A senior staff member of Senator John Cornyn’s campaign for re-election in Texas demanded that conservative news outlets such as Breitbart News and InfoWars were “defrocked” from the conservative movement, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.
Matt Mackowiak, who serves as the Cornyn campaign’s communications director, wrote on Twitter (now X): “It’s time to defrock Breitbart from the conservative movement. Treat them like Infowars. Pressure their advertisers. Ignore them.”
At the time Mackowiak threw his lot in with the far-left, an advertiser boycott was being mounted against Breitbart News by the Sleeping Giants group, founded by Nandini Jammi and Matt Rivitz.
Within a few months, by February 2017, a whopping 820 companies had joined the boycott campaign and stopped advertising on Breitbart News. By May 2017, this number stretched into the thousands.
The incident wasn’t Mackowiak’s only ding against conservative media. The long-time Trump-hater and George Floyd-fan said in 2018 that “Promoting anything on Breitbart is one example [for ending a relationship]
He declared in 2019, three years after Trump’s victory: “I hate Breitbart.”
Mackowiak said in March 2020: “I haven’t taken Breitbart serious in ten years.”
He called the website “beneath contempt.”
And he even took aim at the site’s political editor, Matt Boyle, a long-time ally of President Trump and the MAGA movement.
“Matt Boyle is a total disgrace and if Breitbart News has a shred of dignity and ethics it will fire him immediately,” Mackowiak demanded.
Boyle was not fired, neither immediately, nor since.
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A senior staff member of Senator John Cornyn's campaign for re-election in Texas demanded that conservative news outlets such as Breitbart News and InfoWars were "defrocked" from the conservative movement, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.
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In late May 2020, at the beginning of the “summer of love” and the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter riots, John Cornyn’s campaign communications director, Matt Mackowiak, was posting pro-George Floyd messages on his social media accounts. Mackowiak would even pitch a pro-Floyd op-ed to The National Pulse over a year later, in October 2021.
We declined to publish his piece.
Mackowiak – a long-standing NeverTrumper who also runs a group called “Save Austin Now” – posted on May 27, 2020: “Truly awful story. RIP George Floyd.”
Floyd, a violent criminal who once pointed a gun at a pregnant mother’s belly, died during an altercation with Minneapolis police. At the time of death, Floyd had fentanyl intoxication, heart disease, arterial blockage, and had recently tested positive for COVID-19.
But Floyd’s death was nevertheless leveraged by hucksters like the “Black Lives Matter” movement and used by the political left to assail the Trump presidency.
As riots gripped America, Cornyn’s comms chief asked, “Has anyone put forward serious reforms that would prevent another George Floyd situation?”
Within another few days, Mackowiak would host Touré Neblett – a long-standing race grifter – on his podcast to “discuss the George Floyd police killing, the national protest movement, tangible solutions on police reform, and the concepts of systemic racism and white privilege.”
At the time of publication, these podcasts had been removed from the internet. Toure recently posted to his Instagram about Iran’s March 2026 claim of capturing U.S. troops: “Unconfirmed at ths [sic] point. But I believe Iran more than this gov.”
By the next month, July 2020, Mackowiak was posting “All black lives matter” on his Twitter page.
Another year would pass before he would pitch his pro-George Floyd op-ed to The National Pulse, co-authored with his “Save Austin Now” co-founder, Cleo Petrick.
The piece, broadly against defunding of the Austin police, began with the following framing, describing Floyd’s death as an “horrific murder” which set off “protests” and a “national discussion about police brutality” which Mackowiak describes as “rightly” taking place.
We have redacted the e-mail address of a former colleague of Mackowiak’s for their privacy.
Mackowiak’s co-author and co-founder of “Save Austin Now” is Cleo Petricek, a self-described “Longtime Activist in Democratic Politics,” whose bio still appears as such on their website.
The first images on the site associated with Petricek feature her with former President Barack Obama and failed Texas political leftist Beto O’Rourke. In Petricek’s hands are Democratic Party election materials, suggesting the pair had been campaigning together. Petricek had also posted images of her children holding up “BETO” signs.
She writes: “With my own money in 2008, I started a website for Latinos for Obama in Dallas, when everyone was supporting Hillary.”
