Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Trump administration on Thursday released its yearly report that shows the salaries for White House staffers, also revealing officials who aren’t accepting salaries at all.

The report shows that the top earner in the White House is Jacalynne B. Klopp, a senior adviser who is earning $225,700 per year. She is followed by an associate counsel, Edgar Mkrtchian, who is earning $203,645 annually.

About 33 senior White House staffers, including press secretary Karoline Leavitt, chief of staff Susie Wiles, border czar Tom Homan, trade adviser Peter Navarro, adviser Stephen Miller, and Director of Presidential Personnel Sergio Gor, are each earning $195,200 per year, according to the disclosure.

There is a handful of officials listed in the report, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his capacity as national security adviser, who are being paid nothing. The current cryptocurrency czar, David Sachs, as well as U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and senior adviser Paula White, are also being paid $0.00 each, it shows.

President Donald Trump’s compensation isn’t listed in Thursday’s salary disclosure, and neither is Vice President JD Vance’s compensation.

The pay scheme for a president is provided under federal law. A president is to earn a base salary of $400,000 along with a $50,000 expense allowance.

During his first term, Trump donated his salary to government agencies. In May, he indicated he would do the same during his second term.

“I do something that no other president has done, they think maybe George Washington has done. I contribute my entire salary to the government, back to the government. And I’m doing it again,” Trump said during remarks on May 4.

“It’s a substantial salary. It’s a half a million dollars a year or $550,000 a year, four years—a couple of million dollars,” he said, making reference to the salary and expense allowances.

An archived White House page shows that Trump, during his first year in office, donated his salary to initiatives that he deemed as having “national significance,” including to the National Park Service and the Department of Education.

In May, Trump said that media outlets are refusing to cover his salary donations.

“I never got a story saying I gave it,“ he said at the time. ”Nobody cared if I gave it. I guarantee if I didn’t give it, there’d be a big story.”

Throughout his second term, Trump has vowed to slash fraud, waste, and abuse from the federal government, establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in January. That task force was headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who had worked under the Trump administration for several months before departing within 130 days, when his special government employee status expired.

In June, Trump reported more than $600 million in income from crypto, golf clubs, licensing, and other ventures in a public financial disclosure report. The annual financial disclosure form, which covered the 2024 calendar year, showed that his push into cryptocurrency added substantially to his wealth. He also reported large fees from developments and revenue from his other businesses.

Forbes magazine has estimated that Trump is worth around $5.3 billion as of Thursday.

Reuters contributed to this report.

A deadly mass shooting in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia early Monday morning left three people dead and 10 others injured, including several teenagers.

The gunfire erupted just before 1 a.m. on the 1500 block of South Etting Street, and Ring camera footage captured multiple individuals pulling out firearms and shooting, according to ABC Philadelphia.

ABC Philadelphia writes that the shooters opened fire indiscriminately—even with children nearby.

“This is coward stuff. You see the size of this block—individuals just shooting randomly into houses, into cars,” said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel.

“I mean, this is coward, wannabe thug stuff.” Officers, already responding to reports of large gatherings and loud music, were nearby when they heard the shots. Upon arrival, they found a dozen victims aged 15 to 24, including a person injured while trying to flee the scene. Authorities released surveillance images of suspects seen in the Ring footage, and at least one person has been taken into custody, though their exact role is still unclear.

🚨EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Philly Shootout Caught on Ring Cam
You’re about to watch what Democrat policies breed:

…no fathers
…no discipline
…no fear of God
…no fear of law
…no future

Just gunfire…
In broad daylight…
In a city run by soft-on-crime liberals who’d rather talk… pic.twitter.com/EwRpGhB5A3

— A Gene Robinson (@AlBuffalo2nite) July 7, 2025

The three victims killed were identified as Zahir Wylie, 23; Jason Reese, 19; and Azir Harris, 24. A 19-year-old man remains in critical condition, while other victims—including a 15-year-old girl and two 17-year-old boys—are expected to recover. “But as we do in all of our investigations, we will get to the root cause and we will bring those individuals to justice,” Bethel said.

Harris was paralyzed at age 17 after being shot and had since become an advocate against gun violence, sharing his story in hopes of preventing others from experiencing the same fate. His father, Troy Harris, described Azir as the “light” of their home and a kind, giving young man who was also a father to a one-year-old son.

At the time of the shooting, Harris was attending a cookout in the Grays Ferry neighborhood. He was shot multiple times in the back and later died at the hospital. Police recovered around 140 shell casings at the scene. Devastated by the loss, Troy said, “Taking him away took my whole family… We’re living, but a piece of us is missing,” and lamented the senseless violence plaguing communities.

