Max Blumenthal: I Went to Iran and Was Detained by the Trump Admin
In a Nutshell
Max Blumenthal was detained and had his phones seized at Dulles airport upon returning from Iran because Israel didn't want his reporting on Israeli war crimes and the bombing of a Tehran synagogue. Laura Loomer led an Israeli propaganda campaign against him that resulted in congressional figures calling for his denaturalization, while Canary Mission (funded by Epstein's financier) works with the State Department to deport students critical of Israel. The core issue is that Israel controls key Trump administration figures and is driving US policy toward endless war with Iran at the expense of American interests and constitutional rights.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Max Blumenthal was detained at a US airport recently, which was not the first time the Trump administration had targeted him over his reporting. He was arrested and jailed on false charges that were dropped quickly during the first Trump term. He spent a couple days in DC jail over completely false bogus charges. His house was raided by police who surrounded it, took him out into a wagon and to jail for charges that he had assaulted a woman who was an ally of Juan Guaido. He wishes he had legal representation that encouraged him to sue at that time because it was completely fake.
Right after Trump came in January, Blumenthal was stopped coming back from a vacation abroad with his family and shown a list of names and asked if he knew those people, which is far beyond the scope of authority of Customs and Border Protection. He was pulled out of the customs line. They were waiting for him and said they had been watching him on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show. They showed him names including Susan Benjamin, the birth name of Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, and Arab or Muslim names including one that might have been Mahmud Khalil, a Columbia student who was arrested and they tried to deport him and put him in an ICE facility.
This signaled to Blumenthal that Israel is in charge now and they want a crackdown, wanting to criminalize activism and even journalism that contravenes their objectives. The war in Iran broke out on February 28th when Trump executed Israel's wishes and Netanyahu's greatest fantasy of attacking Iran. Blumenthal was observing it closely and reporting on it.
Blumenthal had gone to Iran the year before without incident. He participated in a public media festival in Iran and did a documentary on Iranian Jews and what life is like for them in the Islamic Republic. He did reporting and interviewed top negotiators as negotiations were about to collapse a month before Israel launched its first war on Iran which ended with Operation Midnight Hammer.
When the major war Operation Epstein Fury or Epic Fury broke out, Blumenthal wanted an opportunity to go. Iran's foreign ministry was giving out press passes to mainstream reporters from NBC and CNN, as well as influencers who wanted to cover the funeral of the man Trump assassinated on February 28th, Ayatollah Ali Khani. It was going to be the largest funeral in history, and indeed it was. He witnessed it as a reporter.
One thing Blumenthal was reporting on was evidence of US and Israeli war crimes. He visited a neighborhood in eastern Tehran that had been completely destroyed Gaza style with block after block of destruction. People on that street with tears in their eyes told him how entire families were liquidated in their sleep. He went to the home where a family of 12 was killed and found clothes of small children on the ground, the same age as his own children. There was graffiti on the wall of a destroyed civilian apartment building that said "evidence of US crimes."
Blumenthal visited a 50-year-old active synagogue called the Rafinia Synagogue in central Tehran that Israel had bombed. Nothing was bombed around it that he could see. He was one of the first American reporters to visit it, along with his colleague Wyatt Reed. He also visited Gandhi Hospital and several other sites. Israel always offers the excuse there was some IRGC site nearby and it was a mistake, but this wouldn't have been the first synagogue Israel's bombed in the region.
Blumenthal stated that bombing synagogues was not on the program he thought. The synagogue didn't seem to present a national security threat to Israel. What threatens Israel is to have a community of 10,000 Jews in a Muslim country like the Islamic Republic of Iran who are recognized as a national minority under the constitution and who are not experiencing anti-semitism there. It stands at odds with what Zionists want people to believe about Muslims and the Muslim world. Israel might want to frighten them to leave as they did with the Jewish community in Iraq when the Zionist underground with Israeli help bombed Jewish community centers in Baghdad, as Israeli historian Avi documented in 1952-1953.
Trump has previously said that large crowds at funerals of Islamic Republic leadership who he or Israel assassinate are AI. They don't want actual American reporters on the ground there, especially Blumenthal when his perspective is very well known.
While Blumenthal was in Iran, he was targeted online by a collection of entities and figures completely connected to Israel. It was an Israeli propaganda operation targeting him. Laura Loomer was leading the way on this and it was not an organic uprising of American citizens online. When he went in 2025, he was tweeting from Iran and producing journalism the same way and nothing like this happened, but this time it was different and a foreign state was guiding it.
Canary Mission, a group based in Israel based in a foundation called Megumat Shalom, created a dossier about Blumenthal saying he dedicated his life to the Ayatollah and that he was there officially endorsed him. They essentially said he endorsed him for leadership of the world and was there to pray at his grave. If he had converted to Shia Islam and prayed and paid homage to the late Ayatollah, that would not have been against the law in the United States. He was just there to report. Canary Mission's writers come out of the Wexner Foundation named for the best friend of Jeffrey Epstein. They are American Israeli dual citizens.
