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Ceasefire on the Brink — The Day Genocide Became a Negotiating Tactic

once a leader openly invokes the destruction of an entire civilization, the threshold has already been crossed. The unthinkable has been spoken—and therefore made thinkable.

April 7, 2026 , Joshua Scheer. https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/07/ceasefire-on-the-brink-the-day-genocide-became-a-negotiating-tactic/

In the span of a single day, the United States came terrifyingly close to crossing a line that cannot be uncrossed.

A president publicly threatened the destruction of “a whole civilization,” only to pivot hours later to a fragile, last-minute cease-fire brokered through frantic diplomacy.

That whiplash is not strategy. It is the normalization of annihilation as a negotiating tool.

And now, the world’s leading human rights bodies are saying exactly what Washington refuses to confront: this is not just reckless rhetoric—it may be criminal.

Amnesty International warned that such threats reflect a “staggering level of cruelty and disregard for human life,” and could constitute a threat of genocide under international law.
Not hyperbole. Not partisan outrage. Legal language.

Let’s be clear about what was on the table.

The deliberate targeting of power plants, water systems, bridges, and essential infrastructure is not some abstract military option. It is the dismantling of civilian life itself—the systems that make survival possible. As Amnesty and medical experts warned, such attacks would deprive millions of access to water, food, healthcare, and basic human dignity, while potentially triggering environmental and even nuclear catastrophe.

This is not war in the conventional sense. It is the engineering of societal collapse.

And yet, in today’s Washington, even genocidal rhetoric is spun as leverage.

This is the deeper crisis: not just the war itself, but the erosion of boundaries that once constrained power. The idea that you can threaten mass civilian death to force compliance—and then walk it back as part of a deal—is not diplomacy. It is coercion dressed up as statecraft, a performance of dominance in which human lives become bargaining chips.

The cease-fire, reportedly mediated by Pakistan under intense global pressure, buys two weeks.

Two weeks to negotiate.
Two weeks to pause the bombing.
Two weeks for markets to stabilize and headlines to cool.

But what does it not do?

It does not undo the more than 1,600 civilians already reported killed.
It does not rebuild the infrastructure already shattered.
It does not erase the terror inflicted on tens of millions of people suddenly forced to contemplate their own annihilation.

And it does not undo the precedent.

Because once a leader openly invokes the destruction of an entire civilization, the threshold has already been crossed. The unthinkable has been spoken—and therefore made thinkable.

Human rights experts are warning that the danger is not only what might happen next, but what has already been normalized. As Amnesty put it, the very act of making such threats “brazenly shreds core rules of international humanitarian law.”

That is the real story here.

Not just a war spiraling toward catastrophe—but a global order in which the rules meant to prevent catastrophe are being openly discarded.

We have seen this trajectory before. Iraq was justified with certainty that did not exist. Afghanistan became a forever war without a clear end. Now Iran sits at the edge of something even more dangerous—not just invasion or occupation, but the explicit threat of civilizational erasure.

Even some of the president’s allies have recoiled, recognizing that this is not strength but instability masquerading as resolve. When threats alienate allies, embolden adversaries, and horrify the world, they are not strategic—they are reckless.

Meanwhile, Congress drifts. Calls for oversight, war powers votes, even removal from office have surfaced—but only after the rhetoric crossed into territory that international law was designed to prevent.

This is the central failure of American governance in the age of permanent war: the abdication of responsibility until crisis becomes catastrophe.

The cease-fire should not be mistaken for success. It is a pause forced by global alarm and the sheer gravity of what was nearly unleashed. It is proof that diplomacy still exists—but only under the shadow of something far darker.

Because the question now is unavoidable:

If threatening to destroy a civilization is part of the negotiating playbook, what happens when threats stop working?

History offers a grim answer: escalation.

And next time, there may be no last-minute intervention.
No diplomatic scramble.
No two-week pause.

Only the consequences of a line already crossed.

April 11, 2026 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Blocking Iran’s Other Option: A Plutonium Bomb

By Henry Sokolski, April 03, 2026, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/04/03/blocking_irans_other_option_a_plutonium_bomb_1174454.html

America and Israel want to prevent Tehran from getting a bomb. That’s why the Pentagon and Israel Defense Forces continue to target Tehran’s ability to make weapons uranium. Washington and Jerusalem claim they have obliterated Tehran’s uranium enrichment capability. Perhaps. But, Iran has another pathway to a bomb.

U.S. and Israeli leaders have yet to fully consider Iran’s option to make nuclear weapons from plutonium, a material Iran can extract from spent fuel at its largest reactor at Bushehr. Washington should make sure that Iran doesn’t remove Bushehr’s spent fuel and strip out the plutonium. This can and should be done without bombing the plant.

ROSATOM, the Russian firm that built and has operated Bushehr since 2011, says there are 210 tons of spent reactor fuel at the plant. If you check the ROSATOM figure against International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reactor performance logs, the 210 tons of waste contain enough plutonium to make more than 200 nuclear weapons – as many or more than SIPRI estimates Israel has.

It would not take Iran long to remove Bushehr’s spent fuel and chemically strip the plutonium out. In 1977, the U.S. General Accounting Office evaluated leading U.S. nuclear chemist Floyd Culler’s  proposed quick and dirty method of plutonium chemical separation. The facility Culler described was 130 feet by 60 feet by 30 feet (approximately the size of a standard basketball court). It employed technology little more advanced than that required for the production of dairy and the pouring of concrete. Such a plant could fit within a large warehouse and would take no more than six months to build. Until the plant was operational, it would send off no signal and could separate a bomb’s worth of plutonium after only ten days of operation. After that, the plant could separate a bomb’s worth of plutonium in a day.

Two more steps are needed to convert separated plutonium into an insertable metallic core for a nuclear implosion device First, turn the plutonium solution into an oxide and another to convert this oxide into metal. Second, cast and machine this material into a hemisphere. Assuming Iran already had an (implosion) device on the ready, the completion of a bomb could take one to two weeks. This plutonium weapon production timeline is similar to what it would take to extract the uranium hexafluoride in the rubble at Isfahan and then to chemically convert that gas into insertable metal uranium bomb cores. For that reason, the Trump administration should pay as much attention to this back end of the fuel cycle as it is to the front-end, which features uranium enrichment.

