Speaking at a rally in Nebraska (NYT), regarding the Iranians:
“They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”
One could take this as just further random ruminations, but it strikes me that the president has in principle access to the entire output of the US intelligence community (even if he doesn’t seemingly heed the warnings).
At a time when counterterrorism resources have been redirected to immigration control, or reduced, this event is troubling to me.
Addendum, 2:40PM CT:
From LA Times:
White House communications director Steven Cheung pushed back on the criticism on X.
“The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality. He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money,” he wrote.
It was unclear whether Trump’s comments were based on any intelligence, and it’s far from clear that Iran has anywhere near the capability for a missile attack on the U.S.
In March, Iran launched missiles toward Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean island that is home to a strategic U.K.-U.S. military base. The Associated Press reported at the time that Iran had a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program, limiting the range to 1,240 miles. Diego Garcia is well outside that range. U.S. officials, however, long have alleged that Iran’s space program could allow it to build intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Also in March, law enforcement agencies across California were warned that the Iran war could lead to a surprise drone attack in the Golden State. But sources told The Times there’s no credible intelligence to support it and officials said they did not take it seriously.
Off topic – more credit headlines:
I know I’ve been piling in with credit-market headlines, but it the deterioration in credit conditions seems pretty important.
Commercial mortgage defaults jumped in September, to the highest rate since November 2020:
https://www.trepp.com/trepptalk/cmbs-delinquency-report-sept-2026
Five big defaults account for most of the rise.
In comments to the prior post, I noted Treasuries doing badly in response to bad economic news, the rotten performance of the giant new Paramount debt issue and a doubling of French credit default swap rates. This is absolutely the stuff of a debt-driven shock, and its not at all surprising that it’s happening.
Here’s the thing… You can find occasional commentary about how interest rates are still not high by historical standards, so no big deal. That’s naive. For new projects, low borrowing costs are realy important – it’s a rate-of-return thing. For outstanding debt, the change in borrowing cost when rolling over debt is far more important – it’s a budget thing. If a business had a $5 million annual interest cost before rolling over and a $7 million cost after rolling over, it doesn’t much matter that the roll-over took place in an historically low interest rate environment.
Government debt in the G20 is high relative to GDP. Corporate debt isn’t so bad, which helps. AI, however, is the big U.S. investment driver, and is likely to prove very senstive to interest rates. Households are covered up in debt, and the housing sector is showing signs of strain.
If only there were some policy we could change that would lower inflation and lower government’s need to borrow. If only some stable genius could think of such a policy…
From a recent Colliers report:
In a higher-for-longer interest-rate environment, the extend-and-pretend strategy that many investors have utilized is no longer effective. Without further loan extensions as an option, more loan profiles are at risk of default, leaving borrowers looking for alternatives to respond to maturing debt.
CMBS delinquencies are now at 7.35%. Performing matured-balloon, non-performing matured-balloon, and foreclosures now make up a significant share of the CMBS delinquency resolution pipeline. Borrowers are now focused on restructuring and recapitalizations as well as selective sales, in some cases, to address maturing loans. This phase will help drive a new pricing reset and increase the availability of assets for sale. Asset type and asset quality will play a significant role in determining the path forward.
“About 230,000 Iranian Americans, roughly three in 10, live in and around Los Angeles, according to the Pew Research Center.”
So reports local channel 4. Some of the best Iranian food is served at Juvan’s.
Looks like Iran is getting tired of all those reports if Persian Gulf oil exports returning to pre-war levels:
https://gcaptain.com/five-hormuz-incidents-reported-monday-as-tanker-attacks-mount/
On topic – presidential dementia:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/bucks-for-babies-trump-administration-unveils-plan-to-tie-transit-funding-to-high-birth-and-marriage-rates/ar-AA2dFCuO
Suggesting that Iran could go ahead and bomb a couple of California cities is idiotic, so very much in keeping with the toddler-in-chief’s usual behavior. Thing is, that comment is part of a much larger batch of batplop coming from the toddler in the past couple of days. Doxing Tom Cotton over daylight savings time, demanding that a newspaper be arrested, promising to shove the mid-term elections up Democrats’ backsides – how would that work, anyhow? – it all seems like he is having another episode of reduced cerebral bloodflow.
The link is to a plan to tie infrastructure funds to – ready? – fertility and marriage rates. (Elon as role model?) So it’s not just off-the-cuff blabber that’s demented. Some real planning has gone into this bit of crazy.
Trump is grifter with dementia. It comes out stupid now to the point of just looking lame. IMO the US economy needs a overhaul. Away from leveraged debt globalism to rationing/savings as we were to 1980. Creating these mega bubbles props up leisure economy in face of actual real work. Whether eliminating fossil fuels or making health care cheaper this system won’t do either.
Thank You
The stated risk of city destruction seems unrealistic given current missile capabilities. This projection ignores the protective measures in place for major urban centers.