Newsom Compares Israel to “Apartheid State” as He Blasts War on Iran

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, has questioned U.S. military support for Israel and called it “sort of an apartheid state.” 

Pod Save America podcast host Jon Favreau interviewed Newsom Tuesday at an event promoting the governor’s memoir and asked him, “Do you think, looking down the road, that the United States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support for Israel?”

In his response to the former Obama administration staffer, Newsom took his strongest stance on Israel to date. 

“It breaks my heart, because the current leadership is walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice about that consideration,” Newsom said. He criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and referred to the expansion of West Bank settlements having people “talking about it appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.” He went on to criticize Israel’s role in the current war on Iran.

“We’re talking about regime change?” Newsom said. “For two years, they haven’t even been able to solve the Hamas question in Israel.”

Newsom has made no secret of his presidential ambitions, touring the country to increase his national profile. Less than two months ago, he went on conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s podcast and refused to call Israel’s massacre of Gaza a genocide, saying he was “crystal clear on my love for Israel.”

So what does Newsom actually believe? Does he genuinely believe that the U.S. needs to stop military support for Israel, or is he pandering to reach the voting majority, who, according to a recent Gallup poll, sympathize with Palestinians more than Israelis? With the presidential primaries only two years away, Newsom’s views will face plenty of challenges in what will probably be a crowded Democratic field.  

Roughly two months after their deaths, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem still isn’t ready to publicly acknowledge that Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were not domestic terrorists.

ICE agents shot and killed the two U.S. citizens in different instances over the course of January. In the immediate aftermath of the dual homicides, Noem and other officials within the Trump administration attempted to spin the narrative of their deaths to quell public backlash. To do so, they smeared Pretti, an ICU nurse who worked with veterans, and Good, an award-winning poet and mother, as “domestic terrorists” intent on killing federal officers.

But time away from the brutal killings has not changed Noem’s tune. In a heated exchange with Representative Jamie Raskin during a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, Noem not only refused to apologize to the Americans’ families for her subordinates’ gross abuse of force, but blatantly sidestepped any attempt to revise her language.

“Madame Secretary, based on what you know today, were Renee Good and Alex Pretti domestic terrorists?” asked Raskin.

“Congressman, what happened in Minnesota in those two incidents was an absolute tragedy,” Noem said.

“Were they domestic terrorists as you said to the country?” Raskin said.

“My condolences to their families, because I know their lives will never be the same after that happened,” Noem said.

“Is that an apology for what you said?” pressed Raskin.

“We, in those instances, offer as much information as we can—” Noem continued.

“Madame Secretary, based on what you know today, were Renee Good and Alex Pretti domestic terrorists?” Raskin repeated.

“As you know, there’s ongoing investigations that are being led by the FBI—” Noem started, before Raskin interrupted to clarify that Noem “did not wait for the investigation” when she made her initial comments.

“You proclaimed they were domestic terrorists at the time. Why did you do that?” asked Raskin.

“And you didn’t wait to attack our law enforcement officers,” Noem spat back. “Our ICE officers and our HSI officers that day risked their lives to protect that scene so the evidence could be used in the investigation. Because those violent rioters that were there—”

“So you’re proud of the fact that you called them domestic terrorists?” Raskin pushed. “Is that what you’re telling America?”

“HSI officers put their lives on the line to protect that scene,” Noem continued.

“Yes, they do,” Raskin agreed, reminding Noem that she “told a lie” about Pretti and Good. “Do you regret that?”

“I offer my condolences to those families,” Noem repeated blankly.

“Based on what you know today, were Renee Good and Alex Pretti domestic terrorists?” Raskin asked.

“There’s ongoing investigations,” Noem said.

“So you still don’t know? You think that’s an open question?” Raskin pressed.

“I would think you would still want there to be open investigations into this situation,” Noem said.

“Well you stated the conclusion two hours after they were killed that they were domestic terrorists. I wanted to give you an opportunity to correct the record, not just for their family but for everyone in America who believes in the truth and fairness and honesty,” Raskin continued. “You know, your acting ICE Director Todd Lyons came before Congress. He said he had no knowledge whatsoever that Alex Pretti and Renee Good were domestic terrorists. None! This is your guy, he said. He admitted that was wrong. Why won’t you do that?”

But Noem would not explain herself. She then had no apparent defense for her agency when Raskin asked her to clarify her position on existing laws that are supposed to prevent federal immigration officers from killing and abusing American citizens.

