Happy Friday (finally!) Swin here. Today, we’re capping yet another week of our clownishly monarchical, criminal president treating his war in Iran like some sort of demented game show. Like so much else that defines the Trump-Vance era, it would be funny if millions of lives and the global economy weren’t being put in danger, just so the president of the United States can feel like a big man.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we’ll take a look at the simple reason why Donald Trump’s war has devolved into such a muddled Orwellian mess: this president simply won’t concede the fact that he got his ass handed to him by a less powerful, much smaller country. Plus, Trump really does want his birthday to be a national holiday, and some genius stamped “86 47” into the grass of the National Mall.

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The Losing Will Continue Until Morale Improves

At the heart of the Pentagon Papers scandal was the fact that the U.S. government, across Democratic and Republican administrations, knew the war in Vietnam was lost – but calculated that they couldn’t tell the American people just yet. In the service of political convenience, the government was willing to throw away ungodly sums of lives and dollars until, years later, they finally couldn’t get away with it any longer.

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With their bloodbath in the Middle East, Donald Trump and his Republican Party are performing an aggressively brain-rotted version of that 1970s scandal. One key difference, however, is that the Vietnam War enjoyed American public support for at least some of its duration, and people here thought we could win it. Trump’s war has been disastrously unpopular since day one, and few Americans have ever seen a meaningful victory in reach.

But just like the leaders before him who dragged the United States into an unwinnable war of atrocity and degradation in Indochina, President Trump is refusing to admit what most of his compatriots know: He lost, and there’s no sugar-coating it (but, boy, will Team Trump try).

This week’s events are a perfect example of what happens when the world’s most chronically dunderheaded warmonger can’t just admit he got wrecked by a much smaller adversary.

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Friday is IPO day for SpaceX. There’s been no shortage of hype and breaking news around Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, taking SpaceX (SPCX) public. Let’s talk about what it means for retirees, investors, and everyone else.

Due to SpaceX’s current, sky-high, $1.77 trillion valuation, set to be finalized Thursday, the company’s initial public offering has broad implications for all of us, including those who don’t invest in the markets. This market entry will touch pensions, 401(k)s, and the broader economy in unpredictable ways.

Unlike traditional mega-cap IPOs, SpaceX lost billions in the year before filing to bring the company public. In fiscal year 2025, SpaceX posted a net loss of $4.94 billion, and xAI, which Musk merged with SpaceX in February 2026, lost $6.36 billion that same year.

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In terms of the company valuation Musk and his underwriting banks have arrived at, investment research firm Morningstar has shared that it would shave that down by about 56%.

Given that a 2024 Wall Street Journal story ran with the subhead, “Some executives and board members fear the billionaire’s use of drugs – including LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine – could harm his companies,” what does it mean that this country’s financial systems are turning themselves into propulsion systems to ensure that Musk becomes a trillionaire this Friday?

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Video: YouTube/AvivbyMelisron

“Ohh not again,” Gwyneth Paltrow moaned breathily as she woke up in a penthouse apartment. She wasn’t talking about Israeli airstrikes against displaced Palestinian families in tents or their targeted slaughter of paramedics in Lebanon, no, she was talking about Mondays.

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Waking up is so hard, “Gwynicide” – as the internet has since christened her – continued as she sipped from her coffee that “needs a coffee” but running apparently makes you feel better. Running is so good for the spirit, the actress mused in the now viral ad as she runs in Central Park, and so is living in iconic buildings near parks. 51 Park, she coos to a driver. “New York?” he asks, a reasonable question since they are in fact filming in the city. “No,” Paltrow smiles, “Herzliya, Israel.”

We all know many actors are dumb-dumbs, but now it must be said that they are also incomprehensibly evil and greedy. Perhaps the venom from the bee-sting beauty treatments that Paltrow once promoted as a wellness influencer slowly seeped into her brain, but she signed on to be the face of a luxury tower project in Israel.

