No Way to Win & No Way Out: Trump's War on Iran Metastasizes

Okay, deep breath: Here are the news stories that deserve your attention for the week July 26, 2026:

#1) War on Iran

On Saturday night, President Trump announced that he was — once again — calling off a major escalation in the US and Israeli war on Iran. Once again, he claimed Iran had asked him to hold off, that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen, and that Iran would end its nuclear program. In the same post, he appears to say a "deal" to end the war has been reached — and then implies one hasn't.

The post doesn't make a lot of sense. And maybe that's the point. Or maybe he's an idiot. Or both.

If all of this sounds like deja vu, and you're hella confused and frustrated, you're not alone.

We're five months in, and the war is entering its 23rd week. Sold as an urgent, necessary 4–6 week engagement, there appears to be no good way to end it — except perhaps to admit defeat, learn and move forward peacefully. Trump refuses to do that. So while the war ebbs and flows, it continues to trend toward dangerous — and this week it stopped being contained to Iran, pulling in Iraq and, for the first time, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Here's how the week unfolded:

• You might recall that last weekend – after days of trading strikes with Iran, during which time four US service members were killed – Trump also said he was de-escalating. The New York Times reported that, at the time, advisers had warned him to take it down a few notches.
  • "The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor... Mr. Trump and his top aides are also uneasy about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies who are vulnerable to Iranian attack, a global economic crunch, and growing energy and refugee crises," the paper reported.
  • So, from last weekend through the early part of the week, the US paused strikes altogether. Trump claimed he was giving negotiators room, but warned that if nothing materialized he'd return to "very strong military action." Iran denied any talks were happening at all.
  • On Tuesday, the US and Saudi Arabia said they had attacked Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, accusing them of attacking Saudi oil and gas facilities. The Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) – which claims they had nothing to do with the attacks on Saudi infrastructure – said 20 of its members were killed and dozens wounded by the US-Saudi attacks. Iraq's government – which also denied involvement in or prior knowledge of attacks on Saudi Arabia – called the US-Saudi attacks on them a "flagrant violation of sovereignty" and asked Saudi Arabia for evidence to support their claims.
  • In retaliation, the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan (also referred to as Al-Azraq Air Base) — the same base where three US service members were killed by Iranian strikes earlier this month. CENTCOM said the missiles were intercepted and there were no casualties. In a Fox interview, Trump said he'd "beat the f—ing s— out of [Iran]."
  • The US fired back. In one attack, the US appears to have dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a home in a densely populated area of Iran's Qeshm Island, with no known military target nearby, The New York Times reports. The strike killed a taxi driver, his wife, and their two-year-old, and orphaned their other two children, who had to be pulled from the rubble, according to Iranian officials. The IRGC said three of its members were killed in other strikes.
  • Then, Iranian state media claimed the IRGC hit the same US base in Jordan — this time claiming it killed US personnel, destroyed three F-35s and damaged three more — and also hit US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. US Central Command denied any aircraft were hit, saying the missiles were intercepted or failed. They did not address the casualty claim.
  • Meanwhile, a drone set two gas vessels ablaze at the Egyptian port of Damietta including the US-owned Energos Winter — which was badly damaged. No one has publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. Iran has denied responsibility. But the attack poses a "new threat to shipping through the Suez Canal, one of the last major export routes available to Saudi oil amid the expanding U.S.-Iran war," Reuters reports.
  • By Saturday, August 1, US embassies were urging Americans across the Middle East to prepare to evacuate, citing "the potential for unforeseen escalation." Hours later — after meeting his Cabinet at Camp David — Trump was back to claiming Iran was begging him to stop and that the US would oblige.
• Here's another wrench in this week.
  • Netanyahu — who is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes in Gaza — met Trump on Tuesday, the same day that the US and Saudi announced joint strikes on Iraq.
  • The last time Netanyahu met Trump, in early February, he used a Situation Room meeting to convince the president to join Israel's attack on Iran — sold as a way to topple the regime, end its "dangerous" nuclear program, and install a US ally (read: puppet).
  • Whether these events – the Netanyahu meeting + roping Saudi Arabia into the war – are connected remains unknown. But the timing is striking: Netanyahu's visit coupled with strikes launched from Iraqi territory pulled Saudi Arabia deeper into the conflict. It's also no secret that Israel has been operating on Iraqi soil for some time.
  • By the end of this week, though, it was Saudi Arabia that talked Trump down from the ledge. Axios reports that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) asked Trump to pause, per three unnamed sources. Saudi state media confirmed the two spoke by phone and that MBS urged diplomacy.
  • Earlier in the week, Axios reported that MBS's brother — Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman — delivered the same message to Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Per a source: "Prince Khalid told Vance that Netanyahu is pushing for escalation with Iran while Saudi Arabia wants de-escalation because it is a more fruitful path…"

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#2 & 3) Free Palestine: Gaza & the West Bank

On Thursday, President Trump — who has described himself as overseeing the so-called "Board of Peace" — announced that Hamas had agreed to disarm for the first time. Israel has been demanding it, Hamas has resisted until now.

