Trump to Deliver Incoherent Drivel at Rose Garden Today

On President Donald Dumb's schedule today Friday is a much-anticipated ranting drivel of fragrant horseshit at the Rose Garden. The much anticipated slurred speech will focus on a soup of narcissistic self-congratulatory comments about Dumb's achievements: attacks on women's intelligence, unhinged racist remarks, disgusting comments still blaming a decade-old Obama-Biden admin for his own abysmal failures, blocked Hormuz, soaring oil prices, angry "allies", dissatisfied American voters including Dumb's own MAGA morons, a US dollar losing its monopoly in trade and finance, and rising inflation and high grocery prices, etc., all hurled in a divagating and sleepy monotone. The senile and aging president is expected to occasionaly fall alseep while speaking, just long enough for attendees and listeners to catch their breath, decipher the hidden meanings of the ramble, and try to make sense at all of any of it.

If he takes questions from the press, Dozy Don Dumb will introduce new insults against women. After his much-heardled mysogynistic responses to female reporters' questions, like "Shut up Piggy" or "Low IQ" or "you're a disgrace" or "you never smile", etc., the Dumb jackath will usher such new linguistic gems to the world of diplomacy, all researched for him by his low-life vulgar spokespersons, as "loose" or "slut" or "fat" or ugly" all the way to the diamonds of all insults against women, namely "hormonal" or "bitch" (which he has so far courteously refrained from uttering in public).

Here, the senile and smarmy Donald Dumb appears completely lost among the roses at the White House. He is known to wander aimlessly in total confusion and usually waits for his nurse-in-waiting to take him to his bed and change his diapers. He wants to rename the White House as Trump's White Home for the Insane Elderly. 

Donald "jackass" Dumb will deliver ​remarks in the Rose Garden at ‌the ⁠White House today Friday. As expected, the idiot's handlers ​did ​not ​mention what ‌the remarks ​would ​be about because they know the demented senile old man has no idea how to deliver a coherent speech. We are all expecting a giant soup of disjointed Dada-inspired automatic-speech phrases and broken sentences, the likes of which the whole universe has never ever seen or heard since the dawn of life on earth. 

How Trump's 'America Alone' is Killing the US Dollar

When a moron of gigantic proportions is leading the US, expect far more losses than gains. Trump's policies are pushing the US dollar out of its preeminence, which it has held since the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944. The Trump "magic" was to convince a dumb and ugly American electorate that his undermining of everything the US itself foisted on the world after WWII - things like the US dollar, the UN, NATO, etc. - is a strike of genius.

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‘Different from anything in the past 80 years of dollar dominance’: U.S. sanctions spur a ‘paradox’ pushing allies away from American currency
Sasha Rogelberg
Updated Wed, May 6, 2026


De-dollarization concerns have been reignited following the onset of the Iran war, which economists said have shaken confidence in the stability of U.S. financial systems.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc—Getty Images)

The world’s de-dollarization push continues, but this time, it’s America’s allies who are pulling back from greenbacks.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last week a $25 billion sovereign wealth fund to bolster domestic infrastructure, part of an effort to make Canada’s economy less dependent on the U.S.

The move follows France’s withdrawal of all of its 129 tons of gold held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between July 2025 and January 2026. France, considered America’s oldest ally, instead replaced the gold with an updated bullion and stored it in Paris—making $15 billion from selling its old stockpile.

Governor of the Bank of France Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the decision “was not politically motivated,” but the last time France repatriated gold was quietly between 1963 and 1966, fearing the U.S. mounting debt would result in a devaluation of the dollar against gold, which ultimately accelerated the U.S. ending the Bretton Woods system and the gold standard.

Sana Ur Rehman, a EBC Financial Group market analyst, argued these actions are different from past efforts to de-dollarize because they are coming from the U.S.’s long-established allies. While sanctions and other policies have intended to sustain U.S. trade dominance or punish adversaries, Ur Rehman said those efforts are backfiring and hurting the U.S.’s relationship with key global confederates.

“These are not the actions of enemies,” Ur Rehman wrote in a note published Tuesday. “They are the actions of allies and partners who have watched the United States weaponize the dollar-based financial system, and have quietly concluded they need to reduce their exposure to it.”

“That shift,” Ur Rehman continued, “driven by allies rather than adversaries, is what makes the current moment different from anything in the past 80 years of dollar dominance.”

De-dollarization has been happening for decades—greenbacks’ share of global foreign exchange reserves have fallen from 71% in 1999 to 57% today, a 25-year low—but the Iran war has put a brighter spotlight on this phenomenon and what it could mean for a shifting world order decades down the line.

Following the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil usually passes, industry exports said some ships have been able to pass through the chokepoint by paying in Chinese yuan. The use of the petroyuan signaled to some economists the weakening of the petrodollar, or the exclusive use of U.S. currency to trade oil. The petrodollar remains the dominant currency used in global oil trade.
 

U.S. sanctions and de-dollarization

During the past 20 years, the U.S. has imposed about 70 active sanctions effecting more than 9,000 individuals, companies, and economic sections—more restrictions than the EU, United Nations, and Canada combined. As a result, economists have said these sanctions have eroded favorability toward the dollar from some of America’s adversaries.

Following penalties placed on Russia in the early 2010s following its annexation of Crimea, Russia agreed to a currency swap with China worth 150 billion yuan, about $25 billion. In 2023, Saudi Arabia and China signed a $7 billion currency swap agreement. A Deutsche Bank report recently found that while 90% of cross-border trade in North and South America is done through the petrodollar, only about 20% of trade invoicing in Europe and 70% in the Asia-Pacific is done through the petrodollar.

The Trump administration’s decision to pursue war in Iran, as well as other aggressive trade moves such as tariffs, have sent the message to other countries that the dollar may not be as rock-steady as it once was, according to David Wight, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

“The increasing aggressiveness of the United States in multiple fields—both in terms of sanctions and in terms of warfare—has caused more countries to kind of wonder, ‘Do we want to be completely tied or dependent on the dollar if things go sour for whatever reason?’” Wight told Fortune.
The ‘paradox’ of U.S. sanctions

Ur Rehman said U.S. allies pulling away from U.S. assets could lay the groundwork for other countries following suit, creating a snowball effect of countries relying less on American financial systems. In January, Emanuel Mönch, former head of research at the Germany’s central bank Bundesbank, said tensions with the U.S. could drive Germany to move its gold away from an American central bank. Germany holds 1,236 tons of gold at the New York Fed, about 37% of its total reserves.

“Given the current geopolitical situation, it seems risky to store so much gold in the U.S.,” Mönch told German financial newspaper Handelsblatt. “In the interest of greater strategic independence from the U.S., the Bundesbank would therefore be well advised to consider repatriating the gold.”

Ur Rehman is not the first expert who has flagged U.S. sanctions as potentially having an adverse impact on American economic dominance. A November 2025 analysis published in the Cambridge University Press posited U.S. sanctions could create a bifurcated global economic system with the U.S. and its allies on one side, and China and BRICS countries on the other. Author and political scientist Dongan Tan cites the growing popularity of China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, which is now used by more than 4,900 banking institutions in 187 jurisdictions.

Ur Rehman noted de-dollarization will resemble a frog in boiling water: By the time U.S. sanctions have caused enough countries to de-dollarize, global trust in the U.S. may become harder to salvage.

“The erosion is slow: percentage points per decade rather than per year. But it compounds,” Ur Rehman said. “And the paradox is that Washington cannot both weaponize the dollar system and maintain universal trust in it. These two objectives are in direct conflict.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

GOP-MAGA Live Up to Family Values and Jesus-Saved Bigotry

 ...particularly in the backward illiterate and very Christian southern states. As I've repeatedly compared them to their Islamic countrerparts, the Evangelical Christian fundamentalists across the southern belt want to impose Christian Sharia Law on the country, all the while denouncing a non-existent supposed Islamic Sharia threat. 

As always, you can apply the axiom "Every accusation is a confession" to these mongrels because, other than the suits and ties, they are exactly like the Afghan Taliban, the Saudi Wahhabis, or the Iranian Ayatollas. When they accuse these Muslim neanderthals of incest and ploygamy, they are reflecting to us their own incest and polygamy.

