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Japan on Friday enacted a controversial new law prohibiting desecration of the national flag, a key right-wing agenda pushed by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi

Trump's claims about China interfering in U.S. elections were fact-checked by political analysts in real-time using documents he released.In Trump's Thursday night speech, he announced that his administration would be releasing documents and intelligence findings that support his claim that China meddled in the 2020 U.S. elections. However, the documents didn't show anything of the sort, analysts noted.During the speech, CNN senior national security reporter Zachary Cohen pointed out in a post on X that CNN had reviewed documents Trump was talking about in his speech.The documents "largely discuss vulnerabilities that have been known for years and/or are reflected in the 2021 US intel community assessment," Cohen wrote. "None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results — including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost — were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would've changed the outcome."Legal analyst Adam Klasfeld similarly explained in a post on X that "Trump is lying about the intelligence community's findings about China's actions in the 2020 election," and shared the files.One line of findings from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shared by Klasfeld read, "We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US presidential election."Also looking at one of the documents touted by Trump, reporter Sam Stein wrote, "One of the documents that Trump has disclosed tonight has a section noting that China targeted the BIDEN campaign and does 'not currently intend to covertly interfere to try and sway the outcome of the election."Political commentator Kyle Griffin noted, "Donald Trump took 18 months to release documents that he now claims show election activities that would have taken place on his watch in 2020."

Japan’s parliament has enacted a historic revision to the 19th-century Imperial House Law by insisting only paternal-lineage men can become emperor

President Donald Trump is privately furious about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent moves to snub and try to control him, Axios reported on Thursday.The spat between the two, who were firm allies for years as leaders of their respective countries' right-wing coalitions, involves multiple recent incidents.For one, said the report, White House aides "were surprised in recent days to read in the Israeli press that President Trump would host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday," as no such meeting had been scheduled. "Trump said at the time that Netanyahu could visit right after the president returned from the NATO summit in Ankara," but it went nowhere. Insiders told Axios that "Our impression was that Bibi was trying to will a meeting into existence."This was not the only issue widening the rift between Trump and Netanyahu.The argument over the meeting, according to the report, "came after Netanyahu went on Fox News right before Trump left for Ankara and criticized the president's intention to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. One of the White House officials told Axios Trump was 'p----- off' by the interview."The relationship between Trump and the Israeli leader had been deteriorating for months prior to this, driven by Trump's frustration over the lack of a clean resolution to the invasion of Gaza that began in 2023 after a devastating terrorist attack. Several weeks ago, Trump reportedly shouted at Netanyahu in an expletive-filled phone call, telling him "everybody hates you."

Political heavyweight Pete Buttigieg predicted that Marco Rubio is never going to recover from "selling his soul" for one lie.During an interview on The Bulwark Podcast with former GOP operative Tim Miller, Buttigieg talked about how much Rubio has fallen in his eyes since becoming Trump's secretary of state.When Miller asked how Rubio has been doing, Buttigieg said, "If he hadn't asked for it, I would feel sorry for him," but criticized Rubio for testimony he gave before Congress in May 2025. Rubio claimed that no children had died as a result of the Trump administration's foreign aid cuts, Buttigieg said."When Marco Rubio lied to Congress about whether the aid cuts had killed children, when he stood there with a straight face and said no children died over this, when we already knew the names of some of the children who had been killed by this," Buttigieg said."Right then, you could just tell that this guy's just morally — and I hope politically — never going to recover from selling his soul," Buttigieg continued.Miller mentioned that the new book Regime Change revealed that Rubio was "supposed to be the normal, responsible adult in the administration." However, Rubio was "the point man" for cutting a deal with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to receive immigrants deported from the U.S., Miller said."You're going to have a gulag essentially in El Salvador," Miller said, summing up what Rubio negotiated. "We're going to send these people. We were sending innocent people there, and it was absolutely, I think, the most outrageous thing the administration has done."

