Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stressed on Thursday that the deal made to end the war in Iran was “born of strength of American action,” and said the Pentagon is “ready to go” if President Donald Trump decides to restart the war. Hegseth, a hard-liner on Iran, said that this negotiation is different from past negotiations because of the military action taken against the Iranian regime. “One key difference between this agreement and others is this was born of strength of American action,” Hegseth said. “JCPOA came from a bunch of begging and talking — this agreement came after months of bombing and a blockade that was impenetrable.” He said that posture will continue, and pledged that Iran should know that the War Department is “right here ready to go” if it fails to reach a deal over the next 60 days. “Our posture is one of strength,” Hegseth said. “Iran is going to have every opportunity to cut the kind of deal they should at the table, and if they don’t — the War Department will be right here ready to go.” Hegseth also echoed the lines previously promulgated from senior administration officials, saying the MOU is “all performance-based” and “all conditions-based,” promising a “verify, verify, verify” approach he explicitly contrasted with the Obama-era nuclear deal. .@SECWAR “One key difference between this agreement and others is this was BORN OF STRENGTH of American action. JCPOA came from a bunch of begging and talking—this agreement came after months of bombing and a blockade that was IMPENETRABLE.” pic.twitter.com/YNs1p2Va8a — DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) June 18, 2026 “There’s not a lot of trust here,” Hegseth said, adding, “Everything we’re going to do is verify, verify, verify. And so at every step, whether it’s our military posture or it’s the carrots that exist to ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon, all performance-based.” “There [are] no giveaways here. There’s no trust here. It’s all verification,” he said. “And the War Department stands behind it all — as the president has said — prepared to devastatingly do what we’ve done already.” The MOU, however, is vague on the conditions of a deal, with senior administration officials and the president saying that a lot of what has been promised by Iran isn’t explicitly written.

What the hell is going on with these negotiations with Iran? They’re not over. In many ways, they have not really begun. This is President Trump as a pragmatist. I may disagree with him, but that’s what’s going on. Let’s start with the basics. First: The opening of the Iran war was good and righteous and militarily successful. The president of the United States went after the military capabilities of the Iranian regime, took out the top level of the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian regime itself, including the Ayatollah, destroyed their air force, destroyed their navy, destroyed the vast majority of their ballistic missile launchers and facilities to develop new ballistic missile launchers. All of that was very good. Second, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that President Trump just signed, if taken at face value, is a total mess, a massive problem. Third, we probably should not take the MOU at face value, because it’s not the end of the story; what’s in the MOU is not where things are likely to go. Why exactly did President Trump sign this crappy memorandum of understanding with Iran? The answer is because the elections are in a few months, and he’s worried about the economy. This is not a secret. The president said yesterday: I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. It never went down. They didn’t like it, the people. You know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage other than me.  Every time we said something amazing like “We’re going to settle,” it would go up. And every time we said something negative like “We’re not going to be able to settle,” it would go down very big. The stock market will always choose the option least likely to lead to conflict because conflict is costly. That does not mean the conflict is immoral or wrong, but that’s the reason why the president did all of this. The president was being told by people near him that if he had bombed Kharg Island or the South Pars gas field, it would have caused some sort of international depression. This is President Trump being a pragmatist, but I heartily disagree with his pragmatic assessment of the situation. I’ve made that clear for months. I think it was a gigantic mistake to implement a ceasefire back in April. I think we should have bombed Kharg Island and ended the war. Yes, it would have caused an economic shock — and then that shock would have ended, and the Iranian regime would have ended. But President Trump didn’t want to do that. He was concerned about oil prices in the midterms. What does that mean for what comes next? The president is deeply concerned about the country’s economic health right before the election. He believes that if the economy is doing better and oil prices are lower, then perhaps Republicans hold the House. This means that after the midterms, President Trump may begin enforcing red