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michael waltz
Missile Fragment From Iran School Massacre Marked 'Made in USA'—But Trump Keeps Lying
Trump falsely claimed that Iran has “some” highly restricted Tomahawk missiles as additional evidence pointed to US culpability for the deadly strike.
Mar 10, 2026
As Iranian officials displayed US-marked fragments of a missile believed to have been used in Saturday's massacre of around 175 mostly school children in Minab, President Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on his unfounded claim that Iran carried out the strike.
The president suggested during a press conference at his Trump National Doral Miami resort that Iran may have used a US Tomahawk missile to carry out the February 28 attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab.
Trump falsely claimed that Iran has "some" of the highly restricted cruise missiles after one of them was recorded hitting an Iranian military facility near the school just after Saturday's strike there.
"A Tomahawk is very generic," Trump added. "It’s sold to other countries.”
New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh pressed Trump on his claim, asking, "You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war... Why are you the only person saying this?"
Trump replied: "Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation, but Tomahawks are, are used by others. As you know, numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us.”
Reporter: You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you're the only person in your government saying this. Why?Trump: Because I just don't know enough about it.
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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) March 9, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Iran has no Tomahawks, which are not "generic." Originally developed by General Dynamics and now manufactured by Raytheon, the BGM‑109 Tomahawk is a specific long-range cruise missile designed and produced in the United States. Only two other countries—Australia and the United Kingdom—are known to have Tomahawks in their arsenals, although Japan and the Netherlands have also agreed to buy them.
The US also does not sell weaponry to the Iranian government—with the extraordinary exception of the Iran-Contra Affair, in which the Reagan administration secretly sold arms to Iran in order to fund anti-communist Contra terrorists in Nicaragua.
Trump's Monday remarks followed his Saturday comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, where he said that the bombing "was done by Iran."
However, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was accompanying Trump, notably declined to back Trump's claim, saying only that "we're certainly investigating" the strike.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz also did not endorse the president's assertion, telling ABC News' Martha Raddatz Sunday that he would “leave that to the investigators to determine.”
Waltz—a former Army Special Forces officer who served in Afghanistan—also told NBC News' Meet the Press Sunday that "we never deliberately attack civilians."
More than 400,000 civilians in over half a dozen countries have been killed in US-led wars since 9/11, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
Hundreds of Iranian civilians have been killed by US and Israeli bombing since February 28. Israeli airstrikes have also killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians during the same period.
During Monday's press conference, Trump said that he is "willing to live with" whatever the probe into the Minab school strike shows.
A preliminary US intelligence assessment reportedly concluded that the United States is "likely" responsible for the strike, although a probe is ongoing.
On Monday, the New York Times published photos of fragments purportedly from a missile used in the school strike, which were marked with the names of multiple companies that produce Tomahawk components, a unique Department of Defense contract number, and "Made in USA." Another remnant is marked SDL ANTENNA, a key satellite data link component of Tomahawk missiles.
Paramedics and victims' relatives said the school bombing was a so-called “double-tap” airstrike—a common tactic used by US, Israeli, and Russian forces in which attackers bomb a target and then follow up with a second strike meant to kill survivors and first responders.
If carried out by the US, the Minab school strike would be one of the deadliest US civilian massacres in modern times, ranking with the bombing of a Baghdad bomb shelter during the 1991 Gulf War—which killed more than 400 people—and the March 2017 slaughter of at least 105 people in an apartment building in Mosul, Iraq during Trump's "war of annihilation" against the so-called Islamic State.
Trump's claim that Iran may have bought a US missile whose sale is restricted to just a handful of close allies and used it to bomb its own school prompted worldwide ridicule.
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the upper chamber floor Tuesday that "Iran doesn't have Tomahawk missiles, Donald Trump!"
"The claim is beyond asinine," he continued. "He says whatever pops into his head no matter what the truth is. And we all know he lies, but on something as formidable as this, it's appalling."
"Trump is lying through his teeth," Schumer added.
Schumer: "Iran doesn't have Tomahawk missiles, Donald Trump! The claim is beyond asinine. He says whatever pops into his head no matter what the truth is. And we all know he lies, but on something as formidable as this, it's appalling."
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 10, 2026 at 7:37 AM
Barry Andrews, an Irish politician who serves as a Member of the European Parliament for the Dublin constituency, said on X that Trump's "latest use of the 'big lie' tactic... was to claim that Iran somehow possesses US-made Tomahawk missiles and fired upon its own girls school."
"Such blatant lies are meant to distract," Andrews added. "He knows the world will move on."
New Yorker cartoonist Mark Thompson quipped, "How Iran fired a Tomahawk missile at their own school is beyond me, but President Trump wouldn’t lie to us."
Reza Nasri, an international law expert at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said on X that "Trump claims that Iran somehow got its hands on a US Tomahawk cruise missile and used it to bomb its own elementary school."
