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'Menace to the World': With Iran Talks Stalled, Trump Vows to Declare Strait of Hormuz a US Territory
"He absolutely needs to be impeached, removed, and locked up," said one progressive critic, calling the president "a completely unhinged lunatic."
Aug 14, 2026
In yet another remark that triggered alarm around the world, President Donald Trump said Friday that he planned to declare the Strait of Hormuz—which Iran has blockaded for much of the past five months over his and Israel's illegal war—a US territory.
Just two days after the latest inflation figures demonstrated, in the words of one expert, "Trump's catastrophic mismanagement of our economy," the president ignored the economic fallout from his war, which led Iran to restrict ship traffic through the strait, driving up fuel prices worldwide.
"We're bringing the prices way down," he told a Long Island crowd. Trump also said that "after we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon, I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States."
Some critics responded to clips of the comments on X by mocking Trump—an infamous liar. Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) quipped, "Awesome! And the Easter Bunny is real."
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, said that "this jingoism rings a bit hollow when most of the US bases near the strait have been essentially abandoned due to danger from Iranian missiles and drones."
Progressive political commentator Kyle Kulinski declared that "he absolutely needs to be impeached, removed, and locked up. He's a completely unhinged lunatic, and he's a sadistic violent menace to the world."
After high initial claims about lower prices, Trump admitted that gasoline has soared due to his war, but said: "For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a—a country, really it's the No. 1 state sponsor of terror in the world—we don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So, remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4, it's OK. I'll never apologize. I did the right thing."
Trump's threat over the strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman came just before a monthlong ceasefire between the US and Iran is set to expire on Monday. A senior White House official told Politico that the situation is "static."
"It doesn't matter how close or how far we are," said the official, who has heard no mention of a potential extension of the ceasefire. "What matters is if Iran wants to come to the table and agree to a deal. Right now, they haven't done that."
The Associated Press reported Friday that "the Trump administration appears to be reaching out to a broader swath of countries that might be able to help pressure Tehran," and Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, told the outlet that "everyone is just urging both sides to stop this reckless game of chicken."
In addition to launching an illegal war on Iran in February, and invading Venezuela in January to abduct its president, Trump has made threats against various other nations during his second term, including Canada, Cuba, Colombia, Greenland, and Mexico. He's also threatened to seize the Panama Canal and killed hundreds of people by blowing up boats allegedly smuggling drugs.
This article has been updated with additional comment from President Donald Trump and Public Citizen.
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Despite Growing Alarm, Trump Says Record USS Lincoln Deployment ‘Not Nearly Long Enough’
“Countdown until this is used in an attack ad.”
Aug 14, 2026
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wasn't concerned about reports of wretched conditions and possible suicide attempts by sailors aboard the USS Lincoln. He said their record-breaking deployment as part of his Iran War is "not nearly long enough."
Earlier this week, military publications detailed deteriorating mental health aboard the ship, where about 5,000 sailors and Marines have been deployed for more than 260 days and have gone roughly 200 days without returning to port.
Following earlier reports of food shortages, faulty plumbing, and grueling 12-16 hour workdays, the Military Times reported that multiple sailors have attempted to jump overboard.
The Navy has declined to say whether the incidents were suicide attempts and has said it has “not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship."
Last week, more than 200 spouses and other family members met with senior Navy leaders in San Diego to raise concerns about conditions aboard the carrier, including sailors' mental health and risks of suicide and self-harm, according to Stars and Stripes.
The Navy did not fully detail how it was responding to family members’ concerns, though it said the ship had counselors, chaplains, medical professionals, and other support services. Family members also said officials told them additional mental health personnel were being sent.
As Democrats pressed the Pentagon for answers and oversight into conditions on the Lincoln, Trump was asked about the complaints as he prepared to board Air Force One on Friday.
"The family members of US service members are concerned about the conditions on the USS Lincoln," a reporter said.
"No, they're not," Trump interjected.
He noted that the ship was in the process of leaving its current Middle East deployment to be replaced with "a very similar ship," referring to the USS George Washington.
"Has the deployment gone on too long?" the reporter asked.
"No, no, no," Trump responded. "Not nearly long enough."
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee immediately seized on the remark, portraying it as another instance of Trump displaying callous disregard for soldiers "abandoned in a pointless war."
Trump has previously faced criticism for downplaying the harms Americans face as a result of his war in Iran. For those at home, he's emphasized that he was not worried "even a little bit" about the war's economic costs and has said it's "not possible" to take care of funding for daycare, Medicare, and Medicaid because "we’re fighting wars."
He's also been accused of disrespecting those who suffered and died in combat by using a photo of himself attending a fallen soldier’s dignified transfer in a political fundraising email and by claiming that four slain soldiers had endorsed his rationale to attack Iran and that their loved ones had begged him to "finish the job."
The administration has also been accused of underreporting the casualty numbers from the war, leading to calls for investigation from Democrats.
With midterm elections now less than three months away, Iran continues to be the least popular major war in modern history, with polls consistently showing that only around a third of Americans support it.
Responding to Trump's remarks about soldiers suffering aboard the Lincoln, Brian Finucane, senior adviser for the International Crisis Group's US program, said, "Countdown until this is used in an attack ad."
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'Freezers Are Getting Empty': Food Banks Struggle to Meet Demand as Trump SNAP Cuts Wreak Havoc
"We are feverishly fundraising and talking to the board about the need to provide grants, but in reality, we are limited," said the executive director of the Central Illinois Food Bank.
Aug 14, 2026
Food banks across the US, from New Mexico to Oregon to Illinois, are seeing massive increases in demand as the unprecedented federal nutrition aid cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer take hold, stripping benefits from millions of Americans amid elevated grocery costs—a recipe for disaster.
"Our freezers are getting empty," Eddie Nelson, the manager of a food bank in Dallas, Oregon, told an Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter earlier this week. The outlet noted that the line for the food bank "stretches out the door and around the corner at the end of the month, when federal food stamp benefits dry up and families struggle to fill their pantries."
An estimated 4.5 million people, including roughly 1.5 million children, have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits since the Trump-GOP budget law took effect last year, enshrining around $200 billion in cuts—the largest in the program's history—as well as new work reporting requirements that are expected to put millions more at risk of losing aid.
The large-scale loss of benefits and expectations of even more hardship in the near future have heavily strained local food banks.
Pam Molitoris, executive director of the Central Illinois Food Bank, said during a panel discussion last month that his organization "cannot absorb" the damage from the federal nutrition cuts, noting that "we are one meal to every nine meals provided by SNAP."
"We are feverishly fundraising and talking to the board about the need to provide grants, but in reality, we are limited," said Molitoris.
Roadrunner Food Bank in Albuquerque, New Mexico said it has seen a massive increase in demand this year as the combination of aid cuts and a worsening cost-of-living crisis forces families to seek out charities for assistance. More than 18,000 people lost SNAP benefits in New Mexico between July 2025 and April 2026, according to a tracker maintained by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“You could look at it like SNAP is the first line of defense against food insecurity in our country; food banks are the last line of defense," Jason Riggs, Roadrunner's director of advocacy, said earlier this week. "So the idea is we need both."
Feeding America, a nonprofit network of hundreds of food banks, says the Trump-GOP cuts to SNAP equate to up to 9 billion meals lost per year—"more than the entire Feeding America network of food banks, meal programs, and church pantries provided last year."
In the face of growing evidence of the damage their cuts have inflicted on communities across the US, Republican lawmakers have shown no inclination to seriously mitigate the impacts—much less reverse the funding reductions. GOP senators are currently working to advance a farm bill that would only delay for one year the Republican budget law's potentially catastrophic shift of a significant portion of SNAP costs to states.
Earlier this month, the Republican farm legislation failed to advance out of committee due to Democratic opposition and the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
"While it is a step in the right direction to give states more time to implement the benefit cost-share, increasing the SNAP cost for states in exchange for a one year delay only increases the unprecedented burden on states. Children will suffer as a result," said George Kelemen, senior vice president of the No Kid Hungry campaign. "Already, 4.5 million people, including over a million kids, have lost access to SNAP over the past year."
"Those families are now missing out on the nutritious food SNAP provides," Kelemen added, "and sadly that number will only grow under this proposal."
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Pharma Giants Reap Record $300 Billion in Revenue Under Trump as Millions of Americans Ration Medications
"Yet again, Trump has betrayed the American people and put billionaires ahead of working families.”
Aug 14, 2026
The world's ten largest pharmaceutical giants reaped around $300 billion in combined global revenue during the first half of 2026 as millions of people in the US—the country with the highest drug prices in the world—stretched, skipped, or rationed doses to afford their medications, despite President Donald Trump's lofty pledges to slash costs.
An analysis released Thursday by the advocacy group Protect Our Care estimates that Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, AbbVie, Merck, Pfizer, and other pharma behemoths collectively reported $298 billion in revenue in the first half of the year—a $24 billion increase compared to 2025—and distributed $63 billion in benefits to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends.
"The numbers speak for themselves," said Vaishu Jawahar, director of policy programs at Protect Our Care. "While big drug companies make record-breaking sales, raking in billions more than they did last year, a growing number of Americans are struggling to afford their prescription drugs. Yet again, Trump has betrayed the American people and put billionaires ahead of working families.”
Throughout his second White House term, Trump has made mathematically impossible claims about his efforts to curb drug costs, asserting repeatedly that he has cut prices by upwards of 1,000%. Critics of the Trump administration's approach have noted that it has relied on voluntary and secretive deals with pharmaceutical companies, which have gone on to raise prices after meeting with the president and showering him with praise.
One high-profile administration initiative, TrumpRX, has been widely denounced as a scam that will do virtually nothing to lower drug costs for most Americans. The president has also worked to weaken the Medicare drug price negotiation program established during the Biden administration.
“Instead of lowering drug prices for seniors, Trump is holding backroom deals with big drug companies and handing them blockbuster giveaways," said Jawahar. "He has created loopholes for industry giants to evade price negotiations and jack up drug prices for seniors."
The advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs noted in a March report that during the first week of 2026, pharmaceutical companies "increased prices on 64 oncology drugs, with 73% of hikes exceeding inflation."
Sixty percent of US adults say they are struggling or worried about being able to afford their prescription medications, according to recent polling from the health policy research organization KFF. The group said that number marked the highest level since 2018.
Separate polling released in March by the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America found that tens of millions of people in the US "said they have made at least one trade-off with daily living expenses to afford healthcare," including skipping a meal, prolonging a current prescription, and cutting back on utilities.
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New Trump Guidance Could 'Result in the Disenfranchisement of Nursing Home Residents'
"Another day, another Trump policy to make voting harder. His new target? Nursing homes."
Aug 14, 2026
The Trump administration's far-reaching assault on voting rights has extended to nursing homes, a group of Democratic senators warned on Thursday, pointing to federal guidance recently issued by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The guidance, released in July, removes previous recommendations on how nursing home staff can assist residents in exercising their constitutional rights and warns facility employees against violating "federal or state voting laws." The guidance points to a highly dubious Texas case in which a social worker was charged with orchestrating an election fraud scheme, even though no improper votes were cast.
In a letter sent earlier this week to CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and 11 other Democrats argued that the agency's July guidance "may intimidate nursing home staff from helping residents exercise their constitutional right to vote and ultimately prevent nursing home residents from voting."
"The nation’s 1.2 million nursing home residents face unique problems in obtaining access to the voting booth," the lawmakers added, "and must not be denied their rights because they are disabled, elderly, lack transit, or face difficulties in obtaining a ballot or voting in person."
The senators emphasized that the new CMS memo breaks with guidance issued during President Donald Trump's first term in the White House. That guidance, issued in October 2020, states that "nursing homes should have a plan to ensure residents can exercise their right to vote, whether in person, by mail, absentee, or other authorized process."
Such language is entirely absent from the new guidance, which focuses heavily on preventing voter fraud—an obsession of Trump's, despite it being extremely rare in the US.
"CMS's release of this memo is just the latest in a series of actions the Trump administration has taken to restrict vote by mail and undermine the right to vote based on unfounded allegations of voter fraud tied to the president’s denial of prior valid election results," the Democratic senators wrote in their letter. "We are concerned that by highlighting examples of prior voter fraud investigations and threatening criminal penalties on nursing home staff—many of whom are legal immigrants who have already been targeted by Trump’s immigration policies—CMS’s July 2026 guidance may intimidate nursing home staff from helping residents with the voting process."
