Just months after integrating customers into its massive AI user base, Microsoft is walking back its promise of being the “everyday productivity app for work and life.”

That is, of course, unless businesses are willing to pay.

‘… it is not possible to offer Cowork as an unlimited service.’

In January, Microsoft quickly turned its customer base of more than 430 million paid users of Microsoft 365 into AI users by combining its Office Suite with its Copilot AI.

“The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is your everyday productivity app for work and life that helps you find and edit files, scan documents, and create content on the go,” the company said at the time.

It seems, however, that Microsoft has realized what many companies have: Unfettered AI usage is awfully expensive. Therefore the Bill Gates brand says it will start charging companies using Copilot’s Cowork feature based on how much they use.

Microsoft already charges and arm and a leg for its Microsoft 365 Business platforms, with prices ranging from $1,500 per year ($12.50 per person) for its standard version to $2,640 per year ($22 per person) for 10 business licenses, for example.

According to a new report by Axios, Microsoft will charge companies that use Copilot Cowork based on usage. Cowork is an AI service that “sends emails, schedules meetings, creates documents,” and manages the user’s calendar.

Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s executive VP for Copilot, told Axios that it is not possible to offer Cowork as an unlimited service.

RELATED: Top companies admit humans cost less than AI — but still want more bots

Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images

“We have users who do hundreds of tasks a week, which is great — they’re way productive — but the consequence is the costs can go very high,” Lamanna said.

Instead, Microsoft is considering offering a version of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI program, at a lesser price. Axios reported that the model would be offered as a lower-cost alternative that is fully hosted on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform.

However, since DeepSeek typically withholds user data in China, the Microsoft version would keep user data in Western hands by storing it on its own service.

RELATED: Sick of Microsoft’s preinstalled propaganda on your PC? Block it now.

Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

Blaze News previously reported on large companies that were starting to understand the full cost of using metered AI services.

For example, Uber reportedly used up its entire 2026 budget for AI in just four months.

At the beginning of June, a report circulated from an AI consultant that said one company he worked with racked up around $500 million in AI usage in just one month.

AI pricing structures vary, but costs pile up when employees are encouraged to integrate AI into workflow, such as when making large documents.

Anthropic’s Claude may charge just under $5 to produce around 1,000 average-sized images, but dollar signs stack when using the AI for coding or for large documents that charge based on tokens. For Claude, one token is equal to approximately four written characters in English text or “0.75 words.”

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​News, Microsoft, Artificial intelligence, Copilot, Tech 

An elderly man who uses a walker — but still has plenty of grit left in him — fought back in brutal fashion when a much younger male unleashed an attack on him with a wrench Thursday in Fresno, California.

The incident occurred on San Ramon Avenue near 4th Street just before 9 a.m., KFSN-TV reported.

‘Self defense. I have a small custom-made machete. One can protect oneself by any means — fist, [knife], gun.’

Police told the station a 45-year-old male with a wrench approached a 65-year-old man using a walker.

Authorities told KFSN the younger male hit the older man with the wrench multiple times before the victim eventually used his walker as self-defense.

Fresno Police Sgt. Diana Trueba Vega told the Fresno Bee that the victim said the male with the wrench was acting erratically — possibly while under the influence — prior to allegedly striking him in the hands with the tool.

The older man then pulled a knife out of his walker and stabbed the suspect in the arm and chest, the station said.

Authorities told KFSN the suspect ran off before being taken into custody; he’s being treated at Community Regional Medical Center. Police told the Bee the suspect was listed in stable condition.

Once medically cleared, the suspect will be booked into the Fresno County Jail, the station said. Police told the Bee he’ll be booked on an assault charge and an outstanding warrant.

Police told KFSN the elderly man acted out of self-defense.

