TV News LIES

President Donald Trump announced March 5 he was replacing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after lawmakers grilled her this week about a $220 million ad campaign that featured her prominently.

Trump announced on social media that Noem would be succeeded by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, effective March 31.

Trump said Noem would become special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, his initiative for security against narcotics trafficking in the western hemisphere.

The shift came after Noem was grilled by Republicans and Democrats at the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 3 and the House Judiciary Committee on March 4 about her ad campaign. She testified that she had discussed the campaign with Trump and he approved it.

"I never knew anything about it," Trump told Reuters in a phone interview.

The ads prominently featured Noem, including in a scene filmed on horseback at Mount Rushmore in the former South Dakota governor's home state.

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State Rep. James Talarico defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas in the Texas Senate primary Tuesday, March 3 in a battle of two national Democratic rising stars.

Talarico will face whichever Republican prevails in a May 26 runoff, either incumbent Sen. John Cornyn or embattled state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Talarico, 36, is a Presbyterian seminarian and former elementary school teacher now running a populist campaign in the Lone Star State with faith-based undertones.

The Democratic contest provided a stark contrast for Texas primary voters. Talarico, who is White, faced Crockett, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a race that raised questions about race, electability and stylistic differences. No Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994, but former Rep. Beto O'Rourke came within about 2.5 percentage points of Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.

While Crockett entered the race three months after Talarico, she was the favorite due to her star power and fundraising prowess. She had gained nationwide fame for her cutting comments about Republicans, such as slamming former House peer Marjorie Taylor Greene as a "beach blonde bad built butch body" for insulting her false eyelashes.

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U.S. first lady Melania Trump presided over a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday focusing on children in conflict, one of her signature issues, and acknowledged she was doing so in "challenging times" as the United States has joined Israel in attacking Iran.

"The U.S. stands with all of the children throughout the world," she said, speaking generally and not specifically about the new war in the Middle East. "I hope soon peace will be yours."

Hanging over Monday's meeting was what Iranian state media says was an airstrike that hit a girls' school in southern Iran, killing at least 165 people and wounding dozens more. The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area. The U.S. military said it was looking into the reports.

Shortly before Monday's session began, Iran's ambassador to the U.N., Amir Saeid Iravani, said it was "deeply shameful and hypocritical" for the U.S. to convene a meeting on protecting children during conflict while launching airstrikes on Iranian cities.

"For the United States, 'protecting children' and 'maintaining international peace and security' clearly mean something very different from what the U.N. Charter provides," he told reporters.

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The Supreme Court blocked a state judge from redrawing Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ (R-N.Y.) congressional district, agreeing to her emergency request Monday to restore the lines that connect Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn.

The high court’s intervention marks a new twist in the legal battle that has rippled through New York’s state judiciary and thrown the future of New York’s 11th Congressional District into question. It marks a victory for Republicans, who had been bracing for the possibility that the district would swing to Democrats if it was redesigned ahead of the midterm elections.

A state judge had ordered the boundaries be redrawn after ruling the district dilutes Black and Latino voting strength in violation of the state constitution.

The Supreme Court granted Malliotakis’s emergency application to block that ruling as the litigation proceeds, effectively restoring her existing district lines for the midterms.

The ruling appeared to split along ideological lines, with the three liberal justices publicly dissenting. Justice Samuel Alito voted in Malliotakis’s favor, saying the state judge’s order “blatantly discriminates on the basis of race,” while the other conservatives did not publicly disclose their votes.

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Concerns about an extended conflict, the mounting U.S. death toll and a perceived lack of clarity about the mission’s purpose are percolating among President Donald Trump’s MAGA base as the military operation in Iran puts the president at odds with some of his most ardent supporters.

Hanging over the debate is the memory of previous Middle Eastern conflicts, which stretched for years and claimed the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers.

Trump's presidential campaigns tapped into the American public’s disenchantment with the long and costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He described the Iraq war as a "disaster" and "one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of our country."

But Trump’s second attack on Iran has already resulted in the deaths of six American service members, and the president is warning that more lives could be lost in a conflict with an uncertain timeline.

The president has launched a series of dramatic military operations in his second term, though. The first two in Iran and Venezuela were quick, and no U.S. soldiers died, limiting the blowback from his political base.

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Protests sparked up in New York City and across the country Saturday in response to the military strikes in Iran.

One that started in Times Square saw a massive turnout.
"It's one appalling thing after another"

At its peak Saturday afternoon, the protest ballooned to nearly 1,000 people. Hundreds of demonstrators from all walks of life mobilized just hours after the United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran.

Protesters say it was not only unwarranted, but also the last thing the U.S. should be involved in.

"There is a broad base of society that is against all these things, whether it's the attacks on Minneapolis from ICE or the attacks today in Iran," protest organizer Mike Chrisemer said.

"It's one appalling thing after another, but now a war without consulting Congress?" protester Betsy Robinson said.

"People in Iran have the right to determine for themselves their own future, and it's not up to us to meddle in the affairs of another country's," protest organizer Carla Reyes said.

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