Canary Mission has been used by the State Department under Trump to determine which green card holding students they should arrest in the street and deport, like writing an op-ed criticizing Israel for their student paper. Canary Mission was founded in 2015 to ruin the lives of US college students who were participating in Palestine activism on campus by doxing them and preventing them from gaining future employment. An Israeli propaganda outfit funded by Epstein's financier has worked with the State Department to decide who to deport. It was reported that Marco Rubio's State Department was relying in part on Canary Mission to target students.
ViceGrad 24 was another group targeting Blumenthal, which seems to be shilling for the UAE as well as Israel. Laura Loomer demanded that Mark Wayne Mullen arrest Blumenthal, have him hauled off the flight, that his passport be revoked, and that he be denaturalized as a natural-born US citizen for simply reporting from Iran.
Laura Loomer tweeted that if Mark Wayne Mullen is worth anything, he will do this. She called for Blumenthal's home to be raided at 5:00 a.m. She specifically called for Rubio to yank his passport. She boasted that she had called the FBI, the State Department, and DHS on him. She has boasted of calling law enforcement on over a thousand people in the US.
Blumenthal came back knowing what to expect, that they were going to get heavy with him because Laura Loomer has become their go-to propagandist and they use her. They kind of outsource her, but also she's able to frighten people in the administration like Mark Wayne Mullen, who she was attacking a week later, calling him Mark Wayne Muslim because he wasn't doing enough deportations.
Laura Loomer is seen as so outlandish but people in the Trump administration are frightened of her. There are powerful forces behind her including some extremely powerful Zionist crime bosses. She has an audience with Zelensky and met with Andre Bletki, the leading neo-Nazi in Ukraine, and whitewashed him. She went to an energy plant for a company called DTEK whose board member is Jeffrey Pott, the guy who was handing out cookies in the Maidan in 2014 with Victoria Nuland. DTEK is owned by Reinad Akmatov, one of the richest men in Ukraine who is like a de facto crime boss in Kiev.
Laura Loomer is pushing for the removal of sanctions on Venezuela's government even when Maduro was in power, probably for some pretty powerful businessmen who might own Venezuela's sovereign debt. She is pushing to target anyone who gets in the way of Israel's genocidal agenda in the Middle East.
MAGA has driven out everyone who believed in anything Trump campaigned on in 2016-2024 like national sovereignty, America first rather than Israel first, and not continuing the Ukraine proxy war. Zelensky is now asking for $28 billion from the US. Laura Loomer is the face of MAGA right now. When that's the face of the movement, it doesn't stand for anything anymore except the raw Machiavellian exercise of power, looting, corruption, and genocidal bloodlust.
After a mass shooting that killed three people at a mosque in San Diego in May, Laura Loomer called for ICE to raid the homes of the victims. She said the whole thing was a false flag to elicit sympathy for Muslims and that all Muslims in America should be deported.
The detention happened explicitly because Israel didn't want Blumenthal reporting from inside Iran and they thought they could exploit his vulnerability coming back from Iran to have something terrible happen to him in the area in the country where you are told when you enter you have no constitutional rights. Blumenthal is an American citizen with no other passport. Once you are called in for secondary inspection or questioning by Customs and Border Protection when you arrive from another country, you get the red X and they put your passport in a plastic box and send you back there. CBP tells you that you essentially do not have the same constitutional rights.
This was at Dulles International Airport. Blumenthal came back and had the four S's on his ticket. He was questioned and they were asking questions that seemed to follow the same line that Loomer or whoever was handling her or backing her was pursuing. He was very cooperative with them and polite. He figured he could be transparent and polite rather than refusing, which he has the right to do, but then he would be there for hours and hours and they would use that to punish him.
They searched his bags and everything, which they wouldn't have a right to do outside of there without a warrant and individualized suspicion. At the end of the questioning, they demanded that he open his phones. They said they were just going to check for evidence of criminal activity and CSM and to give them his passcodes. He said no, that is a violation of his constitutional rights. They said if he didn't give his phones, they have revoked people's passports temporarily.
They took two phones he had. Oddly, they didn't take his other devices or seem that interested in them, like his laptop. If they thought he was an IRGC agent, why wouldn't they take his digital camera or his laptop. They were trying to harass and punish and intimidate him and to satisfy Laura Loomer and whatever Zionist crime bosses are behind her.
A few days later, Blumenthal went to Janine Ununice, a lawyer who is a true free speech warrior. She is not like fake free speech warriors who only defend the free speech of conservatives or whatever interest they represent. She is not Alan Dershowitz or Ben Shapiro. Her feelings only care about facts. She argued at the Supreme Court against the Biden administration's policy of banning social media accounts that had criticized Biden in a lawsuit filed by Republican governors. She was one of the major critics of the whole COVID lockdown mandate policy from a constitutional perspective. Now she is the president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and is doing legal actions defending the rights of Americans who are being targeted for criticizing Israel.
