The Iran War: What It Cost, What It Achieved, and Who Benefits

The One-Sentence Version

Trump started a war with Iran that his own intelligence officials said wasn’t necessary. It has cost over $11 billion in six days, sent gas prices above $4, and hasn’t achieved any of its stated goals. The deal we already had was working.

What You Need to Know First

Iran’s nuclear program has been a concern for decades. In 2015, the Obama administration negotiated the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), a deal between Iran and six world powers.^[11] Under the deal:

Iran shipped out the vast majority of its enriched uranium
Iran dismantled approximately two-thirds of its centrifuges
Iran accepted intrusive international inspections
Iran’s “breakout time” (time needed to build a nuclear weapon) went from about 2 months to over 1 year
Every major intelligence agency and the IAEA confirmed Iran was in compliance^[11]

In 2018, Trump withdrew from the deal. He called it “the worst deal ever.” No replacement was proposed.^[8]

After Trump withdrew, Iran resumed enrichment, reaching 60% (near weapons-grade). Iran accumulated roughly 1,000 pounds of 60%-enriched uranium, enough material for 9-10 nuclear bombs. The breakout time collapsed back to weeks.

Biden tried to rejoin but failed. The Biden administration opened indirect negotiations with Iran in April 2021 but moved slowly, insisting Iran return to compliance first. By June 2021, Iran had elected hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, replacing the moderate government that had negotiated the original deal. Talks stalled as Iran’s new team walked back prior compromises and introduced new demands. By late 2022, Biden privately acknowledged the deal was “dead.” Experts argue Biden missed a critical window by not acting faster while the Rouhani government was still in power.

Biden’s Iran policy drew legitimate criticism on another front: oil sanctions enforcement. Iranian oil exports rose from roughly 860,000 barrels per day under Trump’s maximum pressure to approximately 1.6-1.9 million barrels per day under Biden, with China purchasing 80-90% of the total. Iran earned an estimated $80 billion or more in oil revenue during Biden’s presidency, dwarfing the $6 billion in frozen assets that drew most of the political attention. That $6 billion, notably, was Iran’s own frozen money restricted to humanitarian use, and none of it was ever actually disbursed — it was re-frozen after the October 7 Hamas attack.

By January 2025, when Trump took office again, Secretary of State Blinken assessed Iran’s nuclear breakout time at approximately one to two weeks. The situation was dramatically worse than under the JCPOA and significantly worse than when Biden took office.

The nuclear problem Trump used to justify the war was one his 2018 withdrawal created. Biden’s failure to reverse it made it worse.

But wait — didn’t Trump already bomb the nuclear sites in June 2025?

Yes. And the administration’s own claims about what those strikes accomplished are central to understanding why this war doesn’t add up.

In June 2025, the U.S. and Israel launched massive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities — Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. The U.S. operation (“Midnight Hammer”) involved seven B-2 stealth bombers dropping 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs. Trump declared victory:

“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

“It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!”

The White House published a statement titled: “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News.”

The intelligence community’s assessment told a different story.

A leaked Defense Intelligence Agency assessment found that the strikes only sealed the entrances to underground facilities — the centrifuges were “largely intact” and the enriched uranium had likely been moved before the bombs fell. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists found satellite imagery from June 9 showing trucks moving containers into underground tunnels approximately two weeks before the strikes hit. The uranium survived.

The DIA estimated the program was set back “a few months.” The Pentagon said “around 2 years.” Neither said “obliterated.” By November 2025, the White House’s own National Security Strategy quietly changed the language to “significantly degraded” — a major retreat from “obliterated.”

The timeline from there creates a series of contradictions that are difficult to reconcile:

Date	What Trump Said	What Was True
June 2025	”Completely and totally obliterated”	DIA: centrifuges intact, uranium likely moved before strikes
November 2025	White House: “significantly degraded” (walking it back)	IAEA: 400+ kg of enriched uranium still exists
February 2026	Envoy Witkoff: Iran is “a week away” from bomb material	Experts skeptical — Iran has no access to material, no centrifuges running
February 28, 2026	Launched full-scale war — partly over the nuclear program	The same program he said he “obliterated” 8 months earlier
March 18, 2026	Trump, in his State of the Union days before the war: Iran is “starting it all over”^[1]	Gabbard’s written Senate testimony: Iran made “no efforts” to rebuild enrichment^[1]
April 2026	Trump: “They don’t have nuclear potential”	Simultaneously ordered commando plan to seize uranium that survived underground

That last entry is worth examining closely. Trump said “they don’t have nuclear potential” while simultaneously ordering a ground operation to physically seize enriched uranium — an operation that would only be necessary if nuclear material existed.

When a reporter asked about ground troops, Trump said: “We’re going to find out about that. We haven’t talked about it, but it was a total obliteration. They haven’t been able to get to it.” In one breath: “total obliteration” and “they haven’t been able to get to it” — acknowledging the material is still there.

Secretary of State Rubio was more honest: “We may need to physically secure nuclear material inside Iran. People are going to have to go and get it.”

Trump said he destroyed the nuclear program. The DIA said he didn’t. His White House quietly walked it back. He started a full-scale war partly justified by the same nuclear threat. His own intelligence director then told the Senate that Iran had made no effort to rebuild its enrichment program.^[1] And his administration began planning ground operations to seize uranium that, according to the president, doesn’t exist.

How the War Started

On February 28, 2026, Trump launched “Operation Epic Fury,” the largest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. and Israeli forces struck 24 Iranian provinces.^[5]

Was there congressional authorization?

No. The Constitution (Article I, Section 8) gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. Trump never asked.

The War Powers Act of 1973 requires congressional authorization for hostilities beyond 60 days
The House narrowly rejected a war powers resolution 219-212 on March 5
The Senate rejected a similar resolution along party lines on March 4

Bipartisan criticism was immediate. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie called the strikes “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine called it “an illegal war.”^[8]

Was there an imminent threat?

The administration’s own officials have provided testimony that undermines this justification.

Tulsi Gabbard was Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, his top intelligence official, when she testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 18, 2026:^[1]

Sen. Jon Ossoff asked directly: “Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?”
Gabbard didn’t answer yes or no. She said Iran “maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to grow their nuclear enrichment,” but that “the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.” Pressed again, she said that determination is “not the intelligence community’s responsibility.”
Her written testimony, submitted to the committee, stated that Iran had made “no efforts” to rebuild its nuclear enrichment program after earlier strikes in June 2025.
Asked whether that was the intelligence community’s assessment, she said: “Yes.”
She left the enrichment passage out of the opening statement she read aloud. When Sen. Mark Warner asked why, she said, “I recognized that time was running long.” Warner said she had chosen to omit the part that contradicted the president.

So Trump’s own intelligence director confirmed that Iran had not been rebuilding its enrichment program before the war started, though she said it in writing and in answer to questions rather than in her prepared remarks. She did not say whether Iran posed an imminent threat. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, testifying alongside her, went further, saying Iran “posed an immediate threat at this time.”^[1]

Joe Kent was Trump’s Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a former Army Green Beret with 11 combat deployments and a Gold Star husband (his wife Shannon was killed by ISIS in Syria in 2019). He was a staunch Trump supporter who ran for Congress twice, in 2022 and 2024, with Trump’s endorsement.^[2]

On March 17, he resigned. His letter:^[2]

“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

“I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people.”

He addressed Trump directly: “Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots.”^[2]

The White House disputed his account. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the letter contained “many false claims,” and Trump told reporters, “Iran was a tremendous threat.”^[2]

Kent isn’t a Democrat or a media critic. He’s a Gold Star combat veteran with 11 deployments who ran for Congress with Trump’s endorsement, and he resigned because he could not support this war.

What It Has Cost America

Money

First 6 days: $11.3 billion (Pentagon told senators in classified briefing)
That’s more than the $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding that Congress clawed back in the July 2025 rescissions package^[91] Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version compared this to “$9.4 billion in total savings DOGE achieved.” The comparison is to the rescissions package, and Congress passed $9 billion.
Republicans have proposed up to $200 billion in additional war spending
April 29 update: first official Pentagon disclosure: Pentagon CFO Jules Hurst told the House Armed Services Committee that Operation Epic Fury has cost about $25 billion to date, “most of that in munitions.” Hurst said the Pentagon is preparing a roughly $200 billion supplemental funding request for Congress.
September 15 update: an independent estimate. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the war cost the Defense Department $38.1 billion from February 28 through August 1, plus roughly $2 billion to $3 billion for each month after that. The Pentagon did not respond to CBO’s requests for information, so the figure is built from public data and government databases.^[70]
First major downstream business failure (May 2): Spirit Airlines shut down after Trump’s $500 million bailout collapsed; jet-fuel costs from the war were the underlying cause. 17,000 jobs lost. Spirit was the first major U.S. airline to fold for financial reasons in 25 years.

Gas Prices

Date	National Average	Brent Crude Oil
Late February (pre-war)	~$3.00/gal	~$65/barrel
March 8	$3.48/gal	$100+/barrel
March 15	$3.72/gal	~$105/barrel
March 21	$3.94/gal	$108/barrel
March 31	$4.02/gal	$126/barrel (peak)
April 12	$4.12/gal	$103/barrel
April 30	$4.30/gal	~$120/barrel
May 3	$4.39/gal	$125+/barrel

Trump dismissed the surge on March 8 as “a little glitch.” By March 25, he told donors at an NRCC dinner: “I thought that the energy prices, oil price, would go up higher… but it didn’t matter to me.”

Stanford economists estimate the average American household is paying $740-$857 more per year for gas. Meanwhile, oil companies, which gave $75 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign, could rake in $60 billion in additional profits this year. Oil executives acknowledged they will not boost production despite the windfall.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: “American consumers are getting squeezed at the gas pump as Trump’s war of choice sends money flowing to his Big Oil donors.”

Military Casualties

The Pentagon’s official count: “approximately 303 wounded.” But The Intercept’s independent investigation found:^[3]

At least 750 troops wounded or killed
At least 15 confirmed dead, over 520 injured
200+ sailors treated for smoke inhalation aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford were excluded from the count
An anonymous defense official: “This is a subject Hegseth and the White House want to keep under major wraps.”

CBS News interviewed several dozen survivors of the March 1 Kuwait drone strike that killed 6 soldiers. They directly contradicted Defense Secretary Hegseth’s claim that defenses were strong and only “a squirter” got through:^[4]

On drone defenses: “I would put it in the ‘none’ category.”
On whether the position was fortified: “About as weak as one gets” — wood and tin, no overhead cover.
On whether the deaths were preventable: “Absolutely, yes.”

The Broader Economy

Diesel surged 40%+ — 5 million Northeast households seeing heating bills double
Fertilizer prices up 40%, nitrogen fertilizer projected to double
30-year mortgage rates climbed from under 6% to 6.53%
S&P 500 dropped 4.8% in March
Consumer sentiment hit the lowest of the year
CNBC reported that gas price increases are offsetting the tax refunds from Trump’s “big beautiful bill”

What Has the War Achieved?

A straightforward assessment of what the administration said it would accomplish, measured against results:

Has Iran’s nuclear program been stopped?

No. Roughly 1,000 pounds of 60%-enriched uranium, enough for 9-10 bombs, remains in underground facilities at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow. The IAEA confirmed the uranium “hasn’t been moved.” Iran sealed the tunnel entrances. The material survived the airstrikes. Trump claimed he “obliterated” the nuclear program, then weighed sending ground troops to seize the uranium that survived.

Gabbard’s testimony confirmed Iran wasn’t rebuilding enrichment before the war started.^[1]

On April 17, Trump told CBS News that Iran “agreed to everything” including handing over the uranium. Iran’s foreign ministry immediately denied it, calling the enriched uranium “sacred to us like the soil of Iran.” A senior Iranian official told CNN the claims were “alternative facts.” Axios reported the U.S. may unfreeze $20 billion in Iranian assets as part of a deal — 12 times the amount Trump spent years attacking Obama for unfreezing.

Has the Strait of Hormuz been reopened?

No. On April 17, Iran declared the strait “completely open” — oil dropped 10% and Trump called it a “great victory.” Less than 12 hours later, on April 18, Iranian gunboats fired on a tanker and two Indian-flagged ships, and Iran re-closed the strait under “strict control” until the U.S. ends its blockade. Trump responded by threatening to “start dropping bombs again.” The ceasefire expires April 22. The strait carries roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply and remains contested.

Has Iran’s military been destroyed?

No. More than half of Iran’s missile launchers remain intact. Thousands of attack drones remain in its arsenal. Iran shot down an F-15E and an A-10 — after Trump claimed they had “no air defenses.” Iran struck Israeli cities near a nuclear facility. Iran launched fresh missile strikes even after Trump said their “navy, air force, communications are gone.”^[5]

Have gas prices gone down?

No. The national average went from $2.98 pre-war to $4.39 by May 3 — a 47% increase. California hit $7 per gallon. The May 2 collapse of Spirit Airlines, the first major U.S. airline failure in 25 years, was driven directly by the jet-fuel cost shock from the war.

Has America’s standing improved?

No. Britain refused to join the Hormuz blockade. “We’re not supporting the blockade,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, adding that whatever the pressure, “we’re not getting dragged into the war.”^[92] Germany’s defense minister: “This is not our war; we have not started it.” France and the UK planned their own summit, reported at more than 40 nations, on protecting shipping once the conflict ends, and Spain’s defense minister said the blockade plan “makes no sense.”^[92] Ukraine abandoned the U.S. entirely — signing 10-year defense deals with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, deploying 200 drone specialists to the Gulf, and striking Russian oil facilities without U.S. approval. Support for the war ranges from 24-44% depending on the poll and wording. Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version said NATO allies refused to take part, that only Israel backed the blockade, and that the UK and France co-hosted a 40-nation summit. The reporting shows Britain declined, France and the UK planned a separate effort for after the conflict, and Spain criticized the plan. A figure saying 52% of Americans support impeachment over the war was also removed because it could not be confirmed.

