President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is accused of being in a scandal one commentator compared to the Iran-contra scandal which marred President Ronald Reagan's administration.

Describing the recent book "Princes and Theives" by investigative journalist Matthew Cole, The New York Times' Fintan O’Toole reported on Monday that "if Cole’s claims are accurate, Kushner’s political and financial relationship with the U.A.E.’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed (widely known as M.B.Z.), constitutes what must surely be the worst case of U.S. foreign policy being conducted outside the law and democratic oversight since the Iran-contra scandal during the Reagan administration in the 1980s."

O’Toole continued, "In that affair, government officials secretly sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to fund — against the explicit orders of Congress — a violent right-wing insurgency in Nicaragua. What Cole alleges is, if anything, more consequential: that Kushner worked with the U.A.E. to shape U.S. policy across the Middle East and that, in the course of this work, he was given access to bank accounts containing roughly $2 billion."

He then emphasized that none of the allegations made by Cole have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Cole’s most significant sources remain anonymous," O'Toole wrote. "Recurring attributions in his notes include “a confidential source with direct knowledge” and “author interview with source who attended the meeting.” It is equally important to acknowledge that Kushner declined to be interviewed for Cole’s book. His lawyer described Cole’s allegations as “crazy, false and defamatory” and last week threatened legal action against Vanity Fair, which published an excerpt from the book."

O'Toole added, "To Cole’s credit, he recognizes that, even after five years of digging, “much remains unknown about Kushner’s relationships and agreements with the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, especially, the United Arab Emirates.” What we have, then, is an incomplete and contested account of those dealings."

Kushner has also been faulted for his unorthodox style of communicating as a diplomat, which some experts argue lacks any appreciation for the craft of sensitive international negotiations.

"In the waning hours before the U.S. went to war with Iran, this February, Jared Kushner held a meeting with Iranian negotiators in Geneva — one last chance to avoid a conflict that would plunge the region into chaos and shock the world economy," reported reporter Derek Filkins in September. "Afterward, Kushner dismissed his counterparts as unworthy of his time. 'Lots of tricks,' he told reporters. 'They're basically playing games with us all over the place, and it's very, very slippery.'"

Filkins added, "Kushner, the boyish-looking son-in-law of Donald Trump, has been given an extraordinary brief in recent years. Along with Steve Witkoff, the president's special envoy, he has been charged with ending wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and just about anywhere else they might break out. Kushner, who is 45, has little regard for the craft of diplomacy."

President Donald Trump joked about Iran attacking a pair of liberal California cities during a campaign rally in which he defended his decision to wage an unprovoked war against the Middle Eastern country.

"It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe," Trump said at a Nebraska rally on Monday, according to MS NOW producer Kyle Griffin on X. "They can take out a city. Let them take— let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over very soon. It's essentially almost over with, and they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it."

Trump also reassured the audience that gas prices would eventually go down, reiterating a pledge that he has made repeatedly without it materializing. He similarly has frequently claimed the war would soon end, even though it has dragged on for more than half a year. In September, Trump promised that the war would end shortly after the midterm elections.

"I think the war is gonna end immediately after the election," Trump said, before repeating that "I think the war will end immediately after the election."

In order to retaliate against America for declaring war, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused gas prices to skyrocket. In August University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer told Australian journalist Tom Switzer that he believed Trump was willing to accept Iran imposing tolls on the Strait of Hormuz because he has effectively lost the war.

“It’s very simple... he has no choice,” Mearsheimer said. “He lost the war. This is a devastating defeat for the United States. Can you tell me what the United States should do to regain leverage over Iran? I actually think you can’t tell me because we have no solution.”

Speaking to AlterNet in April, an expert economist explained why gas prices are likely to remain high even after the war has wrapped up.

“I would guess that yes, destruction of Iranian (and some other) energy facilities in the Persian Gulf area will have at least a medium-term effect keeping prices for crude oil and chemical fertilizer high, and that in turn means gasoline prices may come down only slowly,” Dr. Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at the Progressive Policy Institute told AlterNet. “Same for other petroleum-based products such as plastics, skin creams, and so on. The high potential of conflict also adds risk premiums to shipping and other costs.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) cast a tie-breaking vote that will allow President Donald Trump's war with Iran to continue.

The House has left Washington, but the Senate has remained throughout the week, and in a vote on Thursday afternoon, Democrats pushed for a count on House Concurrent Resolution 89, War Powers Resolution (Iran).

CSPAN showed the votes as they ticked by, standing still at 49-49. It was unclear who may have been out of town or unable to vote. If it was a tie, it would have put Vice President JD Vance in the difficult position to support a war he disagrees with or vote against Trump.

