U.S. military leaders and elected officials are grappling with a worsening diplomatic and security crisis in the Middle East. Tensions continue to rise as violence between Israel and Iran shows no signs of easing, following the Israeli Defense Forces Thursday night strike on Iranian nuclear sites and Irans ongoing retaliatory bombing campaign.

In response to the Iranian strikes, Israel launched an expanded air assault on Iran Sunday, the IDF said, targeting energy infrastructure sites and the Defense Ministry headquarters. At least 70 were killed, including four top security chiefs, according to Israeli officials and local media.

Tehran, meanwhile, continued firing missiles at Israel throughout the day, with significant impacts roiling major population centers including Haifa and Tel Aviv. At least seven people were killed and nearly 200 injured in the attacks, according to Magen David Adom, Israels national emergency service.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. was not involved in the strikes against Iran Saturday evening, and warned of actions against the U.S.

The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight. If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before. However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!! Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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According to two American officials, the U.S. is providing support to Israel amid the barrage, helping shoot down missiles headed towards the nation. A separate U.S. official confirmed to Scripps News that Iran had asked the U.S. to join its war against Iran in the hopes of eliminating its nuclear program, though the officials said the Trump administration was not considering that at this time.

Meanwhile, a sixth round of nuclear nonproliferation talks between the U.S. and Iran, previously scheduled for Sunday in Muscat, will no longer take place in the wake of the strikes. Omans foreign minister Badr Al Busaidi announced the change of plans Saturday, though he noted that diplomacy and dialogue remain the only pathway to lasting peace.

The Trump administration indicated it still sought to negotiate a deal.

"Whatever happens today cannot be prevented. But we have the ability to negotiate a successful peaceful resolution to this conflict if Iran is willing, a senior White House official told Scripps News. The fastest way for Iran to accomplish peace is to give up its nuclear weapons program.

President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin Saturday, with the focus primarily on the situation in Iran, the White House confirmed. Trump earlier in the month said Putin had suggested participating in the U.S.-Iran discussions.

He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end, Trump wrote on Truth Social after Saturdays call.

Putin, who has condemned Israeli strikes, shared a readiness to mediate, according to Russian state media.

It is significant that the Russian and U.S. presidents, despite the complicated situation, do not rule out a return to the negotiating track on the Iranian nuclear program, Russian presidential foreign affairs advisor Yuri Ushakov said following the call.

[If] these negotiations are about Iran's nuclear program, if it no longer exists, what are we negotiating about? questioned Simone Ledeen, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense under the first administration and defense consultant for Maven Defense Solutions.

It's still an active, kinetic environment. So a lot of these questions are sort of need to be answered when the dust settles a bit, not right now, Ledeen added.

Ahead of Israels initial strikes, Trump publicly signaled he didnt want Israel to attack Iran as he believed they were fairly close to an agreement.

As long as I think there is an agreement, I dont want them going in because I think that would blow it might help it actually, but it also could blow it, Trump said Thursday before Israels strikes.

But as tensions rose, the State Department had urged nonessential personnel to evacuate the American embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, citing growing tensions in the region. By Thursday morning, the Department had restricted U.S. government personnel and their families from traveling outside the greater Tel Aviv area in Israel. Separately, a U.S. defense official told Scripps News that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility (AOR), a vast region including the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia.

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But following the attacks, President Trump indicated Iran had not met a deadline to reach a deal. The president stated that he gave Iran 60 days to make a deal, and that day reached 61 on Thursday. I told them what to do, but they just couldnt get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance! he wrote on Truth Social.

This reinforces a deadline is a deadline under President Trump and there are costs to rejecting U.S. offers, said Jason Brodsky, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institutes Iran Program.

On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent well wishes and thanks to President Trump, as Trump celebrated his 79th birthday alongside the US Armys 250th anniversary with a military parade in Washington.

We paved the way to Tehran and our pilots over the skies of Tehran will deal blows to the Ayatollah regime that they cannot even imagine. I can tell you this, we have indications that senior leaders in Iran are already packing their bags. They sense what's coming, Netanyahu said.

Some experts are closely monitoring the political impact of developments on the ground in Iran.

