Vice-president JD Vance says US holds all the cards in conflict with Iran – key US politics stories from Saturday 27 June
Hours before fresh military strikes were exchanged in the strait of Hormuz, vice-president JD Vance continued to reiterate the administration’s triumphant line on the war with Iran.
“If we make the final deal, then great,” the US vice-president told HBO’s Bill Maher.
“If we don’t make the final deal, their nuclear program is still destroyed. They’re still much weaker as a country, so my attitude is America wins either way.”
The shaky ceasefire between the US and Iran is being increasingly tested, with more retaliatory strikes this weekend. President Donald Trump has also claimed the US has the upper hand.
“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” he posted to Truth Social in the wake of Saturday’s strikes.
“If that happens,” he wrote, “the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist.”
JD Vance said on Friday that the US wins “either way” regarding negotiations with Iran, pointing to what he called the destruction of its nuclear program and diminishment as a country.
Vance said that the increased flow of oil through the strait of Hormuz was a “signal that there’s something real going on”.
Read the full story
The US military has launched further strikes on multiple targets in Iran, the US Central Command (Centcom) confirmed, a day after it had struck Iran in retaliation for a drone attack on a cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz.
Centcom said its strikes on Saturday were in “direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping”. The US strikes targeted “Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities”, Centcom said in a statement.
Read the full story
A federal appeals court on Friday rejected the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to abandon a Biden-era rule that sets tough standards for deadly soot pollution.
The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel is a setback for the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda and its repeated efforts to boost coal, a reliable but polluting energy source.
Read the full story
Donald Trump said on Saturday that he will nominate Lance Schroyer as the next director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), succeeding David Venturella, who had been performing the duties of the director.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that Schroyer “has over 29 YEARS of Law Enforcement experience in Oklahoma — A State where I WON all 77 Counties in 2016, 2020, and 2024! Lance is a former Oklahoma State Trooper, and United States Marine”.
Read the full story
White House unveils new images of US ‘patriot passports’ for America’s 250th
Trump’s Board of Peace plans to grant itself sweeping immunity, documents show
Trump threatens 100% tariff on European countries that impose digital tax
Catching up? Here’s what happened on Friday 26 June.
Leave a Reply