Troy Harris, the father of Azir Harris, described his son as the heart of their home. “I’m broken. That wasn’t just my son. That was my friend,” he said.

“He had a big heart to be his age and he thought outside the box so much,” Troy said. “He wanted more than just the wheelchair. He wanted more to life. ”After receiving the devastating call on Monday morning, Troy said, “It was just a flashback of what happened before, but this time my boy ain’t coming home. They took a piece of me.”

Local community leader Tyrique Glasgow, who heads the Young Chances Foundation, called the shooting “past frustrating.”

Many of the young men involved, he said, had been working toward positive goals like finding jobs and attending vocational school. “To have their lives stopped by gun violence is something that is frustrating and painful,” Glasgow said. With city workers on strike, residents had to clean up the aftermath themselves.

“We are going to come together and clean it up,” he said, “but the blood and the trash and the food and the activities we were supposed to have today for our summer camp, we had to put on pause.”

Armed thieves in Mexico hijacked a truck transporting 33 tons of gold and silver concentrate belonging to the Mexican mining firm Grupo Minero Bacis, local media reported. The precious metals heist underscores a surge in highway robberies across the third-world cartel-plagued country—just south of the U.S. southern border—amid rising gold and silver prices driven by global macroeconomic uncertainty.

El Universal said the assailants blocked the tractor-trailer on a stretch of highway near Guadalajara and assaulted the driver and security, and held them hostage for nearly 1.5 hours.

“A group of organized criminals aboard two vehicles robbed a truck belonging to Fletes Durango SA de CV, which was loaded with at least 33 tons of gold and silver concentrate belonging to Grupo Minero Bacis SA de CV, bound for the port of Manzanillo,” Grupo Minero wrote in a report. 

Grupo Minero Bacis is owned by José Jaime Gutiérrez Núñez, former president of the Mexican Mining Chamber. The miner operates the El Herrero gold and silver project—an advanced exploration and semi-processing operation that produces precious metal concentrate for both domestic use and international export. 

While the truck was later recovered, the trailer with tons of gold and silver concentrate was never found. Local media identified the assailants as “organized criminals”—a term often synonymous with drug cartel gangsters.

The incident highlights the surge in highway robberies across the third world country, which now occur every 50 minutes, with cargo thefts rising over 30% in early 2025 compared to the previous year.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The planned retirement of more than 100 gigawatts of power generation capacity by the end of the decade could increase the risk of blackouts in the United States by 100 times, the Department of Energy said in a July 7 statement.

“Allowing 104 GW of firm generation to retire by 2030—without timely replacement—could lead to significant outages when weather conditions do not accommodate wind and solar generation,” the DOE said.

“Modeling shows annual outage hours could increase from single digits today to more than 800 hours per year. Such a surge would leave millions of households and businesses vulnerable. We must renew a focus on firm generation and continue to reverse radical green ideology in order to address this risk.”

Firm power generation refers to power that can be generated at all times and includes coal, natural gas, and nuclear. This is in contrast to intermittent power sources such as wind and solar, which are dependent on factors like weather.

The warning is part of the DOE’s Evaluating U.S. Grid Reliability and Security report, which criticized the “radical green agenda of past administrations” for existing generation retirements and delays in adding new firm power generation capacities, according to the statement.

This will lead to a “growing mismatch” between electricity demand and supply, driven especially by demand from AI-driven data center growth, the DOE said in the statement.

If the current schedule of planned retirements and incremental power additions remain unchanged, the country’s electric grid will be “unable to meet expected demand for AI, data centers, manufacturing and industrialization while keeping the cost of living low for all Americans,” the agency added in the statement.

Continuing on the present course will undermine America’s economic growth, leadership in new technologies, and national security, the DOE said.

While the 104 GW in retirements are set to be replaced by 209 GW of new power generation by 2030, only 22 GW of these replacements are set to be firm generation, according to the department.

“The United States cannot afford to continue down the unstable and dangerous path of energy subtraction previous leaders pursued, forcing the closure of baseload power sources like coal and natural gas,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in the statement.

“In the coming years, America’s reindustrialization and the AI race will require a significantly larger supply of around-the-clock, reliable, and uninterrupted power. President Trump’s administration is committed to advancing a strategy of energy addition, and supporting all forms of energy that are affordable, reliable, and secure.”

The DOE report is in response to President Donald Trump’s April 8 executive order calling for strengthening the reliability and security of America’s power grid.

