Trump Escalates Campaign Against Smithsonian With New “Warning Signs” Order


Trump’s executive order bashed the Smithsonian Institution for attempting to advance ideas of “social justice.”

By Chris Walker , 

Truthout

July 28, 2026

A Smithsonian sign is displayed in front of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on July 10, 2026 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Carter / Getty Images

President Donald Trump issued an executive order this past weekend demanding new signage outside the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), due to what his administration has alleged are displays that demonstrate an unpatriotic view of the past.

The signs will “warn” visitors about a supposed “ideological capture” of the NMAH. They also claim that the museum’s displays depict historical events using a “radical view of American history.”

The latest action follows 16 months of the Trump administration pressuring the Smithsonian Institution to change its content, threatening to review current exhibits and cut off funding for the museums unless they adhere to the White House’s standards. The effort has resulted in the ouster of at least one museum director.

The Smithsonian is not governed by a single branch of government, making the administration’s demands highly unusual and likely unprecedented. Instead, the museums are managed by a board of regents, which includes members from all three branches of government, as well as nine additional citizen members.

Trump’s executive order issued on Friday calls for the Interior Department and the National Park Service (NPS) to “install temporary signage” along sidewalks at the NMAH to inform passersby of a report issued by the administration regarding the accuracy of the museum’s exhibits. That report claims that “the Smithsonian leadership does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society.”

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The Trump administration’s allegations are ironic, given that Trump himself demonstrably lied to the American public tens of thousands of times during his first term in office, and has continued to lie during his second term.

During a congressional hearing last week, NMAH director Anthea Hartig denied that the museum’s exhibits are ideological. Said Hartig:


Our work is governed by the Smithsonian standards of scholarship, accuracy, independence, and nonpartisanship. The museum does not take sides in America’s political debates. We preserve and document the evidence of American life in all of its breadth, so that the public can encounter the past and draw their own conclusions.

The claims by the White House do not “fairly or accurately” represent the museum’s standards, Hartig added.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-New Mexico), ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, blasted the administration for targeting truthful exhibits at the museum.

“This EO is a clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history,” Stansbury said on social media. “Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the President, but to the American people and so does our nation’s history.”

American Historical Association executive director Sarah Weicksel also criticized the executive order, noting that there is “no precedent” of a president demanding that a museum “present a completely alternative narrative” — one based on a “very narrow and very circumscribed definition of patriotism.”

The executive order is “an absolute affront to the professionals who work in that building,” Weicksel added in comments shared with The Washington Post.

Democrats Call FIFA President to Congress After Trump’s World Cup “Quid Pro Quo”

Meanwhile, FIFA announced that it is planning to sell a major stake in the World Cup to a Kushner family firm.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

July 28, 2026

FIFA President Gianni Infantino and President of the United States Donald J Trump stand as confetti comes down after the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final match between Spain and Argentina at New York New Jersey Stadium on July 19, 2026 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.  Catherine Ivill - AMA / Getty Images

The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have launched an investigation into dealings between President Donald Trump and the leaders of FIFA on the heels of the World Cup, accusing the leaders of conducting a “bribery and corruption scheme” to enrich themselves at the expense of soccer fans around the world.

On Monday, the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), demanded that FIFA turn over any documents or records with relation to its dealings with Trump, including visitor logs for FIFA’s office in New York’s Trump Tower, which the organization has leased for a year. Raskin also demanded that President Gianni Infantino sit for an interview with members of Congress.

In a letter to Infantino, Raskin excoriated the Trump administration’s sudden dismissal of the Justice Department’s indictments in its wide-ranging corruption probe of FIFA earlier this year, which involved over $200 million in “bribes and kickbacks” across 20 countries for decades.

The lawmaker also criticized FIFA for charging customers outrageous prices. Some tickets for the final listed by FIFA, he noted, surged to a price of $33,000 at one point. Meanwhile, ticket buyers reported FIFA moving them into worse seats after their tickets were purchased. FIFA’s revenue for this World Cup surged to a record $15 billion, double the $7.5 billion made during the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

He said that FIFA has engaged in “outright bribery” related to this years’ and previous World Cups. This includes FIFA’s “hilariously fake” peace prize it granted to Trump after he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025, as well as Trump’s call to Infantino to overturn a U.S. players’ suspension during the tournament. The office in Trump Tower, meanwhile, largely sits empty, officials have said, despite Raskin estimating that renting such a space may cost $600,000 a year.


US Golfer Tried to Call Trump to Overturn Penalty, on Heels of World Cup Scandal
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“In exchange for leasing an office in Trump Tower at inflated costs for limited use and inventing a bogus ‘peace prize’ for the President, the Trump Administration abandoned anti-corruption enforcement and allowed FIFA to operate as a multinational criminal enterprise with impunity,” read a press release on the investigation.

The investigation comes as Infantino is facing yet more scrutiny for Trump ties. On Tuesday, the organization announced that it is planning to sell a minority stake in a new company, FIFA Forward Enterprises, that will run the men’s and women’s World Cup competitions.

The organization said it’s planning to sell up to 21 percent of the company to investors — and that the investment group would be led by a firm run by Joshua Kushner, brother to Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner.

This would even further entrench Trump’s sphere of influence into FIFA, and has already faced criticism. Sky News reported that European nations are considering a boycott as a result of the plan.

In a statement, Europe’s governing body for soccer, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), said that the proposed deal “crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross.”

“The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially,” the group said. “None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”

UAE-Supplied Drones Still Target Civilians in Sudan Despite EU Condemnation

“It’s really the bare minimum to call out the actors involved … the EU should be doing a lot more,” said an expert.

By Mat Nashed , 

Truthout

July 28, 2026

A man stands in a crater filled with drone components on March 29, 2026, in el-Obeid, Sudan.Faiz Abubakr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

On July 9, the European Parliament passed a resolution that condemned the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for supporting a violent Sudanese paramilitary responsible for war crimes and other atrocities.

