Ro Khanna was having a great week. Everyone was feeding right into the publicity stunt he pulled by traveling to the West Bank and getting “detained” by Israelis. Ink was spilled in think-pieces, man-hours were spent on thorough “debunkings,” and Khanna got to fling all the slop he could in various Twitter fights. In the attention economy age, things were going perfectly to plan. Ro was dominating the conversation. There’s just one problem: it wasn’t enough for the people who it was meant to impress. After his trip, Khanna did an interview with the terrorist-friendly third-worldist outlet Drop Site News, seeking to capitalize on his momentum. There, he was confronted by journalist Jeremy Scahill.

Steven Spielberg has spent much of his career asking audiences to believe in the impossible. In “E.T.,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “A.I.,” he treated the unknown with awe rather than fear. “Disclosure Day” continues that fascination with first contact, but this time Spielberg aims higher than simply telling another alien story. He wants to ask what happens when humanity learns, beyond all doubt, that we are not alone — and more provocatively, what happens to religion and civilization itself when that truth arrives. It is an ambitious premise. In many respects, it is exactly the kind of grand, philosophical science fiction Hollywood rarely attempts anymore. Which is precisely why it’s so disappointing that Spielberg settles for arguments that are far less sophisticated than the filmmaking surrounding them. “Disclosure Day” is a pretty film, it is often an exciting film, it is occasionally a fascinating and mysterious film. However, it ultimately undermines itself by constructing a theological debate in which only one side is allowed to be intelligent. Visually, “Disclosure Day” is a delight for the eyes. Shot on 35mm film, the movie finds Spielberg returning to the warm, glowing aesthetic that defined much of his earlier work. There is a softness to the image that digital cameras struggle to reproduce. Neighborhood streets, dark hotel rooms, laboratories, warehouses, forests — even scenes bathed in fluorescent lighting — carry the nostalgic warmth of “E.T.” and “Close Encounters.” Rather than chasing blockbuster sharpness, Spielberg embraces the old texture. His camera remains as inventive as ever. Tight compositions from unusual angles constantly reveal information in fresh ways without calling attention to themselves. Nothing feels static. Even simple conversations possess an energy created entirely through visual language. As with all of his outings, John Williams’ score is remarkable, and historic in this case, “Disclosure Day” is Spielberg’s and Williams’ 30th film together. The low brass themes accompanying the escalating confrontation between government factions possess genuine weight, while the recurring clarinet motif accompanying scenes of psychic manipulation gives the alien presence an eerie identity without resorting to horror clichés. At 94, Williams might have composed his final film score, and in the theater I relished it.  All that is to say, technically, Spielberg has lost very little with age. The performances are similarly strong across the board. Josh O’Connor gives Daniel Kellner enough humanity to remain engaging despite a screenplay that often treats him more as a passenger than an active protagonist. Emily Blunt delivers perhaps the film’s strongest emotional performance as Margaret Fairchild, whose gradual psychological collapse — and eventual rediscovery of purpose — anchors much of the movie’s emotional core. Colman Domingo’s Hugo Wakefield is intriguing almost immediately because the audience senses they’ve arrived at the final chapter of a much longer story. Hugo carries himself like someone who’s spent decades fighting battles the audience never witnessed. Rather than feeling underdeveloped with his limited screen time, he feels mysterious, but lived-in. The standout, however, is Colin Firth’s Noah Scanlan. Scanlan begins as what appears to be a conventional corporate villain but slowly reveals himself to be something considerably more interesting: a man convinced that secrecy is not merely necessary, but morally righteous. He isn’t protecting power for power’s sake, contrary to Hugo’s accusation. He’s protecting civilization itself — or at least he believes he is. That conviction gives the film its best dramatic tension. Throughout “Disclosure Day,” the audience gradually realizes they’re watching the final moves of a years-long chess match between Scanlan and Hugo. The younger protagonists frequently feel less like central characters than pieces being maneuvered by two men who have spent their lives preparing for exactly this moment. Ironically, that dynamic also exposes one of the screenplay’s biggest weaknesses. Neither Kellner nor Margaret possesses much agency for large portions of the film. Events happen to them more often than they happen because of them. The word passenger gets used on more than a few occasions by Hugo to describe both Kellner and Fairchild. Curiously, the characters with the most meaningful agency are actually their romantic partners. Kellner’s girlfriend — Jane, played by Eve Hewson — believes him, supports him, and willingly joins his increasingly dangerous mission. Margaret’s boyfriend — Jackson, played by Wyatt Russell — reacts in precisely the opposite way, attempting to stop her because he believes she’s losing her mind. Their contrasting responses create one of the screenplay’s more subtle observations about faith, trust, and love. Unfortunately, subtlety becomes increasingly scarce once Spielberg begins engaging directly with religion. This is where “Disclosure Day” begins sabotaging itself. Spielberg recently remarked that alien disclosure could fundamentally shake religious belief. That concern forms the central thesis of the film. The problem isn’t that Spielberg asks the question. The problem is that he refuses to let serious religious voices answer it. Instead, nearly every explicitly religious character exists primarily to demonstrate how easily faith can be manipulated. Religious belief is repeatedly portrayed as fragile, irrational, emotionally driven, and ultimately incompatible with objective truth. It is an astonishingly simplistic treatment of a remarkably complex philosophical subject. The film repeatedly frames the conflict as one between reason and religion, as though Christianity has spent two thousand years opposing truth itself. That simply isn’t true. Spielberg either doesn’t know this or chooses to ignore it. The result is a debate in which science argues against caricatures rather than genuine theological positions. This becomes particularly frustrating because the film repeatedly hints at far richer conversations. One remarkable sequence involves Scanlan invading Jane’s mind and manipulating her through her own religious convictions. The conversation itself, however, collapses into another