Curfew enacted for parts of LA as protests spread to other cities
Curfew enacted for parts of LA as protests spread to other cities | The Excerpt
On Wednesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY National Correspondent Trevor Hughes joins us again from Los Angeles as protests also spread to other cities. USA TODAY Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook discusses President Donald Trump's push for 20,000 troops to help his immigration crackdown. Trump says he's restoring the names of military bases that honored Confederate soldiers. Water from the faucets of at least 42 million Americans is contaminated with unacceptable levels of 'forever chemicals."
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Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, June 11th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, protests spread to other cities as a curfew is announced for Los Angeles. Plus a look at Trump's push for some 20,000 troops to aid his immigration crackdown. And as water in your neck of the woods contaminated with forever chemicals.
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A curfew was issued for parts of downtown Los Angeles yesterday, following days of protests over immigration enforcement raids. Mayor Karen Bass said the curfew was announced to stop bad actors who are taking advantage of the president's chaotic escalation.
Meanwhile, defense officials said the Pentagon is spending $134 million to deploy National Guard troops and Marines to the area. Protests have also spread this week to a number of US cities, including New York, Austin, and Chicago. So as USA TODAY national correspondent Trevor Hughes told me as he prepared to depart Los Angeles yesterday, things have simmered down since erupting over the weekend. Thanks for joining me again, Trevor.
Trevor Hughes:
You bet.
Taylor Wilson:
We know Governor Gavin Newsom has now issued this emergency motion. Let's start here. What's the latest and do tensions kind of broadly continue between California and the federal government?
Trevor Hughes:
Honestly, right now the fight seems to be between the federal government and the state and local officials. There's not a lot of protests happening right now on the ground here in Los Angeles.
Taylor Wilson:
Tuesday out around Los Angeles, Trevor, what were some of the things you saw, some of the folks that you spoke with?
Trevor Hughes:
I was really struck by how different it smells. Sunday night, Monday night, it smelled like tear gas. It smelled like pepper spray. It smelled like people smoking marijuana, which is legal here in California. This morning, it smelled like citrus based cleaners because there are a whole bunch of people cleaning graffiti right now. You can hear pressure washers everywhere. Folks are really cleaning up the downtown area. Now, the reality is they do this almost every day already because of graffiti and gang signs that get painted. But right now, it's anti-Trump, anti-ICE stuff that they're removing.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, well, just to step back for a second, multiple journalists have been injured this week. Are we learning anything further about who was impacted and what happened to them?
Trevor Hughes:
Those are folks who put themselves between the protesters and the police, and that is always a dangerous place to be. Obviously the police targeted those folks and they were hurt and I hope they're okay. It is not always easy to know who is a journalist in the scrum of these protests or these disturbances or even these riots, the police often have complained that reporters actually make things worse because we tend to go to the front lines, which gives everyone else the confidence that they should do the same thing. And then it becomes this snowball effect in which the police respond in force.
Taylor Wilson:
As for folks whose status in the country might lead them to an ICE detention or even deportation, Trevor, how are they living in this moment? Have you had conversations with some of these folks? I guess many still need to go to work, for instance, even amid some of the protests we've seen this week.
Trevor Hughes:
Well, absolutely, and again, let's be clear, the protests have been relatively narrow. I mean, LA is a very, very big place and it has a large number of residents. And so the vast majority of people here are going to work during their normal lives. The media, ourselves included, have maybe done folks no service by showing the same cars burning over and over and over again. There haven't been that many cars burned down. There haven't really been buildings burned down. It has not been as widespread as perhaps the perception is. And the reality is for something like 18 million people, life goes on pretty normally and that means going to work, worrying about your family if they have been detained. But again, that's also still a relatively small number.
Taylor Wilson:
Trevor, as you leave Los Angeles, what was your biggest takeaway from your couple days on the ground there in Southern California?
Trevor Hughes:
This is one of those situations where the fight between President Trump and Governor Gavin Newsom has been going on for years. And this feels like a continuation and extension of that, to be honest. It's the kind of thing where what happened in downtown LA was pretty bad, and I saw rocks and bottles being thrown at police officers. I saw a police car set on fire. Just so we're clear here, but at the same time, it really feels like this may be a proxy war between these two very powerful leaders.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Trevor Hughes is a national correspondent with USA TODAY joining us from Los Angeles. Thanks, Trevor.
