The best week of Donald Trump's second presidency just got even better
There's no denying it – Donald Trump just had the best week of his second presidency, by a big margin. A combination of daring, good fortune and the brute wielding of American power combined to deliver a momentous week in global affairs and a number of stunning wins for the president himself.
It began with the US bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites, an operation contemplated by previous administrations but never executed. A flurry of 30,000-pound bombs, fired for the first time outside of testing, was deposited right into the ventilation shafts of a facility deep underneath a mountain.
Two days later, Trump was on the phone piecing together a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran, which, after some teething problems, appears to have held. Now he's involved in a potential resolution in Gaza, saying on Saturday (AEST) that it could come as soon as next week.
The president flew to the Netherlands for a whirlwind visit to the NATO summit, where he confirmed a pledge from members to lift their core defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP – a long-standing US goal – and spend another 1.5 per cent on defence-adjacent infrastructure and projects.
Trump, who casually admitted he considered his attendance something he ought to do, not something he really wanted to do, nonetheless charmed his audience with his usual brand of impulsive banter, especially after a sycophantic reception from NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, who called him 'daddy'.
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Back at home, Trump was still doing his victory lap when the Supreme Court handed him a thumping victory courtesy of a majority ruling that limited the ability of lower court judges to issue 'universal injunctions' when federal government policies face a legal challenge.
Federal judges have been a thorn in Trump's side – or more accurately, a brick wall blocking his path – since his return to power, issuing temporary injunctions that apply nationwide, rather than just in their state or for the plaintiff bringing the case.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 split decision along ideological lines, ruled that this was a modern phenomenon lacking historical precedent and a legal basis. It paves the way for Trump to resume a range of controversial measures held up by the courts, and at a hastily convened press conference on Friday, local time, he said he intended to do exactly that.
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News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
‘Make the deal': Donald Trump shifts focus back on Gaza
US President Donald Trump has seemingly returned his focus to the war in Gaza after his role in broking a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Mr Trump had spent most of Sunday, AEST, doing a running commentary on events at the Capitol where the US Senate was debating his 'Big, Beautiful Bill'. Then in a later post on his Truth Social account, made at about 1am Washington DC time, the President urged Israel and Hamas to strike an agreement in its ongoing conflict. 'MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!! DJT,' he wrote. Mr Trump, who has closely aligned himself with Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu, was referencing the Israeli hostages taken by militant group Hamas during its October 7, 2023 terror attacks. It is believed 50 hostages remain after Hamas released some of its captives during earlier ceasefire agreements. Israel's war in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to local authorities. Speaking on Friday, US time, Mr Trump said he believed a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was 'close'. 'I just spoke to some of the people involved,' he said. 'We think within the next week we're going to get a ceasefire.' Israel's military on Sunday issued an evacuation order for northern Gaza, warning Palestinians in parts of Gaza City and nearby areas of imminent action there. The warning, which comes more than 20 months into the war with Hamas, foreshadowed 'intense force in these areas'. Israeli Defense Force spokesman Avichay Adraee posted to X that 'these military operations will intensify and expand … to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist organisations'. Mr Adraee's post was accompanied by a map of northern Gaza, telling residents to 'evacuate immediately south to Al-Mawasi'. 'Hamas is harming you and bringing disaster upon you,' he wrote. 'Returning to dangerous combat zones poses a threat to your lives.' There has been increasing global criticism over ongoing civilian deaths in the Palestinian territory, with reports of famine and shootings at food aid sites. Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed 37 people on Saturday, including at least nine children who died in strikes. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP 35 people were killed in seven Israeli drone and air strikes in various locations, and two others by Israeli fire while waiting for food aid in the Netzarim zone in central Gaza. He said the dead included three children who were killed in an air strike on a home in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. Mr Bassal said at least six more children died in a neighbourhood in the northeast of Gaza City, including some in an air strike near a school where displaced people were sheltering. Israeli news outlet Haaretz this week published a story citing unnamed IDF soldiers who claim they were 'ordered' to open fire at unarmed civilians near aid distribution centres. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Saturday that he was concerned at the '500 people who have lost their life' in similar incidents in recent weeks. He said France 'stands ready, Europe as well, to contribute to the safety of food distribution' in Gaza. The Israeli military has strongly denied allegations made in Haaretz, telling the Times of Israel its soldiers operated 'under difficult conditions against a terrorist enemy that operates from within the civilian population'. 'IDF soldiers receive clear orders to avoid harming innocent civilians, and they act accordingly.' Mr Trump also backed Mr Netanyahu in a Truth Social post on Srurday, local time, saying he was 'not going to stand' for an ongoing corruption case being run against the Israel Prime Minister. An Israeli court on Friday rejected Mr Netanyahu's request to postpone giving testimony in his corruption trial, ruling that he had not provided adequate justification for his request. In one case, Netanyahu and his wife Sara are accused of accepting more than US$260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours. Mr Trump called Mr Netanyahu a 'war hero' and likened the court case to his own legal battles in recent years. 'Importantly, he is right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back,' he wrote. 'How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.). 'It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure.'