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As a preview, check out this article Owen Jones wrote exclusively for Zeteo UK:

Zeteo UK

The Belfast Riots Are an Anti-Migrant Pogrom - and the British Media Has Serious Questions to Answer

A note from our Editor-in-Chief…

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18 hours ago · Owen Jones

“I don’t believe that any group of people are monolithic.
It’s that simple. It’s just untrue.” - Hasan Piker

On the latest episode of ‘Beyond Israelism’, Simone Zimmerman sits down with Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker – arguably one of the most influential left-wing voices in US media today. Seven days a week, eight to 10 hours a day, Piker talks to millions of young people about income inequality, capitalism, imperialism, and Palestine. Yet, rather than being celebrated by Democrats desperate to reach young voters (didn’t they want a “Joe Rogan of the left?”), he has become their most convenient target. Hasan has been smeared as an antisemite, allegedly subpoenaed by the Trump administration (he denies actually receiving a subpoena), and attacked relentlessly by the hasbara industry. Most recently, he was even barred from entering the UK for allegedly criticizing Israel, although officially, they said it was because his presence in the UK “may not be conducive to the public good.”

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What makes this conversation striking is Hasan’s refusal to let the smears do what they’re designed to do. Despite being called an antisemite on a near-daily basis, he remains one of the most consistent voices against antisemitism, tracing its roots in right-wing ideology with precision most commentators don’t bother with. His position is simple, and he states it plainly: no group is a monolith, and the fact that a multimillion-dollar industry exists to conflate Jewish identity with the State of Israel is proof enough of that.

As Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens gain massive followings by filling the vacuum left by mainstream media’s suppression of pro-Palestine voices, Hasan represents a different path: the same urgency, the same anti-establishment energy, but rooted in solidarity rather than fear. The establishment’s campaign against him follows the same well-worn playbook deployed against Bernie Sanders and the Squad, yet it has never worked. This is a conversation about independent media, political courage, and why the left cannot afford to silence its own.

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Free subscribers get a 2-minute preview of the video above while Zeteo’s paid subscribers can watch it in full. If you support the work we’re doing, consider upgrading your subscription today and help us do more of it.

‘Beyond Israelism with Simone Zimmerman’ is a provocative new video podcast series from Tikkun Olam Productions, the team behind the viral and award-winning 2023 film Israelism. In this series, Simone will host bold and inspiring conversations that face, head on, the growing global reckoning with Zionism, the debates over Jewish identity, and the urgent struggle for Palestinian freedom. The episodes will unpack the myths of Zionism; dive deep into the meaning of Palestinian liberation, and through raw and fearless discussions examine the Jewish relationship with Israel.

If you enjoyed this conversation, here are some additional resources:

Hasan Piker on Twitch

Hasan Piker Has a Few Words for His Bad Faith Critics by Aaron Regunberg at The New Republic.

As always, you can also listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple

Spotify

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Welcome to another Thursday morning in Donald Trump’s America, Zeteo fans – it’s Swin again 👋. It will never stop being weird to me how much the president of the United States sits in the White House, a place where treaties are signed and war and peace are decided, and devotes a tremendous amount of time to staring at his television, getting egregiously mad. It is also upsetting how much we have to take moments like these seriously, because with President Trump, they can trigger highly consequential actions.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we dive right into one such episode of President Flatscreen TV Addict shouting at the Idiot Box – and what it could mean for the world. Plus, AIPAC enters the ring in Michigan for Haley Stevens, Graham Platner’s Democratic primary win in Maine roils all sides in DC, and Iran and the U.S. trade strikes for a second day.

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I Want My M(orning Joe) TV…

Our blundering, bloodlusting president woke up on Wednesday and saw the hosts of MS Now’s ‘Morning Joe’ discussing a New York Times excerpt titled ‘Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files,’ adapted from Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman’s soon-to-be-released book, Regime Change.

