THE WAR ROOM: President Trump said at an afternoon press conference that he triggered the Iran war because they were going to strike first and, “They were going to take over the Middle East.” He said, “The Middle East countries are very lucky that I was President instead of somebody else.”

   The Iran war is “very complete, pretty much,” Trump told CBS News earlier in the day. He said: “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force. Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones. If you look, they have nothing left. There’s nothing left in a military sense.”

  The US fired off $5.6 billion worth of munitions in just the first two days of the war.

  Trump did not say that the US and Israel are about to stop dropping bombs and Iran shows no sign of surrender. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday told “60 Minutes” that “This is only just the beginning.”

   As oil prices surge during war in the world’s critical oil-producing region, Trump assured The NY Post that he’ll take care of it. “I have a plan for everything, OK?” he told the tabloid. “I have a plan for everything. You’ll be very happy.”

  The current disruption of oil transportation is the biggest ever and Trump told NBC News he would not rule out seizing Iranian oil.

  White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told CBS News in a statement that the White House is in “constant coordination with the relevant agencies” on the issue of oil and gas prices and that it is a “top priority” for the president. “As the President said last night,” Rogers continued, “this is a short-term change in oil prices, which will drop dramatically once the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are achieved.”

SUCCESSION: Trump said the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the recently killed Ayatolla, to succeed his father Ali as Iran’s Supreme leader is a “big mistake.”

  “Leaders are gone or counting down the minutes until they will be gone,” Trump said in a continuation of his death threats. He said: “Think of it. We had leaders and they’re gone, then we had new leaders and they’re gone, and now nobody has any idea who the people are that are going to be the head of the country. And we will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.”

THE REGIME:

— President Trump said yesterday at a press conference regarding his desire to topple the government of Cuba, “It might be a friendly takeover, it might not be a friendly takeover.”

— Australia gave asylum to five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team who defected from their hotel room. The women had been declared traitors for refusing to sing their national anthem before the opening match in the Asia Cup tournament. 

  President Trump also offered asylum but noted that some team members feel they must go home because of threats to their families.

— The artificial intelligence company Anthropic sued the Trump administration yesterday, calling on federal judges in San Francisco and Washington to block a government order forbidding military contractors from partnering with them on the grounds that the company poses a risk to national security.

  “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” the company said in its complaint. Anthropic has been demanding that the Pentagon not use its AI “Claude” for mass domestic surveillance or to drive fully autonomous weapons.

— In a widening hunt for fraud or irregularity in the 2020 presidential election, the FBI has subpoenaed the Maricopa County, Arizona legislature for the records of its audit of the vote. The FBI previously seized truckloads of records from Fulton County, Georgia.

THE SPIN RACK: Two men in New York have been charged with attempting to support the Islamic State with a homemade bomb thrown near Gracie Mansion, the New York mayoral residence, on Saturday. The men, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, were arrested Saturday night after they attempted to detonate two small bombs, including one that tested positive for TATP, a highly volatile material commonly used in terrorist attacks. The devices did not explode, and no one was injured. — The Trio of Alexander brothers, Alon, Oren, and Tal, two of whom were among the country’s most prominent luxury real estate brokers, were convicted in Manhattan yesterday of engaging in a yearslong conspiracy to traffic women and girls for sex. They face life in prison.

THE OBIT PAGE:  Alexander Butterfield, the aide who revealed that conversations in Richard Nixon’s Oval Office were tape recorded, leading to the downfall of the President in the infamous Watergate scandal, has died at age 99 in San Diego.

  Testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee, Butterfield revealed the existence of “the smoking gun” regarding the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee. The tapes revealed that Nixon was deeply involved in the coverup.

— Bo Gritz, a decorated Special Forces officer during the Vietnam War who later conducted private raids into Laos searching for American prisoners before becoming prominent in far-right politics, the militia movement, and conspiracy-mongering, died last month in Sandy Valley, Nevada. He was 87.

  Gritz in the 1990s became a popular figures of the radical right, especially after he negotiated an end to a standoff between federal agents and an anti-government activist named Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992. He liked to talk. When you put Gritz in front of television cameras it became a long afternoon. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  A headline in the Boston Globe asks, “Much of Concord is a dead zone for cell service. What would Thoreau think?”

  Well, his mother’s house was just a short walk from Walden Pond so he could go there and use the wall phone in the kitchen.

-30-