by Priya Sridhar | Aug 12, 2026 | Iran, News, World
As the USS Abraham Lincoln completes its 264 day on deployment supporting the war with Iran, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao demanding answers about conditions aboard the aircraft carrier that were first reported by MS NOW.
The carrier beat a modern day record for the most continuous days at sea without a port call in early July, raising concerns from family members about exhaustion and low morale potentially leading to deadly accidents.
Family members also expressed to MS NOW and at two subsequent town halls with Navy leaders last week that they are worried about food shortages; a lack of hygienic products, such as deodorant, toothpaste and soap; moldy showers, nonoperational toilets; and laundry facilities that have been broken for weeks.
“These reports warrant immediate attention, but they also raise a broader question: whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now being demanded of its carrier force, particularly as this Administration repeatedly commits U.S. forces to conflicts of its own choosing and increasingly relies on aircraft carriers to sustain those operations,” Blumenthal wrote in the letter dated Aug. 12.
The Lincoln left San Diego on Nov. 21, made a brief port call in Guam on Dec. 11 and then didn’t stop again until July 7, when it quickly stopped at a port in Oman.
The Lincoln isn’t the only aircraft carrier that recently broke a Navy record. The USS Ford spent 326 days at sea, breaking a record for longest modern day carrier deployment after supporting both Operation Epic Fury and military operations in Venezuela.
“The Lincoln’s prolonged deployment is
by Steve Benen | Aug 12, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics, World
As this week got underway, The Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump had privately expressed optimism about reaching a deal with Iran that would finally reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but the president’s confidence didn’t last long. MS NOW reported a day later that Iranian officials said they would only agree to reopen the strait if the U.S. meets all of the conditions that Tehran contends are in the June memorandum of understanding between the two countries.
That would mean, among other things, that the White House would have to unfreeze Iranian funds and take steps to the end recent fighting in Lebanon.
It’s reached the point at which some in the region are reportedly starting to see Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz as a new normal that will persist, even if they’d prefer this were not the case.
It’s against this backdrop that the American president apparently has an idea: pretend that Iran doesn’t control the Strait, reality notwithstanding.
In his latest missive published to his social media platform, the Republican wrote, “The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! … Praise be to Allah!” The weird post came roughly 12 hours after he made similar comments to reporters during a brief Q&A on an airport tarmac.
Trump preposterously claims that the US “owns” the Strait of Hormuz— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-12T03:23:13.091Z
“We totally control the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said. “We have control over it. Nobody else, only us.” He added soon after, “We have total control over the Hormuz Strait right now. They don’t have control. We have total control. We own
by The Associated Press | Aug 11, 2026 | News, Russia, World
Russia released an American military veteran on Tuesday, allowing his return to the U.S. after four years of what his family and U.S. officials allege was wrongful incarceration and abusive treatment that left him near death.
Robert Gilman, a 32-year-old Massachusetts teacher and former Marine, was freed after President Donald Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about his release, which Trump said was “very much on a Humanitarian Basis.”
“We appreciate this decision, and the fact that Russia asked for no one in return — No exchange took place,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
A State Department spokesperson called Gilman’s release “a welcome step that we hope leads to the release of Americans unjustly held in Russia, such as wrongful detainee Stephen Hubbard.” Hubbard, a retired teacher, was arrested in Ukraine in 2022 and accused of fighting for the country in the war with Russia. In 2024, a Russian court sentenced him to nearly seven years in prison. The State Department has said the charges are false.
Arrests of Americans have become increasingly common in Russia in recent years. Concern has risen that Russia could be targeting U.S. nationals to use later as bargaining chips in talks to bring back Russians convicted of crimes in the U.S. and Europe. Five other Americans remain imprisoned in Russia with deteriorating medical issues, according to a news release from Global Reach, a group that’s been working to free them.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a photo on social media of a gaunt-looking Gilman draped in an American flag and surrounded by his family aboard an airplane.