Before the episode of ‘Morning Joe’ was over, Donald Trump – glaring at his TV, getting madder and madder – was back on his social media app, ranting about the show and its “laughing stock” host for even talking about the Times article. (Trump did not mention Jeffrey Epstein in his online outburst, but sources familiar with his thinking tell me unequivocally that’s what set him off on Wednesday morning.)

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Among the embarrassing revelations in the report, the story includes the word “nipple” six times, in remarkable sentences like: “The vice president said he thought the president would be OK with releasing the nipple-related documents, arguing that Trump had been accused of worse,” and: “One official would later describe it as a ‘surreal’ experience to be discussing nipples in the White House Situation Room.”

Objectively speaking, this is unbelievably funny. The nominal leader of the free world – who can’t seem to stop falling asleep in meetings, pointlessly tanking the economy, and needlessly invading countries for his own amusement – is having his elderly brain consumed with rage about a book filled with humiliating accounts of nipples and warfare in the Trump-Vance era.

It’s the kind of comedy that only Paul Verhoeven could have made, except it’s real. And yet… there are people, including some senior Trump administration officials, who will tell you that you shouldn’t be merely laughing this off.

Here’s why…

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Justin Baragona here, bringing you the latest media dispatches from the right-wing industrial outrage complex and Bari World. In tonight’s edition, we bring you a scoop about a story that Cecila Vega was working on for ‘60 Minutes’ when she was fired. Plus: David Ellison and Co. try to put out Bari Weiss’s fires, who is (or isn’t) watching Stephen Colbert’s replacement, and Fox soothes Trump’s fragile ego after the Madison Square Garden boos.

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Why Was Cecilia Vega Fired?

One of the stories that Cecilia Vega had lined up for the upcoming season of ‘60 Minutes’ when she was unceremoniously fired by Bari Weiss, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, was a profile on Francesca Albanese – the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

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BEIRUT, Lebanon – Zeinab Qassir had been preparing for her brother’s wedding.

Hussein, 37, was weeks away from getting married when, on the morning of May 22, he woke to the sound of an explosion near his home in the southern Lebanese village of Deir Qanoun. A Syrian family had been struck while on a motorbike. He learned there were injured people. He dressed in his paramedic gear and moved toward the site.

Zeinab tried to stop him. She had seen a drone circling low over the area.

He went anyway.

“I held him before he left,” she tells me, “without knowing it was the last time I would see him alive.”

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A short time after paramedics arrived at the site, a woman filming from her window captured the moment a second strike hit their ambulance.

Zeinab ran toward the scene.

“When I arrived, Hussein was still alive,” she says. “There were victims on the ground around me. I didn’t see any of them. All my attention was on my brother as he took his final breaths.”

“Hussein loved ambulance work since he was a child. He didn’t carry a weapon,” says Zeinab. “He woke up from sleep because he heard there were civilians who needed help, and he went to save them.”

Israel’s targeting of medical personnel in Lebanon is not new. But the scale is.

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In this new three-part, deep-dive video series, Zeteo’s editor-in-chief and lifelong Liverpool and England football fan Mehdi Hasan sets out to answer those questions.

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Mehdi goes back in history to explain how some of the world’s most shameful leaders have used the World Cup and FIFA’s corrupt behavior to raise their own status on the world stage and also distract from their country’s heinous human rights violations – a practice known as sportswashing.

In this first episode, Mehdi starts off with an authoritarian whose sportswashing is not getting nearly enough attention right now: U.S. President Donald Trump – one of the co-hosts of this summer’s World Cup, despite his administration having threatened to bring rogue ICE agents to the World Cup stadiums.

Throughout this series, Mehdi is also joined by a team of expert guests, like former football player turned political scientist Jules Boycoff, Human Rights Watch Global Initiatives Director Minky Worden, and New Yorker Global Affairs Columnist Ishaan Tharoor.

Trust us when we say, you do NOT want to miss out on this new series from Zeteo!

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Paid subscribers can watch this full episode, as well as the two others that will be released soon. Free subscribers can watch a 3-minute preview. Upgrade your subscription today to access this episode, paywall-free, as well as the other two episodes still to come!