She filed a lawsuit demanding his phones and all the data they had taken back. Within 24 hours he got a call from CBP telling him his phones were ready for pickup. They were holding them for days and days. They said they were going to hook them up to machines and run a program called Cellebrite through the phones to brute force open them. Cellebrite is an Israeli technology. Once they get in, they can scrape metadata, access deleted text messages, and access his whole life without a warrant. Warrantless seizure is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. They filed this lawsuit and went to court at the Fourth District in Northern Virginia.
A veteran judge ruled that Max Blumenthal's Fourth Amendment rights had been violated at the border, requiring the government to produce discovery explaining what they did with his phones. The lawsuit has been expanded to include both Fourth Amendment and First Amendment claims, seeking injunctive relief to stop government harassment. This case establishes precedent protecting constitutional rights of Americans at the border, building on cases like Belmonte Cardardo versus the US government.
The lawsuit argues that if the government suspects someone has committed a crime, they can easily obtain a warrant to search a phone, but without a warrant they cannot conduct such searches. The government lawyer was unfamiliar with the Belmonte Cardardo precedent.
Since filing the lawsuit, Israel first forces in the US have retaliated against Blumenthal. On Shabbat two weeks prior to the interview, three congressional figures - Randy Fine, Randy Weber, and Keith Self - released a letter under congressional letterhead through Laura Loomer's Twitter account calling for investigation of Blumenthal without producing any evidence of criminal activity.
The letter pointed to his journalism from Iran and general journalism that upset Israel, including investigations into October 7th events. Blumenthal was among the first English-language US media reporters to present evidence that Israel killed many of its own citizens through the Hannibal directive.
The Hannibal directive enables the Israeli army to kill Israeli citizens if they believe those citizens will be taken captive, because the price of letting them go over the Gaza border alive is considered higher than killing them. This policy has been confirmed by the former Israeli defense minister, and a colonel serving on October 7th stated they enacted a mass Hannibal.
In Kibbutz Be'eri, an Israeli tank crew was ordered to fire into a home where 12 Israelis were being held captive. The Grey Zone reported on this, with one of the lone survivors providing testimony in Hebrew Israeli media that was conveyed to American audiences.
Blumenthal detailed his October 7th reporting in a documentary called Atrocity Incorporated or Atrocity Inc, examining how Israel fabricated atrocities like claims of 40 beheaded babies and systematic mass rape by Hamas to manufacture consent for genocide. He also reported that Israel may have killed hundreds of its own citizens that day.
His reporting was later corroborated by Israeli publications that had initially attacked him. Yedioth Ahronoth, in an article co-authored by Ronen Bergman who also writes for the New York Times, reported that over 70 cars were targeted by Israeli helicopters heading toward the Gaza border with occupants inside. Haaretz reported that a free fire order was given that day with possibly hundreds of strikes carried out under the Hannibal directive.
About 400 Israeli soldiers were killed on October 7th, with their bases targeted as active duty combatants enforcing the siege of Gaza. Many other Israelis were caught in crossfire and seized as captives. The Nova electronic music festival had been extended for another day right next to the Gaza border when helicopters began targeting everyone.
Gal Abdush was photographed outside a car that appeared to have been blown up with a Hellfire missile. She had rigor mortis and was wearing a small dress from attending the rave. She became the subject of a New York Times front page investigation called Screams Without Words about alleged Hamas mass rape, described as the girl in the black dress whose legs were spread found by her car. Her family stated this was false and that the New York Times had tricked them.
The congressional letter called Blumenthal an asset cultivated by the IRGC, which he described as complete defamation with no basis. Randy Fine has made littering a hate crime in Florida punishable by 5 years in prison, enforces the IHRA definition of antisemitism in Florida, and stated he would like to see the streets of Gaza overflow with blood. Fine also claimed personal credit for throwing Thomas Massie out of Congress.
Randy Weber, who replaced Ron Paul in Texas, wears an Israeli tie on the House floor and stated the US has to attack Iran because Israel is the apple of God's eye. Keith Self introduced a bill to stop Sharia in Dallas. Laura Loomer appears to be backed by powerful Zionists.
Randy Fine was described as the 45th most influential Jew in the world by the Jerusalem Post. The people making Israel's case publicly are figures like Fine who appear to inspire hate against Israel. Zionist logic requires antisemitism as fuel for Zionism, because if Jewish life were normalized in the West, there would be no justification for Israel waging war after war and building walls around indigenous populations.
The antisemitism industry depends on redefining antisemitism to include anyone upset with mass extermination of children. Jonathan Greenblatt's ADL has a multi-million dollar organization with a command center in Silicon Valley and conducts spying operations inside activist organizations while bragging about being an auxiliary force of the FBI.
Jewish Israeli society faces crisis because the ultra-Orthodox population produces the most children and maintains positive replacement rate birth rates, but secular and religious nationalist members must subsidize ultra-Orthodox men to read Torah all day. Bills are being pushed to force ultra-Orthodox men into military service, but they protest saying the Torah forbids killing.
A documentary called No Other Land made by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Shaw consists of 24 interviews with Israeli soldiers, mostly from military intelligence unit 8200, describing targeting operations. One soldier described hacking into phones of young girls in Gaza to determine when fathers would come home, then ordering airstrikes and listening to girls burn alive through their phones. Israeli ministers are calling for stripping the filmmakers of citizenship, and Netanyahu called the film a blood libel.