To ensure reliable electric generation in the country and meet the growing demand for electricity, America’s power grid “must utilize all available power generation resources, particularly those secure, redundant fuel supplies that are capable of extended operations,” the order states.

The DOE issued its warning following a May report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which cautioned that parts of the United States could struggle to meet electricity demand this summer.

The NERC report cited intermittent energy sources, such as solar and wind, as posing a potential risk to the reliability of the power supply.

Protecting US Energy Security

The DOE report on grid reliability came out on the same day that Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to end “market distorting subsidies for unreliable, foreign controlled energy sources.”

The order directs the secretary of the Treasury to terminate clean electricity production and investment tax credits granted to solar and wind facilities, the White House said in a July 7 fact sheet.

It also directs the secretary of the interior to revise rules to eliminate preferential treatment given to these facilities compared to dispatchable, firm power generation sources.

“Unreliable wind and solar energy sources displace affordable, dispatchable energy, compromise America’s electric grid, and denigrate the beauty of our Nation’s natural landscape,” the fact sheet stated.

“Reliance on so-called ‘green’ subsidies threatens national security by making the United States dependent on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries.”

Some renewable energy policies are already on the chopping block after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law on July 4.

The bill terminates multiple clean energy tax credits established under the Inflation Reduction Act signed by former President Joe Biden, with some cuts taking effect as early as this year.

The electric vehicle tax credit is now scheduled to end by the end of September. Tax credits for clean energy projects will only be available if the projects are operational by Dec. 31, 2027, or Jan. 1, 2028.

Over 630 days of war later and much of Hamas’ top command has been wiped out, and large swathes of the Gaza Strip obliterated. It’s been no secret that the Netanyahu government is pursuing the complete annihilation of Hamas, ensuring that it can never again return to rule, but the reality is that the Israeli army (IDF) is still taking on mass casualties.

This shows that the Hamas insurgency, using the Strip’s hundreds of miles of tunnels, is still fierce and ongoing. “Five Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army admitted on Tuesday, in one of the deadliest days for Israeli forces in the devastated Palestinian territory this year,” regional media reports.

The five soldiers “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip,” the IDF announced. In total 14 others were wounded. Included were two that were severely wounded and “evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment.” 

They came under attack near Beit Hanoun in the north of Gaza,when improvised explosive devices were detonated, after which Israeli soldiers who sought to rescue the wounded came under fire again. Thus it’s clear that either Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants set a trap and ambush for the soldiers.

The IDF and Israeli media have described that the infantry troops were operating on foot when the blast happened. One detail which highlights the ongoing extreme difficulty of uprooting the Palestinian insurgency is that the area where the attack occurred was subject of Israeli aerial raids just prior:

The military said the area where the attack took place was targeted from the air ahead of the troops’ operations.

The Netzah Yehuda soldiers were operating under the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade as part of a fresh offensive with the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade in Beit Hanoun, which began on Saturday, aimed at clearing the area of terror operatives who remain holed up there.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X in the wake of the large-scale casualties, “For the sake of the fighters, for the sake of their families, for the sake of the hostages, for the sake of the State of Israel: this war must be ended.”

Israeli society has remained fiercely divided over Netanyahu policy, with hostage victims’ family members outraged that efforts to negotiate a deal to release the remaining captives have completely stalled.

Meanwhile, there is some activity on this front, with Qatar’s foreign ministry on Tuesday saying that renewed indirect negotiations will “need time”. The White House has been supportive of peace efforts, but has sided with Israeli actions in Gaza time and again in its public rhetoric.

“I don’t think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this,” spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said as Doha-hosted discussion entered a third day.

“What is happening right now is that both delegations are in Doha. We are speaking with them separately on a framework for the talks. So talks have not begun, as of yet, but we are talking to both sides over that framework,” he tells a Doha news conference.

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

The recycled metals industry is growing domestically and internationally, in part fueled by the rapid expansion of construction and automotive manufacturing. Now, tariffs may be giving it a boost.

The U.S. market for scrap metal recycling registered a growth of 3.7 percent between 2017 and 2021. The global recycled metals market is expected to expand 6 percent from 2025 to 2034, according to an analysis by Precedence Research. It was valued at $2.8 billion in 2024.

Recently, industry insiders say U.S. recycled metals businesses haven’t experienced any direct impacts from new tariffs, but they’ve noticed changes in demand for various alloys.

On Feb. 10, President Donald Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imports of aluminum and steel, raising that to 50 percent on June 3.

