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Legitimate military targets do not become civilian infrastructure by coercing noncombatants into acting as human shields.

The United States bombed dozens of weapons depots and air defense facilities on Kharg Island overnight in a “message” to Tehran about what will happen if the Islamic Republic does not accept the terms of President Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
U.S. airstrikes on the island—which hosts Iran’s central oil hub—targeted “military bunkers and storage facilities, air defense systems and other military facilities,” NBC News reported, while oil infrastructure remains unscathed for the time being. The Israeli military hit petrochemical sites at the South Pars gas field earlier this week, but Fox News reported that the Monday night attack on Kharg Island was solely a U.S. operation.
“This is a message to the Iranians,” a senior U.S. official told Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin.
Video posted on social media showed plumes of smoke rising from the island.

Trump warned that Tehran will face devastating consequences if it does not accept the terms of his 15-point peace plan.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday morning. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

On Monday, after Trump threatened to take out “the entire country” in just “one night” should the regime refuse his peace offer, Tehran’s leaders signaled that they are unpleased with the U.S. proposal. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the terms are “incompatible with ultimatums and threats to commit war crimes.”
Trump’s deal requires Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a short-term ceasefire as negotiations for a long-term deal take place. Iran, however, wants a firm guarantee that hostilities will not resume and is finalizing a counter-proposal, Reuters reported.
“Iran does not hesitate to clearly express what it considers its legitimate ‌demands ⁠and doing so should not be interpreted as a sign of compromise, but rather as a reflection of its confidence in defending ⁠its positions,” Baghaei said.
Those conditions are likely a nonstarter for Trump, who made clear during a Monday press conference that “we have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything.”
Israel stepped up its own targeting of Iranian infrastructure in a series of strikes Monday night. The Israel Defense Forces destroyed bridges that the Iranian military used to ship weaponry across Tehran, Karaj, Tabriz, Kashan, and Qom.
“The crossings,” the IDF said, “were struck in order to prevent the Iranian terror regime from using them to transport weapons and military equipment.”
The post US Strikes Kharg Island Weapons Depots and Air Defense Facilities in ‘Message’ to Tehran Ahead of Trump’s Deadline appeared first on .

On April 2, The New York Times published a surprising exposé about ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s fundraising machine: “ActBlue May Have Misled Congress on Vetting Foreign Donations, Its Lawyers Warned.” But while The Times’s willingness to break this embarrassing story about the DNC raised more than a few eyebrows, the ensuing total lack of coverage on left-wing broadcast and cable TV networks has come as less of a surprise.

MRC analysts examined all coverage on major liberal broadcast (ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS) and cable (CNN and MS NOW) networks from April 2 through the evening of April 6, 2026, and found not one word about this scandal. 

The Times’s report described a 2023 letter to the House Administration Committee in which ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones represented her organization’s safeguards against improper foreign donations as thorough and “multilayered.” However, according to the reporting, ActBlue’s own outside lawyers apparently warned that that representation was dangerously inaccurate, and put the organization at “substantial risk” of a criminal investigation. 

Worse still, one of the memos argued it appeared as though ActBlue had “accepted and/or facilitated” potentially “knowing and willful” illegal campaign contributions from foreign entities.

Obviously, the story’s potential to embarrass the Democratic Party seems a sufficient explanation for why none of these seven networks were willing to touch the story. But their avoidance also has the potential to grant them political ammunition to use against the Trump administration in the future.

Because none of these networks have alerted their viewers to the serious nature of the allegations against ActBlue, those audiences would likely be alarmed and outraged if the Trump administration were to — seemingly out of nowhere — launch a criminal investigation into such a vital organ of their political rivals. To anyone not familiar with The Times’s reporting, it would appear as though the administration were engaged in corrupt lawfare.

