Trump downplays war with Iran, in which 18 US service members have been killed so far, as ‘small potatoes’
Donald Trump minimized the war with Iran while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. When asked how he would describe the conflict, if not a war, the president called it “small potatoes”.
“A lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” Trump said. “We did Venezuela and we did this. In Venezuela we lost nobody. In this we lost 18 people and in Vietnam we lost 100,000 people and in other conflicts you lost tens of thousands of people.”
When a reporter followed up, saying 18 service members have died and there are record-long deployments, Trump retorted: “Why is it record long? How long were we in Vietnam? How long were we in Vietnam? How long were we in Vietnam? We’re at five months now.”
The war with Iran started in late February, nearly seven months ago. During the conflict, thousands of Iranians have been killed and more than 750 US service members have been wounded. The war has also brought soaring gas prices and disrupted food supply chains worldwide, as the blockade over the Strait of Hormuz has stifled trade and oil supply.
Despite Trump saying Friday that the Iran war is not a “war”, he himself has repeatedly called it a war. Just on Monday, the president referred to it as “a relatively little war”.
Trump told reporters Friday that “there’s no fighting right now”, despite a sharp escalation in the war this week with US strikes on Iran. He also said “we’re taking out a lot of oil” and “we control the Hormuz Strait”, both of these statements are not accurate. The president added that the US could hit Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, where nuclear facilities are reportedly housed, “very soon”.
Key events
Today’s recap:
The week ended with court rulings that were seen as wins for democratic elections in the country. A federal judge ruled that mail voting can continue for the midterms and Missouri’s supreme court denied a Republican-drawn congressional map meant to carve up a Democrat-held district.
Donald Trump also, once again, downplayed the war in Iran, calling it “small potatoes” and threatened to axe trade with dozens of countries unless the Federal Reserve agreed to cut interest rates.
Here’s what else happened today:
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Aiming to catch leakers, Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon subjected 50 members of the military’s Joint Staff to polygraph tests. According to the New York Times, the tests came after a deluge of leaks to the press about diminishing stock pile munitions.
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A federal judge extends block on Trump’s executive order, aimed at stifling mail voting. For a second time, a judge ruled that the presidents order to make a nationwide list of verified voters would result in “nearly guaranteeing significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters”.
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Despite 18 service members being killed so far in the Iran war, Trump called the conflict “small potatoes”. While speaking with reporters, the president minimized the war saying it wasn’t even a “war”, but rather a “military conflict”. He compared it to Vietnam and said it’s “not a big thing”.
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Trump signed an executive order geared toward supporting cattle ranchers, but also takes aim at delisting two species of wolves from the Endangered Species Act. The president said removing the gray wolf and Mexican wolf from the act would help ranchers “combat predation”.
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Missouri’s supreme court struck down a Republican-drawn congressional map that would’ve carved up a Democrat-held district. The ruling dealt a blow to Republican efforts to use redistricting to preserve their control of the House.
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John Fetterman is avoiding his work in the Senate, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. A scathing report by the paper found that Fetterman, a democrat from Pennsylvania, whose views have increasingly diverged from those of his party, is frequently skipping constituent and committee meetings in lieu of appearances in conservative media.
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A report found that Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s former labor secretary, created a ‘toxic, intimidating and humiliating’ work environment. An investigation by the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General found that she had violated several department rules, including misusing public funds for travel, mistreating staff and carrying on an inappropriate relationship with a member of her security detail.
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Trump threatened to axe trade with dozens of countries unless the Federal Reserve agrees to cut interest rates. The President cited the strong August jobs report in a social media post pressuring his new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, to cut interest rates, a move Trump argues will juice the economy but that could also spark higher inflation.
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The US added an estimated 162,000 jobs in August, according to the Department of Labor. An unexpectedly strong August jobs report showed a rebound in hiring after a bleak summer for the labor market, with US firms adding jobs at a rapid clip despite economic headwinds downstream of the war in Iran.