Check out Zeteo’s other recent stories:

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Good morning! Andrew here, writing from the great state of Maine, where Graham Platner is now the Democratic Senate nominee and bashing the media for coming after him instead of trying to understand the movement he’s building.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ Platner moves on to face Susan Collins in what should be the premier race of the 2026 midterms, the one that will be its ugliest and likely most expensive. I hope you like politics. Elsewhere, the war in Iran is getting hotter, and Republican lies about “voter fraud” in California are only getting worse.

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‘This Is a Movement About Us’

As Graham Platner won Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination easily on Tuesday, the Marine combat veteran and oyster farmer torched the national media that’s trying to destroy him.

“The national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by,” Platner said. “But in trying so hard to understand me, they fail to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us – about the far too many, working far too hard and struggling far too much, at the hands of the ruling class.”

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Zeteo’s Prem Thakker broke the news of Platner’s Senate bid last summer. (Watch Mehdi’s interview with him here, and read one of mine.) I’ve followed Platner’s insurgent campaign closely on the ground throughout Maine, as he’s held town hall after town hall, discussing his views, the problems voters are facing and the oligarchs robbing them, and his plan to organize to build worker political power.

A first-time candidate for office, the populist, anti-war, anti-genocide Democrat is set to face five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins in the fall. The race, which could determine control of the Senate, is sure to be a blistering one. Democrats have never beaten Collins. This year, she’ll run in an exceedingly difficult environment for Republicans: Donald Trump is deeply unpopular, as is his unending war in Iran, which has sharply raised energy costs.

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Under the authoritarian rule of Donald Trump and amid the war in Iran, World Cup teams and fans were already expecting a subpar tournament in U.S. host cities this year. More than a quarter of the countries participating in the 2026 FIFA World Cup face U.S. travel bans, restrictions, or high visa rejection rates for fans. Human rights groups have been warning for months about the promised presence of ICE in U.S. host cities. And tickets were out of reach for many fans of the world’s most popular sport due to FIFA’s exorbitant prices this year.

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But as teams, fans, and journalists arrive in the U.S. ahead of this week’s opening matches, it’s clear the 2026 World Cup is turning out to be even more of a shitshow than expected.

From American immigration officials handing out a red card to a Somali referee to FIFA allegedly scamming those looking to attend the games, here are seven of the biggest ways the 2026 FIFA World Cup is already a disaster:

1. Iran’s Team Faces ‘Discriminatory’ Treatment

In the shadow of the illegal U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, Iranian officials have called on FIFA to address the “deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team” by the U.S.

The Islamic Republic’s national team lost its ticket allocations for its matches just days before the World Cup is set to begin. Plus, the country’s team must reportedly enter and exit the U.S. on the same day of its games, and several key staffers were denied entry visas into the U.S.

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2. Somali Referee Denied Entry to the U.S.

Somalia’s Omar Artan, the 2025 Confederation of African Football (Caf) men’s referee of the year, was barred from entering the U.S. at Miami International Airport after an 11-hour immigration interview.

“I had the right papers and everything. I had the right visa,” said Artan.

It should be noted that Somalis have been frequent targets of Trump’s racist outbursts since he retook power last year.

3. Iraqi Striker Questioned for Hours at Chicago Airport

Teams arriving at U.S. airports are experiencing the full brunt of Trump’s harsh immigration policies. Iraq’s striker Aymen Hussein was questioned for nearly seven hours at Chicago’s O’Hare and had his phone inspected before entering the country. The team’s official photographer was denied entry after also being questioned for hours.

A Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson told CBS that "admissibility determinations are made on a case-by-case basis using law enforcement, national security, and immigration information available at the time of inspection."

4. African and Iranian Journalists’ Movement Restricted

International journalists are being denied the necessary visas to cover the tournament, which is being hosted by the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. “Countless” African and Iranian journalists can’t follow their teams across the host countries because they were given “single-entry” visas to the U.S., according to the International Sports Press Association.

