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On Wednesday, fourth-place GOP presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy capped off a month of conspiratorial campaigning by asserting, yet again, that the January 6, 2021, riot inside the Capitol building was an “inside job.”

“There is now clear evidence,” the 38-year-old entrepreneur tweeted, “that there was at the very least entrapment of peaceful protestors, similar to the fake Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot & countless other cases. The FBI won’t admit how many undercover officers were in the field on Jan 6, Capitol police on one hand fired rubber bullets & explosives into a peaceful crowd who they then willingly later allowed to enter the Capitol. That doesn’t add up & the actual evidence turns the prior narrative upside down: if the deep state is willing to manufacture an ‘insurrection’ to take down its political opponents, they can do anything. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.”

The timeline of Ramaswamy’s revelation is certainly curious. Law enforcement use of (a small number of) rubber munitions and flash-bang devices on that day was known in real time, as was the U.S. Capitol Police’s selected removal of barricades in front of some oncoming demonstrators, back when the future presidential candidate was still pinning partial blame for the “disgraceful Capitol riot” on the “downright abhorrent” behavior of former President Donald Trump. The 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer looked “an awful lot like entrapment” by at least January 2022; as of September 2022, Ramaswamy was still decrying the “Grand Old Party of Crybabies” for insisting, despite the “lack of evidence of fraud,” that “the presidential election was stolen.”

The only bit of stated evidence that looks remotely new is an apparent reference to the June 2023 congressional testimony of former FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono that “a handful” of agency informants were on the scene January 6, and that he wasn’t sure of the overall number. (D’Antuono also testified that the FBI had been instructing its informants to discourage Trump supporters from heading to the Capitol that day, since there were credible fears that his planned “Stop the Steal” rally could turn violent. He also characterized the notion of the feds stoking the protest as being “furthest from the truth.”)

Whatever the import of one or even several handfuls of government agents amid the 884 individuals to date who have been convicted of January 6related crimes, it took a while for Ramaswamy to arrive at “entrapment” as the primary cause. In July 2023, even while beginning to shift blame away from Trump (calling it “unproductive”), the candidate was still pegging as the main culprit “pervasive censorship.” By the end of August, in direct contradiction to his “victimhood mythology” critique of the year before, the candidate was triangulating his January 6 position by saying that had he been in thenVice President Mike Pence’s shoes, he would have somehow made the transfer of presidential power contingent on federal election reforms.

Part of Ramaswamy’s positioning is, in the uncharitable words of National Review Editor in Chief Rich Lowry, “to avoid criticizing Trump at almost all costs.” He has pledged to pardon the 46th president, as well as “all peaceful, nonviolent January 6 protesters who were denied their constitutional due process rights.” He vowed to pull out of the Colorado primary in protest of the state Supreme Court banning Trump from the ballot. He has called Trump an “excellent president,” defended his use of the word vermin, and described his own campaign as “America First 2.0.” When news broke this week that Ramaswamy would not be spending previously planned money on television ads in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “He will, I am sure, Endorse me.”

Whatever the campaign context, Ramaswamy has been on an “inside job” tear this month, beginning with this rapid-fire volley of Trump-friendly conspiratorial assertion at the December 6 GOP debate:

Why am I the only person on the stage at least who can say that January 6 now does look like it was an inside job, that the government lied to us for 20 years about Saudi Arabia’s involvement in 9/11, that the Great Replacement Theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory but a basic statement of the Democratic Party’s platform, that the 2020 election was indeed stolen by Big Tech, that the 2016 election, the one that Trump won for sure, was also one that was stolen from him by the national security establishment that actually put out the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that they knew was false?

This was followed one week later by a live and contentious CNN town hall, in which moderator Abby Phillip pressed him repeatedly to provide evidence for the provocative “inside job” claim. Amid several condescending remarks along the lines of “I know this is very uncomfortable for you,” the candidate mustered the same three tidbits reiterated in this week’s tweet: that “there were federal law enforcement agents in that field,” that some of the Capitol building’s security guards rolled out the proverbial “red carpet” for the trespassers, and that the Whitmer plot proves January 6 intent:

It’s the same issue, and the same FBIsame even part of the FBI. Three people who were in an alleged plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer were acquitted at the end of trial, because it was entrapment. That is, government agents put them up to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done….FBI agents putting them up to a kidnapping plot that we were told was true, but was entrapment. Same thing with the Capitol Police, people letting them in freely, many of those people then being charged. The government cannot put you up to do something, and then charge you for it. That’s wrong.

