Air Force reinstates training on first Black pilot unit after backlash from Hegseth, Britt
The Air Force has resumed a course on the first Black pilots unit that was temporarily yanked in what officials claim was an effort to ensure compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning DEI in the federal government.
Following backlash from legislators and even the new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Air Force claimed reports it had yanked a course teaching new recruits about the 15,000 Black pilots, mechanics and cooks in the segregated Army of World War II known as the Tuskegee Airmen were “inaccurate.”
However, Hegseth wrote on X Sunday that the course’s removal had been “immediately reversed.”
Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, Air Education and Training Command commander, said in a statement that the segment that included videos on the Tuskegee Airmen was temporarily yanked on Jan. 23 because a section of it that included DEI material was directed to be removed.
A video on the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a paramilitary group of female pilots in World War II, was also temporarily removed.
“We believe this adjustment to curriculum to be fully aligned with the direction given in the DEI executive order,” he said. “No curriculum or content highlighting the honor and valor of the Tuskegee Airmen or Women Air Force Service Pilots has been removed from Basic Military Training.”
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“No Airmen or Guardians will miss this block of instruction due to the revision, however, one group of trainees had the training delayed. The revised training, which focuses on the documented historic legacy and decorated valor with which these units and airmen fought for our nation in World War II and beyond will continue on 27 January.”
Gen. David Allvin, Air Force chief of staff, explained further, “Allow me to clearly dispel a rumor – while we are currently reviewing all training courses to ensure compliance with the executive orders, no curriculum or content highlighting the honor and valor of the Tuskegee Airmen or Women Air Force Service Pilots has been removed from Basic Military Training.”
“From day one, I directed our Air Force to implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the president swiftly and professionally – no equivocation, no slow-rolling, no foot-dragging. When policies change, it is everyone’s responsibility to be diligent and ensure all remnants of the outdated policies are appropriately removed, and the new ones are clearly put in place,” he went on in a statement.
“Despite some inaccurate opinions expressed in reporting recently, our Air Force is faithfully executing all the president’s executive orders. Adhering to policy includes fully aligning our force with the direction given in the DEI executive order. Disguising and renaming are not compliance, and I’ve made this clear. If there are instances of less-than-full compliance, we will hold those responsible accountable.”
Before the Air Force announced it would resume training on the airmen on Monday, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., had accused it of “malicious compliance.”
“I have no doubt Secretary Hegseth will correct and get to the bottom of the malicious compliance we’ve seen in recent days. President Trump celebrated and honored the Tuskegee Airmen during his first term,” she said.
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“Amen! We’re all over it, Senator. This will not stand,” Hegseth echoed.
WASP were vital to ferrying warplanes throughout World War II. The Tuskegee Airmen, an active fighter unit from 1940 to 1952, were the first soldiers who flew during World War II. The group destroyed more than 100 German aircraft.
The nation’s armed forces were not desegregated until 1948, under an executive order from then-President Harry Truman.
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Trump is expected to issue a new executive order focused on rooting out DEI in the military on Monday, in addition to one restricting accommodations for transgender troops. Another executive order will reinstate service members who were fired over refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
President Trump announces US tech giant in talks to acquire TikTok
President Donald Trump on Monday said Microsoft was in talks to acquire TikTok, shortly after the social media app went dark last week. He further suggested that he would like to see a bidding war over the popular platform.
Trump previously said that he was in discussions with several parties about a potential acquisition of TikTok, which has about 170 million American users, and expects to make a decision on the app’s future within the next 30 days, Reuters reported.
The app was briefly taken offline just before a law, which required ByteDance to either sell it or face a ban, took effect on Jan. 19. However, after taking office on Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order delaying the enforcement of the law by 75 days.
The law was put in place because of concerns that the app was misusing the data of its users.
Trump says that Iron Dome construction will be ‘immediate,’ signs executive order
President Donald Trump said that the construction of an Iron Dome-like shield for the U.S. is a top priority for him on Monday, calling for “immediate” work to be done on the project before signing an executive order.
Trump made the remarks at a Republican dinner in Florida on Monday, while commending his recently-confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. After landing at Joint Base Andrews that night, he confirmed that he signed an executive order regarding the Iron Dome on the plane.
“Pete Hegseth, who’s going to be great, by the way… I think he’s going to be fantastic,” Trump said at the event. “I know him very well. I think he’s going to be fantastic.”