More primaries, more gains for progressives candidates.

In North Carolina—a contentious swing state that Donald Trump won with 51 percent of the vote in 2024—a Democrat who has represented the state’s 106th district for over a decade was trounced by her progressive challenger on Tuesday.

State Representative Carla Cunningham saw her support base wither away after she was the only Democrat to vote in favor of a Republican bill that required local law enforcement to record inmates’ citizenship status and detain noncitizens for longer periods if requested by ICE.

She gave a fiery speech on the House floor at the time, quoting unnamed “social scientists” while arguing that “all cultures are not equal.” She added that noncitizens should “adapt to the culture of the country they wish to live in.”

Not too surprising that Cunningham was primaried after such comments, but her opponent, the Reverend Rodney Sadler’s immense margin of victory should give progressives hope and show the lack of support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement even within swing states. Sadler received 70 percent of the vote to Cunningham’s 22 percent.

In North Carolina’s 4th district, incumbent Democrat Valerie Foushee is locked in a dead heat with progressive challenger Nida Allam. Foushee was favored to win and continues to hold a slight advantage, leading Allam by about 1,000 votes with 99 percent of votes in, but Allam could request a recount if the vote remains close.

Allam is less than half Foushee’s age, and is running solidly to the left of the incumbent. She has called for abolishing ICE (Foushee has said she would rather defund the agency) and is frequently critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. She has bashed Foushee for accepting donations from the notorious pro-Israel lobby AIPAC in past campaigns. The incumbent then changed her tune last summer, saying she would not accept AIPAC money during the current election cycle.

The race became the most expensive primary in state history, with $2.4 million from outside groups being spent on Foushee and $1.8 million on Allam. Foushee still attracted controversy over reports that AIPAC funneled money to her through third parties.

Democratic senators came out of a classified briefing about the Trump administration’s war with Iran Tuesday expressing grave concern.

Senator Chris Van Hollen said officials peddled the same words in private that they have said in public, calling it “complete incoherence” with “constantly shifting narratives” to try to justify the war.

Senator Ed Markey said the briefing “confirmed what we already knew: Donald Trump is waging an illegal war, and he has no plan to end it.”

“Trump is completely out of control, and Americans have already lost their lives because of his lies. The war in Iran must end now,” Markey added.

“It is so much worse than we thought. You are right to be worried,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said. “The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation.”

“I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters. “But I also am no more clear on what the priorities are going to be in the administration going forward.”

All of this is disturbing and confirms the lack of a plan, except for “death and destruction.” The administration is committed to sinking more and more bombs and military resources into the conflict, and ground troops seem more likely each day. Justifications keep shifting from regime change to ending Iran’s nuclear program, and inside the military, some leaders are trying to push the narrative of a holy war. If senators are worried, the American people should be too.

American forces might not be able to fend off Iran’s drones.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine admitted in a closed-door meeting with U.S. lawmakers Tuesday that Iran’s Shahed attack drones have become a bigger problem than initially predicted, reported CNN.

The drones are capable of flying low and slow, a facet of their design that has made them difficult targets for U.S. air defenses, particularly as the United States and its allies run low on interceptor munitions.

One source told CNN that the U.S. has been “burning” through long-range precision-guided missiles over the last four days.

Nonetheless, Hegseth and Caine attempted to downplay concerns about the drone threat, noting that U.S. partners in the Gulf states had been stockpiling interceptors, a source familiar with the briefing told the broadcast network.

But U.S. requests for more interceptors have not yet been fulfilled.

“It’s not panic yet, but the sooner they get here the better,” a regional source told CNN.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a prominent member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, emerged from the meeting with Hegseth and Caine with a cold message: “We do not have an unlimited supply.”

“The Iranians do have the ability to make a lot of Shahed drones, ballistic missiles, medium-range, short-range, and they’ve got a huge stockpile,” Kelly told CNN. “So at some point … this becomes a math problem and how can we resupply air defense munitions. Where are they going to come from?”

Military officials have stressed since Sunday that fighting Iran has already drastically depleted America’s missile defense systems.

Yet Donald Trump and his officials have insisted, invariably, that American munitions are well stocked. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, the president announced that “medium and upper medium” grade munition stocks had “never been higher or better,” though he noted that “at the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be.”

