Trump says it's time for Iran to "pay the price" as U.S. announces new strikes
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The U.S. military said it launched new attacks on Iran on Wednesday, with President Trump saying it's time for the regime to "pay the price." Ed O'Keefe reports.
Two of the Senate GOP's most senior figures are openly questioning President Donald Trump's massive new Pentagon funding push, throwing fresh doubt on his ambitious $1.5 trillion military budget goal, according to Punchbowl News.Trump launched his latest funding blitz on Truth Social Wednesday night, demanding Republicans "IMMEDIATELY advance and pass" a $350 billion reconciliation package, which he called "Recon 3.0," that he said is the only way to reach a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget. He framed the request as building the "ARSENAL OF FREEDOM" and demanded "no games, no delays, and no weak compromises."But the outlook for Trump's plan is "bleak," Punchbowl reported Thursday. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who chairs the Defense appropriations subcommittee, have openly raised concerns about the approach. Punchbowl bluntly put it: "Trump wants his Golden Dome and Golden Fleet, but for GOP leaders, the vote counts may not be golden."The fight comes against the backdrop of Trump's escalating Iran war, which has stretched past 100 days with no resolution. Trump threatened recently to "bomb the s--- out of them" if Iran didn't sign a peace deal soon.The Pentagon push is also complicated by Trump's previous demands for emergency war funding, requests that GOP leaders already balked at. The Pentagon's $200 billion supplemental request has stalled in Congress amid bipartisan demands for cost transparency that the White House has yet to provide.Punchbowl reported that the SAVE Act, the GOP voter ID bill Trump wants attached to the reconciliation package, cannot pass via reconciliation due to Senate parliamentary rules.Even defense hawks who applaud the $1.5 trillion request face vote-counting problems in both chambers.
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No matter how the US’s illegal military assault on Iran ultimately turns out, Trump’s war was lost before it even started. The war was justified by a flagrant lie and constitutes among the worst, most irresponsible misuses of American military power in modern history.Trump’s claim that Iran posed an “imminent threat” to the US by building nuclear weapons was patently false. America’s former national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress that Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon, which was corroborated by UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi who said in June 2025 that Iran had no plans to build nuclear weapons. Trump had no legal justification for attacking a sovereign country under the UN charter’s Article 2 (4) prohibition. Only one person bears responsibility for Iran beginning to enrich uranium in 2018 beyond the level needed for domestic energy use: Donald Trump. Iran had been enriching uranium at a maximum level of 3.67% for domestic energy production in keeping with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement negotiated in 2015. As president, Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA coalition in 2018 and renewed economic sanctions on Iran. Trump’s actions ostensibly blew up the agreement and Iran retaliated by beginning to enrich uranium at an increasingly higher level.There is every reason to believe that had the US remained in the JCPOA, the agreement would still be in place today with Iran abiding by the nuclear restrictions, which were monitored and verified regularly by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) between 2015 and 2018. First, the nations involved formed a powerful coalition: Iranian allies Russia and China along with the United States, Germany, Great Britain, and the EU. If needed, they could put overwhelming pressure on Iran to abide by the agreement, both through the threat of reduced economic and military support from Russia and China and renewed economic sanctions from the other countries. The agreement was as close to ironclad as it could be.Second, after the agreement was signed, Iran began enjoying an economic resurgence as decades-old sanctions that had crippled the country were removed. To remain sanction-free with the opportunity to continue improving its economy after decades of hardship, Iran’s abiding by the nuclear restrictions in the JCPOA agreement was a no-brainer. Third, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, there has been no credible evidence that Iran has decided to build or manufacture a nuclear weapon. Although critics remain skeptical, that fact flies in the face of US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s claim in a Congressional hearing that the US must destroy Iran’s nuclear “ambitions.” Hegseth’s uncanny ability to peer into the black hearts of Iranian leaders is more reliable than any verifiable evidence. Fourth, if Iran ever actually developed a nuclear weapon, do Iranian leaders really have a death wish for their country? If Iran attacked a country with nuclear weapons, it would be destroyed in short order by vastly more powerful nuclear forces. The one thing that has prevented every nuclear country from launching attacks for over 70 years is the most powerful evolutionary motivator in mankind: self-preservation. Iran would be no exception. The 2015 coalition agreement is vastly superior to anything that Trump ultimately negotiates. Trump has scaled down his initial lofty goals to one: ensuring that Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons. First, there is no evidence that Iran ever planned to get nuclear weapons in the first place, and second, the 2015 agreement accomplished the same thing Trump is trying to negotiate with a much stronger international coalition to enforce it. By comparison, any Iranian nuclear agreement solely with the US helmed by an incompetent, capricious, and untrustworthy president couldn’t be more tenuous.Beyond that, the 2015 agreement was accomplished diplomatically without bloodshed or destruction. Trump’s agreement will come following the US-Israeli bombing of Iran and the deaths of 2,000-to 3,000 Iranian civilians, including 250 to 500 children, 13 dead American soldiers and hundreds more injured. It will come with the destruction of Iranian schools, hospitals, infrastructure, and homes, the displacement of over 3 million Iranian civilians, a humanitarian crisis with a scarcity of food, drinkable water, and adequate health care, toxic clouds of pollution hanging over the cities, and the loss of thousands of jobs. It will come with the war spreading across the Middle East, costing even more lives and increasing infrastructure damage. It will come with the international economic disaster brought on by extreme oil shortages and skyrocketing prices. It will come at a cost of $100 billion to American families between increased military spending and higher oil prices.
The US military launched strikes against "multiple" targets in Iran for the second straight day. These came after President Donald Trump accused the country of dragging out talks on an interim peace deal. The recent hostilities mark the most intense clashes between the US and Iran in weeks. Bloomberg's Abeer Abu Omar reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
The top Manhattan prosecutor in Trump's Department of Justice is alarming legal experts with his behavior.During a recent interview, Adam Klasfeld raised red flags over Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, because of his constant appearances on CNBC. Clayton "sowed doubt" over the California elections, but that wasn't all the stunned Klasfeld, who's been a court reporter for the past two decades."I have never seen a U.S. attorney engage in political commentary on cable, period," Klasfeld said. "And he is now a regular fixture, Jay Clayton, on Squawk Box on CNBC, where he spouts off pro-Trump talking points regularly."In addition to bringing up unfounded fraud concerns around the California elections, Clayton has also talked about how Trump was wronged in criminal prosecutions against him, defended the $1.776 billion slush fund, and engaged in "soft election denialism," Klasfeld said.Michael Popok, a former prosecutor and the host of Legal AF, added to Klasfeld's observations. Popok noted that Clayton "is a very close friend and always has been with Howard Lutnick," Trump's commerce secretary, who's been questioned about his ties to Epstein.Clayton is also a "golfing buddy" with Lutnick and Trump, according to Popok, adding that his purpose is to make the Southern District of New York look good under Trump."When you see him on television, he looks like he's from central casting," Popok said about Clayton. "His sole purpose is to give a veneer of credibility, and to restore some credibility to that office while continuing to be a political hatchet man."THE POPOK POP-UP: BREAKING NEWS AND ADAM KLASFELD, TOO! by Legal AFA recording from Legal AF's live videoRead on Substack