In fact, MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace has already attempted to employ something similar to that tactic. On the April 4 edition of Deadline: White House, Wallace read an excerpt from a later New York Times piece whose authors were attempting to sound the alarm about a “weaponized” Justice Department:

This is how The Times reports it: “Bondi and Blanche got the President’s message, stepping up efforts to investigate several other Trump targets, including the Democratic fundraising group ActBlue, John Brennan, former CIA director, and Cassidy Hutchinson, whom the President has accused of lying about his actions on January 6th, according to two officials briefed on the effort.”

That reading by Wallace was the only mention of ActBlue we were able to find on any of the networks we examined between April 2 and April 6.

What makes the silence all the more deafening is The New York Times’s April 2 report. Broadcast and cable stations alike routinely take cues from the “paper of record,” often treating a Times piece about a Democrat scandal as permission for them to address that scandal themselves on-air. After the 2020 election, for example, CBS went more than two years without recognizing the veracity of Hunter Biden’s laptop — but when The New York Times explicitly acknowledged it in late 2022, the network almost immediately followed suit. 

At a glance, the ActBlue blackout of across all left-wing TV news seems like a fairly routine instance bias, given the story’s potential to hurt the DNC politically. But when one considers who broke this story, the TV void appears all the more shameless.

With all of the media talking about President Trump’s latest threats directed towards Iran’s bridges and power plants, former Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd joined former CNN reporter and the eponymous host of the So What with Chris Cillizza podcast on Tuesday to suggest that while Americans are worried about Iran getting nuclear weapons, they should be more concerned with the fact that Trump currently does.

While talking about an Axios article that featured a “U.S. administration official” calling Trump the most “the most bloodthirsty, like a mad dog” member of the administration and that he makes Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look live doves by comparison, Cillizza declared, “Donald Trump as a bloodthirsty mad dog is not one that I mean, I wouldn’t say this about— I don’t want any of my presidents to be described as a bloodthirsty mad dog when you do have the nuclear arsenal, when you do have the military might that he reminds us we do have so often.”

 

“You got to ask the question, we’re worried about a radical in Iran getting their hands on a nuclear weapon. What about what’s going on in our country?” – @ChuckTodd on @ChrisCillizza’s So What podcast posted Tuesday on Substack and YouTube. “I can see him [Trump] talking himself… pic.twitter.com/8S5TYSu38n
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) April 7, 2026
 

Also alluding to Trump’s “a whole civilization will die tonight” comments, Todd tried to have it both ways. On one hand, Todd appeared to believe that Trump was just being hyperbolic, but on the other, he started his suggestion that Trump might actually nuke Iran, “Yeah, you know, I mean, it’s a reminder you got asked the question we’re worried about a radical in Iran getting their hands on a nuclear weapon. What about what’s going on in our country? I mean, the guy is—it—again, we’re all sort of numb.”

Cillizza concurred, “He’s probably bullshitting. I mean, that’s the— I think that’s what most people’s reaction is.”

Todd then resumed, “He’s got the worst—this is, like, the worst form of Main Character Syndrome in the history of Main Character Syndrome” and after Cillizza agreed again, continued, “Right? It’s like— it’s like he’s just obsessed with everything revolves around him. He’s the sun.”

Returning to the idea that Trump might actually use nuclear weapons, Todd declared, “I mean, look, understanding the way he thinks, like I think I do, I can see him talking himself into the ultimate weapon here in his head. I do. I could see him being that crazy because he could wrap—he would rationalize it by saying, you know, Harry Truman did it. And they love Harry Truman and Japan’s one of our best friends now.”

He further claimed Trump is “a very simple-minded person,” and he could think, “Everything is just, ‘Oh, Harry Truman did it. People like Harry Truman, Japan is our ally. There’s no, it’s not a big deal.’”

If Todd and Cillizza want to argue that Trump’s rhetoric is unhelpful or just posturing, they are free to do so, but to interpret it as opening the door to the use of nuclear weapons stretches the imagination to the breaking point. Meanwhile, it is a simple truth that Iran with nuclear weapons is more dangerous than Trump with nuclear weapons.