The resolution demanded urgent action to stop the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from invading el-Obeid, a strategic city in central Sudan at risk of mass atrocities. It called for an end to all “external interference” — singling out the UAE — including the “financing, arms supply or other support” to the RSF.

“Of course, the UAE will be annoyed,” said one European diplomat, who was not authorized to comment on the record, to Truthout. “But they are accustomed to dealing with PR issues. Over the last three years, they have been dealing with a lot of PR issues [regarding their role] in Sudan.”

Since Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023, the UAE has provided diplomatic and military support to the RSF, which is at war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the national army.

Both the RSF and SAF have committed harrowing abuses such as summary executions and torture. The RSF has also subjected women and girls to systemic sexual violence and perpetrated crimes that “constitute distinct markers of genocide,” according to a recent United Nations probe.

In Sudan, Perpetrators of War Crimes Are Rewarded While Civilians Languish
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Due to the RSF’s brutal violence, the UAE denies backing the group, seeking to portray itself as a regional trailblazer for progress and development. However, UN experts, human rights groups, and media outlets have documented its extensive support for the RSF, including the shipment of cheap Chinese-made drones and Chinese artillery. The UAE also uses shell companies to hire Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside the RSF.

While the EU resolution serves as another blow to the UAE’s reputation, it won’t stop the wealthy Gulf nation from supporting the RSF, say analysts and human rights advocates.

“Whenever the UAE gets called out, then they tend to double down,” said Kholood Khair, an analyst on Sudan and the founder of the Confluence Advisory think tank.
Symbolic Victory?

The resolution hasn’t changed the situation on the ground for civilians. In el-Obeid, some 500,000 civilians are living under a partial RSF siege, surrounded from the south and west.

SAF recently captured villages around el-Obeid and reopened a second vital supply line to the city.

As of now, civilians can only leave the city from the east and north, but the roads are dangerous. RSF drones threaten to hit any convoy that it believes carries material support for SAF.

The RSF launched at least 15 drones that killed 45 people over a span of three weeks in June, according to the UN Human Rights Office. The attacks have continued throughout July, hitting fuel tankers, water infrastructure, and electricity grids, and causing acute shortages of food and drinking water and widespread blackouts.

“Drones are still targeting civilians all over Sudan … what’s needed is [global] pressure to halt UAE supply lines to the RSF,” said Yahiya, a local relief worker in el-Obeid who requested a pseudonym due to the hostile security situation.

According to human rights groups and media reports, the UAE uses its financial leverage over regional partners — Chad, Libya, South Sudan, and Ethiopia — to funnel weapons and fighters to the RSF.

The EU’s latest sanctions banned all conflict gold smuggled out of Sudan. Both the RSF and the SAF financed their war efforts by selling billions of dollars’ worth of gold to the UAE, making the Emirates a key hub in Sudan’s war economy.

The UAE provides additional logistical, diplomatic, and financial support to the RSF.

Echoing Yahiya’s call, a recent report by Human Rights Watch urges the EU to take concrete steps against the UAE. Its recommendations include imposing targeted sanctions against UAE-linked companies that hire Colombian mercenaries, who are first covertly trained in the UAE and then deployed to Sudan.

Human Rights Watch also called on EU states to suspend all defense and military cooperation with the Emirates.

Yet Jonas Horner, an expert on Sudan with the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that EU members are unlikely to agree on punitive measures because some states fear jeopardizing their extensive economic ties with the UAE.

The two sides have roughly $328 billion in mutual investments. What’s more, EU foreign policy decisions require a consensus among all 27 EU member states. This makes it nearly impossible to pass punitive measures against a lucrative and strategic partner like the UAE.

“[The EU resolution] is as much a statement of the limitations of European diplomatic heft in the Gulf as it is a statement of Emirati confidence,” Horner told Truthout.
How Will the UAE React?

No evidence indicates the UAE has dialed back support to the RSF since the resolution was passed.

On July 22, local media reported that an attack believed to be carried out by the RSF killed 22 people in the town of Rahad, near el-Obeid. The group has also reportedly sent reinforcements toward the south of el-Obeid, fueling fears that it is preparing a major ground offensive that could lead to mass atrocities.

On the diplomatic level, Khair said that the Emirates may play up Iran’s relationship with SAF to win support from western capitals.

Tehran historically has links with members of Sudan’s Islamic Movement, some of whom hold powerful positions within SAF. During Sudan’s latest war, Iran restored diplomatic ties with SAF before sending weapon shipments of Mohajer-6 combat drones.

Given the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the Emirates could frame RSF as thwarting Iran’s regional influence. That would bestow the RSF with even more impunity to carry out atrocities.

“The regional conditions are perfect for the UAE to say that, ‘you know, what’s happening in Sudan may be bad, but it would be worse [for the West],’” Khair told Truthout.

Another possibility could see the UAE step up its lobbying efforts across European capitals. The last time the UAE went on a lobbying blitz was ahead of a European Parliament session on Sudan in November 2025.

The UAE reportedly insisted that it was playing a positive role in Sudan by claiming that it was working within established international frameworks to help mediate a ceasefire. It also claimed that its main priority was trying to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis by contributing some $784 million to the UN mission in Sudan.

The blitz worked, prompting EU ministers to omit its name from the ensuing resolution. Khair says that some ministers may have since grown fed up with Emirati officials lying in public — and private — about the UAE’s backing for the RSF.

Still, she stresses that the resolution should not be viewed as a major milestone.

“It’s really the bare minimum to call out the actors involved,” she said. “Really, the EU should be doing a lot more.”

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Mat Nashed

Mat Nashed is an award-nominated journalist who has covered the MENA region since the Arab Spring. He was previously the feature’s print correspondent for Al Jazeera English and has written and reported for various other platforms, including Newlines Magazine, TIME, The New Humanitarian, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Carnegie Endowment, and many others. He has extensively covered politics and conflict in the Nile Basin and the Levant.

