kirker” congregants who run their own schools, businesses, and local political influence despite making up only about 10% of the town’s population. Families described a life built on rigid gender roles and total theological certainty, with one mother saying she’s “thankful” to have a husband to “unload” pressure onto and a young engaged man explaining his fiancée would follow his lead “cheerfully” once her father’s “headship” transferred to him at their wedding. Discipline is central to Kirker child-rearing: parents are taught to spank children starting in toddlerhood with implements like wooden spoons, and boys especially are taught to be “knocked down” and toughened, while any sign of “effeminacy” can draw punishment, including school gym games literally called “Smear the Queer.” Multiple former members described this culture as harmful, including one man who no longer speaks to his family and doesn’t plan to have children because his upbringing didn’t prepare him “to be the kind of parent I would want to be.”
The piece also documents a pattern of abuse allegations tied to Wilson’s church and school network, including a 2021 Vice investigation in which twelve women said Christ Church leaders, including Wilson, ignored reports of physical and sexual abuse by husbands, along with claims from former Logos School students who say they were groomed by faculty. Church member Steven Sitler was convicted of child sex abuse in 2005, with Wilson writing to the sentencing judge asking for leniency because Sitler had “repented,” and another member, Alex Lloyd, was convicted of possessing child pornography in 2022. Advocate Sarah Bader, who works to help women leave Wilson’s church network, said she’s spoken with hundreds of women describing abuse, including marital rape, and that leaving is especially difficult since church members are embedded throughout the town, including on the police force. When the reporter raised these cases with the Wilsons directly, Nancy accused the media of hypocrisy for not scrutinizing “transvestites doing library hours for kids,” to which Doug replied that drag queens “are just grooming them,” a comment that closes the article’s portrait of a movement presenting itself as wholesome while facing repeated allegations of covering up harm to children and women.
Government Surveillance:
Newly released court documents show DHS launched an undercover surveillance program called Operation Puppet Master targeting progressive organizations, labor unions, and other groups protesting Minneapolis’s immigration crackdown, with agents infiltrating meetings in churches, schools, and parks that were often just discussions of constitutionally protected protest activity, according to the AP via CBS News. The documents surfaced in the case of 15 people federally charged in June with impeding the crackdown, after defense attorney Kevin Riach filed a motion seeking more disclosure; one report shows an undercover agent monitoring a Sunrise Movement meeting where organizers explicitly discussed keeping protests “peaceful.”
A DHS slide titled “The Conspiracy” identified 18 organizations, ranging from a small bike repair collective to the AFL-CIO, and the government obtained years of financial records from groups including the Sunrise Movement, SEIU, and the Communications Workers of America, with one DHS summons to the Federal Reserve’s FedWire system requesting indefinite secrecy about its existence. UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham called the operation “very disturbing,” warning it risks creating “that fear of a creeping police state” that deters people from expressing their beliefs, while CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said the union “will not be intimidated, and we will not be silenced.” DHS deployed roughly 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for about three months in what it called its “largest immigration enforcement operation ever,” resulting in thousands of arrests, mass protests, and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens; DHS declined to comment on the investigation, and the Minneapolis U.S. attorney’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Government fusion centers are monitoring anti-Flock TikTok and Instagram accounts and warning police departments about growing vandalism of Flock’s automated license plate readers, according to intelligence bulletins 404 Media obtained via public records requests; the documents flag specific accounts, like Nomark.Project, posting videos of cameras being disabled, and note a neo-Nazi group briefly tried recruiting people to sabotage cameras before losing traction. The bulletins repeatedly tie the vandalism to DeFlock, the open-source project that crowdsources a map of ALPR cameras, and specifically flag its upcoming August 16–22 “National Week of Action,” even though that event is actually just public meetings and marches, not a call for destruction. DeFlock creator Will Freeman denies the project has ever called for vandalism, says some accounts using the DeFlock name are unauthorized, and credits the project with over 100 legitimate surveillance contract cancellations through public engagement. 404 Media documented a few dozen camera vandalism incidents nationwide, including one where police found a device used to locate Flock cameras during a traffic stop. Flock Safety condemned the damage as illegal while saying reports of vandalism against its equipment remain few.
Other News:
Footage from Natalie Newman shows DHS bulldozers tearing into the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park, after DHS waived environmental laws to allow it, construction that began the day after a large protest and the same morning CNN’s crew left the area.
New research shared exclusively with the Guardian found that S&P 500 companies that kept their DEI policies despite Trump’s 2025 executive orders and “go woke, go broke” pressure, including Costco, Apple, and Delta, performed just as well financially as those that rolled them back, and actually outperformed on the stock market in the days immediately after the orders were signed. UC Berkeley researcher Jacob Grumbach measured this using “abnormal returns,” tracking company policies through news coverage, shareholder resolution votes, and data from the activist group DEI Watch, and said “no matter how we measure DEI in companies, we find the same answer.” Companies like Google, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s, and Walmart abandoned their DEI commitments under pressure, while NYU’s David Glasgow said most firms actually landed in a “messy middle,” tweaking rather than eliminating their diversity policies, following a wave of backlash that began with the 2023 Bud Light and Target boycotts and the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling. Some companies that pulled back faced their own backlash, including Target losing its sponsorship of the Twin Cities Pride parade after scaling back its DEI policies. Grumbach said the findings suggest large corporations have more room than they assumed to resist executive branch pressure without financial consequences, calling it evidence that “large US corporations really do have leeway... to sort of do noncompliance to executive branch pressure and end up fine.”
