Sherman argued that Congress should approve the deal only if it has what he called later \u201cthe same gold-standard safeguards as our deal with the UAE,\u201d referring to a similar agreement with the United Arab Emirates<\/a> struck in 2009, in which the UAE voluntarily committed<\/a> to nonproliferation and agreed to not pursue domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing.<\/p>\n \u201cIs there any reason we should be bombing Iran because they won\u2019t agree to limit their nuclear program while telling Saudi Arabia we give them the green light and they don\u2019t even have to agree to these additional inspections?\u201d Sherman asked Waltz.<\/p>\n After Waltz argued that US resolutions calling on Iran to not develop nuclear weapons provided a pretext for the current US-Israeli war on Iran, Sherman suggested there was \u201cgreat hypocrisy here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSaudi Arabia is not agreeing to the additional inspections that could make sure that their program is not used \u2026 to develop a nuclear weapon,\u201d the congressman said, based on press reports of the terms of the agreement that has not yet been shared with Congress.<\/p>\n \u201cI predict someone will introduce a resolution of disapproval and I invite members of this committee who have worked with us to prevent nuclear weapons in the Middle East, from non-democratic countries, to join in that effort,\u201d Sherman said, in an oblique reference to the open secret that one nation in the region, Israel, does have nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a019.50 EDT<\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n UAE agreed not to enrich uranium in nuclear deal with Obama; will Trump’s deal with Saudis be different?<\/p>\n On its face, the nuclear cooperation agreement, commonly known as a 123 agreement (after the relevant section of the US Atomic Energy Act) signed on Wednesday by the Trump administration<\/a> and Saudi Arabia looks similar to an agreement signed in 2009 by the Obama administration and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n However, until we see the text, it is not clear if the deals are alike in one key way: whether or not the Saudis have agreed, as the UAE did, to safeguards that would block the kingdom from developing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n In the UAE deal<\/a>, first negotiated during the Bush administration, and then reworked and signed by the Obama administration on 21 May, the Emirates agreed to accept the International Atomic Energy Agency\u2019s so-called \u201cadditional protocol\u201d, which allows the agency to verify the peaceful use of all nuclear material, and affirmed its commitment \u201cto pursue a renunciation of the development of domestic enrichment and reprocessing capabilities in favor of long-term commitments for the secure external supply of nuclear fuel\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn signing this Agreement, the UAE has demonstrated its commitment to develop civil nuclear energy responsibly, in full conformity with its nonproliferation commitments and obligations,\u201d the Obama state department wrote in a 2009 fact sheet<\/a>. \u201cAmong those is the UAE\u2019s commitment not to pursue enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) within its territory, representing a marked contrast to Iran which has failed to comply with its international obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n Initial reports on the terms of the Trump administration\u2019s deal with Saudi Arabia suggest<\/a> that it could allow for uranium enrichment in Saudi Arabia, opening a potential pathway to the production of nuclear weapons in the kingdom.<\/p>\n \u201cThe deal breaks from the \u2018gold standard\u2019 of nonproliferation, which would prohibit domestic uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing,\u201d the Wall Street Journal editorial board argued on Wednesday, under the headline: \u201cSaudi Nuclear Enrichment Is a Mistake<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n The Journal\u2019s editors went on to suggest that Trump\u2019s Saudi nuclear deal will have weaker safeguards than the Bush-Obama UAE nuclear deal:<\/p>\n double quotation markThe next best way to prevent nuclear proliferation is with inspections and monitoring, but the Trump deal weakens those, too. The tried-and-true method is the International Atomic Energy Agency\u2019s Additional Protocol. The United Arab Emirates signed up for it, along with the gold standard of no domestic enrichment, as a condition of its 2009 nuclear deal negotiated largely with George W. Bush. But now the Saudis have been allowed to reject the Additional Protocol and receive U.S. support all the same.<\/p>\n The Trump Administration says it has devised a bilateral safeguards agreement of its own. But we doubt the Saudis rejected the standard protocol in favor of even stricter inspections. They are bound to be weaker, establishing the precedent that each U.S. ally can push for its own preferential monitoring.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a020.43 EDT<\/p>\n Donald Trump scoffed<\/a> at the word \u201caffordability\u201d as a political message, describing it at a campaign rally on Wednesday as a term concocted by Democratic political consultants to criticize his presidency. Yet even as the president dismissed the notion of affordability, he devoted much of his speech at Wheeler high school to touting the bread-and-butter benefits of his economic policies.