• Drop Site News published what it says is the proposed disarmament roadmap, detailing how Hamas's weapons would be inventoried and surrendered.
• Hamas confirmed the announcement but said its agreement was conditional on Israel fulfilling its obligations under the first phase of the October 2025 ceasefire deal. That phase required Israel to withdraw from Gaza in stages (it has not), permanently end military operations (it has not), and allow in the agreed-upon humanitarian aid (it has not).
• Trump said Israel supports the agreement, but the Israeli government has not publicly endorsed it. Instead, Al Jazeera reports that a senior Israeli official said Israel would not withdraw from its current positions in Gaza until it determines Hamas has genuinely disarmed, arguing that doing so would allow the group to rebuild.
• So why aren't Israeli officials thrilled that this thing they've been screaming about for so long as the thing that's holding up all peace in the Middle East is happening? Because leaving Gaza is probably not going to get Netanyahu the political points he desperately needs. It might just be "electoral suicide," Al Jazeera notes:
  • "Netanyahu's likely best chance of avoiding a jail sentence if he is found guilty of numerous corruption charges rests on him winning the October elections... A May poll found that 82 percent of Jewish Israeli respondents supported the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in Gaza – the same poll found that 56 percent of respondents supported the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel from their homes too."

The situation in the West Bank continues to escalate after armed Israeli settlers trespassed into the West Bank village of Tal last weekend, where four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed.

• Israel initially said a Palestinian man attempted to seize an Israeli soldier's weapon before being "neutralized." Now, +972 Magazine reports that video analysis indicates that man was unarmed when Israeli forces fatally shot him. Israeli also reported that one Israeli soldier who was killed died from friendly fire – not killed by Palestinians.
• Still, the collective punishment of Palestinians has been swift.
  • Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered Israeli forces to take over a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank and expel its residents. Hamas condemned the move as a "fascist and terrorist call," according to the Jerusalem Post.
  • Israel continued confiscating Palestinian land and
  • settlers also set fire to a newly built mosque.
  • Israeli settlers marched near the village of Tal again this week, this time shooting a Palestinian man in the stomach, AFP reports.
• Palestinian sources cited by Al Jazeera say more than 11,000 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers were recorded during the first half of 2026. The United Nations says at least 77 Palestinians — including 18 children — have been killed by Israeli settlers in 2026. During the same period, at least three Israelis have been killed by Palestinians.

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#4) Immigration

Two major developments this week related to Trump's "immigration" agenda:

First, more than 350,000 Haitians officially lost Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and now face deportation after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the Department of Homeland Security's decision ending the program could take effect.

• The decision is already "triggering mass layoffs that threaten to disrupt summer travel and destabilize an array of essential institutions and industries up and down the East Coast and across the Midwest," The Washington Post reports.
• Nursing homes have fired hundreds of workers — including nursing assistants, dietary aides and housekeepers — while airports in cities including Boston and Fort Lauderdale have laid off janitors, cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants.
• Haitians across the country — many of whom have lived in the United States for years — now face an uncertain future.

Second, the Trump administration also finalized a rule that would send nearly 450,000 asylum cases directly to Department of Justice immigration judges.

• Under the policy, judges can dismiss certain cases without holding a hearing, meaning some asylum seekers could be deported before ever presenting their case, The Washington Post reports.
• One example of what's at stake: After ICE deported her husband to Guatemala, a Missouri woman abandoned her pending asylum case and self-deported with their three daughters because she feared being separated from them. Weeks later, she and her husband were found bound and shot to death in a Guatemalan sugarcane field. Their 14-month-old daughter was found alive beside their bodies. The couple's two older daughters are now orphaned, Brian Munoz of St. Louis Public Radio reported.

Related

• The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — created to help reunite unaccompanied migrant children with family members without fear of deportation — has shared information with immigration authorities during Trump's second term, leading to roughly 12,000 arrests after tips from the agency, Reuters reports.
• The Guardian reports that the Trump administration subjected at least one immigrant on a hunger strike in detention to forced medical treatment — a practice medical associations and international human rights groups have described as torture.
• Immigration enforcement is expanding at airports. The Washington Post reports that ICE has increasingly detained travelers at airports serving the Washington, DC area, including people who entered the US legally but later overstayed their visas.
• Two federal appeals courts rejected the Trump administration's effort to hold immigrants indefinitely without bond hearings, finding the government had stretched immigration law beyond its limits, Politico reports. Appeals courts now split 6-2 against the administration on the issue, and one of the opinions rejecting the policy was written by a Trump-appointed judge.

#5) The GOP's Fauci Obsession

Dr. Anthony Fauci was dragged before the Senate Homeland Security committee this week in a hearing that was delusional, punitive and a mockery of science.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has had it out for Fauci for years, and has long said he wants him jailed over the Covid-19 pandemic. Ahead of the hearing Paul released more than 1,100 pages of what he's calling Fauci's "diary" — really notes Fauci took on a government-issued laptop during his years in government. Paul got them from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose office undertook a "months-long effort to scour 11 government servers to reassemble Fauci's diary and turn it over to Paul," The Washington Post reports.