After reading their proposed op-ed, and researching their previous work, we replied: “Hey guys, thanks for this. We would not publish something lauding the protests (riots) as a mechanism for change, nor describe Floyd’s killing (an accident) as an “horrific murder”. Would you be wiling [sic] to change this?”
At this point, Mackowiak stopped responding, presumably because our editorial position on the matter was not to his taste.
Besides running “Save Austin Now” and John Cornyn’s campaign communications team, Mackowiak also heads the Potomac Strategy Group, where his colleagues include Aaron Pluto, a former advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. Pyatt was the only other participant in the now-infamous “F*ck the EU!” phone call leak from Obama operative Victoria Nuland.
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In late May 2020, at the beginning of the "summer of love" and the "mostly peaceful" Black Lives Matter riots, John Cornyn's campaign communications director, Matt Mackowiak, was posting pro-George Floyd messages on his social media accounts. Mackowiak would even pitch a pro-Floyd op-ed to The National Pulse over a year later, in October 2021.
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Senator John Cornyn’s campaign communications director, Matt Mackowiak, has a history of vicious, anti-Trump tweets and media quotes, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.
Mackowiak, an establishment GOP consultant who once worked in the Bush administration, is leading the charge against Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate run-off. He called January 6, 2021, “domestic terrorism” in tweets first unearthed by The National Pulse and shared on social media.
Furthermore, Cornyn’s campaign advisor Chris LaCivita, who once even worked for President Trump’s 2024 campaign, “liked” Mackowiak’s tweet.
Mackowiak deleted the tweet on Friday morning, after he became aware of this story. The National Pulse, however, archived the original, as well as dozens of other tweets, podcasts, interviews, and quotes from Mackowiak attacking the U.S. President and his team.
The National Pulse has scoured over a decade’s worth of Mackowiak’s political activity, which included pitching rejected op-eds to The National Pulse, which we will reveal more about in the coming days. Click here to support our important work.
‘GO F**K YOURSELF.’
In archived tweets from election day 2016, Mackowiak unleashed a tirade at Trump and his team.
“Go f**k yourself. You just conceded the most winnable election in 50 years against the least popular Dem nom ever,” Mackowiak incorrectly forecast.
“The lede of your NYT obituary will be that you are a loser, losing the most unlosable election in modern American history,” he added at the time.
“You win particular credit for running the most inept, unserious presidential campaign in a century. Staffed by clowns, wasting money,” Mackowiak continued.
“Your natural instinct will be to lash out at everyone. You own this defeat. It’s yours. You earned it. No one else. Process that.”
“Best case to make to drop out has to appeal to his ego and self interest,” he wrote.
Mackowiak also drew Trump’s family into his tirade, adding, “I wish the very best for Melania Trump and the children. For those to whom much is given, much is required. Be better than your father.”
RUSSIA HOAX.
Mackowiak’s Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) even extend to the Russia hoax and diplomacy, with the “Potomac Strategy Group” chief tweeting in 2018: “It is outrageous, dangerous and ridiculous for an American president to take Putin’s word over the US intelligence community. No American should defend it.”
The tweet was in reference to Trump’s claim that Putin did not interfere in the 2016 election – a long-established hoax peddled by the intelligence community in cahoots with the corporate media and establishment Democrats.
His ire extended through 2019, when he claimed: “Every single person who approve [sic] Doral for G7 should be fired.”
The matter was used by Democrats, led by Jerry Nadler, to launch another investigation into Trump that went nowhere.
‘DRUNK DRIVER’
“I think we’ve reached the crisis point in the campaign. He’s hemorrhaging support,” Mackowiak told CBS News in August 2016.
“The GOP has a drunk driver at the wheel, chugging vodka, and he’s got other people’s children in the car. He must be stopped,” Mackowiak said, adding, “I think it’s time for our leaders to make the case to him that he needs to withdraw. He’s going to lose this election on the current trajectory. He would be better off withdrawing. He can say the election is rigged. He wasn’t given a fair shot. He can go back to his business.”
‘A PURGE’
Mackowiak insisted through 2016 that Trump would lose, claiming: “I have will help [sic] every other Republican win this year, and then help rebuild the GOP after this disaster. A purge will be needed.”
