Category: Security

A new report claims that a former communications director for former Vice President Kamala Harris developed a “death-pool roster” of Republican-appointed federal judges who could have sworn Harris in as president if former President Joe Bien died in office.

According to Fox News, the new report is documented in “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” which was written by NBC News journalist Jonathan Allen and The Hill journalist Amie Parnes and published on Tuesday by William Morrow and Company. The new book claims that the “death-pool roster” of judges was created by Jamal Simmons, who formerly worked as Harris’ White House communications director.

According to Allen and Parnes, Simmons was worried that if Biden died in office and Harris became president, many people would question the legitimacy of her presidency. The book claims that Simmons was especially worried that “Trump people” would go “apesh-t” if Harris was sworn in as president.

“Simmons believed Harris would be strengthened by an institutional stamp of approval if she were sworn in hurriedly because Biden had died unexpectedly,” the political journalists wrote. “Her legitimacy might be questioned, he worried, recalling the January 6 effort to stop Biden from being certified as president.” 

“The strongest validator, he believed, would be a federal judge who had been appointed by a Republican other than Trump,” Allen and Parnes added. “He compiled a spreadsheet of those jurists across the country, down to a city-by-city breakdown, and carried it with him when he traveled with Harris.” 

READ MORE: ‘Abused’: Biden-Harris scandal revealed

According to Allen and Parnes’ book, Simmons claimed that he never informed Harris about the “death-pool roster” prior to leaving her communications team in January of 2023. However, Simmons told his colleagues that he “should be notified immediately if something happened to Biden” since he had developed an “entire communications strategy.” Simmons also left the “death-pool roster” spreadsheet with another one of Harris’ aides.

The Daily Mail reported that in addition to the “death-pool roster” of judges developed by Simmons, Democrat officials created other “contingency plans” ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

“A handful of Democratic National Committee officials already had considered contingency plans,” Allen and Parnes wrote. “In hush-hush talks starting in 2023, these officials gamed out Biden-withdrawal scenarios, according to two people familiar with them.”

Allen and Parnes explained that the Democratic National Committee Officials created the plans to ensure that the Democrat Pary was “ready for every possible circumstance: if Biden launched his campaign and then stepped aside before the primaries; if he won a bunch of primaries and then could not continue. If he secured enough delegates for winning the nomination but dropped out before winning a floor vote at the convention, and if he left a vacancy at the top of the ticket after taking the nomination.”

A “de-extinction” company announced the “rebirth” of the “extinct dire wolf” on Monday. The company revealed the new dire wolves in a video on social media, celebrating the announcement as a “leap forward for science.”

In a Monday press release, Colossal Biosciences, which describes itself as the “world’s only de-extinction company,” said the “rebirth of the once extinct dire wolf” marks the “world’s first successfully de-extincted animal.”

Monday’s press release claimed that the dire wolf, which was featured in HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series, had “previously been extinct for over 12,500 years” prior to the company’s recent efforts.

Colossal Biosciences stated, “The successful birth of three dire wolves is a revolutionary milestone of scientific progress that illustrates another leap forward in Colossal’s de-extinction technologies and is a critical step on the pathway to the de-extinction of other target species.”

According to CNN, in addition to the dire wolf experiment, Colossal Biosciences has been working on bringing back the mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and the dodo bird since 2021.

In Monday’s press release, Colossal Biosciences explained that scientists were able to obtain dire wolf DNA from fossils in 2021. After obtaining the DNA from the fossils, the company was able to edit the DNA of gray wolves to include important features of the dire wolf with grey wolf cubs.

READ MORE: Viral Video: Shocking rare wildlife sighting reported in Poland

“This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works,” Colossal Biosciences CEO and cofounder Ben Lamm said. “Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies.”

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Colossal Biosciences shared a video of two dire wolf cubs howling. The company claimed that the video marks the “first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years.”

“The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years,” Colossal Biosciences tweeted. “These two wolves were brought back from extinction using genetic edits derived from a complete dire wolf genome, meticulously reconstructed by Colossal from ancient DNA found in fossils dating back 11,500 and 72,000 years.”

Colossal Biosciences added that Monday’s announcement of the “rebirth” of the dire wolf is not only a significant “milestone” for the company but is also a “leap forward for science, conservation, and humanity.”

Colossal Biosciences shared that the company’s goal is to “revolutionize history and be the first company to use CRISPR technology successfully in the de-extinction of previously lost species.”

SOUND ON. You’re hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus—the world’s first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, 2024.