"And the removal of guidance on vote by mail procedures, combined with specific threats to investigate nursing home staff for assisting residents who are exercising their right to vote, may deter nursing homes from assisting residents with voting by mail," they added. "Ultimately, we are concerned that the changes to CMS’s guidance will result in the disenfranchisement of nursing home residents."
Another day, another Trump policy to make voting harder.
His new target? Nursing homes.
Dr. Oz issued a memo that seems designed to intimidate nursing home staff from helping residents vote.
I’m calling on Dr. Oz to withdraw this guidance and stop impeding the right to… https://t.co/Fg4LA4pH9p
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) August 13, 2026
The Houston Chronicle, in its coverage of the new CMS guidance, spotlights the Trump administration's decision to cite the Texas case, which involved social worker Kelly Brunner.
"When Kelly Brunner was tasked in 2020 with getting the State Supported Living Center in Mexia ready to vote, she was excited to assist the residents with intellectual and developmental disorders prepare for a big election. Instead, her work as the assistant voter registrar at the facility east of Waco spiraled into a nightmare," the outlet noted. "Brunner admitted making technical errors in the complicated registration system, which were all quickly caught; no resident cast an improper vote. Yet, pushed by Attorney General Ken Paxton—who at the time was promoting President Donald Trump’s false claims of a rigged presidential election—she was criminally charged with orchestrating one of the largest election fraud cases ever in Texas."
"Brunner spent $50,000 on lawyers, pleaded guilty to minor charges to put it behind her, lost her teacher’s license and nearly her social worker’s license," the Chronicle added. "Still, she thought the episode was finally over—until... [CMS] cited Brunner as the reason it needed to officially place employees of long-term care facilities on notice that they should be on the lookout for voter fraud in the upcoming midterm elections."
Richard Mollot, executive director of the New York-based Long Term Care Community Coalition, told the Chronicle that the Trump administration's heavy focus on preventing voter fraud "will have a chilling effect" on nursing home resident voting.
"The language is important,” said Mollot. “Most nursing homes will do as little as possible; if you’re not affirmatively telling them what to do, they won’t do it."
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Busting CEO Pay Curve in 2025, Musk Made Annual Salary of Average Tesla Worker Every 4.2 Seconds
The AFL-CIO report also points out that "a majority of S&P 500 CEOs made more in one day than the median US worker made in one year."
Aug 13, 2026
"Failed trillionaire" Elon Musk's $158 billion pay package at Tesla was so high that it "broke the CEO pay curve," as the nation's largest federation of labor unions underscored on Thursday in its annual report about chief executive pay.
"Including Musk, S&P 500 CEOs received $340.1 million on average in 2025, about a 1,700% increase over the previous year," explains the AFL-CIO's latest "Executive Paywatch" report. "Excluding Musk's Tesla pay package, the average CEO pay at S&P 500 companies increased 21%, from $18.9 million in 2024 to $22.8 million in 2025."
"The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio across S&P 500 Index companies was 5,387-to-1 in 2025. Musk's total compensation at Tesla was 2,522,203 times the median Tesla employee's pay in 2025," the publication continues. "Excluding Musk, the average pay ratio of S&P 500 companies increased from 285-to-1 in 2024 to 312-to-1 in 2025."
Musk became the world's first trillionaire in June, after another company for which he serves as CEO, SpaceX, went public—but as of Thursday afternoon, his net worth was estimated at around $880 billion, according to the Bloomberg and Forbes billionaire lists.
The AFL-CIO report spotlights the wealth of the world's richest man, noting that last year "Elon Musk received the median Tesla worker's pay every 4.23 seconds—less time than it takes to read this sentence," but it also stresses that he's far from alone in making exorbitant amounts of money compared with the wages of workers at the companies he leads.
"As shown in our latest Paywatch report, executive compensation has reached a new, shameful high," said AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond in a statement. The report points out that "a majority of S&P 500 CEOs made more in one day than the median US worker made in one year."
"Excessive CEO compensation contributes to growing economic inequality," the document says. "It creates the risk that CEOs will make short-term decisions to maximize their pay, even if it hurts the company's long-term health. And it's simply unfair to the workers whose labor generates the profit these CEOs capitalize on."
Our new Executive Paywatch report is here, and - spoiler alert - greedy CEOs are making even MORE.Top CEOs made 312x what workers make and took home an average of $22.8 MILLION per YEAR in total compensation.Read our full Paywatch report here: Aflcio.org/paywatch
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— AFL-CIO (@aflcio.org) August 13, 2026 at 12:35 PM
AFL-CIO found that the biggest ratio for executive v. worker pay was in manufacturing: Average executive compensation—which often includes not only a salary but also a bonus, stock, a retirement plan, and more—topped $696 million a year, while the typical worker made just over $93,000.
By sector, the second-highest was in arts, entertainment, and recreation, where executives were paid over $24 million while the median worker got just $24,850 annually. In educational services, average executive pay was around $50 million while workers were paid under $58,000.
The report emphasizes that like the CEOs, "2025 also was a very good year" for President Donald Trump, who returned to office in January and, according to recent federal disclosure forms, pocketed at least $2.2 billion last year—which, as the AFL-CIO found, was "a nearly 254% increase from what he received in 2024."
"Trump's 2025 receipts included $1.4 billion from the sale of $TRUMP memecoins and World Liberty Financial, his family's cryptocurrency business," the report says. "The median US worker would need to work 43,154 years to earn what Trump received in 2025."
16% of adults can’t pay all their bills in full.26% skipped medical care due to cost.23% of renters fell behind on rent in the last year.Meanwhile, CEO pay is exploding. Let’s call this what it is: greed.Learn more in our Executive Paywatch report: Aflcio.org/paywatch
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— AFL-CIO (@aflcio.org) August 13, 2026 at 2:15 PM
While gutting the federal government with help from Musk, Trump last year signed the GOP's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, cutting programs for working people to give billionaires more tax breaks—and Wednesday's release of the latest inflation figures highlighted how Americans continue to struggle with the cost of gasoline, groceries, healthcare, housing, and more.
Redmond said that "Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire. Donald Trump raked in over $2 billion since the 2024 election. Meanwhile, working Americans are struggling to feed their kids and pay their electric bills. But there's a better economy we can build for working people."
"That's why the labor movement will continue to fight for every worker to have a union contract that begins to level the playing field and ensures they take home the share of the profit they create," he added. "And it's why we are spending every day until November organizing and mobilizing 16 million union voters to elect pro-worker politicians who will work for us, not wealthy CEOs."
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'They'll Answer for It in Court': Despite Removal Order, Board Votes to Restore Trump's Name on Kennedy Center
"This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the court's ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed," said US Rep. Joyce Beatty.
Aug 13, 2026
President Donald Trump's name is going back on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, despite a court order that mandated its removal.
Trump-appointed members of the Kennedy Center board on Thursday voted to add an inscription underneath the building's main signage that reads, "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump." The board also voted to rename the site outside the building as "the President Donald J. Trump Plaza."
In December, the board voted to rename the building the "Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts," despite having no congressional authorization to do so.
Six months later, US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the board lacked power to rename the building without congressional approval and ordered the president's name taken down from the building.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex-officio Kennedy Center board member who filed a lawsuit to stop the building from being renamed, vowed to challenge the latest gambit to slap the president's name on a historic building.
"This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the court's ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed," Beatty said. "I will continued to fight for this treasured national monument."
Democracy Defenders Action co-founder Norm Eisen, who served as co-counsel in the previous lawsuit against the board, said that the Trump-appointed members defied the judge's ruling by putting Trump's name back on the building, and vowed that "they'll answer for it in court, again."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said the Kennedy Center board's latest actions made it imperative to cleanse the nation's capital of Trump's name in the next Democratic administration.
"My bright lines for who I will endorse for president in 2028," wrote Lieu in a social media post. "1. Candidate must put in writing that all references to Trump’s name will be removed from the Kennedy Center and federal buildings. 2. Must do this at a public ceremony with fireworks."
CNN senior political reporter Aaron Blake questioned the political wisdom of forcing Trump's name back on the Kennedy Center given his current low approval ratings.
"Just a reminder that between 7 in 10 and 8 in 10 Americans think Trump is neglecting important issues like affordability, per recent polls," wrote Blake. "And apparently nobody will convince him that stuff like this isn’t helping."
