Trump Picks Worst Time Imaginable to Bomb Iran

The U.S. bombed several Iranian targets Monday, breaking its own ceasefire in the process.

American forces destroyed Iranian boats and missile launch sites, according to U.S. Central Command. The boats were reportedly attempting to lay more mines along the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman.

But the timing of the attack could not have been worse, as Iranian officials had arrived in Qatar just hours earlier for talks to end the war.

Iranian state media confirmed some of the attacks hit Bandar Abbas, an Iranian port city that is home to the country’s key naval and air bases. State media reported that explosions occurred in other cities, as well.

CENTCOM characterized the strikes in southern Iran as defensive, saying they were intended “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.”

“Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing cease-fire,” CENTCOM spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins said in a statement. Hawkins declined to elaborate on which ships were hit, where the targets were located, or where the other U.S. attacks took place.

In a lengthy Truth Social post Monday morning, hours before the strikes, Trump declared that the U.S. and Iran would either broker a “great deal for all or, no deal at all.”

“Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before,” the president warned.

In another post, Trump said that his deal would be “the exact opposite” of the Iran deal brokered by former President Barack Obama, although he added that “nobody has seen it, or knows what it is.”

Trump also noted that any potential deal to end the Iran war should come with a stipulation requiring Tehran to sign the Abraham Accords, normalizing diplomatic, economic, and security with Israel. Trump shared that he had spoken with the leaders of several Middle Eastern countries on Saturday, and opined that “it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum,” sign the Abraham Accords “simultaneously.”

“Those Countries discussed are Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates (already a Member!), Qatar, Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain (already a Member!),” Trump wrote.

Tehran has said there will be no “retreat” in its fight against the United States. Trump’s first-term national security adviser John Bolton told CNN Monday that Iran had effectively played the White House by delaying the peace process.

“I don’t think the president understands the fanaticism of what’s left of the regime and the people in power. He is somebody who has spent his whole life making deals with people. He thinks everybody wants to make a deal on just about anything. That’s not what these people are into,” Bolton said.

“They can see that Trump is so palpably desperate to make a deal that he can declare to be a victory and that lowers prices of gasoline—and they’re playing him on that,” Bolton continued. “They’re stretching him out, they’re buying time. All of that works out in their advantage.”

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry—who for some reason is serving as President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Greenland—admitted Friday that the administration wants to take over the Arctic island for the oil.

Landry’s comments came after he traveled to Greenland uninvited last week, while the U.S. pressures Denmark to allow it to increase its military presence in the territory Trump has already essentially threatened to annex.

“Greenland needs the deal.… Greenland could be exporting two million barrels of oil a day right now,” Landry said on Fox News. “Think about what that could mean. Think about what kind of pressure that would relieve in the Strait of Hormuz. Think about what kind of leverage that would give the Western hemisphere and America.… We could have those barrels on production within 10 months or so.”

Landry also went on to mention rare earth minerals and the other various natural resources in Greenland.

“Ah yes. Oil. It’s always about oil and money,” Missouri congressional candidate Fred Wellman wrote on X. “Remember how it was for our ‘national security?’ No, it was for corporations to exploit the natural resources.”

Occupy Democrats also chimed in: “But Trump also said that because of Venezuela, we have more oil than we know what to do with.… So the Strait didn’t matter. NOW, we need Greenlands oil to offset the problems from Iran and Hormuz? What happened to more oil than anyone on earth?”

It isn’t hard to connect the dots here. Trump’s monthslong Greenland obsession has only been exacerbated by the war he started with Iran, which led oil prices to skyrocket after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Now Trump is looking to Greenland—and its oil and natural resources—as a way out of his own mess.

Tulsi Gabbard is resigning from her position as director of national intelligence.

Gabbard notified the president of her forthcoming departure during a Cabinet meeting at the Oval Office on Friday. Her last day is expected to be June 30.

She is reportedly departing Trump’s Cabinet to assist her husband, Abraham Williams, as he battles cancer, Fox News Digital reported.

“Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026,” Gabbard wrote in her resignation letter, obtained first by Fox. “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”

Gabbard said that her husband “faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months.”

“At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle,” she wrote.

Gabbard and her husband first met in Hawaii while he volunteered for her 2012 Democratic congressional campaign. They have been married for 11 years.

“His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge,” she continued. “I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position.”

It is not immediately clear who will replace Gabbard.

Her exit has curious timing. Despite being appointed to run America’s national intelligence operation, Gabbard has spent the last several months largely sidelined from the Trump administration’s national security operations. She was noticeably absent during decisions surrounding the White House’s attack on Venezuela, as well as the ongoing war with Iran.

