==Updated Aug 19, 2026

World

U.S. conducting stealth operation to transport oil through Hormuz. 1/2==

image.jpeg

Barak Ravid

Under the operation, which has been underway for the last several weeks, 15–20 tankers have entered and exited the strait each night through a southern channel along the coast of Oman.

About 10 million barrels of oil a day — roughly half the pre-war volume — are being transported out of the strait and injected into the global energy market, the officials said.

Why it matters: The U.S.-led operation is mitigating one of the most painful aspects of the war: the disruption to oil supplies that sent crude prices soaring. While the amount of oil coming out of the strait is still below pre-war levels, it is making a discernible difference in global supplies, officials say.

How it works: The effort goes beyond escorting outbound tankers with oil on board. The U.S. military is helping empty tankers enter the Gulf from the Arabian Sea through the strait, pick up oil from countries in the region, and then exit.

The full details of the operation have not been previously reported.

"We have been controlling the southern lane of the Strait of Hormuz for two months now. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can be a nuisance,but they don't control the strait. We do," one of the U.S. officials, who has direct knowledge of the matter, said.

Behind the scenes: The task force overseeing the Hormuz effort is being run out of the Army headquarters in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The task force is coordinating with regional Gulf partners. It creates a daily list of ships coming out of the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Arabian Sea, as well as a list of rented empty tankers that travel from the Arabian Sea, through the strait and into the ports of Gulf countries to pick up more oil.

Each night, the ships are scheduled to move in one big outbound line during a certain time slot and one big inbound line during a separate time slot.

https://www.axios.com/2026/08/19/hormuz-iran-oil-gulf-trump

>>24958760

2/2

The ships then transit through the southern channel based on U.S. military guidance.

The U.S. Air Force has fighter jets that protect against Iranian cruise missiles and drones.

Zoom in:The operation was made possible by a recent two-weekU.S. Central Command military campaign that degraded Iran's radar and maritime surveillance systems, the officials said.

Iran has diminished visibility of the traffic in the southern channel of the strait. Its monitoring is limited to a few radars it managed to reconstitute as well as "spotters" in small IRGC fast boats, U.S. officials say.

Because the Iranians are mostly "blind," they are launching drones and cruise missiles in the general direction of where ships might be transiting.

Some ships have been hit by the Iranian attacks,but many were stopped by the U.S. military.Earlier this week, for example, U.S. forces shot down eight Iranian drones and two cruise missiles, one of the U.S. officials said.

State of play: U.S. officials say that over the past two weeks, 15–20 tankers transited in and out of the Strait of Hormuz each night through the southern channel, keeping the exports going.

The average daily exports have been growing and are now close to 10 million barrels, U.S. officials say.

On some nights over the last few weeks, they note, the amount of oil moving out of the Gulf was 15 million–20 million barrels.

On one of the nights this week, more than 20 ships were slated to move in and out of the strait through the southern lane, with approximately 15 million barrels of oil potentially coming out, one of the officials said.

What he's saying: "There is a tremendous amount of oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz," President Trump told Axios on Wednesday.

He said the U.S. is not negotiating with Iran at the moment. "They are wasting time. It's a waste of time to negotiate with them," he said.

"The Iranians still have some fight left, but overall they are a shell of themselves," Trump said.

https://www.axios.com/2026/08/19/hormuz-iran-oil-gulf-trump

CNN Stunner: Legal Analyst Says Michael Cohen Just “Demolished” Bragg’s Case Against Trump

by Brian Lupo Aug. 21, 2026

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is waking up to a nightmare unfolding this morning. His “Got Trump” convictions are hanging on by an even thinner thread than he ever imagined after a crushing interview between President Trump and an unsuspecting character yesterday.

That unsuspecting character was Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and Bragg’s star witness.

The case rested on whether or not the jury would believe Cohen, who had previously been convicted of perjury for lying to Congress. Cohen also had open hostility toward Trump and a history of lying to business associates and the public.

President Trump has apparently decided to let bygones be bygones and joined Cohen on Cohen’s WABC radio show yesterday.

In the segment below, Cohen asks the President to go “back to 2016.”

“You and I have traveled a pretty rocky road together. Do you remember, sir, when I went on CNN with Brianna Keilar, and she told me that you’re underwater in the polls?And I responded with those famous two words, ‘Says who?’ which became a worldwide meme,” Cohen asked.

