'Nightcaps' is a daily column that catches you up on the biggest sports, news and culture stories you may have missed while pretending to do work at your desk. It runs Monday–Friday on OutKick.com.

I know all eyes are on the Commonwealth today (sickening, by the way), but let's all just take a step back for a second and enjoy the simpler things in life.

We're here. An actual college football Friday. Labor Day weekend. One of the most underrated weekends of the entire calendar year.

WEEK ONE UPSET SPECIAL: THESE THREE COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAMS SHOULD BE ON UPSET ALERT THIS WEEKEND

Football last night. Football tonight. And tomorrow. And the next day. And the day AFTER that! But wait, there's more!

After Monday, we take a full 48 hours off before the NFL season kicks off on Wednesday.

Lordy. She's here, and she's just as beautiful as I imagined. How lucky are we? What a blessing.

Let's roll.

Welcome to a Friday Nightcaps — the one where Sophie Cunningham supports the vets like a patriot, and then gets us fired up for football season ... again, like a patriot.

What else? I've got a poor woman getting trucked on the sidelines in Piscataway last night, an absolute UNIT in the high school football ranks, and the Buffaloes were FEELING it after upsetting Georgia Tech.

What a scene!

OK, grab you whatever you'd like on this first Friday of September — dealer's choice today! — and settle in for a Friday 'Cap!

There she is — your Week 1 viewing schedule. It's perfect.

Honestly, though? Not the greatest Week 1 the sport has given us. LSU-Clemson is obviously the headliner tomorrow, but there's not a ton of great games before it.

The early games are a slog (except for North Texas-Indiana on FOX, of course!). The 3:30 hour gives us Baylor-Auburn and Boise State-Oregon, for those pining for the old SEC on CBS theme song.

CLEMSON'S DABO SWINNEY THROWS SHADE AT LANE KIFFIN, LSU OVER BRINGING IN NFL PLAYERS: 'IT'S EMBARRASSING'

Not a ton of competition for LSU-Clemson in the late hour. I don't care, though. It's back. We're back. Thank God.

No more WNBA talk ...

... Unless, of course, it involves Sophie Cunningham!

She leads us off today.

"Spicy Sophie tapping in."

She just refuses to miss. Let's put Sophie in the juror pool up in the Commonwealth and see how things play out!

"It's the start of a new football season. We are hyped. We're excited. We're about to kick some butt this year. Come out, be loud, and show your Mizzou pride."

Sophie gets it. She's just as tired as we are from all the WNBA nonsense. She's ready to get this season started.

PS: Sophie welcomed veterans to Gainbridge Fieldhouse all season? Lordy. Absolute patriot. Between that and the return of college football, the left is in shambles today.

OK, let's keep this class moving right along. It's a Football Friday, after all.

Anyone catch the end of the Colorado-Ga. Tech game last night? I'm not talking about the blocked field goal.

I'm talking about what happened after the blocked field goal:

Look at those maniacs! Big win, and they let the Georgia Tech student section HAVE it. Look at the one player who actually attempts to jump into the stands.

Risky little move. He got swatted away like a bug. Probably for the best. I've seen that movie end poorly far too many times.

Speaking of last night's appetizer, let's rapid-fire this Friday class into our first BIG weekend of the year.

First up? Let's go ahead and check in with the fans up in New Jersey!

Incredible. What a game for the UMass Minutemen! First win over an FBS team since 2023! Do you know how much Rutgers paid for that shellacking?

$1.5 million. It was the second largest paycheck for a LOSS in college football history:

Goodness gracious. The accounts in Piscataway are pulling their hair out today. Just a stunning upset.

That wasn't even my favorite part of the game. Anyone here stick around for the postgame fireworks?!

Amazing. The obvious question is, why not just cancel the show? I don't know. Can you do that? Can you just cancel a fireworks show because the home team lost? I assume you can just roll them over to the next home game, right?

Yikes. Never mind. USC comes to town next. I don't see that first home 'dub coming until Howard the following week.

Put those fireworks on ice, fellas!

Next? Let's get to some reader mail on the way out. I have a loaded mailbox and it needs a good Labor Day cleaning before we start the fall season.

