BY: Andrew Springer and Anthony Cifone, NOTICE News co-founders
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, March 17, 2026. In today’s newsletter:
Is Trump lying — or is it just dementia?
Trump bragged he can ‘do anything he wants’ with Cuba (sounds familiar)
Trump's generals are quietly planning his Iran exit — because he has no plan
Stories the algorithm is keeping out of your feed
⏱️ Estimated read time: 8 minutes, 22 seconds
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TOP STORY
Trump Lied About Consulting a Former President About Bombing Iran

Trump told the country he consulted a former president about ordering strikes on Iran—and this mystery person reportedly said they “wish” they bombed Iran.
Only, every living former president — Biden, Obama, Bush, and Clinton — denied speaking with Trump recently.
That's not a discrepancy or a miscommunication. That's a lie, told to make an act of war sound more considered and legitimate than it apparently was.
It certainly appears Trump invented the conversation entirely.
This was a bombing campaign. Against Iran. And the story Trump told the American public to justify it fell apart within a day, contradicted by four former commanders-in-chief from both parties.
Read the full story — including what all four former presidents actually said — right here.
➡️ Question of the Day
🗞️ Making News
The World's Top Democracy Watchdog Just Called It: The U.S. Is No Longer a Liberal Democracy
Sweden's V-Dem Institute — the most credible democracy research organization on the planet — has officially downgraded the United States, declaring it no longer qualifies as a liberal democracy under Donald Trump.
V-Dem tracks democratic backsliding worldwide, and they're now watching the U.S. the same way they watch Hungary and Turkey.
The institute's findings point directly at Trump's power grabs against independent institutions, the press, and the courts as the driving force behind the downgrade.
Autocracy isn't just creeping — it's sprinting, and Europe is catching it too, with far-right movements accelerating democratic erosion across the continent.
This isn't a political opinion. It's a data-driven verdict from the scholars who saw Hungary coming before most people knew Viktor Orbán's name.
V-Dem has been tracking democratic decline for decades — and they say the speed of the U.S. collapse is what's most alarming.
Trump Brags About Cuba Like a Dictator — Because He Kind of Is One
Donald Trump told a crowd he could "take" Cuba "in 15 minutes" if he wanted to, a boast so unhinged that critics immediately reached for the dictator comparisons.
The remark was slammed as "batsh*t behavior" and "nuts" — not by adversaries overseas, but by people watching an American president casually threaten military conquest of a neighboring country like it was a golf bet.
Analysts noted the braggadocious style mirrors exactly how authoritarian strongmen talk to consolidate power at home: project military dominance, make threats sound casual, keep everyone slightly off-balance about what's real.
This isn't the first time Trump has floated annexing or seizing territory — he's floated taking Greenland, reclaiming the Panama Canal, and absorbing Canada. The Cuba comments fit a clear pattern of a man who views sovereign nations as real estate deals he hasn't closed yet.
The ruling class has largely shrugged. Congressional Republicans said nothing. The donor class kept writing checks.
Trump Just Greenlit a Cancer Gas Poisoning 14 Million Americans
Lee Zeldin's EPA just rolled back rules that would have cut ethylene oxide emissions by 90% — a cancer-causing gas so toxic it damages DNA in small doses. Based on the EPA's own data, the rollback exposes at least 85,000 more people to unacceptable cancer risks. The exemptions came after Zeldin literally invited corporations to email the agency and ask for them.
More than 10,000 schools and childcare facilities sit within five miles of commercial sterilizers. Children are especially vulnerable because ethylene oxide stays in their bodies longer than in adults. The gas is colorless and nearly odorless — most people near these facilities had no idea they were being exposed.The first Trump EPA determined back in 2018 that ethylene oxide was a major driver of elevated cancer risks. Now the second Trump EPA is using that same science to do nothing.
🗳️ Yesterday’s poll results
Last time, we asked, Who should really be charged with treason - Trump or the Media?
98% of you said TRUMP:
“Taco has yet to do anything positive for: children, seniors, veterans, homeless, victims of climate catastrophes, fires, the poor, research for cancer, Healthcare for everyone, immigration reform, Medicare and Medicaid, or the middle class Americans.”
- mikeduke60
“A person would find it difficult on where to start, maybe the constitution? Branching out from there all of his Felonies. ”
- rmaier3024
“This megalomanic needs to be impeached and in prison!!!”
- debroth
“Those of us talking about have no power to do anything about it and Those who have the power never will.”
- callajr.jc
“Going back to his first term - giving secrets not just from our country but Israel- to Russia and no telling who else he sold the info to. He should have been convicted in the senate (if treasonous Mitch had done his job) after being impeached by the house. Not just donnie should be charged and jailed for treason, his whole administration should be along with his enablers in congress.”
- twoasps
“We should trust him only when fact checking shows no more lies! Pinocchio syndrome for him!”
- ses8726
“He has broken just about every law that can be broken in his all his life time and paid his way out of so he should be held accountable for all that he has done ”
- okdaddy45
“He's done more to damage this country than ANY enemies we may have or had in HISTORY. He's set us back in nearly all aspects by nearly a CENTURY. All the progress we've made as a society in that time? GONE.”
- michaelhogshooter
👀 Kept Out of Your Feed
Here are some stories the algorithms may be keeping out of your feed.
Trump's PR guy completely lost it — White House communications director Steven Cheung melted down publicly after Jimmy Kimmel roasted Trump.
The last Palestinian protester still locked up by Trump has finally been freed — Leqaa Kordia, the final person remaining in immigration detention from the Trump administration's 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists, has been released.
CBS News streaming staffers are walking out Tuesday — CBS News streaming employees are staging a walkout Tuesday amid ongoing labor disputes at the network.
We love to see it — Spain just lit Trump on fire (literally) at the Fallas de Valencia festival, where the country's own allies carved his face into grotesque effigies and burned them to the ground.
Even the Oath Keepers founder is done with Trump over the Iran strikes — find out who else is jumping ship.
Trump knows attacking SCOTUS will cause him "nothing but problems" — and posted anyway — Trump went on a Truth Social rampage against Supreme Court justices, admitting in the same post it would cause him "nothing but problems in the future."
Major White House Split Leaks as Trump's War Spirals — An insider told The Daily Beast that Trump "grossly overestimated" his own abilities as fractures emerge inside the White House over his handling of the Iran conflict.
Elon Musk is in court — and this time it's over his AI generating fake nude images of teenagers.
Trump just casually disclosed a congressman's private medical diagnosis — and Mike Johnson's pained "that wasn't public… but… OK" says everything.
John Oliver just compared JD Vance to a dog — and the analogy is more devastating than you'd expect.
IN DEPTH
Trump's generals are quietly planning his Iran exit — because he has no plan
Six people familiar with U.S. military planning told NBC News that generals have quietly baked "off-ramps" into Iran war planning because Donald Trump has no endgame — and the people around him know it.
Let that land for a second: the president started a war without knowing how to stop one, so his own military officials are pre-loading exit options into their plans hoping he stumbles onto one he likes.
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We’ll be back tomorrow morning.
Thank you for reading! - Andrew & Anthony

