Trump Threatens Iran Nuclear Site, Pakistan Mediates

President Donald Trump used a Sharyl Attkisson interview, released Sunday, to declare that US forces have what is left of Iran's nuclear materials site "very well surveilled" via Space Force and would "blow up" anyone who tried to approach it. "If somebody walked in, they can tell you his name, his address, the number of his badge," Trump said, adding that Washington had hit "probably 70 percent" of the targets it had identified for the campaign that opened on 28 February with Israel, and could resume strikes "for two more weeks" to finish the list. The same day, IRNA reported, Iran transmitted its formal response to the US ceasefire proposal through Pakistani mediators, with the first phase of any deal focused on ending hostilities and securing safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. While the rhetoric and the diplomacy were running on parallel tracks, the QatarEnergy LNG carrier Al Kharaitiyat became the first Qatari vessel to transit Hormuz since the war began, bound for Pakistan's Port Qasim — the passage approved by Iran as a confidence-building measure to the two mediators.

On the home front the Trump administration deepened its push into state-run elections. The Justice Department, after demanding voter registration data, ballots, driver's-licence records and partial Social Security numbers from nearly every state in 2025, has now seized ballots in Georgia, Arizona and Michigan and sued roughly 30 states that refused to hand over voter rolls. Courts and election officials have repeatedly found no evidence of widespread fraud; Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has warned the rolls are being assembled into a centralised citizen database.

Counter-terror officials told four experts consulted that the 2026 FIFA World Cup — 78 of 104 matches in 11 US host cities across six weeks — faces elevated risk because of the Iran conflict, homegrown violent extremists, lone actors and a depletion of counter-terror expertise inside federal law enforcement. The tournament's risk profile is now part of the Iran file rather than separate from it.

The defence reposition outside Iran continued. The White House is weighing further US troop withdrawals from Europe, with Italy identified as the next candidate after the confirmed pull-out of 5,000 troops from Germany; the reassessment may also cancel planned long-range deployments. The Financial Times documented Iran's network of roughly 300 IRGC speedboats hidden in caves and tunnels along the southern coast — the asymmetric force the US Navy must now plan around if any Hormuz transit guarantee is to hold.

Sunday's domestic-economy story arrived from Sacramento. California is preparing a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires' assets, likely for a November ballot, to fill a gap created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's $186 billion ten-year SNAP cut, which threatens 665,000 California recipients; tech figures including Sergey Brin are publicly opposed. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, looking ahead to Trump's coming Beijing visit, predicted a "remarkable breakthrough" with Xi Jinping on Taiwan, the Iran war and reopening Hormuz. The FDA's Operation Stork Speed claimed widespread baby-formula safety, but independent scientists found PFOS in at least half of samples, phthalates in about half, and lead and chlorpyrifos in some — the day's reminder that the administration's regulatory and electoral interventions are running against contested science as well as contested counts.