Trump Admits He’s Totally Caved to Israel on the Iran War

The U.S. will only pull out of Iran when Israel decides it’s time to call it quits.

That’s according to Donald Trump, who told The Times of Israel on Sunday that the decision to end the Iran war will be a “mutual” decision he makes with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think it’s mutual … a little bit. We’ve been talking,” Trump said when asked if he alone would make the decision to end the war. “I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.”

He dismissed the idea that Israel could continue its own campaign against Iran even after the U.S. pulls back, telling the Times of Israel, “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”

“Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it.… We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel,” Trump told the paper.

Trump’s deference to Israel stands in stark contrast to where he supposedly stood on the issue on Friday, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the decision to end the war would be solely up to the U.S. president’s discretion.

State Secretary Marco Rubio gave away the game on the rationale for U.S. involvement in the war last week. Speaking to a press huddle, Rubio explained that Israel had forced Trump’s hand in the matter by heedlessly barging forward with its war plans against Iran. That prompted U.S. military assets to strike first, a decision that Rubio chalked up to intel that indicated Iran would retaliate with force against American interests if Israel initiated an attack.

Hours later, Trump decided that messaging was unacceptable, publicly disagreeing with his secretary of state’s interpretation of events.

That required Rubio to reemerge before reporters the following day, frantically backpedalling on the explanation he had offered. Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, claimed later the same day that Rubio’s point-blank comments had been “taken out of context.”

Talk of escalating the conflict with Iran has ramped up in recent days amongst chief White House officials, at times doing so 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.

Trump and his Republican allies are privately warming to the idea 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.

So far, seven 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 dozens of children at a girls’ school in the country’s south. A U.S. assessment report found that the strike was “likely” the fault of American forces.

Republican Representative Andy Ogles decided to write off an entire religious community in America on Monday.

“Muslims don’t belong in American society,” Ogles posted on X. “Pluralism is a lie.”

The Tennessee congressman has a long history of bigoted comments. He said America “should kill ’em all” last year regarding Palestinians in Gaza. He called for sending pro-Palestine student protesters to Gaza last May, and used footage of September 11 to attack Zohran Mamdani before he was elected New York City mayor.

In November, Ogles made a series of anti-Muslim comments on his Restoring the Republic podcast, saying, “The only thing they can do is essentially come to our nation and breed their way through our society, and I hate to say that, that’s harsh, it’s going to offend somebody, so what? Wake up.”

What prompted Ogles to post prejudice against Muslims Monday morning isn’t clear, although a protest outside of Mamdani’s mayoral residence in New York on Sunday might have had something to do with it. Anti-Islam provocateur Jake Lang showed up with about 20 protesters outside of Gracie Mansion, only to be met by 125 counterprotesters. Among them were two people allegedly inspired by ISIS who were arrested after throwing homemade bombs that didn’t explode.

If that wasn’t what spurred Ogles’s attack, it could be the war in Iran, or something from one of his four Muslim colleagues in Congress, particularly Representative Ilhan Omar, whom he has attacked in the past. Perhaps he should be more worried about the open federal investigation into his campaign finances or the mounting fact-checks of his lies about his background. Ogles should be censured by Congress at a minimum, but bigotry against Muslims in America is sadly considered normal, especially in the Republican Party.

Russia may be about to get rich off of Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran.

The spiraling regional conflict, sparked by ongoing attacks from the U.S. and Israel, has sent the price of oil skyrocketing to almost $120 per barrel. As a result, demand for discounted Russian oil has spiked.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced last week that the U.S. would issue 30-day waivers to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil that was “already stranded at sea,” promising doing so would “not provide significant financial benefit” to the Kremlin.

However, India typically imports an average of 10 million metric tons of crude oil per month through the Strait of Hormuz, Vaibhav Raghunandan, an EU-Russia analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Politico.

