WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said Americans should not worry about a rise in terrorist threats following the outbreak of hostilities in Iran, calling the Texas shooter who fatally shot two people while wearing an Iranian flag shirt “just a whack job.” “I hope you don’t worry too much,” the president told The Daily Wire in a Monday evening phone call. The gunman, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, opened fire around 2 a.m. Sunday morning on West Sixth Street in Austin, wearing a sweatshirt that read “Property of Allah” over a T-shirt with the Iranian flag on it. The FBI is currently investigating whether Diagne was motivated by the conflict in Iran. But President Trump is confident the incidents were unrelated. “I think it’s probably just a whack job, a total whack job,” Trump told The Daily Wire. “But you know, like so many others … probably staged.” (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) CBS News reports that authorities found an Iranian flag and images of Iranian leaders in Diagne’s house and a Quran in his car. While authorities have not yet confirmed a motive, the attack has led to speculation that the incident was a lone-wolf domestic terror attack. The shooter is from Senegal and had first entered the United States in 2000 on a B-2 tourist visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He became a permanent resident six years after he entered the country by marrying a United States citizen, and was naturalized in 2013. The White House confirmed on Sunday that the president was briefed about the shooting in Austin, but he does not appear to have publicly commented on it otherwise. Today, President Trump has spoken with the leaders of Israel, Bahrain, and the UAE. The President has also been briefed on the shooting in Austin, Texas. — Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 1, 2026 FBI Director Kash Patel promised on Saturday that “FBI personnel are fully engaged on the situation overseas.” “Last night I instructed our Counterterrorism and intelligence teams to be on high alert and mobilize all assisting security assets needed,” he said in a statement on Saturday. “Our JTTFs throughout the country are working 24/7, as always, to address and disrupt any potential threats to the homeland. While the military handles force protection overseas, the FBI remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home – and will continue to have our team work around the clock to protect Americans.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told The Daily Wire Monday that the Trump administration is monitoring for potential domestic threats related to Operation Epic Fury. “Well, across the interagency in full coordination, of course, we’re paying attention to any potentialities there,” Hegseth said during a Monday morning Pentagon press conference. “This is a former regime, a regime that seeks to export that ideology, to try to sow terror.” “We’re ready for that,” he added. “We’ve seen these types of folks before. And the American people can rest assured that we’re vigilant on that.”

President Donald Trump said Monday that U.S. munitions stockpiles have “never been higher or better,” but acknowledged they are “not where we want to be.” “We have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!),” Trump posted on Truth Social. “At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be. Much additional high grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries.” Trump’s comments come amid reports that some Pentagon officials have raised concerns about the long-term supply of America’s munition stockpiles if the war with Iran drags on. The Wall Street Journal reported that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine flagged concerns over interceptor supplies before the attack was launched. The concerns center on whether the United States has sufficient interceptors to defend against Iranian drone and missile strikes.  Trump appeared to dismiss those concerns and ripped into former President Joe Biden for sending weapons to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the war with Russia.  “Sleepy Joe Biden spent all of his time, and our Country’s money, GIVING everything to P.T. Barnum (Zelenskyy!) of Ukraine – Hundreds of Billions of Dollars worth – And, while he gave so much of the super high end away (FREE!), he didn’t bother to replace it,” Trump wrote. “Fortunately, I rebuilt the military in my first term, and continue to do so. The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!!” It remains unclear how long the operation targeting Iran will last, though Trump has estimated it could take four to five weeks. In a memo to Congress, the White House said the length of the operation would ultimately be up to Trump. “It’s his decision to make as the situation evolves, and the President intends to fully achieve the clear objectives he has laid out,” the memo said.  The memo also said that the military had “more than enough ammunition – more than any country on the planet – to finish this operation without fail.” On Monday, Trump said that the operation was ahead of schedule. “We’re already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes, we will always, and we have right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that,” Trump said.

