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As President Donald Trump pressures Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions amid rising tensions, Vice President JD Vance told The Washington Post there is ‘no chance’ the U.S. will enter a yearslong war in the Middle East.

‘The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight — there is no chance that will happen,’ Vance said on Thursday, according to the outlet.

‘I think we all prefer the diplomatic option,’ he said, according to the Post. ‘But it really depends on what the Iranians do and what they say.’

‘I do think we have to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. I also think that we have to avoid overlearning the lessons of the past. Just because one president screwed up a military conflict doesn’t mean we can never engage in military conflict again. We’ve got to be careful about it, but I think the president is being careful,’ Vance told the outlet.

Fox News Digital reached out to Vance’s office and the White House on Friday morning.

Trump said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, ‘My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number-one sponsor of terror — which they are by far — to have a nuclear weapon.’

Vance, after SOTU, says

In a Truth Social post regarding Iran on Monday, the president said that he ‘would rather have a Deal than not but, if we don’t make a Deal, it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them.’

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Former President Bill Clinton will testify to the House Oversight Committee in a high-stakes deposition for the committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein on Friday.

The closed-door meeting is expected to take place at 11 a.m. at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in Westchester County, N.Y.

Chappaqua has been the Clintons’ primary residence since they left the White House at the end of the former president’s tenure.

Republicans have been eager to question Bill Clinton about his ties to Epstein for months as the committee has gone back and forth with his lawyers about terms of the interview.

Both Democrats and Republicans are expected to grill Clinton, as well as committee staff on both sides.

His sitdown comes a day after his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appeared before the panel for her own lengthy deposition in the Epstein probe.

However, House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters on Thursday that he anticipated Bill Clinton’s deposition would be ‘even longer’ than his wife’s.

He also stressed Thursday that neither of the Clintons are being accused of wrongdoing tied to Epstein.

‘No one’s accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing. They’re going to have due process,’ Comer said. ‘But we have a lot of questions, and the purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein.’

Both depositions will be released on video sometime later.

Hillary Clinton told lawmakers in her opening statement that she could not recall any contact with Epstein, nor did she have any more information for the committee past what she sent in a Jan. 13 statement.

She also criticized the probe’s attention on her as a ‘fishing expedition’ and accused Republicans of trying to use her to pull attention from Trump.

‘A committee endeavoring to stop human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008,’ she told the panel, according to her opening remarks.

‘But that’s not happening. Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.’

Unlike his wife, however, Bill Clinton had a well-documented relationship with Epstein before his federal probes related to prostitution of minors and sex trafficking.

Bill Clinton’s name and photo appear numerous times in documents released by the federal government on Epstein, and flight records show he did ride Epstein’s plane.

But neither he nor Hillary Clinton have been implicated in Epstein’s crimes.

The committee has also interviewed two former Trump administration officials, ex-Attorney General Bill Barr and ex-Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.

Their testimonies come weeks after the House nearly voted on holding both Clintons in contempt of Congress for defying Comer’s subpoena. House leaders dropped the effort after the Clintons said they would comply.

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As the Trump administration appoints Vice President JD Vance to lead a nationwide ‘War on Fraud,’ a coalition of conservative state financial officers says it has already uncovered and stopped billions in taxpayer waste and is pledging to partner with the White House to root out corruption nationwide.

In a Thursday letter to the White House, the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) praised President Donald Trump’s focus on what he called fraud scandals that have ‘resulted in tens of billions of dollars being stolen from American taxpayers,’ writing that such corruption ‘shreds the fabric of a nation’ 

SFOF CEO OJ Oleka told Vance that the group’s 40 conservative state treasurers, auditors and comptrollers across 28 states stand ready to support the administration’s anti-fraud mission, noting they collectively oversee more than $3 trillion in state funds.

The letter accompanied SFOF’s inaugural 2025 Oversight Report, which claims that affiliated state financial officers safeguarded more than $28 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse in 2025 alone.

The report highlights some of the most egregious examples within that $28 billion including in Florida, where Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia just under $2 billion in excessive spending and in Kentucky, where Auditor Allison Ball found more than $836 million in improper Medicaid payments.

Medicaid fraud has been of particular interest to the Trump administration given the massive fraud scandal that has unfolded in Minnesota and Vance said on Wednesday the administration has ‘decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money.’

