Tucker Carlson lays out 10-point platform amid MAGA split
Al Mayadeen | August 6, 2026
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson presented a 10-point political program during a widely promoted livestream on Wednesday, offering what he described as the foundations of a new political movement emerging from growing divisions within the MAGA coalition.
Carlson did not announce the creation of a party or confirm plans to run for office. Instead, he said the proposals could serve as the basis for “whatever comes next” and could “find all kinds of expressions.”
The address followed Carlson’s declaration last month that he intended to “help build a third party.” Speculation surrounding his political ambitions intensified after several figures critical of US President Donald Trump reportedly gathered at Carlson’s home in Maine and encouraged him to seek the 2028 presidency.
Carlson argued that any alternative to the existing US political system must first establish a common understanding of what the country “should be”, organizing his proposals around ten principles.
Equal laws and national sovereignty
Under his first principle, which he called fairness, Carlson demanded that presidents, federal agencies, and powerful political figures be subjected to the same legal standards as ordinary citizens.
He pointed to Jeffrey Epstein and those he described as belonging to an “Epstein class” as examples of wealthy and connected individuals who had benefited from a political and economic system that shields elites from accountability.
Carlson also placed national sovereignty at the center of his platform, condemning foreign lobbying, corporate influence over government and high-interest debt.
He accused “Israel” of pushing Washington into its war against Iran through “bribery or threat or both,” describing foreign interference and economic dependency as forms of “slavery.”
His remarks reflected widening anger among sections of the MAGA movement over Trump’s foreign policy and his administration’s relationship with “Israel”.
Rebuilding production, cities and public health
Carlson called for the revival of US agriculture, industry and skilled trades, arguing that the country’s economy had become excessively dependent on financial markets, property speculation, surveillance technologies and weapons production.
He also criticized the physical condition of American cities, claiming urban planners had deliberately “uglified” them through brutalist architecture and neglect.
Graffiti, public drug consumption and violent crime, he suggested, were not merely signs of decline but attacks on the population’s sense of dignity and social order.
On public health, Carlson backed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign against unhealthy food and promoted widespread sobriety. He also criticized the extensive use of prescription drugs, including Xanax, Adderall and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, claiming that Americans had become “half-addled”.
Government secrecy and social conservatism
Carlson’s program called for penalties against government officials who deliberately mislead the public and demanded the release of most classified state records. He specifically cited files connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the attacks of September 11, 2001, as documents that should be made available to the public.
The former television host also emphasized marriage, childbirth and family life, describing having children as essential to both human biology and long-term political thinking. He blamed older and childless members of the ruling class for supporting policies that, in his view, ignore the interests of future generations.
On education, Carlson said schools should prioritize practical knowledge, the physical world and what he regarded as permanent features of human nature, including innate differences between men and women. He criticized an education system centered on academic credentials, digital devices and technological trends.
Carlson denounces US wars, calls for immigration halt
Carlson said the United States should accept responsibility for civilians killed in its military operations and pay restitution to the families and communities affected. He also called for reversing Trump’s “Department of War” rebrand and ending US financial and military support for allies responsible for what he described as genocide, specifically citing “Israel.”
His final principle focused on national unity and immigration.
Carlson proposed suspending immigration until the consequences of artificial intelligence for the US labor market become clearer, ending government benefits for undocumented migrants and requiring federal documents and election ballots to be published only in English.
Anti-war MAGA faction challenges Trump
Carlson has increasingly become a leading voice among former Trump supporters who argue that the president abandoned the original “America First” agenda. The group has criticized Trump over the war against Iran, his handling of documents related to Epstein and Washington’s continuing support for “Israel.”
Prominent figures associated with the dissident faction include Representative Thomas Massie, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Joe Kent, who resigned as Trump’s counterterrorism chief in March in protest over the war on Iran.
The White House rejected the group’s criticism, describing its members as an “embarrassing collection of mostly whiny turncoats who dramatically overestimate their influence and relevance”. It also insisted that Trump remained the “unequivocal leader” of the Republican Party.
Although Carlson’s address stopped short of establishing a formal political organization, the manifesto marked his clearest attempt yet to define a post-Trump political project capable of appealing to conservatives disillusioned with the administration’s domestic and foreign policies.
US lawmakers seek terror designation for Polisario Front over alleged ‘Iran ties’

The Cradle | August 6, 2026
Two US lawmakers introduced a bill on 30 July calling on the State Department to consider designating the Polisario Front, a group fighting for independence for Western Sahara from Morocco, as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
US Congressmen Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Ronny Jackson of Texas introduced the Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act, claiming the group is receiving assistance from Iran and poses a threat to US national security.
“The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies are working overtime to open a new front against the United States and our allies, and the Polisario Front has become one of their instruments,” claimed Congressman Gottheimer.
However, the congressman acknowledged that no such link between Iran and the Polisario Front has been confirmed.
“This bipartisan bill makes sure that once that cooperation is confirmed, we can bring the full weight of America’s counterterrorism sanctions down on the Polisario Front,” Gottheimer added.
The Polisario Front seeks to make Western Sahara an independent country free from Moroccan control. The front was founded in May 1973 to fight Spanish colonial rule in Western Sahara. After the Spanish left the region in 1976, it proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) with a government-in-exile in Algeria.
However, Morocco quickly occupied much of Western Sahara, claiming it as part of its territory.
The name Polisario Front comes from Spanish words for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro.
This bill follows similar initiatives introduced in Congress during 2025, including one by Republican Senator Ted Cruz.
