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Leaked texts expose Trump's favorite Democrat as basically a Republican

Sen. John Fetterman might claim to be a Democrat, but according to a New York Magazine report, bombshell leaked texts have exposed why he is increasingly President Donald Trump and MAGA's favorite: he basically sounds like a Republican already.

This week, New York Magazine published a new piece about Fetterman digging into the relationship with "little-known writer," David Safier, who has "encouraged and counseled" the senator in his staunch support for Israel, as the rest of the Democratic Party has moved to a notably more critical stance. Within the report, as highlighted by The Daily Beast on Friday, were a number of leaked text messages in which he sounds much more in line with typical conservative talking points, "mocking free healthcare, dismissing the Epstein files as a 'nothing burger' and calling Democrats hypocritical for their outrage at the killing of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis."

The New York Magazine report noted that Fetterman's staff in Washington D.C., had grown "incredulous and exhausted" by the start of 2026, claiming that he "was acting like a Republican" in private. In January, for example, he sent a report to his staff which showed that the average annual cost of healthcare for Americans was around $4,000.

“How should it cost? Free?” he texted. “I don’t understand what affordability it is.”

When speaking about the fallout of the Epstein files, Fetterman said that there was nothing to them and that the worst of the revealed materials were about former President Bill Clinton. Experts had previously warned that the Trump administration would try to manipulate the release of the files so as to make Trump's enemies look worse than his allies and himself.

“Epstein was a nothing burger," Fetterman wrote to a staffer in January. "Worst pics I’ve seen were from Clinton lol.”

In the wake of Alex Pretti's death at the hands of immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year, Fetterman argued to a staffer that it was hypocritical for Democrats to make certain arguments in his defense.

“Kyle Rittenhouse brought a gun to a protest,” Fetterman wrote in the message. “He was roundly condemned for that. Why are now democrats defending the nurse it was legal to carry. Both legal weapons. Square that.”

As the Daily Beast noted, Pretti never fired the gun that he had, while Rittenhouse did, fatally injuring two men after traveling to the scene of a protest.

Fetterman's significant drift to the right since entering office has seen his popularity with Democrats drop to historically unprecedented levels. This has fueled some rumors that he might switch parties, with reports suggesting that some prominent Republicans are egging him on. Despite feeling abandoned by Democrats, Fetterman himself dismissed those rumors and said that he would make for a "s—— Republican."

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There is no bigger Trump lie right now

On June 1st, despite a ceasefire ostensibly underway in the US-Israeli war on Iran, Israel’s prime minister launched a major escalation against Lebanon, including threatening airstrikes against the Lebanese capital. The US president called the Israeli leader, furiously demanding an end to Israel’s escalation. Six days later, Israel attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, long understood to be a red line for Hezbollah. The Lebanese resistance organization launched a limited response, sending 11 rockets towards Israel, almost all of which were intercepted; no one was hurt or killed. Trump called Netanyahu again, telling him in a brief call that now that Iran and Israel had each “had their fun,” that Israel should stand down.

Commentators across the Middle East and beyond debated whether Netanyahu would abide by Trump’s demand. What virtually none of them mentioned was that Trump had refused to even mention his most important pressure point: that if Israel resisted his order to stand down, the US would simply stop sending tons of weapons and tens of billions of dollars to the Israeli military. The close but sometimes divergent interests of the Middle East’s two powers, the global and the regional, was on full display.

It’s now been 106 days since Trump launched his preemptive and illegal military attack on Iran. On February 28, 2026, the world awoke to the fury of a new war in the Middle East after the United States and Israel had launched their joint assault against Iran, with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu standing shoulder to shoulder against their common foe. Claiming unbridled hegemony was on the agenda for both.

The US-Israeli war on Iran is rooted in longstanding US imperialist strategy and Israel’s national goals.

Today, with yet more fresh promises of a so-called “peace deal” that is nearly ready to be signed by Trump and Iranian leadership, the Israeli military is bombing the suburbs of Beirut despite ongoing claims of a “ceasefire.” Trying to understand the current doom loop, it’s vital we remember how we got here.

In the opening salvo of the US-Israeli attack, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, along with an unknown number of other top military and political leaders, was assassinated with a ballistic missile. Just an hour later, the US fired a Tomahawk missile directly at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the northern Iranian city of Minab—killing 156 people, 120 of them children, and destroying the school. The war’s official reasons, initially, were to eliminate the ostensible threat of Iran creating a nuclear weapon, and to destroy its conventional military capacity. The no-daylight US-Israeli partnership, Trump and Netanyahu as BFFs, the collaboration between the US and Israeli warplanes, bombers, drones, missiles… all seemed seamless and perfect.

Three months later, and half a dozen or so “ceasefires” announced, renounced, ignored and denounced, headlines around the world gleefully recounted a Trump phone call with Netanyahu. Focused on Israel’s escalating bombing of Lebanon threatening to derail the latest US-Iran ceasefire, the June 1 call reportedly started with Trump telling Netanyahu “you’re f------- crazy—you’d be in prison if it weren’t for me.“ The US president then went on to his ”Everybody hates you now“ remark. ”Everybody hates Israel because of this,“ he reportedly said.

Trump acknowledged saying it, and then, as is his usual style, moved on, quickly reclaiming his friendship with the Israeli prime minister. As was true with so many earlier ceasefires, Israel continued its massive bombing and its brutal occupation of south Lebanon, making a US-Iran ceasefire impossible. In the meantime, throughout the months of the war, commentators, politicians of all stripes, journalists and analysts across the globe were struggling to figure out what that war was actually being fought for.

War for What?

Real fear of an actual nuclear bomb was certainly not the answer. After all, US intelligence agencies have agreed for years that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”

Despite that clear assessment, US B-2 stealth bombers still dropped 14 of their 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bombs on Iran’s civilian centrifuges at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz at the end of Israel’s 12-day war in June 2025. Trump and his supporters bragged of having “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. And then, eight months after that, in the early days of the US-Israeli 2026 war, those B-2s were back in the air, dropping more 30,000-pound and some smaller versions of the bunker-busters on Iran. Seems they don’t believe even their own intelligence agents.

They thought they could impose imperialism on the cheap—but it turns out not everyone is playing that game.

Rationales for the sudden war in 2026 (launched in the midst of US negotiations with Iran for a long-term ceasefire) were tossed around like confetti, ranging from stopping a nuclear threat (which of course didn’t exist because Iran didn’t have, wasn’t trying to make, and hadn’t even made a decision to try to build a nuclear weapon), to ending Iran’s support for its regional allies, to destroying Iran’s navy, to crippling its missile capacity, to protecting Iranian civilians or maybe encouraging a popular uprising, or perhaps even full-scale regime change. Later, once Iran had responded to the attacks by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Trump shifted to trying to justify the war as a means of forcing the reopening of the Strait, in effect waging the new war to get back to the situation that had existed until the US and Israel launched the war in the first place.

Not a Senseless War

None were very convincing arguments. The popular view emerged that this was a pointless war, being fought for nothing. But that was wrong—there was a purpose. Actually, there were several. The Israeli prime minister has shaped his political career, for more than 35 years, around the claim that only he could bring down the Iranian regime, falsely claiming it as an “existential threat” to Israel. (In fact, even if Iran changed its internal decisions and decided to try to build a nuclear weapon some day, it would not represent an existential threat to Israelis but only to Israel’s 47-year-old nuclear weapons monopoly in the Middle East.) Netanyahu needed the war to continue—any ceasefire, under any conditions, would weaken him politically.

On the US side, some of the war’s goals had to do with the personal obsessions of the president and his minions. Trump’s fixation on expanding US power around the world, and more importantly being seen as presiding over a return to the glory days of unchallenged US global domination, remain a driving force—as does his determination to “get a better deal” than Obama did with the successful Iran nuclear deal in 2015. For his self-defined “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth, the pageantry of a powerful military—not only “the most lethal” force in the world but more white, more male, and even more slim than any other army—could compensate for Hegseth’s lack of experience. For Secretary of State Marco Rubio, all roads lead to regime change in Cuba—and supporting all of Trump’s military assaults, including attacks on fishing boats in the Caribbean, kidnapping the president and seizing the oil resources of Venezuela, bombing Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria, all help set the stage for his life-long goal of destroying the Cuban revolution.

