Will raise your cost of living...........

3 things you need to understand about how war with Iran will raise your cost of living

Analysis by David Goldman

The war with Iran is complex, but the reason why the Middle East conflict matters to your financial well-being comes down to three simple facts.

• Oil prices will remain high until the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.
• The longer this war drags on, the higher your prices will rise.
• A prolonged conflict poses a significant threat to the economy and jobs.

Here’s what you need to know:

Strait of Hormuz

There’s only one thing the oil market cares about: getting the Strait of Hormuz reopened. Everything else is noise.

Want proof? On Thursday, one day after 32 nations announced they’d release a record 400 million barrels of oil onto the market, oil rose above $100 a barrel. It had stayed below that level since President Donald Trump said on Monday that the war would end soon.

That prognostication now appears wildly optimistic.

Iran remains in control of the strait, the narrow waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil travels. In the first public message attributed to Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, since assuming the role, he said Thursday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed as a “tool of pressure.”

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC Thursday that it would be weeks before the US Navy was able to begin escorting oil tankers through the strait.

While international oil tankers remain stuck in the Persian Gulf, Iran faces no such constraint – it has kept its own oil flowing through the strait since the conflict, because its ships are the only ones that can transit. That means it can wait this out without sacrificing much oil revenue, while its foreign adversaries struggle with potentially massive economic disruption.

Even if the war ended today, it could take 1 to 3 months to get the strait operational again, according to Homayoun Falakshahi, lead crude research analyst at Kpler. It will take time to clear the hundreds of ships waiting for safe passage and for major oil producers to fix damaged facilities, ramp up production and get oil moving again.

Duration matters

The longer this goes, the higher your prices get. Plain and simple.

Oil could rise to $150 a barrel if the strait isn’t reopened, according to Jay Hatfield, CEO and founder of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.

As oil prices rise, gas is marching toward $4 a gallon. That will cost you at the pump when you fill your car.

Diesel is heading toward $5 a gallon. Trucking companies that carry all the stuff you buy will start adding fuel surcharges. Some, including FedEx, already are.

Companies probably won’t be eating that cost — they’ve already been paying Trump’s tariffs, and there’s little appetite for more profit shaving. JPMorgan estimated consumers would bear 80% of tariff costs this year for that reason.

Prices for perishables – dairy, fruits, vegetables, fish – will rise first. Airfares could come next. But, eventually, if fuel prices remain high, many goods that are transported on a truck, plane or ship will go up in cost.

Economic fears are legitimate

The US economy is healthy, but it has been on shaky ground: Since May of last year, the economy has lost 19,000 jobs.

Major oil price shocks always result in reduced economic output. See: the 1973 oil crisis, the 1990 Gulf War oil shock, the 2008 global financial crisis. A prolonged price shock could scare businesses into layoffs, send the market tumbling and reduce consumer spending (which drives two-thirds of US economic output).

The last time oil surged – after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 – the US job market was booming. That’s not the case this time. Businesses have already been on edge about tariffs and AI. Now they have to deal with a price shock.

That’s why Goldman Sachs economists this week increased their forecasts for inflation and unemployment and raised their risk of recession this year to 25%, up from 20%.

Crashing down..........

Trump’s fantasy is crashing down.

By LYDIA POLGREEN

In Donald Trump’s fantasy world, America is invincible and impregnable.

Its military is so advanced and skillful that it can pluck a sitting head of state from a hostile country and deposit him in a New York City jail cell without losing a single soldier. It can slap punitive tariffs on any nation it likes, abandon long-standing alliances on a whim, bomb any country at any time and freely blow up boats it may suspect of carrying drugs. America’s awesome power means it is unfettered by any rules, untroubled by any consequences. As an unfathomably rich and sprawling nation, blessed by geography and protected from its enemies by two vast oceans, why shouldn’t it do what it will?

Over the past six days, as Trump plunged the United States into a war with Iran, that fantasy of omnipotence has come crashing into reality. Undertaken for unexplained and perhaps unexplainable reasons, the war is being waged in a central node of the global economy against a disciplined, well-armed opponent with nothing to lose. America and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a dozen Iranian leaders on the first day of fighting, but Trump has clearly given little thought to what comes next. Recklessly, he has ignited a widening conflagration with no obvious end in sight. The death toll has already surpassed 1,000 people.