In 2020, US President Donald Trump recognized Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara as part of a deal for the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords.
France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain followed Washington’s lead in recognizing Morocco’s claim.
Morocco is a major non-NATO ally of the US. According to the Hudson Institute, “designating the Polisario Front as a foreign terrorist organization would solidify the US-Morocco alliance.”
In July, Morocco became the first Arab and African nation to deploy its military to the International Stabilization Force (ISF), which is set to occupy Gaza under the direction of Trump’s “Board of Peace.”
Morocco signed an agreement in Rabat on 15 July to formalize its participation in the ISF, which will work in collaboration with the Israeli military.
Commenting on Morocco’s role in the ISF, a pro-Palestine Moroccan activist stated that “I don’t know what Morocco’s role will be [in the ISF] other than perhaps disarming the resistance [Hamas] and even supervising a new colonization of the Gaza Strip by the American-Zionist entity.”
Since signing the Abraham Accords, Morocco has continued to expand military and security ties with Israel.
In May 2025, Israeli forces publicly participated in the kingdom’s annual “African Lion” military drill, which brought together 10,000 troops from more than 40 participating countries.
During the opening ceremonies of the yearly exercise, jointly organized by Rabat and the US Africa Command, the Israeli flag was openly displayed for the first time.
Last week, the Moroccan government organized tens of thousands of Moroccan migrant men to storm the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the coast of North Africa.
In July, a budget report approved by the US Congress for the first time described Ceuta and Melilla as Spanish-administered cities “located in Moroccan territory” that “remain the subject of Morocco’s longstanding claim.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for Spain to be punished for trying to prevent the US military from delivering weapons to the Israeli military for use in its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Israelis widely celebrated the storming of Ceuta by Moroccan men on social media.
Responsible Statecraft wrote that the Moroccan government may have been deploying “migration blackmail” to punish European nations. “But this time, Israel and the United States appear to be the principal beneficiaries.”
US Overestimates Capacity to Wage War on Iran While Supporting Ukraine
Sputnik – 06.08.2026
Ukraine believed it could outsmart Russia by placing its most advanced drone facilities under the protection of Patriot air defenses around the capital, military historian Yury Knutov tells Sputnik, adding that the calculation proved wrong — American interceptor missiles ran dry.
“Germany, Norway, the Baltic states, and the Gulf monarchies that purchased Patriot systems are now confronted with the fact that the American shield has holes in it – and can no longer be fully relied upon,” says the pundit.
Reports say the Trump administration discovered its interceptor stockpiles had been drastically depleted, forcing it to scale back plans for large-scale strikes on Iran and deny Ukraine’s request for additional Patriot missiles. The Iran war was identified as a key driver of the shortages.
“For the next 3-5 years, the US will be forced to operate under strict constraints, unable to simultaneously protect all of its assets in the Middle East and continue supporting Ukraine,” Knutov says, commenting on reports that US missile stockpiles may not recover until 2029-2031.
The US may also scale back protection of its allies, the pundit suggests:
- Ukraine is only the first warning sign – other allies could be next to face reduced US air-defense support
- Many Iranian missiles aimed at the Gulf now go unchallenged as US troops conserves scarce interceptors for defending their own bases in the region
- A number of US units not directly involved in air operations or air defense have been withdrawn from the Middle East
The Imbalance in the Iran War is Critical
“Even if the US multiplies production several times over, it will never match Iran in terms of cost or production speed,” Knutov says. “Iran can manufacture missiles and drones at a fraction of the cost, while its facilities are dispersed and protected.”
A war of attrition against Iran would be a losing strategy for the US from the outset, the expert concludes.
Ceuta and immigration as a hybrid warfare weapon
By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 6, 2026
In the past week, images of tens of thousands of Moroccans—at least 60,000—invading the Spanish city of Ceuta, breaking through the border barriers with Morocco, took over social media. The autonomous city, which has only 80,000 inhabitants, had to deal with attempted home invasions and various other crimes by the invaders, who were then confronted by security forces and some self-organized groups of citizens.
These 60,000 invaded Ceuta all together, and some images and videos on social media show trucks dumping immigrants near the Spanish border. Photos revealed Moroccan police officers trying to prevent some invaders from returning to their own country. Still, thanks to the action of Spanish security forces and citizens, most of the invaders appear to have already returned to Morocco—and many of them did so voluntarily shortly after entering Ceuta.
The case had a great global impact, especially in Europe, with several governments reinforcing their own borders and Italy recommending that Spain be removed from the Schengen Area.
Several aspects of this event are noteworthy, however.
First, to lay the groundwork: contrary to the many “progressives” who sympathized with the invasion under the argument of “decolonizing” Ceuta, the reality is that Ceuta is not a colony. The city was conquered by Portugal in 1415, passed to Spain in 1580, and since then it has been an uninterrupted Spanish possession. But even the period before 1415 is linked to Europe. Let us recall that from the year 40 to the year 709, Ceuta was governed, in succession, by the Romans, the Vandals, the Byzantines, and the Visigoths, until it was conquered by the Arabs—who, let us also remember, are also foreign invaders in North Africa. After that, Ceuta changed hands several times between Arab and Berber kingdoms until, as already mentioned, it was conquered by Portugal in the context of the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula after 700 years of Moorish military occupation and to put an end to Mediterranean piracy.
To speak of returning Ceuta to its “true owners,” therefore, makes no sense. If Spanish rule over Ceuta is illegitimate, then all territorial changes, expansions, conquests, and occupations on the planet over the last 600 years are illegitimate.
