Glenn Greenwald
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Mike Waltz is Sacked in Cabinet Shuffle as War with Iran Looms; Matt Walsh Tells Tucker Carlson Gay Adoption Is an Abomination
System Update #447
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The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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President Trump fired his National Security Advisor earlier today, Mike Waltz, from his key position in the West Wing, and instead relegated him to a largely ceremonious and meaningless position, far removed from the West Wing in New York City, where he will be the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. There's no doubt that what we now call Signalgate contributed to this firing – that was when Waltz accidentally added the vehement anti-Trump journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, to his Signal group to plan a bombing campaign on Yemen – but there are also likely ideological and substantive factors driving this demotion. 

All of this comes at a very critical time in American foreign policy: the U.S. is heavily bombing Yemen, Trump is trying to facilitate an end to the Russian/Ukraine war, and Israel and its supporters in the United States are pressuring the U.S. to bomb and attack Iran. Beyond that, Trump today announced that his long-sought-after minerals deal with Ukraine has been signed, but will it, as Trump promised, create a whole new security and military commitment for the United States to protect Ukraine? If that's what we're doing, why not just put them into NATO? 

Then: the conservative culture warrior Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire went on Tucker Carlson's show this week – and for whatever reason – they decided to spend the first 10 minutes or more of their conversation talking about whether same-sex couples should be able to adopt children. Walsh, and perhaps Carlson (though it wasn't totally clear), seemed to agree that adoption by same-sex couples is an abomination that must be banished. Much of this is just re-hashed right from a culture war debate that the country has already long ago resolved in favor of same-sex couples. But one argument that Walsh made is worth some attention: it concerned the millions of children worldwide and the tens of thousands in the U.S. who are lingering in orphanages, shelters and foster care systems either because their biological parents died, abandoned them, or were simply unfit to raise them, often for drug and alcohol issues or abuse issues or molestation or other reasons. 

And Walsh actually said, when Carlson asked, that it's preferable to leave such kids where they are in those shelter–orphanages and foster cares, with no parents, no family, few chances of ever being adopted, and expelled onto the street when they turn 18 with essentially no skills or support. It's better to leave them there, he said, than it is to have them adopted by stable, loving, same-sex parents. Walsh said, in fact, that it's far worse for kids to be in such homes where gay people lurk than to linger in foster care or shelters, and that studies, which he did not name, prove his argument. 

I know there is some support for this view because when I noted it on social media earlier today, a lot of people rose in support of Matt Walsh's view. It is true that it's a marginal view. All 50 states in the United States have abolished their ban on same-sex adoption. But I do think that his argument, given the platform where he made it and the adamancy and vehemence of his claims, is worth examining. 

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Earlier today, the embattled National Security Advisor of Donald Trump, Mike Waltz, was fired or is about to be fired from his position as National Security Adviser, which is essentially the key position when it comes to foreign policy. You're the one who's in the president's ear every day on foreign policy, you're his top advisor when it comes to foreign policy, you are in the West Wing right next to the Oval Office speaking to the president multiple times a day, you obviously build a great amount of influence. They put a national security expert, someone they think is a national security expert, in that role, whose advice and counsel they want to use on a daily basis. 

Although Waltz wasn't fired outright from the Trump administration, he was fired from his position as National Security Advisor and given a gigantic demotion where he's moving from Washington to New York City, where he'll essentially occupy the very ceremonial position of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. 

This is a position that Nikki Haley, another neocon like Mike Waltz, held in the first Trump administration, you really don't do anything in that position other than raise your hand when the State Department tells you to and veto what the State Department tells you to and approve what the state department tells you. You've got a lot of parties in New York. I mean, it's actually a nice, comfortable, sort of gig, but it's not a very important one, to put that mildly. 

And so, maybe you can't technically call it a firing because Waltz is tactically working for the Trump administration, but, in terms of his influence, that has come to an end. 

Just to be clear, this circulated in many media outlets earlier today, it was presented as Mike Waltz was fired as a National Security Advisor or removed as a National Security Advisor. Then it was made official by Trump's announcement on his social media platform, Truth Social, where he said this:

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When I was a lawyer, I used to write very aggressive and mean, insulting, condescending articles and then, I loved, at the end, saying, “Thank you for your attention to this matter” and then just sign my name like “Cordially, Glenn Greenwald." Trump has obviously become an admirer of that phraseology as well. He's constantly now making these big, bombastic statements. Threatening Iran, he'll say, “Iran, you better stop this immediately, you know what the consequences are for you, we can destroy your country. It'll be like, thank you for your attention to this matter.” 