The Search for Hegemony

All those personal obsessions likely played some roles. But the US-Israeli war on Iran is also rooted in longstanding US imperialist strategy and Israel’s national goals. While Trump has shown himself for years as far more committed to maximizing his own and his family’s wealth and power than he is accountable to any particular faction of US capital or US elite power (except perhaps “the billionaires,” writ large), the trajectory of imperial expansion, especially in an era of greater and rising powers around the world, continues to shape much of US policy.

That is where the search for hegemony comes to the fore. For Israel—and especially for its longstanding prime minister—the attack on Iran both demonstrates and reinforces its role as unchallenged regional hegemon. That means asserting its power—a derivative power, given its strategic dependence on the United States, but power nonetheless—to seize land, dispossess and expel whole populations, and exert permanent control over countries, economies, and people—whenever, wherever, and for however long it chooses. Without being held accountable.

For Israel—and especially for its longstanding prime minister—the attack on Iran both demonstrates and reinforces its role as unchallenged regional hegemon.

To be recognized as the regional hegemonic power in the Middle East, Israel needs to not only “mow the grass” in Lebanon and in Gaza (as well as arming and empowering ideologically driven settlers in the West Bank to escalate their violent seizure of Palestinian land and ethnic cleansing of its population), it needs to continue to weaken, threaten, and when possible (with US backing) go to war against Iran, its sole challenger for regional control.

Mowing the Grass

Israelis—military and government officials, academics, journalists and others—routinely use the term “mowing the grass” to describe Tel Aviv’s consistent attacks against Israel’s neighbors. The phrase was first coined to describe Israel’s brutal 22-day assault on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, that began the day after Christmas 2008 and killed more than 1400 Palestinians, most of them civilians and including 300 children. Since then, it describes the frequent attacks on Gaza or Lebanon—ostensibly aimed at militant organizations but designed originally to kill massive numbers of civilians, displace hundreds of thousands or millions from their homes, and destroy huge swathes of homes, schools, churches, mosques, businesses—to remind everyone who it is who actually holds power.

Israel is saying that it will not allow Iran to remain an obstacle to Tel Aviv’s claim of full-blown dominance of the region. Netanyahu is making good of the threats he’s issued for the last 30 years.

Iran has historically been the main obstacle preventing Israel from consolidating that regional hegemonic role, and part of Netanyahu’s political power depends on his ability to keep the US-Israeli “special relationship” strong and to deal effectively with Iran. So going to war against Iran in complete and willing partnership with the United States serves to strengthen his still-shaky political position. What’s different now is that Israel is saying that it will not allow Iran to remain an obstacle to Tel Aviv’s claim of full-blown dominance of the region. Netanyahu is making good of the threats he’s issued for the last 30 years.

So Netanyahu remains committed to continuing this war against Iran, opposing ceasefires regardless of their terms—and most recently, escalating attacks against Lebanon precisely because they could prevent or shatter any ceasefire. Following the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in 2024, UN peacekeepers on the ground documented more than 10,000 Israeli violations of the agreement in just the first year. When a wobbly US-Iran ceasefire was announced on April 8, 2026, Israel responded with massive force against Beirut, launching more than 100 airstrikes within 10 minutes across the capital and killing 357 people, many of them civilians and at least 101 of them children and women.

Back in the USA….

For the United States, going to war against Iran could strengthen Washington’s longstanding commitment to maintaining global domination—a goal particularly relished by its power-obsessed and erratic president. The war was designed to both demonstrate and bolster the US role as unchallenged global hegemon. And doing so arm in arm with Israel, the regional version.

What a team they thought they would make. What they didn’t reckon with was the reality of Iran—its military, its government, its people. While there is no question US-Israeli military might massively outstrips that of Iran, it turned out that Tehran was able to use its not-insignificant drone and missile capacity in ways that maximized its power.

While there is no question US-Israeli military might massively outstrips that of Iran, it turned out that Tehran was able to use its not-insignificant drone and missile capacity in ways that maximized its power.

For example, Iran’s relatively few strikes on US bases and sometimes domestic facilities in the surrounding US-backed Gulf states had political consequences beyond their comparatively low levels of casualties. They showed how “protection” in the form of US military bases, weapons and troops in those countries did not keep their people safe, but rather laid a target on their backs. Most especially, Iran’s few direct attacks on ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz early in the war, had the much broader effect of shutting down the vital waterway entirely, as shipowners and insurance companies refused to take the risk.

Miscalculations

When Israel carried out its guided missile attack on the first day of the war, killing the supreme leader and a number of other top officials, the cheering in Washington and Tel Aviv reflected the assumption that the decapitation of the government would lead to chaos and its inability to function. The cheerleaders were wrong. As Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr noted in Foreign Affairs, the US and Israel “expected a quick victory through targeted assassinations of Iran’s leadership. But decapitation did not produce regime collapse. Instead, it opened the door for a new generation to take over.” Not only did Khamenei’s son take over his father’s position, but younger military, political, and business leaders filled in the gaps across the structures of power.

And while the Iranian leadership had been significantly weakened by public mobilization against both governmental inability to solve the escalating economic crisis and its increasingly repressive attacks against protesters, it appears it was not further weakened by the US-Israeli assault. As Nasr and Bajoghli describe the situation, the public anger of January 2026 in response to escalating repression of the mass uprisings, didn’t disappear with the US-Israeli assault. They wrote:

The war’s destruction has been vast: public infrastructure, factories, schools, hospitals, historic monuments, and even entire neighborhoods lie in ruins. As Israeli and American bombs and missiles pummeled the landscape, Trump threatened to arm separatists, redraw Iran’s borders, crush its economy and annihilate its civilization. Together, these military and rhetorical assaults provoked a nationalist reaction that cut across political divisions. Public anger has not disappeared. The grief, frustration and accumulated resentment of decades of misrule and repression remain. What has changed is the political landscape in which those feelings find expression. Dissent is now refracted through a national struggle against a foreign enemy that Iranians compare to Alexander the Great, who conquered the Persian empire in the 4th century BC; the Arab armies that invaded in the 7th century AD; and the Mongols, who came six centuries after that.Contrary to American and Israeli expectations, the war has not sparked street demonstrations. The longer it went on, the less the regime appeared threatened by public uprisings. Iranian society mobilized not against the state but alongside it, holding daily rallies across the country, forming human chains and gathering on bridges threatened by Trump. The sharp divide between state and society that had characterized Iran in January blurred—not through persuasion or repression, but through the shared experience of living through the bombing and witnessing its destruction.

Palestine

There was another reason for the US-Israeli war, that explains at least the timing, if not the overall rationale—Palestine. Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza for two years and eight months. There are now more than 73,000 known, identified, named Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed by Israeli bombs, tanks, bullets, drones, missiles, almost all paid for (and to a large degree produced) by US taxpayers. Thousands more lie dead under the rubble of what were once the cities, towns, refugee camps of the decimated Gaza Strip. The statistics belie the lives lost—babies, elders, children. Journalists and health workers in staggering numbers. And Israel’s genocide continues, people are still being killed by Israeli bombs, tanks and drones, as well as deliberately-imposed shortages of water, food, medical supplies, shelter.

The Gaza genocide is not unrelated or incidental to the US-Israeli war in Iran—it is a primary enabler. It is precisely the level of impunity, the absolute lack of accountability for any of the perpetrators of this crime against humanity, that has given Israeli and US leaders the confidence to go ahead with what many have called the “Gazafication of Iran” and the “Gazafication of Lebanon” without fearing there might be a price to be paid.

The Gaza genocide is not unrelated or incidental to the US-Israeli war in Iran—it is a primary enabler.

The international arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli leaders (Israel assassinated the Hamas leaders who were similarly charged) are ignored in most of the US-allied countries that Netanyahu and his former defense minister might want to visit. South Africa’s unprecedented effort to hold Israel accountable at the International Court of Justice for its violations of the Genocide Convention resulted in a powerful preliminary ruling that Israel’s actions plausibly do constitute genocide. Israel was ordered to carry out specific actions—starting with an end to killing people in Gaza—but it has yet to face any consequences for ignoring those orders. And no one knows when the final ruling might be issued—or if it will lead to some level of enforcement, either in the United Nations, by a coalition of governments, or, most likely by a newly-enraged, newly-engaged global civil society ready to move with ever greater energy, strategic clarity and political power to impose serious consequences on the governments and individuals responsible for the first genocide in history to be carried out openly, proudly, and visible to the world.