Nevertheless, Morocco claims Ceuta (as well as Melilla) on rather dubious grounds. First, for the reasons already pointed out. Second, because Morocco as a state is quite recent, being less than 100 years old, and has never owned Ceuta or Melilla. This is not Morocco’s only dubious territorial claim; after all, its government also claims Western Sahara, which has been fighting for its independence for decades. Western Sahara is supported by Algeria against Morocco, while Spain defends the completion of the territory’s decolonization and the granting of at least autonomy to the region.
Only two countries in the world, however, recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara unconditionally: the USA and Israel.
It is difficult, therefore, not to start connecting the dots between the recent events in Ceuta and the entire recent panorama of tensions between Pedro Sánchez’s Spanish government and the governments of the USA and Israel. Spain, under Sánchez, has been the most vocally critical country of Israel, especially during the ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Furthermore, the country did not allow the U.S. to use its territory to carry out attacks against Iran. As a result, Spain earned the enmity of both countries, which have been making veiled threats for some time now.
A few years ago, even Benjamin Netanyahu’s son made a social media post recommending that Muslims take Ceuta and Melilla.
Another factor that may have influenced this crisis is the fact that in July of this year, Spain and Algeria resumed normal diplomatic relations after several years of rupture. Moreover, Spain decided to increase imports of Algerian gas, as well as putting other possible joint projects on paper. Algeria, as we have pointed out, is a geopolitical enemy of Morocco, just as Spain is.
It is necessary, however, to point out that Sánchez and the Spanish judiciary are also partially responsible for the migration chaos. A few months ago, Sánchez legalized more than 1 million illegal immigrants, in practice demonstrating that invading Spain pays off. Spain’s Supreme Court, in turn, prohibited authorities from carrying out summary expulsions of immigrants who arrived in the country by boat. For all intents and purposes, the decisions of the Executive and the Judiciary facilitated the work of agencies that promote migration.
By embracing cosmopolitanism, Sánchez and the Spanish elite have made the country an easy target for the use of migratory flows as hybrid warfare weapons—because that is what this is about. It is time to overcome the humanist naivety that sees mass immigration as a humanitarian phenomenon in which victims of imperialism flee desperately in search of a better life.
In fact, migratory flows as seen in Europe over the last 20 years are clearly artificial, and considering Israel’s role in promoting “diversity” and even the action of Israeli NGOs helping immigrants reach Europe, it is difficult to ignore the agents who wield this instrument.
Another Strange Week in Trumpland
By Philip Giraldi | Unz Review | August 5, 2026
Some weeks it is difficult to pick out the most shocking stories symptomatic of decline and fall of American governmental integrity both in Washington and often at state levels. The White House and Congress frequently lead in that reckoning given the complete abandonment of any United States government’s effort to make its policies and legislation responsive to actual national interests. Wars are being fought without any reason to do so and domestic policies are derived from “feelings” that President Donald Trump has when he gets up on the morning. The result is chaos when the policies are actually developed and implemented.
Last week we long suffering Americans were forced to witness pure Trumpean flip-flops on major pronouncements relating to foreign policy. First came the pronouncements that Iran had more-or-less reached out to Trump and sought a return to negotiations for a ceasefire and peace agreement. The claim was immediately denied by Tehran and nearly all observers agreed that the Iranians would have to be crazy to trust Washington and its “word” over any issue given Trump’s history of subsequently disregarding documents signed and agreements reached. Trump then responded to the Iranian denial by threating to unleash hellfire in his usual fashion, replete with obscenities and threats of obliteration for the Persian people in a holocaust more devastating than World War 2.
Some observers have noted that Trump’s threats of annihilation are clearly unachievable in practical terms given the rundown of US munitions stocks and the difficulty in manufacturing replacements due to Chinese refusal to sell exotic metals to the Americans and the loss of Saudi and Emirate refineries that produced high grade aluminum for fuselages of warplanes. So if Trump really seeks to act out his schoolboy fantasies of death and destruction he will have to go nuclear. It is ironic that he has based the war against Iran on his oft repeated stated intention to prevent Iranian development of a nuclear weapon, a program which US intelligence has insisted does not exist. Only the US both possesses and has used nukes to kill civilians and that was in 1945.
Given all the mixed signals coming out of Washington, it is perhaps unnecessary to point out that a war that was pointless and unnecessary in the first place is still sputtering along with Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing for its expansion from the sidelines using lies crafted to convince a clueless Trump. “Far better at this point,” says Netanyahu, “to see American soldiers die to destroy Iran rather than waste any of our wonderful Jewish boys, each of whom is worth 1,000 goyim.” Actually, we Americans are lucky to be only 1/1,000th times in terms of Jewish relative value. One Israeli Lawyer calculates that each Jewish life is worth 10 million Palestinians!
That Trump is deep into a war that is destroying his presidency and only benefiting Israel is the ultimate tragedy for the American public and also vis-à-vis the other nations in the world that once looked up to the United States for its commitment to democracy and rule of law. Israel is now rightly the most hated nation in the world, but the US is number two! And the rot regarding who is doing what to whom runs particularly deep if one regards the confusion in the US military role that the Trump Administration has clearly encouraged.
