thousands will suffer violence

'No idea what they stand for'

'This is a protest, and a political act'

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. On June 22, this past Saturday night, President Donald Trump ordered B-2 bombers—these are the multibillion-dollar bombers based in Missouri—and seven of them apparently flew almost 15 hours one way, 6,000 miles. And each of them perhaps was equipped with two of these terrible bunker-busters, 30,000 pounds. Fourteen of them were dropped on the Fordow nuclear site. And cruise missiles from submarines then hit the other two as well. And the question is, what happens now? We have to get some context. Usually, when an American president does anything in the Middle East, it doesn’t work out well for a variety of reasons. Jimmy Carter’s presidency was destroyed by his failed 1980 April rescue attempt. Joe Biden was about 50% approval until the disastrous flight from Kabul, Afghanistan. George W. Bush, when Saddam Hussein’s statue fell in spring 2003, had about a 55% approval rating. But after the insurgency and the surge and the insurgency, he left office with historic low polls. I don’t think Barack Obama even recovered from that misadventure in 2011, where he—under the influence of Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, and Hillary Clinton—bombed Libya. And that went off and on for five years. So, it doesn’t have a good pedigree. And what follows from any air campaign is not necessarily good. We took out Slobodan Milosevic mostly by air, that tended to work, there was something better. I think that we took out Libya, something worse followed. There was chaos. We took all out Saddam—maybe after years and years of turmoil and blood, maybe something’s better in Iraq. But the point is, when you take out a leader or you bomb, it’s not easy for the people on the receiving end to sympathize with you or to rise up against the dictator. So, what’s going to happen? Well, we gotta remember that what Trump did was not 1991, first desert war, where it’s a preliminary to a ground invasion. It was not 2003, preliminary to a ground invasion. It was not 2011, bombing Libya for regime change. There was a specific task. And that was to take out what remained of the nuclear acquisition program in Iran. And apparently, it did that in spectacular fashion. So, what is going to be the reaction to all of this? Everybody says, “Well, there’ll be—” I don’t see the people rising up, a Green Revolution redux. But what might happen is that the military should be feeling very uneasy. The top 20 or 25 officers were taken out by Israel. They know there’s a list. The subordinate officers, the next tier, must know their name is on it. They must know that people are angry. That over 50 years, nearly, they spent a trillion dollars subsidizing the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Assad dynasty. And for what? It’s all up in smoke. And then they probably lost another trillion dollars, over 50 years, through sanctions and oil embargoes. For what? It’s up in smoke. And so, people in the military must know that the public will be pointing their fingers at them, as well as the theocracy. They must know that any association with the theocracy got their superiors killed. And it’ll be interesting to see what the military’s attitude is if they were further humiliated. Will Russia and China do anything? I doubt it. I’ll talk about that in a subsequent episode. So, where are we right now? Right now the ball is in the court of Iran. Trump has said to them, “You can come back and negotiate.” But what would they negotiate over? Their one card was, “We have the specter of a nuclear bomb. So, you better come to us and talk.” They don’t have that anymore, at least not for the foreseeable future. The only negotiable item is whether they survive or not. And I don’t think they’re going to want to negotiate that. And so, what are they going to do? It’s probably going to descend into something like the Houthis, Red Sea, western Israel, tit for tat, tit for tat, until finally they get exhausted. Finally, what is the stature of Israel and Trump in the aftermath? Well, Israel has done the unbelievable. If we had this conversation on Oct. 8, 2023, we would’ve said the very idea that they’re going to take on the formidable Hezbollah legions, that they’re going to destroy Hamas, that they’re going to neutralize some of the Houthis, that they’re going to cause the Assad dynasty to flee, that Russia’s going to be out of the Middle East, that Iran is going to be defenseless—no one would have believed it. Their only problem, Israel’s, will be overconfidence. After the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur surprise happened. After their success, since then, we had Oct. 7 to the day 50 years later. I don’t think they’re going to get overconfident anymore. As far as the United States, they have restored the deterrence that was lost by Joe Biden in a variety of ways but most spectacularly, in Afghanistan. So, it’s a very tense situation. No one can predict what’s going to follow. But for right now, things are much better, now after Saturday night, than they were before. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Iran Has Only One Negotiating Chip Left: Its Survival appeared first on The Daily Signal.