Trump famously thumped Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and Mackowiak launched a podcast shortly after, featuring guests such as NeverTrumper Bill Kristol, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, and ardent anti-Trump voice and Bulwark contributor Mona Charen.
Now, he works as the campaign communications director for John Cornyn, working under LaCivita’s tutelage.
‘EXTINCTION-LEVEL EVENT’
The Hill newspaper also covered him, stating, “Trump is threatening the entire GOP, and it could take a decade to erase the damage. We are looking at an extinction-level event.”
Mackowiak’s anti-Trump screeds were not limited to 2016 or even 2020. He continued his anti-Trump and anti-MAGA tirades the next year, also stating: “Roughly half of ‘very conservative’ voters in Georgia said they would not vote in (Georgia Senate) runoffs because of Voter Fraud. Republicans conceded these races and President Trump is the cause.”
‘HANG HIMSELF.’
Opinion in a still publicly available podcast from 2016, Mackowiak predicted, of the now infamous televised debates: “We’ll see how he does in the first debate. I think that they’re likely to give him enough rope to hang himself.”
He added: “Donald Trump is not a base conservative… his commitment to the Republican party is zero. His commitment is to himself and so I think he’s a real danger to the process because he’s taking up oxygen from all the other serious candidates.”
At the time, Mackowiak found himself embroiled in a clash with a local Texas libertarian, who told KUT Austin: “I don’t even think Mackowiak is going to support the Republican nominee, who is probably going to be Trump… What kind of traitor to the party is Matt Mackowiak? The incredible amount of damage someone like him does to the party — and he’s a douchebag.”
The National Pulse has archived dozens of Mackowiak’s comments over the years, in which he attacks President Trump, backs Mike Pence’s actions on January 6th, blasts election integrity efforts, and states that he prefers “DeSantis, Pompeo, or some others over Trump for 2024.”
Late Friday afternoon, the independent “AMuse” account on X published a number of The National Pulse’s findings on Mackowiak, with more set to be published this weekend.
TEXAS SENATE RACE: I wanted to belatedly thank @RaheemKassam for digging up the anti-Trump tweets from John Cornyn's campaign manager. They were slid into my texts without attribution – just found out we have him to thank. Give him a follow if you don't already! pic.twitter.com/kZN0JX7Dzz
Senator John Cornyn's campaign communications director, Matt Mackowiak, has a history of vicious, anti-Trump tweets and media quotes, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.
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Editor’s Notes
Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.
❓WHAT HAPPENED: Democratic members of Congress interfered in UK politics during a parliamentary committee meeting.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Jamie Raskin, Eric Swalwell, Jasmine Crockett, and Nigel Farage.
📍WHEN & WHERE: A recent UK parliamentary committee meeting in the UK Parliament’s Grand Committee Chamber.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Rep. Raskin started by disagreeing that the US had been founded on Judeo-Christian values… and then commenced a shouting tirade about Donald Trump…” – Insider source
🎯IMPACT: The incident highlighted tensions between US and UK political figures over free speech and censorship.
IN FULL
The National Pulse has received exclusive details from inside a key UK parliament committee meeting, where top Democratic members of Congress, including Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and others put on a pro-censorship show, interfered in UK politics, and attacked the President of the United States in an overseas parliamentary forum.
The details, which The National Pulse can report, did not come from a political source, but rather from independent observers in the proceedings, who described a roundtable discussion on free speech chaired by Reform Party leader Nigel Farage MP. After the proceedings, Raskin and Swalwell were so humiliated that they leaked stories to the press in a clear-cut case of foreign political interference, with the hope of damaging populist leader Farage.
EXC: The itinerary of the UK parliament meeting.
FOREIGN POLITICAL INTERFERENCE.
“Farage just looked unhinged and like a giant manbaby,” Raskin told the corporate media, after being reprimanded for attempting to derail the proceedings by ranting against U.S. President Donald J. Trump in the British parliament.
“Nigel chaired the roundtable and, during his introductory speech, happened to comment on the fact that our countries are founded on Judeo-Christian values,” said one source, adding: “Rep. Raskin started by disagreeing that the US had been founded on Judeo-Christian values at all, and then commenced a shouting tirade about Donald Trump’s alleged lack of regard for free speech, which bore absolutely no relation to anything the speakers had said.”
