<![CDATA[The Transom]]>https://thetransom.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5Ne0!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8a222ce-9ed6-47bb-9da8-87294e97f571_300x300.pngThe Transomhttps://thetransom.comSubstackFri, 24 Apr 2026 21:05:21 GMT<![CDATA[Against Virginia's Partisan Democrat Gerrymander]]>https://thetransom.com/p/against-virginias-partisan-democrathttps://thetransom.com/p/against-virginias-partisan-democratMon, 20 Apr 2026 13:32:59 GMTFrom the Editors of The Daily Wire:

Virginia voters will head to the polls this week to decide whether to make their Commonwealth the laughingstock of the nation when it comes to clumsy partisan gerrymanders. The Old Dominion should loudly reject Democrats’ attempt to carve the face of the mother of presidents out of mere spite for the persistence of Donald Trump.

If voters approve of the Democrats’ newly proposed House district map, Southwest Virginia would likely be the only area in the commonwealth that has a Republican member in the U.S. House of Representatives, while ten Democrats would represent everywhere else. (Image:{&nbsp;}State Navigate)

For months, Virginia voters have been subjected to a deluge of television ads and direct mail flak backed by national Democrats who hew to an established narrative: the gerrymander, while it may seem extreme, is a necessary, temporary response to Republican agitation across the country to hold the House of Representatives despite the will of the people. It casts the gerrymander as not an obviously unrepresentative scrawl of a map, turning a competitive purple state into a hard blue stone, but as a desperate move motivated by GOP extremism. In this story, they are the heroes defending Democracy.

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]]><![CDATA[The Big Ben Show: Are Republicans Headed For November Doom?]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-are-republicanshttps://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-are-republicansThu, 16 Apr 2026 14:31:01 GMTThe latest edition of The Big Ben Show dropped, featuring guests Rep. Elise Stefanik and White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan. Listen and watch here:

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Swallwell’s Stunning Downfall

Wall Street Journal:

Things were looking up for Rep. Eric Swalwell. A darling of the anti-Trump resistance, he was starting to gather momentum in the race to be the next governor of California.

He had received endorsements from top Democrats, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, his close friend and a potential 2028 presidential candidate. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom he called his “work mom,” hadn’t endorsed Swalwell but had been a longtime mentor. Some of California’s industry and labor power brokers were consolidating around his campaign, as were top political consultants with connections to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

On Tuesday of last week, Swalwell bounded onto the stage at a Sacramento town hall, hugging attendees in the standing-room-only crowd as “California” by Phantom Planet played.

Then it all came crashing down. The San Francisco Chronicle and CNN last week published accounts from women accusing Swalwell of sexual misconduct, including an unnamed former Swalwell staff member who said he had sexually assaulted her. He suspended his campaign for governor and, under threat of an expulsion vote, resigned from Congress this week. He is now facing criminal investigations in New York and California.

Swalwell’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A statement from his lawyer Tuesday posted on social media said Swalwell “categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation of sexual misconduct and assault that has been leveled against him.”

Swalwell’s rapid fall from grace is pushing some of the country’s most powerful Democrats to answer questions about what they knew and when.

The scandal has resurfaced age-old questions about Capitol Hill culture and the power dynamics between elected officials and their subordinates. It is a uniquely modern one, involving graphic photos sent on Snapchat and an online campaign against Swalwell by content creators.

Whispers that Swalwell, 45 years old, who is married and has three children, liked to party and had sent inappropriate messages to young female Democrats had long dogged him, but the assault allegations caught Democratic leaders off-guard. Some Democrats had privately dismissed rumors of his playboy lifestyle as unsubstantiated, according to people familiar with the conversations.

In late March, two content creators started posting allegations from women against Swalwell. With each post, new women reached out with allegations of abuse, said Cheyenne Hunt, one of the influencers. They helped connect the women with a lawyer and with reporters. Hunt said more than 30 women have now reached out to her to share experiences ranging from uncomfortable messages to sexual assault.

God, Death, and the Right to Choose

Graphs About Religion:

Several years ago, Canada began a program called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). It’s a government initiative that’s beginning to reshape how Canadians are facing end-of-life situations. An article published in The Atlantic in August of 2025 titled Canada Is Killing Itself reports 5% of all the deaths in 2024 that happened in the country were through physician assisted suicide.

This is a topic that will garner increasing attention in the United States as medical aid in dying is already legally permissible in 13 states and Washington DC. And the March/April 2026 issue of Christianity Today includes a piece by Kristy Etheridge titled, “Death is Not a Right.” Given this interest, I wanted to see if I could provide some empirical background on how views of suicide have changed over time, particularly across the religious landscape in the US.

The General Social Survey has been asking a four question battery about suicide (with various justifications) for decades now. Luckily, the Association of Religion Data Archives makes it easy to search the codebook for the GSS and pull out the relevant questions. They all start with the same preamble - Do you think a person has the right to end his or her own life if this person…

There are four scenarios:

1. The person has an incurable disease

2. The person has gone bankrupt

3. The person has dishonored their family

4. The person is tired of living

Here’s the share of the entire sample who supported a person’s right to end their life given the above circumstances.

It is clear that the American public has been much more open to the idea of suicide in the case of incurable disease compared to the other three situations. In 1977, 37% of the sample supported someone ending their own life if they had a disease that couldn’t be cured. That rose quickly through the next 15 years, crossing the majority support threshold by the late 1980s and rising to 60% in favor by the mid-1990s. It stayed there for a while but then rose again after 2010 and it’s now at an all time high: 69% in favor.

The other three scenarios have never garnered anywhere near the same levels of support in the general public. The share who favors a right to suicide for people who go bankrupt or dishonor their family has never been robust: 6-7% back in the 1970s and creeping up very slowly over time to where it now stands, around 15%.



The question about suicide when a person “is tired of living and ready to die” gets a bit more support, though. It was 12% back in 1977 and that share has doubled in the last couple of decades. Now, a quarter of Americans favor an individual ending their own life if they just don’t want to live anymore.

