Trump says Netanyahu's trial should be canceled
"Such a WITCH HUNT, for a man who has given so much, is unthinkable to me," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
"Bibi Netanyahu's trial should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero, who has done so much for the State (of Israel)," Trump added.
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The National
an hour ago
- The National
Donald Trump – peacemaker-in-chief or a global agitator?
Serving both Republican and Democratic administrations, including under the presidencies of George W Bush and Bill Clinton, Ross for decades was one of those tasked with navigating the most dangerous of diplomatic waters. It was interesting then to hear him opine last week on current US president Donald Trump's diplomatic negotiating style. 'There is a difference between producing ceasefires and pauses and ending wars,' noted Ross, speaking to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). 'The former stops fighting, the latter deals with the causes of the conflict and forges agreements that resolve the differences – or at least gets both sides to adjust their thinking and produces a modus vivendi.' READ MORE: John Swinney brands Gaza as 'genocide' for first time as Fringe show disrupted Ross's comments came in a week that saw Trump issue a deadline of '10 or 12 days' to Russian president Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire over Ukraine. This weekend, that agreement seems further away than ever after Trump said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to 'be positioned in the appropriate regions' in response to 'highly provocative' comments by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Ross's remarks also came in a week when Washington's allies, France, the UK and Canada, broke with Trump to force a diplomatic shift on Gaza. For despite the US leader's boastful promises on bringing calm to the region – as with his claim to be able to bring peace to Russia's war with Ukraine within 24 hours of returning to office – all of Trump's peace-making promises to date have been colliding with a more complicated reality on the ground. Ukraine In short, Trump's supposed prowess on the peace-making front is not all it's cracked up to be, a point wryly made by Susan B Glasser of the New Yorker magazine a few days ago. 'Wars, it turns out, do not end magically because Trump clicks his heels and demands that they do so,' wrote Glasser in a recent column. As even the most cursory of glances across the global geo-political landscape will quickly confirm, the prevailing reality is a far cry from when Trump, in his January 20, 2025 inaugural address, proclaimed that 'we will measure our success … by the wars we end'. And 'my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker.' Despite the obvious shortcomings to date in this regard, though, America's peacemaker-in-chief – in characteristic mode – has continued to claim great success, a point he was keen to emphasise during his recent trip to Scotland. 'We have many ceasefires going on. If I weren't around, you would have six major wars going on. India would be fighting with Pakistan,' Trump insisted in one of his speeches. As Trump sees it, should that much-coveted Nobel Peace Prize come his way, then he is only too deserving of it. 'If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,' Trump said in October. Trump's ever-loyal mouthpiece, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, never misses an opportunity to remind the world that it's 'well past time' that the president received the prize. Just these past days, Leavitt, at a press briefing, listed the peace deals that the Trump administration has supposedly brokered since taking office. Thailand and Cambodia were the most recent of Trump's peacemaker bona fides. 'The two countries were engaged in a deadly conflict that had displaced more than 300,000 people until President Trump stepped in to put an end to it,' Leavitt insisted. Other conflicts cited by Leavitt included Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), India and Pakistan, and Serbia and Kosovo – all claimed to have been 'resolved' on Trump's watch. One curious outcome in at least two instances, however, was that in the cases of both Pakistan and Cambodia, no sooner were hostilities ceased than their leaders announced that they would nominate Trump for the Peace Prize. Interestingly, too, in Thailand and Cambodia's case, Trump set a 19% levy on imports from both countries, lower than the 36% they originally faced, after earlier this month he threatened to block trade deals with them unless they ended their deadly border clash. Which brings us to another significant factor that many say undermines Trump's claims to be a peacemaker and mediator and instead casts him as a global agitator – trade wars and tariffs. Last week, Trump plunged the global economy into a new round of mercantile competition after hitting dozens of US trading partners with tariffs while formalising recent deals with others, including the UK and EU. While such competition is nothing new in itself, as a Financial Times (FT) editorial on Friday pointed out, in Trump's case, they are often flagrantly politically motivated. On the one hand, Trump portrays the tariffs he has ordered on US trading partners as a simple rebalancing of global trading that is skewed against America. But as the FT points out, 'what is striking, however, is how some of the harshest new measures reflect blatantly political aims – shaped by presidential whim'. The newspaper cites the example of Canada, which has angered Trump with its own plans to recognise a Palestinian state, making it 'very hard', says Trump, to reach a trade deal. The FT also highlights