Pentagon Secretly Plotting Military Operations in Cuba Next

The Pentagon received direct orders from President Trump to prepare for a military escalation in Cuba, according to multiple reports this week.

USA Today and Zeteo, both citing anonymous sources, report that the Pentagon is ramping up planning for a military operation in Cuba, should Trump make the call. Zeteo noted that the order came straight from the White House.

Trump has been threatening Cuba for months now, and in January signed an executive order imposing tariffs on countries that attempted to send oil there, essentially imposing a catastrophic oil blockade on the island. On Monday, he said that “we may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” in reference to his war on Iran, which still has no tangible end in sight. And last month, Trump said of Cuba that “it may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. It wouldn’t matter.... They have no energy. They have no money. They’re in deep trouble on a humanitarian basis.”

Trump’s oil and aid blockade of Cuba has caused rampant human suffering on the island, as Cubans have experienced blackouts, food shortages, and inflation. While the Trump administration has framed this economic strangling as a liberatory endeavor, this kind of military escalation in a country that hasn’t been a threat in decades points to plans to impose its own agenda on Cuba and the rest of the Western hemisphere.

Utah Senator Mike Lee got help from the Trump administration on his disastrous plot to execute a large-scale sell-off of public lands—only to be left behind weeks later.

In June, Lee introduced a controversial measure to sell off 4.2 million acres of public land as an amendment to Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, after consulting with the Department of the Interior, Public Domain reported Wednesday.

The agency shared technical data about the proposal with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which Lee is the chair, according to internal emails obtained by the Wilderness Society. The department also offered feedback on the proposal, which Lee used to craft talking points and respond to concerns.

In one email chain on June 10, Chris Prandoni, the committee’s deputy staff director, asked two Interior Department staffers to approve a quote that would accurately reflect the agency’s research.

“This is the quote I’ve been working up with your guys to accurately reflect your research: ‘The Department of the Interior estimates that the Bureau of Land Management has about 1.2 million acres of land within 1 mile of a population city center and another 800,000 acres within 1-5 miles of a population center. Much of this land may qualify for disposal under this section,’” Prandoni wrote.

Jeremy Arendt, who serves as the Interior’s deputy assistant secretary of natural resources and infrastructure, urged Lee’s staff to “include a % of total acres this represents for [the Bureau of Land Management], which is about 0.7% of the total, or about 30% of lands within 5 miles of population centers.”

“Good to go on the quoted content. Thanks for running it by us!” wrote Greg Wischer, the Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management.

“Thanks, guys. See some of you all tomorrow,” Prandoni replied, implying that staff from the Senate committee would meet with Interior staff in person the next day, when Lee would announce his amendment to Trump’s massive budget reconciliation bill.

But just two weeks later, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum tried to distance the Trump administration from Lee’s outrageous proposal.

“It’s not a central topic. I don’t think anybody is really thinking about it up there,” Burgum told Scripps News, later adding: “It doesn’t matter to me at all if it’s part of this bill, because it’s not something that’s—it wasn’t part of the president’s agenda to be part of this bill in the first place.”

Ultimately, Lee’s massive sell-off wasn’t included in Trump’s behemoth budget bill. But contrary to what Burgum said, the privatization of federal lands is definitely a part of Trump’s agenda, even if it wasn’t for that particular bill.

American Catholic bishops are pushing back against the Trump administration after Vice President JD Vance warned Pope Leo XIV to “be careful when he talks about matters of theology” and invoked “just war” theory at a Turning Point USA event Tuesday.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which represents Catholic leaders across the country, issued a statement Wednesday from its chairman on doctrine, Bishop James Massa, in which he defended the pope’s opposition to the Iran war.

“For over a thousand years, the Catholic Church has taught just war theory and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war,” Massa said in his statement. “That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’”

Massa said that the pope wasn’t just “offering opinions on theology” but “preaching the Gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ. The consistent teaching of the Church is insistent that all people of good will must pray and work toward lasting peace while avoiding the evils and injustices that accompany all wars.”

