TV News LIES

President Trump on Monday signed an executive order designating the street drug fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.

"The manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, primarily performed by organized criminal networks, threatens our national security and fuels lawlessness in our hemisphere and at our borders," the order declared.

During an event in the Oval Office, Trump said the carnage fentanyl has caused in American families is worse than U.S. deaths in many wars.

"Two to three hundred thousand people die every year, that we know of, so we're formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction," Trump said.

In fact, Trump's numbers are wildly inflated. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl killed roughly 48 thousand people in the U-S last year - a 27 percent drop from the year before.

Experts also say fentanyl would be difficult to use as a weapon of mass destruction. There is only one documented incident worldwide, in 2002, where the Russian government weaponized fentanyl in gas form. There have been no cases reported in the U.S.

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The Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing thinktank currently mired in controversy over its president’s apparent apology for extremism, has appointed as a director the founder of a secretive all-male network of Christian nationalist fraternal lodges.

Scott Yenor, appointed as Heritage’s new director of the B Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, has also recently offered ultra-conservative opinions on women, marriage and LGBTQ+ rights in recent podcast appearances and speaking engagements.

They have included that there is an association between homosexuality and pedophilia; that adultery, homosexuality, no-fault divorce, and abortion should be outlawed under a regime of “soft patriarchy”; and that elements of the US Civil Rights Act, including its prohibitions against workplace sex discrimination, should be wound back.

Heritage appointed Yenor despite a string of controversies over his reactionary politics, including his resignation in April from the University of Florida’s board of regents after protests and concern from state legislators over his views about women.

Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said: “It’s just disgraceful that Heritage, especially given all of its recent scandals over providing cover for antisemitism, would hire Yenor, who has long bashed women and has been investigated by his former employer for civil rights violations.”

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The US military has launched a fresh round of deadly strikes on foreign vessels suspected of trafficking narcotics.

The US Southern Command posted footage of the strikes on social media on Monday, announcing it had hit three vessels in international waters, killing a total of eight men.

“Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking,” US Southern Command said in a post on X.

The black-and-white footage showed the vessels moving through the water before being consumed by large explosions.

The US has struck more than 20 vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean near Venezuela as part of Donald Trump’s escalating campaign against drug trafficking in the region. At least 90 suspected drug smugglers have been killed in the process.

The use of the military to attack suspected drug vessels marks a stark departure from historical precedent. The attacks have come under increasing scrutiny, with some legal experts saying they amount to unlawful extrajudicial killings.

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President Donald Trump took aim at another media outlet on Monday by filing a $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC.

Trump’s suit follows threats he’s made against the British broadcaster over the editing of its documentary program Panorama.

In an episode of the program that aired about a week before the 2024 election, Panorama had spliced together clips of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse ahead of the January 6 insurrection.

This past November — following a letter from Trump’s lawyers — BBC apologized to the president for the edit, but pushed back on claims that it constitutes defamation.

In a suit filed in federal court in Florida this week, Trump alleges that the BBC’s documentary was an attempt to interfere in the 2024 election and advance a “false” and “disparaging” depiction of him.

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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said her son, a U.S.-born citizen, was targeted by ICE agents on Saturday after he stopped at a Target store.

She said her son was pulled over but then was allowed to move on after he provided his passport.

“Yesterday after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by ICE agents and once he was able to produce his passport ID they did let him go,” she said during an interview on WCCO, CBS’s Minnesota station, on Sunday.

She added that her son regularly brings his passport with him in case he gets pulled over by ICE.

Omar and President Trump have been battling over Minnesota’s population of Somalian immigrants, with Trump calling Somalians “garbage” and increasing ICE agent presence in the state in an operation called “Operation Metro Surge” earlier this month.

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President Donald Trump drew strong bipartisan condemnation for his criticism of acclaimed director and actor Rob Reiner shortly after his death, with Republican lawmakers calling Trump's response "wrong" and "disrespectful."

Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were killed in their Los Angeles home Dec. 14. Trump responded the next day with a social media post saying Reiner's death was "reportedly due to the anger he caused others through... a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME."

"He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump," the president added.

Trump continued to criticize Reiner during a White House event later in the day, responding to a question about the GOP pushback on his social media post, and whether he stands by it, saying: "I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned."

There has been no indication from officials that Reiner's death had anything to do with his political beliefs. Police took Reiner's son, Nick Reiner, into custody, charged him with murder and are holding him on no bail after his initial bail was set at $4 million, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Records reviewed by USA TODAY.

Trump's reaction to Reiner's death was quickly rejected by many on both the left and right.

"Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered," Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, who has clashed with Trump, said on social media.

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An arrest has been made in the killing of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer.

Their son, Nick Reiner, has been taken into police custody Monday, "booked for murder" and is being held on $4 million bail, according to Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records viewed by USA TODAY. The acclaimed Hollywood director and actor was killed alongside Singer in their California home Sunday night, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said in a press conference Monday, Dec. 15.

Their deaths continue to be under investigation by the LAPD after the couple was found dead in their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. In an earlier press conference Sunday, Dec. 14, the LAPD said the robbery-homicide division would investigate through the night.

Authorities confirmed that "many family members" would be interviewed in the course of their work and that they were obtaining a search warrant to conduct a full crime scene investigation. They did not comment on the injuries sustained by Reiner, 78, and Singer, 68.

A representative for Reiner has not yet responded to USA TODAY's requests for comment.

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