On Monday, in a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocked a New York trial court order that would have required redrawing a congressional district ahead of the 2026 election. By granting a stay requested by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and state election officials, the Court’s conservative majority sent a clear message: state courts cannot use the pretext of “vote dilution” to mandate simple racial discrimination or justify actions that violate the Equal Protection Clause. The case centers on New York’s 11th Congressional District, encompassing Staten Island and southern Brooklyn. Activists attempted to use the state constitution to force the creation of a “crossover” district, specifically designed to ensure that minority voters — who comprise approximately 30% of Staten Island’s population — could elect their preferred candidates. In January, Justice Jeffrey Pearlman of the New York Supreme Court, a trial-level court, sided with these activists. He prohibited the use of the existing congressional map and ordered the Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw the lines based on explicit racial targets. Critics of the order argued that it amounted to a race-based gerrymander targeting the only Republican representative in New York City, prioritizing identity politics over neutral districting. Justice Samuel Alito cut through the legal jargon to identify the trial court’s order for what it was: a violation of the 14th Amendment. Alito made clear that a state court cannot authorize redistricting for the “express purpose” of producing race-based outcomes. Citing its 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions, the Supreme Court reiterated that the government may only engage in race-based action under “extraordinary” circumstances, such as remediating specific, identified past discrimination. In granting the stay, the majority suggested that neither the lower court nor the challengers provided sufficient justification. As Alito noted: “A state law cannot authorize the violation of federal rights.” The Supreme Court’s decision is good news for Republican leaders in states like Texas and Louisiana, where Democrats and civil rights groups have argued that the states must draw more “opportunity districts” to account for minority population growth. By granting the stay, the Court signaled skepticism toward making special “crossover” districts to achieve race-based electoral outcomes. That reasoning could make it more difficult for groups to demand new maps based predominantly on racial demographics. The Court also dealt with the Purcell principle, the doctrine cautioning against judicial changes to election rules too close to an election. Usually, judges aren’t supposed to change voting rules right before people vote, which could cause confusion. Now, the Supreme Court is saying this “no-changes zone” starts much earlier — even four to eight months before the election. This acts like an emergency brake, stopping lower-court judges from forcing states to change their maps at the last minute. It keeps things stable and focuses on fair rules instead of meeting racial quotas. This ruling is a win for those who believe the Constitution is colorblind. It stops what critics viewed as a partisan attempt to use race as a tool for political gain and ensures that New York’s 2026 elections proceed under established, legislatively enacted maps rather than experimental racial quotas.

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. *** The “lit bro” is a man, usually white and straight, who almost exclusively reads male authors deemed pretentious by polite society. He dismisses female authors as trite, and trite authors as womanly. Every couple of years, we start talking about the lit bro, specifically, why he’s bad. At various points, the discourse has centered on the lit bro’s maleness, his whiteness, his straightness, or his privilege. But recently, criticisms of the lit bro have centered on one thing: performativity. Brady Brickner-Wood perfectly summed up this phenomenon in the New Yorker last year, writing that “to the severely online,” a man who reads books such as “Infinite Jest” in public “treats books like accessories, lugging around canonical texts as a ploy to attract a romantic partner or as a way to revel in the pleasure of feeling superior to others … begging to be noticed with the aid of a big, look-at-me, capital-‘B’ book.” It’s tempting to dismiss this as so much virtue signaling, the literary equivalent of looking down at people who listen to the Eagles or frequent chain restaurants. But we can’t simply ignore the scolds, for one simple, striking fact: men aren’t reading fiction anymore. In 2022, nearly half of American women read novels, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, while just 28% of men could say the same. As fewer and fewer Americans read across the board, that percentage is likely to continue dropping. And with men making up