Saturday Report 3/14/26 — Is this what the Republican Party’s future looks like?

The Best of the Rest of the News and Opinion

— Trump chuckles as he admits Putin is helping Iran kill American troops. It’s a grim reminder of when Putin was paying bounties to Afghan militants to kill our soldiers and, when Trump was confronted about it, he defended Putin and called it a “hoax.” Even though the source of the information was US intelligence agencies and the briefing had come from his own administration. Now Putin’s at it again, this time helping Iran kill at least a dozen US soldiers so far, and Trump actually laughed when asked about it, saying that Putin was just doing what we’re doing to him in Ukraine, so it’s all okay. Here’s how Raw Story reported Trump’s response to Brian Kilmead asking him to confirm that Putin is helping Iranians kill Americans: “Yeah, we’re helping them also,” Trump agreed, chuckling, “and he says that, and China would say the same thing, you know. It’s like, ‘Hey, they do it, and we do it, in all fairness.’ They do it, and we do it.” And then, as six more US airmen died in a plane crash over Iraq in support of our Iran mission, Trump started dancing. Can you imagine the GOP and media response if Obama had — twice — just shrugged his shoulders when he was told Russia was killing Americans and then went partying? This disgusting husk of a man must be impeached as quickly as possible.

— The lie heard around the world: Trump told our allies Iran was surrendering, but Iran didn’t get the memo. Trump told G7 leaders in a private call this week that Iran was “about to surrender.” Three officials from three countries confirmed it to Axios. He bragged that Operation Epstein Fury got rid of a “cancer threatening us all,” then claimed that “nobody knows” who Iran’s leader is, so there’s “no one left” who can announce a surrender. Hours later, Iran’s actual new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei went on state TV vowing to avenge martyrs (Trump’s and Netanyahu’s strike killed his wife, mother, father, brother, and other relatives), keep the Strait of Hormuz shut, and attack U.S. bases. That same night, two tankers were set ablaze in the Strait. Oil is over a hundred dollars a barrel. On a phone call Thursday, every other G7 leader pushed Trump to end the war, but European officials described him as “ambiguous and noncommittal.” When a president misleads allies during a live war celebrated by Putin, the entire world pays the price, as does America.

— The war comes home, as they always do. An Israeli strike in Lebanon killed two of Ghazli’s (the attacker of of the Michigan synagogue) brothers and two of his brother’s children. The FBI — what’s left of it after Ka$h Patel fired the team responsible for tracking Iranian terror operations in the US — is also investigating the two separate attacks that happened this week. In Michigan, an armed man drove a car into Temple Israel, a synagogue, before exchanging gunfire with security officers. Authorities say the suspect, 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, was killed at the scene. Ghazali was a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon. According to reporting confirmed by NPR, two of his brothers and two of their children were killed earlier this month during an Israeli strike in Lebanon, and his parents were wounded and remain hospitalized. In Virginia, another attack took place inside a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps classroom at Old Dominion University. Police identified the gunman as 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh of Sterling, Virginia. Jalloh opened fire in the classroom, killing one person and wounding two others before members of the ROTC class tackled him. He was ultimately killed during the confrontation. Jalloh had previously served in the Virginia Army National Guard and was honorably discharged in 2015. In the years that followed, authorities say he became radicalized online. In 2017 he pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and was sentenced to 11 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. He was released in 2024. The FBI is investigating the Old Dominion attack as an act of terrorism.

— Don’t let Stephen Miller turn America into a surveillance state. More than 90 civil rights and civil liberties groups sent a strongly-worded letter Thursday to congressional Democrats warning them not to give Stephen Miller what he wants. Miller is demanding a clean renewal of Section 702 of FISA with zero new privacy protections. That law allows warrantless backdoor searches of Americans’ calls, texts, and emails, and it expires April 15th. It’s been abused to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters, judges, journalists, and lawmakers. Now Trump and Miller want it renewed with no warrant requirements, no reforms, nothing. Advocacy groups are drawing a hard line. As one leader put it, no president should be able to hoover up your private communications without a court order. Congress has one chance to get this right. You can call your member of the House and your two senators at 202-224-3121.

— Is this what the Republican Party’s future looks like? New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg went to a Florida rally for James Fishback, a 31-year-old Republican running for governor. She came back alarmed. The crowds were standing-room-only, packed with young men, some still in high school, cheering antisemitic slurs and wearing the hats of Nick Fuentes, a self-described Nazi sympathizer. Fishback is polling at a shockingly high 32 percent among Republican primary voters aged 18 to 32. Goldberg found kids who said their political awakening came through Kanye West’s antisemitic posts, young people who can’t afford homes, and who are finding answers in conspiracy theories on TikTok (which has banned my radio/TV show ever since the billionaires took the social media site over) and Instagram. Fishback doesn’t represent the Republican mainstream today. But he’s showing us one vision of what tomorrow’s GOP could look like. And we should all be worried.

— Democrats are winning. Everywhere. And nobody’s talking about it. Since Trump took office, Democrats have flipped 28 state legislative seats. Republicans have flipped zero. This week in New Hampshire, Democrat Bobbi Boudman won a district Trump carried by 13 points just 16 months ago. Democrats have now won or overperformed in 254 of 284 key elections since inauguration day. They’ve flipped seats in Texas, Arkansas, Iowa, Georgia, and Mississippi. CNN’s Harry Enten now puts Democrats’ odds of taking back both chambers of Congress at 46 percent and rising. Trump’s response to the bleeding? Demand that Congress ban mail ballots and make it harder for married women to vote. Voters aren’t waiting for permission. They’re already showing up.

— Did AI kill 175 children in an Iranian school? On February 28th, a U.S. Tomahawk missile struck Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran. A hundred and seventy-five people died, most of them girls aged seven to twelve. A Pentagon investigation now points to U.S. forces, possibly acting on outdated intelligence. More than 120 House Democrats sent a letter to Pete Hegseth demanding answers, including whether the military’s AI targeting system called Maven was used to select the school. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called for Hegseth to resign. The head of U.S. Central Command confirmed the military is using AI tools in this war. Hegseth had declared there’d be “no stupid rules of engagement” from day one. When you strip out the guardrails on warfare, children end up dead. That’s not a mistake. That’s the new Trump administration policy, and it’s both immoral and criminal.