Recycled metals sourced from North America are not subject to the tariffs.

Some U.S. companies are now splitting their metal sourcing, Michael Schmied, a commodities expert and senior financial analyst at Kredite Schweiz, told The Epoch Times.

They’re using imported metals for the non-critical parts of their operations, but turning to domestic or recycled minerals for essential production because those alloys aren’t subject to import duties.

Buyers may be reluctant to pay higher prices on imported metals if recycled materials offer similar quality.

“That shift creates a baseline demand for recycled metals that didn’t exist before …. Businesses are treating domestic supply like insurance against future supply chain shocks,” Schmied said.

“I’ve noticed that the tariffs lifted prices at first, but the effect was mixed. Higher costs on imported steel nudged buyers to care more about quality and consistency, which let some recyclers pick up new orders,” he said.

Schmied said the tariffs also “raised equipment expenses and squeezed cash flow, so any upside came with extra risk.”

He said an example is metal shredder wear parts, which many in the industry import from China, and which are now subject to import duties.

“Overall, the [Trump] policy opened a door, but it also raised the stakes for everyone in the supply chain,” Schmied said.

Generally, when scrap metal is sorted and purified by a recycling company, the metal is melted down and recast—made into rolls, ingots, or sheets—depending on the type of metal and its intended purpose.

After this process, recycled metals can be sold to manufacturers for use in new products. This can be done with significantly less expense than mining new, unprocessed elements.

Jodie Brewster, senior vice president of Texas Metals & Recycling, told The Epoch Times her business hasn’t experienced any operational setbacks from Trump’s tariffs.

She said the scrap keeps coming in and the business is always able to find buyers—usually industrial manufacturers, known as “mills.”

One of the trends she has observed in recent months is a price increase for aluminum and a steep drop in the price of heavy metals, including steel.

“A truck’s worth [of aluminum] today would sell for like a dollar a pound. A year ago, that would’ve sold for 91 cents a pound,” Brewster said.

“I have active buyers who want aluminum, sometimes wanting more than we can provide.”

Dmitriy Cheban, a partner at Tennessee-based All Metal Recycling company, has witnessed a similar pattern with aluminum prices.

“All types of aluminum are wanted. You can make all kinds of stuff with it,” Cheban told The Epoch Times.

He said aluminum is the most profitable scrap metal his business takes in. He noted that part of that is due to the extreme versatility of the alloy, which is used in everything from cans to car parts, furniture, and even medical equipment.

Cheban said he can sell aluminum for between 50 cents and 90 cents a pound. Comparatively, steel is only going for about 7 cents a pound, he said.

“Other metal prices [going down], like steel, it’s from all the market uncertainty,” Cheban said.

Brewster has experienced the same with steel prices, seeing an overall drop in the demand for heavy metals in Texas mills.

The steel Brewster sells now is “shredder feed.”

Read the rest here…

Los Angeles has become ground zero in the showdown between far-left Mayor Karen Bass and the Trump administration over the removal of criminal illegal aliens. Bass—backed by a Democratic Party increasingly dominated by radical progressives and even open Marxists—has helped create a toxic and dangerous climate of defiance toward federal immigration enforcement, emboldening threats against federal agents, as evidenced by the color revolution against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles last month. 

This is the same party that, under the Biden-Harris regime, enabled—or outright facilitated—the border invasion now being reversed through large-scale deportation outflows. The Trump administration is preparing to ramp up deportations to 3,000 per day, or roughly one million per year. And now, from judicial lawfare in courtrooms to color revolution-style riots in the streets, Democrats are enraged by Trump’s deportation drive—one set to shift into high speed following the recent passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, which allocates critical funding to the Department of Homeland Security. 

Mayor Bass’s defiance has been on full display… 

Karen Bass defiantly responds to today’s ICE operation in LA:

“Last I checked, I was elected to be mayor of the city. That did not include a federal takeover….So either you believe in democracy or you don’t.”

Not sure Karen understands how any of this works. pic.twitter.com/uxGNkgjpxE

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 7, 2025

Impeding federal agents is a crime and Karen Bass appears to be doing just that in this video…..by stopping ICE and Border agents from doing their job

No one’s above the law, including Democrats

Now lock her up pic.twitter.com/eSkH1CLsty

— @Chicago1Ray 🇺🇸 (@Chicago1Ray) July 7, 2025

Karen Bass is the most incompetent DEI btch I’ve ever seen. pic.twitter.com/IaPzLmuL8R

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) July 7, 2025

With U.S. Border Patrol El Centro Sector Chief Gregory Bovino issuing a warning to the leftist mayor: “I don’t work for Karen Bass. The federal government doesn’t work for Karen Bass… She’d better get used to us, because this is going to be the new normal very soon.”