What has it cost?

The war costs approximately $2 billion per week. Harvard and CNBC estimated the total cost to U.S. taxpayers could reach $1 trillion. CSIS documented $11.3 billion spent in the first 6 days alone. Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version opened this section with a claim attributed to U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, that two weeks of war spending could fund his $23 billion humanitarian target. It could not be confirmed and has been removed.

At home: gas went from $2.98 to $4.39 nationally — a 47% increase ($7+ in California). Consumer sentiment hit its lowest level in the 74-year history of the Michigan survey. Wholesale inflation hit a 3-year high. The Pentagon disclosed on April 29 that the war has cost $25 billion to date, with a $200 billion supplemental in preparation. 13 U.S. service members have been killed and roughly 400 wounded.^[3] Sailors enforcing the blockade reported food shortages (“USS Hunger Games”) while mail deliveries were suspended. On May 2, Spirit Airlines became the first major U.S. airline to fold for financial reasons in 25 years; jet-fuel costs from the war were the underlying cause.

The most complete independent estimate came in September, when the Congressional Budget Office put the Pentagon’s cost at $38.1 billion through August 1, and roughly $2 billion to $3 billion a month after that. It does not include repairs to damaged bases or costs borne by other agencies.^[70]

The U.S. previously provided 40-45% of global humanitarian funding. Those cuts are devastating communities across sub-Saharan Africa and East Africa, where the war is driving food and fuel inflation near 20%.

What Has Trump Actually Said About This War?

His own words, in order. Every quote below is sourced from official statements, Truth Social posts, or on-camera interviews.

Date	What Trump said
Mar 3	”We won the war.”
Mar 7	”We defeated Iran.”
Mar 9	”We must attack Iran.” / “The war is ending almost completely, and very beautifully.”
Mar 12	”We did win, but we haven’t won completely yet.”
Mar 14	”Please help us.” (to allies)
Mar 16	”Actually, we don’t need any help at all.” / “I was just testing to see who’s listening to me.”
Mar 20	”NATO are cowards.”
Mar 21	”We don’t use it, we don’t need to open it.” (Strait of Hormuz)
Mar 22	”This is the last time. I will give Iran 48 hours.” / “Iran is Dead.”
Mar 23	”We are giving them more time.”
Mar 25	”We are still negotiating.”
Mar 28	”War will be over soon.”
Mar 30	”Open the Strait or we will obliterate all energy infrastructure and oil wells.”
Mar 31	”We don’t need the strait, we got plenty of oil. Get it yourself UK.”
Apr 1	”Iran wants a ceasefire.” / “Strongly considering pulling out of NATO.” / “There’s no deal with Iran.”
Apr 5	”Power Plant and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!!”
Apr 7	”A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
Apr 12	”The pope is WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
Apr 13	”Open the F---n’ Strait, you crazy bastards. Praise be to Allah.” (Easter Sunday)
Apr 16	”We’re having some fake inflation.” (in Las Vegas at $5/gallon gas)
Apr 16	”The pope said Iran can have a nuclear weapon.” (PolitiFact: Pants on Fire — the Pope never said this)
Apr 17	”It’s over. It’s a great victory.” (Iran fired on ships 12 hours later)
Apr 17	”We’ll have to start dropping bombs again.”
Apr 17	”Why don’t they just say JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT?”
Apr 19	Admitted the Easter post was designed to seem “unstable and insulting.” Asked aides: “How’s it playing?” (WSJ)
Apr 20	”The whole country is going to get blown up.”
Apr 21	”I would have won Vietnam, very quickly.” (Five-time draft dodger)
Apr 21 (morning)	“I expect to be bombing, because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with.”
Apr 21 (afternoon)	“I have directed our Military to extend the Ceasefire.” (Same-day reversal, posted after markets closed)
May 30	”We shouldn’t have been in Iran, but Iran has the capability.” (a rare suggestion the war was a mistake, on Fox)
Jun 1	”I don’t care if they’re over, honestly. I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less.” (on the talks, to CNBC)
Jun 10	”We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers.” (after a U.S. helicopter went down near Hormuz; Trump said Iran shot it down)
Jun 17	”It’s a little hard when other people have it… and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity.” (at the G7, conceding Iran could enrich, a reversal of the wartime zero-enrichment demand)
Jun 17	Iranians “laughed at Obama, and said he’s a stupid son of a bitch.” (at the G7, defending the deal)
Jun 18	”These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran… are either jealous, bad people, or stupid.” (Truth Social, 4:32 a.m.)
Jun 22	”Well, it really probably is unconditional surrender.” (to Axios, on his own framing of the deal)

Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version of the June 10 row paraphrased Trump as saying Iran had been “playing us for suckers” and said as fact that the helicopter was shot down. The row now quotes his words and attributes the downing to him; Iran did not claim it, and Central Command said the crash was under investigation.^[29]^[93]

Read it top to bottom. This is one person, in charge of one war, over nearly four months.

Where the Statements Don’t Line Up

The timeline above runs in order, day by day. Some of the contradictions are visible there as quick reversals: “We won the war,” then “We must attack Iran”; “Please help us,” then “We don’t need any help at all.” Others only show up when you set his words next to what his own government said, or next to what happened next. A sample, with sources:

What Trump or his team said	What contradicted it
”No anti-aircraft equipment”; Iran’s “radar is 100% annihilated” (April 2 address)	Within 48 hours, Iranian air defenses shot down a U.S. F-15E and hit an A-10 near the Strait of Hormuz.^[33]
Iran is “in a State of Collapse”; the Pentagon had “wiped out their military” (Hegseth)	A confidential CIA analysis found Iran kept roughly 70 to 75 percent of its missiles and mobile launchers and could outlast the U.S. blockade three to four months.^[34]
“They are begging to make a deal, not me.” (late March)	The Financial Times reported, citing five sources, that Trump had been privately asking for a ceasefire since March 21.^[35]
The blockade of Iran’s ports “will remain in full force.” (April 17)	Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” for commercial ships that same day, and oil prices fell about 10 percent.^[36]
“I don’t want to do a ceasefire.” (March 20)	Days later a U.S.-backed 15-point ceasefire was on the table, which Iran rejected and which the White House publicly denied existed.^[37]
Iran “agreed to everything,” including handing over its uranium, and “no money will exchange hands.” (April 17)	Iran said its enriched uranium was “sacred” and would not be transferred, and called the account “alternative facts,” while U.S. negotiators weighed unfreezing about $20 billion in Iranian assets.^[38]
“I didn’t say that.” (May 2, on whether the U.S. might be better off with no deal)	He had said exactly that, on camera, the day before, as CNN’s fact-checker documented.^[39]
Asked whether Americans’ finances weigh on him: “Not even a little bit.” (May 12)	The next day, Vice President Vance said, “I don’t think the president said that,” though the recording showed he had.^[40]
A former president privately told him “I wish I did it” about bombing Iran. (March 16)	The offices of all four living former presidents denied any such conversation.^[41]
“We shouldn’t have been in Iran.” (May 30)	In the same interview, he said the war was necessary because U.S. strikes had stopped Iran from building a bomb. In March, his own intelligence director had told the Senate that Iran made “no efforts” to rebuild its enrichment program after the June 2025 strikes.^[42]^[1]
Ending the war would be “a mutual decision” with Netanyahu. (March 9)	His own press secretary had said two days earlier that the decision rested “solely” with the U.S. president.^[43]
In 2019, a pledge to “break the cycle” of “regime change” and “never-ending war.”	In February 2026, he launched what CNN called “the regime-change effort in Iran that he pledged to avoid.”^[44]
Iran “fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections… (Infinity!!!).” (June 23)	Iran’s foreign ministry said it had not met with the U.N. nuclear agency and had no inspections planned; the written deal commits Iran only to diluting its uranium under that agency’s supervision.^[46]
A reported 19 million barrels through the Strait of Hormuz was “an all time RECORD.” (June 23)	About 20 million barrels a day flowed through the Strait before the war, so the claimed record was below the prewar norm.^[47]

Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version dated Trump’s “I didn’t say that” denial to May 3. He made it on Saturday, May 2, about remarks he had made on camera in a speech on Friday, May 1.^[39]

In each row, the two columns come from the same administration, usually days apart.

Who Does Benefit?

The benefits of the war have not flowed to the American public. They’ve flowed elsewhere.

The oil industry

Oil companies gave $75 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign. The war sent oil from $65 to $126/barrel. The industry stands to make $60 billion in additional profits. They’ve said they won’t increase production. Trump told the Financial Times his “preference would be to take the oil” in Iran.^[10]

Israel

Netanyahu told his cabinet on April 13 that Vice President JD Vance had called him from his plane on the way back from the Islamabad talks: “He reported to me in detail, as this administration does every day, about the development of the negotiations.”^[7] Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version quoted Netanyahu as saying the administration “reports to me every day,” and said Vance’s first call after the talks went to Netanyahu rather than to Congress. Netanyahu’s words are now quoted in full, and the second claim, which our sources do not support, has been removed. Trump told the Times of Israel: “We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.” His counterterrorism director’s resignation letter said “it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” a claim Trump has denied.^[2]

Iran’s hardliners

The war killed Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader — and replaced him with his son, described as even more hardline. Iran gained global sympathy. Iran demonstrated it could close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s president wrote an open letter to the American people that went viral, turning Trump’s “America First” slogan against him: “Is America First truly among the priorities of the US government today?”^[9]

The American public

Gas is up 35%. The war costs $11.3 billion every 6 days. Military casualties are being undercounted.^[3] NATO allies declined to participate.^[6] Consumer sentiment is at its lowest of the year. CNBC reported that gas price increases are offsetting the tax refunds from the “big beautiful bill.” The nuclear problem the war was supposed to solve remains unsolved. Trump’s own counterterrorism director resigned saying Iran “posed no imminent threat,“^[2] his intelligence director told the Senate that Iran had made “no efforts” to rebuild its enrichment program,^[1] and his former media allies have said publicly that the war was unnecessary.

”But Didn’t Iran Deserve It?”

This is a fair question, and it deserves a direct answer.

Iran is not a good actor. The Iranian regime is authoritarian, represses its own people, supports proxy groups, and has been hostile to the United States for decades. Nobody is arguing Iran is innocent.

But whether Iran is a bad actor and whether this war was the right response are two separate questions.

Trump’s own counterterrorism director said there was no imminent threat, and his intelligence director would not tell the Senate there was one (his CIA director said Iran posed an “immediate threat”)^[1]^[2]
We already had a deal that was containing Iran’s nuclear program (Trump tore it up)^[8]^[11]
The war hasn’t stopped Iran’s nuclear program (the uranium is still there)
The war has cost Americans billions and sent gas prices soaring
The war has made Iran’s position stronger, not weaker
The war has isolated the United States from its own allies^[6]

It’s possible to believe Iran is a genuine threat and also believe this war was the wrong response. Joe Kent’s resignation letter drew that line. He pointed to the first-term killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani as the way to “decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars,” and still concluded that this war “serves no benefit to the American people.”^[2]

The Deal We Already Had

This may be the most important part of the whole story.

Before Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018:^[11]

Iran had shipped out its enriched uranium
Iran had dismantled two-thirds of its centrifuges
Iran was under intrusive international inspections
Iran’s breakout time was over 1 year
Every intelligence agency confirmed compliance

After Trump withdrew:

Iran resumed enrichment to 60%
Iran accumulated enough material for 9-10 bombs
Breakout time collapsed to weeks
Inspections were degraded

”But Iran stopped letting inspectors in — that’s why Trump pulled out”

This is the most common defense of the withdrawal, and it’s false. Here’s the record:

The IAEA certified Iran’s compliance in every single quarterly report from January 2016 through May 2018. More than a dozen consecutive reports. Zero findings of noncompliance with inspections. On May 9, 2018 — the day after Trump withdrew — IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano stated: “Iran is subject to the world’s most robust nuclear verification regime under the JCPOA. The IAEA can confirm that the nuclear-related commitments are being implemented by Iran.”

When Trump claimed Iran was blocking access to military sites, Amano directly contradicted him: “The IAEA has had access to all locations it needed to visit.”

Trump’s own officials confirmed compliance:

Official	Position	What They Said
Rex Tillerson	Secretary of State	Formally certified Iran’s compliance to Congress — twice (April and July 2017)
James Mattis	Secretary of Defense	”I believe they fundamentally are [compliant].” Told Senate staying in the deal was in U.S. national interest.
Gen. Dunford	Chairman, Joint Chiefs	”Iran is adhering to its JCPOA obligations. The JCPOA has delayed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.”
Gen. Selva	Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs	”It appears that Iran is in compliance with the rules laid out in the JCPOA.”
Dan Coats	Director of National Intelligence	The JCPOA “enhanced the transparency of Iran’s nuclear activities.” Intelligence “did not suggest a breach.”

Trump himself certified Iran’s compliance twice before declining to certify a third time — and that decertification wasn’t based on Iran blocking inspections. It was based on the subjective judgment that sanctions relief wasn’t “proportionate” to Iran’s behavior.

Trump’s actual stated reasons for withdrawing (from his May 8, 2018 speech): sunset clauses, ballistic missiles, Iran’s regional behavior, and the deal being “one-sided.” He criticized the structure of inspection provisions — not a claim that Iran was blocking inspectors.

When did Iran actually limit inspections? Only after Trump withdrew:

Date	What Happened
May 2018	Trump withdraws. IAEA confirms Iran still in full compliance.
May 2019	One year later — Iran announces it will begin reducing commitments, citing U.S. sanctions
July 2019	Iran begins exceeding enrichment limits — but still allows inspectors access
Feb 2021	Iran suspends enhanced monitoring — nearly three years after Trump withdrew

Iran explicitly stated each reduction was a reversible response to Trump’s withdrawal. The foreign minister said the steps were “reversible if sanctions were lifted.”