Trevor Hughes:
You bet.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
A number of potential moves would shift the military from its mission of defending the nation against foreign adversaries, toward policing its streets when it comes to immigration enforcement. I spoke with USA TODAY Pentagon correspondent Tom Vanden Brook for the latest. Tom, always a pleasure.
Tom Vanden Brook:
Thanks for having me, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So let's start with this request for some, what? 20,000 National Guard troops as part of President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. What do we know as of now here?
Tom Vanden Brook:
For the first time in this memo that we have, it shows that they're going to be involved in domestic law enforcement. In other words, some of these guardsmen would be used to track down immigrants and arrest them. So that's a significant escalation in what the guard has typically done. They've been helping at the border, obviously guarding the border, but this would be inside the United States, in cities actively going after people suspected of being here illegally.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Tom, this news comes as Trump has deployed National Guards and even Marines to Southern California this week. What's the bigger picture here? I know Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is indicating there will be a larger role for the National Guard writ large going forward. Is that correct?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Yeah, this is it. They sound as though they want to make this a much more widespread effort that won't take place just in California, but across the nation and using National Guard troops in large part to make it happen.
Taylor Wilson:
And how about new plans for detention on military bases? What can you tell us here?
Tom Vanden Brook:
We've learned that over the past few months, the Pentagon has been reviewing with customs border patrol, different sites around the country at bases where they could detain migrants suspected of being illegally. And they would be in bases everywhere from Fort Dix in New Jersey to California. They have actually set up some facilities at Fort Bliss in Texas, and they're building a larger facility there that could house as many as 5,000 migrants.
Taylor Wilson:
And Tom, really, what is the Trump administration's argument for expanding the military's immigration enforcement role in this way?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Well, that they need the help. They're overwhelmed. They don't have enough customs boarder patrol, DHS needs the added manpower to do this, and the guard is situated to be able to help them. So they see this as Trump has said before, an invasion, and that's the way they're viewing it. And they use some fairly novel legal justifications to do it, but so far they're being challenged in court, but nothing has come through on that front yet.
Taylor Wilson:
What are you seeing or hearing from critics on some of these issues, Tom?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Well, this is a militarization of a law enforcement function that is inappropriate. And Senator Jack Reed, who's the leading Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, thinks it's inappropriate, potentially illegal. And he's opposed to it and he's going to be questioning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in all likelihood on Wednesday when he appears before a Senate committee.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, and as you're right, Tom, active-duty troops are generally prohibited from domestic policing under the Posse Comitatus Act. Just remind us what that law is and will it present any barrier to the Trump administration's expected actions here?
Tom Vanden Brook:
The Posse Comitatus Act prevents, generally speaking, active-duty military from law enforcement within the United States. There are certain circumstances in which they can do it, and one of them is if Trump were to evoke the 1807 law called the Insurrection Act, and that would be to put down a rebellion inside the United States. But there's no indication obviously that there's a rebellion and he has not done that yet. Although he does refer to the protesters in Los Angeles Insurrectionists. So it's possible that he could do that. There are other ways he could do it. He could be invited to bring in National Guard troops paid for by the federal government, by governors in states that want to have the National Guard do this sort of law enforcement.
Taylor Wilson:
Folks can find this full piece with a link in today's show notes. Tom Vanden Brook covers the Pentagon for USA TODAY. Thanks, Tom.
Tom Vanden Brook:
Thanks, Taylor.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
President Trump says he's restoring the names of military bases that the U.S. changed because they paid tribute to Confederate soldiers, delivering remarks at Fort Bragg, which had been designated Fort Liberty before his administration reverted the installation to its previous name. Trump said the Pentagon planned to rename seven other bases. Trump has long sought to keep the original base names in place. He vetoed legislation at the end of his first term in 2020 that authorized the creation of an independent commission to recommend name changes. Congress repassed the bill which came in the wake of racial justice protests with bipartisan supports. During his Fort Bragg remarks, Trump also made some comments about his military parade set for Saturday.
