‘I’m not in a hurry’: Trump bats down concerns of Iran war affecting midterms

‘Elections take care of themselves’, states US president when questioned if ongoing Iran war could cost Republicans control of Congress What to know about Trump’s new tariffs on more than 80 countries Donald Trump batted down concerns that the ongoing Iran war – which has seen 13 days of consecutive strikes – could cost Republicans control of Congress in the upcoming midterms.“Despite what everybody says about the election I’m not in a hurry,”Trump informed reporters at the White House.“We have to do it right. Elections take care of themselves.”Donald Trump switched aircraft before departing Turkey earlier this month after US officials determined there was a credible threat from Iranian proxy forces targeting him and Air Force One, according to a new report from the New York Times. The threat surfaced while the US president was attending the Nato summit. He had landed in Ankara onboard the new Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, an aircraft that Trump acknowledged does not have the same advanced defensive systems as the older Air Force One. According to the anonymous sources who spoke to the Times, after US officials detected the threat, the Secret Service recommended that Trump change aircraft before leaving the country. He later unveiled he would depart on the older Air Force One instead. The newly reported details about the threat help explain why the White House quickly decided to swap aircraft. They also highlight ongoing security concerns surrounding the donated jet, which Trump had pushed to have ready for use as soon as possible. According to the report, US officials did not believe the Iranian proxy forces were specifically targeting the new Boeing 747-8. Instead, the intelligence indicated the threat was directed at Trump himself and whichever aircraft he was traveling on. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Donald Trump repeated his claim that Israel would not exist today had he fell short of the 2004 presidential election to Kamala Harris. Questioned about his comment on Thursday that he was“Considering a massive attack”on Iran, Trump renewed his threat and stated:“If I thought they were anywhere near getting a nuclear weapon- if I wasn’t elected, Israel would, in my opinion, not be around any more. They would have been hit by a nuclear weapon”. The president went to on to claim, as he has previously, that“Barack Hussein Obama’s nuclear deal”with Iran,“Was a road to a nuclear weapon”. That claim is contradicted by the preamble to the 2015 agreement, which stated,“Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons”, and by the mechanism spelled out in the deal for rigorous international inspections Iran agreed to as a condition of the agreement. Trump then asserted that only his order to bomb nuclear sites in Iran in 2025 had prevented that nation from building nuclear weapons and using them to destroy Israel.“If that didn’t happen, they would have a nuclear weapon and there would be no Israel,”Trump stated.“If they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used that. There might not be a Middle East as we know it today.”Trump’s claim that Iran was about to build nuclear weapons is contradicted by the 2025 US intelligence assessment presented to Congress by his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, before the strikes he ordered, which clearly stated that the collective assessment of 18 US intelligence agencies was“That Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”Trump’s claim that Iran would have used nuclear weapons to destroy Israel also clashes with the logic of deterrence, specifically the doctrine known as mutually assured destruction, since Iran is aware that Israel already has nuclear weapons it could use to destroy Iran. The fact that Israel’s Jewish population is intertwined with a Palestinian population of similar size across a very small geographical area also makes it hard to see how the Jewish state could be destroyed in a nuclear attack that did not also kill vast numbers of Palestinians, and lay waste to Islam’s third holiest site, Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque. Still, Trump’s comments do echo asserts his partner in the war on Iran, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has made for decades, and repeated in last month at a policy summit in Jerusalem.“We have prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us, and today they would have had a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb to do so,”Netanyahu stated.“We removed an existential danger. And had we not acted … Iran would have had atomic bombs. And let me tell you something, they would have used them.”Questioned by a Fox News correspondent in the Oval Office on Friday where he stands on the question of whether LeBron James or Michael Jordan is the greatest ever basketball player, Donald Trump chose to answer an entirely different question: which NBA great likes him better?“Well, Michael Jordan’s a gut that’s a friend of mine,”Trump kicked off, turning the subject to himself.“I play golf with him; he’s a really good guy. And I think LeBron is- maybe he’s a racist. But maybe he doesn’t like Trump, I don’t know,”the president continued, clearly still irked by LeBron James having called him a“Bum”nine years ago, in a social media post after Trump cancelled a White House visit by that year’s NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors, because their star guard, Steph Curry, stated he would not go.“Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!”James posted at the time.“I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way,”Trump stated. Questioned at the time why he did not want to go to the Trump White House, Curry stated the message was:“That we don’t stand for basically what our president has- the things that he’s said and the things that he hasn’t said at the right times, that we won’t stand for it.”