The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the federal judge’s ruling to block Donald Trump’s order that limited mail voting, calling it “critical protection” for elections. The group is joint-representing several plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought against the president.
“States are already beginning to send mail ballots to voters for the November election, and this preliminary injunction provides a critical protection from the chaos that this rule would unleash,” the ACLU said in a statement with the plaintiffs and other counsel.
US District Court Judge Indira Talwani initially placed a temporary order blocking Trump’s mandate and has now replaced that with a stronger preliminary injunction.
Her injunction comes after Trump signed an executive order in March that would create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and compel the US Postal Service to work with states to establish lists of mail-in voters before elections. This would mean a limited ballot delivery only to voters on those lists.
A conjoined lawsuit was also brought by a coalition of 24 state attorneys general against the USPS.
“As the court noted, mail ballots have been used since the Civil War,” the ACLU said in the joint statement. “Millions of citizens in the United States and overseas rely on mail ballots as a safe and trusted means of participating in our democracy.”
Around 50 members of the military’s Joint Staff have been subject to polygraph tests, according to a report by the New York Times. The tests were reportedly part of the Pentagon’s goal to weed out personnel leaking sensitive information to the press.
Some of the people required to take the polygraph tests were high-ranking officials, according to CBS News, including officials in Central Command and other combatant commanders.
The polygraph tests reportedly came after several publications described diminishing stock pile munitions, such as Patriot interceptors and long-range missiles, in their reporting.
Pete Hegseth, secretary of the Department of Defense, has sought to crackdown on leaks to the media. In July, he announced a joint task force to investigate leaks and identify those behind them. And as far back as March 2025, Hegseth warned that investigations into leakers would involve polygraph tests.
The sheer number of people reported to have taken the tests is rare for the Pentagon, which uses polygraph tests but not in large swaths.
“The Department does not comment on internal personnel or investigative matters but takes all leaks of classified national security information extremely seriously and investigates accordingly,” Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, said in an email. “Securing classified information is critical to ensuring the security of the United States and of our troops deployed around the world.”
Donald Trump’s “Build the Wall” game is getting blowback from the game maker Tetris. The game, which is a near replica to the iconic falling blocks game, has the player build a structure to “protect the border from the coming horde.”
In a post on X, Tetris wrote that: “we take copyright infringement very seriously.”
The company added that it was not involved in the creation of the administration’s game and said, “at Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them”.
The White House launched an “arcade” on Thursday, that houses five 80s-style computer games that includes “Build the Wall”. Other games involve the player flying a bald eagle down the National Mall and acting as border patrol agent along the Rio Grande river.
Adam Telle said Friday that he is “honored” Donald Trump named him as the acting army secretary to replace Daniel Driscoll. He comes to the role, which is the army’s top civilian post, after serving as the assistant secretary of the army for civil works.
“My previous work in the Army focused on moving at Trump Speed to deliver on one of the Army’s original missions,” Telle wrote in a post on X. “I will apply that same relentless focus on efficiency to how the Army mans, trains, equips, and modernizes.”
Driscoll’s departure came after widespread reports of tensions with defense secretary Pete Hegseth. Driscoll gave no reason for leaving, but reportedly clashed with Hegseth after some of his allies had been ousted by Hegseth.
Telle said Hegseth’s leadership at the department of defense is “historic” and that working closely with the department “we will deliver a more ready and capable Army”.
On Truth Social, Trump called Telle: “A Great Patriot, who is respected by all.”
Federal judge extends block on Trump’s executive order over mail voting
Donald Trump’s executive order to limit mail-in voting has been blocked again by a federal judge. US District Court Judge Indira Talwani initially placed a temporary order blocking Trump’s mandate and has now replaced that with a stronger preliminary injunction.
“Plaintiff States are required under state law to mail millions of ballots to voters on a prescribed timeframe. As detailed below, they are unable to pivot this late in the election cycle, nearly guaranteeing significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters,” the judge wrote in her ruling.
