Tucker Carlson exposed Senator Ted Cruz’s complete deference to Israel by asking him some very basic questions about Iran. Cruz was unable to answer, falling into one rhetorical trap after another until he snapped. The moment, a preview of Wednesday’s The Tucker Carlson Show, quickly went viral. 

“How many people live in Iran by the way?” Carlson asked the Texas senator.

“I don’t know the population,” Cruz replied. 

“At all?”

“No, I don’t know the population” 

“You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?” Carlson replied, clearly surprised. 

“How many people are living there?” Cruz asked.

“92 million.… How could you not know that?”

“I don’t sit around memorizing population tables.” 

“Well, it’s kind of relevant because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government.” 

Cruz grew continuously frustrated, calling Carlson’s line of questioning “cute,” while Carlson expressed alarm over the fact that a sitting Republican senator didn’t know very simple information about the country he’s calling for a U.S.-orchestrated coup in. Then, Cruz proceeded to slip.  

“You don’t believe they’re trying to murder Trump because you’re not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation,” Carlson said. 

“We are carrying out military strikes today—”

“You said Israel was,” Carlson replied, his ears perking up. 

“Right, with our help. I said ‘we.’ Israel is leading them; we’re supporting them.”

“Well, this, you’re breaking news here because the U.S. government last night denied, the National Security Council spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied, on behalf of Trump, that we were acting on Israel’s behalf in any offensive capacity.” 

“We’re not bombing them, Israel’s bombing them,” Cruz replied, splitting hairs. 

“You just said we were.… This is high stakes, you’re a senator. If you’re saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.” 

Cruz tried to clean up his mess after-the-fact and stuck to the same talking points.

“Did a long interview w/ Tucker. He released a snippet playing a ‘gotcha’ on the population of Iran. I declined to play that silly game,” he said. “WATCH the full 2-hr interview, where Tucker ATTACKS Trump, attacks the ‘AIPAC lobby,’ & falsely claims Iran is NOT trying to assassinate Trump.”

“Why does @TuckerCarlson refuse to acknowledge indisputable truth? Facts don’t care about your feelings Tucker, and they certainly won’t bend to your narrative,” he said again, almost pleading with his followers. “Watch the FULL interview tomorrow where I call him out.”

The clip set off shockwaves throughout the political sphere, as it completely encapsulates the conflict between the MAGA right and the people like Cruz, who they refer to as “neocons.” To Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, and other classic Trump folk, the U.S. intervention in the conflict between Israel and Iran, which could very well result in a full-scale U.S. invasion of the latter, is an example of the endless wars Trump promised to stop. 

Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would increase the total U.S. deficit by nearly $2.8 trillion over the next decade, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

Previous estimates suggested that the massive spending bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national deficit over the next 10 years, but a “dynamic” estimate published Tuesday takes into account how the legislation would affect the U.S. economy—and things got even  more dire.

The CBO projected that an increase in economic output would decrease the primary deficit by $85 billion over the 2025–2034 period, while also significantly boosting interest rates, which would push the federal debt to a whopping $441 billion. 

“Incredible—CBO says the House-passed GOP bill pays for only 3.5% of itself,” Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, wrote on X Tuesday. 

Despite previous damning reports, MAGA Republicans backing the bill have continued to claim that the CBO is biased, rather than make any concessions, and have claimed that the CBO’s evaluations of the legislation’s cost don’t take the revenue from Trump’s sweeping global tariffs into effect. 

In a letter to Democratic lawmakers earlier this month, the CBO projected that Trump’s tariffs, as they were in mid-May, could decrease the deficit by $2.8 trillion—but said any projection came with some uncertainty, as Trump’s tariffs are ever-vacillating.

The newest analysis suggests that the costs will only go up after taking the economy into account. The CBO estimated that over the next decade, the legislation would affect the economy by increasing gross domestic product by an average of 0.5 percent, increasing the interest rates on 10-year Treasury notes by 14 basis points, and increasing inflation “by a small amount” through 2030, but not afterward. 

Embattled Senator John Fetterman continues to express his bloodlust on behalf of Israel.

Fetterman told Fox News that he would oppose Senator Tim Kaine’s Resolution to Prevent War With Iran, which states that, “It is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States.”

Fetterman responded sharply, “I’m going to vote it down.… I really hope the president finally does bomb and destroy the Iranians,” he said.

This comment from Fetterman, who has emerged as one of Israel’s staunchest loyalists in the Senate, is reminiscent of his call for the slaughter of “all” Palestinians, saying that you “can’t reform sour milk.” Those comments, like his Iran ones, come as Israel acts as the clear aggressor toward both countries. These........

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