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Warren Leads Demand for Answers on Trump's 'Unprecedented' Volume of Stock Trades
"Your stock trading in 2025—reportedly more than 14,000 stock trades worth up to $1.06 billion—was more than all 535 members of Congress last year combined."
Aug 13, 2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, pressed President Donald Trump on Thursday for information on the "unprecedented" volume of stock trades he or his representatives executed during just the first three months of 2026.
In a letter to the president, Warren (D-Mass.) and Garcia (D-Calif.) noted that Trump reported more than 3,500 stock trades in the first quarter of the year, "made by you or someone on your behalf." The lawmakers pointed to one finance industry executive who expressed astonishment at the president's trades, saying, "In the 40-plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards."
Trump's recent stock transactions have been publicly listed in disclosure reports released in May and June by the US Office of Government Ethics. The disclosures show that Trump reported more than 14,000 trades worth over $1 billion during his first year back in the White House.
"The sheer volume of this trading activity, and the timing of a number of transactions, raise questions about whether you are using your knowledge of government activities, your official authority, or the vast megaphone provided by the presidency to make investments or move markets to your personal benefit—and about whether you have been making decisions that boost your portfolio at the expense of taxpayers, the economy, and national security," Warren and Garcia wrote.
The lawmakers listed dozens of examples of stock trades that Trump executed prior to a "favorable official government announcement" or "favorable presidential statements."
"On March 2, 2026, you purchased up to $5 million of Apple stock," the Democrats wrote in their letter. "Just over one week later, on March 11, you purchased up to $500,000 of Apple stock. That same day, you singled out and promoted Apple, calling it a 'great company' and highlighting the company’s $650 billion investments in new plants across the country."
Warren and Garcia demanded that Trump answer a detailed list of questions pertaining to his suspiciously timed stock trades, including whether he personally directed them and the extend of his knowledge of the transactions.
"We all support a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks in order to avoid conflicts of interest—or even the appearance of conflicts," the lawmakers wrote to Trump. "Your stock trading in 2025—reportedly more than 14,000 stock trades worth up to $1.06 billion—was more than all 535 members of Congress last year combined. Moreover, the value of virtually every one of the stocks you traded can be directly affected by your official actions and public statements."
Donald Trump reported more than 14,000 stock trades worth up to $1.06 BILLION in his first year back in office.
The President should be working for YOU—not his stock portfolio.
It’s time to BAN Congress, the Vice President, and the President from owning stocks. Period. https://t.co/SSCx7WYJ2M
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) August 13, 2026
Last week, the Groundwork Collaborative released a report warning that Trump's "blatant corruption is putting American retirement savings at risk."
"Markets only work when everyone plays by the same rules. Right now, the most consequential individual market participant in the country is also the person writing (and ignoring) the rules," the report noted. "President Trump has built a personal trading strategy around having the one advantage ordinary investors can never obtain: knowing what he’ll do next."
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US, Turkish Officials Suspect 'Plot' That Led to Trump Plane Switch Was Israeli Ruse
A former top US intelligence official said the reliance on apparently faulty Israeli intelligence was "a great example of how we got into the war with Iran."
Aug 13, 2026
US and Turkish officials are reportedly suspicious that the supposed Iranian assassination plot that led President Donald Trump to make an elaborate escape from Ankara using a catering truck last month may have been a fabrication by Israeli intelligence.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Trump had to be secreted onto a nondescript plane to leave a NATO summit on July 8 after Israel passed an intelligence report to the CIA warning that Iran had planned to launch a missile at Air Force One. But new reporting indicates that neither Turkish nor American officials found the evidence all that compelling.
The alleged threat came at a highly volatile time, as the "memorandum of understanding" between the US and Iran to end nearly five months of war was on the verge of collapse, in part thanks to Israel's attempts to undermine it.
As Middle East Eye reported on Tuesday, Turkish officials suggested that the intelligence report was “probably a ruse by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government to portray itself as protecting Trump, derail negotiations with Iran, and undermine Trump’s apparently close relationship with [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan].”
Turkey tightened security after US officials informed it of the plot. But after examining the details of the scheme—which purportedly involved using shoulder-fired missiles to attack Trump’s plane within a kilometer of the runway—they said they found the intelligence report highly implausible.