A Democratic lawmaker had a sharp critique for the Trump administration on Tuesday after President Donald Trump opted to back off plans to charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz.During a live segment with CNN anchor Boris Sanchez, Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) responded to Trump's decision change after the United States was mounting its military offensive in the region and preparing to restart its blockade of the waterway, facing pressure from several Gulf nations who have since offered to invest in the U.S."It's not a major reversal; it's Donald Trump's daily reversal," Crow said. "Literally, this changes by the day. One time the strait is open, the next day it's closed. One day we're going to charge a toll, the next day we're not. The next day, we signed a peace deal, an MOU. The next day we don't. This is what happens."The former Army Ranger said he wasn't surprised by the move."Let's just put it this way — who would have guessed that getting into another war in the Middle East without a plan, without an endgame, without a strategy, without allies, would possibly have ended up like this, right?" Crow said. "It is nuts that, where we are now, six months into this, we have spent over $100 billion! Service members have lost their lives. We've lost our credibility. The Iranian regime is actually more emboldened and has more control over Iran and the Iranian people than it did in February. This is an unmitigated disaster."

Foreign policy expert Trita Parsi sounded the alarm Tuesday over what he suspected would be a “major escalation” from the United States, one he predicted would come “in the next coming days.”“I do suspect that there’s going to be a major escalation from the U.S. side in the next coming days… I think it’s going to be quite terrible,” Parsi said in a video interview published by Zeteo Tuesday.Parsi’s warning comes amid resumed hostilities between the United States and Iran, sparked by Iran’s strike on a container ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which Iranian officials claimed to be in violation of the tentative U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement. Iran has since declared the Strait of Hormuz “closed,” sparking multiple exchanges of fire between the United States and Iran.Beyond announcing that the U.S. would reinstate its naval blockade on Iran, President Trump has not disclosed further details about U.S. military plans. He did, however, promote commentary Tuesday morning encouraging him to “take Kharg Island,” a small Iranian island and oil hub. Experts have warned that seizing Kharg Island would result in "considerable" American casualties.Parsi, the co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, also warned that, even in the “best-case scenario,” the recent flare-up in hostilities would put the United States in a worse negotiating position than it was in last week.“In the absolute best-case scenario, the two sides, through the mediation of regional states, will find some sort of way back to the table. But nothing will have changed even by then – nothing has changed now,” Parsi continued. “The runway for the U.S. before the economic crisis is shorter. The only thing that may have changed is that the illusion that military power can rearrange facts on the ground in a manner that will favor your negotiation position may no longer be an illusion that exists, it may have been dispelled by this. But that’s in a best-case scenario!”‘Major U.S. Escalation’ Against Iran Soon, Experts Tell Zeteo by Mehdi HasanIn a Town Hall Q&A for paid subscribers, Zeteo assembled three Middle East experts to unpack developments in Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza. It’s a conversation you won’t find in the mainstream media.Read on Substack

America First hardliners are viewing Sen. Lindsey Graham's death as a dark opportunity to purge the Republican Party of its remaining interventionist wing and consolidate control over Donald Trump's foreign policy agenda, Politico is reporting.Graham's sudden passing left a gaping hole in the GOP's hawkish establishment — a void that anti-interventionist Trump allies are openly celebrating as a chance to eliminate their final formidable obstacle within the party.Unlike most Republicans, Graham possessed a durable relationship with Trump, which he leveraged consistently to push aggressive foreign policy positions: unwavering support for Israel, robust aid to Ukraine, and advocacy for military strikes against Iran. With him out of the way, Politico is reporting his right-wing critics see it as a "macabre opening" they need to quickly take advantage of."The McCain wing of the 'America Last' party has taken a mortal blow with the death of Graham and the demise of [Sen. Mitch] McConnell," said Steve Bannon, Trump's former White House strategist. "[GOP Sen. Tom] Cotton and the rest of the cabal have neither the gravitas nor the cunning of those two. The Oligarchs in Ukraine and Imperial Israel Proponents are curled up in the fetal position."According to Politico, a former Trump adviser is also excited about gaining more influence with Graham out of the way. Steve Cortes framed Graham's death in nakedly transactional terms."Broadly, whatever the reason, if there are fewer voices in President Trump's ear advocating for intervention that's a great thing. It's a great thing for our country, it's a great thing for our movement, it's a great thing for our party," he said."Still, not all of the president’s America First allies see Graham’s death as a boon to their cause. Some instead frame him as a bridge between a still-hawkish Senate GOP conference and a more anti-interventionist White House — someone who was able to move between both camps in a way that actually helped the America First cause," the report notes with Alex Gray, a former NSC official in Trump’s first term warning, "It actually hurts the America First movement if we don’t have establishment senators who are willing to give America First views a fair hearing, the way Graham did. He inserted kind of an interpretive bridge between the two sides. He did a lot for America First foreign policy.”