Trump

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday rejected U.S. calls for surrender in the face of more Israeli strikes and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them.”

The second public appearance by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since the Israeli strikes began six days ago came as Israel lifted some restrictions on daily life, suggesting that the missile threat from Iran was easing.

Khamenei spoke a day after President Trump demanded in a social media post that Iran surrender without conditions and warned Khamenei that the U.S. knows where he is but has no plans to kill him, “at least not for now.”

Trump initially distanced himself from Israel’s surprise attack on Friday that triggered the conflict, but in recent days he has hinted at greater American involvement, saying he wants something “much bigger” than a ceasefire. The U.S. has also sent more military aircraft and warships to the region.

‘Nobody knows what I’m going to do’

Speaking to reporters at the White House Wednesday, Trump would not say whether he has decided to order a U.S. strike on Iran, a move that Tehran warned anew would be greeted with stiff retaliation if it happens.

“I may do it, I may not do it,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters at the White House. “I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

Trump added that it’s not “too late” for Iran to give up its nuclear program as he continues to weigh direct U.S. involvement in Israel’s military operations aimed at crushing Tehran’s nuclear program.

“Nothing’s too late,” Trump said. “I can tell you this. Iran’s got a lot of trouble.”

“Nothing is finished until it is finished,” Trump added. But “the next week is going to be very big — maybe less than a week.”

Trump also offered a terse response to Khamenei’s refusal to heed to his call for Iran to submit to an unconditional surrender.

“I say good luck,” Trump said.

‘The Iranian nation is not one to surrender’

Khamenei dismissed the “threatening and absurd statements” by Trump.

“Wise individuals who know Iran, its people and its history never speak to this nation with the language of threats, because the Iranian nation is not one to surrender,” he said in a low-resolution video, his voice echoing. “Americans should know that any military involvement by the U.S. will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage to them.”

Iran released Khamenei’s statement before the video was aired, perhaps as a security measure. His location is not known, and it was impossible to discern from the tight shot, which showed only beige curtains, an Iranian flag and a portrait of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei’s immediate predecessor, who died in 1989.

An Iranian diplomat had warned earlier Wednesday that U.S. intervention would risk “all-out war.”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei did not elaborate, but thousands of American troops are based in nearby countries within range of Iran’s weapons. The U.S. has threatened a massive response to any attack.

Another Iranian official said the country would keep enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, apparently ruling out Trump’s demands that Iran give up its disputed nuclear program.

Strikes in and around Tehran

The latest Israeli strikes hit one facility used to make uranium centrifuges and another that made missile components, the Israeli military said. Military officials said their defenses intercepted 10 missiles overnight as Iran’s retaliatory barrages diminished. The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Israel struck two centrifuge production facilities in and near Tehran.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military also struck the headquarters of Iran’s internal security forces on Wednesday, without specifying the agency or location. The strike marks a shift toward targeting Iran’s domestic security apparatus, which has long cracked down on dissent and suppressed protests.

Israel’s air campaign has struck several nuclear and military sites, killing top generals and nuclear scientists. A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 585 people, including 239 civilians, have been killed and more than 1,300 wounded.

Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones in retaliatory strikes, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds. Some have hit apartment buildings in central Israel, causing heavy damage, and air-raid sirens have repeatedly forced Israelis to run for shelter.

Iran has fired fewer missiles as the conflict has worn on. It has not explained the decline, but Israel has targeted launchers and other infrastructure related to the missiles.

By Wednesday, Israel eased some of the restrictions that it had imposed on daily life when Iran launched its retaliatory attack, allowing gatherings of up to 30 people and letting workplaces reopen as long as there is a shelter nearby.

Schools are closed, and many businesses remain shuttered, but Israel’s decision to reverse its ban on gatherings and office work for all but essential employees signals the Israeli military’s confidence that its attacks have limited Iran’s missile capabilities.

Casualties mount in Iran

The Washington-based group Human Rights Activists said it had identified 239 of those killed in Israeli strikes as civilians and 126 as security personnel.

The group, which also provided detailed casualty figures during 2022 protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, crosschecks local reports against a network of sources it has developed in Iran.

Iran has not been publishing regular death tolls during the conflict and has minimized casualties in the past. Its last update, issued Monday, put the toll at 224 people killed and 1,277 others wounded.

Shops have been closed across Tehran, including in its famed Grand Bazaar, as people wait in gas lines and pack roads leading out of the city to escape the onslaught.

A major explosion was heard around 5 a.m. Wednesday in Tehran. That followed other explosions earlier in the predawn darkness. Authorities in Iran offered no acknowledgement of the attacks, which have become increasingly common as the Israeli airstrikes have intensified.

At least one strike appeared to target Tehran’s eastern neighborhood of Hakimiyeh, where the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has an academy.

Iran says it will keep enriching uranium

Israel says it launched the strikes to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, after talks between the United States and Iran over a diplomatic resolution made little visible progress over two months but were still ongoing. Trump has said Israel’s campaign came after a 60-day window he set for the talks.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, though it is the only non-nuclear-armed state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. U.S. intelligence agencies have said they did not believe Iran was actively pursuing the bomb.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, but has never publicly acknowledged them.

Iran’s ambassador to Geneva, Ali Bahreini, told reporters that Iran “will continue to produce the enriched uranium as far as we need for peaceful purposes.”

He rejected any talk of a setback to Iran’s nuclear research and development from the Israeli strikes, saying, “Our scientists will continue their work.”

Israel welcomes first repatriation flights

Israelis began returning on flights for the first time since the country’s international airport shut down at the start of the conflict.

Two flights from Larnaca, Cyprus, landed Wednesday at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, said Lisa Dvir, an airport spokesperson.

Israel closed its airspace to commercial flights because of the ballistic missile attacks, leaving tens of thousands of Israelis stranded abroad.

Krauss, Gambrell and Frankel write for the Associated Press. Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat and Nasser Karimi in Iran, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva, contributed.

President Trump has endorsed David Ellison’s takeover of Paramount Global — an $8-billion merger that has been complicated by his $20-billion lawsuit over CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

On Wednesday, Trump was asked about the hold-up in the federal review of Skydance’s takeover of the storied entertainment company. The question came as reporters clustered around the president on the White House lawn to watch the installation of a flagpole.

The Paramount-Skydance deal has been pending at the Federal Communications Commission since late last fall.

Trump said he hoped the deal goes through.

“Ellison is great. He’ll do a great job with it,” Trump said.

Then he appeared to connect the merger-review delay to his lawsuit against CBS and its parent Paramount over last fall’s “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has maintained since last October that the Harris interview was edited to burnish her chances in the November election. CBS has denied the allegations, saying the edits were routine. The raw footage showed Harris was accurately quoted, but Trump’s team said he suffered “mental anguish” from the broadcast.

“They interviewed Kamala. Her answer was horrendous,” Trump said Wednesday. “I would say it was election-threatening. I would say election-threatening because it was so incompetent.”

1st Amendment experts have called Trump’s case frivolous, but Paramount wants to avoid waging an extensive legal fight. Paramount’s leaders have pursued a settlement to help clear a path for the company’s sale to Skydance — a deal that needs the approval of the FCC.

The mediation process to resolve the lawsuit, filed in a Texas court, has become protracted.

“They are working on a settlement,” Trump said Wednesday. He mentioned that two high-level CBS executives — the head of CBS News and the executive producer of “60 Minutes” — had abruptly departed as the merger review dragged on.

“They’re all getting fired,” he said.

Late last week, Trump’s legal team filed court documents asking for a deadline extension in the discovery process, disclosing the two sides were working to reach a resolution.

Earlier this month, Ellison met Trump briefly while the two men were sitting ringside at a UFC fight in New Jersey, according to video footage shared online. Skydance declined to discuss Ellison’s interaction with Trump.

It marked the second time this year that Ellison chatted with the president at a UFC match. The first was in April.

It’s been nearly a year since Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and fellow Paramount directors approved the two-phased $8-billion deal that will hand the company to the son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, who is a Trump supporter. The deal will also see the Ellison family buy the Redstone investment vehicle, National Amusements Inc.

Santa Monica-based Skydance intends to consolidate the company that boasts the Melrose Avenue Paramount film studio, Paramount+ streaming service, CBS and cable channels including Comedy Central, Showtime and BET.