One story that appeared in the Washington Post last week was particularly painful, describing the concerns of the US General Alexus Grynkewich, who is head of the US European Command. He described in a memo his concerns over his insufficient stock of defensive-capable Naval destroyers. The article elaborated how Grynkewich “… sent written notification to senior Pentagon officials saying that without another Navy destroyer he will be forced to choose defense of the United States ‘homeland’ over that of Israel, …” My reading of this is that the general is personally perplexed over whether his orders emanating from the White House would prioritize his defending the United States rather than Israel. That he is apparently unable to clearly understand that defending his own country is and must always be his top priority is both incomprehensible and a clear sign how the unconscionable love of the Jewish state by the Joe Biden and Donald Trump regimes has destroyed any sense of the actual raison d’etre for having any military at all!
Indeed, Donald Trump and his friends in power are quick to play soldiers whenever it suits them. I love watching Trump the draft dodger standing to attention and saluting without taking his funky red hat off, a military posture he once upon a time chose to avoid in Vietnam by way of fraudulent medical claims of bone spurs when his draft board called him up for service after he graduated from college in 1968. To add to the irony, Trump has a number of times stated that he should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH) for his largely fictional “peacemaking role,” a medal that in actuality is the highest award for soldiers who demonstrated valor in combat, which does not include Donald Trump.
But even given that bit of regular play acting, Trump’s AI posting on his Truth Social last week exceeds all decency in the eyes of those of us, including myself, who went into the army after college instead of Trump, who had the both the money and lack of patriotism to pay a doctor for his fake medical report. In the posting, Trump portrayed himself in full dress uniform flanked by World War 2 Generals Douglas MacArthur and George S Patton. He is standing in front of the two men and has four general stars on his shoulders plus a chest full of medal ribbons, a higher rank and more awards that either MacArthur or Patton in the AI photoshop. One medal on Trump appears to be a CMH. It is an insult to the memories of those two brave men depicted and to describe the imposture as both disgraceful and obscene would not be going too far!
One more tale out of last week demonstrates the president’s continuing willingness to enrich his family and supporters out of behavior that is generally conceded to be illegal “insider trading.” It has frequently been observed how the president has a tendency to make pronouncements of a political or economic nature on Mondays and Fridays, i.e. to impact on the opening and closing of Wall Street and other investment markets. Investors armed with that advanced information can and have benefited financially greatly by playing the predictable surges caused by White House actions. Those with prior knowledge of what is going to happen benefit particularly, to include Trump personally and his family.
In the latest version of that reality, Trump is selling through his family company Trump Media & Technology Group early access to premium data product released on its new subscription service to his Truth Social posts, where the pronouncements will appear. The cost is $100,000 per month to investors, who will then be able to benefit substantially from the shifts in the stock market. So far five investor firms have signed up and its is already expected that Trump personally will benefit directly from his ownership share of Truth Social distribution to the tune of 41% of the $6 million of existing committed revenue. Critics have observed that Trump “must have invented a new theory of ‘insider trading’ based on publicly available information.”
In conclusion and ironically, Trump sometimes boasts how he accepts no government salary as president but in 2025 he declared “more than $2 billion in personal income last year—nearly quadruple his 2024 total—with the bulk flowing from ventures that sit directly at the intersection of his office and his balance sheet. He earned roughly $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency alone, including $635 million in royalties from his $TRUMP meme coin and more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture run by his sons.”
Want to corruptly earn a couple of billion dollars while killing a whole bunch of people in fighting wars and supporting genocides that didn’t need to happen? Ask US President Donald Trump how it is done!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Trump returns to talking on Ukraine but war must mature first
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | August 6, 2026
Russian President Vladimir Putin fired the political equivalent of an Oroshnik hypersonic missile Wednesday to scatter the recent pot shots by hawkish factions at the Russian ‘power vertical’, never a unified construct actually, over the future directions of Ukraine war.
Putin coolly announced at a Kremlin meeting Wednesday with the Defense Ministry leadership a major reshuffle of Russian commanders in the special military operation zone asserting that he has his own mind about tactic and strategy and intends to continue with the special military operation to its logical conclusion, while retaining the structural patterns.
Simply put, Russia’s Bismarck does not want to be remembered in posterity as someone who wantonly sacrificed the lives of his country’s youth to conquer foreign lands for self-glorification.
It is a noble decision — pragmatic and tactical but also strategic. This will mean Russia’s attritional war will continue but a paradigm shift to put maximum pressure on the leadership of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to be expected. Indeed, the massive missile strikes at Kyiv in recent days are no longer meeting with missile interceptors, as Americans do not have surplus stocks to spare.
Put differently, there has been a paradigm shift as Russian forces gain ground all across the frontline while there are growing signs of demoralisation within the Ukrainian army whose command and control system has become shaky following the recent dismissal of Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and the replacement of Defence Minister Mykhailo Federov.
Putin has reposed confidence in the military commanders who worked as a team in advancing the special military operation. From the political perspective too, Putin is pleased with the return of the US administration — and President Donald Trump personally — to the Ukraine settlement process.
The big picture also needs to be factored in, as Washington’s high-level contacts with Beijing are intensifying and Moscow cannot afford to lag behind. Russia’s sherpa to the APEC summit at Shenzhen Ambassador-at-Large Marat Berdyev told Izvestia recently, “It’s premature to discuss specific meetings. However, in my opinion, such a trilateral contact [US-Russia-China] would be very useful. In practical terms, it’s entirely feasible, as three leaders of the leading powers are expected at the designated venue.”
Certainly, the first in-person meeting in Manila on May 25 between foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov and Marco Rubio since September of last year was a defining moment. Ukraine was largely the focus of the meeting. Rubio told the media there was a need to seek “new proposals and new ideas,” adding that Washington was prepared to present “some of them in the appropriate context and format.”
