Trump repeats false claim Iran was ‘two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon’<\/p>\n
Speaking in Alaska, Donald Trump<\/a> is once again airing a list of familiar boasts and grievances, many of which are based on claims that are entirely untrue.<\/p>\n Trump repeated his false claim that he had to start his war on Iran because, \u201cthey were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon\u201d.<\/p>\n In fact, two months into Trump\u2019s second term, US intelligence agencies reported to Congress in 2025<\/a> that Iran had suspended its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003.<\/p>\n Despite that assessment, in the summer of 2025, Trump ordered the US bombing of Iran\u2019s nuclear enrichment facilities which he later claimed had \u201cobliterated\u201d the country\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n Eight months later, in February 2026, Trump announced that a full-scale war on Iran was necessary to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n The president also claimed, as he has previously, that the media unfairly blamed him for high prices less than 24 hours into his second term.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had the worst, literally the worst inflation in history,\u201d Trump said, incorrectly.<\/p>\n He then told an imaginary story he has repeated frequently in recent weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cThen I came into office on January 20th,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd I had a news conference on January 21st, a day after, and they started screaming, \u2018Affordability! What about affordability?\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ve only been here for one day.\u2019 It\u2019s not even a day, because it was a little less than the 24 hours. No, \u2018I\u2019ve only been here for a short period of time. What are you talking about?\u2019 \u2018Prices are high!\u2019 they said.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, no such exchange took place at Trump\u2019s first news conference with reporters on 21 January 2025 during which he announced AI infrastructure investments and was mainly pressed on the pardons he signed the day before for Capitol rioters convicted of violence against police officers on January 6 2021, in support of his attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election.<\/p>\n A review of transcripts reveals that the president was not confronted about persistent high prices for months after he took office.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n Closing summary<\/p>\n This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration<\/a> for the day. Here are the latest developments:<\/p>\n In Alaska, Donald Trump repeated his false claim that he had to start his war on Iran because, \u201cthey were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon\u201d. In fact, US intelligence agencies reported to Congress in 2025<\/a> that Iran had suspended its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003. Despite that assessment, in the summer of 2025, Trump ordered the US bombing of Iran\u2019s nuclear enrichment facilities which he later claimed had \u201cobliterated\u201d the country\u2019s nuclear program. Eight months after that, he launched a full-scale war on Iran justified, he now says, by Iran being just weeks away from getting the bomb.<\/p>\n Aboard Air Force One on his way to Alaska<\/a> for a campaign rally, the president of the United States posted video of a British man who was fatally mauled by a tiger last week on his social media platform with the mocking caption: \u201cDon\u2019t ever mess with nature!\u201d<\/p>\n The new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, passed on an opportunity to set the record straight on whether she is licensed to practice law anywhere in the United States. Asked \u201cWhere did you pass the bar exam?\u201d Zacharia just said: \u201cI moved to China.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump concludes Alaska rally by promising to dole out money if Republicans win<\/p>\n Donald Trump has just wrapped up his campaign rally for Republican candidates in a Wasilla, Alaska sports center by promising to give voters cash payments and favors if his party wins.<\/p>\n In yet another remarkable breach of protocol, and likely the Hatch Act, a federal law that bars government officials from partisan campaigning, Trump invited his Federal Communications Chair, Brendan Carr, to the stage and promised that the FCC would vote \u201cto invest an additional $162 million to expand high speed internet in Alaska<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, Trump ended his speech with a more direct appeal.<\/p>\n \u201cSo in conclusion, if you elect a Republican House and a Republican Senate November 3rd, you get $5,000,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump again claims South Korea agreed to invest $50bn in Alaska pipeline despite Korean denials<\/p>\n Speaking in Wasilla on Tuesday, Donald Trump repeated his claim that South Korea has agreed to spend $50bn to build a liquefied natural gas pipeline in Alaska, just days after Alaska Public Media reported<\/a> that Korean officials told state lawmakers in Anchorage that the country had not agreed to invest in the pipeline and would consider investing in the project if it\u2019s commercially reasonable.<\/p>\n In an Oval Office announcement<\/a> last month, Trump, flanked by senator Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican facing a tough re-election battle, said<\/a> that South Korea had agreed to pay for an 807-mile (1,299km) pipeline to carry natural gas from Alaska\u2019s North Slope to a liquefaction facility on Alaska\u2019s southern coast.