As we enter the third day of fighting between two nuclear armed nations, India and Pakistanthe United States has made it clear that it will not serve as a mediator to prevent a regional war. In an interview with Fox News, Vice President JD Vance called the conflict “fundamentally none of our business,” ignoring a nearly 50-year history of the United States using South Asia to push back against Russia and China.

Sticking to the “America First” narrative and publicly stating that the United States will not work to influence any country to “lay down their arms” not only diminishes American power — it gives China the gift of dominating the wealth of trade going through the subcontinent, at the cost of millions of civilian lives.

As a U.S. diplomat at the height of our country’s war in Afghanistan, I witnessed the U.S.’s effort to balance South Asian narratives of trauma while securing benefits for all involved.

As a U.S. diplomat at the height of our country’s war in Afghanistan, I witnessed the United States’ effort to balance South Asian narratives of trauma while securing benefits for all involved. The U.S. is well-equipped to step in as a diplomatic power to stem conflicts between other nations, from the Dayton Accords that settled the Bosnian War in 1995 to building multinational coalitions to keep the peace in the Central African Republic in 2013. In cases where direct talks between leaders at the height of emotion can make the situation worse, U.S. diplomats’ shuttle diplomacy has given the South Asian nations a face-saving off-ramp after terror attacks.

The two states of India and Pakistan, created after a horrific and bloody partition in 1947, have much in common culturally but are now on very different trajectories strategically.

With more than 1.5 billion residents, India is a booming economic market now looking to be a global cultural force. The U.S. is India’s largest trading partner. To grasp the scope of India’s expanding cultural influence here simply look at the Met Gala’s embrace of Indian superstars like Shah Rukh Khan and the Kardashian’s highly publicized friendship with the ultra-wealthy Ambani family.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, a nation of 250 million people, has used its position at the crossroads of the Middle East and Central Asia to become a trading bridge to China and a base of U.S. national security operations. As recently as last month, while slashing foreign aid budgets elsewhere, the Trump administration continued a nearly $400 million military assistance program with Pakistan, as part of the decadeslong U.S.-Pakistan counterterrorism program.

U.S. leaders from across the political spectrum have supported strategic planning with both India and Pakistan, including high level exchanges on trade and defense. Between Strategic Dialogue deals and bilateral agreements, billions of dollars were invested over the years in making security and stability in South Asia the business of the United States.

Civil society and social institutions in both countries worked hard to move their military and political classes away from seeing each other as enemies worthy of destruction — and instead to operate as competitors. In 2006, after nearly 40 years of no direct transit, bus and rail routes between some cities in both countries resumed. Bollywood recently opened the door for Pakistani music legends and movie stars like Fawad Khan, while Pakistani-produced soap operas still draw millions of viewers from India. At the Wagah border, color guards from both sides put on a show for civilians, stamping their feet and posturing at each other every sunset. Cultural connections, known formally as “track three diplomacy,” have been the backbone of keeping the lid on conflict.

But unresolved tensions from the partition, in particular British colonial forces’ hasty carve-out of the Kashmir province, simmered throughout the decades, becoming easy tinder for conflict along religious and ethnic lines, all of which existed on this stretch of land once called Kashmir and now claimed by India, Pakistan and China. The attack on civilians in Pahalgam last month had people on both sides of the border taking to the internet to remind each other not to blame entire religions for terrorist attacks, with many using humor about their own poor circumstances to defuse tensions.

Missile and drone strikes are now being traded between India and Pakistan with the tacit approval of the United States.

But the military industrial complexes vowed revenge; missile and drone strikes are now being traded between India and Pakistan with the tacit approval of the United States, while local leaders’ calls for international mediation are being ignored.

In this new world order, when the United States steps back and washes its hands of its own history, China steps in. India is sending two messages with its response to the terror attack: that it will hit back at the source of militant operations and will seek to cut off the trade going through Pakistan. China is more than willing to defend its economic investments, providing military and propaganda support for Pakistan to respond.

