Tag: donald trump

This Isn’t Just Trump’s War on Iran. Both Parties Paved the Way for Disaster.

nlike the invasion of Iraq, which received the support of a sizable minority of congressional Democrats, Donald Trump’s war on Iran has received near-universal criticism. Still, the party has focused primarily on process-style critiques — such as the legality of declaring the war under the Constitution and the war’s economic impact — rather than the humanitarian consequences and flagrant violations of international law.

That should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the U.S. bipartisan consensus on Iran: For over 20 years, a number of prominent Democratic leaders — and in some cases, large majorities of congressional Democrats overall — have helped paved the groundwork for Trump’s war by issuing exaggerated and alarmist statements about Iran’s supposed danger to the region, threatening the use of military force, and undermining diplomatic initiatives, sometimes even criticizing Republicans from the right.

In 2024, the Democratic Party platform criticized “Trump’s fecklessness and weakness in the face of Iranian aggression during his presidency” by not responding militarily to attacks by Iran and groups in Iraq and elsewhere that share Iran’s strategic objectives. The platform cited four separate incidents that took place under his first administration, failing to acknowledge that each was a direct result of Trump’s aggressive policies against Iran, including the assassination of Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian general.

By contrast, the party’s platform praised President Joe Biden for having “authorized precision airstrikes on key Iranian-linked targets,” which it claimed would “deter further aggression by Iran.” It praised “America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel and our unrivaled ability to leverage growing regional integration among U.S. partners to counter Iranian aggression.” Though eager to stress military means to counter Iran, the platform failed to directly call for a return to the Iran nuclear deal under the Obama administration, which considerably reduced regional tensions — a deal that Biden campaigned on reinstating but failed to do.

The month after the release of the party platform, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris attacked Trump in a presidential debate, declaring that her administration “will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

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The Collapse is Real – Lebanon Ceasefire Marks a Historic Strategic Defeat

A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump, but its reality tells a very different story. The ceasefire was not the product of American diplomacy, nor Israeli strategic calculation. It was imposed – largely as a result of sustained Iranian pressure.

Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies – including some within Lebanon itself – will continue to deny this reality. Acknowledging Iran’s role would mean admitting that a historic precedent has been set: for the first time, forces opposing the United States and Israel have succeeded in imposing conditions on both.

This is not a minor development. It is a strategic rupture. But it is not the only fundamental shift now underway: Israel’s very approach to war and diplomacy is itself changing.

After failing to secure victory through overwhelming violence, Israel is increasingly relying on coercive diplomacy to impose political outcomes.

Over the past two to three decades, this Israeli strategy has become unmistakably clear: achieving through diplomacy what it has failed to impose on the battlefield.

‘Diplomacy’ as War

Israeli ‘diplomacy’ does not conform to the conventional meaning of the term. It is not negotiation between equals, nor a genuine pursuit of peace. Rather, it is diplomacy fused with violence: assassinations, sieges, blockades, political coercion, and the systematic manipulation of internal divisions within opposing societies. It is diplomacy as an extension of war by other means.

Likewise, Israel’s conception of the ‘battlefield’ is fundamentally different. The deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure is not incidental, nor merely ‘collateral damage’; it is central to the strategy itself.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Gaza. Following the ongoing genocide, vast swathes of Gaza have been reduced to rubble, with estimates indicating that around 90 percent of the whole of Gaza has been destroyed. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, women and children consistently account for roughly 70 percent of all of Gaza’s casualties.

This is not collateral damage. It is the deliberate destruction of a civilian population, an act of genocide that is designed to force mass displacement and remake the political and demographic reality in Israel’s favor.

The same logic extends beyond Gaza. It shapes Israel’s wars in Lebanon against Hezbollah and its broader confrontation with Iran.

The United States, Israel’s principal ally, has historically operated within a similar paradigm. From Vietnam to Iraq, civilian populations, infrastructure, and even the environment itself have borne the brunt of American warfare.

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NATO Allies Adopt Evasive Policies on US War in Iran

Trump administration officials are discovering that a daunting number of longstanding U.S. allies and security clients are adopting hedging policies or even openly opposing Washington’s decision to wage war against Iran.  That sobering reality has become even clearer over the past week than it was during the earlier stages of the armed conflict.  On April 12, the president called upon NATO members to join U.S. naval forces in blockading Iranian ports. The proposed move was in response to Tehran’s continuing efforts to selectively close the vital Strait of Hormuz to foreign shipping.

However, most of Washington’s alliance partners refused to join the retaliatory blockade. British prime minister Keir Starmer was especially blunt and negative. The U.K. is “not supporting” the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, Starmer stated, insisting that the country would not get “dragged in” to the Iran war.  Starmer, along with French President Emmanuel Macron, instead proposed intensified international efforts, including a conference, to secure an effective agreement to reopen the strait.