America’s closest allies agreed Iran was complying. The UK, France, and Germany issued a joint statement: “According to the IAEA, Iran continues to abide by the restrictions set out by the JCPOA. The world is a safer place as a result.” They opposed the withdrawal. The only governments that supported it were Israel and Saudi Arabia — neither of which was a party to the deal.

The timeline runs in the opposite direction from what the claim suggests. Trump withdrew first. Iran stayed in compliance for over a year. Iran then began reducing cooperation gradually, explicitly as a response to the reimposed sanctions. The cause and the consequence are being presented in reverse.

After the war:

The uranium is still there, underground
A more hardline leader is in charge
Diplomatic channels are destroyed
Iran has more motivation than ever to weaponize
The U.S. has spent over $11 billion and counting

Sen. Tim Kaine: “I think that decision by President Trump to tear up a diplomatic deal will go down in history as one of the worst decisions in the foreign policy space ever made by an American president. If you make diplomacy impossible, you tend to make war inevitable.”^[8]

Iran’s President Pezeshkian, in his open letter: “Iran pursued negotiations, reached an agreement, and fulfilled all its commitments. The decision to withdraw from that agreement was made by the U.S. government.”^[9]

What Trump’s Own People Said

Every person in this table was chosen, appointed, or endorsed by Trump:

Person	Role	What They Said
Tulsi Gabbard	Director of National Intelligence	Told the Senate Iran had made “no efforts” to rebuild enrichment before the war, and declined to say it posed an imminent threat^[1]
Joe Kent	Counterterrorism Director	”Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” Resigned.^[2]
JD Vance	Vice President	Warned of “regional chaos and untold casualties” before strikes (per book)
Tucker Carlson	Former top MAGA media ally	”Figure out the codes on the football yourself. This is 100% real.”
Alex Jones	Former top MAGA media ally	”WAR CRIME ALERT!! This IS NOT WHAT WE VOTED FOR!!!”
MTG	Former top Trump ally in Congress	”25TH AMENDMENT!!! We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”
Candace Owens	Former top MAGA media ally	”He is a genocidal lunatic.”
Sen. Ron Johnson	Trump ally	”I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure.”
Retired Brig. Gen. Anderson	Military analyst	Warned of “Nuremberg-like trials” for those following “illegal orders”

The opposition to this war isn’t coming from the other party. It’s coming from inside the administration and from the media figures who built Trump’s base.

