Something bizarre just happened. Something that proves independent journalism is doing what the corporate press refuses to do.
A couple of weeks ago, Closer to the Edge published an article calling out CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and every other major news outlet for ignoring what should be one of the biggest geopolitical bombshells in modern history:
Alnur Mussayev, former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, claimed that Donald Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987 —operating under the KGB codename “Krasnov.”
………
It didn’t start in Moscow.
It started in New York — in 1986 — when Donald Trump was first approached by Soviet operatives posing as business representatives. According to Yuri Shvets, a former KGB officer stationed in Washington during the Cold War, Trump was identified as a potential asset and cultivated through soft power: flattery, promises of fame, and the prospect of doing business in the USSR.
A year later, in 1987, Trump would fly to Moscow under the watchful guidance of Intourist, the Soviet government’s travel agency and a known KGB front. That trip, Shvets claims, was a “textbook active measure.” Trump was paraded around, given VIP treatment, and gently encouraged to consider a future in politics.
He returned home weeks later and took out full-page ads in American newspapers criticizing U.S. foreign policy and NATO spending — almost verbatim what Soviet officials had wanted. Shvets believes that moment marked the beginning of Trump’s role as a Kremlin asset.
The liquefaction facility, located in Nikiski, will process, store, and transport up to 20 million tons of LNG per year. Illustration courtesy Alaska Gasline Development Corporation
See President Trump meet Vladimir Putin at US military base in Alaska
Aug. 16, 2025
And back in March of this year:
Planned LNG plant in Alaska seeks equipment from sanctioned Russia firm
March 30, 202610:26 PM GMT+1Updated March 31, 2026
WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) – The head of Polar LNG, a company that plans to build a liquefied natural gas plant on Alaska’s North Slope, said his company is hoping to buy discounted equipment from a Russian project on which Washington has imposed sanctions.
Polar LNG launched on Monday. Joel Riddle, its president and CEO, in an interview said the company wants to make a final investment decision on its plant in mid-2027 and start producing LNG in 2029 or 2030.
Polar LNG is hoping to get approval from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control to buy the equipment, including a partially built liquefaction plant, from Arctic LNG 2. The administrations of former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump have both imposed sanctions on the project. The U.S. Treasury Department had no comment. Novatek (NVTK.MM), opens new tab, which owns about 60% of Arctic LNG 2, said it was aware of Polar LNG’s interest in its production technology. “Working-level discussions on possible engagement options are currently underway,” Novatek said.
The first phase of the project will take $8 billion to $9 billion in investments to produce 7 million tons a year of the fuel that could be sold to Japan, South Korea and other countries. The plant could be expanded in one or two more phases that would require similar investments.
Gentry Beach, a friend of Donald Trump Jr, is one investor in the project, Riddle said. Beach did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Polar LNG wants to finance more than half of the project with U.S. capital, but is open to investments from companies in Japan and other countries.
The project would collaborate with another project called Alaska LNG that the Trump administration is hoping will be built in coming years.
The North Slope is subject to severe weather and impacts from climate change that have driven some energy companies from the region. Riddle said the equipment the company seeks to buy is Arctic tested. The company also plans to buy six icebreakers.
A group of American executives has quit an energy startup that aspired to liquefy and export natural gas out of Alaska, alleging they recently learned it was secretly being funded by Russian gas giant Novatek.
Polar LNG, the startup, was launched in March with what seemed like a long-shot goal. The U.S. company wanted to get a license to import a half-finished piece of equipment from the Russian company, with the goal of exporting a geyser of gas from beneath Alaska’s North Slope.
The massive structure—as tall as the Statue of Liberty and suitable for frigid conditions—had fallen under sanctions during the Biden administration in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But Polar hoped its project would find favor with the Trump administration’s goal of “energy dominance” for America.
The sanctions also meant the equipment was available at a knockdown price, people involved in the project said. Securing it would mean Polar wouldn’t have to build its own from scratch.
Then the plans hit a snag: It turned out the project was being run and at least partly funded by Russian energy company Novatek, former Polar executives said. Joel Riddle, Polar’s CEO until September and a former ExxonMobil employee, says he resigned after the discovery, which he said emerged in budget discussions over the summer.
“I felt uncomfortable that the Russian company Novatek was financing and ultimately controlling the strategic direction of the company,” Riddle said.
