President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was accepting an invitation to appear at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, adding that his appearance would certainly make the annual event the “GREATEST, HOTTEST” one to date. Trump made the announcement via his Truth Social platform, saying that it was nice to finally see members of the usually-combative press acknowledge him as “truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T.” “The White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge,” Trump began, saying that he’d accepted in part because he wanted to be there because 2026 will be the year the United States celebrates its 250th birthday as a nation. “It will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!” he continued. Trump went on to explain that he only skipped the event in years past because he had been so unfairly treated by most in the press. “Because the Press was extraordinarily bad to me, FAKE NEWS ALL, right from the beginning of my First Term, I boycotted the event, and never went as Honoree,” he said, adding, “However, I look forward to being with everyone this year. Hopefully, it will be something very Special. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” Trump boycotted the event for the entirety of his first term as president — and the first year of his second term — largely because of his often contentious relationship with most of the legacy press. CBS News senior White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents Association Weijia Jiang said that she’s glad Trump has agreed to attend the dinner. “For more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents’ Association have enjoyed an evening with the president,” she said. “We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him.”

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski has gone viral on social media after a video of him tasting the new Big Arch burger started circulating online. Viewers made comments about the fast food chain exec’s awkward demeanor and wording, saying it was clear that he hated the “product” and didn’t really want to eat it. “I love this product, it is so good. I’m going to do a tasting right now, but I’m going to eat this for my lunch, just so you know,” Kempczinski says in the video, which was shared to drum up interest in the new addition to the McDonald’s menu.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Chris Kempczinski (@chrisk_mcd) He explained how the burger has “two quarter-pound patties, a delicious Big Arch sauce, and of course, some lettuce, along with crispy onions and pickles.” Kempczinski awkwardly approached the burger, noting that he “didn’t even know how to attack it,” before taking a hesitant bite, which he described as being bigger than it actually was. “Mmm, that is so good, that’s a big bite for a Big Arch,” the CEO said, showing the camera the tiny nibble he took out of the massive burger. Social media commenters didn’t hold back with their mockery. “What’s the opposite of genuine and authentic?” one popular Instagram comment said. “That was the smallest first bite I’ve ever seen,” another person agreed. “This man does not like that ‘product,’” another person wrote. “Watching the McDonald’s CEO tentatively nibble on the Big Arch like it’s a radioactive artifact from the dollar menu, calling it ‘product’ instead of food, is the most unintentionally hilarious endorsement fail since New Coke,” one X commenter added. The video was posted to Kempczinski’s Instagram last month, but didn’t go viral until now, just days before the Big Arch is set to debut on McDonald’s menus nationwide on Tuesday, March 3. This fact led to some fans wondering if the awkward video and its promotion is nothing more than a way to get attention for the new fast food menu offering.

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show. * * * Many people are debating the war with Iran from an ideological perspective. You’re an interventionist. You’re an isolationist. You’re America First. You’re a war-monger. You’re a peacenik. And right now, these ideological camps are screaming past each other. The isolationists say we should never get involved in foreign wars under any circumstances. The war hawks say America must confront evil regimes wherever they arise. But neither position settles the matter here. That’s not what this is about. The two questions, which most of us outside the government simply do not have answers to, are: First: Was the threat posed by Iran really that great? Second: Can we effectively and efficiently install a friendly regime in Iran? Those are the two questions. Everything else is noise. If the threat from Iran was high and we believe we can easily install a pro-Western regime, then obviously, this was an awesome move and Donald Trump will go down as one of the greatest presidents in American history. Replacing this regime in Iran has been a high American priority since 1979. If, on the other hand, the threat was exaggerated and America gets bogged down in an endless war, Trump will have destroyed his legacy and he will go down in much the same way as George W. Bush. That is a serious risk he is taking based on his confidence in the United States military and his confidence in his own statesmanship. But even that isn’t enough. The second question is just as important: Can we pull this off? Can the United States remove the top of the Iranian regime and replace it with something stable, manageable, and at least not actively hostile? Can this be done efficiently, without becoming another Iraq? Without morphing into an endless occupation, a decades-long counterinsurgency, or a regional quagmire? If the answer to both questions is yes — if the threat was high and the operation can be executed cleanly — then this could go down as one of the boldest and most successful foreign policy moves of our lifetimes. But if the threat was overstated, and if we get bogged down in an endless war, then President Trump will have risked everything. He will have tarnished the very legacy he built running against the Bush-era regime change disasters. That’s the gamble. Notice what this debate is not about. It is not about whether America should ever intervene. It is not about spreading democracy to every corner of the globe. It is not about grand ideological crusades. It is about risk assessment. And President Trump is a risk-taker. When he says “no more stupid wars,” many people heard “no more wars.” But the emphasis was never on “wars.” It was on “stupid.” When he said “no more endless wars,” the emphasis was on “endless.” WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show on DailyWire+ This is not being pitched as Iraq 2.0. It is being pitched as a decisive, overwhelming, time-limited force. The early days have been extremely successful. Military leadership decapitated. Key targets neutralized. A regime that has openly threatened American interests for decades suddenly thrown off balance. But early success does not guarantee long-term success. A billion things could go wrong. It can still spiral out of control. Internal Iranian power struggles could produce chaos rather than stability. Intelligence assessments could prove flawed. The costs could still grow and the timeline could stretch. The president reportedly believes this will be a four- or five-week operation. Those are famous last words in American foreign policy. Every modern war has begun with confident timelines. So, we are left with the two questions: How real was the threat? How feasible is the outcome? If Iran’s regime truly posed a grave, escalating danger — and if the United States can remove and replace that regime without creating a vacuum — then this operation may reshape the Middle East in America’s favor. It could reset a declining geopolitical trajectory and reassert American strength. If not, then this will look less like strategic genius and more like overreach. The ideological shouting will continue. But the serious debate is narrower and more sober. It is not about whether one is a hawk or a dove. It is about whether this specific intervention meets the threshold of necessity and feasibility. That is the test.