For America, the repercussions are just beginning. At least six U.S. service members have been killed, and the Pentagon, pointedly not ruling out boots on the ground, has said more casualties are likely. Despite relentless attacks on Iran’s military installations, the country has responded with relentless force.

It has rained missiles and drones not only on American and Israeli targets but also on the Gulf countries — the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia chief among them — that play host to U.S. military bases. Airports, hotels, data centers and energy infrastructure have been struck, causing chaos. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint for the export of oil and gas, is all but closed, sending shudders through energy markets.

This is the world Trump tries to disavow — complex and interconnected, resiliently interwoven and yet vulnerable to disruption. The Persian Gulf embodies it like no other place. An apotheosis of globalization, it is a crossroads of money, people and power deeply intertwined with not just America’s fortunes but also Trump’s personal wealth. More than anything, it shows up — in its grounded flights, shuttered refineries and intercepted missiles — the fallacy of Fortress America.

Trump neither sought nor received congressional approval, much less international support, for his war. But perhaps the most shocking thing about his cavalier approach is that he seems to have had no idea the Gulf would be a target. In an interview with CNN on Monday, he professed that Iran’s attacks on U.S. allies in the Gulf were “probably the biggest surprise” — despite the fact that just about every country in the region had warned his administration that Iran would surely attack them in retaliation for a U.S. assault.

This thoughtlessness is part of a pattern. For one thing, the Trump administration has given no plausible explanation for the war, offering instead confused and contradictory justifications. Secretary of State Marco Rubio even suggested that America was effectively bounced into it by the prospect of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran. Trump soon weighed in, claiming that he was actually the one who pressured Israel into the venture. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, perhaps offered the closest thing to the truth. “The president had a feeling,” she told reporters Wednesday, “that Iran was going to strike the United States.”

For another, Trump appears strangely uncertain about where the war is heading. “The worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person,” Trump mused on Tuesday, seated in his gilded Oval Office alongside Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany. “We don’t want that to happen,” he said, seeming to be considering this very real possibility for the first time. “It would probably be the worst.”

It is unsettling how often Trump affects astonishing indifference, as if the most powerful man in the world were merely a spectator to events he has set in motion — and who in any case has little investment in the outcome. But that curious passivity reveals a darker truth. Trump seems to believe that he, like his fantasy America, exists on a different plane, utterly untouchable by the swirl of global events. The devastating consequences of his actions are not just someone else’s fault. They are someone else’s problem, too.

America’s last major foray in the Middle East casts a long shadow over the Iran war — it was, in many ways, the crucible that gave us Trump. But the Gulf is a fundamentally different place than it was when America invaded Iraq after 9/11. Disastrous as that decision was, the region had not yet become the indispensable node of the global economy it is today.

There are the oil and gas, of course. The Gulf is home to about half of the world’s proven reserves of oil. Those are now imperiled: Scarcely any ships are getting through the Strait of Hormuz, and oil producers are running out of storage space. What’s more, one-fifth of the world’s liquid natural gas comes through the strait, primarily from Qatar. On Wednesday, that country shut down its liquefaction facilities and declared a force majeure, with potentially dire implications for importers in Europe and East Asia.

Yet alongside this resource wealth, Gulf nations have rapidly diversified in recent decades, transforming the region into a center of finance, aviation, technology and tourism, as well as a home to tens of millions of people from across the globe. The sprawling airports and vast fleets of airliners in Dubai, UAE; Doha, Qatar; and Abu Dhabi, UAE have made the region the busiest flight hub on the globe — about 80% of the world is an eight-hour flight away. The closure of these airports has not only stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers, including many Americans, but has also severed vital links between vast regions of the world.

Indeed, there are few people who would have better reason to appreciate the Gulf’s centrality than Trump. After all, his family’s company has struck billions of dollars of real estate deals in the region. His son-in-law Jared Kushner got $2 billion in 2022 from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund for his private equity company. An investment firm tied to the UAE purchased nearly half of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company for $500 million just days before Trump’s inauguration last year. A few months later, Qatar gave Trump the lavish gift of a gilded Boeing 747.

