State Department Revokes British Punk Duo’s Visas After Anti-IDF Chant

The two musicians comprising the U.K. punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have had their U.S. visas revoked for leading chants against the Israeli Defense Forces during their performance at the Glastonbury Festival over the weekend.

The group has been under fire since leading the festival crowd in the chant, “Death, death to the IDF” on Saturday.

On Monday morning, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Laundau took to X to announce that the State Department “has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band.”

Landau described the decision as a retaliation against Bob Vylan “in light of” the chants at Glastonbury, which he described as a “hateful tirade” where the group led “death chants.”

“Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Laundau said.

The band, which has also been dropped by its talent agency, according to
The Hollywood Reporter, had upcoming tour dates scheduled in numerous U.S. cities.

Prior to the official announcement, the free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, condemned reports that the State Department was looking into banning Bob Vylan for their expressive acts.

FIRE compared the then-planned ban to countries like Russia and China banning artists such as Selena Gomez and Katy Perry for speech that cuts against official state doctrine.

“Nations committed to free expression should not use their borders as a tool of censorship, as Russia and China have done with artists whose political expression they seek to silence,” FIRE posted. “Revoking visas from controversial musicians and artists doesn’t make our country freer or safer. But it may make it silent.”

This comes as the Trump administration pursues an aggressive campaign of revoking international students’ visas, including for political expression, such as pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Senator John Fetterman—known mostly for his basketball shorts, his disdain for participating at his fairly easy job, and his highly publicized mental health crisis—would rather be at the beach than in the Senate voting on Trump’s sweeping budget bill.

“Oh my God, I just wanna go home,” Fetterman said Monday in response to a question regarding when voting on the bill would end. “I’ve already … I’ve missed our entire trip to the beach, my family’s gonna be back before we … and again, I’m gonna vote ‘no,’ there’s no drama. The votes are gonna go. In fact the only interesting votes are gonna be on the margin, whether that’s [Susan] Collins, [Ron] Johnson, and those, but all the Democrats, we all know how that’s gonna go. And I think—I don’t think it’s really helpful to put people here till some ungodly hour.”

While the Republicans’ Senate majority makes the bill’s passing highly likely, some Democrats are still speaking out rather than longing for vacation. 

“If you are concerned about health care, which I suspect that everybody in the world is, this bill throws over 16 million people off the health insurance they have, according to the Congressional Budget Office, by cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1.1 trillion,” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday night. “In other words, the top one percent [is] getting a $975 billion tax break, and that is coming directly by throwing 16 million people off of the health insurance they have.” 

But Fetterman has had a contentious relationship with the job he campaigned to do. That dynamic, combined with his mental health, extreme hatred of Palestinians, and his general rightward shift, only increase the questions surrounding his future as a Democratic senator, or as a senator at all.  

Donald Trump is threatening to withhold U.S. funding for Israel—unless the nation lets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walk away from his corruption charges.

In a lengthy post on Truth Social Saturday, the U.S. president lamented that the Israeli leader should have to “be forced to sit in a courtroom all day long” while the country is simultaneously attacking Iran and Palestine.

“It is terrible what they are doing in Israel to Bibi Netanyahu. He is a War Hero, and a Prime Minister who did a fabulous job working with the United States to bring Great Success in getting rid of the dangerous Nuclear threat in Iran,” Trump wrote. “Importantly, he is right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back. How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.).”

Netanyahu is accused of requesting and/or demanding regularly delivered expensive gifts from the world’s financial elite, including Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, the latter of whom moved into a property bordering Mar-a-Lago in March that was believed to be previously owned by Trump.

“It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure,” Trump continued. “This travesty of ‘Justice’ will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations. In other words, it is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu.”

“The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this. We just had a Great Victory with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu at the helm—And this greatly tarnishes our Victory. LET BIBI GO, HE’S GOT A BIG JOB TO DO!” Trump said.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The trial began the following year, and has split into three criminal cases. In 2021, amidst widespread protests against Netanyahu’s leadership over the corruption charges, the Israeli prime minister lost his seat to a new coalition government. He subsequently returned to power the following year, fronting the most far-right and religiously conservative government in the nation’s history.

By March, polling within the country suggested that the vast majority of Israelis “don’t trust” Netanyahu’s government—roughly 70 percent—including his own supporters.

But last week, the U.S. president got involved, apparently sympathizing with the unpopular leader by insisting that Bibi’s trial should be “CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY.”

Netanyahu appeared to appreciate the sentiment, thanking Trump at the time “for your moving support for me and your tremendous support for Israel.” But other Israeli politicians didn’t take kindly to the intervention: Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that Trump should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state.”

Trump’s casual disregard for the rule of law should come as no surprise considering his own history facing the court system. Trump has been sued countless times, but has grabbed the national spotlight over the last few years when he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll, when he was convicted as a felon for falsifying records to hide hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, when he was ordered to pay out hundreds of millions for defrauding U.S. banks, and when he was charged and indicted in connection to two separate conspiracies to unroot the result of the 2020 presidential election. Those all dramatically came to a close when Trump was inaugurated on January 20.

Donald Trump’s administration is formally threatening to revoke all of Harvard University’s federal funding over allegations that the elite school violated Title VI.

The Department of Justice’s task force to combat antisemitism sent a formal notice to university President Alan Garber Monday alleging that “Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”

“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” the notice said. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”

In 2024, Harvard received $686 million federal grants, making the government the largest financial source for the school’s many research programs. One in five undergraduate students rely on grants intended for low-income students, according to Politico.

The notice alleged that the administration’s investigation had found that the majority of Jewish students on campus had reported experiencing a negative bias, and nearly a quarter felt unsafe.

The notice also cited the multiweek student encampment to oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as the “lax” discipline against the students who’d participated, wrongly equating pro-Palestinian speech with antisemitic activity.

The notice comes amid ongoing negotiations in a bitter legal battle between Harvard and the Trump administration over allegations of antisemitism. Earlier this month, Trump signaled that negotiations with the university were going well.

This is the latest escalation in Trump’s monthslong petty war with the Ivy League institution after the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants in April and threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status. Earlier this month, the president’s efforts to see Harvard banned from accepting international students failed in court.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Republican-led case that could upend campaign finance law and allow national party committees to spend even more on elections.

Right now, political parties can spend an unlimited amount on a candidate individually, but are limited in their “coordinated spending”—renting out venues, hiring consultants, or paying for travel. This case, introduced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee along with then-Senator JD Vance and former Representative Steve Cabot, seeks to overturn that coordinated spending limit.

If ruled in the GOP’s favor, this would be another massive blow to the effort to keep money out of politics. The country’s wealthiest have flaunted their ability to essentially buy elections, or have at least attempted to, for some time now. This most current effort is particularly shameless, given that the high court already upheld the same restrictions in a 2001 ruling. Now it may be repealed with the court’s 6–3 conservative majority.

“The court’s reasoning upholding these party spending limits has been undermined by more recent court campaign finance cases,” UCLA School of Law election expert Rick Hasen told NBC News. “The status quo—where outside groups like super PACs can raise unlimited sums but political parties face much more severe limitations—may create worse conditions in terms of empowering unaccountable groups and increasing negative ads.”

The case is set to be heard in the fall or early 2026.