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.”

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.

ICE takes its deportation crusade to the tarmac as airports become hunting grounds: report

Matthew Chapman
July 28, 2026 

RAW STORY


U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents stand guard outside the Whipple Building near a U.S. flag, during a protest against the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, and a rally against increased immigration enforcement across the city, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have a new strategy to round people up for mass deportation: head to the airport.

According to The New York Times, "Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent weeks. Some of the arrests have occurred quietly, while others have happened as angry fellow passengers filmed the encounters" — and it all seems to be the result of a partnership between ICE and the Transportation Security Administration.

This comes after a December report from The Times "that ICE officers were arresting people with deportation orders at airports with the help of information provided by airlines to the T.S.A."

A huge source of illegal immigration into the United States comes from people who enter on lawful visas but overstay. Not all of them have even broken any law on purpose, The Times noted: "Many with expired visas occupy a legal gray area, as they are awaiting visa extensions or green cards and have been issued work permits. Such individuals were not prioritized for deportation in the past unless they had committed crimes, and they were rarely detained while waiting for visa extensions or green cards."

Under the Trump administration, however, these people are fair game to deport.

A viral video this week showed one such arrest, of 27-year-old Ecuadorian national Chantal Morales Rojas, who was held back by plainclothes officers in the jetway after scanning her Southwest Airlines boarding pass from Denver to Oakland, California. The video showed her being seized and led through a side door, while she shouted in panic.

ICE has not just been relying on data from airports; another recent report indicated ICE can gain information on where people live whenever they take out a new credit card.

As the administration has ramped up mass deportation efforts and imposed ever more stringent arrest quotas on ICE agents, reporting from the Washington Examiner suggests that even within ICE itself, morale over their job has plunged to new lows.

Bari Weiss’ CBS News retracts ‘brazen lie’ after false smear of progressive Dem NYC Mayor: report

Alexander Willis
July 28, 2026

RAW STORY


Editor-in-Chief of CBS News Bari Weiss attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 10, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Bari Weiss’ CBS News New York was forced to remove a line from its coverage of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani after journalist Judd Legum identified what he called a “brazen lie” about the progressive Democratic mayor, Legum reported Tuesday.

CBS News’ report centered around a petition launched by Giovanni Galante, whose husband died in the 9/11 attacks, calling for Mamdani – who is Muslim – to stay away from the 25th remembrance ceremony of the attacks. As of Tuesday morning, the petition had more than 24,000 signatures.

The conservative tabloid New York Post ran a report Sunday about the petition, and with the initial headline, according to Legum: “STAY AWAY: Thousands of 9/11 families demand Mamdani be banned from 25th-Anniversary.” On Monday, Legum said CBS News New York published a similar report, in which it claimed “thousands of 9/11 victims’ families” were asking Mamdani not to attend the ceremony

Writing in a report published Tuesday on Popular Information, his independent news publication, Legum noted that the New York Post’s report directly contradicted its own headline by claiming “at least 300 victims’ families” had signed the petition, despite the headline claiming it to have been “thousands.”

To get to the bottom of the discrepancy, Legum conducted an interview with Galante, who went on to admit that no list existed regarding how many of the petition’s signatories were 9/11 victims’ families.

“Rather, the 300 figure that organizers shared with the New York Post was an estimate based on how they believe the petition spread before it received much publicity,” Legum wrote.

Galante went on to explain how organizers came to the 300 figure.

“We all know each other, so…think about it. If you know 10 people and they give it to 10 more people they know that lost,” Galante said, according to Legum. “That’s how we got the 300 number. I don’t go through the list and look at the names.”

Legum later contacted CBS News New York for comment regarding the apparent discrepancy, after which, he said, the outlet had amended its report.

“After Popular Information reached out for comment, that line was removed,” Legum wrote. “A revised article on the CBS website says the petition has ‘purportedly drawn thousands of signatures, including some victims' families.’”

Further supporting Legum’s claim that CBS News New York had amended its report was a Monday post on the publication’s Facebook page, which showed that the original caption retained the "thousands of 9/11 victims’ families” figure before being edited later that same night to “some 9/11 victims’ families.”

Bessent says Americans won't need retirement savings: 'Elon's so far ahead of the curve'

Daniel Hampton
July 28, 2026   

RAW STORY

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., October 22, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night that he agrees with Elon Musk's prediction that artificial intelligence will produce so much abundance that Americans won't need to save for retirement.

The exchange, flagged online by journalist Aaron Rupar, came when Hannity asked Bessent whether he believed Musk's claim that AI-driven wealth would make traditional retirement savings unnecessary.

"I do, but I think I would change the timeline," Bessent said. "I've seen Elon speak for a long time and he is — look, his record speaks for itself in terms, as an inventor, as a venture capitalist, as a great American. He's normally early. He's just so far ahead of the curve. He sees things that no one else sees. But I do think we are building this incredible economy that we can't even imagine."

Bessent added that a quarter of jobs that exist in 2026 didn't exist in 2000.

Musk laid out the underlying vision earlier this year on the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast, calling AI and robotics a "supersonic tsunami" that would bring about a world of zero scarcity.

"Don't worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years," Musk, the world's richest man, told Diamandis. "It won't matter."

Musk predicted that by 2030, AI will exceed "the intelligence of all humans combined," and that humanoid robots will eventually outnumber people.

Bessent's embrace of that forecast landed at a pivotal moment for millions of American retirees.

The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, released in June, projects that the retirement program's primary trust fund will be depleted in 2032, triggering an automatic 22 percent benefit cut for current and future beneficiaries unless Congress acts.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that an immediate 24 percent cut on insolvency would translate to an average monthly reduction of about $500 for retirees, affecting roughly 63 million people.

The trustees also noted the outlook had worsened partly because of the 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which reduced tax revenue flowing into the trust fund.

Musk's original comments were widely panned by financial planners. Business Insider surveyed seven personal finance and AI experts about his advice, all of whom urged Americans to keep saving.