So, anyway, that's Trump drawing attention to this matter by announcing with very nice, generous language that Mike Waltz has been severely demoted. 

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Glenn, many years ago my husband & I went through years-long journey trying to adopt so I am probably biased about this topic. I will just say that people who put themselves through the gyration to become adoptive parents open up their lives & are ACTUALLY vetted (emotional/financial/criminal etc etc etc) vs those who produce bio children. Dare I say that my anecdotal experience leads me to believe adoptive parents choose and want to be parents more than some bio parents. I like matt Walsh but this is just dumb. What a dumb thing to say that children are better off in foster care or stay orphaned.

Dear Glenn,

I hope you’re honored to have a new patron. Actually, I was with you years ago, but had to cancel my subscription for financial reasons. I’m actually worse off now, but your work is too important, for me not to contribute to your work.

Please forgive me for being a cusp-boomer, but is this the platform where we ask you questions? If so…

What is your family background?? I know that’s potentially an extensive topic, so I’ll narrow it down. Are your parents responsible for your unwavering rationality and empathy, either because of them or in spite of them? Obviously, your education was a part of it, but I was wondering if some of the accolades you receive should be directed their way.

Again, another apology is warranted if this is something I can find out if I just use the internet, but I’m abysmally lazy, too!

Sincerely,
Dee

😘

It was very disappointing that Glenn went into a cultural non-story. The big story was how both Tucker and Matt Walsh agreed that any country that requires US aid to survive shouldn't exist, with heavy focus on Israel.

The whole gay adoption thing is largely the result of gender ideology. People who were wary or indifferent of gay adoption now are opposed to it as a result of the sexualization of pride parades and the child-grooming of the gender ideology crowd. That this was not addressed, and why time was wasted on this over far more consequential matters is beyond me.

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Lee Fang and Leighton Woodhouse Look Back on Trump’s First 100 Days; Lara Friedman on New Laws Barring Israel Criticism
System Update #446

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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Our esteemed host, Glenn Greenwald, is out today. So, I'll be guiding you through the show. My name is Lee Fang. I'm an independent journalist based in San Francisco. 

Yesterday marked the hundredth day of President Donald Trump's second term in office. Like many Americans, I tried to keep an open mind for all his very well-established faults, Trump has forged a very new political identity for the Republican Party. One that has drifted away from deference to the business elite and more towards populist economics. 

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to protect entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. Trump and Vance declared last summer at the RNC that multinational corporations would no longer take precedence over the interests of average Americans. 

On foreign policy, Trump bristled at the established order and signaled a strong interest in ending America's forever wars, especially the bloody conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Trump promised peace on day one of his administration in Europe. 

For a moment after the election, he also seemed committed to negotiating peace in Gaza. His envoy for the region, Steve Witkoff, temporarily delivered a cease-fire, a momentary end to the Israeli military's bloodshed in the confined territory, and a release of hostages and prisoners on both sides of the conflict. 

There were other glimmers of positive reform. Trump and DOGE promised to clear out the many bloated government contractors like Booz Allen and McKinsey, and Trump promised to end discriminatory DEI programs. Meanwhile, he announced a new golden era for free speech after years of suppressed speech from pandemic policies to stifling cancel culture, there was hope for a new embrace of free expression from this White House. 

But the last 100 days, with some exceptions, have exemplified failure after failure, a series of false promises, lies, and mismanagement. Worst of all, the administration has lurched towards some of the most brazen forms of corruption and authoritarianism in modern American history. 

Rather than cracking down on corporate power, we see tariff exemptions and mass pardons for corporate crime handed to Silicon Valley, Wall Street and for major Trump donors. 

Rather than an era of free speech, we see a ruthless crackdown on campus expression, unconstitutional arrests of students for criticizing Israel and new speech codes that safeguard the country of Israel. 

