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US President Donald Trump has been weighing the possibility of declaring victory against Iran without achieving a nuclear deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing US officials. According to the officials, Trump privately floated the idea to his senior aides. If the US can keep Iran's nuclear program in check and traffic resumes in the Strait of Hormuz, then Trump would be more likely to extend the ceasefire "indefinitely," the officials told WSJ. In recent weeks, the president told senior aides privately that Tehran is "likely unable to revive its nuclear work," after Operation Midnight Hammer caused heavy...

US President Donald Trump has been weighing the possibility of declaring victory against Iran without achieving a nuclear deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing US officials. According to the officials, Trump privately floated the idea to his senior aides. If the US can keep Iran's nuclear program in check and traffic resumes in the Strait of Hormuz, then Trump would be more likely to extend the ceasefire "indefinitely," the officials told WSJ. In recent weeks, the president told senior aides privately that Tehran is "likely unable to revive its nuclear work," after Operation Midnight Hammer caused heavy...

The maximalists wanted regime change, the minimalists wanted nothing, and the doubters see only waffling. Carafano’s answer: the victor gets to define victory — and everywhere you look, the region is moving Trump’s way. Iran War Turns into Trump Middle East Triumph: We are about to see the biggest reshaping of the Middle East since Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. Like the pharaoh, who missed every warning sign up to the parting of the Red Sea, the critics and questioners of Trump’s tug-of-war with what’s left of the Iran regime seem obtuse to the prophetic truth that the...

Yikes U.S. Rent Prices vs Income

Donald Trump clashed with Pete Hegseth over a claim that a US munitions shortage could limit his options in the Iran war, according to reports. The US president confronted his defence secretary at Camp David, his country retreat in Maryland, demanding to know why he had been misled about the missile shortage. The clash occurred on the sidelines of Mr Trump’s cabinet meeting on Friday, at which he said that he thought the missile issue “had been fixed”, two people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post. The White House dismissed the claims as “fake news”, denying that the...

Anger over depleted US weapon inventories broke into the open at Camp David, where President Donald Trump pressed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on why he had been kept in the dark regarding severe missile deficits that are now restricting military maneuvers against Iran, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing two individuals familiar with the matter. According to the report, the tense interaction occurred on the sidelines of a Friday Cabinet meeting. Trump reportedly expressed sharp irritation, indicating he assumed the supply deficit “had been fixed", according to sources who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity....

Donald Trump says he has cancelled strikes against Iran provided a deal was struck "rapidly" with the country. In a post on Truth Social, the US president wrote that he had decided to "cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL" - which would include the immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to "Iran's nuclear threat". Trump said the decision had been taken alongside Israel. The announcement came amid US media reports that Washington might have been planning new, intense strikes on Iran over the weekend. Tehran earlier accused the US of...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was asked during a Capitol Hill press conference on Tuesday at what point he will move to use Congressional power to check President Donald Trump’s war in Iran. Johnson pointedly ended his reply by saying “we’ve got to wrap it up” in Iran, which many pundits and political insiders have warned is an additional threat to the GOP keeping its majorities in Congress. Johnson’s answer appeared to be at odds with Trump, who vowed earlier in the day to continue bombing Iran until they come to the negotiating table in good faith. “You repeatedly said...

BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey (AP) — The U.S. military said on Saturday that two additional service members were killed as part of the war with Iran, bringing the total number of deaths to 16.The deaths reflect the complicated reality that American boots don’t need to be on the ground for there to be lethal risks in a conflict that involves drones, missiles and airplanes. American forces are arrayed across the Middle East, making other nations targets of Iran as the fighting has escalated after a breakdown in peace talks.President Donald Trump has said the war is necessary to stop Iran from...

The U.S. military on Saturday announced the first U.S. troop deaths due to direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, saying two were killed and another was missing in an attack on a base in Jordan.They were killed Friday as the U.S. and partner forces defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks, a statement said. Four other service members who were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals were later discharged. The dead were not identified. Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have now been killed and over 430 wounded.Minutes earlier, Iran’s supreme leader had warned...

