GAZA CITY – A routine morning at a Gaza City nursery turned into chaos when an Israeli operation to detain a Hamas official unfolded around it, leaving nearly 200 children between the ages of 4 and 5 trapped between gunfire, airstrikes, and a staff trying to convince them it was fireworks.

Doaa Qadeeh was still shaking hours later. Speaking haltingly, her voice breaking, she told me over the phone: “My body would not stop trembling.” She could barely get the words out.

Qadeeh is the head of the kindergarten department at Abdul Aziz Model School, in Gaza City’s western Katiba area, across from the American Hospital.

Earlier on Tuesday, she had gone live on video in the middle of an Israeli operation, pleading for the safety of the children in her care.

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“I have more than 200 children right now,” she said in the video, sobbing, as the sound of explosions and children crying filled the background. “Isn’t the war supposed to be over?” Across from the hospital, the location of the school, she said, was meant to be one of the safer areas in Gaza – a place where children could come to learn and live in peace and security. Instead, she and 200 children were being evacuated by the Red Cross under bombing and explosions.

Around her, parents, ambulances, and small buses scrambled to move children and families out. Some parents ran toward the school clutching their children the moment they reached them. Others ran through the crowd screaming out their children’s names, panicked, unable to find them.

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Yes and yes, argues journalist and author Rozina Ali, as she joins Mehdi for a conversation about the history of Islamophobia and her powerful new book, Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America.

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Ali’s book examines the way Islamophobia is “manufactured and encouraged” in the U.S., tracing its roots back well before 9/11, to the 1940s. Today, xenophobic persecution is not reserved for Muslims. Ali explains how the Donald Trump administration is using vague anti-terror laws to target anyone it deems a political enemy.

Watch the full video to hear Ali break down the way “thousands and thousands” of Muslim Americans were surveilled by the FBI and undercover informants, and explore the role Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu played in shaping what we know to be Islamophobia today.

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Paid subscribers can watch the full video above. Free subscribers can watch a 2-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to unlock content like this, and much more from Zeteo.

Click here to buy a copy of the book. Looking for more book recommendations? Visit the Zeteo book club here for inspiration!

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Good morning and happy September, dear friends. May the cosmic energy from August’s solar and lunar eclipses fuel our curiosity and empathy, help us heal and let go of our old wounds, and welcome us to a new day. Prem here, with all the news you need.

To start ‘First Draft,’ here’s someone, and his ferocity, we may soon be rid of if his voters finally decide enough is enough. Benjamin Netanyahu was just on Israeli television, openly bragging about how he tricked those stubborn and misinformed Americans into finally attacking Iran. Below, I’ll take you back to something else Netanyahu did, two years ago, inside Capitol Hill, on my first day at Zeteo.

Plus, Chief Justice John Roberts said Donald Trump’s ludicrous White House ballroom project was “likely unlawful” but really just argued about standing to sue – and crocodiles – with five other conservatives who had him outnumbered, thereby freeing Trump to erect his emiratic carbuncle where the East Wing once stood.

Come along, then, as we digest another insane day under Trump, but also another day on which ‘First Draft’ is published without a paywall, so new readers can see what Zeteo brings to the table each weekday morning: reporting and opinion on all the news you need, on the political subjects that matter. Let’s get to it.

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Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For… Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu has spent decades pushing U.S. presidents to attack Iran. He asked four presidents point-blank to do so. Three refused, over and over. With Donald Trump, Netanyahu’s luck finally changed. Now, as the Israeli prime minister scrambles to hold onto his job in election season, he is going around Israel bragging about how exactly he convinced the world’s most powerful military to bend to his will.

On Sunday, Netanyahu sat for an interview with the genocide-inciting Israeli TV network, Channel 14. There, he appealed to Israeli voters about why they ought to continue supporting him.

“I’ve been against Iran for almost 40 years,” Netanyahu said, adding that “it took a long time to bring the United States to its senses.”

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He was able to do it, Netanyahu said, because he had “close to 1,000 hours on American television with the ability to influence the United States – with the intimate knowledge of all its leaders, both those who support us and those who don’t support us – the ability to navigate this field, through it.”

The gall. In English, Netanyahu lavishes praise on U.S. leaders. In Hebrew, he boasts of how he manipulated them.

That’s not all of it, though.

Some of you may not remember, but the following is forever seared in my memory. On my first day at Zeteo, two years ago, Netanyahu came to Washington. While he delivered a speech that had members of both parties applauding with a level of zeal they don’t show even for a U.S. president, the Israeli prime minister also attacked Americans protesting his visit outside.

I want to underline this: A foreign leader, whose entire project benefits from billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars each year, came to U.S. soil, and slandered U.S. citizens – and U.S. representatives clapped like seals in response.

There is a straight line between that moment – and the U.S. continuing to unconditionally fund Israel ever since, despite it killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and several Americans – and today, when Netanyahu feels so comfortable bragging about how he asserted his will over the U.S.

Think what an indictment this is.

Netanyahu explicitly cites how the U.S. media has served as a compliant springboard, a vessel for his influence operation on, if not the populace, at least the consultants and members of Congress who engage with cable news more than their actual constituents.

And as for the American leadership class: You have unconditionally given this man more than $20 billion, at a conservative estimate, in the past three years. Even as he and his soldiers and his terrorist settlers have killed and brutalized and bullied a double-digit number of Americans, you have given him more and more. And anytime someone has gained enough momentum to criticize that dynamic with enough gusto to resonate with the people you’re supposed to represent, you either willingly or reluctantly scramble to defame them.

And as for the rest of us, the collective “we”: Do we have an ounce of self-respect? As the polls have shown, definitively, American public sentiment towards Israel has plummeted. Despite mainstream media’s insistence, it’s not even a question of divides over Israel in the Democratic Party – it’s nearly unanimous opposition. And independents are not far behind. Even in the Republican Party – home to the Christian Zionists and the Trump-First MAGA movement – opinion on Israel has become split, with no sure sign of it firming up again.

Still, one may hope that the level of condescension, power concentration, and weaponization expressed by the U.S. political class in order to shield its undying support for Israel will prompt something beyond earth-shaking public opinion.

Yes, pro-Israel politicians are beginning to pay the price, particularly in the Democratic primaries. And yes, tens of thousands of Americans, particularly young people, have put themselves on the line and protested against the parasitic U.S.-Israeli relationship and in support of human rights for Palestinians – and subsequently, of course, been viciously targeted by the ruling party, and smeared by some members of the “opposition” party and their mainstream media allies.

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There comes a point when every dam breaks. It should’ve happened decades ago. Years ago. Months ago. Every single day delivers another reminder of how heartlessly violent the Israeli state is, and how that behavior is carried out on the U.S. dime. Most Palestinian children killed by Israel are not like Hind Rajab, whose name is now known around the world. In the global mind, most remain nameless. Americans have been killed, defending our Palestinian siblings or while simply trying to live their own lives in Palestine.

If it has not already completely lost its meaning, without action, the promise of American patriotism will ultimately come to be void. With each crime committed against an innocent Palestinian; with each American humiliated or killed with no justice; with each boast Israeli leaders like Netanyahu let loose about how they successfully manipulated the foolish Americans, despite it all; with each such step, any semblance of “pride” in being American is more and more unearned.

As far back as 2001, Netanyahu was caught on camera as he spoke with Israeli settlers during the second intifada. “I know what America is,” he said. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.

“They won’t get in the way.”

Looks like he was right.

🇮🇷 Iran War Updates

• Loose talk: Donald Trump said “We’re going to hit them hard” and “There will be a response” to Iranian strikes on U.S. bases in Jordan on Sunday – strikes launched after the U.S. hit Iranian launchers near the Strait of Hormuz, after a month with no attacks. Trump also said the U.S. might “smack them to see what happens.”

