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A U.S. fighter jet pilot described a seemingly extraterrestrial sight before he ejected from his aircraft during hostilities in Iran.The downed F-15 pilot told intelligence officials during a debriefing after the April incident that he saw multiple Iranian drones hovering in air in a formation resembling a jellyfish, four sources familiar with the matter told CNN, and one source said the pilot described the formation as a “minefield of drones.""It immediately set off a firestorm of debate within the US intelligence community that has yet to be resolved," CNN reported. "If the airman really saw what he described — a formation moving in unison — it would be an alarming advance in Iranian drone capabilities."The downing remains under investigation, but initial reports indicated the formation had allowed Iran to shoot down a U.S. fighter jet for the first time during the war, two of the sources said.“Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs,” one of the sources told CNN. “Real alien s---.”The pilot was rescued hours later, but the weapons systems office on board the two-person craft evaded capture for more than a day in the mountains of Iran before also being rescued.A second aircraft, an A-10, was also downed during the rescue effort but that pilot ejected safely outside Iranian airspace.U.S. intelligence officials disagreed on their interpretation of the pilot's recollection, and some cast doubt on his account, pointing out he was concussed in the crash – his second time being shot out of the sky during the Iran conflict."Had he witnessed a mature capability that U.S. intelligence wasn’t aware of? A beta test? A mirage in the desert?" CNN reported.The technical term for what the pilot purportedly described is “one-to-many meshed networking,” according to the sources, and U.S. intelligence agencies had not been aware Iran was capable of using.Multiple reports have indicated that Iran received assistance in developing its drone technology from China and Russia, which are both believed to possess that capabbility.

Abelardo De la Espriella, a right-wing lawyer who used to practice law in Florida, appeared to win his presidential bid in Colombia this week after securing an endorsement from President Donald Trump, and the journalists at Zeteo opted to shed light on his “eye-opening” background in a scathing report.“He Tied Firecrackers to Cats. Yes, you read that right,” reads Zeteo’s report published on Monday. “On a television show, De la Espriella confessed that when young, he tied firecrackers to cats to try to make them fly, but they ended up exploding. He first said he was an ‘innocent’ child at the time, then walked the story back, saying it was a bad joke. Sure.”Also a businessman, De la Espriella has “made a brand of flaunting his wealth,” Zeteo’s report reads, and is “often seen wearing tailored suits, fedoras, and fancy watches.” He practiced law in Miami, Florida as a defense attorney and “came to prominence” defending right-wing paramilitaries and "politicians accused of corruption.”De la Espriella also “sexually harassed” a journalist during an appearance on a popular radio show, Zeteo reported.On a popular radio show, De la Espriella made a crude boast about his anatomy, claiming it would win him women's votes, then showed a female reporter a suggestive photo of himself in sweatpants. The reporter said she felt "violated, harassed, and disgusted." A court ordered him to apologize publicly.De la Espriella received a "congratulatory call” from Trump after his apparent election victory, Reuters reported, with the president touting his endorsement record after De la Espriella’s election win Tuesday morning. De la Espriella’s victory represents a recent “shift to the right” in Latin America.

President Donald Trump faced a wave of scrutiny for agreeing to lift sanctions on Iran and unfreeze Iranian funds as part of the tentative peace deal between Washington and Tehran, but on Tuesday, the president announced a new detail regarding the agreement, one that could risk jeopardizing peace talks going forward.“The Money and/or Sanctions that the U.S. Treasury is releasing goes into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American Farmers,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “These are things that are desperately needed by Iran. This is a humanitarian crisis, and I feel it is necessary to help, NOW, before it is too late. Talks are going well!”There is no mention in the 14-point memorandum of understanding of unfrozen Iranian funds or sanction relief being controlled by the United States. On the contrary, point 11 states that the United States would “make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU.”

President Donald Trump's war on Iran satisfied no one, but two foreign policy experts say its failure may provide one enduring silver lining.Hawks who cheered the initial strikes are furious he stopped short of toppling the regime, doves are furious he started a war at all and, by nearly every measure, the campaign was a failure, wrote former Iran envoy Robert Malley and historian Stephen Wertheim in a new op-ed for the New York Times."Donald Trump has done the impossible once more," Malley and Wertheim wrote. "He went where his predecessors never dared, joining with Israel in a bid to overthrow or incapacitate the regime in Tehran. Having achieved neither, he appears to have accepted worse terms than he could have obtained through diplomacy. His war was a political albatross as well, garnering, at the start, less support from the public than any other major conflict in modern U.S. history.""Everyone is worse off and no one is happy: a fitting, extraordinary finish to a Trumpian war," they added.Missile defenses and aircraft damaged more than 20 U.S. bases, the Strait of Hormuz remains under Tehran's control and they have a nuclear program that, despite the bombing, can still only be resolved through negotiation. Iran, if anything, emerged emboldened, and yet Malley and Wertheim argued those failures might be the most useful thing to come out of the war."Those opposed to yesterday’s Iran war have a stake in preventing tomorrow’s, to break the entanglement of the United States in conflicts it regrets more quickly and more intensely the more they keep happening," the duo wrote. "This mission is hardly impossible. Military defeat — which is what the United States just suffered — has repeatedly compelled Americans to re-evaluate the severity of a threat they could not eliminate."The experience was painful enough that it may be hard to repeat, they argued. Just as Vietnam taught Americans that the "dominoes" wouldn't fall and Afghanistan taught them to separate the Taliban from Al Qaeda, a humiliating defeat — not persuasion or argument — has historically been what forces Washington to reconsider whether a threat was ever as dire as advertised.A clean, low-cost victory might have only emboldened the next intervention. It's precisely because this war went so badly — drained munitions needed elsewhere, alienated Gulf allies and fractured the U.S.-Israel relationship to the point of public rebuke — that hawks now have a weaker case for trying again.Trump, the analysis suggests, may end up as an accidental peacemaker, not because he sought restraint, but because he tested the limits of force against Iran and got burned. "Iran, by all rights, should not be one of America’s top problems," Malley and Wertheim concluded. "One day, one way or another, it will cease to be. The question is when, and at how terrible a price."

