DOD Cancels Army Training, Sparking Fears of Escalation in Iran

The U.S. Army spontaneously canceled a training exercise for an elite team this week, raising concerns that the soldiers may soon be expected to deploy to Iran.

The headquarters element of the 82nd Airborne Division, stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, pulled out of a major training exercise earlier this week. The brigade is a rapid-reaction paratrooper division, comprising up to 5,000 soldiers that are capable of deploying anywhere in the world within 18 hours. They are specialized in missions that include parachute assault, reinforcing U.S. embassies, and enabling emergency evacuations.

The rest of the 82nd Division continued training at Fort Polk in Louisiana.

Deployment orders had not been issued as of Friday, military officials told The Washington Post. The unidentified Army men noted to the Post that the division is expected to deploy a helicopter unit to the Middle East, a plan set before the war began, though that won’t happen until later in the spring.

Nonetheless, military officials are steeling themselves for the worst.

“We’re all preparing for something—just in case,” one official familiar with the issue told the Post.

A spokesperson for the Army referred the Post to a statement that read: “Due to operations security we do not discuss future or hypothetical movements.”

Talk of escalating the conflict with Iran has ramped up in recent days among chief White House officials, at times in a remarkably disaffected way. The president declared on Friday that he wants “unconditional surrender” from Iran, and would not negotiate a peace deal without it.

Republicans are discussing the potentially unavoidable reality of a U.S. ground invasion in Iran; meanwhile, Iranian officials have already said they are “confident” the country could counter a U.S. ground invasion.

When asked by Time if Americans should be worried about Iran attacking them on U.S. soil, Donald Trump responded: “I guess.”

“But I think they’re worried about that all the time,” he continued. “We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”

The self-titled “peace president” has so far used his second term to sweep foreign cities, massacre foreign leadership, and indiscriminately bomb civilian targets, such as elementary schools in Tehran.

So far, six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Eighteen American soldiers have also been seriously injured. More than 1,200 Iranian civilians have been killed, including 176 children, dozens of whom were bombed at a girls’ school in south Iran.

The conflict entered its seventh day on Friday. Trump has still not directly addressed the American people on the issue.

Trump administration officials scrambled Friday to explain away the latest horrendous jobs numbers, but couldn’t conjure up more than blaming the weather or fake numbers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier in the day that the U.S. job market had shed 92,000 jobs in February, meaning that the U.S. economy has lost 19,000 jobs since April 2025.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett struggled on CNBC to summon an explanation for the “surprisingly negative” report that did not include Donald Trump’s disastrous economic policies.

Hassett blamed a spate of severe winter weather, a massive strike at a major health care provider in California and Hawaii, and a recent update to the BLS’s birth-death model that tracks the opening and closing of businesses.

He urged people to look at the average growth: “If you take the average over a few months we had a surprisingly positive one last month, and a surprisingly negative one this one, but on average it’s about what we expect to be seeing because immigration has gone down so much the break-even employment is probably in the 30 or 40,000 jobs a month range.”

The Trump administration has been pushing Americans to lower their expectations for job growth to reflect a labor market that doesn’t rely on undocumented immigrants. Trump officials have argued that a job market that used to produce 200,000 jobs a month should now be expected to churn out closer to 50,000.

In reality, the average labor market growth in 2025 was only half of what Hassett is selling—closer to an average of 15,000 new jobs per month. Meanwhile, five of the last nine months have seen job losses, indicating a policy-driven downward trend, not one caused by snow or strike.

But Hassett indicated that he was focused on pushing something else entirely: Trump’s violent and illegal efforts to steal oil from foreign nations as a sign that stability was on the horizon.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer also tried to blame the “bad report” on weather and the strike, before just blatantly lying about the publicly available numbers.

“That has been resolved, so we’re hoping to see those numbers tick back up next month,” Chavez-DeRemer said on Fox Business. “But overall, we’ve gained 60,000 new jobs over the last two months.”

In reality, the latest report saw 126,000 jobs added in January, and 92,000 taken away in February. That’s just 31,000 new jobs. Either Chavez-DeRemer is too stupid to do the math, or she thinks you are. She’s currently under investigation for misconduct.