As I was poking around this data, I had to wonder: is there some kind of combination between these four scenarios that is the most popular? Or are people pretty absolutist about this: they either favor suicide in all cases or reject it in all cases?

The most popular option was an individual saying that they would favor suicide in the case of incurable disease but in no other circumstances. That position comprised 42% of the sample. In second place, with 31% of the sample were folks who simply said “no” to each of the four circumstances. They were not in favor of suicide no matter the situation. That’s much higher than the portion of the sample who took a more libertarian view and would allow someone to end their life in all four scenarios previously described (14%).

Clarence Thomas on Progressives vs. The Declaration

Wall Street Journal:

Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from the government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.

You will not be surprised to learn that the progressives had a great deal of contempt for us, the American people. Before he entered politics, Wilson would describe the American people as “selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn” and “foolish.” He lamented that we “do too much by vote” and too little by expert rule. He proposed that the people be ruled by administrators who use them as “tools.” He once again aspired to be like Germany, where the people, he said admiringly, were “docile and acquiescent.”

The century of progressivism did not go well. The European system that Wilson and the progressives scolded Americans for not adopting, which he called nearly perfect, led to the governments that caused the most awful century that the world has ever seen. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our Declaration was based. Many progressives expressed admiration for each of them shortly before their governments killed tens of millions of people.

It was a terrible mistake to adopt Progressivism’s rejection of the Declaration’s vision of universal, inalienable natural rights. Wilson’s claim that natural rights must give way to historical progress could justify the greatest mistakes in our history. In Plessy v. Ferguson, my court upheld Louisiana’s system of racial segregation because “separate but equal,” it observed, was reasonable in light of “the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort, and the preservation of the public peace and good order.” It comes as no surprise that the progressives embraced eugenics. Progressives believed that Darwinian science—the idea of ever-advancing progress written into biology itself—had proven the inherent superiority and inferiority of the races. It was only a small step for Wilson to resegregate the federal workforce. It was only another step for the government to launch sterilization programs on those deemed by the experts of the day to be unfit to reproduce—upheld by my court in Buck v. Bell in an opinion written by no less a figure than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

We can argue over whether you believe in immutable, absolute natural rights or the Wilsonian idea of ever-progressing history. . . . But let me ask you to consider the consequences. European thinkers have long criticized America for remaining trapped in a Lockean world, with its weak decentralized government and strong individual rights. They say our 18th-century Declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government. Why has America never had a socialist party, one German sociologist famously asked. But we were fortunate not to trade our Lockean bounds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx and their followers. Fascism—which, after all, was a national socialism—triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher good of notions of history, progress, or, as Thomas Sowell has written, the “vision of the anointed.”

None of this, of course, was an improvement on the principles of the Declaration. Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” is largely about how America owed its superiority over Europe to its conscious decision to reject central planning and administrative rule root and branch. Progressivism, in other words, is retrogressive. As Calvin Coolidge said on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration:

“If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.”

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“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.”

― Steven Spielberg

]]><![CDATA[Ruthless: The Fall of Eric Swallwell]]>https://thetransom.com/p/ruthless-the-fall-of-eric-swallwellhttps://thetransom.com/p/ruthless-the-fall-of-eric-swallwellTue, 14 Apr 2026 18:51:07 GMTHappy to join the Ruthless guys on their variety progrum to talk about the fall of Eric Swalwell — couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Related links:

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“The only power we have is the power to destroy, the power to disrupt.”

— Tom Wolfe

]]><![CDATA[The Big Ben Show: A Risky Ceasefire That May Not Last]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-a-risky-ceasefirehttps://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-a-risky-ceasefireThu, 09 Apr 2026 14:58:17 GMTNew Big Ben Show dropped last night, and we’ve got a jam-packed episode, including interviews with Lucas Tomlinson and Rebeccah Heinrichs on the Iran ceasefire deal and the risks involved for the United States. Watch and listen here:

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Washington Shouldn’t Compromise on Iran

Mark Dubowitz and Ben Cohen in the Daily Wire:

A ceasefire is not peace. It is not the formal end of hostilities. It is a pause.

General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made that unmistakably clear at a Pentagon press conference on April 8, his first since President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran the previous evening: “A ceasefire is a pause, and the joint force remains ready, if ordered or called upon, to resume combat operations with the same speed and precision as we’ve demonstrated over the last 38 days.”

Iran’s rulers should now understand that this president does not bluff. The United States and Israel remain, in Trump’s words during January’s anti-regime uprising, “locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Since that warning, the landscape has changed dramatically.

Domestically, more than 40,000 Iranians have died after the regime unleashed extraordinary violence against demonstrators. Militarily, Iran has been badly weakened by combined U.S.-Israeli operations: its navy crippled, air defenses penetrated, missile stockpiles and launchers significantly reduced, and key elements of its defense-industrial and economic-industrial base severely damaged. The supreme leader and 51 of his top commanders and advisors have been eliminated along with thousands of members of the IRGC, Basij, law enforcement, and intelligence apparatus.

Diplomatically, nearly six weeks of attacks on Arab capitals have shattered what little trust remained between Tehran and its Gulf neighbors, and Iran is increasingly isolated even from American allies who have their fair share of differences with President Trump. Psychologically, Iran’s leadership has learned that beneath Trump’s social media theatrics — offensive to many — lies a president willing to act.

As in many wars, both sides now claim victory. But Iran’s claim is far less persuasive. For now, the regime has achieved the minimum objective of survival. Yet survival under sustained military, economic, and political pressure is not strategic success. The possibility of an Iran freed from Islamic Republic rule remains very much alive.

As talks begin this weekend in Pakistan to solidify the ceasefire, Washington should negotiate from a position of maximum leverage, not compromise. None of the 10 points reportedly included in Tehran’s public proposal deserves serious consideration: lifting all sanctions, preserving Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, demanding war reparations, permitting continued uranium enrichment, and insisting on an indefinite halt to hostilities would amount to strategic surrender by the United States. Tehran’s original 10-point proposal was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and, as the White House put it, “completely discarded.”