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I just want you to remember that if you\u2019re paying a little bit more \u2013 a lot of it\u2019s come down now, we got it coming down very rapidly actually,\u201d Trump said in Marietta, an Atlanta suburb, casting higher prices today as a lingering effect of the Biden administration.<\/p>\n Americans are broadly disappointed with Trump\u2019s handling of the economy, with just 33% of voters approving in a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll<\/a>, an assessment that could hurt his party\u2019s hopes of bucking historical precedent and retaining control of Congress in November\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Bernie Sanders calls deal to provide nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia ‘absurd’<\/p>\n Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, expressed strong opposition to the Trump administration\u2019s deal to help Saudi Arabia enrich uranium for nuclear energy, a capability that could open the door to the repressive kingdom developing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump claims his war on Iran is about stopping an authoritarian country from enriching nuclear fuel,\u201d Sanders wrote<\/a> on social media. \u201cNow he\u2019s letting his best friends in Saudi Arabia \u2014 one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world \u2014 do exactly that. This is absurd. No nuclear for the Saudi dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Hearing echoes of US military support for Shah of Iran, Democratic congressman calls for hearings on Saudi nuclear deal<\/p>\n At House foreign affairs committee hearing on Wednesday, congressman Brad Sherman, a Los Angeles Democrat, called for an oversight hearing of the Trump administration\u2019s nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, suggesting that exporting that technology could be as big a mistake as having armed the Shah of Iran in the 1970s.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are those who think that the Saudi possession of nuclear technology is totally benign, but I\u2019ve been involved in this for a long time, and I remember when the most powerful monarch in the Middle East was a good friend of America. And the Shah got his hands on important US military technology. Thank God, nothing nuclear,\u201d Sherman said while questioning Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, and former national security adviser to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything the Shah had in 1978 was in the mullahs\u2019 hands in 1979,\u201d Sherman said, referring to the Islamic revolution that toppled the Iranian monarch and brought the theocratic regime to power. \u201cWe have no idea who is going to be running Saudi Arabia 10 years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Video of congressman Brad Sherman questioning UN ambassador Mike Waltz on Wednesday at a House foreign affairs committee hearing.<\/p>\n Sherman went onto point out that, in 2018, he and then-senator Marco Rubio had introduced the \u201cNo Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act<\/a>\u201d which would have required approval from Congress before the US could enter into a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, and a Saudi investigation into the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi – whose murder the same year in Turkey US intelligence later determined<\/a> had been approved by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.<\/p>\n Sherman argued that Congress should approve the deal only if it has what he called later \u201cthe same gold-standard safeguards as our deal with the UAE,\u201d referring to a similar agreement with the United Arab Emirates<\/a> struck in 2009, in which the UAE voluntarily committed<\/a> to nonproliferation and agreed to not pursue domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing.<\/p>\n \u201cIs there any reason we should be bombing Iran because they won\u2019t agree to limit their nuclear program while telling Saudi Arabia we give them the green light and they don\u2019t even have to agree to these additional inspections?\u201d Sherman asked Waltz.<\/p>\n After Waltz argued that US resolutions calling on Iran to not develop nuclear weapons provided a pretext for the current US-Israeli war on Iran, Sherman suggested there was \u201cgreat hypocrisy here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSaudi Arabia is not agreeing to the additional inspections that could make sure that their program is not used \u2026 to develop a nuclear weapon,\u201d the congressman said, based on press reports of the terms of the agreement that has not yet been shared with Congress.<\/p>\n \u201cI predict someone will introduce a resolution of disapproval and I invite members of this committee who have worked with us to prevent nuclear weapons in the Middle East, from non-democratic countries, to join in that effort,\u201d Sherman said, in an oblique reference to the open secret that one nation in the region, Israel, does have nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a019.50 EDT<\/p>\n At a Donald Trump<\/a> event in Marietta, Georgia, the state\u2019s Republican candidate for governor Rick Jackson pledged to ask the Georgia legislature to match the $1,000 federal contribution to childhood Trump investment accounts, and if they failed to do so, would match the figure himself.<\/p>\n \u201cHere in Georgia, we should not stope with $1000,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cI believe our legislature will approve that. If they don\u2019t I will personally donate it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackson is the founder of Jackson Healthcare, a medical staffing company. His personal net worth has been estimated to be more than $3 billion.