Trump Sends Nuclear Proposal to Tehran, Demands Iran Act ‘Quickly’

Headline USA Editor
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Trump Sends Nuclear Proposal to Tehran, Demands Iran Act ‘Quickly’

(Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar.com) President Donald Trump wrapped up his first trip abroad since returning to the Oval Office by sending Iran a proposal for a nuclear agreement and threatening that something “bad” would happen if Tehran did not quickly make a deal with Washington.

On Friday, Trump said he passed the proposal to Iran and demanded they act quickly or face consequences. “We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran. I think we’re getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this,” he said. “But most importantly, they know they have to move quickly, or something bad is going to happen.”

The previous day, Trump said that the two sides were close to a deal. Washington has not publicly revealed any details from the agreement. On Thursday, the Iranian foreign minister said Tehran had not received a proposal from Washington.

The messaging from the White House has fluctuated significantly. At times, Washington has said that Tehran must completely abandon its nuclear program, including its ability to enrich uranium. At other points, US officials have said Iran could maintain nuclear enrichment in an arrangement similar to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Tehran has said it will not sign a deal that requires it to give up its enrichment program.

Trump and other top US officials have said a nuclear deal with Iran must come soon or Washington may declare war on Tehran. The White House says the short timeline is necessary, claiming Iran is getting close to building a nuclear weapon.

However, the US intelligence community has said for over a decade that Tehran is not building a nuclear weapon.

Reaching a new nuclear agreement would be very popular in the US. Around 70% of Americans, including nearly two-thirds of Republicans, favor Trump signing a new agreement with the Islamic Republic.

On Friday, Iranian officials met with European diplomats for the first time since Trump returned to office. UK, French and German (the E3) officials met with an Iranian delegation in Turkey to discuss the ongoing talks with the US.

The UK, France, and Germany were signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear pact. However, Trump effectively forced the E3 out of the deal when he left the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute. He hosts The Kyle Anzalone Show and is co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Connor Freeman.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

11 Inmates Escaped from a New Orleans Jail; 10 are Still on the Lam

Headline USA Editor
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11 Inmates Escaped from a New Orleans Jail; 10 are Still on the Lam

(Headline USA) Authorities in Louisiana say they are in pursuit of 10 inmates — at least one of whom is convicted of murder — who escaped from a New Orleans jail. Another inmate was captured Friday after a brief foot chase through the French Quarter, the Louisiana State Police said in a post on the social media platform X.

Authorities first noticed the 11 inmates were missing during a Friday morning headcount. The escapees range from 19 years old to 42. Most of the men are in their 20s.

One of the fugitive inmates, Derrick Groves was convicted on two charges of second-degree murder and two charges of attempted second-degree murder last year for his role in the 2018 Mardi Gras Day shootings of two men. Groves also left two other injured people “physically and emotionally scarred” from the shooting, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office, which described him as a “heinous criminal” in a news release.

Groves currently faces a charge of battery against a correctional facility employee, court records show.

Another escaped inmate, Corey Boyd had pled not guilty to a pending second-degree murder charge.

Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said the department is actively working with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to search for the escaped inmates.

“We are launching a full investigation to determine how this escape occurred, including reviewing facility protocols, staff performance and physical security measures,” Hutson said. “Any lapses or failures that contributed to this incident will be addressed swiftly and with full accountability.”

Investigators are focusing on an opening inside a cell through which at least one inmate is believed to have escaped into a maintenance corridor, according to one current and one former law enforcement official who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

“That’s how they escaped,” the current official said, adding investigators were reviewing surveillance footage that captured the jailbreak.

The AP obtained a photograph the current law enforcement official confirmed shows the opening in question. A former law enforcement official who worked in the jail for several years said such a small square opening would typically be covered by a sink and toilet that may have been removed in this case.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called the escape “beyond unacceptable” and said local authorities had waited too long to inform the public.

“Someone clearly dropped the ball and there’s no excuse for this,” Murrill said in an emailed statement. “My office will do whatever it takes to determine how this happened and make sure that it won’t happen again.”\

New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said her agency has put “a full court effort” to respond to the escape and are working with the FBI and U.S. marshals.

“It’s more than likely that someone had help and they are not running around in a jumpsuit — but if they are, you’re going to stand out,” she said.

Officers were focused on identifying and providing protection for individuals who may have testified in their cases or may be in danger. One family has been “removed” from their home, Kirkpatrick said.