For me, I think the most important developments will be what happens on the ground in Iran as well, in addition to the Israeli strikes, said Alireza Nader, an analyst on Iran. Lets not forget that only three years ago, there was the mass uprising, popular uprising inside Iran against this regime.

The Israeli strikes have targeted nuclear scientists, military commanders, and an enrichment facility, according to Netanyahu.

This has not played out well for Iran at all when you come back to this original decision to attack Israel on October 7, I mean, potentially, one of the greatest strategic errors in military history might end up being that, said Ledeen.

The conflict between the two countries stands to be a significant focus as Trump meets with other world leaders at the G7 summit next week in Canada.

A series of new economic analyses released Wednesday, several conducted by the federal government using official data sources, point to slowing economic growth and increased consumer prices brought on by President Donald Trumps trade war.

Despite such indicators, however, the White House has shown no sign of backing down on Trumps trade agenda, moving forward with plans to double the tariff rate on imports of foreign steel and aluminum and pushing ahead on bilateral trade negotiations with countries around the world.

In a statement to Scripps News, White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai dismissed concerns about poor economic indicators, arguing Trump administration policies ushered in historic job, wage, investment, and economic growth in his first term, and theyre laying the groundwork the repeat the success in his second term.

Taken together, however, the new data contradict months of White House messaging suggesting foreign producers and not American consumers would bear the brunt of tariff costs, and raise fears of an economic downturn brought on by global trade imbalances.

Over the summer, I think you're only going to continue to see these soft data numbers turn into hard data, and only going to see some more slowing in the economy, said Alex Jacquez, who worked on economic policy in the Obama and Biden administrations and now directs policy and advocacy work for the progressive Groundwork Collaborative think tank.

The president began the day on Wednesday, reiterating his call for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates, highlighting a new report from payroll processing firm ADP that showed U.S. employers added just 37,000 jobs in May the lowest private-sector job growth in over two years. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal had estimated much stronger growth of 110,000 jobs in May.

Then came new research from Liberty Street Economics, a blog run by economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, that found a majority of businesses in that jurisdiction passed along at least some of the added costs of tariffs onto consumers. Relyaing on data from a survey conducted during early May when the 145% tariffs on Chinese imports was still in effect the economists found a significant share of businesses also raised prices on goods not impacted by tariffs, suggesting firms were using Americans' widespread awareness of tariff-related economic uncertainty to justify price hikes across the board.

The Feds monthly Beige Book released later Wednesday pulling together data from all 12 of its districts echoed such trends.

All Districts reported elevated levels of economic and policy uncertainty, which have led to hesitancy and a cautious approach to business and household decisions, Fed officials wrote, adding that higher tariff rates were putting upward pressure on costs and prices.

Also on Wednesday afternoon, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its first analysis of the impact of Trumps tariffs on the U.S. economy more broadly, projecting a slight slowing of GDP growth and an increase in consumer prices brought on by Trumps tariffs. Federal government deficits would decline substantially due to the added revenues tariffs bring in, the CBO projected, but increased prices would drive up inflation by nearly 1% by 2026.

White House officials declined to comment on such findings, suggesting instead that reporters should take CBOs tariff revenue estimate of $2.8 trillion at face value, which together show a $500 billion deficit reduction over 10 years.

Behind the scenes, meanwhile, trade negotiations conversations between U.S. and foreign officials continue, with mixed success.

Following President Trumps late-May threat to levy a 50% tariff on imports from the European Union, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met Wednesday with European counterparts in Paris for what was described as a very constructive conversation that indicates a willingness by the EU to work with us to find a concrete way forward to achieve reciprocal trade.

We are advancing in the right direction at pace, echoed European Union trade commissioner Maro efovi following the meetings. I believe we can achieve positive result, efovi added, But we are also ready to defend our interests and do the utmost to rebalance our trade relationship.

Yet, progress towards a trade agreement with China, with which the U.S. maintains the largest trade deficit, remains elusive.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted last week that trade conversations with his Chinese counterparts were a bit stalled. Meanwhile, Beijings official readout of Tuesdays first meeting between U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue and Chinese Foreign Minister pointed to continued friction between the nations.