Skydance operations and personnel will be folded into Paramount.

The deal faces one final regulatory hurdle: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s consent to transfer 29 CBS television station licenses to the Ellisons from the Redstones. This week, the Senate approved Trump’s second Republican appointment to the panel, Olivia Trusty.

Reporting from Washington — President Trump stepped up his attack on federal environmental protections Tuesday, issuing an order directing his administration to begin the long process of rolling back sweeping clean water rules that were enacted by his predecessor.

The order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to set about dismantling the Waters of the United States rule takes aim at one of President Obama’s signature environmental legacies, a far-reaching anti-pollution effort that expanded the authority of regulators over the nation’s waterways and wetlands.

The contentious rule had been fought for years by farmers, ranchers, real estate developers and others, who complained it invited heavy-handed bureaucrats to burden their businesses with onerous restrictions and fines for minor violations.

Obama’s EPA argued that such claims were exaggerated and misrepresented the realities of the enforcement process of a rule that promised to create substantially cleaner waterways, and with them healthier habitats for threatened species of wildlife.

The directive to undo the clean water initiative is expected to be closely followed by another aimed at unraveling the Obama administration’s ambitious plan to fight climate change by curbing power plant emissions.

“It is such a horrible, horrible rule,” Trump said as he signed the directive Tuesday aimed at the water rules. “It has such a nice name, but everything about it is bad.” He declared the rule, championed by environmental groups to give the EPA broad authority over nearly two-thirds of the waterways in the nation, “one of the worst examples of federal regulation” and “a massive power grab.”

While the executive orders are a clear sign of the new administration’s distaste for some of the highest profile federal environmental rules, they also reflect the challenge it faces in erasing them. Both the climate and the clean water rules were enacted only after a long and tedious process of public hearings, scientific analysis and bureaucratic review. That entire process must be revisited before they can be weakened. It could take years.

And environmental groups will be mobilized to fight every step of the way. “These wetland protections help ensure that over 100 million Americans have access to clean and safe drinking water,” California billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer said in a statement. “Access to safe drinking water is a human right, and Trump’s order is a direct violation of this right.”

The executive orders are compounded by the administration’s release of a budget blueprint that includes deep cuts at the EPA. Even if the process of changing the environmental rules is slow, the Trump administration will aim to hasten their demise by hollowing out the agencies charged with enforcing them.

At the same time, it is working with Congress to immediately kill some environmental protections under an obscure authority that applies to regulations enacted within the final months of the previous administration. A rule intended to limit water pollution from coal mining has already been killed by Congress, which is now weighing whether to jettison rules that force gas drilling operations on federal land to capture more of the toxic methane they emit.

Trump vowed Tuesday that he would continue to undermine the Obama-era environmental protections wherever he sees the opportunity, arguing they have cost jobs. “So many jobs we have delayed for so many years,” Trump said. “It is unfair to everybody.”

Many industries take issue with that interpretation. Tuesday’s order, for example, was met with a swift rebuke from sport fishing and hunting groups. They said the clean water rule has been a boon to the economy, sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs in their industry.

“Sports men and women will do everything within their power to compel the administration to change course and to use the Clean Water Act to improve, not worsen, the nation’s waterways,” a statement from a half-dozen of the organizations said.

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June 18 (UPI) — President Donald Trump extended a pause on legislation banning TikTok from operating in the United States a third time, extending it for a further 90 days to allow time for a deal to split the firm’s U.S. business from its Chinese parent company.

The White House said Tuesday that Trump would sign a fresh executive order this week instructing the Justice Department not to take measures or impose fines on TikTok or tech providers such as Google and Apple for allowing the video-sharing app to remain on their platforms.

“As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The previous 75-day extension from April, which was due to expire on Thursday, came after his administration agreed a deal, according to CBS News, to spin off TikTok’s American operation into a majority U.S.-owned entity.

However, that deal was derailed by Trump’s imposition of severe tariffs on China with parent ByteDance saying Beijing would not authorize the sale while the dispute over tariffs and trade was ongoing — although TikTok maintained the deal was not finalized and approval from Beijing was a given.

Trump said Tuesday that he was confident that Beijing would give its blessing.

“I think President Xi [Jinping] will ultimately approve it.”

A convert to TikTok after trying to ban it in his first 2017- 2021 term, Trump acknowledges security concerns over the personal data of American users ending up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party that prompted Democrats to join in passing a Republican bill requiring TikTok to sell by Jan. 19 this year, or be shutdown.

The latest extension takes that deadline to mid-September, almost 18 months after the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was signed into law by then-President Joe Biden in April 2024.

June 18 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump was weighing overnight whether to take the country to war with Iran after an emergency meeting of his national security team in the White House.

The 80-minute Situation Room meeting of Trump’s key Cabinet officials Tuesday evening concluded without a clear consensus, CBS News reported, but one option on the table was sending U.S. bombers to destroy underground nuclear sites that are impenetrable to Israeli warplanes.

The network said senior intelligence and Defense Department officials had told it that Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow uranium enrichment plant, 300 feet under a mountain near Qom and 85 miles south of Tehran, was one possible target.

Fordow was believed to be the facility most likely to reach a critical threshold where Iran’s nuclear development program — which it has always insisted is for civilian purposes only — crosses into a program capable of producing a nuclear warhead.

However, there was disagreement at the meeting attended by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over exactly what the United States’ next step should be.

Israeli airstrikes on the facility with bunker-busting bombs have thus far failed to penetrate the facility, with the International Atomic Energy Agency saying it had sustained no damage as of Monday.

“No damage has been seen at the site of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant or at the Khondab heavy water reactor, which is under construction. Bushehr nuclear power plant has not been targeted nor affected by the recent attacks, and neither has the Tehran Research Reactor,” IAEA Secretary General Rafael Grossi told the agency’s board.

However, he said Israeli strikes had caused considerable damage to above-ground facilities at Esfahan and Natanz, with one of the plants having produced U-235 uranium enriched up to 60%.

Naturally occurring U-235 uranium contains only a tiny proportion of chain-reacting U-235 isotope and must be “enriched” 3% to 5% for nuclear power purposes. To become weapons-grade, U-235 needs to be enriched to above 90%, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, although the super-enriched uranium is also used to produce isotopes used for nuclear medicine scans and radiotherapy.

The United States has powerful weapons that could, with repeated hits, penetrate a facility such as Fordow.

The BBC reported that would require deployment of America’s so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bomb delivered by the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber, which can carry two of the monster munitions.

As the conflict entered its sixth day, Israel said it launched airstrikes involving 50 fighter jets overnight against a uranium centrifuge production site and multiple weapons facilities critical to Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

In a post on X, the Israel Defense Forces said the centrifuges made at the plant were for enriching uranium beyond civilian levels. Other sites hit included a facility making parts for surface-to-surface missiles used against Israel and another plant making surface-to-air missile components used to target aircraft.

The IDF said the strikes “directly degraded” Iran’s ability to threaten Israel and the wider region.

“We have delivered significant blows to the Iranian regime, and as such, they have been pushed back into central Iran. They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan. We are aiming at military targets; they are attacking civilian homes,” IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said.

Air raid sirens sounded across large swathes of central and northern Israel just before midnight local time after Iran launched a salvo of missiles at the country, including so-called “Fattah-1” hypersonic missiles.

Warnings sounded again across a smaller area in the north-east about 4.30 a.m. due to what the IDF called “hostile aircraft infiltration.”

Trump and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei embarked on a war of words Tuesday with the Trump saying Khamenei would be an “easy target” if the United States and Israel chose to take him out. Trump also called for Tehran’s “unconditional surrender.”

“The battle begins,” Khamenei threatened in a social media post invoking Shia Islam’s Haider, the first Shia Imam and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, accompanied by an image of fire raining down on a city.

We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.”

After nearly a week of protests in Los Angeles against recent federal immigration enforcement sweeps in the city, President Trump doubled down on his administration’s efforts to detain and deport immigrants without documentation, claiming they are a key voting bloc in Democratic cities.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said Los Angeles and “other such cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use illegal aliens to expand their voter base, cheat in elections, and grow the welfare state, robbing good paying jobs and benefits from hardworking American citizens.”

But according to Los Angeles County election officials, that’s simply not true.

