☕ Daily Brief: Canadian Wildfire Disaster

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

🇺🇸 Three US troops killed in Iranian strikes. CENTCOM confirmed that three American service members were killed and dozens were injured after Iranian ballistic missiles and drones hit bases in Jordan and Iraq. The deaths mark the first US fatalities in the war since March, with Trump then launching massive strikes at Iranian military bases and weapons facilities.

⚖️ Trump activates Alien Terrorist Removal Court.  The court, created in 1996 but never used, allows expedited deportation of aliens deemed to be terrorists. The move comes after Judge James Boasberg previously suggested the administration use the court instead of the Alien Enemies Act for mass deportations.

📈 GOP lawmaker allegedly involved in insider trading. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) allegedly told MAGA influencer “DC Draino” in 2024 that Trump would select JD Vance as his running mate, prompting him to cash in on a lucrative Polymarket bet. Luna and the influencer deny wrongdoing, yet federal regulators are currently investigating.

🚔 Mamdani considers arresting Netanyahu. Socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) says he is exploring whether he can have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested during a planned UN visit, citing an International Criminal Court warrant the federal government does not recognize.

EDITOR’S NOTE

In last week’s newsletter, we covered the Vice President's recent interview with Joe Rogan. Rogan and other podcasters, as you may remember, were instrumental in Trump’s 2024 election victory because they gave him — and later Vance — a platform to speak directly and relate to young Americans.

Now, JD Vance returned to defend the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran, blamed Israeli foreign influence operations for sabotaging it, and encouraged Jeffrey Epstein-truthers.

First, the facts:

1) The Iran MOU was highly controversial. It granted Iran many benefits that critics found painfully reminiscent of — and in some ways more generous than — Obama's deal.

2) Every country runs its own influence operations and bot farms, so foreign resistance to the Iran deal is not hard to understand. But neither is natural opposition, especially for this deal. Still, Vance claimed the opposition was conspiratorial, manufactured, and orchestrated by Israel.

3) The deal has already collapsed because Iran made demands they knew were unrealistic, then began firing on ships in the Strait of Hormuz a week ago. Vance's decision to trust that the Iranians would negotiate fairly and honestly did not pay off.

4) Vance is the sitting Vice President, with immense sway over the government. Yet in the interview, he spoke like an outsider with no power, suggesting that some of the Jeffrey Epstein theories — like CIA or Mossad connections — are probably true, but that he couldn't (and hasn’t) simply investigated them himself.

5) New reporting, which should be taken with a grain of salt, claims that after Charlie Kirk's murder, Vance went down a series of rabbit holes, including theories of foreign involvement — enough to worry his wife, Usha.

There’s a lot of discussion about who is going to be the Republican frontrunner in 2028. It’s too early to start that process, but here are my thoughts: Vance seems to have two faces. One is the analytical, level-headed, even impressive policymaker we saw during his time in the Senate.

And the other — the one on display now — has decided that courting politics' conspiratorial fringe is, at least for the moment, the better bet.

This concerns me. As we've written at Upward News, we've spent the past few years pushing back against a wave of dangerous conspiratorialism — embodied by figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson — that aims to peel Americans away from MAGA and toward a new left-right hybrid coalition, one that would reorient America away from the West and toward the Arab and Muslim world, both at home and abroad.

Vance’s approach favors them, and it's why Carlson is now saying Vance is the only 2028 option who isn’t a puppet for foreign powers.

What do you think? Reply below with some thoughts and let us know if we can share your response in the newsletter.

Let us know your thoughts and questions here.

YOUR TAKE

Who/what do you think deserves the blame for the Canadian wildfires?

TODAY’S POLL

POP QUIZ

WHY WE’RE DOING THIS

Most of the news out there is designed to overwhelm you… to keep you angry, anxious, and clicking, while the stories that actually matter slip by unnoticed. We're trying to do the exact opposite: give you what's important, told straight, in a few minutes, so you stay informed without losing your mind over it.

We do it because we believe an informed public is what America needs now more than ever. That’s why our members get the full daily brief, with every section unlocked, and the facts and context to share what's really going on with the people they love.

Start with 14 days on us, cancel anytime.