5. U.S. Opener Still Not Sold Out

There were 132 tickets still available for the U.S. opener against Paraguay as of Tuesday afternoon.

6. Is FIFA Scamming Fans?

FIFA faced criticism over accusations that it was dumping unsold tickets for several matches on third-party resale sites for a fraction of the original cost. Critics accused FIFA of attempting to avoid chargeback and refund requests for the original tickets sold at exorbitant prices on the official FIFA website.

FIFA has not publicly responded to the accusations. It has previously said it “established a ticket sales and secondary-market model that reflects standard ticket-market practices for major sporting and entertainment events across the host countries.”

7. Strikes in U.S. Cities on the Horizon

Hospitality and food and beverage workers across U.S. host cities are threatening to strike and walk off the job unless their demands for wage increases and protections from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are met.

***

The FIFA World Cup unites people across the world every four years in support of the beautiful game, but in 2026, it will likely unite them in their disdain for Trump’s weaponization of the sport, rather than the sport itself.

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Zeteo’s Mohammed Abdelbary contributed to this piece.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to remove the references to the treatment of the Senegalese and Uzbek national teams by security in the U.S. After publication, the Uzbek team said the footage of security dogs checking their bags was from outside a stadium, and the inspections were standard procedure. The Senegalese team said the footage showing their players being checked by security took place in North Carolina, not Texas, as previously reported. It also said the tarmac security checks were part of an arrangement to expedite travel, per Reuters. It was also updated with the CBP statement.

Check out more of Zeteo’s recent coverage of the World Cup, including the first episode of our new 3-part series: ‘The Dark Side of the World Cup’:

I can’t quite remember the exact moment when I realized we needed a Zeteo specifically for the UK.

Was it after watching the Gorton and Denton by-election in late February, when almost every major media outlet from Sky News to the BBC to the Daily Mail helped spread Reform UK’s lie about British Muslims engaging in illegal ‘family voting’ for the Greens?

Was it after examining the egregious failure of mainstream media in the UK in the first week of March to describe the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran as illegal, a violation of the UN Charter, and a clear act of aggression?

Was it after reading a linguistic analysis by UK media bias comparison app NewsCord in late April, which showed how some of the UK’s leading news organizations “failed to name Israel as the perpetrator in Israeli attacks where civilians were killed in Gaza” in around half of all cases?

Was it after witnessing the British media pile-on against Green Party leader Zack Polanski in early May, over the issue of antisemitism, while most journalists gave Reform UK leader Nigel Farage a pass on that same issue?

Or perhaps… it was all of the above.

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The UK media is broken. TV ratings are in decline, newspaper circulations have been collapsing for years, and trust in journalism is disappearing fast. Britain ranks 32nd out of 48 countries for trust in news, placing it in the bottom third of the countries surveyed, and far below the levels seen in other major European democracies. The only professions in the UK that command less public trust than journalists are advertising executives and politicians.

I have to say that I take no pleasure in the crisis engulfing the British media. I spent a decade inside the mainstream media, working for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky News. Those were the years that shaped me as a journalist. I worked alongside many remarkable colleagues and came away convinced that a strong and healthy democracy depends on a strong and healthy media.

For far too long, however, mainstream media in the UK has failed the public. It has downplayed the rise of the far right at home while helping manufacture consent for genocide abroad. It has claimed the mantle of fearless truth-telling while too often bending to the wishes of the powerful. It has stressed independence and impartiality while too often bowing to corporate interests – or, in the case of the BBC, to political pressures from the government of the day.

The good news is that there is another way. In the United States, independent journalism has exploded, reaching millions of people who no longer defer to establishment media gatekeepers. Polls show Americans increasingly placing more trust in independent and online journalists than in traditional national news organizations.

SUBSCRIBE TO ZETEO UK TODAY

There is no reason Britain cannot follow America’s lead (at least in this one positive trend!). No reason we cannot build a media landscape that is more fearless, more accountable, and more willing to speak truth to power.