straw man. Rather than confronting sophisticated religious arguments, Scanlan manipulates simplistic ones that were designed to lose from the outset. Spielberg clearly wants to champion objective truth and transparency, and while the audience may recognize that as a good thing to stand for, problems arise when he constructs the opposing side so poorly that victory becomes meaningless. Oddly enough, Scanlan himself becomes the film’s most compelling victim of this weak writing. Everything about his characterization suggests tremendous intelligence and fortitude. He physically deteriorates throughout the film as repeated psychic intrusions into the minds of Jane and other protagonists gradually destroy his body. Every time he staggers, refuses assistance, and insists he’s fine, we see a man literally sacrificing himself for what he believes is the greater good. By the film’s conclusion, when he quietly accepts defeat rather than continuing to resist, Spielberg perhaps accidentally grants him more dignity than intended. Scanlan’s final moments on screen suggest a man honestly wrestling with the collapse of his worldview rather than merely a cartoon authoritarian.  Unfortunately for Spielberg, this isn’t the only stumbling block. For a film centered on exposing history’s greatest conspiracy, “Disclosure Day” develops an enormous plot problem that becomes impossible to ignore. The protagonists possess overwhelming evidence proving alien existence. Their chosen method of revealing it? Cable news. Not social media, not WikiLeaks, not public document dumps. Cable news. What year does Spielberg think it is?  The screenplay even acknowledges this problem early in the film. Kellner suggests uploading everything online. The antagonists marvel that there are no internet leaks as they hunt down Kellner and the files he possesses. Then everyone collectively decides the better option is commandeering a television broadcast. The finale becomes increasingly absurd as virtually the entire planet appears to stop what it’s doing to watch one American cable broadcast simultaneously. Russian soldiers watch it. Civilians watch it. Military command centers watch it. The entire world apparently abandons the internet in favor of live television. It’s an extraordinarily out-of-date solution to a modern problem. Ultimately, “Disclosure Day” is defined less by what it gets wrong than by how close it comes to greatness. The technical elements work. The music, perfectly, works. The performances work. Some of the story works. The central ideological conflict simply doesn’t. Rather than trusting audiences to wrestle with competing visions of truth, Spielberg rigs the debate before it begins. His religious characters become foils rather than equals, reducing what should have been genuine philosophical inquiry into something much closer to a lecture. Ironically, “Disclosure Day” spends two-and-a-half hours arguing for the importance of confronting uncomfortable truths. Yet whenever the screenplay encounters ideas that might genuinely challenge its own assumptions, it quietly looks away, as if afraid it may not hold up. The bones of a great film are here. What it needs is just a little more confidence in the audience’s ability to think through difficult questions. A few changes might have elevated “Disclosure Day” into Spielberg’s best science fiction film since “Minority Report.” Instead, it settles for being a well-made movie that ultimately lacks the intellectual courage its premise demands. Grade: B- *** This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Controversial influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate on Saturday were arrested by federal officials in Miami pursuant to rape charges and an outstanding arrest warrant in the United Kingdom. The Crown Prosecution Service last year charged Andrew Tate with 10 counts of crimes, including rape and human trafficking related to three women. His younger brother, Tristan, was charged with 11 counts of similar crimes tied to one woman. On Saturday, the Crown Prosecution Service announced additional counts for each brother, including 19 charges related to illegal child images and pornography for Andrew Tate. “We can confirm the arrest of the Tate brothers today in Miami,” the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement. “The warrant was sealed so we are unable to confirm the charges.” The office of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier — who last year opened an investigation into the Tate brothers — confirmed to The Daily Wire that the pair were taken into custody on an arrest warrant from the United Kingdom. Florida AG’s office tells @realDailyWire the Tate brothers were taken into custody on a UK arrest warrant. https://t.co/6wDfk5xadK — Brent Scher (@BrentScher) July 19, 2026 “To me, when they’re making statements that sound an awful lot like criminal activity, I think as attorney general, I’ve got a duty to investigate and make sure that we’re not subjecting, you know, women in our state to dangers,” Uthmeier said last year. “If there’s a crime that occurred here in our jurisdiction, we’ve got a prerogative to prosecute it, and we will do so.” This is the latest bout of legal trouble for the Tates, who were first arrested in Romania in 2022 on charges of rape, human trafficking, sex with a minor, and trafficking minors. British prosecutors charged the brothers with those crimes last May. The Tates rose to prominence as central figures of the “manosphere,” a controversial internet community popular among disaffected young men. Figures like the Tates flaunt their lavish lifestyles and tell listeners that they too can achieve success and impress women by acting like “alpha males.” But behind the public bravado lurks a much darker reality. Last year, Andrew Tate’s ex-girlfriend, Brianna Stern, accused the former kickboxer of physical abuse. “The last time I saw Andrew was on March 11, 2025 at the Beverly Hill’s Hotel,” Stern wrote on social media. “The last words he said to me before I left the hotel were: ‘Shut the f*** up, b****. You will never backtalk me. You are my property.'” Months after Stern came forward with her allegations, Canadian YouTuber Lauren Southern accused Andrew Tate of sexual assault in a self-published memoir. “I said no, very clearly, multiple times, and tried to pull his hands off me,” Southern wrote of their encounter. “He put his arm around my neck and began strangling me unconscious. I tried to fight back. He repeatedly strangled me every time I regained enough consciousness to pull at his arms. I’d prefer not to share the rest. It’s pretty obvious.” Andrew and Tristan Tate have repeatedly denied all the allegations made against them. The brothers, who hold dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom, moved to Romania in 2016 but returned to the United States last year as Romanian authorities investigated their activity. The United Kingdom is reportedly seeking to extradite the brothers.