The Michigan case, which Reason treated with skepticism from the beginning, has some glaring differences with January 6, and not just that the Capitol Police are not, in fact, the FBI. One was a private, ginned-up conspiracy among a handful of surveilled and infiltrated actors to commit a crime that had zero chance of taking place; the other a planned public event featuring thousands of motivated participants. The centrality of FBI informants to the Whitmer plot was clear from the charging documents onward; but as C.J. Ciaramella pointed out in a feature article posted in September 2022, “no court records in the hundreds of prosecutions of January 6 rioters have mentioned the use of agents provocateurs.”

Could there have been government agents trying to stoke conflict on that chaotic day, only to watch their handiwork spin so horribly out of control that one protester was shot and killed, 114police officers reported injuries, and elected officials were scurried off into safe rooms during what was supposed to be the certification of the presidential election? Absolutely, yes. As Ciaramella wrote, “It’s not an entirely unreasonable suspicion, given the bureau’s history of infiltrating and disrupting political movements.”

But there’s a vast chasm between just asking questions about that day versus making bald factual assertions about a “manufacture[d]” plot to “take down…political opponents.” The latter formulation feeds the very “victimhood mythology,” “sore losing,” and “conservative brand of victimhood” Ramaswamy was decrying just 15 months ago. It contributes to an apocalyptic rhetorical populism for which violence is a logical next step. And it denies agency to the more than 200Trump supporters who, of their own volition, chose to attend the Stop the Steal rally, march to the Capitol, trespass on the grounds (whether by strolling in through a removed barrier or bashing through obstacles), then engage in conduct that led to their criminal conviction of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers and/or obstructing officers during a civil disorder.”

You can be suspicious of the FBI, critical of the overly aggressive January 6 prosecutions and sentencing, and of the belief that those convicted of nonviolent crimes from that day shuld not be imprisoned, without embracing an evidence-starved theory of government malfeasance that just so happens to let both Trump and his most violently deluded supporters off the hook. Yet Ramaswamy’s transparent cynicism is arguably a rational (if grotesque) response to political incentives, given that half of Republicans pin blame for January 6 on the left.

“Ramaswamy has sounded as pro-Trump as Trump’s own children, inveighed against an establishment that barely exists, played footsie with conspiracy theories, and courted controversiesboth righteous and stupidto gain the attention of the base of the party,” Lowry wrote. “It’s dispiriting that such a shrewd and self-interested guy thinks this is how you rise within the Republican Party.”

It’s even more dispiriting that he’s probably right.

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Sports

Five-star QB Jared Curtis to Georgia: How he fits and what’s next

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May 5, 2025

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Five-star QB Jared Curtis to Georgia: How he fits and what's next

  • Eli Lederman

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    Eli Lederman

    ESPN Staff Writer

      Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.

  • Tom Luginbill

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    Tom Luginbill

    ESPN Analyst

    • Senior National Recruiting Analyst for ESPN.com
    • Coached in four professional football leagues
    • Graduated from Eastern Kentucky and Marshall

May 5, 2025, 06:11 PM ET

Five-star quarterback Jared Curtis, the No. 5 prospect in the 2026 ESPN 300, announced his commitment to the Georgia Bulldogs over the Oregon Ducks Monday, capping the most consequential recruitment to date in the 2026 cycle.

Curtis, who decommitted from Georgia this past October, is the No. 1 overall quarterback in the 2026 class. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound passer from Nashville took trips to both Georgia and Oregon earlier this spring. Sources told ESPN that Curtis held in-home visits with offensive coordinators Mike Bobo (Georgia) and Will Stein (Oregon) last week and had conversations with both programs on Sunday afternoon prior to making his decision.

Curtis’ return to the Bulldogs’ 2026 class marks a crucial recruiting victory for coach Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs’ staff. Curtis now lands as the highest-ranked of four ESPN 300 pledges in the program’s incoming class, a collection of talent that will surely grow this summer as Georgia contends for a 10th consecutive top-three signing class. If he signs later this year, Curtis will arrive as the program’s third highest-ranked quarterback pledge in the ESPN recruiting era, trailing only Justin Fields (No. 1 overall in 2018) and Matt Stafford (No. 5 in 2006).

With his pledge, Curtis cements his place as the potential quarterback of the future in Athens behind expected starter Gunner Stockton, redshirt freshman Ryan Puglisi and 2025 signees Ryan Montgomery and Hezekiah Millender. Oregon, meanwhile, returns to the quarterback market in search of a 2026 passer after missing out on a coveted target in Curtis.

Here’s what you need to know about the most consequential commitment in 2026 cycle this spring as the busy recruiting season of late-May and June enters the horizon:

What makes Curtis so good?

