Trump’s Top Aide Freaks Out About What Trump’s Being Told on Iran War

The White House’s “Ice Maiden” has been unnerved by the lack of information reaching the president regarding the reality of the Iran war.

Three weeks into the conflict—in mid-March—White House chief of staff Susie Wiles forced a meeting of Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers to deliver the bad news. Privately, Wiles had urged the president’s inner circle to stop feeding him a rose-tinted interpretation of the conflict, fearing that Trump was largely unaware of the domestic fallout of the war just months ahead of a contentious midterm season, Time magazine reported Thursday.

Up until that point, Trump had been spoon-fed daily video compilations of various battlefield successes, a senior administration official told the publication. Trump was under the impression that stripping nuclear capabilities from Iran could be one of his greatest legacies as America’s forty-seventh president.

In reality, Americans were irate that Trump was pushing the country into another complicated and seemingly inexplicable Middle East conflict. National surveys have almost unilaterally conveyed as much. When the war began, an NBC News poll indicated that 52 percent of registered voters did not think the U.S. should have taken military action against Iran. That sentiment has only grown more severe in recent weeks: A CNN poll published Wednesday (before Trump’s address) showed that 66 percent of respondents either “somewhat disapprove” or “strongly disapprove” of “the U.S. decision to take military action in Iran.”

In the meantime, attacks on Iran’s oil and gas reserves—and the country’s decision to seal off the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy transit point—have drastically ramped up the cost of gas around the globe.

The combination has struck fear in the Republican Party, whose lawmakers have taken to grumbling about the domestic ramifications of the war and the impact it will have at the ballot box come November.

Wiles urged her colleagues to be “more forthright with the boss” about the political and economic risks of pushing U.S. troops into Iran, according to Time.

Trump has attempted to off-road the conflict in the weeks since the meeting, working to peel America’s presence out of the region while still claiming victory for some of his biggest goals in Iran, such as decapitating Iran’s nuclear capabilities, dismantling Tehran’s ballistic missile program, and replacing Iran’s government with a slew of more U.S.-friendly politicians. Unfortunately for the president, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that he’ll be able to do any of that on the White House’s advertised four-to-six week timeline. (The war is already in its fifth week.)

Former President Obama’s lead Iran negotiator, Wendy Sherman, admitted her X account was hacked Friday after posting a strangely worded message against the Iran war.

“We were promised strength. Instead, we are watching the greatest decline in our nation’s history unfold in real time. Our future is being traded away piece by piece for a war that was never truly ours,” the former U.S. deputy secretary of state posted on X. “Watch the video. Decide for yourself. #AmericaFirst#F35Falling#WarReality.”

Attached is unconfirmed footage shared by Iranian state media of a shot-down U.S. F-15 fighter jet, as well as unconfirmed images of its debris. What has been confirmed is that the Iranian military did shoot down a U.S. fighter jet over Iran, and Iranian officials have since called on civilians to search for and capture the pilot.

“It appears I have been hacked,” Sherman posted almost two hours later. “Recent tweet is not from me.”

It is unclear who the hackers are or where they came from, although they could likely be tied to Iran. For some reason, the post is still up on Sherman’s page.

The Pentagon has been misleading Americans about the destruction of Iran’s military arsenal, casting doubt on Donald Trump’s timeline for ending the war. 

After five weeks of military bombardment from the United States and Israel, roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers and thousands of one-way attack drones are still intact, according to an exclusive CNN report Thursday. Some of these assets may be inaccessible to the Iranian military, having been buried by strikes. 

Speaking on March 19 about the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pointed to the number of Iranian missile strikes, rather than the arsenal itself. He claimed that ballistic missile attacks against U.S. forces were “down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one-way attack UAVS, think kamikaze drones.” 

While the number of strikes may have plunged, Iran’s arsenal has only been halved, according to U.S. intelligence sources.  

Still, while speaking to the nation Wednesday night, Trump emphasized the damage to Iran’s military arsenal. “Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed, and their weapons factories and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces,” he said. 

“We’ve done all of it,” he continued. “Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, their missiles are just about used up or beaten.”  

One U.S. official who reviewed the intelligence cast doubt on the American military’s ability to resolve the conflict in only two or three weeks, as Trump suggested during his speech. 