This marked a departure from the Anchorage agreements of last August. But Moscow decided not to make an issue of it and instead signalled appreciation that after a lengthy pause, the US was renewing efforts to restart the Ukraine negotiation process.
In a subsequent interview with Fox News on August 1, Rubio announced that Washington was once again ready to work with Moscow and Kyiv to achieve peace, despite the two countries’ existing “strict red lines.” Rubio stated that Moscow and Kyiv have “some pretty strong red lines. Until we can bring these red lines closer together, we won’t achieve our goal. But we are ready to act.”
Rubio also touched on how Washington envisioned the main goal of its diplomacy in the new phase: “The dynamics of the conflict have changed somewhat in recent months, with the Ukrainian side now capable of striking deep into Russian territory and making the Russians feel the effects of this war. Therefore, we want to explore whether this new dynamic can lead to some kind of negotiated settlement.”
But to be sure, Rubio would also have been aware that the emergent reality included sustained and massive Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, and that a major drone production facility belonging to the American company Terminal Autonomy was destroyed last week. According to the Guardian, this company manufactured high-precision drones for “deep strikes” in Ukraine, with guidance systems resistant to Russian electronic countermeasures. Of course, Russians were making a point.
On the other hand, Trump retracted from an earlier offer during the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8 to allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missile; and he also failed to respond to a request from Zelenskyy for an “emergency winter package of 300 Patriot missiles” without waiting for licensed production to begin.
The White House and SpaceX are also non-committal apropos of Zelenskyy’s proposal to Trump on July 28 to lift Starlink’s geographic restrictions over Russian territory that would enable Ukraine to use Starlink’s real-time connection to steer long-range drones against mobile Russian ballistic missile launchers positioned deep inside Russia.
Furthermore, it transpires that the new scheme by the US’ European allies for American arms supplies to Ukraine under the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) programme is stalling. Despite $4.5 billion flowing into the US Treasury under PURL as of March, no contracts have been signed so far.
Finally, the ‘Graham bill’ imposing oil sanctions on Russia may not after all pass before the legislative recess which begins on August 10, as it has become part of a bargaining chip between the Democratic and Republican parties. If consideration of the bill drags on and if the Congress comes under Democratic Party control, the ‘bipartisan consensus’ over the bill may well wither away even as Lindsey Graham becomes a distant memory. The White House is in no hurry to pass the bill.
However, such ‘feel good’ signalling notwithstanding, fundamental disagreements over key terms of a peace settlement continue to prevent Moscow and Kyiv from resuming full-fledged dialogue. Due to the escalating conflict over Iran, Washington is currently unable to exert the necessary pressure on Kyiv. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to visit Kyiv in the second half of August.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s attacks on civilian infrastructure within Russia are only intensifying, against the backdrop of Russia’s Duma elections. Russia’s retaliatory missile strikes have reached a massive scale.
The bottom line is that the chances of Moscow agreeing to Kyiv and Washington’s new terms are low. So, the nascent negotiation process would inevitably return to square one, which in turn will trigger another round of escalation. Perhaps, Russia anticipates such an eventuality.
One positive factor is that Trump himself would seek to achieve at least interim results in the negotiations before the mid-term congressional elections. But then, a powerful lobby representing the US military-industrial complex advocates a continuation of the conflict.
The Kremlin meeting on Wednesday and the reshuffle of army commanders steering the special military operation in Ukraine messages that negotiations can only become feasible when the parties are willing to make mutual concessions, and for that to happen, two pre-requisites of the situation are needed, namely, Russia’s battlefield victory and regime change in Kyiv.
60-DAY HORMUZ ARRANGEMENT CONFIRMED BY TEHRAN & OMAN — w/ Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi
Mario Nawfal | August 5, 2026
Did the US military take down a civilian plane?
RT | August 5, 2026
The US military’s GPS jamming exercises have been directly implicated in a fatal plane crash for the first time, after an air ambulance flew into a mountain range in New Mexico while its guidance system was scrambled.
Details of the crash, which took place in May, were revealed in a recent preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The report explains how the jamming exercises interfered with multiple aircraft, pushing air traffic controllers to the breaking point as they attempted to reroute flights using traditional means of navigation. Amid the confusion, a medevac flight with four people on board strayed miles off course, crashing into mountains at full speed on a moonless night.
What happened to the plane?
Shortly after 11 PM on May 13, the crew of a Beechcraft King Air 90 air ambulance were given a straightforward mission: fly for roughly 20 minutes from Roswell to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, pick up a patient, and transport them to Albuquerque for treatment. Two pilots and two nurses boarded the turboprop aircraft and took off, flying west.
Within minutes, controllers noticed that the plane was flying 1,000 feet above its assigned altitude. The plane’s captain informed controllers that he had lost GPS signal, and controllers responded by ordering him to correct his altitude, fly north, and await alternate directions to Sierra Blanca, where he would perform an instrument landing – using radio beacons to line up with the runway and descend at the correct angle.

Meanwhile, controllers got in touch with the military and requested that the jamming exercise be paused.
What was the military doing?
Some 40 miles away, at the White Sands Missile Range, the US Air Force’s 746th Test Squadron was holding its annual NAVFEST drills. These exercises bring together electronic warfare (EW) units from multiple branches of the armed forces, engineers from the defense industry, and teams from other NATO states to practice GPS interference, navigation, and drone defense on a desert plain once used to test atomic bombs.
Prior to the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned aircraft operators that GPS could be affected up to 400 miles from the exercises between May 12 and May 18.