<\/p>\n The Korean investment, Trump said, was part of a $200bn package of US projects that South Korea agreed to in 2025 as part of a trade deal in exchange for lower US tariffs on South Korean cars, auto parts and other products.<\/p>\n The next day, however, South Korean officials insisted<\/a> that they did not \u201cagree to a specific dollar figure\u2014or even to invest at all.\u201d<\/p>\n South Korea\u2019s industry ministry said that the government had only agreed to \u201cinitiate a review\u201d of the pipeline deal.<\/p>\n South Korea\u2019s industry minister, Kim Jung-kwan, took issue with to Trump\u2019s characterization of the country\u2019s Alaska<\/a> LNG investment. \u201cPutting out figures, or using definitive language, goes far beyond what was agreed,\u201d he said at a briefing for reporters.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump repeats false claims about foreign investment, military bonuses and praise from Saudi king<\/p>\n In his remarks to supporters in Wasilla, Alaska, Donald Trump<\/a> is boasting about his own record in office by repeating a large number of false claims.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most important lie is his imaginary claim that he has secured $21tn in foreign investment during his second term. As CNN has reported, the figure, which he keeps inflating, is fictional.<\/p>\n double quotation markA detailed CNN review<\/a> in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about \u201cbilateral trade\u201d or \u201ceconomic exchange\u201d rather than investment in the US, and vague statements that didn\u2019t even rise to the level of pledges.<\/p>\n The White House figure includes pledges from US-based companies as well as foreign entities. Federal data<\/a> published last month shows that new foreign direct investment in the US was about $232 billion in 2025.<\/p>\n Trump also claimed that \u201cjust recently I gave all members of our military $1,776,\u201d which he called \u201ca bonus\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re doing well, we\u2019re kicking ass in Iran. And I said, \u2018You know, let\u2019s give them some money. What can we do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the money was not a bonus to service members but a planned housing benefit included in previously appropriated congressional funding.<\/p>\n The president also told his admiring supporters another fictional tale that has become a fixture of his speeches, about how he Saudi king had praised him for almost instantly turning around the US economy during his visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cLess than two years ago- they would tell me, king of Saudi Arabia, many of the leaders, they\u2019d say, \u2018You know, just a short time ago, your country was dead. We never thought it had a chance.\u2019 They never did. They disrespected us. They laughed at us. They don\u2019t laugh anymore,\u201d Trump said. \u201cNow they said, \u2018\u2018Sir, you\u2019re the hottest country anywhere in the world.\u2019 We\u2019re the hottest country in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Guardian has reported previously, Trump did not meet the Saudi king, who is elderly and not often seen in public, during his visit last year. Instead, he was hosted by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. There is also no evidence that the Saudi prince made this statement to Trump, but there is video of Trump making a version of that claim to bin Salman during an address<\/a> to a US-Saudi investment event in Riyadh on 13 May 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cThe days of economic misery under the last administration are rapidly giving way to the greatest economy in the history of the world,\u201d Trump said before directly addressing the crown prince in the audience. \u201cWe are rocking. The United States is the hottest country, with the exception of your country, I have to say, right? \u2026 No Mohammed\u2026 You\u2019re hotter. At least as long as I\u2019m up here, you\u2019re hotter. But groceries, gasoline, energy and all other prices are down with no inflation. We have no inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n Two weeks after his return to the US, Trump began saying that this observation had been made not by him, but to him. \u201cI went to Saudi Arabia,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office<\/a> on 28 May 2025. \u201cThe king told me, he said, \u2018you got the hottest com-\u2019 we have the hottest country in the world right now.,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSix months ago this country was stone cold dead. We had a dead country.\u201d<\/p>\n As he repeated the story, again and again, Trump began to also attribute his own claim, that the US was \u201cdead\u201d under Joe Biden, to the Saudi king as well. In remarks at the Nato summit<\/a> in the Hague in June 2025, Trump insisted that the Saudi king had told him: \u201cA year ago, your country was dead. You had a deadhead running it. You had a country that was dead\u201d.<\/p>\n Since then, Trump has repeated the tale dozens of times.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump repeats false claim Iran was ‘two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon’<\/p>\n Speaking in Alaska, Donald Trump<\/a> is once again airing a list of familiar boasts and grievances, many of which are based on claims that are entirely untrue.