TV News LIES

Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.), who served on the National Security Council (NSC) in the first Trump administration, called on President Trump to release the transcript of a “shocking” phone call that took place with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman around the time of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination.

Vindman — who played a key role in exposing details of Trump’s infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 — said a second phone call exists with the Saudi crown prince that rivals the first as “the most problematic.”

“During my tenure on Trump’s White House National Security Council staff, I reviewed many of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders. Of all the calls I reviewed, two stood out as the most problematic: The first, we all know, it was between President Trump and President Zelensky, which resulted in President Trump’s first impeachment,” Vindman said in a floor speech Tuesday.

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The U.N. Security Council has backed the United States’ ambitious plan for the future of the Gaza Strip. How and when it will be carried out remain largely unknown.

In a twist unimaginable across the tumultuous history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the plan would mean U.S. President Donald Trump becomes the de facto ruler of Gaza. The territory remains devastated by Israel’s campaign to eliminate Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.

An international body known as the Board of Peace, chaired by Trump, is to govern Gaza and oversee reconstruction under a 2-year, renewable U.N. mandate. An armed International Stabilization Force is to keep security and ensure the disarming of Hamas, a key demand of Israel.

Major questions hang over nearly every part of the plan and the timeframe for implementation. In the meantime, nearly all Palestinians remain displaced and dependent on humanitarian aid, Hamas retains significant control over nearly half of Gaza and the rebuilding of the territory has barely begun.

Some talks over the next steps have taken place behind the scenes among the U.S., Israel, Qatar, Egypt and other countries. But serious negotiations have not begun because Israel and Hamas remain in the first phase of the ceasefire deal that came into effect in October. The militant group is still required to hand over the bodies of the last three hostages.

The U.N. resolution passed Monday gave the plan international legitimacy. That opens the door for Arab and Muslim-majority nations to participate, particularly by contributing troops to the ISF. The U.S. is hoping that the more those countries are involved, the more palatable the international rule will be for Gaza’s more than 2 million people.

But the Palestinian public’s acceptance is far from certain. Without it, the Board of Peace risks becoming seen as a foreign occupation working on behalf of Israel, further thwarting their dream of self-determination and statehood.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the move as "historic", after signing the letter of intent with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at an air base near Paris.

Deliveries of the Rafale F4s are planned to be completed by 2035, while the joint production of interceptor drones is starting this year.

"This is a strategic agreement which will last for 10 years starting from the next year," Zelensky said at a joint briefing with Macron on Monday.

Ukraine will also get "very strong French radars", eight air defence systems and other advanced weaponry, he added.

Zelensky stressed that using such advanced systems "means protecting someone's life... this is very important".

Russia has in recent months increased its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, targeting energy and rail infrastructure and causing massive blackouts across the country.

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Genocide is a process, not an event. When genocide happens, its roots, and the conditions that allowed it, often become visible only in retrospect. If those conditions remain unchanged and there is no accountability, there’s every reason to believe the violence will return, perhaps even worse, especially if it was never fully halted. This is exactly what we are seeing in the case of Gaza. Demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence.

A strange kind of calm has settled over Israel in the weeks since the Gaza ceasefire was declared. The sirens stopped. The hostages who survived the 7 October attack and nearly two years in captivity came home. But this calm – which has not been extended to Gaza, where more than 200 civilians have been killed since the ceasefire supposedly went into effect is built around an unclear plan by Donald Trump that does not address the root causes of the violence, and is merely a mirage. Nothing has changed in the violent political system that Palestinians and Israelis live under. The machinery behind the violence remains intact. The logic of domination still rules.

For nearly two years, Israel waged a campaign in Gaza that meets the clearest definition of genocide: a systematic, often openly declared attempt to destroy a group of people, the Palestinians in Gaza, through killing, starvation, forced displacement, and the destruction of life-sustaining conditions. Genocide is not a metaphor here. It is the only term that fits.

Our organization, B’Tselem, published a report last July titled Our Genocide. We chose this name because we are not observers but part of this horrific story. Israeli and Palestinian researchers, investigators and fieldworkers worked together to document events in Gaza, the West Bank and within Israel. Our conclusion confirms what Palestinians and international experts have long said: this is genocide – a direct assault on a population aiming to destroy the group.

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The World Health Organization has said its workforce will shrink by nearly a quarter – or over 2,000 jobs – by the middle of next year as it seeks to implement reforms after its top donor, the United States, announced its departure.

US President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the body upon taking office in January, prompting the agency to scale back its work and cut its management team by half.

Washington is by far the UN health agency’s biggest financial backer, contributing about 18% of its overall funding.

The Geneva-based WHO projects that its workforce will shrink by 2,371 posts by June 2026 from 9,401 in January 2025 due to job cuts as well as retirements and departures, according to a presentation set to be shown to its member states on Wednesday.

It does not include the many temporary staff, or consultants, which UN sources say have been made redundant. A WHO spokesperson confirmed the total number of staff leaving the organisation and said the workforce would shrink by up to 22%, depending on how many vacant posts are filled.

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President Donald Trump went off on a reporter who asked about the Jeffrey Epstein files, which he vehemently opposed the release of until he claimed to support it all along after his meeting with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) in the Situation Room didn’t pan out.

“Mr. President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now?” she asked.

Trump snapped and accused the reporter of being “insubordinate.”

“You know, it’s not the question that I mind, it’s your attitude,” he responded. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions.”

He continued, “You start off with a man who’s highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question, and you could even ask that same exact question nicely.”

Trump then went on to say, though it’s unclear what he meant: “You’re all psyched. Somebody psychs you over at ABC, they’re gonna psych it,” before adding, “Uhh, you’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter.”

The widow of Jamal Khashoggi slammed President Trump on Tuesday for seeking to discredit her late husband’s reputation amid a visit from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

Khashoggi, who was an opinions journalist for The Washington Post, was killed in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

“@potus There is no justification to murder my husband. While Jamal was a good transparent and brave man many people may not have agreed with his opinions and desire for freedom of the press,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi wrote in a statement on the social platform X.

“The Crown Prince said he was sorry so he should meet me, apologize and compensate me for the murder of my husband,” added Khashoggi, who had married her husband in Virginia in 2018, months before he was killed.

She previously submitted a letter to Trump and first lady Melania Trump requesting they back her demands to have her husband’s body returned and receive financial compensation for Khashoggi’s death during the crown prince’s Tuesday White House visit.

However, when asked about Khashoggi’s death, the president defended Crown Prince Mohammed, telling reporters that the leader “knew nothing about that” and alleging “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman.”

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Overwhelming votes in both chambers of Congress directing the Justice Department to release the full files from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation sent a clear message: Make it all public.

Yet there's reason to doubt all the information collected by the federal government during its investigation into the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender will see the light of day despite the House and Senate both voting for its release.

Here's why the complete Epstein documents still might not come out even when President Donald Trump signs the Epstein Files Transparency Act, as he said he would.

Two days before Trump changed his tune by calling for House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files, the president ordered the Justice Department to investigate Democrats linked to Epstein, who died by suicide in a federal prison in 2019.

Trump singled out former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, as well as JPMorgan Chase, as subjects of investigations.

Under the Epstein files bill, the Justice Document would be able to withhold documents that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary."

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