They abuse women and want them out of the workplace. They want to control them because they fear them. So, like the very skilled bigots they are, they talk about the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, etc. but then engage in adultery and sexual abuse, and applaud the murder of thousands of inocent people by the enraged white Christian supremacists running the US government. How very Christian!

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Married GOP Congressman Allegedly Penned 3-Page Note to Ex-Staffer About Her Writing 'a Complex Chapter in My Heart'
North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards, 65, denied all allegations of misconduct, which emerged weeks after two fellow congressman resigned over their own scandals involving staffers

Joseph Konig
Thu, May 7, 2026


North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards on May 15, 2025.
Credit: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty

NEED TO KNOW

- The increasingly active House Ethics Committee is reportedly probing North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards for alleged inappropriate conduct involving young female staffers

- Axios reported several allegations, including that the married Republican penned a three-page handwritten note to a former staffer that said she had “written a complex chapter in my heart”

- Edwards, 65, denied all allegations of misconduct and welcomed an investigation

Yet another member of Congress is facing scrutiny for alleged misconduct as the increasingly active House Ethics Committee reportedly probes North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards after he was accused of inappropriate conduct involving young female staffers.

Axios reported several allegations from unnamed sources, including that the married Republican penned a three-page handwritten note to a former staffer that said she had “written a complex chapter in my heart.”

“In the mountains we have to shovel horses--t,” Edwards told The Assembly, a North Carolina news organization, before an event in Flat Rock, N.C., on Tuesday, May 5. “In D.C. I have to deal with horsesh-t. And these allegations are more horsesh-t.”

Edwards told The Assembly he had never had a romantic relationship with a staffer, "I have done nothing wrong," and said he has "no reason to resign," but did not address specific allegations.

“I’m not going to debate these issues in trashy tabloids," Edwards told the outlet.

North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards on May 16, 2025.
Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty

His office did not comment on whether the committee had been in contact with Edwards, and the Ethics Committee declined to comment. The committee has a policy not to publicly acknowledge investigations until official announcements are made.

"I welcome any investigation, given the professionalism my staff has demonstrated and my commitment to serving the people of Western [North Carolina],” Edwards said in a statement to PEOPLE on Wednesday, May 6. “Given the current political environment we are facing in our nation, it comes as no surprise that others with their own political agendas will attempt to raise false accusations in order to create news stories.”

None of the details reported by Axios have been independently verified by PEOPLE, and a campaign spokesperson for the congressman dismissed the claims to the Assville Citizen-Times as “baseless allegations designed to impact the campaign driven by those who want to settle old political scores.”

Probes from the Ethics Committee preceded the April 13 resignations of Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican whose former staffer fatally lit herself on fire in 2025 after an affair, and California Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who dropped out of the California gubernatorial race after allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct involving staffers.

Gonzales ultimately admitted to having a sexual relationship with his staffer who died by suicide, though Swalwell has denied all wrongdoing since multiple women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., also resigned in April after the first public House Ethics “trial” in 16 years found her guilty on 25 counts related to federal criminal charges she still faces for allegedly defrauding federal pandemic aid programs of millions of dollars. She has also denied wrongdoing while the criminal case remains underway, but opted to step back from Congress "rather than play these political games."

Reps. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., (left) and Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, (right) on June 12, 2025.
Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty

Axios reported on the existence of Edwards' handwritten letter on Monday, May 4, and cited three sources who said they witnessed Edwards, 65, act inappropriately toward two female staffers in their 20s.

The D.C.-based outlet characterized those alleged actions as crossing “professional boundaries” and said it “created an uncomfortable work environment.”

Edwards also allegedly gifted a staffer jewelry and a custom puzzle of Adam Sandler, as well as invited her to a Sandler comedy show, according to Axios. Another young female staffer in her 20s was allegedly gifted other items, including a purse.

The report alleged that Edwards also traveled to Las Vegas for a stay at the Bellagio hotel in November 2025 to vacation with the young woman who he wrote the letter. She reportedly no longer worked for his office at the time.

“You are the most amazing woman," the letter, which Axios said its reporters viewed, began. "I only wish I could explain the joy and meaning to me for the time we spent together at the office — but especially away from it.”

Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., during a House Budget Committee meeting on May 16, 2025
Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty

Edwards’ campaign website says he has two children with his wife of 46 years, Teresa, and they now have two grandchildren.

“It is hard to say whether the so-called Ethics Committee or the news media have conducted themselves worse in this story concerning our Congressman, Chuck Edwards,” Henderson County GOP Chair Greg Beam wrote in a Monday newsletter titled “DEFENDING CHUCK.”

“Anyone who knows Chuck and Teresa know how ridiculous the accusation is,” Beam added.

Veteran Sam Bingham, left, points at Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., at a town hall on March 13, 2025, in Assville, N.C. Credit: Sean Rayford/Getty

Edwards has served in Congress since 2022, when he beat controversial former Rep. Madison Cawthorn — who was in his 20s and faced misconduct allegations and legal troubles of his own.

Prior to that, the McDonald’s franchise owner served in the North Carolina state Senate. His House district, which includes Asseville and much of southwest North Carolina near the Tennessee border, is viewed as a “likely Republican” victory this fall, according to Cook Political Report.

Read the original article on People

American Pimp's Arab Gulf Girls Upset with their Pimp over Hormuz

The Great Moron doesn't consult with anyone. He believes his psychotic natural charm precludes any input in decision-making from "hostage" allies like his European estranged spouses or his Arab Gulf girls. The Pimp-in-Chief goes it alone like Lone Ranger without Tonto or Don Quixote without Sancho Panza in his quest to dominate the world.

But, Lone Ranger has enemies like Don Quixote had windmills. He invents them to appear brave and strong when no one really cares about him. Donald Dumb personifies the hero syndrome (per AI: The sick individual seek recognition for heroism, sometimes by creating problems themselves. This can stem from narcissistic tendencies, leading them to engage in attention-seeking behavior to feel important or valued).

But his former spouses, mistresses and hoes put up with the deranged Pimp-in-Chief for a while as he helps them get clients, but then they have enough weirdeness from him and abuse from his other enemies (e.g. Iran bombing them), and so they go on strike. The Pimp is jeopardizing the girls' business without protecting them. 

As of today, one of Pimp Trump's Arab Gulf hoes has closed the brothel on him, forcing him to back down from fighting the Iranian windmills. When an ass like Lone Ranger in the Outhouse, with no education and no knowledge of geography and history, pretends to fight all the windmills of the world, people - friendly hoes and inimical enemies alike - walk out on him, muttering under their breath: "this is really weird".

In other words, Donald Dumb doesn't give a sh- - about allies, and so allies abandon him to fight his stupid wars by himself. After making enemies of European allies, he has now made enemies of his Sharia-prone fundamentalist Islamist-with-oil Arab Gulf pseudo-allies because he jumps into a war without consulting them and without even preparing himself for the consequences. Only his "genius" mind and abysmal moral decay drive his policies.

So, yeah, MAGA imbeciles: Please find another moron in 2028 to replace this decaying one. There are plenty of morons like him around in your parts of the country. Walking around with guns like dumb jerks from the 19th century does not make you strong. It makes you look stupid, which is so very authentic of you.  

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Trump’s abrupt U-turn on a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz came after backlash from allies

Mosheh Gains

Thu, May 7, 2026

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.

Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom” on social media Sunday afternoon, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase southeast of Riyadh or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort, the officials said.

A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace.

Other close Gulf allies were also caught off guard; the president spoke with leaders in Qatar after the effort had already begun.

A Saudi source told NBC News that Trump and the crown prince “have been in touch regularly.” Saudi officials were also in touch with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Central Command and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the source added.

Asked whether the announcement of Project Freedom caught the Saudi leaders by surprise, the Saudi source said: “The problem with that premise is that things are happening quickly in real time.” The source said Saudi Arabia was “very supportive of the diplomatic efforts” by Pakistan to broker a deal between Iran and the U.S. to end the war. [i.e. message to Donald Dumb: Stop this war]

A White House official said in a statement when asked about some Gulf state leaders being caught off guard by the announcement of the U.S. effort to help ships transit the Strait of Hormuz, “Regional allies were notified in advance.”