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va.—Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought Monday to reassure the American people that the Trump administration is actively working to protect the homeland following the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear sites.   “We are continuing to evaluate every single threat and to proactively go after them before they do anything or take any activity,” Noem told The Daily Signal, when asked about the threat of Iranian terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S.  Following the U.S. targeted attack on three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, the Trump administration has warned that the threat of the activation of terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. has never been higher.   While the threat level is high, it is not new, Noem told reporters at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new facility at the Customs and Border Protection’s Advanced Training Center in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, on Monday.   “We have incredible threats to this country from many nations that are enemies to the United States of America,” Noem told press. “You know, it’s not just Iran, it’s North Korea, Russia, China, consistently every single day are trying to threaten our way of life. So, my job is to do all that I can to protect our country before something bad does happen.”   The U.S. struck Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites over the weekend, dropping more than a dozen bunker-buster bombs from B-2 bombers. The bunker-buster bomb is America’s largest nonnuclear bomb. The U.S. also launched Tomahawk cruise missiles from a submarine, striking Iranian nuclear targets.   President Donald Trump said Monday that the “sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed,” adding that only the “fake news” would claim otherwise.   Satellite images show damage to Iran’s nuclear sites, but Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the press Sunday that it is too early to know the full extent of the damage on the sites.   Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on X on Monday that Iran will “not leave the aggression against [Iran] unanswered,” pledging to “respond to every wound on Iran’s body with faith, wisdom, and determination.”   Iran on Monday launched missiles at an American military base in Qatar in response to the U.S. attack on the Iranian nuclear sites. No American and no Qataris were killed or wounded in the attack, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday afternoon. “I can confirm that Al Udeid Air Base was attacked by short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles originating from Iran today,” a Defense Department official told The Daily Signal Monday afternoon. “At this time, there are no reports of U.S. casualties. We are monitoring this situation closely and will provide more information as it becomes available.”  Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have repeatedly stated that Trump targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent a larger conflict in the future.  “President Trump did the world a favor” when he ordered the strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, Rubio said on Fox News on Sunday.   “Now, the Iranian regime should wake up and say, ‘OK, if we really want nuclear energy in our country, there’s a way to do it,‘” Rubio said. “That offer’s still there, we’re prepared to talk to them tomorrow and start working on that.”  “@POTUS did the world a favor last night… and now the Iranian regime should wake up and say OK, if we really want nuclear energy in our country, there’s a way to do it. That offer’s still there, we’re prepared to talk to them tomorrow.” — @SecRubio pic.twitter.com/k7YFy3dkFO— Department of State (@StateDept) June 22, 2025 The post On Iranian Terrorist Sleeper Cell Threat, Noem Vows to ‘Go After Them Before They Do Anything’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If the U.S. is going to maintain its military edge in the 21st century it can’t rely on defense contractors that prioritize DEI over building the best warfighting tools. A report recently released by conservative journalist Christopher Rufo and co-author Ryan Thorpe alleges that defense contractor Lockheed Martin’s executives “were so committed to DEI policies that they awarded some year-end bonuses based on employees’ skin color, rather than performance—in open violation of civil rights law.” “As we have previously reported, after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Lockheed adopted radical DEI policies and, in one instance, required white men in leadership positions to attend a racial reeducation program and atone for their ‘white male privilege,’” Rufo and Thorpe wrote. This is in reference to Rufo’s reporting from 2021 where he highlighted how Lockheed Martin was hosting conferences for executives to deconstruct their “white male privilege” and generally doing all in their power not to miss out on all the absurdities of the Great Awokening. It wasn’t just conferences and internal corporate indoctrination according to Rufo and Thorpe’s reporting. They wrote that in December 2022 a person who worked for Lockheed Martin was preparing the “aeronautics division’s year-end bonuses.” The whistleblower, who chose to remain anonymous, said that after all the work had been done to calculate the awards, higher ups at the company insisted the list “had too many white employees on it.” The whistleblower got an email insisting the list be changed. Santiago Bulnes, a vice president who now leads engineering on Lockheed’s F-35 program, wrote an email to the whistleblower. “I got a call from [human resources director] La Wanda [Moorer] last night regarding diversity stats on comp adder,” Bulnes, who did not respond to a request for comment, said. “They took a run at getting your few approved and we’re told that we need to fit in the box. I asked her to send you the list of diversity names to simplify the task of finding the best in the group.” Lockheed Martin put out a statement in response to Rufo’s story under the title “Past Compensation Practices.” “Lockheed Martin is a meritocracy,” the statement read. “We are committed to recognizing performance, rewarding excellence, and upholding the principles of merit and fairness. We have and will take all necessary actions to protect that core tenet of our company culture.” The statement noted that the company has taken measures to ensure they are in “full alignment with the President’s recent executive orders.” In addition, Lockheed Martin’s statement said the company is taking the allegations seriously and investigating the payment matter. “In the event that we determine there was any wrongdoing, we intend to appropriately compensate any employees who were adversely affected and will take decisive action to address any misconduct,” the statement concluded. “We appreciate President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, have moved swiftly to support his actions on this issue and are partnering with him to defend our nation and deter our adversaries.” The Daily Signal requested a comment from Lockheed Martin, but they did not respond. It certainly is important that Lockheed Martin get to the bottom of what happened. There have been warning signs for years that the company was placing increasing emphasis on woke nonsense rather than on simply providing the best equipment to the U.S. armed services. The Daily Signal reported in 2023 that Lockheed Martin prominently displayed a transgender flag in the lobby of their headquarters. “When you plant a flag, you send a message,” an anonymous Lockheed Martin employee told The Daily Signal at the time. “To have this representation in the lobby of our corporate headquarters suggests we’ve chosen a point of view on a socially divisive issue that is nowhere near settled.” Given the recent, remarkable airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities aided by F-35s, Rufo and Thorpe’s report should be concerning to all Americans. The production of these rather expensive and complicated machines of war that provide the backbone of U.S. air superiority should be in the hands of the best and brightest. With all due respect to Elon Musk, who has stated that drones are the future of warfare, Saturday’s airstrike suggests that the age of highly advanced manned aircraft isn’t over just yet. The American people paid a hefty price tag to ensure that our country has the best defense in the world. Lockheed Martin at least seems to understand that a major vibe shift has taken place in America. Discrimination will no longer be tolerated. Not only does it interfere with America being all that it can be, but it’s also—in many cases—against the law. Hopefully Lockheed gets back to doing what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has pounded the table for since before he took the post. Drop the DEI. Get back to excellence and warfighting. The post Lockheed Martin Awarded Bonuses Based on Race, According to Report appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Iran Blinked