That should remain the administration’s posture. The central reality has not changed during these volatile weeks: The Islamic Republic remains the most dangerous force destabilizing the Middle East and a direct threat to American security. Replacing it with a government that allows Iranians to reclaim their country should remain the central objective of U.S. policy.

That requires abandoning illusions about trade-offs. Unlike the Obama administration’s pursuit of the 2015 nuclear deal, the Trump administration should not seek to persuade, incentivize, or rehabilitate Iran’s rulers. It should present terms and insist on compliance.

That means no enrichment. It means surrendering Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile. It means intrusive, unannounced inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a prelude to dismantling Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and ballistic missile program. It means freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. It means maintaining all sanctions until Tehran proves over time that it has ended support for regional terror proxies and complied fully with American demands.

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U.S. Fertility Hits Record Low

The Wall Street Journal:

The nation’s fertility rates hit record lows in 2025 as childbearing continued to shift toward older women, according to new federal data released Thursday. For the sixth straight year, the number of children born in the U.S. remained at roughly 3.6 million.

The number of births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44—the general fertility rate—reached a record low of 53.1 in 2025, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate has mostly headed down since 2007, a prerecession peak when millennial women started to enter their prime childbearing years.

One long-term trend driving the slide: a sharp decrease in birthrates for teens and women in their 20s. In 2025, birthrates for women in their late 30s exceeded those for women in their early 20s for the first time.

The lack of growth in births continues to be driven by uncertainty about the future, including concern over finances, relationship stability and the political climate, according to Wendy Manning, a demographer at Bowling Green State University. But research shows many women still desire to have children…

The teen birthrate fell 7% last year, extending a yearslong decline related to public-health campaigns and growing use of longer-acting contraceptives. Since 2007, the birthrate for 15- to 19-year-olds has fallen 72% in the U.S.

“We spent decades and lots of money trying to discourage early childbearing, saying, ‘This will ruin your life. This will ruin your kid’s life. Don’t do it,’ ” said Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

GOP Campaigns Embrace AI, While Democrats Bet Against It

Semafor:

In Democratic shops, the conversation about whether to use AI tools internally is quiet and cautious. One example: I’m told the Democratic National Committee has approved the use of only Google’s Gemini LLM, and not its competitors, for official work like data analysis and coding. Other Democratic groups have used AI tools to build campaign sites more quickly, replacing some hours of busywork.

But there is Democratic dread about the consequences of widespread AI use, like employment loss for visual artists and camera crews, that the GOP doesn’t share. While data center construction and favorable tax subsidies for the AI industry are politically unpopular, only Democrats have a faction that wants to stop the bulldozers. Democrats have introduced the sole successful proposals to restrict AI in political messaging.

Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, author of a bill that would let candidates sue for damages if their opponents ran “materially deceptive” AI ads, told me that such deception was already a problem in her primary.

“It depends on if it’s based in fact, or if it’s just made up bullsh*t,” she said, a few days before being forced into a runoff with former Rep. Colin Allred. “Colin has done some AI-generated ads with my face in them; I don’t like it, but I don’t have a huge problem with it. That is, in fact, me. What I don’t like is using AI to create an image of me with Trump and Kristi Noem, because that’s just never happened.”

(Allred’s campaign distanced itself from the images Johnson was talking about; they came from The New Leadership PAC, which supports him in the May runoff.)

That defense of observed reality doesn’t have much power on the right, which has fully embraced AI image generation. The tears of liberal-leaning artists who won’t get paid to make those images are a bonus.

And it’s not just the Trump operation diving in. The president’s amplification of AI images has often happened in a political vacuum — replies on X, re-Truths on the president’s social media account. By contrast, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has used AI in ways that deeply anger Democrats. Not that they can do anything about it.

Yes, There’s a Problem With the Vrabel-Russini Stuff

Ethan Strauss:

Some of you were far more skeptical of the photographed duo and let’s just say…I now see your side. I received a lot of pushback from readers and people within the industry. The most common reply was something like this, via an anonymous tipster:

I looked at those pictures again today and they were taken from really far. No way paparazzi would give a fuck about those two. So where did these pictures come from. Was one of them being followed by a PI? Because their spouse did not trust them?

That’s not really what shook my belief in the defense, though, nor was it the avalanche of unearthed critical comments Russini made about her husband and marriage. It was top NFL reporter Adam Schefter on Philadelphia radio nimbly evading questions from the hosts. Schefty, who knows both people involved and likely has a lot more contextual information, did not laugh off this matter. Instead he grimly said:

I feel bad for the families involved. It’s unfortunate.

Well then. That doesn’t exactly sound like a response to some wacky innocent misunderstanding.

When the photos were published, I figured this situation would soon blow over because almost any Internet story does. Perhaps it will, but there’s a level of publicized unseemliness where, even with time, a topic never truly goes away for a public figure. Vrabel and Russini can return to their jobs that revolve around America’s favorite distraction, but people don’t forget. Russini’s latest output is reporting on the NFL referee labor situation and I suppose information based productivity is about the best move a reporter in this scenario can make.

Some additional thoughts…

This story is a good example of Aaron Sorkin’s take on bad publicity:

It’s like seasickness. You think you’re gonna die, and everyone else just thinks it’s funny.

Many are having fun with a salacious scandal, but, to Schefter’s point, there are families involved. If this is what it looks like, it’s also tragic for those involved.

I know it’s sports and not matters of extreme importance, but there is indeed a journalistic ethics component to all this. Out in aforementioned Philly, where Dianna Russini won “Eagles Insider of the Year” for Spike Eskin’s WIP, some fans are up in arms over this seemingly unconnected story. Why? Because Russini reported interest from the New England Patriots in chronically unhappy Eagles star wide receiver AJ Brown.

Russini isn’t the only person to have reported this. When New England Patriot legends Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski interviewed AJ Brown, the Eagles wideout winked when Edelman said, “We’re all Patriots.” Mike Vrabel was Brown’s head coach back in Tennessee, as discussed on the pod, so there’s a history there.