Where Things Stand Now

April 12: 21-hour peace talks in Islamabad collapsed. Trump ordered a full naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.^[6]
April 13: Britain refused to join. Prime Minister Keir Starmer: “We’re not supporting the blockade.” France said it and the UK would work with dozens of countries “separate from the warring parties,” and Spain’s defense minister said the plan “makes no sense.” The blockade was set to begin at 10 AM ET; after that deadline passed, The New Republic reported there was still no confirmation it was in place.^[92] Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version quoted Britain as saying “We are not getting dragged in,” which was a paraphrase, said only Israel backed the blockade, which our sources do not support, and said the blockade took effect at 10 AM. It was scheduled to begin then.
April 14: Independent maritime tracking data (Kpler, MarineTraffic, BBC Verify) showed at least 7 vessels, including sanctioned tankers, transited the strait on the blockade’s first day. CENTCOM claimed “no ships got past,” contradicted by the tracking data. Ships reportedly paying Iran $2M+ tolls in yuan or cryptocurrency. Pre-war traffic was 138 ships/day; now ~3.4/day.
Gas prices: $4.12+ nationally, $7+ in California, $7.50 in the UK, $8+ in France, $10+ in the Netherlands.
Casualties: At least 750+ according to independent analysis.^[3] Pentagon continues to undercount.
Nuclear program: 1,000 lbs of enriched uranium survives underground.
April 15: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller went on Hannity and said the U.S. can continue the blockade “indefinitely,” calling it “the total resetting of the American power dynamic for the next 100 years.” Miller’s pre-election posts (“Kamala = WWIII. Trump = Peace”) are circulating widely.
Public opinion: Only 24% say the war has been worth the cost (Ipsos, April 10-12). Among Trump’s own voters, 53% opposed involvement before the war began. Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version said 52% of Americans support impeachment. That figure could not be confirmed and has been removed.
Consumer sentiment: University of Michigan index hit 47.6 — lowest in the survey’s 74-year history. Survey director: “Many consumers blame the Iran conflict.”
April 16: Trump called war-driven inflation “fake” during a Las Vegas event where gas was $5+/gallon. He said prices were “not very high.” Quinnipiac: 65% of voters blame Trump for the gas spike.
April 16: House failed to pass war powers resolution by ONE vote — 213-214. Senate had rejected it for the 4th time the day before. The 60-day War Powers Act deadline is approaching.
April 17: Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” for commercial ships during the ceasefire. Oil plunged 10% to ~$85/barrel. But Trump said the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports “will remain in full force” until a peace deal. Maritime intel firm Windward: only risk-tolerant vessels returned — “no blue-chip operators.”
April 17: Trump told CBS News that Iran “agreed to everything” including handing over enriched uranium. Iran’s foreign ministry immediately denied it: “Iran’s enriched uranium is sacred to us like the soil of Iran.” A senior Iranian official told CNN the claims were “alternative facts.” Axios reported the U.S. is considering unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian assets — 12 times what Trump excoriated Obama for.
April 17: Families of deployed sailors shared photos of meager meals aboard warships enforcing the blockade (a single tortilla with pulled meat, gray processed slabs) under the hashtag “USS Hunger Games.” Sailors report being “hungry all the time.” Mail deliveries to the Middle East were suspended (later resumed). Hegseth denied food shortages.
April 17 (evening): Trump told reporters the Hormuz crisis was “over” and called it “a great victory.” On Air Force One, he also threatened: “Maybe I won’t extend it. So you have a blockade, and unfortunately, we’ll have to start dropping bombs again.” The ceasefire expires April 22.
April 18 (morning: less than 12 hours later): Trump’s “great victory” collapsed. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard ship fired on a tanker in the strait. A second container ship was hit by an “unknown projectile.” Iran’s military re-closed the strait under “strict control” until the U.S. ends its blockade. India summoned Iran’s ambassador after two India-flagged ships were fired upon. At least 3 attacks on commercial ships occurred Saturday.
April 18: Iran’s Parliament Speaker: “The President of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false.” Iran denied the uranium deal for the third time: “Enriched uranium is as sacred to us as Iranian soil.”
April 19 (WSJ investigation): The Wall Street Journal reported that when an F-15E was shot down over Iran on Good Friday (April 3), Trump “screamed at aides for hours.” His staff physically kept him out of the Situation Room because “they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful.” He was briefed only at “meaningful moments.” Trump later admitted his Easter “Praise be to Allah” post was improvised to appear “unstable and insulting.” The WSJ concluded his war decisions are “broadly improvised and made without coordination with advisers.” The source is the Wall Street Journal — a Murdoch-owned, right-leaning paper.
April 20: Iran refused to attend a third round of peace talks after the U.S. seized an Iranian cargo ship. Trump threatened to “blow up the whole country.” Iran called Trump “erratic.”
April 21 (morning, CNBC): Trump said he did NOT want to extend the ceasefire: “I expect to be bombing, because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with.” He also claimed he “would have won Vietnam, very quickly” — having dodged the draft five times.
April 21 (afternoon, Truth Social: minutes after markets closed): Trump reversed himself and extended the ceasefire indefinitely. The Vance delegation to Islamabad never took off despite Trump saying they were “on their way.” Iran’s national security adviser: the extension “has no meaning.”
April 21: The IEA declared the Iran war has caused “the biggest energy crisis in history.” The EU’s foreign affairs chief: “Daily U-turns, whether the Strait of Hormuz is open or closed, are reckless.”
April 21: A State Department legal memo says the U.S. joined the war “at the request of” Israel. In a memo titled “Operation Epic Fury and International Law,” State Department legal adviser Reed D. Rubinstein wrote that “the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense.” That same week Trump wrote that “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran.” The memo also cites America’s own right of self-defense, but it lists Israel’s request first. Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version dated this April 27 and described it as a formal filing with the U.N. Security Council. It is an April 21 State Department memo, which refers to earlier U.S. letters to the Security Council.
The U.S. is now seven weeks into what officials initially said would be a 4-to-6-week campaign. Tucker Carlson, once Trump’s most powerful media ally, publicly apologized for endorsing him: “I’m sorry for misleading people. We’ll be tormented by it for a long time.”
Insider trading investigations: The CFTC is actively investigating suspicious oil trades before Trump’s market-moving Iran announcements (Bloomberg, BBC). The BBC documented 5 distinct instances with timestamps. Democratic senators reported ~$950 million in oil bets. The White House warned its own staff against making Iran-related bets.
Cook Political Report: Shifted 4 Senate races toward Democrats.
April 22: Nuclear authority debate revives. Citing the WSJ rescue report, Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) wrote a Hill op-ed pushing his Nuclear First-Strike Security Act (H.R. 3564), which would require the Secretary of Defense to certify any first-use nuclear order — except in declared war or response to an attack. A Senate version led by Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act (S. 192), would require explicit congressional authorization. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has urged Trump to voluntarily adopt a “two-person rule.” Both bills are unlikely to pass without Republican support. Separately, former CIA officer Larry Johnson claimed on Andrew Napolitano’s podcast that Trump asked Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine for nuclear codes during an April 18 Iran meeting; the White House called the claim false, and no major outlet has independently confirmed it.
April 23: NYT: war has drained U.S. weapons stockpiles. A New York Times investigation, syndicated by Irish Times, Haaretz, and others, reports the war’s running cost approaches $1 billion per day, with a total of roughly $28-35 billion to date (a congressional-staff estimate goes as high as $50 billion when maintenance and facility damage are included). U.S. forces have fired more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles at $3.6 million each, about 10 times the annual U.S. production rate. Roughly half the Patriot interceptor stockpile has been used, along with more than half the THAAD interceptor stockpile and 45% or more of the Precision Strike Missile inventory. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on Senate Armed Services: “At current production rates, reconstituting what we have expended could take years.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the article’s “entire premise … false” and said stockpiles are sufficient.
April 23: Trump orders Navy to “shoot and kill” mine-laying boats. “There is to be no hesitation,” Trump posted, also ordering minesweepers “tripled up” and saying the strait is “Sealed up Tight.” Iran’s parliamentary speaker said reopening the strait is “impossible” while the U.S. blockade remains.
April 24: Hegseth Pentagon briefing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a Pentagon press briefing alongside Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine. He called the Iran war Trump’s “gift to the world,” said the U.S. blockade was “going global” and “tightening by the hour,” called Iranian forces “a gang of pirates with a flag,” and ridiculed the U.K.-France-led 51-country Hormuz summit as “a silly conference in Europe.” The Independent, in its report on the briefing, wrote that American ships had not been operating inside the Strait of Hormuz because doing so would put them in range of Iranian drone or missile attacks. Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version presented that point as Hegseth’s own admission. It was The Independent’s reporting.
April 24: Reuters: a leaked Pentagon memo proposes punishing allies who sat out the war. Reuters reported that Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, prepared a memorandum laying out options to retaliate against NATO members who declined to support the Iran war. The two most striking proposals: suspending Spain from NATO (no member has ever been suspended in NATO’s 76-year history), and reviewing the U.S. position on British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson confirmed the spirit of the memo: “The War Department will ensure that the President has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part.”
April 24: Estonia weapons delay. Slate reported that Hegseth informed Estonia’s defense minister that delivery of HIMARS munitions and Precision Strike Missiles, contracted in 2022, would be delayed indefinitely because U.S. stockpiles were burned through during the Iran war. Estonia’s Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said his country would “certainly have to review our decisions” on future U.S. arms procurement if delays continued.
April 24: Trump calls for Obama’s arrest. In late-night Truth Social posts, Trump amplified declassified Brennan notes and called for Barack Obama to be arrested for “treason” over the 2016 Russia investigation. Treason is a federal capital offense. No bipartisan investigation, including the Mueller report and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan five-volume report, has identified conduct by Obama meeting that or any lesser standard. Former DOJ official Anthony Coley: “This isn’t just false; it’s reckless.”
April 25: NBC: Iran inflicted billions in damage to U.S. bases. NBC News reported that Iran caused more than $5 billion in damage to U.S. military bases in the Middle East during the war, hitting more than 100 targets across at least 11 bases. An Iranian F-5 fighter jet breached U.S. air defenses to strike Camp Buehring in Kuwait. An E-3 Sentry early-warning aircraft was destroyed. According to NBC, 13 U.S. service members died and nearly 400 were wounded. The White House asked private satellite companies, including Planet Labs, to suppress images of the damaged bases. One Republican aide on the difficulty of getting briefings: “No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking.” Hegseth had said publicly in March that Iran’s military had “almost nothing they can militarily do about it”; Trump said Iran had been “obliterated.”
April 25: A gunman charges the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. At approximately 8:35 p.m. ET, a 31-year-old man named Cole Tomas Allen, a guest at the Hilton, charged a security checkpoint armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives. One Secret Service officer was shot but saved by his bulletproof vest. The suspect was subdued without being shot. Trump and the Cabinet attendees were evacuated. Allen’s manifesto detailed a plan to kill Trump and other administration officials. Norah O’Donnell of CBS’s 60 Minutes the next day read aloud a passage in which Allen called Trump a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor”; Trump called the segment “disgraceful” and volunteered, unprompted, “I’m not a pedophile … I’m not a rapist.” Trump used the incident within hours to push his $400 million White House ballroom project, citing the need for “bulletproof glass.” FBI Director Kash Patel was filmed standing outside the Hilton “agape.” “Staged” conspiracy theories spread on both left and right; Trump told CBS that theory “would be a tough sell.”
April 25: Trump cancels Iran talks over the flight time. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were set to travel to Islamabad for direct negotiations with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was already in place. Trump told Fox News: “you’re not making an 18 hour flight to go there.” He posted on Truth Social: “Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work!” Iranian officials told the Daily Beast they would now negotiate only with VP JD Vance, citing his pre-war opposition to Middle East military intervention.
April 27: German Chancellor Merz says U.S. is being “humiliated.” Bloomberg reported, and ABC News, Al Arabiya, the Washington Examiner, and Newsmax confirmed, that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly said the United States is being “humiliated” by Iran in the war’s negotiations. Merz: Iranian negotiators are proceeding “very skilfully — or indeed very skilfully not negotiating.” On U.S. strategy: “I don’t see what strategic exit the Americans are now choosing.” Germany is among the United States’ closest NATO allies; the bluntness of the assessment is unusual.
April 27: Senate Republicans tell The Hill they are losing confidence in Hegseth. Anonymous GOP senators told The Hill that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would not be confirmed today if Trump renominated him. His original January 2025 confirmation came on Vice President Vance’s tie-breaking vote. Cited concerns: senior staff turmoil at the Defense Department, his ongoing feud with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, and his decision to end the decades-old military flu vaccine requirement. Hegseth is scheduled to meet with senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the coming days; the 60-day War Powers Act deadline is approaching.
Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version of this timeline included an April 28 item saying a superyacht owned by interests linked to Vladimir Putin sailed through the U.S. blockade. The yacht is linked to a sanctioned Russian billionaire, not to Putin himself, and it crossed outside the area the blockade covers, so the item has been removed.
April 29: Hegseth’s first congressional testimony since the war began. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, and Pentagon CFO Jules Hurst testified before the House Armed Services Committee. Hurst disclosed the war has cost about $25 billion so far. Casualties acknowledged in the hearing: 13 service members killed, 400 wounded. Asked by Ranking Democrat Adam Smith for the Pentagon’s strategy, Hegseth said, “I take issue with the premise of the question.” Smith pressed: “OK. What’s the plan?” Hegseth pivoted to praising Trump’s “courage and intellect” and did not give a substantive answer. Hegseth at one point told the committee: “The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.” Members of both parties pressed him to clarify the line. Smith later: “Wish fulfillment is not a strategy.” Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) called the war an “astounding incompetence.” Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA), responding to Hegseth’s deflection to attacking California: “I’m sad for all the people who voted for Trump. I’m sad because you betrayed them.” Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, previously skeptical, said Hegseth “surpassed all my expectations.” Sources: Defense News, Al Jazeera, Washington Post, ABC News, PBS NewsHour, MSNBC, the Independent, and the official testimony filed by the House Armed Services Committee.
April 30: Hegseth’s Senate testimony. Hegseth returned the next day before the Senate Armed Services Committee and repeated the same characterization of congressional critics as the country’s “biggest adversary.” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking Democrat: “I have concerns you have been telling the president what he wants to hear instead of what he needs to hear.” Reed said the U.S. is “in a worse strategic position” than before the war and that Trump had “no coherent strategy” when he “unilaterally” began it. When Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) pressed Hegseth on why Senate-earmarked Ukraine funds had not been used for Ukraine, Hegseth deflected; the Pentagon CFO answered “we’ll get back to you.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) pressed Hegseth on possible insider trading around Trump’s Iran announcements; he responded by noting he had kept Operation Midnight Hammer secret, and at points shouted “Big, fat negative!” in response to her questions. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) noted that “three out of five Americans are against this war”; Hegseth disputed her numbers. Source: The Independent.
April 30: Trump calls New York Times coverage “seditious.” Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said, “If you read The New York Times, it’s actually seditious in my opinion. You read The New York Times, you actually think they’re winning the war.” He did not name a specific article. The remarks came the same day the Times editorial board argued that the U.S. military was “ineffective against cheaper, mass-produced weapons” such as Iran’s drones. Sedition under federal law (18 U.S.C. § 2384) is a felony requiring a conspiracy to overthrow or destroy the government by force; critical news coverage does not meet that standard. Sources: HuffPost, Fox News. Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version said Trump posted the remark late at night about a specific op-ed. He spoke in the Oval Office and did not name an article.
May 1: Pentagon announces 5,000-troop withdrawal from Germany. The withdrawal, scheduled over six to twelve months, was widely understood as direct retaliation for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s April 27 statement that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by Iran. Asked by reporters May 2, Trump said: “we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” and threatened similar withdrawals from Spain and Italy for “not helping” the Iran campaign: “Probably… look, why shouldn’t I?” Republican leaders of both armed services committees publicly broke with the administration, saying the decision risked “undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin.” Approximately 30,000 U.S. troops remain in Germany after the withdrawal. Sources: NPR, CNN, Washington Post, NBC News, CNBC, Time.
May 2: Spirit Airlines shuts down; first major U.S. airline to fold in 25 years. Spirit began an orderly wind-down of all operations after a $500 million White House bailout package collapsed; a key creditor group rejected it because the deal would have given the federal government significant equity control of the airline. The underlying cause was the jet-fuel cost shock from the Iran war: Brent crude past $125 a barrel, U.S. gas at $4.39 a gallon. Approximately 17,000 jobs ended overnight. Spirit had been the price floor of the U.S. budget-travel segment, and its disappearance is expected to push fares higher. Sources: NPR, Washington Post, CNN, Axios, NBC News.
May 3: Iran offers a 14-point peace proposal; Trump rejects it. On Day 65 of the war, Iran offered a plan that included guarantees of nonaggression by both countries, sanctions relief, lifting of the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and an end to the war “on all fronts” including Lebanon. Trump said: “It’s not acceptable to me. I’ve studied it, I’ve studied everything — it’s not acceptable.” He separately claimed his representatives are having “very positive discussions” with Iran. Sources: Al Jazeera, Times of Israel, Washington Post.
May 3: Trump’s letter to Congress: April 7 ceasefire reset the War Powers Resolution clock. In a letter to Congress over the weekend, Trump argued: “There has been no exchange of fire between the United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026.” The argument is that the ceasefire “reset” the 60-day authorization-or-withdraw window in the War Powers Resolution. The text and legislative history of the WPR do not support this reading. The legal effect of the argument: the U.S. can keep forces deployed indefinitely without a congressional vote. Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version also said no prior administration had interpreted the law this way. That claim could not be sourced and has been removed.
May 3-4: U.S. launches mission to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Two American-flagged merchant ships transited the strait Monday morning. Hundreds of vessels have been stranded in or around the strait since the U.S. naval blockade began in March. Senior Iranian official Ebrahim Azizi warned that any U.S. interference in the strait would be considered a violation of the ceasefire that nominally took effect April 7 — the same ceasefire Trump cited in his weekend letter to Congress. The White House X account posted an image of Trump holding playing cards from the Uno game with the caption “I have all the cards.” Sources: Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Times of Israel.
Ceasefire status (May 4): The Trump-extended ceasefire announced April 21 is technically still in effect, though Iran has now framed the U.S. ship-escort mission as a violation. The week added: a 5,000-troop withdrawal from Germany in retaliation for an ally’s criticism of U.S. war policy; the public rejection of Iran’s 14-point peace proposal; a War Powers Resolution argument that lets U.S. forces stay deployed indefinitely without a vote; and the first major U.S. airline collapse in 25 years driven by jet-fuel costs from the war. No new round of formal talks is scheduled.
May 7: CIA assessment: Iran can outlast the blockade for 3-4 months. The Washington Post reported on a confidential CIA analysis delivered to Trump administration policymakers. The assessment concluded Iran can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship. Iran retains approximately 75% of its prewar mobile launcher inventory and 70% of its prewar missile stockpiles. Iran has reopened underground storage facilities and repaired damaged missiles. The intelligence assessment directly contradicts the administration’s public claims. Hegseth had said in March that Iran’s military was “so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective”; in his April 29 House testimony he said the U.S. had “wiped out their military”; Trump told a Florida audience May 2 that Iran was “in a State of Collapse.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) on the gap: “They lied through their teeth. Just straight up fabricated shit.” Source: Washington Post.^[12]
May 7: Strait of Hormuz combat resumes. U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers transited the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman. Iran fired missiles at three of the destroyers. U.S. forces struck Iranian missile and drone launch sites, command-and-control nodes, and intelligence/surveillance facilities. Trump on the response: “we’ll knock them out a lot harder, and a lot more violently” if Iran does not sign a deal soon. Source: Times of Israel, Al Jazeera.^[13]