Semafor reporter Burgess Everett was watching, recording which lawmakers voted for and against.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) voted with Democrats.

Fetterman jumped in, he said, casting his vote with the Republicans.

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), who was on Capitol Hill for an earlier vote, did not cast one for this count, Punchbowl confirmed. She was the only senator listed as not voting on the resolution.

Fetterman's larger concern is not with the Iran war specifically. His stated position is that Congress should not limit Trump’s ability to continue the military operation in Iran while U.S. forces are pursuing its objectives.

He told Fox News' Sean Hannity in April: “We have to stand [with] our military to allow them to accomplish the goals of Epic Fury.”

H.Con.Res. 89 was introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) would direct the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress passes a declaration of war or specific authorization for force. It expressly preserves the ability to defend the United States, U.S. forces, diplomatic facilities, and allies from an imminent attack, as well as defensive troop deployments and intelligence activities.

Alsobrooks has strongly stood in opposition to the Iran war, repeatedly voting for all Senate war-powers resolutions that would require U.S. forces to leave hostilities with Iran absent specific congressional authorization. Had she been there, she would have sent the bill into a 50-50 split, requiring Vance to cast the tie-breaker.

As news spread across social media, Fetterman was blasted for his vote.

"Thank you for proving our point that he just wants power just like Fetterman. You’re a sucker," said one person.

Republican Eric Daugherty sang Fetterman's praises, "Thankfully, despite being a Democrat, Fetterman knows being an IRGC apologist is NOT good for America! Now stop wasting time on these useless votes that don't actually accomplish anything even if they pass. PUT SAVE AMERICA ACT ON THE FLOOR!"

President Donald Trump's ongoing war against Iran remains unpopular both with the American public and with the international community. Now a new report reveals that experts are convinced the president's "rinse and repeat" approach to handling the conflict reveals that he lacks either a plan to win or a means of gracefully exiting.

"Foreign policy experts say the latest round of hostilities point to a reality that has become increasingly clear of Mr. Trump’s handling of the war: He has run out of options," reported by The New York Times' Erica L. Green on Wednesday. Green proceeded to interview Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist who worked in the State Department during Trump's first term.

“The strategy has been rinse and repeat, whether it’s rhetorical or kinetic action,” Bartlett told Green. “It’s been absolutely shocking how the United States has been exposed for a lack of a plan of engagement, and a lack of a plan to either win or exit this war.”

Bartlett also pointed out that Trump's repeatedly professed hope that the Iranian people might take over the government exposes the fact that he has no strategy for winning the conflict with the American military.

“When you get to the bottom,” he added, “you go back to the top of the ladder of engagement.”

In addition to Bartlett, a top think tank scholar pointed out that Trump's actions in Iran reveal that he planned on prevailing through the use of overwhelming raw power when the situation on the ground is more complicated.

“The U.S. has demonstrated its capacity, and that it continues to have one of the most effective militaries in the world,” Michael Froman, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told Green. “I think the challenge is this asymmetric warfare — where we do have the most effective military in the world, but smaller powers with far less capacity, strategically deployed, could still wreak havoc and make it difficult for us to achieve 100 percent of our objectives.”

Green elaborated on exactly how Trump's foreign policy moves in Iran have tipped his hand and revealed the weakness of the cards he is playing.

"The post followed a 24-hour stretch during which Mr. Trump’s by-now familiar playbook for the conflict was on full display," Green wrote. "The president went from boasting that Iran was defeated militarily, a 'failed nation' in economic disarray, to threatening an apocalyptic attack that would leave “very little left” of the country after it had defied his declarations and demands."

She added, "By Wednesday morning, as Iran and the United States assessed the damage of the most recent attacks, Mr. Trump was back to trolling the country on social media, asking his followers whether the United States should name the Strait of Hormuz the 'Trump Strait.' Foreign policy experts say the latest round of hostilities point to a reality that has become increasingly clear of Mr. Trump’s handling of the war: He has run out of options."

Speaking to AlterNet in April, an expert economist noted that the ongoing war is exerting pressure on the American people because — by closing the Strait of Hormuz — Iran has exacerbated America's pre-existing inflation problem.

“I would guess that yes, destruction of Iranian (and some other) energy facilities in the Persian Gulf area will have at least a medium-term effect keeping prices for crude oil and chemical fertilizer high, and that in turn means gasoline prices may come down only slowly,” Dr. Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at the Progressive Policy Institute, told AlterNet. “Same for other petroleum-based products such as plastics, skin creams, and so on. The high potential of conflict also adds risk premiums to shipping and other costs.”

