President Donald Trump is defending his decision to have the United States launch strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend, inserting itself into Israel’s war against the country.
The U.S. is bracing for a retaliatory attack from Iran. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned Americans Sunday that the conflict is “causing a heightened threat environment in the United States.”
Trump approved the strikes without congressional authorization, leading to criticism from both sides of the aisle.
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Iran’s foreign minister said the U.S. “crossed a very big red line” that has erased the possibility of diplomatic talks.
Read our previous coverage here, and see the latest updates below:
A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to restart swift removals of migrants to countries other than their homelands, lifting for now a court order requiring they get a chance to challenge the deportations.
The high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket. All three liberal justices dissented from the order.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) doesn’t think the House should vote on a resolution aimed at curtailing Trump’s powers to wage war against Iran without approval from Congress.
“I don’t think this is an appropriate time for a war powers resolution, and I don’t think it’s necessary,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol on Monday.
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Trump has posted on social media following what he described as Iran’s “very weak response” to the U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
The president confirmed the country’s leadership gave “early notice” of Monday’s retaliatory attack, which he said involved 14 missiles fired at a U.S. base in Qatar.
Trump said that 13 of the missiles were “knocked down,” and 1 was “‘set free,’ because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction.”
“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.”
Trump continued that Iran might be able to “now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”
In a separate post, Trump wrote, “CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!”
The Iranian parliament has given a tentative go-ahead to a bill that would terminate the country’s relationship with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
National security committee spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei told Al Arabiya the bill would bar the UN nuclear agency from installing surveillance cameras, conducting inspections, and issuing reports unless it’s willing to guarantee the security of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf confirmed the development in a social media post.
While heaping praise on Trump for having the “courage” to bomb Iran, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt incorrectly asserted that the current president created the motto “peace through strength.”
“Nobody knows what it means to accomplish peace through strength better than President Trump,” she said on Fox News.
The simple phrase was popularized by former President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War.
Leavitt claimed otherwise: “He is the one who came up with that motto and that foreign policy doctrine, and he successfully implemented it in his first term, and this is one of many steps he is taking to successfully implement peace in his second term.”
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the Iranian attack on Qatar in a statement Monday and urged “all parties to exercise the utmost restraint, de-escalate, and return to the negotiating table.”
“This spiral of chaos must end,” he concluded.
J’exprime la solidarité de la France au Qatar frappé par l’Iran sur son sol.
Je suis en contact étroit avec les autorités du pays et nos partenaires de la région.
J’appelle toutes les parties à la plus grande retenue, à la désescalade et au retour à la table des négociations.…
Trump took a moment out of his national security meetings for a Truth Social post criticizing media coverage of the bombings he ordered on Iranian nuclear sites.
“The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it,” Trump wrote. “Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean, as much as possible — And even they say they were ‘pretty well destroyed!’”
The president then targeted several individual journalists for derision: “Working especially hard on this falsehood is Allison Cooper of Fake News CNN, Dumb Brian L. Roberts, Chairman of ‘Con’cast, Jonny Karl of ABC Fake News, and always, the Losers of, again, Concast’s NBC Fake News.”
(“Allison” is Trump’s derogatory nickname for CNN’s Anderson Cooper.)
Officials — including experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Trump’s own Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Dan Caine — have said it is not yet clear to what extent the American bombings destroyed Iran’s capacity to create nuclear weapons as much of its resources are buried deep underground.
Regardless of whether or not Trump’s claim to have “completely and fully obliterated” Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is true, the product of all that infrastructure — an estimated 880 pounds of 60% enriched uranium — is totally unaccounted for.
Satellite imagery provided to NBC News by Maxar Technologies shows a convoy of 16 cargo trucks arrived at, then disbanded from Iran’s Fordo nuclear site two days prior to the strike.
With International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors unable to conduct business in the country, the world has no idea where the uranium may be headed. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, inspectors last verified the stockpile “a few days” before the military conflict began.
“We need to try to go back to the negotiating table as soon as possible,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement. “We have to allow the IAEA inspectors to return. The IAEA is ready to play its indispensable role in this process. We have been talking to Iran, we have been talking to the United States. We have to work for peace.”
Iran telegraphed their attack on a U.S. military base in Qatar ahead of time, three Iranian officials told the New York Times, portraying the strike as a means to both project strength and also provide an off-ramp for all involved.
The reporting aligns with a statement issued by the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which noted the base had been evacuated ahead of the strike. As a result, no injuries have been reported.
Qatar closed its statement with a call for “the immediate cessation of all military actions and for a serious return to the negotiating table and dialogue.”
A spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the Iranian attack on a U.S. base in the country as a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the State of Qatar,” and affirmed the country’s “right to respond directly in a manner equivalent with the nature and scale of this brazen aggression.”