After reminiscing on the weaponization both men had endured during the President’s first term, Trump ends the segment with, “I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said.”

“Yeah,” Cohen responds.

CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig joined Jake Tapper to vindicate President Trump against much of the criticism he had faced publicly over the weaponized Manhattan felony charges.

“Anyone who cheered that hush money prosecution of Donald Trump two years ago has nothing left to stand on,” Honig stated.

He continued:

“The guy (Cohen) who was the reason every prosecutor who looked at this case, including the Biden DOJ and the prior liberal Democratic DA, passed on charging this case, was because they didn’t trust Michael Cohen beyond a reasonable doubt. Alvin Bragg rolled that dice and now Michael Cohen has said publicly that he ‘felt pressured and coerced by prosecutors.’

So where do you stand on Michael Cohen now? If you believe he’s a truth-teller, then he felt pressured and coerced by prosecutors. That’s not acceptable.

If you believe he’s a liar, then your case is built on a liar.

That case is going through its appeal process incredibly slowly. I think there are major legal infirmities with it. But now the factual predicate has collapsed as well.

President Trump Truth’d the segment, as well as a screenshot of Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York’s X post saying, “CNN legal analyst Elie Honig: Michael Cohen’s latest statements demolish the factual basis of the hush money prosecution and conviction of President Trump.”

The 34 felony charges brought in Manhattan were all for “falsifying business records,” a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, which had long passed by the time the indictment was issued in 2023.

So, Alvin Bragg used a “novel legal theory” to finally be the one who “got Trump.” Bragg would upgrade those charges to felonies by alleging that the 45th and 47th President had the “intent to commit or conceal another crime.” That crime was a state election law that had already been investigated by the federal government for a reciprocal crime, with no charges filed.

Judge Juan Merchan, whose daughter ran a fundraising organization that explicitly raised money for Democrat candidates off the prosecution of President Trump, limited the scope of testimony by former FEC Chairman and Ohio State University law professor Bradley Smith from offering opinions on whether Trump’s specific actions violated federal election law or that the conduct was legal.

In order to make Bragg’s “novel legal theory” hold, the jury was instructed that they simply needed to agree that another crime was committed. The crime was not charged. The crime was not litigated or defended by Trump’s legal team, and they didn’t need to agree that the same crime had been committed, but just that a crime had been committed.

The case is currently on appeal in both the New York Appellate Division, First Department.

CannCon

930fTDx0_bigger.jpg

@canncon

·

Follow

President Trump Truth'd this clip last night.

Very, very interesting.

All of those "CONVICTED FELON!" folks are about to lose their talking point.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/cnn-stunner-legal-analyst-says-michael-cohen-just/

RFK Jr. Torches CNN’s Erin Burnett After Attempting to Discredit Affordable Meals Featured on MAHA’s New Food Show: ‘TDS Has So Debilitated’ Her That She Abandoned Common Sense and Basic Arithmetic. 1/2

by Jim Hᴏft Aug. 21, 2026

The far-left hacks at CNN are so terrified of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement that they have completely abandoned basic math just to attack Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blasted CNN host Erin Burnett afterher program aired a ridiculous “investigation” attempting to discredit the affordable mealsfeatured on Kennedy’s new cooking series, The Real Food Show.

Kennedy’s program, inspired by President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,features chefs preparing nutritious, whole-food meals for approximately $5 or less per serving.

ButCNN decided to “fact-check” Kennedy by purchasing full containers of nearly every ingredient—even when the recipe required only a spoonful—and then charging the entire package price to one meal.

During Wednesday’s episode of Erin Burnett OutFront, CNN correspondent Tom Foreman recreated the show’s crispy salmon cakes with apple, white bean, and greens salad.

The official HHS recipe serves four people for approximately $5 per serving using frozen wild salmon—and even less when made with canned salmon.

CNN, however, claimed it cost $70.54 to purchase all the ingredients.

Foreman complained that HHS priced one egg rather than an entire carton, eight cents’ worth of red onion rather than the whole onion, and 40 cents’ worth of avocado mayonnaise rather than the full $11 container.

“Grocery stores don’t sell things that way,” Foreman declared.

Of course, the remaining eggs, onion, mayonnaise, olive oil, mustard, vinegar, herbs, and other pantry staples do not disappear after preparing the meal. They remain available for the next recipe.

CNN also disputed HHS’s salmon price, saying the network paid more than $24 for what it described as the closest comparable frozen wild-caught sockeye salmon,compared with the show’s listed price of $8.99.