A Middle Eastern diplomat said the U.S. did not coordinate Project Freedom with the Omanis until after Trump made the announcement. “The U.S. made an announcement and then coordinated with us,” the diplomat said, adding, “we were not upset or angry.”

Trump had announced the operation over the weekend as a way to break Iran’s blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, and his top national security leaders spent much of Tuesday talking up the effort in public briefings at the Pentagon and White House, only to have the president suddenly halt the operation roughly 36 hours after it began.

The U.S. military had been lining up a number of additional ships in the Gulf for transit through the strait when the operation was stopped, a U.S. official said. U.S. Central Command had earlier announced that two U.S. flagged ships had made it through the strait as part of Project Freedom.

In his post, Trump said Project Freedom would be “paused for a short period of time to see whether or not” an agreement to resolve the war “can be finalized and signed.”

The U.S. military maintains fighter aircraft, refueling tankers and air defenses at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis allowed the U.S. to fly aircraft from there to support the war in Iran, as well as allowing aircraft based in nearby countries to fly over.

“Because of geography, you need cooperation from regional partners to utilize their airspace along their borders,” one U.S. official said. In some cases there is no other way around, the official explained. Military aircraft were critical to protect ships during Project Freedom, essentially providing a defensive umbrella.

The U.S. military refers to permission to use another country’s territory as ABO, which stands for access, basing and overflight. Fighter jets, refueling tankers and support aircraft all need permission to fly from key regional allies. Saudi Arabia and Jordan are critical for allowing aircraft to base there, Kuwait is critical for overflight, and Oman for both overflight and naval logistics.

Trump called the emir of Qatar after Project Freedom began, and a Qatari official said in a statement that they discussed the ceasefire agreement and “implications for maritime security and global supply chains.” The statement said the emir emphasized the importance of de-escalation. [i.e. message to Donald Dumb: Stop this war]

The U.S. military continues to maintain a presence in and around the Gulf. It has a bigger footprint in the region than it did on Feb. 28 when the war began. There are two carrier strike groups in the region, and the Pentagon has brought in additional logistics and support and has re-supplied stockpiles.

Project Freedom briefly provided U.S. military surveillance, firepower and personnel on board ships so they could safely transit out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, as Iranian forces continued to threaten and attack ships in transit through the critical waterway. Pentagon officials said the operation was separate from the bombing campaign that began on Feb. 28 and was dubbed “Epic Fury.”

The Trump administration has attempted to push forward on a negotiated agreement to end the hostilities. Iran was reviewing another peace proposal with the U.S., Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said in an interview with Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency. He said once the regime has assessed it, Iran will discuss it with Pakistan, which has been acting as a mediator. Axios first reported details of the proposal.

In a social media post early Wednesday, Trump didn’t detail the proposal, but said the war could end if “Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to.”

“They want to make a deal,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Wednesday. He said there had been “very good talks over the last 24 hours.”

The political pressure is mounting on Trump ahead of the November midterm elections, when Republicans will be fighting to preserve their narrow margin in the House and majority in the Senate. In an interview with PBS on Wednesday, the president said it’s possible U.S. negotiators could strike a deal with Iran’s regime before he travels to Beijing next week for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

“I think it’s got a very good chance of ending, and if it doesn’t end, we have to go back to bombing the hell out of them,” Trump told PBS.

Several close Trump confidants have encouraged the president to “finish the job” in Iran by taking out the rest of the regime’s conventional military assets, even insisting that the offensive could be completed by the time of the critical China trip, according to multiple former U.S. officials.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Iranian leaders Wednesday and said it was critical the war ended as soon as possible.

“We believe that a comprehensive ceasefire is urgently needed, that a resumption of hostilities is not acceptable, and that it is particularly important to remain committed to dialogue and negotiations,” Wang said in a video of the meeting accessed by The Associated Press.

In a post on social media, a senior Iranian parliament official called the latest proposal a “wish list until it becomes a reality.”

“Americans will not obtain through a failed war what they failed to gain in face-to-face negotiations, Ebrahim Rezaei said on X. “Iran has its finger on the trigger and is ready; if they do not surrender and grant the necessary concessions, or if they or their devilish henchdog allies try to act mischievously, we will deliver a harsh and regret-inducing response.”

But a Jordanian official told NBC News that the diplomatic efforts were serious.

“The Iranians don’t have the economic means to keep this going,” the official said. “Their economy is failing, they can’t pay salaries.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

 

Trump's Retreat on Iran: His Deal Worse than Obama's 2015 JCPOA

As he is terrified of the looming landslide in November in which he and his MAGA-GOP mafia stand to lose both the House and the Senate, jackass president Trump is literally begging the Iranians to make a deal. Any deal, just so he can brag and lie to his MAGA voting morons about having achieved his fake objectives of the war. Many of them have already jumped the MAGA ship because he lied to them by promising "No Wars", yet has done nothing but warmongering under orders of his Zionist bosses. And instead of helping struggling Americans as he promised, his haphazard and corrupt policies have twisted the knife deeper in the wounds of inflation-tormented Americans. Now at least, his MAGA idiots know that he alone, not Obama or Biden, not the lunatic left, not the Democrats, is responsible for the degraded state of the United States, both at home and around the world. The little faith that people had in the US has evaporated. Going forward, the US will have a harder time convincing partners of its goodwill and trustworthiness because Trump stamped the "Unreliable" tattoo on the Stars and Stripes. As many warned the idiot, America first means America alone.

He's doing the same thing in Lebanon: He is pushing for a substance-lacking shallow photo op between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Zionist war criminal Netanyahu - while the latter and his terrorist settlers are stealing 20% of Lebanese territory - so Trump can brag about having "made peace" between Lebanon and Israel. But Aoun hasn't fallen for it, despite the enormous risks.

We often hear that Trump does politics as a businessman. If you've ever had to deal with the world of business, you'd know that the superficial wins over substance, that perception and appearance are the objective and not the reality or the truth, that dangling shiny objects with lies and deceptive marketing, ie. false advertisement and propaganda, are the only tools business uses to lure foolish people into accepting/buying stuff they don't want or need. And that is exactly what Trump is all about, with the added difference that, with him, blatant corruption and cheating are the norm. 

Trump's impending "deal" with Iran looks worse than Obama's JCPOA out of which the moron (who doesn't understand the stakes) walked out because Netanyahu told him to do so. After all that's said and done, any deal Trump will make with the Iranians will include giving them back their $120 billion dollars, the so-called "Iranian frozen assets", held in international accounts: $2 billion in the US, while the rest is held up by the UN, by South Korea, Iraq, China, Japan and Luxembourg.

Trump walked out of the 2015 JCPOA agreement by blaming Obama for releasing some of that money to the Iranians. 
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Trump Closes in on Deal That Could Drag Catastrophe Out for Years
Will Neal
Wed, May 6, 2026 

Donald Trump is zeroing in on a deal with Iran that could potentially see his war with the repressive Middle Eastern conflict stretch on indefinitely.

Top administration officials told Axios Wednesday that the White House believes it is now closer to an agreement with the Islamic Republic than at any other time since Trump launched his campaign on Feb. 28.

A provisional deal apparently includes Iran “committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment.” The U.S. would lift sanctions against the regime and release billions of dollars worth of otherwise frozen assets in return.


Both sides would then commit to facilitating the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital naval corridor in the region that Iran has effectively shuttered since the conflict began, sending global energy prices soaring.

But Axios writes that “many of the terms laid out in the memo would be contingent on a final agreement being reached.” This leaves open “the possibility of renewed war,” or “an extended limbo in which the hot war has stopped but nothing is truly resolved.”

Trump's war has cost thousands of lives and billions in damage to regional infrastructure. / Reuters

Those concerns run deep, given officials also told Axios they believe “the Iranian leadership is divided” after successive U.S. and Israeli attacks eliminated many of the regime’s most senior figures.

It may therefore “be hard to forge consensus across the different factions” that remain, with many on the U.S. side of talks “skeptical that even an initial deal will be reached.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed those sentiments Tuesday, stating the situation remains “highly complex and technical,” and bizarrely quoting hip-hop outfit Cypress Hill to suggest many among the top Iranian leadership are “insane in the brain.”

The pressure on Trump to lock something down is mounting on several fronts. U.S. gas prices are edging toward $5 a gallon, and the president heads to Beijing next week, where Xi Jinping is expected to press him on reopening the strait.

Hawks in Trump’s own party, meanwhile, have urged him to scrap diplomacy and resume bombing. Senator Lindsey Graham, the loudest voice in that camp, called Monday for a “big, strong, painful and short” retaliation after Iran struck the United Arab Emirates, arguing Tehran had clearly violated the ceasefire.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
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Trump administration sows confusion as it tries to reopen Strait of Hormuz
BEN FINLEY, MATTHEW LEE, FARNOUSH AMIRI and AAMER MADHANI
Updated Wed, May 6, 2026


President Donald Trump, accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

President Donald Trump watches as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration's approach to the Iran war over the past 24 hours has pinballed from declarations that a tenuous ceasefire was holding and military operations were over to new threats of bombing the Islamic Republic.

Tuesday started with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explaining how the U.S. military was protecting stranded ships so they could traverse the Strait of Hormuz. He insisted it was a defensive operation and the truce was still in place even though Iran had launched missiles and drones at U.S. forces, which sank Tehran’s small attack boats.

That afternoon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House that the military operation was “concluded” and that the U.S. achieved its objectives. But in almost the same breath, he said President Donald Trump was still seeking a “path of peace” that required Iran to agree to a deal to reopen the vital oil shipping corridor.

By Tuesday evening, Trump announced that the effort to protect ships was paused to see if an agreement could be reached. Then on Wednesday morning, he again warned that bombing would resume if Tehran didn't agree to U.S. terms.

Trump halts Project Freedom in Strait of Hormuz 

The U.S. pauses its new operation to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz after Gulf allies push back. Officials say the move aims to support peace negotiations while Iran announces new measures for safe passage. Analysts note uncertainty about next steps.

The Trump administration’s shifting and often contradictory messaging throughout the Iran war has produced ever more confusion this week as the president and his aides presented a dizzying narrative over the U.S. strategy to unblock the Strait of Hormuz and wrap up the war that drastically changed over the course of mere hours.

Administration officials have been trying to walk a fine line between maintaining the ceasefire and reopening the strait, where 20% of the world’s oil normally flows. The economic fallout is growing as fuel prices rise, with Republicans facing increasing pressure to find solutions to higher costs ahead of the midterm congressional elections.

Aides are trying to sell Trump's strategies

The Trump administration has struggled with its messaging because the war wasn't well planned, said Elizabeth Dent, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“Because it happened very quickly, it wasn’t sold to the American public in a way that I think was palatable,” said Dent, a former official in the State Department and Pentagon. “Now I think Trump is sort of doing everything he can to prevent a return of hostilities because he saw how unpopular the war was.”

Throughout the conflict, the president has shifted his priorities and his perspectives on victory. He's offered a murky definition of a ceasefire. And he's provided his own interpretation of a law that requires congressional approval for military operations after 60 days.

The confusion is fueled in part by Trump’s tendency to make off-the-cuff statements that essentially make policy, Dent said. Aides like Rubio and Hegseth must then explain Trump's statements.

The whirlwind 24 hours of decision-making by the Trump administration also reflects a realization that any alternative to an agreement “is going to range from unpalatable to outright ugly” at a moment of great political importance for the Republican president, said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group.

“This is not an administration that operates based on a policy process. It operates based on impulse. And the president seems now both tired of this war and reluctant to continue investing his political capital into it,” Vaez said.

The administration's narrative whipsaws on the Strait of Hormuz effort

The last couple of days have been emblematic of how the Trump administration's statements can seem out of sync and hard to follow.

The president said Sunday that U.S. forces would safely guide hundreds of stranded commercial vessels out of the strait, which Iran has effectively closed by firing at ships off its coast.

On Tuesday, Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, said two American-flagged freighters transited the waterway to lead the effort, but Iran fired at U.S. ships and the military sank six Iranian small attack boats.

When asked about the fire from both sides, Hegseth said, “No, the ceasefire is not over.” Caine also said Iranian attacks did not reach the level of “restarting major combat operations.”

Rubio later insisted Trump's preference was diplomacy.

“Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation,” he said, referring to the code name for the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran. “What the president would prefer is a deal.”

A deal seemed closer at hand when Trump said Tuesday night on social media that he was halting the operation in the strait to see what would happen with negotiations.

One key ally, Saudi Arabia, had been skeptical of what turned out to be the short-lived plan by Trump to guide the stranded vessels out of the strait, according to a person familiar with the diplomatic conversations. The person, who was familiar with the conversations but who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the Saudis conveyed they didn’t see Trump’s plan as a feasible way to get the strait open and create confidence for vessel operators and insurers who are looking for a lasting solution to U.S.-Iranian standoff over the waterway.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not offer any immediate comment on the kingdom’s position on Trump’s effort, dubbed “Project Freedom.”

By Wednesday morning, Trump was threatening Iran once again.

“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before,” he wrote on Truth Social.

The U.S. military said Wednesday that it shot at and disabled an Iranian oil tanker as it tried to breach the blockade of Iran’s shipping.

Seeking help from other countries in the strait

Another confusing element is the administration's efforts to persuade allies to deploy warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has been lashing out at countries unwilling to do more, telling them to “go get your own oil” and saying it was not America’s job to secure the strait. But administration officials have begun actively soliciting help while toning down their language.

Rubio said the issue is not a lack of interest, but that many are unable to provide the necessary resources.

“A lot of countries would love to do something about it. But they don’t have a navy, right? Or they can’t get there in time,” he said.

After Trump's abrupt suspension of the initiative, two U.S. officials said the administration was still deciding whether, and how, to proceed with planning, following the State Department’s formal request for support from countries last week.

The officials, who spoke on Wednesday on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Trump’s announcement had not been expected and that they had not been offered detailed guidance on whether to withdraw the requests for support.

U.S. allies like Britain and France have rejected on-again, off-again suggestions from Trump that they become militarily involved, but they have led the formation of a separate international maritime coalition to secure the strait — but only once the threat to shipping ends. France’s aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential French-British mission in the strait.

The issue only has been more complicated by Trump’s trip to Beijing next week.

“Going to China while the strait remains closed is humiliating for President Trump and puts China in a position of strength vis-a-vis the United States, because President Trump would have to, as he has done recently, ask for China’s help to resolve a problem that didn’t exist before he launched a war,” Vaez said.

___

Amiri reported from New York.

Suspiciously timed Iran-war oil trades and Trump's Yo-Yo Posts

Some people seem to know ahead of time - by a couple of hours - when to short oil stocks in tune with Trump's up and down pronouncements on his war on Iran. He threatens (blow Iran off the map), waits two days, then makes peace overtures (a deal is imminent). Obviously, stocks gyrate accordingly, but someone's telling people ahead of time.

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Online sleuths are raising more red flags around suspiciously timed Iran-war oil trades
Naomi Buchanan
Updated Wed, May 6, 2026 


An Iran-flagged tugboat travels in the Strait of Hormuz.Amirhossein KHORGOOEI / ISNA / AFP via Getty Images

Oil prices plunged on reports that Iran and the US are nearing an agreement to end the war.

Data highlighted by commentators online showed a well-timed oil short made just ahead of the report.

Ex-JPMorgan quant, Marko Kolanovic, said it showed "blatantly manipulated markets."

Oil prices have plunged on reports that the US and Iran are nearing a peace deal, a development that paid off big for traders that happened to be shorting crude just ahead of the news.

Data flagged by the The Kobeissi Letter shows that nearly $1 billion of crude oil shorts were opened roughly an hour before an Axios report that the US and Iran were nearing a deal to end the war.

The Kobeissi Letter outlined its analysis in a Wednesday morning post:
"At 3:40 AM ET today, nearly 10,000 contracts worth of crude oil shorts were taken without any major news.This is equivalent to ~$920 million in notional value, an unusually large trade for 3:40 AM ET.At 4:50 AM ET, just 70 minutes later, Axios reported that the US is "close" to a "memorandum of understanding" to end the Iran War.By 7:00 AM ET, oil prices had fallen over -12% with these crude oil shorts gaining approximately +$125 million."