Here is a transcript for the April 7 show:

So What with Chris Cillizza

4/7/2026

CHRIS CILLIZZA: Donald Trump as a bloodthirsty mad dog is not one that I mean, I wouldn’t say this about— I don’t want any of my presidents to be described as a bloodthirsty mad dog when you do have the nuclear arsenal, when you do have the military might that he reminds us we do have so often.

CHUCK TODD: Yeah, you know, I mean, it’s a reminder you got asked the question we’re worried about a radical in Iran getting their hands on a nuclear weapon. What about what’s going on in our country? I mean, the guy is—it—again, we’re all sort of numb.

CILLIZZA: Yes. No question.

TODD: And I think we know he’s—

CILLIZZA: He’s probably bullshitting. I mean, that’s the—

TODD: Right.

CILLIZZA: I think that’s what most people’s reaction is.

TODD: He’s got the worst—this is, like, the worst form of Main Character Syndrome in the history of Main Character Syndrome.

CILLIZZA: It’s so true. He’s always had it, but—

TODD: Right? It’s like— it’s like he’s just obsessed with everything revolves around him. He’s the sun. 

CILLIZZA: Right.

TODD: I mean, look, understanding the way he thinks, like I think I do, I can see him talking himself into the ultimate weapon here in his head. I do. I could see him being that crazy because he could wrap—he would rationalize it by saying, you know, Harry Truman did it. And they love Harry Truman—

CILLIZZA: Yeah.

TODD: —and Japan’s one of our best friends now.

CILLIZZA: They say it wouldn’t work.

TODD: You know what I mean?

CILLIZZA: Right.

TODD: Like, you know, he’s a very simple-minded person.

CILLIZZA: A hundred percent.

TODD: Right? Everything is just, “Oh, Harry Truman did it. People like Harry Truman, Japan is our ally. There’s no, it’s not a big deal.”

CILLIZZA: They didn’t bomb us. 

On Tuesday’s CBS Mornings, CBS continued its commitment to actual, enterprise, public service journalism under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss that appeals to all Americans with part two of its CBS News Investigation into rampant fraud in dark blue California’s hospice system. Following on part one from March 11, correspondent Adam Yamaguchi chose to spotlight one doctor who submitted over $70 million of claims in 2024 allegedly caring for nearly 2,800 patients at 126 hospice facilities.

NEW: Tuesday’s ‘CBS Mornings’ aired part two of the CBS News Investigation on hospice and Medicare fraud in California.
Correspondent Adam Yamaguchi found one man — Dr. Rajiv Bhuva — has submitted claims alleging to have cared for nearly *2,800* patients at *126* hospices pic.twitter.com/wx9MD6J1Er
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 7, 2026
The only criticism here would be there was no connection between the level of fraud taking place in California versus the rest of the country, floating the possibility it’s happening there for a reason and allowed to fester under Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s nose (though his team, in an X post, blamed the federal government).

Following two teases, Norah O’Donnell — a former longtime co-host filling in this week — tossed to Yamaguchi with the revelation that “[o]ur investigative unit found some potential red flags” with “[o]ne hospice doctor [having] submitted claims for more than 20 times the number of patients the average California doctor cares for in a year.”

Yamaguchi hit the ground running with a simple but important reality to keep in mind as he investigated the curious case of Dr. Rajiv Bhuva in the greater Los Angeles area: “The state of California says that if a doctor is involved with any more than, like, even just a few hospices, it is a sign of potential fraud.”

“At the heart of the industry are doctors who are trusted to sign off on care, but in records for the active physicians caring for terminal patients one stands out, a man whose name appeared on claims from 126 hospices and had 60 percent more in Medicare reimbursements than the next closest doctor in 2024 – the last full year of available data – Dr. Rajiv Bhuva,” he added.

He then showed his visit to one such facility in which he introduced himself to two purported staff members, saying “we’re doing a story about hospice, and we’re just trying to understand how often [Bhuva] is here.”