Although the CNN segment-acknowledgedthat HHS used “standard recipe costing methodology,” the network nevertheless presented its full grocery-store checkout total as the “real” cost of Kennedy’s meal.

Burnett concluded the segment without addressing the obvious distinction between the upfront cost of stocking a kitchen and the actual amount of food consumed in a single recipe.

CNN remakes one of the “affordable” meals from RFK Jr.’s new cooking show. It should cost under $5 per serving, but what’s the real price point? @tomforemancnnreports. pic.twitter.com/7kvmaqa5cL

— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 20, 2026

On Thursday, Kennedy responded by absolutely torching Burnett and CNN’s creative accounting.

“Trump Derangement Syndrome has so debilitated [Erin Burnett] that she has abandoned both common sense and basic arithmetic.

“CNN wants us to incorporate the full package price of every ingredient, regardless of what is used in the recipe.

“If you put a squirt of ketchup on your burger, would you be surprised if the restaurant charged you for the whole bottle?

“The Real Food Show uses standard recipe costing: we count what the recipe actually uses. The rest stays in your kitchen for the next meal—and the meals after that.

“Our goal is simple: help Americans reclaim their kitchens, cook healthy food without breaking the bank, and stock their pantries with high-quality ingredients they can use again and again.

“That’s how we Make America Healthy Again.”

Trump Derangement Syndrome has so debilitated @ErinBurnett that she has abandoned both common senseand basic arithmetic.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/rfk-jr-torches-cnns-erin-burnett-after-attempting/

>>24959150

2/2

CNN wants us to incorporate the full package price of every ingredient, regardless of what is used in the recipe.

If you put a squirt of ketchup on your… https://t.co/0vUy9yoJdC

— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) August 21, 2026

CNN’s supposed exposé effectively argued that a tablespoon of mustard costs the same as the entire jar and that one egg should be billed as a dozen.

Under CNN’s methodology, a hamburger restaurant would have to charge customers for the entire bottle of ketchup, the whole block of cheese, and the complete jar of pickles used to prepare one burger.

The network’s $70.54 figure may represent the initial checkout total for someone starting with a completely empty kitchen, but it does not represent the amount consumed in the four-serving meal. Most of those ingredients can be reused across numerous additional dishes.

Kennedy launched The Real Food Showon July 30 to encourage Americans to prepare healthier meals with whole ingredients instead of relying on ultra-processed foods and expensive fast food.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported,Kennedy has pursued an aggressive MAHA agenda that includes overhauling federal dietary guidance, combating artificial food additives, expanding nutrition education, and restricting taxpayer-funded purchases of soda and candy through SNAP.

The Gateway Pundit also previously reported that Kennedy moved to close the FDA’s self-affirmed GRAS loophole, which has allowed food companies to introduce ingredients without prior FDA review.

In July, The Gateway Pundit published a comprehensive review of Kennedy’s efforts to Make America Healthy Again, including the administration’s new dietary guidelines emphasizing whole foods and discouraging highly processed products and sugary beverages.

Rather than applauding an effort to teach American families how to cook healthier meals and reuse pantry ingredients,CNN manufactured a misleading price tag by pretending every bottle, carton, and container must be discarded after a single use.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/rfk-jr-torches-cnns-erin-burnett-after-attempting/

Crowd Hisses, Groans When Socialist Candidate for LA Mayor Answers Graham Platner Question

Margaret Flavin Aug. 21, 2026

Nithya Raman, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) city council member running for mayor of Los Angeleswho somehow gained enough votes to bump Spencer Pratt off the ballot, can’t seem to handle simple debate questions.

During a debate on Wednesday against her opponent, current Mayor of LA Karen Bass (D),Raman was asked about her decision to hire the consulting firm, Fight Agency, behind disgraced Maine Senatorial Candidate Graham Platner (D), and her response drew audible groans from the audience.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Platner was forced out of the Maine Senate race after he won over 70% of the vote in the state’s Democratic primary amid new allegations of rape.

For Democrats, not only was his Nazi tattoo not a dealbreaker, but neither were his questionable Reddit posts or concerns about his treatment of women.

The moderator asked Raman, “Our friends at the LA Times reported today….Councilman Raman, the LA Times reported that you’ve hired the same political consulting firm that managed Graham Platner’s campaign in Maine, who had to resign amidst sexual assault allegations.”