Donald Trump:
Recently, other countries celebrated the victory of World War I. France was celebrating. Really, they were all celebrating. The only one that doesn't celebrate is the USA and we're the ones that won the war. Without us, you'd all be speaking German right now. Maybe a little Japanese thrown in, but we won the war. We don't celebrate, but we're going to celebrate on Saturday and we're going to celebrate from now on. We're going to celebrate our greatness and our achievements.
Taylor Wilson:
U.S. Army is marking its 250th anniversary with a palm-filled procession through the streets of the nation's capital. The date also coincides with Trump's 79th birthday. The parade, which will feature army equipment, flyovers, musical performances, and thousands of soldiers in uniform from the past and present caps off a week of programming designed to celebrate the country's military strength. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
♦
Water pouring from the faucets of at least 42 million Americans is contaminated with unacceptable levels of forever chemicals. That's according to a USA TODAY analysis of records the Environmental Protection Agency released earlier this month. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS are a family of chemicals engineered to be nearly indestructible. Studies have shown they can accumulate over time in human bodies, leading to certain cancers and other health complications. Altogether, USA TODAY found 774 systems that do not meet the limits for forever chemicals. Those utilities probably will need to install advanced filtration systems or find other sources of drinking water by 2031. You can see which U.S. cities report forever chemicals with a link in today's show notes.
♦
And later today, can alligators help fight climate change? Any research points in that direction, according to Chris Murphy of Southeastern Louisiana University.
Chris Murphy:
What we found was a positive correlation between alligator abundance and carbon sequestration in specific habitats. So if alligators aren't there, my hypothesis is that carbon sequestration rates would lower, meaning more CO2 would be emitted into the atmosphere.
Taylor Wilson:
You can hear more about how America's largest reptile is playing a key role in reducing carbon emissions when my colleague Dana Taylor, sits down with Chris today beginning at 4:00 P.M. Eastern Time, right here on this feed.
♦
And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. And as always, you can email us at podcasts@usatoday.com. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
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'We have always said that we're a very conservative state, but we haven't acted that way. The actual legislature or state government has been very purple influence from other states, and it hasn't reflected upon the conservative nature of the citizens of Wyoming.' From the vantage of the Freedom Caucus, who describe Democrats and Republicans alike as part of a 'uniparty' dedicated to big government and less concerned about individual liberty, Heiner's assessment may be true. But, when compared to the rest of the country, Wyoming's politics are still to the right of the Republican or traditional 'conservative' spectrum. Before Wyoming was admitted into the union, the territory was the first in the nation to grant women suffrage in 1869. When it became a state in 1890, it had the first constitution in the world enshrining a woman's right to vote. 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But that all shifted long ago. Republicans have held a House legislature majority since 1965 and the Senate since 1937. Its citizens have voted for Republican presidents since 1952 (with the exception of Lyndon Johnson in '64), with nearly 70% of voters choosing Trump last November. Going back three presidential election cycles, Wyoming voted for Trump by the largest margin of any state in the nation. It has one of the lowest tax burdens, too — in part because of a mineral fund that's financed by taxes on coal and oil extraction, the state's largest industry. Ninety percent of its current legislature is Republican, and the state's partisan index rating is the highest in the country, with Republicans enjoying a plus-25 differential. The voters, Gordon thinks, believe in a variation of government that stays out of their stuff, lets them do what they need to do and doesn't — so to speak — tread on them. And rather than any reliance on the federal government, the focus is on local communities, school boards, county commissions and fire departments, he said. As such, in a state where so much of any livelihood is connected to natural resources, government regulation is seen as a stranglehold. With more than 80% of the population identifying as white, too, there's a certain homogeneity to the way social issues are considered. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, for example, wasn't recognized as a holiday in Wyoming until 1990, six years after the Reagan administration established it. Barron relayed some comments a former Democratic governor, Mike Sullivan, made about how the two parties had swapped places in the last 10 years. 'The Democrats were always regarded as the party of the working people,' she paraphrased Sullivan saying. 