CBP Sector Chief Greg Bovino to Mayor Karen Bass:

“I don’t work for Karen Bass. The federal government doesn’t work for Karen Bass … She’d better get used to us now because this is gonna be normal very soon.”

Hero. pic.twitter.com/NG3euxUQUs

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 8, 2025

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller…  

White House Deputy Chief of Staff @StephenM: “There is an insurrectionist movement in the Democrat Party that is inspiring domestic terrorism against ICE.” pic.twitter.com/rwlV0wmYN9

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 8, 2025

Related:

• Gunman Ambushes Border Patrol Agents In Texas Amid Anti-ICE Rhetoric From Democrats

• “Get Your F**king Members In Order”: L.A. Official Calls For Mexican Gangs To Mobilize Against ICE Agents

• CNN Stunned As Majority Of Americans Back Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan

.  .  . 

One month after consumer credit unexpectedly jumped the most in 2025, when it spiked by $17.9 billion (since revised to $16.9 billion) in the month of April, moments ago the Fed released its monthly consumer credit report which showed that the yoyo action in credit-fueled consumer spending continued, and in May while total consumer credit rose a modest $5.1 billion, half of the $10.55 billion expected, it was all on the back of non-revolving credit (i.e., student and car loans). That’s because revolving (or credit card) debt slumped by $3.5 billion, the first drop in 2025, and the second biggest monthly decline since covid.

Starting with nonrevolving credit, the monthly change remained sturdy, with the total rising to a new record high of $3.749 trillion…

… although the composition is curious, with auto loans actually shrinking in Q1 by $8.5 billion to $1.555 trillion, while student loans – which for years had flatlined thanks to BIden’s repayment moratorium – soared by $27 billion in Q1 to a new record high just over $1.8 trillion, their biggest quarterly increase since the $34.1 billion spent on stuff lessons during the covid pandemic.

But, as noted above, it was revolving credit that was the standout in May and as shown below, credit card debt unexpectedly shrank by $3.5 billion to just under $1.299 trillion. 

Such sudden drops in credit card debt are always concerning and indicative of either a sharp reversal looming in the economy, or households who are stuffed with debt and no longer want – or can get – more credit for purchases. 

We expect to find out which is the right answer in the coming months. 

Authored by Matt Lamb via The College Fix,

A former teammate of William “Lia” Thomas praised the University of Pennsylvania for agreeing to keep men out of women’s locker rooms following negotiations with the Trump administration.

For the first time Monika Burzynska shared her frustrations with her alma mater for letting Lia Thomas, a male, undress and shower alongside female swimmers. Last week, the Trump administration unfroze hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds in exchange for the Ivy League university’s agreement to strip Thomas (pictured above) of his records he took from female swimmers.

The school also agreed to amend its policies to keep locker rooms and bathrooms single sex.

Burzynska shared her story recently with Fox News.

“When that season eventually began, and Thomas became a fixture in the women’s locker room, Burzynska often retreated to the corner of the room to change,” the news outlet reported.

“Other times, Burzynska timed exactly when she changed to coincide with when Thomas showered. Eventually, Burzynska opted to only change in the stalls or in the family locker across the hall.”

The head swimming coach largely ignored her concerns. While the coach called her concerns “valid” he also told her “Lia is changing in your locker room and there’s nothing you could do about it.”

The coach agreed it was “not fair” but asked Burzynska not to share her frustrations but only to talk to him.

The swimmer has a “a deep sense of peace and validation,” now that men won’t be allowed in female locker rooms.

“Not only for me, but for all the girls on the team, for all the girls in the swim world and in the sport world. And I think this decision, it brought back – at least for me – a sense of fairness that had been lost,” Burzynska said. “Women’s records belong to women and that protecting the integrity of women’s sports still matters.”

She shared how she used to have compassion for individuals with gender dysphoria but the Thomas situation changed her view of transgender issues.

“I thought it must be terrible to feel like you’re trapped in the wrong body. Just be so out of touch with who you really are,” Burzynska told Fox News.

“You have these issues that are from afar and you never really quite think they’re going to touch you personally until you’re on a team with Lia Thomas and your locker is directly next to this biological male. And you would have never believed that you’d be facing this issue directly.