What’s odd is that there’s been next to no public discussion of Iran exploiting the Bushehr plutonium option. This may be due to the popular myth that “reactor-grade plutonium” can’t be used to make workable bombs. Robert Selden and Bruce Goodwin, two of America’s top plutonium weapons designers, put this fable to rest, most recently in 2025. As the U.S. Department of Energy has explained, with Iran’s level of weapons sophistication it could use reactor-grade and produce Hiroshima or Nagasaki yields.

The U.S. government used to worry about this possibility. In 2004, the State Department spotlighted Bushehr as a worrisome nuclear weapons plutonium producer. Late in 2012, after Iran shut Bushehr down and withdrew all of the fuel – roughly 20 bombs-worth of near-weapons-grade plutonium – the Pentagon swung into action, launching surveillance drones over the reactor to make sure the plutonium-laden spent fuel didn’t leave the plant to be reprocessed elsewhere. The Iranians put the fuel back, but the concern that Iran was trying to pull a fast one remained.

Now, the Trump Administration is threatening to bomb the largest of Iran’s electrical generating plants, of which Bushehr is in the top ten. Bombing it, much less its spent fuel pond, however, would be a big mistake. The last thing the United States should risk is prompting a radiological release. NPEC-commissioned simulations indicate radiological releases from Bushehr’s  reactor core could force the mandatory evacuation of tens of thousands to millions of Iranians. Attacking the spent fuel pond could result in even larger numbers. Of course, Bushehr would be a legitimate military target if it supported Iranian military operations. However, it doesn’t. Even before U.S. Israeli forces hit the site with two projectiles, the plant was on cold shutdown.

What, then, should our government do? First, the Pentagon should watch to make sure Iran does not remove any of the spent fuel at Bushehr. It could do this with space surveillance assets or, as it did in 2012, with drones. Second, any “peace” deal President Trump cuts with Tehran should include a requirement that there be near-real-time monitoring of the Bushehr reactor and spent fuel pond, much as the IAEA had in place with Iran’s fuel enrichment activities. The IAEA actually asked for this back in 2015. Iran refused. Unfortunately, President Obama didn’t push back. That was a mistake, one the Trump Administration should not continue to make.

Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He was deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Department of Defense (1989–1993), and is the author of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War (2024).

April 11, 2026 Posted by | - plutonium, Iran, USA | Leave a comment

An Open Letter to Washington: The World Cannot Afford Silence

7 April 2026 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/an-open-letter-to-washington-the-world-cannot-afford-silence/

To Members of the United States Congress and the Vice President,

I write to you as an observer from outside the United States, but not outside the reach of its power. What happens in Washington does not stay in Washington. It reverberates across the globe.

A recent public statement by President Donald Trump, circulated widely from his Truth Social account, contains language and threats relating to Iran that are alarming in both tone and substance. The message invokes destruction of infrastructure, uses inflammatory and profane language, and concludes with a phrase that appears to praise a religious figure in a context that is, at best, deeply incongruous and, at worst, dangerously provocative.

Taken together, this is not normal rhetoric for the holder of the most powerful office in the world.

Many across the world are beginning to ask a question that would once have seemed unthinkable: whether the behaviour being displayed is that of a rational leader, or something far more dangerous. In blunt terms – terms now increasingly heard in public discourse – there is a growing fear that the President is acting like a madman.

The concern here is not political disagreement. It is the apparent abandonment of restraint, clarity, and responsibility in matters that could have immediate and catastrophic international consequences. Words at this level are not symbolic – they can signal intent, trigger reactions, and escalate conflict.

If such rhetoric is not constrained by the institutions designed to provide oversight, the consequences could be severe. Miscalculation or escalation in relation to Iran risks drawing multiple nations into conflict, destabilising an already fragile region, and placing countless civilian lives in jeopardy. It risks disrupting global energy markets, triggering economic shocks far beyond the United States, and increasing the likelihood of direct military confrontation between major powers. In the worst case, it opens the door to a broader and more devastating war whose impacts would be felt worldwide.

The United States Constitution anticipates moments when the conduct of a President raises serious questions about their fitness to discharge the duties of the office. It provides lawful mechanisms to respond: the power of impeachment vested in Congress, and the provisions of the 25th Amendment, which empower the Vice President and Cabinet to act where incapacity or inability is evident.

These are not partisan tools. They are safeguards.

No one outside your system can invoke them. Only you can.

History will not judge this moment solely by what was said, but by what was done – or not done – in response. Silence or inaction in the face of credible concern carries its own consequences.

The world is watching the United States not for perfection, but for proof that its institutions still function as intended: that power is checked, that accountability exists, and that no individual is beyond the reach of the law.

I urge you to consider, with the utmost seriousness, whether this moment calls for the use of those constitutional safeguards.

Respectfully,

Michael Taylor

April 11, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Audit cites DOE oversight failures on NuScle nuclear project

E&E News 1st April 2026

The Department of Energy mismanaged a landmark nuclear project to construct the country’s first small modular reactor, according to an audit by DOE’s Office of Inspector General released Tuesday.

The Carbon Free Power Project was a partnership between the federal government, NuScale Power and a coalition of Utah utilities that included $1.36 billion in DOE cost-share financial assistance. The government grant would help fund construction of the company’s first units at the Idaho National Laboratory.

The project that launched in 2015 was ultimately canceled in 2023 after NuScale and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems mutually agreed to terminate development of the plant. Cost estimates for the first-of-a-kind advanced reactors had climbed, giving the utilities that had agreed to purchase the power cold feet. NuScale’s stock price had collapsed. The canceled project left the U.S. government out $183 million………………………………..(Subscribers only) https://www.eenews.net/articles/ig-cites-doe-oversight-failures-on-nuscale-nuclear-project/

April 11, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Secrets and Shortcuts: The US Uranium Enrichment Rush

LYNDA WILLIAMS, 6 April 2026, https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/06/secrets-and-shortcuts-the-us-uranium-enrichment-rush/

The United States keeps going to war over uranium enrichment. 
We started a war in Iraq over it after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” which later proved to be false. We bombed Iran’s enrichment facilities in June 2025, with Trump declaring he had “completely and totally obliterated” them. 
Eight months later, we started another war with Iran over enrichment, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found no evidence of a structured nuclear weapons program. Now, Trump is considering sending  special forces into Iran to physically seize the enriched uranium — except nobody knows exactly where it is.