"Ask him how Iran could possibly have obtained such missiles—and how it allegedly launched one, given that Tomahawks are typically fired from naval platforms, primarily warships and submarines," Nasri added. "Did Iran get its hands on US warships and submarines too?"
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Laura Loomer: Trump Whisperer
Meet the influential right-wing conspiracy theorist who has U.S. President Donald Trump’s ear.
May 22, 2025
Laura Loomer is 31 years old and a graduate of Barry University, a private Catholic university. A former commentator on Alex Jones’s Infowars and a far-right conspiracy theorist, she has 1.5 million followers on X. Loomer traffics in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric. She has called herself a “proud Islamophobe” and “pro-white nationalism.”
And she has U.S. President Donald Trump’s ear.
In 2020, Loomer was the Republican nominee for Congress from the Florida district where Mar-a-Lago is located. She campaigned almost exclusively on her allegiance to Trump who, along with Roger Stone, supported her candidacy. Loomer lost the election, as well as her bid to become the party’s nominee again in 2022.
An Extreme Trump Loyalist
During the 2024 campaign, Loomer said on X that if Vice President Kamala Harris—whose mother was born in India—won the election, “the White House will smell like curry.” Those comments drew the condemnation of even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who called her “toxic.”
“Getting Loomered” means targeting someone to determine the sufficiency of the person’s loyalty to Trump and his agenda.
A fervent Trump supporter during the 2024 Republican primaries, she claimed without evidence that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis exaggerated his wife’s bout with breast cancer to gain sympathy votes during his presidential campaign. Her conspiracy theories range from school shootings to election fraud. She shared a video on X stating that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job.”
According to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), “Laura Loomer is a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans.”
A Powerful Influence
Trump aides have tried to limit Loomer’s access to the president—with mixed results. In 2024, She accompanied Trump during appearances commemorating 9/11 in New York and Pennsylvania and traveled on his plane to Iowa where Trump told the audience, “You want her on your side.”
Trump’s top advisers have learned the price of not being on Loomer’s side. In March 2025, she started her own research firm— Loomered Strategies—to provide high-level opposition research and vetting for hire. “Getting Loomered” means targeting someone to determine the sufficiency of the person’s loyalty to Trump and his agenda.
According to Trump, “She’s a strong person. She’s got strong opinions…”
On April 2, she “Loomered” the National Security Council (NSC). Meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, she attacked the character and loyalty of several NSC officials and named the people he should fire. Michael Waltz, who headed the agency, joined the meeting late and briefly tried to defend some of his people. But Trump immediately fired six of her targets.
Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, managed to survive Loomer’s onslaught that day, but not for long. Less than a month later, Trump announced Waltz’s termination. The intervening revelation of his inadvertent inclusion of The Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg on a sensitive group chat on the Signal app had made him vulnerable in any event.
But Wong was out too. Loomer had speculated that Wong’s family was part of a conspiracy and that he had added Goldberg to the Signal chat “on purpose as part of a foreign opp to embarrass the Trump administration on behalf of China.” Wong’s father is of Taiwanese descent, and Loomer had referred to Wong’s wife Candice as a “Chinese woman.” Candice Wong had clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was a career prosecutor, and served as a Justice Department official during Trump’s first term.
Three weeks later, Loomer went after an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Adam Schleifer, who had unsuccessfully run for Congress as a Democrat in 2020. She posted on social media that Schleifer was a “Biden holdover” and a “Trump hater” who should be fired. An hour later, Schleifer received a one-sentence email terminating his employment. In a highly unusual action, the message came directly from the White House on behalf of the president personally. It gave no reason for Schleifer’s dismissal.
Impervious to Facts
Loomer has also attacked the National Intelligence Council, an elite internal think tank that reports to the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Previously, the White House had asked the council to assess the link between the Venezuelan government and the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. Without such a link, Trump could not rely on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deprive the gang’s members of due process before deporting them.
On February 26, senior analyst at the council Michael Collins reported the intelligence community’s consensus that the Venezuelan government did not control the gang. But on March 15, Trump signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act based on purportedly factual findings that contradicted the report.
With a presidential inner circle that includes Laura Loomer, we’re all in deep trouble.
When Collins’ report became public and revealed Trump’s lie, Loomer blasted the council as “career anti-Trump bureaucrats” who “need to be replaced if they want to promote open borders.” In the same post, she pasted images of Collins’s LinkedIn profile and an article about the council’s memo. Three weeks later, Gabbard fired Collins.
Meanwhile, federal courts have blocked Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act in every district where he has tried to invoke it. The courts have found that the act’s predicate—that the Venezuelan gang is engaged in either a “war,” “invasion,” or a “predatory incursion” of the United States—does not exist.
At a Mar-a-Lago press conference in April 2024, Trump praised Loomer as “a woman of courage,” he said, “You don’t want to be Loomered. If you’re Loomered, you’re in deep trouble.”