lines. The president was threatening just that yesterday, saying if Iran doesn’t honor the agreement, “We’ll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it.” The vice president says that he hopes that Iran is not lying, but he doesn’t trust anyone. If he doesn’t trust anyone, this MOU isn’t a great idea. The MOU is not, in fact, a deal to end the war. It is a memorandum of understanding, which is a vague term sheet. With all of that said, I think the optics on this MOU suck. I think the president is making a huge mistake by signing this MOU, because we could have lowered gas prices without signing a comprehensive MOU. If you wanted to bribe the Iranians to temporarily open the Strait — which is effectively what this does — we could have done it by just walking away from the Strait and letting them toll the ships, which would be the practical effect of the MOU. My biggest problem with the memorandum of understanding is not the terms themselves, because I think the vast majority of those terms will never be implemented or come to pass. My problem is the optics, and I hope that the Iranian optics win is temporary. Because here’s the thing: We wrecked them. We handed them one of the greatest losses in human history. We literally killed their entire leadership class, did it again, and destroyed their entire air force, navy, and ballistic missile launchers. We put their economy on life support. We blockaded all of their ships. We projected power. It made America look strong. And now, because of this, it looks as though we just allowed a nation without nuclear weapons, a nation of Islamic tyranny that just murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens, a nation without nuclear weapons, functional air force, functional navy, and functional ballistic missile arsenal, to call the shots. That’s a mistake. It’s a mistake I trust the president will reverse because he’s a pragmatist. I don’t think President Trump wants to look weak right now. He does look weak. I trust that after the midterms, he will course-correct and reestablish America’s credible threat of force. For now, however, it’s not a good look. Even if we understand the pragmatic concerns about oil prices, it just isn’t a great look. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament of Iran, a mass-murdering piece of trash, was walking around grinning ear to ear, declaring that what they wanted to achieve through military action they got through negotiation  — several times over. The Iranians believe they won the negotiation. They are grinning about it. Is that a good optics look for the United States? The answer, of course, is no. The MOU is just an empty piece of paper. It says that the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. That’s weird, because the Islamic Republic of Iran still chants “Death to America.” And as far as the territorial integrity of Iran, what happens when Iran initiates a gigantic terror war in the Middle East? None of this will become a full agreement. This is most likely to end up like the Gaza peace deal. The president helped broker a deal where stage one was going to be the release of all of the hostages alive and dead, and an Israeli pullback to particular areas. Stage two was underpants gnomes. Stage three was world peace. A bunch of stuff was supposed to happen in stage two. The Palestinians were going to moderate. Hamas was going to turn over its guns. Garbage. None of that ever happened. We are still at stage two and we will be at stage two forever, because stage one was the whole thing. The MOU will be the same thing. The only thing that will actually happen here is that oil will flow out of the Strait, and we will bribe them to do it, and they will toll things. If I don’t believe that the rest of the MOU is ever going to become reality, including, for example, a $300 billion investment fund, then why bother focusing on it? The answer is that if you do not wish for this MOU to become reality, there must be pushback against its terms. A full deal that looks like the MOU would be a disaster. It would leave Iran permanently in control of what people have described as an “economic nuclear weapon,” the Strait, that they could close any time. It would give them hundreds of billions of dollars so they could later develop a bomb, all while allowing them to fund terrorism and rebuild their ballistic missiles. It would be bad not just because of what Iran would do, but also because of the signal it would send to the rest of the world that a ragtag group of terrorists can push the most powerful military and the most militant president off the ball with some mines and some drones and some ugly words. What do you think China would then do about the Taiwan Strait or Taiwan itself? What do you think an expansionist Russia would do about the Baltics? If you would like a world where America loses its global foothold — and there are some who actively want this — then make the MOU a full deal. I know that President Trump, as a pragmatist, is right most of the time that actions matter, but words really don’t. But when it comes to the signals he sends to the rest of the world about America’s role in the world, there’s a basic truth. Words do matter.