Trump Is Already Outpacing His First-Term Record Number of Airstrikes on Somalia

The Trump administration cut humanitarian aid to Somalia while continuing to pound it with military airstrikes.

By Jamila Osman , 

Truthout

July 27, 2026

Displaced people collect water from a well inside a camp for internally displaced persons in the outskirts of Kismayo, Somalia, on April 21, 2026.

Simon Maina / AFP via Getty Images

In a recent video released by the State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared, “The inspiration of America to the rest of the world has been extraordinary.” The video, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, hails the legacy of the framers while a voiceover praises the generations who “dedicated themselves to building a more peaceful and prosperous world.”

Just weeks before the video was released, the U.S. carried out its most intensive recent bombing campaign in Somalia, launching a blitz of airstrikes in a five-day operation in the port city of Kismayo — a contradiction that seems lost on this administration. On July 5, an additional airstrike was carried out in the Juba Valley. AFRICOM, the U.S. military command that oversees security operations across Africa, has released no information about casualties or the identities of those killed, leaving the human toll of the campaign unknown. In 2025, AFRICOM spokesperson Lt. Col. Doug Halleaux confirmed it would no longer release specific details about airstrikes to ensure “operations security.”

The first Trump presidency ended with 219 U.S. airstrikes in Somalia, the highest recorded total across previous administrations. His current administration is already on track to surpass that number at more than 207. Kismayo and the surrounding region are frequent AFRICOM targets. Last year, a series of airstrikes in Jamaame, a neighboring town, killed at least 12 people, including eight children and a pregnant woman, according to an investigation by The Guardian. The bombing was the deadliest U.S. airstrike for civilians in East Africa in recent history.

As the intensity of U.S. operations grows, the conflict has become increasingly opaque, making independent monitoring by journalists and human rights groups nearly impossible. Mohamed Gabobe, a Mogadishu-based journalist who investigated the Jamaame massacre, describes a widening gap between events on the ground and the State Department’s official account. “The narrative has been hijacked,” he told Truthout. The authority to exercise military power confers the authority to shape public record, allowing the U.S. narrative to go “unopposed and unchallenged.” The result is a conflict that persists with little scrutiny or oversight — effectively a shadow war, a concept that can be traced back to the Cold War, when superpowers fought through covert operations and proxy conflicts rather than direct confrontation on the battlefield.

In the decades that followed, the so-called global “war on terror” transformed the Cold War doctrine of a war without fronts into an enduring counterterrorism framework: sustained, low-visibility military engagement with no clear endpoint or objective, transforming conflict from a discrete event into a permanent condition. In an interview with Truthout, Samar Al-Bulushi, a professor of anthropology at University of California, Irvine, described this post-9/11 security landscape as one of both “continuity and change.” The U.S. has long sought to “cultivate partners” by training foreign militaries that could “serve as extensions of U.S. power.” In Somalia, this has allowed the U.S. government to conduct military operations for over two decades without a formal declaration of war.


Trump Perpetuates Undeclared War in Somalia With Renewed Airstrikes
The United States has been carrying out operations in Somalia since at least 2002 without a formal war declaration. By Jamila Osman , Truthout  March 3, 2025


The Making of a Shadow War

U.S. military involvement in Somalia is not new. Following the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, the United States joined a UN mission to secure the delivery of humanitarian aid amid civil war, drought, and famine. The operation evolved into a nation-building campaign to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a military officer, whose forces played a key role in overthrowing Siad Barre’s government.

AFRICOM, the U.S. military command that oversees security operations across Africa, has released no information about casualties or the identities of those killed, leaving the human toll of the campaign unknown.

The 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, in which hundreds of Somalis and 18 U.S. soldiers were killed, became a turning point in U.S. foreign policy. Images of dead U.S. troops being dragged through the streets prompted demands for immediate withdrawal and played a role in making future large-scale troop deployments and ground invasions more politically costly.

In Somalia, overt military intervention gave way to a more diffuse model of warfare characterized by security partnerships and cooperation agreements with the Somali federal government, and military assistance. The “Mogadishu Effect” did not mark the end of U.S. involvement in Somalia: It transformed it, altering who could see it, contest it, be held accountable for it, and ultimately, who would bear its cost.

Although AFRICOM press releases describe counterterrorism operations as being conducted “in coordination with” the federal government of Somalia, The Guardian’s investigation into U.S. strikes in Jamaame suggests Somalia’s role in this partnership might be little more than a formality. Jethro Norman, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies who has conducted fieldwork in Somalia, said: “Sometimes they’ll call an hour before and say: ‘We’re going to hit this target, please sign this piece of paper.’”

AFRICOM operates within a broader ecosystem of intervention in Somalia that includes the African Union, the United Nations, regional training forces from neighboring countries, European Union training programs, private security contractors, and intelligence agencies. These overlapping institutions form a landscape where one of the state’s most fundamental responsibilities, the provision of security, is outsourced to foreign actors. While this infrastructure is designed, funded, and coordinated by external powers, it relies on Somali and other African troops who are recruited to “die in the name of protecting U.S. interests.”

The Danab Brigade, an elite counterterrorism force established in 2014 through Bancroft Global Development, a private military contractor funded through the U.S. State Department, illustrates the contradiction at the heart of Somalia’s security infrastructure. Its personnel, made up of military officers and soldiers from several countries, were responsible for training and mentoring thousands of Somali army recruits. In 2024, the Somali government and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding to construct up to five military bases for the brigade, a project valued at over $100 million. Danab is considered the first line of defense in the fight against Al-Shabaab and a model for the future of Somalia’s national army, yet remains heavily dependent on foreign funding, training, and equipment. Although AFRICOM frames its mission as building Somali capacity to reduce reliance on external support, foreign military assistance is presented as a pathway to sovereignty even as it increasingly functions as a substitute for it.