Brent oil was down as much as 11.9%, while WTI oil dropped more than 13%. Around 10:20 a.m. Brent and WTI were down roughly 7% at $101.93 and $95.06, respectively.

The plunge reflects investor optimism that the war is nearing an end on the reported agreement. It would also be a windfall for anyone betting on the downward move in crude.

Former JPMorgan quant head Marko Kolanovic reacted to oil price moves on the Axios report, saying "Who knows what happens next in blatantly manipulated markets."

Eric Nuttall, a partner and senior portfolio manager at Ninepoint Partners, commented on the analysis from The Kobeissi Letter, saying, "We continue to encourage energy investors to focus on "the day after", as day-to-day volatility may be intentionally induced for nefarious reasons."

The trades highlighted by market watchers online are the latest example of well-timed bets tied to developments in the war. A $950 million oil trade on April 7 and a $760 million bet a week later were put on just minutes before breaking news that moved the price of crude.

Still, as has become common during the ceasefire that's held since early April, conflicting signals on the likelihood of a durable peace have emerged on Wednesday as markets positioned for an end to the war.

Ebrahim Rezaei, Iranian spokesperson for the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said that the Axios report represents "Americans' wish list," not the reality of negotiations.

Read the original article on Business Insider

MAGA's Future After Senile Pawpaw Trump goes Home

 

The 80-year old senile moron says he might be in power for 8 or 9 more years! Given his declining health and mind, Trump thinks he can pull a Putin-Medvedev, whereby he installs a hand puppet in the presidency (Vance or Rubio maybe) and uses his hand to make them function.

It pains me to see an old man degrade in public, but this man deserves mockery because of his narcissistic arrogance and hateful disposition. When you set the bar too high, your own fall from grace can't be too smooth. 

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Trump Is Fading and His Staff Knows It: Political Guru
Vic Verbalaitis
The Daily Beast Podcast
Tue, May 5, 2026

President Donald Trump is unraveling further by the day, political expert David Rothkopf argues.

Appearing on The Daily Beast Podcast, Rothkopf said that the 79-year-old president’s waning mental faculties are no secret, and that some MAGA supporters are considering jumping off the Trump train altogether.

Some MAGA folks are considering hopping off the Trump train. / Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters

“You know, we’ve got lots of stories in the news about Iran and about the Supreme Court and about elections and stuff like that. And then there’s the James Comey thing,” Rothkopf told host Joanna Coles. “But the one thing about Trump that’s happening every day—and you’re putting your finger on it here—is he’s fading. He’s failing. He’s fading physically. He’s fading mentally. He can’t handle things.”

“He said in an interview, ‘I’d do Iran over again.’ I don’t think he even remembers what he did in the first place. He doesn’t know how to get out of what he’s doing in Iran,” the political analyst continued.

Trump has no idea how to get out of his war on Iran, Rothkopf argues. / Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Rothkopf highlighted the near-octogenarian’s bizarre response to the Supreme Court’s takedown of his tariffs, which was to raise tariffs on the European Union by 25 percent. Because, as he said on Friday, the bloc “was not adhering to the agreement that we have.”

Trump’s political numbers have also been a “disaster,” Rothkopf said, with his approval rating continuing to plummet amid his highly unpopular war on Iran. The latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found the president’s approval rating sinking to 37 percent while disapproval climbed to 62 percent.

“You see a lot of people now starting to say, ‘I have to start hedging my bets. This guy is not long for this world,’ you know. Or ‘Is it going to be JD, or is it going to be Marco?’ People are talking about that a lot. Or ‘How are the Democrats going to succeed him?’ Or... ‘It’s the end of MAGA,’” Rothkopf continued.

“I think we need to put all of this together and say, you know, we’re watching him dissolve before our very eyes,” he added.

When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle gave the Daily Beast a frequently recycled statement: “David Rothkopf is a far-left loser who clearly suffers from a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”

The state of the president’s health throughout his second term has been a concern for many Americans, given his slurred speech, public sleeping fits, and aggressive late-night Truth Social rants.

In April alone, Trump posted on his social media platform between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. on 25 of 30 nights, averaging about 18 posts a day for a total of 565 posts.

The president’s posting sprees have included everything from a blasphemous AI-generated photo depicting him as Jesus Christ to apocalyptic threats that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” leading some of his closest allies to express worry that Trump is “clearly not well.”

Aside from his mental faculties, the Daily Beast has also extensively reported on Trump’s array of physical health concerns, from his deeply bruised hands and surprise neck rash to his bulging cankles.

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'I Guarantee You': Adam Kinzinger Makes A Big Prediction About Trump And His Supporters

Ben Blanchet

Updated Tue, May 5, 2026

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Monday predicted that President Donald Trump, who is wading in historic levels of unpopularity, will fall deep into the abyss in the near future.

“I guarantee you something, and I know this: In five or 10 years, there won’t be a single person left in this country that will ever admit to supporting Donald Trump, except for those that have their stuff all over Twitter,” said Kinzinger in an interview with MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace.

Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic since 2020, backed his prediction up by citing the rate of Trump’s “spiraling” thus far in his second term, adding that it’s “just going to increase.”

Wallace teed up Kinzinger’s appearance on her program by highlighting a clip of Trump declaring that he was “much younger” than those in a Florida crowd on Friday. She also pointed to the president taking to social media on Friday to share an AI-generated image of himself shirtless in a bathing suit while kicking back with Cabinet members in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

On the same day, he also made other bizarre posts, including one showing first lady Melania Trump flashing a smile during his post-dinner shooting press conference and another showing him with a handful of Uno “wild” cards.

“Eventually, people are going to be like, ‘We’ve had enough,’” said Kinzinger of the president’s “spiraling” behavior.

Kinzinger — one of two Republicans who served on the House select committee on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack — said that while he can say “we told you so” to Trump supporters due to the case the panel made against the president years ago, he said he remains “heartbroken” that viewers of Fox News (which didn’t air its hearings live) are told that everything is “fine” and “great” with Trump, especially in the midst of his unpopular Iran war.

 

Evangelical Mullah Hegseth's Christian Sharia Laws Against Women

Burka emblazoned with a cross for American women is the Evangelical Morons' antidote to a burka without the cross.

Relying on precedent (evangelical pastors and reverends and elders etc. caught in flagrant adultery, with their pants down with prostitutes and children), I suspect this Wilson a--hole has several skeletons in his closet. Can't wait for that day.
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Pete Hegseth’s Pastor has Horrible Things to Say About Women—Again

Speaking to the Times in an exclusive interview, Doug Wilson ranted about the “moral catastrophe” of what women choose to wear in public.
Danielle Han
Mon, May 4, 2026



In yet another reminder that Pete Hegseth seems to exclusively surround himself with ministers that make a bivocational career of disappointing God, the Secretary of War Defense’s pastor on Monday shared some thoughts that probably won’t earn him a spot in the high heavens anytime soon.

Speaking to the U.K.-based Times in an exclusive interview, Doug Wilson—who co-founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which Hegseth’s a member of—ranted about the fact 

- that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman (he called this “appalling”);

- doubled down on his belief that women shouldn’t have the right to vote; 

- and ranted about the “moral catastrophe” of what women choose to wear in public. Great!

“When you’re just giving it away to every slob on the bus who wants to look, you’re degrading the currency,” Wilson told the Times. He continued, “Bundling [women] up the way really conservative Muslims do is a different kind of degradation…But for a woman to dress like a slut is a different kind of degradation. Both kinds of degradation play off of each other.” Wow. Really can’t win with this guy.

Now, considering this is the same freak who’s made his ecclesiastical career off being anti-woman and anti-gay, the bar was never less than low. However! This is the same holy roller who Hegseth considers a mentor, who regularly talks to Hegseth about “spiritual matters,” and who gave a sermon at the Pentagon earlier this year, in one of the monthly prayer sessions that Hegseth’s mandated since May. (It was during a recent session at one of these that the defense secretary decided to quote a prayer straight out of Pulp Fiction.) And, probably not by coincidence, ever since Hegseth took the helm at the Department of War Defense, he’s been building an anti-women army where he’s made a habit of regularly blocking women from promotions left and right.

But the administration seems to have made a personality of giving off Antichrist energy—which is probably why the president ended up in a full Twitter feud with the Pope last month—and has been using pseudo-religious jargon to justify its war in Iran. In the week after the U.S. and Israel launched its first attacks on Iran, Military Religious Freedom Foundation said it received almost 200 complaints across 40 different branches of the military where troops were echoing religious rhetoric, such as saying the war was a “biblically-sanctioned” one.

Wilson, meanwhile, said this framing was a clever one. “Iran is a wicked, wicked place,” he told the Times. Hm. I’m sure I can think of wickeder.

Huffing and Puffing, Trump-Hegseth Capitulate, Declare Iran War "Over"

Trump is bailing out of a highly unpopular and very costly war he waged against Iran on behalf of Israel, just in time to make a generally dumb American public forget the war by Election Day in November. It's a war that not only did not achieve any of its otherwise very poorly defined objectives, but created new complications that a dumb administration did not anticipate when it should have. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is one of them. Surging oil prices is another. Irreparable damage to relationships with countries we still call allies out of habit but not out of conviction.

No unconditional surrender. No regime change. No deal on the nuclear. All the testosteronic bravados of the Great Moron and his minions gone for naught.

Bottom line: The manly MAGA warriors Don Quixote Trump and Sancho Pancha Hegseth have capitulated and chickened out of a war they could not win and which they waged to prove their love for their Zionist lover, the war criminal Netanyahu. They have 6 months to repair the damage they have done to MAGA-GOP electability in the midterms. In other words, Iran has won by not losing, and the US has lost by not winning.

In Lebanon, the fear is that by "ending" the war with Iran, the US might be dragged by their Zionist handlers into a revenge war against Lebanon's Hezbollah. There are no risks to the midterms in Lebanon, the insignificant small country that always pays the price for ententes and detentes between all the big guys with big guns around it.
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Operation Epic Fury against Iran 'is over,' Rubio says
Ana Ceballos, Nabih Bulos, Michael Wilner
Tue, May 5, 2026


[Donkey-eared] Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a news conference at the White House on Tuesday. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

The U.S. military campaign that launched the war with Iran, Operation Epic Fury, "is over," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday, telling reporters that a new defensive phase had begun to secure the Strait of Hormuz — though President Trump later said he was pausing the effort to allow more time for a deal with Iran.

The declaration of an end to offensive operations comes as Trump continues to threaten a new round of strikes against the Islamic Republic, which persists in disrupting commercial shipping traffic through the vital waterway. But Rubio, who is also the national security advisor, suggested the Trump administration is reluctant to return to full-scale war.

"The operation, Epic Fury, is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation," Rubio said at a news briefing at the White House.

“This is the first step toward reopening the strait,” he added. “We are doing it not only because we were asked, but because we are the only ones that can.”

Trump said Tuesday night on Truth Social that Project Freedom — the new defensive operation — would be paused for a "short period of time" at the request of Pakistan and other countries "to see whether or not" a final agreement can be reached with Iran.

The shift came within hours of top administration officials touting the new initiative as a needed step to ensure the flow of traffic could resume through the international waterway as hostilities have continued in the region.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had told reporters at a news conference at the Pentagon earlier on Tuesday that new defensive operation was in response to what he called "international extortion" by Iran.

"We are not looking for a fight, but Iran cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway," Hegseth said.

The operation was launched nearly a month after the United States reached a fragile ceasefire with Iran, a truce that Hegseth said remains in effect even though Tehran has continued to attack U.S. forces and commercial vessels.

"The ceasefire is not over," Hegseth said.

Defense Secretary [and Christian Warrior] Pete Hegseth takes questions during a press briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia. Tensions remain high in the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. and Iran traded shots on Monday after Trump said the U.S. military would open the strait for shipping. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that since the ceasefire took effect, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times, seized two container ships and attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times. All of these instances, he said, are "below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point."

Those attacks have left more than 1,550 vessels trapped in the Persian Gulf and unable to transit, disrupting global trade and pushing energy markets toward crisis, with fuel prices climbing and shipping costs surging.

Later on Tuesday, President Trump was asked what Iran needed to do for him to deem Iran in violation of the ceasefire agreement. He said the public will "find out because I'll let you know."

"They know what to do. They know what not to do, more importantly actually," Trump said during an appearance in the Oval Office.

Trump, however, acknowledged that Iran has continued to fire at ships from "little boats," which he described as fast but not as "fast as a missile."

"They are looking around for little boats to try and compete with our great Navy," Trump said as he dismissed the hostilities.

The new U.S. mission on the strait was cast as separate from the broader military campaign over Iran's nuclear program. As negotiations to denuclearize Iran continue, Caine said commercial vessels wanting to cross the strait will now "see, hear, and frankly, feel the U.S. combat power around them, on the sea, in the skies and on the radio."

Rubio said that the future of Iran's nuclear stockpile — which remains buried under rubble from U.S. strikes conducted last year — remains the subject of a U.S. diplomatic effort with Tehran that so far has made little headway.

"What the president would prefer is a deal," he said. "That is, so far, not the path that Iran has chosen."

Two U.S. commercial vessels, escorted by Navy destroyers, have already moved through the strait, Hegseth said.

"We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact," Hegseth said. "They said they control the strait. They do not."

Hegseth called the operation a "direct gift from the United States to the world," aimed at resuming traffic through one of the world's most vital waterways.

"To what remains of Iran's forces: If you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower," Hegseth said. "The president has been very clear about this."

Iranian parliamentary speaker and top negotiator Mohammed Ghalibaf said in a statement on X on Tuesday that a “new equation” was being “solidified” in the strait, adding that the maritime traffic was jeopardized by the U.S. and its allies “through the violation of the ceasefire and the imposition of a blockade.”

“Of course, their evil will diminish,” he wrote. “We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America, while we have not even begun yet.”

On Tuesday evening local time, the United Arab Emirates' defense ministry said in a statement on X that the country’s defensive systems “are actively engaging with missiles and [drone] threats" and that “sounds heard across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations.”

Tuesday’s barrage marks the second consecutive day of attacks targeting the UAE since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire took hold on April 8. On Monday, the UAE said it engaged a total of 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones launched from Iran.

For its part, Iran said it had no “pre-planned program” to attack the UAE’s oil facilities, but that attacks were prompted by the United States' plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to an unnamed military official quoted by Iranian state TV.

“What happened was the product of the U.S. military’s adventurism to create a passage for ships to illegally pass through” the strait, the official said, adding the U.S. military “must be held accountable for it.”

Ceballos and Wilner reported from Washington, and Bulos from Beirut.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Newsmax reporter to Hegseth: ‘When did the president decide to capitulate?’
Ellen Mitchell
Tue, May 5, 2026


Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared annoyed Tuesday after a reporter asked him when President Trump decided to capitulate on his initial demands for Iran to surrender unconditionally.

In a tense exchange at a Pentagon press briefing, Newsmax’s James Rosen pointed to Trump’s changing justification for the war with Tehran which began on Feb. 28, initially offering his “gratitude and admiration” to Hegseth and U.S. forces before questioning the president’s shifting rhetoric.

“I want to first express my gratitude and admiration for the work you do and for everyone involved in our armed forces and also for the accomplishments of Operation Epic Fury, which I think are too often dismissed too lightly,” Rosen said to Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine.

“But those accomplishments don’t obscure, I think, a central default that has occurred here, and I would like you both to address it,” he added. “On the first day of this conflict, President Trump addressed the Iranian people directly and said, ‘when we’re finished, take over your government. It’ll be yours to take.’ And then on the seventh day of the conflict, in a Truth Social post, the president said, ‘There will be no deal with Iran except’ all caps, exclamation mark ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’”

Rosen continued: “What happens to that pledge to the Iranians? And when did the president decide to capitulate on his demand for unconditional surrender?”

Hegseth insisted that Trump “hasn’t capitulated on anything,” attacking Rosen for asking the question.

“James, I wouldn’t – You started out nicely, but you ended exactly where we knew you would end,” the defense chief responded.

“The president hasn’t capitulated on anything. He holds the cards, we maintain the upper hand, and Project Freedom only strengthens that hand,” Hegseth continued. “And so, he will ensure that whatever deal is made, or whatever end state is reached, creates ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon, which is A No. 1.”

“And he’s been focused on that, and the deal and discussions are centered on that. And what the Iranian people take advantage of after the fact is up to them,” he added. “And he’s been very clear about that.”

Trump at the start of the conflict demanded unconditional surrender from Tehran, calling on the Iranian people to take back the country from the regime. As the Middle East conflict has continued, however, the president changed his tune, declaring that a regime change had been achieved as Iran’s original leaders were “decimated” and replaced by a new group of individuals.

The U.S. is currently in a fragile ceasefire agreement with Iran, which Trump extended indefinitely on April 21 to get the regime to come to a peace agreement. He has repeatedly claimed that the fighting is close to an end, even as he has continuously made new threats against Tehran.

============================================ 

Bessent makes stunning Hormuz move that could reset oil prices
Tobi Opeyemi Amure
Wed, May 6, 2026

The U.S. and Israeli strike on Iran led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, causing a significant disruption in global oil supply and pushing Brent crude prices up by roughly 50%.

Every American learns where the Strait of Hormuz is at the worst possible moment. It is a 21-mile-wide bottleneck off the coast of Oman that, on a quiet week, carries one in five barrels of the world's oil.

When it works, nobody talks about it. When it stops, you find out at the pump.

It stopped on Feb. 28. A U.S. and Israeli strike on Iran kicked off a war that effectively closed the Strait, choked global oil supply by an estimated 14.5 million barrels a day, and pushed Brent crude up roughly 50% in two months.

Gasoline near $4 a gallon is back, household budgets are bleeding, and the Federal Reserve has watched its inflation case unravel one tanker at a time.

Then on May 4, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on television and tried to end the whole crisis in a single sentence.

Why the Hormuz oil announcement matters

Bessent told CNBC's Brian Sullivan that "the Iranian ships have been getting out already, and we've let that happen to supply the rest of the world."

The framing was deliberate.

In a separate Fox News "America's Newsroom” appearance the same day, Bessent said the U.S. has "absolute control" of the Strait and that Iran does not. He paired that with a direct shot at China, saying Beijing's energy purchases were "funding the largest state sponsor of terrorism."

The numbers behind the claim are staggering. Bessent told Fox News there are "more than 150,200 crude carriers that can come out," each holding roughly two million barrels.

Goldman Sachs estimates the closure has cut global daily production by 14.5 million barrels, the largest disruption ever recorded by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Al Jazeera noted.

That math should have crashed oil. If even a fraction of those carriers move in the next month, you are looking at hundreds of millions of barrels arriving into a market that has been pricing scarcity since February.

Brent crude shrugged. It traded near $108 a barrel on Monday, May 4, essentially flat on the news, according to Al Jazeera.

Bessent says the U.S. has "absolute control" of the Strait of Hormuz.Photo by AMIRHOSSEIN KHORGOOEI on Getty Images

How analysts are scoring the Hormuz reopening

The gap between what Bessent said and what the market did is the actual story.

The people who actually move oil for a living, ship operators and forecast desks, are not buying the announcement at face value.

Bjørn Højgaard, CEO of ship manager Anglo-Eastern, put it bluntly. "It takes both sides to unblock, not just one," Højgaard said, CNN reported. "Either party can signal that they are willing to let certain ships through, but unless the other side accepts that in practice, it doesn't materially change the reality on the water."

The forecast desks agree. Here is what the major banks are pricing in for Brent.

Morgan Stanley Q2 2026 forecast, $110 a barrel, MarketScreener indicated

Goldman Sachs Q4 forecast, $90 a barrel, raised from $80, TheStreet reported

Citi bull case for Q2, $130 a barrel, CNBC confirmed

Barclays full-year average, $100 a barrel, raised from $85 on May 1, according to Investing.com

The lowest mainstream forecast still has Brent averaging $85 for the year. That is roughly 30% above where it sat in January.

When I cross-checked Bessent's "150 to 200 carrier" figure against the IEA tanker tracking data for the week of April 27, the disconnect got sharper. Project Freedom, the Navy escort operation Bessent is championing, has moved exactly two U.S.-flagged merchant ships out of the Strait. Two, against a backlog north of 150.

ING Head of Commodities Strategy Warren Patterson summed up where the market actually is. "The lack of progress means the market is tightening every day, requiring oil prices to reprice at higher levels," Patterson said in a research note, CNBC reported.

What Bessent's Hormuz claim means for your portfolio and your gas tank

Take an abstract number like 14.5 million barrels a day. That is the disruption. Now translate it into the kind of math that hits a kitchen table.

A typical American household driving 13,000 miles a year on a 25-mile-per-gallon vehicle is paying somewhere between $400 and $700 more in annual fuel costs than they were last summer. That is real money out of a real wallet, every two weeks, before any of it touches a stock chart.

The portfolio side is messier. If you own an S&P 500 index fund, you are already long this story. Energy was the second-best-performing sector for much of 2026, and the war premium has fattened margins for U.S. shale producers, refiners, and the Permian-heavy names that anchor most institutional energy ETFs (exchange-traded funds).

A clean Hormuz reopening compresses those gains. A messy one, the scenario analysts and ship operators are pricing, keeps the trade alive.

The Federal Reserve sits in the middle of it. Every week the Strait stays choked is another week the Fed has to defend a hot inflation print without cutting rates, which keeps mortgage costs elevated and credit-card APRs (annual percentage rates) where they are.

What I keep coming back to is the gap between confidence and execution. Bessent told Fox News that high gas prices are a "temporary aberration" that will end in weeks or months, TRT World reported.

Two ships have moved. Brent is at $108. Tehran has not signaled anything that resembles agreement.

Watch the next 30 days of tanker counts, not press conferences.

If carriers start clearing the Strait at scale, energy stocks give back ground, and the Fed gets cover to cut by July. If they don't, your gas bill is your 2026 economic forecast.

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Lady Lindsey Graham of Backward SC Also Retreats From His Own War Plan

Lady Lindsey is like your poodle howling when you play music. Every time Trump farts, Lady Lindsey shrieks.

MAGA reptile Lindsey Graham, the Senator from South Carolina, is one of the biggest adorers of the senile demented Great Moron, Donald Dumb, whose disastrous Operation Epic Fury against Iran he supported blindly with raging warmongering. He even bragged about urging the imbecile president into it.

But he is backtracking now on that support, at the exact moment that Trump and Hegseth also chickened out, which suggests continued coordination between the trio of morons. 

As the war hardly achieved any of its mysterious and constantly changing objectives, Trump sought an exit. And Lady Lindsey suggested he seize Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub. On March 22, Lady Lindsey advised Donald Dumb to “Keep it up for a few more weeks. Take Kharg Island, where all of the resources they have to produce oil. Control that island. Let this regime die on a vine,” using the ugliest southern accent known to mankind.

Now, a few weeks later, Lady Lindsey has changed his/her mind. “I’m not a real advocate of taking Kharg Island,” he said on Fucks News. He explained himself: he wanted to scare the Iranians by lying about bombing Kharg. What deep and scintillating minds we have in MAGA leadership! Only the MAGA herd of morons can comprehend these far-reaching minds.

On the Strait of Hormuz, Lady Lindsey, who is enamored with the genocidal Zionists, said, “We’re close to victory. Victory to me would be regaining freedom of navigation of the Strait of Hormuz, degrading a little bit further, short big strong response, degrade their military capability a bit further, threaten Kharg Island with destruction, and pull out and try to get Israel and Saudi Arabia back to the peace table.” 

This last bit about Israel and Saudi is Lady Lindsey's gem of a thought: How to get the Zionist colony in Palestine out of its mistreable isolation? By forcing the fundamentalist Sunni Muslim Wahhabis to sign a "peace" of paper with the fundamentalist Ultra-Orthodox Zionists, as Palestine is been slaughtered by Israel. As if this would bring genuine peace. Egypt, Jordan and the petite Arab Gulf Girls (now hysterical because their shiny skyscrappers are being targeted), have signed. But where is the peace? Forcing the region to marry the rapist of Palestine will not bring peace. In backward religious places like Saudi and Israel, that is how they solve rapes: By marring the victim to her rapist.

