BLUSTER BOMBS: President Trump threatened to escalate the war with Iran, yet again, with a bunker-busting attack on what he believes to be one of the country’s nuclear facilities known in the West as Pickaxe Mountain.

  Iran says such an attack would expand the regional war. 

  The NY Times reports that most experts believe Pickaxe is a deep underground storage site and that, “No nuclear experts believe it houses the kind of working equipment to enrich uranium, and convert that material to bomb fuel, like the three major nuclear sites Mr. Trump ordered bombed in June 2025.”

  “We’ll be hitting that area probably pretty soon,” Trump said during a visit from Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, “and there’s not a thing they can do about it.” 

  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also blustered, declaring that if Iran is “going to shoot at commercial shipping, then we’re going to hit them, as the president said, 10 times harder.”

  No amount of bombing has brought Iran to surrender or anything close to it. Jordan’s military said Iran showered it with missiles and drones again this morning. 

  The Pentagon, meanwhile, identified the fourth US soldier killed last weekend as Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York.

THE PRICE OF WAR: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, appeared before the Seate appropriations Committee yesterday revealing that the Iran war has cost $37.5 billion and asking for $70 billion to cover the cost and replenish depleted weapons.

  Without specifically mentioning the war in his opening remarks, Hegseth said the Pentagon is at a “moment where we cannot afford inaction if we don’t make critical investments right now in tech, in computers, in AI, in autonomy, in space.”

  He spoke about 30 seconds before antiwar protesters interrupted him and were removed.

  Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said Democrats will not vote to give the war more money. “As a US senator,” she said, “this administration’s refusal to explain what it is doing, or how this war is protecting Americans; its refusal to seek authorization from Congress, and its expectation that Americans will just pay for it all without any explanation or transparency is disrespectful.” 

  A little off the point, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine criticized Hegseth for firing and refusing to promote Black and female military officers. She said, “This is likely to discourage well-qualified women and individuals of color from joining our armed forces, thus depriving us of their talent, dedication, and patriotism.”

  Hegseth in his testimony repeatedly lashed out at and blamed the Biden administration and former Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin for shortcomings in national defense. 

THE WAR ROOM: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky fired his top general amid growing concerns that national unity is breaking down under the pressure of war with Russia. This came just days after the firing of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, a proponent of drone warfare, had sparked public protests.

  Russia and Ukraine have engaged in intensified drone warfare in recent days. The Institute for the Study of War reports that Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks against Moscow and the surrounding region this week, striking an oil depot and logistics facilities more than 250 miles from the Ukraine.  Ukraine has also been using drones to contest Russian control of the M-14 highway, the vital artery used by Russia to run military supplies up the occupied Crimea peninsula.

  Russia this week carried out one of its biggest missile and drone onslaughts of the war, launching 40 missiles and 120 attack drones against the primary target, Kyiv.

INFINITE SCROLL:

— The Trump administration reached a deal that would allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium for use in nuclear reactors. Some US and Israeli lawmakers are opposed, saying that could lead to the Saudis having a nuclear weapon.

— The House passed a stopgap bill to fund the government through the mid-term elections but it might not go so smoothly in the Senate.

— New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill admitted that errors by the Motor Vehicle department resulted in about 6,600 non-citizens being registered to vote in the state in 2023 and 24. She said fewer than 400 of those actually voted. 

— The Trump administration is cutting off $867 million in Medicaid funds to California and $199 million to Minnesota, citing suspected fraud in in-home care and immigrant eligibility.

THE SPIN RACK: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is calling for the federal government to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him a “war criminal” and “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.” The Trump administration says “ain’t gonna happen.” Netanyahu is expected to visit New York in September. — Arizona State Rep. Alexander Kolodin, an Ivy League-educated lawyer who supports President Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election, won the Republican primary to become Arizona’s top elections official. — France passed a blanket ban for children under 15 using social media, becoming the first country in the European Union to do so in a pushback against the social harm of social media. Several French families have sued TikTok blaming the platform for teen suicides.  — A new report says that about a quarter of US employees remain in a job they don’t like to keep their health insurance.

BELOW THE FOLD: The building in which Adolf Hitler was born near the Austrian border with Germany has been converted to a police station. Austria’s government says they hope this will prevent the building from being a destination of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis.