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‘I’m not in a hurry’: Trump bats down concerns of Iran war affecting midterms
Donald Trump batted down concerns that the ongoing Iran war – which has seen 13 days of consecutive strikes – could cost Republicans control of Congress in the upcoming midterms.
“Despite what everybody says about the election, I’m not in a hurry,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We have to do it right. Elections take care of themselves.”
Key events
Trump jabs at reporters and praises secret service officer who confronted gunman at April event
In his remarks to the White House correspondent’s association dinner, Donald Trump began by lightly jabbing at the journalists in the room, saying: “many of you were there with me and some showed extreme bravery, like Pete Hegseth, Steve Miller, Tom Holman.”
“They were standing on tables and most of you were under the tables,” the president said.
He then moved on to praising the secret service officer who confronted the man charged attacking the dinner in April, Cole Allen.
Trump mentioned that he had been “psyched” before the previous dinner to deliver the stinging critique of the correspondents he had prepared, but said he has decided to give a more gentle speech at the rescheduled event. This speech he said, “is going to be such a letdown.”
His remarks so far have been generally light, after-dinner speaker fare.
“This place is the really the largest group of Trump Derangement Syndrome people ever put together at one time,” the president said.
“Your lives were really in danger the last time,” Trump said. “But on the plus side, your careers were saved”.
Donald Trump begins White House correspondents’ dinner remarks
Donald Trump just started his remarks to the White House correspondents’ association dinner, which is being live-streamed, by saying that the journalists are “amazing people. A lot of people that I like, some I don’t like at all, but I respect most of them. I must say that you do a great job, amazing job, and it’s an honor.”
He then moved on to bragging about having previously run the hotel the dinner is being held in. He followed with a joke about running for a third term, before adding: “I’m only kidding.”
Trump shrugs as award goes to Wall Street Journal team that revealed birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein
A series of awards for reporting on the Trump White House have just been handed out to journalists Donald Trump has harangued and threatened for their unflattering portrayals of him and his administration.
At one stage, Trump theatrically shrugged as the CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer mentioned that the president had filed a $20bn lawsuit “revealing the reporter Khadeeja Safdar’s home address” after the Wall Street Journal revealed the bawdy birthday letter sent in his name to Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for nearly two decades.
Trump acted the good sport, shaking hands with all of the award winners, including Kaitlan Collins, the CNN correspondent he once criticized for not smiling as she tried to ask him about Epstein’s victims.
Another award went to the Getty Images photographer Andrew Harnik, for his Oval Office photo of Trump standing impassive as a man who had fainted during an event was cared for by others. The photograph inspired a Saturday Night Live sketch recreating the moment in which the comedian who played Trump, James Austin Johnson, said the president’s response was to “just stand there and stare like a sociopath”.
ACLU honors Bruce Springsteen and Colin Kaepernick at another awards ceremony
Across town, the American Civil Liberties Union is holding its own awards ceremony on Friday night at another Washington DC venue.
In what sounds like a dispatch from a parallel universe, while Donald Trump attends a ceremony in support of the press corps he routinely derides, the ACLU ceremony is honoring Bruce Springsteen and Colin Kaepernick, for their “profound contributions to American thought and culture”, and the civil rights lawyers Vanita Gupta, Erwin Chemerinsky and Elizabeth Foster.
Earlier this year, Springsteen allowed the ACLU to use his song Born in the USA for an ad explaining what was at stake in Trump v Barbara, the US supreme court case that later overturned Trump’s attempt to deny birthright citizenship to the children of noncitizens.
The awards ceremony is hosted by Laverne Cox, the actor and advocate for transgender rights.
The White House Correspondents’ Association just treated the country to a cringeworthy AI video in which the founders of the American republic toasted the assembled press corps.
“By the way, that was AI, in case you missed it,” the outgoing White House correspondents’ president, Weija Jiang of CBS News, pointed out, before handing over to her successor, Jacqui Heinrich, a Fox News correspondent who married a Republican congressman, Brian Fitzpatrick, last month.
In May, Donald Trump dodged a question from Heinrich by instead mocking her then fiance and threatening to have him ousted from his seat for supposed disloyalty. “Her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine? I don’t know what’s with him. You better ask him what’s with him,” Trump said. “He likes voting against Trump. You know what happens with that? It doesn’t work out well. I don’t know why he does.”
White House Correspondents’ Association ceremony begins
Before Donald Trump speaks to the White House Correspondents’ Association, a post-dinner ceremony celebrating journalism and the first amendment began with praise for journalists in the room who covered the attack on the prior dinner in April from Weija Jiang, the WHCA president.
After Jiang said “no matter how complicated or tense the relationship is between the press and the presidency, what we share is far more important than anything else and that is our duty: to serve the American people”, her remarks were met with polite applause from most of the people room, but when the camera cut to Trump, he was not clapping.
California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, has praised an agreement reached on Friday with Warner Bros and Paramount that halts their proposed merging until 1 June 2027, or until a court rules on a challenge to the merger filed by a coalition of 12 attorneys general, whichever comes first
“The Warner Bros./ Paramount merger is expected to result in higher prices, lower content quality, and fewer movies and TV shows. The proposed $110 billion merger — the largest in Hollywood history — would combine two of Hollywood’s five major film distributors and two of the five major owners of basic cable channels, extinguishing competition between Paramount and Warner Bros., and inflicting substantial harm on movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences nationwide,” Bonta’s office said in a statement.
“Our argument against this illegal merger is straightforward: When too few corporations have too much power in markets central to American life, it makes things more expensive, and it makes things worse,” Bonta said. “Today’s agreement is great news for audiences, movie theaters, and the many people who write, build, and create the art, news, and entertainment so many of us enjoy. We are eager to continue to make our case in court and celebrate another tremendous win in our effort to ensure this unlawful merger never sees the light of day.”
White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is under way
The rescheduled White House correspondents’ dinner is under way at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington DC, three months after the original event in April was interrupted by gunfire, after a man rushed through a security checkpoint outside the ballroom.
Donald Trump was on stage for the opening remarks by the White House Correspondents’ Association president, CBS News correspondent Weija Jiang.
“Let’s try this again, because one thing about this press corps is, we always have a follow-up,” she began. “Many of you were also with us in April. You came as guests, but within moments, you went to work.”
“An assassination attempt on our president is an attack on democracy itself,” she said. “Tonight, our message is this: we are back. We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.”
Trump is expected to speak soon. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, promised that the president who attacks the non-partisan media relentlessly as “the enemy of the people” would deliver “a combination of unifying yet vicious, and serious yet hilarious” remarks.
DNC picks South Carolina South Carolina to lead party’s 2028 presidential primaries
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted on Friday to select South Carolina to lead the party’s 2028 presidential primary calendar. While the Palmetto state will kick off the calendar, five other states will follow with nominating contests ahead of Super Tuesday – the biggest single day of voting in the presidential primary season in early March.
The order is as follows:
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South Carolina, 22 January 2028
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Nevada, 1 February 2028
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New Hampshire, 8 February 2028
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New Mexico, 15 February 2028
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Michigan, 22 February 2028
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Virginia, 29 February 2028
The vote from the Rules and Bylaws Committee, in which South Carolina beat its nearest rival, Nevada, by 26-19, has to be ratified by the full DNC next month.
Christale Spain, the South Carolina Democratic Party chair welcomed the decision.
“South Carolina Democrats are grateful to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee for again selecting South Carolina to lead off the 2028 Democratic presidential primary,” the Spain said in a statement. “This decision demonstrates our party’s commitment to competing in the South and recognizes the importance of black and rural voters in shaping the Democratic Party’s future.”
The news was less welcome to Democrats in New Hampshire, where a state law requires presidential primaries to be held “7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election”.
“The Democratic National Committee’s decision today is wrong for Democrats, wrong for New Hampshire, and wrong for the country,” New Hampshire’s two senators and two members of Congress, all Democrats, said in a joint statement.
“New Hampshire’s First in the Nation primary is a tested proving ground in a closely contested swing state that forges better candidates and better presidents and despite what DNC insiders say, that hasn’t changed,” they added. “As a state with highly engaged voters, we put candidates through their paces and thoroughly vet them. And our small size means that actually meeting and talking to voters takes precedence over super PACs or mega-donor-fueled campaigns.”
Appeals court rejects Trump administration effort to let it charge $100,000 fees for H-1B visas
A federal appeals court declined on Friday to halt a judge’s order that blocks the Trump administration from imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
The court’s order, from a three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for the first Circuit, in Boston, declined to put on hold a lower court judge’s 8 June ruling that struck down an effort by the Department of Homeland Security and the state department to to implement a presidential proclamation by Donald Trump requiring that a $100,000 payment accompany all H-1B visa applications. The lower court found that the fee constituted an unlawful tax Congress never authorized.
Stephen Miller says Americans ‘should just assume and trust’ Trump on Saudi nuclear deal because he ‘understands Saudi psychology’
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, was asked on Friday why Donald Trump waited until the day after the US signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia to announce that the deal was contingent on the kingdom agreeing to normalize relations with Israel by joining the Abraham accords.
The Saudis have repeatedly said that they will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel has occupied since 1967.
“The president has been very clear with Saudi Arabia,” Miller said, adding that he expects “their normalization of relations with Israel and their entry in the Abraham accords”.
“The president, better than any American alive, understands the psychology of the kingdom, the players in the kingdom and what that relationship looks like,” he went on.
“So he understands Saudi psychology. He understands the Saudi plan, the future,” Miller added. “So we should just assume and trust that the president knows exactly what to do and how to do it.”
Marina Dunbar
Donald Trump switched aircraft before departing Turkey earlier this month after US officials determined there was a credible threat from Iranian proxy forces targeting him and Air Force One, according to a new report from the New York Times.
The threat surfaced while the US president was attending the Nato summit. He had arrived in Ankara onboard the new Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, an aircraft that Trump acknowledged does not have the same advanced defensive systems as the older Air Force One.