Ultra-Orthodox parties like United Torah Judaism keep Netanyahu's coalition together. The crisis will increase with potential for civil war, especially if Netanyahu lacks a big war to distract from internal divisions. The ultra-Orthodox want religious segregation and to live a medieval Jewish lifestyle without interest in killing Palestinians, while secular Israelis participate in the military and believe in political segregation of Palestinians.
Netanyahu stated at a meeting with US influencers that the United States is the eighth front in Israel's war, making Blumenthal a target in this propaganda, information, legal, and political war.
Central banks around the world are dumping US treasuries and buying gold at historic rates. China imported nearly as much gold in the first half of 2026 as it did during all of 2025. This behavior suggests central banks are hedging against coming instability.
Gold has always been a store of value and safe haven investment throughout history. It has outperformed the S&P 500 over the last 25 years since 9/11. Battalion Metals was founded to provide Americans with an honest and easy way to buy physical gold, offering safe storage, discrete shipping, and expert help with precious metals. The company aims to provide a fair price alternative to companies advertising on cable news with crazy markups.
Israel is involved in activities across Latin America, Africa, Somaliland, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia simultaneously. Trump-backed candidates have won every election in Latin America over the last two years, including Abelardo de la Espria in Colombia, who pledged loyalty to Israel immediately after winning despite being the former lawyer for cartels.
The Boland Amendment was passed during the height of the Contra War, requiring Reagan or any executive to sign off on covert action. Ephraim Rios Mont was a US-backed dictator who was close to the Christian right and Christian Zionists like Pat Robertson. He was the first evangelical president of Guatemala. Israel supplied him with Uzis to suppress the Mayan population and remaining Guatemalan insurgency, and provided computers and surveillance systems to round up activists opposing his rule.
Rios Mont stated that the Israeli commando was the model for the Venezuelan soldier. Israel was able to supply weapons without requiring Reagan's signature on covert action documentation.
Ecuador has a billionaire president born in Miami named Danielle Nooa who is extremely pro-Israel. Ecuadorian schools are now implementing Holocaust education, which seems on the nose given the political context.
Juan Orlando Hernandez was collaborating with Israel while, in his words, "shoving cocaine up the Yankees' noses." He was jailed in federal prison in Miami along with his brother Tony Hernandez, who was marking bags of cocaine destined for the US with his initials. Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez to legitimize his national party so they could win another election in Honduras.
Following the violent abduction of Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores, Deli Rodriguez came to power. An earthquake brought Israeli rescuers into Venezuela, after which Rodriguez met with Israeli military officials in Miraflores Palace and normalized relations with Israel.
In 2009, Hugo Chavez kicked out the Israeli ambassador in protest of Israel's assault on Gaza that year. The first time Deli Rodriguez was seen speaking publicly, she was wearing a kofia to show solidarity with Palestinians. Under the new US-backed leadership, Venezuela removed itself from the International Criminal Court, despite having emphasized international law and the Geneva Conventions since Hugo Chavez came to power in 1998.
Venezuela's removal from the ICC came days after Marco Rubio sanctioned the ICC, following Benjamin Netanyahu's indictment for war crimes in Gaza. Netanyahu boasted that this was done on his behalf by Marco Rubio.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. The US signed a deal at gunpoint with Deli Rodriguez to exploit Venezuela's oil reserves, with the oil to be transferred to the US strategic petroleum reserve in violation of the Venezuelan constitution. The strategic petroleum reserves have been at their lowest point since 1983.
Susie Wilds controls everything the president sees and hears. When the war on Iran was launched on February 28th, Team A at Mar-a-Lago consisted of Susie Wilds, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe, and Trump, while Team B (Joe Kent, Tulsi Gabbard, JD Vance) were excluded from the room.
Before joining the Trump administration, Susie Wilds worked for Netanyahu, helping him stage Trump-style rallies during his re-election campaign when he was in political hot water. This was reported by the Washington Post.
Harit Dylan heads the Office of Civil Rights in the DOJ. Her law firm, Dylan Law, represents Show Faith by Works, a federally registered Israeli foreign agent that propagandizes evangelicals for Israel, geo-fences their churches, and distributes Israeli propaganda.
At a private off-the-record AIPAC congressional meeting, a 40-year veteran of AIPAC stated that the importance of their lobbying is going down to congressional districts and recruiting people right when they come into Congress. John Ratcliffe, Marco Rubio, and Mike Waltz were specifically mentioned as "lifelines inside the administration." Marco Rubio's career has been advanced by Paul Singer's donations, with Singer being a major Israel-first billionaire.
The populations of the US and UK are becoming aware of the cost of their relationship with Israel and the genocide in Gaza, with young people especially turning against Israel. Israel recognizes this relationship will change to their detriment.
When Andy Burnham announced sanctions on products from occupied territories in support of a two-state solution, Israel shut down Heathrow Airport's air traffic control systems within 2 hours and 35 minutes. Israel has toppled the previous leader of the UK Labor Party before Keir Starmer and maintains significant power in Britain.
