Iran’s recent hack of the Trump campaign is an ‘explicit tipping of the scales’ in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, according to one former national security official.

Last week, the U.S. revealed Iranian hackers had obtained information on the Trump campaign and tried to distribute it to people linked to the Biden campaign and media organizations since June. 

‘It’s no surprise, right?’ Robert Greenway, former head of Middle East policy on the National Security Council, told Fox News Digital. ‘Iran perceives the return of Donald Trump and his policies, which brought them to the brink of financial collapse, as an existential threat.’ 

Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Iran deal meant to stave off a nuclear Iran in exchange for softening of sanctions. Republicans argued the deal did not have enough enforcement. 

After Biden rolled back sanctions on Iran, Greenway argued, the regime went from 500 centrifuges needed to make a nuclear bomb to 7,000. It went from 5% enriched uranium to 60% (90% is needed for a nuclear weapon.) It went from exporting 400,000 barrels of oil per day in 2019 under the Trump administration’s harsh sanctions to 1.7 million barrels per day today. 

‘They’ve made a tremendous amount of money. They have had doors opened by the U.S. administration.’

Reports also suggest renewed activity in two nuclear weaponization sites in Iran – Sanjarian and Golab Dareh.

But another Middle East expert shrugged off the incidents, suggesting it could have been as simple as a Trump campaign staffer inadvertently clicking on a phishing scam. 

‘The Iranians carry out a bunch of cyberattacks all the time,’ said Aaron Stein, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. 

‘I think this one might be as explained as simply as somebody was silly enough to click on probably an obvious cyber phishing and it would expose the campaign to potential embarrassment if somebody ultimately chooses to publish the documents.’

‘I don’t know if [the Iranians] have a favorite in the race,’ Stein said. ‘There have been numerous investigations that the Iranians continue to try and actively plot… to take revenge for the killing of [Iranian General] Qassem Soleimani in the Trump administration.’ 

‘But the Iran nuclear deal is dead. I don’t think anybody is going back to it. I ultimately think the approach to Iran would be more or less the same. Trump might be a little more bellicose, but I think in a practical sense, it’ll be more or less the same.’ 

‘The Islamic Republic is indeed seeking to sow discord of the West,’ Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iranian expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said of the campaign hack. ‘But we cannot be ignorant of the empirical record.’

‘The reason the Islamic Republic in 2020 was trying to drive voter turnout on the left, the reason in 2018 and 2019 accounts tied to the Islamic Republic were trying to spoof and amplify methods tied to the progressive left. The reason they tried to hack the Trump campaign very recently, their reason, still the Islamic Republic seeks the assassination of former President Donald Trump, is that Trump was exceptionally successful in his maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic,’ he said. 

Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian was in New York City, where he struck a less combative tone at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. 

‘We don’t wish to be the cause of instability in the region,’ he told the crowd. ‘We don’t want war… We want to live in peace.’ 

‘We know more than anyone else that if a larger war were to erupt in the Middle East, it will not benefit anyone throughout the world. It is Israel that seeks to create this wider conflict,’ he insisted. 

Pezeshkian was elected on a promise that he could convince the West to lift sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Taleblue predicted that Pezeshkian would take to New York to ‘prime the press to deliver talking points, that they are indeed interested in nuclear talks, but again, really, they’ll only use nuclear talks as a human shield against real pressure.’

‘They will probably try to successfully exploit a permissive environment to sell more oil to China, to generate more revenue to fund its drone program, its missile program and its nuclear program… under patronage from Russia and China.’ 

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned Americans against re-electing former President Trump.

‘What I’d say in a respectful way to Americans is: I don’t think you realize that the rest of the world is watching because we’ve got skin in the game,’ Khan reportedly said in an interview with Politico. 

‘What happens in America is the metronome… that sets the beat of what happens across the globe,’ Khan, who is in his third term as mayor of London, told the outlet while in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly. ‘It sets the beat for how other politicians behave in an election campaign.’

Khan, a left-leaning Labour Party member, claimed that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and rhetoric about women and immigrants are dangerous, according to Politico. He encouraged Americans to consider Trump’s first term. 

Compared to other United Kingdom leaders, such as Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Politico said Khan could more boldly support Vice President Kamala Harris as president of the United States. Starmer became the first Labour Party member to address their annual conference as prime minister in 15 years this week, the Washington Post reported. His speech referenced a need for ‘joy’ – a catchphrase promoted by the Harris campaign. 

Khan, who has been engaged in public feuds with Trump in the past and has outwardly called the Republican presidential nominee a racist, a sexist and a homophobe, categorized the upcoming American election as one of significant importance. Trump has also been critical of Khan, describing the mayor in 2019 as a ‘stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London.’ 

‘Make sure you’re registered to vote and make sure you vote,’ Khan told Politico this week. ‘Because the election that happens on Nov. 5, in my view, is the most important election in my lifetime.’ 

