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Apr 11, 2026 - World

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) spoke out on Saturday against special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner taking part in Middle East diplomatic efforts amid the ongoing Iran war, The Hill reported. Witkoff and Kushner were among diplomats and leaders meeting for trilateral talks discussing how to end the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. In a conversation with Rev. Al Sharpton, Kelly described his concerns about the ongoing war. "You can’t send the two real estate developers to negotiate a peace with another region," Kelly said at the National Action Network Convention in New York City.Kelly also criticized Trump for lacking a plan and not consulting allies about the military attack, arguing Trump had "alienated our allies.""There is one person responsible for closing the Strait of Hormuz. It’s Donald Trump," Kelly said. "What Donald Trump taught the Iranians is they now have a strategic asset that they can exploit for decades to our detriment."Sharpton asked Kelly what Trump should try to do next to restore relationships with international allies. "You’ve got to build this, these relationships back up with our allies in the region and with NATO, and then you got to get the Iranians to the table and have a serious discussion," Kelly said. Both Witkoff and Kushner have led negotiation efforts throughout Trump's second administration. Both men have been involved in key conversations around the Russia-Ukraine war, ceasefire in Gaza and Iran's nuclear program.They joined the U.S. delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, which was meeting Saturday with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, for the first in-person discussion since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Negotiations were slated to try to ease the growing tensions between the countries and prepare for an end to the conflict after a two-week ceasefire was reached this week, although it has shown signs of unraveling.

Apr 11, 2026 - World

Vice President JD Vance is increasingly finding himself “walking on eggshells” around President Donald Trump as he takes on a central role in high-stakes negotiations to end the Iran conflict, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal.The Journal reported Friday that Vance – long viewed as an anti-interventionist voice within the MAGA administration – has been thrust into leading peace talks with Iranian officials, tying his political future to the outcome of a war he initially sought to distance himself from.A close friend of Vance who recently spoke with him said the vice president described feeling “like he was sometimes walking on eggshells around Trump because of his antiwar views.” A Vance spokesperson disputed that account, telling the Journal, “He’s walking on so many eggshells that he’s on his way to Pakistan at the president’s request to lead negotiations.”The talks, set to take place in Islamabad, represent the highest-level engagement between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the outlet noted Friday. For Vance, who will be joined by Trump allies, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, they mark "the most significant international assignment of his career" as he prepares to face seasoned Iranian negotiators.“The conflict has created a political liability for a vice president who once promised ‘no new wars,’ including one with Iran,” according to the Journal. “Trump knows Vance’s skepticism of foreign intervention and that the vice president represents a branch of the party opposed to the hawkish positions espoused by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a senior administration official said.”Vance, however, still supports the mission despite his beliefs, the aide added. The assignment adds to a growing list of responsibilities handed to Vance, including overseeing efforts to root out fraud in federal programs after making a controversial campaign appearance in Hungary.

Apr 10, 2026 - World

Over the past month, President Donald Trump has dramatically escalated his administration’s war against Iran, culminating with his threat to destroy Iran’s entire civilization earlier this week, but according to Tucker Carlson’s independent media outlet, a “blackmail” operation could potentially be forcing the president’s hand.The theory was outlined in a Friday morning newsletter from the Tucker Carlson Network, which pointed to a past incident that some have characterized as an attempted effort to blackmail a sitting U.S. president. Specifically, the newsletter cites claims made by political writer Daniel Halper in his 2014 biography “Clinton Inc.,” supported in part by sworn testimony given in 1998 to the congressionally established Office of Independent Counsel.“Establishment media never reports this, but the Israeli government has a storied history of blackmailing U.S. Presidents,” the newsletter reads. “Perhaps the most jarring example occurred in the 90s, when Israel used recordings of a Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky phone sex session as leverage to pressure Clinton into releasing convicted spy Jonathan Pollard from prison. We’re not joking. That really happened.”Evidence supporting the allegation that Israel had attempted to use phone recordings of Clinton and Lewinsky as “leverage” first emerged in 1998 after Lewinsky testified before the Office of Independent Counsel about her affair with the sitting president. During her testimony, Lewinsky said that in early 1997, Clinton had told her “that he suspected a foreign embassy was tapping his telephones, (he did not specify which one),” just one month after then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Clinton in the Oval Office.Later in 1998, Netanyahu again met with Clinton amid peace talks between Israel and Palestine that were being held in Wye River, Maryland. It was during that meeting that Netanyahu “privately” approached Clinton with a “demand” for the United States to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who was convicted of espionage in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison.“The Israelis present at Wye River had a new tactic for their negotiations – they’d overheard Clinton and Monica and had it on tape,” reads an excerpt from Halper’s book, written using “on-the-record interviews with former officials” and “hundreds of pages of documents,” The Times of Israel reported at the time of the book’s publication.“Not wanting to directly threaten the powerful American president, a crucial Israeli ally, Clinton was told that the Israeli government had thrown the tapes away. But the very mention of them was enough to constitute a form of blackmail. According to information provided by a CIA source, a stricken Clinton appeared to buckle.”As to how the alleged incident between Clinton and Netanyahu relates to Trump’s escalations in his war against Iran, the Tucker Carlson Network suggested that Netanyahu – who has “pushed for the United States to attack Iran since the 1990s” – may be using a similar tactic to what he was alleged by Halper to have done nearly three decades ago to another U.S. president.“Israel’s current top priority is making sure Operation Epic Fury does not stop. They know the U.S. fighting their war for them is the best chance at expanding their borders and becoming a global superpower, and a peace deal would foil their plot,” the newsletter reads, according to an excerpt shared by the Daily Caller writer John Loftus.“That could mean Clinton-style blackmail against Trump, or something far more morbid. We do not know for sure whether that is happening, but the mere possibility is haunting enough to keep the president up at night.”

