NEWS: Trump Launches 'Expletive Laced' Rant Over Iran War, Pentagon Scrubs Fallen Service Members, Permits Killing…
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Good morning, everyone. Lots of news to cover this morning. The Trump administration has wiped the information of four American service members killed in combat from its Iran war tallies. It comes as Trump reportedly launched an expletive laced rant about not being able to end the Iran war behind the scenes. The administration greenlit the killing and trapping of endangered species. More cyclospora bacteria outbreaks. And more updates.
Tonight is the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I will not be going because I don’t believe in sitting in a room where the president gets carte blanche to lash out at the media he has worked to stifle. Instead, I’ll be reporting the news from home. I will also be going back to Mitch McConnell’s hospital today to get more information.
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Here’s the news:
Tonight, Trump is set to address a rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. The rearranged dinner, moved to the Waldorf Astoria with enhanced security, is being framed by organizers and Trump as a defiant stand for free speech, though press freedom groups and 520 journalists signed a letter calling it hypocritical given the administration’s subpoenas against New York Times reporters and threats to revoke broadcast licenses. WHCA president Weijia Jiang said restaging the dinner sends a message that violence won’t silence a free press, while the groups behind the letter are urging the association to condemn the administration from the podium instead. Trump said on Truth Social he hasn’t decided whether to revive the pointed remarks he’d planned for the original event, calling the rescheduled dinner a hot ticket. Melania Trump, JD Vance, and Marco Rubio, all of whom attended the first dinner, will be absent this time, reportedly due to prior commitments.
Iran war:
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump reportedly had an expletive laden meltdown in the Oval Office over the stalled Iran war, calling Iranian leaders “scumbags and lunatics” and telling aides he is in “revenge mode” and wants to escalate with another bombing campaign, according to Wall Street Journal sources, as US strikes hit a 13th consecutive night, oil topped $100 a barrel, Iran rejected a ceasefire proposal, and Israeli intelligence has reportedly warned that Trump himself is a target.
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According to the New York Times, the Pentagon’s casualty count for the Iran war dropped abruptly from 18 to 14 American troop deaths between Wednesday and Thursday, with three military officials saying the administration removed four service members killed over the weekend because their deaths came after Trump’s April ceasefire declaration, while a Pentagon spokesman blamed “temporary data disruptions” instead. The discrepancy adds to a pattern of limited disclosure, since the Pentagon hasn’t held a major briefing on the war since early May and withheld information about Iranian strikes in Jordan last week that injured dozens of troops and damaged helicopters.
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Here are the names of the service members who the Pentagon wiped:
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Critics, including retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, say the shifting numbers suggest an unwillingness to be honest about the war’s toll, a charge that carries added weight given that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have repeatedly blamed the Biden administration for troop deaths during the 2021 Kabul withdrawal. Despite the lowered official website count, Trump has continued citing the higher figure of 18 deaths publicly, and this week attended the dignified transfer of four soldiers’ remains at Dover Air Force Base, calling them heroes and bringing one grieving family to a political rally in Georgia.
Trump weighs a bigger strike on Iran. Trump told Axios Thursday he is considering what he called a massive attack on Iran, bigger than ever before, though he said he had not yet made a final decision. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president is pursuing a head for an eye policy after Iranian attacks killed four US service members, three in a July 17 missile and drone strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan and a fourth the next day during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone in Iraq. Rubio said Iran will pay a very heavy price and claimed the regime is begging the US for a new deal. The US has surged additional fighter jets, troops, and support personnel into the Middle East and used a B1 long range bomber in combat operations against Iran this week. Explosions were reported Thursday in multiple parts of Iran, including Qeshm Island, Ahvaz, and near Bandar Abbas, following another wave of US strikes.
Oil spikes after Houthi attacks on Saudi tankers. Brent crude surged above $100 a barrel after Iran backed Houthi forces attacked two Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea, opening a new front in the broader conflict and raising fears of further disruption to global oil supplies. The attack came as tensions in the region continued escalating alongside the US Iran confrontation. Rising oil prices have added economic pressure on top of the military and diplomatic fallout from the strikes.
Iran issued a warning for citizens in neighboring countries to move 500m away from where US forces are stationed.
