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- ‘I Don’t Know’: Trump’s Iran Negotiator Says He Has No Idea How War Will...
Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, said he does not know how or when the war against Iran will end. Along with Jared Kushner – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law – Witkoff had been negotiating with Iranian officials regarding the country’s nuclear program. As the talks were ongoing, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered their respective militaries to bomb Iran, just as they had done last summer. The latest air campaign, however, is far more expansive. More than 1,000 Iranians have been killed since last Saturday, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of top officials. An elementary school was hit in southern Iran, killing at least 175 people, mostly children. Trump administration officials reportedly believe the U.S. was responsible, though so far the president denies it. Seven Americans have been killed by Iranian retaliatory strikes. Witkoff appeared on Tuesday’s Squawk on the Street on CNBC, where host Sarah Eisen asked about the war’s end. “So how do you see this ending, this war?” she asked. “I don’t know, Sarah,” Witkoff replied. “I know this, that President Trump is the wrong guy to go up against. That’s what I know. He has drawn a red line, and that is that Iran cannot have a [nuclear] weapon. And yes, they say they don’t. They don’t want one. But all of their actions indicate the exact opposite. So, he’s just not the right guy to tangle with, and I would suggest they don’t.” The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon. After the U.S. bombed several Iranian nuclear facilities last year, Trump deemed Iran’s nuclear program “totally obliterated.” Watch above via CNBC.The post ‘I Don’t Know’: Trump’s Iran Negotiator Says He Has No Idea How War Will End first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.18 mins ago - Reporter Presses Rand Paul About Confirming DHS Pick Who Mocked Him Being Attack...
UNITED STATES – OCTOBER 23: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is seen during votes in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, October 23, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images) Capitol Hill reporter Pablo Manríquez caught up with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Tuesday and asked the Kentucky Republican about Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) potential confirmation as Secretary of Homeland Security – noting Mullin’s past jabs at Paul. Manríquez asked Paul, “Sorry if this is redundant, but are you confident about Senator Mullin’s nomination as DHS Secretary?” Paul, who chairs the Homeland Security committee that will manage Mullin’s nomination, replied, “We plan on the hearing next Wednesday and the vote on Thursday, if all the paperwork is completed.” “And he had once had some kind of personal words with you about when you were assaulted,” Manríquez followed up. “Come to the hearing, and we’ll see how the hearing goes,” Paul replied as Manríquez clarified, “Okay, sounds good. Wednesday, you said?” “Next Wednesday, if the paperwork is completed,” Paul replied. “Okay. What paperwork? I’m sorry — forgive my ignorance,” Manríquez asked. “They have to do an FBI background check, and they have to do some kind of Office of Ethics — so two things that are required for everybody,” Paul answered as the exchange ended. Manríquez was referring to comments Mullin made over Valentine’s Day at an event in Oklahoma, slamming Paul for how he maneuvers to try to cut federal funding. “I respect Bernie Sanders because he’s an open socialist, and you know that he’s a communist so you know what you’re getting. Rand Paul’s a freaking snake. And I understand completely why his neighbor did what he did. And I told him that to his face. It stirred people up like Cheryl (Mullin’s wife), who don’t know the backstory. And then that night Rand sends out a fundraising letter on it. It’s a gimmick,” Mullin told the crowd at the event. Paul and his neighbor got into a scuffle in November 2017, which resulted in Paul suffering rib fractures and recurring pneumonia following the incident. Paul’s attacker was eventually sentenced to 30 days in jail and forced to pay Paul $582,834.82 in damages, following a civil suit. The fight was reportedly over Paul raking leaves near the dividing line between the two properties. Pretty wild that just three weeks before Trump nominated him for Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne… [TheTopNews] Read More.45 mins ago - Pete Hegseth’s Defense Department Blew $22M On Steak and Lobster in a Single M...
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s Defense Department allegedly blew through $22 million on lobsters and ribeye steak as part of a wild September 2025 end-of-year spree. According to an analysis by nonprofit watchdog Open the Books, Hegseth’s DoD spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in Sept. 2025 alone — nearly 50 percent of which was expended in the last five business days of the month. Open the Books, run by the American Transparency charity founded in 2011, collects and publishes government spending data, including expenditures down to the lobster tail. Per the analysis by Open the Books, in September, the Pentagon spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million on lobster tail, $15.1 million on ribeye steak, and $1 million on salmon. Dessert included 272 orders of doughnuts for $139,224 and ice cream machines for $124,000. While the Pentagon does not technically have to spend all its congressionally allocated funds, “use-it-or-lose-it” policies often push it to do so. Any leftover funds could be removed from the budget the following year. So, extravagant sprees are not unusual at the end of a fiscal year. For example, the group noted in its report, “Furniture is near the top of the military’s wish list at the end of every fiscal year. Since 2008, the DoD has spent an average of $257.6 million on furniture every September — a 564% increase above the norm. In months besides September, furniture costs the military only $38.8 million on average.” Speaking to Open the Books, the CEO of Govly, an AI company that assists government contractors, compared Sept. 30 to “Amazon Prime Day” for the federal government. Extravagant spending sprees are also not unusual for Hegseth’s DoD. The report noted that the department also spent more than $7.4 million on lobster throughout four months in 2025: March, May, June, and October. Back in Feb. 2025, Hegseth told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo that he welcomed Elon Musk‘s former Department of Government Efficiency to help cut “wasteful spending” inside the DoD. He said he expected to uncover “hundreds of billions” in said wasteful spending. “We need to know when we spend dollars, we need to know where they’re going and why that simple accounting, and that has not existed at the Defense Department,” Hegseth said. “We’re going to fix that.”The post Pete Hegseth’s Defense Department Blew $22M On Steak and Lobster… [TheTopNews] Read More.58 mins ago - Reporter Asks Mike Johnson Straight Up When ‘Does Congress Need to Assert Itse...Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) took questions on stage at the Congressional Institute on Tuesday and was asked about Congress’s role in overseeing President Donald Trump’s ongoing war in Iran, which is how Trump describes it. NBC News Senior Congressional Reporter Scott Wong moderated the conversation and asked, “Okay, but if this does drag out for a month, two months, three months, is there a role for Congress then to step in and either do a War Powers Resolution or a formal declaration of war? At what point does Congress need to assert itself?” “We’ll have to see. We have asserted ourselves. The president, up to this moment, and his administration have complied in every way with every provision of law. They have informed us before, after, and during the operation,” replied Johnson, who has repeatedly insisted the operation is not a war. “We’ve been in almost constant contact about it. They’re keeping Congress apprised, which is the legal obligation. If it comes to a declaration of war, then Congress would step in and act and exercise its authority,” he continued, adding: But we all know that that has not happened in many decades, in spite of the various excursions that we’ve been involved in. This Commander-in-Chief desires peace. He’s demonstrated that on the world stage. He’s ended eight wars, as he always reminds us, and he’s trying to end the others. But this was a situation with an avowed enemy of the United States that had killed American citizens, presenting imminent harm to our troops and personnel and citizens, and the President acted accordingly to protect America’s interests, and I think that’s appropriate. Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.The post Reporter Asks Mike Johnson Straight Up When ‘Does Congress Need to Assert Itself’ On Iran first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.1 hour ago
- Senate Democrat Interrupts His MS Now Interview to Fact Check Ted Cruz’s Hit O...Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) interrupted his MS NOW hit on Tuesday to react to Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) comments on the Iranian war on another channel in real time. Murphy joined MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace on Deadline: White House, and in the middle of an answer, he reacted to someone seemingly telling him about Cruz’s interview at the same time with Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren. In the Newsmax interview, Cruz slammed Iran’s current regime as an organization run by “religious extremists” and said Trump’s only offer to them should be to live in exile or watch the current government “collapse.” Many high-ranking government officials, including the government’s supreme leader, have been killed in recent strikes launched by the U.S. and Israel. Murphy on Tuesday was in the middle of claiming that the Department of Justice briefed members of Congress, saying that Iran’s nuclear program and ending it is not an objective of the current strikes. He said: Every single briefing you have, you get a surprise. We got one just about 30 minutes ago when the department of defense told us that, in fact, their nuclear program and getting rid of it is not an objective of this war. Literally, in my other ear, I’m listening to Ted Cruz on another network explain why this military mission is so essential to destroy the nuclear program. Murphy joked he may need to jump over to Newsmax to correct his colleague. He said: I may have to walk over there and tell him that, in fact, the administration is now briefing congress that getting rid of the nuclear program has nothing to do with this mission, but it speaks to the incoherence. I can’t really blame Ted, because every single hour, the objectives that they state publicly and privately for this war change. So yes, every time we get a briefing, we learn something new. Watch above via MS NOW.The post Senate Democrat Interrupts His MS Now Interview to Fact Check Ted Cruz’s Hit On Newsmax in Real Time first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago
- Meta urged to boost oversight of fake AI videos
Meta's advisers say its methods for policing AI videos are inadequate, especially at times of crisis. [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago
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