In broken English, one of them replied, “I didn’t [sic] see him in a long time.”

Yamaguchi had the door shut on his face at another stop (click “expand”):

YAMAGUCHI: [TO NUSRSE] We understand that Dr. Rajiv Bhuva is the medical director here, and we’re trying to get some information about him.

RECEPTIONIST [OFF-CAMERA]: He’s not.

YAMAGUCHI [TO STAFF]: He’s not?

RECEPTIONIST: No.

YAMAGUCHI [TO NURSE]: Was he at some point?

NURSE: Yes, he was.

YAMAGUCHI [TO STAFF]: But you’re telling me he’s longer associated with you guys?

NURSE: No, close the door.

YAMAGUCHI [TO STAFF]: Was he at some point?

NURSE: No, close the door, thank you.

RECEPTIONIST: Thank you.

The CBS reporter said the response was the same at each “of the hospices we visited” because “[w]e wanted to find Dr. Bhuva to ask how he managed to work for so many different providers, so we followed a trail of hospice offices linked to his name and Medicare claims totaling $71 million in 2024 across the LA basin.”

Then came the stunning find: “On average in California, a hospice doctor claims for about 140 patients in a year. In 2024, claims with Bhuva’s name were submitted for nearly 2,800 terminally ill patients.”

To recap, we have boots-on-the-ground reporting, attempts at interviews with relevant parties, and a probe of what was likely a trove of documents. Yamaguchi added another key component: interviewing an expert.

He found one in Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Dr. Kristina Newport (click “expand”):

NEWPORT: There’s no reason to think it is legitimate.

YAMAGUCHI: Dr. Kristina Newport has been in the hospice field for 18 years. There are a range of reasons why one physician might be identified in connection with the care for so many patients, including stolen identity.

NEWPORT: If someone is really effectively evaluating the plan of care for every patient that they admit to the hospice, which is their job and their responsibility, they, you know, would have a superhuman schedule to do that in a meaningful way.

Unsurprisingly, Yamaguchi said “several hospices” Bhuva’s claims cited have since “lost their Medicare certification for what regulators called an abuse of billing, a pattern of submitting improper claims.”

The taped portion appropriately wrapped with Yamaguchi’s attempts to track down Bhuva himself:

We reached out to him on the phone and e-mail, but couldn’t connect, so we headed to Dr. Bhuva’s home address. Dr. Bhuva came out. He said that being affiliated with dozens of hospices is not illegal. And I – and I said you’re correct. There’s nothing in the law that prevents someone from being affiliated with many, but, again, it raises flags, and that’s what I have questions about. Bhuva said he wanted to see our information. Until then, he said he wouldn’t talk any further.

Of course, the CBS crew did return and Bhuva hilariously refused to hold up his end of the deal, down to the fact that Yamaguchi called Bhuva out from his front door: “We were able to hear you through the door!”

Back live, O’Donnell praised Yamaguchi for this “really important investigation raising these questions” while co-host Gayle King predicted “more people will be asking questions after that story today.”

Yamaguchi replied to O’Donnell that “[o]ne of the things that’s so shocking about all of this is that it appears to be hiding in plain sight” and CBS has been “the only ones asking these questions.”

Granted, Nick Shirley has also joined the case and been covering it (as has Fox News), but Yamaguchi was indeed the first on the case as part one went live on March 10 at CBSNews.com

O’Donnell wrapped it all up with an important takeaway about why fraud in health care is so damaging (in addition to it being criminal and morally wrong): “I think the question that many people have is, why is my health care so expensive? And is it because of fraud that exists out there?”

“Ultimately, we, the taxpayers, end up paying,” Yamaguchi concluded.

To see the relevant CBS transcript from April 7, click here.