• Strait talk: Iran said a tanker in the Strait hit mines and caught fire. The U.S. denied it. A British monitor said it “received a report of an incident involving a tanker and military forces in the Indian Ocean.” Trump claimed the Strait was in “extremely good shape.”

• Sloppy second: Vice President JD Vance said Trump was “sending a message” by posting AI videos of blasts on Kharg Island, an oil hub. Iran called the videos “laughable.”

• ‘Lashing out’: At the G20 meeting in North Carolina, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Iran was “lashing out kinetically because they are losing economically.”

• Penta-gone: Dan Driscoll resigned as U.S. Army Secretary after clashing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. With the military under strain from prolonged war, Fox said Driscoll opposed the firing of generals responsible for transformation and readiness.

• Lebanon latest: Lebanon asked Greece to help secure peace with Israel, on the same day Athens signed a multibillion-dollar weapons deal with the Israelis. Lebanon’s national news agency said Israeli forces continuing strikes in the south despite a supposed ceasefire dropped illegal white phosphorus munitions.

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‘I Want To Look at a Crocodile’

Chief Justice John Roberts signed the dissent to the unsigned ruling by which Donald Trump’s pet Supreme Court said he could continue building his White House ballroom because drones, or something. Roberts joined the three liberals, but it was hard to escape the feeling that the man who has done more than most to give Trump what he wants might be crying crocodile tears. Not least because he decided to write about crocodiles.

The majority confined itself to the matter of standing. (Maybe on crocodiles, Roger Moore’s Bond-style. Maybe not.) It said the plaintiff didn’t have it. Roberts said she did. In his words, Alice Hoagland of the National Trust for Historic Preservation “regularly visits the White House to take in the historic building’s beauty and to appreciate its symbolism. By overshadowing the traditional White House, Hoagland explains, the new ballroom will detract from the building’s message of republican simplicity and thereby worsen her viewing experience.

“Hoagland’s injury suffices for standing. A historic preservationist… can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys, just as an environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.”

Precedent included Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, from 2000. Roberts continued: “With the Court’s rejection of Hoagland’s standing today, however, it now is the case that ‘I want to look at a crocodile’ can adequately answer the ever critical ‘what’s it to you?’ question of Article III standing, while ‘I want to look at the White House’ cannot – no matter how distinctive the particular viewer’s interest in looking at it may be.”

Funny the alleys up which legal arguments take one, when one is not a lawyer. It also seemed, to this non-lawyer, that so much ink need not have been spilled.

“Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year,” Roberts wrote. “That construction is likely unlawful. Pursuant to its plenary constitutional authority over the District of Columbia and federal property, Congress has explicitly prohibited the construction of any “building or structure… on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”

Surely the whole thing should’ve been that simple. Trump’s ballroom is unlawful. But then, this is constitutional law, which is never simple, and always political, and the presidential crocodile Roberts helped create has long escaped control. On Monday, five of Trump’s six right-wingers were happy to let him carry on running amok.

🗞️ What You Need to Know

• Don’t blame Canada: A YouGov survey found that 43% of Americans approve of Canada’s 50% tariffs on U.S. goods in Trump’s trade war, and only 40% disapprove. It also found 61% opposed to renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America, to 19% in favor.

• Elections news: A federal judge refused to lift a block on the U.S. Postal Service attacking mail-in votes. The administration appealed again. DHS said it plans to “surge” voter fraud investigations. Military chief Gen. Dan Caine said there are no plans to deploy troops to polling places. The New York Times reported “around $1 billion in anonymous money” has been spent on elections this year.

• Data glitch: Trump went all-in for AI data centers, which are very unpopular, saying that communities should only reject data centers “if they want to end up being backwards and poor.” JD Vance, for his part, said: “I don’t think data centers are that controversial.”

• ICE watch: In Biddeford, Maine, where an ICE agent killed an immigrant father in July, GOP Senator Susan Collins defended her support for $70 billion extra for the agency through Trump’s second term. A federal court enjoined a Virginia law preventing localities from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

• ‘Highly unusual’: New CDC head Erica Schwartz has not added two measles deaths in Pennsylvania, reported by Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, to the national tally for the current outbreak, the Washington Post reported, noting staff unease given Health Secretary (and anti-vax crank) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disputes the causes of death.

• Congress watch: Speaker Mike Johnson backed GOP Ohio Rep. Max Miller, who denies abuse claims. Ex-New York GOP Rep. George Santos was banned from prediction market Kalshi for improper trading. Four Democrats introduced a resolution to “condemn and denounce socialism in all its forms, including the Democratic Socialists of America.” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries defended meeting Jared Kushner.

• Epstein news: Bloomberg obtained the Bureau of Prisons’ application to move Ghislaine Maxwell, the sex trafficker associate of late sex offender and Trump pal Jeffrey Epstein, to a minimum security facility. The justification was redacted.

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🧠 Pop Quiz!

What nationality was John Candy, the legendary comic who played a belligerent American sheriff initiating an invasion of Canada in his final film release, the 1995 Michael Moore satire ‘Canadian Bacon’?

Keep your eyes out for the answer below!

🌏 Anywhere But America

• 🇵🇸 Don’t forget Gaza: Israeli airstrikes killed at least five Palestinians, officials said. Two were killed and several were wounded near a park in Gaza City packed with displaced families. More than 1,325 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the so-called “ceasefire” of October last year.

• 🇵🇸 West Bank update: In remarks reported by the New York Times, retired Israeli generals and officials condemned settler violence and compared Israeli violence in the occupied territories to Nazi violence against the Jews. “I’ve earned the right to speak,” said Asaf Agmon, a former Air Force general whose soldier grandson was killed in Lebanon last year. “I am ashamed of what our people are doing here.” The U.S. condemned a settler attack on an NBC News crew.

• 🇨🇳🇳🇵New warning: Rescuers were racing to find workers believed trapped in tunnels at hydropower sites after catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China last week. The death toll passed 1,000 with 3,900 still missing.

• 🇷🇺🇺🇸 G20 protest: As jet-powered drones battered Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, European finance ministers slammed Russian involvement at the G20 meeting in North Carolina, including sideline talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Spain and South Africa, U.S. allies attacked by Trump, were not present.

• 🇬🇧 Elite entry: British Museum staffers expressed concern, The Guardian reported, after pro-Trump, Epstein-linked Palantir billionaire Peter Thiel attended a VIP viewing of the Bayeux tapestry.

• 🇨🇩 Ebola update: Authorities in DR Congo said the caseload in the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record had passed 6,000, with 2,911 deaths.

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🙄 WTF?!

In the Oval Office, Dr. Oz referred to “the ravages of obesity” while gesturing toward (a supposedly) 238-pound President Donald Trump. Might’ve been unwise, had Trump been awake.

🧠 Trivia answer: Canadian.

ICYMI From Zeteo

Zeteo’s Martin Pengelly contributed to this newsletter.

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Still want to get Zeteo content, but not this newsletter? You can unsubscribe directly from ‘First Draft’ by going to ‘manage subscription’ in Substack, scrolling down, and toggling the button for ‘First Draft’ off.

On Friday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated Raksha Bandhan, a traditionally Hindu festival that honors the bond between brothers and sisters, by visiting India Home, a community center for South Asian seniors. The next day in New York, a leader of a far-right, Nazi-inspired Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization delivered remarks at Madison Square Garden.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat spoke Saturday at a rally in New York City, called the “Universal Oneness Celebration,” an event ostensibly about shared humanity and mutual respect. “If any Hindu thinks that there should be no Muslim in Bharat, he will not remain Hindu,” a moderate-sounding Bhagwat said (“Bharat” is another name for India). “If you call yourself Hindu, you must believe all paths are leading to the same goal.”

