"Less than 48 hours after Donald Trump told Americans that Iran had 'no anti-aircraft equipment' and that its radar was '100 percent annihilated,' Iran shot down a United States Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle over its own territory."

~ Rudy Martinez

#Trump #Iran #war #airspace
/1

https://www.chicanoinparis.com/p/the-rest-of-the-world-report-april-8e8

The Rest of the World Report | April 4, 2026 — Saturday Edition

Iran War & Beyond

A Chicano In Paris

"The international military press has been tracking the contradiction between Trump’s public characterization of Iran’s degraded defenses and the operational reality on the ground since the war began. The F-15E shootdown will now anchor that coverage. …

WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: On Wednesday, the President of the United States told you that Iran had no anti-aircraft equipment and that its radar was completely destroyed."

#Trump #Iran #war #airspace
/2

"On Friday, Iran shot down an F-15E Strike Eagle — a front-line US combat aircraft — over Iranian territory, and downed or damaged three more aircraft during the rescue mission. One American crew member is still missing inside Iran. This is not a minor discrepancy between what the president said and what happened."

#Trump #Iran #war #airspace
/3

"It is a direct and documented contradiction — and the missing weapons systems officer, whose location is currently unknown, is its human consequence. The rest of the world already knows this. Now you do too."

#Trump #Iran #war #airspace
/4

"Iran’s ability to shoot down two US planes and damage two helicopters in a single day demonstrates that Trump and Hegseth lied to the American people about US total control of airspace over Iran."

~ Robert B. Hubbell

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #airspace
/5

https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/daily-dose-of-perspective-2f5

Daily Dose of Perspective

April 4, 2026

Today's Edition Newsletter

"Trump saying we have everything under control, that Iran's air defenses are obliterated: I mean, it's just exactly what Pete Hegseth said weeks ago. I think, in fact, on March 5th, he said, in a few days, the two most powerful air forces in the world will have complete control over Iranian forces. skies, uncontested airspace."

~ Robert Reich

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #airspace
/6

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-planet-is-trump-now-on-the-saturday

What Planet Is Trump Now On? The Saturday Coffee Klatch for April 4, 2026

With Heather Lofthouse and yours truly, Robert Reich

Robert Reich

"And then we learn, as we learned yesterday, tragically, that an American bomber is shot down by Iran. You know, Iran is supposed to not have any capacities to do this kind of thing."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #airspace
/7

"He declared that we had air dominance. I've heard of air superiority. Yeah. But air dominance, well, then how the hell did an F-15 get shot down? And of course, he's going to use this as an excuse. We already have, what, 10,000 or more troops poised to go on the ground. …At the end of the day, this is going to be the reason and the rallying cry for putting boots on the ground."

Brian Karem

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #airspace
/7

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/trump-loses-the-narrative-on-iran

Trump Loses the Narrative on Iran | It's The End! ... of the Week with Max Burns & Salon's Brian Karem

And Pam Bondi gets thrown under the bus.

Lincoln Square Shows

"There's no metric by which Donald Trump is winning right now. He is not winning the war. He is not winning on the economy. He's not even winning with his own base. He's not winning on the Epstein files. He didn't deliver on that. It's hard to think of a promise that he's kept.

And his base has noticed that."

~ Joy-Ann Reid

#Trump #ApprovalRating #Iran #war #economy #Epstein #MAGA
/8

https://www.joyannreid.com/p/trump-is-losing-the-war-and-the-country

Trump Is Losing The War and The Country | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!

A recording from The Joy Reid Show's live video

Welcome to Joy's House!
Midterm elections loom as GOP grapples with Trump's wartime presidency

Donald Trump won the presidency by promising to lower costs and end wars. A year and a half later, he is a wartime president contemplating whether to send U.S. ground troops into an expanding conflict in Iran. Gas prices are spiking and Trump is urging Americans to be patient. Everything adds up to a perilous situation for Republicans in the midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. The president did little to sell the war to skeptical voters before it started, and he defended his leadership on Wednesday night in his first major presidential address on the conflict.

AP News

"U.S. Central Command’s official X (Twitter) account has been inactive for over 24 hours, even as the conflict reaches one of its most critical moments for U.S. forces. It comes as U.S. forces are urgently racing to locate a missing crew member after an F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran."

~ Aaron Parnas

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war
/10

https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/news-pete-hegseth-purges-generals

NEWS: Pete Hegseth Purges Generals as Paranoia Grows, Military Silent as American Service Member is Missing, Trump Proposes Massive Cuts to Healthcare, Schools, and More

Good morning everyone.

The Parnas Perspective

"I think we should all probably pause and give thanks for the fact that the US, in the words of our dear leader, is 'winning bigger than ever'. Indeed many people are saying that nobody in the history of humanity has ever been as emotionally mature or strategically brilliant as the man spending all our taxpayer money on bombs."

~ Arwa Mahdawi

#Trump #Iran #war
/11

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/04/jesse-watters-fox-pam-bondi-darfur-lebanon-senegal

A Fox host says ‘many people’ think women shouldn’t be president. Thank goodness we’ve got a man in charge

Jesse Watters gave a litany of reasons why women shouldn’t lead before denying he agreed. But peddling these ideas normalizes them

The Guardian

Paul Krugman looks at Trump's alarming Easter message today threatening to reign [sic] down hell on Iran and ending, Glory be to GOD!, and says that this does not sound like Trump, certainly not the defeated Trump who spoke on t.v. on Wednesday.