The Price of Partnership


At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos this January, President Donald Trump said Somalia is “not a country … not a nation, got no government, got no police.” A month earlier, as part of a racist rant against Minnesota’s Somali community before he unleashed a devastating flood of immigration police in the state, Trump described Somalia as a place where people just “run around killing each other.” His remarks draw on a familiar but outdated trope disparaging Somalia as a failed state, a term that is overwhelmingly used to describe African and Middle Eastern countries. Like the language of “partnership” and “cooperation,” “failed state” actively conceals an asymmetry of power. It obscures the socio-political and historic origins of state dysfunction, presenting it as an inherent condition, and normalizes continued intervention and diminished sovereignty.


As the intensity of U.S. operations grows, the conflict has become increasingly opaque, making independent monitoring by journalists and human rights groups nearly impossible.

African scholars and political leaders have long warned that previous systems of colonial governance did not end with independence, but were replaced by new forms of economic and political domination often mediated through foreign aid. Somalia is one of the most aid-dependent states in the world. According to the International Monetary Fund, foreign assistance has accounted for roughly 20 to 30 percent of its GDP in the last decade. The United States has historically been one of its largest bilateral donors.

In Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah argued that aid relationships structured by unequal power reproduce dependency and undermine self-sufficiency. Although his analysis centers economic aid, his warning applies equally to the security sphere, particularly in the post-9/11 era where development and counterterrorism agendas have become increasingly intertwined. Over half a century ago, Nkrumah warned that “the only type of aid which the neocolonialist masters consider as safe is ‘military aid.’” Somalia provides a contemporary example to understand that claim.

Recent cuts to U.S. foreign aid programs have disproportionately affected Somalia’s humanitarian sector, worsening food insecurity amid ongoing famine and drought. Numerous health facilities have been forced to close, and between late 2025 and April 2026 in Buur Hakaba, a town north of Mogadishu, the proportion of acutely malnourished children under 5 years old has almost doubled. Funding for military assistance and counterterrorism programs have remained largely intact.

Still, decades of increased counterterrorism operations and deepening security cooperation have failed to deliver on the promise of a self-sufficient security apparatus. The clearest evidence is Washington’s decision to end funding for the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia in July, citing Somalia’s inability to sustain its security gains or “take ownership of … its own security functions.”

Al-Bulushi told Truthout the structures that created aid dependency are the same structures that give African states little choice when it comes to becoming partners of the United States in the war on terror: “The sources of funding are narrowing and becoming almost exclusively focused on security.” The issue goes beyond how donor countries shape government priorities, but how they shape civil society and civilian life. As Al-Bulushi observed, even local organizations are being forced to “frame their work through the lens of security” in order to access funding. The central contradiction of aid dependency is that it can reproduce the very conditions it seeks to alleviate. Foreign assistance has undoubtedly prevented suffering and helped avert state collapse in Somalia, but it has also produced a system of governance where dependency is not a temporary feature of the post-conflict state, but its organizing principle.

The Illusion of Sovereignty


According to Gabobe, there is a misconception that the presence of U.S. and foreign forces make life safer for ordinary Somalis. “They support the Somali government, not the Somali people. There’s a difference between the two. Their main job is to keep the Somali government from falling.” For many Somalis living in rural areas, the U.S. presence is not experienced as a provision of safety or the absence of violence, but rather through the constant threat of aerial surveillance and bombardment. “They can see the planes in the skies [and] hear them buzzing. People are afraid to go to sleep because they might not wake up. A missile can hit their home.”


Recent cuts to U.S. foreign aid programs have disproportionately affected Somalia’s humanitarian sector, worsening food insecurity amid ongoing famine and drought.

Al-Bulushi describes the irony at the heart of the matter: “The counterterrorism industry has effectively created the very problem that it claims to address.” To Gabobe, the issue is even more fundamental: “When you outsource security, you outsource sovereignty. I don’t think some American official should get to decide which [Somali] village to bomb today.”

Achille Mbembe, the Cameroonian political theorist, defines sovereignty as the state’s monopoly on life and death — its “power and capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.” In Somalia, that power does not rest in the hands of the Somali state, but with foreign militaries and their security proxies who authorize drone strikes, greenlight ground raids, and sanctify extrajudicial killings with near impunity. In the political lexicon of empire, the distinction between sovereignty and subordination collapses, and “cooperation” becomes a technology of violence — one that does not distinguish between civilians or combatants, between mothers or armed militants.

On July 1, Somalia marked the 66th anniversary of its independence from colonial rule. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud joined the celebrations in Mogadishu wearing a sash emblazoned with the national coat of arms: two leopards standing on spears. A more fitting emblem might have been the ouroboros, the ancient symbol of a snake consuming its own tail. For decades, Somalia has been mired in a cycle where instability becomes the pretext for foreign intervention, the raison d’être that not only necessitates it, but sustains it. This year’s independence day commemoration took place shortly after the renewed U.S. offensive in June and on the eve of Turkish airstrikes in Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region — a bleak reminder that the country’s security is being shaped by an ever-expanding constellation of foreign actors.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Jamila Osman
Jamila Osman is a Somali writer from Portland, Oregon.

Nearly Half of Americans Say US Should Arrest Netanyahu Ahead of Trump Meeting

About a quarter of Americans say that the US should let him walk free, compared to nearly half who want him arrested.

By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutPublished

July 28, 2026

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump met in the White House in a meeting closed to the press on July 28, 2026, ahead of Sen. Lindsey Graham's funeral.

Posted by the Prime Minister of Israel's X account

Nearly half of Americans think that the U.S. should carry out the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, new polling finds, outnumbering those who say the U.S. shouldn’t arrest him by nearly two to one.

Polling conducted by The Economist/YouGov ahead of Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Tuesday finds that 49 percent of U.S. adults say that the U.S. should arrest Netanyahu. This includes 68 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents.

This belief holds a double digit lead over those who say otherwise, with 27 percent saying that the U.S. shouldn’t arrest him. An additional 23 percent say they aren’t sure.

The survey also found that a plurality of Americans say that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, with 43 percent saying as such and 24 percent denying the genocide.