It was TACO Tuesday on CNN’s The Situation Room. CNN and the rest of the liberal media spent much of Monday and Tuesday morning trying to scare the bejeezus out of the American public by ridiculously suggesting President Trump was going to commit “war crimes” and genocide all of the Iranian people. Something that was never going to happen. But the tone changed during The Situation Room when they mocked Trump and suggested he was going to “chicken out” of slaughtering millions of innocent people, even dropping the Democrats’ TACO line, proving that they didn’t believe their own reporting.

“The president is sticking to his very, very tough language right now. Is he painting himself though into a corner? If the Iranians don’t accept the concessions that he wants?” co-host Wolf Blitzer asked CNN chief global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier.

Dozier started her expert analysis by immediately mocking Trump and jabbing him for how he was preparing to “chicken out.” She praised the Islamic regime and even used the Democrats’ political line that “Trump always chickens out” and said he had a “syndrome”:

This could be a high stakes negotiating tactic to try to get them to blink, but so far they haven’t. They’ve proved consistently that they can take more pain, and they see themselves as gaining in political stature every time they force Trump to bypass one of his deadlines, which we might see tonight. The TACO, Trump always chickens out syndrome.

A little over 24-hours prior, Dozer suggested Trump was going to march America “straight into the territory of war crimes.”

 

And there it is.
After the media spent most of yesterday and today suggesting Trump was going to nuke or otherwise genocide Iran, CNN is already suggesting Trump will “chicken out” and drops the “TACO” line:
WOLF BLITZER: The president is sticking to his very, very tough… pic.twitter.com/1JD7EgP92s
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 7, 2026
 

Her analysis was immediately followed up by co-host Pamela Brown and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen quipping about Trump’s other “empty threats”:

BROWN: And, Peter, we’ve seen empty threats before from the president. This seems different, though. And if he doesn’t follow through and or doesn’t get anything tangible in the negotiations, I mean, what kind of a position would that put the U.S. in this war?

BERGEN: Well, actually, I’m reminded in his first term he said he could he could end the Afghan war in a week, but it would kill 10 million people. So, he’s made these kind of very grandiose kind of threats before.

“I mean, in this case, obviously, this, you know, who knows what’s going to happen at 8 p.m. tonight? The only person who knows is the commander-in-chief,” Bergen added before predicting Trump was going to find a way to save face:

Um, I presume to if he wants to kind of retain some form of credibility, he’s going to have to do something because he’s threats have been so over the top. But you know, they could be limited and they could be dressed up as well. The negotiations continue. So the limited strikes and continued negotiations, I mean that wouldn’t be surprising.

“Yeah,” Brown agreed.

Being so easily able to pivot from telling viewers that Trump was certainly going to commit war crimes one day to saying he was going to “chicken out” the next, proved that CNN was just spewing pure propaganda to gas light Americans. Efforts that could incite another mentally unstable liberal to violence. Or, was it an effort to goad Trump into committing a genocide?

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

CNN’s The Situation Room
April 7, 2026
11:17:12 a.m. Eastern

WOLF BLITZER: The president is sticking to his very, very tough language right now. Is he painting himself though into a corner? If the Iranians don’t accept the concessions that he wants?

KIMBERLY DOZIER: This could be a high stakes negotiating tactic to try to get them to blink, but so far they haven’t. They’ve proved consistently that they can take more pain, and they see themselves as gaining in political stature every time they force Trump to bypass one of his deadlines, which we might see tonight. The TACO, Trump always chickens out syndrome.

Or we could see as a gulf official I just spoke to was worried about a massive strike against many targets in Iran that then causes Iran to retaliate against the gulf. So far, they’ve been doing destructive attacks, but they haven’t unleashed the full scope of what gulf officials think they could do.

PAMELA BROWN: And, Peter, we’ve seen empty threats before from the president. This seems different, though. And if he doesn’t follow through and or doesn’t get anything tangible in the negotiations, I mean, what kind of a position would that put the U.S. in this war?

PETER BERGEN: Well, actually, I’m reminded in his first term he said he could he could end the Afghan war in a week, but it would kill 10 million people. So, he’s made these kind of very grandiose kind of threats before.