UPenn has agreed to right its wrongs, restore records to the rightful female athletes, and issue an apology to the women impacted by the man they allowed to compete as a woman.

Are pigs flying?

God bless @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/PZxcieyp7m

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) July 1, 2025

“And then when that happens, your views change where you still feel sorry for this person because they’re clearly so deeply lost. But then it turns into more, ‘OK, this is not fair,’”

She said UPenn is staunchly liberal and pro-LGBT, which conflicted with her conservative views.

“And so I was kind of ready to embrace that, that my views wouldn’t be welcomed because I’ve been conservative most of my life,” she said. “My beliefs are grounded in faith.”

Her testimony comports with what Paula Scanlan, another former UPenn swimmer, previously told Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire.

The decision to protect future female athletes from males who claim to be women has drawn praise from civil rights activists.

“UPenn has agreed to right its wrongs, restore records to the rightful female athletes, and issue an apology to the women impacted by the man they allowed to compete as a woman,” Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer, wrote on X.

Washington and Tehran continue their tit-for-tat he said/she said exchanges of statements and accusations, but at least they are not trading ballistic missile attacks at the moment.

Iran on Tuesday clarified that it has not requested talks with the United States over its nuclear program, as claimed by US President Donald Trump during his Monday night dinner hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “No request for a meeting has been made on our side to the American side,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei was quoted in Tasnim news agency as saying.

Trump had told reporters, “We have scheduled Iran talks. They want to talk. They want to work something out. They are very different now than they were two weeks ago.”

The US President appears to be trying to turn the ceasefire into a total ‘win’ over Iran’s nuclear program, after lingering questions on if the US bomber raids actually destroyed Tehran’s nuclear capability.

And there was this: “Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff – also present during the dinner – had even said the meeting could take place in the next week or so,” according to Al Jazeera.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has written that “we have good reason to have doubts about further dialogue.” Iran for understandable reasons fears that if it were to come to the negotiating table, it could simply get bombed again while thinking that the other side was dialoguing in good faith.

Below is a fuller explanation of where things stand by Middle East war correspondent Elijah Magnier:

Why the West Knows It Can’t Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Program — but the war was aiming to change the ruling system. The CIA and Mossad never actually intend to destroy Iran’s nuclear or missile programs — because they know they can’t. The deeper truth is this: the real target was the ruling system itself, and that effort has failed. Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, revealed he visited nuclear facilities 800 meters underground. No bomb in the U.S. arsenal can reach that depth — not even the GBU-57 bunker buster used by B-2 bombers, which barely penetrates 50–60 meters. The Pentagon wouldn’t bomb Esfahan because it knew the attack would fail. The damage to Fordow, at 100 meters deep, is very uncertain and the US knew it. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was designed with this in mind.

Centrifuges are not vertically stacked like dominoes. They’re distributed, hardened, and concealed. Enriched uranium has been relocated across multiple undisclosed sites. After the strikes, the West isn’t even sure what was damaged and what survived. But the military campaign was only a small part of the plan. For twelve days, the U.S. and Israel launched a full-spectrum regime-change operation. Intelligence networks, spies and collaborators, embedded over decades — dormant cells, saboteurs, assassins, drone teams — were activated. Assassination plots, confusion campaigns, and targeted destabilisation efforts were unleashed across Iran. This wasn’t covert — it was orchestrated in plain view.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted the Iranian crown prince, while media platforms in London and Washington amplified opposition figures. A coordinated information war was waged to fracture public trust, deepen unrest, and break the system from within. It failed. Despite the noise, the Islamic Republic withstood it. The leadership structure held firm. The nuclear program wasn’t crippled. The missile infrastructure remains intact. And the West, after unleashing decades of espionage and psychological warfare, was left with almost nothing to show. That’s why the CIA and Mossad don’t talk seriously about “destroying” Iran’s nuclear capacity anymore. Not because they don’t want to — but because they know they can’t. And their attempt to break the system from within has only proven just how durable that system really is.

To demonstrate just how contradictory Trump policy on the Middle East has been…

Fareed Zakaria and the Aspen Ideas Festival have a big laugh reminiscing about how Trump used to chastise “crazy John Bolton” for desperately wanting to bomb Iran — only for Trump to subsequently bomb Iran pic.twitter.com/We2thdFQDj

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 7, 2025

Despite White House optimism, it’s very unlikely that Iran will come to the nuclear negotiating table at this point. And if it does, there’s a very slim chance of actual progress. Iran has never backed off its insistence that it be allowed to enrich uranium as a matter of national sovereignty.