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Purchased With Blood and Lies
Another Memorial Day: boasts, insults, "self-defense strikes," cheap clichés from a "Secretary of War" prattling about dead boys "delivered from the battlefield into the arms of a loving Lord and savior." Spare us. And maybe revisit the war to end all wars, which didn't - its "infinity of waste" and trenches with skulls in the sides where "he who had a corpse to stand on was lucky." Pat Barker: “A society that devours its own young deserves (no) unquestioning allegiance.”
"Happy Memorial Day to all," babbled our ever-unseemly Idiot-In-Chief, "including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year," because obviously the best way to honor the dead is to not acknowledge their sacrifice but to denigrate half the ravaged country they died defending. Also, at Arlington National Cemetery, the infinitely hollow, "Wherever the American soldier (falls), he does it for the destiny of a nation like no other - there’s never been anybody like you." Also, noted Private Bone Spurs, 18,000 Williams, over 20,000 Johns, and other names fell, but "not too many" Donalds. Huh.
Adding to the day's eloquence with a much-needed "monster truck rally vibe" was inexplicably non-veteran, Hegseth bestie, tawdry aging rock star Kid Rock. Because "Tokyo Rose wasn't available," he was chosen by the Pentagon to honor American service members' ultimate sacrifice in a hoodie, fedora, gold chain and sunglasses, looking like "a creature you’d expect to hiss at you from the dank depths of a garbage bin" and intoning, "We are remembering the sacrifice and service of so many who are not with us today...It’s a special day. We’re thinking of them... Keep on Kid Rocking in the free world."
Then there was bombastic, dime-store-cliché-spouting Christo-fascist Pete Hegseth urging we "remember our republic was forged and purchased with blood, American blood," evidently only male according to his pronouns. Ever a fatuous buffoon, he declaimed "the sacred names of bygone eras to the 13 souls of Epic Fury (who) answered the call when it mattered the most (and) gave the last full measure of devotion," even when he failed them in an Iranian strike in Yemen: "They stood against the darkness of the world wearing the breastplate of righteousness (and) raced to the brink so we could walk in freedom and prosperity (and) may almighty God bless our warriors." Jesus weeps.
It remains unclear how many of the up to 22 million dead, both military and civilian, and over 20 million wounded, "the butcher's bill" of World War One, came to be blessed by almighty God, especially in its Western Front's godforsaken trenches teeming with sludge, rats, mud, blood, water and disease. The war's "inconceivable loss" and "purposeless waste of a generation" is perhaps best exemplified by the Battle of Verdun, where the French, set upon by German forces, adopted a "They Shall Not Pass” mantra that in the end saw over 700,000 dead on both sides - ultimately, vast "heaps of bones."
For many, the horrors of "the greatest conflagration the world had seen" live on through the searing literature, both prose and poetry, that emerged from them. Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est epitomizes the bitter, bloody tone that often prevailed amidst its "guttering, choking, drowning" victims - Hegseth's benighted "warriors." "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks/ Knock-kneed, coughing like hags," cursing, gargling, limping bootless through sludge, "blood-shod...deaf even to the hoots/Of gas-shells dropping softly behind," they reject, "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori."
Siegfried Sassoon lived the privileged life of a British country gentleman, writing poetry and fox hunting, until the start of World War 1, when he served as an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in France. He was awarded a Military Cross, was later wounded in action, and refused to fight any longer to protest "a senseless slaughter." On June 15, 1917, he wrote "A Soldier's Declaration" as "an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those how have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers."
"I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolonging those sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust," he wrote. He was protesting, he made clear, "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed...against the deception which is being practiced on them. Also I believe that it may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."
His letter was read before the House of Commons and printed in The London Times. He expected to be court-martialed; instead, he was declared "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Dr. William Rivers was charged with restoring Sassoon’s “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. The story of their real-life encounter, wherein Rivers came to diagnose war's "shell-shock" and share Sassoon's view, is powerfully told in Pat Barker's historical novel Regeneration, the first in a trilogy about the psychological carnage of war. "It (was) the Great White God de-throned. We assumed we were the measure of all things," Rivers says. "(But) nothing justifies this. Nothing nothing nothing."