“Of course, we took the report very seriously and tried to assist our American counterparts as much as possible,” one person familiar with the matter said. “Yet it was very clear to us that there was no way this report was true.”
It turns out that it wasn't just Turkish officials who felt this way. The Washington Post on Wednesday cited a senior US official who said that the CIA analysts who'd received the report from Israel "did not view the intelligence as compelling and conveyed that skepticism to Trump administration officials."
Another official said the report was “Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence.” The Secret Service acted on the report anyway out of an abundance of caution.
Nevertheless, the Post indicated that there was a striking amount of doubt among US intelligence officials about the motives of one of the country's top allies, whom they suggest passed the information along to nudge Washington toward Israel's own foreign policy objectives:
Some US intelligence officials saw Israel’s sharing of the warning about threats to Trump’s life as designed less to inform than to influence the president’s decision-making and US policy in the region, a current and a former US official said. Israel views Iran as by far its most urgent near-term threat.
But it views Turkey as a medium- to long-term threat and is anxious about warming ties between Washington and Ankara, bolstered by the personal rapport between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current official said.
It “fit a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision-making as to inform it,” the former official familiar with the matter said.
Iranian leaders have denied any attempt to assassinate Trump. As they try to push him to admit defeat in the war the US and Israel started in February and accept a series of harsh surrender terms, they are having a laugh at his reaction to what they say was a fabricated plot.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, portrayed it as part of a larger pattern of the US having been misled by faulty Israeli intelligence.
Netanyahu was notably one of the driving forces behind Trump’s mistaken belief that an operation to topple the Iranian government would be quick and painless.
"The US has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures," Araghchi wrote Thursday on social media. "Case in point: The war on Iran. Now, an even bigger miscalculation on the Strait of Hormuz."
"Worse than fake news is fake intelligence," he said. "Be careful."
Joe Kent, the former director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, who resigned in March after accusing Trump of being manipulated into starting the war by false reports that Iran posed an imminent threat, said that “the story of Trump secretly switching airplanes is actually a great example of how we got into the war with Iran... ‘Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence’ by our own intelligence agencies.”
"It’s smart to take all threats seriously," Kent said. "But if you’re basing a decision about going to war on information from a liaison intel service or an 'ally,' it’s important to remember they are most certainly providing that information to influence us as well as inform us."
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Aging Under the Planet-Destroyer in-Chief
Honestly, once upon a time, no one could have made all this up: the greatest power on Earth in the midst of the most stunningly dangerous “war” of all time, our war on the planet itself.
Aug 13, 2026
Talk about unjust, unfair, or just plain not right: Here I am at 82 years old with children, grandchildren, and old (and I mean old!) friends, and (like me) our country and our world seem to be all too distinctly on the downhill slope. I could, of course, have added aided by my president, Donald J. Trump, and (except for the “my”) that would be anything but inaccurate. And yet, the very fact that a near majority of Americans (46.4% in 2016 and 49.8% in 2024) elected him president of the United States should tell you that the process was already well underway; otherwise, such a... you chose the word... parody or atrocity (or both) of American politics would never have been possible.
In short, after all these years—16 as an editor at Pantheon Books, a decade in a freelance editing (and writing) life, and almost a quarter of a century running and writing for TomDispatch.com, the website I created (and that’s now being run by the wonderful Nick Turse)—somehow, I still can’t believe (not truly) the world I find myself in. Phew! That was an exhausting sentence! (And no surprise there, since we’re on a distinctly exhausting planet.)
If there were a god (which, unfortunately, I doubt there is), he (she, it, they?) would surely be no less unable to believe the world we now find ourselves in. Of course, from the Stone Age on, humanity has always represented a difficult proposition. Our history is, in many ways, a running story of conflicts and wars, one seemingly grimmer than the next—a history that has anything but ended in our moment.
You would think, of course, that, with our very planet imperiled by climate change, which is slowly heating it to the boiling point, we might at least have taken a passing break from fighting each other. That would seem like an especially obvious thing to do, since war pours into the atmosphere in a stunning fashion the fossil fuels that are heating this planet so destructively. But no such luck, of course.
