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Donald Trump has made his most explicit comments yet about possible US military action against Iran, saying that the next week would be “very big” in determining the course of the war between Israel and the Islamic republic.

Speaking after Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Washington of “irreparable damage” if it intervened, Trump suggested Tehran wanted to negotiate but had left it perilously late.

“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday morning, a day after receiving a Situation Room briefing on the conflict.

“The next week is going to be very big — maybe less than a week,” he added in remarks that hinted at a possible timeframe for the US decision.

Hours later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that he had a “very warm” conversation with Trump on Tuesday night.

Netanyahu said Israel was “advancing step by step” to remove Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threats, adding: “We are attacking nuclear installations, missiles, command centres and the symbols of the regime.”

But he also acknowledged that Israel was “sustaining many losses, painful losses” from Iran’s missile strikes. 

The Pentagon on Monday ordered the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and three missile-guided destroyers to redeploy from the South China Sea to the Middle East, a journey that is likely to take about a week.

The US president said he had not given Netanyahu any indication of greater US involvement in the strikes against Iran.

But he said he had told Netanyahu to “keep going” with his attacks.

Trump added that Tehran, which was engaged in indirect talks with Washington over its nuclear programme before Israel launched its war, had suggested sending a delegation to the White House for talks. He described the move as “courageous”, even though he said Iran was “totally defenceless” and in an “unsustainable” position.

“Iran’s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate,” he said, adding that he had told the Iranians “it’s very late to be talking”, while cautioning “nothing’s too late.”

Oil prices fell after Trump’s remarks, which investors saw as potentially dovish, with the Brent crude benchmark down 2 per cent from Tuesday’s close, before it pared back some of its losses.

However, Iran’s mission to the UN denied Trump’s account, posting on X: “No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House . . . Iran does NOT negotiate under duress.”

In a televised message to the Iranian people earlier in the day, Khamenei hit out at Trump’s call for Tehran’s “unconditional surrender”, which the US president suggests would mean the complete destruction of the country’s nuclear programme.

Israel says the programme is aimed at developing a weapon, although Iran says it is purely peaceful.

“Those with wisdom who know Iran, its people and history, will never use the language of threat to address this nation because they will never surrender,” the Iranian supreme leader said.

“The Americans should know that any US military engagement will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage,” he added.

When asked about Khamenei’s comments, Trump said: “I say, ‘good luck’.”

Testifying before Congress on Wednesday, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon “stands ready to execute” any decision the president makes about going to war, though he declined to say whether the Pentagon would assist Israel in striking Iran.

“President Trump’s word means something. The world understands that. And at the defence department our job is to stand ready and prepared with options,” Hegseth said. “We already have in many ways . . . re-established deterrence. The question is, in the coming days exactly what direction that goes.”

Should Trump decide to involve the US more directly, he could make the most decisive difference by striking Fordow, a key Iranian nuclear facility buried half a kilometre beneath a mountain, with US B-2 bombers and 30,000-pound GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators, known as “bunker busters”.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel said it had hit a production site to make centrifuges to enrich uranium — a process that can yield both nuclear fuel and weapons-grade material — as well as sites manufacturing parts for surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.

Later in the evening, an Iranian missile salvo targeted Tel Aviv and central Israel, with early reports suggesting all the projectiles had been intercepted.

Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington, Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv and Andrew England in London

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The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (let’s say “OBBBA”) is President Donald Trump’s signature agenda item in Congress.

It will affect the daily lives of tens of millions of Americans. It is a massive project, with potentially the largest tax cuts, spending cuts and additions to the national debt in U.S. history.

WATCH: Can Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” make it through the Senate?

This week, we have a critical, new development to dive into: the Senate Finance Committee’s own draft of how it wants to handle tax cuts and Medicaid cuts.

(For the most adventurous among us, all 549 pages can be found here.)

The big picture

• Tax cuts. The Senate draft would add and lengthen some tax cuts, both for businesses and individuals.
• Green energy cuts. It would slightly delay the elimination of tax credits for solar and wind energy. The Senate draft would push back cuts for nuclear, geothermal and hydropower far more significantly.
• Medicaid cuts. It would cut Medicaid more than the House-passed bill.

OK, let’s go a little deeper.

Some tax specifics

• Individual tax rates. Senate and House Republicans are in sync on this. They would make current tax rates permanent. Without action, nearly all individuals will see a tax increase.
• Standard deductions. The Senate draft would give most adults a bigger tax deduction from the start. Without extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, the standard deduction that many individuals take to lower their tax burden is slated to decrease nearly in half at the end of the year. The Senate would not just keep but raise the deduction amounts — to $16,000 for individuals and $32,000 for married couples filing jointly.
• Child tax credit. The current tax credit of $2,000 per child is set to drop to $1,000 at the end of the year. The Senate would raise the credit to $2,200 permanently. The House would raise the credit to $2,500, but only until 2028.

Green energy

• A slash to green energy funds. The House and Senate are both moving to eliminate major tax credits for wind and solar from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
• But the Senate gives a slightly longer phase-out, allowing a partial tax credit for projects that start construction next year or in 2027. The House would end the credit almost as soon as the bill is enacted.

Medicaid

• Targeting the “provider” tax. This is the most notable cut that the Senate draft is adding. Right now, states use a loophole to help them get more federal dollars for Medicaid. They tax hospitals and doctors (a “provider tax”) and spend that money back with the hospitals and doctors. The more states spend, the more the federal government will match.
• A cut on this tax. For states that expanded Medicaid, the Senate draft would gradually reduce the maximum amount of provider taxes, which is currently up to 6%, until it reaches a 3.5% threshold by 2031. Many Republicans like this reform, but others say it would significantly cut funds available for Medicaid. The House bill would block new provider taxes.
• Work requirements. Both the House and Senate would add an 80-hours-a-month work requirement for “able-bodied” adults, or those without disabilities, on Medicaid. The Senate makes one significant change: exempting parents of children under 14 years old from the requirement. (There currently is no federal work requirement for Medicaid.)

What now?

This Senate version is experiencing some initial turbulence.

Four Republican senators have openly questioned the Medicaid cuts in the House bill: Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Susan Collins of Maine and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

And now, West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice has told a Semafor reporter that he wants the Senate’s Medicaid section to revert to the House version, which would ban new or increased provider taxes.

Hawley told me Tuesday that the cut to the provider tax was a total surprise to him and others. Trump, too, was surprised when alerted about the change and its ramifications for rural hospitals, Hawley said.

This is not unusual. Big bills often have big problems when they are released.

But. Republicans are trying to get this historic legislation through Congress — not just the Senate — in the next two weeks.

At this point in the process, similar large bills (think the Affordable Care Act) usually take months to get through the Senate and back through the House again.

Republicans are determined to pass a version of the bill, but increasingly my sources are saying the question is “not if, but when.”