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“That claim is false and unsupported, and only serves to create unsubstantiated concern and confusion about the electoral process,” the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office said in a statement.

In reality, the county has safeguards in place to ensure only eligible voters cast ballots and that all votes are accurately counted, said Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the county’s Registrar-Recorder’s office.

How do people become registered voters in California?

In the state of California there are five requirements a person must meet to register to vote, according to the California Secretary of State. To register an individual must be:

1. A U.S. citizen.
2. A resident of California.
3. At least 18 years or older on or before Election Day.
4. Not currently serving a state or federal prison term for the conviction of a felony.
5. Not currently found mentally incompetent to vote by a court.

When a person meets the eligibility criteria, they can register to vote which includes attesting under penalty of perjury that they meet all eligibility requirements, including being a U.S. citizen and a resident of California, said Sanchez.

“This sworn statement is a legal declaration and serves as the foundation of the voter registration process,” Sanchez said.

Voting as a noncitizen is a felony that can lead to a year in jail or deportation, said Hasen.

Though there are some cities in the United States where noncitizens can participate in local elections, for example in communities in Vermont and Maryland, participation is limited to voting in school board or city council elections.

In California, San Francisco is the only city where noncitizens can vote and it is limited to the school board.

How does Los Angeles County verify who is voting in federal elections?

Once a voter registers, their personal information is verified through the State Voter Registration database, which is done by cross-checking state Department of Motor Vehicle records or the last four digits of the person’s Social Security number, Sanchez said.

When the verification process is complete, a voter does not have to show their identification when voting in person. If verification has not occurred, the voter must show identification the first time they vote. Acceptable forms of identification include a driver’s license, state-issued I.D or passport; the California Secretary of State has a complete online list of what identifying documents to take to the polling place.

Once polling places open for voters within the county, the voter must sign a roster in the presence of election workers, who attest to their identity and eligibility.

“Elections officials also conduct regular voter roll maintenance, checking against several data points including death records from the California Department of Public Health, Social Security Administration, Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,” the California Secretary of State told The Times in a statement.

For vote-by-mail ballots, the signature on the return envelope is compared to the one on file in the voter registration record, Sanchez said. If the signature does not match or is missing, the voter is contacted and given a chance to correct it.

“Only verified ballots are accepted and counted,” he said.

Where do the claims about undocumented immigrants voting originate?

The claim that immigrants lacking documentation vote in large numbers — and for Democrats — has been repeated for years.

It has seeds in the once-fringe racist conspiracy theory called the “great replacement.” According to a poll by the Associated Press and and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 1 in 3 Americans now believe “an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.”

The theory has gained momentum under Trump.

In 2016, Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency, but not the popular vote. That went to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who received about 2.9 million more votes.

Trump then claimed, without evidence, that he would have won the popular vote if 3 to 5 million immigrants living in the country illegally hadn’t voted.

“About 3 million votes was the margin by which he lost the popular vote which is why I think he chose that 3 million number to try to explain away his popular vote loss,” Hasen said.

After losing his reelection bid in 2020 to Joe Biden, when voting by mail was a focus, Trump refocused on immigrants lacking authorization in the 2024 campaign and was ultimately voted back into the White House.

“In 2024, when I think Trump and the Republicans concluded that the attacks on absentee ballots were actually hurting them because people don’t want to show up in person to vote, the shift went back to immigration,” Hasen said.

Voter fraud claims echo whomever is trying to dictate the political narrative, according to Hasen.

Researchers have found, repeatedly through decades of investigation, that fraud conducted by voters at the polls is virtually nonexistent and does not happen “on a scale even close to that necessary to “rig” an election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Many instances of reported fraud were due to clerical errors or human errors.

“I think one of the things we’ve seen is people on the losing end of elections tend to be more likely to believe that there’s cheating,” Hasen said. “But Donald Trump has really supercharged things to the point where we’re way beyond what we normally see in terms of partisan divisions.”

But Trump is not alone in fueling that theory recently. Last year as he campaigned for Trump, billionaire Elon Musk repeated those claims on his social media platform, X.

“If the Democratic party gains enough voters to win an election by importing them and giving them free stuff, then they will do so,” he posted in September.

So is the number of undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles growing?

Yes, but likely not at the rate it once was, said Manuel Paster, professor of sociology and American studies at USC.

California’s immigrant population — including those without authorization — increased by 5% (about 500,000) from 2010 to 2023, compared to 14% (1.27 million) from 2000 to 2010, and by 37% (2.4 million) rise in the 1990s, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Between 2019 and 2022, the population of undocumented immigrants in most states across the nation steadily climbed. California’s however, decreased, according to the Pew Research Center.

These days, most new immigrants are going to Florida, Texas and the South rather than high-cost California, Pastor said.

“Los Angeles, more than 70% of our undocumented immigrants have been in the country for longer than a decade,” he said. “They’re more likely to be long established employees, parents, parts of faith institutions.”

As the conflict between Iran and Israel escalates, United States President Donald Trump’s administration is offering mixed signals about whether it still backs a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Publicly, it has backed a negotiated agreement, and US and Iranian negotiators had planned to meet again this week. As recently as Thursday, Trump insisted in a Truth Social post: “We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution.”

But 14 hours later as Israel began its attacks on Iran, Trump posted that he had given Iran a 60-day deadline to reach an agreement – and that the deadline had passed. By Sunday, Trump was insisting that “Israel and Iran should make a deal” and they would with his help.

On Monday as Trump prepared to leave the Group of Seven summit in Canada early, his warnings grew more ominous: He posted that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” The US president later denied speculation that he had returned to Washington, DC, early to negotiate a ceasefire, noting that it was for something “much bigger than that”.

Trump’s ambiguous statements have fuelled debate among analysts about the true extent of US involvement and intentions in the Israel-Iran conflict.

Debating Trump’s wink and a nod

Trump has denied any US involvement in the strikes. “The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight,” he wrote on Sunday.

Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the US-based Arms Control Association, said Trump’s messaging had been clear. “I think that President Trump has been very clear in his opposition to the use of military force against Iran while diplomacy was playing out. And reporting suggests that he pushed back against [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” she said.

What’s more likely, Davenport said, is that “Israel was worried that diplomacy would succeed, that it would mean a deal” and “that it did not view [this as] matching its interests and objectives regarding Iran”.

Richard Nephew, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, agreed, saying it was Trump’s consistent march towards a deal that troubled Israel.

“I think it is that consistency that’s actually been the thing that’s the problem,” said Nephew, who served as director for Iran at the US National Security Council from 2011 to 2013 under then-President Barack Obama.

But Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at St Andrews University in Scotland, disagreed.

“The US was aware. … Even if the specific timing did surprise them, they must have been aware, so a wink is about right,” he told Al Jazeera.

“At the same time, the US view is that Israel must take the lead and should really do this on their own,” he said.

Could Trump get sucked into the conflict?

Israel is believed to have destroyed the above-ground section of Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. The facility has enriched uranium to 60 percent purity – far above the 3.67 percent needed for nuclear power but below the 90 percent purity needed for an atomic bomb. Power loss at Natanz as a result of the Israeli strike may have also damaged the underground enrichment section at Natanz, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

But in the IAEA’s assessment, Israel did not damage Iran’s other uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, which is buried inside a mountain and also enriches uranium to 60 percent purity.

“It’s likely that Israel would need US support if it actually wanted to penetrate some of these underground facilities,” Davenport said, pointing to the largest US conventional bomb, the 13,600kg (30,000lb) Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

“[With] repeated strikes with that munition, you could likely damage or destroy some of these facilities,” Davenport said, noting that Washington “has not transferred that bomb to Israel”.

Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, a US-based think tank, also told Al Jazeera that Israel would need US weapons to complete its stated mission of destroying Iran’s nuclear programme.

Nephew, for one, did not discount the chances of that happening.

“We know that [Trump] likes to be on the side of winners. To the extent that he perceives the Israelis as winners right now, that is the reason why he is maintaining his position and why I think we have a wink [to Israel],” he said.

On Friday, the US flew a large number of midair-refuelling planes to the Middle East and ordered the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to sail there. On Tuesday, it announced it was sending more warplanes to the region.

Ansari agreed that the initial success of Israel’s attacks could mean that “Trump is tempted to join in just to get some of the glory,” but he thinks this could force Iran to stand down.

