Trump says budget could be balanced by correcting "large-scale criminal activity"

On Thursday, President Donald Trump wrote on social media that the U.S. does not need an agreement with Iran and directed Vice President JD Vance to focus instead on claimed fraud and corruption in Democratic-led cities and states. The instruction came after the Wall Street Journal reported that Vance was weighing direct peace talks with a senior Iranian security official, and a week after Vance partly attributed Republicans’ midterm losses to the Iran war’s costs. Trump had earlier assigned Vance to lead an effort against alleged fraud in Democratic-run areas. In the same post, Trump linked that domestic anti-fraud push to the country’s fiscal condition and criticized Democratic leaders. The administration this week signaled it believed its blockade and sanctions were pressuring Iran, making neither military escalation nor diplomacy necessary.