Other executives left with Riddle. Their departures and the alleged Russian funding were earlier reported by the Financial Times and the New York Times.
Novatek didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House, the Treasury Department and the State Department didn’t return calls for comment.
Novatek isn’t sanctioned by the U.S., and Europe has continued to buy its LNG since the invasion of Ukraine. Unlike many other Russian companies, Novatek has continued to have a presence in the U.S. and in European capitals during the war, paying lobbyists and elite law firms to try to influence sanctions and energy policy.
Polar’s project required convincing the Treasury Department to give it a license to buy the infrastructure from a sanctioned entity, Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 business. It hasn’t received the go-ahead.
Two former Polar executives said high-ranking officials at the company shared concerns about Novatek’s role with the administration around early September and that government officials expressed concern.
Polar would have to import the gear from Russia by tugboat. Then, there was the issue of building the project on Alaska’s North Slope, dredging an enormous amount of seabed and securing icebreaker tankers to chart paths in the Arctic.
Monetizing the gas beneath Alaska has been a long-held ambition of many American energy executives. But the gas remains underdeveloped because shuttling it to domestic markets via pipeline would be costly and logistically daunting, as would liquefying it and shipping it internationally from where it is produced.
Russia, meanwhile, has poured resources into liquefied natural gas, and Novatek emerged as its national champion. The company is one of the few major energy producers that remain in private hands after a quarter-century of rule by President Vladimir Putin.
Novatek was partway through building a new export facility named Arctic LNG 2 in 2023 when the Biden administration sanctioned the project. The sanctions threw sand in the gears, stopping the project from importing parts from overseas.
A Norwegian executive at Novatek named Bjorn Gundersen, who is credited with having developed the technology used at Arctic LNG 2, left for Tech Wave, an engineering firm in Abu Dhabi, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tech Wave owned Polar and provided most of Polar’s capital. But in discussions over new, much-needed funding over the summer, it became clear that senior Novatek executives were really calling the shots and allocating capital, Riddle said.
Gundersen didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Around the same time, the sanctions bill named after late Sen. Lindsey Graham was making its way through Congress and threatened to make it even harder for Polar to get permission to transact with Novatek.
Polar executives had lobbied the White House and President Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council to get the go-ahead from the Treasury Department, said people familiar with their efforts. As of last month, there weren’t signs the efforts had momentum, according to the people and Riddle’s resignation letter, which The Wall Street Journal reviewed.
Former CEO: Russian Firm Backed Alaska Gas Venture
By Newsmax Wires | Saturday, 24 October 2026 02:43 PM EDT
Joel Riddle, former chief executive of Polar Train LNG, told the Financial Times he resigned in September after discovering what he described as undisclosed Russian involvement in the proposed liquefied natural gas export terminal on Alaska’s North Slope.
“I resigned as chief executive of Polar LNG because I felt uncomfortable that the Russian company Novatek was financing and ultimately controlling the strategic direction of the company,” Riddle told the newspaper.
“Building an LNG facility in Alaska is a very strategic project for the US and as a patriot I feel this needs to be developed using US technology and funded by US investors, not a Russian company.”
Polar LNG disputed his allegations, calling Riddle a “disgruntled employee” who was terminated. The company maintained that its operations comply with U.S. law.
“Development activities are being pursued in full compliance with applicable US laws,” the company told the Financial Times.
Bjørn Gundersen, Deputy Director of Novatek’s LNG Projects, refuses to speak with journalists. Archive photo by Thomas Nilsen
Bjørn Gundersen is Deputy Director of Novatek’s LNG Projects Department and plays a key role in the company’s grand development of the Arctic LNG 2, one of the biggest energy projects in the Arctic ever. He spoke in this Thursday’s Neighbor Conference in Kirkenes, Norway.
The event was open for the public. It was organized in connection with this week’s 75 year commemorations of Soviet liberation of Kirkenes.
About 15,000 people will have their jobs in the Arctic LNG 2, and Murmansk will become among the world’s leading centers for building of oil and gas facilities and platforms, Gundersen said and highlighted that «this is now in the making.»
The company representative is responsible for the development of the Kola Yard, the plant for construction of floating LNG platforms for the Arctic LNG 2.
About 10,000 people are now involved in the building works at Belokamenka, a few kilometers from Murmansk, Gundersen said. The three platforms to be built on site are combined three times bigger than the largest offshore installation ever built in the North Sea, he made clear. The construction of first of the platforms started in June this year.