Now the US is actively pursuing its own domestic uranium enrichment after decades of dependence on foreign suppliers, including Russia, which, after it invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration cut off. The US currently has only one operating commercial enrichment facility, which cannot begin to supply the “nuclear renaissance” the Trump administration is promoting. Five companies are simultaneously seeking NRC licenses, backed by $2.7 billion in DOE contracts, under a regulatory framework being dismantled in real time — gutting environmental review, eliminating radiation safety standards, and compressing public participation timelines to get them built fast.

The first to apply is Global Laser Enrichment LLC — a Delaware shell company majority-owned by Silex Systems Limited of Australia and Cameco Corporation of Canada — and their application is shrouded in secrecy and regulatory shortcuts. The license application looks like a redacted Epstein file: 274 pages of black bars.

Why the Big Secrecy?

The problem with enrichment is proliferation. Natural uranium consists of two isotopes — uranium-238 and uranium-235 (U-235), the fissile isotope you need for both nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs. In its natural state, uranium contains only 0.7% U-235, so it must be enriched artificially.

Nuclear fuel for a nuclear power plant needs uranium enriched to about 5% U-235. A nuclear bomb needs it at 90% or above. Same basic process, same basic equipment — just keep enriching. Iran had enriched to 60% according to the IAEA before the June 2025 strikes — well past reactor fuel and closing in on weapons grade. That’s proliferation. North Korea had a proliferation problem the Clinton administration was successfully negotiating — until Bush came in, put North Korea on the “axis of evil,” and within months they turned off their IAEA monitoring cameras and expelled inspectors, testing their first nuclear bomb four years later.

On March 27, 2026, the NRC published a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed $1.76 billion uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Kentucky — next to the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP), a Cold War uranium enrichment site that operated from 1952 to 2013 and left behind a Superfund cleanup still running today. The federal government sold GLE over 200,000 metric tons of publicly owned depleted uranium to process from the PGDP — but the price is secret.

The secrecy traces to a single act. In June 2001, the Secretary of Energy classified the SILEX laser enrichment technology under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The entire public record of that decision is five sentences in the Federal Register — no technical justification, no public comment period, no congressional notification, no appeal process. The Federation of American Scientists called it “constitutionally questionable.” It has never been legally challenged. The PLEF would be licensed to enrich to a maximum of 6% U-235 — reactor fuel grade. The irony is that independent peer-reviewed research suggests SILEX cannot be efficiently cascaded to weapons grade, making the classification that drives all this secrecy scientifically questionable as well.

What’s in the EIS?

GLE proposes to build a $1.76 billion laser enrichment facility on 322 acres of former public wildlife land — until eighteen months ago part of the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area, managed for hunting, fishing, and horseback riding, and home to bald eagles, golden eagles, monarch butterflies, and eastern box turtles. The site contains 38 wetlands, 20 streams, and 6 ponds — all of which would be destroyed to build the facility. GLE proposes to discharge 60,000 gallons of wastewater per day, some of it radioactive, into Little Bayou Creek, which flows to the Ohio River — drinking water for five million people downstream. Fish consumption in Little Bayou Creek is already not supported due to PCB contamination from the adjacent Cold War plant.

The facility would take in depleted uranium hexafluoride — the tails left over from Cold War enrichment — re-enrich it, and produce more uranium hexafluoride waste. Over 40 years the PLEF would generate 290,574 metric tons of new radioactive waste with nowhere to go. The EIS waste table lists the largest waste stream — 18,161 tons per year — with three words in the disposal column: “subject to availability.” The EIS also declines to quantify what fraction of the DOE stockpile contains reprocessed uranium — known as RepU — material that passed through a reactor and carries transuranic contaminants, including neptunium-237 and plutonium, with half-lives of thousands to millions of years. RepU cannot go to a standard low-level waste site and may require disposal at WIPP in New Mexico, which was never designed for it. GLE’s website says the PLEF will “reduce the legacy environmental footprint” of the former Paducah plant. Re-enriching depleted uranium hexafluoride produces more uranium hexafluoride. The chemical form never changes, and the volume increases. That’s not cleanup. That’s more radioactive waste with nowhere to go.

What We Don’t Know: Safety

The comment period for the EIS closes May 11, but the government’s Safety Evaluation Report (SER) – which is normally completed alongside the EIS -won’t be completed until January 2027. GLE received special NRC permission to submit the environmental and safety portions of its application separately, meaning the public must comment on the facility’s EIS without ever seeing the safety analysis. The safety analysis submitted with the license application is classified. The emergency plan is withheld as a corporate trade secret on the grounds that releasing it would, in the sworn, notarized words of GLE’s licensing manager Tim Knowles, “reduce or foreclose the availability of profit opportunities.”  The Integrated Safety Analysis Summary — which NRC regulations require to be placed on the public docket — has been removed from the federal docket entirely. Not redacted. Removed. (NRC ADAMS accession ML25179A002 not publicly available)  In case of emergency, the EIS says the facility relies on local volunteer fire departments – departments with no legal right to read the emergency plan for the facility in their jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Kentucky approved nearly $100 million in public incentives to bring this facility to Paducah — some of it under a nondisclosure agreement so complete that the McCracken County judge told public radio he legally cannot tell you how much his county committed or what the terms are. The undisclosed county portion alone is nearly twice McCracken County’s entire annual operating budget.

The Regulatory Shortcut

For the EIS, the NRC borrowed conclusions from NUREG-2249, a draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement written for nuclear reactors — not enrichment facilities — that was published in September 2024, never finalized, and never applied to any proceeding before this one. Using this unfinished reactor document, the NRC pre-answered 34 environmental questions for the PLEF, declaring them all SMALL without site-specific analysis — including water use in the region, sedimentation impacts on aquatic species, and contaminated stormwater from outdoor uranium cylinder storage pads.  SILEX laser enrichment appears nowhere in NUREG-2249. These 34 conclusions can still be challenged before May 11. Once NUREG-2249 is finalized, that window closes permanently.