This is the result of the United States stepping back from being the reasonable and responsible partner to other countries: old wounds become fresh, conflicts escalate, civilians are killed and might becomes right. We are now in a moment where tit-for-tat violence is building toward population centers coming under attack. What comes next in a conflict between two nuclear powers is everyone’s business.

Nayyera Haq

Nayyera Haq is a broadcast journalist focusing on international security and diplomacy who previously served as a senior director at the White House, a senior adviser at the State Department and spokesperson at the U.S. Treasury, where she advised the country’s top leaders. She hosts conversations on SiriusXM talk radio and previously hosted the nightly newscast “The World Tonight,” and she was chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Black News Channel.

President Donald Trump is casting yet another Fox News regular for a top position in his administration.

Trump announced on Thursday that he has selected Jeanine Pirroco-host of Fox’s panel show “The Five,” to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. She is the 23rd former Fox News employee to date that Trump has picked for a high-ranking federal post in his second term in office.

Trump is notoriously obsessed with Fox News’s programming. The president relies on the network to inform his worldview and provide advice about how the federal government should respond to crucial events. So it comes as little surprise that he has brought many of its employees in-house, with Fox alumni occupying top positions in the White House, Cabinet and elsewhere in government.

The Trump administration ranks are filled with people whose Fox work has gotten them jobs well beyond their traditional qualifications.

And it’s even less surprising that Pirro will now join their ranks. As Fox remade itself as a Trumpist network, Pirro emerged as one of the president’s most notable sycophants. Her personal devotion to the president is impossible to parody — she once described Trump as “a nonstop, never-give-up, no-holds-barred human version of the speed of light.”

But hiring people to lead government agencies because you like their takes on right-wing TV comes with major drawbacks — ones that Pirro embodies. Like others she is following through the Trump/Fox revolving door, Pirro lacks relevant experience for the job she’s been assigned to do. Instead, she has spent years peddling the bigotry, conspiracy theories, and Trumpist fealty that mint Fox stardom.

The Trump administration ranks are filled with people whose work for Fox News has gotten them jobs well beyond their traditional qualifications. Pete Hegseth and And Bonginofor example, spent their early careers in relatively low-ranked positions in the military and law enforcement, made failed runs for office as Republicans, and then leaned on their past experiences to become successful Fox News pundits.

Now Hegseth is secretary of defense while Bongino is deputy director of the FBI. They lack the experience typically seen for those roles, and it shows: Hegseth has faced firestorms over his dysfunctional management of the Pentagon and his potentially illegal handling of sensitive military information, while Bongino is under fire even from MAGA partisans who think he is not working hard enough to address their needs.

Pirro’s career has followed a similar path. Though she has experience as a prosecutor, serving three terms as district attorney in Westchester County, New York, that tenure concluded two decades ago after an aborted run for U.S. Senate in 2005 and a landslide defeat for state attorney general the following year.

She promptly joined Fox News and has been a fixture there ever since. Before joining “The Five,” she hosted a weekend evening show titled “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” a reference to her brief stint as an elected judge in Westchester County in the early 1990s.

What Pirro has done with her Fox News platform raises even more questions about her fitness to serve as D.C.’s top prosecutor.

The range of potential outcomes is unnervingly wide.

Fox News’ programming is steeped in fearmongering about the threat a sinister “other” poses to its viewers, from the network’s Global War On Terror-era scapegoating of Muslims to its more recent targeting of Black Lives Matter activists and “migrant crime.” Yet Pirro is the rare Fox star to say something so manifestly bigoted that the network suspended her.

In 2019, her show was taken off the air for two weeks after she noted that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wears a hijab and asked“Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to sharia law which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?” That remark was part of Pirro’s long trail of anti-Muslim commentary at Fox News, including her call to “start having a conversation about surveillance in mosques.”

