Author: potus

The United States, the Middle East and world oil markets are bracing for Iran’s response after President Donald Trump launched punishing strikes on Iranian nuclear energy sites overnight, plunging the region into an unprecedented new phase of a decades-old conflict.The U.S. struck Iranian nuclear facilities, including the key Fordo site, with 14 GBU-57s, 30,000-pound “bunker buster bombs,” according to the U.S. military. It was the first time the United States has directly bombed the Islamic Republic.The next 48 hours are of particular concern, according to two defense officials and a senior White House official. It’s unclear whether any retaliation would…

As the United States faces possible retaliatory attacks from Iran, a “brain drain” in top Justice Department and FBI national security and counterterrorism units could reduce their ability to prevent potential terror and cyber attacks from Tehran, according to six former senior DOJ and FBI officials.Staff levels in the DOJ National SecurityDivision’s Law and Policy section have dropped by as much as two-thirds, two former DOJ officials said. Its counterintelligence and export control section — which tracks foreign espionage in the U.S. by Iran and other foreign rival — has lost about a third of its workforce, two former DOJ…

After six months of aggressive immigration enforcement and promises to focus on deporting violent criminals, the Trump administration has arrested and detained a small fraction of the undocumented immigrants already known to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as having been convicted of sexual assault and homicide, internal ICE data obtained by NBC News shows.The data is a tally of every person booked by ICE from Oct. 1 through May 31, part of which was during the Biden administration. It shows a total of 185,042 people arrested and booked into ICE facilities during that time; 65,041 of them have been convicted of…

U.S. lawmakers urged the Trump administration to recommit to a nuclear submarine deal with Australia and Britain, saying it was vital to “deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.”A Pentagon official said earlier this month that the deal, known as AUKUS, was under review to ensure it was “aligned with the President’s America First agenda,” amid concerns that the U.S. is not building nuclear-powered submarines fast enough to sell some to Australia as agreed under the deal.“This is a defense alliance that is overwhelmingly in the best interest of all three AUKUS nations, as well as the entire Indo-Pacific region,”…

Israel hailed its offensive against Iran as a success on Tuesday as it thanked its closest ally, the United States, for its role in “eliminating” the Iranian nuclear threat. But experts say those celebrations are most likely premature, with an accurate picture of the impact of U.S. and Israeli strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program unclear and hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium still unaccounted for. “It’s far too soon for the United States or Israel to claim that Iran’s nuclear program has been destroyed,” Kelsey Davenport of the Arms Control Association told NBC News on Monday.Too soon to tellWhile President…

President Donald Trump is cutting short his attendance at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, the White House said Monday night, citing the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.“Much was accomplished, but because of what’s going on in the Middle East, President Trump will be leaving tonight after dinner with Heads of State,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X.Trump has requested that the National Security Council be prepared in the Situation Room when he returns from the summit, an administration official told NBC News.NBC News has reached out to administration officials for additional details.Follow here for…

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Wednesday credible intelligence indicated that Iran’s nuclear program was “severely damaged” in recent U.S. airstrikes and that several key sites were “destroyed.”A Defense Intelligence Agency initial assessment leaked on Tuesday found that the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites may have set back the country’s nuclear program by only several months, a more limited impact than President Donald Trump stated after the strikes.The precise damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the viability of its broader program have become politically charged issues, with Trump and his deputies denouncing the leak of the DIA report…

Less than two years ago, Iran’s government sounded triumphant. It was November 2023, just weeks after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and a senior Iranian general was predicting that the regime and its proxy forces in Gaza and Lebanon were poised to vanquish Israel, the United States and other enemies.“We are fighting America, Zionism and all those who are targeting the greatness and honor of the Islamic Revolution of Iran,” Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said in a speech in the city of Kazvin.“We are on the verge of conquering great heights.…

Most governments and people in Europe agree with Trump’s stated premise that they need to spend more on their militaries — and stop their historical, postwar reliance on the United States. But Trump’s unpredictability still causes great anxiety on the Continent, particularly his repeated questioning of the mutual defense promise at the heart of NATO, which was established after World War II to counter the Soviet Union.NATO members voted Wednesday to more than double their defense spending targets to 5% of gross domestic product, acceding to Trump’s demand. This caused some disquiet when Trump first suggested it in January, but…

WASHINGTON — An initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency concludes that the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites over the weekend were not as effective as President Donald Trump said and that they set the country’s nuclear program back by only three to six months, according to three people with knowledge of the report.“We were assuming that the damage was going to be much more significant than this assessment is finding,” said one of the three sources. “This assessment is already finding that these core pieces are still intact. That’s a bad sign for the overall program.”CNN first reported…