Friday Afternoon News Updates: Trump's War Burns Out of Control After a Disastrous Speech — 7/17/26
Hi all, Ben here. It’s Friday.
Before I get into everything going on, did that Trump speech last night not make you go, “WTF?!” That’s exactly the reason we named our first book, WTF America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. I just want to thank you again for the overwhelming support for this massive undertaking of ours. It’s already a bestseller in its category on day one, and if you haven’t preordered yet, you can do so now and help get it to the top of the overall charts. It’s dedicated to all of you, the Meidas Mighty, and I can’t wait to get it into your hands this October.
Okay. Here’s what we’re tracking today:
New reporting suggests a possible ground invasion and further strikes on Iranian infrastructure are being planned
U.S. strikes have reportedly destroyed multiple bridges and a maritime tower in Iran, with civilian casualties alleged
Iran has struck back at Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, the UAE, and reportedly threatened Gulf ports used by the U.S. military
The Strait of Hormuz is seeing its lowest shipping traffic in weeks
A MeidasTouch exclusive on Acting AG Todd Blanche’s meeting with Epstein survivors
Trump’s deranged primetime address released a batch of declassified intelligence documents that seem to prove the opposite of what he wanted them to
Truth Social just announced a new way for Trump to profit off his own office
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Let’s get into it.
The War Escalates
Trump is off to New York, where he’ll be attending a FIFA reception before heading to his private club in New Jersey, and then on Sunday, he’s off to the FIFA World Cup Final. This comes right after his unhinged primetime address last night, which I’ll get to. But almost immediately after that speech, his regime ran to Barak Ravid over at Axios. Ravid’s scoop: the regime has notified Israel that it’s sending dozens more refueling planes ahead of a possible expansion of the war against Iran.
According to that reporting, the options on the table include bombing Iranian power infrastructure, hitting nuclear sites again to bury enriched uranium even deeper, and striking a site called Pickaxe Mountain, believed to be a facility still under construction. Trump hasn’t made a final call, but he appears willing to escalate hard enough to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and cave to his nuclear demands. An order could reportedly come within days.
Except the escalation already happened. Overnight, strikes reportedly collapsed a maritime control tower in Chabahar for the third time in a week, and took out roughly six bridges near Bandar Abbas. Iranian and independent accounts allege the bridges were struck while civilians were still crossing them, with at least seven people, including truck drivers, reported killed. There are also reports of a strike on a Kurdish opposition group’s base that killed multiple fighters. A railway station and a civilian airport were also reportedly hit.
I’ve been saying since Monday that this looked like terrain prep for a ground invasion of Qeshm Island. We’re seeing more signs pointing that way now, and the theory driving the strategy seems to be that Iran will bomb-crater its way into a deal with Trump. Which is not how any of this has ever worked. There was already a deal. Two of them, actually, going back through the Obama years. Trump blew both of those up himself.
Now here’s where it gets even more dangerous.
