Trump and Iran in battle of the blockades - The Latest
Source: US news | The Guardian · Bias: Center Left
Summary
The US blockade of ships using Iranian ports has come into force but several Iran-linked tankers have passed through the strait of Hormuz since it began. The blockade is designed to put pressure on Iran, whose economy is dependent on oil and gas exports. It comes after peace talks between Washington and Tehran at the weekend ended without a deal.Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour Continue reading...
Trump and Iran in battle of the blockades - The Latest
Center Left
The US blockade of ships using Iranian ports has come into force but several Iran-linked tankers have passed through the strait of Hormuz since it began. The blockade is designed to put pressure on Iran, whose economy is dependent on oil and gas exports. It comes after peace talks between Washington and Tehran at the weekend ended without a deal.Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour Continue reading...
A Marine veteran running for Florida's 5th Congressional District is being condemned for his threatening comments against President Donald Trump.William Upham released a video statement calling the president the Antichrist and saying that he "must be killed."'William Upham is no longer a Marine and does not represent our values or ethos.'Upham is running as a write-in candidate, surprisingly as a Republican. The seat is currently held by Rep. John Rutherford, also a Republican.The Marine Corps issued a statement indicating that he had been discharged for medical reasons in May 2025."The comments made by Upham are a direct violation of the oath he swore to uphold and are not in keeping with the service's values," the Marine Corps added in the post on social media.Upham served from June 2021 until September 2025 and achieved the rank of first lieutenant, according to reporting from Task & Purpose. The outlet also noted that threatening the president is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine."I've come to the realization that our country is broken. We are led by a president who's the enemy of God, and President Trump will never bring us together like God intended," Upham says in the video."There is no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is the Antichrist. He is a false messiah, and he is your enemy, and he must be killed," he adds.RELATED: 'We're gonna hang him from the Statue of Liberty': ANOTHER man arrested for alleged threats to kill Trump Acting U.S. Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao called the comments "unacceptable" in a post on social media."William Upham is no longer a Marine and does not represent our values or ethos," he added.Blaze News reached out to the Florida GOP for comment. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) urged caution to the media over President Trump’s upcoming speech about election integrity. “I don’t think that we should be contributing to any platforming of lies about our election,” Ocasio-Cortez told journalist Pablo Manríquez in a clip posted to the social platform X Tuesday afternoon. “Many news outlets oftentimes may receive…
Part of President Trump's speech Thursday night is expected to touch on previously unreported alleged Chinese meddling in U.S. elections, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Two of President Trump’s most recent health nominees, including his newest pick to be head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), appeared before the Senate on Wednesday where a reluctance to break with the administration put Democrats and some Republicans on edge. Erica Schwartz, nominee to be the next director of the CDC, and Sean Kaufman, nominee to head the…
President Donald Trump is trying to push through acting attorney general Todd Blanche to be his actual attorney general — but, as some conservatives are mocking, Blanche’s cause was undermined on Wednesday by a member of his own Republican Party.“[Sen. John] Kennedy [R-LA], in his weird kind of goofy way, as you say, caused much more trouble for Blanche then these Democratic lawyers asking their fine-tuned legal challenges,” conservative commentator William Kristol explained during a podcast for The Bulwark. Kristol was referring to how Kennedy asked Blanche if he considered himself to be Trump’s friend, only for Blanche to reply that he considered himself to be “Trump’s lawyer.” Legally, the attorney general represents the American people, not the president himself.“Of course, he does think of himself as Trump's lawyer, and that is a core point which underlies ... a lot of the particularities of the decisions he's made in terms of prosecutions and pardons and ... Obviously the slush fund, right? So Kennedy, in his weird kind of goofy way, as you say, caused much more trouble for Blanche, these Democratic lawyers asking their fine-tuned legal challenges,” said Kristol.Sam Stein, Kristol’s co-host, then broke down whether Blanche has enough support to get confirmed.“Let's talk about math here,” Stein wrote. “So Mitch McConnell's out, which means there's 52 senators. The late Senator Lindsey Graham's sister is in, so it stays at 52, which means that it would take three Republicans to vote against Blanche to torpedo his nomination. I guess also the committee is at 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats. So if they can't get a majority in the committee, he doesn't get out of the committee.”Yet even though Republicans may have enough votes to bring Blanche to the floor, they do not have the 65 votes to break a Democratic filibuster against Blanche’s permanent appointment.“I don't know the particularities of this,” Stein concluded. “So anyways, there are ways to defeat him.”Later in the same broadcast, Stein and Bulwark contributor Will Saletan laughed at footage of Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) interrogating Blanche.