RELATED: Intruder allegedly breaks into Florida home, threatens mother and her children, refuses to leave — but victim has her gun

Image source: Fresno (Calif.) Police Department

Those reacting to the station’s Facebook post about the incident seemed pleased the elderly victim came out on top:

“I’ll buy the man a new knife,” one commenter wrote. “Good job, sir.””That sounds awesome,” another user said. “Glad he had that knife on deck.””Self defense,” another commenter noted. “I have a small custom-made machete. One can protect oneself by any means — fist, [knife], gun.”

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​Arrest, California, Elderly victim, Fighting back, Fresno, Physical attack, Police, Self-defense, Walker, Wrench, Crime 

On the eve of the Juneteenth observance, it was reported that several Confederate statues, which were removed almost a decade ago, have made a quiet return to Baltimore, Maryland.

The Baltimore Sun reported Thursday that four Confederate statues have made their return to the city, but many details remain unknown.

‘They are being stored in a secure facility. We will not be disclosing their location.’

The statues, which were taken down before dawn on August 16, 2017, just days after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, were most recently stored in California. They were on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Just after the statues were pulled from their pedestals, they were stored for years in a Baltimore impound lot, during which time vandals cost tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to the collection.

RELATED: Baltimore nonprofit that was run by mayor’s wife shut down after getting $100K of taxpayer cash — and Soros is involved

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott Nathan Howard/Getty Images

The statues are: the statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson that originally stood outside Wyman Park Dell, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument that stood on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women’s Monument, and the Roger B. Taney Monument.

The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument sustained the most damage during the storage period after vandals “chopped off an arm and a Confederate flag and doused the whole thing with bright red paint,” according to the Sun.

But now, officials have confirmed that the statues have been returned to their original city, though questions remain.

“The Confederate monuments are back in Baltimore,” Lauren Schiszik, executive director of the city Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, told commissioners during a June 9 briefing session, according to the Baltimore Sun.

“They are being stored in a secure facility. We will not be disclosing their location.”

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) has been at the forefront of the removal efforts since before they were taken down by his predecessor Mayor Catherine Pugh (D).

Scott has consistently held that these statues and those like them have “ties to the dark side of America’s past.”

In a resolution at the time, then-Councilman Scott wrote, “Monuments with ties to the dark side of America’s past have come under increased scrutiny in recent years with cities across the country debating on whether they should be removed. Following the acts of domestic terrorism carried out by white supremacist terrorist groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend cities must act decisively and immediately by removing these monuments. Baltimore has had more than enough time to think on the issue — it’s time to act.”

Scott’s press office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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​Robert e lee, Stonewall jackson, Politics, Baltimore, Confederacy, Maryland, Brandon scott 

Damon Packard’s movie diary

Damon Packard is the Los Angeles-based filmmaker behind such underground classics as “Reflections of Evil,” “The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary,” “Foxfur,” and “Fatal Pulse.” His AI-generated work recently appeared as interstitials for the 18th annual American Cinematheque Horrorthon and can be enjoyed on his YouTube channel. After a long day making movies or otherwise making ends meet, he likes to unwind with late-night excursions to the multiplexes and art house cinemas of greater Los Angeles.

May 20, “Obsession” (d. Curry Barker), AMC Century City 15

This movie is exactly the kind of hollow, dystopian misery porn that brainless contemporary culture keeps walloping with praise. I found it tedious, annoying, and dull.

I know this has nothing whatsoever to do with De Palma’s “Obsession,” but at least DePalma’s film (and its inspiration, Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”) knew how to seduce you with mood and atmosphere, mystery and romance. I’ll take a single dreamy close-up of Genevieve Bujold in soft diffusion filters over an hour of a possessed, shrieking, creepy, clingy girlfriend.

At some point in the last act, there was a lot of screaming and noise in the theater, and they shut the film off because someone had a seizure or something. So I was spared suffering through the rest.

As I left, I heard Bernard Herrmann’s music in my head. I watched the paramedics arrive. They all looked jaded and took their time pushing the gurney into the elevator. I walked past the huge “The Mandalorian and Grogu” forest planet display they have out front of the AMC Century City, and Herrmann’s music seemed to keep following me.