According to Gundersen, he might be the only Norwegian working in Novatek, but there are a number of Norwegian companies involved as subcontractors in the Arctic LNG 2 project. Among them are Dr Techn. Olav Olsen, Concrete Structures, Trelleborg, IKM, Tschudi Shipping and more.
Bjørn Gundersen was very clear that he foresees a stronger future involvement of Norwegian companies in the LNG project. «After all, Kirkenes is only 250 kilometers from Murmansk and it would be tragic if we do not manage to succeed with cooperation,» he told the audience in Kirkenes.
Novatek’s projects in the Arctic have wide-reaching implications for local societies, economy and environment. But Bjørn Gundersen and Novatek are highly reluctant to share their views with the public.
When requested to respond to a question about Novatek’s activities in Murmansk, the company representative abruptly rejected.
«I can not take any questions from the Barents Observer, nor from any other media» he underlined and referred to the company press department.
The questions were subsequently forwarded to Novatek’s press departments.
No response from the company’s Moscow office had come by the time of publishing this report.
Russian natural gas company says it will abandon Norway
As an Arctic storm rages along Barents Sea coast, company Novatek signals that it will move its large-scale reloading of LNG away from Norwegian waters.
WASHINGTON—President Trump said he asked the Justice Department to sue Alaska to prevent certification of the state’s Senate results if the Republican candidate loses, an extraordinary move by his administration to intervene legally in the 2026 midterm elections.
Israel has launched a campaign of collective punishment against Palestinians in Hebron after gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers and injured three near a checkpoint outside the city.
Benjamin Netanyahu announced a siege on Hebron and neighbouring Halhul and said residents of the gunmen’s home neighbourhoods would all be forced out. He promised mass demolitions of homes.
The first destruction began within hours of the attack, as ministers who had been on the campaign trail ahead of elections on Tuesday rushed to the site of the shooting.
The far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted a video of himself in front of a bulldozer as it tore down a Palestinian home near the site of the firefight.
The destruction of a home built without permits aimed to “create deterrence and exact a price”, Smotrich said. There was no claim of a connection between the building’s owners and the attackers.
Soon after the destruction began, Israel’s high court issued a temporary order to stop the demolitions. A human rights lawyer, Mohammed Dahleh, filed an urgent petition on behalf of two factory owners nearby, arguing that the demolition violated international law on collective punishment and Israeli administrative law.
There is, however, a third factor behind Americans’ anger, and it isn’t getting nearly as much attention as it should. There has been a catastrophic decline in health insurance coverage combined with sharply rising premiums for many of those who have managed to hang on to their coverage. And this, too, is all on Trump.
Here’s what happened: Trump and his congressional minions refused to renew the expanded subsidies that had made health insurance affordable for millions of Americans during the Biden years. At the same time the One Big Beautiful Bill imposed punitive work requirements that made it far more difficult for families to obtain Medicaid coverage.
And we haven’t felt the full effect of these changes yet — Republicans tried to backload the effects of the OBBB so that much of the pain will come after the midterms. But the consequences of this attack on healthcare have already been dire.
By June 2026 enrollment in Medicaid and the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program had declined by more than 6 million since January 2025; 2.5 million of those losing coverage were children. KFF estimates that enrollment in individual plans, mainly via the Affordable Care Act, was down almost 5 million by June. The redoubtable Charles Gaba, putting these numbers together with other information, estimates that around 12 million Americans have lost health insurance under Trump 2.0.
That’s a lot of lost coverage, even in a nation as big as ours. And because many of the savage cuts Trump and his allies have imposed on healthcare have yet to kick in, the situation will get much worse in the years ahead. It’s worth noting thatkicking children off healthcare coverage is especially personally and socially destructive because it compromises their health and earnings potential for their entire lifetimes.
Paul Krugman, Substack Oct 21 2026
Health insurance CEO shooting unleashes Internet vitriol aimed at industry
X-energyAmerican Electric Power, Amazon and X-energy announced on Oct. 19 that they are exploring a 960-megawatt advanced nuclear project at the former Breed Generating Station coal plant site in Sullivan County, Indiana. The initial design calls for 12 X-energy Xe-100 small modular reactors rated at 80 megawatts each. It is a feasibility effort, not a finished deal, and the companies gave no construction or operating dates
British oil major BP reported a second-quarter profit of $5.73 billion, almost double that of the same period last year and higher than forecasts predicted. BP saw its highest quarterly net profit since the third quarter of 2022, and second-quarter profits across all units surpassed expectations.