“Nigel repeatedly tried to tell him that we weren’t there to talk about Donald Trump, we were there to talk about ‘the impact of this on the freedom of the ordinary man and woman’. To this, Rep. Raskin just continued his tirade while shouting ‘you trying to shut me down shows how much respect you have for freedom of speech’, while Rep. Swalwell (whose only notable contribution to the event thus far had been loudly speaking to Rep. Raskin while one of the UK speakers had been giving their speech) egged him on and laughed.”
RUDE RASKIN.
Worse still, The National Pulse understands from a source that when one of the UK speakers had raised the case of a Christian veteran who had been convicted for silently praying outside an abortion clinic, Rep. Raskin flippantly dismissed the case as “the guy who hung around outside an abortion clinic because he probably regretted what he and his girlfriend had done years before.”
At that point, Farage is understood to have called Raskin “the rudest man he had ever met.”
A source told The National Pulse: “I don’t blame [Farage]… I have never witnessed that level of unprofessionalism and discourtesy, ever, in the course of an international career.”
The delegation was also joined by Democrat Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who allegedly “spent the entire time with her head down, chewing gum and scrolling through her phone.”
CENSORSHIP.
The National Pulse reported yesterday how Raskin praised Britain’s new “Online Safety Act,” which is already being used to censor information available to Britons on the internet.
“At no point did any of those three representatives actually substantively engage with the concept of the threat posed to US companies and citizens, or show any concern for anything other than attacking Trump,” an internal observer noted.
“Rep. Raskin has revelled in the fact he made the comment ‘this is why we had a revolution against you guys’ (which he had to say multiple times, as it didn’t land with anyone except for Rep. Swalwell).”
“If that revolution meant we avoided having [Raskin’s] calibre of representative in Parliament, we should start celebrating July 4th in the UK, too,” they concluded.
❓WHAT HAPPENED: Jay Lefkowitz, known for once securing a lenient deal for sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is now negotiating on behalf of Columbia University to restore its federal funding.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Jay Lefkowitz, Columbia University, and the federal government under the Trump Administration.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Current negotiations following actions against Columbia by the Trump Administration, including a suspension of $400M in federal grants.
🎯IMPACT: Potential restoration of hundreds of millions in federal funding and protection of Columbia’s accreditation and tax-exempt status.
IN FULL
Jay Lefkowitz, the lawyer who once helped carve out a sweetheart deal for sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is now orchestrating another behind-the-scenes maneuver—this time on behalf of Columbia University, The National Pulse has learned.
Sources tell The National Pulse that Lefkowitz has outplayed federal negotiators in the Trump administration and is on the verge of finalizing an agreement with the U.S. government to rescue the far-left college from the brink of financial disaster. This involves restoring over $400 million in suspended federal grants and preserving its tax-exempt status and accreditation, even as the university faces accusations of civil rights violations and internal bigotry against both Trump supporters and Jewish students.
Lefkowitz’s name is infamous among legal and political observers. In 2007, while a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, he helped broker a non-prosecution deal with then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta that let Epstein dodge a 53-count federal indictment in Florida. The pair met at a Marriott 70 miles from the prosecutor’s office to hammer out the secret arrangement. Epstein would plead guilty to state prostitution charges, serve just 13 months with work-release perks, and—most shockingly—his victims would never be notified, a blatant violation of federal law.
When the agreement eventually surfaced a decade later, Acosta was forced to resign as Trump’s Secretary of Labor. Lefkowitz, meanwhile, doubled down—personally appealing to Manhattan authorities to minimize Epstein’s sex offender registration requirements.
In May, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that Columbia “violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act” by ignoring anti-Semitic harassment on campus. The Trump Administration responded by cutting off federal funds and moving to review Columbia’s accreditation—a potential deathblow to an Ivy League institution long viewed as untouchable.
Lefkowitz is reportedly working to scrub the damage and convince federal officials to settle. A source familiar with the negotiations said he’s “close to another miracle,” despite Columbia’s long list of controversies.