War Over War

For now, while the war against Iran continues, it looks like both Israel and the United States are moving into a different phase. They are still looking to claim power, still working to reshape political relations and consolidate regional and global power across the middle east. But rather than simply escalating again, as Israel still is in Lebanon, or continuing a grinding daily assault as it still is in Gaza—both actions armed and paid for by the US—they are facing some changed circumstances. Just maybe Washington and Tel Aviv are finding that it’s harder than they thought to re-order the whole Middle East—and to do that in tandem is harder than ever.

Trump seemed to think he could accomplish something dramatic and “beautiful” in Iran—encourage a popular uprising, maybe seize the oil and replace the leadership’s political orientation as if it were Venezuela—but then found that wasn’t so likely. Turns out Iran is not Venezuela. Netanyahu has massive public support among Jewish Israelis for continuing the war in Iran, though support for the war in Lebanon is not so popular. (It should not be forgotten that after 18 years of occupying South Lebanon, Israeli troops were finally pulled out in 2000 primarily because the government could not survive the mobilization of Israeli mothers angry that their sons in the IDF were occasionally being killed by Hezbollah’s retaliation actions..)

Trump seemed to think he could accomplish something dramatic and “beautiful” in Iran—encourage a popular uprising, maybe seize the oil and replace the leadership’s political orientation as if it were Venezuela—but then found that wasn’t so likely.

At home Netanyahu may be able to get away with claiming victory over Iran even if a ceasefire is imposed, by continuing Israel’s longstanding practice of assassinating Iranian scientists and political/military leaders, and occasional bombing raids. But Israel’s plummeting losses in the war of global legitimacy are certainly not likely to be reversed any time soon. The most recent Pew survey indicates sky-high majorities holding negative views of Israel and Netanyahu around the world—up to 95% in Pakistan, 78% negative in Sweden and Spain.

The global Palestinian rights mobilizations and the even broader movements for ceasefire and an end to genocide of course play a major role. Social movements and civil society activists around the world will continue to hold up the ICJ decisions and the UN General Assembly resolutions requiring governments to impose arms embargoes, boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.

And as the Strait remains closed and food shortages mount in the poorest countries, as Arab governments fearing public opposition at home reduce their ties with Israel and reject expansion of the Abraham Accords, and as Israel continues to kill Lebanese and Palestinian families, Trump’s claims will be less likely to be believed. With the mid-terms only a few months off, his claims of “We’re the winner, we won” are already ringing increasingly hollow. It doesn’t mean he won’t make the claims, it just means they’re not going to work.

For Trump, given the unexpected level of resilience in Iran, Tehran’s access to a virtually unlimited supply of cheap drones that are doing real damage to Gulf Arab states hosting US bases and troops, and its willingness to close the Strait as a pressure point with global ramifications, it’s going to be difficult to claim this war as a victory.

The search to consolidate regional and global power continues. It’s a big part of the reason the US and Israel are launching new wars and escalating longstanding attacks. People are still losing lands and lives as these hegemons rely on war to consolidate their positions. But neither Israel in the Middle East nor the United States in the world are unchallenged. They thought they could impose imperialism on the cheap—but it turns out not everyone is playing that game. The search for hegemonic power is far from settled.

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Why are some Black conservatives drawn to Nick Fuentes?

Far-right activist Nick Fuentes continues to gain momentum.

The openly racist and antisemitic podcaster has emerged as an influential figure on the American political right. Recent profiles in The Atlantic and The New York Times have elevated the 27-year-old into practically a household name.

But as a scholar of the American right, I’ve been fascinated by one aspect of Fuentes’ rise: the way some Black podcast hosts and political influencers have been receptive to some of his views.

“Isn’t that amazing?” Black pastor and radio host Jesse Lee Peterson gushed after hosting Fuentes on his show in 2023. “Finally, a white man standing up for what is right. And you heard him say it – he hate no one.”

At first blush, this might sound counterintuitive. Fuentes champions a racist vision of national populism. He has promoted the idea that the country’s identity depends on preserving its white majority. In the past, he’s defended Jim Crow, the segregationist legal regime that governed the South from the late-19th century to the 1960s, arguing that segregation was better for both Black and white Americans. He’s openly disavowed miscegenation, and castigated Vice President JD Vance for marrying an Indian woman and fathering mixed-race children.

Black people and white nationalists, however, have joined forces in the past. And a number of cultural and political shifts have broadened Fuentes’ appeal to Americans of all races.

Finding common ground

In the 20th century, Black and white nationalists were able to find common ground on the topic of racial separatism.

Marcus Garvey, a leading proponent of the back-to-Africa movement in the 1920s, and Elijah Muhammad, the former leader of the Nation of Islam, saw white nationalists as kindred spirits.

Garvey envisaged a new nation built by the descendants of African slaves. To him, the ostensible racism of the Ku Klux Klan helped drive home his message that the U.S. would never be a place that could incorporate Black people as equals. In 1922, he met with Edward Young Clarke, the Klan’s acting leader. Garvey later explained how the two shared the same vision: Clarke “believes America to be a white man’s country, and also states that the Negro should have a country of his own in Africa.”

Meanwhile, Muhammad embraced the idea of Black superiority.

In George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party from 1959 to 1967, Muhammad saw a white man who may have disagreed about which race was superior but was nonetheless serious about carving out a territory somewhere in the U.S. to build a separate Black nation. Even though Rockwell spoke of Black people as a “primitive race” and had organized a “hate tour,” Muhammad invited him to speak at the Nation of Islam summit in 1962. To Muhammad, they both had the same goal: separation of the races.

Uniting in opposition to Israel

Importantly, among both Black nationalists and white nationalists, race mixing was often cast in an antisemitic framework, with Jews accused of spurring racial integration. Rockwell claimed Jewish communists were behind the Civil Rights Movement, while the Nation of Islam published a pseudo-historical book in 1991 claiming that Jews were responsible for the transatlantic slave trade.

Today, antizionism and antisemitism are where Fuentes and some Black conservatives appear to have found common ground.

Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing annihilation of Gaza have destabilized politics not only in the Middle East but also in the U.S.

Historically, the mainstream media in the U.S. has championed Israel, while both of the country’s major political parties have backed Israel financially and militarily.

However, due to a number of factors – including Americans’ widespread exposure on social media to the destruction of Gaza, the growing diversity of the U.S. and its ballooning debt – cracks in this uniform support have emerged.

Fuentes routinely implicates a “Jewish oligarchy” as the source of many problems that bedevil the world today, and his strident denunciation of Israel and the larger Jewish community has endeared him to antisemites and anti-Israel factions on the right, and this includes some Black Americans.

Take Myron Gaines, an internet personality who founded the “Fresh and Fit Podcast” in 2020. Born in Brooklyn, Gaines is of Sudanese descent and was raised as a Muslim. Originally, his podcast focused on issues related to the manosphere, a largely online movement that champions masculinity and opposes feminism.

But since the Oct. 7 attacks, Gaines became a vociferous critic of Israel, claiming “Zionist fingerprints” were “all over” the 9/11 attacks and JFK’s assassination. On this issue, he found common ground with Fuentes, who has frequently appeared as a guest on his program. On occasion, Andrew Tate, a popular British biracial social media personality, has joined them for discussions.

All three share an antisemitic worldview – promoting, at various points, the notion of Jewish control of finance, media and governments – with a pronounced misogynist streak.

Then there are the Hodgetwins, Keith and Kevin Hodge. The Black twin brothers launched their podcast in 2008 and now boast an estimated 2 million followers. They’ve recently interviewed a range of antisemitic guests on their program, including Fuentes, David Duke, Leonarda Jonie and Stew Peters.

In July 2025, Candace Owens hosted Nick Fuentes for a two-hour interview on her podcast. They had traded barbs in the past, but they had also, at times, praised each other. When Owens was fired from The Daily Wire for her criticism of Israel in 2024, Fuentes instructed his supporters to “stand with Candace.”

During the July 2025 interview, there were some tense moments: Owens needled Fuentes over why he hadn’t married and started a family. She also objected to his belief that race determined a person’s abilities and to his claim that Black civilization was inherently inferior. But the tone was generally cordial, and they agreed that the pro-Israel lobby had an outsized influence on American politics.