If war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, perhaps it will also serve as a lesson to Trump. It should be a simple one: Other places and other people are real, possessing their own agendas and agency — and America’s actions have consequences it cannot control. Anything else is pure fantasy.

Dangerous Fantasy

Trump’s ‘Victory’ Over Iran Is a Dangerous Fantasy. Here’s Why Lasting Peace Requires a Starkly Different Path.

Mike Adams

A Leader Lost in His Own Fiction

From the safety of his Florida resort, President Donald Trump has declared the war with Iran is “very complete, pretty much.” [1] He boasted to supporters in Kentucky that the United States has already won. [2] To any clear-eyed observer, these pronouncements are not the sober assessment of a wartime commander; they are the ramblings of a man utterly detached from reality. It is a dangerous fiction, one that mirrors his self-serving falsehoods about economics and inflation. I believe this narrative is a deliberate smokescreen, a political ploy to mask a catastrophic miscalculation.

The real situation is one of escalating catastrophe. The Strait of Hormuz remains a chokepoint for global oil, with prices soaring past $100 a barrel and threatening to go much higher, crippling the affordability agenda Trump claims to champion. [3] [4] Meanwhile, the Israeli leadership, emboldened by U.S. support, vows an indefinite campaign to overthrow the Iranian government. [5] We are not witnessing a victory lap; we are sleepwalking into a wider, potentially nuclear, war that could topple the U.S. dollar and the entire global order. [4] This is not a path to peace, but a highway to hell.

The Facts on the Ground: A War No One Has Won

Trump’s victory narrative collapses upon the slightest contact with reality. The Pentagon may claim progress in destroying Iranian military assets, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has bluntly stated that Iran, not the U.S., will determine when this war ends. [6] Iran has escalated to what it calls “continuous strikes” against Israel, and regional allies like the Houthis continue to threaten shipping. The war is expanding, not concluding. Democratic senators, after a classified briefing, condemned the administration’s “complete incoherence” and reported the U.S. has “no plan” for the war or for securing the Strait of Hormuz. [7] This is not the hallmark of a victorious campaign; it is the signature of unplanned chaos.

Furthermore, the military reality exposes the absurdity of the victory talk. The opening 48-hour bombing campaign alone cost American taxpayers a staggering $5.6 billion in munitions. [8] There are credible reports that the U.S. military is running low on precision-guided bombs, a vulnerability that even staunch Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham has implicitly acknowledged. [8] How can you claim total victory when you are burning through your arsenal at an unsustainable rate and have no credible plan to secure the primary objective -- the free flow of oil? The market understands this: futures tumble and oil surges on every headline of renewed fighting, because traders see the truth Trump denies. [9]

How Trump and Kushner Burned Every Bridge to Diplomacy

The path to this disaster was paved by a systematic, scorched-earth policy against diplomacy. Recall that in mid-2025, Iran signaled a readiness for nuclear talks, but only with “mutual respect.” [10] The Trump administration’s response has been the antithesis of respect. It bombed Iran during periods of diplomatic overtures and, most egregiously, was responsible for a Tomahawk missile strike that destroyed an elementary school in Minab, killing over 150 children. [11] When questioned about evidence of this atrocity, President Trump shrugged, “I don’t know about it.” [12] [13] This pattern of bad-faith aggression has made the U.S. an untrustworthy negotiating partner.

Consequently, Iran’s refusal to negotiate further is not irrational stubbornness; it is a rational response to betrayal. The new hardline Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and the Iranian political establishment now see no room for talks, believing the U.S. goal is to “partition the country [and] take oil.” [14] This scorched-earth approach, heavily influenced by advisers like Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, has obliterated any peaceful off-ramp. [15] As noted by analysts, the U.S. has launched a war based on false claims, much like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with no apparent exit strategy. [16] We have backed Iran, and by extension ourselves, into a corner where only military escalation remains on the table.