Palestine Action is defined as a terrorist group by the Trump administration because Israel instructed them to designate these British activists as terrorists. This occurred almost on the same day Trump lifted sanctions on al-Qaeda leadership in Syria.
Palestine Action conducts direct action at Israeli weapons facilities owned by Elbit Systems in the UK, including smashing clean rooms. Juries have been exonerating or releasing these activists because they sympathize with the argument that the activists are saving lives given Israel's genocide in Gaza. The media is not allowed to report on these trials, and the jury is not told they are terrorism trials until after verdicts, when judges apply terrorism charges.
Israel needs to "democratize" Western societies to maintain control as populations turn against them. They want to brainwash youth through PragerU curriculum in state education systems and jail journalists who interfere with their propaganda objectives.
Israel's ultimate objective is global control. As the world moves toward multipolarity and US empire recedes, Israel is determined to gain control at the heart of Eurasia where Iran is situated. A white paper from a group associated with the PTOIC stated that the Mossad would help purge the Islamic Republic, with Israel assisting in renewing the economy and positioned at the center of everything in post-Islamic Republic Iran.
Iran controls a waterway through which 20% of the world's liquid natural gas passes. Control of Iran would force Russia and China to deal with Israel directly.
On February 3rd, Netanyahu made a presidential-style visit to the White House with helicopters shutting down traffic across town. He marched into the situation room, sat at the head of the table while Trump sat to the side, and David Barnea, the Mossad director at the time, was brought in on a big screen. They gave Trump his marching orders to bomb a meeting of the Ayatollah and his advisers in Tehran on February 28th.
Trump believed there would be an Iranian equivalent of Deli Rodriguez within 4 days and that protests in January would sweep away the regime. Netanyahu had no long-term plan except to get the US into a state of constant escalation with Iran.
The war on Iran has been disastrous for the US economy and Trump politically, with historically low approval ratings. A poll showed 64% of people who believe the war is affecting their pocketbook interests will vote Democrat. The deficit is at 40 trillion dollars, with the war costing over a trillion dollars when factoring in veteran payments and rising weapons costs over 10 years.
The US has had to reposition THAAD batteries and PAC-3 systems from other strategically significant locations. As a maritime power, the US has been exposed as a paper tiger, with sailors unable to reach land until Thailand and food being rationed due to supply bases put out of service by Iranian missiles.
Trump has intensely disliked Netanyahu personally yet followed his orders before the 12-day war. When Netanyahu called saying "we're doing this," Trump followed. Rubio confirmed in his meeting with the Gang of Eight that the US acted because Israel was going in and they couldn't leave them alone.
Trump went along with the leader of a country of 9 million people who was under indictment in his own country, despite personally disliking him.
Miriam Adelson has visited Trump more than anyone along with her late husband Sheldon. When speaking at the Knesset, Trump said he didn't know if she really cares about America, but Israel is her cause, and she's an important person. Adelson donated $300 million to Trump over the years through his PACs.
At Trump's inauguration church service, Adelson breezed through the magnetometer without being checked, despite not being an American. She walked right past everyone standing in line, including Charlie Kirk, without a security check.
Trump has been reelected and no longer needs donors for the Republican Party, yet he's throwing away his legacy and family's future by following Israel.
Salem Media, one of the largest pro-MAGA, pro-Republican, conservative media platforms, was effectively taken over by Clock Tower X, a federally registered Israeli foreign agent operating on behalf of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Clock Tower X operates one of the biggest foreign lobbying contracts ever, valued between $50-100 million. Brad Parscale, who was Trump's chief of staff in 2020 and created Trump's whole Facebook strategy including bots, was plucked out of the wilderness by Israel to run this operation after his house was raided and he was Baker acted.
Charlie Kirk's podcast, Scott Jennings' podcast (who is being talked about as possibly the next White House press secretary), and other prominent figures are involved with the Israeli foreign ministry through this arrangement. Laura Trump, Trump's daughter-in-law, along with Don Jr., received a 30% stake in Salem Media, suggesting their involvement in this contract.
Trump family members are doing business with Israeli drone companies that are receiving contracts for anti-drone technology in Iran, creating multiple layers of incentivization to maintain the relationship. Breaking away from this relationship is deincentivized through various tactics, including the UK at Heathrow and events in Spain where countries giving the middle finger to Israel face consequences like Morocco sending tens of thousands of people into their country.
In 2020, Mike Pompeo and Benjamin Netanyahu convinced Trump to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, the second most powerful official in Iran and head of the Quds force for the IRGC. Max Blumenthal was the only person in mainstream media who criticized this decision at the time, taking significant criticism for it. Soleimani was regarded by millions of Iranians as a hero who prevented ISIS from swamping their country with jihadist fanatics, and he was a direct US ally in the fight against ISIS.