Race is becoming less black and white

There’s also a broader cultural shift at play: Racial identity is becoming increasingly fluid.

As political scientist Eric Kaufmann argued in his 2019 book, “Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities,” America may be becoming more racially diverse, but this doesn’t necessarily portend a politics of racial liberalism.

Instead, he argues that those with multiracial backgrounds will tend to identify – and be identified – with the largest and most socially dominant racial group. In other words, a significant number of multiracial Americans will “airbrush” their polyglot lineage and instead focus on their European provenance. As racial boundaries become more fluid, more people of multiracial heritage may come to culturally and politically identify as white.

Just as President Donald Trump was able to draw a higher share of Black and Latino voters than any GOP presidential candidate in recent memory, Fuentes has been able to connect with nonwhite audiences. And just as Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the right-wing, anti-immigrant Oath Keepers, is part Hispanic, the former leader of the “Western chauvinist” Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, is Afro-Cuban American.

Fuentes himself reflects this trend. He acknowledges his Mexican ancestry – from his paternal grandfather – and yet remains an unapologetic white nationalist, calling for “total Aryan victory.”

Black podcasters may be amenable to Fuentes due to the country’s racial reality. Any program of forced racial expulsion and separation simply doesn’t seem feasible in contemporary, multiracial America.

Fuentes seems to recognize this; in fact, he recently called for a united populist front to include the political left. He urged leftists to jettison their advocacy of open borders and wokeism. Meanwhile, he’s counseled the political right to abandon its reverence for the free market.

Perhaps Fuentes favors a form of national socialism not unlike the kind that emerged in fascist Germany and Italy. But for Gen Zers who are experiencing economic uncertainty and social isolation, such a program can sound attractive – no matter their race.The Conversation

George Michael, Professor of Criminal Justice, Westfield State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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'So disingenuous': CNN panel pounces GOP strategist's denial of Trump's history

CNN’s “Table for Five” panel pressed Republican strategist Scott Jennings to admit President Donald Trump’s contribution to a decade’s worth of inflammatory rhetoric.

“I'm pretty tired of conservatives gaslighting about the current political environment and Donald Trump's rhetoric when all of this escalation can be traced back to his entrance into American politics,” said Meidas Touch Gen Z writer Adam Mockler. “His claim to fame was saying that Obama wasn't born in America. He was the first presidential candidate to have his crowd chant, ‘lock her up’ about a political opponent. … I've spent all of my formative years throughout high school, throughout college, looking to the president — who I'm supposed to be able to look up to — and seeing somebody who's trying to place blame on the left, who's ramping up the rhetoric constantly.”

“Trump first ran ten years ago. And you’re connecting that to a guy, ten years later, shooting up an ICE facility? Can't you just take responsibility for it on the left?” Scott said, also referencing the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk and left-leaning protests against Israel genocide in Palestine. “The left has radicalized to the point of saying, ‘we're done talking, and we're going to start shooting.’”

“I said Donald Trump created this environment over the past decade. You sit here and say, ‘I need to take responsibility.’ I'm a 22-year-old YouTuber. You hold me to a higher standard than the president vomiting vitriol out of his mouth about how the other party is weak and evil.” Mockler said. “He just [called us], the party of hate, evil and Satan. You blind yourself to that, and you're focusing on a 22-year-old YouTuber.”

“There is no evidence whatsoever that the Democrats want to cool anything off since Charlie,” Jennings argued. “They don't vote that way. They don't talk that way. We have people tweeting out here that ‘we're going to deport the CEO of Sinclair [Broadcast Group]’ and ‘we're going to put Elon Musk in prison.’ It is honestly wild out there on the left.”

“Scott, that is so disingenuous,” said CNN commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin. “I have received threats from the right and from the left. The president of the United States would do well to echo [Charlie Kirl’s widow] Erika Kirk, who showed a message of grace and of unity in a moment that called for it. You know that [Mockler’s] generation has never even seen normal politics [thanks to Trump].”

- YouTube youtu.be

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World leaders give Trump the silent treatment as they lose trust in America

As the US and Iran try to come to terms on a peace deal to end their months-long war, US President Donald Trump this week has introduced a new demand – that other countries in the Middle East sign on to his Abraham Accords, normalizing relations with Israel.

There are reasons for this. The US and Israel are militarily, strategically and economically weaker than they were on the eve of launching “Operation Epic Fury”, their joint military operation against Iran, in late February.

Their carefully built-up alliances with Persian Gulf countries are now being reevaluated, given these ties didn’t prevent Gulf states from being attacked by Iran. And Iran – despite losing many political and military leaders in months of devastating strikes – seems more powerful than ever.

In this context, both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu desperately need a symbolic victory they can sell to their respective electorates before the US midterm elections and Knesset elections later this year.

This partially explains why Trump is trying to re-invigorate the Abraham Accords, which he has long touted as one of the biggest foreign policy successes of his first term in office.

In a phone call over the weekend with regional partners, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, he insisted their inclusion in any Iran deal depended on all joining the accords. This means establishing diplomatic ties with Israel.

What are the Abraham Accords?

The Abraham Accords were part of a package of diplomatic initiatives overseen by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, during Trump’s first term. The accords were an attempt to “solve” the long-running Palestinian-Israeli and broader Arab-Israeli conflicts.

Since the first Arab-Israeli War and Israel’s creation in the 1940s, the question of Palestine has plagued the Arab world. It remains the most important political concern of the public in Arab countries today, despite growing disinterest from many Arab leaders.

With the assistance of the US, Israel has, over the decades, slowly chipped away at the collective Arab opposition to its illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories. This started with its peace agreements with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 and continued with the Abraham Accords.

Before the accords were signed in 2020, the Trump administration moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, closed the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Washington office and declared that the US no longer viewed Israeli West Bank settlements as illegal.

Then, in 2020, Trump and Netanyahu launched the Peace to Prosperity Plan. While past peace efforts had at least gestured towards Palestinian participation, this one promised economic development at the expense of Palestinian statehood.

The UAE and Bahrain then signed onto the Abraham Accords in September 2020, followed by Morocco in December 2020, Sudan in January 2021 and then Kazakhstan in November 2025.

There were many carrots offered to these countries in exchange for recognising Israel, largely economic, military and diplomatic agreements. For example, the UAE secured advanced weapons and military technology from the US. And Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara was recognised by the US and Israel.

Would any countries join now?

The jewel in the crown, however, has always been Saudi Arabia. This was purportedly a key driver behind the timing of Hamas’ attacks on Israel in October 2023. The group was desperate to derail normalisation talks between the two.

Since Israel’s devastating retaliatory war on Gaza began, Saudi Arabia has been a prominent advocate of Palestinian statehood. It has publicly refused to sign the accords without firm guarantees of Palestinian self-determination.

The remaining regional powers, such as Pakistan, Qatar and Turkey, must take account of their restive populations, who are overwhelmingly supportive of Palestinian self-determination. The US would have to apply significant pressure and offer large carrots for any of them to be persuaded to change course.

Pakistan, in fact, has already rejected Trump’s demands and Saudi Arabia is likely to follow.

So, while it might make sense to link Iran and Palestine together through a regional peace agreement, the Abraham Accords are simply too toxic in their current form for most countries to entertain.

The region is looking for its own solutions

But this won’t stop Trump and Netanyahu from trying to press their case.

If Israel can get other nations on board, Netanyahu can craft a narrative around closer regional ties as he continues Israel’s destruction and occupation of southern Lebanon in its fight against Hezbollah.

This would still be a paltry prize compared to its long-desired aim of removing the Iranian threat altogether. And it may not alleviate the growing pushback he is facing from an increasingly overstretched army.

Closer ties with Arab countries would also not offset the rapid erosion of regional public opinion against Israel. Such negative views are now widely entertained even among Trump’s MAGA base.

The Trump Administration also needs a win. It is reeling from its latest Middle East misadventure:

  • its weapons stocks are massively depleted
  • the global energy shock is fuelling domestic discontent
  • its Gulf allies are questioning the US security umbrella
  • and it faces Israeli reluctance to any Iran peace deal.

But in a region undergoing a dramatic strategic reconfiguration, the Abraham Accords are increasingly seen as a US-imposed framework. Some countries are trying to reshape the region in ways that would benefit them instead.

