Trump’s Latest Scheme to Beat Harris May Have Crossed Legal Lines

He may not be in office, but Donald Trump has been speaking with the powers that be about Israel’s war on Gaza—but it’s not in an effort to end the genocide.

Instead, Trump has allegedly been talking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avert a cease-fire deal, fearing that doing so could help Vice President Kamala Harris win in November, according to PBS.

“The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the Prime Minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign,” said PBS’s Judy Woodruff Monday night. “So, I don’t know where—who knows whether that will come about or not, but I have to think that the Harris campaign would like for President Biden to do what presidents do, and that’s to work on that one.”

Woodruff clarified on Wednesday that the anecdote was not based on her original reporting, but rather on an an Axios story last week that cited two U.S. sources as claiming that Trump and Netanyahu had spoken on the phone about cease-fire and Gaza hostage talks. Netanyahu’s office and Trump both separately denied the report.

“I did encourage him to get this over with. You want to get it over with fast. Have victory, get your victory, and get it over with. It has to stop, the killing has to stop,” Trump said at a New Jersey press conference on Thursday, referring to their meeting at Mar-a-Lago last month. But he also criticized cease-fire demands.

During Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, the president promised that his administration is working around the clock to bring “humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” “peace and security to the Middle East,” and to deliver a “cease-fire” and an end to the war.

The president also nodded to the more than 3,500 protesters who took to the streets of Chicago on Monday, demanding an immediate cease-fire to the war, claiming that the demonstrators “have a point.”* The war has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since it began 10 months ago.

Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who escaped the besieged country in December, reported on Monday that the humanitarian area in south Gaza is little more than 14 square miles.

“Crammed in it are more than 1.8 million people, with no water, no electricity, no food, no clinics or pharmacies, and no shelters,” he wrote, lamenting in a separate post that he cannot “understand how this government continues to fund the genocide but cannot put an end to it” and “force the aggressors to stop dropping bombs.”

* This piece has been updated to clarify the number of protesters at the DNC.

This piece has been updated with Woodruff’s statement on Wednesday.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is sinking fast. Federal Election Commission filings indicated that the fringe political candidate spent more than he brought into the campaign in July, with more than half of his donations coming out of the pocket of his running mate Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley lawyer and investor.

But shortly after the dire news broke, Shanahan revealed precisely why the conspiracy theorist has remained on the ballot so long, despite his abysmal polling.

“I’ve got to keep focusing on what matters the most outside of party lines. I need to focus on a vision that goes beyond November,” Shanahan told Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory podcast, adding that there are “benefits” to staying in the race, including official party recognition if their campaign secures more than five percent of the vote. That could translate into a stronger third party in the next election cycle, thanks to public funds that could provide up to $13.5 million dollars to the fledgling political group.

“That means that we could position for a real third-party election in 2028, where we don’t have to go around and spend tens of millions of dollars on ballot access, which means that we can spend all of that time and money campaigning,” Shanahan said.

But there’s an entirely different outlook for the Kennedy campaign should they decide to pull out—and, according to Shanahan, it would all be for the benefit of one candidate.

“There’s two options that we’re looking at, and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and Walz presidency because we draw votes from Trump,” she said. “Or, we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump.”

That latter option would require explaining to all of Kennedy’s supporters why the alternative political pairing have, after all their efforts, ultimately bent the knee to the two-party system. And while that wouldn’t pave the way for more political representation for everyday Americans, it could translate into administration positions for Kennedy and Shanahan. In fact, Trump already floated the idea in July, pitching that Kennedy—a notorious vaccine skeptic—could lead the Health and Human Services Department should the Republican nominee win in November.

“Not an easy decision,” Shanahan said.

Conservatives are freaking out about Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter after she … did nothing but exist.

As Harris’s husband and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff watched on at the first night of the Democratic National Convention, his children Cole and Ella Emhoff stood by his side. Ella, a 25-year-old fashion designer, rocked the Harris-Walz camo hat, campaign swag that was so popular it sold out in just 30 minutes.

As the family shared a proud moment, Republicans zeroed in on Harris and Emhoff’s daughter and began critiquing her looks, her body language, and her love for her dad.

“Totally not weird,” wrote Charlie Kirk, who was already having a rough time at the DNC.

“Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter looks like she is ready to assassinate a former President tonight,” wrote a conservative Twitch streamer, seemingly referring to the shooter who targeted Trump last month.

“This is how Kamala Harris’s step daughter Ella Emhoff dressed to see her step mother during one of the most important moments of her career at the DNC,” wrote right-wing media personality Oli London. (London perhaps shouldn’t talk about looks when he made a name for himself by engaging in extreme ethnic plastic surgery procedures.)

Others went so far as to try to “trans-vestigate” Ella Emhoff and accuse her of being a man.

“This is Kamala’s family. Beyond parody,” the account End Wokeness posted, sharing a normal video of Emhoff speaking with his two children. Again, it’s unclear what exactly is supposed to be weird here.

According to conservatives, when Trump gets touchy with his daughter, it’s normal. But when a daughter hugs her dad in an important moment in their life, it’s strange beyond belief. Totally makes sense!

An online collective of neo-Nazis is using Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast as a recruitment tool, according to an exclusive report published by The Guardian Tuesday.

The Terrorgram collective is a network of neo-Nazis and fascists that produces and disseminates right-wing propaganda using Telegram, encouraging acts of far-right terror and sanctifying those who commit them. 

The collective runs three main Telegram channels that mix mainstream news coverage with far-right content. The mainstream content gives the channels an air of legitimacy as administrators urge users to join group chats where more violent, extreme ideas are pushed, according to a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

The group has reportedly taken over a channel that is linked to Steve Bannon’s podcast, and markets itself as the “official home of the War Room Posse.” In a corresponding group chat, the channel’s administrator claimed that Bannon himself was involved in running the channel, according to ISD. The administrator has garnered more than 63,000 subscribers, only a few hundred short of the official War Room channel, and the channel’s contents have been shared by white nationalist Charlie Kirk to his nearly 170,000 followers. 

The Terrorgram collective disseminates its extremist propaganda to radicalize users and encourage racially charged violence. Nineteen-year-old Juraj Krajčík, who opened fire on people outside a popular LGBTQ bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2022, killing two people and injuring a third, had published a lengthy creed thanking the Terrorgram for “building the future of the White revolution, one publication at a time.” The U.K. government declared the collective a terrorist group in April.  

The collective is clearly hoping to tap into Bannon’s audience, pulling the already far-right MAGA movement even further into extremism, and Bannon’s platform represents one ripe for a neo-Nazi takeover. 

Bannon, who remains an influential voice on the alt-right, once admitted that he admired Donald Trump because Trump reminded him of Adolf Hitler. Bannon, who worked as Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and a strategist in Trump’s White House, was the mastermind behind creating the MAGA movement, which he reportedly hoped would rule the United States for hundreds of years. He was ultimately ousted from Trump’s administration after Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Bannon is currently serving a four-month prison sentence for refusing to testify to Congress for his role in the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign is in financial trouble.

The campaign is spending more money than it is bringing in, according to Federal Election Commission filings. It has $3.9 million in cash on hand, but is nearly $3.5 million in debt. In July, the campaign spent over $7 million while raising only $5.6 million, almost half of which came from RFK Jr.’s running mate Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley lawyer and investor.

The campaign’s spending remained high despite a cutback on events, according to Politico. Kennedy has not appeared at any public events since the beginning of July, instead sporadically showing up on podcasts and at conferences. Much of the campaign’s funds have gone towards ballot access, Facebook and Google ads, and a security firm run by a longtime associate.

Even with the help of a partnership with the Libertarian Party, the campaign’s fundraising, despite a slight uptick, hasn’t kept up with spending. The fact that Kennedy seems to be relying on Shanahan’s money more than outside donations suggests that he’s not bringing in a lot of new fans, either.

Kennedy seems to be aware of his diminishing fortunes. Last month, the independent candidate spoke with Donald Trump about getting a White House job in exchange for dropping out of the race and endorsing the convicted felon. Kennedy also reached out to the Kamala Harris campaign with a similar proposition, only to be rebuffed, probably because he might actually help her by staying in the race.

RFK Jr.’s campaign was in trouble even before President Biden stepped aside, with Kennedy failing to qualify for the first presidential debate. There were also a series of damaging revelations, from reports of a worm in his brain to the news that he dumped a bear carcass in Central Park to allegations of sexual assault. With diminished polling, all of this begs the question of what the point of Kennedy’s campaign actually is.