The report also highlights North Carolina, where it says State Auditor Dave Boliek discovered more than $1 billion in lapsed salaries from long term vacancies in the state. Additionally, Utah auditor Tina Cannon identified more than $518 million in fraud, waste and abuse across agencies and nonprofits receiving state and federal funds.

In his letter, Oleka told Vance that SFOF’s members are ‘allies already on the battlefield’ and stand ready to assist the administration in protecting taxpayer dollars.

‘The American people deserve nothing less,’ he wrote.

SFOF argues that state-level financial watchdogs, often elected independently of governors and legislatures, are uniquely positioned to expose mismanagement and enforce fiscal discipline.

With billions already identified at the state level, the group says a coordinated federal-state approach could dramatically expand the scope of fraud detection nationwide, potentially reshaping how taxpayer dollars are safeguarded across the country.

‘By working together, we can protect our nation’s treasure to the fullest extent against every foe and every plot to endanger it,’ Oleka wrote.

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The Department of Justice on Thursday sued five additional states, requesting that their election data be shared with the Trump administration amid its push for access to voter rolls from states across the country.

Four states President Donald Trump carried in the last three presidential elections — Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia — were slapped with the latest legal action, along with New Jersey.

The DOJ has now sued more than two dozen states in efforts to access election records, with most of the states being controlled by Democrats.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon suggested that state election officials were ‘choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work’ with voter roll access.

‘We will not be deterred, regardless of party affiliation, from carrying out critical election integrity legal duties,’ she said in a statement on Thursday.

‘The Justice Department will continue to fulfill its oversight role dutifully, neutrally, and transparently wherever Americans vote in federal elections,’ Dhillon said.

The Trump administration has intensified its efforts to take over elections in recent months even though the U.S. Constitution gives states, not federal officials, the authority to run elections. Most states have their secretary of state oversee elections.

Access to election information varies by state, but election officials generally release redacted versions of their voter rolls to the public and government agencies, according to Politico. However, the DOJ has demanded that states give the federal government unredacted files, including voters’ private data such as their driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.

‘Accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve,’ Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. ‘This latest series of litigation underscores that this Department of Justice is fulfilling its duty to ensure transparency, voter roll maintenance, and secure elections across the country.’

The DOJ has argued the states are in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which affirms that the attorney general can request voter records from election officials, but state officials contend that the department is seeking an escalation of the administration’s wider attempts to become involved in state election proceedings.

‘Neither state nor federal law entitles the Department of Justice to collect private information on law-abiding American citizens. Utahns can be assured that my office will always follow the Constitution and the law, protect voters’ rights, and administer free and fair elections,’ Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said in a statement to Politico.

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams also criticized the lawsuit, saying the state’s elections were ‘a national success story.’

‘Kentucky law protects voters’ personal information, and I will not voluntarily commit a data breach by providing Kentuckians’ personal data to the federal bureaucracy unless a court order tells me to,’ he said in a statement to the outlet.

West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner’s office said it had not yet been served with a lawsuit.

‘Regardless, I think Secretary Warner’s comments to the DOJ were pretty clear. Bring it on! The federal government is not going to get any personal information on West Virginia voters as long as Kris Warner is Secretary of State,’ spokesperson Mike Queen said in a statement to Politico.

Earlier this month, the FBI executed a search warrant at an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots and other voting records from 2020, according to local officials. The Peach State went to former President Joe Biden in 2020, but Trump carried the state in 2024.

In efforts to ensure only American citizens are voting, Trump has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require voters in federal elections to prove citizenship by providing a photo ID and other documentation, such as a passport or birth certificate.

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Pakistan’s defense minister declared an ‘open war’ with Afghanistan on Friday after the two sides exchanged heavy fire along their shared border on Thursday, according to multiple reports.

Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif said in a post on X that Pakistan had hoped the Taliban would bring stability after NATO’s withdrawal, but instead accused the group of turning Afghanistan ‘into a colony of India’ and ‘exporting terrorism.’

‘Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us,’ he said.

The clashes came after the Taliban said it launched retaliatory strikes on Pakistani military positions, while Islamabad said it was responding to unprovoked fire in the area.

Reuters reported that both forces clashed for more than two hours along their roughly 2,600-kilometer (1,615-mile) border, threatening a ceasefire that had been agreed to in 2025 after fighting.

Thursday’s flare-up came after Pakistani forces carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan earlier this week, with Taliban officials saying the strikes killed at least 18 people, Reuters reported Feb. 24.

Pakistan said it targeted militant hideouts and rejected claims that civilians were targeted.