A map showing GPS interference around White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on the night of the crash © GPSJAM
How did the plane crash?
As the plane continued north, controllers informed the captain that they would send vectors – a series of compass headings – to align the plane for landing “in a couple minutes.” However, the controllers were busy redirecting four other aircraft that had lost their GPS, and the vectors never came.
At eight minutes past midnight, the pilots spotted the runway lights at Sierra Blanca, roughly 31 miles to their southwest. They decided to navigate visually to the airport, informed controllers, and turned towards their destination. Apparently, they never intended to approach from this direction, and didn’t notice the 10,000-foot Capitan Mountains between them and the runway.
Controllers informed the military that it could resume jamming, and the plane descended towards Sierra Blanca, its altimeter still reading 600 feet higher than the plane’s actual altitude. As the mountains rose out of the darkness and obscured the distant runway, the pilots attempted to pull up, but were unable to avert disaster.
The plane slammed into the mountainside, instantly killing everyone on board and igniting a forest fire that took almost a month to extinguish.
What has the US military said?
The US Army did not respond to questions from the Associated Press, and has not released a public statement on the crash in the almost two months since the NTSB’s report was published.
Much about the incident is still unknown. It is unclear whether the pilots were aware that the FAA had warned about potential GPS interference, whether their ground proximity warning system – which should have told them to climb to avoid the crash – was affected by the jamming, and why they were unaware of a large mountain range in the area.
The NTSB’s report is preliminary, and the board will not identify the precise cause of the crash until its investigation concludes next year.
Are more flights at risk?
The crash marked the first time that GPS jamming by the US military has been implicated in a fatal accident. However, civilian aircraft have been affected by jamming exercises before. In March of last year, airliners approaching Washington DC’s Reagan International Airport received warnings from their planes’ Traffic Collision Avoidance System, instructing them to immediately descend to avoid hitting non-existent traffic in their paths. It later emerged that electronic warfare testing by the US Secret Service caused the false alerts.
Such incidents will likely become more common, as the Pentagon increases its spending on, and testing of, EW equipment. Since at least 2020, the US has been aware that its military trails Russia and China in developing and integrating EW systems, and lawmakers have pushed the Pentagon to close the gap.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has demonstrated just how wide that gap is, even between the US and its own client regime in Kiev. In a conflict where every Ukrainian advance in drone technology is countered by Russian EW specialists within weeks, and vice versa, US weapons systems – including GPS-guided shells and missiles – were rendered “useless” by mid-2023, according to media reports.
Since then, the Pentagon has asked Congress to fund more electronic warfare experiments in the US, and last year, the Army published its first ever Comprehensive Electromagnetic Warfare Strategy, promising to embed EW systems into every unit of the branch by 2028.
The US has the world’s busiest airspace, with more than 44,000 flights handled by the FAA every day. It is inevitable that a growing number of these flights will be affected by electronic warfare in the future, and that the risk to civilians will increase as the Pentagon tries to catch up with its adversaries.
AIPAC spends $30m but fails to stop El-Sayed in Michigan
MEMO | August 5, 2026
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has suffered a major electoral defeat after Dr Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, crushing pro-Israel congresswoman Haley Stevens despite an unprecedented spending campaign on her behalf.
AIPAC’s super political action committee, the United Democracy Project, spent more than $30 million promoting Stevens and attacking El-Sayed, according to Federal Election Commission filings analysed by the New York Times. NBC News projected El-Sayed as the winner on Wednesday, dealing a major blow to the pro-Israel lobby’s efforts to determine the outcome of one of the most closely watched Democratic contests in the country.
El-Sayed campaigned against US military assistance to Israel and repeatedly highlighted AIPAC’s intervention in the race. Stevens, by contrast, received the backing of AIPAC and the Democratic Party establishment.
The result is seen as providing some of the clearest evidence yet that association with Israel and its powerful lobby groups is becoming a political liability among Democratic voters as opposition grows to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the unconditional support it receives from Washington.
A New York Times investigation published before the primary result was announced revealed the scale of AIPAC’s transformation from a traditional lobbying organisation into one of the largest spenders in US elections.
Spending by AIPAC-affiliated political action committees on campaign advertising and voter outreach has more than doubled in less than five years, rising from $29.3 million to $67.2 million. Much of the money has been directed towards Democratic primaries, where the lobby has sought to defeat candidates who criticise Israel or question US military assistance to the occupation state.
However, the investigation uncovered a striking feature of AIPAC’s campaign strategy: it rarely reveals its connection to Israel.
Between April 2022 and the end of July, AIPAC-funded groups produced 109 television and digital adverts. Only six mentioned Israel. Instead, the adverts focused on issues such as abortion rights, the economy and the cost of living, despite being financed specifically to elect politicians who support Israel.
AIPAC’s reluctance to mention Israel is seen as a reflection of a deeper political problem: open association with the Israeli government has become increasingly toxic following the mass killing, displacement and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
The lobby is effectively asking voters to support Israel’s preferred candidates without making Israel itself part of the public argument.
AIPAC has also channelled approximately $22 million into five smaller super PACs with innocuous names that make no reference to Israel. These include Elect Chicago Women, Affordable Chicago Now!, Voters for Responsive Government and Blue Wave Action.
The Michigan contest became the lobby’s largest gamble. United Democracy Project spent more than $10 million promoting Stevens and over $20 million attacking El-Sayed through advertising and voter outreach.
Nevertheless, El-Sayed prevailed.
