Top U.S. Military Officer Shatters Trump’s Biggest Claims on Iran War

Not even the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. can confidently support President Trump’s claims that the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is over, let alone that the United States is winning.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were questioned about their half a trillion dollar funding request for the Iran war at a Senate Appropriations hearing on Tuesday, two weeks after Trump told Congress that the conflict was “terminated.”

“General Caine, the president has claimed on several occasions over the past couple of months that the war is over, the conflict has been concluded. What were the goals of the U.S. conflict in Iran, and have we achieved them?” Senator Dick Durbin asked.

The general couldn’t offer a straight answer.

“Well, sir, I’m gonna be mindful of my need to maintain trust with a variety of stakeholders in the job that I’m in, which includes you, the American people, the Joint Force, and the president.… Only our political and civilian leaders set the national military objectives,” Caine replied, refusing to answer the question directly. “I’ll defer to the secretary and the president on other strategic objectives, but that’s what we’ve been focused on, sir.”

“Do you feel that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz indicates a victory on our side?” Durbin continued.

Caine once again deferred to the president, refusing to call upon his years of military expertise to give a simple judgment call on a question the entire world knows the answer to.

“Sir, only political leaders decide victory or defeat, and I’ll leave it to them to opine on that. They are the ones who invoke or stop the use of military force.”

“Well, let me put it in strictly military terms,” Durbin said. “Can you explain to the American people, who are facing these gasoline and diesel oil prices, what is going on in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran—which was attacked by us—seemingly has the Strait of Hormuz at a standstill, with 1,500 tankers waiting for either permission or peaceful circumstances to navigate?”

“Militarily, it’s a case where Iran is choosing to hold the world’s economy hostage through their use of military power across their southern flank,” Caine replied. “And so I would encourage Iran to reconsider that. And I would encourage those allies and partners who have an opportunity to come assist with that tactical problem to do so.”

That answer certainly does not indicate victory.

The FBI is conducting loyalty tests to determine who belongs in the bureau’s rank and file, according to the last FBI chief.

Brian Driscoll was a decorated FBI agent with 18 years at the agency under his belt before he was offered the bureau’s number two job at the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term. A clerical error would ultimately place Driscoll at the top of the agency, making him the bureau’s acting director—an oversight that wasn’t corrected until the Senate confirmed Kash Patel at the end of February.

Driscoll wasn’t keen to take the reins of the FBI but told CNN Tuesday that he agreed to take the job after he was informed it was between him and a political appointee.

Yet as the weeks bore on, the questions he fielded from incoming Trump officials began to concern him. They inquired about his political affiliations, who he voted for, when he began supporting Trump, and if he supported a Democrat in recent elections.

Patel was more blunt. The onboarding wouldn’t be an issue so long as Driscoll wasn’t active on social media, didn’t donate to the Democratic Party, and didn’t vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, Driscoll recalled Patel saying.

“It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” Driscoll told CNN.

Driscoll met with Patel after the latter had been confirmed. Patel flatly said that “the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,” Driscoll recalled.

The issue came to a head two weeks after Trump’s inauguration. When the White House demanded the names of some 6,000 bureau staff who were involved in the January 6 probe, Driscoll refused, sparking accusations from then–Justice Department official Emil Bove that there was “insubordination” among the FBI’s leadership.

Driscoll said that when he confronted Bove about the need for a list, Bove blamed it on “cultural rot in the FBI.”

“I was telling them this is wrong,” Driscoll told CNN.

Driscoll was fired months later, in August, but the purge hasn’t quieted down for those left behind at the bureau. The agency, according to Driscoll, is still focused on punishing or removing any FBI agents who could be perceived as threats to the president’s agenda, at the White House’s behest. That includes sacking employees who were involved in investigating the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, as well as employees involved in Trump’s classified documents probe.

Driscoll is one of three former senior FBI agents who have sued the Trump administration for firing them as part of a “campaign of retribution.” That lawsuit is ongoing.

Senator Lindsey Graham blew up Tuesday about Donald Trump’s disastrous negotiations with Iran—and made a move at undermining their mediator.

During a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee regarding the Pentagon’s outrageous $1.5 trillion dollar budget request, Graham became visibly frustrated when speaking about a CBS News report from the day before that Pakistan had quietly allowed Iranian aircraft to park at its military bases, potentially to shield them from U.S. airstrikes.

Graham pressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, General Dan Caine, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on whether they believed that was consistent with Pakistan’s role as a mediator between the U.S. and Iran. Both military leaders refused to weigh in.

“I don’t want to get in the middle of these negotiations—” Hegseth said, and Graham exploded.