The Muslim population of Washington, D.C., may now wonder whether the attorney responsible for prosecutions in the city views them as equal members of society — and whether she is planning to spy on their houses of worship.

Fox News’ stars are notorious for pushing conspiracy theories — but here too, Pirro stands out. Her on-air promotion of lies about Dominion Voting Systems rigging the 2020 election against Trump was part of the company’s lawsuit against Fox, which the network settled in 2023 for a record sum.

According to Fox News internal emails revealed in Dominion’s filings, as Pirro continued to push conspiracy theories about the election, her executive producer described her as a “reckless maniac” who is “nuts” and “should never be on live television.” Less than two years later, she was promoted from weekends to weekdays with “The Five.” Now, she will be running federal prosecutions in the nation’s capital.

Pirro’s commentary about how federal law enforcement should respond to the president’s whims raises real concerns about the rule of law now that she is in position to act on it. Throughout Trump’s first termPirro denounced various Justice Department leaders for not moving quickly enough to quash probes of the president and to investigate his political opponents.

Pirro even called for a “cleansing” of the FBI and the Justice Department, which she said were full “of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in handcuffs.”

At one point, after spending weeks pushing conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton that she claimed deserved federal scrutiny, she met with Trump in the White House and successfully pushed for the Justice Department to launch a probe. The U.S. attorney who conducted the investigation ultimately closed it without charges.

Now Pirro herself will have the power and authority to conduct similar reviews of the president’s enemies. The range of potential outcomes is unnervingly wide. If her Fox News commentary is any indication, she will try to harness the office in service of Trump’s authoritarian view of federal law enforcement as an extension of his personal will. But it’s also possible that her lack of experience and general incompetence will see her fail to make much of an impact at all. As with so much of the Trump administration, you will have to tune in to see what happens.

Matt Gertz

Matt Gertz is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive research center that monitors the U.S. media. His work focuses on the relationship between Fox News and the Republican Party, media ethics and news coverage of politics and elections.

The new budget authorized by New York lawmakers has MAGA world up in arms over a special line that provides funds for government employees who are targeted by Trump’s Justice Department.

As Gothamist reportsit seems pretty clear the funds are to assist New York Attorney General Letitia James, even if the budget line doesn’t mention her by name:

Trump has smeared James for years, publicly calling her everything from “racist” to a “total crook,” as she pursued a successful fraud prosecution of the Trump family real estate business.

The allocation in New York’s budget comes after Trump’s Justice Department launched a “working group” to investigate James and other officials who’ve probed Trump over the years and initiated a criminal investigation into allegations that James engaged in mortgage fraud.

James’ lawyer told CBS News that it “appears to be the political retribution President Trump threatened to exact that AG Bondi assured the Senate would not occur on her watch. If prosecutors are genuinely interested in the truth, we are prepared to meet false claims with facts.”

Republicans and conservative media are trying to gin up outrage, framing the budget line as an unnecessary expense and a burden on New York taxpayers — though there’s a valid argument to be made that New Yorkers have a vested interest in ensuring their officials can work without fear of reprisal for doing their jobs.

Gothamist’s report includes a quote from Staten Island Republican state Sen. Andrew Lanza, who said, “I can’t imagine a majority of New Yorkers not being outraged” by the provision. The conservative New York Post editorial board denounced it as well, while the New York Republican state committee chairman told the Post that the money amounts to “corruption.”

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik denounced the provision in a statement calling it a “slush fund.” But even her statement seems to make the obvious connection between James’ investigations of Trump and the Trump administration’s investigation of James. “Letitia James, who illegally weaponized her office to pursue politically motivated witch hunts, now expects taxpayers to foot the bill for her alleged misconduct,” Stefanik said.

In the video clip below, you can listen to James herself discuss what she calls Trump’s “revenge tour” during her recent sit-down with BLN host Chris Hayes, for a recent episode of his “Why Is This Happening?” podcast. Check it out below:

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is an BLN opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. He is a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”