The fossil fuel lead at the international NGO Global Witness, Patrick Galey, stated, “BP’s sky-high profits are a scandalous reminder of who’s been cashing in on human misery this year. While wildfires threaten communities across the world, drought bites and energy costs spiral, ordinary families are paying the price for big oil’s prioritisation of shareholder wealth over a livable planet.” Galey added, “It’s time to make oil giants pay up to repair the climate breakdown they’re driving.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. oil major Chevron reported its highest quarterly profit in at least six years, surpassing analyst estimates. Chevron posted adjusted earnings of $12 billion, with $8.2 billion from upstream operations, marking a 200% increase compared to the previous year.
Chevron’s Chief Financial Officer, Eimear Bonner, said in an interview, “Amid all the geopolitical uncertainty and market volatility that’s still upon us, we continue to deliver the reliable energy that the world has needed.”
While oil company CEOs defend their record profits, many others are criticising the earnings that come at a time when consumers are facing rising inflation and other economic challenges. Even U.S. President Donald Trump critiqued oil firms for profiting from high oil prices, which came as a surprise to many due to Trump’s unwavering support for oil and gas.
On August 3, President Trump criticised the U.S. oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron for making “too much money” on high crude prices. “They’re making too much money based on a shortage,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I don’t like it, and I should be the last one to say because I’m a big free enterprise guy — nobody bigger.”
The record profits experienced by oil and gas companies in the wake of the Iran war have led to backlash from environmentalists, consumers, and political leaders, as governments worldwide float the possibility of introducing or increasing windfall taxes on higher-than-normal earnings.
A new book claims Russian military intelligence broke into Jared Kushner’s personal iPhone in 2017.
The book says Dutch intelligence flipped a Russian hacker and accessed images from Kushner’s phone screen.
Author Matthew Cole alleges Kushner used Dubai-linked accounts tied to about $1.75 billion.
Kushner denies the claims, and his lawyer says the accounts do not exist.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Dutch intelligence services learned that their Russian counterparts had broken into Jared Kushner’s iPhone in 2017. So they flipped a GRU spy and got access to the device – and Kushner’s secret dealings in the Middle East – themselves. Donald Trump’s son-in-law denies the explosive claims.
The story of how Kushner was essentially double-owned by the Russians and the Dutch is laid out in a new book, Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, by Matthew Cole, a renowned American investigative journalist.
Back in 2017, Kushner was in charge of Middle East peace negotiations and, more generally, held the post of Trump’s top advisor. Naturally, foreign intelligence services were very interested.
CORRUPTIONLAND releases Tuesday, October 27, with new revelations about the president, his enablers in Congress, and their abuses of power
WASHINGTON — October 22, 2026 —DEFIANCE.org announced it will release CORRUPTIONLAND — an explosive documentary about the corruption of the federal government under President Donald Trump — one week before Election Day. The film will be free to the public beginning Tuesday, October 27 at 12:00 noon ET at CORRUPTIONLAND.org and on various streaming platforms. The announcement was first made last night on MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki.
ICE launches California immigration crackdown. Newsom calls it ‘campaign of fear’ By Darrell Smith October 8, 2026 12:20 PM
The Trump administration is launching waves of ICE immigration operations across California over the next 45 days, the Washington Examiner reported this week.
Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the statewide raids weeks before November’s midterm elections as a “campaign of fear.” Dubbed internally as “Operation Safe California,” the Examiner reported, the enforcement began several days ago in the San Diego area, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordering its field agents to arrest all immigrants they meet, criminal history or not.
The operation has not been publicly announced, but was met with fiery reaction from Newsom. He accused the White House of stoking fear in the state’s immigrant communities as millions of Californians prepare to head to the polls.
According to the Examinet, an unnamed source told the newspaper that ICE officers were “told to go after anybody, they can pick up anybody.”
Immigrant rights groups in Northern and Central California have reported increased sightings of ICE activity. On Monday, a father was arrested at a Santa Maria community college while dropping off his daughter for her freshman year. “This is exactly what I warned would happen last year. Trump is using mass deportations to TERRORIZE diverse communities out of legally voting — ordering his secret police to ‘go after everybody,’” Newsom posted on X, in apparent reference to the government crackdown. “Donald, your campaign of fear will FAIL. The American people will NOT be intimidated!”
