January, 13 2020, 11:00pm EDT
NIAC Responds to Baseless Accusations by Senators Cotton, Cruz, and Braun
WASHINGTON
In response to a letter sent by Senators Tom Cotton (R-AK), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Mike Braun (R-IN) to the Department of Justice baselessly urging an investigation into NIAC and NIAC Action, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) issued the following statement:
"At NIAC, we are proud of the work we do for our community. We will never stop working to advance peace and diplomacy or fighting for equitable immigration policies and the civil rights of all Americans. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, immigrant organizations and communities like ours are increasingly under attack by agenda-driven groups and individuals who often resort to baseless smears to try to discredit those who disagree with them.
"The slanderous accusations from Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and Mike Braun have zero merit. It is yet another sign that warhawks are seeking to intimidate pro-peace voices, starting with Iranian Americans, from halting the push toward war, which Cotton and Cruz have long championed. We have already seen the coordinated efforts, such as the U.S. government funded "IranDisinfo" project that slandered groups like Human Rights Watch, as well as Iranian-American journalists, analysts, academics, and civil society organizations like ours who dared speak out against the Trump Administration's Iran policies. This is the latest attempt to silence NIAC and other pro-peace Iranian Americans from having a voice in this debate that impacts us and our community. We will not let that happen.
"NIAC and NIAC Action are independent American organizations. We do not receive money from any government, are not agents of any government, and take great pride in our transparency. We are funded by reputable U.S. foundations, ordinary Iranian Americans, and American allies who support peace and civil rights. We routinely condemn the Iranian government for its gross violations of its international human rights obligations, including amid the November crackdown and this past weekend over protests following the government's downing of a civilian aircraft.
"The Senators' accusations of dual loyalty targeting our organization, particularly amid heightened risks of war, are disgusting and dangerous. We are just a few days removed from Iranian Americans being detained for questioning at U.S. ports of entry based on their national heritage. These incidents have only compounded an atmosphere of xenophobia, which have made Americans of all backgrounds feel vulnerable in their own country, and have no place within the civil discourse of the United States. In this period of heightened fears and trauma, it is shameful these Senators choose to slander NIAC and NIAC Action as we stand up for the Iranian-American community and work to protect our community's civil liberties.
"We strongly dispute the mischaracterization of our work by the Senators in their hastily drafted letter. Both Senators Cotton and Cruz have made clear that they favor war with Iran over diplomatic solutions--and they have done nothing to halt this administration from banning our friends and family from Iran beginning in his first week in office. While we know little of Senator Braun, his joining in this McCarthyite targeting of an Iranian-American civil rights organization betrays that he knows little of our community and less about basic democratic liberties.
"It is unfortunate and telling that these warmongers have put NIAC in their crosshairs. Our organization has for years led the charge against war, reflecting the anti-war position of the vast majority of the Iranian-American community. Sens. Cotton, Cruz, and Braun recognize us as a threat to their plans and seek to slander us into silence. They will not succeed. Freedom, equality, and democracy are not just hopeful words, they are the foundations of a just world that we will continue to advocate for, starting here at home in the United States."
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2002 to give voice to the Iranian-American community. From being the trusted voice on U.S.- Iran relations, to pushing forth legislation that protects individuals of Iranian heritage from systematic discrimination, to celebrating our cultural heritage, NIAC creates a lasting impact in the lives of the members of our community.
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Journalists Set the Record Straight After Musk Claims ‘Not a Single' Child Died From DOGE’s USAID Cuts
"Come with me on a reporting trip," said New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. "You'll see the dying children themselves."
Jun 29, 2026
As Elon Musk continues to claim that "not a single" child has died as a result of his foreign aid cuts at the beginning of the second Trump administration, journalists—including ones who witnessed the consequences of the policy firsthand—are correcting the record.
Since being called out by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who cited a journal's projection that 4.5 million children under 5 could die by 2030 as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) sudden termination of most of the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) programs—including an 88% cut to children's health aid awards—last year, the newly minted trillionaire has repeatedly asserted that the claim that he is responsible for the deaths of kids is "a total lie."
"There is not even a single dead child!" Musk wrote on his social media platform X last Monday. "If there were, it would be worldwide headline news!"
Multiple journalists have been quick to respond that, in fact, the deaths of children and other people directly attributed to the termination of USAID programs by the agency he headed have been widely documented by major news outlets.
"Independent analyses estimate that your actions to dismantle USAID and drastically reduce lifesaving foreign aid have already killed 700,000 people," wrote Atul Gawande, the former USAID global health chief and longtime New Yorker writer, who cited models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols.
In a lengthy thread posted on Thursday, Gawande cited nearly two-dozen examples in which news outlets named people who died as a direct result of cuts to health programs they relied upon, including:
- Nyagoa, the 1-year-old daughter of Nyajime Duop, who died of cholera after the International Rescue Committee's mobile health team stopped coming to her village in South Sudan after its grant was terminated, according to a December report from ProPublica. Save the Children said last year that it was forced to either shutter or scale back care at its 27 child clinics in Akobo County, in South Sudan's Jonglei state. In April 2025, amid a cholera outbreak, the group reported that five children died while walking three hours to the nearest clinic after the one near them closed, which was reported by The Associated Press.
- 5-year-old Suza Kenyaba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who died on February 19 after shipment of an anti-malaria drug that had already been purchased was left stranded in a distribution warehouse after payments to contractors were frozen by the US government, according to The Washington Post. There were more than 600 malaria deaths in the DRC's Haut-Katanga province in the first six months of 2025, more than the total number in 2024. The Post found that 95% of USAID malaria medication shipments in the first six months of 2025 were either delayed or did not arrive at all.
- 11-year-old Paciencia in Mozambique died after the case worker handling her treatment for HIV was abruptly laid off along with most others, hospitals ran out of the US-funded antiretroviral drugs she relied upon, and she was given the wrong medication after the data clerks who managed patient information were laid off, according to the South African publication Spotlight. The National Association for Self-Sustained Development (ANDA), the US-funded group that handled this HIV treatment, found that at least 16 children died between January and June 2025 in the province of Manica, many more than they had seen before the cuts.
These are just a few of the numerous other examples cited by Gawande, who added that part of the reason verifying deaths has been challenging is that DOGE's cuts also "destroyed" USAID's data and auditing systems, which meant that figures and overall mortality effects would take another year to fully tally.
However, he said he and a team of reporters had already compiled individual reports of more than 1,200 people whose deaths can be directly attributed to the cuts.
Even after being presented with direct evidence to the contrary, Musk continued to insist on Sunday that critics of his cuts to USAID "cannot cite a single name of someone who died out of the 'millions' they falsely claim have died. Not a single name!"
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, whose reporting on the impacts of the sudden aid cuts was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, responded that he could give Musk a list of "many, many names of people who have died because of your aid cuts."
He listed the names of just a few of the people whose cases he had witnessed firsthand, which are recounted in greater depth in his reports. As Kristoff wrote:- Yamah Freeman was a [21-year-old] woman who died in childbirth because you stopped paying for the diesel for ambulances in her part of Liberia. I talked to her parents and sister in their village.
- Gbessey Kiadu, age 1, died of malaria because of your cuts in Liberia. I talked to his mom in her village.
- Ibrahim Koroma, an infant, died of AIDS in Sierra Leone after you interrupted HIV supplies. I talked to health workers who cared for him.
- Achol Deng was an 8-year-old girl with HIV in South Sudan who died when you cut funding for the health care worker who provided her medicines. I talked to him.
"I could go on and on," Kristof continued, "In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts."
He issued a "challenge" to Musk: "Come with me on a reporting trip, and we'll talk to these moms and dads, and you'll see the dying children themselves. I think if you see the kids whose lives are at stake, maybe you'll change your mind."
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Israel Killing West Bank Children at Highest Rate in Decades 'With Virtually No Accountability'
"The system does not merely back those who pull the trigger—it effectively grants them a license to kill," said the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
Jun 29, 2026
Between October 2023 and June 2026, Israel's military killed Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank at the highest rate since 1967, according to a report published Monday by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem.
The report, titled Unshielded Childhood, argues that "the unprecedented scale of killing of Palestinian children and teenagers by Israeli forces is the result of a reckless open-fire policy, expanded to be even more permissive than in the past, that is currently being implemented in the West Bank." Between October 7, 2023 and June 28, 2026, Israeli forces killed more than 240 children and teenagers, with 54 killed in 2025 alone.
The report, which tells the story of each child killed by Israeli forces last year, quotes Israel's top West Bank commander, Avi Bluth, who recently boasted that Israeli forces are "killing like we haven’t killed since 1967"—a reference to the Six-Day War in which Israel seized the West Bank. Among those killed between the start of 2025 and June 7, 2026 were two brothers—one 5 years old, the other 6—and a seven-month-old baby.
Yuli Novak, executive director of B'Tselem, said in a statement that "the widespread, unprecedented killing of Palestinian children and teenagers in the West Bank is the result of a broader Israeli policy that enables the killing of Palestinians with virtually no accountability."
"When the military commander of the area boasts that Israel is killing Palestinians ‘like we haven't killed since 1967,’ he is confirming exactly that: The system does not merely back those who pull the trigger—it effectively grants them a license to kill," Novak added.
Citing fellow Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, B'Tselem noted that "no indictments are known to have been filed in cases involving killings in the West Bank" since October 2023.
"Yet the immunity guaranteed in advance and the absence of any real demand for accountability after these crimes are committed are not confined to the legal sphere," the report states. "They are also reflected in 'public impunity' that stems from the Israeli public’s indifference to the killing of Palestinian children."
בשנת 2025 הרגה ישראל הרגה 54 ילדים ובני נוער פלסטינים בגדה המערבית.
הדו״ח החדש שלנו מספר את סיפורם של כל אחד ואחת מהם.
