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The Intercept
10 hours ago
- Politics
- The Intercept
The Disinformation Machine After a Murder
In the wake of the political assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, prominent right-wing figures moved quickly to assign blame. Utah Sen. Mike Lee pinned the killings on 'Marxism.' Elon Musk pointed to the 'far left.' Donald Trump Jr., the president's son, said it 'seems to be a leftist.' But the facts quickly told a different story: The suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter is a Trump supporter who held radical anti-abortion views. 'There's an entire right-wing media machine aimed at pushing disinformation around breaking news events and specifically attributing violence to the left,' says Taylor Lorenz, independent journalist and author of 'Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet.' 'You see this over and over and over again, no matter who is perpetrating the violence.' 'The reality is that the vast overwhelming majority of political violence in recent years has come from the right,' adds Akela Lacy, The Intercept's senior politics reporter. 'It basically treats that fact as if it's not real, as if it doesn't exist,' she says — a dynamic that then fails to address the root causes. This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Jordan Uhl talks with Lorenz and Lacy about how online disinformation is distorting public understanding of major events — from political violence to immigration to potential war with Iran. In this chaos-driven ecosystem, the right — and Trump especially — know how to thrive. 'There are these right-wing influencer networks that exist to amplify misinformation and shape narratives online,' says Lorenz. 'A lot of them coordinate, literally directly coordinate through group chats,' she explains. 'They receive messaging directly from leaders in the Republican Party that they immediately disseminate.' That messaging loop reinforces itself — seeping into mainstream culture, dominating social media, and driving Trump's policies. Lacy points to a striking example: Democratic Sen. Tina Smith from Minnesota confronting Lee over his false claim that the shooter was a Marxist, and his apparent surprise at being held accountable. ' There's no reason that a sitting U.S. senator is spreading these lies, should not expect to be confronted by his colleagues over something like this. And that says volumes about the environment on the Hill,' says Lacy. But this right-wing narrative war doesn't work without help to boost their legitimacy. 'These manufactured outrage campaigns are not successful unless they're laundered by the traditional media,' says Lorenz. 'If the New York Times or the BBC or NPR — which is one of the worst — don't launder those campaigns and pick those campaigns up, they kind of don't go anywhere.' You can hear the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
The Intercept
10 hours ago
- Politics
- The Intercept
A Harvard Commencement Speaker Mentioned Gaza. The School Refused to Publish Her Speech.
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Harvard University's campus in Cambridge, Mass., on May 27, 2025. Photo: Sophie Park/Bloomberg via Getty Images Harvard Divinity School broke precedent by refusing to publish a video of its commencement speech after a speaker went off-script to call attention to the perilous conditions in Gaza, The Intercept has learned. 'There are no safe zones left in Gaza after 600 days and 77 years of genocide,' said Zehra Imam, who graduated from the Harvard Divinity School this spring and participated in the embattled Religion and Public Life program. Imam, who is Muslim, was speaking with two other students from Christian and Jewish faiths who had cleared a draft of their planned remarks with the school — and agreed that Imam should go off-script to address the ongoing genocide. 'I center Palestine today, not just because of its scale of atrocity but because of our complicity in it,' Imam said. 'Class of 2025, Palestine is waiting for you to arrive. And you must be courageous enough to rise to the call because Palestine will keep showing up in your living rooms until you are ready to meet its gaze.' Harvard did not publish a video of the speech on its website or YouTube page, as it did with commencement speeches in past years. When Imam and her co-speakers asked why, the school told them the decision was made due to 'security concerns.' The decision runs counter to the public perception that Harvard is crusading against President Donald Trump's threats to cut university funding to crush speech, according to seven Harvard Divinity School students and staff who spoke to The Intercept. While the university has been publicly praised for fighting back against Trump, its efforts to censor Imam's speech and wipe out the civic engagement she took part in have raised concerns among students and staff that the school is actually capitulating to pressure from the White House. The school made a password-protected version of the speech temporarily available to people with a Harvard login, a Harvard spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept. But choosing not to release it publicly 'feels to a lot of students suspicious and just contradictory,' said Perlei Toor, a second-year divinity school student. 