Yesterday, we all mocked Ryan Reynolds for his absolutely baffling comments on how tough the 1980s were to live through ... because of the Cuban Missile Crisis (which ended in the '60s).

I asked y'all if there was any truth to it.

From Jeff D:

As a kid in the 80s , I can’t say that the Cuban Missile Crisis was anywhere at the top of our minds. I do remember a couple of events that were at the top of our minds — the Challenger explosion and baby Jessica being rescued from a well.

Baby Jessica was a crazy story of a little girl falling down a well and eventually being rescued, the event really brought the country together and her rescue was a joyous moment for the country.

All in all, most memories from that period were positive and I’m pretty sure the Cuban Missile Crisis never crossed our minds.

Thanks, Jeff! Would you look at that? A child was in peril in the 1980s and the entire country rallied around her. Weird. Surely that would happen in today's world, right?

... Right?

Next? From Brian S:

Ryan Reynolds went a bit overboard with the hyperbole, but it wasn’t all fun and games in the 80’s. We 80’s kids lived under the cloud of potential nuclear war for much of the decade. There was a TV movie in 1983 called "The Day After" that terrified the nation. Truly.

I think that nuclear war "threat" fed into our, "F–k it, let’s just enjoy ourselves and have a great time" attitude. There was no Cuban Missile Crisis hangover. Vietnam though? Hell yes. Just look at all the movies about that war released during the 80’s.

Now, having said all that, I’d give anything to go back there. You often write, "What a time to be alive." Well the 80’s truly embodied that.

Thanks, Brian! I may have to look up "The Day After" this weekend. Those things always fascinate me.

Finally ... From Eric P:

The 80’s was one of the best decades in history. The best music; Cars still had a little style and nothing woke about sports. Oh, and I managed to hit a 3-pointer to win a game at the buzzer over Mark Langston in an alumni game at my college against a team of Mariners.

This Reynolds idiot was 8-9 years old and there was no strife. Won’t watch his piece of s–t movie on general principles.

Thanks, Eric! I do love the cars from the '80s. One of these day, I want an old 1980s pickup truck. It's a weird dream of mine. Just to drive around town.

One of these days.

STAY "FEARLESS" ON THE GO! TAKE TOMI LAHREN WITH YOU. DOWNLOAD THE TLIF PODCAST NOW!

OK, that's it for today — and this week! It's a High School Football Friday, so let's end class with an absolute UNIT out of Alabama.

See y'all Monday.

Fine. Anymore '80s nostalgia? Email me at Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT originally rated President Donald Trump as a major threat to democracy when prompted, according to a new study, but the results differed following an inquiry from Fox News Digital. 

Media Research Center (MRC) associate editor Gabriela Pariseau asked ChatGPT to rate how much of a threat to democracy Trump poses on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the maximum threat and one being no threat at all, and the AI model initially declared the president to be a nine.

At the time, ChatGPT said the assessment of Trump’s threat to democracy was "based on his documented conduct and the current trajectory — not whether one agrees with his policies," according to the study. It added that the "main reasons are his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, refusal to accept the legitimate results, pressure on election officials, and the January 6 attacks."

AI CHATBOTS TAKE HEAT OVER LEFT-WING BIAS: ‘NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED NEUTRAL’

ChatGPT then declared, "I don’t give it a 10/10 because the United States still has substantial institutional checks—courts, states, Congress, civil society, independent media, and election—and those checks have successfully constrained Trump at important moments," according to screenshots provided by the MRC.

When asked what other world leaders, past or present, would match Trump’s threat to democracy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, former Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, former Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko were listed by ChatGPT.

"ChatGPT, however, attempted to downplay its ranking of Trump alongside various authoritarian dictators by claiming that its rating ‘doesn't mean these leaders are equivalent to one another,’" Pariseau wrote when summarizing her findings.

ChatGPT also listed Adolf Hitler at the time, giving him a 10, instead of a nine, because he "ultimately destroyed Germany’s democratic system and established a totalitarian dictatorship," according to screenshots provided by the MRC.

'VIEW' HOST ANA NAVARRO REJECTS HUNTER BIDEN'S ASSERTION THAT TRUMP IS 'ALREADY' A 'DICTATOR'

MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider was appalled that Trump was only a single notch below Hitler, saying "it is absurd to say that filing civil litigation in U.S. courts is the same as murdering six million Jews."

