Hegseth Ends 34-Year Military Base ‘Gun-Free Zone’ Policy

For three decades, the Pentagon had the inspired idea that the most effective way to protect the world’s most lethal fighting force was to disarm it at home. Pete Hegseth signed a memo Thursday putting an end to that particular piece of theater, allowing service members to carry privately owned firearms on base for personal protection. The presumption is now approval, not denial — which is how it should work when you’re dealing with people who’ve already passed a security clearance and marksmanship training. Raise your hand if you think our troops were the threat.

Trump Says Core Objectives of Iran War Nearing Completion

Iran’s navy is gone, its air force is in ruins, and Trump says two or three more weeks finishes the job. Whether you were for this war or skeptical of it, credit where it’s due: that’s a remarkable military result in under five weeks. The question now isn’t whether we won — it’s whether we have the discipline to leave when we said we would, and not spend the next decade “nation-building” in a country that’s never once asked to be built.

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Trump Says U.S. Will Exit Iran in 2-3 Weeks — And Will Address Nation Tonight

Operation Epic Fury is winding down, with Trump telling the country a formal address is coming tonight and an exit is weeks — maybe days — away. Rubio is already warning that Tehran was racing to become the next North Korea, complete with intercontinental missiles, which tells you everything you need to know about why acting was better than watching. Whether you loved or hated going in, getting out fast and clean is exactly what America First looks like in practice.

Republicans Would Rather Cede Power To Democrats Than Their Own Voters

John Thune and the Senate’s Gentleman’s Club faction are clutching the filibuster like it’s a security blanket — while ICE goes unfunded, the SAVE America Act collects dust, and Trump nominees sit in confirmation purgatory. The voters handed Republicans the Senate to govern, not to carefully preserve the procedural tools Democrats will nuke the nanosecond they’re back in the majority anyway. At some point, “protecting norms” is just a polite way of saying you prefer elegant losing to messy winning.

ICE Drops Hammer After ‘Kill’ Threat Against Agents Surfaces During ‘No Kings’ Riot

“No Kings” — spray-painted on a federal building alongside threats to murder the people enforcing our immigration laws. The irony of people demanding no kings while acting like a lawless mob seems to be lost on the participants. ICE’s response was exactly right: threaten our agents and their families, and you will meet the full weight of federal law — full stop.

Slain College Student’s Mother Vows ‘Fight for Justice’ After Illegal Immigrant Charged in Chicago Killing

Sheridan Gorman was 18 years old, a college freshman, and she’s dead — allegedly shot by Jose Medina-Medina, a Venezuelan national who had no business being in this country, let alone walking the streets of Chicago. According to reports, this man is missing part of his skull, can’t read or write, and had gang ties — which apparently wasn’t enough to keep him out or locked up. Every sanctuary city politician who made this possible should have to look Sheridan’s mother in the eye and explain the policy choice that cost her daughter’s life.

House Rejects Senate’s DHS Funding Bill In Stunning Late-Night Reversal

The House looked at the Senate’s “compromise” — which conveniently forgot to fund ICE and CBP — and said no thank you. Speaker Johnson held the line, the Freedom Caucus held the line, and three Democrats with functioning survival instincts crossed over to pass a clean 60-day patch that actually funds the entire Department of Homeland Security. Eric Swalwell, meanwhile, went on television to call ICE a “domestic terror unit,” which tells you everything you need to know about why Democrats shut this department down in the first place and nothing you need to know about anything else Swalwell has ever said.

The Morning Brief — Friday, March 27, 2026

Iran Officially Lowers Minimum Age for Military Roles to 12

The Iranian regime — already under military pressure from Operation Epic Fury — has decided the solution is child soldiers. Twelve-year-olds are now officially eligible for “military support roles,” which is the kind of euphemism that sounds almost civilized until you remember what it means in practice. This is the same government Trump says is “begging for a deal,” and I’d take that deal — but let’s be clear-eyed about who we’re dealing with: a regime that straps kids to the front lines isn’t negotiating in good faith, it’s buying time.

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Loyola Paper Apologizes for Accurately Describing Murder Suspect

Sheridan Gorman is dead — killed at 18, just trying to go to college in Chicago — and the Loyola Phoenix’s big lesson from the whole ordeal is that they shouldn’t have called her alleged killer an illegal immigrant. They did, it was correct, and they apologized for it anyway. Mayor Brandon Johnson is doubling down on sanctuary policies in the same week, because in Chicago the rules are: protect the living murderer, lecture the dead victim’s family about “senseless tragedy,” and make sure the student journalists know that accuracy is a fireable offense.

Jack Smith’s Lawfare Carnival Gets Its Formal Autopsy

Margot Cleveland laid it out before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday: unconstitutional appointment, subpoenas that violated the Speech or Debate Clause, phone records vacuumed up on private citizens like Kash Patel — the whole rotten bouquet. The good news is that the Constitution survived Jack Smith. The bad news is that nobody seems to be in any particular hurry to make sure this never happens again. Victor Davis Hanson says a reckoning awaits — I’ll believe it when I see a perp walk, not a podcast.