And then I saw her. A Geneviève Bujold look-alike drifting silently past the Funko Pop claw machines in a cream-colored coat, soft curls glowing under the multiplex exterior lights. She turned slightly, just enough for me to catch the resemblance, and then vanished onto the escalator like the ending of a forgotten De Palma dream.

May 29, “Backrooms” (d. Kane Parsons), AMC Century City 15

You know you’re in trouble when the first two minutes are instant boredom and the rest doesn’t get any better. Yeesh, what a waste — ultimately an endurance test to get through. Not a single interesting moment or idea.

I like that actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, but what the hell is he doing in this? Not only is he miscast, but he’s above this kind of tripe.

When I hear them praising ‘Disclosure Day,’ I’m like George C. Scott in ‘Hardcore’ when he finds out his daughter has been abducted into the porn industry.

I would have hoped a 20-year-old boy-wonder director would bring the reckless energy to make something at least half watchable, but nope, just as horrible, bland, lifeless, dull, and dumb as every other thing the clueless moron masses who wouldn’t know what a good film was if their life depended on it flock to.

Sam Raimi was 21 when he made “Evil Dead”; Steven Spielberg 24 when he made “Duel”; Orson Welles 25 when he made “Citizen Kane”; Bernardo Bertolucci 22 when he made “Before the Revolution”; Louis Malle 23 when he made “Elevator to the Gallows.” Now THOSE were great films.

Spielberg is now 79, and “Disclosure Day” looks like a bland, generic, insipid pile of direct-to-Tubi junk. But is it really age and vitality, or is it that nobody can write good stories any more? Or that nobody would finance one if it even existed?

RELATED: Mission: Impossible (to sit through); Final Dud-stination; RIP Joe Don Baker

Mike Malloy/Damon Packard/Cinerama/Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images

June 2, “Pressure” (d. Anthony Maras), AMC Century City 15

Just when you thought every WW2 story had been exhausted over the last 80 years, along comes this little $5 million production set within a world of dueling weathermen!

What immediately sounds like mundane, made-for-cable fodder turns out to be a surprisingly terrific and engaging little movie, with an interesting perspective and new take.

Mostly due to the things you rarely see in films these days: good writing, good music, good direction, and interesting characters. Superb performances and casting all around, even for the initially perceived as a terribly miscast Brendan Fraser, who gives it his all and wins you over in the end. Special mention to the lovely Irish actress Kerry Condon, who makes a perfect 40s military babe.

Nothing phenomenal, but as far as mainstream theatrical releases, it is one of the best I’ve seen this year so far and a reminder some people still know how to make proper films (even if they are shot on the Arri Alexa 35 and technically shouldn’t be called “films”).

June 6, “The Doors” (1991, d. Oliver Stone), Vista Theater Hollywood

Caught a late show in 70mm last night. Which looked beautiful but seemed to be missing the subwoofer channel or something. The sound was all high and mid frequencies, zero low end. Not sure what the deal was there, a print issue or something not switched on? A projectionist might know the answer.

I really like this film, and it always brings back certain feelings and memories of sneaking onto the set with my friend Chad and joining the background actors at 3 a.m. at the Whiskey back in 1990. The cult worship of Morrison is not dead; there were girls screaming in the theater. The Vista still has a bag-checking policy; therefore I always make it a point to sneak in food and drink just on principle

June 12, “Disclosure Day” (d. Steven Spielberg), AMC Burbank 16

Caught a nice and empty 11:30 p.m. showing of “Disclosure Day” last night. Talk about a moronic, bland snoozefest. The latest major mega-embarrassment from an aging cine-Boomer. So incredibly dumb, dull, and out of touch that you just sit there half awake in a stunned stupor, taking it all in while trying to stay awake.

How anyone can actually defend this is beyond me. It never ceases to amaze: No matter how awful some new mainstream pile of garbage is, there are plenty of defenders — people (clueless, brain-dead walking software programs) who have zero proper film knowledge or education or interest and wouldn’t know one way or the other.

