Hegseth Makes Fun of War Crimes With Twisted AI Children’s Book Meme

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted an AI image of popular children’s character Franklin the Turtle extrajudicially blowing up “drug boats,” just days after it was revealed he potentially committed a war crime of his own. 

Hegseth’s post—another installment in the GOP’s AI image fetish—is modeled after the cover of the Franklin children’s books, and reads “A Classic Franklin Story: Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.” It shows the turtle in full U.S. military combat gear, launching a missile at brown-skinned men in their boats from a helicopter. 

“For your Christmas wish list …” Hegseth captioned the post.

The Trump administration has killed at least 80 people in its attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea, claiming they are trafficking drugs to the United States. 

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that on September 2, Hegseth gave a direct vocal order to kill every single person on an alleged drug boat off the coast of Trinidad. After the smoke cleared from the first strike, two people were left hanging onto the burning wreck of the ship, fighting for their lives. To comply with Hegseth’s instructions, the Special Operations commander ordered them to be bombed again, a “double-tap” attack that is widely considered a war crime. 

Hegseth spent the weekend defending his attack on a boat that posed no military threat to the United States whatsoever. 

“As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland,” he wrote on Sunday. “Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.… Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”

This isn’t a great defense of using wartime tactics to kill people the U.S. is not currently at war with. 

“I think it’s very possible there was a war crime committed; of course for there to be a war crime you have to accept the Trump administration’s whole construct here—which is we’re in armed conflict, at war,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen told ABC News on Sunday morning. “It’s either murder from the first strike, if their whole theory is wrong—and I think the weight of the legal opinion here is that they’ve concocted this ridiculous legal theory. But even if you accept their legal theory, then it is a war crime. And I do believe the secretary of defense should be held accountable for giving those kinds of orders.”

Hegseth’s bizarre post on Sunday was rightfully met with outrage.  

“Shouldn’t they be hanging off the boat asking to be saved and then you killing them anyways?” one user asked. 

The bill mandating the Department of Justice to release the Jeffrey Epstein files has been signed into law, but certain parts may still never be seen by the public.

That’s at least in part because the DOJ has been paying FBI agents nearly $1 million in overtime to work on the “Epstein Transparency Project” at a bureau facility in Winchester, Virginia. FBI Director Kash Patel has tasked nearly 1,000 agents on the project, which, according to internal reports, has also been referred to as the “Special Redaction Project.”

Between March 17 and March 22, the bureau spent $851,344, according to a Bloomberg report, and agents racked up 4,737 hours of overtime pay between January and July looking through the DOJ’s evidence on Epstein. This included the investigation into Epstein’s 2019 prison death, as well as “search warrant execution photos,” “street surveillance video,” and aerial footage.

The DOJ’s remaining, unreleased Epstein documents amount to nearly 100,000 pages, and Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi have told the FBI to flag every mention of Donald Trump. There are also 40 computers and electronic devices, 26 storage drives, more than 70 CDs, and six recording devices collectively containing over 300 gigabytes of data.

Physical evidence includes photographs, travel logs, employee lists, over $17,000 in cash, five massage tables, blueprints of Epstein’s island and Manhattan home, four busts of female body parts, a pair of women’s cowboy boots, one stuffed dog, a logbook of visitors to Epstein’s private island, and a list described as a “document with names,” which could be Epstein’s rumored client list.

It’s no secret that Trump, backed by his allies in Congress, fought long and hard to delay the Epstein files’ release, only to relent last month when Representative Adelita Grijalva was sworn in and cast the last needed House vote to authorize the release. This project, ostensibly to protect the privacy of Epstein’s victims and people not involved in his crimes, could also be a way to prevent exposing Trump and his allies when evidence gets released.

Two National Guard members were shot just blocks away from the White House Wednesday, and although the identity and motive of the assailant is still unknown, MAGA Republicans are already blaming Democrats for the shooting.

Right-wing commentators rushed to their social media accounts after the shooting to hurriedly (and baselessly) connect the violent incident to their political opposition.

Benny Johnson was one of many who attempted to link the shooting to a group of Democratic lawmakers who’d published a video urging members of the U.S. military and intelligence community not to follow illegal orders.

“Just a few days ago, six Democrats claimed President Trump was issuing ‘unlawful’ orders to the military and that troops must resist. Two National Guard Members were just targeted and shot in Washington DC.,” Johnson wrote on X.

Eric Daugherty, a right-wing commentator, also attempted to connect those Democrats’ message to the violence in Washington. “They say Trump is using the military as his ‘personal gestapo,’” he wrote. “Two troops were shot today, right outside the White House. This should send shivers down the spine of every American.”

Greg Price, another right-wing commentator, linked the shooting to one of the lawmakers in particular, Senator Elissa Slotkin. He wrote that she “went on TV last Sunday and claimed that National Guardsmen were going to start shooting at American civilians.”

Crucially, those Democratic lawmakers hadn’t said anything about citizens taking up arms—or even protesting—against the government. They didn’t even mention Trump by name. They simply advised those who had sworn an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution to uphold the nation’s laws.