'That's not what happened last year or the year before that.' Behind the scenes, the school has been quietly dismantling the Religion and Public Life program from which Imam graduated. Until recently led by the Divinity School's only Palestinian staff member, the program has drawn Trump's ire — and criticism from some alumni, campus leaders, and students. Imam ended her portion of the speech with a poem from a student in Gaza — one of several refugees to whom she offers poetry lessons via an organization she founded connecting U.S. students with students in refugee camps. She and her co-speakers received a standing ovation. 'I had a dream / I went back home / slept in my bed / felt warmth again,' she read. 'I had a dream / My eyes forgot the blood, the loss, the patience … My nose forgot the smoke smell, the deaths, the corpse rotten … My body skipped what I had lived.' Read our complete coverage The suppression of Imam's speech capped off a chaotic year for the Divinity School's Religion and Public Life program. As of last month, Harvard had pushed out the program's three leaders, canceled a class, suspended one of its initiatives, and cut most of its staff. The program itself is still relatively new: Harvard launched Religion and Public Life in late 2020, following worldwide protests against police brutality to focus on 'educating leaders to understand the civic consequences of religion, in service of building a just world at peace.' During a time of uncertainty, the program would 'shape our character and trajectory both in the years to come as well as in our tumultuous present.' After the October 7 attacks, the program's troubled trajectory began to take shape. Program leaders, faculty, and staff sent a newsletter urging affiliates of the Divinity School to 'challenge single story narratives' that justified retaliation against Palestinians. Harvard Divinity School Dean David F. Holland disavowed the statement, as the Harvard Crimson reported, saying it did not represent the school and described it as 'unproductive.' The following year, the group Students Against Antisemitism sued Harvard over claims that the school had failed to stop antisemitism on campus. The suit criticized the Religion and Public Life program for hosting a screening of the film 'Israelism,' which documents changing Jewish attitudes toward Israel, and took aim at the program's flagship course, which took students on a trip to Israel and the West Bank. Harvard agreed to a confidential settlement in the suit last month. Last May, the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance released a report on campus antisemitism that took further aim at the letter program faculty sent after the October 7 attacks. It also criticized the program's Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative, which ran the flagship course and examines how religion can promote peace in situations of violent conflict and mass displacement. The initiative, the report claims, 'appears to focus entirely on the Palestinians.' According to Toor, the second-year student, this framing is emblematic of misconceptions about the Religion and Public Life program. News stories and discourse about the program often miss 'just how much Religion and Public Life does besides Palestine and Israel,' she told The Intercept. The program provides opportunities for students to connect religious studies to the public sphere through tracks in government, journalism, and humanitarian aid, among other topics, and to take on related internships. It also plans more than half of the school's programming and events. Late last year, facing political pressure and security concerns, program leaders decided not to take students on the trip to Israel and the West Bank or offer the flagship course this spring. Shortly after, the departures of several program leaders were announced. In January, Assistant Dean Diane Moore, who built the program and taught the course, announced she would leave the program early. The next day, Assistant Dean Hussein Rashid announced he would leave the program at the end of the academic year because of what he described as the school's anti-Muslim bias and a 'hostile environment to Muslims and Arabs.' Moore did not respond to a request for comment. Rashid declined to comment on the record. According to Toor, the program has been a necessary home for people of all faiths. 'Because of the diversity of the staff and because of the range of topics that students were able to explore,' Toor said, 'especially since the inauguration of Trump, [the program] has been a real space of ministerial comfort.' But in April, Harvard's much-anticipated report on antisemitism presented a narrative closer to the one from the Jewish Alumni Alliance. Released just after the school said it would not comply with a letter with Trump's demands, the April report was a result of the efforts of Trump's antisemitism task force. The school had just pushed out leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies and ended its partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank. The new report identified the Religion and Public Life program as one of several offenders that contributed to the 'frequency and intensity of treatment of Israel as an oppressor state and the Palestinians as an oppressed people in courses and public events throughout the campus.' This, according to the report, was 'indicative of institutional bias and hostility.' 