Tropical Storm Lala could become the first hurricane to make landfall on Hawaii’s Big Island since at least 1900, according to AccuWeather. A hurricane warning is in effect for the Big Island (including Hilo), with a tropical storm watch for Maui, Molokai, and Lanai. Forecasters expect 4–8 inches of rain across Maui and the Big Island, with 12–18 inches (up to 30 in isolated spots) in northern and eastern Big Island areas, plus wind gusts of 40–60 mph, up to 80 mph on the Big Island, and 1–3 foot storm surge. AccuWeather rates it a 2 on its RealImpact Scale for Hurricanes, citing flash flooding, mudslides, damaging wind, and dangerous rip currents as the main risks.
White House deputy national security adviser Andy Baker, who also served as national security adviser to Vice President Vance and was personally involved in this year's negotiations with Iran, is leaving the administration in the coming weeks, Axios reports, with a source close to him saying he wants more time with his family and stayed on longer than planned to ensure a smooth transition. Baker previously worked as a State Department foreign service officer before joining then-Sen. Vance's team, and he's expected to move to the private sector alongside Robert O'Brien, Trump's fourth national security adviser during his first term; Cliff Sims, who succeeded Baker as Vance's national security adviser this summer, will stay in that role, while Mike Needham continues as White House deputy national security adviser.
Luigi Mangione, 28, is expected to plead guilty Friday to federal stalking charges in Manhattan federal court tied to the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to sources familiar with the matter, though the terms of any plea deal remain unclear and nothing is final until he formally accepts it, per NBC News. He faces two federal counts, interstate stalking resulting in death and stalking through interstate facilities resulting in death, carrying a maximum penalty of life in prison; a more serious charge of using a firearm to commit murder, which carried a possible death penalty, was dismissed by a judge earlier this year. The federal case is separate from Mangione’s state charges, including second-degree murder and firearms crimes, with that trial expected to begin early next month. Authorities say they found a notebook detailing Mangione’s grievances against the health insurance industry in his backpack when he was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, along with shell casings inscribed with the words “delay,” “deny,” “depose,” evidence his attorneys unsuccessfully tried to have excluded from trial. The case drew national attention to frustration with health insurance denials after Thompson, a father of two, was shot outside a Manhattan hotel hosting an investors’ conference.
A United Airlines flight from Chicago to Phoenix safely aborted takeoff at O’Hare Thursday afternoon after the Boeing 737-900’s tire blew out, forcing all 161 passengers and six crew members to deplane on the runway and get bused to the terminal, according to NBC Chicago. The incident, United Flight 455, occurred around 1:45 p.m., and United said by 4 p.m. it was arranging a replacement aircraft to get passengers to Phoenix later that day. Flights into O’Hare saw average delays of about 25 minutes as of 3:50 p.m. due to a disabled aircraft on the runway, though it wasn’t immediately confirmed that plane was the same one involved in the tire blowout. The FAA is investigating the incident.
Selena Gomez, her mother Mandy Teefey, and co-founder Daniella Pierson are named in a federal fraud lawsuit alleging they misrepresented their mental health startup Wondermind’s infrastructure, partnerships, and Gomez’s involvement to secure roughly $1.2 million from investors, then concealed the company’s collapse for more than three years, according to NBC News. The suit, filed in Delaware by investment firms Wondermind SRS 44 LLC and Bespoke Wondermind SPV I LLC, claims Gomez signed a contract to serve as head of marketing and publicity but never followed through, that promised partnerships and celebrity “cover story” deals with people like Elton John and Drake never materialized, and that the company’s app was never built despite repeated assurances to investors. Pierson denies the allegations and says she “welcomes the opportunity to present concrete documentation,” adding she never used investor funds personally and instead invested her own money without drawing a salary.
American missionary Kevin Rideout has been released after being kidnapped in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on October 21 by three armed individuals, according to his organization, SIM International, which said Friday he “is in good health in the care of US officials” and will soon reunite with his extended family. No armed group ever claimed responsibility for the abduction, and the U.S. Embassy had warned Americans “remain at heightened risk of kidnapping throughout Niger” in the days after Rideout was taken. His release comes amid ongoing instability in Niger, which has been ruled by a military junta since a 2023 coup that ousted Western partners, including the U.S., in favor of a new alliance with Russia, and where jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State have increasingly targeted urban areas, including a June attack that killed more than 30 people at Niamey’s main airport.
See you soon.
— Aaron