President Trump called the pope “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” in a Truth Social post Sunday, and Vance, who converted to Catholicism seven years ago, tried to defend him at Tuesday’s event in Georgia, claiming that God supports just wars—a stark contrast to the pope’s assertion that “anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”

“Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis?” Vance said to a sparse crowd. “I certainly think the answer is yes.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed the same talking point on Wednesday, saying that “there’s something called the just war doctrine” and it is a “very well settled matter of Christian theology.”

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led war in Iran has killed an estimated 1,700 civilians in the country and damaged at least 17 Iranian health care facilities and 22 schools. Perhaps Vance and his boss in the White House need to take some moral direction from higher authority on what a just war actually is.

Democrats are mounting a formal opposition to oust Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Arizona Representative Yassamin Ansari filed six articles of impeachment against the Pentagon chief Wednesday, accusing Hegseth of repeatedly violating his constitutional oath.

“Pete Hegseth broke his oath to the Constitution, put U.S. troops at grave risk through the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, engaged in abuse of office and conduct beneath the dignity of his office, and carried out unlawful military actions despite his obligation to refuse—including strikes on civilians and a girls’ school in Minab, Iran,” Ansari said in a statement.

The text of the articles claims that Hegseth engaged in “high crimes and misdemeanors” when he obeyed Donald Trump’s orders, initiating a war against Iran without congressional approval.

“Only Congress can declare war; his actions demand immediate removal,” Ansari wrote on X.

Ansari also accused Hegseth of demonstrating a “willful disregard” for the Constitution, a willingness to abuse the powers of his office, and reckless endangerment of American servicemembers deployed in the Middle East. She further argued that Hegseth’s relative incompetence fronting the war effort caused thousands of civilian casualties.

But his actions in the Iran war were not the only topic of concern. Ansari also said that Hegseth had inappropriately politicized America’s military, and that he had broken the established rules of engagement by approving illegal “double tap” strikes on noncombatant boats in the Caribbean. She even alluded to the March 2025 Signalgate scandal, claiming that Hegseth had “demonstrated gross negligence” in his handling of classified military information.

A dozen other liberal representatives cosponsored Ansari’s bill: Sarah McBride (Delaware), Lauren Underwood (Illinois), Al Green (Texas), Steve Cohen (Tennessee), Jasmine Crockett (Texas), Nikema Williams (Georgia), Dina Titus (Nevada), Dave Min (California), Shri Thanedar (Michigan), Melanie Stansbury (New Mexico), Mike Quigley (Illinois), and Brittany Pettersen (Colorado).

This story has been updated.

President Trump failed to remember that one of his biggest GOP critics—Thom Tillis—is still a sitting senator, right before forgetting when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Both mistakes occurred in an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo that aired on Wednesday morning.

Tillis came up while Bartiromo asked the president if he’d have enough support in the Senate to confirm his preferred replacement for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Board of Governors member Kevin Warsh.

“And you think Kevin Warsh can get confirmed? You think Thom Tillis is gonna give you a vote—”

“Well, we’re gonna have to find out, he might not. But that’s why Thom Tillis is no longer a senator,” Trump replied. Tillis is very much still a senator, although he’s stated he won’t seek reelection in 2026.

“OK,” Bartiromo said, staring blankly at Trump before trying to change the subject. But he didn’t let her.

“Thom Tillis is no longer a senator right, he quit?”

“Well, he’s on his way out.”

“But he quit.”

This isn’t just some minor slipup. As Bartiromo herself said, Tillis could stand in the way of more than a few of Trump’s goals, from confirming the next Fed chair and attorney general to passing his desired budget. In this same interview, Trump claimed that Ginsburg died after his 2020 election loss, when in fact she died a month before. The whole interview added yet another chapter to Trump’s long record of mental instability.