“It may well be that the US does join in on an attack on Fordow although I think even the genuine threat of an American attack will bring the Iranians to the table,” Ansari said. “They can concede – with honour – to the United States; they can’t to Israel, though they may have no choice.”

Wary of American involvement, US Senator Tim Kaine introduced a war powers resolution on Monday that would require the US Congress to authorise any military action against Iran.

“It is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States,” Kaine said.

Diplomacy vs force

Obama did not believe a military solution was attractive or feasible for Iran’s nuclear programme, and he opted for a diplomatic process that resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. That agreement called for the IAEA to monitor all of Iran’s nuclear activities to ensure that uranium enrichment only reached the levels required for energy production.

According to Nephew and Davenport, Trump indirectly fanned the flames of the military option when he pulled the US out of the JCPOA as president in 2018 at Israel’s behest.

Two years later, Iran said it would enrich uranium to 4.5 percent purity, and in 2021, it refined it to 20 percent purity. In 2023, the IAEA said it had found uranium particles at Fordow enriched to 83.7 percent purity.

Trump offered no alternative to the JCPOA during his first presidential term, nor did President Joe Biden after him.

“Setting [the JCPOA] on fire was a direct contribution to where we are today,” Nephew said. Seeking a military path instead of a diplomatic one to curtail a nuclear programme “contributes to a proliferation path”, he said, “because countries say, ‘The only way I can protect myself is if I go down this path.’”

Davenport, an expert on the nuclear and missile programmes of Iran and North Korea, said even the regime change in Tehran that Netanyahu has called for wouldn’t solve the problem.

“Regime change is not an assured nonproliferation strategy,” she said. “We don’t know what would come next in Iran if this regime were to fall. If it were the military seizing control, nuclear weapons might be more likely. But even if it were a more open democratic government, democracies choose to build nuclear weapons too.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s favorite target again this year was the California-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which saw 15 of 16 rulings overturned on review.

For decades, the high court’s conservatives have trained a skeptical eye on the historically liberal appeals court and regularly reversed its rulings, particularly on criminal law and the death penalty.

But by some estimates, this year saw the most Supreme Court reversals of 9th Circuit decisions since 1985. And the range of issues was broad, including immigration, religion, voting rights, property rights and class-action lawsuits.

In four years, President Trump appointed 10 judges to the appeals court, a sprawling Western jurisdiction that includes nine states and two U.S. territories. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush each named seven judges to the 9th Circuit in their eight years in the White House.

Trump’s 9th Circuit picks appeared to have played a significant role this year by pressing for internal review of rulings they didn’t like and joining sharp dissents that drew the interest of the Supreme Court.

“The more people who join the dissents, the more it gets the attention of the conservatives,” said one 9th Circuit judge, speaking on the condition of not being identified by name.

“This year was different,” another judge said. “This year was really different.”

When two owners of fruit-growing operations sued over a 1975 California state regulation that allowed union organizers to enter their property to speak to workers, they lost before a federal judge and the 9th Circuit.

Judge Richard A. Paez of Los Angeles, a Clinton appointee, said in a 2-1 decision that the state rule did not authorize “physical taking” of farmers’ property, as the lawsuit claimed, but rather temporary access to it.

Judge Sandra S. Ikuta of Los Angeles, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote a dissent arguing that the ruling was wrong and should be overturned. She said the state rule takes “an easement from the property owners” and gives it to union organizers, who are free to enter when they choose. In a dissent from the full court’s refusal to reconsider the panel’s decision, seven other 9th Circuit judges, six of them Trump appointees, agreed.

When the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 for the property owners last month, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cited Ikuta’s dissent. “The access regulation appropriates a right to invade the growers’ property,” he wrote in Cedar Point vs. Hassid. The high court was split along ideological grounds.

The same divide was on display in the justices’ 6-3 decision shielding big donors to conservative charities and nonprofits from having their names disclosed to the California attorney general.

The 9th Circuit, in a 3-0 decision, had upheld the state’s policy of checking donors as an anti-fraud measure, but Ikuta wrote a dissent, joined by four Republican appointees, two of them nominated by Trump. The dissent said the full appeals court should “correct this error.” She argued that experience had shown that conservative donors have suffered “harassment and abuse” when their names have been disclosed.

The Supreme Court agreed to review the ruling, and Roberts cited Ikuta’s dissent in his opinion reversing the 9th Circuit in Americans for Prosperity Foundation vs. Bonta.

“There is still a large cohort of liberal judges” on the 9th Circuit, said Ed Whelan, a conservative legal analyst in Washington, “but there are now many conservative appointees who are vigilant in calling them out.”

In total, 47 judges sit on the 9th Circuit — 24 appointed by Republicans going back to President Nixon, and 23 named by Democrats starting with President Carter.

Many of those judges work part time. Of the full-time jurists, 16 are Democratic and 13 are Republican appointees.

The size of the circuit — the nation’s largest — partly explains why its cases are often subject to Supreme Court review.

“The 9th Circuit is so vastly larger than any other circuit that it is inevitable they are going to take more 9th Circuit cases,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley’s law school.

Although this year’s 9th Circuit reversal rate was unusually high, the high court in fact overturned 80% of all the cases it reviewed, Chemerinsky noted.

Moreover, only a tiny percentage of appellate decisions are reviewed by the Supreme Court. Typically, the 9th Circuit hands down about 13,000 rulings a year.

Chemerinsky noted the Supreme Court overturned several 9th Circuit cases on immigration and habeas corpus, the legal vehicle for releasing someone from detention. “The 9th Circuit is historically more liberal on immigration and habeas cases,” he said.

Some reversals occurred in cases that were not ideological, however: The high court overturned a 9th Circuit decision by Republican appointees on what constitutes a robocall.

Though the Supreme Court split along ideological lines on property rights, voting rights and conservative donor cases from the 9th Circuit, the justices were unanimous in reversing the 9th Circuit in several immigration cases.

On June 1, they overturned a unique 9th Circuit rule set by the late liberal Judge Stephen Reinhardt. Over nearly 20 years, he had written that the testimony of a person seeking asylum based on a fear of persecution must be “deemed credible” unless an immigration judge made an “explicit” finding that they were not to be believed.

In one of his last opinions, Reinhardt approved of asylum for Ming Dai, a Chinese citizen who arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for refugee status for himself and his family. He said they were fleeing China’s forced abortion policy.

Only later did immigration authorities learn that his wife and daughter had returned to China because they had good jobs and schooling there, but the husband had no job to return to.

An immigration judge had set out the full story and denied the asylum application, only to be be reversed in a 2-1 ruling by a 9th Circuit panel. The panel cited Reinhardt’s rule and noted that although evidence emerged casting doubt on Dai’s claims, there had been no “explicit” finding by an immigration judge so his story had to be accepted.

“Over the years, our circuit has manufactured misguided rules regarding the credibility of political asylum seekers,” Senior Judge Stephen S. Trott wrote in dissent. Later, 11 other appellate judges joined dissents arguing for scrapping this rule.

Last fall, Trump administration lawyers cited those dissents and urged the Supreme Court to hear the case. They noted the importance of the 9th Circuit in asylum cases. Because of its liberal reputation, “the 9th Circuit actually entertains more petitions for review than all of the other circuits combined,” the lawyers said.

In overturning the appeals court in a 9-0 ruling, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch began by noting that “at least 12 members of the 9th Circuit have objected to this judge-made rule.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered another 9-0 ruling holding that an immigrant arrested for an “unlawful entry” after having been deported years ago may not contest the basis of his original deportation. The 9th Circuit had said such a defendant may argue his deportation was “fundamentally unfair,” but “the statute does not permit such an exception,” Sotomayor said in U.S. vs. Palomar-Santiago.

The high court’s furthest-reaching immigration ruling did not originate with the 9th Circuit, but it nonetheless overturned a 9th Circuit decision.

At issue was whether the more than 400,000 immigrants who had been living and working in the U.S. under temporary protected status were eligible for long-term green cards. The Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit said no, rejecting a green card for a Salvadoran couple who had entered the country illegally in the 1990s and had lived and worked in New Jersey ever since.