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However, in the past, Bhagwat has attracted controversy by declaring “everyone born in” India to be a Hindu, “even Muslims”; suggesting gang rape in India is a Western import; and accusing Muslim men of carrying out “love jihad” by courting Hindu women.

Hence, the RSS rally at Madison Square Garden on Saturday attracted large protests outside. While several organizations tried and failed to stop the rally from taking place, in protest of Bhagwat’s controversial political movement, the opposition continues.

Nearly 100 political officials across the United States – from Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and his former opponent Haley Stevens, to top Indian-American Reps. Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal – have now pledged to reject money from the RSS.

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For days, Donald Trump’s administration has been on a media blitz to lie to reporters, the public, and the markets about how the president’s illegal war on Iran is going really well, actually. In reality, very few in the U.S. government are buying their own propaganda.

“We aren’t winning,” one senior U.S. government official tells Zeteo this week. “Why are you asking me if I think we’re winning? What a stupid question.”

According to four U.S. officials and one Trump adviser, it remains a widespread belief across the federal government, including within the Pentagon, that the Trump administration is still losing the Iran war, and that the White House’s renewed propaganda push to paint a rosier portrait of the conflict is little more than a public relations effort meant to boost Trump’s party in the lead-up to the midterm elections.

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Two of these officials say one reason they are talking to Zeteo and other media outlets about how poorly the war is going for the American side is that they’re appalled at the ongoing attempt by Team Trump to, in the words of one of the officials, push “nothing but lies and distortions” about this phase of the president’s grossly unpopular conflict with Iran.

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Good morning, and Happy Monday as ever. Martin here, delighted to kick off your week. Please note that this week’s Madchester musical link is to the video for “Stinkin Thinkin,” a quality which might be said to apply to many of our subjects today.

First in ‘First Draft,’ we’ll take a look at the wholly absurd situation in which far-right provocateur and close Trump adviser Laura Loomer can abuse five prominent Black Democratic women in viciously racist terms, to absolute crickets from the media and Democratic establishment, leaving the strongest condemnation to no less than Marjorie Taylor Greene. Of course, our press and pols are busy, what with so many attacks to be mounted on Hasan Piker instead. Then we’ll turn to Donald Trump himself, and his hissy fit about Kristen Welker of NBC correctly saying he has had “some mixed results” with endorsements of late. There are also worrying developments to consider in Trump’s forever war with Iran, with missiles flying over the Strait of Hormuz once again.

We’re also happy to say that this week, ‘First Draft’ will be published without a paywall, so new readers can see what Zeteo brings to your table each weekday morning: reporting and opinion on all the news you need, on the political subjects that matter. Let’s get to it.

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‘Who You Calling a Bitch?’

On Friday, the far-right activist and close Trump ally and adviser Laura Loomer treated the world to some foul racist invective, calling prominent Democrats Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, former Rep. Cori Bush, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Florida Senate candidate Angie Nixon “ghetto Black bitches.”

Loomer said she didn’t care about being called racist, but she did seem to care when one target answered back.

“Girl,” Nixon posted, before reaching, effectively, for the campaign vernacular of our times. (See Abdul El-Sayed’s baiting of “beta” opponent Mike Rogers.)

“You ate dog food on camera,” Nixon wrote, about something Loomer definitely did. “In the words of Queen Latifah, ‘Who you calling a bitch?’

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Loomer responded with more gutter racism: ‘I called you a ghetto bitch, because you are, Angie, and your record proves it. But, you speak Ebonics though, so maybe I need to bark at you and tug your leash and then you’ll finally understand.”

On Sunday, Nixon hit back, writing: “When referring to me, it’s [State] Representative Angie Nixon. However after November 3rd, YOU CAN CALL ME SENATOR!”

Loomer wrote: “Ok[ay] Shaniqua.”

Enter an unlikely defender. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-spouting former MAGA congresswoman from Georgia with plenty of racism in her own record, took Loomer to task.

“I’m not a Democrat and I’m not supporting Angie Nixon, but the Republican Party and President Trump owns Laura Loomer and her nonstop vitriol,” Greene wrote. “This hateful, racists [sic], and demeaning rhetoric should not be tolerated. Ever. But they allow it and keep her in the inner circle.”

The Piss Artist Commonly Known as MTG went on to say Loomer’s racism would hurt Senator Ashley Moody, the Republican who will face Nixon in November, just as Loomer’s influence over Donald Trump has damaged the party already. Sticking to her current, politically convenient line of Trump apostasy, Greene said Republicans could win on “actual accomplishments for your voters and policy plans that will help Americans.” Good luck with that. But then she went back to safer ground, pointing to Loomer’s own failed congressional runs: “Voters proved twice that they reject her completely. When will the President and the Republican Party reject her and her hateful racists [sic] behavior? They refuse to[,] which tells you everything you need to know.”

Loomer went into overdrive, repeating her slur and using others, whining: “Why is anti-white racism ok[ay] but I’m not allowed to call a spade a spade.”

You had to say, MTG had a point. And so, turning to the press, did Mehdi:

“Serious question to every mainstream news network and newspaper in this country: how can you justify crazy obsessive coverage of Hasan Piker and just totally ignore much worse stuff like this from an actual presidential adviser?”

Loomer may not have an official title, and may have denied working for Trump in her exchange with Greene, but she very definitely is a close Trump adviser, having last year played a central role in his firing of six members of the National Security Council. Responding to the New York Times about that story, Trump denied it but also called Loomer a “great patriot.” This June, Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan provided a five-page account of the meeting that led to the firings. Their bestselling book, Regime Change, also includes another description of Loomer’s White House access, lunching and plotting with then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in the West Wing.

Loomer has more on her CV. She recently went after a transgender CIA officer in the White House intelligence directorate, who was soon removed. She has taken credit for the swift deportation last week of Milo Yiannopoulos, the British far-right provocateur with whom she fell out and for whose removal she long called.

Compared to all that, what is Hasan Piker? A leftist streamer who has made controversial statements, for example about 9/11, which he walked back, and who has seen those and other statements, for example about American Jews and Israel, and not much different than remarks by Hannah Arendt, willfully and widely misrepresented. Piker has appeared with Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, who is now being forced by his own party to distance himself from Piker and his views.

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If it’s near-impossible to find a senior national journalist or indeed a senior national Democrat saying anything about Loomer’s abject racism about a candidate for Senate, two congresswomen, a former congresswoman and the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s also near impossible to find a senior national journalist or a senior national Democrat not rushing to attack Piker, on social media or on TV:

But here we are. The president has a close ally and adviser who has called herself “a proud Islamophobe,” and who has described Islam as a “cancer on society” and Muslims as “savages.” We get why no one wants to talk about that, and would rather attack a prominent Muslim commentator and a prominent Muslim candidate, both of them stringent critics of Israel.

But, to repeat, Loomer has now called five prominent Black women “ghetto Black bitches,” and repeated and varied the slur. Isn’t that enough to stir up some sort of comment or action? Anything?

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?… Loomer?

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🇮🇷 Iran War Updates

• Strait strikes: On Saturday, a tanker was struck in the Strait of Hormuz. On Sunday, U.S. forces hit Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the first military action in a month, with AP citing an official who said Iranians were preparing to launch “rockets with sea mines.” Iran said fighters and civilians were killed and wounded, and promised to respond. U.S. forces in Jordan were attacked.

• Slop press: Late Sunday, Trump posted to Truth Social AI videos and the message “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT.” Echoing George W. Bush, who attacked Iraq, he also posted video of his golf drive.

• Bombshell report: The Washington Post reported “several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere.” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell called the report a “crime.”

• Ayatollah speaks: Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said Muslim nations should “know your real enemy, understand its plans and confront it.”