The distinction between legitimate state use of force and homicide exists in two categories: imminent self-defense where someone is coming at you and you must kill to protect life, or a process sanctioned by the state through trial. Any killing outside these two categories constitutes murder. Even if assassination is considered legitimate, the consequences of removing figures like Soleimani must be considered, as he was viewed as a national hero by many Iranians.
The Iranian retaliation for Soleimani's killing in Iraq as he was traveling to a peace conference was considered pathetic by those interviewed in the Iranian establishment. Many believe that if they had hammered US bases the way they're doing now, the current war wouldn't have happened, but they allowed themselves to be set on this course to war.
All assassination plots against Trump that have emerged through the FBI seem to involve confidential human sources and informants pushing mentally vulnerable characters. One plot involved Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national who traveled from Iran and was flagged on a terror watch list. All intelligence about Merchant that reached the FBI apparently came from Israel. Merchant was led into the US despite the terror watch list flag and was pushed by an FBI confidential human source to enact a plot to assassinate Trump.
The plot involved creating a distraction at a Trump rally with a group of people, then having a sniper exploit the distraction to target Trump. Merchant's defense in court was that he felt like a doomed man and there was nothing he could do. The trial was described as very weird.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the Butler, PA shooter, had a large social media footprint showing he was clearly in contact with people from foreign countries whose identities remain unknown. No connection to Iran was found despite investigations. The day after the Butler, PA attempt, the FBI rushed to Houston where Merchant was being held to interrogate him about Butler.
Mike Waltz, one of Israel's greatest allies in Congress and a lifeline of AIPAC, used the Butler investigation commission to try to point the finger at Iran. Netanyahu claimed on Fox News with Brett Baier that Iran was responsible for two assassination attempts on Trump, referring to Butler and the Mar-a-Lago attempt by Ryan Roth, but provided no intelligence to support these claims.
Eight months later, Trump carried out Netanyahu's wish to assassinate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with his staff, children, and grandchildren. Trump stated, "I got him before he got me," indicating the psychological pressure from these dubious assassination plots was affecting his thinking.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump went on a decoy flight because the FBI told him IRGC agents were in the country with MANPADS, leaving his staff to go on Trump Force One while he took Steve Witkoff's jet.
After the signing of the JCPOA, which Trump violated eight terms of, people were in the streets crying and furious about the assassinations. Iranians considered Soleimani a hero but killing Khamenei was considered another level entirely. They viewed him as a father, teacher, and guide who was 87 years old, and were particularly outraged that 130 school children were slaughtered on the same day.
People held signs saying "Kill Trump," and one woman held up a gold chain saying they were collecting a thousand chains for the person who would exact justice for what was done to Khamenei, essentially offering a bounty.
Ali Reza Zakani, the mayor of Tehran who ran for president and is in the more conservative camp, was a friend of Soleimani and Hassan Rouhani (the former president who died a mysterious death and could have been the next Ayatollah). When asked about calls to target Trump and Netanyahu, Zakani stated that they must respect the call for "sacred justice" if they support the revolution. However, he indicated justice could be achieved through closing the Strait of Hormuz, removing US bases from the region, or rolling back the empire that has been suffocating Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that Trump is doing a good enough job of destroying his own career and society, so there would be no point in wanting him dead.
Right after the funeral in July, at NATO in Ankara, the Israelis fed intelligence to the Secret Service that Trump would be targeted by IRGC assassins with MANPADS. According to mainstream media reports, Trump was hidden in a food cart - described as a scene from a Leslie Nielsen comedy - and taken out of Air Force One for another decoy flight.
The Israelis manipulated Trump into this epic humiliation by exploiting his greatest psychological vulnerability: his fear of mortality and legitimate fear for his family's safety.
The war against Iran is going to be protracted and could escalate right before the midterms. Iran's economy is suffering with inflation, but regular middle-class people are not going to head into the streets to overthrow their government. There is a real coming together in Iran with a rally-around-the-flag effect, and people are willing to take economic pain.
The question is whether Americans are willing to take economic pain for Israel, including higher gas prices (up 20 cents per gallon this week) and more dead American soldiers who are disproportionately black and brown kids trying to advance in life.
Diesel fuel hit $10 per gallon in California, described as the "Zionist price hike." Fuel pumps aren't designed to register $10, requiring changes to the system. If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and the Red Sea remains closed because of Yemen, this becomes not just a squeeze or downturn but a catastrophe where people in the United States get poor and people in other countries starve.
Robert Kagan stated this is a greater catastrophe for the US than Vietnam. The economic catastrophe threatens the dollar as the global reserve currency, with the $40 trillion deficit already costing the US investor confidence permanently.
Trump follows commodities prices on his phone and is worried about fuel prices and food prices going up. He feels the only way out is to constrain Israel, creating a binary choice between disaster at home or loyalty to Israel. As of the time of this discussion, he is choosing loyalty to Israel.
No one in the administration is being held accountable. Pete Hegseth is hiring propagandists as secret special employees, including appointing Erica Kirk to the board of the Air Force Academy. There is no sense from Trump that anything hasn't gone according to plan - he keeps claiming the Iranian military and navy are destroyed and the US controls the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Ansarallah (the Houthis) are advancing and taking unprecedented amounts of territory from the fake Yemen government based in a hotel room in Riyadh. They could close the Bab-el-Mandeb, another extremely strategic waterway.