an ever smaller share of America’s fiction readers, it’s no wonder that, as Kyle Smith noted in the Wall Street Journal last month, publishers are no longer interested in printing fiction that may appeal to men. This isn’t exactly a new problem. Men have historically been drawn more to nonfiction, history in particular. Everyone jokes about giving their dads World War II books for Christmas. In “30 Rock,” Jack Donaghy lists reading fiction alongside wearing jeans as a terrible result of letting his wife run the show. Still, things have gotten worse in recent years, and cultural critics are very concerned. “Why did the novel-reading man disappear?” the New York Times wondered over the summer, six months after Vox asked, “Are men’s reading habits truly a national crisis?” But the literati’s proposed solutions are as unhelpful as they are unsurprising. GQ suggests men who want to learn about history simply pick up a novel and hope it makes them a better person. And that Vox article denies the premise entirely and scolds us for worrying about something as meaningless as men and their reading habits. Oh, boohoo. Can’t they just read female authors? Sally Rooney writes a new book every year; just get one of those. Not so fast! Men with copies of “Normal People” in their backpacks? Believe it or not, also performative males! Whether they’re reading Faulkner or Ferrante, guys can’t catch a break. So American men are becoming duller while the fiction market, loosed from any kind of masculine counterbalance, is driven more and more by the tastes of female consumers — a distaff drift that explains things such as AI-generated romance novels, BookTok, and “Heated Rivalry.” That might seem like a crazy thing to say. But is it? “Women make up half the country” is a political truism, and politicians from both parties who ignore it are written off as dolts. Sure, publishing companies have less of a responsibility to their country than elected officials, but the logic holds. All of these are ancillary problems. BookTok is probably bad, and AI-generated fiction certainly is. But we’re not going to solve those problems with Hemingway reprints. And while I’m sure Philip Roth has a good argument about why society needs more “manly” books, my concern isn’t for society. My concern is for the bros. I’ve never really scrutinized how my reading habits make me seem, but I don’t need to. There’s a Vampire Weekend poster on my wall and a copy of “Ulysses” on my bookshelf: I am a lit bro. Until recently, though, I hadn’t been acting like one. A few years ago, I simply stopped reading fiction. This had nothing to do with snobbishness, nor a dearth of male novelists. (In fact, most of the fiction I read over the past five years came from Ann Patchett.) No, I simply gravitated away from fiction in favor of what I thought I should be reading, buzzy nonfiction and “important” political texts. And then I had kids, and the prospect of reading “Abundance” in the 40 minutes before I fell asleep was laughable. So I went back to fiction, and I eventually found myself at the base of Lit Bro Mountain: Jonathan Franzen. If the lit bro discourse ever discouraged me from reading anything, it was Franzen. By the time I finished “Freedom,” I was back on novels. I paid more attention to fiction reviews and bestseller lists. When friends recommended novels, I actually bought them instead of adding them to Goodreads and promptly forgetting them. The results couldn’t be clearer. I’m reading more and picking up my phone less. And most importantly, I’m reminded of just how good good fiction is. It’s exciting and inspiring, enjoyable and informative. Which brings us back to the bros. Bros know how to live the good life, and they never let the fear of embarrassment stop them from doing so. Whether they’re lounging at a Dave Matthews Band concert or sitting around quoting “Entourage,” bros do what makes them happy, no matter how cringe it may seem to others. If nothing else, that’s why all bros should be lit bros. Sure, reading literature will make men more well-rounded, and getting men back into novels will do wonders for the state of American fiction. But ultimately, choosing not to read a great book because you’re afraid to seem, alternatively, too manly, too womanly, too performative, or too unsophisticated is incredibly un-bro-like. So come on, bros. Put down the beer and pick up some Franzen. * * * The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio fired back at reporters on Monday when they questioned him about the joint military action undertaken by the United States and Israel against the Iranian regime, asking why no one from President Donald Trump’s administration had notified Congress before the first strikes. Rubio said that the Gang of Eight — a bipartisan group that is comprised of the eight top-ranking congressional leaders — had been informed, but said that no law compelled the administration to inform Congress writ large prior to taking action. WATCH: