Trump Openly Mulls Worst-Case Iran Scenario for the First Time

The Iran war could be entirely in vain, according to Donald Trump.

Seated beside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House on Tuesday, Trump spelled out that the worst-case scenario for U.S. involvement in Iran could see another authoritarian regime taking control of the country.

“What’s the worst-case scenario that you have planned for in Iran?” asked a reporter.

“Well, I don’t know if there’s a worst case,” Trump said. “We have them very much beaten militarily, from a military standpoint. They’re still lobbing some missiles, at some point they won’t even be able to do that because we’re hitting all of their carriers and missile stock.”

Staring at the ground, Trump took a moment to think. Then he spoke again.

“I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen,” Trump said, leaning toward Merz. “We don’t want that to happen. That would probably be the worst.

“You got through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who was no better. So we’d like to see somebody in there who would bring it back to the people,” Trump added.

Just one in four Americans say they support the war in Iran, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published Monday. In the same survey, 56 percent of respondents said they believe Trump is too quick to use military force as a foreign policy solution.

That could very well be true, considering that the White House has yet to declare an official message—or a plan—for America’s involvement in the Middle East conflict. In fact, the White House has yet to even seek Congress’s approval for attacking Iran.

Per Trump’s own estimates, the war could rage for a few days, or several weeks, or “forever.” He told The Washington Post that the aim of the war would be “freedom for the people” of Iran, then told The New York Times that he had “three very good choices” for who could take control of Iran, and then told ABC News that the “attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates” for leadership.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Trump initially stated that the Iranian mission was about “threat reduction,” then about “getting a deal,” then about “regime change” again. “And that was just on Sunday,” reported the paper’s Alex Ward.

Trump spoke about some objectives for the war during a Medal of Honor ceremony on Monday, but as of Tuesday afternoon has yet to directly address the American people regarding the war.

That’s a major departure from his predecessors who sat at the Resolute Desk, who universally recognized the need to immediately justify military intervention to the public. Woodrow Wilson spoke to the nation the same day he asked Congress to declare war against Germany during World War I, while Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a national address hours before the country declared war during World War II.

So far, six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Eighteen American soldiers have also been seriously injured. More than 700 Iranian civilians have been killed, including 176 children, dozens of whom were at a girls’ school in the country’s south.

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.