Most notably, Saudi Arabia has reportedly floated a regional non-aggression pact (including Iran) along the lines of Europe’s Helsinki Accords that aimed to ease Cold War tensions in Europe.

Perhaps Trump is trying to re-invigorate the Abraham Accords as a way to counter the Saudi move. Undoubtedly, he is also trying to appease Netanyahu. The silence his demand has received, however, may indicate the region is no longer amenable to US persuasion, no matter how big the carrots are.The Conversation

Michelle Burgis-Kasthala, Professor of International Law, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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'Deciding his own fate': Trump and the GOP want to banish this one Republican

Politico senior columnist Jonathan Martin reports House Republicans are aligning with President Donald Trump in wanting to remove Trump’s biggest Republican gadfly.

“If President Donald Trump’s top political priority next year is Republicans retaining control of Congress, his second-highest goal may be the defeat of his foremost GOP irritant: Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.),” said Martin.

Massie is a libertarian lone-wolfer who has not been afraid to push for the release of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein case, which Trump considers a “very hostile act.” Martin said Massie’s independent streak comes from the fact that he “has breezed through past primaries — and Trump’s lieutenants have yet to find a formidable challenger ahead of next year’s contest.”

READ MORE: 'Bothsidesism!' GOP Pundit cornered on the difference between hyping lies and stating facts

“That could change in the coming weeks, however,” Martin added.

“High-level Republican officials are discussing an effort to nudge former state attorney general Daniel Cameron to drop his Senate bid and switch to challenge Massie in what may be the highest-profile House primary in the country next year,” Martin reports. “Cameron already lives in the district, previously won Trump’s support in his unsuccessful bid for governor two years ago and would have access to a near-bottomless supply of campaign funds provided by Trump’s allies.”

It may be hard to lure Cameron away to do battle with a House incumbent with a history of winning. Still, inside sources tell Martin that Cameron “has struggled to raise cash in his Senate bid” to replace outgoing senator Mitch McConnell and may welcome an alternative race this fall with the promise of Trump’s backing and his financial resources.

“I’m staying in the Senate race. I’m still leading in all the polling and will continue to do so,” Cameron told Martin, and he claims he’s not been approached to make the switch: “This is the first time I’ve heard this chatter.”

READ MORE: MSNBC host torches Supreme Court for 'treating 4th Amendment as negotiable'

But if Trump does eventually corner him to scratch his Massie itch Cameron might have a hard time saying ‘no’, Martin said, “given the president’s clout within the party.”

Massie, meanwhile, remains one of the few Republicans to criticize Israel’s bombardment of Palestine, and he continues to court Trump’s animosity by being the loudest Republican to push for the release of the Epstein files. This week, Martin reports Massie even advised Trump — in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination — to “tone down down" his own divisive rhetoric.

At the end of June, Massie had $1.7 million in campaign cash on hand, but Martin predicts he will “almost certainly” get no financial help from House Republican leaders, “who’ve all but excommunicated him for his Trump criticism and opposition to party-line bills.”

“He is actively working against his team almost daily now and seems to enjoy that role,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju. “So he is, you know, deciding his own fate.”

Read the Politico report at this link.

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Trump isn't mentally ill — it's far worse

Dear public figures, media folks, and journalists, please do not suggest that President Donald Trump is crazy. It is not helpful and, in fact, it is hurtful... not to him but the rest of us.

There are two main reasons for this request. First, calling Trump crazy is harmful to people who have a mental health condition or who have loved ones with a mental illness; second, it is inaccurate and leads to a serious misunderstanding of the man, his behavior, and it’s origins and consequences.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of unfair, hurtful, and false seterotypes of the mentally ill that are propagated and repeated over and over again in our society. For instance, media figures and journalists often describe perpetrators of violence as mentally ill. Generally speaking, this is not true. Study after study points out the the mentally ill, in fact, are not violent. Indeed, they are more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators of it. Most people with mental health diagnoses are law-abiding contributing members of society. Epidemiological research indicates that 97% of those with mental illness do not commit violent acts.

Nor are the mentally ill immoral. It is somewhat commonplace to find public figures, journalists, and other “experts” express that a person who commits a horribly immoral act must be mentally ill. This is a faulty presumption. Mental illness does not necessarily affect moral reasoning or understanding. It is pretty common to hear or read that those whose behaviors are irrational, unpredictable, or erratic must have a mental health condition. This, also, is a harmful and erroneous stereotype. After all, irrational thinking is pretty common. We are all irrational some of the time and in some situations. and also rational and predictable in others. Irrational thoughts are completely normal. Researchers sometimes point out that some kinds of mental illness may include a deficit in common sense or deviations from social norms but not a deficit in logical thought or “reason.”

Finally, the dictionary defines evil as actions and ideas characterized by impending future misfortune. There has never been a president of the United States more ominous than Donald Trump.

Another common misconception about those with mental illnesses is that they are dysfunctional and unable to live as honest and contributing members of their communities. This, too, is not true. The majority of those with a mental illness are simply ordinary folks. In any given year 20% or more of the population has a mental health diagnosis. Therefore, at any given time, there are millions of people with a mental health condition making positive contributions to their communities.

So, why do so many of us hold these false and damaging steretypes about those with a mental health condition? Perhaps the most common communicator of these misconceptions are the media of mass communication, both fictional (television, movies, internet sites, etc) and nonfiction (talk shows, news media, politicians, etc).

This brings me to Donald Trump. Repeating time and time again that Donald Trump is crazy not only negatively affects the mentally ill but also seriously misunderstands the man and his policies.

Donald Trump is not crazy, he is evil. The America Heritage Dictionary definition of evil has three components. The first one is that evil means morally bad or wrong. The list of the immoral acts of our president is too long to be included listed completely here, but consider just a sampling: participating in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuses, illegally detaining and deporting veterans, children, and others; using charitable donations for personal desires; separating innocent children from their families; fomenting racism and racial hatred; ridiculing the disabled; daily misogyny; supporting white supremacy; inciting violence; lying for personal gain; harming the lives of LGBTQ+ people; taking food and medical care from children and their families; and the list goes on and on.

The dictionary also defines evil as harmful or causing injury and pain. Rather than repeating the cruel and hateful list above, please consider this sampling of the harmful consequences of decisions of President Trump: ordering the murder of hundreds of people who have been in boats attacked because they were supposedly carrying illegal drugs; murdering nearly a hundred people in Venezuela when the country was attacked and he ordered its president arrested; causing death and injury to tens of thousands of Iranians during his war against the government of that country; partnering with Israel’s raining of death and destruction on the people of Lebanon, Gaza, and Palestine; expanding the embargo against Cuba causing pain, injury, and death to ordinary Cubans; and his administration’s defunding of the medical aid and food assistance provided to less developed nations by the US Agency for International Development, which has damaged the lives of millions of people around the world.

And, of course, actions of this president also have caused harmful and deadly damages within the United States. Consider: the terrible harms, injuries, and deaths caused by his orders to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), resulting in the detention of over 50,000 adults and children in dangerous and deadly detention centers; he also has deported millions of individuals, some to dangerous countries or to the very life-threatening situations they fled. In addition, he has empowered his ICE agents to injure and even murder US citizens who were exercising their political and personal rights; Trump’s defunding of federal programs in the areas of healthcare and the environment has stripped men, women, and children of their access to food and medical care, causing pain, injury, and death to many people; and his administration’s reductions of environmental protections and general disregard of climate change threatens the health of all living beings,

Finally, the dictionary defines evil as actions and ideas characterized by impending future misfortune. There has never been a president of the United States more ominous than Donald Trump. Nearly every day he posts messages that threaten his critics and opponents. He says he will use the power of the government to bring them down. He tells his supporters, “I am your retribution.” Time and time again, he threatens to destroy Iran, razing it to the ground and killing millions of Iranians. He announces planes to annex Greenland, Canada, and Venezuela. He hints that he is going to use force to change the political-economic system in Cuba. He says he will prosecute his political opponents for treason and has threatened to shoot those protesting in the streets. And, of course, he regularly declares that he will imprison immigrants and deport them to dangerous places. In just one year he has threatened to punish, invade, or take control of Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Nigeria, and Iran.