Siegfried Sassoon's 1918 Suicide in the Trenches mourns "a simple soldier boy/Who grinned at life in empty joy" until he goes to war: "In winter trenches, cowed and glum/With crumps and lice and lack of rum/He put a bullet through his brain./No one spoke of him again./ You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye/Who cheer when soldier lads march by,/Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go." Too many of those young lie in a cemetery near Ypres, where one Inscription stands out in a sea of "For King and Country" headstones. It was written on the grave of Arthur Young by his father, a diplomat wiser than any vacuous Hegseth: "Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war."
May 26, 2026
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Trump Admin Slammed for Yet Another Move to 'Help Corporate Polluters' Exploit Alaska
Defenders of the planet took aim at President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday for transferring approximately 1.4 million acres of public lands along the Dalton Utility Corridor from the US Bureau of Land Management to the state of Alaska.
"This corridor encompasses some of Alaska’s most critical transportation and energy assets, including portions of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System corridor, the Dalton Highway, and proposed routes for the Ambler Road and Alaska Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects," the US Department of the Interior noted in a statement, framing the move as part of DOI's commitment to the Alaska Statehood Act, as well as orders issued by Trump and the agency's secretary, Doug Burgum.
As Burgum and Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy cheered the development on Wednesday, Andrea Feniger, director of the state's Sierra Club chapter, declared that "this is less a transfer to Alaskans than a massive giveaway to out-of-state corporations that don't want to be burdened by the federal protections that safeguard our lands, waters, wildlife, and communities."
"Gov. Dunleavy has repeatedly shown he is more interested in helping the Trump administration and fossil fuel executives exploit Alaska than standing up for the people who actually live here," Feniger said. "These companies will not be satisfied until every corner of our state is opened to industrial development and short-term profit, regardless of the permanent damage done to the wild places, subsistence traditions, and communities that make Alaska unique. Alaskans deserve leaders who will protect these lands for future generations, not politicians willing to hand them over to corporate polluters."
Bloomberg reported that "Alaska's acquisition along the highway north of Fairbanks is part of 2.1 million acres" that Burgum offered earlier this year, after revoking a pair of decades-old orders. In March, a coalition of environmental groups, including Trustees for Alaska, filed a federal lawsuit over the secretary "unlawfully removing federal protections."
While Alaska filed a motion to dismiss the case on Wednesday, Bridget Psarianos, senior staff attorney at Trustees for Alaska, told Bloomberg that the land transfer is illegal. She also said that "the interior secretary broke the law when removing federal protections for over 2 million acres of public lands in February without hearings in local communities, without a public comment period, and without addressing that decision's impacts on land, water, and subsistence users."
Other groups supporting that suit include the Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, and Sierra Club, whose director of conservation, Dan Ritzman, condemned Wednesday's transfer.
"This action will only help corporate polluters transform Alaska into an industrial wasteland—destroying irreplaceable landscapes for the sake of expanding the portfolios of mining and oil and gas companies that will never have to live with the consequences of this destruction," Ritzman stressed. "This decision completely ignores the wishes of local communities and tribes that depend upon these untouched areas for their livelihoods, cultures, and regional identities."
"Alaska is home to some of the country's last true wild places, and projects like Alaska LNG and the Ambler Road threaten irreversible damage to these precious landscapes, the wildlife that depend on them, and the communities that have stewarded them for generations," he added. "These lands belong to all Americans, not corporate special interests looking to exploit them for short-term profit. We are fighting this in court and will continue opposing any other attempts to sacrifice Alaska's public lands for the benefit of polluters and extractive industries."
Rebecca Noblin, an Alaska senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, similarly told E&E News that "handing this incredible stretch of federal public lands over to the state puts the communities, fish, and wildlife who live there in danger."
"Alaska officials envision bulldozing the area for a private industrial mining road and the LNG pipeline boondoggle," Noblin said. "We're fighting this transfer of our federal public lands in court, and we'll keep standing up for Alaska's wild places."
Climate and conservation groups have also recently sounded the alarm about Interior's forthcoming fossil fuel lease sale for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's Coastal Plain, and warned—in the words of Kristen Monsell, the oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity—that that Trump's "ridiculously reckless" plan to dramatically expand offshore drilling, including near Alaska, "could cause thousands of new oil spills, threatening almost every US coast."