What You Can Do

The most impactful comments challenge the application of NUREG-2249 — a draft reactor document — to pre-answer 34 environmental questions for a laser enrichment facility without legal authority; the waste disposal analysis for which no confirmed to put 290,574 metric tons of new radioactive waste; and the requirement to comment on facility safety before the Safety Evaluation Report exists.

Submit comments on the PLEF draft EIS by May 11, 2026 at: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NRC-2025-1007

Lynda Williams is a physicist and environmental activist living in Hawaii. She can be found at scientainment.com and on Bluesky @lyndalovon.bsky.social

April 10, 2026 Posted by | Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

US Troops Need To Start Disobeying Orders In Iran, And Other Notes

Caitlin Johnstone, Apr 06, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/us-troops-need-to-start-disobeying?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=193307504&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The president of the United States has a bat shit crazy post on Truth Social once again threatening to blow up civilian infrastructure in Iran, saying, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

At this point if you’re in the US military you have a moral obligation to start refusing orders. Desert. Become a conscientious objector. Ideally, get everyone together and launch a full-scale military coup. We’re in “Mad King” territory. Someone’s gotta do what needs to be done.

Promoters of this war told the world it was about liberating the Iranian people from tyranny to bring them freedom and democracy. Now that they got their war it’s about bombing them “back to the Stone Age”, stealing their oil, and blowing up their bridges and power plants.

The only people dumber than Americans who bought into Trump’s “ending the wars” shtick are the Iranians who believed the United States was going to bring freedom to their country.

The Jerusalem Post just ran an opinion piece on Zohran Mamdani which includes the sentence, “It is time for the mayor of New York City to stand in solidarity with Muslim leaders who eschew antisemitic tropes, such as ‘genocide’ and ‘occupation,’ and are committed to a new and broader regional alignment in the Middle East.”

It’s been fun watching Israel apologists invent “antisemitic tropes” in real time. The words “genocide” and “occupation” are antisemitic tropes now, apparently. According to pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai Brith, the phrases “Epstein class” and “Operation Epstein Fury” are also recent additions to the no-no list.

In reality these so-called “antisemitic tropes” are just effective talking points used to highlight facts that are inconvenient to Israel and its allies. Every relevant human rights group on earth agrees that Israel is an occupying force in the Palestinian territories. Every relevant human rights group on earth has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. The phrase “Epstein class” makes the rich and powerful people who rule our society look as creepy and suspicious as they should look. “Operation Epstein Fury” highlights President Trump’s place in the Epstein Files, which a majority of Americans believe played a role in his decision to attack Iran.

We see this all the time. Effective pro-Palestine political slogans like “Globalize the intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are labeled antisemitic not because they express hatred toward Jews but because they are effective.

That’s all it ever is. Israel apologists see a phrase or slogan hurting Israeli information interests and go “Uh, okay so you can’t say those words anymore. Those words make Jewish people feel unsafe.”

And then the phrases get banned. Here in Australia we just saw the state of Queensland ban the phrase “from the river to the sea” on penalty of two years in prison. For no other reason than because it’s something people chant at pro-Palestine protests.

Antisemitism isn’t the target of these laws; the protests themselves are the target. They’re designed to shut down pro-Palestine demonstrations by making so many speech suppression laws that nobody would attend one without a lawyer present to advise them on what they may and may not say.

The very first time someone told me “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” was a hateful genocidal chant I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, and to this day I still feel that way. It’s a completely counter-intuitive claim that makes no sense on first hearing it. It is only by the constant repetition of the assertion that it’s an antisemitic slogan that people began accepting this transparently absurd idea. They just said it over and over again in an authoritative tone until people started to buy it.

Nobody actually believes these words and phrases are hateful toward Jews, they’re just pretending to believe that to promote the information interests of a genocidal apartheid state. That’s all we’re ever looking at with this nonsense.

This fuel crisis really looks like it’s going to hurt. From a big-picture perspective it’s probably a good thing for westerners to feel some sting from their empire’s wars, and for US allies to start re-evaluating their relationship with Washington. But from a selfish perspective, damn this is gonna suck.

I’m done trying to convince people not to use generative AI. You want to kill your critical thinking faculties? You want to lose the ability to write and create art? You want to make people like me look special and amazing because we can create things with our minds? Be my guest.

April 9, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | 1 Comment

Trump’s $1.5 Trillion Pentagon Budget Will Make US Weaker

Passing this proposed budget would be a recipe for endless war, while undermining the nation’s ability to address the truly pressing problems at home that demand our urgent attention.

William Hartung, Apr 03, 2026, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/1-5-trillion-pentagon-budget

It has been reported that the Pentagon on Friday will release a proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027 of almost $1.5 trillion, with approximately $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending contained in the department’s regular annual budget and an additional $350 billion dependent on Congress including it in a separate budget reconciliation bill.

Whatever vehicles the administration chooses to promote this huge increase, it will be doubling down on a failed budgetary and national security strategy. If passed as requested, $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending—in a single year–will make America weaker by underwriting a misguided strategy, funding outmoded weapons programs, and crowding out other essential public investments.

The current war in the Middle East is a case study in the ineffectiveness of an overreliance on military force in seeking to make America or the world a safer place. In his first term, President Trump abandoned a multilateral agreement that was effectively blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. Six years later, in his second term, the president initially justified his disastrous intervention against Iran as being motivated by fears of that very same program.

Diplomacy worked. Reckless resort to force does not, as evidenced by the devastating human, budgetary, and global economic consequences of the current Middle East war. Passing a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget would be a recipe for endless war.

Meanwhile, other, non-military investments needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of Americans are being sharply reduced. By one account, the first week of the war on Iran cost $11.6 billion. That’s more than the Trump administration proposed for the annual budgets of the Centers for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency combined for this year. Yet addressing the climate crisis and the need to prevent future outbreaks of disease are essential to the safety and security of Americans.

The administration has also reduced our available tools of influence on the foreign policy front by decimating the Agency for International Development, laying off trained diplomats at the State Department, and withdrawing from major international agreements. This leaves force and the threat of force as virtually the last tools standing for promoting U.S. security interests.