And imagine that, at a moment in 2025 when, from Europe to the United States, we increasingly had a planet that was all too literally in flames, whether from our wars with each other or our ongoing climate war on the planet itself, Americans sent a distinct flamethrower into the White House for a second time.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Even in Europe, a continent warming up approximately twice as fast as the rest of the planet, where only recently more than 300,000 people in France and Spain were displaced by heat and wildfires of a startling kind, there’s still an ongoing major war between Russia and Ukraine. And thanks at least in part to it, at a time when humanity seems incapable of putting much effort into fighting climate change, a whole new form of fighting each other (by drone) has been developed in a distinctly unnerving fashion. And of course, Europe is hardly alone, since wars continue to be fought across parts of the Middle East (thanks significantly to “my” president and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu), and in Somalia and Sudan in Africa. In short, despite everything we humans might theoretically learn from our past, nothing truly seems to get in the way of more of the same.
Only recently, of course, “my” president launched a war more or less out of the blue against Iran. Yes, Iran, a country that—my best guess—most Americans couldn’t even locate on a map of the world! And talk about learning nothing from the past, how totally mad that my country—theoretically still the greatest power on planet Earth—should start yet another war thousands and thousands of miles away, given that it hasn’t actually emerged victorious from a single one of the wars it’s fought since World War II. And that’s true, despite the fact that it continues to fund its military to the tune of about a trillion dollars annually, year after endless year. And note that “my” president, who only recently launched that seemingly random war on Iran, also appears all too determined to raise the Pentagon budget from a mere (just joking, of course) trillion dollars yearly to one and a half trillion dollars.
A Planet Heading for the Boiling Point?
And yes, I’m aware that, almost 25 years after I first began writing pieces like this, I’m distinctly repeating myself, which is hardly unreasonable given the repetitiveness of both my country and humanity when it comes to such crucial matters. Although, wait a second, I may not be giving Americans the credit they deserve! After all, there was nothing repetitious about Donald Trump (not until his second term in office anyway)! Historically speaking, he’s come about as close as anyone could to being a one-of-a-kind American president and something of a unique global leader as well. He’s certainly a distinctive reminder that, from time to time, we humans can indeed truly change the script (however dismally).
I mean, the country that once elected George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy (as well, of course, as Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, and Ronald Reagan) has certainly flipped the script entirely with Donald Trump in the White House. We’re talking, after all, about the man who is now building not an Arc de Triomphe or even an Arc de Trump in Washington, DC, but an Arc de Défaite (yes, that’s defeat in French!)—the largest on Earth. But perhaps that shouldn’t be considered even faintly strange, given what the American military has been unable to do—win a war—across this planet since World War II.
In the future, all of us could become a new version of migrants with nowhere to go (unless Elon Musk truly does settle Mars) on a planet heading for the boiling point.
And imagine that, at a moment in 2025 when, from Europe to the United States, we increasingly had a planet that was all too literally in flames, whether from our wars with each other or our ongoing climate war on the planet itself, Americans sent a distinct flamethrower into the White House for a second time. Who would have believed it once upon a time? (Of course, who would then have believed that humanity could potentially destroy this planet as a habitable place for life?)
Honestly, once upon a time, no one could have made all this up: the greatest power on Earth (oh, wait, that may now be China!) in the midst of the most stunningly dangerous “war” of all time, our war on the planet itself (all too mildly and pleasantly labelled climate change, rather than climate catastrophe, climate explosion, or climate hell) and led by—yes!—that living climate catastrophe Donald J. Trump, distinctly the madman-in-chief of a country in decline on a planet that itself is beginning to experience the kind of decline that would once have been unimaginable.
Whew, that was one long sentence! And imagine that, in the years to come, barring a surprise, we humans—incapable of stopping our wars and so much else—could all too literally heat this planet to the boiling point, leaving us all in the situation that hundreds of thousands of French and Spanish people recently experienced. In the future, all of us could become a new version of migrants with nowhere to go (unless Elon Musk truly does settle Mars) on a planet heading for the boiling point.
And in that context, imagine what our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will think about the fact that nearly 50% of American voters (twice!) elected Donald J. Trump, the planet-destroyer-in-chief, as president of the United States.
Excuse me, I’m starting to sweat...
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