May 06, 2026
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Tax Refunds From GOP’s Big Ugly Bill ‘Largely Erased’ Thanks to Illegal Iran War: Expert
Congressional Republicans had been hoping their political standing would improve this spring when American voters received larger refunds thanks to changes in US tax law made under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
However, The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that much of the projected fiscal stimulus from the larger refunds has already been swallowed up by the rise in gas and energy prices caused by President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, and the financial situation could grow even worse in the coming months.
Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY Parthenon, told The Financial Times that "the tax refunds have been largely erased by the increase in Middle East price pressures," and warned that "the longer the conflict lasts, the more we move to an adverse scenario where inflation proves more persistent and erodes consumer spending growth."
Nathan Sheets, global chief economist at Citigroup, told The Financial Times that the Iran war has only accelerated problems for US consumers who were already facing high pressures from the cost of living.
"By our reckoning, wage growth has steadily lost ground relative to the pace of inflation since the middle of last year," Sheets said. "First President Trump’s tariffs and, more recently, Iran-related pressures on oil and commodity prices have pushed up prices relative to wages."
US retailers have been expecting the positive impact of the tax refunds to dwindle, with Target CFO Jim Lee telling The Financial Times that they "will be fading over the rest of the year" as Americans are using larger shares of their incomes to pay for basics such as food and energy.
Lee's concerns were echoed by Walmart CFO John David Rainey, who told CNBC last week that while tax refunds have been helping Americans buffer the costs associated with the Iran war, that financial cushion is shrinking by the day.
“I think higher tax returns muted some of the pressure related to higher fuel prices," said Rainey, "and as we’re in a period of time right now where those tax refunds are largely not coming in, I think consumers are going to feel more of that pressure from higher fuel prices."
Walmart's stock price on has fallen sharply over the last week despite strong quarterly earnings, as investors express concerns that low-income consumers are feeling squeezed financially.
As reported by The New York Times, Walmart noted in its most recent earnings call that "sales continued to be driven by its low-price private label goods and higher-income households trading down to stretch their budgets," suggesting that consumers are under increasing distress.
May 26, 2026
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Report Finds 'Remarkable Increase in Food Insecurity' Across US Under Trump
An analysis released this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that food insecurity in the US has reached levels not seen since the height of the coronavirus pandemic, underscoring the devastating impact of Republican cuts to federal nutrition assistance and President Donald Trump's inflationary economic and foreign policy decisions.
In a blog post, New York Fed researchers detailed their findings of "a remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children," as well as "a contemporaneous increase in pessimism among the same groups, along with a sharp decline in job-finding expectations."
The researchers cited new data showing increases in the percentage of Americans who reported receiving food donations and skipping meals in recent months, as prices for basic necessities rose. Cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that Trump and congressional Republicans enacted last summer are also having an impact, stripping food aid from hundreds of thousands of low-income children and millions of people overall.
Among those who reported skipping meals and relying on food banks, "there is a lower, and more rapidly declining, net share of respondents expecting to be better versus worse off financially a year from now," despite some topline figures indicating a relatively strong economy (such as a low unemployment rate), the researchers observed.
"This means that an increase in the incidence of food insecurity is associated with a deterioration in consumer sentiment," they added.
More people are going hungry now than at the height of the pandemic. Families are skipping meals, relying on food banks, and turning to SNAP to get by. Hunger is rising and Congress cannot look away. https://t.co/ImAFSuTJSg
— Food Research & Action Center (@fractweets) May 28, 2026
The New York Fed's analysis came amid a flurry of new data showing that rising inflation—now at a three-year high—is eroding Americans' paychecks and causing personal savings rates to plummet as households are forced to spend more on gas, food, and other basics.
Following the release of new federal data on Thursday, the nonprofit research group Equitable Growth pointed to "an important milestone: Household incomes are now down year-over-year. American households had more money to spend in April of 2025."
"Although income is down for all households this month, it is falling faster for the bottom 50% households, who have seen their income fall by 1.6% compared to April of last year," noted Equitable Growth visiting fellow Austin Clemens. "This group’s income has fallen in five of the last six months.”