Rather than a break from the corruption of Hunter Biden, we see new era of graft and influence peddling, especially the self-enrichment of the Trump family using cryptocurrency. 

Rather than the moment of peace, we have so far seen the resumption of Israel's war in Gaza and no end in sight to the brutal conflict in Ukraine. 

Rather than an end to the weaponization of government, we see partisan weaponization of the government on an industrial scale. 

On this episode of System Update, we'll bring on Leighton Woodhouse, a writer on Substack, to further discuss Trump's 100 days. We'll also discuss the latest clampdown on speech related to Israel with Lara Friedman, an advocate who promotes peace in the region. 

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My guest today is Leighton Woodhouse. Leighton is an Oakland, California-based writer, former union organizer. We often do a weekly kind of recap of the news in politics and other kinds of cultural and political issues on our Substacks and we host a podcast together. Since we are kind of hijacking Glenn's show, I think it makes sense to do a 100-day recap rather than just a weekly recap of the administration.  

Lee Fang: Leighton, how's it going? 

Leighton Woodhouse: Hi Lee.

Lee Fang: Just yesterday was the 100-day mark of the Trump administration. It's worth kind of just for giving an overview for listeners to the show who might not be audience members of our podcast. I think we have some different views, but we kind of share some concerns in the Venn diagram of people who were associated with the progressive left, who were very badly burned and had a lot of concerns around the last four or five years, around the pandemic, around censorship, around suppression of free speech, around some of the public safety issues that the left kind of ignored. 

I mean, you live in Oakland, where it's much worse, but in San Francisco, we've had such incredible problems around kind of de-policing and, out of this kind of left-wing outburst in 2020, a lot of harmful policies that have disproportionately affected working-class people. 

So, I've had kind of guarded optimism about the Trump administration. I was hoping for a clean break around some of these issues around speech, around public safety, around some of the illiberalism from the left, DEI and other concerns. In some ways, in the first few weeks of the administration, I think there were many glimmers of hope, but it seems to have taken a pretty dark turn. I think for folks who are feeling very politically homeless over the last couple of years, we're even maybe more homeless, or maybe being pushed back into the left. How do you feel? 

Leighton Woodhouse: I feel like we've been consistent actually, because if our reservations with the left back in, say, the period of 2015 to 2024 or so, was its creeping authoritarianism, the way in which dissent was squelched through cancel culture, orthodoxy was enforced, that kind of thing, this is just a continuation of that, with a different political valence. 

When I say continuation of that, I mean it's the exact same playbook, specifically around antisemitism and in creating safe spaces on campuses. This is identical to what we saw under the left and so, I think that if you were concerned about that with the left and you're not concerned about it now, then you are inconsistent, possibly hypocritical and partisan in your outlook. 

The principal position I think is to be opposed to this kind of authoritarianism, whether it comes from the right or the left and I just see it as a repeat. It's just a fun house mirror of what happened with the left. 

Lee Fang: You were told, we were told, everyone was told, if you didn't agree with some of the extreme policies of the left over the last couple of years, shut up, you're a racist. You shut up, you’re a bigot. And now it's, if you don't get onto the agenda of the Trump administration on Israel, you're an anti-Semite unless you agree with us, and we're going to put you in a cage. We accuse you of that even if there's no evidence of wrongdoing. 

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Rapid Fire: Canada Elections, Dem's Sit-In, Israeli Taking Points Escalate; PLUS: Jewish Academics Push-Back on Antisemitism Claims
System Update #445

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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Last night, Canada held a nationwide election and elected their members of Parliament, who, in turn, selected their prime minister. For a long time now, it seemed basically inevitable that the conservatives under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre would finally oust the liberals from power. And yet, last night, Poilievre not only lost the election and won't become, obviously, the prime minister, as he expected to, as everyone expected to, but he also lost the seat that he's held in Parliament for the last 20 years. We'll talk about the factors that led to this, to the extent that Canadian experts are talking about that and what we've been observing for a long time. We'll also have some rapid-fire coverage of a couple of other topics that I wanted to cover. 

Last week, three professors, Eli Meyerhoff, Emily Schneider, and Brooke Lober, wrote for a very prestigious blog that is used by a lot of scholars and professors, the Academe Blog, a rebuke against the narrative that the government and the media are using, that antisemitism is rampant on college campuses. Two of them will join us tonight to discuss their concerns. 

