Trump on Iran:

They sent missiles to five different countries that never even knew they were involved.

Because they are stone-cold crazy. They are crazy.

Trump on Iran:

I want to be reimbursed because we are protecting a very rich portion of the world. We are spending money.

We will be reimbursed by the countries we are helping, like the five countries. You have Saudi Arabia, you have the UAE, you have Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others.

Trump:

Venezuela has tremendous amounts of oil that we control.

Trump on Iran:

Four months ago, Iran had a military that was very strong, by far the strongest-probably in the Middle East.

Trump on Iran:

They had tremendous radar. It's all gone.

Trump on Iran:

They made a deal. They broke it probably 10 times.

Trump on Iran:

They want to make a deal. They came back.

We made a deal two days ago, and they want to make a deal.

UAE says Iranian cruise missiles struck two of its oil tankers in the southern Strait of Hormuz, killing one Indian crew member and injuring eight others.

Footage of U.S. airstrikes in southeastern Iran.

Trump backed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before Saudi Arabia launched strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

The strikes followed Saudi concerns that an Iranian aircraft was allegedly transporting weapons and military personnel to the Houthis, and targeted Sanaa airport.

The Houthis retaliated with missiles and drones targeting Saudi Arabia.

Source: Axios

Overnight drone strikes hit two Russian oil refineries—Gazprom Neftekhim in Salavat (~1,500 km from Ukraine) and the Afipsky refinery in Krasnodar Krai.

Trump on Iran:

In four months, we've brought them back to the Stone Ages to a large extent.

They've still got some missiles and a little capability, but they've largely been brought back into a different period of time.

Trump on Lindsey Graham's Death:

We've had great doctors, and they talked about, you know, a certain part of his body literally blew up.

And that's a condition I believe his father had.

Trump on Lindsey Graham's Death:

Just to answer the conspiracy theory, I don't know. I'd love to say yes, but I think he had some problems and a very, very difficult condition.

Q: Who controls the Strait right now? Is it ours? Is it theirs? Is it neutral?

Trump: Yeah, we control it. They can make trouble. They can do things that are not nice, but we control it.

Trump on Lindsey Graham's Death:

His father died just about at the same age. I'm a believer in the race horse theory.

If you have problems, you have problems. And he had some problems.

Brazilian President Lula on Trump:

Trump made a post saying that he would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but every ship that he lets pass through the strait, the owner of the oil would have to pay him 20%.

That used to be called piracy, didn't it? It used to be called piracy.

A country as important as the United States, which spent so long fighting piracy, should not now become a pirate. He shouldn't be charging for that, because the strait is not his responsibility.

Brazilian President Lula on Iran:

We cannot accept a war provoked by the United States based on the claim that Iran wanted to build nuclear weapons.

I can say that this is a lie, because I was in Iran in 2010. I was there with President Ahmadinejad, together with the President of Türkiye, signing an agreement that Iran would not produce nuclear weapons—it would enrich uranium only for peaceful, scientific purposes, just as Brazil does.

In the same way, they claimed Saddam had chemical weapons, and they went and destroyed Iraq. Where are those chemical weapons? More than twenty years later—where are they?

Trump's proposed 20% fee on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz could more than double the cost of shipping oil through the waterway.

Analysts estimate transport costs could rise from about $10 to $26 per barrel, adding more than $30 million in costs for a large oil tanker and potentially leading to higher energy prices for consumers.

Source: NYT

Senior Iranian MP Ebrahim Azizi:

Last night, coinciding with the downing of U.S. drones, the ‘Strategic Action for the Security and Sustainable Progress of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf’ bill was formally introduced in Iran’s Parliament.

We remain steadfast in defending our red lines, particularly regarding the management of the Strait of Hormuz.

This is the first step; subsequent measures are forthcoming.

Germany's upper house approved a bill that would make denying Israel's "right to exist" or calling for its abolition punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

The bill still needs lower-house approval and has drawn criticism from free speech advocates, who say it violates Germany's constitutional protections for freedom of expression.

Source: The Jerusalem Post