Despite the affirmation, however, the statement was ultimately de-escalatory and called for “the immediate cessation of all military actions and for a serious return to the negotiating table and dialogue.”
Dr. Majed Al Ansari noted that the American base had been evacuated ahead of time, “given the tensions in the region,” and that “no injuries or human casualties resulted from the attack.”
The State of Qatar strongly condemns the attack that targeted Al-Udeid Air Base by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. We consider this a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the State of Qatar, its airspace, international law, and the United Nations Charter. We affirm that…
A Truth Social post from Trump kicked off an awkward interaction with Energy Secretary Chris Wright amid fears that oil prices may spike as a result of U.S. conflict with Iran.
“To The Department of Energy: DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!” Trump wrote.
It is not the Energy Department’s purview to organize drilling and oil leases, however. The Interior Department does that, and private companies ultimately make decisions on when and how much to produce.
The Department of Energy does manage the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve, which is ready to be distributed in an emergency to blunt the impact of major price swings. Trump did not appear to be referring to the stockpile.
Nevertheless, Wright responded on X: “We’re on it! Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, America’s energy security is stronger than ever before.”
Pope Leo XIV used his regular Sunday address this week to condemn the “alarming news” out of Iran, which had been bombed the day prior by the U.S. military, and urge the world not to forget about the ongoing suffering in Gaza.
“Today more than ever, humanity cries out and pleads for peace,” he said, calling for diplomacy to “silence the weapons” and stop the war “before it becomes an irreparable abyss.”
“War does not solve problems,” he reflected. “On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples—wounds that take generations to heal. No military victory can ever compensate for a mother’s pain, a child’s fear, or a stolen future.”
Leo fretted that the renewed drama risks overshadowing other urgent humanitarian needs in the region, particularly in Gaza.
“The daily suffering of the population—especially in Gaza and other territories—risks being forgotten, even as the need for adequate humanitarian aid becomes ever more urgent.”
“Let diplomacy silence the weapons!” he concluded. “Let nations shape their future with works of peace, not through violence and bloody conflicts!”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) accused Trump of pulling a “bait and switch” on his MAGA base after ordering U.S. airstrikes on Iran.
The far-right Republican, a long-standing Trump ally, has split with the president over his decision to side with Israel and attack Iran this weekend, and has repeatedly posted her dismay.
In her latest blast at the president Monday, Greene outlined on X how Trump has retreated from “key promises.”
“Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war,” she wrote.
“It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!”
She added, “Contrary to brainwashed Democrat boomers think and protest about, Trump is not a king, MAGA is not a cult, and I can and DO have my own opinion.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, currently a top Russian security council official, said plainly on X that “a number of countries are ready to supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads” in the wake of Trump’s bombing in a series of posts Sunday.
The U.S. president responded on Truth Social, performing incredulity at the comments.
“Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the ’N word’ (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran?” Trump wrote. “Did he really say that or, is it just a figment of my imagination?”
“If he did say that, and, if confirmed, please let me know, IMMEDIATELY. The ’N word’ should not be treated so casually,” Trump said.
He threw in some praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, writing, “I guess that’s why Putin’s ‘THE BOSS.’”
Trump continued his threatening tone by boasting about the capability of U.S. nuclear submarines, which are “20 years advanced over the pack.”
More than 50,000 new people have signed up to run for office since Trump’s election in November, an unprecedented spike in young Democrats interested in seeking public office for the first time, says the progressive group Run for Something.
“We are seeing more young people than ever before raise their hands to run, not in spite of the chaos, but because of it,” Amanda Litman, the founder and president of Run for Something, said in a statement. “They are bringing urgency, boldness, energy, and their lived experience to the table. They are ready to change what leadership looks like in this country.”
Litman said more young progressives have signed up to run for office over the last seven months than in Run for Something’s first three years combined.
The political group, which first launched in 2017 in response to Trump’s first presidential win, recruits young progressive candidates for state and local offices. The majority of this year’s sign-ups came after pivotal moments in Washington, D.C., says the group, like Elon Musk announcing mass layoffs of federal workers and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announcing his support for the GOP’s government spending bill, a move that infuriated progressives.
Run for Something says its new crop of prospective candidates include fired federal workers and parents impacted by Republican attempts to cut Medicaid. Most are under 40, and many are women, people of color and people who identify as LGBTQIA+.
Explosions boomed in Qatar on Monday night as witnesses said they saw what appeared to be missiles in the skies over the country.
There was no immediate acknowledgment from Qatari authorities of any attack.
The reports emerged as Qatar closed its airspace amid Iranian threats to retaliate against the United States over its bombing early Sunday of three Iranian nuclear sites.
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Read HuffPost’s previous coverage of the Trump presidency and the fallout over bombing Iran here.
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