Trump asks Congress for billions for Iran war, after tension with Republicans

Trump and Cassidy at each other’s throats in GOP meeting: source

President Donald Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) "went at each other" during a Wednesday meeting with the Republican caucus. Trump was on Capitol Hill, where he was to sign a bipartisan bill that aimed to make housing more affordable. Trump was dismissive of it on Truth Social, calling it "of minor importance." He then announced he was canceling the bill signing altogether. "Trump and Cassidy just went at each other over Iran during the Senate GOP lunch, per [a] source in room," said Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio. "Trump was interrupting Cassidy as Cassidy was calling the war a 'blunder.' Other senators tried to jump in but Cassidy and Trump kept going back and forth, source said."The battle goes back to the years-old bad blood between the two men. Cassidy is one of the long-time Republicans who Trump ousted in a GOP primary despite placating Trump during confirmation hearings. However, Cassidy was one of very few Republican lawmakers in 2021 who believed that they should hold a trial in the Senate over the second impeachment of Trump, earning him Trump's permanent hostility. Since losing his primary, Cassidy has said publicly that he wouldn't turn against the president. His actions have proved otherwise, however. In the matter over Trump's nearly $1.8 billion Justice Department "slush fund," Cassidy was working up until the Homeland Security budget vote, "trying to perfect language to drive a stake through [it]," reported The Hill in early June.Explaining his convictions, Cassidy said, "I would like to fund control of the border but also do something about the weaponization fund. I’m trying to strike that balance."Last week, Cassidy scored Trump's 14-point proposed Iran peace agreement. "The details that I’ve seen so far look … awful," Cassidy told reporters. "This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder."If the terms are accurate, Cassidy said that it would ultimately put Iran in a stronger position than it was before the war began. Meanwhile, it would leave allies in the Middle East weaker. “It’s clear that they [the administration] don’t have a plan. Or if this is the plan, it’s not a very good plan, and that’s because it’s now been five months,” Cassidy added. “So that’s why I think Congress needs the ability to be fully briefed and to weigh in. Not to be told kind of top line what’s going on, but to be fully briefed. And that’s my… goal right now. Let the American people, by their elected representatives, have input into what we’re doing, because it’s not going as we were promised that it would go.”

On Iran Trump Is Neither Neocon or Obama--and It Is Working

Trump offers aid after ‘massive’ Venezuela earthquakes: ‘Early reports are not good’

President Trump late Wednesday offered assistance to Venezuela after two earthquakes hit the South American country. “The two major earthquakes that just hit the great people of Venezuela are both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The U.S.A. stands ready, willing, and able to help!”…

'Snake pit': Carville says Trump's White House days numbered as admin 'leaks like a sieve'

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville says the wave of damaging leaks emerging from the Trump administration is far from over — and could ultimately bring down the presidency itself.Speaking on his "Politics War Room" podcast, Carville addressed revelations from "Regime Change," a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, which is based on audio recordings of Situation Room conversations among top officials, along with more personal details about Trump's habits, including confirmation that he and first lady Melania Trump keep separate White House bedrooms, reported The Daily Beast."I understand the story is the incompetence and stupidity and the grossness, but the larger issue is this: They're leaking," Carville said. "They're leaking like a sieve. They leak what happens in a bedroom, they leak what happens in meetings, they get audio of meetings, and if you notice, no one has come out and said anything is untrue, because they know that all the tapes and audio are there."Carville argued the dysfunction runs deeper than any single embarrassing detail. "Trust no one. If you work in that snake pit, you can't say anything, you can't do anything," he said. "Trump, as out of his mind as he is, knows that he's surrounded by traitors. He knows he's surrounded by leakers. He knows that everything he does is going to be leaked to the next person writing the next book.""When I tell you that this thing is in its last days," he added, "I'm telling you this thing is in its last days."The 81-year-old Carville, who ran Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, has repeatedly predicted that the 80-year-old Trump won't finish his second term, suggesting he could leave office next spring following anticipated heavy GOP losses in the November midterms.Comparing the current leaks to those during the Clinton years, Carville said past disclosures were comparatively mundane. "Talking about what somebody has in a bedroom and f---ing Oreos all over the cover and they've got to clean it up, and talking about that, that's not normal s--t," he said, "and I'm telling you, it's going to get worse."

Senate GOP gets back in line with Trump over the Iran war

The Senate late Wednesday night in a 47-50-1 vote opted not to rebuke the Trump administration a second time over its military conflict in Iran, as leaders convinced some Republican swing votes that doing so would harm the negotiations to end the war. The resolution would have been Congress’ way to reassert its power to…

59% of Americans say they lack confidence in the Iran deal.

When it comes to the deal, there is a political divide, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

'I don't think it was us': Trump gives update on investigation into Iran school strike

President Trump says he doesn't think that the U.S. was responsible for a deadly strike on a school in Iran at the beginning of the war. "I don't think it was us," Trump tells reporters during an Oval Office briefing alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. 

An oil tanker navigates the Strait of Hormuz despite threats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

A Liberian oil tanker made its way out of the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday despite threats to shipping from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and using a new route close to Oman’s shore that has been promoted by a UN maritime agency.