So, dear news anchors and pundits, please stop suggesting that President Donald Trump is mentally ill. Doing so defames and insults those of us who have a mental illness and misunderstands the problem that is Donald Trump. He is not “crazy.” He is prejudiced, cruel, violent, hateful, uninformed, dangerous, and immoral. Our president is not mentally ill. Our president is evil.

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Propaganda narrative crumbles in 'political disaster for Donald Trump': analysis

Negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the war are at an impasse as the conflict enters its third month. The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday that Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iranian ports to ramp up the pressure on Tehran.

Iran is saying it will enter into direct talks with the U.S. “when President Trump lifts what Iran considers to be the illegal military naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz,” says Drop Site News co-founder Jeremy Scahill. “Iran has maintained that it’s not shut down the strait, but that it’s just shut it down for any vessels that are linked to the U.S. war in any way.”

Scahill says a disorganized Trump administration is pushing a “total propaganda narrative” that it has the upper hand in negotiations, while Iran believes it has the “three M’s” on its side: munitions, markets and the midterms.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the war are at an impasse as the conflict reaches its 61st day. President Trump and his national security team are reportedly skeptical of Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for tabling nuclear talks. U.S. officials say President Trump expressed doubts Monday that Iran was acting in good faith. Iran has so far refused Trump’s key demand that it end all nuclear enrichment.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday that Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iranian ports to ramp up the pressure on Tehran. In his latest post on Truth Social, Trump threatened Iran to, quote, “better get smart soon.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump wrote, quote, “Iran has just informed us that they are in a 'State of Collapse.' [unquote] They want us to 'Open the Hormuz Strait,' as soon as possible, as they try to figure out their leadership situation (Which I believe they will be able to do!),” President Trump said.

This is Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia, a spokesperson for the Iranian army.

BRIG. GEN. MOHAMMAD AKRAMINIA: [translated] Regarding the current situation, we have not considered the war to be over. From the day the fighting stopped and, in effect, a ceasefire or silence took place on the battlefield, since there is no trust in the United States and our enemies, we have continued in the same way as during the war, making serious efforts to update our list of targets.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaking at a Pentagon news conference last Friday.

DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely, as we said previously, choose wisely at the negotiating table. All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways, or instead they can watch their regime’s fragile economic state collapse under the unrelenting pressure of American power.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on all of this, we’re joined now by Drop Site News co-founder Jeremy Scahill. His new piece is headlined “As Trump’s Narrative on Negotiations Flails, Iran Is Setting Its Own Terms for Ending the War.”

Hi, Jeremy. Can you start off by just explaining the thesis of your piece?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, what I’ve been reporting over the past several weeks is that far from being in disarray, as Trump and his allies in the media have portrayed the Iranian government, it’s the Trump administration that is in a state of total chaos, erratic meltdowns, that culminated with Trump claiming that JD Vance was on an airplane en route to Islamabad to meet the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, then saying that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, well, they’re actually on the airplane. And they were claiming, “Oh, the Iranians are begging us to talk, and we’re going to go and meet them in Islamabad when Foreign Minister Araghchi is there.” The Iranians were telling me, “We have no intention of meeting any Americans,” and that Iran is on its own tour now of Pakistan, Oman and Russia, where Araghchi met with President Vladimir Putin, and “We’re establishing our own terms for ending the war.” And so, what we’ve seen here is the construction of a total propaganda narrative, that is being repeated by almost every Western news organization, that somehow there are these negotiations going on, that the Iranians are putting proposals in front of the Americans. That’s not what’s happening at all.

What Iran has done is it has briefed Pakistan, which is currently the mediating country in the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, and they’ve said to them, “Here are our conditions for ending the war.” And what Iran is saying is, “We will enter into direct talks with the United States when President Trump lifts” what Iran considers to be “the illegal military naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. We will have an initial round of discussions about how to facilitate the expansion of commerce and transit through the Strait of Hormuz.” Iran has maintained that it’s not shut down the strait, but that it’s just shut it down for any vessels that are linked to the U.S. war in any way.

And then, after those conditions are met, the Iranians will go back to direct talks having to do with nuclear negotiations. But they’re saying that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are total ignoramuses when it comes to the technical issues in terms of nuclear or other issues, that having Kushner at the table might as well be having Benjamin Netanyahu at the table. That’s part of why they pushed for JD Vance. Iranians told me that they witnessed during the last round of direct talks a division between JD Vance, on the one hand, and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, on the other hand.

Trump has painted himself into a corner. He’s certainly in a quagmire. The administration is desperate to find some form of an off-ramp. And they have been pushing a lie-filled propaganda narrative, that has been picked up by media across the board, that somehow the Iranians are kind of adjusting their position and coming back to Trump, but it’s not good enough yet. The reality is that Trump has no idea how he’s going to end this, because the Iranians know, or they believe, that they have the three M’s on their side: munitions, markets and the midterms.

They think that they have done unprecedented damage to U.S. defensive capabilities in the Persian Gulf. They caused the evacuation of 13 American military bases. They committed widespread damage against American aircraft, that only now is starting to come to light. They destroyed the early warning, highly expensive radar systems. The Israelis’ interceptors are at dangerous low levels. And the United States is unable to confront Iran’s asymmetric posture in the Strait of Hormuz, no matter what Trump does. The markets are in free fall right now, relatively speaking. It’s not going to get better. If Trump starts bombing Iran again, they say they’re going to hit oil infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, potentially cut undersea internet cables, which would massively disrupt commerce and internet. And the final thing is the midterms coming up.

This is a political disaster for Donald Trump. And the Iranians feel like they’re in a position that Trump is not holding the cards. And so, what they’re saying is, “If you don’t meet our initial demands to lift your illegal naval blockade, we’re not going to have any talks with you anytime soon, because you’ve painted yourself into a corner, and we’re going to sit back and let you continue to have less and less space in that corner.”

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, you note that the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has been on a strategic three-nation tour, where he’s unequivocally laying out Tehran’s position to mediators and key strategic players who may influence future negotiations. You write, quote, “Russia played a key role in the 2015 nuclear deal and could emerge as an important guarantor of Tehran’s interests in any agreement reached with the U.S.” I want to ask you about Russia’s role in this, but first let’s go to a clip. This is Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in St. Petersburg Monday.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] I would like to convey my most sincere words of gratitude and confirm that Russia, same as Iran, intends to continue our strategic relations. … We see how courageously and heroically the Iranian people are fighting for their independence and sovereignty. Of course, we very much hope that, based on this courage and will for independence, the Iranian people will, under the leadership of a new leader, make it through this difficult period of trials, and peace will follow. … From our side, we will do everything that is in your interest, in the interests of all nations in the region, so that peace is reached as soon as possible. You know our position very well.
ABBAS ARAGHCHI: [translated] I was asked to confirm during this visit that Russian-Iranian relations is a strategic partnership and will remain that way, moving forward. … It was proven that Iran has friends and allies, such as Russia, who stand by Iran during difficult times and support Iran. We thank you for your firm position in support of Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was the Iranian foreign minister, Araghchi, before that, Russian President Putin. Jeremy, talk about what Putin’s position is now and back in 2015. It may surprise people.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. So, back in 2015, when the U.S., with a delegation led by John Kerry, the secretary of state at the time, spent a year and a half negotiating with the Iranians, and that deal ended with 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium being transferred from Iran to Russia. Now, at that point, the Iranians only had a relatively small quantity of what’s called highly enriched uranium, and it was only enriched to a 20% level. And 98% of that highly enriched uranium was shipped to Russia. It’s astonishing to think back on it and those numbers, given what we’re talking about now, which is roughly 1,000 pounds, the Iranians are believed to have, of highly enriched uranium, potentially to as high as 60%.

And so, the Iranians, because of Trump’s threatening, kind of menacing tone and actions, and certainly because of the six weeks of bombing, have said, “We’re not going to transfer any uranium outside of the country,” that “it’s as sacred to us as our soil,” and that “we would agree to dilute it so that could be used for medical and nonmilitary purposes, but transferring it is out of the equation.”