Still, you can’t fault an Eagles fan for wondering if there’s an aspect of the tail wagging the dog here. A reporter who broadcasts a star Eagle’s desire to leave just happens to have a close “relationship” with the coach of a team she names as potential suitor. I personally think AJ Brown would be doing all he could to leave Philadelphia for New England even if Russini had retired two years ago, but the optics aren’t wonderful.

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“Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.”

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]]><![CDATA[Trump's Iran Ceasefire Is Less of a Deal and More of a Ticking Clock]]>https://thetransom.com/p/trumps-iran-ceasefire-is-less-ofhttps://thetransom.com/p/trumps-iran-ceasefire-is-less-ofWed, 08 Apr 2026 18:18:21 GMTMy take at the Daily Wire:

The markets are speaking, and their shaky nature means they’re optimistic about this deal. But it’s a bad one, short- and long-term, for an America First policy perspective. It’s certainly satisfying to swipe the chessboard clear of a bunch of bad guys. It’s another to expend significant resources to create a scenario in which the takeaways all speak to Iran’s ability to stand up to the Great Satan and survive, and to the advantages going forward for China that are impossible to fully estimate at this point.

The Trump approach to foreign policy and national security has, time and again, proven his critics wrong. He has ridden a hot hand repeatedly, to the great benefit of the American people. But he’s often done so by gambling and winning, often facing long odds. Eventually those odds may prove too long. Eventually the table goes cold. Or sometimes, you just need a break to go off tilt.

We’ll see which situation this is for the president in short order.

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]]><![CDATA[Taiwan Diary, Day One]]>https://thetransom.com/p/taiwan-diary-day-onehttps://thetransom.com/p/taiwan-diary-day-oneMon, 06 Apr 2026 16:16:22 GMTOne of the first things you notice in Taipei is the children — and the lack thereof.

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The city gives every indication of being a place where people are thriving, full of luxury shops and Michelin star restaurants, where the threatening presence of the PRC across the strait is an afterthought. People are festooned with European fashion labels as they zip around the city on well-kept scooters and motorbikes. At the hotels, a polite robot delivers your ice bucket.

The effect is jarring after a while. The number of stroller-type implements being used to haul goods and purchases far outnumber the ones with a child inside. Children are treated well — the restaurants make a big show of treating them like little honored guests — but the desire to be fruitful is just not present here.

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]]><![CDATA[The Big Ben Show: Jonathan Turley v. Thomas Paine]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-jonathan-turleyhttps://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-jonathan-turleyThu, 02 Apr 2026 15:53:42 GMTThe latest Big Ben Show is here, featuring Jonathan Turley and Robby Soave! Watch, listen, and share with your friends.

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]]><![CDATA[Big Ben Show: Champagne Socialists Go To Cuba]]>https://thetransom.com/p/big-ben-show-champagne-socialistshttps://thetransom.com/p/big-ben-show-champagne-socialistsThu, 26 Mar 2026 12:48:01 GMTThe latest Big Ben Show is here, for your listening and viewing pleasure:

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And be sure to check out what we’ve been publishing this week in DW Opinion:

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]]><![CDATA[Was The Metaverse Collapse Inevitable?]]>https://thetransom.com/p/was-the-metaverse-collapse-inevitablehttps://thetransom.com/p/was-the-metaverse-collapse-inevitableMon, 23 Mar 2026 15:11:33 GMTSpencer Klavan in The Daily Wire:

For now, Facebook is still technically called Meta. But the “metaverse,” Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious virtual reality project, is in shambles. Tech outlets reported last week that the company would be sunsetting Horizon Worlds, its VR social media platform. Then CTO Andrew Bosworth clarified that Horizon Worlds would rema…

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]]><![CDATA[The Trashy Awful Abusive Mormon Wife Isn't "Messy" Distraction, It's Real Life Tragedy]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-trashy-awful-abusive-mormon-wifehttps://thetransom.com/p/the-trashy-awful-abusive-mormon-wifeFri, 20 Mar 2026 14:46:35 GMTI’ve had it with reality TV. Competition shows, those are fine, but the escalating nature of this crap has gone too far when the central conversation surrounds an out of control shrieking drunk BPD swinger mom hurling a metal chair at her daughter for the entire internet to consume, and for that daughter to learn about as she gets older and have it foll…

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]]><![CDATA[The Big Ben Show: The Anti-War Right Cranks It To Eleven]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-the-anti-war-righthttps://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-the-anti-war-rightThu, 19 Mar 2026 14:55:22 GMTThe latest Big Ben Show is here! Listen and watch below:

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]]><![CDATA[Joe Kent's Resignation Will Dominate D.C. Conversation]]>https://thetransom.com/p/joe-kents-resignation-will-dominatehttps://thetransom.com/p/joe-kents-resignation-will-dominateWed, 18 Mar 2026 13:10:29 GMTWall Street Journal:

Sound advice in Washington is never to take a job unless you’re prepared to resign, and more people should heed it. The resignation Tuesday of a Trump counterterror official in protest against the Iran war is notable on those grounds, but why was he in the Administration in the first place?

“I cannot in good conscience support the ong…

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]]><![CDATA[Will Israel Convince Trump To Go All The Way?]]>https://thetransom.com/p/will-israel-convince-trump-to-gohttps://thetransom.com/p/will-israel-convince-trump-to-goFri, 13 Mar 2026 15:09:55 GMTThe National Interest:

The conventional wisdom in Washington holds that the United States and Israel share a unified strategic interest in confronting Iran. Politicians on both sides of the aisle recite it like a catechism. The think tanks reinforce it. The defense establishment operationalizes it. But conventional wisdom, particularly in the Middle East, has a remarkable track record of being wrong—and this case is no exception.

Let us be precise about what each party actually wants, because imprecision in foreign policy is not only the cause of intellectual failure but also the expense of blood and treasure.