India, already hit by a high tariff rate but which Washington has threatened with an additional penalty while rebuking prime minister Narendra Modi's government for 'buying Russian oil and weapons'. Trump's stance, says the FT, also appears to reflect his dislike of India's membership of the Brics bloc of emerging heavyweight markets and developing nations. During a summit of the 11 emerging economies last month, he threatened an additional 10% tariff on any countries aligning themselves with the Brics's 'anti-American policies'. More than 100 days on from Trump's 'Liberation Day' set of initial tariffs, many say a new global trading order is taking shape, one that The Economist magazine recently referred to as 'a system of imperial preference'. This, argue some analysts, only adds incendiary economic fuel to an already destabilised world, raising the risk that such trade wars might become shooting wars. Allison Carnegie is professor of political science at Columbia University and specialises in global governance and international institutions. Writing recently in the widely respected Foreign Affairs magazine, she said that Trump's trade wars are hardly without precedent and that while 'Trump may think his tariff regime will make the United States richer, safer, and stronger … history suggests it will do just the opposite'. 'In the near term, countries can benefit from wielding trade as a cudgel. But in the long term, trade wars leave almost everyone worse off,' Carnegie notes. 'When countries frequently use economic leverage to secure concessions from vulnerable partners, investment and economic growth go down. Political instability, meanwhile, goes up. States that chafe at economic coercion sometimes turn to their militaries in order to fight back. Countries that once co-operated because of commercial ties turn into competitors. Even close allies drift apart,' Carnegie noted. Few doubt the inherent difficulty in ending protracted conflicts like those in the Middle East and now in Ukraine. Both broke out during the previous administration, enabling Trump to dub them 'Biden's wars'. 'Biden will drive us into World War III, and we're closer to World War III than anybody can imagine,' said the same Trump who on Friday moved US nuclear submarines in response to a social media post by Medvedev. On his presidential campaign trail, Trump often railed against Biden and such 'endless wars' and 'forever wars' and mused that he could resolve them. 'He has made comments on all of them that this could be done quickly or easily and that there are solutions to these problems,' says Aaron David Miller, a State Department diplomat in the Clinton and George W Bush administrations – now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'And yet, he has not been successful in even identifying what I would consider to be a potentially effective strategy for managing, let alone resolving them. And therein lies the challenge,' Miller told broadcaster ABC News in a recent interview. Six months after Trump's inaugural address proclaiming that his presidency would bring 'a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable', and denouncing 'Biden's wars', the data tells a very different story. For in those six months, Trump has already launched nearly as many airstrikes on foreign nations as Biden did within four years. A huge part of this, of course, was 'Operation Midnight Hammer', when Trump decided that he would order the use of 30,000-pound weapons against Iran's nuclear sites. According to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), an independent international data collection monitoring group, since Trump returned to the White House, the US has carried out at least 529 bombings in more than 240 locations in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. His predecessor's administration launched 555 over its entire four years. 'Trump's preference for engagement begs the question: Does this contradict his promise to end America's wars – or are the foreign strikes how he wishes to keep that promise?' ACLED president Clionadh Raleigh said in a statement cited by The Independent last month. 'The recent airstrikes on Iran's nuclear sites have been framed as a major turning point in US foreign policy. But if you take a step back, they don't stand out – they fit,' Raleigh added. Right now, when not riling other nations through his own tariffs and trade wars, ending the fighting in Ukraine and Gaza by far poses Trump's biggest diplomatic challenge. In both cases, he has his work cut out, not least, say some, in that he has appointed the same man, his friend Steve Witkoff, as the US envoy for all three sets of peace talks, involving Ukraine-Russia, Israel-Hamas and Israel-Iran. As Max Boot recently observed in The Washington Post, this 'would test the powers of even a veteran diplomat' … and 'the task is all the more onerous given that Witkoff is a real-estate developer with no background in diplomacy'. Meanwhile, as Gaza bleeds and starves, Trump diplomatically muddles through, as was poignantly described recently by Glasser of The New Yorker. 'In a summer of horror for Gaza, it's hard to recall the unfulfilled promises of last winter, when Trump bragged, in near world-historical terms, of the 'EPIC' ceasefire that he and his team had helped broker,' wrote Glasser recently. 