“Who rejected the 25 defenses the IRS had to this sham lawsuit?” Schiff asked Saletan. “Who rejected them? Who said that these defenses, we're not going to accept, we're just going to go with the president's agreement and the slush fund, and this immunity?”When Blanche tried to deflect by saying there was a lot of internal conversation, Schiff pointed out that Blanche “made the decision to not defend the IRS and the Justice Department. You made the decision instead to sign this slush fund agreement.”Blanche confirmed, “We made the decision to settle the case, correct, yeah.”Schiff replied, “And in doing that, you basically decided that you were going to be the lawyer for the president and the lawyer for the IRS and the Justice Department.As the court found in this case, there was no adversarial relationship. The court found it was a sham. It was a collusive relationship.”At this point, Saletan and Stein both snickered.“What I don't understand, Todd Blanche, [is] what happened to the Todd Blanche who was a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York?” Schiff asked in the hearing. “What happened to the prosecutor people had respect for? What happened to the prosecutor who once respected the rule of law? What happened to the prosecutor who said that there wouldn't be a whiff of political partisanship and then prosecutes the president's enemies over seashells, over making a video stating the plain law and constitution?”Schiff is referring to the $1.8 billion slush fund that Trump and Blanche created — and which they claimed was dead, although they have not proven this — to settle the president’s lawsuit against the IRS. Trump accused the IRS of violating his rights when an independent contractor leaked that he had not paid taxes for many years and had a number of previously undisclosed business failures. Even though no one has ever received monetary compensation for having their tax returns leaked, and it was unclear whether Trump even had the standing to sue the IRS he controls, Blanche controversially refused to defend the IRS and instead settled with Trump for the $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump supporters and Trump-affiliated agencies, as well as to never audit the president or his family again.Earlier this week U..S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams voided the settlement in a 56-page order in which she characterized the settlement as self-dealing on the basis of the fact that a sitting president sued an agency he controls, then settled with himself.
House Republicans kicked off their plans for a third reconciliation bill for $90 billion in new money for the military during the Iran war and election-related measures.
Six years later, Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential election conspiracy is still going strong.During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday, Trump’s pick to run National Intelligence—Jay Clayton—refused to plainly acknowledge who won the 2020 election, admitting only after a lengthy back-and-forth with Maine Senator Angus King that Joe Biden “became the president of the United States.”Clayton initially said Biden had been certified, during an exchange with committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner. But he grew testy when King revisited the subject.“Who won the 2020 election?” asked King.“I’ve answered that question, I’m not going to get into that,” Clayton rebuffed, throwing his hands in the air.“You have not answered that question,” insisted King. “Who won the 2020 election? It’s a pretty simple question.”“I’ll give you the same answer. My answer to the chairman was, he asked me if I’m an election denier. I’m not an election denier. Joe Biden was certified as the president, he went through his process, he went through our electoral process. I can tell you that I was in my seat at the FCC and—” Clayton said, before King again insisted that he answer the question.“Who won the 2020 election?” repeated King.“As I said, he went through our processes, and Joe Biden became the president of the United States,” Clayton said. “I’m going to ask you one more time—” King said, before Clayton interjected that he had only appeared on the Capitol to “talk about my qualifications.”“One of your qualifications is you told us you’re going to hold truth to power, and you won’t answer a very simple question,” King said. “You have not answered. Saying Joe Biden was certified is not an answer.”KING: Who won the 2020 election?CLAYTON: I've answered that question. I'm going to get into thatKING: You have not answered that question. Could you answer it?CLAYTON: Joe Biden was certifiedKING: No. That's not an answer. You told us you'd tell truth to power, and you… pic.twitter.com/SA2eyPlNXA— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2026Later in the hearing, Senator Mark Kelly picked up where King left off, asking Clayton “why Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 election.”“I really—going back to my constitutional law here—I don’t want to get in a debate about this, but I believe he had the most electoral votes,” Clayton responded.“So he won the election?” pressed Kelly.“He followed our process, had the most electoral votes, was declared the winner,” Clayton continued, laughing.“And who has the most electoral votes? Is it the person who wins, or the person that loses?” asked Kelly.“I think that’s your characterization,” Clayton shrugged.Sen. Kelly: So he won the election.Clayton: *laughs*Three different senators have tried to get Clayton to say Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and he’s refused each time. pic.twitter.com/MPpWNxZyNs— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) July 15, 2026When Senator Jon Ossoff again brought up the topic, Clayton stopped trying to answer altogether.“Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions?” Ossoff pressed. But Clayton was unmoved.
