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us state department
'Middle Finger to the LGBTQ Community': Trump Halts US Commemoration of World AIDS Day
The move came on the heels of a report detailing how the Trump administration's foreign aid cuts set off a crisis in global AIDS response efforts.
Nov 28, 2025
The Trump administration drew outrage this week for ending formal US commemoration of World AIDS Day, directing US State Department officials to "refrain from publicly promoting" it through social media or other communication channels.
The decision was reported after the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) released an analysis detailing the harms done by the Trump administration's sweeping foreign assistance cuts.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration temporarily halted HIV-related funding, sending global response efforts into "crisis mode," USAID said. Though President Donald Trump ultimately dropped a proposal to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the administration's throttling of funds forced clinics to shut down and disrupted key community programs, the report states.
"The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. “Behind every data point in this report are people—babies and children missed for HIV screening or early HIV diagnosis, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them. We must overcome this disruption and transform the AIDS response."
In its reporting on the Trump administration's decision to halt official commemoration of World AIDS Day, which is on December 1, the New York Times pointed to studies suggesting that "cuts by the United States and other countries could result in 10 million additional HIV infections, including one million among children, and three million additional deaths over the next five years."
Today, @realDonaldTrump gave a middle finger to the LGBTQ community. His deplorable cancellation of World AIDS Day commemoration was unconscionable and unforgivable. This action was fueled by raw bigotry and fealty to his Project 2025 masters.
FIGHT.https://t.co/PcyduBcbkI
— Truth Wins Out (@truthwinsout) November 26, 2025
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), head of the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus, said in a statement that "silence is not neutrality; it is harm."
"I'm calling on the administration to immediately reverse this decision and recommit our fight against HIV/AIDS," he added.
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Stephen Miller, Who Once Reportedly Called to Drone-Strike Migrants, Is Leading Trump's Attacks on Venezuelan Boats
"For all intents and purposes, the most powerful person in the federal government is Stephen Miller," said one legal scholar.
Sep 29, 2025
The deputy chief of staff to President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller—who once reportedly advocated for the US to launch drone strikes against unarmed migrants—has played a leading role in the US’s campaign of extrajudicial airstrikes on Venezuelan boats in recent weeks.
As The Guardian reported Monday, Miller has been heavily involved in directing the strikes, at times superseding the role of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. These strikes have been orchestrated by the Homeland Security Council (HSC), which Miller leads as the president's homeland security adviser.
In a notable departure from previous administrations, Miller has turned HSC into an autonomous entity within the second Trump administration. During previous administrations, the HSC operated under the national security council umbrella and reported to the US national security adviser, who is also currently Rubio.
In recent weeks, Trump has carried out attacks on three boats in the Caribbean that the administration has alleged were carrying drugs. Legal experts from across the spectrum have contended that even if this were the case, such strikes—which have killed at least 17 people in total—are patently illegal.
The administration has provided no evidence to indicate that the people on these boats were smuggling drugs to the US. Meanwhile, one former senior law enforcement official with years of experience fighting cartels told the New York Times that the first boat struck in September—which killed 11 people—was more likely carrying migrants, since it is unusual for a drug smuggling operation to require so many people on board.
On Friday, it was reported that the US military was considering launching more strikes inside Venezuelan territory against alleged members and leaders of drug trafficking groups, as well as drug laboratories. Many commentators have said that such strikes would be an act of war and a potential prelude to a regime change operation.
That Miller is a driving force behind the boat attacks squares with previous reporting that, in 2018, while serving as one of Trump's top immigration advisers, Miller had allegedly advocated for the president to launch predator drones to blow up boats carrying unarmed migrants.
Those comments appeared in a book written by former Trump Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, who said that Miller argued for the mass killing of civilians by suggesting that they were not protected under the US Constitution because they were in international waters. After it was initially reported by Rolling Stone in 2023, Miller denied having made the comment.