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Iran reportedly reinforced the Houthis ahead of the attacks. Iran flew IRGC commanders, military advisers, and munitions to Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on a July 13 flight to help the Houthis, according to Reuters, citing Yemen’s information minister and other sources. Between 10 and 21 IRGC personnel, including commanders, were reportedly aboard, and the IRGC allegedly brought gold to help fund the attacks. A Houthi spokesman who was on the flight denied the report, calling it fabricated and insisting all passengers were civilians. The account lines up with Rubio’s own statement Wednesday that Iran sent direct flights carrying IRGC elements into Yemen, which he said prompted a Saudi response.
Elections:
The Trump administration is escalating efforts to reshape voting rules and seize state election powers ahead of November’s midterms, a push critics say is driven by Trump’s continued fixation on his 2020 loss and fear that Democrats could move to impeach him if they retake the House. Tactics include DOJ demands for unredacted voter lists from 30 states, threats of criminal prosecution against election officials, an FBI push that sent 200 agents to reinvestigate 2020 results in Fulton County, Georgia, and new FEMA rules tying counterterrorism funding to how states run elections.
Courts have repeatedly rejected the administration’s legal claims, with the DOJ losing 15 of 30 voter roll lawsuits so far, but former officials say the campaign is still succeeding at sowing chaos and undermining public confidence even while losing in court. Legal experts and former election officials, including some Republicans, warn Trump may be laying groundwork to contest a Republican loss as fraud, with one former FEC counsel saying it’s unclear what limits exist on how far Trump might go to disrupt voting or vote counting. Democratic governors and state officials, including Utah’s Republican lieutenant governor, have pushed back publicly, and voting rights advocates describe the effort as the most hostile approach to elections and democracy in recent memory.
Other news:
Trump’s administration is now allowing the killing, trapping, and harassment of species newly declared threatened with extinction, including animals like the Florida manatee, under a policy change issued Friday that rescinds the decades old “blanket rule” that had given threatened species the same protections as endangered ones. A companion rule also requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to weigh the economic toll of designating critical habitat before granting those protections, a factor the agency previously had discretion over. Here is a list of species that could be subject to killing:
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Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the changes as necessary to strengthen energy independence and regulatory predictability, while environmental attorney Clay Samford of Earthjustice called them bad for wildlife and public lands and warned they favor narrow business interests, potentially affecting cases like Hawaii’s threatened ‘I’iwi bird. The rollback only applies to newly listed threatened species going forward, so animals already protected keep their existing safeguards, but critics say it comes as the Fish and Wildlife Service has lost about 18% of its staff, including 530 biologists, since the start of the second Trump term, worsening an already sizable backlog of species awaiting evaluation. Similar rule changes were made during Trump’s first term before being reversed under President Biden.
North Carolina health officials say parsley and cilantro may be linked to the state’s surge in cyclospora cases, which has reached 561 infections since May 1, nearly double all of 2025’s total. Officials caution the findings are preliminary, but said the herbs, along with lettuce, keep showing up repeatedly in interviews with infected residents, though they’ve found no connection to the separate lettuce related Taco Bell outbreak tied to Taylor Farms in other states. Separately, the FDA disclosed on July 22 that it’s investigating another cyclospora outbreak of at least 72 cases linked to an unidentified product, bringing the total number of outbreaks under FDA investigation this summer to six, most with no confirmed source yet. North Carolina has sent several hundred stool samples to the CDC for genetic analysis, though officials say that work is backlogged and moving slowly. State health officials are advising residents to consider cooking or avoiding lettuce, parsley, and cilantro for now, while Consumer Reports notes thorough washing can reduce, though not eliminate, risk.
The CDC says a multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak has expanded to nine states, adding Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania to previously connected cases in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, and hard hit Michigan, with 1,947 confirmed cases across those states. Shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico is the likely source, identified after many sick people reported eating at Taco Bell in June, and the company has voluntarily recalled the product. FDA officials say they’re still investigating whether additional growers may be involved, though the data so far keeps pointing back to growers already identified. The lettuce outbreak likely isn’t the only source of illness nationwide, since there are nearly 12,000 confirmed or suspected cyclosporiasis cases in total, including 632 in New York and 561 in North Carolina, where parsley and cilantro are suspected in a separate cluster.
Ukraine struck three more Wildberries warehouses overnight, hitting the Russian e-commerce giant’s facilities in St. Petersburg, the Leningrad region, and Russian-controlled Simferopol. Founder Tatyana Kim said staff evacuated in time and no casualties were reported, though the company is now scrambling to redistribute goods across its network. This marks the fourth strike on Wildberries since last weekend and the eighth warehouse hit since July 18, when an initial attack killed eight workers, part of a broader Ukrainian campaign Zelensky says targets logistics hubs supplying Russian forces, a claim the Kremlin denies. Separately, a Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s Kyiv region killed six people and injured dozens on Friday, according to Zelensky.