May 11: Iran reveals its terms; Trump rejects them on Mother’s Day. Iran’s terms for ending the war: war reparations for damage sustained during the conflict; Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz; end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports; lifting of U.S. sanctions; guarantees against further U.S. attacks (including in Lebanon); and elimination of the U.S. ban on Iranian oil sales. Trump’s reply on Truth Social during a Mother’s Day rage-posting spree: “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Source: Daily Beast.^[14]
May 11-12: USS Alaska Ohio-class submarine deployed to Gibraltar. The Pentagon publicly disclosed the location of the USS Alaska, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine — one of the most secretive nuclear platforms in the U.S. arsenal. The submarine bypassed the nearby U.S. naval base in Rota, Spain (about 141 km away) and docked at the British-controlled territory of Gibraltar instead. Public disclosure of a ballistic missile submarine’s location is highly unusual. The Pentagon framed the move as a deliberate signal of nuclear posture; analysts called it an escalatory step from a diplomatic-pressure footing toward a reinforced nuclear-deterrence posture in the Atlantic-Mediterranean corridor.^[15]
May 12: Trump on whether Americans’ financial pain motivates him: “Not even a little bit.” Asked by reporters before departing for China how much Americans’ financial situations were motivating his Iran negotiations, Trump answered: “Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran is they can’t have a nuclear weapon.” When ABC News pressed him on the war’s impact on citizens struggling with food prices, he doubled down. The next day, Vice President JD Vance flatly denied Trump had said it: “I don’t think the president said that. I think that’s a misrepresentation of what the president said.” Trump’s remark was on camera the day before. Source: The New Republic.^[16]
May 7: Court of International Trade strikes down Trump’s Section 122 tariffs. A 2-1 ruling in Burlap and Barrel, Inc. v. Trump found the Trump administration’s tariffs imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 are unlawful. Section 122 was the never-before-used provision Trump invoked the same day the Supreme Court ruled in February that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. Trump appealed May 8. This is the second tariff scheme blocked by federal courts in three months. The administration is in the process of refunding the $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs already paid by importers; the Section 122 ruling adds the $190 billion in customs duties from October-April 2026 to the potential refund obligation. The economic case for the war’s costs being absorbed by future tariff revenue continues to narrow.^[17]
Ceasefire status (May 14): The April 21 ceasefire is now technically broken. The May 7 destroyer engagement and U.S. strikes on Iranian launch sites and command nodes were the first direct combat since April. Iran’s terms have been publicly rejected. The USS Alaska is in Gibraltar. The CIA’s classified assessment is that Iran can outlast the U.S. blockade for at least three to four months. The administration’s public claims that the war is essentially over and that Iran’s military has been destroyed are contradicted by the U.S. intelligence community’s own analysis. No new round of formal talks is scheduled. The president has stated that Americans’ financial hardship from the war is “not even a little bit” relevant to his decision-making.
May 16: Trump doubles down on the “not even a little bit” remark. In an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier that aired after the Beijing summit, Trump was asked about his May 12 remark that he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation in his Iran calculations. He replied: “That’s a perfect statement.” Asked if he would say it again: “I’d make it again.” Trump acknowledged “short-term pain” on gas prices and pivoted to the stock market and employment figures. The same week, the national average regular gas price was approximately $4.53 per gallon (GasBuddy), up roughly $0.40 month over month and more than $1.30 year over year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a CPI report showing prices up 3.8% from the same point last year, with gasoline alone up 5.4% in the month. A separate survey reported by The Independent found that Americans “overwhelmingly blame the president” for high gas prices, rising mortgage rates, and food costs. The Strait of Hormuz remained blocked. Source: The Independent.
May 18: Iran formalizes its toll authority for the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council announced the creation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), a state body to administer the Strait of Hormuz. The PGSA opened a social-media presence the same day and began sending shipping regulations to vessels transiting the strait. It also formalizes a toll-collection system Iran has been running for weeks, structured as “maritime insurance policies.” Iranian deputy speaker Hamidreza Hajibabaei said toll revenue had already been received as of April 23. In April, a State Department spokesperson said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had agreed that “no country or organization can be allowed to charge tolls to pass through international waterways.” The PGSA is the formal answer to that position. The Independent reported in April that American ships had not been operating inside the strait because doing so would put them in range of Iranian drone or missile attacks. Maritime expert Yörük Işık on Iran’s calculation: “Iran is encouraged from the failures and hyper-personalized foreign policy of the Trump administration and is really testing the limits.” Twenty percent of the world’s traded oil and natural gas transited Hormuz before the war began.^[18] Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version called the Rubio-Wang line a joint statement and attributed the point about U.S. ships to Hegseth. The first was a State Department spokesperson’s account; the second was The Independent’s reporting. A sentence saying the blockade was meant to prevent the toll system was also removed.
May 21: A Congressional Research Service tally puts the war’s losses far above what the administration had acknowledged. The CRS, compiling Department of Defense and CENTCOM statements and news reports, counted up to 42 U.S. aircraft and drones lost or damaged, including 4 F-15E Strike Eagles, 2 MC-130J special-operations aircraft, an E-3 Sentry AWACS, 7 KC-135 refueling tankers, 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones, and a $240 million MQ-4C Triton. The human toll: 13 U.S. service members killed and more than 350 injured, alongside an estimated 3,468 Iranian civilians killed. The financial cost is now reported at $29 billion officially, with internal assessments closer to $50 billion; the Pentagon comptroller attributed part of the increase to “a refined estimate on repair or replacement costs for equipment.” The losses include an AWACS and a Triton, among the most expensive and hard-to-replace platforms in the U.S. inventory.^[19]
May 24-26: U.S. strikes Iran during Qatar peace talks; Trump summons his cabinet over the crumbling ceasefire. On Monday, May 24, U.S. forces struck Iranian boats and missile launch sites within hours of Iranian negotiators arriving in Qatar for talks aimed at ending the war. Iranian state media confirmed the strikes also hit Bandar Abbas, the country’s main naval and air base complex. CENTCOM characterized the strikes as defensive, against vessels attempting to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz; the framework under discussion in Doha included reopening commercial transit through the strait, sanctions relief, and a future track on Iran’s nuclear program. Trump on Truth Social: “Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before.” Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei responded: “America will no longer have a safe haven for mischief and the establishment of military bases in the region.” On May 26, Trump summoned his entire cabinet — including outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard — to a meeting first scheduled for Camp David and then moved to the White House because of weather.^[20]
May 27, 2026 (TNR analysis): Trump’s emerging deal mirrors the JCPOA he tore up. Joe Cirincione, writing in The New Republic, argues the framework now reportedly under discussion — unfreezing Iranian assets and lifting sanctions in exchange for Iran dismantling its enriched-uranium stockpile — is the same arrangement Obama’s team negotiated in 2015. Before the war began in late February, Iran had offered to dismantle its uranium stockpile and suspend enrichment for three to five years (Al Jazeera, May 11; House of Commons Library, CBP-10637). Washington rejected the offer because Trump demanded a permanent end to all enrichment, not a multi-year suspension. The 21-hour Islamabad round collapsed; Trump launched Operation Epic Fury days later. The terms now reportedly back on the table, Cirincione writes, “It’s not ‘unconditional surrender’ by a long shot.” Trump’s own DNI Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate that Iran had made no efforts to rebuild its enrichment program before the war started.^[21]
May 26, 2026: Trump skipped the 14 Iran-war wounded at Walter Reed during his own checkup. CBS News first reported, and The New Republic followed on May 28, that during Trump’s third Walter Reed checkup in 13 months he met with some military personnel at the facility but declined to visit the 14 service members recovering from wounds sustained in the Iran war. The White House declined to comment. Trump has a documented history of avoiding visibly injured veterans; his 2019 first-term remark to staff planning a military parade, reported by The Atlantic, was: “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade. This doesn’t look good for me.”^[22]^[94] Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version dated the checkup May 27. Trump’s Walter Reed exam was on Tuesday, May 26.
Late May: a $300 billion “investment fund.” Reporting from the New York Times, Axios, CNN, and CBS describes a draft U.S.-Iran agreement that would route roughly $300 billion into postwar Iranian reconstruction. Iran had demanded reparations. U.S. negotiators relabeled the money an “international investment fund” to avoid a backlash at home, since Trump spent years attacking Obama’s $400 million Iran settlement. The idea originated with envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, both real-estate investors, who floated real-estate projects in Tehran. Trump posted, “No money will be exchanged, until further notice.”^[23]
May 30: Trump tells Fox the U.S. “shouldn’t have been in Iran.” In an interview with his daughter-in-law Lara Trump on Fox News’ “My View,” Trump said, “We shouldn’t have been in Iran, but Iran has the capability,” a rare suggestion from the president that the war was a mistake. In the same interview he claimed Iran’s “navy is gone, 100%” and its “air force is gone, 100%,” while also saying the U.S. had “sort of left it alone.” His stated justification was that without U.S. B-2 strikes Iran would have built a nuclear weapon. In March, his own intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, had told the Senate that Iran made “no efforts” to rebuild its enrichment program after the June 2025 strikes, and declined to say Iran posed an imminent threat.^[24]^[1]
June 1: Iran halts talks and vows to fully close Hormuz. Iran’s state-affiliated Tasnim agency announced that Tehran would stop exchanging messages with the United States through intermediaries and would move to “completely block the Strait of Hormuz,” citing ceasefire violations and Israel’s operations in Lebanon. Oil prices jumped more than 7%. The escalation followed a White House Situation Room meeting days earlier that ended without Trump making a decision on a deal. He posted that Iran “really wants to make a deal” and told critics to “just sit back and relax.” In a CNBC interview the same day, he said of the talks, “I don’t care if they’re over, honestly. I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” and predicted oil would soon be “dropping like a rock.” Axios reported that in a private call the same day, Trump berated Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, telling him “everybody hates Israel because of this”; an Israeli source disputed that account.^[25]
June 3: the war hits a civilian airport in a third country. Iranian drones struck the passenger terminal at Kuwait International Airport, killing one person and wounding dozens. The U.S. said it intercepted Iranian missiles and drones and struck an Iranian ground-control station on Qeshm Island, in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard denied hitting the airport and blamed a failed U.S. interceptor; U.S. Central Command called that account false. Trump said the ceasefire “remains intact” and that talks could still happen.^[26]
June 3: the House votes to end the war. For the first time, the House passed a War Powers Resolution, 215 to 208, directing Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran unless Congress authorizes the war. Four Republicans joined Democrats. Trump dismissed the bipartisan rebuke as “meaningless” and called the four Republicans “grandstanders” who “should be ashamed of themselves.”^[27]
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve nears a 40-year low. To blunt the oil-price shock from the war and the Hormuz closure, the U.S. has drained its emergency oil reserve to about 357 million barrels, down nearly 60 million since the war began and approaching its lowest level since 1983. Energy Secretary Chris Wright defended the drawdown: “We’re paying a price to solve a huge problem.”^[28]
June 10: a U.S. helicopter goes down and the strikes resume. After a U.S. Army Apache helicopter went down near the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. forces struck Iran on Tuesday evening, and Trump told reporters the next day that the United States would be “attacking them very hard” again. Trump wrote that “the Iranians shot down” the helicopter; Iran did not claim responsibility, and Central Command said the crash was under investigation. Of the negotiations, he said, “We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers,” and he urged Iran to sign a deal. Qatari negotiators traveled to Tehran that day to try to bridge the remaining gaps.^[29]^[93] Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version said as fact that Iran shot down the helicopter and paraphrased Trump’s “suckers” remark. The downing is now attributed to Trump, and the remark is quoted as he said it.
Mid-June: a framework to wind down the war, with most questions left open. On June 17, the text of a U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding became public. It is not a final peace deal. It starts a 60-day clock for further talks and leaves the hardest questions, such as the timing of sanctions relief and the future of Iran’s uranium, for later. Its core trade is that Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz while the United States ends its naval blockade within 30 days, and the two sides work toward assembling at least $300 billion in reconstruction funding for Iran through other countries (the White House says no U.S. taxpayer money). The framework also has Iran reaffirm it will not build a nuclear weapon, with its highly enriched uranium to be diluted on site under international inspection. Defending it at the G7, Trump said Iran could keep a civilian nuclear program “for purposes of electricity,” a reversal of the zero-enrichment demand the U.S. had made during the war.^[30]
The Strait of Hormuz reopened, then closed again. Trump announced a “toll-free opening” of the Strait around June 14, but Vice President JD Vance said the terms still had to be negotiated, and Iran said fees would still apply. On June 20, Iran said it had closed the Strait again, pointing to Israel’s continued operations in Lebanon as a violation of the ceasefire.^[31]
As of June 22, the war had not cleanly ended. After the reclosure, Trump threatened, in a phone call relayed by a Fox reporter, to “take over” Iran and resume bombing. The formal signing scheduled in Switzerland was postponed, and Iran’s delegation walked out of the talks, saying it would not return until Trump apologized and Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. The framework remained unsigned, the Strait contested, and fighting in Lebanon continuing.^[32]
June 23: the deal starts to take effect, even as the two sides describe it differently. The U.S. Treasury issued the oil-sanctions waivers, a 60-day license (through August 21) that lets Iran sell oil in dollars, and the United States moved to lift its naval blockade, while Iran agreed to let ships through the Strait of Hormuz with no charge for 60 days. Trump then overstated what Iran had agreed to, posting that Iran had “fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections” “long into the future (Infinity!!!).” Iran’s foreign ministry said it had no meeting with the U.N. nuclear agency and no inspections planned; the written framework commits Iran only to diluting its enriched uranium under that agency’s supervision.^[45]
June 23 and 24: the Senate passes one war powers resolution, then blocks another. On June 23, the Senate voted 50 to 48 to agree to the resolution the House had passed on June 3, directing Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. It was a concurrent resolution, which does not go to the president and, as ABC News noted, does not carry the force of law; a White House official said it had “no significance.” The next night, the Senate voted 47 to 50 against taking up a separate resolution that would have directed the same withdrawal. Two Republicans who had voted yes on June 23 changed their votes: Sen. Rand Paul voted “present” to give the president “more space and leverage to negotiate,” and Sen. Bill Cassidy opposed it after a briefing from Vice President JD Vance. At a Republican lunch beforehand, Trump worked the room and, by several accounts, called Cassidy a “lunatic” and told him to “sit down.” An earlier version of this article said the Senate advanced this resolution on June 23 and then reversed itself the next day. Senate records show the two votes were on different measures, and the June 23 vote passed one.^[48]^[69]
Late June: a Trump official is said to have conceded the framework is thinner than the deal it replaced. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA), describing a closed briefing, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio drew a contrast between the two agreements: the Obama-era JCPOA, in her account, was “a real agreement with criteria and benchmarks and thresholds,” while Trump’s memorandum of understanding was “just a signed piece of paper saying we’re going to continue to talk about talking.” This comes from one lawmaker’s readout of a private briefing, not an on-the-record statement by Rubio, so it should be read as her characterization. It does track the framework’s own text, which leaves the sanctions timeline, the fate of Iran’s uranium, and future enrichment rights to later negotiations.^[49]
July 7-8: the ceasefire collapses and the fighting resumes. The framework signed in June did not hold. Through late June the two sides traded strikes, a commercial tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz on June 25, and U.S. forces struck Iranian military sites on June 26 through 28. At a NATO summit in Turkey in early July, Trump declared the deal dead, saying “for me, I think it’s over” and calling Iran’s leaders “scum” and “vicious, violent people.” On July 8, Iran launched missile and drone attacks toward Bahrain and Kuwait, and oil prices rose more than 6 percent. The war Trump began in February, without a vote in Congress, was underway again.^[50]
Mid-July: the war widens, and hard questions follow. On July 7 the United States struck more than 80 Iranian targets and reimposed oil sanctions. On July 10 Trump formally notified Congress under the War Powers Act that U.S. forces had resumed fighting, which starts a 60-day window for Congress to authorize the action or require it to end. Democrats argued the war had actually begun in February and that the president cannot restart that clock on his own. Two accountability stories broke alongside the escalation. Survivors of the deadliest attack on American troops in the war, an Iranian drone strike that killed six soldiers at a base in Kuwait in March, told The Washington Post and CBS News that commanders had ignored warnings the position was being targeted. And CNN reported that commanders approved the February strike that hit an Iranian elementary school, killing more than 150 people, most of them children, after being warned their targeting intelligence was “severely out of date”; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier cut the programs that maintain “no-strike lists” for sites like schools and hospitals by more than 90 percent. A House member introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth over the school deaths.^[51]
Late July: three deaths in Jordan, and an injury count that surfaced after news reports. On July 17, an Iranian attack on a base in Jordan killed two U.S. soldiers and left one missing. A third service member was killed as strikes continued through July 20. The New York Times then reported that in the week before that attack, Iran had struck U.S. forces in Jordan three other times, injuring dozens of service members and damaging helicopters, and that the Pentagon had disclosed none of it, citing operational security. The day after the Times story ran, the Pentagon acknowledged nearly 100 U.S. troops injured in the two weeks since the fighting resumed. Defense Secretary Hegseth put the war’s cost at $37.5 billion, The Washington Post reported the Pentagon is running short on cash, and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the administration is not sharing casualty statistics with Congress.^[52]
Late July: the strikes become nightly, and the war’s nuclear logic runs into a contradiction. From July 22 to 24, U.S. Central Command said it carried out a thirteenth consecutive night of strikes on Iran, and the Pentagon said four more service members had been killed over the prior weekend, three at a base in Jordan and one in northern Iraq. Trump attended the transfer of their remains on July 22. Iran launched drones at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait, and the Houthis in Yemen declared a blockade on Saudi Arabia and struck oil tankers in the Red Sea; oil passed $100 a barrel. Around the same time, the administration signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. Two U.S. officials told ABC News the deal leaves open the possibility that Saudi Arabia could enrich uranium on its own soil in the future. Trump said there would be “no enrichment of material,” then added that the whole agreement was contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel. The war with Iran began over Iranian enrichment.^[53]
Late July: a surprise Iranian attack, and Saudi Arabia enters the war. On July 28 and 29, the U.S. said it intercepted what it described as a surprise Iranian ballistic-missile attack on American forces, including a base in Jordan, and that several troops were wounded at a Saudi air base. Trump vowed to hit Iran “hard,” saying its forces would “get a beating.” Saudi Arabia then joined the U.S. strikes for the first time, hitting Iranian-backed forces in eastern Iraq and formally entering the war Trump began in February.^[54]
August: the reason a U.S. carrier ran short of food becomes public. Earlier reporting had documented sailors rationing meals aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Tripoli, with families posting photographs of the portions. In August the explanation surfaced. From late February until June, Iran struck Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the main U.S. resupply base in the region, with sustained missile and drone attacks. The Navy evacuated most personnel and shifted supply operations to the British base at Diego Garcia, roughly 2,200 miles from where two carrier groups were operating in the Gulf of Oman. Resupplying carriers across that distance is what left the ships short. The Lincoln went more than 200 days without a port call, and there were multiple instances of sailors attempting to go overboard. For months the Pentagon did not publicly acknowledge the damage to the Bahrain base; the acting Navy secretary did so in September (see below). Journalist David Rohde said on MS NOW that Defense Secretary Hegseth had “hid” it; that is his characterization, and the reporting establishes that the damage went unacknowledged rather than that a decision to conceal it has been documented.^[55]
August 14 and 18: the president says he will make the Strait of Hormuz American territory. At a rally in New York state on August 14, Trump said: “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.” He claimed the United States already controls the waterway and that no ships pass without U.S. permission; Iranian military officials said Iran continues to manage traffic through it. On August 18, after the 60-day window from the June framework had passed without a deal, he posted an image on Truth Social circling the strait and labeling it a “new U.S. territory,” with no other explanation.^[56]