<\/p>\n In 2024, the state of Georgia recorded a bit more than 126,000 live births, which equates to $126 million in annual contributions for Trump accounts. Georgia began the 2026 fiscal year with an unprecedented budget cushion of about $15 billion in the bank, with $9 billion in unrestricted funds. This surplus resulted from conservative budgeting that began in 2021 as a reaction to pandemic pressures. That money has become an intense political question, with Republicans<\/a> looking for ways to provide property tax relief while Democrats arguing for a broader investment in health care and child care support.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n As the US strikes again targets in Iran in retaliation for that nation\u2019s blockade of the strait of Hormuz, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claim to have attacked<\/a> two Saudi \u2060oil tankers for violating a blockade near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint for oil exports transiting the Red Sea.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, led a military intervention in 2015, triggering a year-long civil war to prop up Yemen\u2019s Saudi-backed government.<\/p>\n The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre said in an alert<\/a> issued on Wednesday night it \u201chas received a report of an incident 70NM southwest of AL SHUQAIQ, Saudi Arabia. The Master of a tanker reports being struck by an unknown projectile which has caused a fire onboard that the crew are currently fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, responded to news of the Houthi attacks by writing on social media<\/a>: \u201cEveryone saw all of this coming. This chaos was totally foreseeable and Trump chose to start this war anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a018.38 EDT<\/p>\n Trump boasts about helping defeat Jon Ossoff in 2017 special election, fails to mention his role in Ossoff’s Senate win in 2021<\/p>\n During his 75-minute address to supporters in Georgia on Wednesday, Donald Trump took some time out from boasting about what he calls his many accomplishments to attack Jon Ossoff, the incumbent Democratic senator whose withering criticism of the president has thrilled Democrats and led to calls for Ossoff to mount a 2028 presidential campaign, should he first win his reelection bid in November.<\/p>\n \u201cI fought Ossoff before, as you know, and we won. We had a great success against this guy,\u201d Trump said, fondly recalling his role in Ossoff\u2019s narrow loss in a 2017 special election in Georgia\u2019s sixth congressional district, in what was then a Republican-dominated Atlanta suburb.<\/p>\n \u201cHe reminds me of Pinky Herman,\u201d the president said. \u201cDo you ever see Pinky Herman?\u201d Trump asked, a comment that prompted some laughter from his supporters in the hall, and a scramble, among journalists, to figure out what, exactly, he was talking about.<\/p>\n It was not until fully thirteen minutes later, when Trump predicted that Ossoff\u2019s Republican challenger, Mike Collins, is \u201cgoing to beat Pee-wee Herman\u201d, that the 80-year-old president\u2019s reference to the character played by the late comic actor Paul Reubens four decades ago became clear.<\/p>\n For a president who rose to power largely through his insult-comic hits on his political opponents, it was a peculiarly low-energy jibe, given that Ossoff, who was once as skinny as the Reubens character, has now bulked up, and speaks about the president in a tone of righteous indignation that bears no resemblance to Pee-wee\u2019s squeaky voice.<\/p>\n Trump made no mention at all of the prominent role he played in trying, and failing, to stop Ossoff from winning his Senate seat in a run-off election on 5 January, 2021.<\/p>\n The night before that election, in which Democratic senator Raphael Warnock also won his seat, Trump had traveled to Georgia to speak at a rally for the two Republican candidates, senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.<\/p>\n Rather than urging voters to support the Republican candidates, Trump instead undermined confidence in the electoral system in remarks focused mainly on his claim that the presidential election just two months earlier had been stolen from him.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, Georgia! By the way, there is no way we lost Georgia. There\u2019s no way, \u2026 That was a rigged election\u201d Trump began his speech that night.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you win in a landslide, and they steal it, and it\u2019s rigged, it\u2019s not acceptable,\u201d he told the crowd, hours before Republican turnout slumped and Ossoff and Warnock were elected, swinging control of the Senate to the Democrats<\/a>.<\/p>\n Donald Trump with then-senator Kelly Loeffler at a rally in Dalton, Georgia on 4 January 2021, the night before Republicans lost a pair of Senate runoffs as Trump claimed that elections in the state were \u201crigged\u201d, despite being administered by Republican officials. Photograph: Sandy Huffaker\/AFP\/Getty ImagesShare<\/a>US announces nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that could enable kingdom to enrich uranium<\/p>\n The Trump administration signed a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday that could enable the kingdom to enrich its own uranium for nuclear reactors, US Energy secretary Chris Wright said in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to a statement from the Department of Energy, Wright and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, signed \u201ca peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement\u201d and \u201can accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n The question of what those safeguards look like, given the potential for enriched uranium to be used to make nuclear weapons, will be closely scrutinized when the agreement is sent to Congress for review.