'Now, as Trump stands by and does close to nothing at all, what can we do but wish that he had, for once, been right?' Many critics maintain that a huge part of the problem with Trump's negotiating style is that it fluctuates depending on the current state of his personal relationships with other world leaders. As his second term progresses, Trump's priorities would seem to become more apparent by the day, startling observers and US allies alike. Already there have been calls for US intervention in Panama, Canada and as recently as May, Trump announced that he didn't rule out employing military force to seize Greenland. He has also proposed a $1 trillion US military budget for 2026 – a 13.4 % increase – and again took action to withdraw US support from the UN. Critics continue to accuse him of shaping American foreign policy determined primarily by a desire to pursue his own vendettas toward those that rebuff him and in doing so use whatever means – economic or otherwise – at his disposal. As Ross rightly pointed out, there is indeed 'a difference between producing ceasefires and pauses and ending wars'. To achieve the latter, patience and lengthy negotiations are a prerequisite, and that, as we all know by now, has never been part of the Trump playbook.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Comedian and lifelong Dodgers fan George Lopez 'hurt' after team apparently blocked him over ICE criticism
Comedian George Lopez has claimed the Los Angeles Dodgers have blocked him on social media after criticizing the organization for a perceived lack of action over ICE raids in the city. The 64-year-old has been a vociferous opponent of ICE and has called for his beloved Dodgers to stand up more publicly in support of immigrants in the community. When tension around the raids were at their highest, however, the World Series champions came in for criticsm when singer Nezza was apparently told not to sing the national anthem in Spanish before a mid-June game against San Francisco Giants. On July 12, Lopez claimed on social media that the Dodgers - who visited Donald Trump in the White House earlier this year - blocked him over his opposition to the team, something he has now told People he finds 'hurtful'. Last month, he posted a video on social media of him dancing with the upload captioned: 'POV: You just got blocked by the Dodgers'. In a passionate post, he wrote alongside his upload: 'The Dodgers blocked me on social media for my criticism of the team, so they'll take a stand on me, but not on the treatment of the families who called Chavez Ravine Home before they decided to build a baseball stadium where they lived and where their families called home.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by George ���� Lopez (@georgelopez) Chavez Ravine was a Los Angeles neighborhood home to a largely low-income Hispanic community that was displaced to make way for Dodger Stadium to be built. The stadium eventually opened in 1962 as the Brooklyn Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles to make the ballpark their home. Lopez's July post continued: 'Also no comment from the owners (on ICE).What's happening everyday to the families of the people who are being treated like they don't belong? If anyone doesnt belong it's the Dodgers. 'Maybe since the Dodgers have stayed silient on the issue of the treatment and enforcement of ICE on the Latino Community, maybe at the next fan fest or homestand they can have ICE Agents or these bounty hunters dress up as the visiting team and during the 7th inning stretch they can remove fans, since their loyalty to the team means nothing to them.' The Dodgers, who have been offered the chance to comment by Daily Mail, have not yet spoken publicly about Lopez's claims. But the team did donate $1million in support of families of immigrants impacted by ICE raids in June. Dodgers president and CEO, Stan Kasten, said in a statement: 'What's happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people, and we have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected. 'We believe that by committing resources and taking action, we will continue to support and uplift the communities of Greater Los Angeles.' On June 19, the Dodgers said on social media that ICE agents had been denied entry to their ballpark. Their post read: 'This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization. Tonight's game will be played as scheduled.' Lopez has made no secret of his lifelong Dodgers fandom. In a piece he wrote for ESPN in 2016, he underlined his love for the team and recalled how awestruck he felt when he went to Dodger Stadium for the first time. 'I'll never forget seeing Dodger Stadium for the first time. Little did I know that going to Dodger games would become a tradition for my family,' he wrote. 'I've gone to Dodger Stadium with regularity in the years since... My seats now are a lot better than my 75-cent ticket to the left field pavilion, but nothing is better than looking out from the seats behind home plate and imagining my grandparents both still there.' Trump welcomed the Dodgers to the White House in April to commemorate their 2024 World Series triumph.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Secret Service ex-director who quit after Trump assassination attempt faces fresh humiliation
Kimberly Cheatle, the former Secret Service director who resigned in disgrace following the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, has suffered a new professional blow after receiving news her security clearance will not be renewed. The decision by the Secret Service, first reported by RealClearPolitics came after a wave of fierce opposition from Republican lawmakers, including Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), who led a sweeping investigation into the agency's catastrophic failures at Trump's July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. 'Following the security debacle in Butler, the former director of USSS made the right decision to resign,' Johnson said. 