What’s interesting is that I’ve heard from Iranian sources that if the Iranians felt like they were dealing with normal people on the other end of the table, technical experts, and not real estate buddies and the son-in-law of the vice president — of the president, but if they were dealing with like an actual technical team, as they did back in 2015, that a lot of issues could be on the table. And so, part of what may be happening is that the Iranians, on the one hand, want to strengthen their military and political relationship with the Russians. It goes both ways. The Iranians also provide the Russians with drones that are used in the war in Ukraine. The Russians almost certainly have been providing the Iranians with intelligence during the course of the U.S.-Israeli war. But on the other hand, the Iranians are planning a kind of other scenario, where if there is a sane set of discussions on the nuclear issue, would there be some flexibility? I’ve heard that there are possibilities that they could consider Russia or even China, if they did shift their position, which officially they’ve given no indication they will. But if that becomes a sort of sticking point and Iran feels that it’s getting its own concessions in the form of a widespread lifting of sanctions, a backing off or some kind of nonaggression pact that would certify that the U.S. isn’t going to continue this pattern of launching wars in between pretending to be in negotiations with Iran, then the sense that I get is that a lot would be on the table.

So, I think that the Iranians are also looking at an alternative universe where Donald Trump fabricates some declaration of victory, that he tries to intensify the economic war against Iran in the hopes that they can spark a domestic uprising to bring down the government, and that Trump essentially just panics himself into a state of saying, like, “I’m not going to do this anymore.” That’s one scenario that could happen. Joe Kent, who resigned as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, early on after he resigned weeks ago, he came out and said that Trump should essentially do that, kind of walk away. I was told by a senior Iranian official that they think the most likely long-term scenario is that there isn’t any major agreement reached and that there is kind of a low-intensity tension that continues to boil.

And so, you know, the Iranians feel, though, that time is on their side and that it’s Donald Trump who has the clock and that he’s watching it with sweat increasingly pouring down his face, because Iran has no intention of capitulating. So, there’s dual tracks that the Iranians are operating on. And I just want to emphasize again that when you read these reports about the Iranians have put a new proposal forward, etc., much of what the Iranians have been doing is reiterating their position. They feel that the United States did not understand the significance of what they put on the table back in February, that it would have gone beyond the 2015 nuclear agreement.

And I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Israel has thoroughly contaminated what the U.S. believes is intelligence on Iran, and it seems quite clear that throughout this war, and actually before it, the Israelis were presenting completely cooked intelligence that it was going to be easy, that it’s going to be a cake walk, that you just assassinate the leadership, and the people are going to rise up. It’s not just that Israel has political influence. It’s clear that Israel has contaminated the intelligence gathering and presentation to the president of the United States by constantly injecting politicized, fake intel to try to keep this war going or to start it in the first place.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had become disillusioned with the U.S. and Israel over the war in Iran, and said the Trump administration is being outwitted and “humiliated.” This is Merz.

CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MERZ: [translated] The Americans clearly have no strategy. And the problem with conflicts like this is always that you don’t just have to go in, you also have to get out again. We saw that all too painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq. … An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian state leadership.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, your response?

JEREMY SCAHILL: I mean, on just a factual level, what Chancellor Merz is saying is 100% true. But in real political terms, Merz was a supporter of Donald Trump’s actions. Germany, perhaps second only to the United States, has passionately supported and defended the Israeli genocidal operations in Palestine, specifically in Gaza, and these broader wars. And Merz kissed the ring of Donald Trump from the very beginning. He bowed to him and allowed himself to be walked around the block by the Trump world like a poodle. So Merz has no credibility whatsoever.

But the fact that even the poodles of the United States, like Friedrich Merz of Germany, the fact that they are saying this openly and saying that the U.S. is being humiliated is a strong indicator of how the sort of game is up. The world realizes that Trump has been lying to manipulate markets, to try to resurrect the oil market situation, to try to pretend as though he’s winning, because he keeps thinking he’s going to bomb the Iranians into submission with his tough boy act on Truth Social. It’s not working. And in fact, markets this week, even for the first time in this attempt at manipulation, they didn’t even react to the bald-faced lie that Trump told yesterday, where he said the Iranians are saying that they’re on the verge of collapse and they want Trump to open up the Strait of Hormuz. That didn’t happen, and the markets did not react in the way that they typically have to Trump’s manipulation every Monday morning. So I think the world is realizing what Merz, who often is a poodle of the United States, particularly Trump — Merz is saying the quiet part out loud, because it’s so obvious that to deny it would make you look like an absolute idiot.

AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said it submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court documenting U.S.-Israeli war crimes. The IRCS estimates more than 132,000 civilian structures were bombed across Iran, including hospitals, apartment buildings, universities, research facilities and bridges. How is Iran dealing with its own reconstruction and economic crisis?

JEREMY SCAHILL: It’s very difficult. I mean, I think we don’t fully understand the extent of the damage and destruction that has been wrought inside of Iran. And, you know, the Iranians, of course, do have a difficult time in importing goods.

But I will note something quite significant. After Abbas Araghchi left Pakistan last weekend, when Trump claimed that they were going to be meeting with the Americans, and then it didn’t happen, just as the Iranians said it wouldn’t, Pakistan announced that it was going to, effective immediately, implement a directive that would facilitate the dramatic expansion of transit across Pakistan for third-country goods delivering to Iran. What that is part of is the bilateral relationship between Iran and Pakistan, and it’s a direct answer to Trump saying that he’s strangling Iran. So, this meeting with the Russians, this trade deal that now has been put into force with the Pakistanis to give free passage to third-nation goods coming into Iran, the deepening relationship between Iran and China, which has largely unfolded in secret, away from cameras, and then Iran’s now outreach in the Persian Gulf is very clearly Iran imagining a world where this doesn’t get resolved right away, and that Iran certainly survives intact with its state, its government, its power structure very much in control of Iran, and they’re looking for an alternative to a full solution or resolution with the United States. That’s going to be a key thing to watch.

Iran is not just operating on some desperate track to try to make a deal with the United States. You know, this is a real nation-state. This isn’t just some, you know, paper tiger that the U.S. can assassinate some people and do heavy bombing, and then they collapse. This is a country of institutions. Whatever anyone thinks about Iran, they’ve spent 47 years building institutions that have parallel infrastructure. I don’t think there is a historical precedent for having, basically, the entire upper echelons of political, military and religious leadership assassinated, and then turn around and do six to seven weeks of retaliatory strikes that fought the world superpower to a standstill. There isn’t a historical precedent for what we’re seeing. And I think now the United States and Trump’s advisers understand they have to take this seriously. And Iran is operating on a totally different path that presumes that they aren’t going to have a political resolution to this crisis or conflict with the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, thanks so much for joining us. We’ll link to your new piece, “As Trump’s Narrative on Negotiations Flails, Iran Is Setting Its Own Terms for Ending the War,” at democracynow.org.


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'This is not acceptable': Political stalker forced top PA Dem to wear a bulletproof vest

Former state House Speaker Mark Rozzi (D-Berks) said he wore a bulletproof vest for several months in 2022 when he was the target of a politically motivated stalker.

During an interview last week with the Capital-Star on an unrelated subject, Rozzi revealed that he had been harassed by the man, who was not a constituent but lived nearby in the Reading area. He said the episode contributed to his decision to get out of politics.

“There comes a time when you know it’s time to leave,” Rozzi said, adding that the polarized politics of the last several years made leading as a moderate lawmaker difficult. “You constantly had to look over your shoulder.”

The reality of political violence in America loomed over a day of peaceful demonstrations Saturday in which millions protested the Trump administration and its aggressive deportation tactics.

Early Saturday morning, former Minnesota state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated by a gunman posing as a police officer who knocked on their door. Democratic Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also shot multiple times earlier in the night at their home and are expected to survive.

Pennsylvania has also been affected by politically motivated violence this year. An attacker firebombed the Governor’s Residence on April 13, after the first night of Passover. It forced Gov. Josh Shapiro, his wife and their children to evacuate in the middle of the night.

Cody Balmer, the Harrisburg man charged with the attack, later told authorities he hated Shapiro and disagreed with the governor’s support for Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.

Shapiro called on leaders across the country to speak with moral clarity after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced Hortman’s death Saturday morning.

“This is unacceptable — we all have a responsibility to stand up and work to defeat the political violence that is tearing through our country,” he said. “America is better than this.”

Rozzi could not be reached over the weekend to comment on the Minnesota shootings.

