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Trump Official Hides Damning Report on Israel Killing Americans

David Milstein, a senior adviser to U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem, is suppressing (and editing) reports on Israeli violence.

A Turkish police officer holds a picture of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot dead by Israeli forces while protesting against illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, during her funeral.
A Turkish police officer holds a picture of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot dead by Israeli forces while protesting against illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, during her funeral on September 14, 2024.
Murat Kocabas/Middle East Images/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
A Turkish police officer holds a picture of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot dead by Israeli forces while protesting against illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, during her funeral on September 14, 2024.

American diplomats are supposed to represent the interests of the U.S. above everything else.

David Milstein, an aide to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, was running cover for the Israeli government, suppressing reports critical of Israeli actions, The New York Times reports. Milstein, according to several unnamed sources, quashed reports from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem documenting Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank—including against Americans.

Milstein sent a cable from the embassy to Washington praising Israel for cracking down on Israeli settler violence, when in reality, embassy staff had drafted a report saying that the Israeli government wasn’t taking action. After Congress raised concerns about how Israeli authorities and settlers have killed nine American citizens, Milstein suppressed another embassy report, hindering lawmakers from investigating further.

Milstein also demanded any communications from the embassy’s section on Palestinian affairs go through him. This led to the embassy’s cables dropping from several per week to only a few per month, sources told the Times. They said that this kind of intervention is unprecedented for the embassy, and is preventing the U.S. government from getting accurate information about Israel from diplomatic channels.

Trump has rarely criticized Israel or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his second term as president, and he chose to appoint Huckabee, a Christian Zionist and staunch supporter of Israel, as ambassador. It’s not clear if Milstein’s actions have Huckabee’s blessing, but human rights groups and U.S. allies have raised concerns about all of these issues.

Last month, Canada, France, and the U.K. announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That’s unlikely to happen in the U.S. anytime soon—and in fact the U.S. has threatened tariffs in response to the sanctions—but one would still expect U.S. diplomats to accurately document what is happening where they are stationed. In the case of Israel, however, the truth is actively being hidden.

Trump Jokes Around as Supporter Attacks Protester at a Rally

Donald Trump also wandered aimlessly around the stage as the attack happened.

The crowd at Donald Trump's midterm campaign event in Texas
Christopher Lee/Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump did nothing as one of his rallygoers attacked a peaceful protester.

Trump struggled to get through his address at a campaign rally in San Antonio, Texas, Wednesday night as his remarks were repeatedly interrupted by at least seven separate protesters.

As one demonstrator made his way out of the arena through the jeering crowd, a rallygoer in a red hat seized the protester’s shirt and yanked his hair, pulling him to the floor.

Other rallygoers appeared to intervene—but not the president of the United States. Instead, he basked in the roar of an angry crowd, wandering aimlessly around the stage. “Let me ask you a question, is there anything like a Trump rally? Is there anything like it?” Trump asked, smiling broadly.

In a separate incident, a rallygoer wearing a white cowboy hat stalked after two protesters as they were directed out of the arena. The rallygoer smacked one of the protesters’ baseball hats off and followed them threateningly, pumping his fists. He even appeared to lunge or kick one of the protesters, before being held back by a security officer.

Trump’s unwillingness to condemn his supporters’ violence (and in many cases, his decision to encourage it) is obviously nothing new. But the failure to address violence that unfolds before his own eyes is still shameful behavior from any leader—let alone the president of the United States.

Speaking at the rally, the president told demonstrators to “get the hell out of here,” and claimed they were “paid by enemies of our nation.” After the sixth interruption, Trump tried to laugh it off. “You know, I never talk about looks of a person, but those are really bad looking people,” Trump said.

Leaked Audio Reveals Ken Paxton Promising Cuts to Federal Benefits

The Republican Senate nominee in Texas keeps getting hit with embarrassing leaks.

Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton
Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton
Kent NISHIMURA/AFP/Getty Images
Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton

More audio of Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton has leaked, this time featuring the embattled lawmaker telling people depending on federal benefits programs to “suck it up” and prepare for cuts.

“The growing out of this is part of the solution, and making some reasonable cuts to mandatory spending—you’re gonna have to do it,” Paxton said at the same donor meeting that three other leaks have sprouted from, as first reported by The Texas Tribune.

“There is no solution. That’s just the reality. We have to suck it up,” he continued. “From Republican presidents to Democrats, we’ve been spending like crazy. And no one seems to care. And it’s gonna bankrupt us.”

Just about everything Paxton has said behind closed doors suggests that he is both out of step with President Trump and out of touch with the average Texas voter.

“At this point I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the next leak from this fundraiser is: ‘Honestly, you should probably just vote for Talarico,’” joked liberal podcaster Jon Favreau.