'I see no reason for her security clearance to be reinstated.' Cheatle, handpicked by then–First Lady Jill Biden in 2022, had previously led the agency through what congressional investigators later described as one of the most glaring security breakdowns in presidential protection in modern history. Trump narrowly survived the July 13, 2024, shooting after a bullet grazed his ear, while a local firefighter, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two others were wounded in the chaos. Cheatle stepped down just 10 days later following intense pressure from lawmakers who demanded accountability over a security detail that failed to station an officer on the rooftop where the gunman had positioned himself, among other lapses. The revocation of her clearance is not only a personal humiliation for Cheatle, but also a stark departure from past practice. For decades, the Secret Service has routinely renewed security clearances for its former directors, maintaining open channels for consultations on national security issues. But under new Director Sean Curran, a Trump loyalist and the former head of the president's protective detail, that tradition has now ended. 'Director Curran has been modernizing the intelligence apparatus within the agency,' a Secret Service spokesperson said. 'During that process, he has determined that not all former directors will have their clearances renewed.' The process to renew Cheatle's clearance was already underway until RealClearPolitics inquired about Johnson's objections. Soon after, the agency seemed to reverse course. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), a Judiciary Committee member who jointly investigated the Butler debacle, offered no sympathy. 'Kim Cheatle disgraced the Secret Service by failing to prevent a horrifying attempt on President Trump's life,' Blackburn said in a statement. 'Not only did she oversee one of the greatest security failures in our nation's history, but she also stonewalled congressional oversight and ran away from my colleagues and me when we confronted her. 'Under no circumstances should she be allowed to regain her security clearance, and it is shameful she would even try.' On the one-year anniversary of the Butler rally, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), now chair of the Homeland Security Committee, issued a scathing report accusing Cheatle of lying to Congress when she claimed under oath she had not denied requests for increased security for Trump. Cheatle, speaking through her attorney, denied the accusation in a rare public statement. 'Any assertion or implication that I provided misleading testimony is patently false and does a disservice to those men and women on the front lines who have been unfairly disciplined for a team, rather than individual, failure.' And it appears this may not be the last of it. House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer has said a criminal referral is still on the table. 'If stark evidence of an intentional effort to deceive arises... this Committee will respond,' an Oversight aide said. 'Whether or not Ms. Cheatle's testimony meets the legal definition of misleading Congress, it's clear she failed in her mission leading the agency and appropriately resigned.' According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in July, the Secret Service received classified warnings about a possible Iranian threat to Trump 10 days before the Butler rally but that intelligence that was never passed to agents securing the site. The report, commissioned by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), reinforced suspicions that Cheatle's office had treated Trump more like a former president than a current presidential candidate, despite clear evidence that he was a high-value target. Multiple Secret Service insiders said Cheatle's team had repeatedly denied Curran's requests for additional counter-sniper support and other heightened security assets during the 2024 campaign. Cheatle's fall is just one part of a much larger shake-up in the US intelligence world under Trump's second term. Within 24 hours of retaking office, the president signed an executive order revoking the clearances of dozens of former intelligence officials including the now-infamous '51 spies who lied' who had signed a 2020 letter dismissing the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story as 'Russian disinformation.' Among those stripped of access: John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, Michael Hayden, and John Bolton. In March, Trump went further, ordering the suspension of clearances for the Democratic-aligned law firm Perkins Coie, which was central to commissioning the now-discredited Steele dossier during the 2016 election. A federal judge has since blocked that order, but DOJ lawyers are appealing. National security attorney Sean Bigley said the revocations reflect a reform that is long-overdue. 'You have all of these former government bureaucrats, who are continuing to have access to the highest level of classified information... and then they can go and take that continued insider access and make themselves a hot commodity in the private sector or on the cable news circuit,' Bigley told RCP. 'That's not what security clearances are supposed to be used for – it's a fringe benefit that should be pulled.' Despite Cheatle's ousting, Trump has publicly taken a more tempered tone toward the Secret Service rank-and-file. 'They should have had communications with the local police... So there were mistakes made,' Trump said in an interview last month with Fox News. 'But I was satisfied in terms of the bigger plot... And I have great confidence in these people... They had a bad day. And I think they'll admit that.' Last month, the agency suffered another embarrassing episode when a Secret Service agent tried to sneak his wife onto an Air Force One flight during Trump's overseas trip to Scotland.