Her injunction comes after Trump signed an executive order in March that would create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and compel the US Postal Service (USPS) to work with states to establish lists of mail-in voters before elections. This would mean a limited ballot delivery only to voters on those lists.
USPS has said in recent court filings that the technology needed to administer the order isn’t even available. Earlier this week, a USPS whistleblower came forward and warned of “potentially catastrophic problems” if the agency were to try and carry out the order.
After Trump signed the order, a coalition of 24 state attorneys general joined together suing USPS to challenge the rule. They also filed a motion for the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction as litigation was ongoing. Oral argument on the coalition’s request for a preliminary injunction was held on Thursday.
“We’ve now secured longer-term relief that will keep the USPS changes blocked while our case moves forward,” said Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, which co-led the state coalition. “We will continue to take all steps to stop the Trump Administration from trampling on voting rights and restricting mail voting.”
Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that his real estate background has helped guide his knowledge on data centers. He said that if he were in charge of a city or state, he’d try to get in as many data centers as possible.
“If you want your house to be more valuable and everything else, you’re going to want a data center,” Trump said. “If you want to go through poverty, crime, and squalor, I would say don’t approve data centers, you know, you have your choice.”
The president’s remarks come as a nationwide backlash to data centers is underway, which is likely to be a flashpoint for the midterm elections. Town meetings have filled with constituents angry about massive data centers moving into residential neighborhoods and small towns. They worry about pollution, loud humming noise and strains on the electrical grid and water supply.
The momentum has even caused some notable republicans, like Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, to regulate data centers.
While speaking with reporters on Friday, Trump said that he’s letting companies build their own power plants so they don’t have to use the grid, which would mean lower energy costs for residents. He didn’t mention, however, that would also mean excess pollution and smog for communities that would have the additional power plants in their backyards.
“There’s a lot of places that want them, both in this country and in particular in China,” Trump said.
The president is scheduled to meet with Xi Jinping, China’s president, later this month. He told reporters that he’s looking forward to it.
“He’s a great gentleman. We get along great. We have a very good trading relationship and you know they’re a competitor and all of that, but we have a very good relationship with President Xi,” Trump said. “He’s coming with his beautiful wife. She’s a beautiful woman and a great woman, respected all over the world.”
Trump downplays war with Iran, in which 18 US service members have been killed so far, as ‘small potatoes’
Donald Trump minimized the war with Iran while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. When asked how he would describe the conflict, if not a war, the president called it “small potatoes”.
“A lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” Trump said. “We did Venezuela and we did this. In Venezuela we lost nobody. In this we lost 18 people and in Vietnam we lost 100,000 people and in other conflicts you lost tens of thousands of people.”
When a reporter followed up, saying 18 service members have died and there are record-long deployments, Trump retorted: “Why is it record long? How long were we in Vietnam? How long were we in Vietnam? How long were we in Vietnam? We’re at five months now.”
The war with Iran started in late February, nearly seven months ago. During the conflict, thousands of Iranians have been killed and more than 750 US service members have been wounded. The war has also brought soaring gas prices and disrupted food supply chains worldwide, as the blockade over the Strait of Hormuz has stifled trade and oil supply.
Despite Trump saying Friday that the Iran war is not a “war”, he himself has repeatedly called it a war. Just on Monday, the president referred to it as “a relatively little war”.
Trump told reporters Friday that “there’s no fighting right now”, despite a sharp escalation in the war this week with US strikes on Iran. He also said “we’re taking out a lot of oil” and “we control the Hormuz Strait”, both of these statements are not accurate. The president added that the US could hit Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, where nuclear facilities are reportedly housed, “very soon”.
Democrats are raising concerns about the Department of Homeland Security deploying agents and law enforcement personnel to polling locations during the midterm elections.
Members of the Committee on Homeland Security sent a letter to Markwayne Mullin, the DHS secretary, on Friday chastising him for brushing aside their requests for information on plans or policies for voting day.
The committee wrote Mullin after he said earlier this week that he may send ICE agents to polling places “if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down”.
