“Extreme Danger”: Harris Earns a Stunning Endorsement Over Trump

More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.

“We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads. 

“Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones,” the letter continued. “As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities.”

The letter describes an “awful situation where only flawed choices are available.”

“In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement,” the letter states.

The letter includes several reasons why the coalition believes Trump would be far worse for Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and all those organizing for Palestinians. The writers cite Trump’s bloodthirsty remark last week about how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should “go further” in Gaza, while criticizing President Joe Biden for “holding him back.” At the time, Trump hailed Netanyahu for doing a “good job” and voiced his support for expanding military operations into Lebanon, where Israel has killed at least 1,800 people in the past five weeks alone.

The letter also notes Trump’s ties to Zionist Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, who is pushing for Trump to allow Israel to illegally annex the West Bank. Israel has killed 165 children in the occupied West Bank in the last year. 

“Voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she served. It’s an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine, and all else that we hold dear,” the letter says, asking others to place the immediate needs of their communities over their dissatisfaction with Harris. The group dismissed third-party candidates such as Jill Stein, saying that voting for them could only “make Donald Trump president.”

“If our communities ally with the Green Party to defeat Harris, we risk marginalizing ourselves as they did by alienating the tens of millions of voters who support the cause of Palestinian freedom and are fighting to defeat Trump by electing her,” the letter continues. 

The letter urges that after the election, they can hold Harris accountable with “every nonviolent tool of democracy.” Such tools would likely not be available under Trump, who has vowed to deport pro-Palestinian protesters and threatened to turn the military against his own citizens.  

Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has struggled to find footing with Arab and Muslim voters, after spurning the Uncommitted Party’s request for a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention in August. 

A poll released Monday conducted by Arab News/YouGov found that Trump led Harris 45 percent to 43 percent among Arab Americans. Those voters said that they viewed Trump as more supportive of Israel’s current government, but that he was more likely to end the conflict. 

Harris has repeatedly delivered milquetoast talking points about defending Israel’s “right to defend itself,” and touting Palestinians’ “right to dignity,” though her statements have not gone much further than that. 

Earlier this month, the Biden administration threatened to reevaluate military support if Israel did not improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza and reduce civilian casualties within 30 days. In response to reports from the U.N. that Israel had prevented aid from entering Gaza, Harris posted on X, “Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. Civilians must be protected and have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected.”

Elon Musk has stayed unusually silent after The Wall Street Journal revealed Thursday night that the tech CEO has been speaking regularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The newspaper reported that Musk has corresponded with Putin since 2022, discussing personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions. Putin even made a request of Musk in one conversation: to refrain from setting up his satellite internet service, Starlink, over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Musk has been tweeting around the clock since the story broke at 9 p.m. EST Thursday, but has not mentioned the Journal article once, mostly sticking to right-wing conspiracies and promotion of Donald Trump. According to the Journal, Musk not only had conversations with Putin, but with other high-ranking Kremlin officials as well. He even faced “implicit threats against him,” one source said.

The report is especially concerning given that the tech mogul has come out as a strong supporter of the former president, spending millions to help Trump return to the White House. The Journal report notes that Putin and Musk have continued contact this year as Musk has ramped up his efforts to reelect Trump.

In addition to his political activism, Musk has billions of dollars in government contracts attached to his companies. SpaceX, which operates Starlink, has a $1.8 billion classified contract and launches rockets for the Pentagon and NASA. He also has a security clearance giving him access to classified information.

With all of these government connections, the fact that Musk is consistently talking to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries in Putin presents a danger to national security. His control of Starlink gives him immense power over international communications, too. And Musk’s ownership of X also potentially puts the personal information of anyone who uses the social media service at risk. An anonymous source told the Journal that the Biden administration is aware of Musk and Putin’s relationship, but hasn’t raised any concerns over security breaches.

However, “they don’t love it,” the source told the Journal.

The Russian government has denied that Putin and Musk speak extensively, and the tech CEO did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment. But it fits a pattern for Musk: He’s met several times with autocrats like Javier Milei of Argentina as well as former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Putin, however, is currently under international sanctions for invading Ukraine, and has mounted disinformation campaigns in the United States to further his interests. If Musk is friendly with Putin, it raises the question of whether his activism for Trump is what the Russian leader wants as well.

Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Ron Wyden called Thursday for the United States to investigate Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The Senate Finance Committee, which Wyden chairs, found that Kusher’s firm Affinity Partners had yet to return any profit to its foreign investors after receiving millions of dollars in fees from foreign governments, including as much as $87 million from Saudi Arabia. Now Wyden and Raskin are calling for Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Kushner.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Kushner had chatted with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman several times since leaving the Trump White House, specifically discussing normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Kushner served as a top Middle East adviser during Trump’s time in office, and has floated his own wretched idea for what Israel ought to do with Gaza’s “waterfront property.”