In the weeks leading up to the explosive hostilities, Caine—Trump’s top military adviser—warned the White House against such an attack, arguing that it could entangle America in a prolonged conflict. That is turning out to be true. The White House has thus far offered several possible timelines for the conflict, refusing to stick to just one.

Per Trump’s own estimates, the war could rage for a few days, or several weeks, or “forever.”

Meanwhile, Hegseth hasn’t informed the public of any such lapse in America’s defense systems. Instead, he suggested to reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday morning that the conflict was continuing without a hitch.

“We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be,” Hegseth said.

He did let a clue about munitions stockpiles slip, though: Hegseth announced the military would begin using gravity bombs, “which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.”

Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, warned on X that “this means we are running out of precision munitions.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took time from his Wednesday briefing to complain about the media coverage of President Donald Trump’s unauthorized war on Iran.

“When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news,” Hegseth said. “I get it—the press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.”

In his remarks, Hegseth glossed over the reality that Trump and co. entered the conflict without congressional approval, can’t keep their war plans straight, and admitted that there was no evacuation plan for trapped civilians when bombing began. Hegseth refused to give details on the cruel acts that have already been committed by U.S.-Israeli forces, the most extreme being a strike on a girls’ school in Iran on Saturday that killed up to 168 people, many of them children.

But it was harder for Hegseth to ignore Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who stood next to the defense secretary to deliver the names of four U.S. Army Reserves who perished in Trump’s war on Sunday. The names of the four are Captain Cody Khork, Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens, Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, and Sergeant Declan Coady. Two more deceased American soldiers are yet to be identified.

Lawmakers are warning the public that more Americans are likely to die in Iran.

“This is as serious as it gets,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told reporters on Tuesday. “This is war and peace. They told us in that room that there are gonna be more Americans that are gonna die … that they’re not gonna be able to stop these drones flying into the Middle East. We have to have a debate in the United States Senate on authorization of military force.”

Murphy’s Connecticut counterpart, Senator Richard Blumenthal, echoed the warning. “I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground,” he told reporters.

Hegseth admitted as much in his Wednesday remarks.

“More and larger waves are coming. We are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating,” he said.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth spoke unapologetically about causing “death and destruction from the sky all day long” in Iran at a press briefing Wednesday.

“We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it,” Hegseth said, attempting to speak menacingly. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Is Hegseth hinting at a planned U.S. takeover of the country? That would require ground troops and billions more tax dollars. The Trump administration hasn’t ruled it out, worrying some members of Congress. On top of that, Hegseth proudly crowed Monday that this war with Iran has “no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars,” meaning that “playing for keeps” doesn’t mean a proper transition of power.

Through Hegseth, the Trump administration is saying that it doesn’t care about civilian casualties, war crimes, or any kind of well-being for the Iranian people. It’s more bravado and machismo, making the “shock and awe” of the Iraq War of the early 2000s seem quaint by comparison. In fact, Hegseth’s references to a quagmire suggest that the U.S. will not be treating Iran like Iraq—there’s no plan or regard for what Iran will look like after the bombing ends. Instead, the goal is to level Iran, human rights be damned.

State Secretary Marco Rubio just ate his own words.

The White House is scrambling to find a palatable explanation for U.S. involvement in the Iran war after Donald Trump rejected Rubio’s public rationale.

During a visit on Capitol Hill Monday, Rubio suggested that the U.S. jumped to action due to intelligence that indicated Israel was going to strike Iran. U.S. involvement was, according to Rubio, necessary to thwart retaliation against U.S. interests.

“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone … they were going to respond and respond against the United States,” Rubio said. “We knew there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

But that was apparently not the pitch that Trump approved. Responding to questions from reporters at the White House the following day, the president rejected any indication that Israel had pushed the White House to act.

“No. I might have forced their hand,” Trump said. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”

Hours later, Rubio also changed his tune—though his tone was noticeably more stressed.

“Yesterday, you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran and that’s why we needed to get involved. Today the president said Iran was going to get—” started a reporter, before Rubio interjected.

“No. Were you there yesterday? That’s false. I was asked very specifically—were you there yesterday?” said Rubio.

“Yes, I asked the question,” responded the reporter.

Eventually, Rubio relented that the White House “knew the attack was going to happen anyway.”

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., also tried to downplay Rubio’s comments. “[Rubio] clarified that those comments, those clips, are being taken out of context,” Waltz told CNN Tuesday night. “He was answering a very narrow operational question.”

