Al-Jazeera Exposes the UnConstitutional Trump War Against Iran
13 March 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
Jeffrey Sachs calls it “fascist,”
Here is (the U.S.-allied, Qatari-Government-owned) Al Jazeera:
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If you look at just the first 100 hours of the war on Iran,
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the U.S. spent $3.7 billion.
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That’s more than what most countries spent on their entire militaries in 2024.
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Gone in four days, less than 5% of it approved by Congress.
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Here’s how much a day of war on Iran costs the U.S.
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The Center for Strategic and International Studies broke down the bill.
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Item one, operations. Keeping more than 200 fighter jets in the air,
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a fleet of warships at sea and artillery on the ground. About $196 million.
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Most of it was already budgeted.
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The real cost was what this war machine fired.
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Item two, munitions. Over 2,600 guided weapons launched in 100 hours.
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Missiles, precision bombs, drones. Replacing them cost $3.1 billion.
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Item three, things that broke.
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Three F-15 jets destroyed by friendly fire in Kuwait.
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The bill came in at $359 million.
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Add it all up, and it’s $3.7 billion for four days of war.
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At the beginning of the campaign, the most expensive weapons went first.
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On day one, Iranian air defenses could destroy almost anything that got close.
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So the U.S. struck from a distance with Tomahawk cruise missiles at $3.6 million apiece.
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By day four, with Iranian defenses degraded, bombers dropped $80,000 smart bombs.
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But the most expensive part of this war isn’t the bombing.
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It’s stopping what Iran fires back.
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A Shahed drone costs Iran up to $50,000. Shooting one down can cost 100 times more.
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In four days, Iran launched 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones.
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And they don’t necessarily need to hit anything.
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Every launch depletes the other side’s air defense stockpile.
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Gulf allies helped absorb the blow.
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They intercepted more than 1,800 missiles and drones.
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So who pays for all this, and how?
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Of the $3.7 billion, only $178 million was in the Pentagon’s budget.
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Everything else, no funding source.
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The Trump administration is running this war on a military credit card.
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And Congress hasn’t seen the bill yet.
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When it arrives, there are three ways to pay.
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One, a supplemental spending bill.
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Trump asks Congress for emergency money, the way George W. Bush did after Iraq and Afghanistan.
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But every vote on funding becomes a vote on the war.
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Two, redirect part of the $150 billion from the first Trump reconciliation bill.
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But that money has already been promised elsewhere.
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Three, roll it into a future spending bill that may never pass.
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Today, every day of this war costs close to a billion dollars.
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Some Republicans estimate it may even be double that.
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And four days cost about what it would to rebuild every single school destroyed in Gaza.
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And here is (the independent) Sachs:
——
“Economist Jeffrey Sachs: U.S.-Israeli ‘War of Choice,’ Assault on U.N. Charter Could Lead to WWIII”
Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, 13 March 2026
30 seconds
Earlier this week,
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32 seconds
the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Iran for its quote egregious attacks against its Gulf
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39 seconds
neighbors, calling out specifically attacks on residential areas and civilians, as well as its closure of the Strait of Hormuz,
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49 seconds
threatening global energy supplies, Bahrain,
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54 seconds
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan are specifically mentioned in the resolution
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1 minute, 3 seconds
which had 140 co-sponsors. Of the 15 Security Council members, 13 voted in
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1 minute, 10 seconds
favor with none against. China and Russia abstained. Bahrain’s UN ambassador Jamal Faris Aroai said the
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1 minute, 19 seconds
vote reflected the collective conscience of the world.
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1 minute, 27 seconds
“This overwhelming support from the international community reflects a collective awareness of the danger posed by the unjust Iranian attack against our
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1 minute, 34 seconds
countries, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the GCC, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan over the past 12 days. The adoption by the council of this resolution today
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1 minute, 42 seconds
confirms that the international community is united in addressing and confronting these hostile acts. The stability and safety of the region is part and parcel of the security and peace architecture.”
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1 minute, 52 seconds
Russia’s representative to the UN called the past resolution biased for not acknowledging Israel and the United
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1 minute, 59 seconds
States as instigators of the war. Russia introduced a second resolution that called for an immediate halt to all hostilities in the Middle East without
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2 minutes, 6 seconds
naming any parties involved. That resolution failed to pass. This is the US ambassador to the United Nations,
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2 minutes, 15 seconds
Mike Waltz. “And once again, Russia is acting here at the Security Council to protect its partner, Iran.
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2 minutes, 26 seconds
We reject Russia’s attempt to conflate lawful US actions taken in line with Article 51 of the UN Charter to conflate
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2 minutes, 36 seconds
those actions with Iran’s pattern of bloodshed and brutality to its own people and around the world. and with
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2 minutes, 44 seconds
its recent deliberate and at scale targeting of civilians and
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2 minutes, 51 seconds
civilian infrastructure across the Gulf and the Middle East. The United States will continue to work here at this
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2 minutes, 58 seconds
council and beyond to hold the Iranian regime to account and to bring to light its destabilizing
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3 minutes, 8 seconds
and unlawful actions. Russia’s attempts to prevent this council from acting in line with its core principles will not deter us.”
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3 minutes, 18 seconds
For more, we’re joined by the economist Jeffrey Sachs. He’s the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at
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3 minutes, 26 seconds
Columbia University and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He’s also served as advisor to
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3 minutes, 34 seconds
three UN Secretaries General. He recently wrote an article headlined,
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3 minutes, 38 seconds
“This illegal USIsraeli attack on Iran is also an assault on the United Nations.”