The Taliban described an ‘extensive’ military operation against Pakistani army positions in response to the strikes.

‘In response to repeated provocations, extensive preemptive operations have been launched against Pakistani military positions along the Durand Line,’ Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on X.

 In a separate statement, he said ‘specialized laser units’ were operating at night.

Taliban military spokesman Mawlawi Wahidullah Mohammadi also said in a video shared with Reuters that the ‘retaliatory operation’ began Thursday evening.

Mujahid said ‘numerous’ Pakistani soldiers had been killed and some were also captured. Reuters said it could not independently verify those claims.

In another post on X, Mujahid said, ‘The cowardly Pakistani army has bombed some places in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia. Praise be to God, no one was harmed.’  

Pakistan has since rejected the Taliban’s account. 

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on X that the Afghanistan Taliban’s ‘unprovoked action along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border’ was given an ‘immediate and effective response.’

The ministry said Taliban forces had ‘miscalculated and opened unprovoked fire on multiple locations’ along the border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The post said the fire was being met with an ‘immediate and effective response by Pakistan’s security forces.’

‘Early reports confirm heavy casualties on the Afghan side with multiple posts and equipment destroyed,’ the ministry said. 

‘Pakistan will take all necessary measures to ensure its territorial integrity and the safety and security of its citizens.’

Pakistani security sources also told Reuters that 22 Taliban personnel had been killed, and several quadcopters were shot down.

The fighting follows Pakistan’s accusations that the Taliban is sheltering TTP militants behind a surge in violence and suicide attacks. 

The Afghan Taliban denies the claim. A day before February’s strikes, Pakistani officials said they had ‘irrefutable evidence’ that militants were launching attacks from Afghan soil, Reuters reported.

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Afghanistan and Pakistan exchanged significant cross-border fire Thursday in an escalation of hostilities along their shared border, according to multiple reports.

The clashes came after the Taliban said it launched retaliatory strikes on Pakistani military positions, while Islamabad said it was responding to unprovoked fire in the area.

Reuters reported that both forces clashed for more than two hours along their roughly 2,600-kilometer (1,615-mile) border, threatening a ceasefire that had been agreed to in 2025 after fighting.

Thursday’s flare-up came after Pakistani forces carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan earlier this week, with Taliban officials saying the strikes killed at least 18 people, Reuters reported Feb. 24.

Pakistan said it targeted militant hideouts and rejected claims that civilians were targeted.

The Taliban described an ‘extensive’ military operation against Pakistani army positions in response to the strikes.

‘In response to repeated provocations, extensive preemptive operations have been launched against Pakistani military positions along the Durand Line,’ Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on X.

 In a separate statement, he said ‘specialized laser units’ were operating at night.

Taliban military spokesman Mawlawi Wahidullah Mohammadi also said in a video shared with Reuters that the ‘retaliatory operation’ began Thursday evening.

Mujahid said ‘numerous’ Pakistani soldiers had been killed and some were also captured. Reuters said it could not independently verify those claims.

In another post on X, Mujahid said, ‘The cowardly Pakistani army has bombed some places in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia. Praise be to God, no one was harmed.’  

Pakistan has since rejected the Taliban’s account. 

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on X that the Afghanistan Taliban’s ‘unprovoked action along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border’ was given an ‘immediate and effective response.’

The ministry said Taliban forces had ‘miscalculated and opened unprovoked fire on multiple locations’ along the border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The post said the fire was being met with an ‘immediate and effective response by Pakistan’s security forces.’

‘Early reports confirm heavy casualties on the Afghan side with multiple posts and equipment destroyed,’ the ministry said. 

‘Pakistan will take all necessary measures to ensure its territorial integrity and the safety and security of its citizens.’

Pakistani security sources also told Reuters that 22 Taliban personnel had been killed, and several quadcopters were shot down.

The fighting follows Pakistan’s accusations that the Taliban is sheltering TTP militants behind a surge in violence and suicide attacks. 

The Afghan Taliban denies the claim. A day before February’s strikes, Pakistani officials said they had ‘irrefutable evidence’ that militants were launching attacks from Afghan soil, Reuters reported.

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A Senate Republican warned Thursday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s primary focus is shedding American blood as U.S.-Iran relations continue to simmer. 

‘The ayatollah not only thinks that I’m going to hell because I don’t agree with his religion — he wants to kill me,’ Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said on the Senate floor Thursday.

