Iran Axes Peace Talks With U.S. as Trump Spirals

Iran on Monday suspended all peace talks with the U.S., just hours after President Trump claimed Iran “really wants to make a deal.”

Tehran placed the blame on Israel, which it said violated the trifold ceasefire agreement when Israeli troops captured Beaufort Castle, a twelfth-century Crusader fortress in southern Lebanon, over the weekend.

Israel previously used the castle, also known as Qalaat al-Shaqif, as a military base during its occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000. The offensive marked Israel’s deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than 26 years. On Monday, Israel issued an evacuation order to residents in southern Beirut.

Iranian state media reported that “there will be no dialogue” regarding U.S.-Israel-Iran peace efforts until the “aggressive and brutal operations of the Zionist regime’s army in Gaza and Lebanon” is quelled.

Tehran said it would completely close the Strait of Hormuz, as well as another narrow trade route nestled between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula—the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—as a consequence.

Trump optimistically insisted on Truth Social late Sunday that Iran was eager to negotiate, and blamed his negotiating woes on Democrats and dissident Republicans. It is unclear what comes next: Trump casually revealed on Saturday that the U.S. would “finish it off militarily” if he did not reach a good deal with Tehran.

The president repeated that he’s in “no hurry” to negotiate, and that—despite the war’s monumental impact on global gas prices—he believes if he’s in a hurry he’s “not going to make a good deal.”

“And slowly but surely, we’re getting, I think, what we want. And if we don’t get what we want, we’re going to end it a different way,” Trump told his daughter-in-law on Fox News’s My View With Lara Trump.

In the same interview, Trump referred to Venezuela as a “one-day win” and said that the situation with Iran is “a win already,” as the U.S. has “essentially defeated their military.”

But it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what a “win” in the Middle East looks like when the aims of the war were never clear to begin with. While the Iranian regime has suffered major losses over the span of the conflict—including dozens of senior leaders—it has also become more extreme as a result.

Rajan Menon, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, argued in The Guardian late last month that Trump would—at this late stage—be “lucky” to strike a deal similar to former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump ended during his first term.

The U.S. has so far been at war with Iran for more than 13 weeks and spent an estimated $98 billion in the process. The regional conflict has damaged strategic alliances, stalled global trade, and thrust the world into an energy crisis due to the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. It has also killed thousands of people.

This story has been updated.

Physicians have noted large omissions from a medical report on President Trump’s most recent visit to Walter Reed Medical Center, his third in a little over a year.

In a three-page memorandum released by the White House late Friday, Trump’s physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, told the public that the president “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function.” But as medical experts told The Wall Street Journal, the report lacked specificity where it mattered.

Barbabella’s report noted that there was “no arterial obstruction or structural abnormalities” in Trump’s heart or important blood vessels—which only meant there isn’t a blockage at the moment. There was also no mention of what his internal plaque buildup looked like.

“If I was creating a report to send to another physician, I would have mentioned a little bit more about the carotid ultrasound,” Texas surgeon Dr. William Shutze told the Journal. “What amount of plaque there is going to be—because almost all of us are going to have some buildup there.”

The report also noted that Trump’s swollen legs had improved, with no mention of what happened to trigger said improvement. His cholesterol was also nearly perfect—raising eyes given his age, visible bruising and swelling, his frequent on-camera naps, and the fact that he is an 80-year-old man who insists that he’s the healthiest person alive.

“That report is almost too good to be true for somebody of his age,” Shutze continued. “This seems to be a filtered narrative.”

The war in Iran has not been the unequivocal success that Donald Trump has claimed it to be.

Tehran has damaged at least 20 regional U.S. military sites since the war began in late February, according to satellite imagery reviewed by the BBC. The damages have destroyed air defense systems, radars, and aerial refueling planes, costing the U.S. millions of dollars.

The Pentagon, on the other hand, claimed in early April that it hit more than 13,000 targets in Iran within just 38 days of combat operations.

Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has tried to rally attention toward the attacks. Last week, Khamenei wrote in Farsi on his official X account that “America will no longer have a safe haven for mischief and the establishment of military bases in the region.” Khamenei further vowed that the phrases “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” would remain the rallying cry of the Islamic community and “the oppressed of the world, especially the youth.”