The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction using… pic.twitter.com/wY4rdOVFRH

— Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) April 7, 2025

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

China’s objections to new U.S. tariffs stalled a deal to sell off TikTok and keep it operating in the United States, said President Donald Trump on Sunday, emphasizing that he would not reverse tariffs on foreign nations unless the trade deficits that the U.S. faces with various countries, including China, disappeared.

Trump administration officials have been working on an agreement to sell the popular social media app, owned by China-based ByteDance, to an American buyer, as required by a bipartisan law enacted in 2024. But this also requires China’s approval.

“We had a deal pretty much for TikTok – not a deal but pretty close – and then China changed the deal because of tariffs,” Trump told reporters. “If I gave a little cut in tariffs they would have approved that deal in 15 minutes, which shows the power of tariffs.”

Trump on Wednesday signed a far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy at the White House, in which he imposed a 34% tariff rate on China. Coupled with the existing 20% tariffs on Chinese imports, the true tariff rate on China is now 54%.

China on Friday announced it was retaliating, with its own 34% tariff on all imports from the U.S. starting April 10. It also announced plans to restrict exports of some rare earth items.

Before Trump announced widespread tariffs, the TikTok deal was reportedly close, advanced by a consortium of U.S. investors, but Trump said China’s objections impeded the pact. The Washington Post reported earlier that Trump’s moves to heighten tariffs on China stalled the talks.

Trump previously said he may consider reducing China tariffs to help facilitate a TikTok deal.

The U.S. Congress had initially mandated that the short-video platform find a new, non-Chinese owner by Jan. 19 for or face a ban for national security reasons, with Trump later extending the deadline until April 5. On Friday, Trump announced on his Truth Social a second 75-day extension to the deadline to divest, signing an executive order to prevent the TikTok ban.

During his first term as president, Trump had tried to ban TikTok, but a U.S. federal judge ruled the president did not have the authority to ban the app. Following that judicial rebuke, Congress passed the bill calling for TikTok’s sale, which then-President Joe Biden signed.

Some lawmakers in the U.S. said that China could gain access to TikTok’s personal data for the purpose of influencing political opinion in the country, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said the country’s government has never asked companies to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence” held in foreign countries.

TikTok, which has offices in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritizes user safety.

Trump said that he would maintain tariffs on foreign nations unless the trade deficits the U.S. faces with various countries, including China, were eliminated.

“Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China,” Trump told reporters on Sunday

“And unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal,” said Trump, adding that he was “willing to deal with China, but they have to solve their surplus.”

The 10% baseline tariff imposed by Trump on almost all trading partners became effective Saturday morning, with a second wave of tariffs set to take effect Wednesday morning. These new measures, combined with recently implemented tariffs on foreign metals, automobiles, and goods from Canada, Mexico, and China, have increased U.S. import tariffs by nearly ten times their previous levels.

Trump’s trade policies have sparked widespread opposition, drawing criticism even from U.S. allies.

China responded with a series of aggressive countermeasures, while other countries are attempting to negotiate reduced rates.

Vietnam, which faces one of the highest proposed tariff rates at 46%, for instance, is requesting a 45-day postponement and has offered to eliminate its own tariffs.

Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, on Sunday offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the U.S., pledging to remove trade barriers and saying Taiwanese companies would increase their U.S. investments.

Asian markets plunged on Monday, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei falling by more than 8% shortly after opening.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped by 9% in early trade, with shares in Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent falling more than 8%.

In South Korea, trading on the Kospi index was halted for five minutes at 9.12 a.m. as stocks plummeted.

Taiwan’s stock exchange fell almost 10% on the Monday open, the first day of trading since the tariffs were announced due to a two-day holiday last week. Falls were driven by the world’s largest chipmaker TSMC and the world’s largest contract manufacturer Foxconn, and marked the largest daily point and percentage loss on record, according to local media.

Trump said he had spoken to leaders from Europe and Asia over the weekend, who hope to convince him to lower tariffs that are as high as 50% and due to take effect this week.

“They are coming to the table. They want to talk but there’s no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis,” he said.

Separately, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with Washington since last Wednesday’s announcement.

“He’s created maximum leverage for himself,” Bessent said on NBC News’ Meet the Press, referring to Trump.

Bessent added there was “no reason” to anticipate a recession, citing stronger-than-anticipated U.S. jobs growth last month, before the tariffs were announced.

Neither Trump nor Bessent named the countries or offered details about the talks.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that President Donald Trump’s administration can continue deporting illegal immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court lifted the stay placed on the Trump administration’s deportation efforts under the Alien Enemies Act that was initially issued by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg and upheld by a federal appeals court, according to Fox News. CNN reported that the Supreme Court’s decision will allow the Trump administration to move forward with deportations under the Alien Enemies Act while litigation regarding the administration’s use of the law moves forward in the lower courts.