However, OpenAI appeared alarmed at the MRC's findings and insisted the model isn't trained to have an agenda.

"ChatGPT is designed to be objective by default. We have not seen these types of results consistently across all of our models, and the responses provided to us were not reflective of how ChatGPT is intended to work. This shouldn't happen and is not how the model is trained to behave," an OpenAI spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

HOW TRUMP PANIC BROKE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND FUELED ENDLESS CRISIS POLITICS

The morning after Fox News Digital asked OpenAI for comment on the MRC study, the chatbot yielded different results. The same prompt declared, "I can’t assign a numeric rating to a U.S. political figure. Qualitatively, based on efforts to challenge election results, pressure institutions, attack independent media and courts, and expand executive power, President Trump represents a serious threat to democratic norms and institutional checks and balances."

Despite no longer labeling Trump a threat to democracy, MRC President David Bozell feels Americans should know how AI systems are built and trained. 

"OpenAI is coughing up the same tired anti-Trump garbage the old media have been peddling for years," Bozell told Fox News Digital. 

"Spare us the ‘golly, how did that happen?’ routine. New technology, same old bias. At some point, it is not an accident. It is the programming," he continued. "Americans deserve to know how these systems are built and trained, not another corporate song and dance every time the bias gets caught in broad daylight."

A judge paused a key part of Virginia’s new restrictions on local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, handing Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration a major legal setback as a similar fight plays out in neighboring Maryland.

George H.W. Bush-appointed Judge Robert Payne on Monday blocked a key piece of a law signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger that heavily restricts interagency cooperation and would have required local sheriffs to modify or dissolve their individual policies, known as 287(g) agreements, by a Tuesday deadline.

Payne ruled the federal government is likely to prevail on several claims in its lawsuit against Virginia, finding "the Virginia 287(g) Law violates the Contracts Clause [of the] U.S. Constitution because it is a ‘substantial impairment’ of the existing contracts between the federal government and Virginia localities."

Payne did not strike down the law but paused its implementation as the feds’ case against Richmond proceeds.

FIRST ON FOX: DOJ SUES SPANBERGER’S VIRGINIA OVER LAWS KNEECAPPING FEDERAL AGENTS AS MASK WAR ESCALATES

He also found that Virginia’s law wrongly attempts to "regulate conduct of federal law enforcement in the enforcement of federal immigration laws."

"At this point, saying ‘I told you so’ seems almost pointless," Virginia House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, told Fox News Digital when responding to the news.

LEGAL EXPERT UNLEASHES ON SPANBERGER'S NEW EXECUTIVE ORDER TARGETING ICE: 'POLITICAL THEATER'

Kilgore said Republicans repeatedly warned Spanberger’s administration that its limits on cooperation with ICE would waste taxpayer money and run into these kinds of legal problems.

"States cannot tell the federal government how to do its job. But Democrats refused to listen," Kilgore said.

In that regard, Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., drafted a bill at the federal level aimed directly at Spanberger’s law.

Cline’s 287(g) Cooperation Act would require state and local law enforcement to enter into interagency agreements with ICE as a condition of receiving federal Community-Oriented Policing (COPS) grants.

Additionally, all five of Virginia’s Republican members of Congress wrote Spanberger earlier this year urging her not to undo former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s statewide directive of Richmond-Washington cooperation on the immigration enforcement front.

The major setback to Democrats’ plans came as neighboring Maryland found itself in a similar legal fight, though a judge has not yet ruled in that case.

HOCHUL REMAINS DEFIANT AFTER SHERIFFS SUE OVER LAW BANNING COOPERATION WITH ICE: 'BRING IT ON'

Gov. Wes Moore allowed a similar bill to become law earlier this year that would prevent most cooperation between local sheriffs and ICE. Despite Maryland being one of the bluest states in the union, the majority of its counties are geographically red.

That dynamic revealed itself as 17 of its 24 sheriffs, led by Harford County’s Jeffrey Gahler, Wicomico County’s Mike Lewis and Frederick County’s Charles Jenkins launched a lawsuit against the law.

"They want to do everything they can to handcuff law enforcement, handcuff sheriffs across the state," Jenkins said in March.