“If there is anyone helping or harboring these escapees, you will be charged,” Kirkpatrick added.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Teenage Target of FBI Sting Operation Tried Tracking Undercover Agents

Ken Silva
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Teenage Target of FBI Sting Operation Tried Tracking Undercover Agents

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Justice Department announced charges Wednesday against a 19-year-old former Michigan Army National Guardsman who allegedly attempted to carry out a mass shooting at a U.S. military base in Warren, Michigan.

The DOJ’s charging papers against Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said show that at least two undercover FBI agents and an informant were used against him. Records also show that Said suspected the undercover agents of entrapment in December, before he eventually changed his mind and decided to proceed with the purported plan.

According to the criminal complaint, Said enlisted in the Michigan Army National Guard in September 2022, when he was still a minor. Last June, Said began discussing jihad with an undercover FBI agent online, the complaint said.

In July, agents covertly searched Said’s phone, and found that he had been discussing jihad on Facebook since at least October 2023—purportedly with someone “located in the Palestinian territories.” A month later, the undercover agent introduced Said to an informant, and they began discussing plans to go to Syria.

In November and December, Said met with two undercover FBI agents on several occasions, including once on Dec. 13, when they convinced him to record an ISIS propaganda video. On that same day, Said suspected the agents of being undercover, and he attempted to track them using an Apple AirTag device. The FBI discovered the AirTags, and the undercover agents confronted Said about it.

“SAID acknowledged leaving the AirTag and indicated that he wanted to determine if UCE-1 and UCE-2 were actually law enforcement. UCE-2 asked SAID if he was ‘getting cold feet’ and whether ‘he wanted to walk out,’ to which SAID responded, ‘No. No. I’m not gonna back [out]…I’m going for this….but the thing is like I said, I just want to make sure, what’s it called? I—you know—you [UCEs] are who you are—say you are…I don’t wanna go to the airport and then—just get arrested over there…,’” the criminal complaint said.

However, it appears as though Said did back out of the plan—at least at first. The agents were scheduled to meet him at the Detroit Wayne County Airport two days later—ostensibly to arrest him as he was set to fly to Turkey—but he never showed up.

Said didn’t talk to the undercover agents for another month. By February, it appears as if Said was back on board for a terrorist attack. He continued to be in close contact with the undercover agents until the day of their supposed attack: Wednesday.

One of the undercover agents may have been female—Said told that agent he “loved him/her” and “embraced him/her” before exiting his vehicle to go carry out his plan. He was arrested instead.

Said now faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Report: Trump Had More Exchanges with Reporters in First 100 Days Than 6 Predecessors

Headline USA Editor
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Report: Trump Had More Exchanges with Reporters in First 100 Days Than 6 Predecessors

(Headline USA)  President Donald Trump had more frequent exchanges with reporters during his first 100 days in office than any of his six predecessors, a study has found.

Trump’s 129 interactions through news conferences or interviews averaged nearly two each workday, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project. Trump exceeded the pace of his first term in 2017, when he had 89 such meetings. The study was released Thursday.

President Bill Clinton was the only other president to hit triple figures during his first 100 days in office. Kumar’s records date back to President Ronald Reagan’s first term.

Trump’s favored venue is short question-and-answer session with reporters, 40 of them from the Oval Office. “With regular coverage by cable networks, particularly Fox News and C-SPAN, Trump used the setting to show what decisions he was making and explained the reasons he took action,” Kumar said in her report.

Partly as a result, polls indicate a large number of Americans seem to know what the president is doing, even if they don’t necessarily agree with it.

The presidential access comes at a time that the administration is battling with the press on several levels. The Associated Press has sued Trump, for example, because Trump has blocked its journalists from regular access to Oval Office or Air Force One events. He’s seeking to slash federal subsidies for public media because he believes NPR of PBS coverage is biased in favor of liberals.

Through press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the administration has brought in more reporters from conservative news sources, along with podcasters and influencers.

Trump gave 26 interviews during his first 100 days back in office, Kumar said. Of those, 16 were to Fox News or other conservative news outlets and podcasters.

By contrast, former President Joe Biden had 87 reporter interactions during the first 100 days of his administration, in 2021. Reagan, with 23 exchanges, had the fewest in 1981, but he was recovering from an assassination attempt much of that time.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

DEA Report Finds Fentanyl Purity Falling, But No Less Dangerous

Headline USA Editor
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DEA Report Finds Fentanyl Purity Falling, But No Less Dangerous

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration released its latest report on drug threats, highlighting progress in the fight against fentanyl, a powerful opioid responsible for most overdose deaths.

Even so, fentanyl remains at the top of the DEA threat assessment. 