“Is that true? And is that the best choice? And why did you make that decision?”

She replied, “Well, I did hire an advertising agency to make my paid ads, who also worked with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign.”

The crowd audibly moaned and peppered in a few hisses for good measure.

Raman continued, “And many, many other successful campaigns across the entire city.”

“Here’s what I do want to say, that I do want to win this race. I’ve retained most of my good campaign staff, unlike this mayor from the primary expanded into the general. We’ve made sure to invest in our team, and I hope that we can win this seat, and I’m going to work as hard as I can to win.”

The moderator probed, “Did you make a decision…did you weigh the pros and cons of being associated with Graham Platner’s campaign?”

“Absolutely. But we wanted to make sure that we were hiring good people to make our ads,” Raman replied.

“We have to get talent to be able to run our team,” she said before stammering and adding, “We we we we weighed the issues.”

She continued her flustered response, adding, “But I also want to say, in this Mayor’s innermost circle, she had communications advisors who were on her WhatsApp chats, who were also, at the same time the fire was burning in Boyle Heights, were doing crisis PR consulting for Lineage where the fire was happening.”

“That, to me, is a real, real, real problem. And that’s the kind of challenge I think….”

The moderator jumped in and asked Bass, “That wasn’t a good look, was it?”

Bass responded, “Absolutely not, it should not have happened.”

“However, I don’t know what the heck that has to do with the question that you asked her,” Bass pressed.

The moderator responded, “I guess it’s a question of judgment.”

“Well, if I had known that person was doing that, that person would not have been advising me. When I realized it found out about it, they stopped advising me,” Bass pushed back.

Watch (segment begins at 1:15:53) Prompted

LIVE: Karen Bass vs. Nithya Raman Watch the 1st Los Angeles Mayoral Debate of 2026 | PTC Punjabi

LIVE: Karen Bass vs. Nithya Raman | 1st Los Angeles Mayoral Debate 2026 | PTC Punjabi

Watch the 1st Los Angeles Mayoral Debate of 2026 as Mayor Karen Bass and Nithya Raman meet head-to-head.

https://www.youtu.be/JXV58n5r96E

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/crowd-hisses-groans-when-socialist-candidate-la-mayor/

(Los Angeles and California is fucked with leadership like this, the lefty destroyed one of the most promising state in the country. Its filled with criminal leaders)

Congressman Pat Harrigan Takes Bold Step to Protect American Innovation with GATE Act

by J.M. Phelps Aug. 21, 20261/2

A freshman congressman is taking a stand against the pervasive threat of foreign exploitation, particularly from China and other nations, that endangers the very backbone of American innovation.

Representative Pat Harrigan (R-NC), a former Army Special Forces officer, has recently proposed the Guarding American Technology from Exploitation (GATE) Act. This legislation aims to enhance security at U.S. National Laboratories by limiting access for individuals from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba.

In an interview with The Gateway Pundit, Harriganarticulated his commitment to protecting the U.S. from the extensive technological encroachment by China, among others. On August 13, H.R. 10092 was introduced, serving as the House companion to legislation put forth by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) in March 2025.

Harrigan highlighted the alarming financial toll of foreign intellectual property theft, estimating losses to the United States at nearly $600 billion annually, with a significant amount occurring within national laboratories.

Supporting this assertion, the situation was underscored by a 2019 report (in pdf form) from the FBI, which indicated that “China is the world’s principal infringer of intellectual property, and it uses its laws and regulations to put foreign companies at a disadvantage and its own companies at an advantage.”

For Harrigan, “This is just something we can’t afford to be happening to the country from a national security perspective, [adding that] foreign nationals from adversarial countries should not be present in our national laboratories.”

The GATE Act restricts covered foreign nationals from visiting or being assigned long-term to National Laboratory facilities, information, or technology, while allowing U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to have access. The law permits the Secretary of Energy to issue a waiver, but only after consulting with intelligence officials from the Department of Energy and senior counterintelligence officials from the FBI, and only if the advantages to the United States surpass the associated national security and economic risks. In effect, “The Secretary of Energy has to personally sign on the dotted line for every single person from one of these adversarial countries that we’ve listed.”

Harrigan clarified that the proposed legislation does not preclude scientists and researchers from collaborating with the U.S.He drew a historical parallel to Wernher von Braun, a key figure in NASA’s Apollo program, underscoring the importance of maintaining valuable international partnerships while exercising caution.