“He’s what we need, to immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield, which will be able to protect Americans.”
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The president added that Americans “protect other countries, but we don’t protect ourselves.” Trump also referenced that President Ronald Reagan was interested in the system during the Cold War, but Americans “didn’t have the technology.”
“And now we have phenomenal technology. You see that with Israel,” Trump continued. “So I think the United States is entitled to that. And everything will be made right here in the USA 100%.”
“We’re going next to ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
On Monday, the State Department said that a future Iron Dome is one of Hegseth’s many priorities.
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“Other areas the secretary will study include reinstating troops that were pushed out because of COVID-19 vaccination mandates and developing an Iron Dome anti-missile system for the United States,” the statement read.
This wasn’t Trump’s first mention of an Iron Dome for the U.S. At the Commander-In-Chief inaugural ball on Jan. 20., Trump said that the project was on his radar.
“We’re also doing the Iron Dome all made in America,” Trump said. “We’re going to have a nice Iron Dome.”
The Republican leader also referenced the plan on the campaign trail in 2024.
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“By next term we will build a great Iron Dome over our country,” Trump said during a West Palm Beach event on June 14. “We deserve a dome…it’s a missile defense shield, and it’ll all be made in America.”
Fetterman surprises ‘The View’ co-hosts with details on how his meeting with Trump went
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman defended his meeting with President Donald Trump during an appearance on “The View” on Monday, saying that working with the president was part of his job.
Fetterman was asked by “The View” hosts about his highly publicized visit to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump ahead of the inauguration, which drew some backlash from members of his party.
The Democratic senator, who has expressed a willingness to reach across the aisle, praised Trump as “kind” and “cordial.”
“I think overall it was a positive experience. I mean, he was — he was kind. He was cordial. It wasn’t in a — in any kind of theater, it wasn’t trying to get your picture taken to put something out on social media. It was really just a conversation,” Fetterman recalled.
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Fetterman said that he and his wife, Gisele, spoke to Trump for over an hour, looking to find common ground about protecting “Dreamers” and food stamp benefits, among other topics.
“Overall, it was just a straight-up conversation,” Fetterman said.
Trump also praised the meeting afterward, telling The Washington Examiner he was impressed with Fetterman, whom he called a “commonsense person.”
Fetterman told “The View” that he wasn’t interested in “freaking out” over Trump but was “in the business of finding wins” for his state and the nation.
“I’m not that guy. I’m not going to be that Democrat. For me, you know, there’s things I’m going to agree with, I’m going to disagree with, but I’m in the business of finding wins for Pennsylvania and for the nation, and engaging the president — I see that as doing my job,” he said.
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Co-host Ana Navarro brought up the criticism Fetterman received from the left, claiming the lawmaker was helping to bolster the false notion that Trump was open to working with Democrats.
“I understand the need for bipartisanship. I didn’t love the optics of you going to Mar-a-Lago,” she admitted – referring to it as Trump’s “palace” – before asking the lawmaker if he thought the meeting was a success.
“I think it’s pretty reasonable to have a conversation,” Fetterman addressed his critics.
He explained how he had been invited by Trump to meet, and he took the opportunity because he felt that working with the president was part of the job of any elected official.
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Speaking to “The View”‘s audience, Fetterman said, “I hope, maybe you [who] are watching, you’re tired of just the venom and the hate, and it’s like, I’d want more bipartisan kinds of things.”
Fetterman said he was choosing his battles and he didn’t find that adding to the “cheap hate online” was beneficial.
“[A]nd if those kinds of things were helpful, you know, we would be in a different situation. We would be the ones making those kinds of decisions with the new administration with then-Vice President Harris,” he continued.
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Fetterman also gave his initial impression of Trump’s first week in office.
“Honestly, I haven’t been surprised by anything now. I mean, he’s been doing essentially what he actually campaigned on,” he told “The View.”
“He announced he is going to pardon the January 6 individuals. He is absolutely going to go after the border. So there’s a lot of things that he’s already ran on. I criticize a lot of it, and I don’t agree with everything either, but it’s undeniable he actually ran on that and been really upfront. He’s like, ‘I am your retribution,’ and, you know, he’s kind of making those moves,” Fetterman said.
Anti-Trump anchor reportedly leaving CNN after network’s latest scheduling decision
CNN anchor Jim Acosta is reportedly leaving the network after he was officially pulled from its programming schedule.