“By acting and not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country, what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye toward,”he added. Donald Trump batted down concerns that the ongoing Iran war – which has seen 13 days of consecutive strikes – could cost Republicans control of Congress in the upcoming midterms.“Despite what everybody says about the election I’m not in a hurry,”Trump informed reporters at the White House.“We have to do it right. Elections take care of themselves.”In response to the Trump’s vow to inflict“Major military punishment”for Tehran, the president stated that the White House continues to speak with Iran.“I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by,”Trump stated.“We can take that to a much higher level if we want to. You know, we’re prepared to do that, as you know. We’re locked and loaded … we’ll see what comes of it.”Notably, Trump declined to answer when New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh questioned whether threats to bomb bridges and other civilian infrastructure in Iran would amount to war crimes. At the White House today, Donald Trump unveiled that the US now has three nuclear reactors which have reached“Criticality”–the state where the reactor’s chain reaction sustains itself without additional input. Later, when questioned about the new condition he placed on the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal that requires the kingdom to join the Abraham Accords, the president stated“It’s a two-way street, and we think it’s very important for the future of the Middle East”. Two US small businesses have sued the Trump administration over its latest round of tariffs, affecting more than 80 countries and aimed at targeting countries that engage in forced labor. According to the lawsuit filed in the US court of international trade by Liberty Justice Center – the same organization that challenged Trump’s tariffs that the top court struck down – the plaintiffs argue that Trump’s latest round of duties require more ‌detailed ⁠country-specific findings about“Forced labor”to be legally justified. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with“Substantial”tariffs after Brussels imposed a series of steep fines on US tech companies. In a post on his Truth Social, the president wrote:“The United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!”It comes days after Google was fined €890m ($1bn) by the EU after its search and app store services were found to have breached online competition laws. Trump stated that in recent meetings with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, both leaders assured the US president separately that they would not sell weapons to Iran. The president added:“Two major countries that people speak of often in terms of Iran are, in my opinion, not participating. If they did, it would be very bad for them – certainly not in their best interests.”Later today, Trump ⁠will address the White House Correspondents’ Association at a rescheduled dinner later today, nearly three months after a shooting at the Washington Hilton hotel interrupted the event. The replanned dinner on Friday will only have around 700 guests, compared to the roughly 2,600 that attended in April, and will have enhanced security according to the Secret Service. More here. On Saturday, Maine Democrats will hold a special convention to select a nominee to replace Graham Platner for the US Senate race in November. Troy Jackson – a logger, longtime legislator and former president of the Maine senate – is now poised to clinch the nomination. Last weekend, all of Jackson’s serious challengers in the breakneck race to find a nominee dropped out, clearing a swift and unobstructed path for him. Two US small businesses have sued the Trump administration over its latest round of tariffs, affecting more than 80 countries and aimed at targeting countries that engage in forced labor. These, in effect, replace the blanket 10% tariff that Trump imposed in February, right after the supreme court declared many of his earlier tariffs were illegal. However, according to the lawsuit filed in the US court of international trade by Liberty Justice Center – the same organization that challenged Trump’s tariffs that the top court struck down –the plaintiffs argue that Trump’s latest round of duties require more ‌detailed ⁠country-specific findings about“Forced labor”to be legally justified. The businesses pursuing the case are Burlap and Barrell, a spice importer based in New York, and Collective Horology, a watchmaker based in California. The complaint argues that Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which the administration has used to implement the tariffs, is“Arbitrary and capricious”and questions the court to order the US trade representative to“Set aside”and block the levies under the statute. Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with“Substantial”tariffs after Brussels imposed a series of steep fines on US tech giants. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president wrote:“The United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!”It comes days after Google was fined €890m ($1bn) by the EU after its search and app store services were found to have breached online competition laws. The US will“Immediately”launch an investigation“Into the practice of ‘ROBBING’ American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer”, Trump stated.“The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about.”Donald Trump complained that the US was“Disinvited”to today’s bridge opening in Canada, adding that his administration has“Changed the terms of the deal”so that the US receives half of all profits from it due to his tariffs. Canada on Friday marked the completion of a new bridge to the US over the Detroit River, a multibillion-dollar, multiyear project that will serve as a critical path for trade and casual travel between the countries.