The polling comes as Netanyahu has traveled to the White House for his seventh visit with President Donald Trump in his second term, and their first in-person meeting since they launched the war on Iran. The meeting was closed to press coverage. Netanyahu is also slated to attend the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) on Tuesday.


The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in late 2024. Discourse surrounding Netanyahu’s warrant, issued for crimes against humanity committed in Israel’s genocide of Gaza, has surged in recent days after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his office was exploring legal avenues to arrest Netanyahu if he enters the city for the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.

In a video posted on his social media channels last week, Mamdani said that his office determined that it does not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu. But the progressive politician called on the U.S. government to join the ICC and arrest the prime minsiter, labelling him a “war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.”

“He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people, for the maiming of tens of thousands of children, as those who survive undergo amputation without anesthesia,” Mamdani said. “Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City.” The video circulated widely, becoming one of Mamdani’s most popular videos and garnering nearly 10 million likes on Instagram and nearly 1.5 million likes on X.

Netanyahu called the video “hate speech” in response on Sunday, and said that the ICC charges are “bogus.” Israel has been engaged in a yearslong campaign to attack the ICC, and the U.S. has also recently ramped up attacks with the goal of dismantling the body.

Citizens Bank Cuts Ties With Prison Companies After De-ICE Pressure Campaign

“Public conscience and community resistance have paid off,” read a statement from the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition.

By Chris Walker , 

Truthout

PublishedJuly 28, 2026

Close-up of Citizens sign on a granite building facade with reflective glass architecture, in, San Francisco, California, February 21, 2025.Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

A coalition of social justice organizations is celebrating a recent decision by Citizens Bank to sever its financial ties with two companies that operate immigration prisons on behalf of the Trump administration.

The national bank, which is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, has faced significant pushback from protesters for providing more than $2.5 billion in financing to CoreCivic and the GEO Group, two private prison companies that work directly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Demonstrations escalated in April when members of the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition protested outside of Citizens Bank corporate headquarters during its annual shareholders’ meeting.

While that demonstration largely took place outside the building, some shareholders who are part of the coalition expressed disdain with the company during the meeting.

Notably, every major bank in the country has ended its ties with CoreCivic and GEO Group.

Earlier this month, Citizens Bank released a press statement indicating that it was finally ending its financial relationships with GEO Group and CoreCivic. The bank insisted that the move was unrelated to protest actions.

“Our practice has been to respect the privacy of our client relationships and we do not generally comment publicly on individual clients,” the bank said, claiming that the company had been “dragged” into discussing “what is largely a political matter.”

The bank continued to dismiss the protests in its statement, saying that it was closing accounts with the two companies “based on changed commercial circumstances,” adding that the move “does not reflect any change in our view regarding these companies’ business models or operations.”

Despite these statements, the De-ICE Coalition said it viewed the action as a win.

“Today’s announcement that Citizens Bank will exit its current lending relationships with private prison giants CoreCivic and The GEO Group is an important victory for the people who refused to let a major bank finance human suffering brought on by ICE detention activities of the current federal administration,” the coalition said in a statement shared with Truthout, adding:

While Citizens Bank frames this exit as a purely ‘business decision’ dictated by evolving commercial circumstances, the reality is clear: public conscience and community resistance matter and have paid off. As we have said from the beginning, doing some good does not cancel out the harm caused by these business relationships.

The coalition added that it still has questions about the moves, and that the De-ICE campaign “will continue” to monitor Citizens Bank’s current and future business relationships.

“More customers are continuing to consider terminating their relationships with Citizens Bank. Until we get all questions answered, we expect this will continue as customers align their personal values with banks they do business with,” the coalition explained.

Legal Team of Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal Appeals to the UN for Support


Lawyers are appealing to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which had urged the release of Leonard Peltier.

By Renée Feltz ,

Truthout

July 28, 2026

Participants in a multiday protest march for Mumia walk through Pennsylvania from Reading to Shoemakersville on December 4, 2025.Joe Piette

World-renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is 72 years old, suffering multiple health problems, and may die in prison, say legal advocates in a new request they filed today that asks the United Nations to support his release. Abu-Jamal’s legal team decided to appeal to the UN after having exhausted nearly every legal avenue for relief available in the United States.

Abu-Jamal was a Black Panther and journalist when he was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, and he has always maintained his innocence. His death sentence was overturned in 2001, and in 2011, Pennsylvania resentenced him to life without parole. Since then, “each attempt to secure Mr. Abu-Jamal a new and fair trial has been rejected,” argues a submission his lawyer Bret Grote and others made on his behalf to the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

Grote told Truthout the filing, which UN rules limit to 20 pages, attempts to summarize nearly a half-century of the “failures of the criminal legal system” in Abu-Jamal’s case, including an “unfair trial, a biased appellate process, decades of surveillance and censorship, and a death by incarceration sentence that has been recognized by the United Nations as violating international human rights standards.”

The UN determination of whether someone faces “arbitrary detention” is interpreted “more broadly” than simply being “against the law.” It also considers “elements of inappropriateness, injustice, lack of predictability and due process of law.”

Abu-Jamal’s lawyers say he was in “continuous solitary confinement” from 1983 to 2011 on Pennsylvania’s death row, before being transferred to the general population in a state prison called SCI Mahanoy, where Abu-Jamal’s advocates say officials have denied him proper medical care. His legal team’s submission to the UN notes he was diagnosed in 2012 with hepatitis C, which caused cirrhosis of the liver, and he later “developed a painful, severe rash covering most of his body, potentially caused or exacerbated” by the disease, and then went into diabetic shock “due to untreated hyperglycemia” caused by steroid treatment for his skin condition. It also cites UN human rights experts who raised concern when Abu-Jamal was shackled to his hospital bed in 2021 while awaiting long-delayed heart surgery.