“Mexican cartels’ production, trafficking, and distribution of powerful illicit synthetic drugs, chiefly fentanyl and methamphetamine, represent a dire threat to public health, the rule of law, and national security in the United States,” the report said. “The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels (CJNG), together with their procurement, distribution, and financial support networks stretching across Latin America, China, and other key global nodes, remain the dominant threats for the trafficking of these and other drugs into the United States.”

The move away from plant-based drugs to synthetics has helped the cartels rake in even-more cash. Cartels maintain steady supply chains for precursor chemicals, primarily from China and India, needed to produce these synthetic drugs.

In the 12 months ending in October 2024, the United States recorded 52,385 overdose deaths from synthetic opioids – a 33% decline – while overall overdose deaths, from any drug, declined about 26%, according to the most recent available CDC provisional data. Provisional data from the CDC showed that 74,702 of the 107,543 total drug overdose deaths in 2023 involved synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl. That’s about 69% of all overdose deaths in the U.S.

The DEA seized about 29% less fentanyl in 2024 compared to the prior year. In 2024, DEA seized 21,936 pounds of fentanyl. The agency also seized 61.1 million fake pills in 2024, a 24% decrease from the previous year. Data from the El Paso Intelligence Center’s National Seizure System – which consolidates drug seizure data from federal, state, and local agencies throughout the United States – indicated a similar trend, with 23,256 total kilograms seized in 2024, down from the previous year.

Fentanyl purity also fell last year, according to DEA testing. In 2024, the average fentanyl pill contained 1.94 milligrams of fentanyl, ranging from a low of 1.58 mg to a high of 2.18 mg. Based on these analyses, DEA forensic laboratory results found that about 5 out of 10 fake pills contain 2mg or more of fentanyl. The average purity of fentanyl powder samples was 11.36%, ranging from exhibits that contained almost no fentanyl (0.07%) to 82% purity.

“Fentanyl purity declined throughout 2024, consistent with indicators that many Mexico-based fentanyl cooks are having difficulty obtaining some key precursor chemicals,” the report noted. “DEA reporting indicates that some China-based chemical suppliers are wary of supplying controlled precursors to its international customers, demonstrating an awareness on their part that the government of China is controlling more fentanyl precursors to comply with recent updates to the United Nations counter-narcotics treaty.”

That doesn’t mean fentanyl is any safer. 

“The downward trend in fentanyl purity does not mean that street-level fentanyl is less dangerous,” according to the report. “Drug dealers in the United States continue to adulterate fentanyl with various animal tranquilizers (such as xylazine), anesthetics (such as ketamine), and other synthetic opioids (such as nitazenes).”

DEA Acting Administrator Robert Murphy said the report shows progress.

“This year’s report indicates progress in the fight against fentanyl and also outlines the increasing challenges we face with the changing landscape of the synthetic drug crisis,” he said. “The adulterating of fentanyl with highly potent, dangerous chemicals reminds us that this fight is far from over.”

Trump Says US and Iran Are Close to a Nuclear Deal But Details Unclear

Headline USA Editor
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Trump Says US and Iran Are Close to a Nuclear Deal But Details Unclear

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump said on Thursday that the US and Iran were close to reaching a nuclear deal, though the details of a potential agreement remain unclear.

The president said that the US wouldn’t be “making any nuclear dust in Iran,” referencing his previous threats that he would bomb Iran if an agreement weren’t reached. “I think we’re getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this,” he said.

Trump told reporters, “You probably read today the story about Iran. It’s sort of agreed to the terms.”

The president didn’t specify what story he was referring to, but NBC News published an interview on Wednesday with Ali Shamkhani, an advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

In the interview, Shamkhani said Iran was ready to commit to never making a nuclear weapon, reduce uranium enrichment levels, get rid of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and allow international inspectors to verify the process in exchange for sanctions relief.

Shamkhani’s comments reflect what has been Iran’s position all along and mirror the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. Trump posted a link to the interview on his Truth Social account, suggesting he may be open to such a deal.

Publicly, Trump administration officials, including Steve Witkoff, have been saying that any deal must eliminate Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which Iranian officials have made clear is a non-starter. It’s likely this has not been the US demand in its negotiations with Iran since the talks have continued to make progress.

Trump’s comments come after Axios reported that Witkoff presented Iran with a proposal for a potential deal during the previous round of negotiations, which was held over the weekend in Oman.

The report said that Witkoff’s proposal included the Trump administration’s parameters for an Iranian civilian nuclear program and requirements for monitoring and verification, but it didn’t say what those parameters were.