One of Elon Musk’s former DOGE minions has been tapped to run AI at the Pentagon.

In a post on X, the Department of Defense announced Friday that it was appointing Gavin Kliger, who worked at the Office of Personnel Management last year helping to purge the federal workforce, as chief data officer, “a role that places him at the center of the Department’s most ambitious AI efforts.”

“We are in a global competition for military AI dominance, and America must build on its leadership to extend our advantage over adversaries,” Kliger is quoted as saying in the post. “My mission is to integrate the unparalleled innovation of America’s private sector with the Department’s operational expertise to rapidly deliver advanced AI capabilities to our warfighters. By driving pace-setting projects with wartime urgency, we will ensure cutting-edge technology translates into decisive battlefield advantages for the United States.”

Kliger’s past with DOGE wasn’t pretty. He was assigned to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help DOGE take over and dismantle the watchdog agency. Kliger happened to own up to $365,000 in stocks in seven companies that the CFPB regulated, including Tesla, Apple, Alphabet, Alibaba, and Berkshire Hathaway, as well as two cryptocurrencies. When CFPB’s lawyers told him this was prohibited for agency employees, he fired the lawyers.

Kliger also has a shady record on social media. Reuters reported last year that he has reposted content from white supremacist Nick Fuentes and misogynist Andrew Tate, and expressed racist views as well as xenophobic views about immigrants. Now, he’ll be working with AI as the Pentagon continues Donald Trump’s reckless war with Iran.

The DOD is already using AI to help plan airstrikes in Iran despite an ongoing standoff between the Trump administration and AI laboratory Anthropic. The firm is insisting that Claude, its generative AI model, not be a part of autonomous weapons systems and is seeking guarantees that Claude would not assist in the mass surveillance of U.S. citizens.

But now, someone who had few—if any—ethical scruples over racism, bigotry, misogyny, or purging government employees will be at the center of AI efforts during a war. Kliger will probably be happy to assist in bombing Iran without regard to innocent lives.

As more than 1,000 Iranian men, women, and children lay dead after days of bombardment from U.S. and Israeli missiles, the official White House X account on Thursday evening posted a video edit of scenes from popular action movies spliced with actual strike footage from their war on Iran. The clip, captioned “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY” is the red-pilled, “America, Fuck Yeah” style of edit that an 18-year-old college Republican might repost on TikTok.

The video opens with a clip of Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man 2 saying, “Wake up, Daddy’s home.” Hypermasculine characters like William Wallace, Maverick Mitchell, John Wick, and Superman make appearances. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is also featured saying, “FAFO.” The clip ends with the “flawless victory” tag from the Mortal Kombat franchise.

It’s incredibly bleak to watch the Trump administration treat a war with real death and real suffering like it’s a video game.

“Hundreds of people are dead. Little girls are dead. Six Americans are dead. Others are risking their lives. Millions across the Middle East are terrified,” liberal podcaster Jon Favreau commented. “It’s not a video game. It’s not a meme. It’s not another chance to troll the libs. It’s fucking war.”

“Not only wrong, unbalanced, no comprehension [of] the horror of war,” writer Peter Oborne said. “This video is evil.”

“Quite simply one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen on here. Whatever you think of the awful Iranian régime, the White House treating bombing raids like a cheap video game is gut-wrenchingly shocking,” European journalist Alex Taylor wrote. “America, your country is going to hell.”

The White House had not been happy with Kristi Noem for quite some time.

Donald Trump booted the 54-year-old from her position atop the Department of Homeland Security Thursday following a string of abysmal appearances this week before Congress. But the hearings, as it turns out, were just the straw that broke the camel’s back for Noem’s tenure in the executive branch.

Her position among the higher echelons of the Trump administration had become increasingly tenuous in recent months, most notably after ICE agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, marring Trump’s immigration agenda—a chief MAGA priority—in the process.

Trump spoke with Republican representatives earlier this week about his frustration with Noem, floating the idea of replacing her, according to several Republican lawmakers and three people familiar with the president’s private discussions that spoke with NBC News.