Politico also asked Khan about some of the worst unrest the United Kingdom had seen in years following the mass knife attack in Southport this summer. 

The mayor argued that British and American politicians should focus on responding to issues surrounding health care, housing and education, ‘not to play on people’s fears.’ 

‘The oldest trick in the book is to blame the other,’ Khan said. ‘The oldest trick in the book is to pick on one community and one minority, manufacture a situation where they’re blamed for the problems.’

London was gripped with mass protests, arson and rioting in response to three young girls being stabbed to death during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Southport neighborhood. Authorities blamed speculation online suggesting the attacker was a migrant Islamic extremist as driving ‘far-right’ protests and violent clashes with the police. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested, reports say. 

The July 29 knife attack left eight other children and two adults seriously injured. Authorities later identified the assailant as Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, a 17-year-old born in Cardiff to parents from Rwanda, the BBC reported. He is facing three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. 

In the interview, Khan also defended Starmer, who has been mired in controversies in his first three months in office involving accepting donor gifts, slashing winter fuel allowances for retirees and low approval ratings. 

‘It has been tough. Of course, it’s tough. Running things is tough, but I’d rather Keir Starmer make those tough calls, tough decisions, to be straight with the British people now, rather than having things being covered up and buried away,’ Khan told Politico. ‘And that means sometimes making decisions that in the short term are unpopular, but leading to medium-term, long-term benefits.’

China fired a missile into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday following a speech on the international stage by President Biden, in which he called for security in the region.

The Ministry of Defense of the People’s Republic of China announced that its military had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday morning.

The missile, which carried a dummy warhead and was not targeting any nation, fell into the ocean without incident. The People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force claims that the launch was part of its routine military training calendar.

Just hours prior, Biden made his final address to the United Nations in New York City, running through a series of security concerns for the international body.

Biden specifically noted the threat posed against Western interests by China and urged efforts for peace.

‘We also need to uphold our principles as we seek to responsibly manage the competition with China so it does not veer into conflict,’ he said. ‘We stand ready to cooperate on urgent challenges for the good of our people and the people everywhere.’

‘We recently resumed cooperation with China to stop the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics,’ Biden continued. ‘I appreciate the collaboration. It matters for the people in my country and many others around the world.’

Biden specifically referenced the need to combat the forces of ‘military coercion’ being applied to Taiwan and others in the region.

‘On matters of conviction, the United States is unabashed, pushing back against unfair economic competition and against military coercion of other nations in the South China Sea, in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, in protecting our most advanced technologies so they cannot be used against us or any of our partners,’ the president said.

A U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that they were given some notice before the launch.

‘We monitored the PRC ICBM test launch that occurred earlier today,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘The PRC did give some advance notification of the ICBM test. This is a step in the right direction to reducing the risks of misperception and miscalculation.’

‘It also is a step toward facilitating a more regularized bilateral notification arrangement for ballistic missile and space launches—which the USG has previously proposed to the PRC—and represents a common sense confidence-building measure,’ they added.

There is so much bias and bluster in cable news that it’s hard to know what to believe.

Depending on the network, the coverage can seem like bouncing between alternate galaxies.  

And overall trust in the media has of course plummeted to new lows.

Most people don’t even trust the fact-checkers, so we don’t have a basic agreement on what’s true or not in this insane presidential race, a common base of information that everyone can then debate.

That’s true even of the podcasters and social media influencers who have made such an impact in the mediasphere.

Fox News draws the most scrutiny, of course, because its audience far eclipses that of its two main cable news rivals. But there is almost no scrutiny of MSNBC as an uber-liberal organization. Maybe that’s because so many New York Times and Washington Post employees are either paid contributors or regular guests, so the leftist environment comes to seem normal.

Once in a blue moon, someone writes the ‘hey, that place is pretty darn liberal’ piece. But another barometer is former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki, who has her own show, and Symone Sanders-Townsend, the former top aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, co-hosting a weekend show. 

To be fair, there are some good journalists at MSNBC. Whatever Steve Kornacki says at the big monitor, I believe him. MS also benefits from news packages by seasoned NBC reporters.

Mediaite’s Colby Hall says it’s common knowledge that ‘MSNBC has figured out a lucrative model designed around programming that appeals to progressive, liberal, and left-of-center viewers, eyeballs that they then sell to multibillion-dollar corporations to advertise pharmaceutical products, cars, and fossil fuels…

‘With a crucial election approaching, MSNBC’s naked advocacy for the Harris-Walz campaign has only become louder and further afoot from what a news network would reasonably do.’

Hall says he’s made the same arguments about Fox, ‘but MSNBC pretty much gets a pass from the same set of group-thinkers eager to farm engagement from one another on social media.’

I’ll have more to say on that in a moment.

