No One Knows If Trump and Iran Are Negotiating Right Now

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social Tuesday to deliver an update on negotiations with Iran—or lack thereof.

“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote. “The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated.”

NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer pointed out that Trump had suggested the day before that his administration was still in talks with Iran. “This is what makes it difficult to convey to the American people / our viewers what’s going on here,” she wrote on X.

On Monday, Trump urged Iran to wave the “white flag of surrender,” and threatened to “bomb the shit out of” Oman if it got in the way. Later, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Iran was “not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary.”

Earlier this month, Trump told reporters that he was in talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “literally by tomorrow.” Meanwhile, Iran denied speaking to the United States.

Trump’s wildly conflicting statements come after the end of the 60-day ceasefire deadline established in the memorandum of understanding that was signed in June—which Trump scrapped less than a month later. Recently, Trump’s own Cabinet members haven’t been willing to back up his claims that the U.S. has total control of the strait. Trump’s claims have been so erratic that they have spurred speculation about  a mirage for market manipulation. Or maybe he’s just losing it.

Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell is going to be unsealed.

A federal court in Manhattan last week ordered the public release of the files from Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against the accomplice and partner of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following eight years of litigation from the Miami Herald, reported Julie Brown, the investigative journalist for the newspaper best known for uncovering Epstein’s crimes.

Maxwell had been fighting to keep the lawsuit details under wraps, but her arguments were not enough to convince U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, who ruled that the Epstein Files Transparency Act supersedes the grand jury arguments Maxwell cited to keep the records sealed.

Giuffre brought the lawsuit more than a decade ago after Maxwell accused her of lying about being abused by Epstein, Maxwell, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, and other powerful figures. The lawsuit’s discovery process yielded thousands of pages of documents, including depositions of Maxwell, Giuffre, and many others, and Brown was told that it contains more evidence against Epstein, Maxwell, and their accomplices.

The judge in the initial case, Robert Sweet, took the unusual step of sealing all of the documents because they contained “sensitive” and “private” information. He put a protective order on hearings and decisions made in the case as well as volumes of evidence reportedly proving that Epstein and Maxwell were running an underage sex trafficking ring.

Before any of this could come out in a trial, Maxwell settled the case in 2017, paying Giuffre somewhere between $3 million and $5 million. But now much of the information that could implicate powerful people will soon be made public, and there could be fallout in Washington D.C., New York, and beyond.

The USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, lost power for days while it was sailing with the George Washington carrier strike group through the South China Sea.

On July 24, the Benfold experienced an “engineering casualty involving its generator,” Commander Matthew Comer, spokesperson for the Seventh Fleet told USNI News. Sailors went days without galley services, toilets and air conditioning, and their potable water was also affected. Four days later, the ship was towed into port, and power was restored on July 30.

These reports come amid mounting scrutiny over the toll of Trump’s extended reliance on the Navy to execute his aggressive national security priorities in Latin America and the Middle East.

Family members of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have reported food shortages and sanitation issues. During the Lincoln’s more than 200 days without a port call, there have been multiple instances in which sailors have tried to jump overboard. Trump has repeatedly denied that sailors have experienced problems onboard the Lincoln. (The USS George Washington, deployed to replace the ship, appears to have its own mold problem.)

Now, other family members of sailors are coming forward. Sailors onboard the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, also experienced a lack of water, with no warm water to shower and the water fountains were turned off, according to a series of texts a military spouse shared with Meidas Touch.

President Trump’s ballroom guy was sent to Russia for secret discussions.

The Financial Times reports that the chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., was given a diplomatic passport before attending Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June. Cook, who is overseeing the White House ballroom construction, was assigned a diplomatic security detail.

While in Russia, Cook met with government officials on what he described as a “cultural visit” where he showed officials pictures of his “dacha” in Atlanta. However, Trump administration officials were hoping to make diplomatic inroads with the Russian government, and Cook met with Anton Koyakov, a senior aide to Putin.

The U.S. had boycotted the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum since 2019, following the arrest of an American businessman, and continued staying away after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Cook was the first U.S. official to attend since 2018. During his June visit, he witnessed a Ukrainian drone strike on a Russian oil refinery, telling the Financial Times it was “too close for comfort.”

Cook didn’t give the publication any details about his meetings with Russian officials, if he was there on Trump’s instructions, or whether he planned to visit Russia again, saying, “There are many requests. We’re working on that now.”

While on his visit, Cook took part in a “Russia-US: Dialogue of Cultures” panel, showing pictures of his Atlanta home that he said was built in the “Russian wooden vernacular, which has touched my heart over the decades.” He gave a presentation on Russian churches, public buildings, and homes he has helped to restore in the country, which he has been visiting since the 1990s. His fellow panelists were senior Russian officials and cultural dignitaries, some of whom are under U.S. sanctions.

“I know Russian culture, and I know most of the leadership of their cultural institutions,” Cook told the Financial Times. The panelists “included most of my old friends, which was really a great homecoming. The personal connection between all of us was very clear.”

Cook’s presentation didn’t mention the war in Ukraine until it was almost over, when he said, “My children don’t feel this anymore. We must educate them to understand this. But we must be at peace in order to achieve these goals.... Help us do this.”

He did hold a question-and-answer session with Putin the next day, where he relayed a “good hello from your friend, President Trump.”

“We have a lot of ideas to talk about between our two capital cities in the next week,” Cook said. Putin responded by thanking Cook and saying he “pushed the puck back” to Trump. Cook told the Financial Times that he got a hockey puck from a friend and put it on the Resolute Desk in the White House, “much to President Trump’s amusement.”

The whole visit, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in June he was “not aware” of, seems like it was designed to be under the radar to get around public criticism and scrutiny. The U.S. under Trump is still ostensibly backing Ukraine, although it isn’t funding any military aid, and it has temporarily eased some sanctions against Russia. Trump’s willingness to engage with Russia has been heavily criticized, and it’s not clear how much the administration was involved in Cook’s trip.

Disney and ABC are suing President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, arguing that the administration’s demand that eight of their stations file their broadcast license renewals early is an attack on their free speech.

“Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” the lawsuit reads. “That campaign began in this Administration’s earliest days and has only intensified since.... Again and again, the administration ​has attacked ABC’s speech — the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air.”

This FCC’s threat to strip the ABC channels of their broadcast licenses followed a joke from late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel last spring, in which he said First Lady Melania Trump glowed “like an expectant widow” two days before the failed White House Correspondents’ Dinner attack. The joke caused a massive uproar from MAGAworld, including the president himself, who called for Kimmel’s termination. The lawsuit specifically cites Trump’s Truth Social posts calling for Kimmel’s termination as proof of the administration’s bias against him.

“The Commission issued an unprecedented order requiring the Stations to file early applications to renew their licenses—years before any of their licenses would have come up for renewal in the ordinary course and allowing only thirty days to file applications which ordinarily take months to prepare,” the suit continued.

Kimmel was also attacked by the Trump administration for joking about how Republicans responded to the death of Charlie Kirk last year. Disney briefly pulled Kimmell off the air after pressure from FCC Chair Brendan Carr.

The FCC attack came amid a probe into the daytime talk show The View for being too woke.

The lawsuit from Disney—one of the biggest and most recognizable media companies ever—is an aggressive defense of media freedom, rather than another capitulation as we’ve seen from other networks.

This story has been updated.