We, Zeteo, have had huge success in the United States as an independent outlet – breaking big news stories and producing ground-breaking documentaries; winning multiple awards; and acquiring hundreds of thousands of loyal subscribers on Substack and millions on YouTube. All this has been possible thanks to the financial support of all our paid subscribers. Every paid subscription helps us expand and fund real journalism.

Now, we want to replicate that growth and success in the UK. Zeteo UK will produce exclusive UK content by UK reporters for its subscribers. We’ll be bringing together some of the smartest British media voices from across the political spectrum – including Sangita Myska, Owen Jones, Grace Blakeley, Afua Hirsch, and Peter Oborne - while our daily coverage of Westminster politics will be helmed by former ITV News reporter and presenter Shehab Khan, who has interviewed the past six British prime ministers.

Oh, and I’ll be involved too! I plan to join many of Zeteo UK’s live events, both online and in person, as well as co-host shows and write op-eds. (I caught the UK politics bug at a very young age and – despite Donald Trump’s antics now commanding much of my journalistic time and attention – I haven’t lost it yet!)

So why would you not subscribe to it?

To be clear, this is a soft launch. We’ll spend the coming months expanding our reporting, growing our team, and building something worthy of this historic political moment in the UK. We’ll be publishing videos and articles on a semi-regular basis, some of which will be paywalled. Then, in September, we launch officially with daily content, including op-eds, news shows, and video podcasts – and we’re also planning a big live event in London with a very prominent British politician!

But every launch has a beginning.

Tomorrow, with your help and support, a new force for journalism, truth-telling, and disruption arrives in the UK media landscape.

Today, Zeteo UK is born.

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Happy Tuesday; it’s Swin 🙂 ☕. You may remember that in February, we reported that as President Donald Trump weighed whether to attend the Super Bowl, several close advisers privately assessed that he shouldn’t because the chances of him getting lustily booed on live TV were – to put it mildly – high. The president ultimately didn’t attend, and told an obvious lie about why. But this week, Trump opted to attend a different high-profile sporting event – and it went about as well as you might’ve expected. And it wasn’t even the most embarrassing thing to happen to the twice-impeached, repeatedly indicted U.S. president within the past 48 hours.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we dive right into Trump’s recent, rapid-fire spree of dick-stepping. Relatedly, did his administration roll out the red carpet for flesh-eating screwworms? Plus, Trump wants Todd Blanche to stay on as his attorney general, and Bernie Sanders thinks he might be too old to run for president again.

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🎶 If I Can Make It There 🎶

Last night’s Game 3 between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs took place in Manhattan. As I write this, I’m sitting here, on a Monday night, in Cincinnati. At one point, it was as if I could hear the booing all the way from over here in Ohio.

We can thank Donald J. Trump for that – even if it came at the cost of New Yorkers’ convenience and also the outdoor watch party meant for the people who couldn’t afford to get in.

Days before the president traveled back to his home city to attend the NBA Finals game – as a guest of Knicks owner and Trump donor James Dolan – administration officials knew what was coming.

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“I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate,” Donald Trump declared last night, just hours before Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu did in fact retaliate, striking Iran. Trump claims he called back, threatening, “Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.”

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If we are to believe the multiple interviews the president made time for during a 24-hour geopolitical crisis, Trump put an end to the latest ceasefire-threatening cycle of escalation, which began yesterday when the Israeli prime minister bombed Beirut, prompting Tehran to attack Israel for the first time since the start of the April ceasefire, leading Netanyahu to cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza and, despite Trump proclaiming “I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots,” bombing Iran anyway. After a plaintive Trump Truth Social post calling for peace, and Yemen’s Houthis firing at Israel and threatening to close the Red Sea to Israeli shipping, Tehran and Tel Aviv stopped shooting at each other, at least for now.