'While the program was publicly launched with what seemed like a broad mandate to explore the intersection of religion and various aspects of public life, in practice, it focused heavily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, presenting a perspective widely perceived as consistently anti-Israeli and aligned very narrowly with a strand of pro-Palestinian politics,' the report read. 'This narrow focus on this exceptionally polarizing topic appears to have stemmed from the decision, made soon after RPL's founding, to center its programming around a multi-year case study on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.' The program focuses on a wide range of topics like the economy, democracy and voting rights, education, and humanitarian aid, said Toor. Topics related to Israel and Palestine are a fraction of the work it does on campus. The program continued to shrink, this time with cuts. Shortly after the report was published, the school began notifying staff and other program leaders — including its only Israeli professor — that their contracts would not be renewed due to budget cuts. The school also announced it was pausing the program's Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative. One of the staff cut was Hilary Rantisi, the program's Palestinian American associate director who co-taught the flagship course. 'They terminated the only Palestinian employee that they had,' said Preston Iha, a first-year student in the Masters of Divinity program. 'Which is, again, signaling and makes people wonder who is really welcome at a school that claims to welcome everybody.' Last month, the day after the commencement, the school notified program staff about additional cuts. Four staff members' jobs were eliminated, and a fifth staffer was given a three-month extension of their contract, which is set to end June 30. A new program director, Terrence L. Johnson, will take over at the end of June — but students and staff told The Intercept it's not clear what the program will consist of after its staff was gutted. 'It seems like, yes, there could be budget cuts,' said Toor. 'But for you to target one program so specifically, and for that program to also be heavily mentioned in the antisemitism report and the Islamophobia report, it seems like too much of a coincidence.' Imam, the commencement speaker, was one of three students who told The Intercept the Religion and Public Life program was one of the major reasons she attended Harvard in the first place. 'It's very, very frustrating to see this censorship and attack on academic freedom,' Imam said. Shir Lovett-Graff, a Jewish spiritual leader who graduated from the Divinity School last year, said the attacks on the program were part of a long-running pattern at Harvard. 'Far before the Trump administration targeted Harvard and any university, far before Trump was elected into office for his second term, Harvard itself, internally, has a legacy of cracking down on pro-Palestine voices,' said Lovett-Graff, who helped found the student group Jews for Liberation, the largest Jewish student organization at Harvard Divinity School. 'It is not out of the ordinary or unexpected in any way for Harvard to crack down on pro-Palestine or even Israel-critical spaces on campus. That is part of Harvard's legacy,' Lovett-Graff said. They said they were grateful the program had been 'a place of connection for Jewish students, staff, alumni and faculty who are not represented by the Jewish mainstream of Harvard and beyond.' Toor, the second-year student, told The Intercept she feared that with the program gutted, students would lose a comforting space on campus. 'Students have been flocking to the office just to hang out and vent and have a safe space where they could be a person of color, where they can be Muslim, where they can be an international student in times when that is really needed and has felt really limited,' Toor said. 'This is a home that's being lost for a lot of students.' 'It's definitely sending the wrong message for Harvard Divinity School,' said Iha, the first-year student, 'which touts itself as being a moral center, to capitulate to these really immoral demands.' Imam said given everything she'd seen Harvard do to gut the program and censor speech on Palestine, she was concerned that the school would not approve her speech if she showed them what she planned to say about Gaza. 'Having seen everything in my time at Harvard Divinity School, I was worried that if I had shared those exact things in my speech and submitted that version, that I would not have been allowed to actually share what I wanted to,' Imam said. 'I wanted Gaza to have the last word. I wanted to center Palestine.' Join The Conversation
The Intercept
a day ago
- Health
- The Intercept
Children Are Starving in Gaza, as Soldiers Kill People Looking for Food
