🤯After 5th Meeting in 2025, Trump makes it painfully clear that Netanyahu is his President too. He bows to no man like he does him. It's gross.

Trump calls Netanyahu a "hero" and begs Israel to pardon Netanyahu for his crimes at home - all while basically agreeing to every single request the man made of him.

Yesterday, Donald Trump met with Benjamin Netanyahu again—for the fifth time in a year, by my count, more than any other leader on earth. And watching the footage and reading the coverage, I had the same sick feeling I’ve had over and over the past two years: it looks like Netanyahu is also Trump’s president. Not a visitor. Not a counterpart. A man being treated like he co-runs American foreign policy.

Before I break down what happened and why it matters, I want to ask you from the heart to become a member today. I keep this work free for the world—for readers in Gaza, for students in public schools, for families living in deep poverty, for elders on fixed incomes—because a smaller circle of people who can afford it chooses to carry the cost. Please click here to become a member and please click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Your support keeps this work free for them, and even for you when you can’t afford to pay.

Now let’s tell the truth about what this meeting was.

According to reporting by Loveday Morris and Lior Soroka in The Washington Post, Trump stood beside Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago and, when asked about Netanyahu’s corruption trial back home, Trump called him a “wartime prime minister” and “a hero,” then openly mused that it would be “very hard” not to pardon him. That’s not diplomacy. That’s endorsement. That’s a U.S. president casually discussing intervening in another country’s legal system to protect a man who is already drenched in scandal and war.

And this is not a normal leader. This is a leader the world is increasingly treating as a man accused of the most serious crimes imaginable, facing international legal scrutiny and warrants over war crimes in Gaza —yet Trump is out here polishing him like a campaign surrogate.

The Post also reports something else that should make every American sit up: Netanyahu’s trip conveniently paused his cross-examination in the bribery and fraud case known as “Case 4000.” The coverage notes just how often hearings have been canceled or cut short since Netanyahu began testimony in June, and how “security concerns” keep serving as the excuse. Then he flies to Florida, stands beside the President of the United States, and collects a headline that reads like a medal ceremony.

If you can’t see what’s happening here, let me say it plainly.

This wasn’t just a foreign policy meeting. This was a domestic rescue mission for Netanyahu, staged on American soil, under American cameras, with an American president delivering the talking points.

The Post quotes Israeli voices describing it as a “love fest,” and one commentator says Trump essentially handed Netanyahu his campaign. That’s exactly what it looked like. Trump praising Netanyahu, Trump saying that without him “Israel might not exist,” Trump giving Netanyahu a storyline that overrides the deep failures that led to October 7th and the ongoing catastrophe since.

And while they performed this little political theater, Gaza—this genocide that has now been ongoing for over two years—continued to bleed in the background like a stain that nobody in that photo op is willing to treat as urgent.

This is the core moral problem with the meeting.

Israel’s leadership has built an entire ideology around permanent impunity—the belief that it can do anything, to anyone, forever, and never pay a real price. Trump’s public praise is the loudest possible confirmation of that ideology. A man standing accused in international forums, facing global condemnation, is not being treated like an outcast. He’s being treated like a hero and a friend and a political partner.

And I’m going to say the part Americans don’t want to admit: this isn’t just Netanyahu’s power. This is America’s powerbeing used to protect him.

When Washington says, “hero,” it makes it harder for anyone else to say “criminal.”
When Washington says, “pardon,” it makes accountability look optional.
When Washington rolls out the red carpet five times in one year, it tells the world who is really in charge: not international law, not the United Nations, not the courts—the empire.

International law was built after the worst atrocities of the 20th century with a simple premise: some crimes are so severe that leaders should not be able to hide behind politics. War crimes. Crimes against humanity. Genocide. The whole idea was: no more “he’s our guy, so he’s untouchable.”

What Trump did yesterday was treat that entire moral framework like a joke.

And here’s why it feels like Netanyahu is Trump’s president: because Trump doesn’t behave like he’s meeting a foreign leader who needs persuasion. He behaves like he’s meeting a partner whose agenda America will carry. Iran threats get amplified. Gaza becomes a “plan.” Accountability becomes a nuisance. The photo op becomes the reality.

It’s the same pattern we’ve watched for years: the U.S. gives Israel weapons, money, diplomatic cover, vetoes, and now a rolling stage for campaign rehabilitation. And then America pretends surprise when the world’s institutions can’t stop what’s happening.

You can’t stop a machine you keep fueling.

And I need to say this as clearly as I know how: this relationship is not about American safety. It is about American power being used to enforce Israel’s impunity. It is about politicians in Washington—Republican and Democrat—choosing the simplest bipartisan consensus they have left: protect Israel’s leadership, no matter what the bodies look like, no matter what the courts say, no matter what the world pleads.

If you want to understand why Gaza has endured what it has endured for over two years, look at that handshake. Look at that praise. Look at that talk of pardons. Look at five meetings in one year.

That’s the structure. That’s the power. That’s the permission slip.

And I’m asking you to keep refusing it.

If you want me to keep writing with this kind of clarity, with receipts and moral truth, and to keep it free for anyone who needs it, I need you with me. Please click here to become a member and please click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

Don’t Stop Here

If you felt that “something is off” watching Trump and Netanyahu together, trust your instincts. Power loves pageantry because pageantry dulls conscience. Keep asking who benefits, who is protected, and who is being erased. And if you want one practical step today, forward this post to three people who still believe Washington is an honest broker. Ask them one question: what does it mean when a U.S. president treats a leader facing international war-crimes scrutiny as a hero—and even floats a pardon?

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