• Family affair: Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was “evacuated” from his home in Miami due to a “significant threat” to his life, Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said. Benjamin Netanyahu, whose forces have killed Iranian leaders’ family members, including Khamenei’s father, previously said Iran had tried to kill one of his sons.

• Lebanon latest: The U.S. State Department said Iran-backed Hezbollah had to disarm before a peace process could be put into effect. Israel continued to ignore the ceasefire, with artillery and airstrikes in the south of the country.

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‘Rebuke or Punishment’

In Wisconsin in June, NBC ‘Meet the Press’ host Kristen Welker struggled through a disastrous interview with Donald Trump, then pleaded with him not to stand up and walk out. Later, she said he’d agreed to sit down again.

So much for groveling. Sunday brought an outburst Welker’s way that brought to mind that tweet that gets trotted out once a week: “’I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.”

On Truth Social, Trump said Welker would be “reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment,” for the heinous sin of… saying Trump has of late achieved “some mixed results” in endorsing Republicans for Congress.

Welker was clearly correct. For the U.S. House, Trump picks Rep. Andy Ogles (Tennessee), Rep. Cory Mills and Catalina Lauf (Florida), and Amir Hassan (Michigan) were beaten. So were gubernatorial picks Mike Lindell (Minnesota), Burt Jones (Georgia), Rep. Randy Feenstra (Iowa), Pamela Evette (South Carolina), and Megan Degenfelder (Wisconsin).

Yes, Trump’s general record is strong. But even the high-profile wins he touted were not particularly comfortable. Last week, Trump dragged Lindsey Graham’s know-nothing sister, Darline, over the line in the South Carolina Senate primary and saw Mike Mazzei squeak the nomination for governor in Oklahoma.

Meaningful FCC “rebuke or punishment” for Welker is unlikely, however much Trump squeals about his pet FCC Chair, Brendan Carr, taking “this threat to our country very seriously.”

But Trump’s outburst did point to his very real threat to the press. As he bleated about “fake polls used by a crooked media,” reporters from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg were being barred from the G20 meeting in North Carolina, while the Pentagon claimed a Washington Post report of military warnings about extending the Iran war was a criminal matter.

On Sunday, NBC said: “Kristen is one of the best in the business, and we stand by her.” It would have done better to call Trump out as the threat to free speech that he is.

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🗞️ What You Need to Know

• Bizarre interview: Speaking to GOP congressman turned Fox host Trey Gowdy, Trump talked Iran, the economy, and dream (golf) foursomes. He also confirmed he wants Republican voters to pretend he is on the ballot in November. Polling suggests that may be unwise.

• ICE horror: Ten people described to the New York Times brutal deportations to Liberia, where they have no ties. Five said they were beaten for protesting. “They didn’t treat us like people, like human beings,” said Carlos Téllez-Sanchez, from Venezuela. “They can say or do anything to you and there’s nothing you can do.” CBS further reported the increase in such “third country” deportations.

• Deport in a storm: Trump Border Czar Tom Homan all but admitted far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was swiftly deported and publicly shamed because even-further-right activist Laura Loomer told authorities the Briton overstayed his visa. Homan denied Yiannopoulos was deliberately spared detention in tough conditions.

• Dem defers: Veteran Rep. James Clyburn told NBC Democrats should not prioritize impeaching Trump if they take back the House. “Our priority ought to be making housing, education, energy, healthcare affordable and accessible for all of our citizens,” he said. “Impeaching the president will not do that.”

• Lying eyes: Mike Rogers, the GOP Senate candidate in Michigan, claimed in a fundraising email to have seen “the dead body of Osama bin Laden with my own eyes.” But in 2011, at the time of the raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader, Rogers, then chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters he was informed of events the next day.

• Epstein news: A Brazilian doctor whose wife publicly linked Donald and Melania Trump to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein fled Florida days before he was due to go on trial for allegedly conducting cosmetic procedures without a license. Joao Araujo said he was “a fugitive now. With honor.”

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🚨 Watch Now!

🌏 Anywhere But America

• 🇵🇸 Don’t forget Gaza: An Israeli strike killed two Palestinians, including a 3-year-old boy, and wounded several yesterday, while an attack today killed at least two others. José Andres, head of World Central Kitchen, addressed the Israeli officer who said he wasn’t sorry for directing the strike that killed seven of the aid group’s workers in April 2024. “There will never be any excuse for killing them,” Andres said.

• 🇵🇸 West Bank latest: Israeli settlers forcibly detained a British activist trying to protect a Palestinian village. Finn Joughlin’s lawyer said he would be deported.

• 🇺🇦🇷🇺 Deadly cost: The toll from the worst Russian attack this year rose to 38 with four missing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. The Friday strike hit a warehouse near Kyiv that stored ammunition, sparking explosions and fires.

• 🇨🇦 Off the charts: Google Maps kowtowed to Trump’s ridiculous trade war bullshit and childish executive order and changed Lake Ontario to Lake America.

• 🇻🇪 Oil grab: The Wall Street Journal described how U.S. companies refusing to play ball over Venezuelan oil after the removal of President Nicolás Maduro led Donald Trump to have the U.S. government take a direct stake instead.

• 🇨🇳🇳🇵New warning: Nepalese authorities warned of possible new flooding, days after flash floods caused by a fracturing glacier killed at least 900 people and left thousands more missing in Nepal and China.

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🧠 Pop Quiz!

Donald Trump says he’s renamed Lake Ontario as Lake America. How much of Lake Ontario is in Canada?

Keep your eyes out for the answer below!

🙄 WTF?!

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is campaigning with AI slop celebrating the starvation of Palestinians. Disgusting irony of the portly Ben-Gvir being shown looking trim and healthy? Noted.

🧠 Trivia answer: 54% is in Canada, and 46% in the U.S.

📺 Sunday Show Roundup

• Confronted with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy’s claim that ICE is “arresting parents at school bus stops” in Connecticut, leaving children “alone [and] scared to death,” Trump Border Czar Tom Homan failed to issue any sort of denial. “Now, did they arrest somebody at a bus stop? I’m not aware of that,” he told CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’ “But ICE is out there to enforce law against those that have been ordered removed by a federal judge… there’s no safe harbor.” Homan also defended deportations of previously legal Haitian immigrants that a UN monitor called “insane.”

• Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, 86 and in Congress 33 years, told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ he regretted advocating for Clarence Thomas during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation process. “I have made mistakes in my life, and that’s one that I made, and I will own up to that mistake,” Clyburn said, considering Thomas’s far-right opinions and alleged rampant corruption. “I had no idea that Clarence Thomas would rebel the way he has against his own background and experiences,” Clyburn said, adding that he supports expanding the court.

• Wearing a blazing red Canada soccer jersey, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told ABC’s ‘This Week’ that Donald Trump’s trade war will be “devastating on both countries but… definitely devastating on the U.S… A tariff on Canada is nothing more than a tax on American people, and it’s probably the worst move he could ever do.” For good measure, Ford added that Trump’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America was “like something out of ‘Saturday Night Live.’”

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🗓️ Mark Your Calendars

• Monday, Aug. 31: House lawmakers return after a five-week vacation, with a government funding deadline just four weeks away, another week off due after Labor Day, and the Senate not back for two weeks. In Asheville, North Carolina, G20 finance ministers and central bank governors will meet. Vice President JD Vance is due to speak at a GOP campaign event in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

• Tuesday, Sept. 1: Massachusetts holds congressional primaries, with all eyes on the Democratic Senate contest between Senator Ed Markey, 80, and Rep. Seth Moulton, 47. Markey has heavyweight progressive endorsements and leads in most polls.

• Wednesday, Sept. 2: Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro faces a deadline to file a bid to dismiss his U.S. criminal case in New York.