The extensive allied refusal regarding Washington’s blockade plans reflects growing European dissatisfaction with overall U.S. policy toward Iran and, indeed, with Trump’s entire approach to world affairs. Concerned longtime proponents of close transatlantic security cooperation are expressing mounting worries that disagreements between the United States and its principal European allies about Iran policy could lead to a fatal breach in NATO.

European leaders and their publics clearly are getting restless. Serge Schmemann, the Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times, emphasizes the extent of the change.  “Mr. Trump’s war on Iran, about which NATO allies were not consulted and in which they subsequently declined to participate, has made clear that Europeans no longer defer to Mr. Trump as the de facto “‘leader of the free world.’”

At the same time, European leaders have tried to avoid directly antagonizing President Trump.  Achieving such a balance is not easy.  Trump expressed fury at NATO allies who have failed to support Washington’s intervention against Iran. Even before the latest intra-alliance spat over establishing a blockade, the president denounced such allies as “cowards.” Administration officials also are examining ways to punish uncooperative Alliance partners.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed and amplified Trump’s earlier doubts about the continuing value of NATO to America’s security. “Why are we in NATO? You have to ask that question. Why do we send trillions of dollars and have all of these American forces stationed in the region, if in our time of need, we won’t be allowed to use those bases?” Rubio said during an interview with Fox News in early April.  The refusal of most NATO members to authorize U.S. airstrikes and other offensive operations against targets in Iran has especially irritated administration officials.

However, as Wall Street Journal columnists Linas Kojalaand and Vytautas Leškevičius point out, with the notable and ostentatious exception of Spain, the most significant and influential Alliance members, including Britain, France, and Italy, have all quietly assisted the U.S. war effort in other ways.  The outcome has been a bit of a muddle. “Politically, the war with Iran has widened the gap between Washington and many European governments. Operationally, it has underscored how heavily the U.S. still relies on Europe – and how cooperative most European governments are.”

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Trump Says White House is Investigating Mysterious Deaths and Disappearances of 10 US Scientists

President Trump on Thursday said his administration has launched an investigation into the deaths and disappearances of 10 US scientists.

“There are these 10 missing scientists with access to classified stuff, nuclear material, aerospace. They’ve all gone missing or turned up dead in the last couple months,” a reporter said to President Trump.

“Well, I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half. I just left a meeting on that subject,” Trump said.

“So pretty serious stuff, but we’re going to be now hopefully, I don’t know, coincidence if you want it, whatever you want to call it. But some of them were very important people and we’re going to look at it,” Trump added.

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Trump’s religion is ‘Israelism’ – Tucker Carlson

US President Donald Trump’s true religion is “Israelism” rather than Christianity, conservative journalist and podcaster Tucker Carlson has claimed, criticizing the president’s Middle East policies.

Carlson made the remarks in response to controversial statements Trump made over the past week, including his attacks on Pope Leo XIV and posts depicting himself as a Christ-like figure.

On Monday, Trump described the US-born pontiff as “weak” and “terrible for foreign policy” after the pope called Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization “truly unacceptable” and said that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

On his show, Carlson argued that the US had launched the war against Iran “on behalf of Israel” and “at the instigation of Israel.”

“What’s the religion, honestly, of Donald Trump? It’s not Christianity, clearly. It’s Israelism. It’s the defense of Israel,” Carlson said, adding that support for the Jewish state has become a “civic religion” of the American government.

He described Trump’s social media posts as “iconography” and “attempts to send a statement about faith,” which “doesn’t actually add up to a theology.”

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Israel May Be Preparing to Permanently Reoccupy Southern Lebanon

On April 16, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon, set to begin later that day. Although Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed this announcement, it is unlikely to put a stop to Israel’s expanding occupation of south Lebanon. In the hours before the announcement, Israel continued to bomb Lebanon’s south, bombing a school as well as the last main bridge connecting the south of the country to the rest of Lebanon.

The announcement came after a meeting on April 14, in which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted Lebanon and Israel’s ambassadors for the first diplomatic talks between the two countries since the early 1990s, a move that is likely to cause further turmoil in Lebanon. In a statement after the meeting, the U.S. explained that direct negotiations would be launched at a later date, and that objectives included the disarming of Hezbollah. Additionally, it asserted that mediation would be limited to the U.S., and that Lebanon’s reconstruction would be linked to negotiations with Israel.

A day after the envoys met in Washington, D.C., Israel launched another round of strikes on southern Lebanon, pushing forward with its invasion of the south even as it purportedly moves toward “peace.” Israel’s strikes reportedly killed 20; at the same time, Israel issued yet another forced displacement order for residents of the south. Days earlier, protesters in Beirut mobilized against the Lebanese government’s planned negotiations with Israel.