President Trump has been threatening to attack Iran if a nuclear deal isn’t reached even though his intelligence agencies recently reaffirmed that there’s no evidence Tehran is building a bomb or that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reversed his ban on the development of nuclear weapons.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

Report: Witkoff Told Mediators That the US Won’t Force Israel To End Gaza Slaughter

Headline USA Editor
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Report: Witkoff Told Mediators That the US Won’t Force Israel To End Gaza Slaughter

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has told Arab mediators that the US will not force Israel to end its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, according to a report from The Times of Israel.

The report, which cited Arab officials, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was staunchly refusing to end military operations in Gaza, a position he has made clear in public comments as the Israeli military is preparing a major escalation.

“We in the coming days will be entering with all our strength to complete the process… to subdue Hamas,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday. “It could be that Hamas will say ‘pause, we want to release another 10 hostages.’ Ok, release them. We will receive them and after that enter. But there will not be a situation where we stop the war.”

The Times report also cited a source who was present at a meeting Witkoff held with the family members of Israeli captives held in Gaza last week. The source said that Witkoff largely agreed with the position of Arab mediators that Israel’s plan to escalate will not be effective.

At another meeting with hostage families this week, Witkoff was pressed on why the US didn’t force Israel to stop. “We’re not the Israeli government. We don’t disagree. The Israeli government is a sovereign government. They can’t tell us what to do, and we can’t tell them what to do,” Witkoff said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Haaretz.

Israel’s military operations in Gaza are entirely reliant on US military aid, meaning the US has the ability to pressure Netanyahu to end the slaughter and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, which has been under a total Israeli blockade since March 2.

According to the Times report, Witkoff is now proposing a deal for a weeks-long ceasefire that would release a few captives. Hamas’s position is that it’s willing to free all the hostages at once in exchange for a permanent ceasefire.

Witkoff has insisted that during the weeklong truce, the US would ensure Israel entered talks on a lasting deal, but Hamas is unlikely to agree to an agreement without an upfront commitment to a permanent truce. Israel was supposed to enter talks on a permanent ceasefire under the deal that was signed in January, but it refused to do so.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

Why Americans Stopped Saving Money

Money Metals News Service
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Why Americans Stopped Saving Money

(Peter St Onge, Money Metals News Service) During last month’s tariff war, a big driver of stock-market declines was foreigners selling.

Foreigners have stockpiled over $60 trillion in US assets — much of it in stocks. Which puts America at the mercy of those foreigners whenever foreigners get nervous.

Part of this is terrible trade deals, but the biggest driver is that Americans stopped saving money, instead spending their way into debt slavery.

Why Americans Stopped Saving

According to the BEA, Americans currently save just 0.6% of gross national income. In the 90’s it was 7 and a half percent. In the 1960’s it was 12.6%.

So what happened?

Mainstream focuses on consumer culture — immediate gratification, advertising, credit cards.

But of course, we had all this in the 1990s and 1960s. The 90s were the me decade, and the 1969 Summer of Love is the definition of immediate gratification.

Ads in the 60s were on everything, and by 1969, over half of Americans had a credit card. By the90ss credit cards were as ubiquitous as today.

The “Poverty Trap”

In reality, we can trace the low savings rate to 3 things: stagnant wages, generous welfare, and, above all, artificially manipulated interest rates by the Federal Reserve.

The wages and welfare combination actually has a name: the Poverty Trap. As in the more generous welfare gets the less people work — may as well relax on the couch. In fact, if you work, you lose the benefits.

When illegals push back-breaking jobs to minimum wage, all the more reason.

I’ve talked about how wages stagnated for the young blue-collar starting in the 2000s, to the point they’re the first generation in 250 years that doesn’t out-earn their parents.

Part of this is mass migration competing for jobs. Part is trade deals that opened markets but didn’t open theirs. Part is the relentless march of regulations that wipe out small businesses. And part is the relentless march of benefits that by votes by paying people not to work.

Put them together, and the net worth for the bottom half of Americans has been stagnant since 1989.

Enter The Federal Reserve

While the poverty trap went to work on the poor and young, the middle class got run through the interest rate woodchipper by the Federal Reserve.

Between the 1950s and 2000, the average Fed fund rate was 6.6%. Since 2000, it’s 2.3%. Adjusted for inflation, it’s actually been negative since 2000.

In other words, banks were paid to borrow money.

This did 3 things:

It gutted the return on savings — for most of the period since 2000, banks have paid fractions of a percent on deposits. After all, why pay when they’re getting it free from the Fed?

It drove inflation, most spectacularly under Joe Biden. This turned those fractions of a percent negative, actually draining your money. The amazing thing is that people saved at all.

It drove income inequality by driving up the price of assets from stocks to housing. This slammed the door on the biggest traditional savings pool, your house.