The letter states that DHS was established to defend the country against terrorist attacks, not disenfranchise eligible voters. It also says the deployment of armed men to polling facilities is illegal.
“We sought your assurances that you would not deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents,” the letter reads. “You ignored our letters.”
Trump executive order to support cattle ranchers delists some endangered wolves
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that he says is meant to support cattle ranchers.
In it, he touted his voluntary “Product of USA” labeling, gaining access to millions of acres of land from the Department of the Interior and the US Forest Service and withdrawing from Biden-era environmental regulations.
“The national herd is at a 75-year low, while consumer demand for beef has grown almost 10 percent over the past decade,” the order reads.
Much of the executive order is geared toward “helping ranchers combat predation”. The administration is requesting that, within 90 days, the secretary of the interior look into whether it’s possible to delist the gray wolf and Mexican wolf from the Endangered Species Act.
The order further says it will work with states to encourage them to also delist the two species of wolves and to “revise their standards for lethal takings”, which the administration says will help ranchers.
Last week, Trump signed an order to temporarily increase imports of some lower-tariff beef in an effort to bring down consumer beef prices, which have hit record highs this year.
The president has been sharply criticized, including from members of his own party, since announcing the US will temporarily import up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef without charging higher tariffs.
Four Democratic members of the House of Representatives are heading to Dallas to stump for the party ahead of the Republican National Committee’s 2026 midterm convention, which is set to take place in the city next week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement Friday.
The Democrats’ delegation includes Reps. Robert Garcia, Jason Crow, Madeleine Dean, and Sydney Kamlager-Dove. The four will partner with members of the Dallas area’s congressional delegation and the Texas Democratic Party, according to the statement.
Texas, where the RNC is hosting its event, has only a few competitive House races this November. But it’s also the site of a close-run and consequential Senate race between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, and James Talarico, a long-serving House Democrat.
“While swing seat House Republicans try to hide from their record of raising costs on working families, gutting Medicaid to fund tax breaks for billionaire donors and supporting a reckless war of choice in Iran, House Democrats will be present to hold them accountable,” Jeffries said in the statement.
The Missouri Supreme Court on Friday morning shot down a request from the state to delay an order to revert the state’s congressional districts to their earlier borders, before a Trump-backed redistricting effort by state Republicans.
Missouri’s Secretary of State, Denny Hoskins, requested the delay in order to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court.
The new map tossed out by the court was put into place by Missouri Republicans in 2025, and would’ve carved up a Democrat-held seat based around Kansas City. The court ruled that voters would need a chance to weigh in on the new Republican-drawn map before it could take effect, meaning it couldn’t be used for this year’s midterm election.
Here’s a recap of the day so far:
The US added an estimated 162,000 jobs in August, according to the Department of Labor. An unexpectedly strong August jobs report showed a rebound in hiring after a bleak summer for the labor market, with US firms adding jobs at a rapid clip despite economic headwinds downstream of the war in Iran. It’s also a valuable economic win for the Trump administration ahead of the midterms, as Republicans seek to tamp down unease over inflation and soaring gas prices.
Trump threatened to axe trade with dozens of countries unless the Federal Reserve agrees to cut interest rates. The President cited the strong August jobs report in a social media post pressuring his new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, to cut interest rates, a move Trump argues will juice the economy but that could also spark higher inflation. Should the central bank refuse, Trump said, he’d halt all trade between the US and nations with which it maintains a trade deficit — a long list of countries that includes the biggest US trading partners.
A report found that Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s former labor secretary, created a ‘toxic, intimidating and humiliating’ work environment. An investigation by the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General found that she had violated several department rules, including misusing public funds for travel, mistreating staff and carrying on an inappropriate relationship with a member of her security detail. The report surfaced new details on the series of scandals that led to Chavez-DeRemer’s resignation back in April.
John Fetterman is avoiding his work in the Senate, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. A scathing report by the paper found that Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat whose views have increasingly diverged from those of his party, is frequently skipping constituent appointments and committee meetings. Instead, he’s focused on advocating for the US alliance with Israel and appearing in conservative media, as he gains in popularity with Republican voters.