Activist Sonam Wangchuk ended his 26-day hunger strike Friday after appeals from lawmakers, but India’s youth-led “Cockroach” protests are continuing to spread to cities including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad. The movement began over alleged leaks in competitive university entrance exams but has grown into the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 12 years in power, fueled by anger over education and economic inequality. Modi offered his first public response Thursday night, acknowledging the leaks and announcing fast-track courts for related cases, but protest leaders like Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke say they won’t accept anything short of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. Authorities have shut 18 metro stations in New Delhi, protesters have reported internet shutdowns, and the government ordered a takedown of the offline messaging app Bitchat, which demonstrators had been using to organize alongside Signal.
Dozens of incoming Howard University freshmen say they were unenrolled just weeks before the fall semester after missing a July 10 payment deadline, even though several say they had scholarships and financial aid pending that hadn’t been transferred yet. Students like Isabella Williams, who had already packed to drive from Alabama, and MarLae’ Coffield, whose account balance was actually negative because her aid exceeded tuition costs, said they’d notified Howard the money was coming and felt blindsided by the decision. Howard declined an interview but said in a statement that it reached out to students and families repeatedly between March and July through emails, personalized aid info, videos, and prep sessions before enrollment updates went out. The university says it will refund any payments and scholarship money already sent, though the $800 in tuition and housing deposits are nonrefundable, and unenrolled students can reapply next year as transfer students while the school reviews cases involving pending aid.
Four Palestinians and one Israeli were killed Friday in a shooting incident in the occupied West Bank, southwest of Nablus, according to Israeli and Palestinian health officials. The Israeli military said it responded after reports that a Palestinian stole a weapon from local security personnel and opened fire on Israeli civilians hiking in the area. Palestinian officials give a different account, saying Israeli civilians attacked the West Bank town of Tal, with a local Fatah leader telling Reuters that 25 to 30 settlers first tried to break into homes, opened fire when residents confronted them, then returned about 30 minutes later and struck a minor before Israeli soldiers arrived and began shooting alongside the settlers. Nablus and the Tal area were temporarily closed off, with Israeli troops setting up roadblocks to pursue the assailants. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening an emergency meeting to discuss a response, according to his office.
Colt Gray, 16, is due in court Friday for a plea and sentencing hearing in the 2024 Apalachee High School shooting that killed two students and two teachers and wounded several others. It’s a non-negotiated plea, meaning no deal has been reached on a sentence, so Judge Nicholas Primm will decide the outcome after hearing evidence and testimony from both sides, including teenage witnesses, surveillance video, and Gray’s school, medical, and social media records. Gray was charged as an adult with 55 counts, including murder, and investigators say he meticulously planned the attack, leaving behind a notebook with instructions and casualty estimates and keeping a shrine to the Parkland shooter in his bedroom. His father, Colin Gray, who gave him the rifle used in the shooting, was convicted in March on charges including second-degree murder and is set to be sentenced next week.
Chris Brown pleaded guilty Friday to affray over a 2023 altercation at London’s Tape nightclub that injured music producer Abraham Diaw. In exchange, prosecutors dropped more serious charges of assault, attempted grievous bodily harm, and having an offensive weapon. Brown, 37, was freed on bail again and will be sentenced October 26. He remains an active touring artist and won his second Grammy for best R&B album earlier this year.
Spain declared a national emergency Friday as wildfires forced roughly 10,000 evacuations around Madrid, while more than 60,000 people fled homes in southern France, some by boat, to escape two major blazes along the Atlantic coast, according to officials. France’s interior minister said 40,000 people were evacuated in the Gironde department and 23,000 in the Landes, with a fire near the Cap Ferret peninsula having burned about 100 square kilometers since Wednesday. Spain and France have both requested EU help, with Croatia, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, and Greece sending firefighting aircraft and helicopters. Spain’s ecological transition minister said the country has already seen 1,140 square kilometers burned this year, more than five times what had burned by mid-2025, including the nation’s second-largest fire on record in Guadalajara and a fire earlier this month that killed 13 people in southern Spain. In Italy, wildfires continue to ravage Sicily, particularly the Agrigento province, and have been blamed for the death of a firefighter in Caltanissetta, with temperatures topping 40C fueling blazes across the region.
See you soon.
— Aaron
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