The push for direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon came after Israel’s massive attacks on Lebanon on April 8. Hours after a fragile ceasefire took effect in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran on April 7, Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon, unleashing the most violent assault of its six-week war on the country. Iran and Pakistan — which mediated the U.S. ceasefire with Iran — insisted that a halt to attacks on Lebanon was part of the agreement, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump claimed otherwise. Israel’s military declared that “the battle in Lebanon is ongoing,” while renewing expanded evacuation orders for southern Lebanon.

Israel’s wave of attacks on April 8 clearly aimed to pressure the Lebanese government to further capitulate to Israel’s wishes. Throughout that morning, Israel bombed areas of southern Lebanon, attacking residential buildings as well as medical vehicles and a medical center. In the early afternoon, Israel escalated, unleashing more than 100 airstrikes in less than 10 minutes, bombing residential and commercial areas across Beirut as well as in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley. These airstrikes killed at least 357 people and wounded more than 1,200, marking the deadliest day of Israel’s current assault on the country. Airstrikes struck residential complexes, bridges, grocery stores, a funeral procession in a cemetery, and a university hospital.

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US Sends Thousands More Troops to Middle East, Considers Ground Ops in Iran

The US is sending thousands of additional troops to the Middle East and is considering restarting the bombing campaign against Iran or launching ground operations in the country, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US officials.

The report said that the forces include 6,000 troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush and its accompanying warships. Notably, the Bush traveled around southern Africa on its way to the region instead of going through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, the typical route of US warships, signaling the US is concerned the Houthis in Yemen could close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

About 4,200 other US troops, including thousands of Marines, are heading to the region from the Pacific aboard the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group. The Post said they are expected to reach the Middle East by the end of April. Once both forces arrive, the US will have more than 60,000 troops in the region.

The buildup and the US blockade of Iranian ports are framed as an effort to get Iran to agree to US demands for a diplomatic deal. But according to President Trump, the US is continuing to demand that Iran make a commitment to never again enrich uranium for civilian purposes, a condition that’s seen as a non-starter and will likely lead to a renewal of the bombing campaign if the US sticks to it.

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Confusion as US military undercuts Trump’s claim the Strait of Hormuz is open with chilling warning: ‘Prepare to be boarded’

The US military has warned ships in the Strait of Hormuz to ‘prepare to be boarded’ as it enforces Donald Trump‘s blockade.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) released audio of the ominous radio message on Wednesday, even as the President stated that he is ‘permanently opening’ the Strait.

‘The US has announced a formal blockade of Iranian ports in coastal areas,’ a military officer says.

‘This is a legal action. All vessels are advised to immediately return to port if leaving, and discontinue transit to Iran if that is your next port of call, do not attempt to breach the blockade.’ 

The officer warns that any vessels breaching the blockade ‘will be boarded for interdiction and seizure’ and that ‘we will use force.’

The military’s statement directly contradicts Trump’s earlier claim on Truth Social that the strait is ‘permanently open’ after secret talks with Xi Jinping, claiming the Chinese leader had agreed to stop arming Iran.

‘China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘I am doing it for them, also – And the World. This situation will never happen again.’

A senior White House official told the Daily Mail that, despite Donald Trump’s promise to reopen it, ‘the blockade is fully in effect and working.’ It remains unclear whether Trump was declaring the strait open to shipping traffic immediately or signaling an intent to reach a permanent resolution as peace talks with Iran continue.

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Will Americans Keep Paying a ‘Tariff Tax’?

When Eileen Nusselt and Gio Cox got married earlier this year, they skipped the traditional registry and asked their guests to donate to a home renovation fund. Yet as tariffs have pushed up the price of materials like lumber and paint, that money isn’t going as far as they expected. 

“We’re having to cut off projects that we really want to do,” said Cox, who lives with his wife in Charleston, South Carolina.

Many of the Trump administration’s signature tariffs were struck down earlier this year, but the couple doesn’t expect prices to fall anytime soon. “What incentive do any of these big companies have to lower their prices?” Nusselt asked. Especially, she added, “if they’re getting money back” from the government in the form of tariff refunds.

After the Supreme Court ruled in February that the Trump administration lacked the authority under emergency economic powers to levy many of its tariffs, the Court of International Trade ordered the federal government to process refunds — plus interest — to the more than 330,000 companies that have paid roughly $166 billion in tariffs now considered illegal. Since then, more than 2,000 companies have filed suit against the federal government to demand their refunds.

