Ex-NATO commander sees 2 in 3 chance Trump strikes Iran
'I think it's a close call for the president,' Stavridis told CNN's Pamela Brown on 'The Situation Room,' in an interview highlighted by Mediaite. 'At this point, Pamela, I would say there's a two in three chance he will go ahead and strike.'
'I think there's a one in three chance he'll give it a bit more time and see how diplomacy plays out. You can make a case on either side of that decision,' he added.
President Trump and his administration have mulled the possibility of stepping into the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel, which kicked off a week ago. The president has hinted multiple times in the last week at possible U.S. participation.
The president is expected to come to a conclusion on whether to go ahead with direct action against Iran within two weeks, the president said Thursday in a message given by a spokesperson.
'Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiation that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go in the next two weeks,' Trump said in a statement, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt read aloud.
Thursday polling from The Washington Post found that nearly half of Americans, 45 percent, said they would not back U.S. intervention in Iran.
The two Middle Eastern have traded tit-for-tar strikes for several days, which also prompted nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. to collapse.
The administration began talks with Iran in April, holding five rounds of negotiations throughout the spring.
This conflict also broke out amid already heightened tensions in the region over Israel's ongoing war in Gaza, which started in late 2023.
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New York Post
6 minutes ago
- New York Post
Miranda Devine: The country deserves better than the Dems ‘cracked out clown show,' ‘elite' media ignoring Gabbard's bombshell
America deserves better than the degenerate propaganda machine that passes for 'elite' journalism. We deserve better than the evil 'cracked out clown show' the Democratic Party has become. The New York Times and The Washington Post all but ignored DNI Tulsi Gabbard's bombshell press conference Wednesday, at which she announced that she had sent criminal referrals to the DOJ and FBI implicating former President Barack Obama and his national security team in the 'seditious conspiracy' of the Russia collusion hoax. No wonder the best of the Democrats have switched to the Trump GOP. Authentic, principled leaders who might once have rescued Democrats from the abyss, like Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy Jr., now serve in the Trump cabinet, and countless unnamed voters have switched allegiance. Only the very wealthy protected class and the controlled underclass remain with a smattering of grifters and the irredeemably Trump-deranged, but that doesn't mean the party isn't dangerous. Advertisement As time goes on, and more evidence is painstakingly chipped out of hiding, we see just how rotten are the apex Democrats: Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. No wonder their party is a shambles: 'Constipated. Leaderless. Confused. A cracked-out clown car. Divided,' wrote veteran Democratic strategist James Carville in the Times this week, warning of an impending 'civil war' between whatever is left of the moderate rump and the parasitical radical faction that is sucking the party dry. Dem blood-suckers But the energy of the party is with the blood-suckers, like commie nepo-baby Zohran Mamdani, who may disastrously win the New York City mayoralty. His clones are popping up everywhere. Advertisement When Hunter Biden emerged from hiding to attack Obama and his proxies, the politically ambitious Hollywood 'brand' George Clooney ('not a f–king actor') and the smug former Obama bros at Pod Save America ('junior f–king speechwriters'), he was speaking on behalf of his father, Joe, the aggrieved former president who has become the scapegoat for his party's ills. 'What right do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his f–king life to the service of this country?' He actually has a point. But Hunter also looked for all the world, in his four-hour-plus rants on two podcasts, to be auditioning for his own presidential run in 2028, which, given the parlous state of his party, is not such an implausible prospect. Advertisement Hunter's friends often have spoken of his political ambitions. In writings on his laptop and in his memoir, he bitterly recalls ex-wife Kathleen's skeptical reaction when he expressed a desire to carry on the Biden political dynasty after brother Beau's funeral. 'Are you serious?' she said, reminding him that he had just been discharged from the Naval Reserve in disgrace after testing positive for cocaine his first weekend. As if to plant the seed of 2028, Hunter expounded this week on some of his whacky political positions — extreme open borders like Daddy, faux concern for the working man, crack is healthier than alcohol, a lot of F-bombs — and delivered a line that must have been practiced in the mirror, possibly naked. 'I'll tell you what, if I became president in two years from now — or four years from now, or three years from now . . .' Don't be surprised to see Hunter Biden vs. George Clooney, AOC and Jasmine Crockett, duking it out in the Democratic primaries. Advertisement If you think it's a clown car now, just wait. It can get a whole lot worse, to the detriment of all of us. It's not healthy to have one party spiraling. Dems have proved in the past six months they are not willing to admit where they've gone wrong. But Gabbard is forcing a reckoning on them, by declassifying Russiagate evidence in systematic, ruthless fashion, to focus accountability, at last, on Obama and his band of cynical manipulators who abused the intelligence agencies to sabotage Trump's first presidency. Damning evidence White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt introduced Gabbard to the podium Wednesday by crisply summarizing the latest damning declassified evidence and pointing the finger squarely at Obama, his former CIA Director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and others who 'conspired to subvert President Trump's 2016 election victory and undermine the democratic will of the American people while publicly pretending to engage in a peaceful transfer of power. 'In private, former President Obama went to great and nefarious lengths to sow discord among the public and sabotage his successor President Trump,' she said. 'The new evidence released by DNI Gabbard confirms that the Obama administration manufactured politicized intelligence which was later used against President Trump in an effort to delegitimize his [2016] victory before he even took the oath of office . . . 'The Russia collusion hoax was a massive fraud perpetuated on the American people from the very beginning. Advertisement 'And the worst part of this is Obama knew that truth . . . There was no collusion, no corruption except on the part of Barack Obama and the weaponized intelligence agencies at the time.' Leavitt wasn't finished. She called out The New York Times and The Washington Post, which had uncritically regurgitated the manufactured intelligence spat out by Obama's henchmen and 'ridiculously' won Pulitzer Prizes for their efforts. 'It's well past time for those awards to be stripped from the journalists . . . 'It is not journalism to propagate political disinformation in service of the Democrat Party and those in the intelligence community who hand over out-of-context and fake intelligence to push a false political narrative.' 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Advertisement The fabricated Steele Dossier that was forced into the ICA by Brennan, against objections from the CIA's top Russia experts, was not just in the appendix of the new ICA, but in the body. When confronted by his own handpicked analysts objecting to the inclusion of the farcical 'pee tape' dossier, Brennan said, 'Yes, but doesn't it ring true?' The evidence 'directly point[s] to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment,' said Gabbard. The result was 'a yearslong coup against the incoming president of the United States, Donald Trump.' Advertisement The first question from CNN to Gabbard was whether she was just trying to curry favor with Trump. The Times buried the story on its webpage, mentioning it only in a scathing 'analysis' addendum to its breathless Epstein coverage, to say that Gabbard 'targeting Obama' was an attempt to 'change the topic.' The Washington Post was just as bad, with a loaded headline downpage: 'Gabbard sidesteps question on weaponizing intelligence.' Talk about burying the lead. The Democratic Party will never reckon with its problems while it has a media that continues to cover for it.
12 minutes ago
Gabbard uses surprise White House appearance to attack Trump's enemies on the Russia investigation
WASHINGTON -- As the national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard is responsible for guarding America's secrets and discovering threats from overseas. But when she made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Wednesday, her targets were President Donald Trump's political enemies. Escalating her attempts to undermine the long-settled conclusion that Russia tried to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the presidency nearly a decade ago, she unspooled what she called unshakable proof that then-President Barack Obama and his advisers plotted nothing short of a coup. 'They conspired to subvert the will of the American people,' she said, claiming they fabricated evidence to taint Trump's victory. Little of what she said was new, and much of it was baseless. Gabbard said her investigation into the former Democratic administration was designed to stop the weaponization of national security institutions, but it spurred more questions about her own independence atop a spying system intended to provide unvarnished intelligence. Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who ran for president herself before joining Trump's idiosyncratic political ecosystem, seemed prepared to use her presentation to burnish her own standing. She was trailed by her cinematographer husband, who held a video camera to capture the moment. And Trump, who had previously expressed public doubts about Gabbard's analysis of Iran's nuclear program, appeared satisfied. He posted a video of her remarks, pinning them at the top of his social media feed. It was a display that cemented Gabbard's role as one of Trump's chief agents of retribution, delivering official recognition of Trump's grievances about the Russia investigation that shadowed his first term. The focus on a years-old scandal also served Trump's attempts to shift attention from the Jeffrey Epstein case and questions about the president's own association with an abuser of underage girls. During her White House remarks, Gabbard said she has referred the documents to the Justice Department to consider for a possible criminal investigation. Hours later, the department announced the creation of a 'strike force' to investigate the findings. Obama's postpresidential office declined to comment Wednesday but issued a rare response a day earlier. 'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,' said Patrick Rodenbush, an Obama spokesman. The White House rejected questions about the timing of Gabbard's revelations and whether they were designed to curry favor with Trump or distract attention from the administration's handling of files relating to Epstein. Still, Trump was quick to reward Gabbard's loyalty this