President Donald Trump's account of a phone call he says he had with Iranian officials, in which he reportedly threatened to wipe out their country, take over the Strait of Hormuz, and more, has set off a wave of disbelief, ridicule, and alarm across the political spectrum.The threats were relayed by Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, who said he spoke with Trump for more than 20 minutes and came away with what he called "new insight" into the president's posture as nuclear talks opened in Switzerland. According to Yingst, Trump described what he told the Iranians about the strait in blunt terms. "You close it and you won't have a country," Trump said he warned them. "You won't even make it back to your f------ country." Yingst added that Trump said, "We may take over the Strait, if we have to."The response from Trump's critics was immediate and caustic. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly in Trump's first term before becoming a frequent antagonist, summed up his reaction in three dry words. "Normal Presidential behavior," he wrote, sharing a MeidasTouch post that reported Trump had told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, after Pezeshkian said Iran would not give up enrichment, "He better watch his mouth ... or we will take over the rest of the country."Journalist Aaron Rupar, who posted Yingst's full segment, catalogued the threats without restraint. "We'll take over the rest of your country ... I'll blow the s--- out of them," Rupar quoted, describing the "bonkers phone call" as one that "apparently included threats to assassinate Iran's leadership, impose draconian US tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, and occupy Iran with the US military."Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California zeroed in on the practical and legal emptiness of the threats. "US troops would die during any ground invasion of Iran," Lieu wrote. "It would also be brazenly illegal without Congressional authorization." He warned that seizing the strait would trap American forces in a quagmire, adding that "Iran would try to kill them every day in a forever war." His conclusion was that Tehran is not impressed: "Iran knows these are empty threats by Trump."Some questioned whether the call even happened as described. Author and Iran expert Hooman Majd, who has written extensively about the country and served as an informal interpreter for past Iranian presidents, flatly disputed the premise. "President Trump did not speak with an Iranian official and say anything of the sort directly to him," Majd wrote. He then floated a mocking theory about how Trump might be staging these confrontations: "Is it possible the WH staff has arranged for a Persian-accented staffer to man a phone for Trump to call whenever he wants to yell at an 'Iranian official'?"Notably, the criticism was not confined to the left. David Pyne, a self-described America First analyst who posts as @AmericaFirstCon, called the president "completely unhinged" and accused him of "threatening to assassinate Iran's diplomatic representatives and invade, conquer and occupy all of Iran." Pyne, who opposes new wars, argued the bravado was hollow. "His threat to take over all of Iran is a bluff since he's reportedly afraid to invade Iran knowing that it would lead to thousands of US military servicemembers being killed in action," he wrote, adding that even committing the entire active-duty Army and reserves "likely wouldn't be enough to conquer all of Iran without a US nuclear first strike."The threats were also amplified, approvingly, by right-wing accounts. Commentator Nick Sortor, whose post was boosted by conservative legal activist Mike Davis, framed the same language as a triumph. "HOLY CRAP! President Trump issued a DIRECT THREAT to Iranian negotiators in Switzerland," Sortor wrote, presenting "You close [the Strait] and you won't have a country" as evidence of strength rather than instability.US troops would die during any ground invasion of Iran. It would also be brazenly illegal without Congressional authorization.And if US troops took over the Straight, Iran would try to kill them every day in a forever war.Iran knows these are empty threats by trump. https://t.co/x3ZDeY52Zt— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 21, 2026