“While we appreciate this positive step, we are still
by David Rohde | Aug 10, 2026 | Iran, News, World
A senior Iranian official told MSNOW on Monday that Iran will reopen the Strait of Hormuz only if the United States meets all of the conditions that Tehran contends are in the June memorandum of understanding between the two countries.
The Iranian official, who spoke one the condition of anonymity to describe closed-door discussions, said those conditions include unfreezing Iranian funds and assets and the end of fighting in Lebanon. The Iranian official said the U.S. is to blame for the closure of the strait because it has failed to fully implement the memorandum.
When the memorandum was signed in June, experts warned that some of its wording was vague and could be interpreted differently by Iranian and American officials.
Iran began threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial global oil choke point — soon after the war began at the end of February. Commercial shipping through the waterway has all but shut down. Since then, oil and gas prices have skyrocketed, at times above $100 a barrel, hiking the costs of gas and other goods. On Monday, the price of global benchmark Brent crude hit $86 a barrel. The price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, was above $80 a barrel.
Israel began launching strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon in early March. Iran has cited ending that conflict as a condition for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei on Monday said that lifting the U.S. naval blockade of key Iranian ports was one of the conditions for reopening the strait. “It is up to the U.S. side to stop and make amends for
by Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Aug 8, 2026 | Economy, Opinion, White House, World
Long before becoming president of the United States, Donald Trump coveted other nations’ oil fields. In years past he’s talked about America seizing oil in Libya and Iraq after those wars ended, arguing that anything less than full-on resource acquisition was a boneheaded mistake. Trump seems determined to correct that supposed error in his second term — no matter the costs to his country and party.
At a rally in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Trump boasted that the U.S. is “taking a lot of oil from Venezuela.” Since the American military raid that deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and replaced him with a more obedient authoritarian in Delcy Rodríguez, the Trump administration has assumed effective control over the sale of Venezuelan oil and the revenue it generates.
“We paid for the war with what we’ve taken out many, many, many times. That’s the old-fashioned way,” he told the crowd. “To the victor belong the spoils, right?”
Politically, the president is struggling with his worst approval ratings of either term, due in no small part to his war with Iran raising gas prices.
The comments are a fresh reminder of a key principle of Trump’s foreign policy: Might makes right. It’s a modern spin on the 19th and early 20th century imperialism that exploited the resources of colonized regions and carved borders at a whim. It evokes the “jet-propelled technocrats” that Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano singled out as a key group managing “mechanisms of plunder” in his 1971 book “Open Veins of Latin America.”
Trump spelled out this same belief verbatim in April when asked about his endgame with Iran and its sizable oil reserves. “To
by Allison Detzel | Aug 8, 2026 | News, White House, World
MS NOW’s Michael Steele said the Trump administration’s blame game over the Iran war has reached a whole new level.
“When it comes to the war with Iran, we’ve gotten plenty of rosy proclamations, finger-pointing and flat-out lies from the Trump administration. But folks, these past few days have really been something else,” he said on Thursday’s “The Briefing.”
Steele cited new reporting from The Washington Post about a clash between President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at Camp David last week. According to two people familiar with the exchange, Trump tore into Hegseth and demanded answers about why “he had apparently been misled about extreme munition shortages” at the Pentagon.
But instead of taking responsibility for his department’s failings, Steele said the secretary took a different approach.
“Hegseth, the testosterone-touting man that he is, defended himself by doing what we’ve seen him do before: Blame someone else,” he said.
Hegseth reportedly blamed his deputy for the shortages and for failing to make sure Trump was fully informed, according to the Post.
Steele noted that the White House has denied that the confrontation took place, and Trump has insisted there’s no “beef” between himself and Hegseth. But the “The Weeknight” co-host also shared new reporting from The Wall Street Journal that indicated the continuing concerns about the United States’ munitions shortages is getting under the president’s skin.
The Journal, citing several administration officials, reported that Trump has ordered new investigations into media leaks about the shrinking stockpile. Advisers also told the outlet that the president’s irritation over the war “has grown” in recent weeks and his “fury has sparked discussions” with Hegseth.
While the White