May 29, 2026
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'Blatant Abuse of Power' Blocked as Judge Puts Temporary Halt on Trump's $1.8 Billion Slush Fund
A federal judge in Virginia on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving to create a so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund" that would use nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to reward supporters, including people convicted of seditious and violent felonies during the January 6 insurrection.
Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a 2-page order barring any action “pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund.”
Brinkema—a nominee of former President Bill Clinton—set a June 12 hearing date for arguments on whether she should extend the pause amid numerous legal challenges to what critics have called a "felon-to-felon slush fund," a reference to President Donald Trump's 34 felony convictions and the serious crimes, including violent assaults on police officers with dangerous weapons, committed by January 6 insurrectionists who were later pardoned by the president.
In January, Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns by a former IRS contractor. Trump’s own Justice Department settled the case earlier this month by agreeing to create the roughly $1.776 billion settlement slush fund for people claiming they were unfairly targeted by the government.
January 6 insurrectionists are expected to be among the fund's beneficiaries. Trump was accused of rewarding political violence by granting clemency to roughly 1,500 Capitol attackers, dozens of whom have since been charged or convicted for serious crimes, including child sex crimes, rape, grand larceny, burglary, home invasion, gun violations, death threats against public officials, and fatal DUI incidents.
Brinkema's decision came less than 24 hours after plaintiffs in one of the legal challenges to the fund, who are represented by Democracy Forward, filed a motion for emergency relief. Plaintiffs' attorneys told Brinkema that they’re “already being irreparably harmed by the unconstitutional and unlawful creation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund," and that such harm "will be permanent if the administration takes action, including by irreversibly disbursing funds, before this court can act."
Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said following Friday's ruling, "Today, a federal court recognized the urgent need to prevent taxpayer dollars from being distributed through a secretive and unprecedented political compensation scheme before the legality of that program can be fully reviewed by the court."
“This is a victory for transparency, the rule of law, and the American people," Perryman added. "No administration has the authority to spend public money through a political rewards program that Congress never authorized. We look forward to the next stages in this case.”
Case plaintiffs issued a statement following Brinkema's order:
We are pleased that the court granted our request to ensure the administration does not distribute taxpayer funds until our motion has been considered. The court acted quickly to stop this unlawful scheme before money could start flowing out the door. The Trump-Vance administration attempted to create a secretive, taxpayer-funded program that rewards political allies, operates without oversight, and evades the constitutional safeguards that protect our democracy. We are grateful that the court recognized the urgency of the situation and acted to preserve the status quo before further irreparable harm occurred.
Democratic lawmakers welcomed Brinkema's order, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) calling it "an important win."
"Of all Trump’s corrupt schemes, his insurrectionist slush fund is one of the most depraved," said Schumer, who acknowledged the battle over Trump's fund is far from over. "We’ll keep fighting in the courts and in Congress to make sure this $2 billion giveaway to cop beaters, criminals, and MAGA cronies never sees the light of day."
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) posted on social media: "I’ve said from the start that this is an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars. This needs to be stopped permanently."
Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey said in a statement that “today’s ruling is a critical reminder that no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States."
"Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for his friends and diehard loyalists—including those who tried to overthrow our democracy on January 6—is a blatant abuse of power, and the court rightly blocked it," Harvey added. "Taxpayer dollars should serve the American people, not finance political favors or reward blind, and sometimes violent, loyalty to a single politician."
May 29, 2026
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'Ceasefire Is a Joke': Israeli Soldiers Recount Ongoing Indiscriminate Killings in Gaza
Israel Defense Forces soldiers interviewed for an article published Friday by The Associated Press described ongoing indiscriminate killing of Palestinians—including civilians—despite a purported ceasefire.
One IDF combat soldier told the AP that he saw his teammates "yelling in celebration" and "congratulating one another" after blowing up a vehicle driving near the ever-expanding so-called "yellow line" dividing the Gaza Strip into Israeli and Palestinian-controlled zones. The strike killed everyone inside the vehicle.
“It was a jungle,” the soldier said. “After the ceasefire, the order was: If someone crosses the line, you shoot them.”
The problem is, the yellow line is often unclear, invisible, and often shifts. It cuts through farmland, roads, neighborhoods, and areas where Palestinians live and work.