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Doctors trying to save starving children and parents trying to feed their families spoke with The Intercept. A child receives treatment for malnutrition at the Patient Friends Benevolent Society hospital in Gaza City on May 29, 2025. Photo: Huda Skaik In Gaza's clinics and overwhelmed hospitals, doctors and nutritionists face a haunting, daily reality: children wasting away before their eyes, unable to stand and play, who can hardly breathe. Israeli troops are massacring people at food distribution sites every day. On Tuesday alone, soldiers killed at least 70 people and wounded hundreds seeking food at the distribution site set up by Israel and the U.S. They shot people with tank shells, drones, and machine guns as they tried to get food. Malnutrition is no longer a looming threat; it is a full-blown humanitarian emergency exacerbated by relentless genocide, siege, and the systematic breakdown of Gaza's health care infrastructure. As the genocide on Gaza grinds on after Israel's breaking of the ceasefire, doctors and mothers across the Strip describe an unfolding catastrophe: a severe and accelerating child malnutrition crisis that, left unchecked, could claim thousands of lives. Israel's 80-day blockade that has enforced a strict closure of crossings and blocked aid deliveries has resulted in nearly 330 deaths, most of them children. To learn how malnutrition is affecting the children of Gaza, I spoke to three nutritionist doctors and one mother struggling to feed her baby in Gaza. Baby Eleen on February 26, 2025. Photo: Batoul Abu Ali Batoul Abu Ali gave birth to her daughter, Eleen Hallak, on May 21, 2024, amid the chaos of war. Now just over a year old, Eleen is already showing signs of malnutrition. 'She used to be healthier,' Batoul says. 'Now her diet lacks fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy — everything a child needs. I can only feed her twice a day: maybe some tomato, zucchini, potato, lentils, or fortified biscuits.' Batoul struggles most with finding milk for her baby. 'No one can watch their child go hungry. I do everything I can to find food, but it's never enough.' Batoul has received some guidance from specialists and is prescribed nutritional biscuits and peanut butter paste for Eleen, but access is inconsistent. 'I've fallen into depression. I just want to keep my little lovely baby Eleen alive,' she says. Mothers like Batoul are left with impossible choices, to try to keep their children alive while waiting for the crossings to open. Dr. Suzan Ma'rouf is a clinical nutritionist at the Patient Friend's Benevolent Society in Gaza City. 'Children are losing weight rapidly,' she says. 'They show all the signs: wasting, yellowing skin, thinning hair, brittle nails.' Dr. Ma'rouf describes a sharp increase in malnutrition cases since the beginning of the war, worsened further by the closure of border crossings since March. 'Even when food is available, the prices are astronomical. Most families, especially large ones, simply cannot afford to feed their children nutritious meals,' she explains. 'Newborns and their mothers are especially vulnerable due to the severe shortage of infant formula, hygiene products, and maternal supplements.' At the Friend's Benevolent Society, Dr. Ma'rouf is currently following over 3,500 children regularly, with more new cases emerging daily. She notes that both moderate and severe forms of malnutrition are rampant, with children suffering from vitamin and mineral deficiencies. In this condition, their bodies begin consuming their own nutrient stores, leading to exhaustion, stunted physical, and cognitive growth. Treatment is nearly impossible for malnutrition in Gaza. 'With the blockade, we don't have access to therapeutic food, fortified biscuits, or medical-grade nutrition. Even when we catch cases early, we don't have the supplements to stop them from worsening,' confirms Dr. Ma'rouf. Read our complete coverage A baby receives treatment for malnutrition at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat on May 31, 2025. Photo: Courtesy of Nader Garghon/Al-Awda Hospital Dr. Rana Zaiter is chief of clinical nutrition at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the middle of the Gaza Strip, which has a specialized department to treat severe acute malnutrition in children under 5. She paints a bleak picture: 'We are overwhelmed. Every day, we see more children arriving with extreme weight loss, anemia, and symptoms of immune deficiency. Children are too weak to fight infections. They have constant gastrointestinal illnesses, are lethargic, dizzy, and often can't even play or stand. Some are developing bowed legs — a clear sign of rickets and calcium deficiency.' Dr. Zaiter attributes the explosion in cases to the ongoing famine, closure of crossings for over 80 days, and soaring poverty. 'Mothers cannot breastfeed properly due to their own poor nutrition. Their milk is insufficient and unfulfilling. Babies cry constantly from hunger,' she says. 