When I hear them praising something like “Disclosure Day,” I’m like George C Scott in “Hardcore” when he finds out his daughter has been abducted into the porn industry. Oh, never mind, that’s another film and actor you’ve probably never heard of.

The John Williams score is good. Spielberg may not have it any more, but Williams still does.

June 17, “The Furious” (d. Kenji Tanigaki), AMC Marina Marketplace 6

Caught a late show of this this mostly pretty darned awesome and entertaining Hong Kong action film.

It feels very much like the kind of creative (and at times goofy and hilarious) Hong Kong martial arts exploitation films we were getting in the 1980s. With a lot more blood and violence.

Top-notch fight scenes, even if they get a little overlong in the third act (which is typical). American action movies that borrow from Hong Kong can never come close to the real deal, and this here is seventh-generation Asian action fight choreography done right.

The AI lip sync is a completely flawless and amazing tool, for those who have never seen it. (I’m pretty sure with all the idiotic knee-jerk AI hatred right now, they don’t want people to know they’re using it, even though it’s impossible to tell.)

Only wish I saw this in a better theater instead one of the few non-upgraded multiplexes in this area, with muddy images and weak sound. It’s stuff like THIS that should be dominating the premium screens.

Still, I’m grateful we get little surprises like this in an otherwise predictable world.

​Damon packard’s movie diary, Lifestyle, Movies, Entertainment, Steven spielberg, Disclosure day, Reviews 

As a philosophy professor at a state university, I am surrounded by activist professors who use their classrooms to push DEI, LGBTQ, and decolonization agendas. They justify this by saying they pursue justice — one of the highest goals of education.

But America can remember chattel slavery as evil only because justice is not invented by activists, courts, or governments. Justice is grounded in the nature of man and the law of God.

Juneteenth reminds us that legal freedom came late to Texas. But the truth about human dignity was not late. It was there from creation.

Because of our founding ideals, Americans could fight to end slavery as an evil and a violation of natural law. And because many nations are governed by different ideas, slavery still persists in parts of the world today.

Juneteenth is not merely a celebration of delayed legal emancipation. It bears witness to a deeper truth: Chattel slavery was wrong before government finally acted against it. Moral law stands above human law. If America is going to remember Juneteenth truthfully, it must recover natural law and the Creator who grounds it.

Freedom did not create dignity

On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas finally heard that they were free. The announcement did not create their dignity. It did not make them human. It did not suddenly endow them with rights. It publicly recognized what had already been true by nature: They were human beings made by God, and no man had the right to own them.

The tyrannical system that allowed slavery began in kidnapping and was propagated by brutal violence. Its laws were no laws at all because they violated the natural moral law given by God to all humanity.

Americans agree today that slavery was wrong. But why?

It was not wrong merely because Congress later acted against it. It was not wrong merely because public opinion changed. It was not wrong merely because the Union won the war. It was not wrong because history moved forward.

Slavery was wrong because human beings are not property.

Human beings have a nature that gives them a moral status no government creates. They are rational, moral, embodied persons made for duties before God and neighbor. Because of what man is, certain things cannot rightly be done to him.

That is Christian natural law reasoning.

Rights come from the Creator

Natural law begins with the insight that the good for a being is grounded in the nature of that being. The good for a horse is grounded in the nature of a horse. The good for a tree is grounded in the nature of a tree. The good for a human being is grounded in human nature.

This is why chattel slavery is not merely inefficient, outdated, or offensive. It is contrary to what a human being is.

A slaveholder may have legal power, social approval, economic incentives, and the capacity for tyrannical violence. But he does not have moral authority, because no human law can erase the nature of man.

RELATED: Why I won’t celebrate Juneteenth as a federal holiday

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

The Declaration of Independence does not say rights come from government. It says men are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator” with “unalienable Rights.”

If rights come from government, government can redefine, restrict, or remove them. If rights come from social consensus, the majority can vote them away. If rights come from personal identity, rights become expressions of will and power.