<\/p>\n The two agreements, the press release said, \u201clay the legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership that advances several priority economic and strategic objectives, including nuclear nonproliferation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese agreements reflect our two nations\u2019 shared commitment to strengthening U.S.-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,\u201d Wright said in a statement. \u201cRest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world\u2019s best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n As our colleague Patrick Wintour reported<\/a> earlier:<\/p>\n double quotation markThe timing of the announcement is controversial as the US\u2019s war with Iran<\/a> is being fought in part to prevent Tehran enriching uranium domestically and make it near-impossible for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n The US-Saudi deal is expected to last 30 years and involve US firms such as Westinghouse in developing the programme.<\/p>\n It could allow for the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia after a joint US-Saudi study. The proposal has been in discussion for years. At one point the Biden administration wanted to condition Saudi Arabia\u2019s access to the technology on normalising relations with Israel, something Saudi Arabia is still refusing to do.<\/p>\n The plan is expected to be submitted to Congress for review, where it could face opposition among lawmakers who fear a lack of monitoring safeguards to restrict Saudi Arabia\u2019s uranium enrichment.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a017.28 EDT<\/p>\n The US House of Representatives passed a $1.15tn defense policy bill in a near-party-line vote on Wednesday, after Democrats refused to back the measure amid the war with Iran and Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s push to impose new restrictions on voting nationwide.<\/p>\n A key plank of the president\u2019s plan<\/a> to spend $1.5tn on the military in the 2027 fiscal year, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed the Republican-controlled chamber by a 216-212 vote, with nearly all Democrats opposing its passage. The measure now goes to the Senate.<\/p>\n Congress passes the NDAA each year with bipartisan margins, with the measure\u2019s high cost seen as necessary to make generational investments in the military.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time in 40 years, we\u2019ve been presented a budget that accounts for the true cost of American deterrence. This topline begins to reverse the damage caused by decades of underinvestment in the US military<\/a>,\u201d Mike Rogers, the House armed services committee chair, said before the vote.<\/p>\n But the path to enactment for this year\u2019s NDAA has been complicated by the president\u2019s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran without first seeking authorization from Congress. Last week, Senate Democrats blocked<\/a> the advancement of that chamber\u2019s version of the NDAA in protest of the war, which has flared anew after a memorandum of understanding meant to spur peace talks collapsed<\/a>.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump rails against specter of ‘communism’ to supporters in Georgia<\/p>\n Donald Trump is currently delivering what is supposedly a presidential address to promote a new domestic policy, namely the investment accounts for children he calls Trump accounts, but, surrounded by supporters in Marietta, Georgia, his remarks quickly became deeply partisan, repeatedly attacking Democrats and falsely claiming the party is now filled with \u201ccommunists\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump, whose political mentor<\/a> Roy Cohn led senator Joseph McCarthy\u2019s 1950s witch hunts for imaginary communist infiltrators in the US government, made the wild claim that Democrats he called \u201ccommunists by another name\u201d want to blow up Mount Rushmore. He then proclaimed: \u201cwe declare again today that the United States of America will never be a communist country!\u201d The crowd, led by a group of die-hard Trump supporters who call themselves Front Row Joes, for their repeated presence at his rallies, broke into a chant of \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d<\/p>\n Donald Trump dances after speaking at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, on 22 July. Photograph: Saul Loeb\/AFP\/Getty ImagesShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a017.05 EDT<\/p>\n As I noted earlier, the parents of Lt Tyler Feehan accompanied Trump from Dover to Georgia aboard Air Force One, after the president attended a dignified transfer for four service members killed in the Middle East.<\/p>\n Trump addressed Feehan\u2019s family and their loss in his remarks today. \u201c[Feehan] was a person that was going all the way. He was going to be a general. He would have been a general very quickly. He was heading in that path,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/George-Chidi.jpg\")
George Chidi<\/p>\nGeorge Chidi<\/p>\n![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Chris_Stein.png\")
Chris Stein<\/p>\n