In recent weeks, the U.S. has introduced a series of negative measures for groundless reasons, infringing upon China's legitimate rights and interests, the Chinese statement read, suggesting the nation firmly opposes such actions.

Though senior White House officials said Monday that Trump would connect with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, no call had yet been scheduled as of Wednesday afternoon.

I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!! Trump wrote on Truth Social early Wednesday morning.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced new details about his Golden Dome missile defense program, suggesting the sweeping effort to protect the United States from foreign attacks would be fully operational before the end of his term in 2029.

Speaking from the Oval Office alongside several Pentagon leaders and Republican lawmakers, President Trump said the U.S. had officially selected an architecture for the system and promised it will be done in about three years. Trump added that hed tapped Gen. Michael Guetlein, currently serving as vice chief of space operations in the U.S. Space Force, to oversee the effort, which he said would cost about $175 billion.

Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space, Trump promised. He also suggested the Canadian government had expressed interest in collaborating with the U.S. on the program.

Experts on military development and weapons systems praised President Trump's move but cautioned not to read too much into the presidents remarks concerning cost and timeline.

"(Gen. Gutlein is a) great choice, and he is as well positioned as any officer I can think of to lead this effort," said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that advocates increased defense spending and military development.

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However, he conceded that "this is not going to provide 100% protection for every portion of the country. That's not realistic against every possible threat - ballistic, cruise, hypersonic and drone - that's not realistic. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to protect some parts as best we can and build that out over time.

Earlier this month, Lieutenant General Sean Gainey, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, sidestepped questions from reporters at the Pentagon about how widespread the protection from Golden Dome would be.

President Trumps executive order to start the Golden Dome development process asked for an "architecture that can encompass several different types of threats, and really increase the scope and scale of that architecture and focus on protecting the homeland holistically, Gainey said. He added its really hard to determine how much area the system will cover until further along in the process.

Bowman was also dubious of President Trumps three-year timeline.

We're not going to be able to get anywhere close to the more complete protection that the president discussed in three years, he told Scripps News. It's just going to take a lot longer than that.

Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost to deploy a constellation of space-based interceptors capable of defeating just one or two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) would fall somewhere between $161 billion and $542 billion over 20 years, down from a previous high-end estimate of $831 billion due to what the agency said were improvements in cost-effective space deployment.

Representatives in various offices and departments within the Pentagon did not respond to inquiries about how the president arrived at his three-year timeline or $175 billion price tag.

And even that $175 billion cost may stretch federal budgets absent a significant boost in military funding. The Trump administration, in its fiscal year 2026 budget request, sought to maintain Pentagon funding at the same levels as the Biden administration, proposing a Pentagon budget of $893 billion while assuming an additional $150 billion in military appropriations would come from Republicans tax spending cuts package.

The president suggested Tuesday that $25 billion of those funds, pursued through Congresss budget reconciliation process, would act as a deposit towards the Golden Dome program. Yet a number of Republican lawmakers, among them Sen. Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have suggested the presidents Pentagon funding request is inadequate.

If one agrees with me that we're confronting the most dangerous geostrategic moment we've seen as a country since 1945, why the heck does it make sense to have an effective defense budget cut? Bowman posed.

I admire the Trump administration's peace through strength policy, he continued, but you got to put your money where your mouth is.

Democrats, for their part, have criticized the program as far more costly than its worth and called into question which types of companies might stand to benefit from the lucrative contracts behind it. On May 1, a group of 42 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Defense Dept. requesting a review of the contract awards process and raising specific questions about whether Elon Musk whose SpaceX company already receives billions in federal contracts and is reportedly the frontrunner to build the missile system has played any role in it.

If you find that Mr. Musk is using his role in the federal government to secure a Golden Dome contract for SpaceX, we ask that you refer the case to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation, the lawmakers wrote.

SpaceX did not respond to an inquiry about the companys involvement in the Golden Dome effort.

Asked about such criticisms during Tuesdays Oval Office announcement, Trump was blunt: Well, theyre wrong, the president told reporters. Its about as perfect as you can have.