El-Sayed’s victory is thought to be particularly significant because Michigan is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the US and became the centre of the “Uncommitted” movement, which challenged former President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Signs of the political backlash were already visible in April when Stevens and another AIPAC-backed politician were booed during the Michigan Democratic Party Convention. El-Sayed and his former primary rival, Mallory McMorrow, had both pledged to reject AIPAC funding.
AIPAC has previously succeeded in removing several prominent critics of Israel, spending millions of dollars to defeat former Democratic representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. It has also targeted Republicans who questioned US military support for Israel.
However, the lobby has faced a growing number of defeats. Summer Lee survived repeated AIPAC-funded attempts to remove her, while candidates in Illinois and New Jersey successfully used their opponents’ links to the lobby against them.
Polls have also documented a rapid decline in support for Israel. A majority of Americans now oppose providing economic and military assistance to Israel, while Democratic voters have become increasingly critical of both Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the influence of pro-Israel lobbying organisations.
Abdul el-Sayed defeats AIPAC-backed rival in Michigan primary, defying millions in lobby spending
The Cradle | August 5, 2026
Abdul el-Sayed, a former public health official, has won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, defeating AIPAC-backed Representative Haley Stevens in a close race, NBC News reported on 5 August.
Sayed won despite being heavily outfunded, with outside groups pouring close to $65 million into the race to stop him.
More than $30 million of the television advertising behind Stevens came from a group affiliated with the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC.
Taken together, Stevens and her allies outspent Sayed and the groups supporting him on advertising by a factor of nine to one, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Sayed pointed to the imbalance in his closing argument, saying during a debate, “If you need a $60 million crutch, you probably can’t be elected on your own terms.”
He also went after Stevens’ support for aid to Israel, and stated outright that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a position that carries particular weight in Michigan, home to large Muslim and Arab communities.
Sayed made Stevens’ backing from AIPAC and corporate political action committees a central charge against her, attacking both the funds she accepted directly and the advertising her big-spending allies bought on her behalf.
Stevens, a four-term congresswoman, ran with the backing of the Democratic establishment, positioning her campaign squarely within the party leadership alongside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer endorsed her on 24 July in a late move seen as an attempt to stifle Sayed’s rise. Outgoing Senator Gary Peters, whose seat is at stake, also endorsed her after deciding not to seek a third term.
Despite the cumulative hurdles, Sayed’s victory follows a run of defeats for AIPAC-funded candidates in Democratic primaries this cycle.
On 30 June, Democratic socialist Melat Kiros unseated Diana DeGette in Colorado’s 1st congressional district by nearly 10 percentage points, ending a 30-year congressional career built in part on well over $1.6 million from AIPAC.
A week earlier, in New York, Brad Lander defeated Dan Goldman after attacking his refusal to call the assault on Gaza a genocide or to back restrictions on arms sales to Israel, while Darializa Avila Chevalier unseated Adriano Espaillat in a campaign centered on his acceptance of AIPAC money.
A senior House Democrat called the Colorado result a wake-up call, with support for Israel turning from an asset into a liability. Strategist Jon Paul Lupo told POLITICO that candidates opposing the war on Gaza held a massive political advantage this cycle.
Pew Research Center polling released in April found 60 percent of US citizens now view Israel unfavorably, with very unfavorable sentiment nearly tripling since 2022, while a Gallup poll in February recorded more US citizens sympathizing with Palestinians, at 41 percent, than with Israelis, at 36 percent – the first such result in US history.
El-Sayed Wins Michigan Democratic Primary for Senate

Al-Manar – August 5, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive public health advocate, has won the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate, overcoming more than $60m in campaign spending, mostly from pro-Israel groups, NBC has projected.
The result on Tuesday represents an enormous blow to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which led the way in the effort to defeat El-Sayed, backing his opponent, US Congresswoman Haley Stevens, with more than $30m.
El-Sayed will face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in November. The race is considered one of a handful of competitive Senate contests in the November midterms and could determine which party controls the chamber for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term.
If El-Sayed – who is of Egyptian descent – wins in November, he would become the first Muslim senator in US history.
Tuesday’s result in Michigan – a swing state that voted for Trump in 2024 – will have major implications for the Democrats’ policies on conflicts in the Middle East.
El-Sayed recognizes Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as a genocide and argues that money spent on conflicts that benefit ‘Israel’ should be invested in local communities in the US to address healthcare, housing and infrastructure problems.
Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, a non-partisan advocacy group that does not endorse candidates, called El-Sayed’s victory a “big deal”.
She said voters “did not buy” the avalanche of ads that did not talk about policies and only launched negative attacks “about an Arab American Muslim man named Abdul”.
Did Israel have a hand in Morocco’s Ceuta stunt?
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 4, 2026
There are a great deal of conspiracy theories floating around since the extraordinary events in recent days in northern Morocco, where an estimated 50,000 of its citizens attempted to place themselves in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. In a country where the press are heavily controlled and free-spirited citizen journalism is assiduously discouraged, it’s hardly surprising there is speculation – given how in the dark the government operates most of the time. Yet few, if any Moroccans, believe the government narrative that the entire thing developed an energy of its own on social media platforms and that the state itself was taken by surprise. True, a lot of how quickly the information spread was due to social media platforms, but there are too many oddities which can’t be ignored that point the finger at the government – or whoever is running Morocco – for organising the huge mobilisation. Firstly, the number of trucks full to the brim of young men who drove all the way to the border and were directed by police and gendarmerie; secondly, the more recent scenes of hundreds of these young men at bus and train stations all over the country on their way home, where clearly their transportation has been paid for by someone; and of course, lastly but not least, the fact that Moroccan police on the Moroccan side of the border made no effort at all – not even a token effort – to stop people from going around the fence or into the water. In fact, many of those who made the journey have already told media that they were actually directed and encouraged to “go to Spain” by those same police officers.