The claim is unusual enough to be worth checking against the law that governs it. The Strait of Hormuz lies between Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, and before the war it carried roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas. Under the law of the sea, the waters belong to the coastal states, and ships of all nations have a right of transit passage through international straits. There is no mechanism by which a U.S. president can annex one. The blockade the statement refers to is real and its effects on global energy supply are real. The declaration described is not something a president can do.^[56]
August 18: an Air Force officer who called the war unconstitutional is detained a second time. Maj. Jason Watson was arrested on the Capitol steps on July 1 after appearing in uniform at a press conference calling for Trump’s impeachment, citing the War Powers Clause and 13 service member deaths tied to the Iran and Venezuela operations. On August 18, one day after an interview with CNN in which he said the president was “violating the Constitution, breaking the law, [and] engaged in rampant corruption,” he was ordered into pretrial confinement and held at a county facility in Maryland on a military hold. As of the following evening he had not been formally charged. The Air Force said he was confined based on “probable cause to support allegations of continued misconduct” and that he is presumed innocent.^[57]

Service members give up some speech protections civilians keep, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice restricts what an officer may say publicly about the commander in chief. That is settled and not in dispute. What is worth noting about the sequence is its trigger: the second detention followed a television interview rather than a new demonstration.
August 30: three combatant commanders and the Navy’s top admiral formally object to extending the war. The Washington Post reported that the August 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book, the classified twice-monthly document that allocates U.S. forces worldwide, records “nonconcurs” from the leaders of European Command, Pacific Command and Southern Command, along with the Chief of Naval Operations. A nonconcur means a commander disagrees with an order but will carry it out. The Army and Air Force chiefs concurred while warning of significant risk. Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations, said the Navy cannot sustain its current level of support because there is no anticipated end date; European and Southern Command each said lending ships and surveillance aircraft to the Iran operation has degraded their ability to meet homeland-defense obligations. A person familiar with the assessment summarized the military’s view at the six-month mark as “too much for too long.”^[58]

The Pentagon disputed the report in unusually personal terms. Spokesman Sean Parnell said publishing the assessments “is a crime” and “a betrayal of the force,” said much of the reporting was inaccurate, and wrote that the journalists “hate President Trump and Secretary Hegseth more than they love America.” He also made a substantive point worth weighing: non-concurs are a standard mechanism, and “the Secretary sees them constantly.” The Post said it stood by its reporting and that calling publication a crime is “both incorrect and irresponsible.” What the reporting describes is not that nonconcurs occurred but how many, from whom, and in the same direction.^[58]
August 31: the president calls it “a relatively little war.” Asked in the Oval Office about the report of his commanders’ objections, Trump said: “This is a relatively little war for us. This is not a big war.” He described Iran as a “failed nation” whose leaders are “largely dead,” said its navy and air force are gone, and added, “That doesn’t mean we won’t smack them.” Two oil tankers were struck in the Strait of Hormuz that night, and U.S. forces had hit rocket launchers on Larak Island over the weekend in the first American strikes in a month.^[59]
September 2: a missile hit a wedding in Kuhestak. At least one missile struck the home of a fisherman, Ali Mallahi, in a coastal town on the Strait of Hormuz where dozens had gathered for his daughter’s wedding. A second hit a neighboring house in the same yard. Other strikes hit a communications tower at the nearby port. IRNA and Iranian state television reported four people killed, two women and children aged 4 and 16, and at least 68 wounded.^[60]

Where those figures come from matters, and so does a correction to them. The casualty reporting originates with a government that is a party to the war. Separately, the Balochistan Human Rights Documentation Network found that the 16-year-old was killed by shrapnel while riding a motorcycle near the communications tower, not at the wedding as Iranian media reported. That narrows the account of what happened at the house without changing that civilians died there.^[60]

CENTCOM spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said the military was “looking into the reports” and would not confirm that a formal investigation had opened. A weapons expert, N.R. Jenzen-Jones, identified the ordnance as likely a JSOW guided bomb, possibly a SLAM-ER cruise missile. Both are precision-guided, which shifts the question from whether the weapon went where it was aimed to what it was aimed at and how that was verified. The U.S. military has not said what the intended target was.^[60]
The toll, as of early September 2026. More than six months in, the Pentagon’s own figures, updated September 3, put the count at 18 U.S. service members killed and 790 wounded. The figures earlier in this article are lower because they were accurate when the events they describe happened.^[61]
What the missing declaration meant for one family, and what it turned out not to mean. Air Force Maj. Alex Klinner died in March at 33, one of the crew of a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq supporting strikes on Iran. In September his widow, Libby Klinner, said publicly that a casualty officer had told her the family was ineligible for certain combat-related payments because Congress never declared war. The post spread widely.^[61]

The Air Force then said that was wrong. Klinner’s final paycheck did include combat pay, $225 a month, and the associated tax benefits, and the items had simply been itemized incorrectly. Officials acknowledged the family had been given inaccurate information.^[61]

The correction matters, so it belongs in the same breath as the claim. There is no documented policy of denying death benefits because the conflict lacks a declaration. What happened is that a grieving family was told there was one, and it took a viral post to fix it. The naming question above it is real, though: the vice president said of the campaign that there was “no active shooting,” and the president has called it “small potatoes for us.”^[61]
September 4: diesel sets a record. The national average price of diesel reached $5.85 a gallon, the highest ever recorded, according to AAA. The previous record, $5.82, was set in June 2022 during the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Regular gas averaged about $4.14 heading into Labor Day weekend, above the prior Labor Day record of $3.82 from 2012. The Associated Press reported that refineries running near capacity in the Texas heat and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries also tightened supply, though the energy economist it quoted said “everything points to the Iran War and the Strait of Hormuz.” Asked about prices at a White House briefing, Vice President Vance said gas “could have been much, much higher were it not for our efforts,” and declined to say when it would return to $3.^[62]
September 9: the acting Navy secretary acknowledges the Bahrain damage on the record. In an interview with The Epoch Times, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said of Iran’s attacks on the Fifth Fleet’s headquarters in Bahrain, “They blew the hell out of Bahrain.” He said the damage left the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln with “no place for them to pull in,” and that a task force is studying whether the Navy should return to the base at all. Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin said she had not heard a senior U.S. official admit this on the record before. The acknowledgment came through a conservative newspaper and was highlighted by a Fox News correspondent, not by the administration’s critics.^[64]
September 9: the president says the war will end after the election. Speaking at Joint Base Andrews before flying to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump said, “I think the war is going to end immediately after the election,” and that Iran was “desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice, weak group of people in there.” Asked whether negotiations would resume, he said, “We’re not looking for it, to be honest.” The same day, Iran said it had targeted ten ships near the strait, including two U.S. vessels, and U.S. forces had destroyed five Iranian tankers the day before. An NBC News poll found 69 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the war. Newsweek counted roughly 23 separate predictions from the president since February about when it would end.^[63]
September 9: oil prices, and what the war has cost at the pump. At the same stop, asked how he would explain oil prices that had climbed back to highs not seen since the war’s early weeks, Trump said, “Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward.” Of gas falling below $2 a gallon, he added, “I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm.” Brent crude, the global benchmark, traded above $101 a barrel that day for the first time since July. The same day, the libertarian magazine Reason, citing researchers at Brown University, reported that Americans had paid more than $101 billion in extra fuel costs through seven months of war, almost $777 per household, with diesel at a new record of $5.94 a gallon according to AAA. In March, Trump had called higher prices a “very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace.”^[65]
September 14: the Pentagon’s inspector general reports on the war’s costs. In its first report on the war, the Defense Department’s inspector general found: “The munitions expenditure on OEF has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.” (OEF is the report’s abbreviation for the operation.) It put the war’s cost at roughly $33.4 billion, not counting repairs to damaged facilities, and said Iranian strikes “damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.” The same day, the president posted that the country is “producing more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has denied reports that the U.S. is running low on munitions.^[66]
September 13: “stay and keep the oil.” At his golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, Trump said, “We’ll ultimately get out unless we decide to stay and keep the oil, like Venezuela.” He did not describe any such arrangement, and it was a conditional remark rather than an announced policy.^[67]
September 14: diesel sets another record. Diesel reached $6.23 a gallon, according to AAA, after Saudi Arabia shut a pipeline and talks on the Strait of Hormuz were postponed. NBC News also reported that new escalations between Ukraine and Russia had pushed diesel prices 30 percent higher since late June. The president posted that “The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran,” and announced that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to hit each other’s energy targets. Ukraine’s president said Ukraine would halt its strikes only if Russia genuinely did the same.^[68]
September 15: the Congressional Budget Office puts a number on the war. CBO estimated $38.1 billion in Pentagon costs through August 1, including $21.7 billion to replace munitions, and said the United States “has probably used between one-half and two-thirds of its inventory” of missile defense interceptors since June 2025, which would take at least five years to rebuild. It projected the war will add about half a percentage point to a key inflation measure in early 2027, driven largely by energy prices. The White House said the military “has more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of the Commander-in-Chief’s strategic goals and beyond.” CBO’s figure and the inspector general’s $33.4 billion cover different periods and rely on different data, so they are two estimates rather than numbers to add together.^[70]
September 15: a Republican files articles of impeachment against the Defense Secretary. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky read eight articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth on the House floor, which forces the House to act by Thursday, September 17. The first three charge that Hegseth violated the War Powers Resolution, including by continuing the war after both chambers agreed to the June resolution. Others cover the February 28 strike on a school in Minab, the boat strikes and the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The Pentagon called Hegseth “a transformative leader,” and Attorney General Todd Blanche said he “follows the law.” Removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.^[71]
September 15: the House votes a third time to end the war. The House passed another war powers resolution, 220 to 204, after passing a second one on July 23 by 214 to 208. Seven Republicans voted yes, up from four in June and July. Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa, one of three Republicans voting yes for the first time, wrote, “I will not support another open-ended war.” Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, argued against it, saying Trump is against “forever wars, and that is what he is ending.”^[72]
September 17: a UN mission finds reasonable grounds to believe the U.S. committed war crimes. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, created by the UN Human Rights Council, reported “reasonable grounds to believe that the U.S. committed the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack” in the February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, and in a strike the same day on a sports center in Lamerd. That is the standard UN investigative bodies use; the report is not a court ruling and is not binding. The mission described the school as one “for girls and boys aged 6 to 13,” cited the local prosecutor’s final toll of 156 killed, including 120 schoolchildren (73 boys and 47 girls), and concluded that “the building of the school was the intended point of impact and that the damage did not result from an errant strike.” It said the U.S. failure to verify the target “went beyond mere negligence” and cited statements by “the President and the Secretary of Defense” dismissing the laws of war as part of the basis for that finding. The U.S. did not answer the mission’s requests for information. The same report found Iran’s government committed crimes against humanity in its crackdown on protesters.^[73]
September 16: the House leaves early, and the Hegseth impeachment vote slips past the election. Republican leaders cancelled the next day’s votes and began the pre-election recess. Speaker Mike Johnson called Massie’s resolution “a publicity stunt by someone who wants attention,” and said, “It will immediately be tabled, of course, but we probably won’t do that today. We’ll probably do it when we come back.” The House returns November 9, and the resolution remains pending. Massie posted, “They’re canceling Congress tomorrow to avoid the vote on IMPEACHING @SecWar.”^[74]
September 17: the president says he is deciding whether to “annihilate” Iran. In an interview with Axios, Trump said, “I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? It’s a big decision. Anything could happen with me.” He said it the day after telling reporters the war was “hopefully” nearing its end. No escalation was announced. The remark came days before the United Nations General Assembly, where he was scheduled to meet the leaders of six Gulf states.^[75]
September 17: 46 senators ask what the war has cost, and compare the answer to the Iraq War. Forty-six of the 47 members of the Senate Democratic caucus wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asking for a full accounting by September 30. Their central comparison is a factual one that can be checked: “Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense during the Iraq War, briefed Congress more than 20 times in the first six months of that war,” while Hegseth “briefed Congress just seven times in that same period.” The Pentagon has held eight press briefings or interviews since the war began, against more than 70 in the first month of the Iraq War; the last was in May. The senators also noted that supplemental funding requests during Iraq and Afghanistan ran more than a hundred pages, while the $67 billion Iran request was “a thin, seven-page document” that included a line for “$1.2 billion for Administration priorities.” Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only caucus member who did not sign, saying he remains “an unapologetic supporter of efforts to confront the Iranian regime.” The Pentagon has not published a total cost, including what it would take to repair damaged bases and replace lost aircraft and ships.^[76]
September 18: the Pentagon put a number on the war, but not the one that was asked for. A Central Command assessment sent to the defense committees estimates the cost at $43.6 billion as of September 3. Four outlets reviewed the document and their breakdowns match. It is not a reply to the senators: it predates their letter by two weeks, and it leaves out damage to military installations, which was the first thing they asked for. Separately, Moody’s Analytics estimates American energy consumers have paid about $121 billion more since the war began, which is an estimate of what the war has cost households rather than what it has cost the Treasury.^[77]
September 18: a newspaper reports more deaths than the public database shows. The Washington Post, citing six officials who spoke anonymously, reported that internal Defense Department accounting shows at least 22 deaths, against 18 in the public casualty database; a sixth official said 23. Read that carefully. The higher figure rests on anonymous sources in one newspaper, and other outlets have credited the Post rather than confirming it themselves. What is firmer is narrower: two service members are named, Sgt. Devin Seibel and Maj. Sorffly Davius, and both died in the Middle East while deployed under other named operations, so neither appears in this war’s count. Which operation a death is recorded against is not bookkeeping; it feeds the line-of-duty determination and the benefits a family can claim. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied the report on social media without addressing the numbers, calling it “DISGUSTING and FAKE.” The Pentagon itself declined to answer the Post’s questions.^[78]
September 17: a Republican who voted to confirm Hegseth says he should go. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told reporters, “He needs to go, whether it’s impeachment or the most expedient route, just the president to replace him, would be great.” He did not urge House Republicans to vote for the impeachment articles: “I’ll let the House do what the House is going to do.” He framed it as a management problem rather than a political one. Tillis is not running for reelection, which belongs in the record alongside the quote.^[79]
September 20: “if and when do I blow the entire nation up?” Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst said on air that he had just spoken with Trump by phone, and read out what the president told him. Trump described his choices as “wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically or making a deal,” and added, “My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up? They better behave.” There is no recording of Trump saying this; every outlet, including the New York Post, is quoting Yingst’s account, and the White House has not disputed it. In the same call Trump said he would “probably be open to” meeting Iran’s president at the United Nations this week. No new military action was ordered. Three days earlier he had told Axios he was deciding whether to “annihilate them.”^[80]
September 16-20: two different answers on how long this lasts. At a rally in North Carolina on September 16, Trump said, “That war is going to end very soon. Watch, you just watch.” On September 20, CNN’s Dana Bash asked U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz whether the war could continue until 2029. He answered, “I wouldn’t necessarily put a timeline on it, but I think the president is focused on his clear objectives,” and said time is on the United States’ side. Waltz did not predict a war of that length. He declined to rule one out.^[81]
September 18-21: the official cost reaches $45.1 billion, and diesel sets another record. The Pentagon told Congress the war had cost $43.6 billion as of September 3, plus $1.5 billion in extra fuel. CNN noted that the figure “is not a full accounting”: it leaves out damage to U.S. bases in the region. The official number has risen from $25 billion in April. At the pump, AAA’s national average for diesel reached $6.51 on September 21, the highest it has recorded, against $3.70 a year ago; regular gasoline was $4.48, against $3.18. Reuters attributes the diesel squeeze to two causes, the war and Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. Asked about prices at his September 16 rally, Trump said, “It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done,” and predicted they would come down “like a rocket ship in reverse.” His economic adviser Kevin Hassett said prices would be far higher without Navy escorts in the strait, and that “President Trump will decide when enough is enough.”^[82]
September 18: one news organization describes what the Pentagon’s school-strike inquiry found. The military’s investigation of the February 28 strike on the elementary school in Minab has not been released. Bloomberg, citing officials involved in it who spoke anonymously, reported that investigators found “a cascade of preventable failures”: a site listed years ago as a Revolutionary Guard facility and never updated, staff who “relied too much” on targeting software to catch outdated information, and a civilian-harm review team at Central Command that had been cut “from 10 to 1,” with no one from it reviewing the site. Bloomberg adds that it is unclear whether such a review would have caught the error. Only Bloomberg has reported these findings so far; other newsrooms had yet to match them when this update was written. The Pentagon says the incident “remains under investigation.” A senior administration official said, “The United States does not target civilians.” The software’s maker, Palantir, says it “is not responsible for the underlying data.”^[83]
September 17-20: Trump orders strikes on the Houthis prepared, then calls them off. Saudi Arabia has been asking the United States for help against the Houthi forces in Yemen, who reignited their war with the kingdom this summer. The New York Times, citing administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported that after the Saudi crown prince called Trump on September 17, Trump “told the Pentagon to prepare for airstrikes against the Houthis,” and that “commanders had approved target lists, troops were loading bombs onto U.S. warplanes” before, by midday on September 20, he reversed himself. Most of his inner circle, the Times reported, was “either deeply skeptical or outright opposed” to joining the Saudi fight, given the strain the Iran war already puts on the military. The White House would not discuss the deliberations on the record; a senior official said only that “the U.S. has a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and we will always defend our allies.” These details come from one newspaper’s anonymous sources, which AFP and the Daily Caller relayed.^[84]
September 21-22: record diesel prices divide Republicans over an export ban. Farm-state Republicans asked Trump to stop diesel exports to bring prices down. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa posted, “High diesel prices ARE KILLING FARMERS INCOME,” and Senate Majority Leader John Thune said an export ban “makes probably more sense to me” than suspending the gas tax. Oil-state Republicans disagreed. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas called it “a gimmick,” and Energy Secretary Chris Wright had warned, “If you start putting barriers on flows, pretty quickly you will reduce the production.” The administration’s own messages differed: a White House official said it is “not considering an export ban or export restrictions at this time,” while Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “Every tool in the tool kit is being evaluated right now.”^[85]
September 22-23: Louisiana declares a diesel emergency. Gov. Jeff Landry’s executive order lets farmers and timber harvesters use untaxed off-road diesel in their farm and forestry trucks through October 22, without the usual penalty. According to the order, diesel in Louisiana reached an all-time high of $6.03 a gallon, more than 80% above a year earlier.^[88]
September 22-24: the Navy counts eight suicide attempts in the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group. In a letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao wrote that “there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group” since the deployment began, and no deaths. The Lincoln’s deployment was extended after the war began, and the carrier went 286 days without a port call. In August, asked whether eight and a half months at sea was too long, the president said, “No, no, no. Not nearly long enough,” and the Navy said it had not seen an increase in suicide attempts aboard the ship. Whether eight is unusually high is not settled: CNN found the rate roughly in line with the Navy-wide rate in 2024, while a military official told CNN it was “incredibly high” compared with recent deployments.^[89]
September 24: the Senate rejects another war powers resolution, 49 to 50. It was the Senate’s 14th vote on such a resolution since the war began, the Associated Press reported, and likely its last before the election. The measure, which the House passed in July, would have directed the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. Four Republicans voted for it: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul and Thom Tillis. Democrat John Fetterman voted against it. Because it was a concurrent resolution, it would not have gone to the president. Tillis said, “We’ve got to break the cycle.” Sen. Josh Hawley, who voted no, said the focus should be on “attacking the cost of living issues.”^[87]
September 25-27: Iran offers to reopen the strait, and the president says no. Iran’s foreign minister said that “If certain conditions are met, the Strait of Hormuz will be open at the end of seven days, and talks will be restarted.” According to the Associated Press, the conditions were that the United States lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales and observe a ceasefire that includes Lebanon. Iran’s president said Iran would allow nuclear inspectors as part of a negotiated agreement. On September 26 the president said, “I reject their proposal,” and explained, “They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately because they’re losing so badly.” The strongest case for that answer came from UN Ambassador Mike Waltz: “They were asking for everything up front with a promise that they would then talk.” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said the United States should keep up “the sanctions, the blockade.” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut read the same terms the other way, as “proof of what a disaster this war has been.” The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed officials, reported that the president has told aides he expects the bombing to resume after the midterm elections; no other outlet has confirmed that with its own sourcing, and Waltz called it “anonymous reporting” without denying it. Asked on Fox News whether strikes could come before the election, the president said, “I mean, it’s possible, but I just don’t want to say that.”^[90]
September 17-20: where public opinion stands. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,277 adults, with a margin of error of 2.8 points, found that 34% approve of the strikes on Iran and 17% approve of the president’s handling of the cost of living. His overall approval, 32%, was the lowest Reuters/Ipsos has recorded in either of his terms.^[86]