Apr 10, 2026 - World

As Vice President JD Vance jets off to Pakistan, where he is expected to take the lead in negotiating an end to the US war on Iran, his inner circle is admitting that making a public show of support for Donald Trump is wearing them down.Vance has been reported to have been against the attack behind the scenes, but has been supportive of the president in public.With the New York Times reporting, “Before the war began, the vice president was planning to be heavily focused on traveling the country ahead of the midterm elections, counteracting widespread concerns over the cost of living and affordability by attacking Democrats as out of touch and politically extreme,” he has instead been pressed into service as a war cheerleader along with the rest of the president’s Cabinet. According to MS NOW’s Jake Traylor, that has been problematic for Vance’s team.Speaking with host Anna Cabrera, he reported, “Now he is headed to Pakistan to be the chief lead negotiator for a war he never wanted in the first place, and that has come at a cost.”“I spoke with multiple White House officials inside the White House and also former White House officials that have worked with Vance closely before,” he added. “One person told me that Vance's national security team is extremely weary right now, trying to publicly portray support for the president and the war that he has started, but also privately having deep concern for the war itself.”“Another White House official told me that, quote, realistically, Vance has lost clout within the White House because of his dissent,” he elaborated. “So there's been a lack of influence that White House officials are telling me Vance has right now, even though he is ultimately the lead negotiator in this moment.” - YouTube youtu.be

Apr 10, 2026 - World

Donald Trump's public tough-guy posturing on China masks a stunning capitulation to Beijing. When Pentagon officials presented a draft National Defense Strategy last fall that characterized China as the top U.S. security threat — the same assessment his own first administration endorsed — Trump ordered it rewritten in friendlier terms.According to the Wall Street Journal's Heather Somerville, Alexander Ward, and Gavin Bade, Trump "balked" at the Pentagon assessment and commanded his deputy to soften the language. The revised National Defense Strategy published in January struck an entirely different tone."President Trump seeks a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China," the document now declares — a stunning reversal from the bipartisan consensus that characterized China as the most consequential U.S. adversary.The shift represents a seismic policy reversal. Trump's own first-term defense strategy took the same hardline approach the Pentagon recommended. Now Trump 2.0 is discarding that bipartisan framework in favor of a new mantra: "Don't rock the boat."The capitulation goes far deeper than rhetoric. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has imposed a stranglehold on China policy, requiring his personal sign-off for any China-related actions. The result is Kafkaesque: senior Commerce officials sit waiting by Lutnick's office or watch for his car outside the building before pursuing routine China policy actions.Other agencies have resorted to workarounds, pursuing a ban on a China-linked router maker by strategically avoiding naming either the company or China in the official order — essentially hiding policy from public view.The reversal has alarmed Trump's own national security aides. China hawks in the administration have adopted gallows humor, calling the shift the "Busan Freeze," referencing the South Korea meeting between Trump and Xi that produced a fragile trade detente.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials appealed to Trump to walk back tariffs and dial down the trade war so minerals could flow from China again — an apparent capitulation to economic pressure over strategic security.The pivot was deliberate and premeditated. Trump initially asked national security advisers to develop a harder line on China's technological encroachment. But the president later abandoned the restrictions, and in April, Trump fired Douglas Feith and other China hawks from the National Security Council, dismantling the directorate that had coordinated administration actions on tech and China.Against a president who fancies himself a master dealmaker, China is clearly winning, the Journal is reporting.