As The Guardian notes, "Miller’s role also opens a window into the dubious legal justification that has been advanced for the strikes." This rationale is centered around the Trump administration's designation of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a "terrorist" organization, which Miller has also used to justify the unlawful deportation of Venezuelans under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
Miller has portrayed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the leader of the organization, suggesting—again with little evidence—that “it is not a government, it is a drug cartel, a narco-trafficking organization that is running Venezuela.”
As Common Dreams reported in May, a declassified memo showed that US intelligence agencies have rejected the Trump administration's claim that Tren de Aragua works with Maduro.
Miller's central role in the strikes carried out this past month is another sign of an outsized and growing role in the second Trump White House.
He has been a primary architect of Trump's "mass deportation" crusade, which has also involved carrying out extrajudicial deportations of Venezuelan nationals accused of membership in Tren de Aragua, often with little to no evidence.
In June, following a directive from Miller to reach a "quota" of 3,000 immigration arrests per day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has overwhelmingly targeted undocumented immigrants without criminal convictions.
Miller is also leading the White House's efforts to label left-wing organizations in the US as "terrorist organizations" in the aftermath of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk as part of efforts to "dismantle" the president's opposition.
Following the news of Miller's intimate involvement in the Venezuelan boat strikes, American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick commented that, "For all intents and purposes, the most powerful person in the federal government is Stephen Miller, not Trump."
"He is dictating military strikes, overriding cabinet secretaries, running mass deportation, and more," he said, "all while Trump golfs and occasionally signs executive orders he hasn’t read.”
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The US Is Slamming the Door on Children From Gaza; I Saw Their Faces
This is Muslim Ban 2.0: treating every Palestinian from Gaza as a threat, as if even wounded children were anything other than victims of Israeli genocide.
Aug 26, 2025
Farah doesn’t know me. I was just one of 100 people who gathered at San Francisco International Airport when she arrived last year. I work for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and we had invited the media to cover her story. HEAL Palestine, a humanitarian nonprofit, had arranged for her medical treatment in the Bay Area after she lost her eye and leg in an Israeli bombing in Gaza.
Now, the State Department has announced it is blocking new visas for Palestinians from Gaza. On X, the department stated: “All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days.”
In plain terms, this means slamming the door on children like Farah and others I’ve seen arrive in the Bay Area. Ahmed came through San Francisco carrying his own war injuries and trauma, clinging to the hope that here, at least, he could heal. Just weeks ago, three more children made it through: Layan, 14, burned and struck by shrapnel when her school was bombed. Anas, 8, who lost his father in an airstrike that crushed his leg. Ghazal, 6, wounded when an Israeli bomb exploded while her family was displaced in Rafah.
These are the children that Laura Loomer and Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) call “terrorists.” Loomer posted videos of some of the most recent arrivals and demanded that the State Department ban entry to “Islamic invaders.” That’s not just cruelty—it’s Islamophobia, plain and simple.
The same government that funds and arms Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is now moving to stop even the few wounded children who might otherwise reach safety and care.
And it worked. The State Department’s move to stop visas for Gazans echoes the same fearmongering behind US President Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban. This is Muslim Ban 2.0: treating every Palestinian from Gaza as a threat, as if even wounded children were anything other than victims of Israeli genocide.
That is what dehumanization looks like: You stop seeing children as children. You don’t see the burns on their skin, the missing limbs, the trauma etched into their faces. You don’t see the mothers and fathers carrying them through bombed-out streets, desperate just to keep them alive.
The same government that funds and arms Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is now moving to stop even the few wounded children who might otherwise reach safety and care. The cruelty is staggering.
When Layan, Anas, and Ghazal arrived at the San Francisco airport, I saw Farah again—this time with her prosthetic eye and leg. She cried as she welcomed the newcomers.
These children are our shared responsibility, and to deny that is to deny our own humanity. James Baldwin understood this truth when he wrote: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
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