Vice President JD Vance ruled out on Wednesday the possibility of the United States conducting a ground invasion of Iran as hostilities with the Middle Eastern country resume.The vice president said that if there is going to be regime change in Iran, then it would have to come from the Iranian people and not outside forces like the United States. “If the Iranian people want to rise up and change their government, that’s up to them,” Vance said during an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “But we’re not going to send 150,000 ground troops in order to accomplish a...

HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — Senate Democrats, seething over the Trump administration’s revived war with Iran, blocked a traditionally bipartisan defense funding bill on Tuesday. The Defense Department is seeking more than $1 trillion through a broad package that includes program funding, pay raises and policy directives as the ceasefire with Tehran ends. The administration’s hopes for the historically high request were suppressed on Capitol Hill, where a mostly party-line vote delayed passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which usually succeeds with ease. Forty-five Democrats voted against the legislation, preventing Republicans from overcoming the 60-vote barrier set for most...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was the Trump administration’s frontman for waging war on Iran during weeks of kinetic operations aimed at decimating its nuclear threat. Since President Trump signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to end the war, without securing significant concessions on its missile or nuclear stockpiles, Hegseth has said little about the shift in strategy — as Vice President Vance takes the spotlight in defending the tenuous diplomacy. The public positioning of the top Trump advisers reflects reporting on their private counsel to the commander in chief, with Trump saying in March that Hegseth was “the...

U.S. officials believed that Israel might have been plotting to kill Iran’s top negotiators while Washington was engaged with Tehran in delicate talks this spring to reach an interim peace deal, according to current and former American officials. Killing senior Iranian leaders had been part of Israel’s strategy from the start of the war. But American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials — Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament — spiked during delicate cease-fire negotiations that began in April. Fearful that an Israeli assassination effort would doom the negotiations,...

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday ​the United States was getting along ‌very well with Iran and that recent meetings in Qatar went well. "The denuclearization of ​Iran is moving along well," Trump ​told reporters. "They've had very good meetings, and ⁠we'll see." The U.S. and Iran ​held technical talks in the Qatari capital of ​Doha on Wednesday as they seek to agree on the flow of shipping through the Strait ​of Hormuz and secure a lasting ​ceasefire, a source with direct knowledge of the talks ‌and ⁠an Iranian official said. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff met...

• Nuclear monitoring: US Vice President JD Vance touted Sunday as a “very, very good day” of negotiations between the US and Iran and denied that bombastic statements from President Donald Trump upended negotiations. In what he described as a “major milestone,” Vance said Tehran has agreed to admit nuclear monitors into the country. • Waiver for Iranian oil sales: The vice president today also described an initiative for unfreezing Iranian assets that would grant the US approval over what Tehran can purchase using the money. And the US Treasury today issued a 60-day waiver on the sale of Iranian...

So, how are gas prices where you are?Two weeks ago in my part of S.E. Tennessee: $4.49 - $4.69/gal Today? I filled up at $3.29/gal as I'm going to my good friend Lazamataz's house in Georgia, and we're going to take in an Atlanta Braves v. San Francisco Giants game tomorrow in a Corporoate Suite.

The United States on Wednesday released the official text of the memorandum of understanding reached over the weekend with Iran. A senior US administration official read out the 14-point document, which spells out provisions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, easing certain financial restrictions on Iran and sets out expectations for addressing Iran’s nuclear program during future technical talks. Titled the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the document was released after outcry that its text hadn’t been released publicly. “This is fundamentally an agreement that allows us to open...

President Trump arrived late to Wednesday’s morning G7 meeting but wasn’t fazed as he walked into the session already in progress, declaring to his fellow leaders he was the “boss.” The rest of the G7 leaders were seated and were beginning their discussion on economic issues when Trump walked into the room. President Emmanuel Macron welcomed him with, “Oh, hello, Mr. President.” Trump paused on his way to his seat and declared, “I’m the boss” as everyone laughed. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was seated at the American place at the table but quickly vacated after Trump’s arrival, letting the president...

When President Trump gave thanks to those who had helped him reach an initial cease-fire agreement with Iran, he praised two world leaders he has called his friends — Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The leaders, he said, had aided the Americans in sealing the deal with the Iranians, or at least had helped set the conditions by not sending oil and gas tankers or other commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz to compromise a U.S blockade aimed at pressuring Iran. “He was a total gentleman,” the American president said of Mr. Xi in...