• Thursday, Sept. 3: A hearing is scheduled in federal court in Boston over Donald Trump’s ongoing attempts to restrict mail-in voting. In court in Washington, DC, a woman charged with vandalizing the World War II Memorial is scheduled to be arraigned.

ICYMI From Zeteo

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Here’s a frightening thought experiment: How much more damage could the infamous 1950s demagogue Joseph McCarthy have done if he’d sat in the Oval Office?

Donald Trump’s deadly crusade against immigrants, “hardcore, godless Communists” and “left-wing political violence” gives us an idea.

In January, his deportation goons in Minnesota killed anti-ICE protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight. Administration officials since then, as the New York Times recently documented, have investigated whether groups supporting protests provided “domestic terrorist financing” to “violent opportunists and agitators.”

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Instead of charging the killers of Good and Pretti, the Justice Department has accused 15 alleged members of “antifa” of “organized lawless behavior” in Minneapolis. Trump can deploy federal prosecutors with abandon because he scares fellow Republicans who control Congress.

Senator Joe McCarthy intimidated President Dwight Eisenhower, too. But in his post-World War II anti-communist rampage, the Wisconsin Republican never controlled the government’s law enforcement and national security machinery.

Even without that power, McCarthy and the political arsonists he inspired burned America badly. I recently learned how my own family got singed in an episode that resembles Trump’s depredations today.

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And while you think you may already know Hunter Biden, Mehdi flew out to Los Angeles to sit down with him in person and get to the bottom of some unanswered questions, including Hunter’s influence during Joe Biden’s presidency, the genocide in Gaza, and whether he accepts any responsibility for the right-wing attacks on him and the Biden family name.

This is not one of the typical, cozy podcast chats you’ve seen with Hunter Biden. In true ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ fashion, this is a candid, challenging, and, at times, even heated exchange centered on big issues and hard truths.

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In this hour-long conversation, Hunter Biden divulges all on:

• His father enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the then president’s friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu

• The latest news about Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis

• His own battle with addiction

• His role in contributing to the right-wing “Biden crime family” narrative

• Whether he pushed his father to run for reelection in 2024

• Why he believes Kamala Harris was not always “loyal” to his father

• Whether he’s made amends with Hallie Biden, his late brother’s widow whom he dated and helped get addicted to crack cocaine

• Why he appeared on Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson’s shows

• His pick for Democratic presidential nominee in 2028

• And why he’s “always disappointed” in the Democratic Party – and thinks it was “insanity” for Hakeem Jeffries to secretly meet with Jared Kushner.

At the start of their conversation, Mehdi asks Hunter Biden if his self-description as an “open book” applies to this interview too, to which Biden responds: “It certainly does,” before adding with a laugh: “I’d like to say to the camera that I brought this on myself.”

Paid subscribers can watch the hour-long interview in full above, without a paywall. Free subscribers can watch a four-minute preview. Consider upgrading your subscription to unlock all Zeteo has to offer.

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You can follow Hunter Biden on Substack and on Twitter.

Catch up on some of Zeteo’s latest stories:

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Children in Gaza can’t even fly kites anymore – without risking their lives.

Israel continues to ensure kids in Gaza have no childhood – whether by killing them, displacing them, wounding them, imprisoning them, and/or starving them, and now by taking away one of the few things that bring them joy. The cruelty is hard to comprehend.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to fly its quadcopters and launch missiles with impunity.

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Just this week, Israeli fire killed at least four children across Gaza and the occupied West Bank: 4-year-olds Hassan al-Hafi and Muhammad Abdel Salam Taha, 10-year-old Amal Nash’at Abu Khater, and 14-year-old Islam Ahmed Ajouri.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers continued their siege of the Palestinian village of Qusra and their attacks on other areas of the West Bank. Here’s more on those stories and others from another troubling week in Palestine:

Saturday, Aug. 22 – Israeli Settlers ‘Severely Assault’ 15-Year-Old Palestinian

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As the midterm elections near, Democratic lawmakers have been laser-focused on… condemning leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker.

This week of craziness saw at least 13 Democrats falsely smear Piker as an antisemite who encourages violence against Jews, distorting his words after Piker expressed the not-controversial opinion that it’s “dangerous” for Zionists to make it seem like “Jews are monolithic” in their support for Israel, its genocide in Gaza, and broader project of apartheid.

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As one Democrat, Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider, put it, “Democrats risk losing our credibility to condemn those on the right who traffic in bigotry, antisemitism, and hate when our own members of Congress & candidates are celebrating or, worse yet, platforming those who espouse hate of any kind.” Schneider criticized Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed for having “so-far refused to condemn the words of Hasan Piker, his friend and frequent campaign surrogate.”

Schneider’s comments made us wonder: Have he and these other Piker-slamming Democrats condemned Laura Loomer, Donald Trump’s close ally, after she called for the deportation of “every Muslim in America” in May, and the use of “military force to round them up” earlier this month? Have they condemned far-right extremists like Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang and pastor Lorenzo Sewell for leading an openly anti-Muslim march in Dearborn, Michigan, this month? Have they condemned El-Sayed’s GOP opponent Mike Rogers for including Sewell in his campaign’s faith coalition leadership team since last year?

Let’s find out:

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We’re less than 10 weeks out from the midterm elections, and Americans witnessed a whipsaw of news about mail-in voting this week that some experts fear could sow confusion and chaos as Nov. 3 nears.

On Monday, the Supreme Court sided with Donald Trump, issuing an emergency order allowing his administration – for the time being – to move forward with implementing his executive order to restrict mail-in voting. By Thursday, the lower court judge overseeing the case had again temporarily blocked the plan after those challenging the Trump administration refiled the case to comply with the high court’s ruling. The case could soon be headed back to the Supreme Court.

We get it. It’s confusing – and that confusion and chaos are exactly what Trump and his cronies want for an election that Republicans are expected to lose big. Hopefully, this time, democracy wins out.

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When they weren’t trying to disenfranchise voters, Trump and his allies continued other efforts to harm democracy, undermine the Constitution, and hurt societies worldwide. From U.S. Central Command blacklisting journalists to ICE making a record number of arrests, here’s ‘This Week in Democracy ‘ – Week 84’:

Saturday, Aug. 22 – Trump’s Financial Disclosure Reveals Timely Trades

Bloomberg reported that Trump made more than 1,000 stock trades during the month of June. The president invested in SpaceX less than two weeks before the Musk-led company’s initial public offering, bought Boeing stock the same day the Navy issued an $880 million contract to the manufacturer, and purchased shares of Palantir just weeks before the company received a $10 billion contract with the U.S. Army.

The White House says there are no conflicts of interest with Trump’s investments, claiming they are independently managed, and the assets are in a blind trust.

Sunday, Aug. 23 – U.S. Strikes First Boat Since June

The U.S. military conducted a strike on a boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing two people. It marked the first known strike by the military, which the UN has described as extrajudicial killings, in two months.

Another strike was conducted on Tuesday, killing four people in the Caribbean and bringing the death toll to at least 227 over the course of 68 strikes since the Trump administration began them last year.

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Monday, Aug. 24 – Trump Admin Plans Largest Visa Revocation in U.S. History

AP reported that the Trump administration plans to carry out the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history as the State Department plans to revoke the business and tourist visas of up to 200,000 people who have sought asylum between 2016 and 2026.

Meanwhile, The Intercept reported that the U.S. Central Command has a secret list of journalists blacklisted by its press office, according to a spokesperson who threatened to add one of the outlet’s reporters to “the list of people to disregard.”

Tuesday, Aug. 25 – ICE Arrests Reach Record High

AP reported that ICE arrested almost 50,000 people during the month of July, marking the largest number of arrests in a single month since Trump returned to office.