Trump's midterm strategy is about getting out the base, but his base is dwindling. The strategy involves weaponizing the government to target dissenters and calling everyone to the left of Barry Goldwater in 1964 a communist, along with insane anti-Muslim hysteria exploiting the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
The only remaining strategy targets a dwindling cult-like base largely consisting of Fox News boomers concerned about Sharia law, which is not actually an issue in the country. Real issues like prices, lack of opportunity, drugs, and SSRIs causing mass shootings are being ignored.
In the Michigan Senate race, Max Blumenthal stated he doesn't endorse anybody as a podcaster. The opponent Mike Rogers is described as the embodiment of everything ugly, immoral, and stupid about the national security state - totally for warrantless spying and searches, which conservatives should oppose. Rogers is considered the Republican you run if you want to lose, having lost before because no normal person would vote for him.
Michigan's economy is linked to Canada, and Trump's trade war with Canada affects Michigan's exports, particularly car assembly parts. Kitchen table issues are being ignored for boutique fanatical causes like "creeping Sharia."
The untimely death/removal of Charlie Kirk represents a microcosm of what happened to MAGA. Kirk was being forced to reckon with the fact that his base of young conservatives were done with Israel and didn't think it comported with America First. He was starting to get in tune with them.
There is no evidence that Israel was responsible for Kirk's assassination, but with one bullet, one of the greatest threats to Israel's control over the movement was removed. Kirk was the only person with that level of power who could get in the Oval Office with Trump and lobby against joining the Israeli war on Iran in June 2025.
Erica Kirk replaced Charlie Kirk at TPUSA and seems to be a complete tool for the national security state, which explains her appointment to the Air Force Academy board. Her mother was a defense contractor who helped launch her first foundation, and she has allowed Israel back into the building.
Bob Schillman, the largest donor to TPUSA and an Israel-first sent millionaire who also sponsored Laura Loomer's career, wanted his name on a building at TPUSA's campus in Scottsdale. Days before Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Schillman denounced him at a private awards gala in LA and said he wasn't giving the $2 million he had promised.
Max Blumenthal uncovered a leaked contract between Turning Point USA and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a shady organization that is the second largest non-governmental donor to the government of Israel. Its president is based in Israel. The group had pledged $700,000 to TPUSA in May of 2025 when Charlie Kirk was alive. Kirk was threatened because his statements about Israeli control over the movement and about Iran were endangering that donation and many others. Under Erica Kirk, the donation has continued.
TPUSA faith events, including one recently in El Paso where an Israeli flag was draped on the stage, are being sponsored in part by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. These events are held in churches. The question arises why an American church would put any national flag in a Christian church, particularly a foreign flag.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has an agenda to plant 3 million flags in churches globally. The organization is deeply corrupt. Its founder, Yaquil Xen, who is now dead, paid himself $1.2 million and paid his family hundreds of thousands of dollars. They raise money from poor and working-class Christians around the United States and in Latin America, where half the population lives below the poverty line, and give it to Israeli organizations and extremely wealthy pro-Israel American Jewish organizations like the Jewish Federations.
The group also gives money to failing media organizations like Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire, which has had to lay off executives and has dwindling viewership and bleeding YouTube subscribers. Shapiro has a paid partnership with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and hosts interviews with their new president Yael Xeen. Mark Levin also has a paid partnership with them.
Ted Cruz has a paid partnership with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. As a sitting senator, he is also taking ads from the Israeli government itself that run on his show on iHeart Media. iHeart Media has an arrangement with Ted Cruz to donate that revenue to a PAC called Truth and Courage associated with Ted Cruz that supports his reelections. This suggests the Israeli government is indirectly supporting Ted Cruz.
The question arises whether a US senator can take foreign money for a campaign. Pam Bondi got rid of the foreign corrupt practices division of the Department of Justice when she came in, raising questions about the legality of such arrangements.
After Charlie Kirk was killed, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews hosted an event in Jerusalem alongside the Israeli Foreign Ministry. They gave an award to Erica Kirk in the name of Charlie Kirk, wanting to claim Charlie Kirk and bury the crisis he had caused for them.
Erica Kirk started getting criticized when word leaked that she was going to accept the prize. Andrew Kovit, their PR guy, said this was all fake and Erica Kirk had nothing to do with it, claiming it was too soon for them to embrace Israel. However, she went on a town hall with Barry Weiss on CBS, where she said she and Charlie walked where the Bible came alive in Israel and asked how anyone could hate that place. When asked if she opposed the war on Iran, she refused to answer the question.
TPUSA's credibility is gone. Since the publication of the leaked contract and analysis of events over the past year at the Gray Zone, the only response from TPUSA has been that a statue of Charlie Kirk was defaced at their campus. They have not responded to the substantive allegations. Andrew Kulovit did not respond to inquiries.