“Well, I do! I want to get in the middle of these negotiations!” he said.

“I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw ’em! If they actually do have Iranian aircraft parked in Pakistan bases to protect Iranian military assets, that tells me we should be looking maybe for somebody else to mediate. No wonder this damn thing is going nowhere!”

Graham indicated Monday that his beef with Pakistan was mostly related to his loyalty to Israel. “If this reporting is accurate, it would require a complete reevaluation of the role Pakistan is playing as mediator between Iran, the United States and other parties,” he wrote on X. “Given some of the prior statements by Pakistani defense officials towards Israel, I would not be shocked if this were true.”

It’s not clear what statements he was specifically referring to, but Pakistani officials have strongly condemned Israel’s continued strikes in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied CBS’s reporting in a statement, calling it “misleading and sensationalized.”

“The Iranian aircraft currently parked in Pakistan arrived during the ceasefire period and bear no linkage whatsoever to any military contingency or preservation arrangement,” the statement said. “Assertions suggesting otherwise are speculative, misleading, and entirely detached from the factual context.”

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Asim Munir, the leader of the Pakistani military, have emerged as key negotiators through the extended and tenuous ceasefire. A resolution to the talks remains out of reach, as Trump declared Sunday that the latest terms Iran offered were “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!”

The Nebraska Senate Democratic primary Tuesday appears tailor-made to confuse voters.

There wasn’t even supposed to be a contest, thanks to independent populist Dan Osborn running for the Senate. The Nebraska Democratic Party planned to endorse his candidacy this year due to his strong performance in 2024, when he came within seven percentage points of defeating incumbent Republican Senator Deb Fischer and outperformed Kamala Harris’s 21-point loss to Donald Trump in the state.

But then 79-year-old pastor William Forbes entered the race. While Forbes is a registered Democrat, he’s voted for Trump three times and attended a Republican training event earlier this year. Nebraska Democrats were understandably worried, so now retired pharmacy tech Cindy Burbank is running against Forbes.

Burbank said that if she wins the primary, she’ll drop out and endorse Osborn so he has a clear field to take on incumbent Republican Senator Pete Ricketts, whose family is worth billions. Not surprisingly, Republicans are crying foul, calling Burbank’s candidacy a coordinated and unfair means to prop up Osborn.

Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen tried to kick Burbank off the ballot in March, but she successfully sued to stay on. Burbank also paid the filing fee for a third-party candidate, Mike Marvin, of the Legal Marijuana NOW Party.

Osborn is an Omaha union leader who became popular during a 77-day strike at a Kellogg’s cereal plant in 2021, catapulting him to fame and his strong showing in 2024. A former registered Democrat, he ran as an independent that year in part due to the party’s struggles to convince voters in the Great Plains, and pledges not to caucus with either party if he wins this time around. He’s behind Ricketts by only one percentage point in recent polling.

“The national Democratic brand is toxic among voters in states like Nebraska in the sense that it’s very much identified with the coastal liberal elites on a whole host of issues,” Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, told USA Today. “Nebraska Democrats are adopting this sort of plan B strategy, which is to not run a Democratic candidate at all.”

Will Nebraska voters be able to figure out what’s going on? If Forbes wins the primary, he could siphon away votes from Osborn in November and help Ricketts to victory. If Burbank wins, Nebraska Democrats have to get the word out that she’s supporting Osborn. All of this could easily go wrong.

A watchdog group is suing the Trump administration for allegedly using the president’s “Freedom 250” organization as a vehicle to divert funds to his vanity projects without congressional approval.

On Tuesday, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, following unanswered Freedom of Information Act requests filed back in February for records regarding the public funds being used for Freedom 250—the organization overseeing everything from setting up the Grand Prix around the National Mall to Trump’s independence arch. The Department of the Interior never responded to the requests, and now PEER’s lawsuit claims that our money is being used with “with no transparency, no accountability, and no guardrails.”

“America’s 250th anniversary celebration is supposed to be an occasion for strengthening public trust in our democratic institutions, not eroding it,” PEER’s executive director, Tim Whitehouse, said in a statement on Monday. “In contrast, Freedom 250 is a privately managed slush fund.… It epitomizes what is wrong with politics today.”

PEER alleges that the Trump administration is using Freedom 250 to redirect $100 million in taxpayer funds from America 250 without congressional approval, mix private funding and public taxpayer money without oversight, sell “access to President Trump” for up to $2.5 million, solicit foreign donations, and more. PEER also accuses the DOI of pressuring workers to use Freedom 250 branding in their official email sign-offs, which could violate the Hatch Act.

The Trump administration has yet to comment on the lawsuit.