Trump celebrated Monday’s ruling in a post on Truth Social, writing, “The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”

While Monday’s ruling allows the Trump administration to move forward with deportation efforts under the Alien Enemies Act, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must provide those impacted by the Alien Enemies Act with notice that they are being deported so the impacted individuals can file habeas complaints.

READ MORE: 100,000+ illegal immigrants deported by Trump admin since inauguration: Report

“The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the Supreme Court wrote. “The detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”

In a post on social media following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned illegal immigrant “terrorists” to “LEAVE NOW or we will arrest you, lock you up and deport you.”

“Today’s a bad day to be a terrorist in the United States of America,” Noem said in a video accompanying her post. “Today the Supreme Court came out with a decision that reaffirmed President Trump was correct in using his authority on using the Alien Enemies Act to deport terrorists out of this country.”

President Trump was proven RIGHT once again! SCOTUS confirms our Commander-in-Chief Donald J. Trump has the power to stop the invasion of our country by terrorists using war time powers.

LEAVE NOW or we will arrest you, lock you up and deport you. pic.twitter.com/fVQz5cuyhl

— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) April 8, 2025

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi also celebrated Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, describing the court’s decision as a “landmark victory for the rule of law” in the United States.

“An activist judge in Washington, DC does not have the jurisdiction to seize control of President Trump’s authority to conduct foreign policy and keep the American people safe,” Bondi tweeted. “The Department of Justice will continue fighting in court to make America safe again.”

A new report claims that President Donald Trump’s administration is holding initial discussions regarding a potential military parade in Washington, D.C., as part of the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary celebration on June 14.

According to The Associated Press, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said on Monday that the Trump administration had contacted the city about potentially holding a parade on June 14 that would start in Arlington, Virginia, and conclude in Washington, D.C.

The Associated Press reported that an anonymous defense official confirmed that the U.S. Army has held preliminary discussions regarding a potential parade as part of the military service’s 250th anniversary celebration on June 14, which also marks the 47th president’s 79th birthday. However, in a statement obtained by the outlet, the White House said, “No military parade has been scheduled.”

Additionally, Col. David Butler, an Army spokesman, provided a statement, saying, “It’s too early to say yet whether or not we’re having a parade but we’re working with the White House as well as several government agencies to make the celebration a national level event.”

READ MORE: US hosting Military World Games for first time

While Bowser told reporters on Monday that she was not sure if the Army’s 250th anniversary celebration was being “characterized as a military parade,” she warned that having U.S. military tanks on the streets of D.C. “would not be good.”

Bowser told reporters, “If military tanks were used, they should be accompanied with many millions of dollars to repair the roads.”

In a statement obtained by The Associated Press, Arlington County Board Chair Takis Karantonis noted that the U.S. Secret Service contacted Arlington County last Friday “regarding the possibility of a military parade to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army, but no further details were offered.”

Karantonis told the Washington City Paper, “It’s not clear to me what the scope of a parade would be. But I would hope the federal government remains sensitive to the pain and concerns of numerous [military] veteran residents who have lost or might lose their jobs in recent federal decisions, as they reflect on how best to celebrate the Army’s anniversary.”

According to The Post Millennial, Trump previously planned to host a military parade in D.C. in 2018 but eventually canceled the plans after the parade was estimated to cost $92 million and local officials warned that the streets would be significantly damaged by military tanks and planes.

Two more people — a 27-year-old McCracken County man and a 65-year-old Trigg County man — have died in connection to flooding which occurred across Kentucky for the last several days, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced Monday afternoon.

The latest reports bring the death toll to four.

The storm system, which began Wednesday, dumped rain across the state for several days, swelling waterways, covering roads and leading to evacuations.

“Kentucky, we have some sad news to share,” Beshear said in a Facebook post. “We’ve had two more deaths related to flooding, bringing our total to four. Today we’re announcing the deaths of a 27-year-old McCracken County man and a 65-year-old Trigg County man, each one a child of God. Please join Britainy and me as we pray (for )their families.”

Kentucky State Police had announced the death of the McCracken man, Lee Chandler, 27, of LaCenter, earlier Monday afternoon. Officials had been searching for him after he was last seen Sunday afternoon trying to retrieve his boat.

Friday, a 9-year-old boy died when he was swept away by floodwaters in Frankfort as he walked to his bus stop, and Saturday, the body of a 74-year-old woman was found submerged in a vehicle in Nelson County.

Details on the Trigg County death were not immediately available.