But if rights come from the Creator, government is under judgment. The state does not create justice. It is accountable to justice.

This is why the Declaration was morally stronger than the compromise that tolerated slavery. The American founding contained a principle that condemned America’s own practice. Juneteenth reminds us that the principle had to be applied against the national sin.

The counterfeit of justice

Social justice activists want the emotional power of moral judgment without the metaphysical foundation that makes moral judgment possible.

They want to say slavery was evil. They want to say racism is evil. They want to say oppression is evil. They want to say injustice is evil.

But many of these same activists reject the Creator, reject fixed human nature, reject moral law, and reduce justice to power, identity, or social construction. The same people who say slavery is wrong also tell us that human beings can redefine themselves as animals, objects, or anything else they imagine. They appeal to the Marxist dialectic of oppressor and oppressed while denying the moral order that makes oppression intelligible.

Their view is incoherent.

If justice is socially constructed, then one society constructs slavery and another constructs abolition. If morality is only the preference of the powerful, abolition is not more just than slavery. It is merely the victory of a different power. If human nature is whatever we decide it is, human dignity has no stable foundation.

Juneteenth cannot be explained by moral relativism. It requires moral realism.

DEI as secularized religion

The activist account of justice is a Marxist counterfeit of Christianity. It keeps some outward forms but denies the inner meaning. DEI programs often speak in the language of justice, oppression, liberation, and equality. But they detach those words from the Creator and natural law. Justice becomes group equity. Sin becomes systemic power. Repentance becomes political re-education. Redemption becomes ideological compliance.

That framework cannot explain why slavery was evil in the first place. It can describe power relations, but it cannot give a final account of why oppressors are morally guilty.

The Christian natural law tradition can.

A right observance of Juneteenth should include gratitude for emancipation, repentance for national sin, honor for those who suffered, and moral clarity about the nature of justice. But it should not become a ritual of permanent grievance or ideological manipulation.

RELATED: Stop trying to segregate the American founding

Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

America is accountable to God

The lesson is not that America is uniquely evil. The lesson is that America, like every nation, is accountable to a law higher than itself. When America violated that law, it was guilty. When America appealed to that law, it had the moral resources to correct itself.

Americans must repent of national sin and turn to Christ for redemption.

That is why Juneteenth should not be surrendered to radicals who despise the moral order that makes the holiday meaningful.

Juneteenth reminds us that legal freedom came late to Texas. But the truth about human dignity was not late. It was there from creation. The offer of redemption did not come late either. It is extended to all sinners.

The enslaved were human before emancipation. They had rights before government recognized them.

Slavery was evil before it was abolished. Justice was real before America obeyed it.

That is the lesson America needs now. We have national sins for which we must repent, and we must be clear that Christ is our redeemer.

Juneteenth only makes sense if natural law is real. And natural law only makes sense if a Creator’s justice stands above every court, legislature, plantation, university, and activist movement.

Marxist advocates can scream, but they cannot give a coherent account of justice.

​Declaration of independence, Natural law, Opinion & analysis, Unalienable rights, Slavery, Juneteenth, Christianity, Justice, Racism, American founding, Diversity equity inclusion 

A man suspected of attempted murder is already back out on the street in the United Kingdom even though he may have caused a toddler to end up in the crocodile enclosure at a zoo.

On Thursday at Johnsons of Old Hurst zoo, located about 80 miles north of London, a 3-year-old boy somehow ended up in the crocodile enclosure. How exactly he got there remains unclear, but it does not appear to have been an accident.

The man ‘was assessed as not being fit for interview.’

A New York Times headline about the incident said a “man forced” the boy into the crocodile enclosure, though the article noted that “it was not immediately clear whether the boy was thrown” into it.

The BBC reported that at least one crocodile attacked the boy during the harrowing incident and that police have said the crocodiles have not been removed or put down.

Zoo staff rescued the boy, who received medical attention on site before he was transported to the hospital. In a news release Friday morning, the Cambridgeshire Constabulary said he suffered “serious injuries” and that he is in “critical but stable condition.”