The Inevitable Logic: Why Iran Will Seek and Get Nuclear Weapons

In this climate of existential threat, the logic for Iran pursuing a nuclear deterrent becomes inexorable. The assassination of the previous Supreme Leader, who was reportedly a barrier to weaponization, has removed a critical internal check. [17] Now, facing a U.S.-Israeli alliance that it views as a genocidal “terror state” -- a view I find increasingly difficult to dispute given the school bombing and the explicit goals of regime change -- Iran will follow the only playbook that guarantees regime survival: the North Korea model. [18]

From my analysis of the geopolitical landscape, I believe Iran likely already possesses the latent capability and will move to demonstrate a nuclear weapon within months. Why wouldn’t they? For decades, they have watched the U.S. and Israel invade or bomb non-nuclear states like Iraq, Libya, and Syria with impunity, while nuclear-armed North Korea and Pakistan remain untouched. [19] The lesson is clear: in the brutal calculus of international relations, a nuclear weapon is the ultimate guarantor of sovereignty. As one Iranian official stated, the U.S. seeks to control the world to prevent a multipolar order. [20] A nuclear Iran is the definitive assertion of that multipolarity. This development is not a matter of if, but when, and it will fundamentally alter the global landscape.

Why Iranian Nukes Could Be the Path to Regional Stability

This conclusion will be anathema to the Western propaganda machine, but I must state it plainly: Iranian nuclear weapons could be the paradoxical path to a durable peace. This is not a endorsement of proliferation, but a cold recognition of strategic reality. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), for all its horrors, has proven to be a devastatingly effective stabilizer between major powers, preventing direct nuclear conflict for decades. [21] With nuclear parity, Iran would achieve the credible deterrent needed to halt Western and Israeli aggression in its tracks.

Think of it this way: an armed society is a polite society; a nuclear-armed Middle East would be forced into a grim politeness. Israel’s own undeclared nuclear arsenal has been a destabilizing, unilateral threat. A multipolar nuclear balance, however harsh, would force a recalculation. It would end the fantasy of regime change through bombing and force all parties to the negotiating table. [22] With the existential threat of escalation removed, commerce, shipping, and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz could finally stabilize, ending the economic warfare that is crippling the West. [23] The alternative -- a perpetual, escalating conventional war funded by American debt -- is a far greater guarantee of catastrophe.

Conclusion: The Choice Between Catastrophe and Coexistence

President Trump’s fantasy of a cheap, quick victory is a siren song leading the American republic onto the rocks. It is a distraction from the hard truth: this war, orchestrated to serve Israel’s decades-old plan for regional domination, is bankrupting us in treasure, blood, and moral standing. [17] The only sane path forward is a stark and immediate reversal. The United States must disentangle itself from Israel’s genocidal “Greater Israel” project, demand an immediate ceasefire, and bring our troops home. [18]

True “Making America Great Again” does not mean dying for a foreign ethnostate. It means securing our own borders, focusing on self-reliance, and rebuilding our domestic energy and industrial capacity. It means rejecting the globalist wars that serve only the banks and the military-industrial complex. We must decentralize our foreign policy and our economy. The American people deserve a republic that provides peace and prosperity, not endless conflict for the profit of a corrupt elite. The choice is clear: we can continue down the path of Trump’s dangerous fantasy toward ultimate ruin, or we can embrace the difficult, multipolar peace that reality demands. The time to choose is now.

Weak economy, weak president....

The US economy grew just 0.7% last quarter, ahead of a potentially destabilizing war with Iran

By Bryan Mena, Elisabeth Buchwald

The US economy was on shaky footing even before President Donald Trump plunged the United States into a war with Iran, a battery of new data released Friday showed.

At the end of last year, economic growth was anemic, the Commerce Department said Friday, dragged down by the historic government shutdown. Economists widely expect most of those losses to be recouped in the current quarter stretching from January through March.

But America still has an inflation problem, according to January figures released Friday — one that will likely worsen if the Iran war continues to disrupt global energy markets. Consumers are already taking notice of higher prices at the pump, set to weigh on America’s already-weak economic mood.

The crosscurrent of intensifying price pressures and ongoing fragility in the labor market puts Federal Reserve policymakers in a difficult spot as they’re set to convene in just a few days to set interest rates.

“The full impact on the US economy and financial markets from the Iranian conflict remains highly fluid and uncertain,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, in an analyst note Friday. “The longer the conflict and disruptions persist, the larger the possible negative hit to business and consumer confidence from increased uncertainty that would inflict further drag on economic activity.”