The reality is obviously a far cry from the Trump administration’s public declarations, which have involved claims as far back as June 2025 that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were obliterated and its military sites damaged beyond any scope of immediate repair.

A peace plan does not seem to be on the table, despite a preliminary agreement that was drafted early last week. Iran on Monday suspended talks with the United States over continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon, which they say violate the ceasefire.

That’s not likely to please Trump, who spent the weekend ranting about congressional opposition to his war.

“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us,” the president wrote on Truth Social late Sunday. “But don’t the Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans, understand that it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping,’ at levels never seen before, over and over again, that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever.

“Just sit back and relax,” Trump concluded. “It will all work out well in the end—It always does!”

Three Democratic senators introduced a bill Monday to kill Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund.

Senators Adam Schiff of California, Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan introduced the “Drain the Fund Act,” which they said would block taxpayer dollars from being funneled to Trump and his allies, including individuals convicted in connection with the January 6 riot, public figures who spread election misinformation, and the leader of a violent hate group.

“As Republicans return to Washington to provide further funding for this and other mistaken priorities, we’re going to hold them accountable,” Schiff said in a statement. “And as Senators who have actually seen their government weaponized against them, we want to make it clear: We will not allow a single payout from this so-called weaponization fund to be paid.”

The bill would also ban settlements stemming from suits brought by the president or the vice president, and be retroactive to January 20, 2025. That would functionally undo the recent settlement for Trump’s failing $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Services that produced the fund, and blocked the president from future audits.

Last week, a federal judge issued a restraining order to ensure that no taxpayer dollars would be “irreversibly disbursed” from the fund before the legal battle could play out.

But the bill is only part of the plan. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that Democrats would introduce an amendment to their $72 billion budget reconciliation bill in order to shut down the fund. “If they try to bury the issue, we will force them to the Senate floor. If they try to sneak behind appropriations, we will fight them there, too. There will be no escape hatch. No fake guardrails or backroom promises to hide behind,” Schumer said.

The United Kingdom has banned left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and his uncle Cenk Uygur from entering the country because of their criticism of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Both were scheduled to speak at the upcoming SXSW London festival. 

Britain’s interior ministry said that Uygur’s and Piker’s presence in the country would “not be conducive to ​the public good.” The statement made no reference to Israel, but their planned appearance at the conference had already led to backlash from British Jewish groups. Last week, Labour member of Parliament David Taylor called for Piker to be prevented from speaking.

“I’ve been banned from the UK. I tried to get on a flight to London to attend SXSW London and give a speech at Oxford. I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel,” Uygur wrote Sunday on X. “Are we free anymore? This is oppression of Western citizens by our own governments on behalf of a different country!”

“The UK has revoked my visa as well. All at the behest of Israel,” Piker wrote shortly after. “The west is betraying ‘liberal values’ for a genocidal fascist foreign government. Soon we will all become Israel.”

“It’s good to see the Home Office take a tough stance against those who pose a serious risk to public order and community cohesion. At a time when antisemitism is at record levels, it is completely inappropriate to give someone with a history of inflammatory rhetoric such a high profile platform,” Taylor said after news of the ban. 

This move comes just a year after the U.S. Vice President JD Vance lambasted the U.K. for cracking down on the speech of Islamophobic right-wingers like Tommy Robinson. 

The U.K. has been suppressing criticism of Israel domestically, as well, arresting at least 3,000 people since last summer simply for simply expressing support for the Palestine Action activist group, which has gained notoriety for damaging weapons manufacturing factories in the region. 

“It’s not just Israel. The UK has been escalating mass censorship under the guise of “safety” for yrs now. This is EXACTLY what every single free speech activist predicted, it’s horrible to see it come to fruition,” journalist Taylor Lorenz wrote. “This censorship is intertwined w laws like the ‘Online Safety Act.’”  

From Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk to Piker and Uygur, it’s clear that the United Kingdom and United States will happily engage in blatant suppression of speech if it means silencing a voice shouting out against genocide.