Israel and America's Dream Come True: Civil War in Lebanon

Oftentimes, triggers for civil wars are over non-political disputes between different segments of a tense society. Here is one example. Israel and the US are pushing the Lebanese into a civil war by creating untenable conditions as a result of the ethnic cleansing Israel is perperating in the south of the country.

Millions of refugees have swarmed the rest of the country and are settling in schools, government buildings, residential buildings, churches, along large uninhabited avenues, and other public and semi-public spaces. This initially does not cause problems as people try to help as best as they can. But the outlook of this new war is a permanent displacement of refugees: In prior wars, they ultimately returned to their homes and villages, but it is unlikely to be the case this time around. And that "permanence" is driving the hosts who at first welcomed their guests to panic.

The Lebanese have been through this before with the influx of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in 1948 after the Zionist rape of Palestine. The terror the Zionists unleashed on Palestinian villages and towns - just like what they are doing now in the West Bank - drove terrorized villagers and town dwellers out of their country across the borders with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. In Lebanon, the Palestinian refugees initially settled in tent camps near the border. But as the months and years went by, they moved into urban areas in improvised but permanent camps wherever there were empty lots of land (usually belonging to religious orders or to the government). These camps literally became small towns crammed between neighborhoods.

When the war erupted in 1975 between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, these camps became fortified military bastions loaded with weapons and from which the Palestinians began harassing the local population with sniping, kidnapping, setting up checkpoints and frequently killing passers-by. The Lebanese people revolted in the face of a paralyzed government, created their own militias and besieged the camps and ultimately overran them and chased the Palestinians out of their neighborhoods.

The present is looking, strangely, like the past. This time the refugees, driven from the south by a very skillful Israeli ethnic cleansing, are mostly Shiite Muslims backers of Hezbollah, have found shelter all over the place. The government is again paralyzed between US pressure and fear of civil unrest. As time goes by, the local residents who initially welcomed their fellow citizens will begin to feel the weight of permanence. Just like the Palestinian refugees were in the custody of the heavily armed PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), the Shiite refugees from the south are in the hands of heavily armed Hezbollah. A dispute over anything - a school, a park, a parking space, an apartment in a buidling...- could become the match that lights up the fire.

The Israelis are terrified of putting soldiers on the ground, wary as they are of such a high-casualty scenario. They keep bombing every which way from the air, but this never really solves the problem. And so, both Israel and the US are pushing the Lebanese government into shoving its army (majority Shiite Muslim, mind you) into an impossible confrontation with Shiite Muslim Hezbollah. But the government is resisting, so far at least, because it doesn't want to, and also because it does not have the military capability to defeat Hezbollah. If such a confrontation were to occur, the army would immediately split along sectarian lines - all it takes is for Hezbollah to order the Shiite soldiers of the Lebanese army to jump ship and join its ranks.

This is exactly what happened in 1975 when the Lebanese Sunni Muslims were the seditious allies of the Palestinians against their own Lebanese government. Lieutenant Ahmad Al-Khatib, a Sunni Mulsim of the Lebanese army and operating on behalf of Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries allied with the PLO, deserted and created his own Arab Army of Lebanon. He called on Sunni soldiers to desert the regular army and join him, which they did and proceeded to attack regular army barracks across the country.

In addition, local residents abutting the Palestinian camps saw their lives upended by these camps now operating as military bases. It took one heavily armed Palestinian bus driving through a Christian neighborhood of Beirut, two hours after an assassination attempt against a Christian leader inaugurating a church in that neighborhood, and the war erupted in April 1975. I refuse to call that 1975 war a "civil" war because it was primarily betwen the Lebanese and the Palestinians, the latter supported financially and militarily by every other Sunni Arab country (Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, etc.) and also by an implicit western and American indifference that did not want to upset these oil-embargoing Arab states.

We are at a very similar inflexion point with the difference that the Sunnis in Lebanon and across the Middle East are US allies now, and togteher they oppose Iran and its Shiite militia Hezbollah. All that is needed is a match, and that match could be a dispute over a school just like the one below. Will the Lebanese learn from 1975? No one knows. I suspect not.
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Protests erupt in Lebanon after displaced Shia community refuses to leave private school grounds
DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD
Sun, May 3, 2026

Lebanese displaced by nearly two months of war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia continue to live in makeshift tents and shelters in the Biel open space near the shore, on April 27, 2026, in Beirut, Lebanon. (photo credit: Scott Peterson/Getty Images)
Displaced families in Lebanon have taken over a school in Beirut, leading to protests from teachers and parents.

Parents at the school claimed the displaced individuals forced their way into the school, some hinting that Hezbollah arranged to take the educational institute by force.

Teachers, parents, and staff held a sit-in protest at the Rafic Hariri Second High School in Beirut after displaced individuals temporarily housed there refused to relocate from the school's premises, Lebanese media reported on Thursday.

The school has been closed since March 2, and its premises have been used to house hundreds of Shia families relocated from southern Lebanon.

Around 1.1 million, 20% of Lebanon’s total population, was displaced when Hezbollah dragged the country back into war with Israel following the targeted assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to data published by UNICEF on Saturday.

Displaced families were reportedly received “by force and without the consent of the administration, with the support of armed elements who continue to guard the entrance to prevent the school administration from accessing it,” a source told L’Orient Today, without explicitly naming Hezbollah.

One parent commented on the school’s Facebook page, “We raise our voice to demand our fundamental right to education. We emphasize the need for immediate return to our school.

Lebanese displaced by nearly two months of war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia continue to live in makeshift tents and shelters in the Biel open space near the shore, on April 27, 2026, in Beirut, Lebanon. (credit: Scott Peterson/Getty Images)

"We also demand that the school be evacuated immediately from any occupation that prevents the normal resumption of the school year. Our children are not numbers, and their futures are not postponed. School is a right, education is a priority, and the dignity of students is not neglected.”

Another mother was recorded complaining, “What exactly happened? How did the school turn into a Husseiniya (a Shiite religious gathering place)? During Ramadan, there were religious lessons or mourning gatherings; I’m not sure where they brought in reciters.

"We rejected this, and thanks to the officials we contacted, it stopped. Now there is partitioning of classrooms, rooms inside the school are being rented out, and even the parking lot is being rented. We can no longer enter unless we get their permission to access our own school.”

Children forced to change schools

She complained that many parents had been forced to withdraw their children from the school and send them to alternative institutions.

“I don’t know how it turned into a shelter, and even a centralized one. They entered it under arms. Not with our consent, at 4 a.m., they broke down and smashed the school doors and stormed in, without permission or request, under threat of weapons. Now we no longer even know - is it a shelter, or some kind of headquarters?” she continued.

Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri denied that Hezbollah occupied the school by force, telling local outlets that “All reception centers were selected in coordination with the emergency committee under the Office of the Prime Minister.”

Adding to the resentment, the Rafic Harari Second High School has become a site of sectarian divisions, according to the Lebanese media outlets L’Orient Today and El Nashra. There was reportedly outrage when a hijab ceremony, celebrating the transition young girls make to wearing the head covering, included partisan flags and slogans.

“We have nothing against the displaced people or against religious duties, but holding this ceremony with elaborate decorations and partisan flags has nothing to do with displacement anymore, and has become a real provocation for the displaced students and their parents,” a mother told L’Orient-Le Jour on condition of anonymity.

While photos posted online showed no Hezbollah posters were present at the ceremony, the organizers flew the flag of the Hezbollah-linked Mahdi Scouts.

Iran created the Imam Al-Mahdi Scouts Association, a youth movement that aims to train youth to take part in the fight against Israel and to instill in them radical Shiite Islamic ideology, in 1985. Many of the youth involved in the scouts go on to join Hezbollah as suicide bombers, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

Nir Boms, a research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and at the International Center for Counterterrorism, told The Jerusalem Post that the unrest at the school is just the latest issue as Lebanon grapples with its identity.

Based on a confessional system, there is a “thin balance” in keeping the country unity, a balance that is being shaken by Hezbollah and its supporters taking space in territories uninterested in paying the price of a costly and unnecessary war, he explained.

The displaced supporters of Hezbollah are trying to push the narrative that being against the institutional takeovers is threatening Lebanon’s unity and is a sign of standing with Israel, he continued, adding that he had spoken to a number of Lebanese individuals of all religious sects recently who complained of provocations and escalating sectarian division.