Low rates rained trillions on boomers — trillions they never earned. And it destroyed the young, who are currently doom-spending their way to debt slavery.

What’s Next

It’ll take 3 things to get Americans back to saving: Jobs that pay more than welfare. Interest rates that reward savings. And controlling federal spending so the Fed doesn’t need to force rates down.

Trump’s doing his best. Congress is not.

But if we can get there, we start the long road back to a creditor nation that owns more of the world than they own of us.

Peter St. Onge writes articles about Economics and Freedom. He’s an economist at the Heritage Foundation, a Fellow at the Mises Institute, and a former professor at Taiwan’s Feng Chia University.

New Records Expose Incestuous Relationship between J6 Commission and FBI

Luis Cornelio
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New Records Expose Incestuous Relationship between J6 Commission and FBI

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project has exposed an obscure “lawfare activist” behind the Jan. 6 investigation into President Donald Trump—complete with deep ties to both the Biden Justice Department and the FBI. 

Soumya Dayananda, a leftist attorney, served as the senior counsel for the House Select Jan. 6 Committee. She has publicly boasted that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump mirrors her work for the committee.  

Even more brazenly, Dayananda is married to FBI agent Wayne Jacobs, who ran the bureau’s D.C. criminal division—and whose role also intersects with the Trump “lawfare.” 

During Jacobs’s tenure, the FBI launched criminal probes into Jan. 6 participants and Trump himself, all while turning a blind eye to the influence-peddling tied to President Joe Biden. 

Newly unearthed emails even show former FBI agent Timothy Thibault copying Jacobs on messages naming Trump as a target. This, the Oversight Project says, raises fresh questions about conflict of interest. 

During an interview on PBS’s Frontlines, Dayananda made it clear she had heavily influenced the Smith indictment against Trump. 

“I rushed home to watch Jack Smith’s press conference and read the indictment word for word, and was really impressed to see the work that myself and our colleagues had put together, the fact-gathering, kind of repackaged in the form of this indictment, with the conspiracy laid out.” 

“All these conspiracies that were laid out” by Smith were “featured in the summer hearings,” Dayananda told PBS. “There was some new information, of course, but largely it reflected the work that was in the [Jan. 6] report and that much of the public had learned already during the hearings.” 

The Oversight Project also called out Dayananda’s partisan pedigree. She is a Democratic donor who has given cash to former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris.  

She once represented Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partner pro bono “to protect the Bidens.” 

These revelations come as the Trump administration moves swiftly to undo the Biden administration’s weaponization of the federal government to attack political opponents. 

Twitch Star Hasan Piker Questioned by CBP over Pro-Palestinian Views

Jose Nino
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Twitch Star Hasan Piker Questioned by CBP over Pro-Palestinian Views

(José Niño, Headline USA)  Popular leftist commentator Hasan Piker faced hours of questioning by U.S. border officials, allegedly over his outspoken criticism of Israel’s Gaza policies.

On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents questioned Piker at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, sparking accusations of political targeting. 

The incident occurred as Piker, a U.S. citizen and vocal critic of Israeli policies in Gaza, returned from a trip to France.

Officials questioned him about his views on President Donald Trump, Hamas, and Middle Eastern militant groups such as Hamas, according to a report by The Rolling Stone. 

Piker, who was enrolled in the Global Entry program for expedited border crossings, was pulled aside for additional screening despite his citizenship. 

In a livestream, he described being escorted to a detention area where agents grilled him on his political views. 

They began by probing his opinions on Donald Trump and his criticisms of the administration. The interrogation then shifted to his views on various militant groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, with agents asking if he supported any of them. 

His characterization of Hamas as a “resistance group” rather than a terrorist organization also came under scrutiny. Finally, the agents focused on his coverage of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which he has repeatedly condemned as “genocide.”

Piker asserted the questioning aimed to extract “something incriminating. He added that “they knew exactly who I was,” per a report by The Truthout. 

The popular Twitch streamer refused to recant his views, stating, “Everything I’ve done is protected under the First Amendment.”  

“This is nothing but lying for likes. Claims that his political beliefs triggered the inspection are baseless,” Tricia McLaughlin, U.S. Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, declared in a statement in response to Piker’s allegations. “Once his inspection was complete, he was promptly released.”

With 2.8 million Twitch followers, 1.5 million followers on Twitter, and 1.6 million YouTube subscribers, Piker has become a leading voice in online leftist discourse. 

By tapping into his large online following, Piker’s ordeal could galvanize further debate on civil liberties and United States policy toward Israel.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino

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