Dem Congressman Floats White House Bid After Middle East Trip
Published 16 hours ago
on July 11, 2026
By Cullen McCue
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stated that he is strongly considering a run for president in 2028 after a recent trip to the West Bank. The California Democrat, a progressive lawmaker representing Silicon Valley and a frequent critic of Israeli policies, made the comments while discussing an incident in which he and members of his congressional delegation were detained by armed Israeli settlers.
Khanna described the detention during a visit earlier this week to the southern West Bank near the Palestinian hamlet of Khirbet Zanuta. According to his account and reports from multiple outlets, settlers blocked the road with vehicles and surrounded the group’s van for more than an hour on July 8.
The settlers were armed with American-made M4 rifles. Khanna told Reuters that the group had been viewing the ruins of the village, including a destroyed school, which residents had abandoned following prior settler attacks and subsequent demolition.
“We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it. And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they detain us,” he told the outlet. “They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.”
He added that he is “certainly probably the first American politician who’s been detained by the IDF and Israeli settlers.”
more
https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/dem-congressman-floats-white-house-bid-after-middle-east-trip-cmc/