The Pentagon doesn’t need more spending, it needs more spending discipline. Spending billions of dollars on a Golden Dome system that can never achieve the President’s dream of a leak proof missile defense system is sheer waste, as is continuing to lavish funds on overpriced, underperforming combat aircraft like the F-35, or multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers that are vulnerable to modern high speed missiles.

The truth is, there are not enough factories, or skilled workers, or materials to effectively spend such a huge increase. It will be a recipe for waste, fraud and abuse.

April 9, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

War front updates: America opposes war on Iran

Wednesday, April 01, 2026, Organizing Notes, Bruce Gagnon

Americans have little appetite for sending troops to Iran, polls show


Only 14% of Americans favor sending ground troops into Iran, while 62% oppose this. Almost all Democrats and 66% of Independents oppose sending in ground troops, while Republicans are divided, with 30% in favor and 37% opposed. 

In the DC mental asylum, they dreamt up the concept of “Greater North America”. In addition to the USA, it includes Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and the Caribbean countries. US Defence Secretary and professional drunkard, Pete Hegseth, displayed a map on which these regions are unified. Hegseth did not explain how these countries are supposed to be united, but emphasized: “Trump has drawn a new strategic map”. ……………………………………………………. https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2026/04/war-front-updates-america-opposes-war.html

April 8, 2026 Posted by | public opinion, USA | Leave a comment

No sane soldier would follow Hegseth into illegal, failed war.


Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL 5 Apr 26

As Chicago Tribune letter writer Robert Geist’s comment ‘Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is someone soldiers can follow’ reached print, Pete Hegseth unceremoniously fired revered Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, Gen. David Hodne, director of Army training, and Gen. William Green Jr., Senior Army Chaplin. All this a month into a war of choice going terribly wrong.

The US Army has been senselessly thrown into chaos. US military morale is in freefall. Hegseth may just have made the biggest military leadership mistake in US history.

Robert Geist might view Pete Hegseth as a military leader he could follow. But if so, it’s doubtful a single active Army soldier would be following behind Geist.

April 8, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump says Tuesday deadline for Iran to accept ceasefire ‘final, won’t change’; Israel takes out experienced IRGC intel chief.


SOTT Signs Of The Times, Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, Mon, 06 Apr 2026

Summary:


  • A Sunday night Axios report on a US-proposed 45-day ceasefire has by Monday morning been rejected by Iran    , which later on Monday issued a 10-point letter via Pakistan.
  • Israel strikes large petrochemical plant at South Pars, which is responsible for half of the country’s petrochemical production.
  • Trump reaffirms Tuesday deadline before vital infrastructure gets attacked as ‘final’, calls Americans opposed to Iran war ‘foolish’ – saying it’s all about Tehran not getting a nuke.
  • Israel kills experienced longtime head of IRGC intelligence; Iranian missile strike on Haifa residential complex kills 4.

With all that in mind, the odds of a ceasefire by April 30, 2026 are rising (but still low)…28%

IRGC Intel Chief Taken Out; Israel Suffers Heavy Casualties

The head of the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in a Monday airstrike, according to confirmation in Iranian media. IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency reported that the IRGC Public Relations Department confirmed Monday that Major General Majid Khademi was killed earlier in the day during an attack by US and Israeli forces. However, Tasnim did not disclose the location of the strike.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) earlier stated on X that Khademi wasone of the IRGC’s most senior commanders with decades of experience. “Khademi worked to advance terrorist attacks worldwide, and was responsible for monitoring Iranian civilians as part of the regime’s suppression of internal protests,” it claimed.

RFE/RL reported that Khademi assumed the post last summer after Mohammad Kazemi was killed in Israeli strikes during the 12-day war. Before that, he led the Intelligence Protection Organization of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.Iran is now vowing to enact vengeance on Israel for his death.


Meanwhile Sunday into Monday saw significant casualties in Israel, after the IRGC claimed in a statement carried by state media that Iranian forces had targeted an oil refinery in Haifa. But instead, it appears that the missile slammed directly into a residential building, killing at least four Israelis. Search and rescue teams have spent some 18 hours pouring through the ruins of the complex, recovering two bodies early Monday after an initial two had been found. The casualties could climb amid ongoing recovery efforts. Another regional source stated that “Over 160 Israelis have been transferred to hospitals over the past 24 hours, Israel’s Health Ministry said on Monday.”

Trump: Tuesday Deadline ‘Final, Won’t Change’; Americans Opposed to Iran War Are ‘Foolish’

At a White House annual Easter event, President Trump reaffirmed the Tuesday deadline is final, and further said he has seen every proposal. While he acknowledged the new 10-point Iran proposal as a “big step,” he still said it’s “not good enough; will see what happens.” According to more:

  • War could end very quickly if they do the things they need to do.
  • People talking for Iran are more reasonable now.
  • War is about one thing, Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.
  • “If I had my choice, I would take Iran’s oil”.
  • If Iran does not yield, they will not have bridges or power plants.
  • UK has a long way to go.

There were interesting remarks also claiming that “As of this morning 45,000 protesters have been killed” in Iran – though it’s entirely unclear and dubious as to where he got such a figure. He said that Iranians need guns and that he had sent some but a “certain group” decided to keep them.

“The Iranian people wanna hear bombs because they want to be free,” he also claimed, while First Lady Melania added that the US is fighting for the “future” of children in Iran. Another interesting moment as some corners of MAGA grow increasingly skeptical and angry over the war:

The US president is speaking to reporters at the White House. Asked what he would tell Americans who are opposed to the war, Trump replied: “They’re foolish. Because the war is about one thing – Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Iran Issues 10-Point Rejection of ‘Simple Ceasefire’

Per PressTV:

“The ten-point plan rejects a simple ceasefire, stressing the need for a permanent resolution that safeguards Iran’s interests. Key demands include ending regional hostilities, ensuring safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting sanctions, and rebuilding affected areas.”

It’s no secret that Iran is seeking a permanent end to the war on terms that would ensure it is never attacked again.

  • “According to IRNA’s foreign policy correspondent, in this response, which consists of ten paragraphs, Iran has emphasized the need for a permanent end to the war, taking into account Iran’s considerations, while rejecting a ceasefire.”
  • “This answer includes a set of demands from Iran, including the end of conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, reconstruction and lifting of sanctions.”