So far, six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Eighteen American soldiers have also been seriously injured. More than 1,000 Iranian civilians have been killed, including 176 children, dozens of whom were at a girls’ school in the country’s south.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen countries have been roped into the conflict since the U.S. began bombing Iran—including France, the U.K., and Greece—effectively destabilizing the entire region while disrupting global markets and oil production.

A contingent of Texas Republicans are pushing for an immediate pause on all immigration into the U.S. after local authorities revealed a naturalized citizen was their primary suspect behind a mass shooting that rattled downtown Austin Sunday.

More than 70 Texas state House Republicans tacked their names onto a letter to Congress demanding that U.S. immigration services immediately halt operations until “proper vetting protocols” were put in place to waylay broad concerns of terrorism, reported The Texas Tribune.

“The American people—and the people of Texas—demand immigration policies that place the safety and welfare of Americans first,” reads a copy of the letter shared by state Representative Jared Patterson.

That’s just one of four possible options the state GOP offered to alter America’s current immigration process.

The caucus also included a demand to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. Funding for the agency lapsed on February 13, sparking a partial government shutdown that has singularly affected the agency. Republicans and Democrats in Washington have been unable to reach a bipartisan consensus on whether to reform the violent department, which is still struggling after unwarranted violence by ICE agents in Minnesota that ultimately saw federal officers kill two U.S. citizens.

Democrats have agreed to pass the package so long as Republicans concede to 10 demands on how to reel in ICE agents, such as requiring them to identify themselves, take off their masks, and obtain judicial warrants before forcing their way onto private property. GOP congressional leadership, however, has not been willing to change the status quo at all.

Second on the Lone Star Republican agenda to rehab DHS is guidance to “immediately freeze all H-1B Visas” until the federal agency can conduct a “comprehensive audit of existing visa holders.”

Finally, conservative state lawmakers asked that the country “redirect resources toward identifying threats” within American borders.

“This requires a concerted, well-funded effort to cross-reference immigration records, law enforcement databases, and intelligence reports to identify individuals who pose a credible threat to American citizens,” the letter reads. “This is not optional—it is essential.”

State Representative Cole Hefner, chair of the House’s Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans’ Affairs Committee and lead signatory, told the Tribune that the letter was a team effort by the entire House caucus.

Six House Democrats are breaking with their party to support a different, more lenient war powers resolution that would grant President Trump a 30-day extension on his war on Iran, according to Punchbowl News. Each of those six Democrats has received somewhere from $300,000 to $3 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. 

The Democrat representatives voting for another month of war are:

• Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey)
• Jimmy Panetta (California)
• Henry Cuellar (Texas)
• Greg Landsman (Ohio)
• Jared Golden (Maine)
• Jim Costa (California)

“Our war powers resolution allows for the short-term, targeted strikes on the regime’s missiles and bombs, requires Trump to come to Congress for a vote, and specifies ‘no ground troops,’” Representative Landsman wrote Tuesday. “Destroy the regimes [sic] ability to destroy more lives or cause any more mayhem or violence. Nothing more.” 

The sentiment was not a popular one. The initial war powers resolution, co-sponsored by GOP Representative Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna, would immediately block any U.S. military action without congressional approval under the 1973 War Powers Resolution. It is set for a  Wednesday vote, but it doesn’t stand a chance of becoming law. Even if it passed both chambers of Congress, it doesn’t have sufficient support to override a Trump veto. 

“I truly cannot understand how anyone could decide, sure I trust Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth to wage a regime change war in Iran,” Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor wrote Tuesday on X. “Have at it for 30 days, fellas, the[n] we’ll check back in. Mindbogglingly stupid.”

“NEWS: six democrats introduce alternate war powers resolution that is not a war powers resolution, but instead maintains the status quo while looking Vaguely Concerned in the event the war becomes politically toxic which it already is,” Citations Needed host Adam Johnson wrote sarcastically. 

“There is not by any reasonable measure ‘a discomfort with the @RoKhanna resolution among House Dems,’” the Center for International Policy’s Dylan Williams said. “This is the pro-war fringe of the caucus giving themselves a phony oversight vehicle to point to. No one should be fooled by it. A vote against Khanna-Massie is a vote for war.”

In just four days of bombing, the Trump administration and the Israeli government have killed at least 787 Iranians, including about 180 children at an elementary girls’ school. Now six Democratic hawks want to give them 30 more days.