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Saturday Afternoon News Updates: The Only Thing Trump Bombed Saturday Night Was His Big Speech — 7/25/26
Your Saturday updates are here.
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Hi all, Ben here. It’s Saturday, and there is a lot to get through, so let’s get right into it. And if you’ve preordered our first book, WTF America, which is available in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book, remember to let me know it the comments!
Stories we’re tracking today:
Trump reportedly told Israeli intelligence he was planning a major escalation against Iran overnight Friday, then backed off at the last minute
The first night in nearly two weeks without a U.S.-Iran exchange of fire
Houthis strike Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery in retaliation for Saudi strikes on Hodeidah, with satellite confirmation of the fire
Saudi Arabia reportedly green-lights a major counter-operation against the Houthis
Zelenskyy says Ukraine struck a Russian ship ferrying military cargo tied to Iran, plus a deep strike on a major Russian oil refinery
Russia claims it destroyed multiple ships supplying Ukraine’s military
Trump’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech bombs, and multiple jokes appear to be recycled from old, and in one case racist, material
Katy Perry blasts the White House for using “Firework” to soundtrack military strike footage without her permission
Buttigieg and others slam the administration for withholding the names of American service members killed in Iran
Trump spends Saturday morning golfing and posting an AI meme mocking Canada over wildfires
Alex Pretti’s mother marks six months since her son’s killing with no accountability and no apology from officials
Before I go any further, if you haven’t yet joined as a paid subscriber, consider doing so now by clicking here to support our work. This is how we grow. It will give you access to all recaps like this, our exclusive Ask-the-Editor series, and more. Plus, it is the best way to help support the growth of this network.
Now let’s get into it.
Trump Freezes on Iran, Then Faceplants at His Own Dinner
Donald Trump is had a rough night, and his Saturday is going any better. According to multiple reports, Trump told Israeli intelligence he was planning a major escalation against Iran overnight Friday. Then he chickened out. Trump was reportedly weighing what he called a “massive attack” on Tehran after Iran refused to sign onto a new agreement over its nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel, according to Kan and reporting circulated by the Faytuks Network, actually braced for that strike overnight. Then nothing happened. An Israeli official said Trump delayed his own deadline to give diplomacy, allegedly, another chance. The Mossad, from what we’re hearing, has no idea what he’s doing from one hour to the next. Iran, for its part, told the administration flatly that it’s done negotiating and accused the U.S. of repeatedly breaching the ceasefire memorandum anyway.
The result, oddly enough, was the first night in nearly two weeks that the U.S. and Iran didn’t trade fire. Iran’s health ministry confirmed no new attacks Saturday morning. But nobody should mistake one quiet night for de-escalation. We’re five months into this now, dating back to the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes in late February, and the missile technology keeps evolving. The Wall Street Journal notes Iran is increasingly combining its Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles with drones on varied flight paths specifically to overwhelm American Patriot defenses. And it’s working more often than U.S. officials would like to admit.
And while all of this was happening, Trump was somewhere else entirely, on a stage, bombing in the literal punchline sense of the word, in front of the entire Washington press corps.
The Correspondents’ Dinner Disaster
Karoline Leavitt hyped it up beforehand on Fox as a speech that would be, in her words, both unifying and vicious, serious and hilarious. What America got instead was widely described as an hour of dead air. Trump’s so-called “jokes” veered into incoherence, with Trump repeating the same Iran talking points he gives at every briefing. At one point, a frustrated Trump called his own remarks a stupid speech while he was still delivering it.
Brian Stelter compared watching it to reliving his own humiliating high school speech. Harry Enten ran through three separate reactions, calling it low energy, calling it unfair to make people suffer through over an hour of it, and noting Trump is now among the least popular presidents at this point in a second term in the entire century. Abby Phillip, who was in the room for Trump’s old Al Smith dinner roast years back, said the contrast was night and day, calling this version a shadow of his former self.
Then there’s the material itself. Turns out a chunk of what Trump delivered wasn’t original. An awkward line about a wife of sixty years asking to make love, and Trump answering that he can only pick one, traces back nearly word for word to a Reddit joke from seven years ago, was tweeted out by a random account in 2007, in a 2008 Brad Paisley song, and was even featured in a 2000 edition of the Tampa Tribune. In other words, it’s been going around for a long time. Worse, a bit about people yelling “get down” during gunfire causing Nicki Minaj to start twerking appears to be a repackaged, and frankly incredibly racist, old joke about Black soldiers getting killed Vietnam. So on top of everything else, add plagiarism to the list.