That marked a 15% increase compared to June, with 20,000 of the arrests taking place in Texas and Florida.

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Wednesday, Aug. 26 – Trump Administration Targets Palestine Action

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the Trump administration sanctioned the British pro-Palestine group, Palestine Action, as part of its crackdown on left-leaning organizations and movements. It’s yet another example of the Trump administration targeting pro-Palestinian groups.

The move comes as Palestine Action appeals a designation by the British government that proscribed the group as a “terrorist” organization, a decision UN human rights chief Volker Türk called a “disturbing” misuse of the UK’s counter-terrorism legislation.

Thursday, Aug. 27 – Trump Admin to Ramp Up Deportation Flights to Haiti

The New York Times reported that the Trump administration is expected to expand deportation flights to Haiti from once a month to once a week, a move that could potentially result in the removal of hundreds of additional Haitians each month.

The expansion follows the Supreme Court’s June ruling that cleared the way for the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, despite the fact that the State Department has warned against visiting Haiti “due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care.”

Friday, Aug. 28 – Another Court Strikes Down Unconstitutional ICE Policy

For the eighth time, a federal appeals court ruled that ICE’s policy to detain almost all undocumented immigrants without a hearing is unlawful, finding that the agency violated mandatory detention laws, as well as the Fifth Amendment.

Undocumented immigrants who have been in the U.S. for decades “are entitled to due process rights beyond those provided to noncitizens at the border,” the majority opinion reads.

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Did you miss previous weeks of ‘This Week in Democracy’? Catch up here. And check out more of Zeteo’s reporting from this week below:

Donald Trump has had a lot to say about his war on Iran – contradictions, broken promises, genocidal ramblings – and he wants you to believe the war is a triumph, that it’s making the U.S. safer and richer. But the statistics tell an entirely different story.

So we crunched the numbers behind seven of Trump’s biggest claims about the ever-dragging, Israel-backed, illegal war on Iran. Here they are, debunked!

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1. ‘Four weeks’?

What Trump said: “I always thought it would be four weeks. And we’re a little ahead of schedule.” – Trump to CNN, March 2, 2026

What the numbers say:

It’s been a little bit longer than that.

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2. Gas prices are ‘not very high’

What Trump said: “Well, they’re not very high.” – Trump to a press gaggle, April 16, 2026

What the numbers say:

According to the EIA, in February, before the war began, the average U.S. gas price was just above $3 a gallon. By the summer, the weekly average price was over 30% higher, at more than $4 a gallon, peaking during May at about $4.60. Trump’s current weekly average is more than a dollar higher than the $3.12 average at the end of Joe Biden’s term.

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3. Hormuz is ‘open’

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We’ve rounded up Trump’s Iran war flip-flopping, all in less than a minute. Watch the short video above, and tell us what you think in the comments below.

We’ve made this video free for all, but if you support the work that we do, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Zeteo’s Summer Wojtas contributed to this video.

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In early August, Loui Ridi was at home in Ohio, watching security camera footage of Israeli settlers beginning to encircle his home thousands of miles away, in the Palestinian village of Qusra in the occupied West Bank. At a moment’s notice, he scrambled to travel to the home and protect his brother and nephew, who were trapped inside.

It took levers upon levers of coordination with the Israeli government to even get access to his own home. Upon finally entering, he planted the American flag on his rooftop, hoping it would fend off any further Israeli incursion.

Instead, he tells Prem he has been trapped inside for nearly three weeks – with no end in sight – as the settlers remain nearby, and U.S.-funded Israeli soldiers do nothing about it.

“I want the American people to see that an American citizen [is] under siege by Israeli extremists,” he tells Prem. “And yes, I did raise the American flag…the settlers, when they take over a house, they raise their own flag, the yellow flag. And God forbid, if they ever [are] able to do it, they need to take the American flag down before they raise their flag.”

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While U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee condemned the Israeli settlers besieging Ridi’s and others’ homes in the West Bank, the U.S. has seemingly otherwise done nothing to stop them, Ridi explains.

All the while, the Israeli military has declared the area a closed military zone. Ridi and his neighbors cannot leave their homes or walk outside on their own property – but Israeli settlers are allowed to roam freely.

“We are under siege, and there’s another siege inside the siege,” Ridi says, explaining that he and his neighbors cannot even visit each other.

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Watch the video above to hear Ridi straight from the West Bank, as he fends off settlers seeking to take his land, while the U.S. and Israeli governments do nothing about it.

This video is being shared without a paywall. If you want to support the work that we do at Zeteo, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can always support our work further with a donation.

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Happy Friday! It’s Swin again. Despite the best efforts of Abdul El-Sayed, it appears the Donald Trump-Natalie Harp news cycle is calming down. There’s a ton of war and ethnic cleansing to report, so I am more than OK with that. I just got back from Springfield, Ohio, where Trump’s campaign of terror against the city and its Haitian residents is reaching its most barbaric stage yet. I’ll have more reporting on that for you here at Zeteo very soon.

But before we leave behind this month’s round of Harp coverage, it’s important to remember (beyond the jokes, beyond the innuendo, beyond the astonishing weirdness of her devotion to The Donald) why what she does truly matters.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we’ll get right into how some of the most prominent MAGA zealots in the country use Harp to get Trump to sound more like them. Plus, we are now precisely six months removed from the start of a war Trump told us would last four weeks – and he seems completely disengaged. Cheery stuff. Let’s get to it.

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Playing Him Like a Harp

If you’re a senior administration official, Cabinet-level appointee, or a political activist close to the White House who wants Donald Trump to blast something out on social media, you can just ask the president directly. You can shoot him a text, even. Or, as is now common practice, you can ask the one and only Natalie.

When Georgia’s Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff, highlighted the extremely odd Natalie Harp-Trump rapport – how the U.S. president seems to take his 35-year-old “human printer” wherever he goes – it inspired a screeching, hysterical reaction from the White House and Trumpworld, and a deluge of reports on the aide. Since at least 2024, one of the things that’s cropped up in my own reporting is that Harp, as strange and off-putting as the idea may be, is one of the most influential people on the planet today. That is largely because of her direct access to President Trump and how she feeds him a constant diet of online agitprop and kookery. It is also due to the fact that she helps control his MAGA social-media megaphone.

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For years, Dan Scavino, one of Trump’s other top White House aides and loyalists, reigned supreme as the man running the president’s social-media operations. Yes, when it came to Trump’s Twitter account (now Truth Social), Trump did tap out some posts. Others, he dictated. Some were ghostwritten, or found and reposted, by advisers like Scavino. But when it comes to his signature Truth Social account, even if President Trump doesn’t find, repost, or write posts himself, they are still effectively his own. He signs off on drafts or recommendations and approves or edits before his “Truth” is posted.

However, sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell me Harp is the new Scavino.

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Donald Trump is far from the only U.S. president to lose a pointless war in the Middle East. But because of his insistence on continuously redefining the terms of victory, he may be the first president to lose the same war three times – and in just six months, no less. The initial regime change operation in Iran was doomed from the start – no amount of bombing and assassinations was ever going to produce an Iranian Delcy Rodríguez who could hand Trump the keys to the country. When regime change faltered in the first week of the war, Washington and Tel Aviv appeared to pursue the more realistic and even more horrifying objective of regime collapse, bombing infrastructure and fomenting unrest to turn Iran into a chaotic failed state. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was more enthusiastic about this approach than Trump, who seemed to abandon it after failing to persuade Iranian Kurdish groups to launch a likely-suicidal uprising, though the language of regime collapse has resurfaced to explain the administration’s sporadic, quixotic attempts at economic warfare. The April ceasefire would signal Trump’s tacit admission that bombing could neither replace nor destroy the Iranian state.