The overall picture

US gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, expanded at an annualized rate of 0.7% in the October-through-December period, the Commerce Department said Friday in its second estimate. That’s down sharply from the 1.4% rate initially reported, and a much slower pace than the 4.4% in the third quarter.

The latest estimate revised several output categories lower, including exports, consumer spending and government outlays. The biggest downward revision was to exports, which moved down to -3.3%, much lower than the -0.9% reported in the first estimate.

The government shutdown was still the biggest factor subtracting from GDP in the fourth quarter, shaving off 1.16 percentage points. Economists widely expect most of those losses to be recouped in the current quarter that stretches from January through the end of March.

“The big downward revision in GDP is a gut check going into this energy crunch, increasing the risk of stagflation,” David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation, wrote in analyst note Friday.

The fourth quarter capped a tumultuous year for the US economy as Trump waged a bid to reshape global trade and businesses ramped up investments in AI while slamming the brakes on hiring. The economy expanded just 2.1% in 2025, the weakest annual pace since 2020, and before that, since 2016.

Now, though, the US economy is currently staring down the effects of Trump’s war on Iran, which has already sent oil prices skyrocketing and pushed up prices at the pump for Americans, with more inflation pain expected if the war broadens or is prolonged.

The latest sentiment survey from the University of Michigan released Friday showed that the Iran war has already begun to take a toll on consumers. Sentiment declined about 2% this month to a reading of 55.5, according to a preliminary reading.

“Interviews completed prior to the military action in Iran showed an improvement in sentiment from last month, but lower readings seen during the nine days thereafter completely erased those initial gains,” Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said in a release.

The labor market remains shaky

The oil shock comes as the US labor market remains in a precarious state, with employers shedding 92,000 jobs in February as the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3%.

But new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests employers are still looking to hire more workers, with 400,000 new job openings in January, compared to December.

However, layoffs and discharges ticked up slightly, by 183,000 to 2.1 million in January. That’s according to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover report.

A weakening labor market helped the Fed lower rates three times last year, but unless conditions deteriorate, Fed officials may hesitate to lower rates anytime soon because of the looming threat of higher prices due to the expanding conflict in the Middle East.

The engine of the economy isn’t hitting the brakes (or the gas)

With looming concerns about job security, Americans’ appetite for spending isn’t growing.

A separate report from the Commerce Department on Friday showed consumer spending held firm at a 0.4% rate in January from December, according to Personal Consumption Expenditures data. That matters for the broader economy, since spending represents about two-thirds of US economic activity.

Friday’s revised GDP data also showed that inflation-adjusted consumer spending in the fourth quarter was 2%, which is lower than the previously reported 2.4% gain.

On the inflation side, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE price index, showed slight improvement in January. On an annual basis, it grew at 2.8% versus 2.9% in December. And on a monthly basis, inflation was up 0.3% compared to 0.4% in December.

“This is only going to head higher as the energy shock comes through,” Sonu Varghese, chief macro strategist at Carson Group, wrote in commentary issued Friday. “An already large headache for the Federal Reserve is going to turn into an even larger one, and it’s likely the Fed will not cut rates in 2026 and may even start talking about rate hikes later this year.”

Because he is stupid......

Trump gets irritated over questions about taking Kharg Island — Iran's critical oil lifeline

By Alayna Treene

President Donald Trump dodged questions regarding occupying Iran’s Kharg Island — a stretch of land in the Persian Gulf referred to as the country’s oil lifeline — during an interview published today.

He told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade “I can’t answer a question like that,” before adding “it’s not high on the list.”

“Are you thinking about taking Kharg Island, where 90% of the Iranian oil goes through, and what do you think about…” Kilmeade asked Trump during a radio interview, before the president cut him off.

“Brian, I can’t answer a question like that. … You shouldn’t be even asking it. It’s one of so many different things. It’s not high on the list, but it’s one of so many different things, and I can change my mind in seconds,” Trump said, before criticizing the question as “foolish.”