Nonetheless, the news of Noem’s departure—which came by way of a Thursday afternoon Truth Social post—came as a surprise to practically everyone. Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, who was tapped to replace the outbound secretary, told reporters that he had only heard of the decision moments before it became public. Noem, meanwhile, conducted a staged press conference (which singularly featured law enforcement officials and no real journalists), answering preplanned questions while apparently still under the belief that she was running Homeland Security. Trump reportedly alerted her before posting about his decision, but Noem still acted unaware during the event.

Another point of contention between Noem and the president: the $220 million advertising contract she used to support ICE. Trump has attempted to wash his hands of the scandal, which has grown to include allegations that Noem directed more than half of the budget into the pockets of her friends and allies, despite the fact that he appeared in full support of the initiative early last year.

She spent even more public funds, originally intended for deportation efforts, on a pair of luxury jets, decked out with private bedrooms and a bar. To keep the White House’s ire away from the needless spending, Noem lent the planes to First Lady Melania Trump, who reportedly flew on them on several occasions. Administration officials told Axios that involving Melania was more or less an “insurance policy” to keep Trump’s aggravation at bay.

Noem’s blankie scandal only further exacerbated tensions. The so-called ICE Barbie allegedly had her rumored beau, expired special employee Corey Lewandowski, fire a Coast Guard pilot last May after she neglected to bring her favorite weighted blanket onto the second flight of one of her trips. DHS insiders later suggested that the real cause of Noem’s freakout was a missing bag with potentially embarrassing contents.

“She burnt up a ton of goodwill,” an adviser who spoke with Trump told Axios. “It was everywhere. It was everything.”

In fact, “she had no goodwill on Capitol Hill,” the adviser said. “She mismanaged FEMA. She didn’t show up to hearings. She was disrespectful. No one liked her.”

Donald Trump only has one requirement for who should lead Iran after its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in airstrikes last week: be on good terms with the U.S. and its top ally.

They need to “treat the United States and Israel well,” Trump told CNN’s Dana Bash in a phone interview Friday morning. Trump envisions Iran working out like Venezuela, he said to Bash, adding that he “may be” OK with a religious leader leading the country.

Trump said he wanted to pick Iran’s next leader, repeating what he said on Thursday. “It’s going to work very easily, it’s going to work like it did in Venezuela,” he said according to Bash, who relayed the conversation on the network. “We have a wonderful leader there. She’s doing a fantastic job, and it’s going to work like that.”

In Venezuela, the U.S. military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early on the morning of January 3 but did not implement a plan of succession, instead allowing Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to succeed Maduro while Trump declared himself “acting president” of the South American country.

A similar situation is not likely to happen in Iran by Trump’s own admission, as has claimed multiple times this week that many of the likely candidates to lead Iran are dead. One possible candidate that has emerged as a possible new leader is Khamenei’s son, cleric Mojtaba Khamenei, but Trump has rejected him.

“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said Thursday, adding that Mojtaba Khamenei’s accession to power would lead to war again “in five years.”

Trump’s words mean that he simply wants compliance and not the total regime change some on the right, as well his supporters among the Iranian diaspora, have been calling for. It once again shows that there was no administration plan for a postwar Iran, and that Trump has been making it up as he goes along, recklessly bombing the country with no clear end in sight.

Donald Trump is insisting that the United States is secretly evacuating citizens stranded in the Middle East—but multiple reports indicate they have been left on their own.

In a post on Truth Social Friday, Trump lauded the efforts of the State Department in getting Americans out of range of the illegal war he started. “We are moving thousands of people out of various Countries throughout the Middle East,” he wrote. “It is being done quietly, but seamlessly.”

Trump’s post comes as veteran diplomats blame the State Department for conducting evacuations out of the region that are too slow and started too late, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Despite the weeks of planning ahead for the U.S. and Israel’s assault on Iran, the State Department did not issue travel advisories or restrictions for Americans. Given the fact that Trump had spent weeks loudly amassing military assets in the Middle East, a warning to Americans would not have ruined the surprise attack, diplomats told the Times.

