Pentagon Says Iran War Cost $45 Billion—if You Don’t Count Everything

President Trump’s seven-month war on Iran has cost the American taxpayer $45.1 billion, according to estimates the United States Central Command gave Congress this week. They also estimate that they’ll require another $28 billion to cover the cost to replace lost munitions.

According to the CENTCOM estimate, $28.1 billion went toward replacing spent munitions, $11.2 billion went toward general operations, and $4.3 billion went to weapons and tools that were “lost.” Another $1.5 billion went toward fuel. The estimate tracks up until September 3. It does not, however, account for the massive damage to U.S. military bases in the Middle East. There was also not a more detailed breakdown of the costs.

In July, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated that the Pentagon had already spent $37.5 billion on the war at that point. That total has quickly been eclipsed, and the war has no end in sight.

Literally no one voted for this war. Trump moved on his own, at the behest of the Israeli government. Now everyday Americans are paying for it, even as the vast majority disapprove of the war and how the president has handled it. And yet Republicans don’t seem to care, even as gas prices spike and midterms draw closer.

Donald Trump announced Friday he was banning several of America’s most prominent national news institutions from the White House, claiming that the prohibition was the result of “FAKE NEWS.”

He specified that he would bar CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, though it is unclear if Trump actually has the power to ban their reporters from the White House grounds. It is also unclear if the ban extends to other government buildings, such as the Capitol.

“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”

Trump did not identify specific stories that he felt fell into that category, though earlier in the day, Trump lamented online that “CNN is so dishonest.”

“Everything they say is slanted against the Republican Party,” Trump wrote Friday morning. “They are truly FAKE NEWS!”

The news industry is an essential component of a healthy democracy. Questioning authority figures, dispelling untruths, shedding light on injustice, and disseminating verified information to the public are functions of that job in play, and tools to hold power to account.

But Trump has made it his mission since he first descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 to sow public distrust in America’s news institutions. Time and again he has said the less-than-devotional coverage of his political campaigns, his fraudulent business practices, his dubious personal connections, and his presidential administrations are tantamount to “fake news.”

In recent years Trump has aggressively pursued legal action against several major news entities, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, ABC News, and CBS News (as well as the broadcaster’s parent company, Paramount). He also sued the Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannett, and pollster J. Ann Selzer in December 2024, retroactively claiming that presidential polls the paper had published prior to Election Day were election interference.

This story has been updated.

Custom Rolex watches have become the ultimate symbol of status for President Donald Trump’s White House staff, Vanity Fair reported Friday.

The so-called “White House Rolex” watches come in two styles: a gold Day-Date Presidential and a GMT Pepsi. The two designs have blue faces and a gold presidential seal on the dial. At the 45- and 47-second marks sits a blue star. On the back is an engraving of the White House. Rolex doesn’t technically make custom watches, so the ones Trump staffers wear are purchased and then modified by a bespoke business in London.

Sounds expensive, right? “There’s no one fucking rich enough in the West Wing to actually buy the watch!” one insider joked to Vanity Fair. But in an administration made up of wealthy lobbyists and former real estate investors, that’s not always true.

Unlike the ugly dress shoes Trump scared all his Cabinet members into wearing, these aren’t a gift—White House staff are shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars to own a Trumpian timepiece. Those in possession of such a grotesque display of both wealth and sycophancy include Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy fumbling peace negotiations across the world; Susie Wiles, the chief of staff who trashed her entire team; and Will Scharf, the White House counsel who’s begged the administration not to violate the Constitution.

Several members of Vice President’s JD Vance staff also wear these watches, including Nick Luna, his chief of staff, and Cliff Sims, his national security adviser. Those with White House Rolexes outside of the actual White House include Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign manager, and Tony Fabrizio, the president’s personal pollster.

FBI Director Kash Patel temporarily paused cooperation with the FBI’s counterpart in Canada earlier this month over how the country’s national public broadcaster referred to the September 11 attacks.

The New York Times reports that after the Canadian Broadcasting Company reminded its journalists not to refer to 9/11 as “terrorism” if not citing an expert (a long-standing policy for coverage of all attacks), Patel halted some cooperation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The pause apparently didn’t last long, and wasn’t a total shutdown. Other agencies in the U.S. government continued working with the Canadian government normally.

But the FBI works closely with the RCMP on everything from terrorism to cybersecurity, and Patel’s pettiness threatens to jeopardize the already shaky relationship between the U.S. and Canada. During the pause, bureau officials canceled meetings with their Canadian opposites and said they would not be in contact for a while. This, coupled with Patel attacking the CBC’s editorial decision in multiple posts on X last month, wasn’t a positive step for the bureau’s relationship with the RCMP.

“Any agency in Canada that doesn’t publicly reject this bastardization of history, and an insult to the souls lost during our largest terrorist attack in US history will no longer have friend in this FBI.… Not to mention our heroes that responded in the aftermath 🇺🇸,” Patel posted at least twice on August 28, in replies to articles and video clips about the policy. “WE WILL NEVER FORGET 9-11.”

Later that day, CBC’s head of standards adjusted the network’s guidance, saying that terrorism now could be used to describe the attacks without attribution. The pause in cooperation still happened days later, with things reportedly going back to normal around the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attacks. According to the Times, FBI officials wanted some kind of apology, and it’s not known if they got one.

Canadian Culture Minister Marc Miller said that the new editorial guidance brought a “welcome change to what was a piece of pedantic and foolish guidance that caused legitimate anger.” Why Patel chose to raise a stink over this is anyone’s guess, but he has a history of slavish loyalty to Trump, and dramatic indignation over anything related to 9/11 is a conservative tradition at this point.

The demise of the Kennedy Center began with Donald Trump.

Tax documents obtained by Zeteo Friday disprove the president’s repeated claims that he “saved” the revered arts center from financial collapse, and instead illustrate that Trump’s intimate involvement in the building’s affairs last year triggered the beginning of its rapid decline.

Mere weeks after Inauguration Day 2025, Trump announced that he would remove multiple Kennedy Center trustees and install himself as board chairman—the first time in the nonprofit’s history that it would be helmed by a sitting president rather than a private citizen. In the following months, Trump worked to replace the center’s board with a group of MAGA loyalists, change its programming, and alter its internal organization.

But the Kennedy Center was not losing “hundreds of millions” or “sometimes hundreds of billions,” as Trump claimed on Wednesday, after a federal judge dealt his Kennedy Center plans another blow.

In 2024, the Kennedy Center reported more than $306 million in revenue and $558 million in net assets, according to that year’s tax return.

By September 30, 2025, the center recorded $517 million in revenue and $778 million in net assets, though its position was aided by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which extended $257 million to buoy the institution. Behind the scenes, program revenue had declined by $16 million, and pledges and grants declined by $30 million, according to the center’s 2025 return obtained by Zeteo.

Three months later, Trump slapped his name on the building’s facade, an illegal decision that tanked ticket sales and donations at the performing arts center. Nonetheless, Trump’s revised Kennedy Center board asserted that adding Trump’s name to the building was the only way to ensure the space could avoid “certain fiscal collapse.”

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the Kennedy Center could not be renamed to include “Donald J. Trump” on its exterior. He noted that Congress singularly arbitrates the name of the Kennedy Center, which was erected to memorialize the assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

Cooper issued another directive Thursday, ordering the Trump administration to provide 30 days’ notice ahead of any construction at the Kennedy Center, “including but not limited to any ‘demolition’ of the Center’s main building.” The mandate came after Trump was spotted aboard Air Force One looking at a posterboard that read: “Kennedy Center DEMOLISH” above a picture of a demolition site.