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
The art of the lie: Why Trump is taking issue with Iran's alternative facts
Before Trump did it, with an assist from the Supreme Court on Friday, it was Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who worked to erode checks and balances and hoover all the power into the executive branch. With the malleable George W. Bush in the Oval Office, Cheney and Rumsfeld were able to create an alternative universe where they were never wrong – because they conjured up information to prove they were right. The two malevolent regents had a fever about getting rid of Saddam Hussein, so they hyped up intelligence, redirecting Americans' vengeful emotions about Osama bin Laden and 9/11 into that pet project. Tony Blair scaremongered that it would take only 45 minutes for Saddam to send his weapons of mass destruction westward. But there were no WMDs. When it comes to the Middle East, presidents can't resist indulging in a gasconade. Unlike Iraq, Iran was actually making progress on its nuclear program. Trump did not need to warp intelligence to justify his decision. But he did anyway, to satisfy his unquenchable ego. He bragged that the strikes had 'OBLITERATED' Iran's nuclear capabilities. Loading 'I just don't think the president was telling the truth,' Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told reporters. He believes Iran still has 'significant remaining capability'. When CNN's Natasha Bertrand and her colleagues broke the story that a preliminary classified US report suggested the strikes had set back Iran by only a few months, Trump, Pete Hegseth and Karoline Leavitt smeared her and The New York Times, which confirmed her scoop, as inaccurate, unpatriotic and disrespectful to our military. On Friday afternoon, CNN revealed that the military did not even use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's largest nuclear targets because it was too deep. Though Trump likes to hug the flag – and just raised two huge ones on the White House North and South Lawns – he ignores a basic tenet of patriotism: it is patriotic to tell the public the truth on life-or-death matters, and for the press to challenge power. It is unpatriotic to mislead the public in order to control it and suppress dissent, or as a way of puffing up your own ego. Although he was dubbed the 'daddy' of NATO in The Hague on Wednesday, Trump clearly has daddy issues. (Pass the tissues!) He did not get the affirmation from his father that could have prevented this vainglorious vamping. For Trump, it was not enough for the strikes to damage Iran's nuclear capabilities; they had to 'obliterate' them. It could not simply be an impressive mission; it had to be, as Hegseth said, 'the most complex and secretive military operation in history'. (Move over, D-Day and crossing the Delaware.) The president was so eager to magnify the mission that he eerily compared it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Trump has always believed in 'truthful hyperbole', as he called it in The Art of the Deal. But now it's untruthful hyperbole. He has falsely claimed that an election was stolen and falsely claimed that $US1.7 trillion ($2.6 trillion) in cuts to the social safety net in his Big, Unpopular Bill 'won't affect anybody; it is just fraud, waste and abuse.' Loading He's getting help on his alternative universe from all the new partisan reporters in the White House briefing room who are eager to shill for him. 'So many Americans still have questions about the 2020 election,' a reporter told Trump at the news conference on Friday, wondering if he would appoint someone at the Justice Department to investigate judges 'for the political persecution of you, your family and your supporters during the Biden administration'? Trump beamed. 'I love you,' he said to the young woman. 'Who are you?' She was, as it turned out, the reporter for Mike Lindell of MyPillow fame, who has his own 'news' network.
West Australian
3 hours ago
- West Australian
Israeli strike on Iranian jail killed dozens on people
Israel's attack on the Evin Prison in Iran's capital Tehran killed 71 people including staff, inmates and neighbours, an Iranian official says. At the end of an air war with Iran, Israel struck Tehran's most notorious jail for political prisoners on June 23, in a demonstration that it was expanding its targets beyond military and nuclear sites to aim at symbols of Iran's ruling system. "In the attack on Evin prison, 71 people were martyred including administrative staff, youth doing their military service, detainees, family members of detainees who were visiting them and neighbours who lived in the prison's vicinity," judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said in remarks carried on the judiciary's news outlet Mizan on Sunday. Jahangir had previously said part of Evin prison's administrative building had been damaged in the attack and people were killed and injured. The judiciary added that remaining detainees had been transferred to other prisons in Tehran province. Evin prison holds a number of foreign nationals, including two French citizens detained for three years. "The strike targeting Evin prison in Tehran, put our citizens Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris in danger. It is unacceptable," France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had said on social media X after the attack.