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© 2025 Lexington Herald-Leader.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

BioLab has been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor following an investigation that found that improperly stored hazardous chemicals were the cause of a fire at its Conyers, Georgia, facility seven months ago.

According to the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the company was cited as having four serious and two “other-than-serious” violations due to the September incident, which led to hospitalizations, road closures and the evacuations of 17,000 people in the surrounding community.

BioLab, which has a history of fires at its facilities in Georgia and across the United States, is also facing more than $61,000 in penalties proposed by OSHA.

“BioLab has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission,” the Labor Department said in a statement.

During an ongoing and separate investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, BioLab officials had said the facility began a permanent fire watch up to three months before the Sept. 29 incident. That was after they found a strong odor from oxidizers at two buildings, including the Plant 12 storage warehouse where the September fire originally started, according to a report by the CSB.

At about 5 a.m. that day, a BioLab employee assigned to watch the Plant 12 warehouse heard a popping sound. He notified another employee of the wet product before seeing “large toxic vapor plumes inside the building,” the report stated.

There was no fire until 6:30 a.m. when flames were visible through the roof, located above where the employee first saw the chemical reaction. A shelter-in-place order was issued an hour later, and the fire was extinguished by 8 a.m.

However, a second fire erupted at about noon, which produced the thick black and multicolored plumes of smoke eventually seen for miles. The CSB stated a first responder described the scene as “major chemical reactions.”

The OSHA investigation determined the company stored various chemicals at the warehouse. According to the CSB report, the bulk chemicals at Plant 12 were 99% trichloroisocyanuric acid (TCCA) and 99% sodium dichloroisocyanurate (DCCA), solid oxidizers that were stored in super sacks before being taken to other parts of the complex. Officials said those chemicals have a chlorine odor and can release “toxic and corrosive products” like chlorine gas and hydrogen chloride “upon decomposition.”

The building also stored super sacks of bromochloro-5,5-dimethylimidazolidine-2,4-dione (BCDMH), which can release chlorine gas and hydrogen chloride, along with bromine gas and hydrogen bromide when it breaks down, the report stated.

In the November investigation update by the CSB, Chairperson Steve Owens said the risk the incident posed to the surrounding community was “completely unacceptable.”

“Reactive chemical incidents can have severe environmental and public safety impacts due to the combination of fire, toxic gas emissions and hazardous materials involved, and BioLab and any other facility that has reactive chemicals onsite must manage those materials safely,” Owens said in a statement.

From the start of the fire until Oct. 17, those within a two-mile radius of the plant were given nightly shelter-in-place warnings by the Rockdale County emergency management agency. The smoke eventually drifted to parts of metro Atlanta, where residents reported a chlorine smell and haze.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reached out to BioLab for comment about the findings of the OSHA investigation.

OSHA said it levied $61,473 in proposed penalties against BioLab, which were slightly less than the $75,499 issued in January 2024 against SK Battery America Inc., an electric vehicle battery maker. That OSHA investigation found that the South Korean-owned company exposed its employees to unsafe levels of cobalt, nickel and manganese at its Commerce plant.

Four months later, in April 2024, OSHA said it levied $77,200 in proposed fines after SK Battery failed to train its employees on how to protect themselves from toxic fumes produced by electric vehicle battery fires, which led to multiple injuries after an October incident.

In September, North Georgia factory Primex Plastics Corp. agreed to pay more than $154,000 in back wages to hundreds of employees after a Department of Labor investigation determined it failed to pay overtime. More than $200,462 in penalties were also levied against Pure Beauty Farms, the owner of a plant nursery that kept migrant workers in unsafe housing in Greensboro, the Department of Labor said in 2023.

In 2022, OSHA proposed $190,758 in penalties against Place Vendome Holding Co., a South Georgia pillow manufacturer. That was after OSHA found seven repeated serious violations following a November 2021 inspection, including for obstructing exit routes, failing to post well-lit signs identifying exit routes, and stacking materials in unstable or unsecured tiers.

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© 2025 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett announced on Sunday that over 50 countries have “reached out” to President Donald Trump asking to start negotiations following the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs that were announced last Wednesday.

During a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Hassett announced, “I got a report from the USTR [United States Trade Representative] last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation. But they’re doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff.”

“And so, I don’t think that you’re going to see a big effect on the consumer in the U.S. because I do think that the reason why we have a persistent, long-run trade deficit is these people have very inelastic supply,” Hassett added. They’ve been dumping goods into the country in order to create jobs, say, in China.”

“More than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation,” says National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.