Sources told the Examiner that officers in San Diego, and others in Los Angeles and San Francisco, would move through Los Angeles and north to San Francisco by November. The Sacramento group NorCal Resist earlier Thursday cited a “heavier than normal ICE presence in our region today,” in posts to social media.
A federal court in California *just* issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the administration (i.e. DHS) from:
“a. Conducting elections-related field operations and field interviews in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin that involve or are likely to involve persons whom the Enjoined Parties know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens; and
b. Conducting elections-related field operations in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin based wholly on TECS records generated from the Voter Eligibility Matching Policy, as identified in this Order, against persons whom the Enjoined Parties know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens.”
Now, let me quickly ‘splain the key language there: “or should reasonably know or suspect”.
As you will see in the hot-off-the-docket opinion and order (included for Notes from the Front members), these sweeps targeting alleged voter fraud by alleged non-citizens were being conducted based on flawed, questionable, and “where the heck did they actually get that” data, including *advertising and marketing* databases!
Therefore the “should reasonably know or suspect” net is really important here.
It basically means that if you’re not *damn sure* that someone is not actually a U.S. citizen, and you attempt to monkey with them and intimidate them over voting, you’ve just violated the injunction.
(And no, this administration by and large is *not* ignoring or violating court orders!)
The order is stayed until *this* Friday (10/23) to give the administration a (very short) window to appeal.
“To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi”
William Faulkner, Novelist About this Quote Faulkner doesn’t offer Mississippi as a postcard; he offers it as a wound you can read. The line flatters the local while quietly indicting it: if you want to grasp “the world,” start with a place where history is so concentrated it feels radioactive. Mississippi becomes his test case for modernity’s contradictions – beauty yoked to brutality, intimacy bound up with violence, community built on exclusion.
The specific intent is polemical in a novelist’s key. Faulkner is defending the value of the provincial against the cosmopolitan shrug: you don’t learn humanity by escaping “backward” places, you learn it by staring at them until they stop being caricatures. The subtext is harsher. Mississippi isn’t merely representative; it’s exemplary in the way a crime scene is exemplary. It’s where the American myths of honor, piety, and progress are most nakedly at war with slavery’s afterlife, with caste, with the politics of forgetting.
Context matters because Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County – his fictionalized Mississippi – is basically a world system in miniature. He writes in the long shadow of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Lost Cause narrative machine, with the South performing innocence while living off stolen labor and inherited violence. The line works because it’s both invitation and dare: if you can understand how a society rationalizes what it can’t justify, how it turns trauma into tradition, you’re already most of the way toward understanding everywhere else.”
Quote Details Topic Wisdom
Ongoing, the case of Nolan Wells, symbolic of “White Comfort over Black Lives” as grieving mother rebuked those who had shown no interest in pursuing how her son had died in mysterious circumstances. It was said he had drowned but autopsy showed no water in his lungs.
Nolan Wells’ autopsy found no water in lungs; data was deleted from his phone the day he disappeared, experts say
CSIS estimated, as reported by RFE/RL, that U.S. Patriot PAC-3 MSE stocks fell from more than 2,300 before the Iran conflict began in February to roughly 800.
The Pentagon’s January framework aims to raise annual PAC-3 MSE output from about 600 to 2,000; analysts quoted say that will take until at least 2030.
Boeing said on October 5 that Lockheed Martin awarded it an undefinitized contract action valued at about $14.7 billion for seven years of PAC-3 MSE seeker production.
Hegseth called a CNN report on dangerously low inventories ‘fake news’; unnamed U.S. officials told RFE/RL and NPR the CSIS estimates broadly reflect the current state.
Patriot interceptors are among the most sought-after weapons in the world, and there are not enough of them. Ukraine says it received a third as many air-defense interceptors this year as in the same period of 2025, the United States is reported to have used more than half of its stock in the Iran conflict, and Gulf states want theirs replaced too. This explainer lays out the numbers and the production bottlenecks, with each figure attributed. It follows our reports on Russia’s mass attack on Ukraine and Germany’s new aid for Kyiv.