American consumers, however, will likely not be compensated for the tariff costs they bore, passed on through higher prices. Indeed, as taxpayers, they may be responsible for the interest that accrues each day the government does not process refunds.

But the cost of tariffs largely fell on shoppers, not companies.

Transferring Tariff Costs

According to analysis from the Budget Lab at Yale, prices of consumer goods (excluding more volatile food and energy) rose more than 2% throughout 2025 and into January 2026, reversing recent declines and adding to evidence that the costs of tariffs are being passed on to consumers. 

Tariffs accounted for an estimated 86% of the rise in prices for imported household goods through January, with the passthrough even more pronounced for long-lasting durable goods like cars, appliances and furniture, the Yale researchers found.

Some company leaders have spoken publicly about incorporating tariffs into their pricing. In a call with investors last May, Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said the retail behemoth would “do our best to keep our prices as low as possible,” but also that “higher tariffs will result in higher prices.” In an August 2025 earnings call, Home Depot Executive Vice President of Merchandising Billy Bastek spoke of “some modest price movement” due to tariffs.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC in January that the company stocked up on items  before the tariffs were instituted to keep prices low, but that supply ran out last fall. “You start to see some of the tariffs creep into some of the prices,” he said.

An analysis by congressional Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee found that American consumers paid more than $231 billion in total tariff costs between February 2025 and January 2026, amounting to roughly $1,745 per household.

“Tariffs are regressive in nature, and they impact low- and middle-income families more than wealthy individuals,” said Ryan Mulholland, a senior fellow focused on international economic policy at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. Lower-income people not only spend a greater share of their income, they’re also more likely to buy cheaper, imported items — the kind likely subject to tariffs. At the same time, tariffs may contribute to inflation more broadly, which also disproportionately affects households with less financial flexibility.

“As budgets get tighter, tariff pressures bite more,” said Mulholland. Indeed, researchers at the Budget Lab at Yale found that, as a share of income, tariffs may burden the poorest households more than three times as much as the wealthiest.

Currently, only “importers of record” are entitled to refunds per U.S. trade law, and companies don’t have a legal obligation to pass any of that money on to the consumers who paid higher prices.

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Trump Reverses Himself, Joins Obama and Biden in Demanding “Clean” Renewal of NSA Domestic Spying Powers

In August 2013 — in the wake of our Snowden reporting, which revealed the NSA’s mass warrantless domestic spying on Americans — an extraordinary bipartisan bill emerged. Jointly sponsored by one of the most liberal House members (Michigan Democrat John Conyers) and one of his most libertarian-conservative counterparts (Michigan Republican Justin Amash), the bill would have reined in the NSA’s domestic spying powers by imposing serious limits on how such powers can be exercised when aimed at American citizens.

When the Conyers-Amash bill was first introduced, “Official Washington” did not take it seriously. But the Snowden revelations were causing serious public anger about NSA spying, and many members of Congress shared that anger because they were not told that the NSA had implemented a system of mass warrantless surveillance aimed, in part, at Americans. As a result, support for the bill quickly picked up bipartisan steam, seemingly heading toward certain passage — until Barack Obama called Nancy Pelosi.

Despite running for President as a constitutional law professor who vowed to end the civil liberties abuses of the War on Terror, Obama had become an enthusiastic supporter — and user — of the NSA’s domestic spying system. He thus instructed then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi to whip enough Democratic House votes to kill the bill. She did as she was told, and the bill — which initially appeared on its way to approval — was defeated 205-217 (94 Republicans and 111 Democrats voted for the reform bill; 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats voted against it). Official Washington heralded Pelosi as the heroine who saved NSA warrantless spying on Americans.

It is hard to overstate how significant the passage of this bill would have been. It would have been the first time in two decades that the U.S. Congress limited rather than increased the domestic powers of the U.S. security state. The era of the Patriot Act would finally have been confronted, or at least diluted. But Obama and Pelosi joined hands with the likes of GOP pro-spying members such as Peter King, Michelle Bachmann, and Kristi Noem to block any limits on the NSA’s power to spy on Americans without warrants.

Now, Donald Trump is on the verge of doing what Obama and Pelosi did back then. Despite running in 2024 by vowing to “KILL FISA,” based on his (quite valid) claim that spying powers had been abused against him for political ends in the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump on Monday demanded that FISA be fully renewed: yet again, with no reforms, safeguards, or limits of any kind.

Congress this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday, will vote on a renewal of Section 702 of FISA, which grants the NSA the power to spy on certain communications of American citizens without a warrant. Although it appeared that there was bipartisan support for finally imposing some limits and safeguards in the wake of years of documented abuses, Trump’s demand on Tuesday — that all House Republicans unite to renew the spying powers with no limits — raises serious doubts about whether any reform is now possible.

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