What Israel wants is the elimination—not the containment, not the negotiated limitation—of Iran’s nuclear program and, increasingly, the weakening or collapse of the Islamic Republic itself. For Israel, this is existential calculus. A nuclear-armed Iran, in the Israeli strategic mind, represents an intolerable threat to its physical survival. Israeli leaders have said this clearly and repeatedly, and there is no reason to doubt their sincerity. They want the United States to fight this war fully, decisively, and at whatever cost is required to finish the job.

What the United States wants—or rather, what American interests dictate, as distinct from what American politicians say—is considerably more modest and considerably more complicated. Washington wants to prevent Iran from acquiring a deliverable nuclear weapon. It wants to preserve the flow of Persian Gulf oil. It wants to avoid another open-ended Middle Eastern military commitment that hollows out its conventional deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific. It wants to keep the global economy from absorbing an oil-price shock that accelerates its own fragmentation. And it wants, if possible, to get back to the business of managing its rivalry with China—the actual defining challenge of this century.

These are obviously not the same objectives. They overlap in places, but they diverge precisely where the pressure is greatest—the question of how far to go.

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Abortion Supporters Changed Their Tactics — So Should Pro-Lifers

Josh Hawley in The Daily Wire:

When the Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade — reversing the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott — pro-life Americans rejoiced. Little did we know the fight was only just beginning. Since then, abortion advocates have dumped millions of dollars in dark money into our states to overturn state laws, and in some cases, state constitutional provisions, protecting life. They’ve relentlessly pushed for pro-abortion judges for state courts and the federal judiciary. But above all, they’ve turned to a drug called mifepristone to bring abortion on demand to every state in the union. If pro-lifers want to protect the innocent unborn, and the health and safety of women, there’s only one thing to do: ban the chemical abortion drug.

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]]><![CDATA[The Big Ben Show: Media Lies About Islamic Terror in NYC, John Cornyn's Last Stand]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-media-lies-abouthttps://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-media-lies-aboutThu, 12 Mar 2026 14:26:57 GMTThe latest Big Ben Show is here for your listening and viewing pleasure:

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If you haven’t been paying attention, we’ve had some great pieces at Daily Wire Opinion this past week — here’s my latest, on how Mamdani is giving rise to a New Radical Chic — check them out:

• Benham Ben Taleblu: Trump’s Hormuz Moment: The Only Way Out Is Through

“The reality of the Strait of Hormuz is that it remains the world’s most important maritime chokepoint — and Iran knows it. If Tehran believes it can threaten global energy markets without consequence, deterrence has already failed.”

• Tim Anderson: Blue State Moves To Muzzle Oral History Of J6

“The attempt to shut down this oral history project reflects a growing effort to control the narrative surrounding January 6. History cannot be preserved if politicians are allowed to decide which stories are permitted to be told.”

• Clare Ath: The Hard Truth About Being A Working Mom In America

“If we truly want a culture that values life, we must confront the realities facing working mothers.”

“Childcare in America is not merely expensive — in many places it is simply unavailable.”

• Andrew Walker: A Kind Heretic Is Still A Heretic

“Kindness cannot replace truth. A teacher may be gentle and well-meaning, but if he denies the core doctrines of the faith, he is still teaching error.”

• Lisa De Pasquale: David Keene Bet On Young Conservatives Before Anyone Else Did

“David Keene understood something many leaders forget: movements survive only if they invest in the next generation. Long before it was fashionable, Keene was opening doors for young conservatives who would go on to shape the movement.”

• Bev Turner: Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud About Britain’s Free Speech Crisis

“Britain once prided itself on being the birthplace of free speech. Today, citizens are discovering that expressing the wrong opinion can bring a knock on the door from the police.”

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]]><![CDATA[Will Mayor Mamdani Condemn The Bombthrowers?]]>https://thetransom.com/p/will-mayor-mamdani-condemn-the-bombthrowershttps://thetransom.com/p/will-mayor-mamdani-condemn-the-bombthrowersMon, 09 Mar 2026 16:50:38 GMTTime:

A preliminary analysis by the New York Police Department’s bomb squad determined that the device was “not a hoax device or a smoke bomb” but an improvised explosive that “could have caused serious injury or death,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said on Sunday. Two men were arrested at the scene, Tisch said.

The FBI said in a Sun…

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]]><![CDATA[The Big Ben Show: Ben Shapiro, Benham Ben Taleblu, Buck (Somehow Not Ben) Sexton]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-ben-shapiro-benhamhttps://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-ben-shapiro-benhamThu, 05 Mar 2026 14:11:34 GMTThe latest Big Ben Show edition is here, and it’s supersized given everything that’s happened in the past week. My new boss Ben Shapiro is here plus Benham, our favorite Iran expert, with a dose of realism, plus one of my oldest friends in this industry, Buck Sexton, who’s got a NYT bestseller to his name now. Watch and listen!

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]]><![CDATA[What Trump Groks About Foreign Policy]]>https://thetransom.com/p/what-trump-groks-about-foreign-policyhttps://thetransom.com/p/what-trump-groks-about-foreign-policyTue, 03 Mar 2026 15:08:58 GMTMy latest is at The Daily Wire:

Donald Trump understands something fundamental about foreign policy that most politicians don’t — including ones who have been active in this space for a very long time.

In the run-up to Operation Epic Fury, the critique circling on Capitol Hill wasn’t quiet. Republicans were concerned that, given the risk factors involved in a major regime change war — even one that was undertaken overwhelmingly by air and sea, not Army boots on the ground — the president had done little or nothing to warn the American people of the potential losses inherent in any attack.

Unlike the precision strikes Trump has used in the past — amazing feats of military technological capability, yes, but with lower potential loss of American lives — going after the Iranians meant inevitably setting off a barrage of missiles and drones that could attack all America’s forces in the Middle East, as well as our allies and regional partners.

Exfiltrating Nicolás Maduro and his wife without the loss of a single American life was an incredible achievement, one that was only possible thanks to the bravery and commitment of a terribly wounded helicopter pilot. Things could’ve gone sideways very quickly. Instead, the American forces under Trump pulled it off without one death. Assign it to good fortune, good planning, or the grace of God, but this is not the way such missions are expected to go.