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In one sense, the results of last night's federal election in Canada were not really shocking because over the past six to eight weeks, polls showed that the Conservative Party had essentially lost the massive lead that it held for a year or so that has made everyone assume that their victory, their takeover of Parliament, and their installation of the leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, was inevitable. So, the fact that liberals ended up winning the election and their current incumbent prime minister, who became prime minister when Justin Trudeau resigned, Mark Carney, is not unexpected. The betting market said it was something like an 80% to 90% chance that the liberals would win. But it is shocking when you compare it to the trajectory over the last year or even 18 months, where there has been a complete collapse in support for the Conservative Party and a shift in support to the Liberal Party. 

By votes, this was far from a landslide. I think the vote was 43% of the electorate for the Liberal Party, 41% for the Conservatives, but that's not the real way that elections are determined. The way elections are determined is by who wins how many seats in Parliament and becomes the majority party, then the leader of that party ends up as prime minister. There, the margin was, again, not a blowout but still more significant. 

Here's from Canada's Globe and Mail reporting on the election this morning: “[…] the race against the Conservatives was much tighter than polls predicted. […] The Liberals had a slim lead in the popular vote at 43.2 per cent to the Conservatives’ 41.7.” The article goes on: “The Liberal government is committed to free trade within the country by Canada Day, he said. “This is Canada, and we decide what happens here.”  (The Globe and Mail. April 29, 2025.)

So, you see, even in that rhetoric there, that Donald Trump's talking about Canada as becoming the 51st state, referring to Justin Trudeau as Governor Trudeau, imposing tariffs, repeatedly saying he's not kidding when he says Canada should integrate into the United States, that had a big effect on the Canadian populace. In fact, it is manifested in many ways: at their national hockey league games where Canadian and American teams play, it's true in baseball as well, we saw Canadians booing the U.S. national anthem; many Canadians have refused to vacation in the United States or come to the United States as they did. This is a nationalistic surge saying, “How dare you, the United States, for trying to control our politics and country, talk about us like we're not even a sovereign country.” And that created a lot of backlash. 

Needless to say, if the conservatives want to find a way to get him back into Parliament, they'll be able to, probably. But as we've seen with Kamala Harris and in many other elections, when you lead a party in an election where they believe you have a chance to win and you end up losing, and then on top of that suffer the humiliation of losing your own district that you've held for 20 years, it's very difficult to recover from that as a viable leader that people are willing to get behind and believe that one day you'll lead them to victory. 

It's such a remarkable turnaround because, as I said, the conservatives were way ahead of the Liberal Party for so long. It really only started to change when Donald Trump came in and started talking about Canada. I mean, that's the reality. You talk to any Canadian, and they will tell you that by far the biggest factor in the Canadian election was Donald Trump. Once Mark Carney assumed the prime ministership, it was almost reversed. The liberals ended up with a huge advantage. That's why the betting markets were saying 80% to 90% that they would win. 

They've been shrinking over the last couple of months or couple of weeks, tightening up because people in Canada are really dissatisfied with the liberal leadership, with the economy, with the cost of living, many of the grievances and resentments towards status quo parties that people all over the democratic world are expressing. It would have been easily sufficient to drive the conservatives into power had it not been for the fact that they had this nationalistic backlash. 

And for a long time, Poilievre was very pro-Trump, the MAGA movement loved him and he was perceived as part of this right-wing populist movement of which Trump was a member. The anti-Trump sentiment in Congress became so strong in Canada, so strong, that Poilievre started vehemently denouncing Donald Trump, attacking Donald Trump. A lot of conservatives in Canada think that's why he lost, this attacking to the center, or the separation from Trump. 

But whatever it is, you can just trace the clear trajectory of the collapse of the Conservative Party's support, the loss of their lead with Donald Trump and, especially, his repeated denunciations of and focus on Canada and its government. 