BOSTON— Federal authorities arrested 11 illegal immigrants in Massachusetts they say are tied to a massive taxpayer-funded benefit fraud scheme that exceeded $1 million. The Justice Department announced charges against a total of 15 alleged fraudsters, which includes the 11 illegal aliens, during a press conference on Thursday in Boston. Several of the accused fraudsters are “John Does” who used stolen identities and their names remain unknown. Colin M. McDonald, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s fraud division, said federal investigators are “still working” to determine the “true identities” of the unnamed fraudsters. “We don’t know who they are fully, but we do know who they are not. They are not the American citizens they pretend to be, and from that initial lie the charges [announced] today allege that they gained access to the buffet of benefits generously given by the American taxpayer for needy Americans,” McDonald said. “In some cases, the victims of these crimes, the rightful beneficiaries of these funds, could not access benefits they needed. And why? That was because their identities had been stolen and their names had been already used in the programs to steal benefits. In other words, American citizens were boxed out of these programs because illegal aliens took their names to then take their money, or more accurately your money, the American taxpayer’s money. Illegal immigration carries real and substantial costs to American taxpayers and places enormous strain on our public benefits systems. And the further we look, the more fraud we find,” he added.

Embattled former first son Hunter Biden published a lengthy critique of President Donald Trump’s White House celebrations ahead of America’s 250th birthday — particularly the UFC fight that took place on the South Lawn on Sunday. Biden’s father, former President Joe Biden, hosted a White House LGBTQ Pride celebration during which a trans-identifying man flashed his fake breasts on the South Lawn — but Hunter Biden argued that it was the UFC fight that crossed the line, disgracing the people’s house. Biden’s comments were a direct response to podcaster Joe Rogan, who had taken part in the White House events that night, after he welcomed anyone who had a problem with the UFC fight there to “shut the f*ck up.” “Dear Joe, I wish I could sit down with you face to face and explain why so many of us were offended by the UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House,” Biden wrote in an X post. He began by praising the UFC for building a great brand, saying that the organization itself had nothing to do with his distaste for the event. “For me, it had nothing to do with the UFC or who showed up for the fights. The brand you and Dana have built is a bona fide American success story. More power to you. As for the fighters, in my book, anyone brave enough to put it all on the line in the arena is remarkable to witness. Their dedication and discipline inspire me. I don’t understand anyone who can’t admire that,” he said. “And as for the people who attended, I, for one, love Shane Gillis. I think he’s hilarious and brilliant. It was a show. A once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to witness it firsthand.” “My problem is that I believe some of our public spaces are sacred,” he added without a trace of irony. “And unlike many of the great powers that came before us, these American monuments belong to all of us. Not to whoever happens to hold power at the moment. The White House does not belong to Donald Trump. It does not belong to any President. It belongs to the people.” Biden went on to argue that Trump was treating the White House like his own personal and private “Colosseum” and complained that he had held the UFC fight at the White House specifically to show the American people that he believed he could do anything he wanted with the property. “To treat it as Caesar treated the Colosseum is antithetical to everything our founding fathers fought for. This is not Rome. Presidents are not emperors doling out bread and circuses for the peasants. The White House is the People’s House. This ‘celebration’ could have happened in any stadium within a stone’s throw of the South Lawn. No one would have had an issue with it. But that was obviously Donald Trump’s whole point,” Biden complained. “By holding the event on the South Lawn, what he was saying to the rest of us is: ‘This is my house. I own it. I will do with it what I please. I’ll build a colosseum and have the gladiators fight under my gaze. I’ll tear down the East Wing. I’ll pave over the Rose Garden. I’ll cover everything in gold and marble. I’ll erase the names of all the men who came before me.'” “The fights,” Biden insisted, “were an exhibition of imperial domination, not a celebration of our 250th anniversary as a democracy.” “The White House belongs to us. All of us. The person who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office is nothing more than an honored guest. A temporary caretaker. The President is our servant. Not our Caesar,” Biden concluded, adding in his postscript that he was still down for a “cage match” with Donald Trump Jr., so long as it took place “anywhere but the South Lawn.” Adding a twist of irony, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a similar statement as the UFC fights began, as she reminded everyone that the White House belonged to the people and should be respected by the presidents who had only a temporary residence there: “It’s not his house. It’s our house.” Clinton was immediately reminded that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had shown his respect for the people’s house by carrying on an affair with an intern in the Oval Office.