'Now that's the Republicans. And, of course, this caucus took over the whole Republican party.' After the first week of the legislative session, Rodriguez-Williams was excited by the progress her colleagues had made. They passed several of their bills onto the Senate and were hopeful to reach a goal of passing five bills in 10 days — a plan they called their 'Five and Dime' — which they did with relative ease. In that first week and after, there had been little discussion or debate over the bills introduced, and most moved to the Senate without amendment. The way Rodriguez-Williams understands compromise, she said, was that 'the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is always willing to work with moderates or the establishment and try to get them to come our way. … And so we're always willing to listen to them and hope that they do come our way, because our way is what the people want. We're interested in carrying out the mandate the people have asked us to do.' The mandate that Rodriguez-Williams referred to was a demonstrative win, but came following an election year with a low voter turnout — the lowest since the last time Trump was elected eight years ago. Due to the prevalence of the Republican Party in Wyoming, elections are often determined at the primaries. Last year, only 27% of eligible voters voted in the primary — a statistic that republicans like Gordon brought up, as did Democrat Rep. Karlee Provenza, who wrote an op-ed breaking them out. Based on Provenza's calculations from data provided by the state, of the 122,718 who voted in the primaries, only 42,943 cast ballots for Freedom Caucus candidates. That rising up of Wyomingites — or 'mandate' — comes from 9% of the state's total population, she wrote. The numbers doubled in the general election to 60% of the state's population casting ballots, but the stage was set before any of the caucus names appeared on that final ballot. It's hard to claim to be speaking for the people when more than 70% of voters didn't even weigh in. The Freedom Caucus is not a singular entity but a coalition of elected officials and lobbyists who are seeking a more conservative form of American government that's dedicated to a close reading of the Constitution and is inching closer to the smallest federal entity possible. There's no official roster published, and after vetting of a legislator's voting record, membership is by invitation only. The State Freedom Caucus Network (SFCN) was a natural next step for the House's Freedom Caucus as an expansion of its ideals into state government. Both are part of the same greater organization, focused on providing resources to help win electoral power at both the state and federal levels. As of this year, 13 different state houses have Freedom Caucuses, and the hope is to bring them to all 50. Andy Roth, the president of the State Freedom Caucus Networks, said Wyoming is a 'case study of how a Freedom Caucus can execute its mission perfectly.' Jessie Rubino started as the Wyoming state director for the SFCN in 2021 and, in the past four years, she's helped the caucus grow from six members to eight, then to 16, then 26, and now 36. She's a lifelong conservative, born and raised in Cheyenne, who taught high school in Casper before becoming a lawyer. As an undergraduate, she interned for Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso in D.C. — the only three months in her life that she hasn't lived in Wyoming. 'Unlike other lobbyists, I read every single bill that's filed, and I provide a summary of what it does and then a recommendation from the State Freedom Caucus Network,' Rubino said. Most of her time is spent researching and drafting amendments to bills on the floor as needed. But, depending on the day, Rubino said she's also 'helping strategize, helping our members understand the bills. Our members, especially now with the majority, they're spread really thin … so it's valuable to be able to give them a quick hit summary on all the bills that come through.' Rubino sends these summaries and suggestions over a group text thread, which has come under intense scrutiny. Opponents suggest that the national umbrella organization is providing local lawmakers with not only talking points but explicit directives on how to vote. The representatives themselves, however, explain it in practical terms. When Heiner was a freshman legislator in 2021, the bills came fast and were complex. 'You'll be talking about noxious weeds, and you're supposed to be an expert and then you'll switch into banking and trust laws and you're supposed to be an expert on that,' he says. 'I couldn't keep up.' Later that same year, Heiner was invited along with several other representatives to visit D.C. and learn more about the network. He was dubious about getting caught up in national politics but found that he was ideologically aligned with their investors and was surprised that the network had already vetted him. The SFCN explained that they offer research and resources — the services Rubino described — that could help the legislators manage the information deluge. 'That appealed to me,' Heiner says. But 'the narrative that's out there is that they tell us how to vote. … Well, I'm an alpha male. I will never sell my vote.' There may not be an explicit demand attached to each text message or policy explanation, but summaries of the legislation are filtered through the Freedom Caucus director. It's practical — larger legislative bodies like Congress, as well as the DNC and RNC, have administrative staff who do similar research — but some lawmakers, like Mike Yin, a Democrat from Teton County, who saw his colleagues reading from their phones during committee meetings, says that it suggests that the caucus members don't know what they are talking about when they look to text messages for answers. After months of these criticisms, Rodriguez-Williams in May wrote an op-ed in WyoFile, a local newsroom that covers state politics, lambasting the suggestion these practices are in any way nefarious. 