Among them:
— The university published a formal protocol instructing students and staff how to resist ICE enforcement actions;
— Internal text messages from Claire Shipman, Chair of the Board of Trustees and Acting President, show her scheming to oust a Jewish board member and “replace her with somebody from the Middle East or who is Arab.”
— Columbia’s leadership has refused to take accountability for weeks of on-campus intimidation and harassment targeting Jewish students during the Gaza-related protests.
Meanwhile, this week, the Department of Justice and the FBI attempted to close the book on the Epstein case with a curt two-page memo. It claimed there was “no client list” and reaffirmed the government’s position that Epstein died by suicide in 2019, despite widespread skepticism and a mountain of unanswered questions. The timing of that announcement, coming as Lefkowitz works his magic once again, has raised eyebrows in both legal and political circles.
Lefkowitz has historically been a major donor to ‘RINO’ Republican candidates such as Nikki Haley, Jeb Bush, and Mitt Romney. His most recent political contribution was to New York Democrat Ritchie Torres, who represents part of the Bronx neighborhood. Lefkowitz has also represented anti-Trump activist and failed magazine editor Bill Kristol.
❓WHAT HAPPENED:The Atlantic published an article implying that veteran and Trump nominee Joe Kent may harbor Nazi sympathies because of a tattoo reading “Panzer”—German for “tank”—on his arm.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Joe Kent, a former Congressional candidate and Army Ranger; The Atlantic, owned by Democrat megadonor Laurene Powell Jobs; left-wing journalist David Corn; and activist Heidi Beirich, formerly of the discredited SPLC.
🧾KEY QUOTES: “I asked the administration to address concerns that one of the president’s nominees has a tattoo associated with Nazis, and its response was to make a joke.” — The Atlantic
⚠️FALLOUT:The Atlantic misidentified a Trump administration spokesman and leaned on a blurry tweet for evidence. The National Pulse has found counterevidence showing Kent’s “Panzer Jäger” tattoos are linked to his anti-tank military service. Legal action is reportedly under consideration.
📌SIGNIFICANCE: The article appears to conflate military culture with extremism to undermine a Trump nominee while deflecting from scrutiny of MS-13 gang tattoos in immigration enforcement cases. The smear is collapsing under factual scrutiny.
OUR EXCLUSIVE REPORTING IN FULL:
On May 1, The Atlantic magazine, owned by Democrat megadonor Laurene Powell Jobs, published an article entitled, “Who Gets Panzer Tattooed on Their Arm?”
The story, about military veteran and counter-terrorism widower Joe Kent, was drafted to imply the former Congressional candidate has “far right” and/or “Nazi” sympathies–a tired smear against anyone on the political right, and one which has its roots in the defense of communism on American soil.
TheAtlantic, which once endorsed eugenics, asserted: “…you can see why it’s noteworthy that Joseph Kent, Donald Trump’s nominee to head the National Counterterrorism Center, has a panzer tattoo.”
The piece relies on the reporting of David Corn, a far-left author whose last real scoop came over a decade ago, and who is most recently known for having peddled the Russia hoax to sell books.
Still, TheAtlantic would go on to use Corn’s flimsy reporting–a tweet featuring a blurry picture of Kent and his son–to at least imply that Kent is covertly a Nazi, by having the German word for “tank” tattooed on his arm.
NEW: Here's a photo posted in 2018 apparently of Joe Kent, Trump's pick to head the National Counterterrorism Center, from the Instagram feed of a family member, showing he had the word "PANZER" tattooed on his arm. Why? I asked him, the NCTC, and the ODNI, and, so far, no reply. pic.twitter.com/jZswV0r7Ke
The article’s author says he received no explanation from “Ashley Henning,” of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where Kent now works. There is, in fact, no “Ashley Henning” at that office. TheAtlantic likely meant Alexa Henning, a well-known conservative communications operative, which anyone who did some basic research and/or fact-checking would have known.
An even bigger fact-checking flub appears wherein The Atlantic consults far-left “expert” Heidi Beirich, once affiliated with the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), who now runs the so-called Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
The tattoo “could mean that he’s glorifying the Nazis. Or it could have a different context,” Beirich told them. “I don’t think I’ve run across a panzer,” she concluded.