In previous leaks from the meeting last month, Paxton called Trump a drag on his campaign and said Trump’s war on Iran was raising prices and making it harder for him to campaign. Aside from the embarrassing amount of leaks, Paxton sounds like more of a “Never Trump” Republican rather than a willing Trump loyalist, as he portrayed himself during the primary election. This all comes as his long-awaited showdown with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico draws nearer, with Talarico leading most polls by a small margin.

Trump Straight-Up Admits He Pardons People to Get Something in Return

Donald Trump insisted he hadn’t expected anything when pardoning Representative Henry Cuellar—then said he was disappointed Cuellar didn’t return the favor.

Donald Trump speaks at a podium during a midterm campaign event
Christopher Lee/Bloomberg/Getty Images

When Donald Trump gives, he expects something in return.

The revelation came amid an attack Wednesday night against Texas Representative Henry Cuellar, who Trump apparently believed should have become a Republican after he received a presidential pardon last year.

Speaking at a campaign rally in San Antonio, Texas, Trump insisted that he never expects quid pro quos when it comes to presidential pardons. But he then proved that untrue minutes later.

“I made no deal,” Trump declared, recalling his exchange with Cuellar. “I didn’t say, ‘Oh, I’ll give you the pardons if you turn Republican.’ I didn’t say that. No, I could have done that very easily but—where a crooked politician would have done that.”

“But I thought there would be a good chance that Cuellar might say, ‘Wow, he did something really wonderful, you know, somebody has a heart.’”

The president then suggested Cuellar had been villainized by the Democratic Party and that he would have been welcomed into the Republican Party with open arms “if we asked.”

Just moments later, Trump mused about how Cuellar’s daughters had “begged” the president to pardon their father, and wished that they had used the “same level of charm to convince their mother and father to do the right thing.”

“I guess I expected maybe he wouldn’t run, or maybe he’d run maybe as a Republican, I don’t know,” Trump said.

Trump had shared similar thoughts on Truth Social hours prior when endorsing Cuellar’s opponent. The president accused Cuellar of a “tremendous act of disloyalty” and said Cuellar was an “extremely ungrateful person.”

“Henry Cuellar is a LOSER who, right now, should be serving a long-term jail sentence with his wife in a top level penitentiary,” Trump added.

The FBI raided Cuellar’s home and office in 2022 as part of a federal probe into the Texas Democrat’s ties to Azerbaijan. Cuellar and his wife faced a dozen charges of bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy—including allegations that they improperly accepted $600,000 in bribes from the central Asian country—before Trump intervened. At the time, Trump chalked up the charges to an improper intervention by the Biden administration, suggesting that his predecessor had weaponized the legal system to punish Cuellar for criticizing America’s immigration processes.

Trump Says He Really Does Want Iran to Bomb San Diego and Los Angeles

Donald Trump’s team claimed his initial comments were taken out of context. The president, however, doubled down.

Donald Trump shouts while on stage at a midterm campaign event
Christopher Lee/Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump clearly gets a kick out of imagining Iran destroying American cities.

Speaking at a rally in San Antonio Wednesday night, Trump doubled down on the outlandish fallacy that anyone complaining about high gas prices should consider the alternative: that Iran could strike Los Angeles or San Diego.

“But you wanna see trauma? You wanna see problems? And I said it the other day, let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles on the way. Let them hit—you wanna see a horror show, you wanna see problems? Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles. And you wanna see some bad things happen. You wanna see a country that would be in freefall,” Trump said. “We’re not gonna let that happen. We protect our cities, we protect our country.”

Trump made a similar remark at a rally in Nebraska earlier this week, where he said, “They can take out a city. Let them take, let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego. That’s—this is a very small price to pay, and it’s going to be over with very soon.”

Some viewers believed that Trump had issued an invitation to Iran to destroy two American cities. The rally crowd even burst into cheers when the president evoked the imminent destruction of California, a consistent target of his administration. But Trump’s team insisted that his comment was simply taken out of context: His “let them” comment was a warning of what could happen if the United States did not intervene, and that the “small price to pay” referred to high prices of goods and services.

“He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped,” White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote on X.

Trump’s decision to revisit his controversial comment clarifies everything: Clearly he likes to evoke the destruction of these blue cities in order to illustrate his nonsensical point about high gas prices to crowds in red states. His dramatics are just another way to sidestep blame for high prices.

It’s worth noting that Trump’s fallacy is a false one. Multiple former Trump administration officials have contradicted the president’s claims that Iran’s nuclear program presented any imminent threat to national security. Trump himself claimed earlier this week that Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated in June 2025, a full eight months before he ordered attacks in March 2026.