He also acknowledged the complexities involved in such collaborations. “They might have some really talented people from the CCP, andwe absolutely want to leverage their brain trust and have their best and brightest working for us instead of working for the Chinese, but the reality is that the coercive power of the Chinese Communist Party is universal,” Harrigan shared, noting that “they have the coercive ability to make that citizen working on behalf of the United States flip, and we need to be very cognizant of that.”

Through this proposed legislation, he said, “We just want to make sure these people are not spying for our enemies, and we want an unprecedented level of due diligence on these individuals if our leaders assess that having one or multiple of these individuals from these countries is absolutely critical to our national interests.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/congressman-pat-harrigan-takes-bold-step-protect-american/

>>24959226

2/2

“We simply need to ensure that these individuals are not acting as spies for our adversaries, and for this reason,” Harrigan declared, “it is essential that we exercise an unprecedented level of due diligence in our assessments. If our leaders determine that having one or more of these people from these nations is vital to our national interests, it is critical to proceed with caution and thorough evaluation.”

In a concluding thought, the North Carolina congressman said, the American taxpayers are pouring billions of dollars into our national laboratories, and over time, they have fostered some of the most significant technological breakthroughs in world. For him, these innovations not only pave the way for the next phase of the market economy but also strengthen the nation’s defense capabilities.

“We don’t need to be hemorrhaging intellectual property gains to our adversaries, and I think that we are right now, so this bill is the right solution at the right time for the size and the scale and the scope of the problem,” Harrigan argued.

As the U.S. continues to invest heavily in research and development, it is imperative that we not only harness talent from around the world but also ensure that such collaborations do not compromise our sovereignty or expose us to espionage. The passage of this act could serve as a pivotal moment in fortifying America’s technological future against adversarial forces.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/congressman-pat-harrigan-takes-bold-step-protect-american/

>>24959248

They are spying on everyone

Capitol agenda: All the Democrats’ probesThe are fucking nuts!

House Dems’ efforts if they take back the majority could provide a backbone for the accountability message the party intends to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.

CALEN RAZOR

Democrats are readying a long list of investigations they want to launch into Donald Trump.

Reps. Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, who would lead the Oversight and Judiciary committees, respectively, if the party takes back the House, said they’re wasting no time in preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting Trump, his family and his administration.

Both know that House Dems’ efforts now could provide a backbone for the accountability message the party intends to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.

“We are going to be looking at systems of bribery, kickback and financial corruption and opportunities for disgorgement and restitution to the American people,” Raskin said. “That would be No. 1.”

Topping their long list of controversies they want to probe: Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari jet for use as his new Air Force One, and his family’s massively profitable cryptocurrency investments.

Raskin also said he intends to probe whathe deems “fraudulent and vindictive prosecutions,” including those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Garcia, meanwhile, said he is determined to fill in gaps he sees in the GOP-led investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales responded to Democrats’ plans by stating the president “will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and radical Democrats who want to massively raise taxes, defund the police, and are soft on crime.”

Garcia and Raskin’s preparations in some ways resemble how their predecessors planned ahead of the 2018 midterms. But that year, Democrats tiptoed around the prospect of impeachment for fear of alienating voters, then launched a flurry of investigations aimed at Trump once they were in power.

Now, after two impeachments that failed to remove Trump from office and with a party base intent on pulling no punches, House Democrats are reluctant to take anything off the table — while also recognizing the limitations of impeachment as a check on Trump’s power.

“Nobody on the Democratic side is afraid of impeachment,” Raskin said this week, adding that he considers it a “tool in the toolbox.”

What else we’re watching:

— SCANDAL-PLAGUED CANDIDATES TEST PARTIES’ LIMITS: Democrats and Republicans this election cycle keep playing whack-a-mole as candidate after candidate becomes embroiled in controversies ranging from domestic violence to sexual misconduct. Neither party has developed a clear playbook yet for when to step in or what counts as disqualifying. But identifying that line could become a key effort in determining who controls the next Congress, as several races with problematic candidates have been or could become battlegrounds.

— LAWMAKERS BRISTLE OVER POCKET RESCISSION SEASON: With less than 45 days left in the fiscal year, the time is right for pocket rescissions — the controversial tactic Trump used last year to cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid without Congress’ consent. If the White House takes that tack again, it will not be well received on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers in both parties continue to bristle over Trump’s ongoing assault on their funding power.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/08/21/congress/all-the-democrats-probes-01045286