Trump’s critics have called Netanyahu’s “defiance” of Trump a “humiliation“ for the president. That’s giving Trump a little too much credit.

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PORTLAND, Maine – Tuesday is primary day for Graham Platner, the populist Marine combat veteran and oysterman, whom Maine is expected to nominate for Senate over the objections of the U.S. political establishment, the far-right, and the corporate media class. If he wins, he will face five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins in the fall.

More than any other election in the U.S. this year, the Maine Senate race has become a test of what people think should matter: policy goals (in Platner’s case, an expressed desire to fight corporate power, end wars, and stop Donald Trump’s authoritarian blitz), or the narratives that political operatives and journalists concoct together about politics and discuss in place of any of the many problems people experience as a result of policy decisions made in Washington, DC.

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The outside observers keyed in on Platner would have voters believe the race is about morality – as if there is any to be found in the candidate’s most prominent critics, some of whom are committed genocide deniers and unrepentant war propagandists, or in a political consensus that distributes death and despair outward, and ever-more wealth upward.

The question that’s actually on the ballot in Maine is more fundamental. It is a question that politicos and journalists avoid engaging with in a serious way: “Which side are you on?”

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For the first time, Zeteo is partnering with The Guardian for a unique live event in London titled ‘The Assault on Freedom.’

Livestream tickets are available now for this special show where Mehdi will sit down with The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi, airing today at 7:30pm BST (2:30pm ET / 11:30am PT).

They’ll discuss the crackdown on free speech, and the pro-Palestine movement; genocide in the Middle East; Trump, Starmer and Farage; and the awful state of our media and the assault on press freedoms.

Those who purchase livestream tickets will be able to ask questions of Mehdi and Arwavia via text from wherever in the world they are watching, and they will also have exclusive access to a video of the entire event for several weeks afterwards. Don’t miss a moment of this historic event!

Get Your Tickets Here

Good morning… Martin here, delighted to be bringing you your ‘First Draft’ goodness for a Monday morning, which in DC dawns disgustingly hot and muggy, a sign of the utter delight awaiting those who, for some reason, live here, over the next three infernally sticky months. Hurrah for that, I say, attempting to type with sarcasm.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we watch Donald Trump’s ludicrous interview with NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ preposterous hissy fit and all, so you don’t have to, and ask a hallowed question: “What if Obama or Biden behaved like that?” NBC was onto a loser anyway, in that they taped Friday, and by Sunday, all hell had broken loose over Iran. But then, Trump’s sheer absurdity essentially speaks to any moment. Elsewhere, we consider the latest Bari Weiss noise at CBS, with fired anchor Scott Pelley alleging editorial interference and CBS not really denying it. Such, such are the joys. Read on…

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‘Thank You, Darling’

Eleven years into the Trumpocene era, it’s basically a truism to ask, after watching the president’s latest outrageous demonstration of his sheer unfitness for office, “Imagine if Barack Obama did this? How would Republicans react? How would the media react?” Or if the footage shows Trump nodding off, “Imagine if ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden did this?”

Trump did not fall asleep during the interview with NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ he recorded in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, on Friday, for broadcast Sunday morning. But it was full of “Imagine if” moments that would surely have set the political world on fire if any other president even came close to matching them. There, Trump squatted, absurd orange makeup slapped on if rather haphazardly up by his ears, ski-jump combover wispily in some sort of place. And on he rambled, for 40 dreadful minutes, circular, fantastical, contradictory, vague, aggressive, outright rude, mostly about his war in Iran and its multiplying malign effects.

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Trump repeatedly said a deal to end it was close. By the time the piece went out, on the 100th day of the war, Israel had hit Beirut despite Trump claiming to have a promise it would not, and Iran was about to strike back. So Trump went to Axios, as he always does, to dictate the line that he would tell Benjamin Netanyahu not to respond. Officials confirmed that he did. Guess what: Israel responded, hitting Iran overnight.