There is a contest this year among Democrats to find the worst possible candidate for the general election. As a Republican, this is great news, as it should lead to Republican wins, but as an American, I am appalled. This September marks the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and, were it not for brave patriots who overpowered hijackers and downed a fourth plane, the attempted attack on the U.S. Capitol or White House. Yet if you can believe it, the Democratic House candidate from New Jersey, Adam Hamawy, was affiliated with Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” who attempted to take down the World Trade Center in 1993. Hamawy is backed by radical podcaster Hasan Piker, as is Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. Both are radical leftist candidates. The Democratic candidate for Senate in North Carolina is Roy Cooper. As its former governor, he drew strong criticism for his heavy-handed COVID lockdowns and policies. Recently, it was reported that he released violent criminals before their sentences were up with a secret agreement with the NAACP. Many of those released criminals reoffended. Decarlos Brown, who slashed the neck of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska as she rode the train in Charlotte, was on that early release list. Next, look at Texas State Rep. James Talarico’s comments about God, made in the Texas legislature and from the pulpit, which are totally out of the mainstream. He has said, “God is non-binary … God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between.” On the border, he suggests the U.S. should have a “welcome mat.” In a deeply traditional Christian and America’s most border-y border state, these are not Texas values. They’re also not American values. Then there’s Graham Platner. No doubt Democrat party leaders searched high and low for anybody, anybody else to run for U.S. Senate in Maine. Some say the Democrats’ only chance to take control of the U.S. Senate is to flip Maine’s Senate seat. It’s been almost fun watching national Democratic leaders squirm, hesitate, and contort themselves into knots while trying to explain their support for this lunatic. Platner, until recently, had a Nazi SS tattoo (and most likely knew it was when he got it), has made racist and homophobic comments, has sent sexually explicit texts to multiple women, is on a social media platform that seeks out underage girls, and has allegedly been violent with past girlfriends. He has intimated that rape victims deserve what they get, has spoken in favor of political violence as a means to an end, and has disparaged veterans. To add insult to injury, he claims that he said these things in a “dark” period of his life and attributed them to PTSD from his time in the military. As if insulting and devaluing women isn’t enough, he insinuates PTSD is an excuse for his bad behavior and vile words. Understandably, this has incensed many veterans. There was a time not long ago when these types of behaviors and comments would have elicited calls for cancellation by party leaders, yet Platner’s have been glossed over by supporters like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA). Their hypocrisy is off the charts. Whatever happened to “Believe all women”? Eric Swalwell must be kicking himself, thinking he caved too soon. Democrats’ support of Platner is insulting to women. Women voters in Maine, unless they have an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, should be running as fast as they can toward Maine’s moderate Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Platner campaigns with the party’s backing as its official candidate, and it seems Maine’s Democratic voters are sticking with their man. Still, there are whispers that even more salacious allegations are to come. If the Democrats do end up dumping him, it will only be when they become convinced he will lose. These horrible candidates now constitute the Democrat Party’s norm. They’re radical, corrupt, indecent, and just plain strange — poster children for a party that has completely lost its moral compass. Some are socialists. Some are opportunists. Some are both. But they are all products of a Democratic Party that has decided winning matters more than decency, and ideology matters more than the Constitution. It is time for Americans to reject these candidates and the un-American values they peddle before they get the chance to act on them. We have a Tricentennial to celebrate in 2076. Let’s make sure we get there. God Bless America. *** Martha Jenkins is president of the National Federation of Republican Women.