The 9th Circuit had taken the opposite view; Trump lawyers cited this split as a reason the high court should take up the New Jersey case. On June 7, Justice Elena Kagan spoke for the high court in ruling that the 3rd Circuit was right and the 9th Circuit wrong. To obtain lawful permanent status, the immigration law first “requires a lawful admission,” she said in Sanchez vs. Majorkas.

The 9th Circuit’s sole affirmance came in a significant case: By a 9-0 vote in NCAA vs. Alston, the justices agreed with the 9th Circuit that college sports authorities could be sued under antitrust laws for conspiring to make billions of dollars while insisting the star athletes go unpaid.

Donald Trump had said last month that the nuclear-armed neighbours agreed to a ceasefire after talks mediated by the US.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear to United States President Donald Trump that a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after a four-day conflict in May was achieved through talks between the two militaries and not US mediation, a top diplomat in New Delhi says.

“PM Modi told President Trump clearly that during this period, there was no talk at any stage on subjects like India-U.S. trade deal or US mediation between India and Pakistan,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press statement on Wednesday.

“Talks for ceasing military action happened directly between India and Pakistan through existing military channels, and on the insistence of Pakistan. Prime Minister Modi emphasised that India has not accepted mediation in the past and will never do,” he said.

Misri said the two leaders spoke over the phone late on Tuesday on Trump’s insistence after the two leaders were unable to meet on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, which Modi attended as a guest. The call lasted 35 minutes.

Trump had said last month that the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours agreed to the ceasefire after talks mediated by the US, and that the hostilities ended after he urged the countries to focus on trade instead of war.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the Modi-Trump call.

Pakistan has previously said the ceasefire was agreed after its military returned a call the Indian military had initiated on May 7.

In an interview with Al Jazeera in May, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar rejected claims that Washington mediated the truce and insisted Islamabad acted independently.

The conflict between India and Pakistan was triggered by an April 22 attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which 26 civilians, almost all tourists, were killed. India blamed armed groups allegedly backed by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denied.

On May 7, India launched missile strikes at multiple sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Over the next three days, the two countries exchanged artillery and air raids, hitting each other’s airbases.

Pakistan said at least 51 people, including 11 soldiers and several children, were killed in Indian attacks.

India’s military said at least five members of the armed forces were killed in Operation Sindoor, under which it launched the cross-border strikes.

Misri said Trump expressed his support for India’s fight against “terrorism” and that Modi told him Operation Sindoor was still on.

A president who built his reputation as a real estate mogul and TV personality, not through political office or military service. A cultural influencer and entrepreneur best known as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, he also leads companies like Neuralink and The Boring Company, both embroiled in a feud. An intriguing moment in politics, one that could steer the direction of public discourse and holds potential for both factionalism and authoritarian tendencies. Two political outsiders beefing in the political space. Perhaps, if both were real politicians, the first thing to say would be that in politics there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. Since both are businessmen, perhaps the philosophy of supply and demand should take the lead.

One key area of tension is their vision for power and influence. Trump has traditionally sought loyalty and absolute control over his political base. Musk, on the other hand, champions a decentralized, free speech-centric internet and promotes what he calls “rational centrism.” Their feud exposes a broader struggle over who gets to define the conservative movement in the digital age. Is it career politicians like Trump or tech disruptors like Musk?

As the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump escalates, it signals a seismic shift in where power and influence now reside in America. Musk represents the rise of the tech oligarch—billionaires who command not only wealth but also control over critical digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence. In contrast, Trump embodies the traditional fusion of business interests and political power. This public clash reflects more than a personal rivalry; it marks a defining moment in history when unelected figures with vast digital reach are rivaling, and in some cases eclipsing, the authority of elected officials. At stake is the very foundation of American democracy.

The cultural impact is equally significant. In today’s fragmented media landscape, Musk owns and controls X (formerly Twitter), one of the most influential social media platforms. Trump, meanwhile, promotes his views through Truth Social, his own media venture. Their battles play out in real time across these platforms, often fueling misinformation, deepening tribal divides, and eroding a shared sense of truth. This dynamic contributes to a growing destabilization of democratic norms. The rise of personality-driven politics is not confined to the United States; it is a global trend, reshaping leadership and public discourse worldwide. As Musk and Trump dominate headlines, millions are drawn into a media spectacle that distracts from urgent challenges like climate change, economic inequality, healthcare reform, and global instability. In this new era of digital power, the question remains: who truly holds the reins of influence, and at what cost to democratic society?

Elon Musk’s companies play a pivotal role in the U.S. economy, particularly in the automotive, aerospace, and infrastructure sectors. Should President Donald Trump choose to launch a political or rhetorical campaign against Musk, it could prompt Republican policymakers to reassess their support for clean energy subsidies, government contracts, or regulatory leniency. At the same time, Musk’s significant influence over financial markets—including cryptocurrencies and tech stocks—means that any sustained public clash with Trump could spark market volatility, especially if investors anticipate political retaliation or regulatory changes.

Should this feud be prolonged, the two figures could have far-reaching implications for Silicon Valley and the broader culture of innovation. Elon Musk is widely regarded as a symbol of entrepreneurial ambition and visionary risk-taking. Should former President Trump cast him as a political adversary, it could politicize certain elements of the tech industry, potentially undermining bipartisan support for innovation-driven initiatives. On the other hand, such a clash might encourage other tech leaders to adopt more overt political positions, either aligning with Musk’s views or deliberately distancing themselves from his influence, thereby challenging the traditionally apolitical posture of the tech sector.

The cultural implications of such a feud could be profound. Elon Musk resonates with younger, tech-savvy audiences through memes, livestreams, and direct engagement on social media platforms. In contrast, Donald Trump appeals to an older demographic that emphasizes traditional values and nationalist rhetoric. A prolonged conflict between the two figures could highlight and deepen the generational and ideological divides in American society. As business and politics become increasingly performative and adversarial, the space for collaboration, empathy, and thoughtful public discourse may continue to shrink.

Ultimately, in a nation already grappling with deep polarization, media fragmentation, and widespread institutional mistrust, a public clash between Elon Musk and Donald Trump could intensify existing divisions. While such a feud may appear, at first glance, to be mere spectacle, its ripple effects could extend far beyond headlines, impacting politics, economics, culture, and technology. As highly influential figures, both Musk and Trump bear a responsibility that transcends their personal brands. Their actions and their conflicts resonate throughout American society, making the consequences of their feud not just personal, but profoundly national.

June 17 (UPI) — A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday expanded an order against the State Department’s passport policy to include all applicants who are transgender or nonbinary, saying the “passport policy violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws.”

Judge Julia Kobick granted a first preliminary injunction in April, which blocked the State Department’s policy for only six of seven people who originally sued. On Tuesday, the judge expanded it to plaintiffs who were added to the suit, and nearly all trans and nonbinary Americans seeking new passports or changes.

Kobick, an appointee of former President Biden, wrote that the six named plaintiffs and the new class of plaintiffs “face the same injury: they cannot obtain a passport with a sex designation that aligns with their gender identity.”

“The plaintiffs have demonstrated that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the Passport Policy violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws and runs afoul of the safeguards of the APA,” Kobick wrote in Tuesday’s opinion, while referring to the Administrative Procedure Act which governs how policies are adopted.

After taking office earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, proclaiming the United States recognizes only two sexes — male and female — and that those sexes “are not changeable.” Trump then ordered government-issued identification documents, including U.S. passports, to reflect a person’s sex at birth.

“We will no longer issue U.S. passports or Consular Reports of Birth Abroad with an X marker,” according the State Department. “We will only issue passports with an M or F sex marker that match the customer’s biological sex at birth.”

Under the Biden administration, passport holders could self-select gender designation, including “unspecified” which was designated by the letter X.

The Trump administration appealed Kobick’s ruling in April. On Tuesday, Kobick wrote that forcing transgender and nonbinary people to choose between two sexes makes them more vulnerable to discrimination.

“Absent preliminary injunctive relief, these plaintiffs may effectively be forced to out themselves as transgender or non-binary every time they present their passport,” Kobick wrote.

The legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts celebrated Tuesday’s ruling and vowed to “continue to fight.”

“This decision acknowledges the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration’s passport policy has on the ability of people across the country to travel for work, school and family,” Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement.