Curtis has supreme arm talent, ideal measurables and a competitive temperament. He has ideal measurables and good speed given his size and is a better athlete than he gets credit for. What we like best is his natural arm power, velocity, and ability to change arm angles. He’s a flexible thrower who can make off-platform throws look easy because he can find alternative ways to get the ball out without losing power or strength. He’s a crafty runner who can extend plays and get out of trouble.

If there is a concern, it would be the level of competition he faces at Nashville Christian, a 2A private school. He has yet to be truly challenged against elite competition throughout his high school career to this point. He is always the best player on the field. That being said, he has a winning mentality, likes to compete, and has abilities that can’t be coached. — Tom Luginbill

Who does he compare to?

When looking at current college players, Curtis, while much bigger, compares most to LSU Tigers QB Garrett Nussmeier. Their skillsets are eerily similar. They are both gunslingers, have live arms and things don’t have to be perfect for them to still make a play. Both players play the game with supreme confidence and make players around them better.

In Athens, Curtis can play like Stetson Bennett did in his last two seasons in college. Like Bennett, Curtis can use his legs, acumen, resourcefulness, and accuracy to lead this team. Unlike Bennett, Curtis is bigger and has a stronger arm. — Luginbill

What does the team’s QB roster look like now?

Curtis joins a QB room with highly rated prospects with limited experience on the field. Gunner Stockton was the fifth-rated dual-threat QB in the 2022 class and filled in admirably late last year for an injured Carson Beck.

In all likelihood, Stockton will be the starter in Athens over the next two seasons. However, Ryan Puglisi is uber-talented and will also push for the starting job in 2025 and UGA signed two QBs in the 2025 class. The reality is that this decision, if Curtis signs in December, will likely lead to at least one or more players entering the transfer portal. — Luginbill

What’s next for Oregon and Georgia’s recruiting classes?

Round 2 between the Bulldogs and Ducks comes May 13 when five-star offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell announces his commitment. No. 3 in the 2026 ESPN 300, Cantwell will visit both programs in the closing stages of his recruitment, and he certainly won’t be the last elite prospect the two powerhouses battle over, either.

Curtis’ commitment gives Smart and Co. a cornerstone pledge in the 2026 cycle. With the No. 1 overall passer in hand, Georgia will work to build around him. Top running back prospect Derrek Cooper (No. 7 in the 2026 ESPN) and four-star rusher Savion Hiter (No. 27) are a pair of priority targets at another position of need, as is in-state rusher Jae Lamar (No. 129). Five-star end Kaiden Prothro (No. 19 overall) could be the next piece in Georgia’s stellar tight end pipeline, and five-star offensive tackle Immanuel Iheanacho (No. 12) will be on campus for an official visit later this month.

On defense, the Bulldogs remain firmly in the mix for top linebacker Tyler Atkinson (No. 13) and No. 1 athlete Brandon Arrington (No. 14), as well as top-50 defensive backs Jireh Edwards (No. 30), Justice Fitzpatrick (No. 42) and Chauncey Kennon (No. 49).

Oregon whiffed on Curtis, but with multiple years of eligibility for third-year passers Dante Moore and Austin Novosad — paired with the arrival of four-star freshman Akili Smith Jr. — the Ducks don’t have to sign a quarterback in the 2026 class.

Oregon has been in contact with five-star Houston quarterback pledge Keisean Henderson (No. 16 overall) this spring. But the Ducks’ top non-Curtis quarterback target is four-star passer Ryder Lyons (No. 50), who intends to take a mission trip following his senior year and would not join Oregon until 2027. Given the program’s lack of an immediate need at the position, Lyons — the nation’s No. 5 quarterback prospect — could be an especially good fit in 2026.

Other top targets for the Ducks this cycle include: Iheanacho, Atkinson, Arrington, defensive end Richard Wesley (No. 18), safety Jett Washington (No. 22) and tight end Mark Bowman (No. 24). — Eli Lederman

How does this affect the QB dominoes?

As noted, Oregon doesn’t have to sign a QB in this cycle, but with Curtis off the board, the Ducks should still be a major player across the seven months between now and the early signing period.

That could hold significant ramifications for Houston if the Ducks up their efforts to flip Henderson. It could also impact USC and BYU if Oregon turns its full attention to Lyons this summer. The Ducks could look toward other quarterbacks across the country, too.

Alongside Oregon, Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, LSU, North Carolina, Ohio State, Ole Miss and South Carolina stand among the top programs still active in the quarterback market this spring.

However, as of May 5, only four of the 18 quarterbacks ranked inside the 2026 ESPN 300 remain uncommitted. With Curtis now committed, expect the recruitments of those remaining quarterbacks to pick up steam in the coming months.