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3 minutes, 45 seconds
In an open letter to the UN Security Council in February, Professor Sachs said it was the US and not Iran that had
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3 minutes, 52 seconds
walked away from negotiations and that US threats against Iran violated international law. He said, quote, “The issue facing the UN Security Council in
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4 minutes, 2 seconds
these perilous days is whether any member state by force or threat of force may place itself above the United
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4 minutes, 8 seconds
Nations charter that governs us all. At stake is the integrity of the UN- based international system,” unquote.
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Professor Sachs today joins us from Rome, Italy. Thanks so much for being with us,
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Professor Sachs, why don’t you elaborate on um this letter and your statements um about the UN international order and
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what is happening today with the US Israeli attack on Iran and Iran’s retaliatory attacks.
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4 minutes, 38 seconds
SACHS: Thank you very much Amy, and what a chilling show to hear Gideon Levy uh to hear your report from Beirut.
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4 minutes, 47 seconds
We have a war of blatant aggression that
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4 minutes, 53 seconds
is going to put the entire world into a disaster. This is a war of aggression
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5 minutes
and a war of choice by Israel and the United States. It is in the most blatant
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5 minutes, 7 seconds
frank violation of the UN charter and the core of the UN charter its purpose
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5 minutes, 14 seconds
which says that nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the
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5 minutes, 23 seconds
territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Period. That
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5 minutes, 29 seconds
is article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN charter. Waltz, the US ambassador, says,
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5 minutes, 37 seconds
“Oh, we’re acting under article 51.” That is the uh article on self-defense.
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5 minutes, 43 seconds
The United States is not acting in self-defense. Israel is not acting in self-defense. These two countries are
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5 minutes, 51 seconds
committing flagrant aggression and they’ve done it twice now in the
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5 minutes, 58 seconds
context of negotiations which makes it all the more pernicious.
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Twice the United States claimed it was negotiating with Iran, and twice it killed Iranian leaders in the midst of the so-called negotiations.
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This is the most blatant and brazen assault on
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UN, the UN charter and international law, since it was founded in 1945.
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6 minutes, 31 seconds
Even in the Iraq war and other US wars and Israeli wars of choice, they faked
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6 minutes, 38 seconds
it. At least here, they don’t even fake it. They just are blatant aggressors
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6 minutes, 44 seconds
with no justification at all. Our UN ambassador is Green Beret. They have
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6 minutes, 53 seconds
militarized everything about our society. Amy and Juan, we are in a
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security state, not a constitutional order. No one asks the American people about whether to go to war or not. and
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7 minutes, 10 seconds
our Congress doesn’t want to have anything to do with this. So when they’re asked, they say, “Don’t ask us.
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This is uh we give it to to Mr. Trump and to Mr. Netanyahu.”
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So I think this is the most brazen fascism that we have seen since the
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fascist era. Uh, and it is absolutely extraordinary, and it’s going to
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put us, I think, probably into World War III. And if it doesn’t do that, it’s going to put us into an economic calamity worldwide.
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…
8 minutes, 34 seconds
Look, every word that Donald Trump says is vile and ignorant. So, we can almost
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say for sure that every word he posts every day is a vile lie. But when it comes to the United States and Iran,
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8 minutes, 51 seconds
yes, this does go back a long way. In 1953, when Iran had a fully functioning
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democracy, the CIA and MI6 overthrew the government of Mosaddegh, Prime Minister
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9 minutes, 5 seconds
Mosaddegh. We installed a police state. We installed a police state that lasted from 1953 to 1979.
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9 minutes, 15 seconds
When the Iranian people took back their country [in 1979],
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we immediately armed Iraq. as you said, Juan, to go to war
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with Iran, and to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
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9 minutes, 34 seconds
When that war ended in 1988,
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the United States continued, through the CIA and other means, to do everything possible to destabilize the Iranian
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government, to crush the economy, to impose uh US measures, sanctions, and so
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on to destroy the well-being of the population [hoping the population would rise up to resume the U.S. dictatorship].
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When the Iranians said, “We want to negotiate with you,” the United States
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rejected at almost every stage. with one exception which is that in the Obama
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presidency the United States, together with Britain, France, China, Russia,
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10 minutes, 24 seconds
Germany,
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10 minutes, 26 seconds
the uh permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, the P5+1
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as it was called, negotiated an agreement with Iran that put Iran under strict UN
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supervision. vision, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to ensure that what Iran said was actually carried out,
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10 minutes, 49 seconds
which is that Iran did not want a nuclear weapon and the IAEA would inspect. And for three years, the IAEA
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inspected hundreds and hundreds of times and Iran was in full compliance. And then what happened?
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Netanyahu and Trump ripped up the agreement.
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and went back to war, a hybrid war with Iran. Everything Trump says,
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which is despicable because he is absolutely leading us to ruin and leading the world to World War III.
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Everything he says is a lie because he says, “I’m stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.”
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What he has done is rip up the agreement that already existed to ensure that kill
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assassinate uh Iranian leaders repeatedly.
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Kill the Iranian religious leader who for decades had said that a nuclear weapon would be against Islamic law.
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…
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It will lead to world war the way we’re going, because we have two
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malignant narcissists Netanyahu and Trump that are leading us
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to disaster. And you listen to Netanyahu’s words. He explains this has nothing to do with the UN charter. He
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says we’re not waiting. We are initiating. Well, that Mr. Netanyahu is against the UN charter. You’re not
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allowed to initiate war under the UN charter. You’ve explained it very clearly. You are making a war of
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aggression. And you too, Mr. Trump, you are making a war of aggression and you’re threatening the entire world.
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…
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
Trump "obliterated the Iranian nuclear program" a few weeks ago? Then Natenyahu said Trump must bumb them again? Trump obeyed like a slave subordinate? The cost of this illegal attack is never an issue? It is like a dude who is broke and still buying caviar to some bitch?