The line from one old military hand to me in the run-up to the Iran strike was simple: How long can the old man keep going back to the table and coming up aces?

That risk, for a normal politician, would require advance mitigation. Think back to the lengthy effort George W. Bush and his associates put into making the case for war in Iraq. The many briefings, public speeches, presentations before the United Nations, and an open effort on television and in op-ed pages to make the case for war were meant to warn people of the potential loss of life and materiel. The message was clear: Steel yourselves for the worst, but understand we’re doing this because we think it needs doing. Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction require it.

Of course, after the WMD turned out to be a pittance of what was expected, and Hussein’s threats turned out to be the actions of a blowhard maintaining his hold on power, the Bush administration was forced into an uncomfortable pivot toward a war built on positive vibes and spreading democracy. The whole prewar case turned out to be built on falsehoods, albeit falsehoods every intelligence service in the West purportedly believed.

Trump became, like so many Americans, an outspoken critic of this war after the fact, as it dragged on interminably and descended into chaos that cost American lives and resources. He took the lesson, as did many politicians in the rising generation, that boots-on-the-ground regime-change wars without clear goals in mind are a pointless and expensive exercise.

But Trump seems to have taken another lesson from it, too: that the messaging build up to such action is unwise and unnecessary.

So, if the political critique of President Trump’s approach in Iran is that he didn’t make the case to the American people, it’s true — he didn’t. He understands that he doesn’t need to.

Americans assess foreign policy and national security not as ever-running aspects of their daily lives, but as a binary: success, or failure. We like to win. We hate to lose.

What Trump has done is show that he knows more about the reality of these issues politically than any longstanding politician, consultant, or commentator. He understands the importance of unpredictability. He makes his decisions in his own time and believes Americans will judge him only if his effort is unsuccessful. And if it is a failure, no amount of prior argument — readying the ground with an awareness of risk, detailing the potential benefits to energy markets or a destabilized China — will make a difference anyway.

It’s a fundamental change in the way an administration conducts foreign policy. It’s in keeping with Trump’s roll the dice approach. And it’s also based on enormous confidence in what the United States military is capable of when you ask them to blow something up instead of changing hearts and minds.

Donald Trump understands the old Vince Lombardi dictum applies here: Winning isn’t everything — it’s the only thing.

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Rubio: Congress Can Vote On Whatever They Want

Daily Wire:

“Why not notify Congress ahead of this —?” the reporter asked.

“Well, we did,” Rubio pushed back immediately. “We notified Congress, well, we notified the Gang of Eight, we notified congressional leadership. There’s no law that says we have to do that. The law says that we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities. We’ve done that. I think the notification went today.”

“But we did notify members of Congress in advance,” he continued. “We can’t notify 535 members of Congress.”

When one reporter interrupted, arguing that Congress had to vote on a resolution declaring war, Rubio shot back, “Congress can vote on whatever they want, but there’s NO law saying we have to do that. And I’m going to say something because I see people on TV — look, that’s fine, if they want to take a War Powers vote, they can do that, they’ve done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times.”

Rubio repeated that there was no law requiring a president to take any action to notify Congress about strikes before engaging, adding, “To begin with, no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional, not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents. That said, we have followed the notification at 48 hours, and we’re here today.”

“I’ve done more Gang of Eight briefings than I got in four years of Biden! I was in the Gang of 8. We complied with the law and we will continue to comply with it,” he concluded.

According to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the president must inform Congress within 48 hours after taking military action or sending troops into combat or imminent combat. A president can then continue such military action for only 60 days — with an additional 30 days for troop drawdown — without a vote from Congress authorizing the continued operations.

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Buckle Up For Bumpier Skies

The New Yorker:

In 2002, a team of researchers from NASA, the F.A.A., and six commercial airlines ran a series of experiments in Oklahoma City, in a decommissioned Boeing 747. They wanted to see how quickly a commercial jet could be secured in case of turbulence. They recruited a group of volunteer passengers, gave them all fake boarding passes and luggage, and had three of them carry around life-size baby dolls. Some of the volunteers were told to stay in their seats and act as if they were sleeping, reading, or working on a laptop. Others were told to stand in the aisles or sit in the lavatories. A crew of experienced flight attendants, drawn from the airlines participating in the study, made their way up and down the plane, serving fake food.

The research team ran nineteen drills in three days. Some began with a mild warning over the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will be encountering a line of thunderstorms in about ten minutes.” The rest began more urgently: “All passengers and flight attendants, please be seated immediately.” The more emphatic announcement prompted a quicker reaction. Still, at best, only two-thirds of the occupants were buckled up after seventy seconds. On average, the passengers needed a minute and a half to take their seats; the flight attendants, who had to stow their gear first, needed at least four minutes. Fully a third of the occupants were still out of their seats after seventy seconds.

To the people on Flight SQ321, that would have seemed an eternity. Eight seconds after the captain’s warning, the plane plummeted. Within five seconds, it had dropped a hundred and seventy-eight feet—about the height of a nineteen-story building. There was no time to react, Azmir later told reporters. “Whoever wasn’t buckled down, they were just launched into the air within the cabin,” he said. Azmir had a window seat near the back. When a plane hits turbulence, it tends to seesaw from front to back, so the first and last rows rise and fall the most. “I saw people from across the aisle just going completely horizontal, hitting the ceiling,” Azmir said. “People getting massive gashes in the head.” Some passengers were vaulted up so violently that they dented the luggage bins, or thrust their heads through the panels where the oxygen masks were stored. Those who were standing were sent somersaulting down the aisles; those sitting in the lavatories smashed into the ceiling. It was “sheer terror,” one passenger later said. Then, just as abruptly, the plane lurched up, slamming everyone back to the ground. In just four seconds, the gravitational force on their bodies changed from negative 1.5 g’s to positive 1.5 g’s, Singapore’s Ministry of Transport later noted. It was as if their bodies went from being helium balloons to being sandbags.