<\/p>\n Trump repeated his false claim that he had to start his war on Iran because, \u201cthey were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon\u201d.<\/p>\n In fact, two months into Trump\u2019s second term, US intelligence agencies reported to Congress in 2025<\/a> that Iran had suspended its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003.<\/p>\n Despite that assessment, in the summer of 2025, Trump ordered the US bombing of Iran\u2019s nuclear enrichment facilities which he later claimed had \u201cobliterated\u201d the country\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n Eight months later, in February 2026, Trump announced that a full-scale war on Iran was necessary to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n The president also claimed, as he has previously, that the media unfairly blamed him for high prices less than 24 hours into his second term.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had the worst, literally the worst inflation in history,\u201d Trump said, incorrectly.<\/p>\n He then told an imaginary story he has repeated frequently in recent weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cThen I came into office on January 20th,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd I had a news conference on January 21st, a day after, and they started screaming, \u2018Affordability! What about affordability?\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ve only been here for one day.\u2019 It\u2019s not even a day, because it was a little less than the 24 hours. No, \u2018I\u2019ve only been here for a short period of time. What are you talking about?\u2019 \u2018Prices are high!\u2019 they said.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, no such exchange took place at Trump\u2019s first news conference with reporters on 21 January 2025 during which he announced AI infrastructure investments and was mainly pressed on the pardons he signed the day before for Capitol rioters convicted of violence against police officers on January 6 2021, in support of his attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election.<\/p>\n A review of transcripts reveals that the president was not confronted about persistent high prices for months after he took office.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump calls on Alaska to repeal ranked choice voting<\/p>\n Speaking in a sports center in Wasilla, Alaska that the town\u2019s former mayor, Sarah Palin, helped build, Donald Trump<\/a> just urged his supporters in Alaska to vote to repeal ranked-choice voting in a ballot initiative.<\/p>\n \u201cAll it is is a way to cheat,\u201d the president claimed, without a shred of evidence. \u201cYou got some guys sitting behind the table, I guess, just picking a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAny place you have ranked choice, you have damn bad cheating,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Donald Trump has just taken the stage at the 3,500-person capacity Curtis D. Menard Memorial sports center in Wasilla, Alaska.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump considers reversal on planned livestream of Fort Hood gunman’s execution – report<\/p>\n Donald Trump is rethinking defense secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, after learning that the convicted attacker is paralyzed from the waist down, CNN reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n The president \u201cwas not aware\u201d that Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend host, planned to announce, in an interview with a far-right conspiracy theorist, that the firing squad execution would be livestreamed, sources told the broadcaster.<\/p>\n Hasan has been wheelchair-bound since he was shot by a police officer during the attack he carried out to avenge fellow Muslims killed by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n According to CNN\u2019s reporting, the idea of killing a man in a wheelchair has \u201cmade showing the execution publicly less palatable to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Donald Trump arrived in Alaska a short time ago, and boarded a helicopter at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage about 30 minutes ago for the short flight to Wasilla, where he is now about 30 minutes late for a rally in support of Republican candidates, including senator Dan Sullivan, who is locked in a tight race with Democrat Mary Peltola.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Jeremy Barr<\/p>\n The BBC is asking a federal judge in Florida to force Donald Trump<\/a> to sit for a deposition as part of the president\u2019s $10bn defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster.<\/p>\n According to a Tuesday filing, the BBC and Trump\u2019s legal team had agreed for him to be deposed on Friday. The BBC\u2019s lawyers wrote to the judge that they have spent months trying to secure a location for the deposition from Trump\u2019s team.<\/p>\n On 28 September, Trump\u2019s lawyers told the BBC\u2019s counsel that the president \u201cis no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance\u201d.<\/p>\n While Trump\u2019s lawyers said they would follow up quickly with a replacement date, they did not, ultimately suggesting that he would be available in the second or third week of January, well after the deadline to complete the discovery portion of the case. Lawyers for the BBC had pledged to keep the location of the deposition confidential.<\/p>\n As such, the BBC\u2019s lawyers are now asking the judge to require Trump\u2019s team to schedule the deposition.