From the Chagos Islands to ‘windmills’ and sharia law, the US president’s comments do not bear much scrutiny
Donald Trump has been opining about the UK again, saying on Tuesday that Keir Starmer was “not Winston Churchill” and repeating his complaint about the deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Here are some recent things the US president has said about British issues, and how they compare with reality.
Continue reading...Beijing can again leverage its critical minerals dominance over an increasingly busy US military, as Taiwan slides further down the White House list of priorities
As the US and Israel opened a new chapter of chaos in the Middle East, China stands to benefit from a Washington establishment that does not have the political or physical resources to focus on Asia.
Officially, China has condemned the attacks. Wang Yi, the foreign minister, called them “unacceptable” and called for a ceasefire, rhetoric that is typical of Beijing in response to Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic foreign policy moves.
Continue reading...Democrats disturbed by rationale that Trump ordered pre-emptive strikes out of concern about Tehran retaliation
Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict.
The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend.
Continue reading...Trump boycotted the dinner in 2017 and has not attended any in either of his terms as president
Donald Trump said Monday he will attend the White House correspondents’ association dinner for the first time as president.
Writing in a social media post, Trump said: “In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!”
Continue reading...Lawmakers from Sanders to Mark Kelly offer mixed feelings on Trump’s action and killing of Iranian supreme leader
As Republicans celebrated the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with praise for Donald Trump’s decisive action, Democrats faced their own divisions and a reckoning over how to present a united front.
Most were quick to condemn the US president for sidelining Congress to launch an illegal and unconstitutional war and demanded a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain his military onslaught.
Continue reading...Fears that decision to strike could be open-ended as Trump comes under pressure to spell out his vision for the country
Donald Trump is under pressure to spell out his vision for Iran amid the ongoing attacks on the country and reports of the first American casualties since the launch of unprovoked US and Israeli military strikes.
Trump’s critics are demanding that the White House provide greater clarity about what comes next. Opponents and analysts say the lack of a clear plan outlined so far has created a danger of the US being sucked into a long-lasting conflict of the sort that Trump repeatedly vowed to avoid.
Continue reading...PM is in diplomatically precarious position of declining to endorse US strikes while also refusing to condemn them
It was perhaps naive of No 10 ever to position Keir Starmer as a “Donald Trump whisperer” capable of persuading the unpredictable US president to step back from reckless decisions.
The “special relationship” has been under severe strain in recent months over the UK’s decision to give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands and the refusal of European countries to back Trump’s play for Greenland.
Continue reading...‘They should have done it sooner, they waited too long,’ says Trump but he doesn’t say when talks would take place
Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s political leadership have agreed to talks, a day after the US and Israel began to target the country’s military and political infrastructure, killing the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top officials.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Trump told a reporter for the Atlantic magazine on Sunday. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”
Continue reading...Crowds gather in DC, New York and beyond to denounce Trump’s Iran strikes as an illegal act of war
A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response
War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded
As news circulated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, anti-war protesters gathered across the United States, including outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square to voice opposition to US military involvement in the region.
“It wasn’t sanctioned by Congress, so what Trump is doing is on his own terms, it’s making him a fascist and it’s making the country into a fascist state,” said Sue Johnson, a protester.
Continue reading...US president violates UN charter just days into his Board of Peace era, and chooses to take the biggest gamble of his administration
The first war of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace era has begun – an unprovoked attempt at regime change in collaboration with Israel, with no legal foundation, launched in the midst of diplomatic efforts to avert conflict, and with minimal consultation with Congress or the American public.
Trump’s recorded eight-minute address after the first bombs had fallen, made clear that this would be no limited strike aimed at cajoling Tehran into concessions at the negotiating table. He warned that if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not surrender they would be killed, and the country’s armed forces, its missile and navy would be smashed.
Continue reading...Joint operation prompts Tehran to retaliate with missile attacks on bases across Middle East
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed as the US and Israel launch a war on Iran to trigger regime change, Donald Trump has claimed. The US president announced the death of the ayatollah, who has ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989, in a post on Truth Social. “Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote.
The death of Iran’s supreme leader was announced after waves of air attacks across the country. Iran’s Red Crescent reported more than 200 deaths and 747 injuries in daylong attacks across 24 provinces.
At least 100 people were reportedly killed in a strike on a primary school in Minab, in the south-east.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, had earlier said there were “many signs” Khamenei was “no longer alive”, and Israeli officials briefed media that his body had been recovered.
Tehran fired retaliatory strikes against Israeli and US bases across the Middle East. Iran’s attacks targeted more than six countries, pulling in places that had been previously untouched by the escalating crisis.
In Israel, one person died and 22 others are injured, media reports say, after an Iranian missile strike hit a building in Tel Aviv. An official said the building was aflame and had partially collapsed.
In Dubai, a number of people were injured after an incident occurred at Dubai international airport, the Dubai media office has said. The Burj Al Arab and Fairmont hotels caught fire amid Iranian attacks.