“I arrived back in the airport and I couldn’t stop vomiting,” another passenger said, after the plane had made an emergency landing in Bangkok. “I couldn’t walk.” A hundred and four passengers had to be treated for injuries. More than forty of them were kept for longer stays at the hospital; six had skull and brain injuries, including a two-year-old boy. Of the seventeen passengers who needed surgery, nine had spinal injuries, including an Australian woman named Kerry Jordan, who was left paralyzed. A year later, she still couldn’t brush her teeth or use a phone.

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Christopher Kimball's Substack
Swearing Hill News: Carl Hess and The Four Freedoms
I spent summers and many weekends in Vermont growing up, working on a dairy farm. There was a gas station at the bottom of the hill coming out of town run by Carl Hess, who was famous for appearing in the Norman Rockwell painting, Freedom of Speech, the first of…
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2 months ago · 30 likes · Christopher Kimball

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“If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions either propagated by you or embraced by you, then I suggest you learn to recognize and avoid the symptoms of the zealot and the person who knows he is right. For the dissenter, the skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle.”

— Christopher Hitchens

]]><![CDATA[The Big Ben Show: Iran, Mexico, and Team USA]]>https://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-iran-mexico-andhttps://thetransom.com/p/the-big-ben-show-iran-mexico-andThu, 26 Feb 2026 12:55:26 GMTThe latest Big Ben Show is here for your listening and viewing pleasure, featuring conversations with Lucas Tomlinson and Fred Fleitz as well as my thoughts on the thrilling Team USA Gold and the dumb politicization of sports.

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New Job!

Yesterday I announced that I’d be joining The Daily Wire as their new Opinion Editor, standing up a new section that we intend to turn into the best opinion page in America. My work at Fox News as a contributor and podcast host will continue, but my writing is now going to be exclusive to Daily Wire — and more importantly, we’re going to be building out a team in the coming weeks that will represent a real investment in opinion and commentary talent.

Daily Wire has an enormous footprint and the resources to grow even more, and I’m happy to join their team. My thanks to all the congratulations from friends and colleagues on X — there’s much work to be done, and I can’t wait to start!

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— Christopher Hitchens

]]><![CDATA[Welcome to the Age of Conspiracy]]>https://thetransom.com/p/welcome-to-the-age-of-conspiracyhttps://thetransom.com/p/welcome-to-the-age-of-conspiracyTue, 24 Feb 2026 15:32:39 GMTThe New Yorker:

One of the central contentions of Trump’s movement was that the world was run by a corrupt, deviant, and rootless élite, a cabal of cosmopolitan globalists who held themselves out as enlightened but were actually callous, self-interested, and predatory. (Trump positioned himself as an alternative to this group: if the rich weren’t like yo…

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]]><![CDATA[Hockey Country, U.S.A.]]>https://thetransom.com/p/hockey-country-usahttps://thetransom.com/p/hockey-country-usaMon, 23 Feb 2026 18:50:11 GMTThe Canadians had more talent. They dominated the second and third period. They had the best line in hockey on the ice in Overtime. And in the end, it didn’t matter.

Time Magazine on the team:

They stayed in the Olympic Village, this American men’s Olympic hockey team that won a classic 2-1 overtime thriller against Canada on Sunday afternoon, in a game that—bet on it—will be dissected and feted and reminisced about, quite wistfully, a quarter century from now. Maybe even sooner. The squad swore off the Four Seasons to live like everyday Olympians for a few weeks. The Hughes brothers, Jack and Quinn, and the Tkachuks, Matthew and Brady, each shared rooms with their siblings: Quinn mock-complained about the Tkachuks always leaving their door open across the hall.

“Olympic spirit, team chemistry, there’s something to that,” says American forward Dylan Larkin, who plays for the Detroit Red Wings. “We’re Team USA, and we get to hang and talk to figure skaters and speed skaters. Winning gold is contagious. And being around winners, being around great athletes, was something that I’m very appreciative we did.”

They honored Johnny Gaudreau, the late Columbus Blue Jackets forward who, as a seven-time All Star, almost certainly would have been on this team, had he and his brother, Matt, a minor league player who starred at Boston College, hadn’t been tragically killed in the summer of 2024; a suspected drunk driver stuck their bikes on the eve of their sister’s wedding. Larkin and Zach Werenski, Gaudreau’s teammate with Columbus, brought Johnny Gaudreau’s children onto the ice after Jack Hughes’ golden goal gave the U.S. its first Olympic gold medal since the Miracle On Ice in 1980.

Werenski and Matthew Tkachuk held up a #13 Gaudreau Team USA jersey during a team victory photo. Canada had 42 shots on goal, to the U.S.’s 28; the dexterity of the best player in the rink, Connor Hellebuyck, in goal—he had 41 saves—and some good fortune allowed the U.S. to escape with a win. “I think part of the puck not going in our net was somehow [Johnny] is standing there doing something,” says Larkin. “Laughing with Matty. Just somehow, they put a spell around our net where that puck didn’t go in. Ironic, because it’s on the defensive side. He would never have been back there.”

And they had Jack Hughes, the New Jersey Devils forward, who had a day. Hughes lost his teeth on the ice from high-stick to the mouth, put the Americans in a dangerous spot at the end of the third period when he got penalized for high-sticking, but then delivered the game–winner a few minutes into overtime. “The difference between a guy that wants the puck on a stick in that moment, if you watch the video, I turn and go back,” says Larkin, who shared the ice with Hughes during the game-winner, and indeed skated away from the action. “He wants it. And he f-cking put it in the net. That’s what superstar players do.”

And for a few hours on a Sunday morning at least, on a February day without the NFL or the NBA All-Star Game or the Daytona 500, this likeable group of American hockey players riveted a nation, and maybe even united the country. “The team was built with personality,” said Team USA coach Mike Sullivan. “We were loaded with personality. There are whiskey drinkers and milk drinkers. We have a lot of whiskey drinkers on this team.” A gap-toothed Jack Hughes, brother Quinn, and American captain Auston Matthews soon joined Sullivan on the press conference stage. They were wearing drinking goggles and sucked down Coronas.

