The Pentagon has told senators it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, adding to an already sizable military spending boost sought by President Donald Trump. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill ahead of a formal request.
Trump will visit a Mack Truck facility in a battleground district in swing state Pennsylvania Tuesday, shifting attention to the U.S. economy in his first major public event beyond the capital since he signed an interim agreement to end the Iran war.
National Guard members and U.S. Park Police have been patrolling around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as the Trump administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
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Iran’s president visits Pakistan for crucial talks on ending war
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also joined the delegation in Masoud Pezeshkian’s first visit to Islamabad since the conflict started with the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran on Feb. 28.
Iran’s talks Tuesday with officials mediating negotiations between Tehran and Washington on a permanent end to the war come as discrepancies emerge on what has been agreed to so far, and as more violence broke out in Lebanon.
Technical teams have been working on details of the deal following high-level negotiations in Switzerland Monday led by Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.
Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters that no visits were scheduled for the U.N. watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — to examine Iranian nuclear sites bombed by the United States last year. Vance previously said the negotiations in Switzerland won an agreement for the inspectors to visit the sites.
Discrepancy on Iran’s use of unfrozen funds
Following the high-level talks in Switzerland, Vice-President JD Vance had said if Iranian financial assets were unfrozen, they “would actually go to buy American soy, American corn and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people.”
However, Iran has no current demand for U.S. crops, and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Tuesday that Tehran’s decisions on what to import would be based on “prices and quality.”
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said in Tehran.
Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, also questioned Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would have to approve how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.
Trump says Iran will buy US corn, soy and wheat. It won’t likely happen soon
Trump has heralded the peace talks with Iran as a win for U.S. farmers, saying that the unfreezing of sanctioned Iranian money will be tied to that country buying American-grown corn, soybeans and wheat.
“These are things that are desperately needed by Iran,” Trump posted on social media. “This is a humanitarian crisis, and I feel it is necessary to help.”
But Iran is unlikely to start buying a vast amount of U.S. farm products.
“I don’t expect that trade would be very large in the short run,” said Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Glauber noted that Iran was “unlikely” to abandon its other trade partners on food for America. He said Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina and that Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”
Authorities arrest 2 more suspects in planned attack on Trump’s UFC show
Two more people in Missouri and Washington state have been arrested in connection with what authorities say was a planned attack targeting Trump’s UFC cage-fighting show at the White House earlier this month.
Law enforcement officials disrupted the plan a few days before the June 14 White House event, according to court documents.
William Lee Spartacus Falkner of Belfair, Washington, was arrested Friday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, according to court documents filed Monday in the Western District of Washington. Jordan W. Rincker, 28, was arrested Sunday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the Western District of Missouri. A defense attorney appointed to represent Falkner did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment, and court records do not reveal if Rincker has obtained an attorney. Neither man has had the opportunity to enter a plea.
Judge blocks use of federal database to check citizenship, saying it could wrongly purge voters
A federal judge on Monday ruled that a recently revamped version of a federal tool central to the Trump administration’s efforts to nationalize elections can no longer be used.
U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan sided with advocacy groups that argued the recent upgrades to the program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from voter rolls.
She said Congress had expressly prohibited the government from centralizing Americans’ personal identifying information and that the federal agencies that created the SAVE program “knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”
The decision is a major legal setback for Trump in his efforts to use federal agencies to encourage a nationwide crackdown on having noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls. The modified SAVE system had been a key pillar of the second election executive order the Republican president signed earlier this year. The ruling leaves its future uncertain.
Patrols and nanobubbles at the Reflecting Pool as Trump seeks a renovation do-over
National Guard members and U.S. Park Police patrolled the deck around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday as President Donald Trump’s administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
The patrols came two days after Trump said authorities had made “multiple arrests” of people he insisted were responsible for damage to the peeling coating after an algae bloom occurred. The liner was installed as part of his $14 million-plus project.
The president has confirmed the problems most likely require draining the pool again for liner repairs and he promised a quick fix. Without offering substantiation, he also said vandals dumped fertilizer in the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter.
But the timeline was not clear Monday, with the White House saying damaged areas are still being assessed. Contractors and federal workers in recent days have been using chemicals and ozone nanobubbles to combat the algae.
Trump will visit a Mack Truck facility in swing state Pennsylvania, casting attention on the economy
Trump is going to a Mack Truck facility in a battleground district in swing state Pennsylvania Tuesday, shifting attention to the U.S. economy in his first major public event beyond the capital since he signed an interim agreement to end the Iran war.
Trump’s trip to the Allentown-area business comes as he works to try to put the conflict — and the higher gasoline prices it caused — in the rearview mirror as November midterm elections draw closer.
It’s the president’s fifth second-term visit to Pennsylvania, a key state whose support in 2016 and 2024 helped him to the White House. The Macungie, Pennsylvania, facility is in the 7th Congressional District, where incumbent Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie faces Democratic challenger Bob Brooks in November.
The visit comes amid rising prices that could color the verdict voters render on Trump’s stewardship in the fall. About one-third of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s approach to the economy, according to a June Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. That’s in line with last month for Trump on the issue.
Pentagon seeks $80 billion from Congress for Iran war
The Pentagon has told senators it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, adding to what is already a sizable military spending boost being sought by President Donald Trump.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has yet to make a formal request to Congress. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill, including Monday evening. A top deputy defense secretary told senators about the Iran funding request last week, according to two people familiar with the situation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the developments.
The push for billions of dollars in Iran war funding comes at a fraught political moment. Lawmakers are skeptical of the deal Trump struck with Iran to bring an end to the war, and wary of next steps. The White House has requested a remarkable $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon — a nearly 50% increase over the current fiscal year’s funding levels.
The Associated Press