“The Trump administration’s passport policy attacks the foundations of the right to privacy and the freedom for all people to live their lives safely and with dignity,” Rossman added. “We will continue to fight to stop this unlawful policy once and for all.”

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both posted to social media hinting that the United States is considering involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran, with Trump even raising the possibility of violence against Iran’s leadership.

The first of Tuesday’s posts came from Vance, who wrote a lengthy missive defending Trump’s handling of the conflict and blaming Iran for continuing its nuclear enrichment programme.

“The president has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment. And he said repeatedly that this would happen one of two ways- the easy way or the ‘other’ way,” Vance wrote.

The vice president proceeded to explain what the “other way” might look like.

“The president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military’s focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens,” Vance said. “He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president.”

Trump himself upped the ante less than an hour later. On his Truth Social platform, the president appeared to threaten Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and called for the country’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote.

“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”

The two messages arrive as Iran and Israel continue to exchange missile fire, with experts fearing the outbreak of a wider regional war.

That prospect has raised questions about whether and how the US might become involved.

Already, Trump has indicated he had prior knowledge of Israel’s initial attack on June 13, and news reports indicate that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has petitioned Trump to join its military campaign against Iran.

Still, the Trump administration has put some distance between itself and Israel, a longtime ally.

On the night the first attacks were launched by Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement calling Israel’s actions “unilateral” and stressing that the US was “not involved in [the] strikes against Iran”.

Shifting tone

Critics have speculated, however, that Trump may be gradually building a case for more direct US involvement in the conflict.

Prior to the last five days of bombing, the US and Iran had been engaged in months of negotiations to limit Iran’s nuclear programme. Another round of talks had been scheduled for last weekend, but was cancelled amid the escalating violence.

The US has since repositioned warships and military aircraft in the region, in the name of “protecting US forces”.

“These deployments are intended to enhance our defensive posture in the region,” US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement.

Trump, meanwhile, has framed the conflict as a result of Iran’s unwillingness to curtail its nuclear programme. As he flew home from the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Canada overnight, he reemphasised that Iran had missed its opportunity to avoid conflict.

“They should have done the deal. I told them: ‘Do the deal’,” Trump told reporters. “So I don’t know. I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.”

Iran has long denied seeking a nuclear weapon. But fears that it might develop one anyway have fuelled decades of tensions with the US, Israel and other countries.

In 2015, Iran inked a deal with the US, China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union to scale back its nuclear programme, in exchange for sanctions relief. But in 2018, during his first term in office, Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the pact, causing it to crumble.

He has since pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran and other US adversaries, a campaign he has continued during his second term.

In March, for instance, Trump blamed Iran for attacks from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, writing, “IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”

A nuclear question

Those threats have raised concerns, even among Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base, that the US could once again become embroiled in a costly foreign war.

On Friday, for instance, the Tucker Carlson Network — led by the eponymous conservative commentator — sent out a morning newsletter lobbying against US involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict.

“If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so. It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases. But not with America’s backing,” the newsletter read.

Lawmakers have likewise moved to curb any potential US involvement in the conflict.

On Tuesday, US Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Republican, joined his Democratic colleague Ro Khanna of California in announcing they would introduce a bill called the Iran War Powers Resolution, which would require the president to seek congressional approval before engaging in the conflict.

Just a day earlier, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine unveiled a similar bill. It would have directed the president to “terminate the use of US Armed Forces for hostilities against Iran”.

The Trump administration, however, has emphasised its position that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon is a red line that cannot be crossed. On Tuesday, the White House issued a statement stressing that Trump “has never wavered” in his position, linking to dozens of past comments he has made.

Critics, however, have pointed out that Trump has contradicted some members of his own inner circle, who have cast doubt on the likelihood that Iran has a nuclear weapons arsenal.

In March, for instance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified to Congress that the US “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003”.

During his overnight flight back to the US, however, Trump dismissed Gabbard’s assessment. “I don’t care what she said. I think they’re very close to having it,” he told reporters.

Gabbard herself has since said her comments were in line with the president’s position.

But the Trump administration’s contradictory statements have raised questions about how its stance towards Iran — and military engagement in the Middle East — might shift in the coming weeks.

Yasmine Taeb, legislative and political director for the advocacy group MPower Change Action Fund, noted that Gabbard’s congressional testimony represented the findings of the entire US intelligence community.

“It’s just reprehensible and incredibly reckless that Trump is not even relying on guidance from his own intelligence,” she told Al Jazeera.

Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a think tank and political group, also told Al Jazeera that Trump’s comments raise questions about the sources he is relying on for information.

“This makes really clear that this is a war of choice,” he told Al Jazeera. “If he’s not listening to his own intelligence community, who is he listening to? Is it Netanyahu?”

“I mean, at least when [former US President] George W Bush started his endless war, he had the dignity to lie to us about WMDs [weapons of mass destruction],” Abdi continued, citing the claim that helped launch the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“Donald Trump is just saying: ‘I don’t care what the facts are. We’re just doing this anyway because I say so.’”

New York City’s Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander has been freed after being arrested by federal agents at an immigration court as he linked arms with a man authorities were attempting to detain. The incident was caught on camera.

Reporting from Washington — At the center of his foreign policy vision, Donald Trump has put “America First,” a phrase with an anti-Semitic and isolationist history going back to the years before the U.S. entry into World War II.

Trump started using the slogan in the later months of his campaign, and despite requests from the Anti-Defamation League that he drop it, he stuck with it.

Friday, he embraced the words as a unifying theme for his inaugural address.

“From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land,” Trump said on the Capitol steps. “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America First. America First.”

Those same words galvanized a mass populist movement against U.S. entry into the war in Europe, even as the German army rolled through France and Belgium in the spring of 1940.

A broad-based coalition of politicians and business leaders on the right and left came together as the America First Committee to oppose President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s support for France and Great Britain. The movement grew to more than 800,000 members.

While the America First Committee attracted a wide array of support, the movement was marred by anti-Semitic and pro-fascist rhetoric. Its highest profile spokesman, Charles Lindbergh, blamed American Jews for pushing the country into war.

“The British and the Jewish races,” he said at a rally in September 1941, “for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.”

The “greatest danger” Jews posed to the U.S. “lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government,” Lindbergh said.

It is unclear if Trump is bothered by the ugly history of the phrase. What is clear is that he is determined to make the words his own. He has used them to sell his promises to impose trade barriers, keep manufacturing jobs inside the U.S. and restrict illegal and legal immigration.

Inauguration Day live updates: ‘American carnage stops’ here and now, Trump says »

“Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families,” Trump said in Friday’s inaugural speech.

“We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs,” he said.

“It is such a toxic phrase with such a putrid history,” said Susan Dunn, professor of humanities at Williams College and an expert in American political history, in an interview.

Lindbergh and other prominent members of the America First organization believed democracy was in decline and that fascism represented a new future, Dunn said.

Those words “carry an enormous weight,” said Lynne Olson, author of “Those Angry Days,” a book about the clash between Lindbergh and Roosevelt over entering the war.

“That time was strikingly familiar to now,” Olson said. “There was an enormous amount of economic and social turmoil in the country, anti-Semitism rose dramatically as well as general nativism and populism.”

Shortly after Trump took the oath of office, White House aides posted a 500-word description of Trump’s approach to the world titled “America First Foreign Policy.”

“The world must know that we do not go abroad in search of enemies, that we are always happy when old enemies become friends, and when old friends become allies,” the statement read. It added that defeating radical Islamic terror groups will be the “highest priority,” and that Trump’s administration would add ships to the Navy and build the Air Force back up to Cold War levels.

Trump also plans to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiate the terms of NAFTA with Canada and Mexico.

Trump appears to have first tried out the phrase “America First” during an interview with the New York Times in March, when he was asked if he was taking an isolationist, “America First” approach to foreign policy.

“Not isolationist, I’m not isolationist, but I am ‘America First.’ So I like the expression. I’m ‘America First,’” Trump said at the time. “We have been disrespected, mocked and ripped off for many, many years by people that were smarter, shrewder, tougher,” he added.

Twitter: @ByBrianBennett

[email protected]

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday questioning both President Trump’s decision to deploy federal troops to Los Angeles and the court’s right to review it, teeing up what is likely to be a fierce new challenge to presidential power in the U.S. Supreme Court.