Missouri’s supreme court struck down a Republican-drawn congressional map that would’ve carved up a Democrat-held district. The new map, backed by Trump, was gerrymandered to dismantle a congressional district currently held by Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat. The ruling, which held that voters would need to weigh in on the proposed changes, provoked outrage from Trump and Republican state lawmakers, and dealt a blow to Republican efforts to use redistricting to preserve their control of the House.
The justice department on Friday indicted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent for allegedly lying in an attempt to justify shooting a man in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown earlier this year.
According to the indictment unsealed Friday, Christian Castro, the ICE agent, had initially told investigators he shot a man in self-defense after multiple assailants tried to beat him with a shovel and a broom.
In reality, according to the indictment, Castro had faced no such threat. Instead, he allegedly shot the wounded man, Julio Sosa-Celis, through the door of his residence as he fled from Castro.
Before the shooting, Sosa-Celis allegedly rushed out of his residence to try to help extricate another man Castro was attempting to arrest, and who had fled on foot from a traffic stop. After a brief scuffle, the two men fled back inside the house, where the other man also lived.
According to the indictment, the altercation that preceded the shooting had lasted roughly 11 seconds, not three minutes, as Castro first reported.
It’s a rare case of Trump’s Justice Department charging an immigration officer in connection with a use of excessive force, after several such high-profile shootings have soured the public on his mass deportation campaign.
Details of the indictment were previously reported by the Associated Press on Thursday. The outlet reported today that Mr Castro pleaded not guilty during his Friday hearing.
Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order related to beef today, sources told Reuters.
One of the sources said the order would pertain to country-of-origin labeling for beef. Trump is scheduled to sign the executive order behind closed doors at 1.30pm ET, the outlet reported.
Trump said last week he would look into whether there were too many regulations restricting ranchers from slaughtering their own cattle. He also signed last week an order to temporarily increase imports of some lower-tariff beef in an effort to bring down consumer beef prices, which have hit record highs this year.
Trump has been sharply criticized, including from members of his own party, since announcing the US will temporarily import up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef without charging higher tariffs.
Trump’s departed labor secretary created ‘toxic, intimidating and humiliating’ environment, report says
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who was Trump’s first pick to run the US Department of Labor before resigning in April amid a flurry of scandals, broke several of the agency’s rules during her chaotic tenure, the agency’s internal watchdog found in a report published yesterday.
Chavez-DeRemer’s violations included – among other things – abusing public funds for personal travel, regularly drinking alcohol during work, and having “an inappropriately close and unprofessional relationship” with an agent on her protective detail, according to the report.
She also had government workers carry out personal tasks for her and accepted gifts without reporting them through the official channels, the department’s office of inspector general found. The office noted that 38 witnesses described the environment created by Chavez-DeRemer and her top staff, as “toxic, intimidating and humiliating”.
The report shed new light on the excesses of one of Trump’s lesser-known, but highly embattled, cabinet picks. Details of the investigation, including allegations of employee abuse, workplace drinking, and an affair between Chavez-DeRemer and a colleague, have been reported on since early this year.
The US Department of Transportation opened an inquiry on Thursday into Tesla’s new CyberCab, the company’s latest take on a self-piloting robotaxi.
The service debuted this week in Austin, Texas. Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk, billed it as “the future of transportation” in a post to social media.
Just one problem, according to the Department of Transportation: Tesla informed regulators that the vehicles were compliant with the agency’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. But the CyberCab lacks some crucial components, namely “conventional manual controls, such as a brake pedal, gas pedal, steering wheel, and mirrors,” which would typically be necessary to meet those criteria, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Now, the agency is reviewing how Tesla decided its vehicle met federal guidelines.
“Among other things, NHTSA will consider the extent to which Tesla’s certification depended on determinations that certain FMVSS are inapplicable to the Cybercab,” the agency continued.