“OK, let’s say I was going to do it, or let’s say I wasn’t going to do it. What would I tell you? ‘Oh, yes, Brian, I’m thinking about doing it, let me, let me let you know what time and when it’ll take place.’ It’s not, you know, it’s sort of a foolish question, a little surprising for you, because you’re a smart man,” the president added.

Kharg Island is a five-mile-stretch of land off the Iranian coast that has seemingly been left untouched during the first two weeks of the war with Iran. The critical island handles roughly 90% of the country’s crude exports.

Experts have argued that attempting to capture or attack Kharg Island would require a significant number of ground troops — something the Trump administration has so far been reluctant to call in.

You think????

Trump says he thinks Russia may be helping Iran “a little bit”

By Donald Judd

President Donald Trump said Friday he believes Russia is helping Iran “a little bit,” but pointed to US support for Ukraine as justification.

Pressed if he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is supporting Iran following US strikes on the country, Trump told Fox News Radio in an interview, “I think he might be helping him a little bit, yeah, I guess. And he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?”

“Yeah, we’re helping [Ukraine] also,” Trump continued. “And so, [Putin] says that, and China would say the same thing. You know, it’s like, hey, they do it and we do it. In all fairness, they do it and we do it.”

Last week, CNN reported that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence about the locations and movements of American troops, ships and aircraft, according to multiple people familiar with US intelligence reporting on the issue.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters during a Pentagon briefing last week that Russia and China are “not really a factor” in the war with Iran.

I convince them all to do what?????

Trump suggests his national security team doesn’t disagree much: “I convince them all”

By Betsy Klein

President Donald Trump offered his views on decision-making in wartime, suggesting that he is limiting dissent among his top national security officials.

“I let them speak their mind. And they do, and we have some differences, but they never end up being much. I convince them all to let’s do it my way,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade when asked about the dynamics behind closed doors.

Kilmeade had asked Trump about disagreements in modern presidential history, pointing to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell sparring in front of President George W. Bush and Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger feuding in front of President Ronald Reagan.

I feel bad...

Trump says Iran war will end when he feels it “in my bones”

By Alejandra Jaramillo

President Donald Trump said he will know when the war with Iran is over when he feels it “in my bones,” offering yet another personal measure for when the conflict might come to an end.

Asked during a phone interview, aired Friday on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox Radio, when he will know the war is finished, Trump responded: “When I feel it, OK, feel it in my bones.”

Moments earlier in the interview, the president suggested the conflict may not last much longer.

“I don’t think it’s going to be long when it’s over,” Trump said.

The United States and Israel have continued military operations against Iran following the start of their assault on February 28. Since the campaign began, Trump has offered differing signals about how long the conflict could continue.

Psychopath......

Trump says he doesn't worry about potential threats to California or US

By Kit Maher

President Donald Trump said he doesn’t worry about potential threats on California or the United States following reports about an FBI memo that contained unverified information about a potential Iranian drone attack on the state.

“I don’t worry about it, because if you did, you wouldn’t be able to function. OK, so you can’t worry. You have to do something — and we watch everything at a level that it’s never been watched; our country has never been watched over like this,” Trump told “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox Radio.

Pressed on whether the memo crossed his desk, Trump insulted California Gov. Gavin Newsom but did not address the validity of the threat.

“First we heard about it was from Gavin Newscum,” Trump said, using a nickname he often employs for the potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.

Newsom said Wednesday that “no imminent threat” exists. ABC News was first to report on the memo.

6 crew members killed

All 6 crew members aboard refueling aircraft killed in Iraq crash, US military says

By Kaanita Iyer

All crew members who were aboard the refueling aircraft that went down in Iraq Thursday have been confirmed dead, US Central Command announced today.

“All six crew members aboard a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed deceased,” CENTCOM said in a post on X.

The military previously announced the deaths of four of the crew members aboard the aircraft.

CENTCOM shared in an earlier post that the incident is under investigation, but it determined that the crash “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, an umbrella group of factions loyal to Iran, has claimed responsibility for downing the aircraft. The group did not provide evidence for its claims.

Another aircraft was also involved in the incident but it landed safely in Israel, the country’s ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter said in a post on X.

The military is withholding the names of the deceased service members until 24 hours after next of kin are notified.