Three sources close to Kushner told Reuters that if Trump were reelected, they expected Kushner to be involved in any Saudi talks in an unofficial capacity. Wyden and Raskin allege that Kushner has already set to work.

“While on the Saudi government’s payroll, Mr. Kushner is simultaneously serving as a political consultant to former President Trump and acting as a shadow diplomat and political advisor to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and other foreign principals,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Garland.

“Despite being engaged in plainly political activities, Mr. Kushner has not made FARA disclosures to DOJ related to the millions of dollars he receives annually by entities owned and controlled by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

“The scale of these undisclosed foreign payments to Mr. Kushner coupled with the national security implications of his apparent ongoing efforts to sell political influence to the highest foreign bidder are unprecedented and demand action from DOJ,” they added.

The letter alleged that Kushner’s extensive political activities require registration under FARA. This includes his work advising MBS and Trump, selling advisory and advocacy services through his private equity fund, aiding in fundraising efforts for Trump, arranging meetings with foreign dignitaries on U.S. soil, and influencing members of Congress on domestic and foreign policy.

After receiving a warning from the Justice Department, Elon Musk has stopped his $1 million giveaway to swing voters from his super PAC.

The tech CEO pledged Saturday to give away the hefty sum each day to one registered voter in a battleground state who signed America PAC’s pro–First and Second Amendment pledge. Every day since then, a winner has been announced: three Pennsylvania voters and one North Carolina voter.

However, the move immediately raised legal questions, as it’s a federal crime to pay someone to register to vote, punishable by a fine of $10,000, five years in prison, or both. Experts were divided, with Musk’s plan falling into a legal gray area at best. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called the move “deeply concerning,” and author Stephen King accused Musk of “paying to register Republicans.”

Then the DOJ sent a warning letter to America PAC Wednesday, and there hasn’t been a giveaway since. Musk has also been uncharacteristically quiet on the subject. It would appear that the tech mogul has been scared straight by the federal government.

Musk is still engaging in political activity, even if he can’t make people millionaires. He met with conservative media baron Rupert Murdoch earlier this week to discuss the election, likely strategizing over how to get Donald Trump into the White House. He and Trump have coordinated to suppress negative stories about the Republican ticket on Musk’s X platform. Musk has also followed Trump’s lead, spreading debunked conspiracy theories as well as misinformation.

While he can’t skirt federal law, Musk has still been using his money for cynical political tactics, such as funding opposing ads to Arab American voters in Michigan and Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. But in the short term, it appears that the world’s richest man has learned that there are legal limits to how he can influence the election.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is treating his home state of Missouri like a flyover state, according to a new report that shows just how rarely the hawkish Republican lawmaker returns there.

Records of Hawley’s taxpayer-funded travels reviewed by St. Louis Magazine revealed that the Missouri Republican has traveled between Washington, D.C., and the Show-Me State only 33 times between March 2019 and January 2024—an average of six times per year.

Many of Hawley’s trips were short: Eight of them involved Hawley hightailing out of Missouri after less than 48 hours. More than half the time, Hawley was traveling home around the holidays, which tended to be longer stays. Hawley’s longest trip home was between April 1, 2020, and May 1, 2020, around the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While taxpayer-funded trips provide an incomplete picture of Hawley’s travel, it is a relevant data point when considering his travel plans. It’s common for senators to expense travel between Washington and their home state, according to Democratic strategist Jacob Long, who spoke with St. Louis Magazine.

Lucas Kunce, a Democrat running to unseat Hawley, responded to the report Thursday in a post on X. Kunce wrote that Hawley “isn’t running for reelection to keep serving us—he’s running to keep up his luxury lifestyle on the coast.”

Hawley has previously attacked “coastal elites” and “liberal elites” as part of his political campaigns.

The senator and his family previously purchased a house in Virginia, which is now valued at $1.7 million. He previously listed his sister’s residence in Ozark, Missouri, as his voting address, but now has two properties associated with his name in Christian County, less than a mile apart, according to the Kansas City Star. The one he technically owns was only bought in 2023.

October has been a rough month for the self-described Christian nationalist. Earlier this month, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial board endorsed Kunce, calling Hawley the “worst sitting senator in America right now,” and criticized him for pumping his fist in support of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Hawley also came under fire over his use of a private jet to campaign around Missouri, which was first reported by the Missouri Independent. Hawley had previously attacked his 2018 opponent, Democrat Claire McCaskill, for using a private jet, but apparently spent more than $132,000 on chartered flights between mid-December and June.

“Missouri’s flyover country for this guy,” said Kunce at the time, pointing out that he had been campaigning in a minivan with his wife and 16-month-old son.