The Supreme Court sided with a group of parents challenging a California policy that allowed schools to keep kids’ so-called gender transitions a secret. In a 6-3 decision on Monday, the justices said that California policies that block schools from notifying parents about their child’s desire to change their sex and be referred to by incorrect pronouns likely violate their religious liberty. The ruling comes after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a lower court’s ruling siding with parents challenging California’s policies. “We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim,” the Supreme Court majority wrote. “The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs. California’s policies violate those beliefs.” The California Department of Education has argued that the challenge should be considered moot because they claim that a frequently-asked-questions page posted by the department has been edited to show that they do not mandate parental exclusion, and so there is no more cause for complaint. The FAQ page included a line that said, “with rare exceptions, schools are required to respect the limitations that a student places on the disclosure of their transgender status, including not sharing that information with the student’s parents.” While that guidance was deleted, policies that kept parents in the dark about their children were still promoted in statewide teacher trainings, according to documents uncovered by the Thomas More Society. Policies prohibiting local school districts from passing measures requiring teachers to inform parents about a student’s identity were signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. “Gender dysphoria is a condition that has an important bearing on a child’s mental health, but when a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school, California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours. These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” the majority wrote. They added that “the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here—unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition—is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks we considered sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny in Mahmoud.” Mahmoud was a case from last year where the court ruled that a Maryland county violated the rights of parents who wanted to opt their kids out of instruction related to LGBT content. Paul Jonna, special counsel at the Thomas More Society and partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP, said the ruling was a major victory for parents. “This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” she said. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back. The Court’s landmark reaffirmation of substantive due process, its vindication of religious liberty, and its approval of class-wide relief together set a historic precedent that will dismantle secret gender transition policies across the country.” The court’s liberal justices — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — wanted to block the parents’ challenge.

For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its genocidal proxies have operated under the delusion that they could hide behind layers of “security” while plotting the destruction of Israel. This week, that illusion didn’t just crack — it was detonated. The elimination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a precision strike on his Tehran compound is the crowning achievement of a multi-year intelligence campaign that proves Israel doesn’t just fight its enemies; it owns them. The brilliance of the operation began not with a bomb, but with a lens. While the Iranian regime poured billions into regional terror, Israeli cyber-warriors were quietly hijacking the very infrastructure meant to keep Tehran secure. According to the Financial Times, Unit 8200 and Mossad hacked nearly every traffic camera in the Iranian capital years ago. For the “loyal” bodyguards of the regime, a commute to the Pasteur Street compound was a mundane routine. For Israel, it was a data stream. Encrypted images flowed directly to servers in Tel Aviv, where complex algorithms built a “pattern of life” for every high-ranking official. Israel knew where these terrorists parked their cars, what time they grabbed coffee, and which routes they took to work. As one official put it, “We knew Tehran like we know Jerusalem. And when you know [a place] as well as you know the street you grew up on, you notice a single thing that’s out of place.” By the time the order was given to strike, Israel didn’t just hit a building; they hit a specific room at a specific second because they had spent years watching the front door through the regime’s own cameras. Israel’s intelligence has conducted other vaunted operations recently, of course, the kind of psychological and tactical warfare that belongs in the history books, such as the “Beeper Operation.” Understanding that Hezbollah and Tehran were becoming paranoid about smartphone tracking, Israel decided to give them exactly what they wanted: a “secure,” low-tech alternative. In a sting operation of biblical proportions, Mossad created a “pretend world” of shell companies and fake supply chains. They didn’t just intercept a shipment; they manufactured the devices. Hezbollah thought they were buying rugged, waterproof Apollo pagers from Taiwan. In reality, they were distributing 5,000 Israeli-made bombs directly to their mid-level commanders. The ingenuity was ruthless. To read an “encrypted message,” a user had to press two buttons simultaneously with both hands. When the signal was sent, the terrorists’ hands were neutralized. Moments later, a second signal detonated the remaining devices, often while they were in the pockets of the targets. When the survivors panicked and retreated to their “backup” walkie-talkies — devices Israel had surreptitiously sold them a decade earlier—the Mossad simply pressed another button. Entire rooms of terrorists were neutralized by the very equipment they trusted to keep them safe. By turning Tehran’s cameras against the Ayatollah and turning Hezbollah’s communications into claymores, Israel has sent a message to its enemies: We are watching you through your own cameras. We are listening through your own devices. And when the time comes, we don’t even need to be in the room to finish the job.