A panel of three judges — two appointed by President Trump, one by President Biden — pressed hard on the administration’s central assertion that the president had nearly unlimited discretion to deploy the military on American streets.

But they also appeared to cast doubt on last week’s ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that control of the National Guard must immediately return to California authorities. A pause on that decision remains in effect while the judges deliberate, with a decision expected as soon as this week.

“The crucial question … is whether the judges seem inclined to accept Trump’s argument that he alone gets to decide if the statutory requirements for nationalizing the California national guard are met,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

The questions at the heart of the case test the limits of presidential authority, which the U.S. Supreme Court has vastly expanded in recent years.

When one of the Trump appointees, Judge Mark J. Bennett of Honolulu, asked if a president could call up the National Guard in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in response to unrest in California and be confident that decision was “entirely unreviewable” by the courts, Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett Shumate replied unequivocally: “Yes.”

“That couldn’t be any more clear,” Shumate said. “The president gets to decide how many forces are necessary to quell rebellion and execute federal laws.”

“It’s not for the court to abuse its authority just because there may be hypothetical cases in the future where the president might have abused his authority,” he added.

California Deputy Solicitor General Samuel Harbourt said that interpretation was dangerously broad and risked harm to American democratic norms if upheld.

“We don’t have a problem with according the president some level of appropriate deference,” Harbourt said. “The problem … is that there’s really nothing to defer to here.”

The Trump administration said it deployed troops to L.A. to ensure immigration enforcement agents could make arrests and conduct deportations, arguing demonstrations downtown against that activity amounted to “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

State and local officials said the move was unjustified and nakedly political — an assessment shared by Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer, whose ruling last week would have handed control of most troops back to California leaders.

Breyer heard the challenge in California’s Northern District, but saw his decision appealed and put on hold within hours by the 9th Circuit.

The appellate court’s stay left the Trump administration in command of thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines in L.A. through the weekend, when demonstrators flooded streets as part of the nationwide “No Kings” protests.

The events were largely peaceful, with just more than three dozen demonstrators arrested in L.A. Saturday and none on Sunday — compared to more than 500 taken into custody during the unrest of the previous week.

Hundreds of Marines still stationed in L.A.”will provide logistical support” processing ICE detainees, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Tuesday. Under last week’s executive order, National Guard troops will remain deployed for 60 days.

Arguing before the appellate panel Tuesday, Shumate said the military presence was necessary to defend against ongoing “mob violence” in L.A. streets.

“Federal personnel in Los Angeles continue to face sustained mob violence in Los Angeles,” the administration’s lawyer said. “Unfortunately, local authorities are either unable or unwilling to protect federal personnel and property.”

Harbourt struck back at those claims.

“[Violence] is of profound concern to the leaders of the state,” the California deputy solicitor general said. “But the state is dealing with it.”

However, the three judges seemed less interested in the facts on the ground in Los Angeles than in the legal question of who gets to decide how to respond.

“In the normal course, the level of resistance encountered by federal law enforcement officers is not zero, right?” Judge Eric D. Miller of Seattle asked. “So does that mean … you could invoke this whenever?”

While the appellate court weighed those arguments, California officials sought to bolster the state’s case in district court in filings Monday and early Tuesday.

“The actions of the President and the Secretary of Defense amount to an unprecedented and dangerous assertion of executive power,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta wrote in a motion for a preliminary injunction.

Marines push back anti-ICE protesters in front of the Federal Building during “No Kings Day” in Downtown on Saturday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

“The President asserts that [the law] authorizes him to federalize State National Guard units and deploy armed soldiers into the streets of American cities and towns whenever he perceives ‘opposition’ or ‘disobedience of a legal command,’” the motion continued. “He then asserts that no court can review that decision, assigning himself virtually unchecked power.”

The president boasted he would “liberate Los Angeles,” during a speech to troops at Fort Bragg last week.

In court, Bonta called the deployment a “military occupation of the nation’s second-largest city.”

Los Angeles officials also weighed in, saying in an amicus brief filed Monday by the City Attorney’s office that the military deployment “complicates” efforts to keep Angelenos safe.

“The domestic use of the military is corrosive,” the brief said. “Every day that this deployment continues sows fear among City residents, erodes their trust in the City, and escalates the conflicts they have with local law enforcement.”

The appellate court largely sidestepped that question, though Bennett and Judge Jennifer Sung in Portland appeared moved by Harbourt’s argument that keeping guard troops in L.A. kept them from other critical duties, including fighting wildfires.

“The judges were sensitive to that, and so if they’re ultimately going to land on a ‘no’ for the troops, they’ll do it sooner rather than later,” said professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond. “If they’re persuaded I think they’ll move fast.”

With the issue all but certain to face further litigation and a fast-track to the Supreme Court, observers said the 9th Circuit’s decision will influence how the next set of judges interpret the case — a process that could drag on for months.

“Both sides seem in a hurry to have a decision, but all [the Supreme Court] can do this late in the term is hear an emergency appeal,” Tobias said. “Any full-dress ruling would likely not come until the next term.”

June 17 (UPI) — Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is an “easy target,” and Iran should surrender unconditionally, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

“He is an easy target but is safe there — we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump continued.

“But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers,” he said, adding, “Our patience is wearing thin.”

In a subsequent post, Trump simply stated, “Unconditional surrender!” in all capital letters.

Trump said he hasn’t reached out to Iranian leaders and isn’t “in the mood” to negotiate with them, ABC News reported.

He said Israel has “complete and total control of the skies over Iran” due to “American-made, conceived and manufactured” arms.

Trump posted his comments after Israeli and Iranian forces continued exchanging aerial assaults during the fifth day of the active war between the two nations.

The president met with military advisers shortly after returning early from the G7 conference in Canada on Tuesday due to the situation in the Middle East.

Israeli forces are targeting ballistic missile launch sites and command centers in central Iran.

“We’ve struck deep, hitting Iran’s nuclear ballistic capabilities,” Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

“We have delivered significant blows to the Iranian regime, and as such, they have been pushed back into central Iran,” the IDF statement says.

“They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan.”

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have issued warnings to civilians in Tel Aviv and Haifa to evacuate because they are targeted for a “punitive operation.”

“The operations carried out so far have merely been warnings for deterrence,” Iran’s commander-in-chief Abdolrahim Mousavi said on Tuesday. “A punitive operation will be executed soon.”

He referred to the Israeli cities as “occupied territories” and said residents should leave them “for their own safety and not to become victims of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s barbaric actions.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday ruled out calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after the targeted shootings of two state lawmakers, saying that to do so would “waste time.”

One lawmaker and her husband were killed, and the second legislator and his wife sustained serious injuries in the shootings early Saturday. A suspect surrendered to police on Sunday.

The Republican president spoke to reporters early Tuesday aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington after abruptly leaving an international summit in Canada because of rising tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Iran. Asked if he had called Walz yet, Trump said the Democratic governor is “slick” and “whacked out” and, “I’m not calling him.”

Presidents often reach out to other elected officials, including governors and mayors, at times of tragedy, such as after mass killings or natural disasters, to offer condolences and, if needed, federal assistance.

On the plane, Trump sounded uninterested in reaching out to Walz, who was the vice presidential running mate for 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump. During the campaign, Walz often branded Trump and other Republican politicians as “just weird.”

“I don’t really call him. He’s slick — he appointed this guy to a position,” Trump said. “I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling him. Why would I call him?

“I could call him and say, ‘Hi, how you doing?’” Trump continued. “The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a, he’s a mess. So, you know, I could be nice and call him but why waste time?”

Trump’s mention of “this guy” being appointed to a position appeared to be a reference to Vance Boelter, the suspect who surrendered to police after a nearly two-day manhunt in Minnesota.

Boelter is a former political appointee who served on the same state workforce development board as Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, records show, though it was unclear if or how well they knew each other.

Authorities say Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were seriously wounded in a shooting a few miles away from the home of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman, who was fatally shot along with her husband, Mark, in their home early Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs.

Friends and former colleagues interviewed by the Associated Press described Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for Trump.

Federal prosecutors charged Boelter with murder and stalking, which could result in a death sentence if convicted. His lead attorney has declined to comment.

On Monday, Walz posted a message of thanks on social media to Ontario Premier Doug Ford for his call expressing condolences to Hortman’s family and the people of Minnesota.