Nadav Weiman, an IDF veteran who is now the executive director of the veterans' whistleblower group Breaking the Silence, told the AP that the military's permissive shoot-to-kill policy has "created a reality where countless civilians have and are being killed for crossing invisible lines."
One IDF soldier interviewed by the AP said “there was a general feeling that human lives are not valuable." The soldier said his commanding officer told him it would be "too much work" to clearly mark the yellow line, and that Palestinians were supposed to somehow know where it was.
According to the AP, one soldier said that "sometimes snipers fired warning shots at people close to the line... but commanders told troops to do more to protect themselves. The soldier understood that to mean firing more lethal shots."
"Soldiers shooting or ordering drone strikes don’t always know who’s crossing the line," the AP reported, citing interviewed troops. "Although soldiers must provide coordinates and get approval from superiors before striking, it’s hard to give exact information as people are moving," and soldiers reported colleagues "calling in coordinates based on a hunch or the last place they saw someone."
IDF troops interviewed by the AP also described "a sense of confusion" and "a lack of clarity on rules of engagement around the yellow line." Some commanders "paid lip service" to the ceasefire agreement that's been in effect since last October, but in practice ignored it.
According to Gaza's Government Media Office, Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 3,005 times, resulting in more than 900 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,800 others injured, despite the truce.
“To call it a ceasefire is a joke,” one IDF soldier told the AP.
Israel claims that the entire length of the yellow line is now clearly marked. However, as Common Dreams reported this week, the IDF has incrementally shifted the boundary deeper into Gaza, where Israel now controls more than 60% of the coastal strip. This has left Palestinians sometimes waking up to learn they're in "open-fire zones" where they are subjected to being shot on sight.
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including thousands of people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Israeli troops have previously described indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, including children and aid-seekers.
While such killings have become less frequent since the ceasefire, some IDF soldiers dismiss the word as practically meaningless.
“We need to stop using this term,” one soldier told the AP, referring to the word ceasefire. “It’s not serving people that want to stop the war.”
May 30, 2026
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Iran Accuses Europe of 'Appeasing Aggressors' as Trump Launches New Military Attacks
A spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry slammed the leadership of the European Union for "blaming Iran for exercising its right to self-defense against US aggression launched from bases in neighboring countries."
Jun 01, 2026
Iran's government on Monday condemned the European Union's response to Iranian attacks on US military installations in the Middle East as "a masterclass in selective moral outrage" as the Trump administration launched new strikes against Iran over the weekend, with peace talks still at an impasse.
Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, accused EU leaders of "blaming Iran for exercising its right to self-defense against US aggression launched from bases in neighboring countries," referring to Iran's attacks on US air bases in Kuwait. Baqaei said Iran's strikes "against those bases and assets that are used to launch unlawful attacks against Iran are a lawful exercise of self-defense."
"The EU must remain faithful to the rule of law and the principles of the UN Charter that it has long claimed to uphold. It must stop appeasing aggressors while blaming those who respond to unlawful attacks," Baqaei added. "States have an established legal obligation not to allow their territory or assets to be used for invading other countries."
Baqaei's statement came in response to remarks from a European Commission spokesperson condemning an Iranian attack on a US air base in Kuwait last week, calling it a violation of Kuwait's sovereignty. The attack reportedly injured at least four US servicemembers and several American contractors.
The Iranian military said it targeted another US air base on Sunday in response to new attacks by the Trump administration, which launched its illegal war against Iran in late February. While Iran did not specify the location of its target, Kuwait said late Sunday that its "air defenses are currently confronting hostile missile and drone attacks."
The Iranian attacks followed the US military's announcement that it carried out strikes on "Iranian radar and command and control sites for drones" over the weekend. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) described the attacks as "self-defense strikes" and as a "measured and deliberate response" to "aggressive Iranian actions."
Brian Finucane, a senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote in response to CENTCOM's statement that "this administration’s use of the terms 'aggression' and 'self-defense' [is] thoroughly in 'war is peace' territory."
The US military also attacked a Gambia-flagged commercial ship in the Gulf of Oman over the weekend, enforcing a Trump administration naval blockade that Iran has condemned as illegal and said must be lifted as part of any peace agreement.