Lyons is set for June officials with BYU, USC and Oregon. Ole Miss remains the front-runner for Duckworth, who also holds heavy interest from Auburn, Florida State and South Carolina. Bowe Bentley (No. 264) will get to Georgia, LSU and Oklahoma later this spring, while former Purdue pledge Oscar Rios (No. 193) will take official trips to Virginia Tech, Utah, Arizona and Colorado after an April visit to Oklahoma State. — Lederman

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Technology

Here are the SpaceX employees who were elected to run Musk’s new company town of Starbase, Texas

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May 5, 2025

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Here are the SpaceX employees who were elected to run Musk's new company town of Starbase, Texas

The SpaceX Starship sits on a launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 12, 2024, ahead of the Starship Flight 5 test. The test will involve the return of Starship’s Super Heavy Booster to the launch site.

Sergio Flores | Afp | Getty Images

Over the weekend, Elon Musk got his new company town along the Texas Gulf Coast. Controlling the city are three SpaceX employees, who all ran unopposed.

As NBC News reported, the election determining incorporation of the city of Starbase concluded on Saturday night, with 212 votes in favor and only six against. Just 143 votes were needed for the measure to pass.

Starbase was victorious in becoming a type C city, which in Texas applies to a previously unincorporated city, town or village of between 201 and 4,999 inhabitants. The city includes the SpaceX launch facility and company-owned land covering a 1.6 square-mile area.

The mayor is 36-year-old Bobby Peden, who has spent more than 12 years working for SpaceX and is currently vice president for Texas test and launch operations. Prior to joining the rocket maker in 2013, Peden was a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Starbase has two commissioners, both from the SpaceX employee ranks.

One is Jenna Petrzelka, 39, who was an operations engineering manager at SpaceX until July, and now identifies as a philanthropist, according to her application to be on the ballot. She’s married to Joe Petrzelka, a vice president of Starship engineering and almost 14-year veteran at SpaceX.

The other commissioner is Jordan Buss, 40, a senior director of environmental health and safety for SpaceX who joined the company in 2023.

Musk, who has assumed a central role in President Donald Trump’s administration responsible for slashing the size of the federal government, began acquiring land for SpaceX in Boca Chica, Texas, about a decade ago. The first integrated Starship vehicle launched from the site, known as Starbase, in April 2023, and exploded in mid-flight.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service soon disclosed details about the aftermath of the explosion, including that a “3.5-acre fire started south of the pad site on Boca Chica State Park land,” following the test flight.

State and federal regulators have fined SpaceX for violations of the Clean Water Act, and said the company had repeatedly polluted waters in the Boca Chica area. Environmental advocates and indigenous groups have also sued both the Federal Aviation Administration and SpaceX over the company’s flight tests and launch activity in the area.

Those groups said in legal filings that SpaceX caused harm to local habitat and endangered species due to vehicle traffic, noise, heat, explosions and fragmentation caused by the company’s construction, rocket testing and launch practices.

A SpaceX spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a post on X on Saturday, the account for StarbaseTX wrote, “Becoming a city will help us continue building the best community possible for the men and women building the future of humanity’s place in space.”

WATCH: SpaceX launches third test flight of massive Starship rocket

SpaceX launches third test flight of massive Starship rocket

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Environment

Trump blocked wind projects, and now 17 states and DC are suing

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May 5, 2025

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Trump blocked wind projects, and now 17 states and DC are suing

Equinor Empire Wind
Photo: Equinor

Seventeen state attorneys general and DC are fighting a Trump executive order that froze permits and funding for all onshore and offshore wind projects on January 20.

The coalition is asking a federal judge to declare the executive order illegal and prevent the Trump administration from obstructing wind energy development. It was filed in federal court in Massachusetts.

New York attorney general Letitia James is leading the coalition. James said, “This arbitrary and unnecessary directive threatens the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments, and it is delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet.”

Federal agencies have stopped issuing permits for wind projects across the board and even pulled the plug on the fully approved Empire Wind in New York, which was already under construction. Developer Equinor, majority owned by the Norwegian government, went through a seven-year permitting process and is considering separate legal actions.

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Massachusetts attorney general Andrea Joy Campbell said that Trump’s “attempts to stop homegrown wind energy development directly contradict his claims that there is a growing need for reliable domestic energy.”

The coalition argues that the action violates the Administrative Procedure Act and other federal laws because the Trump administration, “among other things, provides no reasoned explanation for categorically and indefinitely halting all wind energy development.”

Trump’s executive order puts billions of dollars in state investments at risk, jeopardizing everything from wind industry infrastructure to supply chains and workforce training that’s already well underway.

The coalition consists of attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington. 

Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build

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