“In times of tragedy, I’m heartened when people of different views and even different nations can rally together around our shared humanity,” Walz wrote.

In an interview Monday with Minnesota Public Radio, Walz said he wasn’t surprised by the lack of outreach from Trump, saying, “I think I understand where that’s at.”

Walz said he has spoken with Vice President JD Vance and was “grateful” for the call and had talked with former President Biden, Harris and Ford.

“I’m always open to, you know, people expressing gratitude. Vice President Vance assured us, and he delivered, that the FBI would be there as partners with us to get it done,” Walz said. “That was what needed to be done.”

Superville writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Md., contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday proposed deeper Medicaid cuts, including new work requirements for parents of teens, as a way to offset the costs of making President Trump’s tax breaks more permanent in draft legislation unveiled for his “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The proposals from Republicans keep in place the current $10,000 deduction of state and local taxes, called SALT, drawing quick blowback from GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states, who fought for a $40,000 cap in the House-passed bill. Senators insisted negotiations continue.

The Senate draft also enhances Trump’s proposed new tax break for seniors, with a bigger $6,000 deduction for low- to moderate-income senior households earning no more than $75,000 a year for singles, $150,000 for couples.

All told, the text unveiled by the Senate Finance Committee’s Republicans provides the most comprehensive look yet at changes the GOP senators want to make to the 1,000-page package approved by House Republicans last month. GOP leaders are pushing to fast-track the bill for a vote by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the chairman, said the proposal would prevent a tax hike and achieve “significant savings” by slashing green energy funds “and targeting waste, fraud and abuse.”

It comes as Americans broadly support levels of funding for popular safety net programs, according to the poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Many Americans see Medicaid and food assistance programs as underfunded.

What’s in the “Big Beautiful Bill” so far

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda, a hodgepodge of GOP priorities that Republicans are trying to swiftly pass over unified opposition from Democrats — a tall order for the slow-moving Senate.

Fundamental to the package is the extension of some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks approved during his first term, in 2017, that are expiring this year if Congress fails to act. There are also new ones, including no taxes on tips, as well as more than $1 trillion in program cuts.

After the House passed its version, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would add $2.4 trillion to the nation’s deficits over the decade, and leave 10.9 million more people without health insurance, due largely to the proposed new work requirements and other changes.

The biggest tax breaks, some $12,000 a year, would go to the wealthiest households, CBO said, while the poorest would see a tax hike of roughly $1,600. Middle-income households would see tax breaks of $500 to $1,000 a year, CBO said.

Both the House and Senate packages are eyeing a massive $350-billion buildup of Homeland Security and Pentagon funds, including some $175 billion for Trump’s mass deportation efforts, such as the hiring of 10,000 more officers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

This comes as protests over deporting migrants have erupted nationwide — including the stunning handcuffing of Sen. Alex Padilla last week in Los Angeles — and as deficit hawks such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul are questioning the vast spending on Homeland Security.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer warned that the Senate GOP’s draft “cuts to Medicaid are deeper and more devastating than even the Republican House’s disaster of a bill.”

Trade-offs in bill risk GOP support

As the package now moves to the Senate, the changes to Medicaid, SALT and green energy programs are part of a series of trade-offs GOP leaders are making as they try to push the package to passage with their slim majorities, with almost no votes to spare.

But criticism of the Senate’s version came quickly after House Speaker Mike Johnson warned senators of making substantial changes.

“We have been crystal clear that the SALT deal we negotiated in good faith with the Speaker and the White House must remain in the final bill,” the co-chairs of the House SALT caucus, Reps. Young Kim (R-Calif.) and Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), said in a joint statement Monday.

Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York posted on X that the $10,000 cap in the Senate bill was not only insulting, but a “slap in the face to the Republican districts that delivered our majority and trifecta” with the White House.

Medicaid and green energy cuts

Some of the largest cost savings in the package come from the GOP plan to impose new work requirements on able-bodied single adults, ages 18 to 64 and without dependents, who receive Medicaid, the health care program used by 80 million Americans.

While the House first proposed the new Medicaid work requirement, it exempted parents with dependents. The Senate’s version broadens the requirement to include parents of children older than 14, as part of their effort to combat waste in the program and push personal responsibility.

Already, the Republicans had proposed expanding work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to include older Americans up to age 64 and parents of school-age children older than 10. The House had imposed the requirement on parents of children older than 7.

People would need to work 80 hours a month or be engaged in a community service program to qualify.

One Republican, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, has joined a few others pushing to save Medicaid from steep cuts — including to the so-called provider tax that almost all states levy on hospitals as a way to help fund their programs.

The Senate plan proposes phasing down that provider tax, which is now up to 6%. Starting in 2027, the Senate looks to gradually lower that threshold until it reaches 3.5% in 2031, with exceptions for nursing homes and intermediate care facilities.

Hawley slammed the Senate bill’s changes on the provider tax. “This needs a lot of work. It’s really concerning and I’m really surprised by it,” he said. “Rural hospitals are going to be in bad shape.”

The Senate also keeps in place the House’s proposed new $35-per-service co-pay imposed on some Medicaid patients who earn more than the poverty line, which is about $32,000 a year for a family of four, with exceptions for some primary, prenatal, pediatric and emergency room care.

And Senate Republicans are seeking a slower phaseout of some Biden-era green energy tax breaks to allow continued develop of wind, solar and other projects that the most conservative Republicans in Congress want to end more quickly. Tax breaks for electric vehicles would be immediately eliminated.

Conservative Republicans say the cuts overall don’t go far enough, and they oppose the bill’s provision to raise the national debt limit by $5 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills.

“We’ve got a ways to go on this one,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Mascaro and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

United States President Donald Trump has said he will not call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in the wake of weekend shootings that killed a Democratic state lawmaker and injured another.

Trump denounced the shootings as an act of “horrific violence” in a statement over the weekend. But on Tuesday, he confirmed to reporters that he would not reach out to Walz, who served as the running mate to his rival in the 2024 presidential election, Democrat Kamala Harris.

“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling him. Why would I call him?” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”

Walz, for his part, said he was not surprised by Trump’s lack of interest in calling him. He did, however, point out that he had spoken with Vice President JD Vance.

“I’m always open to, you know, people expressing gratitude. Vice President Vance assured us, and he delivered, that the FBI would be there as partners with us to get it done,” Walz said. “That was what needed to be done.”

The suspect in the shootings is 57-year-old Vance Boelter, a father of five who was arrested on Sunday night.

He has since been charged with federal counts of murder and stalking in connection with the shootings early on Saturday, which resulted in the killings of Melissa Hortman, a top Democrat in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and her husband, Mark Hortman.

Boelter is also accused of shooting Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, both of whom survived.

Prosecutors said that Boelter visited the lawmakers’ homes wearing a face mask and body armour to impersonate a police officer. He allegedly knocked on the Hoffmans’ door, identifying himself as police.

Prosecutors said on Monday that Boelter sent a message to his family after the shootings, which read: “Dad went to war last night.”

Law enforcement officials have said they are still investigating a potential motive in the attack. But investigators have recovered notebooks from the suspect with the names of Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates.

“Political assassinations are rare,” Joseph Thompson, Minnesota’s acting US attorney, said at a news conference. “They strike at the very core of our democracy.”

He added that authorities are searching through Boelter’s notebooks but have not found a “manifesto” clearly laying out his motivations. Boelter’s friends, meanwhile, have told reporters that the suspect was a supporter of Trump and an opponent of abortion rights.

The slayings have spurred increased concerns about political violence in the US. In the past year alone, Trump has faced an assassination attempt, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has seen his governor’s mansion targeted in an act of suspected arson.

Between January 6, 2021, and October 2024, the news agency Reuters said it had tallied upwards of 300 cases of political violence in the US.

In the aftermath of last weekend’s shootings, conspiracy theories claiming that the alleged shooter was a leftist ideologue began to circulate, with support from some Republican lawmakers.

Boelter had previously served with other community members on a state workforce development board under two Democratic governors, including Walz, a fact that helped to fuel the rumours.

He had also worked as the director of security patrols at a security services company whose website said he had been “involved with security situations in Eastern Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East, including the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip”.

Boelter appeared briefly in court on Monday but did not enter a plea. He is due to appear in court again on June 27.