'Pregnant women are giving birth prematurely, to underweight babies, because their bodies can no longer sustain the burden of pregnancy.' Dr. Zaiter adds that nearly one-third of all pediatric cases at Al-Awda now involve moderate or severe malnutrition. The hospital follows treatment protocols from WHO and UNICEF, but a dire lack of supplies— including therapeutic foods, fortified biscuits, high-energy peanut butter, and infant formula — has crippled their ability to treat patients effectively. 'When the crossings briefly reopened in late May, only a tiny fraction of the needed supplies made it through — barely 1 percent of actual demand,' said Dr. Zaiter. 'We are operating in lifesaving mode. We need urgent international action to open the crossings and flood Gaza with nutritional aid before it's too late.' From Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, I spoke to a pediatric nutrition specialist, who requested anonymity. They highlighted the systematic breakdown in services across Gaza: 'Many malnutrition clinics have shut down following the collapse of the ceasefire and displacement of entire neighborhoods. The most common cases we now treat involve iron-deficiency anemia and rickets — both preventable if children had access to basic nutrition.' Malnutrition affects more than the body. 'Iron deficiency causes loss of appetite and long-term developmental delays. Severe or moderate malnutrition also severely impacts a child's mental health and cognitive development,' they say. Access to treatment is a growing concern. 'Many families live far from functioning clinics, and there's no transportation to come to the clinics and check on their children,' they say. 'The clinics that remain are understocked and overstretched. On top of that, many children refuse to take nutritional supplements, and we have no alternatives.' In Gaza, keeping a baby alive is now an act of resistance, of endurance. Doctors, nutritionists, and mothers alike are calling and appealing for the crossings to open, for aid to be allowed in, for the massacres to stop. Otherwise, Gaza's children continue to waste away, their futures starving before they have had a chance to begin and draw the first steps of their lives. Join The Conversation
See - Sada Elbalad
2 days ago
- Politics
- See - Sada Elbalad
Members of Congress call on Trump to evacuate Americans from Israel
Basant Ahmed Forty-five bipartisan members of the US House of Representatives urged President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to evacuate Americans from Israel amid ongoing tensions with Iran. In this context, the American website "The Intercept" highlighted the continued exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran for the sixth consecutive day on Wednesday, amid escalating talk of a direct American role in the Israeli aggression against Iran. This raises an important question about whether Trump needs congressional approval before taking any military action that would plunge Washington into a war against Tehran. read more Gold prices rise, 21 Karat at EGP 3685 NATO's Role in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict US Expresses 'Strong Opposition' to New Turkish Military Operation in Syria Shoukry Meets Director-General of FAO Lavrov: confrontation bet. nuclear powers must be avoided News Iran Summons French Ambassador over Foreign Minister Remarks News Aboul Gheit Condemns Israeli Escalation in West Bank News Greek PM: Athens Plays Key Role in Improving Energy Security in Region News One Person Injured in Explosion at Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid News China Launches Largest Ever Aircraft Carrier Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Lifestyle Get to Know 2025 Eid Al Adha Prayer Times in Egypt Business Fear & Greed Index Plummets to Lowest Level Ever Recorded amid Global Trade War Arts & Culture Zahi Hawass: Claims of Columns Beneath the Pyramid of Khafre Are Lies News Flights suspended at Port Sudan Airport after Drone Attacks Videos & Features Video: Trending Lifestyle TikToker Valeria Márquez Shot Dead during Live Stream News Shell Unveils Cost-Cutting, LNG Growth Plan Technology 50-Year Soviet Spacecraft 'Kosmos 482' Crashes into Indian Ocean News 3 Killed in Shooting Attack in Thailand
The Intercept
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Intercept
Troops Deployed to LA Have Done Precisely One Thing, Pentagon Says
Nearly 5,000 federal troops have been deployed to Los Angeles on the orders of President Donald Trump. They have done almost nothing, according to an official military spokesperson. In total, the National Guard members and Marines operating in Southern California have carried out exactly one temporary detainment. That's it. The deployments, which began more than one week ago, are expected to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. 'It's … the unnecessary militarization of the United States using U.S. forces on U.S. soil against U.S. citizens.' Troops were deployed in Los Angeles over the objections of local officials and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Officials and experts decried the show of military force to counter overwhelmingly peaceful and relatively limited protests as a dangerous abuse of power and a misuse of federal funds. 