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Josh Shapiro went through an extensive vetting process while Kamala Harris figured out who she wanted as a running mate for her 2024 presidential campaign ... and he says he was asked if he'd ever spied for Israel.

The governor of Pennsylvania wrote about his experience with the former vice president's team in his upcoming memoir, "Where We Keep the Light," and he claimed his views on Israel were a hot topic with her advisors, reports The New York Times.

Shapiro, who is Jewish and has been outspoken about his support for Israel, said he was asked if he'd ever been in communication with any Israeli undercover agents ... and whether he'd ever been a double agent.

Shapiro said he knew the people asking him about his connections to Israel were simply doing their jobs, but added their actions "said a lot about some of the people around the VP."

He added, while he felt the vetting sessions had been "completely professional and businesslike," he wondered if he was being asked about his views on Israel solely because of his religion.

Shapiro said "had a knot in my stomach" throughout the vetting process.

President Trump seems to be calling the shots at CBS News these days -- at least when it comes to last week's interview with anchor Tony Dokoupil.

Dokoupil -- the new face of the "CBS Evening News" -- landed a 13-minute interview with Trump, which was broadcast Tuesday from a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

The New York Times reports that after they wrapped their discussion, Trump's chief spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, walked up to Dokoupil and his team and issued a stern warning from the president.

A California man has been arrested after he wrote on social media that explosives had been placed in Disneyland ahead of Vice President JD Vance's visit last year.

Here's the deal ... federal authorities announced Friday they've arrested 22-year-old Marco Antonio Aguayo after he allegedly threatened Vance's life on July 12, 2025.

While the VP visited and stayed at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, feds claim Aguayo wrote three messages online ... one of which read, "Pipe bombs have been placed in preparation for JD Vance’s arrival."

Donald Trump says Ozempic ain't the wonder-drug you might've heard many call it ... because he swears he has a friend who gained weight while taking the notorious weight-loss med.

POTUS held a meeting Friday on Capitol Hill to discuss health care and drug costs -- unveiling his "Great Healthcare Plan" proposal -- and, launched into a bizarre story about a friend of his ... who he called, a "very smart guy, very, very rich and and a very powerful man actually, but he's very fat."

He explains this man goes to London for business quite often ... and, after running into one another recently, he complained to the prez that Ozempic costs $1,300 in New York City -- but just $87 across the pond.

2:46 PM PT -- A DHS spokesperson tells TMZ ... “Fearing for their lives and the safety of others, agents grabbed his arm, but he broke free. The agents struck, and he immediately dropped a wrench -- a deadly weapon. Agents extracted him from the car, but he continued to violently resist arrest including grabbing an agent’s throat. This alien was ultimately arrested for aggressive driving, fleeing from law enforcement, and physically resisting arrest. Reminder obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime and a felony.”

As Customs and Border Protection officers swarm a man to arrest him in Minnesota, one agent repeatedly knees him in the head and face ... and it's all on video.

Footage out of Minneapolis shows a scrum of Border Patrol agents detaining a man in the middle of a busy street, piling on top of him ... and at one point during the struggle, one agent is seen smashing his knee into the guy's face. Another of the agents appears to notice they're on camera, and seems to check his colleague, who delivers a last blow to the man's forehead.

12:18 PM PT -- During today's segment on TMZ Live, Harvey, Charles, and Babcock debated over whether or not Trump should have accepted the award.

Although President Donald Trump was disappointed about losing out on his hunt for a Nobel Peace Prize last year, he got a taste of how it felt to have one Thursday when Maria Corina Machado presented him with her medal.

The Venezuelan opposition leader met with POTUS at the White House, where she presented the medal. It wasn't immediately clear if Trump had accepted the medal, but the White House later confirmed he did -- sharing a photo of him holding it next to Machado.

The Nobel organizers were aware of Machado's plans and posted on social media ... "a medal can change owners, but the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot."

FYI ... Machado was presented with the Peace Prize last October for her efforts to promote democracy in Venezuela.

Although Trump's been nominated for the Peace Prize on several occasions, he's never received the award.

Online users discovered Thursday morning that typing "Nazis.us" into a web browser instantly flips to the official homepage of the U.S. government's Department of Homeland Security.

Instead of whatever you’d expect to see (🙄), users are landing straight on the DHS website. Screenshots confirm the redirect, and for now, nobody seems to know why it’s happening.

There's a big question mark as to who owns the domain, whether it recently changed hands and was deliberately rerouted to the DHS ... or whether it's just a flat-out tech glitch. To be clear, anyone purchasing a web domain can redirect the URL to any other site on the internet if they so choose.

DHS Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told TMZ Thursday morning ... "We've successfully blocked the redirect."

President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to ongoing protests over ICE activity in the state of Minnesota.

The Insurrection Act has not been used in more than three decades -- last employed during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. President George H.W. Bush sent troops to the city at California Governor Pete Wilson's request following unrest in the wake of four LAPD officers being acquitted of police brutality in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has not requested federal assistance ... quite the opposite. He has called for ICE and CBP personnel to leave the state.

POTUS posted on Truth Social Thursday morning ... "If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State."

The Insurrection Act allows the President to deploy the military and federalize state National Guard forces in limited circumstances.