I mean, in this case, obviously, this, you know, who knows what’s going to happen at 8 p.m. tonight? The only person who knows is the commander-in-chief. Um, I presume to if he wants to kind of retain some form of credibility, he’s going to have to do something because he’s threats have been so over the top.

But you know, they could be limited and they could be dressed up as well. The negotiations continue. So the limited strikes and continued negotiations, I mean that wouldn’t be surprising.

BROWN: Yeah.

Liberal reporters have a funny habit of touting liberal bias as glorious “editorial independence.” When Larry and David Ellison won the bid to take over CNN in February, Washington Post reporters found it sad: “Among power players in politics and media, Paramount’s swoop is also widely viewed as a win for the right amid a broader push to rein in what many conservatives view as a liberal slant in the media and entertainment industries.”

On April 5, Post media reporters Scott Nover and Liam Scott turned to a group of CNN staffers — providing them with anonymity to complain without offending the new owners. How nice of them. Nover tweeted with the “independence” verbiage: 

David Ellison has promised to respect CNN’s editorial independence, but its employees worry about political interference and large cuts to personnel. https://t.co/55w1YutZuC
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 5, 2026
These anonymous CNN insiders want to maintain their “alleged” liberal slant and the takeover is “fueling anxiety,” as the online headline relayed: 

What the looming sale of CNN means for Trump’s feud with the network

Animosity from the White House has taken on new meaning amid an imminent sale to David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance, fueling anxiety among journalists.

The Post noted that Team Trump is delighted at the successful Ellison bid, and then turned to CNN’s current boss for ridiculous denials about an anti-Trump bias: 

“We stand by our journalism,” Thompson wrote in response to the attacks. “Politicians have an obvious motive for claiming that journalism which raises questions about their decisions is false. At CNN our only interest is in telling the truth to our audiences.”

Absolutely no one who watches CNN believes that, especially the people who love the liberal tilt and don’t want to see it watered down, like they fear is happening at CBS News. 

So we’re presented with “several CNN staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, expressed a degree of dread about the sale.” They’re worried that the bias denials won’t continue: 

Despite Ellison’s assurances, questions are swirling among some staffers about how long promises of editorial independence will hold. Right now, CNN fires back when attacked, the CNN staffer said, but now “there’s the question in the back of my mind — would we be sending the same statement in eight months or whenever this closes?”

Then came the CBS comparison: 

Another CNN staffer said they were more concerned about mismanagement should a new guard — or CBS News’s current leadership — take control. Trump has praised Bari Weiss, the former New York Times opinion writer and critic of “wokeness” who Ellison installed as editor in chief of CBS News. She has clashed with the news network as she attempts to remake the organization in her first six months in charge.

“People at CNN have concerns about competence, even more so than editorial interference,” the staffer said.

Putting “wokeness” in quotes is always amusing. It’s easy for journalists to assume “incompetence” of the new managers as they question how the journalistic sausage is made. 

Nover and Scott made the obvious point that in the first term, Jeff Zucker was constantly pushing anti-Trump bias. 

One former CNN journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by their current employer to comment, noted that in morning editorial meetings at the time, Zucker urged them to be tough. “Often, he would spend the first 10 to 15, maybe even 20 minutes, rallying the troops, talking about how important it was that we investigate things Trump was doing, that we not let up, that we not let things slide,” the reporter said.

Zucker did not respond to a request for comment.

Verbal attacks against journalists became common. “You weren’t covering the White House until somebody there came after you,” said another former CNN reporter. These reporters added that Trump appeared to hold particular disdain for the network.

You don’t say!

Nover and Scott equated criticizing CNN with opposing press freedom: “Since 2015, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented more than 3,500 anti-press social media posts from Trump. Hundreds of them specifically mention CNN.”

With a blitzkrieg attack, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has advanced to a consistent lead in polling.

Rachel O’Donoghue, HonestReporting