Sources

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2. AP: Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump’s Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat (March 17, 2026) and CBS News: Top Trump counterterrorism official Joe Kent resigns over Iran, saying it “posed no imminent threat to our nation” (March 17, 2026) and Fox News: Top counterterrorism official resigns in protest of US war against Iran (March 17, 2026) and The Daily Caller: Top Gabbard Deputy Joe Kent Quits Over Iran, Prays Trump Will ‘Reflect’ (March 17, 2026)

3. The Intercept: Pentagon casualty cover-up (April 1, 2026)

4. CBS News: Kuwait survivors contradict Hegseth (April 9, 2026)

5. Washington Post: Hegseth’s claims contradict reality (April 7, 2026)

6. NPR: U.S. military blockade as peace talks collapse (April 12, 2026)

7. The New Republic: Netanyahu Reveals Trump Reports to Him Every Day on Iran (April 13, 2026)

8. Kaine on JCPOA — The Hill (April 13, 2026)

9. Iran’s open letter to the American people — Reuters (April 2, 2026)

10. Financial Times: Trump secretly begging for ceasefire since March 21

11. January 6 Committee report on JCPOA

12. Washington Post: U.S. intelligence says Iran can outlast Trump’s blockade for months (May 7, 2026)

13. Times of Israel: Following clash, Trump threatens more force if Iran doesn’t agree to deal (May 7, 2026)

14. The Daily Beast: Iran reveals demands that triggered Trump’s rage post (May 11, 2026)

15. The Hill: Pentagon reveals location of nuclear-armed submarine after Trump rejects Iran proposal

16. The New Republic: Trump doesn’t care ‘even a little bit’ about Americans’ finances and the Iran war (May 12, 2026)

17. NPR: Trade court strikes down a second round of Trump tariffs (May 7, 2026)

18. Newsweek: Iran announces new body to manage Strait of Hormuz (May 18, 2026)

19. Daily Beast: True scale of Trump’s military disaster in Iran war is revealed (May 21, 2026), citing a Congressional Research Service compilation of Department of Defense and CENTCOM data.

20. The New Republic: Trump Summons Entire Cabinet as Iran Deal Crumbles in Front of Him (Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, May 26, 2026) and CNBC: Trump to host Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Wednesday as Iran talks continue (May 26, 2026)

21. The New Republic: Trump’s “Deal” Looks a Lot Like… the One Obama Struck 11 Years Ago (Joe Cirincione, May 27, 2026) and Al Jazeera: ‘Unacceptable’: What’s Iran’s peace proposal that Trump has rejected? (May 11, 2026) and House of Commons Library: US-Iran ceasefire and nuclear talks in 2026

22. The New Republic: Trump Skips Visit to Soldiers Injured in Iran War at Walter Reed (Hafiz Rashid, May 28, 2026)

23. Times of Israel: Emerging US-Iran MoU said to reference possible $300B postwar ‘investment fund’ and Mediaite: Iran Could Receive $300 Billion ‘Reconstruction Program’ Under Emerging Deal: NYT and The New Republic: Guess What Jared Kushner Tried to Include in Iran Peace Deal

24. Common Dreams: Watch: Trump Admits ‘We Shouldn’t Have Been in Iran’ (May 31, 2026) and The Business Standard: Trump says US ‘shouldn’t have been in Iran’

25. CNBC: Iran stops negotiations with U.S., vows to ‘completely’ block Strait of Hormuz: State media (June 1, 2026) and CNBC: Trump tells CNBC: ‘I don’t care’ if Iran negotiations are over (June 1, 2026) and The Independent: Trump says ‘crazy’ Netanyahu has made everyone hate Israel in furious phone call (June 2, 2026)

26. Al Jazeera: Iranian drone attack kills Indian citizen in Kuwait after US strikes Qeshm (June 3, 2026) and CBS News: Israel, Lebanon agree to renew ceasefire as Iran launches deadly attack on Kuwait airport (June 3, 2026)

27. NPR: House passes war powers resolution directing Trump to end hostilities with Iran (June 3, 2026) and CNN: House votes to limit Trump’s Iran war powers in remarkable rebuke (June 3, 2026)

28. Newsweek: US emergency oil reserve approaching all-time low despite Trump promise and The National News Desk: US oil reserves depleted amid Iran conflict, Strait of Hormuz closure (June 4, 2026)

29. Axios: Trump vows to hit Iran “hard” again after U.S. helicopter shot down (June 10, 2026)

30. CNN: Here is the text of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding (June 17, 2026) and The Hill: Vance says Iran could access $300B reconstruction fund if it honors deal (June 15, 2026)

31. The New Republic: Vance contradicts Trump on the Strait of Hormuz “solution” (June 15, 2026) and Bloomberg: Iran says Strait of Hormuz has been closed, Tasnim reports (June 20, 2026)

32. The Independent: Trump threatens to take over Iran after Hormuz reclosure (June 21, 2026) and The Telegraph: Iran walks out of peace talks after Trump outburst (June 22, 2026)

33. The Bulwark: Trump claimed Iran had no air defenses, then Iran shot down two U.S. jets (April 2026)

34. The Washington Post: CIA analysis finds Iran retains most of its missiles despite administration claims (May 7, 2026)

35. The New Republic: Trump secretly asked Iran for a ceasefire weeks ago, report says

36. Bloomberg: Iran says Hormuz Strait now “completely open” for commercial ships (April 17, 2026)

37. CNBC: Trump says he doesn’t want a ceasefire with Iran (March 20, 2026) and Axios: Iran rejects Trump’s 15-point plan to end the war (March 25, 2026)

38. CNN: Iran disputes Trump’s claims about money and uranium in a deal (April 17, 2026)

39. CNN (Daniel Dale): Fact check: Trump denies a comment he made on camera a day earlier (May 3, 2026)

40. The New Republic: Trump says Americans’ finances don’t matter to him “even a little bit” and The New Republic: Vance says Trump never said it, but the video shows he did

41. NBC News: Trump said he spoke with a former president about bombing Iran; four denials suggest otherwise

42. Common Dreams: Trump says U.S. “shouldn’t have been in Iran” in Fox interview (May 30, 2026)

43. The Times of Israel: Trump says ending the Iran war will be “a mutual decision” with Netanyahu and The Hill: White House says the Iran war decision rests solely with the president