So, again, I'm not saying it's the only factor, but I've talked to a lot of Canadians over the past week and today, and I haven't found one who minimizes the impact that Trump had. That's just the reality of what it is. Not even a criticism of Trump, it's just kind of a reality that you can see why this backlash against Trump would happen and how that could manifest as much greater negativity toward the candidate who had been posturing as and modeling himself after a MAGA, but Canada First, right-wing populist. Very much of the style of Trump demeaning the media, showing contempt for them, for institutions in general, looked to be a path for victory until all of this stuff with Trump happened. We'll have some Canadian analysts on over the next week or so to break that down more carefully. But like I said, I've been talking to a lot of people following this election very closely and you won't find anybody who denies that's a major role. 

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All right. Also, this week, the Democrats were constantly being told by their base that they're not doing enough to oppose Trump, that led Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey to engage in this utterly vacant and pointless stunt where he gave a filibuster for 18 hours, broke the record, I think, held by Strom Thurmond previously. Congratulations to Senator Booker. Actually, 25 hours. Sorry, Sen. Booker, for minimizing the greatness of your act, but Democrats decided to follow up that inspiring and stirring protest with a different one where they decided all to sit together on the steps of Congress while Congress was in session to sing and speak and not really sure what the whole purpose was, but here's a clip from it. 

Video. Democratic Leadership, Capitol Steps, Fox News. April 28, 2025.

So, you see, there was unbelievable music, entertainment and inspiring political songs there. There you see Cory Booker to the left and Hakeem Jeffries to the right, the House Minority Leader for the Democratic Party. They sat there for hours. And then Cory Booker went on to X to celebrate this remarkable act of resistance that was going to make all the difference. 

And he said:

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Now, if you're somebody who does want to see Trump's agenda impeded and the Democrats emerge victorious in the next election, or even find a way to gain more political power before the next midterm, I would suggest this is not something you should be particularly excited by, it's unbelievably performative and self-promoting and who cares? Who cares? 

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Gaza Starves, Pro-Israel Propagandists Escalate Extremist Rhetoric and Actions
System Update #444

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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Whether one likes it or not, Israel and its various wars continue to shape and dominate American politics. That's so for multiple reasons: the U.S. pays for and finances Israel's military and wars, even though Israelis have a higher standard of living than millions of Americans who are forced to subsidize their society; the atrocities Israel has been committing in Gaza not only erodes their international standing around the world but America's as well, given that the whole world knows that none of what Israel is in Gaza would be possible without American support, and, perhaps most importantly, our domestic politics and our core free speech rights continue to be eroded in the United States in the name of protecting Israel and punishing its critics. 

Israel, like any country, has always had its share of violent extremists, including those who want to steal all of the West Bank, Gaza, and even parts of Lebanon and Syria for Israel. But those extremists have, in Israel, become rapidly mainstreamed or are at the highest levels of its government and the fruits of their extremism can be seen in the full destruction of civilian life in Gaza, as well as the ongoing annexation of land by their settlers’ movement in the West Bank and by their multiple wars in several countries in the region. 

As the true destruction of Gaza becomes globally undeniable and as two million Gazans now face the reality of mass famine due to Israel's refusal to allow any food or medicine to enter Gaza, no matter who sends it, the Israeli government but also their legion of loyalists in the United States, are becoming rapidly more extreme and repressive to justify all of this. 

It is contaminating not only Israel, but our own country.

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From the beginning of the war that Israel has been waging on Gaza following the October 7 attack, senior Israeli officials led by its then-defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have explicitly threatened that they intended to cut off all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, including food, water, and medicine. This doesn't mean they're refusing to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, even though, as an occupying army, they are required to do so under international law. But no one expects that of Israel. It's Israel, they're not going to provide food, water and medicine to Palestinians in Gaza as they destroy their society. But they're doing something much more extreme, which is they're using their military, paid for by the United States and American workers and taxpayers, to block any aid from entering. 

There are humanitarian groups all over the world trying to put food into Gaza because generally the world considers it to be a singular atrocity to watch millions of people die of famine, a deliberately caused famine. You have countries trying to get aid and medicine, watching children have to undergo incredibly horrific surgeries with no anesthesia because it's just not available in the Gaza Strip. You've seen all the horror stories. Those are deliberately induced by a blockade that the Israeli military has imposed on Gaza, where they simply won't even let flour into the Gaza Strip. And as a result, it's no longer accurate to say the people of Gaza are in the brink of starvation or that mass famine is imminent. They're in the middle of it. There's essentially no more food left. 