More from The Free Beacon: So Proud to Be American

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Mexico Descends into Cartel Chaos

Following the killing of El Mencho. The Wall Street Journal:

Mexico’s military killed the country’s most powerful drug kingpin, Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, escalating the government’s war against cartels amid pressure from President Trump to curb narcotics trafficking and sparking a widespread, violent gang response.

Oseguera, a former Mexican police officer, was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The cartel also controls vast fuel-smuggling schemes and other underworld rackets across Mexico and the U.S., Mexican authorities said.

Oseguera’s killing marks the most significant operation yet in Mexico’s recent crackdown on cartels. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has expelled more than 100 convicted drug traffickers to the U.S. to appease rising demands from Trump, who has pressured Sheinbaum to allow U.S. military forces in the fight against drug gangs. So far she has rejected direct U.S. involvement but has strengthened security and intelligence cooperation.

Mexico’s Security Ministry said the country’s special forces killed Oseguera in the rural municipality of Tapalpa—close to Ajijic, a lakeshore community with a large American retiree community.

The ministry said the country’s central military-intelligence unit planned and executed the operation with Mexico’s armed forces, including the country’s air force and an elite national-guard unit trained to fight cartels. U.S. authorities provided “supplementary information.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Oseguera was a top target for the Mexican and U.S. governments. Last year, Trump designated the Jalisco cartel as a foreign terrorist organization, she wrote on X.

Oseguera controlled vast swaths of territory in Jalisco state and beyond and was known for sophisticated paramilitary tactics. He had been expanding his influence and was locked in a bloody struggle for control of neighboring Michoacán state.

The U.S. had a $15 million bounty on Oseguera. He rarely left his mountain compound, according to authorities. Few photos of him circulate. The cadre of men protecting Oseguera, known as the Special Force of the High Command, carry heat-seeking, shoulder-fired rocket launchers capable of piercing a tank, people familiar with cartel operations said.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement saw capturing Oseguera as a high-risk operation because of his military might and the risks of widespread violence. With this strike, Mexico had provided a “scalp to the U.S., putting off the threat of unilateral U.S. military action against the cartels,” said Mike Burgoyne, a former U.S. military attaché in Mexico City.

The Security Ministry said special forces were attacked during the raid. “They returned fire,” the ministry said.

Four cartel members were killed at the scene, while three others, including Oseguera, died from their wounds during air transport to Mexico City.

“That is a high-level special operation,” said Derek Maltz, former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He compared Sunday’s events to the U.S. raid that captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in January.

“You’re going after the top cartel leader who has been running wild for many years, and that requires intense planning, coordination and operational implementation,” Maltz said.

Oseguera, who grew up poor selling avocados, became the top trafficker of cocaine globally, say U.S. and Mexican authorities, eclipsing the better-known Sinaloa cartel’s dominant position in recent years. Oseguera’s cartel transports the addictive powder by the ton from Colombia to Ecuador and then north to Mexico’s Pacific Coast via speedboats and semisubmersibles.

Oseguera’s gunmen responded to his death by burning cars and trucks and blocking roads in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, as the government deployed security forces across western Mexico.

In the Pacific beach resort of Puerto Vallarta, videos showed black plumes of smoke wafting over the city. Professional soccer matches were postponed in Jalisco. Several Mexican, U.S. and Canadian airlines canceled flights to airports in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.

How they got him:

Security forces launched a massive operation to capture Mexico’s top drug lord after U.S. and Mexican intelligence agencies tracked one of his girlfriends to a secluded love nest in a colonial town, Mexican officials said Monday.

Early on Sunday, a team of elite Mexican army and National Guard special-operations soldiers descended on the community of Tapalpa in western Mexico, where Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, remained holed up after his girlfriend left, Mexico’s Defense Secretary Gen. Ricardo Trevilla said on Monday.

The soldiers chased Oseguera and several bodyguards, surrounding them deep into nearby woods, Trevilla said.

A battle ensued, as Oseguera’s desperate bodyguards, armed with two rocket launchers, fired on the pursuing troops. In the fighting, eight people were killed, including Oseguera and two other bodyguards who were seriously wounded and then died in a military helicopter later.

Trevilla said Mexican intelligence services identified a man close to Oseguera’s lover who took her to Tapalpa, a mountain weekend getaway community surrounded by pine forests in western Jalisco state. Mexican officials said U.S. intelligence helped the operation.

“The intelligence process is very complex; it requires a great deal of time to gather a lot of information from diverse national and international sources,” Trevilla said with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum standing alongside him.

More than 50 people died in the aftermath of the raid during the gang’s counteroffensive. The dead included 25 Mexican soldiers and security officers and 30 alleged gunmen. There were also civilians caught in the crossfire, including a pregnant woman, authorities said.

Overcome with emotion, Trevilla paused as he lauded the soldiers who died on Sunday.

“We have strengthened our relationship with the U.S. Northern Command,” Trevilla said.

Sheinbaum said that she was notified of the operation early on Sunday. She instructed the setup of a central command.

The U.S. had a $15 million bounty on Oseguera.

Authorities seized heavy weapons and ammunition, two rocket launchers and eight vehicles used by Oseguera’s operatives; some of them were armored.

U.S. officials said that the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel, a newly established U.S. military-led unit created to dismantle drug-cartel networks, helped with the mission.

Sheinbaum said that there were no U.S. boots on the ground. She reiterated on Monday that she has rejected direct U.S. involvement, but her administration has strengthened security and intelligence cooperation.

“All operations, from their planning onwards, are the responsibility of the Mexican federal forces,” Sheinbaum said. Two soldiers were injured during the raid.

A top financial operator for Oseguera was also killed in a gunfight at a nearby town as he attempted to flee in a car Sunday. The cartel operative was offering rewards of 20,000 pesos, equivalent to almost $1,200, for the death of any Mexican soldier involved in the operation, Trevilla said.

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“I can claim copyright only in myself, and occasionally in those who are either dead or have written about the same events, or who have a decent expectation of anonymity, or who are such appalling public shits that they have forfeited their right to bitch.”

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