What the estimates say
A CSIS report, as summarized by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on August 6, estimated that the United States used more than half of its Patriot PAC-3 MSE and THAAD interceptor inventories in operations against Iran this year. It put PAC-3 MSE stocks at roughly 800, down from more than 2,300 before the conflict began in February, with THAAD stocks nearly halved. Mark Cancian of CSIS told RFE/RL that war planners ‘don’t want to go below’ about 800 to 900.
Defense News, in a July 10 report, said the U.S. fired between 1,060 and 1,430 Patriots in the war with Iran at roughly $3.9 million apiece, far more than the hundreds Ukraine received from all Western allies over four years. The government’s public position is different in tone: RFE/RL reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called a CNN report of ‘dangerously low’ inventories ‘fake news’ and that President Donald Trump wrote that the U.S. has ‘massive’ amounts of munitions. Unnamed administration officials told RFE/RL the CSIS estimates broadly reflect current inventories.
“The President has the most effective endorsement in American, or international, political history,” said Vance, when asked in an interview if he would also be extending an endorsement ahead of the election on Oct. 27. “I endorse American candidates and that’s where I’m focused on, is the midterms, so I’m not getting involved in the Israeli elections.”
When pushed for an answer, Vance added: “I’m not anti-endorsing [Netanyahu], I’m not pro-endorsing him.”
Vance’s response stood in stark contrast to Trump’s endorsement, as he put his “complete and total” support behind the Israeli leader, while praising his endurance as a “great warrior” Prime Minister.
Referencing the Iran war, Trump said: “If Israel has the wrong leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi [Netanyahu], America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so.” He went on to say that Netanyahu has been “strong, brave, and brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel” and “despite all of that, he has endured.”
Many are viewing the Israeli election as a referendum on Netanyahu, who has faced heavy criticism over his handling of the Hamas-led attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The subsequent Israel-Hamas war has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Netanyahu’s government has also been called to task over the reports of settler violence against Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.
Ahead of the elections, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly met with Netanyahu on Monday during an unannounced visit to Israel, Axios said, citing two sources with knowledge.
The Pentagon declined to comment when contacted. TIME has also reached out to the Israeli embassy and Netanyahu’s office for comment.
Vance, meanwhile, has previously issued warnings to Israel regarding its relationship with the U.S. In June, he chastised members of Bibi’s cabinet who had voiced disapproval over Washington negotiating with Tehran to end the Iran war, which started in February with joint U.S. and Israeli strikes.
“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” Vance said as he led a White House press briefing. “If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
While Vance has said his focus is on American candidates ahead of the U.S. midterms, he has previously campaigned avidly overseas.
Vance’s campaigning for international candidates
Vance traveled to Hungary in April ahead of parliamentary elections as the Trump Administration put its full support behind then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who was up for re-election against opposition leader Péter Magyar. (Pro-European conservative Magyar went on to win the election, ending Orbán’s 16-year rule.)
“Together the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Hungary have been able to do amazing things,” Vance told reporters at a press conference in Budapest. “We want to build upon those amazing things. And of course, I want to help as much as I possibly can, the Prime Minister, as he faces this election season.” Vance later delivered remarks at a rally for Orbán.
Vance also notably met with Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, in February 2025, days before a German election.
During that trip, Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference and used the platform to voice his concerns about Europe, claiming that free speech across the continent was “in retreat.”
He criticized what is known as the “firewall” approach in Germany—the agreement among other political parties that they will not work with the AfD. “Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls,” he said.
President Trump’s complicated relationship with Netanyahu
Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu comes after the pair have shared an, at times, contentious relationship in recent months.
Asked about possible endorsement last week, Trump told reporters “we haven’t even thought about it,” prompting many to wonder if he may stay silent ahead of the consequential Israeli election.
In June, Trump told reporters that Netanyahu has to be “more responsible with respect to Lebanon,” amid concerns the renewed fighting with Hezbollah could derail the U.S.-Iran peace agreement. (Which later collapsed in light of continued clashes over the Strait of Hormuz.)
“I’m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah,” Trump told reporters at the G7 summit in France. “It just goes on forever,” he continued, seemingly referencing the exchanging of strikes between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group. “When that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, the deal with Iran.”
Trump said he has an “unbelievable relationship” with Netanyahu, but claimed “Israel would have been blown up a long time ago, had I not gotten involved.”
Days before his public remarks, Trump reportedly called Netanyahu “f-cking crazy” during a fraught phone call after Netanyahu ordered an attack on a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut in retaliation for alleged attacks on Israel by Hezbollah.
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