Trump Threatens to Cut Off All Trade With Spain Over Iran War

Donald Trump is attacking Spain over the country’s refusal to let the U.S. use its air bases to bomb Iran.

“Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told [Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent] to cut off all dealings with Spain,” Trump said Tuesday while in a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, before going off on a tangent about how Spain refuses to pay 5 percent of its GDP to NATO, unlike other countries in the alliance. “And now Spain actually said that we can’t use their bases and that’s alright, we could use their base if we want, we could just fly in and use it. Nobody’s gonna tell us not to use it.”

“Spain has absolutely nothing that we need, other than great people. They have great people, but they don’t have great leadership,” Trump added.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said Sunday that the attacks on Iran were a violation of international law and barred the U.S. from using them.

“The joint-use bases, but under Spanish sovereignty, will not be used for anything not included within the treaty nor outside the U.N. Charter,” Albares said in a broadcast appearance. Several U.S. aircraft subsequently left the country from bases in Rota and Morón, Spain.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez rejected “the unilateral military action by the United States and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order” in a post translated from Spanish on X.

“We likewise reject the actions of the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guard. We cannot afford another prolonged and devastating war in the Middle East,” Sánchez’s post added.

But Trump threatening to take over bases in another country could alienate NATO ally Spain even further, and alarm others in the alliance. Threatening to cut off trade with Spain isn’t going to win Trump any new friends, either. The longer this war goes on, the more likely Trump will need support, especially with air defense supplies dwindling. He can’t afford to be sabre-rattling against European allies.

Without any clear message coming from the White House with regard to the purpose of the Iran war, U.S. military commanders have turned to Jesus, apparently telling American troops that the war is “biblically sanctioned.”

The U.S. joined Israel in striking Iran early Saturday morning. By Monday evening, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, or MRFF, was “inundated” with complaints, receiving more than 110 grievances from U.S. military personnel stationed at dozens of sites across the Middle East, reported independent journalist Jonathan Larsen.

One such note included an anecdote from a noncommissioned officer, who reported that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

The NCO’s complaint was lodged on behalf of 15 troops, including 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew, according to Larsen. The officer stated that such remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the [C]onstitution.”

“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be ‘afraid’ as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now,” the NCO wrote.

“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,’” the NCO continued. “He had a big grin on his face when he said all of this which made his message seem even more crazy.”

It wouldn’t be a stretch to blame some of the blatant constitutional violations on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has repeatedly evoked God and Christian nationalism in his time fronting the Pentagon.

Hegseth has parroted the views of Douglas Wilson, a conservative theologian who advocated for Christian dominance over government and society. He has followed through in practice, instating regular prayer services at America’s military headquarters. He also entered office with several Christian symbols already emblazoned on his skin—a Jerusalem cross and the phrase “Deus vult”—in what Hegseth has described as emblems of the “modern-day American Christian crusade.”

U.S. service members are afforded the religious liberty protections in the First Amendment. They also have a legal right to seek religious accommodations—and the MRFF told Larsen that it has been overwhelmed with complaints about commanders who are apparently tapping into the same sort of Christian nationalism espoused by the Pentagon chief.

“These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients [service members who seek MRFF aid] report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new ‘biblically-sanctioned’ war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’ as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation,” MRFF president and founder Mikey Weinstein, a veteran of the Air Force and the Reagan White House, told Larsen.

“Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100 percent accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.”

The Trump administration is going to defend the president’s executive orders targeting law firms one day after apparently deciding to stop the fight in court. 

Administration lawyers asked an appeals court Monday if it could pull back from appealing its losses to the law firms. But the next morning, The New York Times reports, the Department of Justice suddenly flip-flopped, emailing the four law firms fighting the orders that it would file a motion to withdraw its dismissal.  

President Trump’s executive orders sought to prevent law firms that went against him from doing business with the government, and threatened their clients with the loss of government contracts. While some firms capitulated, such as Skadden and Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey decided to challenge the orders in court. 

The firms notched several victories, with judges ruling in favor of WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, Susman Godfrey, and Jenner & Block in multiple rulings. Until Tuesday, the administration was going to back down in the face of these losses, but then changed its mind. It’s not clear why the Trump administration decided to reverse course, or if the court will let the DOJ undo its dismissal. 

An unnamed administration official told the Times that the White House Counsel’s Office was discussing the next course of action. Did Trump himself personally intervene, or is the DOJ and White House not on the same page? 

This story has been updated. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem crumbled Tuesday when confronted about smearing Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse who was shot and killed by federal immigration agents earlier this year.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said that Noem calling Pretti a “domestic terrorist” was “one of the most hurtful things” his parents said they could ever imagine.

“Do you have anything you want to say to Alex Pretti’s parents about their son?” Klobuchar asked.

Rather than apologize, a wide-eyed Noem launched into a typical public relations response, claiming she’d relied on information from agents and couldn’t “even imagine” what Pretti’s parents had gone through.

Klobuchar continued to press Noem to give a real answer.

“Sir, I di—ma’am, I did not call him a domestic terrorist,” Noem replied. “I said it appeared to be an incident of.”

Klobuchar scoffed. “I think the parents saw it for what it was,” she replied.

Just hours after Pretti was shot and killed, Noem gave a press conference where she claimed he had committed an “act of domestic terrorism.” She also falsely claimed that Pretti had brandished a weapon, intending “to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” A surplus of video evidence and a review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection found that Pretti had done no such thing.

A number of Trump administration officials quickly attempted to walk back the secretary’s baseless claims, but the damage was already done.

Klobuchar wasn’t the only lawmaker to confront Noem with her false claims about Pretti: Louisiana Senator John Kennedy called out the secretary for trying to push the blame onto White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

Kennedy read aloud from a January report by Axios that quoted Noem’s comments to a person familiar with her remarks. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” the Republican recounted Noem saying.

“Sir, I did not do that,” Noem claimed, and dismissed the comment because it came from an article that relied on anonymous sources. Little over a month after Pretti’s killing, and Noem still appears unwilling to take accountability for spreading dangerous misinformation.

On Tuesday, Israel bombed Iran’s Council of Experts while it was in the process of choosing a new supreme leader. That same day, it was reported that President Trump is open to supporting armed militias in the region. 

These two events seem to indicate that Trump has entered phase two of his regime-change plan in Iran, and, unlike in Venezuela, will not be working with the existing apparatus to do so. 

Israel stated that the council bombing occurred while votes for the next supreme leader were being counted by its 88 members. There is no casualty count at the time of this writing.  

“We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader,” an Israel Defense Forces official told Axios.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump spoke with Kurds and other local factions, and may potentially support them in their efforts to fill the massive leadership gap that Israel and the U.S. are attempting to create in Tehran. It’s not clear whether the leaders were based in Iran or in neighboring countries.

“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump said on Sunday. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”