But the diary isn't a bombshell. It undercuts Paul's own claims that Fauci knew the virus came from a lab in China. But Fauci's own entries call the Wuhan wet market an "amplifier," "not the source."

At the hearing, Fauci — on his lawyer's advice — invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times across roughly three hours, for everything from the substantive to, effectively, "what day of the week is it." He called Paul's pursuit an "unhinged obsession."

Paul had Fauci's attorney David Schertler removed by Capitol Police for talking too much, and Sen. Bernie Moreno – asking Fauci about his Covid policies – screamed, "Who the f*ck do you think you were?"

Me, in my head: "Um, Dr. Anthony-Fucking-Fauci."

Paul scheduled a contempt vote for Wednesday, Aug 5. If it passes, the case gets referred to the DOJ.

Florida's attorney general has also opened a state probe, which matters here, because while President Biden pardoned Fauci in 2025, anticipating exactly this kind of retaliation from Trump and his allies, the pardon doesn't cover perjury or state charges.

All in all, this is pay back against a man of science who – while not perfect – was adored by the American public and Hollywood royalty, something Republicans like Trump wish for but are unworthy of.

• Capitol One is fighting back against a lawsuit accusing them of shutting down bank accounts for the Trump Organization on political grounds. Instead, the bank says it did so under suspicion of money laundering. "Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of money laundering. ​But Friday’s filing argues that “documents and Plaintiffs’ own ‌allegations make clear that Capital One closed ‌Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons," The Guardian reports.
• Trump threatened to withdraw Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general rather than agree in writing to eliminate the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” created under the administration’s settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. Blanche needs every Republican on the Judiciary Committee to advance his nomination. After two postponements, a committee vote now appears unlikely before the August recess.
  • Two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee — John Cornyn (TX) and Thom Tillis (NC) — have said they will not support Blanche unless the agreement is rewritten. Cornyn wants the fund permanently eliminated in writing and the audit protections narrowed to apply only to the Trump family’s past tax returns. As written, senators fear the agreement could also shield future returns from audits.
  • Trump responded by saying he would keep Blanche on as acting attorney general — which he can legally do — and renominate him after January 2027, when Tillis will have retired and, Trump hopes, Cornyn will be out of office. Trump has already endorsed a primary challenger to Cornyn and recently accused him of flip-flopping. But Cornyn shot back on X: "POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis."
• President Trump's company, Truth Social, will begin selling subscribers faster access to the president's posts. While other social media companies sell premium features, none are owned by the president of the United States — a position with the power to move financial markets.
  • "Just this month, Trump has threatened on Truth Social to slap higher tariffs on Canada, kill a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and widen the Iran war. With advance knowledge, traders betting on a plunge in the Canadian dollar, a drop in nuclear energy stocks and a jump in oil futures could have raked in big profits... 'If this was the CEO of a public company, this would be jail time,' Irene Aldridge, head of Able Alpha Trading, told the AP. 'We have a President of the United States who has the front seat to all the action, who makes all the decisions, and he's disclosing this ahead of time to a select group.'"
• Trump is furious that the Justice Department is dropping charges against a man accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool — because prosecutors now say there's no evidence he did it.
  • "The dismissal was an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump's claims and billed the prosecution as accountability for damage at a Washington landmark," the AP reports.
  • Court filings say documents provided by the Interior Department after the indictment showed the damage was actually caused by a botched installation and "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration." Trump, meanwhile, continues to insist vandals were responsible without presenting new evidence.

• Mitch McConnell is still in rehab apparently, and hasn’t been seen in public for more than 6 weeks after suffering a fall. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear demanded McConnell directly and verbally address his constituents or resign. McConnell has only released written statements and a couple of photos.
• Trump is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the $83.3 million judgment against him for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store in the 1990s. A jury later found that Trump's 2019 statements accusing Carroll of lying were defamatory and awarded her $83.3 million in damages.
• Senior administration officials directed the Secret Service to track former FBI Director James Comey's cell phone — even after being advised it could be illegal — following Comey's "86 47" seashell post, according to court filings by Comey's attorneys, MS NOW reports. They're seeking to dismiss the indictment against Comey. The Secret Service reportedly told the White House it was unlikely Comey posed a genuine threat to Trump, who was traveling in the Middle East at the time. Officials tracked Comey's phone anyway and later brought him in for questioning. According to the filings, Trump also appeared interested in using the matter for political messaging: "POTUS was requesting a copy of the interview notes to use in his 6 p.m. press conference."

• The deadline to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its 6–3 ruling limiting nationwide injunctions in the birthright citizenship case has passed. Trump had said he would seek reconsideration but ultimately did not. As the AP notes: "A petition would face long odds: The court has not agreed to rehear an argued case in more than 50 years."
• Jay Clayton, a securities lawyer and former SEC chairman with no intelligence background, will now oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. He was confirmed by the Senate, 51–47 along party lines. Democrats initially appeared open to his nomination but he lost that support when he refused to say who won the 2020 election during his confirmation hearing.

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