The State Department announced Wednesday that the first chartered flights to evacuate Americans had departed for the Middle East—days after Trump launched an initial barrage of strikes against Iran. They didn’t say how many flights would be operating.

The State Department initially instructed citizens abroad to flee on their own, telling them to seek commercial flights amid a massive wave of flight cancellations.

Yael Lempert, who served as the Biden administration’s ambassador to Jordan, told the Times that Iran’s strikes against neighboring countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were an all too predictable outcome, and that airspace in the region had been previously closed during similar strikes.

“It’s stunning there were no orders for authorized departure for nonessential U.S. government employees and family members in almost all the affected diplomatic missions in the region—nor public recommendations to American citizens to depart—until days into the war,” Lempert said.

Trump practically admitted Tuesday he had no plan for evacuations—he didn’t even have a plan for the war itself.

Meanwhile, the State Department has pushed back on claims that it left Americans high and dry, insisting that it assisted more than 10,000 Americans abroad, of the 20,000 who had returned to the United States since the conflict began. But some critics have pointed out that assisting Americans could simply mean providing security guidance.

As job growth stagnates, as oil prices spike amid war on Iran, and as the majority of Americans view his second term negatively, President Trump has laid his eyes on Cuba.

In a phone call with CNN’s Dana Bash on Friday, Trump, unprompted, turned his attention to Cuba.

“Cuba is going to fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too. They want to make a deal so badly,” Trump said

When asked how, Trump said, “They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio] over there and we’ll see how that works. But we’re really focused on [Iran] now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready—after 50 years.

“I’ve been watching it for 50 years, and it’s fallen right into my lap because of me, it’s fallen, but it’s nevertheless fallen right into the lap. And we’re doing very well.”

Trump last week threatened a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, and he has already destabilized the island with his aggressive oil blockade, baselessly declaring the Cuban government an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” The blockade has led to power outages, business closings, and price gouging. If he is true to his word, this would be the third coup in his second term, after Venezuela and Iran.

Surprise, surprise: Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again stabbed Donald Trump in the back—but this time, it wasn’t about the war in Ukraine, it was about Iran.

Russia has been helping Iran target the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships and aircraft, three officials told The Washington Post Friday.

“It does seem like it’s a pretty comprehensive effort,” one official told the Post. It was unclear exactly how much assistance Russia was providing, as Iran’s targeting capabilities have weakened significantly since strikes from the U.S. and Israel began last week.

But Nicole Grajewski, a scholar on Iran’s cooperation with Russia at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, suggested that Iran’s strikes against U.S. forces indicate a high level of sophistication.

“They’re getting through air defenses,” Grajewski told the Post, noting that Iran appeared to have become more advanced since it responded to Israeli strikes last summer.

In addition to the CIA’s station in the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Iran has also attacked command and control infrastructure, radars, and temporary structures, such as the one where six U.S. service members were killed.

This is the first indication that another U.S. adversary has entered the spiraling regional conflict in the Middle East—and it’s the one with nuclear capabilities and an extensive intelligence network.

Earlier this week, when asked about whether he had a message to China or Russia—some of Iran’s biggest backers—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “They’re not really a factor here.”

During his second term, Trump’s long-standing fondness for Putin has been increasingly put under strain, as Moscow has repeatedly gone back on public agreements to spare Ukrainians and delayed negotiations to end Russia’s violent incursion there.

The U.S. president could not care less if Iran’s violent retaliation includes the deaths of American citizens. Actually, it’s something he’s planning for.

When asked by Time if Americans should be worried about Iran attacking them at home, Trump responded: “I guess.”

“But I think they’re worried about that all the time,” he continued. “We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”

The self-titled “peace president” has so far used his second term to sweep foreign cities, massacre foreign leadership, and indiscriminately bomb civilian targets, such as elementary schools in Tehran.

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 1,200 Iranian civilians have been killed, including 176 children, dozens of whom were at a girls’ school in the country’s south.

Still, Trump has not directly addressed the American people, even as Republicans discuss the potentially unavoidable reality of a U.S. ground invasion in Iran.

That’s a major departure from his predecessors that 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.

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.