Sen. Clarence Lam, D-Elkridge, a bill sponsor, argued the measure ensures local jails won’t be used as a "front door to the federal government’s oftentimes deportation pipeline," according to Maryland Matters.

Lam’s Community Trust Act requires a court order to provide immigration-related information and to transfer inmates based on immigration status, according to the outlet.

SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER

Moore did not sign the legislation, but it became law after he notified Senate President Bill Ferguson IV, D-Baltimore, of his decision after the bill passed 32-15.

Gahler’s coalition later sued, setting up a potentially similar battle in Greenbelt federal court to the one making a splash across the Potomac.

The Chicago Cubs bludgeoned their National League Central rival Milwaukee Brewers and made all sorts of home-run history in the process.

The Cubs blasted a franchise-record nine home runs in the victory, with star third baseman Alex Bregman clubbing three of them. The team’s nine home runs matched the second most by one team in a single game in MLB history.

Cubs starter Clay Holmes threw a scoreless first inning, and then the offense went to work. Left fielder Tyrone Taylor opened the scoring with a two-run, 419-foot homer into the left-center-field bleachers off Brewers' starter Kyle Harrison.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE OUTKICK SPORTS COVERAGE

Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner went back-to-back with Taylor, hammering Harrison’s 94-mph fastball into the left-field seats for a solo home run to give the Cubs a 3-0 lead.

The home run barrage continued into the bottom of the second inning when Bregman cranked the first of his three home runs, a two-run shot off another Harrison fastball that gave the Cubs a 6-0 lead.

In the fourth inning, the Cubs went back-to-back for the second time in the game. Right fielder Seiya Suzuki hit a solo home run to center field, and Bregman’s second home run of the game went to left-center field.

Bregman’s second home run was the fifth blast Harrison allowed in four innings of work.

ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON'T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!

Cubs catcher Carson Kelly hit the team’s sixth home run of the game in the bottom of the seventh inning, a solo shot off DL Hall that gave the Cubs a 10-2 lead. After Kelly’s blast, Brewers manager Pat Murphy had seen enough and put first baseman Andrew Vaughn on the mound to finish the game.

With a position player on the mound, the Cubs didn’t stop slugging. Matt Shaw, Michael Conforto and Bregman all hit home runs off Vaughn over two innings.

With the Cubs' nine home-run output, they set the National League record for most home runs in August, with 62.

"The position-player stuff gets a little ridiculous at the end there, honestly," Cubs manager Craig Counsell said, according to MLB.com. "That’s great we set a record. And the guys aren’t going to stop hitting. Guys are not going to stop hitting. They’re going to take advantage of it, and they should. They absolutely should. We’ll take it."

RED SOX STARTER RECORDS AN OUT IN HILARIOUS FASHION BY HUGGING MARINERS' BASERUNNER

With their 62nd home run, the Cubs passed the 2023 Atlanta Braves for the most home runs in August. The Braves had 61. The 2019 New York Yankees hold the record for the most home runs in August, with 74.

The list of home run feats does not end there.

With Bregman’s second three-home-run game of the month, the Cubs now have four such games this season. NL MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong, who did it Saturday, and shortstop Dansby Swanson, who did it July 1, were the other two players to accomplish the feat.

The 2001 Brewers, 1956 Cincinnati Reds, 1950 Brooklyn Dodgers and now the 2026 Cubs are the only four teams to have four individual three-run home-run games in a season.

Bregman, who hit 12 home runs in August, and Crow-Armstrong, who hit 15, are just the third pair of teammates to each hit at least 12 homers in the same month. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris did it twice for the Yankees, in July 1961 and June 1960. Iván Rodríguez and Rafael Palmeiro did it in August 1999 with the Texas Rangers.

The Cubs (78-60) will look to keep their bats hot when they play the Brewers (85-53) in the second game of their four-game series Tuesday at 7:40 p.m. ET.

Elected leaders and senior officials in the U.S. and Canada denounced the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on Monday after it reversed guidance telling journalists not to describe the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorism without attribution.

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino told Fox News Digital Monday that the reversal had not resolved her concerns.