Krugman says,

"That sounds almost as if Pete Hegseth wrote this post, which maybe in some sense he did."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war
/12

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/donald-trump-isnt-sounding-like-himself

Donald Trump Isn't Sounding Like Himself

And that's terrifying

Paul Krugman

"This is really bad. It’s hard to see what happens in 48 hours. It’s clear that Trump, for all his pretense of, 'I’m always winning,' is aware of how completely he screwed things up, that he’s aware that he has basically led America into an epic strategic defeat. …

This guy should not have any authority at all."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war
/13

"Finger on the button, although I don’t think we’re talking about nukes, but he shouldn’t have any authority on matters of state violence when this is the kind of mood he’s in. Just in general, although religiosity is often expected of American leaders, saying glory be to God before you unleash violence, that is not what used to be the American way."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war
/14

":Let’s just be clear about what the losses look like at this point. One F-35 damaged. Four F-15E Strike Eagles lost in total. One A-10 Thunderbolt II shot down. One E-3G Sentry AWACS, the crown jewel of U.S. airborne surveillance, destroyed. Eight KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft either destroyed, crashed, or damaged, several of them unusable."

~ Ben Meiselas

#Trump #Iran #war
/15

https://www.meidasplus.com/p/saturday-afternoon-updates-trump

Saturday Afternoon Updates: Trump in Hiding — 4/4/26

Hi all, Ben here.

Meidas+

"Seventeen MQ-9 Reaper drones shot down. One UH-60 Black Hawk damaged. Two HH-60G Pave Hawks damaged. One CH-47 Chinook destroyed. And 13 American military bases in the region have been evacuated."

#Trump #Iran #war
/16

@wdlindsy A hundred and twenty school children dead. A hundred and twenty school children dead. A hundred and twenty school children dead. A hundred and twenty school children dead.

For Trump’s soulless greed and Hegseth’s drunken pathetic ego and Netanyahu’s bloodlust

@wdlindsy 👏👏👏👏👍👍
@wdlindsy “enjoy the rest of your weekend”

@peterbrown @wdlindsy

The headline on the right-wing-nut sites will be “Jewish radical leftist tries to ruin Easter.”

@wdlindsy I disagree with the last sentence. Every war in my lifetime has been championed by a President who ends his sombre speeches before bombing a people to pieces with "God Bless the USA" or some variation. It is disgusting, it always has been, and it is a unique marker of the United States in the moments leading up to the unleashing of its violence on others. I don't see "Glory Be to God" as anything but more of the same.

@ChrisCorrigan @wdlindsy

"Glory be to GOD" is certainly not Trump's way... 🤔

Unless he now thinks He is ... 🤮

@ChrisCorrigan You may well be right — but I do think it's worth noting that the intense saturation of the entire federal government enterprise at present with hyper-religious language stands out in American history.
@wdlindsy certainty at the executive level. But prayer breakfasts and Pat Robertson were a thing as far back as I can remember. And you did implicitly have to be a Christian to be President.
@ChrisCorrigan I'd say there's good reason to read what has happened in the US in the Trump era as a radical departure from — as in a bridge far beyond — what has preceded it in this arena of politicized religiosity.
@wdlindsy ill bet that post was not written by Trump. Hegseth, perhaps?
@wdlindsy
There's a solution that the originators of our Constitution thoughtfully put in place. Congress has the solution for exactly this situation. A functional Congress that is.

@wdlindsy

US government is full of wackos, warmongers, pedophiles, sycophants, and grifters.

US Congress is controlled by Republicans, which means full of sycophants, cowards, and religious wackos.

US SC is controlled by Republicans, which means full of sycophants, cowards, and religious wackos.

@wdlindsy

Krugman looks shaken and so do a lot of people I know. Can I just say what it is that I think is making everyone sick?

It's all these signs that the US military is about to bomb a city. In an unprovoked war of choice.

And you know what? It still might not "work" ... anyone who wants to say I have a soft anti-war heart you are correct and I will not apologize. Fuck this war.

It is a HARD anti-war heart because I know this won't even work.

@wdlindsy

"If it's God's will, why is your finger on the trigger?"
SearingTruth

@wdlindsy

As Eric Trump puts it: The greatest President the USA ever had.

(I don't think he said "most biggly". Also I want to emphasize: This means greater than George Washington. They should hammer all those minor faces from Mount Rushmore: Only one face belongs there: The one of the greatest President of all times. Though I am not sure where on the market they'll be able to buy all this trademark orange color).

@wdlindsy

One more footnote: I am pretty sure "many people" and "many" of them even US Americans, think Trump should not be President. Just saying. You can't go by what "many people" say... 😉

@glitzersachen @wdlindsy when people say 'many people', I translate that to 'many of my personalities think...'.

@wdlindsy

OMG, this is a little of what I've been looking for in the so-called 'Main Stream Media'.

We all know that the one thing that the orange nonce cannot handle At All is mockery and ridicule.

Bring it on, by the truck-load.

@wdlindsy the world is very unsurprised to hear the much vaunted "generals" are doing literally nothing to stop or countermand "illegal orders". They're nazi scum who enjoy killing for the sake of killing. There's not a single redeemable member of your armed forces. I can't wait for the iranians to turn every single one of them into ash.
@wdlindsy Um ... he's making money, isn't he? That's the only metric that he cares about, isn't it?
@TimWardCam @wdlindsy he's dying, I think much like Netanyahu his goal is to stay out of jail and have nobody see his pedo pee tape, meaning he has to follow the advice of the worst people in the world