Tuesday Afternoon Updates: Iran Fires Back after U.S. Attack While Trump at Walter Reed – 5/26/26

May 26, 2026

Hi all, Ben here. It’s Tuesday, May 26th. Here is your midday update. Be sure to like and re-stack now to spread the word. That’s one of the single best ways you can help this network grow.

Here are the top stories we’re tracking today:

Iran shoots down a U.S. MQ-9 drone and fires on an F-35 and RQ-4 drone following U.S. strikes near the Strait of Hormuz, calling the U.S. action a ceasefire violation.
A tanker is struck near Muscat, Oman.
The IDF pushes beyond its own self-declared buffer zone in southern Lebanon and issues new evacuation warnings for Beirut neighborhoods.
CENTCOM contradicts a Wall Street Journal report claiming Project Freedom has resumed in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump convenes a Camp David Cabinet meeting for Wednesday with Iran at the top of the agenda.
Trump heads to Walter Reed, his third hospital visit this year, while posting QAnon memes and violent AI-generated slop on Truth Social.
The Trump White House desperate tries to counterprogram reporting on Trump’s health
Dr. Jonathan Reiner raises serious concerns about Trump’s cognitive health on CNN.
Kevin Hassett blames refrigerator regulations for affordability problems while consumer sentiment sits at all-time lows.
Sen. Dave McCormick accidentally calls Trump’s government “the regime” on live TV.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio lands in New Delhi to zero reception from Indian officials.
A federal three-judge panel blocks Alabama’s congressional map, finding it intentionally discriminatory ahead of the midterms.
The South Carolina Senate rejects Trump's push to redraw U.S. House districts in a bid to gain Republicans an extra seat.

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Iran Responds to U.S. Attacks

After the United States struck IRGC boats allegedly laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz and hit missile sites in Bandar Abbas, Iran responded. Iran’s IRGC says it shot down an advanced American MQ-9 drone and fired on a U.S. F-35 fighter jet and an RQ-4 drone. Iranian state television is broadcasting footage of the drone wreckage. Iran’s Foreign Ministry is calling the U.S. strikes a blatant ceasefire violation and says the response will not stop there.

Think about what it means that Iran is claiming it fired on an F-35. These aircraft have long been considered largely invisible to radar detection. If Iran has the capability to target them, that is a significant development that deserves serious attention.

A source close to Iran’s lead negotiator Ghalibaf says Iran is now developing new tactical surprises and that approximately 30 vessels are currently passing through the Strait of Hormuz daily under Iran’s protocol. The source’s assesses that the U.S. has failed militarily to open the strait on its own terms. Regardless of where negotiations stand, Iran says any further aggression will be met immediately.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei declared on social media that Gulf countries will no longer serve as shields for U.S. military bases and that the United States will have no safe haven in the region. An Iranian parliamentarian posted a warning directed at, as he put it, the owners of glass houses: prepare your shelters, get your bunkers ready.

Meanwhile, a tanker about 60 nautical miles east of Muscat, Oman reported an external explosion near its waterline. The crew is safe, but fuel has leaked into the sea. We will continue monitoring this.

All of this is happening while Donald Trump spent most of the morning at Walter Reed. More on that below.

But first…

The “Ceasefire” That Isn’t

Can we just be honest about what’s happening here? There is no ceasefire. The U.S. struck Iran. Iran struck back. A tanker has been hit. And yet the State Department’s spokesperson Tommy Pigott went on MAGA propaganda channel Newsmax and insisted that Trump holds all the cards. Even the hosts at Newsmax weren’t buying it, asking point blank why anyone should keep calling this a ceasefire when it’s clearly an ongoing war.

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that the U.S. Navy had resumed escorting commercial ships through the Strait under a renewed Project Freedom mission, citing a Greek supertanker carrying two million barrels of crude that had been stranded since March. Within hours, CENTCOM issued a flat denial, saying Project Freedom has not resumed and U.S. forces are not escorting commercial vessels.

So either the Wall Street Journal’s sources were wrong, or someone is lying to manipulate the oil markets.

Trump has a Camp David Cabinet meeting scheduled for Wednesday where Iran will dominate the agenda. As of now there is no coherent strategy, no credible ceasefire, and no clear path forward. Will that change? We will see…

Israel Escalates, Ben-Gvir Interferes

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the extremist who was recently out taunting passengers aboard a flotilla headed to Gaza, has declared that Israel will not allow Trump to sign what he calls a bad deal with Iran. Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir are actively coordinating with Trump to ensure no agreement goes through that they disapprove of.

Meanwhile, the IDF has now pushed ground forces beyond its own self-declared Yellow Line buffer zone in southern Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah drone launch sites. New evacuation orders have gone out to residents in neighborhoods in Beirut. The escalation in Lebanon is real and it is intensifying.

Trump at Walter Reed. Again.

Donald Trump made his third trip to Walter Reed this calendar year. The White House is calling it a routine annual physical. But Trump already had an annual checkup in October 2025, where he underwent advanced imaging and reportedly could not identify which part of his body the MRI was scanning. He had another checkup in April 2025. Now here we are in May 2026 with a third visit.