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But for most of the past six months, Trump has been fighting to force open the Strait of Hormuz. This is the war to lower gas prices, the war to undo the consequences of the war, or, to be more precise about the president’s objectives, the war to forget about Iran as quickly as possible with minimal embarrassment. This war was also definitively lost months ago, when the initial, intense February-April “40-day war” failed to prevent the Iranian government from attacking regional shipping. After another four months of Trump threats, half-hearted bombing runs, and not one but two U.S. blockades of Iran, Tehran’s military exercises formal authority over at least a third of the ships transiting the Strait. Plus, it now regularly shoots at “unauthorized” ships with impunity.

The consequences of attacking Iran were, to a certain extent, well-understood within the administration: now-fired Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard cautioned that regime change was unrealistic, and that Tehran would close the Strait of Hormuz and retaliate against America’s Gulf partners. And Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine warned about limited air defense munitions and the risk of U.S. casualties.

But Trump was never warned about a development that apparently surprised his Cabinet and certainly surprised me.

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Last week, a federal judge weighed in on whether an alleged assault involving an Israeli flag was antisemitic. The case stemmed from an incident in November 2024, at a CodePink demonstration outside the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., when a pro-Palestinian protester, Janine Ali, a then-73-year-old Palestinian-American grandmother, allegedly grabbed the Israeli flag that a pro-Israel counterprotester, Kimmara Sumrall, was wearing tied around her neck as a cape. Ali was found not guilty of assault in a criminal trial in May, so Sumrall, with the support of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, then filed a complaint in federal court alleging antisemitic discrimination under civil rights law. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, noted that lawyers for Ali argued that “the Israeli flag represents the state of Israel rather than the Jewish race, so her action is merely anti-Israel, not antisemitic.” McFadden, however, rejected the argument that the Israeli flag did not represent Jewish identity, writing, “The Star of David, emblazoned upon the Israeli flag, symbolizes the Jewish race.”

The six-pointed star, called the “Star of David” (Magen David in Hebrew, literally “shield of David”), has been a Jewish symbol since long before the establishment of the State of Israel. It first became widely used as a distinctive Jewish symbol by European Jews in the 19th century. It came to represent Judaism in the same way that the cross represents Christianity. To this day, just as many Christians wear necklaces with a cross, many Jews wear a Star of David on necklaces as a symbol of their Jewish identity. Some Jews even have tattoos of it (disregarding the fact that Jewish law prohibits getting a tattoo).

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The Zionist movement adopted the Star of David at the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 because it had become a popular Jewish symbol by then, and for the mostly secular early Zionists, it had the merit of not being seen solely as a religious symbol (as the late Israeli Jewish scholar Gershon Scholem noted in a 1949 essay in Commentary magazine titled, “The Curious History of the Six-Pointed Star: How the ‘Magen David’ Became the Jewish Symbol”). It was subsequently incorporated into the flag of the State of Israel a few months after Israel’s founding in 1948.

When the Star of David is emblazoned in blue between two horizontal blue stripes on the flag of Israel, it ceases to be just a Jewish symbol. The Israeli flag symbolizes the State of Israel. It has a Jewish symbol on it, but the flag itself is not a Jewish symbol.

More than a dozen Muslim-majority countries have the Islamic crescent on their flags, but that does not make these flags Islamic symbols. For example, Pakistan, officially named the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has a national flag with a white crescent moon – the symbol associated with Islam – on a dark green background, which is the color associated with Islam. If someone burned that flag at a demonstration against Pakistan, it would surely be offensive to Pakistanis, but it would not be Islamophobic. The same logic applies to the Israeli flag. Both Israel and Pakistan, as well as many other countries, have appropriated religious symbols for nationalist purposes.

Thus, wearing an Israeli flag at a demonstration is not the same as wearing a Magen David necklace. Grabbing an Israeli flag worn as a cape during a demonstration may be considered an act of political violence, but it is not an act of antisemitic violence or discrimination. It is not the same as grabbing a Magen David necklace or knocking a kippa off someone’s head – actions that are equivalent to pulling a hijab off a Muslim woman or a turban off the head of a Sikh man.

Although Israel’s flag is prominently displayed in many synagogues outside Israel, this does not make the flag itself a religious object (nor does the presence of an Israeli flag in a synagogue, typically alongside an American flag, make the synagogue an Israeli institution). To characterize the flag of Israel as a Jewish object because it has a Star of David on it conflates Judaism with Zionism and the Jewish people with the Israeli state.

Unfortunately, such conflation has become all too common. This is one reason, though it is of course not the only reason, why Jews are harassed and attacked by people who hate Israel. In some people’s minds, Jews are proxies for Israel; therefore, they hate Jews because they hate Israel, and they attack Jews because they cannot attack Israel. This is antisemitic and morally reprehensible because innocent people are being collectively blamed and harmed for the actions of a state. The same is true when all Muslims or Arabs are blamed for the actions of terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, which happened frequently in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is bigoted to hold all Muslims or Arabs accountable for the behavior of terrorist groups, and it is equally bigoted to hold all Jews accountable for Israel’s behavior.

However, it is important to acknowledge that prejudice is not the only factor at play here. Another factor is that people mistakenly believe that Muslims support Jihadist groups and that Jews support Israel. Some do, but many do not. Although the Islamic State claims to act on behalf of all Muslims, surveys show that most Muslims do not support the Islamic State terrorist group. Similarly, Israel claims to act on behalf of all Jews, but surveys show that most American Jews do not support the actions and policies of the Israeli government and army, particularly towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (to be clear, I am not equating these actions with those of the Islamic State). For example, in a 2025 Washington Post survey, 61% of American Jews said that Israel committed war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, and 40% thought that Israel had committed genocide.

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What complicates matters in the case of Jews and Israel is that most American Jews have an emotional attachment to Israel (around six in 10 in surveys express such an attachment), and this attachment is a product of their Jewish identity. They care about Israel, which, it must be stressed, is not the same as supporting everything it does. Moreover, major Jewish organizations and mainstream institutions frequently publicly emphasize this attachment, and they increasingly insist that supporting Israel or being a Zionist is an integral, core element of Jewish identity. This effectively encourages non-Jews to believe that all, or at least the overwhelming majority of, Jews support what Israel does and identify as Zionists. However, surveys indicate that this is not the case. For example, in a June 2026 national survey of Jewish Americans, only 36% said that “supporting Israel” is important to their Jewish identity (whereas 73% said that “remembering the Holocaust” was, and 43% said “celebrating Jewish holidays”). In another survey of American Jews conducted in March 2026, 87% believed in “Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish homeland,” but only a third (34%) actually considered themselves Zionists, while nearly half (48%) said they were not Zionists and another 17% were unsure (Orthodox Jews and Republicans were most likely to call themselves Zionists, whereas Reform Jews, Democrats, and younger Jews were most likely to say they were not Zionists).

It can be easy for people to conflate Jews with Israel, and this conflation has led some people to harass, attack, or discriminate against Jews. Such actions are undoubtedly antisemitic and deplorable, but they are increasingly happening nowadays because so many people are appalled by what Israel has done in Gaza and what it is doing in the West Bank. To acknowledge this obvious fact is not to excuse or justify antisemitic behavior or blame it solely on Israel, let alone on the victims of this behavior. The people engaging in antisemitic behavior are morally responsible for their behavior. However, we cannot prevent this kind of antisemitic behavior if we do not understand what can cause it. Israel is becoming a global pariah, so associating all Jews with Israel can make Jews pariahs and potential targets for those who hate Israel. Whether this association is made by the Israeli state, Jewish organizations, or antisemites, the effect is essentially the same: Jews are conflated with Israel, and the outcome of this conflation is harmful and dangerous for Jews.