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaintiff chose to file this lawsuit and, in doing so, he accepted the obligations of civil litigation,\u201d the BBC\u2019s motion reads. \u201cThe BBC therefore asks the Court to compel Plaintiff to confirm a date for his deposition, notify the BBC of a secure location where such deposition is possible and any other logistics required to ensure Plaintiff\u2019s safety, and sit for the deposition, as the core rules of discovery require.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump posts video of British man being fatally mauled by tiger with mocking caption<\/p>\n Aboard Air Force One on his way to Alaska<\/a> for a campaign rally, the president of the United States posted video of a British man who was fatally mauled by a tiger last week on his social media platform with the mocking caption: \u201cDon\u2019t ever mess with nature!\u201d<\/p>\n The post was signed \u201cPresident DJT\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump post, with the 41-second clip of the man, identified as William Chapman<\/a>, being attacked by the tiger inside its enclosure at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Saturday was later shared on<\/a> an official White House social media account.<\/p>\n Witnesses said Chapman, who \u201csuffered from significant mental illness\u201d according to his family, had climbed into the enclosure on Saturday before being killed by the tiger.<\/p>\n \u201cThe family are utterly devastated by their loss and are struggling to come to terms with what has happened,\u201d Chapman\u2019s family said in a statement. \u201cThe publication and circulation of deeply offensive media content is causing them severe distress at an exceptionally vulnerable time. We ask people to stop doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a018.59 EDT<\/p>\n Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook will not attend White House hearing next month, her lawyer says<\/p>\n Lisa Cook, the US Federal Reserve governor Donald Trump has been trying to fire with the persistence of a cartoon coyote, informed the White House on Tuesday that she would not attend a hearing scheduled for next month by a committee the president created<\/a> to investigate her.<\/p>\n The US supreme court ruled in June<\/a> that Trump could not fire Cook, who was appointed by Joe Biden, over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud put forward by Bill Pulte, a Republican political operative Trump put in charge of federal mortgage agencies.<\/p>\n In the \u2060letter to the White House seen by Reuters, Cook\u2019s \u200blawyer, Abbe Lowell, questioned \u2060the \u200bobjectivity of the presidential committee and said she would \u200cnot be able to attend a \u200chearing scheduled for 5 November because she would be in Europe \u201cat financial and monetary policy meetings\u201d, related to her work as a governor of the independent US central bank.<\/p>\n Lowell said the earliest that any hearing could \u200ctake place was after the Federal Reserve\u2019s policy meeting on 9 December.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>White House press secretary Katie Zacharia dodges questions about where she passed the bar exam, saying only: ‘I moved to China’<\/p>\n As she left the White House on Tuesday to accompany Donald Trump<\/a> to Alaska, the new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, passed on an opportunity to set the record straight on whether she is licensed to practice law anywhere in the United States.<\/p>\n When a reporter asked Trump how he thought Zacharia had done in her first press briefing, during which the self-described attorney delivered an impassioned defense of his record and took only three questions, all from partisan, rightwing outlets, the president replied: \u201cI thought she was very good.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House social media team quickly clipped that answer from the president and posted it online<\/a> \u2013 but left out the rest of the exchange, which began with a reporter asking, \u201cWhat state did she pass the bar exam in?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n CSPAN video of Donald Trump and his new press secretary failing to answer a question about whether she ever passed the bar exam.<\/p>\n When Trump looked puzzled and stepped closer to the reporter to hear him better over the din of a waiting helicopter, the reporter explained: \u201cYou said she\u2019s an attorney. Where did she pass the bar exam? Which state?\u201d<\/p>\n Trump turned to Zacharia and repeated the question: \u201cWhich state?\u201d<\/p>\n She stepped forward and said: \u201cI moved to China\u201d.<\/p>\n Two reporters then repeated the question: \u201cWhere did you pass the bar exam?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI moved to China,\u201d Zacharia repeated, possibly suggesting that when she took a job at a law firm in China in 2011<\/a>, shortly after she graduated from the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, she did so instead of taking the bar exam.<\/p>\n On Friday morning, Judd Legum, an independent journalist and a former research director for Hillary Clinton with a law degree from Georgetown, reported<\/a> that while the new press secretary has described herself as an attorney on cable news shows and podcasts, \u201cthere is no evidence that Zacharia ever passed a bar exam or has been admitted to practice law in any state.