‘He wants to kill Americans and the Israelis and anybody who does not believe in his jihad and drink our blood out of a boot,’ Kennedy continued. ‘And he’s acted on that, and that’s not acceptable.’

Kennedy’s message comes as tensions with Iran are escalating. At the core of the issue is Iran’s capability and Khamenei’s desire to build a nuclear weapon.

President Donald Trump gave the country’s leadership roughly 10 to 15 days to reach a nuclear agreement and warned that the inability to strike a deal could lead to U.S. military action in the region.

He renewed that edict during his State of the Union address earlier this week.

‘I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror … to have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.

Kennedy cautioned that if the Trump administration were to broker a deal, it would need to have guardrails.

‘If we make a deal with Iran, let’s make sure we have a protocol to enforce it because, in my experience in watching the Ayatollah through the years, I wouldn’t trust this man if he was three days dead,’ he said.

Lawmakers are wrestling with the exact nature of what a strike could look like and whether Congress should weigh in before Trump makes a decision.

Senators Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., expect that their Iran war powers resolution will hit the Senate floor next week, which would curb Trump’s ability to strike the country without Congress’ approval.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the most important aspect of the Iran negotiations was ‘to prevent them from having nuclear capability.’

‘But there are also other threats that they represent in the region, and we have a big presence in that region, as you know. So, I think they’re looking at and working through what the options might be,’ Thune said. 

‘In my view, if you’re going to do something there, you better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change.’

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Perth, Australia (ABN Newswire) – Basin Energy Limited (ASX:BSN) (OTCMKTS:BSNEF) announced that it has now executed a Mineral Rights Purchase and Sale Agreement (‘MRPSA’) with Green Canada Corporation Inc (‘GCC’), a 54% owned subsidiary of PTX Metals Inc. (TSXV: PTX) (‘PTX’) to sell the Marshall Uranium Project (‘Marshall’), located in Saskatchewan, Canada. This follows the binding letter of intent, as announced on the 24th November 2025.

Key Highlights

– Mineral Rights Purchase and Sale Agreement executed, advancing Basin’s sale of 100% of the Marshall Uranium Project to Green Canada Corporation Inc (‘GCC’).

– GCC progressing toward public listing on Canadian Stock Exchange, in conjunction with a reverse takeover of Maackk Capital Corp.

– Basin will receive consideration of up to:

o C$600,000 payable in cash in four equal annual instalments;

o C$300,000 payable in shares over three equal annual instalments; and

o 9.99% of the total issued capital of the newly listed entity.

– Basin retains strong upside optionality, including a 25% project level buyback option and threeyear Right of first refusal (ROFR) on any future sale.

– Basin and CanAlaska Uranium Ltd (CVE:CVV) (‘CanAlaska’) have also granted GCC a 9-month exclusivity for the North Millennium Project.

The transaction is now conditional primarily on the proposed Reverse Takeover (‘RTO’) by GCC of Maackk Capital Corp (‘MAACKK’) and concurrent minimum C$2.5 million financing and admission to the Canadian Securities Exchange (‘CSE’) or such other stock exchange as may be mutually agreed upon by the parties.

In addition to the Marshall agreement, Basin and CanAlaska have agreed to grant GCC a 9-month exclusivity right to conduct due diligence and, if satisfactory, negotiate the terms of an earn-in option to acquire up to a 51% interest in the North Millennium joint venture project of CanAlaska and BSN.

Managing Director, Pete Moorhouse commented:

‘The execution of the definitive agreement marks a key milestone in unlocking value from the Marshall Uranium Project, while maintaining meaningful upside exposure for Basin shareholders.

With GCC progressing toward its public listing and associated financing, we are pleased to see a clear pathway toward funded exploration and drill testing at Marshall in the near term. Importantly, Basin retains leverage and upside through our equity interest, buyback option and right of first refusal, ensuring continued alignment with the project’s success.’

Terms of the Deal

In consideration, GCC has agreed to the following payments to Basin:

– C$600,000 payable in cash in four equal annual instalments, with the first payment due on closing of the transaction;

– C$300,000 payable in shares, issuable in three equal annual instalments based on the 5-day Volume-Weighted Average Price on the business day immediately preceding the date of issuance; and

– 9.99% of the total issued and outstanding resulting issuer shares on a non-diluted basis after giving effect to the concurrent financing at the time of closing of the proposed RTO, subject to 12-month escrow.

Basin will receive an additional 400,000 shares in the resulting issuer upon closing of the RTO in return for granting the 9-month exclusivity right in the North Millennium joint venture.