“Even if half of this volume is replaced with Russian volumes at sea, it will translate to huge profits for the Kremlin,” Raghunandan said. As of February 2026, Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of stranded oil tankers held approximately 150 million barrels of Russian oil worth an estimated $6.4 billion, according to the Robert Lansing Institute.

“We may unsanction other Russian oil,” Bessent said to Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow Friday. But permitting further sales of Russian oil would undoubtedly offer a financial boon to the country’s ongoing war effort in Ukraine. So far, Trump has largely proven powerless at forging a deal between Moscow and Kyiv—and war with Iran could only make matters worse.

All of this comes after the White House dismissed reports that Russia was assisting Iran in targeting U.S. assets in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, called for the European Union to lift sanctions on Russian oil amid escalating conflict in the Middle East, which has brought global trade to an abrupt stop. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriyev echoed Hungary’s request.

“What you propose is very difficult, as it would require EU bureaucrats to think and understand how markets work—and, most difficult of all, to acknowledge their strategic blunders and atone,” he wrote on X. “And yet, they will have to do it very soon.”

It seems that President Trump has scared every man in his Cabinet into wearing the matching shoes he bought for all of them.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump has developed a strong affinity for the American shoe brand Florsheim, and has bought a pair for Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, communications director Steven Cheung, deputy chief of staff James Blair, and speechwriter Ross Worthington. Even those not in his Cabinet, such as Fox News host Sean Hannity, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Tucker Carlson, have been gifted a pair. They are around $145.

“Did you get the shoes?” he’d ask them.

“All the boys have them,” one female White House official told the WSJ. “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them,” said another.

Rubio and Vance got their Florsheims after an Oval Office meeting last year. “Marco, JD, you guys have s—y shoes,” Trump said before getting a Florsheim catalog and asking them their shoe sizes.

“The president kind of leans back in his chair and says, ‘You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size,’” Vance said.

While this strange development may have little to do with policy, it does offer more insight into the psyche of the president. He is someone who wants control of aesthetics and the patronage that comes with gift-giving.

At least two members of the president’s Cabinet have recently purchased bomb-proof bunkers.

Ron Hubbard, the creator of Atlas Survival Shelters, told The Telegraph over the weekend that orders have gone up “tenfold” since the United States and Israel attacked Iran earlier this month.

“I’ve been inundated with calls,” said Hubbard.

But among his anxious clientele are two chief members of Donald Trump’s team, according to the shelter maker.

“One of them texted me yesterday, asking me: ‘When will my bunker be ready?’” he told The Telegraph.

Hubbard constructs hundreds of galvanized steel shelters each year at Atlas’s factory in Sulphur Springs, Texas. Its catalog offers underground shelter options from tornado bunkers to hidden gun rooms, with prices ranging from $200,000 to $5 million. On the higher end of the spectrum, Atlas’s bunkers can come with practically every amenity imaginable, including mud rooms, swimming pools, cinemas, armories, and gun ranges.

And right now, business is booming. The company has so far averaged $2 million a month in sales for 2026, but Hubbard predicts that could jump to as much as $50 million next month.

“Bunker building is like being a farmer. When it’s time for harvest, you have to reap all you can,” he told The Telegraph.

But politicos are not the only people tapping into the doomsday-prepper lifestyle. Hubbard described the vast majority of his customers as being “Christian, conservative CEOs.” Last year, Hubbard met that crowd at a familiar watering hole—Mar-a-Lago—to advertise the drastic solution.

Hubbard refused to name his wealthiest customers but nonetheless boasted to The Telegraph that he has built shelters for several of the richest men on the planet, and that more tech moguls have recently come knocking for similar products.

The president, meanwhile, has done nothing to abate concerns. When asked by Time last week if Americans should be worried about Iran attacking them on U.S. soil, Trump responded: “I guess.”

“Like I said, some people will die,” Trump told the magazine. “When you go to war, some people will die.”

So far, seven 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 dozens of children at a girls’ school in the country’s south. A U.S. assessment report found that strike was “likely” the fault of American forces.