The Status newsletter reported Monday that Acosta was expected to leave CNN after it was announced last week that his 10 a.m. ET program was being replaced with “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown” in the network’s latest reshuffling.
The newsletter previously reported that Acosta was pitched by CNN CEO Mark Thompson to move him from his one-hour slot at 10 a.m. ET to a two-hour slot beginning at midnight, a far less distinguished place in the lineup.
One CNN insider told Fox News Digital they heard Acosta “struggled with the choice” and may be cutting his contract short as a result.
“It takes courage,” the CNN insider said.
Another CNN insider was dismayed by Acosta’s exit, saying “Many viewers like Jim… if there is anyone who could make the overnight go it’s him,” adding “It’s sad to see him go.”
A spokesperson for CNN declined to comment.
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Acosta became more widely known as CNN’s chief White House correspondent for his antagonistic relationship with President Donald Trump and his aides during the first Trump administration. After the 2020 election, Acosta’s status at CNN was shifted to chief domestic correspondent, anchoring a show on the weekends but eventually moving his way to weekday programming.
While CNN’s past leadership reveled in Acosta’s constant sparring matches with the first Trump administration, the network’s current leadership appears to be trying to present its programming as more neutral for the second go-around.
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Acosta first joined CNN in 2007, where he covered political campaigns and eventually the Obama and Trump White Houses. He quickly became notorious for shouting questions at Trump’s White House press secretaries and frequently going toe-to-toe with the president himself, developing a reputation for grandstanding and receiving a profile boost by Trump after being called “fake news.”
Acosta famously refused to give up the microphone in a 2018 press conference as he engaged in a contentious back-and-forth with Trump. The White House attempted to revoke Acosta’s press pass following the dust-up, but his credentials were restored when CNN argued that it violated the First and Fifth Amendment rights of Acosta and the network.
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Acosta’s adversarial relationship with the first Trump administration appeared to be lucrative as he landed himself a book deal and became a guest on liberal late-night shows, further fueling the star power that landed him an anchor chair during the Biden presidency. He recently told viewers the press is “not the enemy of the people” in a shot at Trump.
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GOP senator taunts liberal media after CIA announcement on COVID lab leak
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., panned the liberal press on Saturday after the newly released CIA assessment that the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China.
“I’ve said from the beginning that Covid likely originated in the Wuhan labs. Communist China covered it up and the liberal media covered for them,” Cotton said in a statement. “I’m pleased the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation of Covid’s origins and I commend Director Ratcliffe for fulfilling his promise to release this conclusion. Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world.”
The CIA’s assessment, which was made with “low confidence” and part of a review conducted during the Biden administration, was released by new director John Ratcliffe. The CIA noted that it has no certainty about its conclusion and the so-called “natural origin” theory remains a possibility.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting. CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.
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Cotton, who is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stood out early in 2020 for proclaiming the likelihood of the pandemic’s connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was known for its experiments on bat coronaviruses and in the same city as the outbreak of the devastating disease that killed millions around the world.
Cotton at one point suggested COVID could have been a purposeful Chinese bio-weapon, but the more widely accepted theory for proponents in the years since was that it was an accident that the Chinese Communist Party covered up.
Cotton’s connection of the lab to the disease was initially met with derision from many corners of the liberal press, with outlets calling it “fringe,” “a conspiracy theory,” and “debunked.” The Washington Post issued a correction to a 2020 story that used the “debunked” language, admitting there was no conclusive determination about the origins of the virus.
Other outlets and fact-checkers also later backtracked on initial condemnations and dismissals of the lab theory, with some journalists even admitting that Republican support for it played into their opposition.
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“I just used common sense,” Cotton said in 2021. “The Chinese Communist Party pointed to an open-air food market as the origin of this virus but they didn’t even sell bats in that market… This virus didn’t emerge in some remote rural village or mountain next to a cave full of bats. It emerged in a city larger than New York, just down the road from labs where we know they were conducting very dangerous research into coronaviruses.”
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed last week, has long been a proponent of the lab leak theory. In an interview with Breitbart, Ratcliffe framed the assessment of COVID’s origins as part of a broader strategy “addressing the threat from China.”
He also said he wants the CIA to “get off the sidelines” and take a stand.
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In a March 2023 Fox News piece co-written with Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to keep a growing consensus around the lab leak theory quiet by suppressing “what can clearly be assessed from the intelligence they possess.”