The United Arab Emirates said in a statement that it had intercepted the vast majority of the 137 missiles and 209 drones fired at its territory by Iran in the hours after the US and Israel launched a regime change war on the Islamic Republic.
In Bahrain, an Iranian drone flew into a high-rise building in what looked like a targeted attack, exploding and engulfing the skyscraper in flames. Earlier, the country’s national security agency was also struck by an Iranian missile.
Social media footage also appeared to show a missile hitting the huge US naval base in Bahrain. In Kuwait, a drone crashed into the country’s main airport, wounding several employees and damaging the facility.
In Lebanon, gas stations across the country had lines 10 cars deep within an hour of the strikes. People in Beirut airport watched as commercial flights were cancelled, and grocery stores were filled with the more cautious stocking up on essential goods – the memory of the 2024 war with Israel fresh in their minds.
At least one person was killed and seven wounded during an “incident” at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed international airport, officials said after Iranian strikes targeting the United Arab Emirates and Gulf states.
Continue reading...DoJ says it will not ask US supreme court to rehear tariffs case despite president’s complaint on Truth Social
The Trump administration said refunds of tariffs struck down by the US supreme court “will take time”, according to court documents filed by the Department of Justice.
Businesses including FedEx have lined up to demand reimbursement for US tariffs they have paid but that the court last week deemed were imposed illegally, prompting heavy criticism from Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Neither president nor anyone in administration has reached out after Good was killed by immigration officer, says family
The family of Renee Good, an unarmed US citizen and mother who was killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis last month, said in an interview with NBC News that neither Donald Trump nor anyone in his administration has contacted them since her death.
“There’s a reason that we hired our own investigators – to make sure that the truth is transparent and available, to make sure that this is really taken seriously, and to make sure that we know what occurred,” Brent Ganger, Good’s brother, told NBC News.
Continue reading...As tensions between two countries reach new highs, US president says regime is ‘talking with us’
Donald Trump has suggested the US could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba as tensions between Washington and Havana reach a new high after the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
As he left the White House for a campaigning event in Texas on Friday, Trump said: “The Cuban government is talking with us. They’re in a big deal of trouble.”
Continue reading...Tehran’s ICBMs cannot currently reach the US, experts say, and White House has claimed its nuclear programme has been destroyed
Donald Trump’s likely casus belli for an attack on Iran – which would be the largest US intervention since the Iraq war – is fraught with contradictions, and his top advisers have been left to cover for him as the White House makes the case for intervention.
In his State of the Union address this week, Trump alleged that Iran posed a direct threat to the US and that the country was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America”. But that claim has not been backed up with evidence by the White House or the Pentagon, and US intelligence reports from just last year say that it would take Iran 10 years to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the US.
Continue reading...Exclusive: memo came after Mike Huckabee’s remarks about Israel sparked alarm inside White House
The US secretary of state Marco Rubio told ambassadors in the Middle East to stop making public comments that could inflame tensions and undermine Donald Trump’s pressure on Iran to relinquish its capacity to produce a nuclear weapon, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.
“Given rising tensions in the region, Chiefs of Mission and embassies at addressee posts must refrain from public statements, interviews, or social media activity that could in any way inflame regional audiences, prejudice sensitive political issues, or complicate US relationships,” the cable said.
Continue reading...US president accuses Tehran of failing to ‘negotiate in good faith’ over its nuclear programme
Donald Trump says he has not made a final decision on whether to launch strikes on Iran but is “not happy” with the situation and military force – including regime change – remains an option.
The remarks came at the White House on Friday after talks between the US and Iran on Tehran’s nuclear programme ended inconclusively, with a suggestion that further discussions would be held next week.
Continue reading...The rationale to justify the US striking first has shifted from the country killing protesters to its developing weapons
As senior Democrats emerged from a classified briefing on Iran with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, earlier this week, the leaders of the opposition delivered reserved, cryptic warnings of what may become the US’s largest military intervention since the Iraq war.
This was not a line in the sand against a new war in the Middle East. Instead, Democrats targeted the opaque decision-making around Donald Trump – as well as his own unpredictable whims – that could guide the weightiest foreign-policy decision of his two terms in office.
Continue reading...Player is captain of NHL’s Ottawa Senators
Tkachuk expresses regret over Trump joke
US ice hockey star Brady Tkachuk has said he does not appreciate an AI video released by the White House that shows him insulting Canadians.
Tkachuk played in the Americans’ victory over Canada at the Winter Olympics on Sunday, which secured the US men their first gold medal since 1980. In the wake of that win, the White House’s TikTok account published video of Tkachuk saying: “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating fuckers a lesson.”
Continue reading...People across region are bracing for possibility of conflict as embassies evacuate staff and flights are cancelled
Anxiety is growing over a potential war between Iran and the US in the Middle East, with embassies evacuating staff and airlines cancelling flights as tensions mount.
As critical talks over Iran’s nuclear programme entered their second round on Thursday night, and a vast US military buildup continued in the Middle East, the Trump administration warned of drastic consequences if Iranian negotiators failed to make significant concessions.
Continue reading...