In a particularly surreal moment, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer presented The Wall Street Journal with the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability—an honor recognizing the newspaper’s reporting on Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the fallout that followed. Trump smiled, shrugged, and watched the tribute unfold as the reporters were honored for exposing his Epstein tied, before shaking their hands. You can watch the clip here.
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Outside the venue, a protester held up a sign with a single word: LOSER. Multiple viral clips also circulated showing Trump looking unwell on stage, nodding off at points during the evening. Not exactly the triumphant return Leavitt promised.
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Katy Perry Says No Thanks to the War Playlist
As if stealing jokes wasn’t enough, Trump’s team also apparently helped itself to Katy Perry’s music. The White House TikTok account used “Firework” as the backing track for footage of military strikes, and Perry was not having it. She said publicly that she never approved it, was never asked, and does not condone it in any way. She wrote that song, in her words, as an anthem of hope and healing for people going through their darkest moments, and called it a total violation to see that message weaponized to soundtrack destruction. Her point stands. This is a pattern with this White House: take something that isn’t yours, whether it’s jokes or music, and use it however you please.
The Fallout Over Fallen Service Members
While Trump was busy recycling decades-old jokes, there’s also real anger building over how the regime is handling American casualties in Iran. Trump has been shrugging off newly killed service members, bragging about his death numbers being lower than Vietnam, and using their deaths as war propaganda. Pete Buttigieg went on Fox yesterday, calling it outrageous that the regime has removed four service members killed in action from the Pentagon’s official records, apparently because acknowledging they were killed in action contradicts Trump’s insistence that we’re somehow not actually in a war, even though everyone can see otherwise. Meanwhile, an Iranian military commander overseeing Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya command publicly threatened that for every Iranian citizen killed, one American soldier would die in return, and said tickets to hell were being prepared.
Saudi Arabia and Yemen Trade Strikes
Overnight, Saudi Arabia struck the port city of Hodeidah and Kamaran Island in Yemen. The Houthis responded exactly the way they said they would. Their forces claimed two retaliatory operations, one hitting Aramco-affiliated facilities in Jizan with ballistic missiles and drones, the second hitting Yanbu with ballistic and cruise missiles plus drones. Satellite imagery from NASA’s FIRMS system confirmed multiple fire hotspots at the Jazan refinery, and follow-up footage showed it was still burning hours later. This was the first Houthi strike on a Saudi refinery complex in four years. The Yemeni Armed Forces’ full statement framed it as a response to what they called a twelve-year blockade, and vowed to keep escalating. Saudi Arabia, according to regional sources, has now reportedly green-lit a lengthy counter-operation with Yemeni government forces, coordinated with western allies. Notably, Greek air defense units reportedly helped shoot down Houthi missiles and drones over Saudi territory, a reminder of just how many countries are now entangled in this.
Ukraine Strikes Deep Into Russia
Zelenskyy announced Ukrainian forces struck a Russian ship involved in transporting military equipment to Iran, along with a warship in the Caspian Sea, the first time he’s made that specific claim. The timing is notable, coming less than a day after Trump warned it would be very bad for Russia or China to arm Iran. Ukraine also hit an oil refinery in Tyumen, a logistics facility in Yekaterinburg, a fuel depot in Rostov-on-Don, and reportedly damaged the Antipinsky refinery, Russia’s largest privately owned refinery, in a strike roughly 2,000 kilometers from the front line. Russia, meanwhile, claims it destroyed several Ukrainian supply ships near Nikolaev and Chernomorsk.
Trump’s Saturday: Golf and an AI Meme
With all of this unfolding, how is the president spending his day? He arrived at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia at 10:32 this morning with nothing else on his public schedule. Before he teed off, he posted an AI-generated image on Truth Social depicting a giant wall along the U.S.-Canada border styled as an air filtration barrier, mocking Canada while it battles wildfires that Mexico has actually sent help to fight.
Remembering Alex Pretti
I want to close with something people need to remember. Six months ago, Alex Pretti was killed by Trump’s Border Patrol. His mother marked the anniversary this week with a heartbreaking message, saying no one has ever been held accountable, and that her family has never received so much as a phone call from any government official, hospital, or the Minneapolis Police Department. She also expressed deep gratitude for the support her family has received from around the world, and asked people to keep speaking out and never forget what Alex stood for: equality and peace for everyone.
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