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A legal expert flagged a "cynical" reason why President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. to coordinate strikes against Iran on early Saturday morning.

Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at Harvard University, argued in a new Substack essay on Saturday that Trump's decision to strike Iran alongside Israel came down to a handful of factors. One of the most important is that "there are no effective legal limitations within the executive branch" that would prevent Trump from ordering the strikes. At the same time, Congress has largely ceded its authority to hold Trump accountable for such actions, he argued.

President Donald Trump's goals for the U.S.-assisted strike on Iran on Saturday rely on a "fantasy" situation, and could unleash "utter anarchy and chaos" across the region, according to one analysis.

Early Saturday morning, the U.S. coordinated strikes with Israel against multiple high-profile targets in Iran. Israel struck multiple sites where the country's political and military leadership, which killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the dictator who ruled the country since 1989. The U.S. struck multiple Iranian nuclear facilities even though Trump previously declared the sites were "totally obliterated" during a similar bombing campaign last year.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was confirmed dead on Saturday after the U.S. and Israel coordinated attacks against the country, according to reports.

Khameini, 86, had led Iran for more than 35 years following the death of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. His death marks a major blow for the country and sets off an immediate succession crisis in the country.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) lashed out at his former GOP House colleague Saturday after being confronted on CNN with the considerable MAGA opposition to the Trump administration’s unprecedented attack on Iran earlier in the day.

That colleague was former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who spent a considerable amount of time Saturday morning condemning President Donald Trump for having authorized the strikes on Iran, strikes that have sparked fears of a wider war, economic crises and untold civilian casualties.

The Trump administration’s attack on Iran Saturday morning has prompted Tehran to suspend all travel through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically vital shipping channel through which around a fifth of the world’s oil trade passes through regularly, sparking fears of an impending economic crisis in the United States and the world at large.

“The [Strait] of Hormuz is closed. Oil tankers are clogged up,” wrote Maram Susli, a Syrian-born political commentator and analyst, to their nearly 540,000 followers on X. “The price of everything is going to skyrocket. You can thank [President Donald] Trump and Israel.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who earned his master's degree from Harvard University in 2013, has launched a sweeping campaign to cut military ties with the very elite universities where he was educated, denouncing them as bastions of "wokeness" and "wicked ideologies," The New York Times reported Saturday.

In a video posted to social media on Friday, Hegseth lambasted the prestigious institutions as politically liberal schools engaged in indoctrinating U.S. service members, announcing that beginning in September, the Defense Department would ban military personnel from attending graduate programs and fellowships at nearly two dozen universities.

Following the Trump administration’s unprecedented attack on Iran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is reportedly preparing to deliver a speech, prompting Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to issue an ominous warning on Saturday to journalists considering covering the event.

According to Reuters, Khamenei is expected to deliver a speech in response to the U.S. attack at any moment, contrary to some reports that suggested he was killed by U.S. strikes. To journalists considering covering the Ayatollah speech, however, Graham suggested that they instead stay away, suggesting he may have advanced knowledge of another U.S. strike targeting Khamenei.

While the Trump administration’s unprecedented attack on Iran has received a wave of scrutiny, so too did the name the administration had given the operation – Operation Epic Fury – which was dogpiled on Saturday morning by critics as childish.

“It's called Operation Epic Fury because it tested well with a panel of 6 year olds and Steven Seagal,” wrote author Russ Jones in a social media post on Bluesky Saturday.

Data journalist and pollster Richard Baris claimed on Saturday that ahead of the unprecedented U.S. attack on Iran, the Trump administration had reviewed polling on how many American casualties voters would be “willing to accept in a war with Iran,” the findings of which rattled a number of MAGA loyalists.

“Polling reviewed by the administration asked how many American casualties voters were willing to accept in a war with Iran,” Baris wrote in a social media post on X Saturday morning, several hours after President Donald Trump had authorized strikes on Iran.

Elon Musk's bombshell June accusation June accusation that Donald Trump's name appeared prominently in the Jeffrey Epstein files sparked a massive public demand for their release. Now those revelations are creating complications for Musk himself, as his own connections to the deceased sex offender.

According to the Washington Post, Musk has used his X platform to call for the arrest and prosecution of individuals linked to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who cultivated relationships with prominent figures in technology, finance, and politics. However, when the Justice Department released millions of pages of documents from its Epstein investigation last month, Musk featured prominently in the files.

President Donald Trump launched a major military operation against Iran early Saturday, citing Tehran’s refusal to renounce pursuing nuclear weapons, but critics say a social media post he made shortly after the strikes began may reveal the true “justification” for the unprecedented attack.

Dubbed Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. strikes on Iran were launched just after midnight early Saturday morning. A few hours later, Trump took to social media and made several posts, one of which, critics claim, may reveal what the president's true motivations were for the attack.

While Donald Trump has amassed billions from various business ventures since his re-election, his Truth Social platform—where he posts major announcements and grievances—continues to hemorrhage money at an alarming rate, and significant changes may be forthcoming.

According to Mother Jones analyst Russ Choma, Trump Media and Technology Group, founded in 2021, is watching its DJT stock value plummet. Choma reports: "Trump's company is expected to announce its fourth quarter earnings soon. Judging from the numbers it produced through the first three quarters of last year, the results could be unimpressive. In September, Trump Media said that it had pulled in only about $2.6 million in revenue in the first nine months of the year."

Multiple Republican lawmakers have joined their Democratic colleagues in working to rein in President Donald Trump after his administration launched a major military operation in Iran early Saturday morning.

Leading the charge are Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), who’ve introduced what’s known as a War Powers Resolution, a legislative tool to check the president’s power over declaring war and require congressional authorization before U.S. forces can engage in sustained military action.