Within hours of the incident, a “30-year-old man from Norfolk” had been arrested for attempted murder, a news release from the constabulary indicated.

He was not in custody for long.

In the Friday morning news release update, the constabulary confirmed that the “30-year-old man” had been released on bail until September 18. The news release said the man “was assessed as not being fit for interview.”

The BBC said that individuals in Britain can be deemed unfit for interview on account of their “physical or mental state.”

RELATED: UK officials’ worst fear about horrific near-beheading by African suspect: Racist backlash

GB News reported Friday that the suspect has “learning difficulties” and that he was accompanied by a “carer when the boy was thrown into the enclosure.”

The constabulary confirmed that the man and the boy do not know one another.

“Our enquiries are ongoing as we continue to understand the circumstances surrounding this distressing incident,” said a statement from Det. Insp. Verity McCann.

“Our thoughts remain with the boy, and his family and specialist officers continue to support them through this difficult time.”

The constabulary did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

In a statement posted to social media on Thursday, Johnsons of Old Hurst said:

Our thoughts and prayers are with the boy and his family following the incident that occurred today.Out of respect to the family, our Tropical House will remain closed until further notice. … The rest of the site will remain open as normal.

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​United kingdom, London, Bail, Politics 

Supporters of Karmelo Anthony have coined a new dance dubbed the “Austin Bop.” The TikTok trend emerged recently, where participants dance to a rap song by artist 600Notti titled “Austin Bop (stabbing my chest)” by making repeated stabbing/thrusting motions (sometimes using real knives) to mock his 2025 murder by Anthony.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock calls it “satanic.”

“This feels spiritual. This feels plotted and calculated,” he said on a recent episode of “Jason Whitlock Harmony.”

Playing multiple clips of Anthony supporters performing the sadistic dance, Whitlock urges his audience to analyze this trend through a “spiritual warfare” lens.

“There is a crisis, a pandemic of satanic behavior, chaotic behavior,” he says, “and I’m sorry, I have to put a color on it because there is a particular color that’s being brainwashed into thinking that violence against white people is justified and violence and conflict about any and everything is justified and normal.”

These are the same people, he argues, who are claiming that Anthony acted rightfully in self-defense by stabbing Metcalf, who was unarmed, for pushing him.

“They need an exorcism,” he declares.

“This is a brain rot and a lunacy … a mental illness, a sickness, a reprobate mind, and a culture that is producing reprobate minds — a culture that has no respect for life,” he continues, enraged.

This participation in and support for objective evil we’re seeing in the black community, he says, is the result of making race one’s core identity.

“We have an anti-white racism problem in America. No one wants to talk about it,” he says.

“Everyone wants to pretend like, ‘No, no, we got black racism. Didn’t you hear? Someone said the N-word someplace and that’s racism.’ No, what racism is is when a child murders another child and based on race, one group says, ‘Well, no, that was actually self-defense, and we need to be merciful and graceful with the child that did the murdering, and we need to mock [the victim] and his family,”’ he rails.

While the escalating violence among young black people is a multifaceted issue, Whitlock places much of the blame on music.

“There is a form of music that escalates conflict, promotes satanic energy, promotes nihilism, promotes violence, unrepentant violence — and it’s called hip-hop,” he says.

“We’re programming kids for their own destruction and for the destruction of this country.”

To hear more, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Jason whitlock, Black culture, Jason whitlock harmony, Austin metcalf, Karmelo anthony 

Vice President JD Vance, whose Friday trip to Switzerland for U.S.-Iran peace talks was postponed owing to another bloody exchange between Israel and Hezbollah, paused to reflect and speak with the host of BlazeTV’s “Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey” this week about the current political moment, where he’s coming from, and where America might be headed.

Besides discussing chicken farming, the need to emulate the enduring hope of Christian martyrs, what Catholics and evangelicals can learn from one another, and what messaging changes the pro-life movement should make to win the “persuasion battle,” Stuckey and the vice president broached the correlated topics of the Iran deal and Israeli influence in American politics.