Renowned cardiologist Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who served as Vice President Cheney’s cardiologist and is based at George Washington Hospital, appeared on CNN and raised serious red flags. He described the president as having severe daytime somnolence, meaning he falls asleep frequently and uncontrollably. Reiner said Trump has fallen asleep in the Oval Office while people were actively speaking to him, and that he was concerned Trump may have nodded off at Arlington National Cemetery during Memorial Day observances just yesterday. Reiner noted that chronic severe insomnia of this nature is associated with increased dementia risk and significant cognitive decline, particularly in older individuals. He also said that if doctors today repeat the same scans conducted in the past year, that would signal they are monitoring something that has never been disclosed to the public.

These are not partisan attacks, but rather the clinical observations of one of the most respected cardiologists in the country.

Before heading to the hospital, Trump was posting deranged content per usual on Truth Social. He posted an AI-generated image of himself inside the letter Q, with “Q+” printed on his collar, and the words “GAME OVER DEEP STATE.” Let me be clear about what QAnon actually is. It is a death cult. It is a movement built around the belief that Donald Trump will publicly execute Democratic leaders on the steps of the Capitol. This is not a fringe internet joke. This is the ideology Trump is actively amplifying. Not a single major corporate media outlet will call it what it is because they’ve decided to treat it as normal at this point. It is not normal.

Trump also reposted a violent AI meme of himself holding a shotgun while hunting rhinoceroses, with a dead rhino in the background and the text “NO RINOS.” While James Comey is being investigated over the number 8647 written in seashells, Trump is posting images of himself hunting down Republicans who don’t comply. If a photo of seashells is an indictable offense, what does that make Trump’s post?

He also posted an AI image of former President Biden asleep in the Oval Office with Hunter Biden doing lines of cocaine, melting ice cream on the desk, Obama holding an autopen, and Hillary Clinton smiling sinisterly. Another AI image showed Obama handing cash to Iran. More deranged slop from a man who has nothing else to offer.

In another post, Trump declared himself the real art of the deal while Iran is shooting down our drones and the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control. Barack Obama, who Trump obsessively attacks, negotiated the JCPOA, a multilateral agreement that stopped Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon without firing a single shot. He didn’t hand Iran new money; he unfroze funds that were already theirs under international agreements. Obama stopped Iran from going nuclear through diplomacy. Trump nearly entered a weaker version of that same deal, got pressured by the warmongers in his own party and by Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir to back away from it, and now we’re right back in an undeclared war that he is actively trying to cover up. Some art of the deal.

The White House response to all of this scrutiny has been nothing short of embarrassing. Rather than address the legitimate medical questions being raised, they are posting photos and short videos of CNN anchors looking down or blinking, as if that somehow cancels out a president who can’t stay awake at Arlington National Cemetery or in the Oval Office.

Trump World = Fantasy World

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum went on TV to marvel at Trump’s genius after Trump allegedly rallied Gulf state leaders on a phone call to support expanded Abraham Accords. Well, Reuters quickly reported that Pakistan rejected the proposal outright, and not a single other country publicly responded positively. In fact, Trump was met with dead silence on the other line to the point where he had to ask if they were still there.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Pakistan all made clear they are not normalizing relations with Israel while Gaza is being destroyed and a Palestinian state remains unrecognized. But in Burgum’s version of reality, Trump is always two moves ahead, and it’s always a magnificent deal.

Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania went on Fox News to defend the administration’s handling of the Strait of Hormuz and said out loud that the U.S. may need to use military force to open it. He said it won’t be easy. He’s right about that. And in the same appearance, he started a sentence with “President Trump’s regime” before catching himself and switching to “administration.” Even Republicans are calling it the regime now. Freudian slips have a way of revealing what people actually think. Maybe he’s been reading what we’ve been calling them here at MeidasTouch.

Kevin Hassett, Trump’s national economic adviser, went on Fox Business and when asked about affordability, his answer was to pivot to refrigerator regulations. While American families are paying more at the gas pump and at the grocery store, Hassett’s big insight is that grocery stores might close because of rules about refrigerators. He also claimed that because people are spending more money on everything, they must be optimistic about the economy. Consumer sentiment is currently at all-time lows. These people are not serious.

Finally, Some Push Back on Republican Gerrymandering

It was a rough day for Republican attempts to redraw electoral maps in their favor. A federal three-judge panel has issued a preliminary injunction blocking Alabama’s proposed congressional map for this year’s midterms, finding that the map was intentionally discriminatory. Separately, the South Carolina Senate rejected Trump’s push to redraw U.S. House districts in a bid to hand Republicans an extra seat.

Some Final Thoughts

I want to close with something that, to me, captures exactly where we are. Secretary of State Marco Rubio touched down in New Delhi for a diplomatic visit. When he stepped off the plane, he asked where everyone was. Not a single Indian government official was there to greet him. No foreign minister. No representative from Modi’s government.

Think about what that image represents. In any previous era, the arrival of the U.S. Secretary of State in a major allied nation would have been met with a formal reception, dignitaries, ceremony. India sent a message. Your attacks on the international order, your tariff wars, your contempt for allies, it is all being noted.

America First has produced one outcome with absolute consistency: America alone.

We will keep you updated as more comes in. Ron Filipkowski will be back later today with his full news bulletin. Also, we plan on posting the latest episode of Ask the Editor-in-Chief later, in which Ron answers your questions. Thanks for your support!

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