מאז אוקטובר 2023 נהרגו בידי ישראל בגדה המערבית 1,086 פלסטינים, בהם 241 ילדים ובני נוער – ובהם גם סאם אבו הייכל, תינוק בן שבעה חודשים. אלה אינם מקרים חריגים,… pic.twitter.com/j96gyE3dAQ
— B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) June 29, 2026
B'Tselem linked the spike in Israeli forces' killing of Palestinian children in the West Bank to "the military's declared easing of open-fire regulations at the end of 2021, reportedly permitting soldiers to use lethal fire against stone throwers in a departure from previous rules."
"The new regulations permitted use of lethal fire even at individuals fleeing after suspectedly throwing stones, who no longer posed a danger—in violation of international law," the group noted. "After 7 October 2023, the rules of engagement were further expanded, leading to another sharp rise in fatalities."
B'Tselem's investigation found that just two of the 54 Palestinian children and teenagers killed in the West Bank last year were armed with guns at the time they were killed by Israeli forces.
The group continued:
Thirteen were shot while throwing stones at roads or at armored Israeli forces, with no injuries reported from the stone-throwing. By contrast, at least 21 were not involved in any clashes, even when clashes were taking place nearby that included stone-throwing, hurling explosives or live fire. Regarding 12 minors, the military claimed they had tried to injure forces by throwing Molotov cocktails, IEDs ,or stones; B’Tselem’s investigation could neither verify nor refute this claim. Another teen was the object of a targeted killing. Forty-seven of the children and teenagers were killed by gunfire, and the remaining seven in airstrikes.
B'Tselem emphasized that the West Bank killings "cannot be separated from Israel's killing of more than 21,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip."
"By allowing Israel to kill on such a scale in Gaza without consequences, the international community has effectively given it a green light to pursue the same lethal policy in the West Bank," the group said in a statement. "As long as Israel continues to enjoy near-total impunity in the world, the lives of Palestinians—including children—will remain unprotected and exposed."
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'Republicans Created This Crisis on Purpose': Federal Data Shows ACA Enrollment Plunging
"This coverage collapse was a choice that Congress made. As a result, millions more will end up uninsured, living sicker, dying younger, and being one emergency away from financial ruin."
Jun 29, 2026
The Trump administration quietly released data last week showing a sharp decline in the number of Americans enrolled in health insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, a widely predicted outcome caused by congressional Republicans' refusal to extend subsidies that helped people buy coverage.
The new data, published Friday on the Department of Health and Human Services' website, shows that 19.2 million people were enrolled in ACA marketplace plans as of February—a decline of more than 5 million since the start of President Donald Trump's second term.
Last year, Republicans repeatedly blocked Democratic efforts to enact a temporary extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits, whose expiration at the start of 2026 led insurers to jack up premiums, pricing many out of coverage entirely. In focus groups, some Americans facing premium spikes said they would be forced to cut back on groceries or ration their medications to afford coverage.
“This dramatic decrease of millions of Americans losing health insurance is the result of deliberate decisions by the president and congressional leaders—it is what we feared but expected, given the end of the enhanced tax credit and other policies that make it harder to get on and stay on coverage," said Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA. "As a result, millions more will end up uninsured, living sicker, dying younger, and being one emergency away from financial ruin."
Wright dismissed the Trump administration's attempt to explain away the coverage losses by claiming the numbers show a decline in "phantom" enrollment and fraud, calling that narrative "an insult to every person who became uninsured or underinsured."
"These results are real for the millions who faced premiums doubling, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for coverage. The resulting price spikes and coverage losses are real for all who buy coverage as individuals, including gig workers, small business owners, young adults, seniors not quite of Medicare age, and many others," said Wright. "The consequences are now undeniable: millions dropped from the rolls, and yet another year of double-digit premium increases."
The lapse of enhanced ACA subsidies—which were established in 2021 during the Biden administration—alongside the roughly $900 billion in Medicaid cuts included in the Republican budget package that Trump signed into law last summer amounts to what analysts, advocates, and Democratic lawmakers say is the largest assault on federal healthcare programs in US history.
"We weren’t being hysterical. We knew this would happen," said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in response to the new enrollment figures. "When Republicans passed the Big Ugly Bill and cut funding for healthcare, they literally signed away millions of Americans’ ability to afford health insurance. And now it’s happening."
According to the Congressional Budget Office, around 16 million people across the US could lose health coverage by 2034 due to the Trump-GOP law, and millions of children have lost coverage since last year.
“Trump and Republicans are engineering the most devastating assault on healthcare in history, and today’s numbers prove it," Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said on Friday. "They ripped away the tax credits that helped millions afford coverage, gutted funding to help people enroll, and sabotaged the ACA at every turn. They knew exactly what would happen, they chose to do it anyway, and it’s going to get worse."
“Among the three million who have lost coverage are parents skipping cancer screenings, patients rationing insulin, and families who are now one medical emergency away from financial ruin," said Dach. "Republicans created this crisis on purpose, and while Americans pay for it with their health and their lives, billionaires are cashing their tax cut checks."
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