President Donald Trump appeared to threaten Iranian peace negotiators with assassination Sunday in a “bonkers” phone call with Fox News’ Trey Yingst, the details of which Yingst revealed on air just moments later.Last week, Trump officially agreed to a tentative peace deal with Iran, giving the two parties 60 days to finalize a more permanent agreement to end hostilities. Vice President JD Vance arrived in Switzerland Sunday to meet with an Iranian delegation of negotiators led by Speaker Mahammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghci.However, after Iranian military officials announced on Saturday that they would, again, close the Strait of Hormuz due to violations of the tentative peace deal, Trump suggested, Yingst said, that the Iranian negotiators may not “make it back” to their home country.“President Trump tells Fox News he spoke with Iranian officials overnight and said ‘you close it and you won’t have a country,’” Yingst said, recalling his phone call with Trump held moments earlier. “He went on to tell these officials, ‘you won’t even make it back to your f---ing country.’”Whether Trump’s remarks suggested he may order the Iranian negotiators assassinated before their return home remains unclear, though multiple Iranian negotiators have been assassinated throughout the duration of the U.S. war against Iran, such as Ali Larijani, the former speaker of the Iranian Parliament who was killed in March in an Israeli airstrike."We'll take over the rest of your country ... I'll blow the shit out of them" -- here is Trey Yingst's entire segment about the bonkers phone call he says he had with Trump this morning that apparently included threats to assassinate Iran's leadership, impose draconian US tolls… pic.twitter.com/RLi9bos14Q— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 21, 2026

JD Vance's path to the presidency may run through Tehran, and not in a way that helps him. That is the striking implication of a new analysis by Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour, who argues in The Atlantic that the vice president's political future now depends heavily on whether hardline Iranian officials decide to play along with Donald Trump's latest gamble.Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, lays out how Trump handed Vance responsibility for an enormous and unlikely task: not merely striking a new nuclear deal, but engineering a wholesale transformation of US-Iran relations after a war that Sadjadpour says ended in humiliation for the president. The memorandum that paused the fighting, he writes, is so lopsided that it reads as if Tehran drafted it, with 13 of its 14 provisions amounting to boilerplate or favoring Iran outright.That is the project Vance has been told to deliver, and Trump has been remarkably candid about who absorbs the blame if it fails. "If it works out, I'm going to take the credit," the president said, according to the piece. "If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming J.D."The expert's sharpest observation is about where that leaves the vice president. Vance's prospects, Sadjadpour writes, "may rest as much on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers as on Republican-primary voters." In other words, a man eyeing the 2028 nomination has tied his standing to the cooperation of the very military and clerical figures who built their careers on resistance to the United States.Vance is reportedly pinning hopes on Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former IRGC general and current speaker of Iran's Parliament, with whom he spent more than 20 hours in Islamabad and supposedly developed a rapport. Sadjadpour is skeptical that private warmth means anything. He notes that Qalibaf's public appearances, where he mocks America, praises Hezbollah, threatens Israel, and celebrates partnership with China, are a far more reliable guide to Tehran's intentions than any backroom assurances.The broader picture Sadjadpour paints is of an Iranian regime that thrives on isolation and treats sabotaging American presidents as a point of pride. He traces that pattern back to the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis that helped sink Jimmy Carter's reelection. This time, he suggests, Tehran stands to claim an unusually rich prize. The Islamic Republic, he writes, may get "a two-for-one": the presidency of Donald Trump, and the presidential ambitions of JD Vance.If Sadjadpour is right, Vance has accepted a mission whose success is largely outside his control, with a boss already rehearsing the line that will pin any failure on him. The clerics and generals in Tehran, not the voters in Iowa, may end up deciding how that story turns out.

Authoritarianism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat is predicting that President Donald Trump's praise for China's Xi Jinping will end the same way his Iran standoff did: with the president backing down to a strongman he admires.Her forecast came in response to an Axios clip in which Trump gushed about the Chinese leader on "The Axios Show." Asked about Xi, Trump described him in the language of physical admiration he often reserves for fellow autocrats, calling him tall, "6-foot-2," and praising his "great stature," "great confidence," and intelligence. For Ben-Ghiat, a historian of fascism and author who has spent years studying how leaders flatter and accommodate dictators, the fawning was a tell rather than a throwaway line."He will cave to Xi in the end just as he capitulated to Iran," Ben-Ghiat wrote, situating the comment within what she sees as a consistent pattern across Trump's foreign policy. She tied the prediction to a larger argument about whose interests the president ultimately serves, describing Iran as "an ally of China" and noting that Trump "has consistently acted to help Russia," which she also called a Chinese ally. Her conclusion was blunt: in her telling, Trump "is in office to make the strongmen leaders he admires do well."The framing reflects the through-line of Ben-Ghiat's broader work, which holds that authoritarian-minded leaders are drawn to one another and that public displays of admiration often precede real concessions. Her reference to Iran points to the recent memorandum of understanding that ended Trump's war, a deal numerous analysts described as lopsided in Tehran's favor. By her logic, the same dynamic of tough talk giving way to accommodation is poised to repeat itself with Beijing.Ben-Ghiat's argument lands at a moment when Trump's critics are increasingly scrutinizing the gap between his strongman rhetoric and his actual outcomes. Her point is that the admiring description of Xi's height and confidence is not idle praise but a window into how the president approaches the world's most powerful authoritarians, and that the flattery, in her view, tends to be a preview of where the policy is heading.