Moroccans know only too well what is happening. They remember the few times before when thousands of African migrants also magically all turned up at the border with Ceuta and Melilla and also remarkably found on that particular day no Moroccan police officers and so scaled the fence. On at least two occasions in recent years, this stunt has been used by Rabat to indicate to Madrid how angry and displeased it is about Spain’s actions over Algeria, Western Sahara or other regional policies.
But those days were before 2022, when relations with Spain were far from ideal. These days, since Madrid backed Morocco’s sovereignty bid for Western Sahara, relations – until just the other day – were as best as they could get. Almost.
It’s important to remember how easily good relations with Spain could turn sour, and that in recent weeks Madrid’s rapprochement with Algeria and moves afoot in the Spanish parliament to give the indigenous people of Western Sahara Spanish passports could ruin everything that has been achieved overnight. Why would Rabat throw away a relationship so important to it, unless there is something else at play which analysts and journalists alike are missing? Is there another dimension to the Ceuta story which we are entirely missing?
According to the Iranians, Israel had a hand in what happened. Tehran believes that the Moroccans have been led down the garden path by primarily Israel and then Trump, and some recent events suggest there could be some truth in their assertion.
There is an obvious question here to be asked, which no Western journalists have so far identified. Trump and Netanyahu both have Spain in their crosshairs and desperately want to make the country a pariah state, cutting off U.S. aid and even having Madrid ousted as a NATO member. Of course, some of this is unrealistic and far-fetched, but it is rare that Trump and Bibi see eye to eye on the Iran war – when it comes to Spain and Morocco, there is clarity. It is clear that Israel and the U.S. are trying to stir trouble up, and the only real way to do that quickly and effectively, they see, is to destroy this relationship between Rabat and Madrid. Bringing Algeria in from the cold, for Spain, might have blown a fuse in Rabat with the country’s ruling elite called the Makhzen, which could explain quite a few things. Add to that $40 million USD which the Trump administration is reported to have put aside for Rabat, while we begin to see Melilla and Ceuta becoming Moroccan territory in Congress reports (the most recent one being a State Department budget report just signed off by the House), and a picture emerges which puts the entire Ceuta story into context. The geopolitics starts to make sense. “When two neighbouring countries fight each other, just know the USA visited one,” Nelson Mandela once said, and this is the story now of Morocco and Spain.
The Ceuta “invasion”, many believe, was merely a stunt to derail the good relations which both countries have enjoyed until now. And it will probably work. If Madrid believes that the U.S. and Israel are goading Rabat on, then clearly Sanchez and his closest advisors will tone down the relationship with Morocco – which in fact is already happening, when one Spanish minister told a journalist “it is clear what is happening”, hinting that Madrid knows who is behind the move and what the objectives were. If Israel has bedazzled the palace in Rabat with the dream of these enclaves becoming Moroccan, then the biggest winners by far are Israel – which is how analysts should frame their take. If relations turn sour between Rabat and Madrid and tensions start to mount over these enclaves, could the U.S. and Israel send warships there to blockade them, as part of a security measure to support its ally, Morocco? Could that even be the basis to send in Moroccan troops to take them over completely? Sounds far-fetched, but there are similarities with what happened after 1975, when the Spanish abandoned Western Sahara and the Moroccan king at that time sent in thousands of Moroccans into the territory to legitimise its claim, assisted with military aid – we shouldn’t forget – from the U.S. The ‘Green March’ is celebrated each year with its own anniversary. In those days, U.S. involvement only enhanced America’s military spending but didn’t really offer the U.S. anything beyond that. Today, for Morocco to make moves on Melilla and Ceuta comes with a huge payback for Israel and the Trump administration, in that it would give the victors a massive annexation of international waters around the Straits of Gibraltar – effectively handing over the straits to Morocco, Israel, the U.S. and UK (Gibraltar). Under such a scenario, Trump would feel emboldened, as he and Bibi could decide which countries enter the Mediterranean and who pays what tariffs, etc. This new arrangement would give Trump exactly what he needs right now – leverage – while presenting on a plate to Israel a decisive blow which it can claim credit for by dealing with the so-called threat from Spain. It would effectively set up Israel as a regional player and breathe new life into the ‘Greater Israel’ project, while giving the King of Morocco the prize of his father’s dream: sovereignty over these two colonial anachronisms. Everyone’s a winner. Trump and Bibi have so much to gain by destroying Rabat’s good relations with Madrid that it’s hardly surprising the Ceuta “invasion” didn’t come earlier. And isn’t it funny that the frequency of how many times Trump announces his undivided support for Rabat’s claim over Western Sahara seems to be increasing? It’s childish thinking, but is he doing this to try to draw attention to other EU “partners” who haven’t done so for a while?
If you think it’s a conspiracy theory that Israel and the U.S. had a hand in the Ceuta stunt, then you probably think Israel had nothing to do with 9/11, or the assassination of JFK. It’s entirely possible that Israel organised the entire thing without even the knowledge of the King, who is distancing himself more and more recently from public duties. Conspiracy theories, remarkably, often have a habit of turning out to be true – but the idea that Ceuta was not organised and just came about randomly and organically is preposterous. Watch Madrid’s next move and how Rabat reacts.