Interview |
You Cannot Decarcerate by Using the Tools of Incarceration, Says Mumia Abu-Jamal
“We must move for what we want, not for what we think the system can produce, because the system is the problem.” By Maresi Starzmann , Truthout  October 25, 2020

Abu-Jamal, a prolific writer who has authored 13 books, now risks losing his eyesight.

“I have been, for all intents and purposes, unable to read, unable to write, unable to see anything more than the masthead of a newspaper and not even its headlines; blurry television bursts of color,” Abu-Jamal revealed in a 2025 Prison Radio commentary called “Mumia’s Vision: A Message for the Movement.” He explained he had “been reluctant to talk about my eye problems” because “any sign of weakness is to be avoided at all costs” in prison, since it “brings predation.”

His legal team’s submission to the UN refers to medical records showing how in 2025 Abu-Jamal “began experiencing a common and easily treated complication of cataract surgery” that clouded his vision, and notes he continues to “suffer from multiple complex ophthalmological conditions, including proliferative diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, that pose a significant risk of permanent blindness.”

“He is old and he is sick,” Samah Sisay, an international human rights lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Truthout. “This is someone who should not be incarcerated.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Abolitionist Law Center, where Abu-Jamal’s lawyer Grote is legal director, have a track record of success in filing submissions before the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. In 2023, they also asked the body to review whether the U.S. was complying with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prompted it to call for “a moratorium on the imposition of sentences to life imprisonment without parole,” which opponents often call “death by incarceration” because of the lack of opportunity for review and release.

Political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal is currently incarcerated at a
state prison called SCI Mahanoy, where advocates say officials have denied him proper medical care.  Courtesy of Mumia Abu Jamal

Grote acknowledged that the UN body lacks enforcement powers but said, “We are asking for a ruling because we think the truth of what has been done to Mumia in his case needs to be exposed in the light of day.”

In 2022, the Abolitionist Law Center and the Center for Constitutional Rights had asked the same UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to review the case of Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier, saying he — like Abu-Jamal — faced health problems after nearly 50 years of incarceration. It responded by calling on the U.S. government to “immediately” release Peltier after concluding the “cumulative effect of the procedural deficiencies” he “suffered in parole proceedings are overwhelming, rendering his continued detention arbitrary.” In January 2025, President Joe Biden commuted the rest of Peltier’s life sentence to home confinement.

Unlike Peltier, whose conviction was in a federal court, Mumia has a state-level conviction, so Sisay says officials like the governor could ask the state for more information to address accusations made in the legal team’s submission to the UN. She notes how “international pressure, regardless of whether the U.S. claims to recognize international law, has always been crucial to movements for social justice.” For example, the U.S. has been slow to change its policies on extreme sentencing, but Sisay says “a lot of the work” that went into abolishing the juvenile death penalty or juvenile life without parole “happened through international advocacy as well as at the domestic state and federal level.”

Left to right: Noel Hanrahan, Robert Saleem Holbrook, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Bret Grote, and  Lumumba Bandele stand together during a visit at SCI Mahanoy on March 20, 2026. Courtesy of Mumia Abu Jamal

Compassionate release for terminally ill prisoners is another path home, but “thankfully Mumia does not have a terminal diagnosis at this point,” Grote told Truthout.

In 2021, Pennsylvania granted compassionate release to Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, another former Black Panther Party member who was convicted of killing a police officer and spent decades in solitary confinement. But he lived just 52 days after release before he died from cancer at the age of 78, surrounded by his family. Despite his weakened state, a judge had argued months earlier Shoatz presented “an undue risk of escape or danger to the community.”


The UN has a chance to recognize how Abu-Jamal’s “continuing incarceration is in violation of international human rights norms.”

Laura Whitehorn, a former political prisoner who was incarcerated more than 14 years and co-founded the group Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP), told Truthout, “Mumia’s case fits squarely into why I started RAPP with three people who served long sentences and saw the damage, and were outraged at the lack of reasoning behind long sentences for older people.” She contrasted the U.S. approach to a landmark ruling earlier this month by India’s Supreme Court, which gives states three months to create a policy for the early release of more than 5,000 prisoners who are elderly or terminally ill.

Pennsylvania is not one of the 25 states that have enacted “second look” policies to allow judges to review a person’s sentence, so Abu-Jamal’s paths to release in the state seem limited to a request for an unlikely commutation given the politicized nature of his case, or an appeal “if new evidence justifies it,” Grote told Truthout, noting Abu Jamal’s case is 44 years old and “even more of a challenge would be finding evidence that courts would treat fairly.” Grote says the UN has a chance to recognize how Abu-Jamal’s “continuing incarceration is in violation of international human rights norms” and “offer a catalyst to the campaign to bring him home to his family and community.”

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Renée Feltz

Renée Feltz is an award-winning investigative journalist whose coverage of immigration, mass incarceration, environmental justice, and more spans 25 years. She is a former news co-director at Democracy Now!.

‘Countless Seniors Will Soon Pay More’: Trump Ends Subsidy for Medicare Prescription Drug Plans

“Donald Trump and Republicans are making healthcare more expensive for seniors at every turn.”


US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz speaks at the Wisconsin Air National Guard facility at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on July 8, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
(Photo by Mark Schiefelbein-Pool/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jul 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


The Trump administration on Tuesday said it would end a subsidy program that helped lower premiums for seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, a move that’s expected to increase monthly costs for millions of Americans amid a broader affordability crisis.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), headed by Mehmet Oz, announced “the conclusion of the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration” for the coming year, just months before the start of Medicare open enrollment. Oz characterized the subsidy program as a “bailout” for insurance companies and said that “premiums will go up by less than $10 for most Medicare recipients.”

But The Wall Street Journal, which reported the administration’s move ahead of the public announcement, noted that nearly half of Medicare Part D plan enrollees would likely see increases “largely in the $11 to $20 range a month.” The subsidy program, established in the wake of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, cut the average Part D premium by more than 25% this year.

Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement that President Donald Trump and his Republican allies “continue to force seniors to pay more while handing tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.”