In Wisconsin for a “farmers’ roundtable,” taking time out for NBC, Trump made his usual complete lack of sense. The regime in Tehran has been “largely decapitated,” he said. You can be decapitated, or not. Ask Marie Antoinette. And then there were the classic rambles: “We’re going to either have a deal, a strong deal, a meaningful deal, not like the Obama thing, Obama was a path to a nuclear weapon. Mine is the exact opposite. Mine is a wall, it’s a wall, just like I built 1,000 miles of wall on our southern border, and by the way, I took the worst border in history, and I made it the best border in history in a matter of weeks, and…”

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“There is something about the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the nation that has these haunting echoes,” Glaude tells Mehdi, “we’ve never really removed the tumor that causes so much of the illness of American life.”

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Glaude’s book takes readers through the U.S.’s biggest anniversaries, highlighting the contradictions in the jubilee of each from the perspective of race, equality, and freedom for all. The raw self-examination of American history is not an easy task, as Glaude explains during his conversation with Mehdi, which also touched on:

• Whether Glaude would’ve written the book even if Trump wasn’t re-elected

• How every Independence Day in this country works to instill a “mythical America” and a “white republic”

• His reaction to having one of his books removed from shelves by the Trump administration

• How underestimating white America blinded him to the eventuality of Trump’s first election

• What he meant exactly when he opened his book by saying “I do not love America, and never have.”

• Who he believes could be the 2028 candidate that can help the U.S. confront its past.

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Click here to buy a copy of Glaude’s book, ‘America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries.’ And if you’ve already read it, feel free to share your review of the book in the comments below!

Looking for more book recommendations? Visit the Zeteo book club here for inspiration!

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Prem has been asking members of Congress about it ever since. Every single time, he has received shocking non-answers from Republicans (at best), and, from Democrats, frustration at Republican inaction.

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In March, military investigators preliminarily determined that the U.S. was responsible for the strike. The same month, every single Senate Democrat except John Fetterman sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, demanding answers and accountability measures.

But Donald Trump’s administration has given no substantive answer on the matter. A spokesperson for the Defense Department told Zeteo “the incident is under investigation” and declined to comment.

The lack of answers about how this conflict may have started with a horrific war crime against children has not slowed this administration in continuing its onslaught.

Meanwhile, it’s been 860 days since Israeli forces in Gaza killed 5-year-old Hind Rajab. We repeatedly pressed U.S. officials on this killing – because if the U.S. could do nothing in response to the murder of a child whose name was heard around the world, what would it do about the other thousands of kids Israel has killed?

We never got answers. In one attack in Iran, the U.S. killed more than 100 kids just like Hind. And in Congress, particularly among Republicans, it’s just business as usual.

Watch the video above to see how members of Congress have answered questions about a massacre of children in which they may be complicit.

We are keeping this paywall–free. Please become a paid subscriber to Zeteo to help Prem keep pushing members of Congress in ways no one in the mainstream media will.

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Do you have any information or tips for Prem? You can text him on Signal at premthakker.35 your anonymity will be protected.

Zeteo’s Layla Nayfeh contributed to this video.

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May marked the deadliest month in Gaza this year. Of the 119 Palestinians killed, 30% were either children, women, or the elderly, according to Palestinian health officials. All during a supposed “ceasefire.”

We, of course, know that ceasefires that Israel agrees to – whether in Gaza or Lebanon – are often in name only. The bombing, the shooting, the forced displacement continue.

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In Gaza, Palestinians continue to have nowhere to run. Just this week, a family of five reportedly burned to death when their apartment building was targeted by Israeli forces. A doctor was killed not far from the hospital where he worked.

Meanwhile, a group of UN experts issued a fresh warning about Israeli settler brutality, and an Israel-based human rights group reported that a well-known Gaza doctor, abducted by Israel in late 2024, has been moved to solitary confinement.

That’s sadly not all. Here’s just a glimpse of another troubling week in Palestine:

Saturday, May 30 – Israeli Soldiers Detail Kill Orders During Gaza ‘Ceasefire’

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