The accusation that criticism of these arrangements stems from obsession with Jews is rejected. The destructive obsession is with Israel, not Jews. It is Christian Zionists who are doing this. The point of Christian Zionism is to make Christians obsessed with Jews by placing Jews at the center of history and making them dependent on Jews to achieve the rapture.
Reading the New Testament daily reveals none of this theology. There are nice Christian Zionists who are decent people, but there is a spell that settles over people, leading to statements like supporting people who reject Jesus as they kill Christian children because Jesus wants it. This is not what the New Testament tells people.
Pastor John Hegy's interpretation holds that all Jews need to be gathered in the holy land, which is greater Israel, in order for the rapture to take place. He claims Hitler was part of the rapture because he helped establish Israel through the Jewish genocide in Europe, and that Herzl was also part of the rapture by creating the concept through which Jews could be gathered. He describes Hitler as a hunter and Herzl as a fisher.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews runs ads across radio in the United States saying you can save one Jew for $700 by sending them on freedom flights to Israel. This raises questions about whether Jews in the United States need to be saved given the state of Jewish life in the country.
Christian Zionist churches promote phylactism, the flip side of antisemitism. A film made by Israeli filmmakers shows a church in Appalachia where the pastor tells young people that Jews are better than you. At Christians United for Israel conferences, attendees react to the name Blumenthal with statements that Jews are special and blessed. They want to be Jewish, blow shofars, and wear tallit, essentially impersonating Jews in what resembles a minstrel show.
Max Blumenthal is described as a meticulous reporter who has been attacked for having unpopular opinions rather than for being wrong. The current situation involves simultaneous crises accelerating at once: the war in Eastern Europe, the war in the Middle East, the collapse of the two-party system which has been revealed as fake, intense discontent at the center of both parties, and a looming financial disaster.
The neocons created a psychological world in the 1990s that convinced the American political class, a large section of American society, and US corporate media that their worldview was reality, leading to the Iraq war. That reality has completely shattered.
There is a growing clash between the 0.1% of the United States who are increasingly afraid of the rest of the public and know they no longer have consensus for their agenda. No leadership in either party has real credibility or identity after Trump. There is deep-seated fear of stochastic violence or terrorism from the 0.1% carried out by lone wolf individuals like Luigi Mangione against the ultra-rich, as well as direct action protest. Everyone is being classified as terrorists.
The United States will be less democratic, the US public will be less economically stable, the country will be more politically unstable, and there will be more desire for political insurgency, yet there is no clear leadership.
Figures people look to include comedians like Jimmy Dore or Tim Dillon, who have far more credibility than politicians. People are looking for real credible independent journalism that is not corporate journalism because they understand Michael Parenti's point in his book Inventing Reality that the concept of reality or objectivity within media is a ruse or device which corporate media enforces to enforce their own ideology.
Corporate media's ideology is whatever their corporate masters' ideology is, including Larry Ellison's ideology. They are militantly Zionist as the US population is turning against the special relationship with Israel.
Americans do not want a violent revolution but want to see real reforms, and there have been no important reforms in an entire lifetime. Carried interest in the tax code remains, NAFTA happened despite Ross Perot's campaign against it, the Federal Communications Act deregulated media, there is no real antitrust legislation, and nothing brings down prices. There is a constant conveyor belt of deregulation.
In 1996, working at the Weekly Standard for Bill Kristol with Bob Kagan and David Brooks, the marching orders were to prove Ross Perot was crazy. The resulting cover story called Is He Nuts? was used to stop Perot not because he was crazy, but because he had a take on economics that was not neoliberal, which was the real threat. Perot married the same woman his whole life and was not crazy compared to Lindsey Graham or John McCain. He was an extremely wealthy, eccentric character who was comfortable in his rank, could not be pushed around, and did not care.
At the Bread and Puppet Farm in Vermont, founded by Peter Schumann who is now 92, whose family were liberal Germans who opposed the Nazi regime and fled Nazi Germany, there is history of anti-imperialist puppet troops. Schumann met Ela Nearing who helped him sharpen his politics. Her grandfather Scott Nearing, with his wife, had a farm nearby and helped popularize the homesteading movement. Scott Nearing was one of the major opponents of World War I, seeing it as a war for bureaucrats where the only winners were the plutocracy. His arguments from that era are very similar to current arguments from opponents of the Iran war.
Nearing ran for Congress in New York against Fiorello LaGuardia, who was coming back from World War I as a war hero. The Republican and Democratic parties closed ranks and conspired to stop Nearing from winning a congressional seat because he opposed what both parties agreed on. He opposed the duopoly, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act, and was driven out of polite society, leading him to homesteading and selling maple syrup.
Politics within both parties is increasingly off limits to people who think independently and are willing to call out bankers' wars. A third party could potentially bring people together by putting divisive culture war issues aside and focusing on what people agree on: opposition to AI super intelligence and data centers taking over resources and communities, opposition to Flock cameras, opposition to the special relationship with Israel which is driving the country to war and destroying the economy, and support for reforms.
The midterm elections are the first Tuesday in November, and a much clearer picture will emerge after that.
Keep Tucker Carlson in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