Two American troops were killed Saturday by an Iranian strike on Jordan, according to U.S. Central Command. Another American service member remains missing. The deaths mark the first confirmed U.S. fatalities from Iranian attacks on Jordan this week. Four other American troops were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals and have since been discharged. CENTCOM says it will not release the names of the fallen until 24 hours after their families have been notified. Iran has attacked American allies in the region in recent days. Kuwait reported that an Iranian attack hit a power generation and water desalination facility, starting a fire and knocking units offline. A child was injured by shrapnel in Qatar, and Bahrain came under attack as well. The United States has ramped up strikes on Iranian targets in recent days, many of which were located around Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main strategic port city on the Strait of Hormuz. The city, home to more than half a million people, is home to Iran’s navy headquarters and serves as a key commercial hub for the regime. CENTCOM also confirmed the earlier destruction of the Chah Bahar Shahid Kalantari Port surveillance tower on July 16. “The destruction of the tower directly degrades IRGC’s ability to coordinate attacks on innocent civilian crew members,” CENTCOM said.  Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared images of U.S. troops and wrote that “Iran does not control the SoH,” referring to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Energy Ministry has reportedly ordered residents to cut back on electricity use during peak hours because attacks on energy facilities had affected the power grid in southern provinces Conflict in the region has escalated in the days since Iran announced it would no longer honor the interim peace deal with the United States. “The only way you can negotiate with these people is through strength,” President Donald Trump said in a July 14 interview. “And the only strength is military strength.”

“The Ramsey Show” co-host and financial literacy personality George Kamel blasted news agencies and influencers for urging Americans to withdraw Social Security early. Recently, the Social Security Administration announced in the 2026 Trustees Report that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund reserves “will become depleted” in 2032, and afterwards, “the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 78 percent of total scheduled benefits.” The Congressional Budget Office also previously warned that this would result in a direct cut in retirement benefits, stating, “because the government would not have the legal authority to make payments in excess of receipts, it would no longer be able to pay the full amounts scheduled or projected under current law.” News organizations took on the story about Social Security reaching its end, with Fox Business reporting that “Social Security has less than 10 years before reserves are exhausted.” Online financial influencers then started to call on their followers to take out their benefits early at 62 before Social Security goes ‘bankrupt.’ In an interview with Fox News, Kamel called the Fox Business headline and similar headlines in other outlets “classic fearmongering” that are not “based in reality.” “There’s a lot of context left out,” Kamel added. “But when you see ‘depletion 2032 Social Security,’ it’s like the toilet paper rush during COVID — everyone’s like ‘I gotta go to the store. Let’s clear the shelves. There’s not going to be any left for me.’” Kamel debunked the idea that Social Security is going to go bankrupt by noting that the last time Social Security reserves were expected to dry out in 1983, Congress and the Reagan administration did “several small tweaks” to fix the system. “A worst-case scenario is a 22% cut in monthly benefits,” Kamel said. “That’s a far cry from it going to 0, to bankruptcy. There is a lot of emotion here, and fear is a bad reason to grab it at 62.” “I don’t see a world where, in 2032, we’re all going, ‘Where’s our money? We’re all going to retire broke.’” Kamel added.  Kamel also mentioned that taking Social Security at 62 gives a 30% deduction in benefits, whereas waiting until 70 gives a 24% bonus. But he then noted that there is no “magic age” for taking Social Security. “There [are] a lot of factors that come into play when you decide to take Social Security, and it really depends on your life, your health, your income, your family situation,” Kamel said. Kamel advised listeners to take control of their finances rather than relying on the government. “I call it Social insecurity, because if you’re relying on it, you don’t have that security, you don’t have that control,” Kamel said. “So I want to let people know that you are your best shot at great retirement. It’s not the government’s job, it’s not Washington’s job, it’s not a headline, it’s not a trust fund aid, you control the controllables.”