Before 1992, it was utilized during a civil rights dispute in 1957 in Arkansas, and during the Civil War and Jim Crow eras.

This isn't the first time Trump's threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act ... he floated the idea of invoking the act in October on cities like Portland and Chicago.

John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, is convinced he's the reason Jodie Foster is sexually attracted to other women.

John tells TMZ he has a theory that his failed Reagan assassination attempt in 1981 traumatized Jodie to the point where she turned away from men and became a lesbian. He believes Jodie's trauma also stemmed from him bringing her into his assassination attempt with his public fascination of her.

He says Jodie was dating men in the early 1980s and only became a lesbian in the years after he tried to shoot Reagan dead. Jodie first came out publicly as gay during the 2013 Golden Globes Awards. John says this is the first time he's ever revealed this theory publicly as he promotes his new memoir, "John Hinckley Jr.: Who I Really Am."

Journalist Laura Jedeed should be considered a domestic terrorist, according to the Donald Trump administration's warped metric ... but she tells "TMZ Live," she was hired by ICE anyway!

This is a wild story ... Laura was curious about how diligent the Dept. of Homeland Security is about screening ICE candidates during the agency's current hiring surge ... so she took a skills-based resume to a jobs event to find out how she'd fare.

Despite maintaining an online portfolio chock-full of Trump hate and anti-ICE sentiment, Jedeed -- who says she has her own page on an Antifa watch website -- passed ICE's shoddy screening process with flying colors.

President Donald Trump is threatening to cut funding to states with sanctuary cities, a move that could affect a sizable portion of the United States ... though he's tried it before, unsuccessfully.

POTUS reaffirmed his desire to stop the payments during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday, and claimed "sanctuary cities" -- places that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities -- "do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens," reports NBC News.

Trump alleged the policies of sanctuary cities encourage "fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come." He didn't give any specific details ... but he did warn the effects on funding for states would be "significant."

This isn't the first time Trump has threatened to cut funding to sanctuary cities ... he attempted to do so in 2017, although his attempt was struck down in court.

Trump issued an executive order last year directing officials to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, but his effort was ultimately shot down by a California judge.

2:45 PM PT -- White House Communications Director Steven Cheung tells TMZ ... "A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response."

Donald Trump turned into Donald Grump during a Tuesday appearance at a Ford plant ... launching into an F-bomb attack on a worker who appeared to yell "pedophile protector" at the Prez.

47 toured the Ford F-150 plant at the Detroit Economic Club before giving a speech ... while walking the factory floor on his tour, someone began shouting at Trump. It's hard to make out the full sentence shouted at Trump, but it seems to have included the words "pedophile protector."

The angry worker is obviously referencing Trump's association with late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein ... and the Dept. of Justice's slow release of the infamous Epstein Files.

TJ Sabula, the Ford plant worker who yelled "pedophile protector" at President Donald Trump during his visit, has the full backing of his powerful union amid a paid suspension ... and they're fighting to keep his job.

United Auto Workers Union Vice President Laura Dickerson tells TMZ ... "[TJ Sabula] believes in freedom of speech, a principle we wholeheartedly embrace, and we stand with our membership in protecting their voice on the job."

Dickerson adds ... "The UAW will ensure that our member receives the full protection of all negotiated contract language safeguarding his job and his rights as a union member."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have put steak near the top of the food chain ... but even he knows President Donald Trump eats like a stoner on death row.

The Health and Human Services Secretary opened up about his boss's outrageous diet during an interview with Katie Miller -- the wife of Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller -- on her podcast.

When asked, "Who has the most unhinged eating habits?" RFK Jr. knew immediately ... "The president."

According to RFK Jr. ... "He eats really bad food, which is McDonald's and candy and Diet Coke. He drinks the Diet Coke at all times. He has the constitution of a deity."

The worker who yelled "pedophile protector" at President Donald Trump during his visit to a Ford plant in Michigan Tuesday has been suspended.

The suspended worker has been identified as 40-year-old TJ Sabula, the United Auto Workers Union confirms to TMZ. Sabula admitted to The Washington Post to being the individual who shouted at the prez.

Sabula told the Washington Post ... "I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity. And today I think I did that."

It's unclear if his suspension is paid ... the union tells TMZ they are exploring next steps.

The Pentagon used a military aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane to attack a boat off the coast of Venezuela in September -- the Trump administration claimed the boat was transporting drugs -- and that deception violates international law, The New York Times reports.

This is one of the attacks that is already controversial -- after the initial bombing, a second strike was ordered, killing two survivors who were clinging to the hull of the destroyed boat. That is considered a war crime.

The bombing of unconfirmed criminal suspect boats and their occupants is also legally questionable in international maritime law.

The aircraft used in the Sept. 2, 2025 attack -- which killed 11 people -- reportedly flew low enough for the boat's passengers to see it ... meaning they would have been under the impression it was a civilian plane. The plane's munitions were also concealed, according to the report.

Legal specialists told the NYT that's vital ... as the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from pretending to be civilians to trick adversaries into lowering their defenses before attacking them, which is a war crime known as "perfidy."

The type of aircraft used in the attack hasn't been publicly revealed.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly issued a statement defending the strike -- President Donald Trump has called these attacks acts of war against drug cartels -- and described it as "fully consistent with the law of armed conflict."