CBS News reported Saturday that "the broad strokes" of a peace deal under consideration "include a 60-day cessation of violence, along with clauses that call for reopening the strait and a framework to reopen negotiations on Iran's nuclear program."
"Multiple sources told CBS that the arrangement also involves the potential of waivers or sanctions relief to Iran that could allow it to access billions in frozen assets depending on the progress of the diplomacy," the outlet added.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's top negotiator, said early Monday that the Trump administration's naval blockade and Israel's "escalation of war crimes in Lebanon" represent "clear evidence of US noncompliance with the ceasefire."
"Every choice has a price, and the bill comes due," he added. "It will all fall into place."
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, wrote on his social media platform that "Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the USA and those that are with us."
"Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end," Trump declared.
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Watch: Trump Admits 'We Shouldn't Have Been in Iran'
The president also simultaneously claimed to have left Iran's military alone and destroyed its navy and air force.
May 31, 2026
President Donald Trump said Saturday during an interview with his daughter-in-law that the US should not have waged war on Iran, while making contradictory claims about destroying Iran's military and leaving it alone.
“You look at what happened with Iraq. We did so bad. It was such a foolish thing what we did. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place, by the way,” Trump told Lara Trump, who hosts Fox News' "My View."
“We shouldn’t have been in Iran, but Iran has the capability," he said, referring to the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
Former US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last year that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and [the late] Supreme Leader Khamanei had not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” US intelligence agencies have repeatedly come to the same conclusion since the George W. Bush administration.
Trump claimed that without US bombing, Iran "would have a nuclear weapon right now and will be a whole different story."
“If we didn’t hit them with B-2 bombers, nine months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon right now," he said.
"Their military, we've sort of left it alone because we think that their military is somewhat moderate," Trump said right after saying that "their navy is gone, 100%," and "their air force is gone, 100%."
The president also claimed that he will negotiate a "great" end to the war with Iran, or "we'll just go back and finish it off militarily."
"We're close to a very good deal," he said.
You saw Venezuela," Trump said, referring to the country the US bombed and invaded in January to abduct President Nicolás Maduro and bring him to the United States to face dubious narco-terrorism charges.
At least 3,468 people have been killed in US-Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28, according to Iran’s Ministry of Health, including 496 women and 376 children.
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As Most Acts Bail, Trump Floats Replacing Freedom 250 Shows With 'Number One Attraction Anywhere'—Himself
Trump called himself "the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime," and "the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT)!"
May 31, 2026
As an increasing number of artists cancel their scheduled performances at the "Great American State Fair" created by the Trump administration to celebrate the US semiquincentennial, President Donald Trump on Saturday called for scrapping the concerts and replacing them with a rally headlined by himself.
"We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain," Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. "Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before!"
"I understand Artists are getting 'the yips' having to do with their performance on Wednesday," the president said in an earlier Truth post on Saturday, "so I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate 'Artists,' and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!"
"I don’t want so-called 'Artists' that get paid far too much money, who aren’t happy," he wrote. "So, by copy of this TRUTH, I am ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally on Wednesday, Washington, DC, same time, same location. Only Great Patriots invited—It will be a Wild and Beautiful Celebration of America!"
Artists who have bailed on the concerts, also known as the Freedom 250 shows, include Young MC, The Commodores, Morris Day and The Time, Bret Michaels, and Martina McBride. Some of the musicians said they were misled about the partisan nature of the event.
“I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event, but that turned out to be misleading,” McBride—a four-time winner of the Country Music Association female artist of the year award—wrote in an Instagram post. “I asked lots of questions and was assured this was a nonpartisan event that was meant to celebrate ALL 50 states.”
Remaining in the lineup as of Saturday are Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida, while C+C Music Factory and Milli Vanilli have given mixed signals.
The cancellations are a major embarrassment for Trump. Prior to the cancellations, the event was already being mocked for what the Daily Beast's Cameron Adams described as a “lack of A-list musical talent."
Comedian Bill Maher was among those mocking Trump for the Freedom 250 disaster.
“That’s got to hurt a lot when you can’t close the deal with Milli Vanilli," Maher said Friday on his Real Time show on HBO.
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