“Trump and Republicans are making healthcare more expensive for seniors at every turn,” said Dach. “In the middle of a GOP-induced affordability crisis, they are eliminating a key program that helps seniors afford their medications, meaning countless seniors will soon pay more just to get the lifesaving prescriptions they need. For older Americans living on fixed incomes, even an extra ten or twenty dollars a month can mean choosing between filling their prescription, paying the electric bill, or buying groceries. Seniors deserve lower prescription drug costs and affordable healthcare.”

Around 25 million Americans are enrolled in standalone prescription drug plans through Medicare Part D, which is offered by private, Medicare-approved companies. Another 31 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare Part D via privatized Medicare Advantage plans.

Juliette Cubanski, vice president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the nonprofit research group KFF, wrote that standalone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans “may soon seem even less affordable” following the Trump administration’s change, “leading to further enrollment growth in Medicare Advantage.” (Prior to becoming head of CMS, Oz was a prominent booster of Medicare Advantage.)

Each year, millions of people across the US are forced to forgo or ration prescription medications due to high costs.

Kendall Witmer, rapid response director at the Democratic National Committee, said the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the Medicare Part D subsidy program shows that the president and his party “are doing everything they can to make healthcare unaffordable for Americans, especially for seniors.”

“Trump and Republicans’ massive healthcare cuts have pushed working families to the brink as they grapple with skyrocketing insurance premiums, even bigger medical bills, and rising prescription drug costs,” said Witmer. “Americans are taking on record amounts of medical debt just to make ends meet—all while Trump and his family get even richer and his wealthy donors rake in tax cuts.”

'Seriously?' Ex-Russia ambassador laughs off Trump's plan for Putin

Tom Boggioni
July 28, 2026 

RAW STORY


Ex-Ambassador Michel McFaul (MS NOW screenshot)

President Donald Trump’s proposal to ask Vladimir Putin to come clean on Russian involvement in Iran drew a smirk and an incredulous reaction from the former US Ambassador to Russia.

Appearing on MS NOW with host Stephanie Ruhle to discuss Trump’s meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday, the “Money Power Politics” host Michael McFaul asked why Trump continues to turn to Putin for news and advice.

Referring to reports that Russia may be giving backdoor help to Iran after Trump attacked the Middle Eastern country, McFaul remarked, “Well, first, Russia and Iran are allies; they coordinate, they sell weapons together. There's — I can't imagine that there's not intelligence sharing. I don't have privy to secret information anymore. That's first.”

“Number two: What is he saying?” he asked rhetorically. “ We'll find out. How come he doesn't know? You know, maybe we should be increasing our intelligence community and strengthening it, rather than gutting it in some kind of purge that's going on now.”

“And then third, ‘I'm going to ask Putin’ — seriously?” he exclaimed. “Putin's never going to tell him the truth on that. And the very notion that he sets it up, that that's how he's going to find out whether it's truth or not, it's just shocking to me that he continues to say things like that.”

“And I think it's embarrassing for him,” he pointed out. “I think it's such a weak look that he says things like that. I don't understand why his team doesn't explain to him: Mr. President, you look weak when you make statements like that.”

Trump's 'politically toxic' brand causing global allies to cut him loose: analyst

Nicole Charky-Chami
July 27, 2026 

RAW STORY

President Donald Trump delivers remarks during an event at the General Motors Milford Proving Ground in Milford, Michigan, on July 27, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

President Donald Trump's relationship with multiple world leaders has soured, and even some of his longtime allies have snubbed him, according to an analyst.

James Ball, political editor at The New World, described in an analysis for The i Paper on Monday just how much Trump's standing has faded among global powers. He pointed to Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was nominated for president in what "should have been a proud moment for Trump."

"For years, the Bolsonaros have courted the Trump family – and yet, just as you’d have thought they would want the political support of the U.S. President in their corner, they seem to have dropped him entirely," Ball wrote.

"There is, of course, one obvious solution to the mystery: Trump is simply so politically toxic across the world these days that even his closest international allies are having to distance themselves from him," Ball explained.

In his address, Bolsonaro shared a video message from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Argentinian President Javier Milei. But it was clear — Trump was missing.

"Bolsonaro made no mention whatsoever of Trump – a snub the famously thin-skinned US President will surely be furious about," Ball wrote.

The move was unusual, and might have been on purpose, considering the Bolsonaro family has been involved in Trump's administration and appeared at public events, Ball explained.

Trump's tariffs could have something to do with it.

"Trump’s White House has spent most of the last 18 months alienating America’s oldest and closest allies, in a bid to court a new international coalition of its own making. Now it’s finding even they don’t want to pick up the phone. Trump’s remaining days in the Oval Office could become very lonely indeed," Ball added.

Damning rebuke causes Trump diplomats to walk out on 'deeply worried' UN officials: report

Bennito L. Kelty
July 28, 2026

RAW STORY


American diplomats walked out of a United Nations meeting after they were confronted with harsh criticism about President Donald Trump, The Guardian reported.

During a U.N. Security Council meeting on the Ukraine-Russia war, United States diplomats staged a walkout after months of foreign diplomats and U.N. officials blasting Trump's human rights record, according to reporting by The Guardian.

The condemnation came after the Trump administration imposed sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries it alleged were using "forced labor," The Guardian reported, noting that U.S. lawmakers also took issue with the tariffs. Critics dismissed the allegations as a "convenient" justification for Trump's tariffs, The Guardian added.

The Trump administration has also come under fire for criticizing the U.N. human rights system and opposing the reappointment of U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk, according to The Guardian.

Türk said in March that he was "deeply worried by the fundamental shift in direction" in the US. In June, Türk called for "prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations" into immigration custody during the Trump administration.


The U.S. was one of ten countries that voted against Türk's reappointment last week. The U.S. voted against Türk's reappointment alongside Russia, North Korea, Nicaragua, Israel, and Mali, which led French diplomats to call it out via a social media post, per The Guardian.

"The U.S. used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore," French diplomats wrote in a post on X. "Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it."

