All posts tagged "Iran War"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Pentagon has quietly walked back its own numbers weeks after he publicly dismissed reporting that challenged them.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Defense Department late Friday raised the official count of troops who have died during U.S. operations against Iran to 21, adding two deaths not caused by combat.

Last month, the Post reported that six U.S. officials said the true number of service members lost was higher than what the Pentagon's public casualty database showed. Hegseth responded at the time by calling the report "a complete lie" in a post on social media....

President Donald Trump, reportedly humiliated by a war he can't end, has his Pentagon drawing up strike options to use before the midterms.

The White House has directed military planners to prepare attacks on Iranian targets that could be carried out ahead of the November 3 elections, two administration officials told The Atlantic in a report published Wednesday. U.S. Central Command is putting the plans together, though officials said no final decision has been made on how large the strikes would be, what they would hit or whether they'll happen at all.

Trump has been openly angry over how long the conflict has dragged on, now nearing eight months, and people close to him believe he feels "privately humiliated" that he hasn't been able to wrap it up, according to The Atlantic....

Conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings grew colder behind the scenes for weeks before cursing at a fellow panelist on live television.

Adam Mockler, the political commentator on the receiving end of that outburst in April, described the buildup on a Wednesday episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" with host Joanna Coles.

Mockler said he and Jennings had been on "a lot of panels over the past few weeks" as the war with Iran slid into "a pretty bad stalemate," with Jennings repeatedly insisting "that the war was going to be over soon and that we were winning."...

President Donald Trump accidentally admitted his own war is fueling inflation during a rambling Oval Office appearance, a progressive analyst pointed out.

In a Tuesday episode of "The David Pakman Show," the host broke down clips of the president fielding reporters' questions after what he described as "multiple sleeping" moments during the event.

At one point, Trump promised prices would fall the moment the fighting stopped....

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a message to armed services members in blue cities that's prompting outcry about bringing politics into his role.

On Friday, Hegseth posted a video to his official Secretary of War X account with the headline, "TO OUR WARRIORS—MAKE SURE TO VOTE!" However, online critics pointed out that the defense secretary shouldn't be involved in political activities per the Hatch Act and noticed the language Hegseth used.

Headquarters, a popular news account on X, described Hegseth as delivering a "thinly veiled campaign message to US service members, ordering them to vote in the midterms to overwhelm blue cities like Milwaukee and Detroit" and highlighted that he signed off by saying, "Keep our nation the land of the free!"...

President Trump has turned down a proposed pause in fighting with Iran and confided to aides that he anticipates striking the country again once this fall's midterm elections have concluded, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The rejected offer came out of weekend talks in Qatar, where Iranian representatives suggested a seven-day halt to hostilities that would have seen Tehran reopen a critical shipping waterway and resume nuclear discussions, contingent on Washington easing its economic squeeze on the country, including its naval presence blocking Iranian ports. Trump maintains publicly that Iran will ultimately have no choice but to accept a deal once the election passes, but sources say he harbors real doubts Tehran will cooperate and has already signaled to staff that renewed airstrikes feel like the more probable path forward.

Just how extensive any future strikes might be is still uncertain. Sources describe a president torn between wanting to preserve limited weapons stockpiles for other potential flashpoints and a pattern of threatening dramatic military action whenever talks stall, threats he's historically walked back from at the last moment....