‘Outsized’ Israeli influence? ‘Israel derangement syndrome’?

Stuckey noted that the right has been roiled by a disagreement — especially in the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination — about whether “Israel has an outsized influence in the U.S.”

‘Already, the critics of the deal are being proven wrong.’

Vance, who on Thursday blasted Israeli critics of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding and insinuated that Israel had previously sabotaged the peace process via escalations in Lebanon, told the BlazeTV host, “I certainly think that Israel, like a lot of other countries, tries to influence American politics. I sort of take that as a given.”

The vice president noted further that “American leaders have to be very careful that when we pursue something, we’re doing it for America’s best interest and not for any other country’s best interest,” adding that “it’s just not true” that America’s interests are always aligned with Israel’s — or with the United Kingdom’s, France’s, or any other partner’s interests, for that matter.

Vance cited the ongoing disagreements between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how best to bring the Iran war to a close as illustrating the occasional divergence between the two nations’ interests.

RELATED: Trump signs Iran deal, blasts ‘fools’ after meltdowns by Sens. Cruz and Cassidy

Ken Cedeno/AFP/Getty Images

While cognizant that criticism of Israel and Israeli influence sometimes “bleeds into Jew hate” and that “sometimes criticism of the Israeli government can be expressed in a way that’s anti-Semitic,” Vance — who has faced intense criticism by Iran hawks and Israeli officials this week — underscored that it’s just “not the case that every criticism of Bibi Netanyahu’s policy decisions leads to anti-Semitism or is anti-Semitic.”

The vice president identified two “critical mistakes” he perceives advocates for Israel routinely making: first, failing to delineate between American interests and Israeli interests; and second, “always conflating criticism of a particular government with Jew hatred — because if everything is Jew hatred, then nothing is Jew hatred.”

Stuckey generally agreed but highlighted an ideological condition she has observed on the right — which she termed “Israel derangement syndrome” — in which certain critics of Israel attribute all of their problems to the foreign power, its influence, and its people.

Vance affirmed that “both are bad” but suggested he has been “particularly sensitive” in recent days to Israeli influence and criticism of America’s resistance to it because of his defense of Trump’s decision to end the Iran war.

Clarification on the Iran deal

Democrats in Congress, Iran hawks, Israeli officials, and some Republican lawmakers have complained incessantly this week about the Iran deal.

One of the chief concerns raised about the deal is the sixth of the agreement’s 14th points, which states, “The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Vance noted, “It’s not our money.”

A source with direct knowledge of the deal told Reuters that the fund is a private investment vehicle and will not include any government money or grants. Companies around the world have reportedly agreed to commit financing.

President Donald Trump said this week that the U.S. was “not investing; we’re not putting up 10 cents.”

“The biggest misconception, by far, is this idea that the deal has all these benefits to Iran,” Vance told Stuckey. “The underlying way that it’s structured is that they don’t get any of the benefits — not a single thing — unless they perform a change in behavior.”

With their military destroyed, their ability to threaten their neighbors largely diminished, their nuclear program and ability to enrich uranium “gone,” and their economy in shambles, Vance said the Iranians are in a “tough spot.” They now have the choice between getting “quite literally nothing” besides further turmoil — or behaving like “a normal regime,” developing a positive relationship with the U.S., and securing investment from Qataris, Emiratis, and others in the region.

As for whether the deal will bear fruit, Vance cited the resumption of bloodless, toll-free maritime traffic down the Strait of Hormuz over the past few days as a good sign.

“Yesterday, we got more oil out of the Strait of Hormuz than we have at any point since the beginning of the conflict,” said Vance.

“Already, the critics of the deal are being proven wrong in some of what they’re saying that the Iranians have gotten but also what the United States has gotten.”

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​Allie beth stuckey, Benjamin netanyahu, Influence, Iran, Israel, Israeli, Jd vance, Politics, Relatable, Vice president