'As of today, Title 10 forces have been involved in one temporary detainment until the individual could be safely transferred to federal law enforcement,' U.S. Army North public affairs told The Intercept on Sunday, referring to a provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services that allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if 'there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.' 'It's a complete waste of resources, but it's also the unnecessary militarization of the United States using U.S. forces on U.S. soil against U.S. citizens,' Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told The Intercept. 'There was no reason for this to be done when local law enforcement and the state were capable of addressing the issue.' President Donald Trump initially called up more than 2,000 National Guard troops on June 7 to tamp down protests against his anti-immigrant campaign. In doing so, he exercised rarely used federal powers that bypassed Newsom's authority. Days later, Trump called up an additional 2,000 National Guard members. On Monday, June 9, the Trump administration went further, as U.S. Northern Command activated 700 Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, assigned to Twentynine Palms, California, and sent them to LA. 'The deployment of military forces to Los Angeles is a threat to democracy and is likely illegal as well,' William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told The Intercept. 'Sending thousands of troops to Los Angeles over the objections of local and state officials undermines the autonomy of states in a federal system. The president's remark that Governor Newsom should be arrested and his pledge that demonstrators at his military parade would be met with force indicate that the concentration of power in the presidency has gotten completely out of hand.' Last week, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin told The Intercept that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called for a dramatic shift in protest response by bringing active-duty military personnel into law enforcement roles. 'As rioters have escalated their assaults on our DHS law enforcement and activists' behavior on the streets has become increasingly dangerous, Secretary Noem requested Secretary Hegseth direct the military on the ground in Los Angeles to arrest rioters to help restore law and order,' McLaughlin wrote in an email. DHS soon walked this back, asking The Intercept to disregard its earlier statement and stating that the 'posture' of 'troops has not changed.' The lone detention was reportedly conducted by Marines sent to guard the Wilshire Federal Building, a 17-story office building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Video of the incident shows Marines in full combat gear and automatic weapons zip-tying an unresisting man — clad in shorts, a T-shirt, and sunglasses — on the ground. At one point, the detainee, with his hands bound behind him, is surrounded by no fewer than six Marines and two other officials who appear to be federal security guards. The man, Marcos Leao, was not involved in any protest. The former Army combat engineer, who gained U.S. citizenship through his military service, told Reuters that he was in a rush to get to an appointment in the Veterans Affairs office inside the Federal Building. When he crossed a strand of caution tape, he found an armed Marine sprinting toward him. U.S. Army North did not respond for a request for additional information about the incident. U.S. Army North reported no other involvement in police actions aside from the lone detention. 'Military members in a Title 10 duty status are not authorized to directly participate in law enforcement activities. They may temporarily detain an individual for protection purposes — to stop an assault of, to prevent harm to, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties,' according to their public affairs office. 'Any such detention would end as soon as the individuals could be safely transferred to appropriate civilian law enforcement custody.' Since June 8, there have been 561 arrests related to protests across Los Angeles; 203, for failure to disperse, were made on the night of June 10, after Trump ordered in the National Guard and Marines. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee that he expected troops to stay in Los Angeles for 60 days to 'ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we're not going anywhere.' The estimated cost of deploying the first 2,000 Guard members and 700 Marines was $134 million, according to the Pentagon's acting comptroller/CFO, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell. Northern Command Public Affairs directed The Intercept to the Office of the Secretary of Defense for an updated estimate of the rising costs of the deployment. 'We don't have anything to provide at this time,' the Pentagon replied by email. Khanna said that the Trump administration's military overreach in California held lessons for other states and jurisdictions. 'Governors need to be on guard and vigilant about Trump's overreactions,' he told The Intercept. 'He's already said that he is going to target blue cities and blue states. So we need to be united in pushing back.'