Gabbard’s opinion on such matters frequently differed from Trump’s talking points: She has argued that the U.S. had different objectives in the war from Israel’s, and claimed that Tehran had not actually attempted to rebuild its nuclear program after the U.S. military attacked three of its key nuclear sites last June. Gabbard blatantly irritated Trump earlier this year when she opted to shield a former deputy who openly disagreed with the war.

Regardless of the broad purview of her office, Gabbard had recently been relegated to pursuing claims of 2020 election fraud. In January, Gabbard was caught on camera overseeing FBI agents as they packed up the Fulton County, Georgia, election office and walked out with ballots from the 2020 presidential election, despite the fact that she is prohibited from taking part in domestic law enforcement operations.

Gabbard told Democratic lawmakers in February that Donald Trump himself had asked her to be there—but he did not stick by her side. Instead, Trump blamed Gabbard’s participation on ex–Attorney General Pam Bondi. Now both women are gone from his administration.

Four people have exited Trump’s Cabinet since he returned to office last year—all of them women. They include Gabbard, Bondi, former DHS chief Kristi Noem, and former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

This story has been updated.

Representative Tom Kean Jr. has claimed he’s too sick to do his job in Congress—but he has apparently been perfectly fine traveling, approving staff expenditures, and trading stocks.

The New Jersey Republican has been missing in action since March 5, skipped 88 House votes so far, and hasn’t been seen in Washington for more than 75 days. Yet he has also taken Amtrak and used several rideshare apps around San Francisco, according to pre-primary reports that Kean filed with the Federal Election Commission.

All the trips occurred in mid-April—several weeks into Kean’s unexplained disappearance.

Kean’s staff have also been traversing the country with their boss’s express approval. His chief of staff, Dan Scharfenberger, has obtained Kean’s signature twice since early March for trips funded by special interest groups. They include a jaunt to Las Vegas, paid for by the Republican Main Street Partnership, and a trip to Middleburg, Virginia, for a “spring issues conference” sponsored by the bipartisan policy organization Center Forward, NOTUS reported Friday.

The 57-year-old has also continued trading stocks during his prolonged absence, buying and selling shares of Amcor, Chubb Limited, First Citizens BancShares, Johnson & Johnson, and PepsiCo, according to congressional financial records obtained by NOTUS. The combined value of the trades ranges from $50,008 to $190,000.

Kean initially offered a meager explanation late last month for his sudden disappearance, confessing to House Speaker Mike Johnson (after a small pressure campaign fronted by journalists and tristate lawmakers effectively forced him to pipe up) that he had been dealing with an unspecified “personal health matter.”

At the time, Kean promised that he would return to work shortly. It has been nearly four weeks since then.

On Thursday, Kean told the New Jersey Globe that his health prognosis was “good” and that he would be transparent about his illness soon. He also said that he planned to return to Washington—and the campaign trail—in the coming weeks.

“My doctors are confident that I’m on the road to a full recovery,” Kean said in a lengthy phone interview.  “I understand the need for public transparency, and I appreciate the support of my constituents.”

But the clock is ticking on Kean’s return: Johnson is in the midst of advancing a partisan budget reconciliation that faces total opposition from the Democratic Party. The speaker can spare just two Republican votes on the measure, if all Democrats are present and oppose it.

Kean was elected to represent New Jersey’s 7th congressional district in 2022, and is months away from being thrust into a contentious midterm reelection cycle. He is currently unchallenged in the Garden State’s Republican primary, scheduled for June 2, but is likely to face tremendous opposition from Democrats come November. Over the last several months, his district has shifted from a “lean Republican” advantage to a total toss-up, according to an analysis by the Cook Political Report.

President Donald Trump personally called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to voice his displeasure with the latter’s decision to pull U.S. troops from Poland last week.

The president was reportedly shocked by the move, raising questions around who exactly is calling the shots in the White House.

Trump also announced he was sending more troops to the longtime U.S. ally.

“Based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 troops to Poland,” Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Trump called Hegseth to ask why he had withdrawn the troops, and say that he should be kinder to one of America’s oldest allies. This implies that Hegseth was acting independently, or at least without the knowledge of the president—a shocking notion given the significance and unpopularity of the decision to pull troops from Poland. Is Hegseth acting alone? Is Trump too mentally unstable to be looped into these decisions?

“More evidence that DoD is running its own foreign policy, often directly contradicting what Trump wants,” Brookings Institute fellow Tom Wright wrote on X. “This is not the first time it has happened.”

Last year, Hegseth paused aid to Ukraine multiple times, all apparently without Trump’s approval.