US Politics Live Updates: Iran says ‘Trump the fool has run out of steam’

A recurring Trump foe has called on the president to send in genuine diplomats to speak to Iranian leaders if he’s to have any hope of ending the war.

Democrat Senator Mark Kelly, a bete noire for Trump ever since he and several other military veteran lawmakers released a video last year reminding US troops of their obligation to refuse unlawful orders, told CNN the current administration was “flailing” over Iran.

“They’re responsible for this, and the president is the one that has to try to figure out a way out of this,” he said.

“I would suggest to him though that the solution is not to do the same thing that he’s been doing, not to have his real estate buddy and his son-in-law in charge of a negotiation.

“To put some people in here that know how to do this, how to talk to the Iranians, and put a coalition together, bring our allies back together.”

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, have been at the forefront of multiple international negotiations throughout Trump’s second term.

Immigration remains a stronger issue for President Donald Trump than the economy or Iran, according to a new AP-NORC poll, even after three people were killed in encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the span of under a week in July.

Trump is not getting a glowing endorsement on his immigration approach from Americans overall, the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found.

Only 39 per cent of US adults approve of his performance on immigration, a decline from 49 per cent at the beginning of his second term.

Despite that, about 8 in 10 Republicans continue to approve of how Trump is handling immigration.

That’s a slight decline from the beginning of Trump’s second term, when about 9 in 10 Republicans approved, but his support on the issue within his base has been mostly stable since last summer despite a chaotic year of immigration enforcement actions.

Republicans are also more likely to approve of how Trump is handling immigration than the economy or Iran. In just the past month, Republican approval of Trump’s handling of Iran dropped slightly in AP-NORC polling.

The FBI recently issued a notice saying “malicious cyber actors” had conducted cyberattacks on water facilities in seven states of the US.

“Operational effects reported to the FBI have included loss of pressure and flooding,” the notice said.

“Pressure loss in water systems could potentially allow untreated ground water to seep into pipes.”

The attacks have not been traced to a particular culprit but Iran is being treated as one of the suspects. Tehran has accused US strikes of damaging water infrastructure in the war, while US regional allies have seen desalination plants targeted in retaliatory strikes.

Parsi said if Iran was behind the cyber-attacks, it showed a willingness to “counter escalate dramatically”.

Trump, for his part, laid the blame at the feet of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, former Democratic vice presidential candidate with Kamala Harris.

“I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack. I think that Minnesota ought to get its act together,” he told reporters sitting in on a cabinet meeting.

In classic Trump fashion, it’s difficult to know how seriously to take his words, but it’s understood Walz is in no way suspected of anything outside the president’s head.

Trump does enjoy putting himself in the company of presidential giants of the past.

A new AI-generated image he posted on Truth Social shows himself sitting at a table with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

All three are wielding feather quills over what appears to be a map, though the colouration of the image makes it difficult to tell.

Washington and Lincoln are of course remembered - in the US at least - as victors of righteous wars, as well as transformative figures for the nation on the whole.

One US expert has cast doubt on whether Trump was ever going to launch a full-scale attack on Iran.

“We’ve gone through this several times in which Trump issues these threats, and then he backs off because the other side calls his bluff,” Trita Parsi, co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told CNN.

Trump’s conversation with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in this context may have provided a convenient pretext.

“I think the bottom line is Trump does not have an escalatory way out of this conflict,” Parsi said.

“But what (Trump) is trying to do is to give the impression that he is in control, that he is in the driving seat, and I think it’s been quite clear for quite some time now he is not.”

But he said Bin Salman probably had good reasons to press Trump not to escalate.

“I think the Saudis, frankly, don’t have confidence in any of the American military plans, and they know that that type of escalation will only lead to a counter escalation by the Iranians in which GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) states will be the biggest victims,” he said.

“And because they don’t have confidence that the US has a winning military strategy, all that would lead to is more suffering for them without actually changing the facts on the ground or changing the direction of this conflict.”

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei has told state media the Strait of Hormuz would “never” return to its pre-war state, a day after Donald Trump declared its opening was part of an agreed “perimeter” of a deal.

“Under no circumstances will the Strait of Hormuz return to the situation before the war,” Baqaei said in a televised interview, as reported by IRNA.

Iran has signalled that it is close on reaching an operational agreement with Oman about the use of the strait, quite outside any deal with the US.

Baqaei claimed the strait had been “completely secure” for some weeks after Iran and the US signed a memorandum of understanding to end the war, but an “act of aggression against Iran” changed things.

A top general has warned that the US now may lack the munitions to defend Israel against Iran.

General Alexus Grynkewich, the head of US European Command, said the naval blockade of Iran had reduced the assets available to him, and could leave Israel vulnerable to attack.

He made his concerns known in a memo to the Pentagon, which since leaked to US media.

US munitions reserves have become a matter of some concern to upper levels of the military, with the Iran war soaking up a lot of firepower.

President Donald Trump said talks with Iran will resume Monday, just a day after he said he called off a “massive attack” on the country.

“They knew the extent of the attack because they saw it forming. Now what we’re doing is we’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll see,” Trump told the press aboard Air Force One.

Trump said he was asked to call off the planned attack by allies such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and by Iran.

“We’re all set to go, but when the allies asked to call it off, they got us sort of saying, ‘Well, let’s see.’ And the reason they ask is they think there’s a deal,” Trump said.

“There’s a deal on Hormuz, and then there will be a deal on the nuclear, or you might call it the denuclearisation of Iran. I call it the denuclearisation of Iran.”

Yesterday, Donald Trump said The US will step back from escalating its attacks on Iran despite being “locked and loaded and ready to go”.

“The USA is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.”

This deal would include “the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat”, Trump said.

“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” he wrote.

“The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment. Get to work, everybody, and get it DONE.”