‘There is also the relentless pro-Harris fawning pervasive on the network, perhaps best exemplified by Chris Hayes saying that Kamala Harris’s performance in her debate with Trump was the ‘best performance’ in history because Trump ‘couldn’t control her mind.’ There is Donny Deutsch admitting that he ‘kind of fell in love’ with Harris after her campaign kickoff speech.’

Bottom line: ‘Perhaps most damning is the complete lack of reporting on air of stories that are in any way negative about Harris… Let’s not pretend that they are anything close to a news outlet when, in recent weeks, they have looked more like an arm of political propaganda working on behalf of the Democratic Party.’

Now, what most critics overlook, because it doesn’t fit the narrative, is that Fox has a news division, of which I am a part. These hard-working journalists and producers do their best to play it straight. 

Naturally, the most attention is paid to the high-profile conservative hosts on the opinion shows after 5 p.m. But it’s a mistake to represent that as all of Fox News.

Here’s the proof. On big nights – conventions, debates, elections – Fox’s coverage is anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum of the news division, in my view the best in the business. On CNN, the coverage is anchored by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash or Anderson Cooper.

But at MSNBC, it’s an all-liberal pundit lineup: Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Lawrence O’Donnell, maybe Alex Wagner. Ever since Brian Williams, well after the controversy that cost him the NBC anchor job, left MSNBC, there hasn’t been even the fig leaf of a nationally known broadcaster who attempts to play it down the middle.

Every network makes its choices and is conscious of its audience. The result may be, as Hall says, dishing out propaganda for the campaign.

Maggie Haberman, the ace New York Times reporter who is also a CNN analyst, has a sunnier view:

‘I think that the media does a very good job covering Trump,’ she said on NPR. ‘There are always going to be specific stories that could have been better, should have been better, that are written on deadline, and people are not being as precise as they should be.’

But Haberman argues that there is an industry ‘dedicated toward attacking the media, especially as it relates to covering Donald Trump and all coverage of Trump. And I think that Trump is a really difficult figure to cover because he challenges news media process every day, has for years. The systems are just fundamentally – they were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he often does.’ 

She adds that the press is not a monolith and ‘most of the information that the public has about Trump is because of reporting by the media.’

Sure, the right wing goes after the media, widely viewed as liberal – CNN’s nighttime panels are often 6 to 1 against Trump – for criticizing their man or swooning over Kamala. Trump himself is at the forefront of the attacks on the ‘enemy of the people,’ often ripping individual journalists. 

But there’s also a left wing that attacks conservative outlets, and not just Fox, for supposedly being fiercely protective of Trump and harshly critical of Harris. 

Being caught in the crossfire is rather unpleasant, as Maggie knows better than anyone. But taking the heat is part of the job we all signed up for.

Former President Trump was briefed Tuesday about ‘real and specific threats’ from Iran to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate, according to his campaign. 

Iran’s aim to assassinate Trump is part of the Islamic Republic’s efforts to ‘destabilize and sow chaos in the United States,’ Trump Campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a press release. 

‘Intelligence officials have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months, and law enforcement officials across all agencies are working to ensure President Trump is protected and the election is free from interference,’ Cheung said. 

‘Make no mistake, the terror regime in Iran loves the weakness of Kamala Harris, and is terrified of the strength and resolve of President Trump. He will let nothing stop him or get in his way to fight for the American people and to Make America Great Again.’ 

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

In the weeks following the nearly back-to-back assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump, the Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation that would boost Secret Service protection to major presidential candidates.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced the Protect Our President Act, which will enhance U.S. Secret Service (USSS) protection for presidential nominees to the same level currently provided for a sitting president. However, a nominee is free to decline this. 

It would additionally extend that presidential-level protection to vice presidential nominees, in this case to Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn.

‘Over the course of just 65 days, two deranged individuals have tried to kill President Donald Trump, and one was able to shoot him in the head,’ Scott wrote during the bill’s introduction.

Additionally, the bill would require regular reporting from the Secret Service to leaders of the House and Senate on the status of candidates’ protection. 

The regular reporting would mandate that the agency provide a report of the nominee’s protection every 15 days during a presidential election year.

Such reports would include threat levels, security measures, costs, amount of personnel assigned and any needs that are unmet. 

The report would also include the threat level for each presidential nominee, the security measures being implemented, associated costs, the number of personnel permanently assigned to each protective detail, and any unmet security needs.

In a press release, Sen. John Barrasso, R-WY, said that the bill will ‘ensure’ that all candidates receive proper protection.

‘Our nation has witnessed two horrifying assassination attempts on President Trump. We were merely inches away from a catastrophic event that would have changed the course of our history,’ he wrote. ‘This cannot happen again. The Protect Our Presidents Act will ensure all presidential nominees receive the same level of protection provided to the president. This will give law enforcement the resources they need to keep President Trump and all of the candidates safe.’

Fox News Julia Johnson, David Spunt and Kelly Phares contributed to this report.