Senate Parliamentarian Going at Big, Beautiful Bill Like Lizzie Borden

Former President Barack Obama had some harsh criticism for Big Tech platforms that allow free speech, while delivering remarks at the June 17 Connecticut Forum.  Obama lamented that America had lost its “monoculture” and no longer unanimously listened to legacy media sources such as CBS anchor Walter Cronkite or TIME Magazine. Obama lamented that Americans are divided on the facts and not the issues. This is rich, particularly coming from a man whose political party claims that men can switch genders and have babies. After placing the blame on his political opponents and Big Tech greed, Obama proposed that the media and the government had a role to play. [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] 

President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend the NATO summit in the Hague, Netherlands, held on June 24 and 25, where world leaders are anticipated to cover a wide range of pressing topics.The annual meeting provides Trump with an opportunity to promote American interests over globalist ideals while reducing the United States' defense burdens, potentially reshaping the alliance.'President Trump will be calling on NATO allies to step up to the plate and invest in the defense of Europe.'This will be the first NATO summit hosted in the Netherlands since the alliance's founding in 1949. Approximately 9,000 attendees are expected, including 6,000 officials representing various countries.Defense spendingA top concern for the Trump administration is ensuring that American taxpayers do not carry an unfair defense burden compared to their NATO counterparts.Trump has maintained a firm stance with NATO allies, pressuring the countries to substantially increase defense spending from 2% of their GDP to 5% as part of the president's efforts to push for burden-sharing among the nations.Nile Gardiner, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow, told Blaze News that defense spending is expected to "dominate" most of the summit."This is the top priority for the U.S. administration. President Trump will be calling on NATO allies to step up to the plate and invest in the defense of Europe. I think you'll be looking for all of the alliance members to pledge to spend 5% of GDP on defense," Gardiner stated.NATO's 32 allies previously agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.With ongoing concerns of escalation from Russia, NATO's latest plan aims for 5% of GDP for defense budgets, including 3.5% for military spending and 1.5% for security-related infrastructure.RELATED: Trump touches down in Canada for G7 summit. Here's what's on the menu. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Photo by SIMON WOHLFAHRT/AFP via Getty ImagesLast month, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said he expects the ally countries to agree to the new goal during the upcoming annual summit."Let's say that this 5% — but I will not say what is the individual breakup, but it will be considerably north of 3% when it comes to the hard spend, and it will be also a target on defense-related spending," Rutte remarked.‘The reality right now is Europe is not in a position to defend itself.’The Financial Times reported in late May that Spain was the last major holdout on NATO's plan to increase defense spending.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated last month that when he met with José Manuel Albares, Spain's foreign minister, he "urged Spain to join Allies in committing 5% of GDP to defense."Albares responded, "There was an exchange [with Rubio], and both of us expressed our views very clearly. I insisted that it was a huge effort to reach 2% and that the debate right now needs to focus on capabilities."Spain currently commits only 1.28% of its GDP to defense spending. In April, Pedro Sánchez, Spain's prime minister, announced a plan to meet NATO's existing 2% requirement for the first time in 2025.A White House official confirmed to Blaze News that Trump "intends to secure a historic 5% defense spending pledge from NATO allies that will advance stability in Europe and around the world."NATO members reached an agreement on Sunday to increase their defense spending target to 5% of GDP. Yet Spain opted out.Sánchez declared, “We fully respect the legitimate desire of other countries to increase their defense investment, but we are not going to do so.”On Monday morning, Rutte held a press conference before the summit, confirming that NATO members had agreed to the new defense spending goals.Peace through strengthThe Trump administration has prioritized facilitating peace talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the war and reduce the United States' aid commitments. Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and Iran also remain ongoing. The U.S. launched airstrikes against three of Iran's nuclear enrichment sites over the weekend.Resolving these conflicts is certain to be another key topic at the upcoming summit. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker previously stated that the Trump administration will begin talks with allies later this year about withdrawing American troops from Europe.While Whitaker previously stated that "nothing has been determined," he noted that the administration would converse with NATO allies after the summit."It's more than 30 years of U.S. desire [to reduce troops in Europe], President Trump just said enough, this is going to happen and it's going to happen now. This is going to be orderly, but we are not going to have any more patience for foot-dragging in this situation. ... We just need to work through the practical consequences," Whitaker remarked.RELATED: Lindsey Graham champions sending troops to Iran despite Americans' weariness of endless war US ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker. Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesEarlier this month, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, stated that Russia would not end the war with Ukraine until NATO withdraws its military forces from Eastern Europe, citing it as a central cause of the war.Ryabkov stated that America must take actionable steps to address "the root causes" behind Russia's security disputes."Among these causes, NATO expansion is in the foreground. Without resolving this fundamental and most acute problem for us, it is simply impossible to resolve the current conflict in the Euro-Atlantic region," he said. "Given the nature and genesis of the Ukrainian crisis, provoked by the previous U.S. authorities and the West as a whole, this conflict naturally acts, well, if you like, as a test, a trial, which checks the seriousness of Washington's intentions to straighten out our relations."Trump stated that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 14, mainly about the Iran conflict. He noted, "Much less time was spent talking about Russia/Ukraine," but he indicated that there will be future discussions regarding that war."He is doing the planned prisoner swaps — large numbers of prisoners are being exchanged, immediately, from both sides. The call lasted approximately 1 hour. He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end," Trump wrote in a post on social media.‘Trump will be urging strong support from NATO members for Israel unity, calling for an end to Iran's nuclear program.’Trump attended the Group of Seven summit in Canada, which was held from June 15 through 17, but left before the event's final day when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Rutte joined a breakfast discussion about the ongoing conflict. Several Cabinet members, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, remained at the event to represent the U.S.Zelenskyy, who will also be attending the NATO summit, has been pushing for allies to implement stricter sanctions against Russia.Gardiner stated that he anticipated the Trump administration would press European allies to increase military production to ensure that they have the industrial capacity necessary to "produce large amounts of tanks, weapons, aircraft, [and] ammunition to use for the defense of Europe against Russia.""The reality right now is Europe is not in a position to defend itself," Gardiner continued. "I think, also, President Trump will be urging European NATO allies to stop buying Russian energy."He noted that European NATO members purchased roughly €7 billion worth of liquefied natural gas from Moscow."They are directly helping to fund the Russian war machine," Gardiner said. "In fact, European NATO allies spend more money buying Russian gas than they do in terms of military assistance in Ukraine."RELATED: A treacherous week for America First (and Israel, too) NATO 75th anniversary celebratory event on July 9, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesGardiner added that recent conflict in the Middle East would also likely be front and center during the summit."Trump will be urging strong support from NATO members for Israel unity," Gardiner stated.Trump has repeatedly stated that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons."For 40 years, they've been saying 'death to America,' 'death to Israel,' 'death' to anybody else that they didn't like," Trump told reporters on Wednesday. "If you go back 15 years, I was saying, 'We cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon.'"After bombing Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, Trump warned that Iran would face further strikes if its leaders fail to reach a peace agreement with Israel.During the Monday press conference, Rutte addressed the United States' recent strikes against Iran."When it comes to NATO's stance on Iran's nuclear program, allies have long agreed that Iran must not develop a nuclear weapon. Allies have repeatedly urged Iran to meet its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty," Rutte stated.A reporter asked Rutte whether he has concerns that the U.S. strike on Iran would result in the Trump administration deprioritizing NATO."I don't think so," he replied. "The news about Iran is, at this moment, grabbing all the headlines, and it is, of course, important news, but this summit is really about making sure that the whole of NATO, 1 billion people, will be safe, not only today but also three, five, seven years from now.""Let's not forget, Iran is heavily involved in the fight of Russia against Ukraine," Rutte continued. "No doubt it will emerge in the discussions."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!