44. CNN: Trump launches the regime-change effort in Iran that he pledged to avoid (February 28, 2026)

45. CNBC: US issues Iran oil sanctions relief as the Strait of Hormuz reopens under the deal (June 23, 2026) and NBC News: Strait of Hormuz to reopen as the U.S. lifts Iran sanctions under the 14-point deal (June 23, 2026)

46. The New Republic: Iran contradicts Trump’s claims about nuclear inspections in the deal (June 23, 2026)

47. The New Republic: Trump’s “record” oil claim through the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t add up (June 23, 2026)

48. CBS News: Senate rejects measure to restrict Trump’s Iran war powers as key Republicans shift votes (June 24, 2026) and CNN: Senate walks back its Iran war-powers vote (June 24, 2026)

49. The New Republic: Marco Rubio Admits Trump’s Iran Deal Is Worse Than Obama’s (June 30, 2026)

50. Newsweek: Trump Calls Iran Leaders ‘Scum’ and ‘Evil’ As He Calls Off Ceasefire (July 8, 2026) and The Daily Beast: Trump Kills His Own Iran War Deal as Crisis Spirals (July 8, 2026)

51. Roll Call: Trump informs Congress of renewed military action against Iran (July 13, 2026) and The Washington Post: Survivors of Iranian attack that killed 6 U.S. troops say generals ignored warnings (July 12, 2026) and CNN: US commanders bypassed warnings about outdated intelligence ahead of strike that hit a school in Iran (July 7, 2026) and Common Dreams: ‘An Abomination’: House Dem Revives Hegseth Impeachment Push After Iran School Massacre Revelation (July 8, 2026)

52. The New York Times: Pentagon Withheld Dozens of U.S. Military Injuries in Iran War (July 20, 2026) and NPR: U.S. and Iran launch new strikes after 3 U.S. service members are killed (July 20, 2026) and The Washington Post: Nearly 100 U.S. troops injured in last two weeks of Iran war, Pentagon says (July 21, 2026) and The Washington Post: The Pentagon, sinking billions into Iran war, is quickly running short on cash (July 21, 2026) and The Hill: House Democrat: Trump not sharing Iran war casualty statistics with Congress (July 21, 2026)

53. CBS News: U.S. carries out more strikes as Trump threatens Iran, Houthis with “major military punishment” (July 23-24, 2026) and CNN: Trump attends dignified transfer of soldiers as US and Iran trade threats (July 22, 2026) and CBS News: U.S. and Saudi Arabia sign deal that could allow civil nuclear program, contingent on joining Abraham Accords (July 2026) and ABC News: Trump says nuclear energy deal is contingent on Saudis signing Abraham Accords (July 23, 2026)

54. CNN: US intercepts “surprise attack” by Iran on US forces in the Middle East (July 28, 2026) and NBC News: US thwarts Iranian missile attack, launches strikes with Saudi Arabia (July 2026)

55. MS NOW: ‘We didn’t plan for this’ — How the Iran war left the USS Abraham Lincoln short on supplies and New Republic: Hegseth Covered Up the Real Reason the USS Lincoln Wasn’t Resupplied (August 19, 2026) and Newsweek: Pete Hegseth Accused of Covering Up USS Abraham Lincoln Resupply Problems

56. Al Jazeera: Trump threatens to make the Strait of Hormuz a US territory: Can he? (August 16, 2026) and CNN: Trump says he plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory (August 14, 2026) and Forbes: Trump Labels Map Of Strait Of Hormuz ‘New U.S. Territory’ After Passing 60-Day Deadline For Deal (August 18, 2026)

57. CNN: US airman arrested at Capitol after calling for Trump’s impeachment is detained again (August 19, 2026) and Military.com: An Air Force Major Keeps Calling for Trump’s Impeachment. They Just Detained Him for the Second Time. and Military Times: Air Force major arrested on Capitol steps during protest calling for Trump impeachment (July 2, 2026)

58. The Washington Post (via The Spokesman-Review): Military leaders warn Hegseth against extending Iran war operations (August 30, 2026) and NOTUS: Pentagon Pushes Back on Report of Military Concerns About Iran (August 30, 2026)

59. CBS News: U.S.-Iran War Latest — Tankers hit in Strait of Hormuz as Trump mulls more strikes in “relatively little war” (September 1, 2026) and Breitbart: Trump: Iran a “Failed Nation,” Says U.S. May “Smack Them” Again as He Weighs Limited Hormuz Strikes (August 31, 2026)

60. Military.com (Associated Press): What to Know About a Reported US Airstrike That Hit a Wedding in Iran and NBC News: Iran says U.S. strike on wedding party killed at least 4 and injured dozens

61. Yahoo News (The Telegraph): Pentagon refused payout for soldiers who died in Iran conflict “because it isn’t a war” (September 2026) and AOL (The Telegraph): Pentagon refuses payout for soldiers who died in Iran conflict and CNN: Vance says Iran conflict isn’t a ‘war,’ even as he refuses to say when it will end (Kevin Liptak, September 3, 2026)

62. Washington Post: Diesel hits record $5.85 a gallon as Iran war drags on (Todd C. Frankel, September 4, 2026) and ABC News (Associated Press): Fuel prices at record Labor Day high in US thanks to Iran War and refinery issues (September 7, 2026) and MS NOW: U.S. diesel and gas prices hit record highs, as White House downplays costs (September 4, 2026)

63. NBC News: Trump says the war in Iran will end after Election Day (September 9, 2026) and The Hill: Trump predicts Iran war will end ‘immediately after the election’ (September 9, 2026) and Newsweek: When Will Iran War End? Trump Says Conflict to Continue Through Midterms (September 9, 2026)

64. The Epoch Times: Navy evaluating future at key Middle East base following Iran war damage, acting secretary says (September 10, 2026) and Mediaite: Fox’s Jennifer Griffin highlights comments from acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao on damage caused by Iran (September 10, 2026)

65. CNBC: Trump says oil and gas prices won’t fall until ‘right after’ midterm election (September 9, 2026) and Reason: Trump’s war in Iran has cost Americans over $101 billion at the pump (September 9, 2026)

66. NBC News: Pentagon watchdog says Iran war has led to munitions shortfall (September 14, 2026) and CNN: Missile shortages, damage to US facilities: Pentagon watchdog issues first review of Iran war (September 14, 2026) and CBS News: Pentagon inspector general says $22.3B spent on Iran war munitions has caused “strategic inventory shortfalls”

67. USA Today: Trump says US could ‘decide to stay’ in Iran and ‘keep the oil’ (September 13, 2026) and The Hill: Trump floats idea to ‘stay and keep the oil’ in Iran, noting Venezuela deal

68. NBC News: 10-year Treasury yield tops 5% as oil surges and diesel hits all-time high (September 14, 2026) and CNBC: Ukraine says it’s open to halting attacks on Russian energy after Trump’s claims of deal (September 14, 2026)

69. U.S. Senate: Roll Call Vote 184, H.Con.Res. 86 (June 23, 2026), U.S. Senate: Roll Call Vote 192, Motion to Proceed to S.J.Res. 185 (June 24, 2026) and ABC News: Congress passes war powers resolution, offering rare rebuke of Trump (June 23, 2026)

70. Roll Call: Iran war has cost $38 billion and counting, CBO says (September 15, 2026), CNN: Iran war expected to cause a spike in US inflation, according to budget watchdog (September 15, 2026) and NBC News: Iran war driving up inflation for Americans, CBO report says (September 15, 2026)

71. Rep. Thomas Massie: Articles of impeachment against Secretary Peter Hegseth (resolution text), NPR: Republican Rep. Massie moves to impeach Defense Secretary Hegseth over Iran war (September 15, 2026) and TIME: Republican Congressman Introduces Articles of Impeachment Against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (September 15, 2026)

72. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House: Roll Call 307, H.Con.Res. 93 (September 15, 2026), AP: House votes for a third time to end the Iran war as conflict drags on (September 15, 2026) and CNN: Trump sees three new GOP defections in House vote to end Iran war (September 15, 2026)

73. UN Human Rights Council: Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, A/HRC/63/61 (September 2026) and AP (via KPBS): U.N.-backed experts cite possible U.S. war crimes in Iran, including a school attack (September 17, 2026)

74. AP: Speaker Johnson recesses the House early as Rep. Thomas Massie pushes Hegseth impeachment (September 16, 2026) and NBC News: House to leave early, punting Hegseth impeachment vote until after November elections (September 16, 2026)

75. The Independent: Trump says he is weighing whether to ‘annihilate’ Iran (September 17, 2026) and New York Post: Trump says he has a ‘big decision’ coming up on Iran (September 17, 2026)

76. Sen. Elissa Slotkin: Letter on Iran War Cost Transparency to Secretary Hegseth (September 17, 2026) and NBC News: Democratic senators request Pentagon provide “bare minimum” on cost of war (September 17, 2026)

77. Bloomberg Government: Pentagon Puts Iran Cost at $43.6 Billion in Estimate to Congress (September 18, 2026) and Roll Call: Pentagon’s latest Iran war cost estimate (September 18, 2026)

78. The Washington Post: More U.S. troops have died amid Iran war than Pentagon has disclosed publicly (September 18, 2026) and The Hill: Pentagon omitted service member deaths from public database (September 2026)

79. The Hill: Tillis calls for Hegseth impeachment (September 18, 2026) and HuffPost: Republican Who Voted To Confirm Hegseth Now Says He Needs to Go (September 18, 2026)

80. Mediaite: Trump Warns Fox’s Yingst ‘Very Big Things’ Are Happening on Iran (September 20, 2026), The Hill: Trump on Iran: ‘My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up?’ (September 20, 2026), New York Post: Trump warns he’s close to Iran decision as Middle East tensions escalate (September 20, 2026) and Fox News: Iran lays out demands to end war as Trump prepares for UN trip (September 20, 2026)

81. The Washington Post: Trump’s ambassador to U.N. says there’s no timeline on Iran war’s end (September 20, 2026) and Newsweek: Waltz Won’t Give Iran War End Date as New Poll Shows Voter Skepticism (September 20, 2026)

82. CNN: Iran war has cost $45.1 billion, Pentagon tells Congress (September 18, 2026), Roll Call: Pentagon’s latest Iran war cost estimate: $43.6 billion (September 18, 2026), Associated Press: Rising gas prices frustrate voters. Trump says it’s an ‘inexpensive price to pay’ for the Iran war (September 20, 2026), Reuters via BOE Report: Record US diesel prices squeeze farmers; food prices may rise (September 18, 2026) and The Hill: Hassett on Iran war: ‘The president had to act’ (September 20, 2026)

83. Bloomberg: Inside the US ‘Kill Chain’ That Destroyed an Iranian School (September 18, 2026)

84. The New York Times via The Philadelphia Inquirer: Trump gets caught in a dilemma over a Saudi plea for military help (September 21, 2026), AFP via Free Malaysia Today: Trump reverses course on strikes against Houthis (September 21, 2026) and Daily Caller: Trump Reportedly Called Off Houthi Strikes As Bombs Were Being Loaded Onto US Planes (September 21, 2026)

85. The Hill: Proposed diesel export ban pits GOP senators against each other (September 22, 2026), Washington Examiner: Rural Republicans press Trump for relief as diesel prices surge (September 21, 2026) and Politico via Yahoo News: Big Ag and Big Oil go head-to-head over diesel export ban (September 21, 2026)

86. Ipsos: Republicans’ rating of Trump on the cost of living declines (September 21, 2026) and Reuters via AOL: Trump approval falls to record low of 32% as high costs bite, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds (September 21, 2026)

87. Associated Press: Senate rejects resolution to halt the Iran war as gas prices upend midterms (September 24, 2026) and NBC News: Senate rejects resolution calling to end the Iran war as most Republicans stick with Trump (September 24, 2026) and CNBC: Senate narrowly votes down resolution calling for end to Iran war (September 24, 2026)

88. WAFB: Landry declares emergency to help farmers, loggers cope with record diesel prices (September 23, 2026) and WBRZ: Gov. Landry declares state of emergency over high diesel prices ahead of harvest (September 2026)

89. CNN: 8 sailors assigned to USS Abraham Lincoln strike group attempted suicide, Navy secretary tells Congress (September 23, 2026) and NBC News: 8 Navy members attempted suicide on the USS Lincoln during extended deployment, military official says (September 23, 2026) and Navy Times: 8 sailors attempted suicide aboard ships from Lincoln strike group, Cao says (September 24, 2026) and CNN: Trump says USS Lincoln’s deployment was ‘not nearly long enough’ (August 14, 2026)

90. Washington Post: Trump rejects Iran’s proposal to reopen Strait of Hormuz, restart peace talks (September 26, 2026) and AP: Trump rejects Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and other Mideast news (September 26, 2026) and CNBC: Trump rejects Iran’s conditional ceasefire proposal, WSJ reports, as Saudi coalition intercepts projectiles (September 26, 2026) and CBS News live updates: Trump expects talks with Iran to resume this week after rejecting proposal (September 27, 2026) and NBC News: Meet the Press – September 27, 2026 (transcript) and Fox News live: Trump won’t rule out more Iran strikes as Pezeshkian touts path back to nuclear talks (September 27, 2026) and The Guardian: UN ambassador Waltz says Iran was not negotiating ‘in good faith’ to end war (September 27, 2026)

91. CBS News: Trump signs rescissions bill clawing back foreign aid, NPR and PBS funding (July 24, 2025)

92. Reuters (via Yahoo): UK will not back blockade of Strait of Hormuz, PM Starmer says (April 13, 2026) and The New Republic: NATO Dumps Cold Water on Trump Claim About Hormuz Strait Blockade (April 13, 2026)

93. Air & Space Forces Magazine: US Launches Strikes on Iran in Retaliation for Downed Apache (June 9, 2026) and CBS News: U.S. and Iran trade attacks again after Trump pledges Tehran will “pay the price” for not accepting deal (June 10-11, 2026)

94. CNN: White House breaks from precedent by not releasing Trump’s medical report (Adam Cancryn, May 29, 2026)