According to the anonymous sources who spoke to the Times, after US officials detected the threat, the Secret Service recommended that Trump change aircraft before leaving the country. He later announced he would depart on the older Air Force One instead.
The newly reported details about the threat help explain why the White House quickly decided to swap aircraft. They also highlight ongoing security concerns surrounding the donated jet, which Trump had pushed to have ready for use as soon as possible.
According to the report, US officials did not believe the Iranian proxy forces were specifically targeting the new Boeing 747-8. Instead, the intelligence indicated the threat was directed at Trump himself and whichever aircraft he was traveling on.
Trump claims he prevented Iran from destroying Israel in nuclear attack, contradicting US intelligence Iran suspended nuclear weapons drive in 2003
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Donald Trump repeated his claim that Israel would not exist today had he lost the 2024 presidential election to Kamala Harris.
Asked about his comment on Thursday that he was “considering a massive attack” on Iran, Trump renewed his threat and said: “If I thought they were anywhere near getting a nuclear weapon – if I wasn’t elected, Israel would, in my opinion, not be around any more. They would have been hit by a nuclear weapon.”
The president went on to claim, as he has previously, that “Barack Hussein Obama’s nuclear deal” with Iran “was a road to a nuclear weapon”. That claim is contradicted by the preamble to the 2015 agreement, which said: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons” and by the mechanism spelled out in the deal for rigorous international inspections Iran agreed to as a condition of the agreement.
Trump then claimed that only his order to bomb nuclear sites in Iran in 2025 had prevented that nation from building nuclear weapons and using them to destroy Israel.
“If that didn’t happen, they would have a nuclear weapon and there would be no Israel,” Trump said. “If they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used that. There might not be a Middle East as we know it today.”
Trump’s claim that Iran was about to build nuclear weapons is contradicted by the 2025 US intelligence assessment presented to Congress by his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, before the strikes he ordered, which clearly stated that the collective assessment of 18 US intelligence agencies was “that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”.
Trump’s claim that Iran would have used nuclear weapons to destroy Israel also clashes with the logic of deterrence, specifically the doctrine known as mutually assured destruction, since Iran is aware that Israel already has nuclear weapons it could use to destroy Iran.
The fact that Israel’s Jewish population is intertwined with a Palestinian population of similar size across a very small geographical area also makes it hard to see how the Jewish state could be destroyed in a nuclear attack that did not also kill vast numbers of Palestinians, and lay waste to Islam’s third holiest site, Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque.
Still, Trump’s comments do echo claims his partner in the war on Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu, has made for decades, and repeated last month at a policy summit in Jerusalem.
“We have prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us, and today they would have had a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb to do so,” Israel’s prime minister said. “We removed an existential danger. And had we not acted … Iran would have had atomic bombs. And let me tell you something, they would have used them.”
‘Maybe LeBron is a racist,’ Trump says to explain why NBA star dislikes him
Asked by a Fox News correspondent in the Oval Office on Friday where he stands on the question of whether LeBron James or Michael Jordan is the greatest-ever basketball player, Donald Trump chose to answer an entirely different question: which NBA great likes him better?
“Well, Michael Jordan’s a guy that’s a friend of mine,” Trump began, turning the subject to himself.
“I play golf with him. He’s a really good guy. And I think LeBron is – maybe he’s a racist. But maybe he doesn’t like Trump, I don’t know,” the president continued, clearly still irked by LeBron James having called him a “bum” nine years ago in a social media post, after Trump cancelled a White House visit by that year’s NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors, because their star guard, Steph Curry, said he would not go. “Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!” James posted at the time.
“I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way,” Trump said.
Asked at the time why he did not want to go to the Trump White House, Curry said the message was: “That we don’t stand for basically what our president has – the things that he’s said and the things that he hasn’t said at the right times, that we won’t stand for it.”
“By acting and not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country, what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye toward,” he added.
‘I’m not in a hurry’: Trump bats down concerns of Iran war affecting midterms
Donald Trump batted down concerns that the ongoing Iran war – which has seen 13 days of consecutive strikes – could cost Republicans control of Congress in the upcoming midterms.
“Despite what everybody says about the election, I’m not in a hurry,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We have to do it right. Elections take care of themselves.”
In response to Trump’s vow to inflict “major military punishment” for Tehran, the president said that the White House continues to speak with Iran.
“I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by,” Trump said. “We can take that to a much higher level if we want to. You know, we’re prepared to do that, as you know. We’re locked and loaded … we’ll see what comes of it.”
Notably, Trump declined to answer when New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh asked whether threats to bomb bridges and other civilian infrastructure in Iran would amount to war crimes.
At the White House today, Donald Trump announced that the US now has three nuclear reactors that have reached “criticality” – the state where the reactor’s chain reaction sustains itself without additional input.
Later, when asked about the new condition he placed on the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal that requires the kingdom to join the Abraham accords, the president said: “It’s a two-way street, and we think it’s very important for the future of the Middle East.”
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