He also cast doubt on the notion that the CIA did not have enough evidence to come to a conclusion about the virus’ origins.
In 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau believed the lab theory was the most plausible, and the Department of Energy during the Biden administration also expressed “low confidence” in the idea.
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TV star reveals his family has left the US — but is keeping the location ‘under wraps’
“Suits” star, Gabriel Macht, is keeping his personal life private.
In a recent interview with People, the 53-year-old actor shared that he and his family moved out of the United States, but he is choosing to keep the location of his new home a secret.
“I am based somewhere in Europe, but I don’t tell anybody where I live because I like to keep that under wraps,” he said. “I got out of town and we’re exploring the world.”
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The actor explained that before COVID, he and his wife, Jacinda Barrett, had wanted to take their kids “out of school and homeschool them.” However, when they found themselves “stuck” in Manhattan during the pandemic, he said, “That just wasn’t doing it for us.”
After realizing they didn’t want to stay in New York, Macht said, “We decided to explore the world, so we left.”
Macht and Barrett first met in 2000 when they were set up on a blind date. The two went on to tie the knot in a private ceremony in 2004, later welcoming two children: daughter Satine, 17, and son Luca, 10.
After starring as Harvey Specter on “Suits” for nine seasons from 2011 to 2019, Macht took a break from acting, explaining he “had very little interest” in taking on another project “because I spent so much time [doing it]” and he felt it was time to raise his kids and explore other ventures.
Following a long break, Macht will be returning to the role of Harvery Spector in the reboot, “Suits LA,” sharing that it made “sense” for his family to return now, and that he liked the idea of being able to “sort of pass the baton to Stephen [Amell] and the cast in L.A.”
The cast of “Suits,” including Macht, Patrick J. Adams, Sarah Rafferty and Gina Torres, had a reunion on stage at the Golden Globes in 2024, when they announced the winner of the best television drama category.
Noticeably absent from the reunion was Meghan Markle, who starred on the show until its eighth season and left when she got engaged to Prince Harry. Speaking with Variety on the red carpet at the award show, Torres shared that the cast was so excited to reunite, while also subtlety shading Markle.
“When it all came through, we were all texting each other,” said the actress. “Yes, our text thread is insane right now. So, it’s very exciting.” When asked about Markle, Torres explained, “We don’t have her number. We just don’t. So, she’ll see. She’ll watch. She’ll be happy that we’re here.”
Entertainment Tonight reported at the time that Markle was invited but was not able to make it due to a “preexisting commitment.”
Jets’ new head coach puts NFL on notice with fiery words at press conference
Aaron Glenn, the New York Jets’ newest head coach, brought electricity to his introductory press conference on Monday as he’s set to lead the franchise on the sideline for the next few years.
Glenn was hired after he spent time as a defensive coordinator with the Detroit Lions. Despite a ton of injuries to the Lions’ defense this season, the team still managed to win the NFC North and earn the No. 1 seed in the playoffs before getting upset by the Washington Commanders.
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He is the Jets’ fourth head coach following the departure of Rex Ryan after the 2014 season. Ryan’s Jets were the last iteration of the team to earn a playoff spot. Todd Bowles, Adam Gase and Robert Saleh have since come and gone with only one season finishing over .500 — in 2015.
Glenn has a certain experience the previous field generals don’t have — he played for them.
Glenn starred as a Jets cornerback from 1994 to 2001. He was a Pro Bowler twice in that span. He also played for the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, Jacksonville Jaguars and New Orleans Saints before he retired after the 2008 season.
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“Put your seatbelts on and get ready for the ride. Listen, there are gonna be some challenges, but with challenges gets opportunity. Here’s what I do know. We’re the freakin’ New York Jets and we’re built for this s—,” Glenn said, via the New York Post.
“I wanted this job. I interviewed for a number of them, but I wanted this job,” he added. “… I didn’t want to leave the building without shaking Woody [Johnson’s] hand and making sure we had a contract. So I’m just telling you now, everything else was already out of it. It was all about the Jets and it’s been that way from the beginning.”
The fiery message now has to be backed up on the field.
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Glenn and the front office will have to determine whether to bring back Aaron Rodgers and if they’re going to put Garrett Wilson on the trade block. Davante Adams has also floated the idea of playing elsewhere after New York acquired him from the Las Vegas Raiders.