Here from the BBC yesterday:

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A couple of things to note about this: first of all, the World Food Programme.  I've seen before any institution, any entity, any country, any government, any person, any journalist, any media outlet that criticizes Israel immediately gets labeled as antisemitic, as hating Israel. Anyone who criticizes Israel immediately gets called a racist; that's just the go-to tactic. 

The whole world, everyone's persecuting poor Israel. Even though the world's largest military and economy pays for their military, pays for their wars, all of Europe has stood up in defense of Israel, somehow, Israel is the poor little victim on the playground, constantly being bullied. You have all these U.N. organizations and Doctors Without Borders, people who do the most noble work of going around the world administering healthcare in the most dangerous way, all these institutions are immediately deemed antisemitic the first time they say anything negative about Israel. 

It's a little bit more difficult to do it in the case of the World Food Programme because its executive director is Cindy McCain, the widow of former senator and presidential candidate John McCain and the mother of media personality Megan McCain. The McCain family has been as steadfast, as extreme, as loyal in their support for Israel as basically anybody in Washington. I mean, to try to depict Cindy McCain as some kind of Israel hater! 

She was born into great wealth, she's using her platform to run the World Food Programme, which does work to alleviate famine wherever famine is found. She didn't take it as a platform to criticize Israel, much to the contrary, as I said, the McCain family worships Israel. As the executive director, she is duty-bound to report the truth, which is that there's no more food left in Gaza and they have no more food to distribute. All the stuff they were able to get into Gaza is now extinguished and exhausted and they're barred by the Israeli military from delivering more. 

Here is the World Food Programme itself on its X account yesterday:

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 I've seen people trying to claim, “Oh, this is a war, this is what happens in war.” No, it's just not true. Most wars do not entail the deliberate blockading and starvation of an entire population, in this case, composed of 50% of children, trying to starve them to death or face the risk of imminent death from starvation as a means to get their hostages back. Of course, just like Israel was bombing everywhere in Gaza, claiming that they were concerned by their hostages and ended up predictably killing a lot of the hostages. Obviously, if you bomb indiscriminately in the places that you know the hostages are, you're going to end up killing many of them, as happened. Similarly, if you starve an entire place to death, then there's no food to provide to the hostages either. And this is not something that the Israelis are doing by accident, or incidentally as a byproduct of war. Starving the two million people in Gaza to death is an explicit, open boast that Israeli officials, at least when they're speaking in Hebrew, and sometimes even when they are speaking in English, are very proud that they're doing on purpose. 

Here's a member of the Israeli Knesset, Moshe Saada. He was on a network called Middle East Eye, and they asked him about the people, including the children, who have no food in Gaza, and here's what he said: 

Video. MP Moshe Saada, Middle East Eye. April 27, 2025.

And this is not anomalous. There's nobody rising up in criticism of this MP. You may recall that there were videos that were leaked to the press showing Israeli soldiers gang raping helpless Palestinian detainees in the dungeons Israel keeps, when these soldiers were caught gang raping, anally raping, helpless detainee Palestinians, not only was there no revulsion in Israel, but members of the Knesset actually went and protested with all of their supporters outside where those soldiers were being held, demanding their release and you had people going on media saying, “There's nothing wrong with rape, rape is a perfectly legitimate weapon of war, these are not human beings we're dealing with, these are savages, they're not Jewish.” 

And this has been the ethos in Israel from the start. 

Here is the former defense secretary, Netanyahu has since fired him, Yoav Gallant. This was him on October 9, 2023, saying what the Israeli strategy will be:

Video. Yoav Gallant, X. October 9, 2023,

When South Africa brought its case against Israel for war crime violations to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and now other governments have subsequently joined, their entire case basically existed out of statements by Israeli officials about what they intended to do in Gaza because Israeli officials have been saying the whole time, “We're going to keep food out, we're going to keep water out.” 

At some point, the U.S. was pushing a little bit for more humanitarian aid to get in and very basic food supplies were permitted to get in. But remember that when Trump facilitated the cease-fire in Gaza – which he and his envoy Steve Witkoff absolutely deserve credit for having facilitated, it was finalized one day before Trump's inauguration, he wanted there to be a cease-fire, he went around boasting and giving himself credit for the cease-fire – Netanyahu was saying to his country, “Don't worry, the Americans have told me this is not permanent. We're going to get some hostages back and then there's going to be no stage two of the cease-fire. We're never going to stage two. We're only going to do stage one and then go back to destroying Gaza.”

And that's exactly what happened. Stage one of the cease-fire agreement that Trump facilitated demanded the permitting of humanitarian aid, including food, water, and medicine, to enter Gaza, but the Israelis, before the cease-fire unraveled, refused to allow any such humanitarian aid to enter. 

And just by the way, given that the United States is still bombing Yemen every day – remember Yemen?  It's just a country that the U.S. government is just bombing intensively and consistently every day – when that cease-fire was signed, the Houthis said, “We're not going to attack any more ships now that there's a cease-fire.” It was only when the Israelis began violating the cease-fire by blockading basic humanitarian aid from entering did the Houthis said, “Actually, now we're going to resume our attacks, but only on Israeli ships, not on anyone else's, including Americans.” Yet, Trump restarted and escalated Biden's bombing campaign, even though the Houthis weren't attacking American ships. 

The much easier solution to bombing Yemen would have been to tell Israel, “You have to comply with the cease-fire deal, that Trump and Steve Witkoff caused to be agreed to by both sides in the Middle East,” but instead we're bombing the Houthis because we don't want to force Israel to allow food, water and medicine into this unbelievably beleaguered population. 

One of the most extremist ministers in Israel is the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is in the United States. Today, he went to Congress to speak to several of his employees who work there. Sometimes it's better to have meetings between your boss and the employees face-to-face. I mean, you can have it on Zoom, you can have it in lots of different ways, but, as every boss will tell you, it's good to have in-person meetings with the people to whom you're giving instructions. So, Ben-Gvir went to Washington today to visit Congress and do that.  

Ben-Gvir used to be such an extremist in Israel, and I don't mean like 30 years ago, I mean like a decade ago or less, that he was convicted of several terrorist crimes. He was the spearhead of this settler movement that every country in the world, including the United States, regarded a illegal. Every time settlements expand in the West Bank, it means that this dream of a two-state solution with Israel and a Palestinian state side-by-side living in peace became impossible, because Israel just kept eating up land. Ben-Gvir and others in the Netanyahu government, who used to be so on the fringes that they were actually in trouble with the law constantly, have now become mainstream in the government. This was before October 7. And Ben-Gvir’s view is that the Israeli military should be in the West Bank protecting the settlers as they expand. 

There used to be a view that at one point Israel was going to have to confront its settlers because the only way for Israeli survival was a two-state solution. Nobody believes in that anymore. So, Ben-Gvir is in Washington, in Congress, again, what the Israelis are doing, this is not fringe, marginalized views in Israel. These are the mainstream views of the Israeli government. They openly boast about the things they're doing. 

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The Jerusalem Post, in 2024:

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So, the IDF had worked with the Israeli police because a bunch of Israelis, including the extremists in the West Bank, went to the border with Gaza and blocked it. They took their kids, they took their entire families and they physically blocked the trucks with humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. They wanted to starve the population to death and the Israeli military worked with the Israeli police to try to remove protesters, these people blockading humanitarian aid from entering in Gaza, in part because the U.S. government was asking for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, and so they wanted to have a minimal amount sent in and that's what Ben-Gvir was mad about: the police and the IDF were acting against these protesters. 

Just last month, March 23, 2025, as reported by JNS, the headline is “Ben-Gvir Urges Strikes on Hamas Food Reserves, Power Supply.” Obviously, “Hamas food reserves” are the food reserves of the 2 million people living in Gaza. He wanted to, deliberately, to attack whatever food was left that they found. 

Also obvious is that among the institutions that depend upon functioning electricity and cannot function without it are hospitals with people on respirators, people on life support, people who need all kinds of machines hooked up to them. If you cut off all electricity in Gaza and then continue to bomb them in the dark, not only are you killing a lot of people, but you're preventing doctors from treating the wounded or even feeding the wounded. And this is what they're all very happy to admit that they're willing to do and are doing, even as many of their supporters in Israel continue to insist it's fake news or antisemitic to point out that Israel is blockading all food from getting into Gaza. The Israeli officials just openly admit it. 

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