week, calling her 'the hottest person in the room.' On Wednesday, she released a report by the Republican staff of the House Intelligence Committee produced during the first Trump administration. It did not dispute that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, but cites what it says were trade craft failings in the assessment reached by the intelligence community that Russian President Vladimir Putin influenced the election because he intended for Trump to win. Gabbard went beyond some conclusions of the report in describing its findings from the White House podium. She, along with the report, also seized on the fact that a dossier including uncorroborated tips and salacious gossip about Trump's ties to Russia was referenced in a classified version annex of an intelligence community assessment released in 2017 that detailed Russia's interference. The dossier was not the basis for the FBI's decision to open an investigation in July 2016 into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Trump supporters have seized on the unverified innuendo in the document to try to undercut the broader probe. Gabbard said she didn't know why the documents weren't released during Trump's first administration. Her office did not respond to questions about the timing of the release. Responding to a question from a reporter about Gabbard's motivations, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused journalists of looking for a story where there wasn't one. 'The only people who are suggesting that she would release evidence to boost her standing are the people in this room,' Leavitt said. Trump, however, has said he wants the media, and the public, to focus on Gabbard's report and not his ties to Epstein. 'We caught Hillary Clinton. We caught Barack Hussein Obama ... you ought take a look at that and stop talking about nonsense,' Trump said Tuesday. CIA Director John Ratcliffe served briefly as director of national intelligence during Trump's first term but did not release any of the information declassified by Gabbard. The CIA declined to comment on Gabbard's remarks Wednesday. Gabbard told Congress in April that Iran wasn't actively seeking a nuclear weapon, and Trump dismissed her assessment just before U.S. strikes on Iran. 'I don't care what she said,' Trump said in June on Air Force One when asked about Gabbard's testimony. Gabbard recently shared her findings about the Russia investigation in an Oval Office meeting with Trump, according to two administration officials who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation. Afterward, one of the officials said, Trump expressed satisfaction that Gabbard's findings aligned with his own beliefs. On Friday, Gabbard's office released a report that downplayed the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election by highlighting Obama administration emails showing officials had concluded before and after the presidential race that Moscow had not hacked state election systems to manipulate votes in Trump's favor. But Obama's Democratic administration never suggested otherwise, even as it exposed other means by which Russia interfered in the election, including through a massive hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails by intelligence operatives working with WikiLeaks, as well as a covert influence campaign aimed at swaying public opinion and sowing discord through fake social media posts. Earlier this month Ratcliffe released a report criticizing aspects of the intelligence community assessment and suggesting the process had been rushed. The report did not address multiple investigations since then, including a report from the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 that reached the same conclusion about Russia's influence and motives. Lawmakers from both parties have long stressed the need for an independent intelligence service. Democrats said Gabbard's reports show she has placed partisanship and loyalty to Trump over her duty and some have called for her resignation. 'It seems as though the Trump administration is willing to declassify anything and everything except the Epstein files,' Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement Wednesday. Warner predicted Gabbard's actions could prompt U.S. allies to share less information for fear it would be politicized or recklessly declassified. But Gabbard enjoys strong support among Republicans. Rep. Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and Ratcliffe were working to put the intelligence community 'on the path to regaining the trust of the American people.' Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, said Gabbard hasn't offered any reason to ignore the many earlier investigations into Russia's efforts. 'The Director is free to disagree with the Intelligence Community Assessment's conclusion that Putin favored Donald Trump, but her view stands in stark contrast to the verdict rendered by multiple credible investigations,' Himes said in a statement. 'Including the bipartisan report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee.'
Washington Post
32 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Trump administration canceled a $4.9B loan guarantee for a line to deliver green power
TOPEKA, Kan. — The Trump administration on Wednesday canceled a $4.9 billion federal loan guarantee for a new high-voltage transmission line for delivering solar and wind-generated electricity from the Midwest to the eastern U.S., but the company indicated that project would go forward anyway. The U.S. Department of Energy declared that it is 'not critical for the federal government to have a role' in the first phase of Chicago-based Invenergy's planned Grain Belt Express. The department also questioned whether the $11 billion project could meet the financial conditions required for a loan guarantee.