'Vote recommendations are everywhere in the Capitol,' she wrote. It's a fair defense, but it doesn't explain the difficulty members had explaining bills, like what Barron described. Sen. Eli Bebout laments that current legislators, by not working with others outside their ideological camp, are not building the lasting relationships possible in state governments. In his time, he's seen a lot of different Wyoming legislatures, too. Bebout served as a state representative from 1987 to 2000 and then as a state senator from 2007 to 2020. But he began his career as a Democrat and as he found the Republicans increasingly more aligned with his perspectives over time, he switched parties in 1994. Bebout remembers when the state was so broke, and legislators — on either side of the aisle — had to accept that they were not going to get everything they wanted. He says they did what they thought was right for Wyoming 'collectively,' even if they 'argued like the dickens' about it. 'Legislating, in my opinion, was the art of compromise,' he says. This was a perspective Bebout shared with a good friend, Al Simpson, the longtime U.S. senator from Wyoming who — in a sense of dramatic timing that can only be chalked up to serendipity — passed away one week after this legislative session ended. His legacy was a testimony to the enduring power of legislative compromise. His landmark achievement? The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that legalized undocumented immigrants. Famously not one to mince words, Simpson referred to the Freedom Caucus, according to one of his close friends, the journalist Barron, as a 'cult.' One of the things you have to decide as an elected official, Bebout says, is whether or not you believe that government has a place. In Wyoming, he said, it does. A legislator can't just 'go in there and slash and burn because you want to cut, cut, cut,' he says. 'No, you go in there and you analyze. You look at it, you think what's right and you try to do what's best for Wyoming. Sometimes being a conservative, you just don't say no to everything.' One of the most controversial bills this year was SF69, a tax reform bill that gave single family homes a 25% tax reduction on property worth up to $1 million. In Wyoming, property tax is tied to the current market value of a home, rather than the purchase price, and as home values have skyrocketed — going up more than 8% from 2023 to 2024 alone — so have owners' costs. At the 2024 legislative session, relief was offered in the form of refunds to reduce the tax burden families felt. This year's bill was a continuation of that effort. Haroldson says Wyoming's broader tax structure is 'beautifully' limited as it's tied to extractive industries and reduced after hard-fought battles but is incensed about property taxes. 'We're putting little old ladies on the street,' he says. 'They're losing lifetime homes, and that's unacceptable.' Despite this relief seeming straightforward enough, the bill was one of the few Freedom Caucus agenda items that navigated significant discussion and reform, with 35 different amendments coming from the House alone. It was initially proposed as a 50% reduction but was refigured after significant debate. The reason for so much concern is that the tax bill has no backfill, meaning that, instead of the larger state government, local municipalities reliant on those funds will be the ones taking the financial hit. With such a tax structure, this loss of income for the small towns of the state will be significant. Everything from mental health support programs, Meals on Wheels through education, firefighting and policing have the potential to be affected. Gordon sees this bill as the state government imposing itself on local governments, those even closer to those they govern. By signing this bill into law, he believes that the legislature is taking tools and votes out of the hands of both local governments and the state's citizens. He says it's an understandable temptation. Though it is lowering taxes, this big government making decisions for smaller governments does not strike him as a 'conservative' effort at all. The Freedom Caucus is advocating to make up the difference from the tax receipts received from oil, gas, coal and other minerals, too. 'To me, that's wealth substitution, and that's not conservative,' Gordon said. 'If you're going to get relief, you should give it to those people who pay the taxes.' Regardless, this is one of the laws that will likely do well with many constituents in Wyoming, who will appreciate a quarter of their tax bill getting trimmed off the top. But it still shows a fundamental difference in how the caucus understands conservatism. In remarks at the State of the State address in January, Gordon referenced the success of the Freedom Caucus and the attention it brought to the state. He reminded Wyoming's elected leaders of the system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers designed to defend the branches of government against the temptation for one to usurp the other's power. 'We are heirs to their wisdom, and Wyoming expects us to work together.' Today, that wisdom seems less important than ensuring that your political interests are met — that the 'mandate' given by the voters is upheld, even if it means legislating without compromise, without leaning into the nuance of the issues your constituents face. If it comes down to it, too, there is a valuable lesson from the nation's history, both the Revolutionary and the Civil War, that is perpetually relevant. In times of division, it is OK to 'fight' to ensure your needs are met — be that with trade partners, those crossing the border illegally, or with your fellow legislators. 