Per PressTV:

“The ten-point plan rejects a simple ceasefire, stressing the need for a permanent resolution that safeguards Iran’s interests. Key demands include ending regional hostilities, ensuring safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting sanctions, and rebuilding affected areas.”

It’s no secret that Iran is seeking a permanent end to the war on terms that would ensure it is never attacked again.

  • “According to IRNA’s foreign policy correspondent, in this response, which consists of ten paragraphs, Iran has emphasized the need for a permanent end to the war, taking into account Iran’s considerations, while rejecting a ceasefire.”
  • “This answer includes a set of demands from Iran, including the end of conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, reconstruction and lifting of sanctions.”

It appears similar to the outline that Iran issued some two weeks ago. At every turn, Tehran has rejected that direct talks with Washington are even taking place. Tehran also keeps rejecting White House ceasefire overtures. And yet the same Monday little dance keeps repeating itself……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.sott.net/article/505586-Trump-says-Tuesday-deadline-for-Iran-to-accept-ceasefire-final-wont-change-Israel-takes-out-experienced-IRGC-intel-chief

April 7, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Two Faces of Peace: How Trump’s “Peacemaker” Presidency Waged War Across the Globe

March 31, 2026 , ScheerPost Staff, https://scheerpost.com/2026/03/31/two-faces-of-peace-how-trumps-peacemaker-presidency-waged-war-across-the-globe/

When the world hears “peace,” it rarely imagines schools leveled, civilians at risk, and covert armies deployed across continents. Yet, reporting from The Intercept reveals that under President Donald Trump, the promise of a “peace presidency” has coexisted with a sprawling network of global conflicts. Nick Turse’s investigation exposes the U.S.’s secretive military footprint in more than 20 countries, while Natasha Lennard documents the deliberate targeting of Iranian universities by U.S.–Israeli airstrikes—attacks designed to cripple a nation’s capacity to rebuild. Together, these Intercept reports reveal two faces of the same strategy: the veneer of peace masking the machinery of war, from classrooms to battlefields, and from boardrooms to drone command centers.

Nick Turse’s investigative report for The Intercept exposes the stark contrast between President Donald Trump’s public image as a “peacemaker” and the reality of his administration’s military actions. While Trump campaigned on promises to avoid foreign entanglements and even founded a so-called Board of Peace, Turse details how the U.S. under Trump has been drawn into more than 20 military interventions, armed conflicts, and covert operations worldwide.

From drone strikes and proxy wars to full-scale interventions, Trump’s military footprint spans Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, and dozens of other countries. The report highlights the administration’s repeated bypassing of Congress, reliance on secretive programs like 127e, and the cloak of legal euphemisms—“advise, assist, and accompany” missions or “military actions”—to obscure combat operations.

Turse documents a disturbing pattern of clandestine operations, including regime-change efforts, attacks on civilian targets, and the deployment of thousands of Special Operations forces without clear oversight. As Sarah Harrison, former Pentagon counsel, notes, these actions not only flout constitutional and international law but also put Americans at greater risk while enriching the military-industrial apparatus.

“Under the U.S. Constitution, it’s Congress that has the authority to declare war, not the president,” pointed out Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “Congress has not authorized conflicts in this wide array of contexts, and indeed many lawmakers — to say nothing of members of the public — would be surprised to learn that hostilities have taken place in many of these countries. Congressional authorization isn’t just a box-checking exercise: it’s a means of ensuring that the solemn decision to go to war is made democratically and accountably, with a clear purpose and goal that the American people can support.”

“The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted after 9/11 and stretched by successive administrations, has been invoked to justify counterterrorism operations—including airstrikes, ground combat, and support for partner militaries—in at least 22 countries, according to a 2021 report by Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Under Trump, even this framework has been circumvented in favor of more secretive programs and broad interpretations of executive authority.”

While Trump projected an image of peace abroad, Natasha Lennard reports in The Intercept on the very real human consequences of his and Israel’s military campaigns in Iran. Over the weekend, U.S.–Israeli strikes targeted the Isfahan University of Technology and the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran. These attacks, part of a broader campaign that has hit hospitals, power plants, desalination facilities, and schools, left Iranian students and staff unprotected and at risk.

The official justification—that the universities were connected to Iran’s weapons programs—is deeply cynical, Lennard notes. By this rationale, any advanced U.S. or Israeli institution involved in military research could be deemed a legitimate target, from MIT to Technion or Johns Hopkins. The reporting underscores the double standard of asymmetric warfare: aggressors rationalize strikes while shielding their own infrastructure.

Experts cited by Lennard emphasize that the bombings are systematic, aimed at undermining Iran’s capacity for indigenous development and sovereignty. Drawing parallels to Gaza, the attacks on universities are part of a long-term strategy to foreclose reconstruction and maintain strategic dominance

By combining Turse’s exposé of Trump’s global “peace presidency” turned conflict presidency with Lennard’s documentation of targeted strikes on educational institutions, the picture is clear: a veneer of peace masks a sprawling, violent network of operations designed to project power, suppress knowledge, and reshape global dynamics on U.S. and Israeli terms.

Both reports highlight the human cost and the hypocrisy of modern warfare, where civilian infrastructure, education, and research are treated as expendable under the guise of national security, and where the appearance of peace serves to hide the orchestration of conflict at a global scale.

Sources: Nick Turse, “Trump’s Secret Wars on the World Keep Expanding,” The Intercept, March 30, 2026; Natasha Lennard, “What Would We All Say If Iran Razed MIT Because of Military-Related Research?” The Intercept, March 30, 2026.

April 7, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The US has declared ‘space superiority’ over Iran. What does that mean?

Iran’s nascent space program was destroyed. It’s still using other nations’ space intel.

April 2, 2026, Thomas Novelly, https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2026/04/us-has-declared-space-superiority-over-iran-what-does-mean/412605/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Defense%20One%20Breaking%20News:%20April%202%2C%202026:%20%26quot%3BNew%20from…%26quot%3B&utm_content=Final&utm_term=newsletter_d1_alert

The U.S. military declared space superiority over Iran this week, but defense experts question what that means given the country’s inchoate military space program and heavy reliance on space-based intelligence from other nations.

Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Tuesday that the U.S. had established control of the space domain during Operation Epic Fury. It was nearly a month after CENTCOM had announced “Iran’s equivalent of Space Command” was destroyed, which harmed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ ability to coordinate retaliatory strikes.

“Our Space Force has given us the ultimate high ground, delivering space superiority, which has been a critical enabler to this fight,” Cooper said in a Tuesday video.


It’s not clear if the country is still actively jamming or spoofing U.S. assets, and it’s highly unlikely that the U.S. Space Force has physically destroyed the country’s handful of satellites. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson, said he could not discuss details about space operations “due to classification.” Given Iran’s rudimentary space capabilities, defense experts question what has changed to prompt the military to declare space superiority.

“It isn’t stopping them from using space assets,” Victoria Samson, the Secure World Foundation’s chief director of space security and stability, said of the U.S. declaring space superiority.  “There’s just a lot of question marks … In regards to how they use space as a national security enabler, I don’t know that they’ve really stopped it, because they weren’t using it other than for imagery analysis.” 

Iran is reportedly relying on China and Russia’s intelligence and commercial space-based imagery to target U.S. assets throughout the region. A U.S. official told Defense One that Iran’s use of another country’s space-based data doesn’t mean the service lacks control of the space domain.

“Just because the Iranians are receiving space-based intelligence doesn’t negate that we have space superiority,” the official said.

Since 2005, the country has launched a total of 26 satellites, only 13 of which were still operational, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s space data navigator tool. Three of those are registered to the IRGC. The U.S., by comparison, has upwards of 500 operational military and intelligence satellites. 

Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s top uniformed officer, acknowledged “it wasn’t really a fair fight,” but said destroying Iran’s space capabilities gave the military an upper hand in communications and air operations within CENTCOM. 

“You have space superiority if you can use space the way you want, and the adversary cannot use space the way they want, and I think those are the conditions that we’ve met in this particular instance,” Saltzman said during a Mitchell Institute event Wednesday.

The term “space superiority” was first publicized in a 1980s Air Force manual. A 2004 service document likened the idea to air superiority and said the two are “crucial first steps in any military operation.” Last year, the Space Force published a warfighting doctrine that said the service’s “formative purpose” is to achieve space superiority.  

“Space superiority is the degree of control that allows forces to operate at a time and place of their choosing without prohibitive interference from space or counterspace threats, while also denying the same to an adversary,” the Space Force’s doctrine reads.

Some defense experts see the recent declaration of space superiority as a way for the service to highlight its warfighting rebrand in recent years. 

“It’s a weird thing to say. I think it’s more a matter of floating the ‘Space Force as a warfighting’ thing,” Samson said.

Kari Bingen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of the Aerospace Security Project, said it’s not surprising to see the Space Force becoming more integrated into operations, given adversaries’ desire to target command, control, communications, and intelligence capabilities.

“Between Venezuela and Operation Epic Fury, these have been opportunities for the Space Force to better integrate space effects into a joint military campaign,” Bingen said. “We’ve long treated space as this special and different capability set. The physics are different, but to make it truly useful to the joint force, it needs to be fully integrated into planning and operations.” 

Saltzman said guardians had been forward deployed to support Operation Epic Fury and continue to launch space effects in combat zones “despite being under attack from an adversary.” He also said some guardians are supporting the operation stateside out of Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina and CENTCOM headquarters in Florida.

“I won’t go into a lot of the operational details, as you might imagine, but you don’t have to think too hard to understand what it is the Guardians are bringing to the fight,” Saltzman said. “All of the missions that we always do—missile warning, satellite communications. The links are vital. Over-the-horizon communications is as important now as it ever has been. We create disruption for an adversary.”

April 7, 2026 Posted by | Iran, space travel, USA | Leave a comment

NuScale’s ENTRA1 “Veterans” Had Zero Nuclear Projects — Investors Lost 70%: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Promise vs. Reality: The NuScale Power ENTRA1 Partnership Performance Gap

March 30, 2026 Source: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

NEW YORK, March 30, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — “Companies that make specific promises to investors about future performance have an obligation to disclose known risks to those projections. The contrast between what NuScale told the market about ENTRA1 and what analysts independently confirmed raises substantial questions about the accuracy of those representations,” stated Joseph E. Levi, Esq., managing partner of Levi & Korsinsky, LLP.

A securities class action has been filed on behalf of purchasers of NuScale Power Corporation (NYSE: SMR) stock between May 13, 2025 and November 6, 2025. …..

NuScale shares fell from a Class Period high above $57 to just $17, a decline exceeding 70%, after the gap between defendants’ representations and reality came to light. The lead plaintiff deadline is April 20, 2026.

The Promise

Throughout the Class Period, the Company portrayed ENTRA1 Energy LLC as a formidable commercialization engine for its small modular reactor technology. Official press materials and SEC filings described ENTRA1 as:

  • An “independent global energy production platform”
  • A “one-stop-shop” and “single hub” for financing, development, execution, and management of nuclear power plants
  • An entity “led by an executive team of energy, infrastructure, and finance sector veterans”
  • A partner with “experience in delivering large-scale power infrastructure”
  • A “developer” of power plants that would “own and operate” energy facilities
  • An entity whose experience was “exactly what is required” to commercialize NuScale’s reactors

The Reality

After NuScale disclosed a $495 million payment to ENTRA1 and analysts pressed for details on the November 6, 2025 earnings call, a starkly different picture emerged, the lawsuit contends:

  • ENTRA1 had never built, financed, or operated any significant project during its entire operating history
  • Independent analyst research identified just 3 employees and 1 investor at ENTRA1
  • The “experience” defendants referenced belonged to principals of a separate entity, not ENTRA1 itself
  • ENTRA1 would not actually build power plants but instead “coordinate projects” and “bring in partners”
  • Guggenheim Securities described ENTRA1 as “a 3-year old company that has never built, financed or operated anything”
  • ENTRA1 appeared to be organized primarily to support a single individual