MS NOW host hints Lindsey Graham may be in hell during televised memorial

Tom Boggioni
July 28, 2026 
RAW STORY


Stephanie Ruhle (MS NOW screenshot)

During live coverage of a memorial service for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, an MS NOW host slipped in a little quip about where the Republican might be in the afterlife.

Speaking with campaign advisor Mark McKinnon, who has worked for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, "Money Power Politics" host Stephanie Ruhle turned the conversation to the South Carolina Republican’s membership in what was called the “Three Amigos.”

Noting the powerful partnership that Graham had with Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT), McKinnon recalled, “Well, he [Graham] was a politician from central casting; he was kind of like a Mickey Rooney character. And, so, and I mean, that sort of in the best and the worst ways about politicians. I mean, he was a true public servant; I think that was a good characteristic in him. But he also was really needed relevance, which is why he saw this shift to supporting Donald Trump the way that he did, which complicates his legacy, for sure.”

“I got to know him when I worked for John McCain, and he was part of the ‘Three Amigos’ group with John McCain and Joe Lieberman,” he continued, only to have Ruhle interrupt him with, “Yeah, I'm guessing he and John McCain are having very complicated conversations right now if they are in the same place.”

”Yeah, it's interesting,” McKinnon continued. “It's interesting because, even given where Lindsay's gone kind of on Iran, he would make McCain look like a dove right now.”

Hannity torn apart over 'bizarre' claim about Lindsey Graham’s heaven

Television presenter Sean Hannity speaks during the funeral service for late U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 28, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

Adam Lynch

July 28, 2026 

ALTERNET

Fox News entertainer Sean Hannity seems to have a mighty weird understanding of heaven, reports Mediaite.

On Tuesday, Hannity said the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is likely sitting in a gold-encrusted heaven inspired by President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom and Mar-a-Lago.

“Lindsey, Mr. President, I would argue in my mind, probably has a heavenly version of Mar-a-Lago. It may even be a little bigger,” said Hannity. “He may have a little more gold in the Oval Office in his mansion in heaven, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he added one big beautiful ballroom and an arch somewhere on the property because he would want to obviously duplicate his dearest friend in life, you, Mr. President.”

Daily Beast described the eulogy as "bizarre," and Mediaite reports Hannity delivered his remarks after Trump’s own eulogy, in which the president praised Graham’s eagerness for war and joked about broadcasting the senator’s phone number during a heated GOP primary.

As Trump sat and fought to stay awake at times in the audience, Hannity reminisced about the times he would miss sharing with Graham.

“To my dear friend, to our fearless warrior, I will miss our late-night calls, I will miss our strategizing together, I will miss our dinners, I will miss our conversations about the President and the country we both loved,” Hannity added. “I’ll miss the gossip, I’ll be honest. I’ll miss talking about how to defeat evil in our time and how to find a path to peace so that peace may one day reign around the world.”

Mediaite added that Hannity also referenced his own show before easing into a discussion of Graham’s version of heaven, complete with Trump’s design trappings, which involve liberal use of gold paint.

Critics lashed Hannity's speech on social media.

"Just as the Bible foretold," said podcaster Hemant Mehta on X.

"Theologian Sean Hannity shares a vision of hell," heckled Variety Chief Music critic Chris Willman on X.

Slate contributor Christina Cauterucci said there is no shortage of examples of Trump’s gold fixation, however.

It’s long been a "trademark of Trumpworld," and he has brought it into the White House, decorating the so-called People’s House with as much gold trim as possible, Cauterucci said. And recently at the Trump National Doral Miami golf club, a group of clergy members dedicated a 22-foot-tall golden statue of the president, an idol that is “everything Trump wants to be: larger than life, fit to be worshipped, an embodiment of excess that thumbs its nose at notions of democratic propriety.”

Trump and Graham grew close after the death of Republican Sen. John McCain, of Arizona. Prior to McCain’s death, however, Graham once took pride in standing up to extremism within the Republican Party — at least, before he decided to hitch his political cart to President Donald Trump’s wagon.

Increasingly, that unpopularity has extended to Republicans and Trump’s own MAGA coalition.

'Kill shots': WSJ infuriated as Trump's FDA repeats 'absurdities' to stifle medicine

Matthew Chapman
July 28, 2026 

RAW STORY


Vaccination (Shutterstock)

The Wall Street Journal editorial board continued on Tuesday to express its rage at the Trump FDA for blocking experimental treatments.

Specifically, the board took aim at efforts by regulators to stifle new therapies for late-stage melanoma and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

"President Trump pushed out Marty Makary and his deputy Vinay Prasad this spring in large part because they had scuttled treatments for life-threatening and rare diseases," noted the board, something they have been covering for months. That should have been the end of it, and for a while, it appeared it was, the board continued.

"The FDA under acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas in recent months appeared to be turning around," the board wrote. "The agency is reconsidering many treatments rejected by the previous regime and has scheduled public hearings with outside experts to review medicines."

But now, FDA staff have once again advanced the same arguments that Makari and Prasad's deputies used to block Replimune's cancer therapy and Capricor Therapeutics' cell therapy to treat Duchenne. Trials of these drugs have already shown promising results, but Makari and Prasad, allies of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Health and Human Services chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have had it out for these drugs as part of their demands for control groups, even though there are more ethical ways of testing such treatments.

"The panel ... concocted pretexts to kill the treatment — for instance, the staff opined that maybe biopsies had zapped the tumors. If only biopsies had such miraculous effects," the board wrote. "This week’s briefing document repeats such absurdities and manipulates the data to claim the drug doesn’t work."

The FDA, lamented the board, has had its "bureaucratic culture of control" worsened by Prasad, who "[drove] out division leaders and staffers who didn’t share his anti-industry dogmatism," creating a "leadership vacuum." They concluded: "We hope the experts this week aren’t swayed by the bureaucracy’s kill shots, which underscore why the FDA needs permanent leaders who share the President’s right-to-try principles."