Rep. Ro Khanna got grilled on Fox News after his dramatic claim that he was detained in the West Bank ran headfirst into pushback from Israeli officials.
The California Democrat clashed with host Gillian Turner on Monday during a tense “America’s Newsroom” interview over what actually happened during his trip to the Israel-occupied Palestinian territory.
Khanna accused the Israeli military of “lying” about the incident after he claimed armed Israeli settlers surrounded his delegation’s van and Israeli soldiers later sided with them.
Turner pressed him on whether he should have expected trouble after entering an area she described as restricted and guarded by local security forces.
“Did you really not know that going into a restricted military area, guarded by local security forces, was going to result in your entourage getting stopped?” Turner asked.
Khanna pushed back, insisting it was not a restricted military area and saying “American Congress people had been there before.”
Turner noted that previous visits had happened “with prior coordination.”
That is when Khanna tried to frame the incident as an outrage against Americans.
“If I could just finish, please, because this should be an outrage to any American citizen, what happened,” Khanna cut in.
Khanna said Israeli settlers circled his team’s van with assault rifles and held the group until the Israeli military arrived.
He claimed the soldiers then “blocked the road … siding with the settlers against the Americans.”
The Israeli military flatly disputed that account.
“IDF Israel Defense Forces troops were dispatched to the scene, quickly dispersed the Israeli civilians, and reopened the blocked road. The IDF soldiers operating in the area did not take part in blocking that road.”
FOX calls out Ro Khanna for lying about being detained in the West Bank:
Q: You didn’t know that entering a restricted military area would get you stopped?
KHANNA: American Congresspeople have been there before.
Q: With prior coordination.
KHANNA: If I could just finish. pic.twitter.com/IKjwvaNQzm
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 13, 2026
Turner also confronted Khanna with comments from Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter, who said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that the Israeli Embassy in Washington tried to coordinate the trip with the congressman.
Leiter said he urged Khanna to meet with survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and visit Israel’s borders so he could understand the country’s security situation.
“He ignored that,” Leiter said.
Asked why he did not coordinate with Israel or meet with Oct. 7 survivors, Khanna accused the ambassador of lying.
“The ambassador is lying. We did inform him,” Khanna told Turner, adding that he had visited with a hostage family from the U.S. “many times” as they fought for the release of their son.
Khanna said he wanted a Palestinian-led trip because he had already traveled to Israel multiple times.
“I told the Israeli government that I wanted to go on a Palestinian-led trip to the West Bank because I had been to three trips to Israel. I had gotten Israel’s perspective, and that this trip I was going to go to the West Bank for a Palestinian-led look for three days,” Khanna said. “They knew that.”
The back-and-forth exposed the deeper fight inside the Democratic Party over Israel, where progressives increasingly treat America’s top Middle East ally like the villain while downplaying the terror threat Israel faces every day.
Khanna cast himself as the victim of a frightening detention.
Israeli officials say their forces showed up, cleared the scene and reopened the road.
For Turner, the obvious question was why a U.S. congressman would take a politically loaded, Palestinian-led trip into a sensitive area and then act shocked when the situation got messy.
Khanna wanted outrage.
What he got was a live fact check.
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