The Numbers: Promised vs. Actual

What Was Promised | What Was Revealed

  • “Independent global energy production platform” | Entity with 3 employees, no completed projects
  • “Experience in delivering large-scale power infrastructure” | Experience belonged to principals of a different entity
  • ENTRA1 “develops, finances, owns and operates” plants | ENTRA1 would “coordinate projects” and “bring in partners”

  • A “differentiator” justifying exclusive global rights | Analysts found “no information regarding the company’s history, management team, size or capitalization”
  • $35M-$55M per NPM contribution payments to a proven partner | $495 million paid to an untested entity, with potential obligations exceeding $3 billion

What the Lawsuit Alleges About the Gap

The action asserts that defendants knew or recklessly disregarded that their representations about ENTRA1 were materially false and misleading. By attributing the experience of a separate entity’s principals to ENTRA1 itself, and by describing ENTRA1 as a developer and operator when it lacked any track record, defendants allegedly created an artificial perception of commercialization readiness that inflated NuScale’s stock price……………………………………………………………….. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/03/30/3264986/0/en/NuScale-s-ENTRA1-Veterans-Had-Zero-Nuclear-Projects-Investors-Lost-70-Levi-Korsinsky-LLP.html

April 7, 2026 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

US scientists are escaping to Norway because of Trump’s anti-climate agenda, minister says.

.At least 23 research scientists have left the US for
Norway in the wake of Trump returning to office, including to six
pioneering climate programmes. In the first year of Trump’s second term,
the US government cut thousands of jobs at federal science agencies,
slashed grant money for universities and effectively ended
government-backed research into the climate crisis, notably with the
announcement last December that the Colorado-based National Center for
Atmospheric Research would close.

More than 10,000 doctorate-level experts
in science and other fields have now left federal government employment,
according to one analysis, leading to fears of a scientific brain drain
from the US. Research minister Sigrun Gjerløw Aasland told The Independent
that several American scientists had joined research institutes in her
country over the past year, many of which are prioritising pioneering
climate research in the Arctic.

Last summer, the centre-left Norwegian
government announced a 100m kroner (£7.8m) programme to attract
international researchers. So far, 27 scientists have come to Norway under
the programme, including 23 from the US.

 Independent 1st April 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/trump-climate-arctic-norway-scientists-b2938958.html

April 7, 2026 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

What to Know About the ‘Massive’ Military Bunker Beneath Trump’s Ballroom

President Trump has been talking about the emergency facility beneath what was once the East Wing, details of which are usually kept secret, as he tries to justify his renovation.

By Luke Broadwater, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/us/politics/trump-ballroom-military-bunker.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20260403&instance_id=173568&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=60047519&segment_id=217713&user_id=432fc0d0ad6543e820e2dfcd39f76c35April 2, 2026

While most public attention has focused on the aboveground portion of President Trump’s planned $400 million ballroom, what is underneath could prove to be the more complex and expensive portion of the project.

Work crews have been digging in the earth for weeks, ripping out the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC, to build something bigger, better and deeper underground.

The PEOC, which was built during World War II to protect the president and other top officials in the event of an emergency, was where Vice President Dick Cheney was hustled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, later to be joined by President George W. Bush and his national security teams. Mr. Trump was rushed there, too, during protests over the death of George Floyd in 2020.

The bunker is beneath what was once the East Wing, which Mr. Trump tore down last year to make way for his ballroom.

Details of the underground facility are usually shrouded in secrecy. But as Mr. Trump’s ballroom faces legal challenges, he has been talking more openly about the bunker. He argues that the two are linked, which makes building the ballroom a matter of security.

Here is what we know about the PEOC.

A ‘Massive’ Military Complex

Speaking on Sunday to reporters on Air Force One, Mr. Trump said that he envisioned his 90,000-square-foot ballroom as a “shed” for the underground project.

“The military is building a massive complex under the ballroom, and that’s under construction, and we’re doing very well,” Mr. Trump said.


In Mr. Trump’s telling, the bunker will have bomb shelters and “very major medical facilities,” including a hospital. It will have the latest secure communication methods and defenses against bioweapons.

He said the ballroom would protect the underground facility from drones, bullets and other attacks. “It’s high-grade bulletproof glass. So all of the windows are bulletproof,” Mr. Trump said.

Last week, speaking about the ballroom project during a cabinet meeting, the president said that “the military wanted it more than anybody.”

Mr. Trump has said the security features make his project even more important — a point he made again this week after a judge halted the project, saying it required congressional approval.

“Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” wrote Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington, a George W. Bush appointee.

Mr. Trump ordered an appeal, but he pointed to a section of Judge Leon’s order that allowed “construction necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House” to continue

“We have biodefense all over,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office this week. “We have secure telecommunications and communications all over. We have bomb shelters that we’re building. We have a hospital and very major medical facilities that we’re building. We have all of these things. So that’s called: I’m allowed to continue building.”

The Secret Service

The Secret Service has twice filed documents in court attesting to the necessity of finishing the ballroom project.

Matthew C. Quinn, deputy director of the Secret Service, wrote in December and again in January that any halt in the project could put lives in danger.

Mr. Quinn said that the agency was working with a contractor on security upgrades but that the underground work was not finished.

“Accordingly, any pause in construction, even temporarily, would leave the contractor’s obligation unfulfilled in this regard and consequently hamper the Secret Service’s ability to meet its statutory obligations and protective mission,” Mr. Quinn wrote.

He offered to brief the judge privately about the security upgrades underway. The Trump administration also filed some documents about the project under seal in federal court.

Judge Leon appeared to mostly reject those arguments.

“While I take seriously the government’s concerns regarding the safety and security of the White House grounds and the president himself, the existence of a ‘large hole’ beside the White House is, of course, a problem of the president’s own making!” he wrote.

Joshua Fisher, director for management and administration in the White House, told the National Capital Planning Commission in January that he could not share all the administration’s plans for the project.

“There are some things regarding this project that are, frankly, of top-secret nature that we are currently working on,” he said.

There are still many unanswered questions about the project, including which branch or branches of the military are involved, the costs of construction and maintenance, and many other details.

Asked about the underground portion of the project on Monday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, was equally closemouthed.

“The military is making some upgrades to their facilities here at the White House, and I’m not privy to provide any more details on that,” she said.

Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.

April 6, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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