But Panzer tattoos are, in fact, not uncommon in anti-tank divisions of the U.S. Army. Especially when combined, as The Atlantic even admits, with the German word for ‘hunter’–”Jäger.”
Here’s what the author wrote next:
Other discernible possibilities make less sense. Right-wing accounts on X have spread the claim that Kent has jäger—German for “hunter”—tattooed on his other arm. The two tattoos together would add up to “tank hunter.” The accounts claim that heavy-anti-armor-weapons crewman was one of Kent’s jobs in the Army. It’s oddly specific enough to sound plausible, except that I couldn’t find any evidence that Kent was part of an anti-tank unit—let alone one that would be targeting German tanks—or that he even has a jäger tattoo on his other arm.
The National Pulse, however, has found evidence that Kent both a) has a “jäger” tattoo on his other arm, and b) served in an anti-tank section of the 2nd Ranger Battalion from 1998 to 2001.
Pictured: Joe Kent with a ‘JÄGER’ tattoo on his other arm, Kent in the anti-tank Ranger division, and Kent posing with an anti-tank Ranger division poster.
Furthermore, U.S. army veterans and those who routinely report on the subject will know that tattoo inspections are often required to ensure members of the military aren’t Nazis, extremists of other kinds, or gang members. Kent himself has had a top-secret security clearance for around two decades. To hold Kent’s TS/SCI, one must undergo a single scope background investigation (SSBI) and polygraph tests.
The author of The Atlantic article wasn’t impressed by the administration’s response.
“I asked the administration to address concerns that one of the president’s nominees has a tattoo associated with Nazis, and its response was to make a joke.”
But the tattoo isn’t associated with Nazis. In fact, “Panzer Jäger” was popularized amongst Americans after the Second World War, and after Germany and its Bundeswehr became critical NATO members in the fight against the Soviet Union. If anything, the tattoo is pro-NATO and anti-Communist, and nothing at all to do with Nazism.
The rationale for the article is made clear around halfway through. Once again, it is a flimsy defense of MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose knuckle tattoos are, in fact, a strong hint at his gang status. The Atlantic claims:
The Trump administration seems to strongly agree with the notion that tattoos are meaningful—but only when convenient for the president’s agenda. Consider Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident the Trump administration deported to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, prison camp last month. Garcia was living with protected legal status in the U.S., and the government’s own lawyers have acknowledged that he was deported because of an “administrative error.” Trump loyalists have doubled down on Garcia’s detention, in part pointing to his tattoos.
So, once again, in defense of criminal illegal migrants and open borders, another so-called great American journalistic institution has beclowned itself in another failed smear at a member of the Trump administration.
Sources tell me that Kent is carefully considering his legal options against TheAtlantic and the article’s author.
To help The National Pulse with more investigative work, please consider donating here or joining our membership program with its added benefits here.
❓What Happened: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will travel to Panama next week to participate in the 2025 Central American Security Conference (CENTSEC), followed by a stop at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
🧑🤝🧑Who’s Involved: Hegseth will engage with senior civilian and military leaders from Panama and across Central America. He will also visit with members of the 7th Special Forces Group in Florida. The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam will accompany the Secretary on the trip.
🎯Why It Matters: As instability and transnational criminal activity rise in the region, Hegseth’s visit underscores the United States’ intent to deepen regional defense partnerships and maintain leadership in the Western Hemisphere.
📍Where & When: The trip begins early next week. Hegseth will first stop in Panama City, Panama, before traveling to Eglin AFB in Florida.
📣Official Word: “This trip supports our shared vision for a peaceful and secure Western Hemisphere,” said Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell.
IN FULL:
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will travel to Panama next week for the 2025 Central American Security Conference (CENTSEC), where he’ll hold high-level meetings with regional defense officials to strengthen U.S. partnerships in the Western Hemisphere. He will then continue to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to visit U.S. troops stationed with the elite 7th Special Forces Group.
The trip comes as U.S. officials look to solidify military relationships across Latin America amid rising concerns over cartel activity, Chinese influence operations, and political instability throughout the region. Hegseth’s meetings will include a series of bilateral sit-downs with senior military, civilian, and security leaders from Panama and neighboring nations.
Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell framed the visit as part of a broader push to reinforce regional security cooperation. “This trip supports our shared vision for a peaceful and secure Western Hemisphere,” Parnell said.
The National Pulse’s Editor-in-Chief, Raheem Kassam, will accompany Secretary Hegseth on the trip. This is a refreshing instance of an independent media figure embedded in an official Department of Defense delegation. Kassam will provide exclusive coverage and commentary on the trip’s proceedings, especially for members of The National Pulse.
CENTSEC, hosted annually, serves as a strategic venue for U.S. and Central American officials to coordinate efforts on transnational threats, narcotics trafficking, and irregular migration patterns—issues that have taken on renewed urgency since the Biden government’s destructive open border policies.
Following the conference in Panama City, Hegseth will travel to Eglin AFB to meet with command leadership and service members attached to the 7th Special Forces Group, a key unit in America’s unconventional warfare and regional engagement strategy.
The visit to Central America and one of the U.S. military’s premier special operations installations underscores the Pentagon’s dual mission: to build stronger partnerships abroad while maintaining elite readiness at home.
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PULSE POINTS:
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Editor’s Notes
Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance is brushing off pushback from Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who called his speech at the Munich Security Conference last week “not acceptable.” In an exclusive interview with The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam, Vice President Vance described Pistorius’s reaction as “too rich”—but revealed he understood his speech would “piss a lot of people off.”
“My criticism was Europeans need to be more accepting of free speech. And his response was not to engage with anything that I said but to say this is not acceptable,” Vance explained. “So, almost endorsing the censorship regime at that very moment and not doing what I counseled our European friends to do, which is actually debate ideas and engage with some of the public criticisms a little bit more.”
“I mean, look, I knew that it would piss a lot of people off,” Vance said, adding: ” I knew that there were a lot of dissidents in Europe who would be invigorated by it.”
While the Europeans, especially the Germans, appear to have not necessarily taken the criticism of their censorship in stride, Vance expressed surprise that many of the leaders did not pick up on his equally stern words for the previous U.S. government under former President Joe Biden. “The one thing that I’m a little surprised by is the thing that I said midway through the speech, give or take, is that the biggest driver of this was actually the Biden administration,” the Vice President said.
“Like, my goal was not to sort of wag my finger at Europe and say, you guys have become too censorious,” Vance continued. “My goal was to say, [it was] the Biden administration and the transatlantic alliance together. This is an American and European problem. It has stopped in America because of the leadership of Donald Trump. And we want it to stop in Europe too because we really do believe in the values of free expression and free exchange.”
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U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance is brushing off pushback from Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who called his speech at the Munich Security Conference last week "not acceptable." In an exclusive interview with The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam, Vice President Vance described Pistorius's reaction as "too rich"—but revealed he understood his speech would "piss a lot of people off."
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Vice President J.D. Vance told Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, that he will reiterate the Trump administration’s commitment to freedom of speech when Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visits the U.S. next week. This follows Vice President Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, in which he warned against the erosion of free speech in Europe, and the subsequent imprisonment of a British man for sending emails intended to “insult and offend” London Mayor Sadiq Khan and government minister Jess Phillips, from Starmer’s Labour Party.
Asked by Kassam if he planned to reiterate his comments t Starmer and his team next week in person, Vance responded, “We certainly will,” adding, “[T]his is not hard, Raheem. We’re simply telling them to respect the values on which our civilization was founded, that you ought to debate with one another, you ought to, you know, your government should respect when the people have a dissenting viewpoint. It’s very simple, and it’s very obvious.”
“And I think that, when we talk about shared values, I think one of the most important shared values is that we, again, ought to listen to our people and not try to throw them in prison when they disagree with what the government’s doing,” he stressed.
Vance said the strong, adverse reaction to his Munich speech “from some of our European friends” indicates that “frankly, they’ve taken too much leadership from the Biden administration” and “leaned too much into the censorshipregime.”
Earlier in his interview with Kassam, the Vice President highlighted that the purpose of his speech in Munich was not to “wag my finger at Europe and say, ‘You guys have become too censorious,'” but to note that the U.S. and its transatlantic partners together had developed a censorship problem, led by the Biden-Harris government.
“[A]s I said in Europe, President Trump is going to take a much different view on this stuff,” Vance emphasized.