“We can keep f**king them up, I don’t doubt it, but you’re out of your mind if you think this will be done in two weeks,” the official said.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell dismissed CNN’s reporting as “completely wrong.”

“The United States military has delivered a crippling series of blows to the Iranian regime,” Parnell said. “We are far ahead of schedule on accomplishing our military objectives: Destroy Iran’s missile arsenal, annihilate their navy, destroy their terrorist proxies, and ensure Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.”

Israeli intelligence estimated that the number of remaining Iranian missiles was closer to 20 or 25 percent of the original arsenal, not including launchers that were inaccessible.

It’s worth noting that this is where Iran’s arsenal stands weeks after Trump announced that the war in Iran was already won. 

A massive overhaul is in the cards among the higher echelons of the Trump administration.

Donald Trump is “very angry” with his Cabinet thus far and is considering “moving” several officials, according to an administration official who spoke with Politico.

Others are at risk of being axed from their jobs entirely. Some of the people that Trump has expressed frustration with include Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, both of whom could lose their jobs “imminently,” according to three people “with knowledge” of the president’s thinking, who confirmed the rumors to Politico.

No final decisions have yet been made about Lutnick or Chavez-DeRemer, and it is not clear who would replace them. Publicly, the White House stressed its faith in Trump’s appointees, writing in a statement that ​​both Lutnick and Chavez-DeRemer are “doing a great job standing up for American workers, and they continue to have President Trump’s full support.”

But officials circling the White House have very different opinions when they’re allowed to speak candidly. One senior administration official told Politico that Lutnick is on “thin ice,” though they noted that Trump has considered firing him before and backed off. Pink-slipping Lutnick would give Trump the ability to say, “I’m making changes on the economy,” according to one official—a message that could be enormously valuable to Republicans ahead of a particularly contentious midterm season.

Trump dismissed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, on Thursday, thrusting her out of government and into the private sector. Her dismissal was reportedly supposed to occur Friday but was rushed due to rampant speculation about her replacement that consumed Washington Wednesday night.

An unidentified senior administration source who spoke with The Daily Mail Thursday claimed that Bondi begged Trump to reconsider, pleading to give her more time in the role, but Trump was adamant about her departure. Among the speculated reasons for her sudden exit include her handling of the Epstein files—which remains the president’s most resilient and egregious scandal—and the president’s apparent belief that Bondi tipped off California Representative Eric Swalwell to an FBI smear campaign. Swalwell has denied Bondi gave him any information.

But Bondi’s firing could be the tip of the iceberg. Trump has reportedly also surveyed his advisers about ousting Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who recently irritated Trump by shielding a former deputy who disagreed with the president’s war with Iran.

Another senior official told Politico that the high-level reorg is focused on members of his administration who he believes have either “underperformed or who have generated too much negative attention.”

Trump axed Kristi Noem from her position atop the Department of Homeland Security last month immediately following a string of abysmal appearances before Congress. Her position atop the Trump administration had become increasingly tenuous in recent months due to a series of scandals, though 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.

For what was meant to be the Golden Age of America, it’s sure looking like a recession could be on the cards.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report Friday found the U.S. added 178,000 jobs in March, surpassing expectations. But hidden in that good news was something else: The job losses in February were far worse than previously reported. Initially reported as a loss of 92,000 jobs, the labor market actually lost a total of 133,000 jobs that month.

This update means that February represented the largest U.S. job loss since December 2020, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

The labor market has been consistently brutal since Trump took office in January 2025. Yearly job growth was the worst it had been outside of a recession since 2003.

“March was somewhat encouraging, but it’s been a rocky year for the labor market with almost no hiring since last April,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told CNBC. “The March data will keep the Federal Reserve on hold, but no one is declaring victory yet. It’s likely to be a tough spring for job-seekers.”

The rough months come while Trump spends millions in taxpayer money on a golden ballroom for himself and his cronies (not to mention billions on his unpopular and unauthorized Iran war). Some Jay Gatsby parallels spring to mind—although at least Gatsby’s lavish spending was guided by unrequited love and a desire to fit in. Trump’s is more just because he’s a senile egoist.