\u201d<\/p>\n Hannah Brandt, a correspondent for the conservative outlet NewsNation, reported<\/a> that Zacharia told her on Friday: \u201cI practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials,\u201d when she held what she called a position as \u201can associate\u201d at the Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing, from 2011-2013.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a017.52 EDT<\/p>\n En route to a political rally in Wasilla, Alaska \u2013 the town made famous by its former mayor, Sarah Palin \u2013 the president of the United States is passing his time posting disturbing video clips of people being mauled by lions, set to jaunty music, on his social media platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is not clear why, but one of the taxpayer funded ads the Trump administration prepared for broadcast was reportedly<\/a> titled King of the Jungle and compared Donald Trump to a lion and included section of Christopher Walken\u2019s lion speech from the film, Poolhall Junkies. The same audio was used in a fan-made video comparing him to a lion that Trump shared<\/a> on social media in late 2020, as he was fighting to have the results of the presidential election he lost to Joe Biden overturned.<\/p>\n A racist fan-made video Trump shared earlier this year<\/a>, also titled King of the Jingle, depicted him as an animated lion and Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n And for a view from the briefing room \u2013\u00a0my colleague David Smith reports from the White House \u2013\u00a0on Zacharia\u2019s 14-minute debut that was all \u201cstilted delivery, nervous tics and lack of eye contact\u201d.<\/p>\n Read more here:<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n While Katie Zacharia\u2019s very short briefing was certainly a surprise for many in the press corps, the view \u2013\u00a0at least publicly \u2013 from White House officials is that the new press secretary met the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cA tremendous start,\u201d wrote White House communications director Steven Cheung. \u201cShe commanded the room and effectively reminded the American people of all the great work President Trump and his Administration has done thus far.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Here’s a recap of the day so far<\/p>\n Kimberly Guilfoyle, denied allegations of engaging in misconduct in a statement announcing her resignation as US ambassador to Greece. A reminder that Guilfoyle was under immense scrutiny to step down after the Wall Street Journal reported on a series of questionable acts prior to securing her role in Athens. These included an alleged threat to a host country official, accepting improper gifts and offering to wield influence inside the administration in return for the payment of a $100,000 credit card bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n Earlier, at her first media briefing, new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia revealed that the administration had asked Guilfoyle to resign. Overall, Zacharia kept her briefing short, and only took five questions from three reporters \u2013\u00a0all from conservative outlets: Breitbart, Fox News and the Daily Mail. She said that she would travel with the president for his upcoming allies in Alaska<\/a>, Arizona and Montana, in the final three-week sprint until the midterm elections, and repeated many familiar talking points touting the administration\u2019s self-proclaimed achievements. However, she was unable to answer whether the US had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, after Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy feuded over the US president\u2019s decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel imports.<\/p>\n Donald Trump, however, took the question when he left for a campaign rally in Wasilla, Alaska later in the day. \u201cWe are helping them, and we are sharing intel. We want the war to end. So we\u2019re working with them and with Russia on getting the war to end,\u201d the president told reporters outside the White House.<\/p>\n Six Republican senators have also condemned the Trump administration\u2019s deal to lift sanctions on Russia\u2019s diesel exports in a new letter<\/a> to the president alongside Democrats. The lawmakers write that the \u201cdeal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies\u201d and call for it to be \u201crescinded\u201d. Four of the GOP senators \u2013 Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John Curtis \u2013 joined some of their Democratic colleagues on the foreign relations committee to decry the move over the weekend. All of them, as well as John Cornyn, the outgoing Republican senator from Texas<\/a>, and Mitch McConnell, the GOP senator who only recently returned to Capitol Hill after a months-long absence and will also leave Congress at the end of his term, signed on to the letter.<\/p>\n Vice-president JD Vance also said today that he \u201cdid not have advance notice\u201d that Ilhan Omar\u2019s Washington home was being raided <\/a>by federal agents. \u201cWe try to let the law follow the facts rather than creating facts just to prosecute people we don\u2019t like. And because of that, I think the president and I largely try to stay out of Department of Justice investigations and other prosecutions,\u201d Vance told reporters ahead of holding a rally in Tyler, Texas.<\/p>\n Federal judge Ana Reyes issued a temporary restraining order on Tuesday to pause tree-cutting at the East Potomac Golf Course<\/a> until 26 October. The tree-felling comes as Trump has moved to turn the course into a world-class golf venue \u2013 part of his grand vision<\/a> for Washington DC<\/a>, since the beginning of his second presidency.<\/p>\n