He continued, “Longer-term, lots of open questions. One is whether the administration will really concede that Iran has a right to close the Strait of Hormuz and assess tolls on shipping passing through it. That would make the smaller Gulf monarchies and to some extent Iraq reliant on Iranian good will for all of their exports. Likewise, Asian countries are the main buyers of Persian Gulf energy, and their supplies would be much less secure.”

Sources inside the White House say President Donald Trump is suffering the consequences of surrounding himself with yes-men and good news as Iran continues to beat him to pieces, according to Daily Mail.

Trump unilaterally attacked Iran in February, convinced that the invasion would be quick and effective. But apparently the president kept sound advice out of the equation before he launched the assault that has been slogging on for six months. It’s not the nature of Trump to take responsibility for his own mistakes, however -- so he appears to be taking it out on his bootlicks by sidelining at least one, according to sources.

“One is a sledge-hammer and the other is a scalpel,” the anonymous source told Daily Mail, comparing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“Hegseth, among others in the president's orbit, 'tells Trump what he wants to hear,'” the Daily Mail reports, citing the insider, who echoed “concerns about Trump's 'yes-men' military advisors shared by Republicans on Capitol Hill.”

According to the Daily Mail, Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others all get a chance to update the commander-in-chief, a source familiar with the proceedings told the Daily Mail. But recently, Trump has been elevating Bessent in these settings.

The elevation of Trump’s new “golden boy” followed an explosion at a Camp David retreat earlier this month after Trump became furious that all the good news he demands from his flunkies did not live up to the reality of the war. Most notably, the U.S. military's shortage of critical defense munitions, which Trump had been convinced “had been fixed,” reported the Daily Mail.

'The environment changed,' the Trump insider said, describing a realization inside the administration that Trump simply “can't bludgeon [Iran] anymore.”

Now Bessent appears eager to step into the captain’s chair from which Hegseth was ejected.

“He's very trusted,” the source close to the president said. “It's not just on Iran, his stock is increasing. He's just more and more involved in things.”

Hegseth's allies insist the Treasury Secretary's promotion is not a demotion for the Secretary of Defense, however.

“There are limits to how much militarily will be accepted by the public and by the Congress,” a senior Department of Defense official close to Hegseth told the Daily Mail. “The economic measures complement the bombing campaign.”

The new phase is “a much better strategy,” the official added.

Top advisors and officials in President Donald Trump's administration aren't impressed with the new plan for Iran after the midterms. Following Nov. 3, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is repackaging the old strategy of endless bombing to see if they can get a "win" out of the Iran war.

“It’s moron time, again," was the comment from one Trump advisor, according to Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng.

Hegseth made a secret trip to Iran to plot with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces his election next month. According to the New York Times, “U.S. and Israeli militaries have developed specific plans for renewed strikes against Iran after the American midterm elections,” and the “targets would likely include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenal.”

Suebsaeng said officials are telling him preparations have ramped up significantly, and they're now working on a target list that will include civilian infrastructure.

"Several senior officials I spoke to are (to put it mildly) massively skeptical that revving Trump’s war machine back up will bring about the (supposedly) intended result of forcing the Iranian government to make significant concessions and end the war in Trump’s favor," he reported.

They also worry the move will worsen the U.S. economy and drag down the global economy.

The Guardian predicted in a Thursday report, “Iran will strike oil facilities, undersea cables, data centers and AI facilities across as many as seven countries in the Gulf in the event of a fresh U.S.-Israeli attack, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, has said.”

Meanwhile, Trump is saying both publicly and privately that he won't stop the Iran war before the election despite how unpopular it is. Doing so would mean admitting he was wrong and that he has lost the war.

In fact, the U.S. may even still be in the war this time next year. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told the Financial Times that the war with Iran could even last another year, a Friday report revealed.

"It’s as close to as an admission that you can get that his management of the war is now motivated by partisan politics – the obvious hope that his timing may spare him and Republican candidates the headache of p—— off the electorate right before Election Day," wrote Suebsaeng.

In the background, Trump's administration constantly claims that the war was necessary because "Iran can't have a nuclear weapon." But he won't start bombing until after the election. It prompted Suebsaeng wonder, "either his bumbling war of aggression ... is an urgent national-security imperative, as the Trump White House routinely lies that it is, or it isn’t." So why would he wait a few weeks until after the election if he was so concerned about nuclear proliferation?

To Suebsaeng, this is an open confession that the nuclear problem has nothing to do with the war to begin with.

"He’s rubbing it in your face that this is all a game to him, for him to play at his convenience and pleasure, all while his government continues to cover up the extent of U.S. casualties in a fight Trump picked for no good, sane reason," Suebsaeng closed.