The Exeter Township man who faced misdemeanor charges for harassing Rozzi and his then-girlfriend died before the case was set to go to trial last year, Berks County District Attorney John Adams confirmed. The accused stalker had a history of unusual behavior in which he expressed a willingness to “die in combat.”

Rozzi, who served as speaker in early 2023 when control of the House was uncertain, said the man was allegedly motivated by a belief that former President Joe “Biden and the Democrats were going to destroy America.”

Adams identified Rozzi’s stalker as Victor Greer, 56, who died in June 2024, when the case was “very close to going to trial.” The most serious charge against Greer was a third-degree misdemeanor, Adams said.

“This individual was definitely harassing and stalking him and his then-girlfriend and I’m sure it was somewhat traumatic,” Adams said.

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About a decade before he died, Greer was arrested in Manhattan on weapons charges.

Officers pulled over Greer for driving the wrong way on a one-way street around 1 a.m. July 2, 2014, and spotted ammunition and three knives inside the car, according to reports.

In the center console of Greer’s vehicle, police found a note that said “I want to die in combat and want to go to heaven and meet god,” and also mentioned his cats, his parents and his favorite movies, authorities said.

The New York Police Department bomb squad searched the car’s trunk and found two unloaded semi-automatic rifles, a semiautomatic handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun, more than 400 rounds of ammunition, a bottle rocket and drug paraphernalia, Reading-area TV station WFMZ reported.

Rozzi was elected speaker in January 2023 after Democrats won a one-vote majority in the House in the previous November election. One incumbent Democrat had been reelected despite dying weeks before the election and two others resigned to take higher offices, leaving control of the House to be decided in special elections.

After Democrats were unable to muster votes to elect current Speaker Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia), Rozzi struck a deal with Republicans in which he agreed to become an independent to secure GOP support to elect him as speaker. He won the 115-85 vote with 16 Republicans joining Democrats’ unanimous support.

Rozzi told the Capital-Star last week that he had always considered himself politically moderate and felt he was getting lost in the House where the parties seemed to be moving farther apart.

“I was a nonexistent type of person,” Rozzi said.

Rozzi said he planned use his speakership to pass legislation to provide a two-year window for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers and those who enabled them. Legislation to hold a referendum on amending the state constitution to provide the window had passed in the previous session with bipartisan support, but was derailed by an administrative error.

He faced opposition from Republicans, including a key ally who called for him to resign, when his promised switch from Democrat to independent never happened.

Rozzi said he’s hopeful the state Senate will act on the survivors’ window amendment this session. The legislation passed the House earlier this month.

A Commonwealth Court panel last week upheld the right of abuse victims to sue public agencies for enabling their abuse under a law Rozzi passed in 2019, which he described as gratifying knowing that it would help protect children.

“I’m happy to look back but I’m also happy to not be there,” Rozzi said.

After leaving office, Rozzi said he started working on an autobiographical book about his abuse and his rise to speaker. He said his chances of getting back into politics are slim, although he said he would consider running for state Senate if the seat was in danger of being lost.

For now, Rozzi said he’s doing “a ton of writing,” enjoying “being able to breathe,” and is looking forward to getting out of town for a while.

“Twelve years is a long time,” he said.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.

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'Derangement': Columnist reveals how MAGA’s 'gutter antisemitism' exposes Trump

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg says Trump’s real motives are clear behind his battle against antisemitism.

“About a decade ago, conservatives would often denounce Muslim immigration on the grounds that it threatened Western progress on gay rights. This posture, sometimes called homonationalism, got its start in Europe, then made its way into American politics with Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign,” she writes in the New York Times.

In his acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Trump decried the murder of 49 people in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by Islamist fundamentalist Omar Mateen, but then spent his term stacking courts with judges hostile to LGBTQ+ people and rolling back their workplace protections. Trump later rode a wave of MAGA backlash against trans rights all the way into the White House, and he’s been stripping “federal funding from almost anything with 'LGBT' in it.”

READ MORE: Only one thing is going to stand in Trump's way — and he knows it

The president’s betrayal to the LGBTQ+ community is a lesson to anyone “tempted to take his campaign against antisemitism seriously, when it is screamingly obvious that it’s just a pretext to attack liberal institutions,” writes Goldberg, who was born into a Jewish family in Buffalo, New York.

Goldberg notes the “derangement” at the way Israel’s defenders conflate all but the mildest criticism of Israel’s war on Palestine with antisemitism.” This, she says, leads Trump supporters “to vastly overstate the scale of antisemitism on the left and, in turn, to rationalize away Trump’s authoritarianism as he attempts to crush progressive” protesters, many of whom are Jewish.

Anti-Defamation League head Jonathan Greenblatt, for example, cheered Trump’s push to exercise political control over Harvard, saying, “It is a good thing that President Trump is leaning in.”

But “… if your presuppositions about Israel lead you to sanctify Trump, they bear rethinking,” says Goldberg, and even Jews who “delight in Trump’s animosity toward the Palestinians should be aware of the bargain they’re making.”

READ MORE: 'Destroyed for no reason': Trump fires would-be mom hour after she nabs foster parent slot

“In the right-wing nationalist movement that Trump leads, gutter antisemitism is … considered a cheeky transgression and a sign of in-group belonging,” she warns, meanwhile Holocaust denial is making an appearance on Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan podcasts.

A decade ago, Trump aligned himself with gay rights but now bans or discourages the mere use of the word “gay” or the abbreviation “LGBT."

“I’m not sure why anyone, let alone a scholar of the Holocaust, thinks Jews will fare better,” Goldberg said.

Read Goldberg's full Times essay here (subscription required).

READ MORE: 'Terrible idea': Republican senator slams Mike Johnson's 'dishonesty'

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Trump's 'incompetence' and 'cowardice' nailed by former foe

Former Vice President Kamala Harris says President Donald Trump’s directive that U.S. agencies release government files on aliens and extraterrestrial life is meant to distract from the “corruption, cowardice, and incompetence coming out of this administration.”

Harris made the comment Friday during a Detroit stop on her book tour promoting “107 Days,” her book detailing her losing 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump ordered government agencies to “begin the process of identifying and releasing” documents “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and unidentified flying objects, and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters” after former President Barack Obama said during a podcast appearance that aliens are real.

“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51,” Obama said. “There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”

Obama later clarified that he thinks it is statistically likely life exists beyond Earth, given the vastness of the universe, but saw no evidence of extraterrestrials during his presidency.

Harris said the Trump administration relies on overwhelming people with distractions as a strategy.

“It feels like chaos, because what we are witnessing and experiencing is a high velocity event,” Harris said. “It is the swift implementation of a plan that has been decades in the making.”

The former vice president said Trump’s agenda is “purely grounded in corruption and grift.”

“They’re trying to suggest that the blame for your condition and your suffering is based on the powerless so they can distract us from focusing on the powerful,” Harris said. “We are witnessing, in vivid detail, something that has been happening over a period of time, which is the concentration of wealth and power in the few at the expense of the many.”

Harris said she has been surprised and “disgusted” by the “capitulation” of business leaders to Trump.

“There are some people who are unapologetically just purely transactional,” Harris said. “They’re not pretending to be grounded in what is morally right, what is principled, what is value based. They’re just in it for whatever they can get out of it.”

Seeing that, Harris said, has led her to believe that “we should also encourage people to be transactional voters.”

“Expect something from your vote. Demand something from your vote,” Harris said. “Do not let anybody take your vote for granted, knowing that you believe it is your duty to vote and they can just expect you’re going to vote without performing.”

A small group of pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside the venue for Harris’ event, which started about 90 minutes late due to long lines to get through security.

Harris emphasized the importance of the upcoming midterm elections, arguing Congress is currently ceding its budgetary and war powers to the executive branch. Her remarks came just hours before the U.S. and Israel launched a coordinated attack against Iran.

Asked by moderator Jemele Hill why she decided against running for California governor this year, Harris laughed before an audience member shouted out, “Because she’s going to be president,” prompting a “that’s right” from another audience member and a round of applause.

Harris said earlier in the evening that she hasn’t yet decided whether to mount a third campaign for the nation’s top office.

But Hill told the former Democratic nominee she sounded like a presidential candidate while expressing her fear that Americans’ sense of pride is being diminished.

“This is our country,” Harris said. “We’re not going to let those people in Washington, D.C., define for us what and who we are as Americans.”

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