Trump and “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth say Operation Epic Fury has destroyed Iran’s military capacity. “We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders,” Trump said Tuesday.

At a Pentagon briefing on April 8, shortly after Trump declared a ceasefire with Iran, Hegseth said “Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital V military victory.” He added, “By any measure, Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come.”

But CBS News’s Jennifer Jacobs, Eleanor Watson, and James LaPorta report a very different reality. They interviewed “multiple officials with knowledge of intelligence,” who say the Islamic Republic of Iran “maintains more military capabilities than the White House or Pentagon has publicly admitted.”

According to three of the officials, about half of Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles and its associated launch systems were still intact as of the start of the ceasefire in early April. Roughly 60 percent of the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still in existence, the officials said, including fast-attack speed boats.

Although the U.S. and Israel have destroyed much of Iran’s conventional navy, the naval arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, equipped with many smaller vessels, remains partly intact, and it’s that navy that’s hampering oil shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

On Wednesday, Iranian gunboats attacked several commercial ships in the strait, shortly after Trump announced he was unilaterally extending a ceasefire to allow more time for peace talks. Iranian air power has been significantly degraded but not erased. U.S. officials say that about two-thirds of Iran’s air force is still believed to be operational.

According to a written statement submitted to a House Armed Services Committee by Marine Lt. Gen. James Adams, head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, “Iran retains thousands of missiles and one-way attack UAVs that can threaten U.S. and partner forces throughout the region, despite degradations to its capabilities from both attrition and expenditure.”

Warning: The following post is 100% factual. Sadly.

The recent allegations about FBI Director Kash Patel’s drunken antics are regrettable in that they briefly shifted focus away from the man who, until now, had been the most notorious boozer in Trump’s Cabinet: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Alas, Whiskey Pete didn’t have the sense to lie low this week, and instead drew attention to himself by continuing to implement his zero-tolerance policy for competence in the US armed forces.

Earlier this month, Gen. Randy George, the army chief of staff, joined the swelling ranks of highly-esteemed military leaders whom the former “Fox & Friends” weekend host kicked to the curb in a frenzy of febrile paranoia, cementing his reputation as secretary of defensiveness.

Yesterday, it was Secretary of the Navy John Phelan’s turn to get the chop. Now, to be clear, Phelan is no Randy George. In fact, he shares two unfortunate resume items with the current commander-in-chief: zero military experience and a link to Jeffrey Epstein. (Phelan never boarded an aircraft carrier, but he did ride on the Lolita Express.) So I can’t say that I mourned Phelan’s departure—that is, until I found out who was replacing him.

America, meet your new Acting Secretary of the Navy: Hung Cao.

Who, you might be wondering, is Hung Cao?



In 2024, Donald Trump anointed Cao to be the Republican nominee in Virginia’s US Senate race. On the campaign trail during his (unsuccessful) run for Congress in 2022, the former Navy captain didn’t think bragging about his military service would suffice: at every opportunity, he told voters that he’d been “blown up” multiple times.

“I’m 100% disabled, you know, because just from being blown up in combat many times and everything else, you know, knee, shoulders,” he said. “I’ve got more surgeries than you could possibly imagine.”

The key word here is “imagine,” as USA Today discovered when it investigated Cao’s military record. Despite Cao’s claim of “getting shot at and blown up in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia,” the newspaper reported, “Four retired Navy and Army officers who reviewed Cao’s service record said it was unusual for a sailor severely wounded in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan not to have received a Purple Heart or the Navy’s Combat Action Ribbon.”

There are moments in American history when the country is forced to confront a hard truth: the most dangerous threats to its ideals rarely come from foreign armies. They come from within — born of fear, sharpened by grievance, and legitimized by movements that mistake exclusion for patriotism.

In the 1850s, that threat organized itself into a political force known as the American Party — the formal home of what the country came to call the “Know Nothings.”

The name itself tells you everything. It did not begin as a slogan, but as a tactic. Members of the movement operated through secret societies, most notably the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner. When asked about their activities, they were instructed to reply: “I know nothing.”

It was a wink and a shield — deniability wrapped in conspiracy. Over time, the phrase became their identity. The “Know Nothings.” A movement defined not by what it stood for, but by what it feared. And what it feared most was the changing face of America.

In the 1840s and 1850s, the United States experienced a massive wave of immigration, particularly from Ireland and the German states. Millions arrived in the span of a decade. The Irish came fleeing famine, which had decimated their homeland. The Germans came escaping political upheaval and economic hardship in the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848. Many of both groups were Catholic.

They arrived poor. They arrived desperate. They were different. And for many native-born Protestants, they arrived as a threat.

The anxiety was not subtle. It was apocalyptic. Catholic immigrants were accused of being agents of a foreign power — the Vatican. It was said that they would obey the Pope over the Constitution. That they would vote as a bloc. That they would corrupt American institutions from within. It was conspiracy thinking elevated into political doctrine.

The American Party surged on this fear. It won elections. It took control of legislatures. It governed cities. And it carried with it a message as blunt as it was dangerous: that to be fully American, one must be Protestant, native-born, and culturally compliant.

Then came the moment that revealed the movement’s character with perfect clarity.

In 1854, attention turned to the rising structure on the National Mall — the Washington Monument. It was meant to be a unifying tribute to George Washington, funded by public donations and contributions from around the world. Among those contributions was a block of marble sent by Pope Pius IX. It was a symbolic gesture of respect from the Catholic world to the American founding.

To the “Know Nothings,” it was an outrage.

One night in March 1854, a group of nativist agitators staged what can only be described as a politically-motivated armed robbery. They broke into the construction site, overpowered the watchman, seized the papal stone, and carried it away. Within days, it was dumped into the Potomac River.

It was not vandalism. It was ideological violence.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Amid allegations of heavy drinking, FBI Director Kash Patel is hoping to seem sober by scheduling a joint appearance with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sources close to Patel revealed on Tuesday.

“I need to hold a press conference with Pete after he’s been on an epic bender,” Patel reportedly told his staff. “If you can’t find him, get Jeanine Pirro.”

Appearing with Hegseth carries with it certain risks, however, as Pentagon staffers have reported that merely standing next to him has made them drunk.

But Patel told sources he is desperate to “do anything” to save his job, sobbing, “I can’t go back to flying coach.”