Basin will have a right of first refusal on any sale of the Marshall Project by GCC for a period of three years following the closing date of the transaction. In addition, Basin will retain a repurchase right to acquire from GCC a 25% interest in the Marshall Project for C$1,000,000 for a period commencing on the closing date and ending on the earlier of: the date that is five years from the closing date or the date on which GCC has incurred total exploration expenditures of C$10,000,000 on the Marshall Project.

Pursuant to the terms of the MRPSA, GCC is required to fund exploration expenditures for an initial work program on the Marshall Project to be carried out within twenty-four months from the closing. The Initial Work Program will have a budget in an amount that is the greater of C$1,500,000, and the minimum amount required to maintain the mineral claims comprising the Marshall Project in good standing under applicable governmental regulations.

Basin will also have the right to nominate one director to the board of the resulting issuer.

GCC will retain the right to withdraw from the transaction at any time after the closing of the transaction, in which case the project will return to Basin and no further payments will be required.

The Company has considered the application of ASX Listing Rule 11.4(a) and considers it does not apply.

About Green Canada Corporation

GCC is a 54% owned subsidiary of PTX Metals Inc. (CVE:PTX) and a uranium exploration company with a portfolio of projects located in Thelon Basin, Nunavut, the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan and Quebec. Concurrent to the LOI to acquire Basin’s Marshall project, GCC announced that it has entered into a binding letter of intent with MAACKK pursuant to which GCC and MAACKK intend to complete a transaction that would result in a reverse take-over of MAACKK by the shareholders of GCC (the ‘Proposed RTO’). Closing of the Proposed RTO will be subject to, among other things, requisite regulatory approval for the listing of the resulting issuer of the Proposed RTO (the ‘Resulting Issuer’) on the Canadian Securities Exchange or such other stock exchange as may be mutually agreed upon by the parties, along with completion of concurrent financing and execution of the definitive agreements in respect of the acquisition of the Marshall project.

Upon completion of the Proposed RTO, the current directors and officers of MAACKK will resign and it is anticipated that the board of directors of the Resulting Issuer will be reconstituted to consist of Richard J. Mazur, Greg Ferron, Olivier Crottaz and a representative from the Basin.

About the Marshall and North Millennium Projects

The Marshall project is 100% owned by Basin, and the North Millennium Project is under joint venture agreement on a 40:60 basis with CanAlaska.

The Marshall and North Millennium projects are located less than 11 km from Cameco Corporation’s Millennium deposit (104.8Mlb at 3.8% U3O8) and around 40 km from the prolific McArthur River uranium mine, one of the world’s highest-grade uranium operations, refer to Figure 1*. Both projects are deemed prospective for unconformity style uranium exploration.

In 2024, ground electromagnetics (‘EM’) at Marshall identified three main targets which confirms the geological and exploration model. Of note is Target 1, refer to Figure 2*, where modelled EM plates below the unconformity align with a sandstone Z-Tipper Axis Electromagnetic (‘ZTEM’) anomaly, which is interpreted to be alteration within sandstone. The identification of these targets is encouraging and consistent with regional trends in the southeastern Athabasca and provides increased confidence in drill hole targeting.

*To view tables and figures, please visit:
https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/R3LUUKE8

About Basin Energy Ltd:

Basin Energy Ltd (ASX:BSN) (OTCMKTS:BSNEF) is a green energy metals exploration and development company with an interest in three highly prospective projects positioned in the southeast corner and margins of the world-renowned Athabasca Basin in Canada and has recently acquired a significant portfolio of Green Energy Metals exploration assets located in Scandinavia.

Source:
Basin Energy Ltd

Contact:
Pete Moorhouse
Managing Director
pete.m@basinenergy.com.au
+61 7 3667 7449

Chloe Hayes
Investor and Media Relations
chloe@janemorganmanagement.com.au
+61 458619317

News Provided by ABN Newswire via QuoteMedia

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

A Senate Republican warned Thursday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s primary focus is shedding American blood as U.S.-Iran relations continue to simmer. 

‘The Ayatollah not only thinks that I’m going to hell because I don’t agree with his religion — he wants to kill me,’ Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said on the Senate floor Thursday.

‘He wants to kill Americans and the Israelis and anybody who does not believe in his jihad and drink our blood out of a boot,’ Kennedy continued. ‘And he’s acted on that, and that’s not acceptable.’