'The other states and the rest of the nation will watch because they saw what's happened with the Trump reelection. People don't want the direction we were headed. They want a change,' says Heimer. 'Wyoming can be the point of that spear. This is what can happen in your state if you also rise up and grab your muskets and go and defend your state and protect your flank. … And I hope it happens that way.' Gordon thinks this approach of the Freedom Caucus's steamrolls nuance and oversimplifies the very complicated matters that the state government is responsible to legislate. He suggested that once some of the newer legislators gain some more experience, they might see things differently. 'Really, there's a degree of gray in those policy distinctions that, in the fullness of time, they'll have to come to grips with,' Gordon said. Gordon's constitutional suggestions may not have stuck — the advice of elders rarely gets through before experience comes along and enforces it — but he was right about the attention paid to the legislature. With that attention, there's at least one very exciting result. It reminded the governor of a joke a former governor told him about elections: Why do more people buy elk licenses in Wyoming than vote? It's because they like what they get a whole lot more. There are a lot more people in Wyoming paying attention to state government now than years prior — who knows if they really like what they're getting. Maybe after this year and next, the number of voters who show up in the primaries might grow beyond the 27% who did in 2024. Whatever that means for who wins elections, Gordon said, 'will be interesting to see.' Either way, 'I have come to understand that we aren't living in the same Wyoming that I grew up in,' he said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Israel is just getting started, but can a weakened Iran respond?
Explosion seen in the Iranian city of Ilam. Credit: @QudsNen/X Israel's warplanes were in the air barely two hours after Donald Trump, the US president, had laid out the case for continuing talks with Iran at the weekend. 'We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue,' he posted on his Truth Social site. 'My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran.' Had Benjamin Netanyahu, the headstrong prime minister of Israel, not got the memo? Or was he sending a clear signal to Washington that he was not going to take orders from anyone. As ever in the Middle East's quagmire of religious strife and decades of power struggles, it was all a lot more complicated than that. The Americans had been forewarned that Israel had run out of patience with Iran and its deadly pursuit of nuclear weapons. Just a day earlier, the State Department had announced it was reducing its diplomatic footprint in Baghdad and other regional facilities, Mr Trump warning the Middle East 'could be a dangerous place'. The US president was asked directly whether Israeli strikes were imminent. 'Well, I don't want to say imminent,' he told reporters in the East Room of the White House, 'but it looks like it's something that could very well happen'. Strikes, he said, could upset delicately poised negotiations. Or, maybe, he mused, it 'might help it actually'. So when explosions echoed across Iran early on Friday morning, Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu were settling into rather familiar roles. The American president had spent the day as good cop – talking up the idea of a negotiated settlement and trying to keep his people in the region from becoming targets. However, while officials said negotiators were on their way to Oman for a sixth round of talks on Sunday – he was happy to let the Israeli prime minister play the bad cop, pulling the trigger. 'In my assessment, the timing of an Israeli strike on Iran reflects a convergence of interests between Trump and Netanyahu,' said Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official. 'From Trump's perspective, as long as the US is not directly militarily involved, there is an advantage to a situation in which Israel takes military action aimed at forcing the Iranian regime back to negotiations from a significantly weaker position. 'The one who will pay the price for this move is Israel.' As he announced Operation Rising Lion to his nation, Mr Netanyahu set out the scale of the threat just a few hundred miles away. For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have 'brazenly, openly called for Israel's destruction,' he said, describing how their weapons programme had produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine nuclear bombs. The strikes, said Gabriel Noronha, president of POLARIS National Security and a former adviser to the State Department, were simply the first in maybe a week of attacks, starting with command and control centres, top leadership, and aerospace headquarters that would have launched drone and missile retaliation. The question now is whether Iran will have the ability or the intent to strike US facilities or at any of the 40,000 military personnel in the Persian Gulf and the rest of the Middle East. 'They've threatened the US for a long time,' Mr Noronha said. 'The question is whether they will have the munitions and the capability to strike US bases or they say, 'We barely have enough to inflict damage on Israel. We're going to keep it at that.'' Either way, it is just the start. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