“They’re doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff.” pic.twitter.com/3r19WKFqL2

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 6, 2025

During an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that the decision of whether to negotiate with other countries or maintain the tariffs the Trump administration unveiled last week at the White House is something that the president will have to decide himself.

“I can tell you that as only he can do at this moment, he has created maximum leverage for himself,” Bessent told NBC Host Kristen Welker. “And more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation.”

READ MORE: Trump unveils new tariff on countries buying Venezuelan oil

Bessent added, “They’ve been bad actors for a long time, and it’s – it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.”

According to The New York Post, the European Union announced on Monday that it has offered the Trump administration a “zero-for-zero” tariff proposal on certain goods in response to the 47th president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.

“We have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods as we have successfully done with many other trading partners,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a Monday press conference. “Because Europe is always ready for a good deal. So we keep it on the table.”

Von der Leyen added, “We stand ready to negotiate with the US.”

U.S. military officials recently confirmed that Mexican drug cartels are using drones to observe U.S. military troops deployed along the southern border between the United States and Mexico under President Donald Trump’s administration.

According to Scripps News, roughly 10,000 U.S. military service members are currently deployed along the southern border as part of the 47th president’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The outlet noted that it was recently accompanied by U.S. Army officials on a visit to the southern border in Arizona to witness the military’s “Joint Task Force – Southern Border” mission.

Addressing the mission of the troops deployed along the southern border under the Trump administration, Lt. Col. Lukas Berg told Scripps News, “Their mission is to support Customs and Border Patrol in controlling the U.S. Southern Border and preserving the territorial integrity of the United States.”

Officials told Scripps News that the U.S. military has witnessed the Mexican drug cartels using drones to observe the operations of military personnel along the southern border.

“We are privy to significant reporting on that. That is of significant interest to us because we’re operating aircraft in the same area,” Berg told Scripps News. “We’re observing, we are monitoring, and then we are passing those observations directly to Customs and Border Patrol.”

READ MORE: Drones deployed by CIA amid crackdown on Mexican drug cartels: Report

According to Scripps News, U.S. military officials confirmed that one of the reasons the military has not engaged the drones near the southern border is that the military has not been authorized to shoot down the drones. However, officials told the outlet that the military does have the right to take action against any cartel drones that threaten the safety of U.S. troops operating along the southern border.

The War Zone reported that Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, testified in front of the House Armed Services Committee last week regarding a “change to the rule of force” that he has proposed under the Trump administration.

According to The War Zone, Guillot explained that the proposed change would “allow us to shoot down or bring down drones that are surveilling over our deployed and mobile troops…not just that are in self-defense, but anything that’s surveilling and planning the next attack on us within five miles of the border.”

Guillot told the House Armed Services Committee last week that the U.S. military troops deployed at the southern border are currently not authorized to shoot down drones along the border “because they’re mobile,” according to The War Zone.

Russell Brand has issued a statement attacking the British government in the wake of the controversial comedian being charged with rape and sexual assault in his native U.K.

The charges were announced on Friday as Brand and his family were vacationing in Boca Grande, Florida. The 50-year-old podcaster was hit with six charges in connection to multiple incidents dating back over 25 years, including one count of rape for an alleged assault in 1999.

Hours after the charges were announced, Brand took to social media to deny the allegations while slamming authorities in Britain.

“ We’re very fortunate in a way to live in a time where there’s so little trust in the British government,” he began an Instagram video filmed from his Florida hotel. “We’re very fortunate, I suppose, that this is happening at a time where we know that the law has become a kind of weapon to be used against people, institutions and sometimes entire nations.”

He then went on to ask his British viewers how they feel about the current legal system, specifically calling out the administration of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“ How do you feel about some of the high-profile cases that are not being pursued and prosecuted? How do you feel that the Southport murders were handled?” he asked.

After speaking in generalities for a while, he then addressed the allegations against him head on.

“ I’ve always told you guys that when I was young and single, before I had my wife and family … I was a fool, man. I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord,” he said. “I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile. But what I never was was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in nonconsensual activity. I pray that you can see that.”

He closed out his video by thanking his followers for their support, promising his fans that he’d be defending himself in court.

On Saturday, Brand and his family — his wife, Laura, and their three kids — were photographed frolicking on a beach in Miami, seemingly attempting not to allow the allegations to derail their vacation.

Additional to one count of rape, Brand has also been charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count each of indecent assault and oral rape. The charges stem from incidents that allegedly took place with four different women between 1999 and 2005.

London authorities said they began investigating Brand in September 2023 after receiving numerous complaints following a joint report by The Sunday Times, The Times of London and Channel 4.

Brand is currently scheduled to appear in court on May 2.

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© 2025 New York Daily News.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.