Kennedy’s message comes as tensions with Iran are escalating. At the core of the issue is Iran’s capability and Khamenei’s desire to build a nuclear weapon.

President Donald Trump gave the country’s leadership roughly 10 to 15 days to reach a nuclear agreement and warned that the inability to strike a deal could lead to U.S. military action in the region.

He renewed that edict during his State of the Union address earlier this week.

‘I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror … to have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.

Kennedy cautioned that if the Trump administration were to broker a deal, it would need to have guardrails.

‘If we make a deal with Iran, let’s make sure we have a protocol to enforce it, because in my experience in watching the Ayatollah through the years, I wouldn’t trust this man if he was three days dead,’ he said.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are wrestling with the exact nature of what a strike could look like and whether Congress should weigh in before Trump makes a decision.

Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., expect that their Iran war powers resolution will hit the Senate floor next week, which would curb Trump’s ability to strike the country without Congress’ approval.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that the most important aspect of the Iran negotiations was ‘to prevent them from having nuclear capability.’

‘But there are also other threats that they represent in the region, and we have a big presence in that region, as you know, so I think they’re looking at and working through what the options might be,’ Thune said. ‘In my view, if you’re going to do something there, you better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change.’

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wasted no time criticizing Republicans after she emerged from a roughly six-hour grilling in the House Oversight Committee’s Jeffrey Epstein probe Thursday evening.

Clinton told reporters she answered questions ‘repetitively, literally over and over again’ after blasting Republicans for holding a closed-door deposition instead of a public hearing.

She said, however, that she would not testify again if there was a public hearing, telling reporters, ‘They had a chance to do it in public, and I wish they had done it in public. And I think they’re making the wrong decision, avoiding doing it in public.

‘It then got, at the end, quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile, bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet that was serving as the basis of a member’s questions to me,’ Clinton said.

She also knocked Republican lawmakers for not attending the deposition of former Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner in person.

Clinton did save praise for House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., however, ‘for raising a series of significant questions that I responded to about the nature of the investigation and the areas that I thought should be explored.’

‘So, I appreciated that. I want to see the truth come out. So, that was a reassuring way to end a very long, repetitive, deposition,’ Clinton said.

She also reiterated comments from her opening statement that she did not know Epstein and said she only knew Ghislaine Maxwell ‘as an acquaintance.’

When asked why Maxwell was invited to daughter Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, however, Clinton said she was a ‘plus-one of someone invited.’

Clinton’s deposition began in the 11 a.m. hour and wrapped in the 5 p.m. hour in her hometown of Chappaqua, New York.

Comer said afterward that Clinton ‘answered most of our questions’ in a ‘productive’ deposition but said Republicans ultimately ‘weren’t satisfied’ with what they gleaned.

‘The number of times that she said, ‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask my husband,’ was more than a dozen,’ Comer said.

Former President Bill Clinton is slated to testify behind closed doors Friday for what Comer said would be an ‘even longer’ deposition.

Neither Clinton is implicated in any wrongdoing related to Epstein or Maxwell, but Bill Clinton was known to have a relationship with the late financier and sex trafficker before the federal investigations into Epstein’s crimes came to light.

Hillary Clinton said that relationship ‘ended years, several years, before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light.’

Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital it was ‘frustrating’ to see Hillary Clinton ‘obstinate and sort of annoyed at the process.’

‘She had an excuse for everything. But when you’ve got a pattern of involvement and a pattern of association, the American people deserve answers,’ Timmons said.

‘Honestly, I tend to find her to be fairly credible, but I mean, all of this is going to culminate tomorrow with President Clinton, and he has a lot of really hard questions to answer. And I don’t think that the American people are going to like his answers.’

The deposition was tense at times, a tension Clinton alluded to when she accused Republicans of breaking the rules when Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., apparently shared a photo from inside the deposition room with a right-wing influencer.

‘We had a bit of a challenge in the beginning because we agreed upon rules based on the fact it was going to be a closed hearing at their demand. And one of the members violated that rule, which was very upsetting because it suggested that they might violate other of our agreements,’ Clinton said. 

‘So, we had to cease the hearing for a period of time until we could get assurances that no rules would be broken going forward.’

It’s notable, however, that Democrats also leaked information from inside the room but did not get any public blowback. A New York Times reporter posted reporting about the deposition on X earlier in the day while citing a ‘Dem member in the room.’

Bill Clinton’s deposition is also expected to kick off in the 11 a.m. hour on Friday at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center.

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