With a presidential inner circle that includes Laura Loomer, we’re all in deep trouble.
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Vance Calls Greenland 'Cold as Sh*t'—Just Like the Local Reaction to His Visit
Greenlanders are giving the administration of President Donald Trump—who renewed threats to take the Danish territory—the cold shoulder.
Mar 28, 2025
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance, and two top Trump administration officials traveled to Greenland on Friday on an itinerary that was markedly curtailed from its original plans due to Greenlanders' frosty reception amid President Donald Trump's ongoing threats to take the Arctic island from NATO ally Denmark—even by armed force if deemed necessary.
Vance visited Pituffik Space Base—a U.S. Space Force installation on the northwestern coast of Greenland about 930 miles (1,500 km) north of the capital, Nuuk—with his wife, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The vice president's wife originally planned on a more interactive and cultural itinerary, including attending a dogsled race. However, Greenland's leftist government said earlier this week that is had "not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official."
Compounding the Trump administration's embarrassment, U.S. representatives reportedly came up empty handed after canvassing door to door in Nuuk in an effort to drum up support for the visit. The administration denies this ever happened.
And so the Trump officials' audience was limited to U.S. troops stationed at Pituffik. After arriving at the base, the vice president told troops in the mess hall he was surprised to find the snow- and ice-covered Arctic island is "cold as shit."
"Nobody told me!" he added.
Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance visited a U.S. Space Force base in Greenland Friday. Vance is expected to receive briefings on Arctic security and address US service members.
Read more: https://t.co/1OIkkT3VnD pic.twitter.com/lbXeObJTgq
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 28, 2025
Getting down to more serious business, Vance said: "Our message to Denmark is very simple—you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass."
Addressing Arctic geopolitics, Vance argued that "we can't just bury our head in the sand—or in Greenland, bury our head in the snow—and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large land mass. We know that they are."
"The president said we have to have Greenland, and I think that we do have to be more serious about the security of Greenland," Vance continued. "We respect the self-determination of the people of Greenland, but my argument to them is: I think that you'd be a lot better coming under the United States' security umbrella than you have been under Denmark's security umbrella. Because what Denmark's security umbrella has meant is effectively they've passed it all off to brave Americans and hoped that we would pick up the tab."
This follows remarks earlier this week from Vance, who said during a Fox News interview that Denmark, which faithfully sent troops to fight in both Afghanistan and Iraq—43 of whom died, the highest per capita casualty rate of the alliance—is "not being a good ally" to the United States.
Asked by reporters on Friday if the U.S. would ever conquer Greenland by military force, Vance said he didn't think that would be necessary.
However, just a day earlier, Trump—who on Friday posted a video highlighting defense cooperation between the U.S. and Greenland—said his administration will "go as far as we have to go" to acquire the island, which he claimed the United States needs "for national security and international security."
It was far from the first time that Trump—who has also threatened to take over parts or all of countries including Panama and even Canada—vowed to annex Greenland, and other administration officials have repeated the president's threats.
"It's oil and gas. It's our national security. It's critical minerals," Waltz said in January, explaining why Trump wants Greenland.
The U.S. has long been interested in Greenland, and while the close relationship between the United States and Denmark has been mostly mutually beneficial, it has sometimes come at the expense of Greenland's people, environment, and wildlife.
Such was the case when a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber laden with four thermonuclear warheads crashed into the sea ice of Wolstenholme Fjord in 1968. The accident caused widespread radioactive contamination, and the nuclear fuel components of one of the bombs remain unrecovered to this day.
Elected officials from across Greenland and Denmark's political spectrum expressed alarm over the Trump administration's actions.
Outgoing Greenland Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede earlier this week
called Vance's trip "highly aggressive" and said that it "can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit."
"Because what is the security advisor doing in Greenland?" Egede asked. "The only purpose is to show a demonstration of power to us, and the signal is not to be misunderstood."
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke called Vance's remarks on Friday "a bit inappropriate," adding that maybe the Trump administration "should look at yourself in the mirror too."
"When the vice president.. creates an image that the only way Greenland can be protected is by coming under the American umbrella, so you can say that Greenland is already there," Løkke elaborated. "They are part of the common security umbrella that we created together with the Americans after the end of World War II called NATO."
"We have always looked at America like the nice big brother to help you out and now it's like the big brother is bullying you."
Ordinary Greenlanders and Danish residents of the island were not happy about the Trump delegation's visit.
Anders Laursen, who owns a local water taxi company, told NBC News that "we have always looked at America like the nice big brother to help you out and now it's like the big brother is bullying you."
Nuuk resident Marie Olsen said of Vance, "I think he's a big child who wants it all."
In the Danish capital Copenhagen, hundreds of people rallied Friday against the U.S. delegation's visit to Greenland. One protester decried what she called the U.S. administration's "mafia methods."
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