"While it's certainly good that some modicum of reality has prevailed in this instance, it should not have required a week of international outrage and pressure from the United States Government. The fact that the institutional instinct of the CBC was to downplay the 9/11 terror attacks reveals a deep ideological rot that cannot be ignored," Paladino said.

"Unfortunately, the CBC, like Canada itself, appears to be a fundamentally broken institution, and one correction made under severe duress doesn't change much of anything," she added.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD-LINKED NETWORKS EMBEDDED ACROSS CANADIAN INSTITUTIONS, NEW REPORT ALLEGES

CBC Head of Public Affairs Chuck Thompson responded Monday by directing Fox News Digital to the broadcaster's revised Editor's Blog, which explained its Friday reversal.

"After reviewing our current language guidance, we have decided to adjust it to clarify that direct attribution is not required for describing the historic events of 9/11 as terrorism," CBC News’ senior director of journalistic standards and public trust Basem Boshra said.

The change came one day after Fox News Digital first reported that an internal memo authored by Boshra had directed staff to avoid the terrorism label unless it was attributed. Boshra's memo gave CBC journalists an explicit instruction on terminology.

"Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks," the memo had said.

SMITHSONIAN-LINKED MUSEUM IN EL-SAYED’S BACKYARD PUTS AMERICA’S POST-9/11 RESPONSE ON TRIAL

Former New York Gov. George Pataki, who led the state on 9/11, said the guidance sanitized the deliberate hijackings.

"Fear of being accused of Islamophobia cannot become an excuse for denying the plain truth. This is a shameful failure of moral courage. Truth matters in a free society," Pataki said on X.

Canadian criticism crossed party lines. 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre demanded a retraction and apology.

"To call 9/11 anything other than a terrorist attack is an appalling distortion of history. It dishonours the victims and their families, the survivors, and the first responders who suffered from the horrors of that day," Poilievre said on X.

JUDGE THROWS OUT KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED'S 9/11 CONFESSION IN ALREADY LONG WAIT FOR TRIAL

Canadian Culture Minister Marc Miller of the Liberal Party said the reversal corrected guidance that had caused legitimate anger. 

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said Canada had always recognized 9/11 as history's deadliest terrorist attack. CBC posted its revision less than an hour after his statement.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE

House Republicans also pressed Canada to explain the policy.

"What possible motive could there be for sanitizing the worst terrorist attack on American soil? Care to explain, @Canada?" the House Republican Conference said.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., also criticized the guidance. 

FBI Director Kash Patel said it bastardized history, while U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said failing to confront terrorist ideologies endangered the nations’ shared security partnership.

The CBC initially told Fox News Digital that the memo reflected a longstanding attribution policy, pointing to an earlier explanation that the terms were politically and emotionally loaded. It later said the leaked excerpt lacked context and caused concern, anger and hurt.

The 9/11 attacks, which happened 25 years ago next month, are the most lethal terrorist attacks in history.

Nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four planes, flying two into the World Trade Center in New York City and another into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth airliner crashed in Pennsylvania without hitting its target after heroic passengers tried to retake the controls.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for comment, but did not immediately receive responses.

California could soon formally recognize two of Islam’s most important holy days under legislation that would give state workers greater flexibility to take them off and allow public schools to close in observance of the holidays.

The measure, which overwhelmingly passed the state Assembly and is awaiting Senate action, would recognize Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha in state law and could soon head to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Assembly Bill 2017, introduced by Democratic San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney, passed the Assembly 64-1 in late May. It must clear the Senate before the legislative session ends Monday to reach Newsom.

TRUMP DOJ EXPANDS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PROTECTIONS AFTER MAJOR SUPREME COURT RULINGS

The bill would let state employees use existing paid holiday credits to take time off for Eid. Public schools and community colleges could also close for the holidays.

"California is home to one of the largest and most vibrant Muslim communities in the country, and their traditions deserve recognition and respect," Haney said in a news release about the bill in March. "No student should have to choose between celebrating one of the holiest days of their faith and showing up to school, and no worker should feel they have to sacrifice their religious observance."

Haney also said the bill is also about treating Muslim Californians equally.

"AB 2017 is about making sure Muslim Californians are seen, valued, and treated with the same dignity as every other community in our state," he said.