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Vice President J.D. Vance told Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, that he will reiterate the Trump administration's commitment to freedom of speech when Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visits the U.S. next week. This follows Vice President Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, in which he warned against the erosion of free speech in Europe, and the subsequent imprisonment of a British man for sending emails intended to "insult and offend" London Mayor Sadiq Khan and government minister Jess Phillips, from Starmer's Labour Party.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – In an exclusive interview with The National Pulse on Wednesday morning, Vice President J.D. Vance issued a stern warning to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding his public criticisms of President Donald Trump and the administration’s peace initiatives. Vance described Zelensky’s approach as “disgraceful” and counterproductive, emphasizing that such tactics could jeopardize Ukraine’s relationship with its most crucial ally.
BAD ADVICE.
“Zelensky is getting really bad advice, and I don’t know from whom,” Vance said. “He’s not dealing with Joe Biden and the Biden administration anymore. He’s dealing with Donald Trump and the Trump administration.”
Vance warned against Zelensky’s public protestations in recent days, stating, “The idea that he’s going to litigate his disagreements with the president in the public square—I mean, you [Raheem] know the President very well, obviously, I know the President very well. This is not a good way to deal with President Trump,” Vance said. “Of course, the Ukrainians are going to have their perspective. The way to surface that is in a private discussion with American diplomats… he’s attacking the only reason this country exists, publicly, right now. And it’s disgraceful. And it’s not something that is going to move the President of the United States. In fact, it’s going to have the opposite effect.”
The Vice President reaffirmed Trump’s policy on Ukraine: the war must end. He further asserted that U.S. policy now requires that Ukraine have elections.
“The president won the election. He won it convincingly. And he’s made clear that American policy is to stop the killing and bring the war to a close,” Vance said. “Now, I talked to the President this morning, actually, and he has an incredible amount of sympathy and admiration for the people of Ukraine. He wants the killing to stop because he doesn’t want innocent Ukrainians to keep losing their lives. So I think he very much thinks about this from the perspective, not just, of course, of his obligations to the United States, but also he just. He wants the brutality and the killing to stop.”
Vance went on, stressing the point: “He has said the goal of administration policy is to end the conflict. So now, you know that has to happen. Right. Zelensky has to take that seriously. Our European allies have to take that seriously. That is the goal of administration policy. You’re not going to move the President away from that goal. You’re not going to change his mind, certainly not by attacking him publicly in the media.”
ELECTIONS IN UKRAINE.
Elections in Ukraine are now U.S. policy, with Vance making it clear that Zelensky must submit to a democratic mandate if he wants continued legitimacy. “Certainly, that would give him the strongest position, Raheem,” Vance said when asked if elections were necessary. “And I think that it’s a little rich for some of our European friends to attack Donald Trump for suggesting that Ukraine should have elections when they say that this is a war for democracy. How can you attack elections when your entire framing for the war in Ukraine is that it’s a war for democracy? I just think it’s ridiculous. And, of course, the United States had a civil war. We had an election in, of course, at the, at the end of as scheduled. You know, Churchill found out that he lost. As I understand it, he found out that he lost the British election at Potsdam.”
Vance, fresh from his European trip, where he lectured European leaders on free speech and matters of conscience, hit them again in our exclusive interview for their hypocrisy on democracy, questioning their insistence on blocking elections.
“The idea that you cannot have elections in the midst of a war is, I think, kind of a preposterous idea. And the President has made very clear that he thinks that should happen. So, you know, that is, that is American policy. And I think it’s. It’s pretty simple and straightforward.”
Martial law currently prohibits elections in Ukraine, with Zelensky having used the conflict with Russia to effectively crush opposition political parties and enrich his inner circle.
The Vice President’s remarks come just after President Trump himself blasted Zelensky as a “dictator” who “better move fast” for his country’s continued existence.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – In an exclusive interview with The National Pulse on Wednesday morning, Vice President J.D. Vance issued a stern warning to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding his public criticisms of President Donald Trump and the administration's peace initiatives. Vance described Zelensky's approach as "disgraceful" and counterproductive, emphasizing that such tactics could jeopardize Ukraine's relationship with its most crucial ally.
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