US politics live: MAGA civil war erupts amid confusion over extent of Iran's nuclear program

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5 hours ago

Welcome back to our live coverage of politics in the United States.
This does, of course, encompass some of the news from the Middle East, but if you want coverage focused purely on those events, follow this link.
President Trump's fluctuating position on the matter is causing something of an argument within the MAGA movement.
There's the anti-interventionist wing of MAGA, which thought Mr Trump would oppose essentially all foreign entanglements. And then there's the more hawkish wing, which you would associate more with more traditional Republican Party politics.
Mr Trump himself is a tad annoyed with the anti-interventionists at the moment, as evidenced by a potshot he took at the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on social media.
'Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that,' IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!' Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social. The weird punctuation there is his, not mine.
'I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,' he told reporters at another point.
Mr Carlson had slammed the President in a newsletter to his subscribers.
'While the American military may not have physically perpetrated the assault, years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social undeniably place the US at the centre of last night's events,' Mr Carlson said after Israel's attack on Iran.
'They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be America First can't now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it. Our country is in deep.'
The argument has spiralled from there.
Read on for the latest updates.
Originally published as US politics live: MAGA civil war erupts amid confusion over extent of Iran's nuclear program
'The battle begins': Iran's ominous new statement
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The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued a rather ominous statement on social media, saying: 'In the name of the noble Haidar, the battle begins.'
Haidar is a figure in Islam, considered by some Muslims to be the first Imam.
We are now on day six of the fighting between Iran and Israel. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said Wednesday that hypersonic missiles were used during their country's latest attack.
'The 11th wave of the proud Operation Honest Promise 3 using Fattah-1 missiles' was carried out, the guards said in a statement carried by state television, claiming that Iranian forces 'have gained complete control over the skies of the occupied territories'.
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ICE agents involved in another contentious incident
Samuel Clench
There's been another incident involving the arrest of a Democratic politician by federal agents.
Brad Lander is the New York City Comptroller. He got involved in a confrontation with ICE agents today while attending immigration court hearings, his intention being to walk out of the building with the immigrants and ensure they weren't detained.
As he locked arms with a man, agents surrounded the pair and separated them. He ended up being dragged away and handcuffed, and was then detained for a few hours.
'New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer,' the Department of Homeland Security said afterwards.
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Court ruling reignites transgender debate
Samuel Clench
In the realm of bureaucratic culture war point-scoring, a federal judge has ruled that transgender and intersex Americans should be able to get passports that match their chosen gender identity.
This is literally an argument about whether there should be an M or an F or an X in someone's passport, and I do hope you can feel the contempt dripping from each letter of this sentence. The United States is a country where people go bankrupt because they require basic medical treatment. It's a country where lunatics find it remarkably easy to acquire weapons of war, designed to kill as many humans as possible as quickly as possible. And the government's time is being wasted litigating this. For the love of God.
Anyway. One of Donald Trump's many legally contentious executive orders requires all US passports to conform to the sex people were assigned at birth. So if you were born male but identify as a trans woman, or were born female but identify as a trans man, the President of the United States thinks it is very important that the letter in your passport reflects your sex at birth, not your chosen gender. And it's very important that we pick either an M or an F, not an X.
Frequent readers of these blogs, and readers of the preceding paragraphs in this post, will know I have an undisguised lack of patience for the culture wars, for which I do not apologise, because they are a chronic distraction from the far, far more important functions and duties of government. But they dominate the public debate nonetheless. So here we are.
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Update on cabinet secretary rushed to hospital
Samuel Clench
A comforting update, here, on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. It turns out her trip to the hospital is due to an allergic reaction, and there's no cause for any great alarm.
'Secretary Noem had an allergic reaction today. She was transported to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. She is alert and recovering,' Ms Noem's department said.
No word yet on the cause of this allergic reaction. Peanuts, maybe? A bee sting? The world waits for more information with bated breath. Let's just be glad it wasn't something more serious.
'Truly unbelievable': Part of MAGA turns on Trump
Samuel Clench
The conflict between Israel and Iran, and Donald Trump's shifting response to it, have driven a wedge between different subgroups of the MAGA movement.
There's the anti-interventionist wing of MAGA, which thought Mr Trump would oppose essentially all foreign entanglements. And then there's the more hawkish wing, which you would associate more with the traditional Republican Party politics of the past half-century.
Mr Trump himself is a tad annoyed with the anti-interventionists at the moment, as evidenced by a potshot at the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on social media.
'Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that,' IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!' Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social. The weird punctuation there is his, not mine.
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'I don't care': Trump's astonishing answer
Samuel Clench
There is a fair bit of lingering confusion about exactly how close Iran was to successfully developing nuclear weapons before Israel decided to strike it.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Mr Trump has said he 'doesn't care' that his own, hand-picked head of US intelligence told Congress a mere three months ago that Iran was 'not building a nuclear weapon'.
'Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon,' a reporter pointed out.
'I don't care what she said, I think they were very close to having a nuke,' said Mr Trump.
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Top Trump cabinet secretary rushed to hospital
Samuel Clench
Good morning.
We start with some troubling news: one of President Donald Trump's most senior cabinet secretaries Kristi Noem, who leads the Department of Homeland Security, has been rushed to hospital.
According to preliminary reporting from CNN, Ms Noem was taken to a hospital in the American capital Washington D.C. by ambulance. She 'has been conscious' and 'has spoken to her security detail'.
We shall keep an eye out for more information.