I am not advocating, as Hasan Piker recently did, that Jews living outside Israel should disassociate themselves from Israel in order to be safe. Jews are entitled to have an attachment to Israel. What I am advocating is the need to draw distinctions between Jews and Israel and between Judaism and Zionism. Blurring these distinctions, as Judge McFadden did in his recent ruling and as Jewish establishment organizations and the Israeli state do, does not protect Jews; it endangers them.

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Dov Waxman is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also an honorary research fellow at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism.

This piece is being cross-published on Dov’s Substack. Subscribe to Dov Waxman on Substack for more of his writing.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.

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We made it to Thursday! It’s Swin again. If you work in political media and you, for a second, bought former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s schtick of turning on the president and earnestly seeing the error of his mean and Trumpy ways, you might want to consider early retirement. Find someone less gullible – a 5-year-old, maybe? – to take your place. Somebody whose bullshit-detector isn’t irreparably broken. Your readers or listeners could use the upgrade.

In today’s ’First Draft,’ we’ll dig into Team Trump’s growing interest in weaponizing the man they once dubbed MAGA-land’s premier sniveling snitch. Plus, anti-vax Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the deaths of two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania during a growing measles outbreak are totally not his fault, and Donald Trump has an interview love-in with [checks notes from the Age of Obama] Glenn Beck. At least there are just two days till the weekend. Let’s read on.

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‘How Are You, Michael?’

When I was working at the Daily Beast’s Washington bureau in 2015, future President Donald Trump, via his attorney Michael Cohen, threatened to destroy my best friend and colleague, Tim Mak. I vividly recall the moment Tim stepped out of our mini conference room, clicking his little recorder and telling us as he chuckled: You gotta hear this…

Tim had just reached out to the 2016 Trump campaign for comment for a story that would soon be headlined: “Ex-Wife: Donald Trump Made Me Feel ‘Violated’ During Sex.” Trump did not appreciate it, so he sicced Cohen on my future best man. The Trump attorney shouted and swore, vowing to sue Tim and the Beast into oblivion. (You can listen to some of the hilarious audio here, of a reporter standing his ground and of a small man trying to make himself sound big.)

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The Beast published the story, Cohen made an ass out of himself by spouting borderline-illiterate bullshit about spousal rape, and his promised world-altering lawsuit didn’t happen. In the years that followed, Cohen got raided by the feds, very publicly fell out with President Trump, cuddled up to the anti-MAGA “resistance,” and became a key witness in New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil fraud case against Trump, as well as in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal hush-money case against Trump. Bragg’s case, of course, is the reason Trump became America’s first felon president, a label Trump bitterly resents.

In all those years of Cohen claiming he’d seen the light and had made an anti-Trump turnaround, I never once bought it. You can scroll through my public output and social media posts. It was always clear to me (not just as a close friend of someone he profanely threatened with financial ruin, but as a political reporter employing a shred of common sense and instinct) that Cohen was still the same guy: a gross habitual liar. It was just that his circumstances and benefactors changed.

Now Cohen – who is seeking a federal pardon, which Trump has the power to grant – has switched sides again. And the Trump-Vance administration has taken notice.

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Justin Baragona here, bringing you the latest dispatches from the right-wing industrial outrage complex and the mainstream media at large. In tonight’s edition, we take a look at what sources describe as the “crazy” and “biased” way CNN star Dana Bash has covered Israel and Gaza in recent years. Additionally, Karen Attiah speaks to Zeteo after Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post suffered a humiliating defeat when an arbitrator ordered her reinstatement after she was fired for comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death.

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Dana Bash Bashes Dems on Israel

“I don’t know how anyone can watch Dana Bash on Bill Maher and still pretend she is an objective journalist,” political strategist Adam Parkhomenko reacted to Bash’s recent appearance on ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ on HBO.

During that appearance, the veteran CNN anchor – who hosts ‘Inside Politics’ and co-anchors ‘State of the Union’ – seemed to find common ground with the caustic comedian’s more extreme and inflammatory views on Palestine, Israel, and domestic politics.

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Throughout the panel sit-down, Bash nodded along while Maher – who has become increasingly outspoken in his support for Israel – ranted that “Democrats are cowards” for backing pro-Palestinian causes while insisting the party is bigoted towards those of the Jewish faith.

“Well, in the Democratic Party, as long as that faith isn’t Jewish, you’re good, “ Maher, after Bash said James Talarico wears his “faith on his sleeve,” reacted. “Well, you said it,” she responded with a smile. (Currently, there are 31 Jewish Democrats in Congress – counting Bernie Sanders – versus just four on the Republican side.)

And when the sardonic comic sneered that Gaza “is not” a genocide and “doesn’t come close,” adding that many Democrats have only signed onto that because “they’re big on buzzwords and lawn signs,” Bash offered up this extra observation: “And likes on their social media.”

The Bill Maher appearance is the latest in a long list of not-at-all-objective comments from Bash.

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The story below is from investigative reporter and documentarian Lauren Windsor. It’s the culmination of over a year’s worth of reporting, and breaks open a world of staggering corruption on the right you’ve likely never heard of. Please give it your time, and support our ability to do more original, in-depth reporting at Zeteo by becoming a paid subscriber or making a donation.

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Ballrooms, slush funds, jumbo jets. Worship services in the Pentagon, electioneering in churches, the Ten Commandments in schools. Conflicts of interest and Christian nationalism have been hallmarks of Donald Trump’s second presidency. The epic flood of corruption swamping Washington isn’t just overwhelming American politics – it’s also obscuring the grift occurring in red states across the country, as officials work to put public investment funds under the control of their friends at Christian finance firms.

A major conduit for that corruption is the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), a small but powerful nonprofit that convenes Republican state treasurers and auditors, right-wing activists, and Christian finance executives to strategize over how to defeat liberals and weaponize state treasuries against allegedly woke corporations, while steering state treasury money to their ideological allies. Much of their “War on Woke” consists of boosting the fossil fuel industry and crushing efforts to mitigate climate change, under the notion that corporate safeguards are bad business.

That theory is convenient for conservatives’ fossil fuel funders – as well as for SFOF’s longtime top executive, who’s moving to cash in.

Derek Kreifels was the CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation for more than a decade. He resigned from this role in the fall of 2024, but he remains an SFOF board member, and his wife serves as one of its top executives. Now, Kreifels is lobbying SFOF treasurers to put public retirees’ savings and other funds they oversee into faith-aligned financial products and services offered by his firm, Prospr Aligned, and its affiliates in the Christian finance industry.

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Kreifels’s firm has already won business from the Kentucky auditor’s office, which is led by a member of the State Financial Officers Foundation’s leadership team, as I can report for the first time. Another state Kreifels has targeted heavily is Alaska, where he has friends in former Revenue Commissioner and ex-SFOF Vice Chair Adam Crum and Alaska Permanent Fund Chair Jason Brune.

In an interview with me in Anchorage last fall, Brune defended Crum and his collaboration with Kreifels as efforts to promote resource extraction in the Arctic – arguing that he and Crum, as members of the governor’s cabinet, “are pimping for the state.”

Over the last year, I attended public board meetings in Alaska; staked out an SFOF conference in DC; and obtained records, photos, audio, and video documenting Crum’s efforts to direct public resources to his friend’s nonprofit and for-profit ventures during his tenure as revenue commissioner. Crum’s efforts are on the verge of paying off for Kreifels: A major state agency will soon decide whether to put money into Prospr’s Alaskan-themed investment fund.

The State Financial Officers Foundation has also helped support Kreifels’s private business ventures. According to state travel disclosures, SFOF paid for at least one treasurer’s travel to the New York Stock Exchange launch party for Prospr’s Alaska investment fund. Seven other state financial officials were in attendance. SFOF also arranged for a special speaker: longtime ally Paul Atkins, who as chairman of the Trump Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the Prospr fund.

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