Eid al-Fitr, or the "Festival of Breaking the Fast," marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. Eid al-Adha, or the "Festival of Sacrifice," commemorates the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son in obedience to God.

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICT SUED OVER FIELD TRIP TO MOSQUE WHERE STUDENTS ALLEGEDLY DONNED MUSLIM GARB

Supporters say the bill would make it easier for Muslim workers and students to take part in Eid prayers and spend the holidays with their families.

"For decades, Muslim families across the state have had to navigate an unfair balancing act between their faith and their academic or professional obligations," Oussama Mokeddem, legislative and government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) California chapter, said in a statement in July. "AB 2017 is a meaningful step toward ensuring Muslim students can celebrate Eid with the same dignity, respect, and accommodation afforded to other faith communities."

Hala Hijazi, founder of the Muslim Impact Council, recalled missing Eid with her family earlier in her career while working for the city of San Francisco.

"It was really painful to not be with my family," Hijazi told the Sacramento Bee. She said her family would go to lunch after Eid al-Fitr services and give gifts to the children.

The California Family Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group, opposes the bill’s school provisions, while saying it supports allowing students to take time off for religious holidays.

FEDERAL COURT UPHOLDS TEXAS LAW REQUIRING TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC CLASSROOMS

The group objects to language allowing schools to hold exercises "acknowledging and celebrating the meaning and importance" of Eid. It also criticized a provision allowing the State Board of Education to develop a model curriculum guide for those exercises.

"No California statute authorizes public schools to hold exercises celebrating the meaning of Christmas, Easter, or Good Friday," the group said in a May statement, arguing Christian and Jewish holidays have not received comparable treatment. "The asymmetry is written into the law."

If signed into law, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha would join other holidays California has recognized, including Lunar New Year and Diwali.

California would not be the first state to recognize the Eid holidays. Washington was the first, according to the Sacramento Bee. Hijazi told the newspaper that California’s proposal would go further by allowing state workers to use paid holiday credits, while Washington allows unpaid time off.

Controversial former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos was deported to the United Kingdom one day after ICE agents arrested him at a Louisiana airport, with DHS saying he overstayed his welcome in the United States and skipped an immigration hearing.

In a new statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Yiannopoulos on Friday, one day after agents arrested the British national at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, Louisiana.

Yiannopoulos was then held in ICE custody in Alexandria, Louisiana, a major hub for the agency’s deportation operations, before his removal from the country.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS NEW ICE HOLDING FACILITY NEAR LOUISIANA DEPORTATION FLIGHT HUB

DHS said Yiannopoulos legally entered the United States through New York City on May 14, 2019, but remained after his authorized stay expired. 

An immigration judge issued him a final order of removal on July 22 after he failed to appear for his immigration hearing, according to the agency.

"Yiannopoulos legally entered the country on May 14, 2019, through New York City, New York. He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws," DHS said.

BIDEN JUDGE OVERRULED ON KEY TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICY

The agency used Yiannopoulos’ removal to issue a broader warning to illegal immigrants and tout the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.

DHS said it reversed a Biden administration policy that it claimed allowed illegal immigrants to fly around the country, adding that the department will no longer permit such travel unless it is tied to a departure from the United States.

DHS ISSUES $84B IN FINES TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS UNDER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

"Under President Trump, DHS will no longer tolerate this," the agency said. "This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self deport."

DHS urged illegal immigrants to use the CBP Home app to arrange their own departures, saying the federal government is offering $3,000 and a free flight to those who leave voluntarily.

DHS HITS BACK AT JAMES TALARICO AFTER DEMOCRAT CLAIMS ICE 'KIDNAPPED' 5-YEAR-OLD BOY DEPORTED WITH FATHER

"Being in detention is a choice," DHS said, adding that people who use the app may preserve a chance to return to the United States legally in the future.

Those who do not leave voluntarily, the agency warned, will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.

ICE ARRESTS SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT ATTENDANT IN NASHVILLE FOR ALLEGEDLY OVERSTAYING VISA SINCE 2021

Yiannopoulos rose to national prominence as a provocative political commentator and former editor at Breitbart News. He drew national attention for his provocative speeches and online commentary, including appearances that sparked protests at UC Berkeley.

Fox News' Bill Melugin and Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.