Only Trump advocated for violence against the government, claiming that the Democratic lawmakers had committed sedition “punishable by death.”

Additionally, Alexis Wilkins, the country singer girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel—who has proved increasingly expensive for taxpayers— decided to lend her salient political voice to the discussion surrounding the shooting.

“While everyone on X is fighting, the left is still attacking people who wear the uniform and support this country simply for doing so. There are more important things in this world and far bigger enemies who actually hate us and do, in fact, want to kill us,” she wrote on X Wednesday, urging people to “pray.” So, thank you for that, Alexis.

Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Pentagon had “exceeded the bounds of their authority” by ordering troops into the nation’s capital for “non-military, crime-deterrence missions.” But she stayed her decision until December 11 in order to give the Trump administration time to appeal the decision. Following the shooting Wednesday, Trump reportedly asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to deploy an additional 500 troops to the nation’s capital.

The condition of the two National Guardsmen was not immediately clear Wednesday afternoon, after West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey said he’d received “conflicting reports” about their health status. D.C. Metropolitan Police confirmed that one suspect had been taken into custody.

This story has been updated.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday barred Donald Trump from firing the director of the U.S. Copyright Office for the time being.

Shira Perlmutter will stay in her job, part of the Library of Congress, while the court rules on two related cases. Trump had made an emergency appeal to the court to get her removed immediately, which has worked in the past for the administration with other officials.

This time, though, Perlmutter’s position has the word “Congress” in it, and she argued in court that this meant she was part of the legislative branch of government and thus couldn’t be fired from the executive branch. Perlmutter’s lawsuit also noted that Trump disagreed with a report she authored, in which she said that tech companies would likely have to pay licensing fees to access copyrighted materials for artificial intelligence models.

“Today, the administration’s unlawful executive overreach was not greenlit by the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented Perlmutter. “We are pleased that the Court deferred the government’s motion to stay our court order in a case that is critically important for rule of law, the separation of powers, and the independence of the Library of Congress.”

The other cases the court is reviewing involve Trump’s removals of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Slaughter is challenging her firing, saying that Congress requires the president to show cause when firing members of independent agencies, but the court allowed Trump to remove Slaughter until the case is decided next month. Cook was allowed to remain in her position, and her case will be heard by the court in January.

In May, a number of Trump appointees showed up at the Library of Congress with a letter from Trump claiming that they were now in charge, only to be rebuffed by library officials who filed a lawsuit. For now, the president has been rebuffed from his attempt to take control of an independent library. But with the conservative bent of the current Supreme Court, it may only be a speed bump.

A Democrat is on the brink of winning a special election in Tennessee’s deep-red 7th congressional district—leading GOP Republicans and even President Trump into a frantic last-minute attack. 

An Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey released Wednesday has Democrat Aftyn Behn nearly tied with Republican Matt Van Epps, 46 percent to 48 percent—with 2 percent voting elsewhere and 5 percent undecided. 

A victory here would continue an upward trend for Democrats on the local level, as Behn would be yet another Democrat to win on the state level this fall. Both Behn and Van Epps are vying to replace former Republican Representative Mark Green, who resigned from Congress in July.

Van Epps is the Trump-endorsed former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services and an Army helicopter pilot running on issues like “the woke left’s push for gender surgeries and mutilation on minors,” making sure America “never abandons” Israel, and “advancing President Trump’s America First agenda: keeping our borders secure, rebuilding our military strength, protecting American workers, and restoring the values that make our nation great.”

Behn is a Tennessee state representative and former community organizer who is endorsed by the Knoxville Democratic Socialists of America. Her campaign has focused on a policy-minded, anti-corporate approach to the affordability crisis.   

Behn’s surge has the right exhausting all efforts. Conservative super PACs have already spent $3.3 million against her. And the social media attacks have been constant. The RNC Research X page spent all day Wednesday posting and reposting weak shots at Behn, and sharing old screenshots of her saying things like “cops do not keep us safe.”  

“She gets more demonic with each video that resurfaces,” anti-transgender activist Riley Gaine commented on a recording of Behn very calmly explaining how she disapproves of religions being “at the core of everything we do in the legislature.” 

Trump also began his day Wednesday morning offering his support for Van Epps, and was perhaps the only person on the right not to bombard Behn. 

“I am asking all America First Patriots in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, who haven’t voted yet, to please GET OUT AND VOTE for MAGA Warrior Matt Van Epps, tomorrow, November 26th, the last day to vote early in person,” he wrote. “You can win this Election for Matt! PLEASE VOTE FOR MATT VAN EPPS, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” Polls close at 12 P.M. NOON in most of TN-07, and every vote counts. IF YOU ARE IN LINE BY 12 P.M., STAY IN LINE, AND THEY MUST LET YOU VOTE! TN-07: Early Voting ends November 26th, and Election Day is December 2nd. GET OUT AND VOTE FOR MATT VAN EPPS—HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” 

It’s obvious that Republicans see this race as a five-alarm fire, especially as they come off one of their worst weeks to date, with Marjorie Taylor Greene predicting a midterm loss in 2026 and more resignations on her way out, and other Republicans complaining about feeling walked all over by the Trump administration.