“Canada disinvited the United States of America to the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, which is fine, considering they are paying substantial TARIFFS to the United States, but the original Deal on the Bridge, which was terribly negotiated by a previous Administration, no longer stands,”Trump wrote on Truth Social.“We changed the terms of the Deal so that the United States of America now gets 50% of the Profit.”The event was originally intended to be a celebration with officials from both countries, but Canada retracted the invite after Trump unveiled the 50% tariffs on Canadian goods. Donald Trump will host executives from several advanced nuclear reactor companies at the White House on Friday to celebrate an industry milestone, according to Bloomberg. The chief executive officers of privately held firms Antares Nuclear Inc., Deployable Energy, Aalo Atomics, and Valar Atomics Inc. Will join Trump in the Oval Office following the successful startup of their experimental reactors. A White House official informed Bloomberg that the companies’ test reactors reached“Criticality”– the pivotal stage where a nuclear fission chain reaction becomes self-sustaining and drops steady energy. According to administration officials, these projects represent the first privately funded, non-light-water advanced reactors to achieve criticality in the US in over 40 years. Two dozen states are suing the White House for politicizing Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) disaster aid. A group of 25 Democratic attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta are taking the Trump administration to court for imposing“Unlawful”conditions on federal grants for disaster preparedness and response. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Fema have been placing stipulations on federal grants that amount to a“Campaign of coercion”designed to force states to adopt the White House’s preferred voting and immigration policies, states the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Thursday. Those requirements, which have been imposed on more than $740m in combined funding for disaster preparedness and counter-terrorism, include mandating states employ a federal system to verify the citizenship of all voters and conduct post-election audits. A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest out of the Middle East on our dedicated live blog. This includes the latest news that Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office. As my colleague Lucy Campbell notes, since Trump’s return to the White House last year, the two have already met six times, but this will be the first such meeting in five months. At the last one in February, Netanyahu made the case for the joint offensive against Iran that Trump rolled out with him weeks later. Donald Trump stated that in recent meetings with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, both leaders assured the US president separately that they would not sell weapons to Iran.“Considering our relationship, I take him at his word,”Trump stated of the Chinese leader. Meanwhile, the US president stated that the Kremlin made the same guarantees, despite the ongoing war in Ukraine. Putin understands that the US does not sell weapons to Ukraine,“But to Nato countries”, Trump stated in a post on Truth Social on Friday.“They pay full price, and how those weapons are distributed, I have no idea.”The president added:“Two major countries that people speak of often in terms of Iran are, in my opinion, not participating. If they did, it would be very bad for them – certainly not in their best interests.”On Saturday, Maine Democrats will hold a special convention to select a nominee to replace Graham Platner for the US Senate race in November. Troy Jackson – a logger, longtime legislator and former president of the Maine senate – is now poised to clinch the nomination. When Platner dropped out of the race earlier this month, following sexual assault allegations, it set off a frantic scramble inside the Maine Democratic party. Several contenders filed paperwork to be considered at a 25 July special convention of 601 delegates tasked with selecting a new nominee. But last weekend, all of Jackson’s serious challengers dropped out one after another, clearing a swift and unobstructed path for him. I’ll be in Bangor for the convention and bring you the latest from the glamorous Cross Insurance Center where the delegates will gather! Morris Katz, the former adviser to Graham Platner, has stated that“Knowing what we know now”, many of the ex-nominee’s controversies throughout the year“Should have been enough”to end his campaign for the US Senate in Maine. His comments are part of an interview with the New York Time, his first major-sitdown since Platner’s campaign imploded earlier this month. Katz, as well as two other consultants who assisted cherrypick Platner as the insurgent Democratic candidate, were left defeated when Platner dropped out of the race two weeks ago, after a former partner accused him of rape. Questions also circled around how thoroughly vetted the oysterman and marine veteran with no political experience was.“The conversation around the vetting – there is no standard vetting process that would have found the credible allegation that ended the campaign. Eric Swalwell served on the House Intelligence Committee for about a decade and then saw similar allegations end his campaign,”Katz stated in an interview with the New York Times.“That being said, in hindsight, knowing what we know now, the Reddit posts alone probably should have been enough – or should have been enough. The tattoo should have been enough. The initial New York Times story on troubling behavior should have been enough,”the media strategist stated, referring to the litany of controversies that plagued Platner’s run ahead of Politico story which alleged that Platner forced a woman he dated to have sex nearly five years ago, despite repeated objections.