Donald Trump has never been a politician best known for his well-reasoned policy positions or for his rhetorical consistency.
Trump has always been a little chaotic, with at best a loose relationship with the truth. But based on his remarks in an extended interview with GB News, the US President is only getting worse. In the space of minutes, he managed what amounted to little more than a concentrated stream of nonsense about the UK, Iran, and even the Falkland Islands.
In the interview, Trump said that his reason for launching a war against Iran earlier this year had been to avert the possibility of Iran using nuclear weapons against its enemies – and suggested that this could have included the UK. “I’m saving your country from the threat too,” he explained.
What to know as Argentina threatens Falkland Islands oil fields
Argentina’s President has said he will impose sanctions on oil drilling off the Falkland Islands amid heightened tensions between the UK and Argentina.
In a national address, Javier Milei said the “winds of change” favoured Argentina’s claim to control over the British territory, as the US reviews its position on the dispute.
Milei seeks oil firm sanctions
- The Argentine President said he would boost efforts to levy penalties against the companies, as well as their shareholders, directors and suppliers.
- Milei pledged to increase defence resources to build a naval base in the nearby Tierra del Fuego province.
- He has also promised to send Congress an urgent “national sovereignty defence” bill aimed at strengthening Argentina’s response to what he called unauthorised operations around the islands.
Urgent threat to Argentine interests
“If we do not act swiftly, in a few months they will have the material capacity to access the oil that lies underneath our sea – something that has never happened before.
Milei said Argentina had determined that the Sea Lion offshore project, operated by Navitas Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration, could begin oil development in the coming months.
Long-running soveriegnty dispute
The Falkland Islands have been a self-governing British Overseas Territory subject to a long-running sovereignty dispute with Argentina since the 19th century.
Argentina invaded the islands in 1982. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended in Argentine surrender after claiming the lives of 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders.
In a 2013 referendum, Falkland Islanders voted overwhelmingly to remain a British overseas territory, with 99.8 per cent voting in favour – and just three votes against.
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‘Falkland Islanders choose to be British’
In a statement on X, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said: “The Falklands are British because Falkland Islanders choose to be British.
“Our commitment to the Falklands is absolute and unshakeable.”
Trump suggests he would not help UK in Argentina invades Falklands
Milei’s comments follow a suggestion by Donald Trump that he would not back the UK if Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.
Trump, who has strongly criticised the UK’s stance on the US-Israeli war on Iran, told GB News: “Your country was not there to help me.”
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Inside the BBC meltdown over licence fee’s future
Scrambling to find £500m
The BBC is scrambling to cut £500m from its budget after executives discovered a gap in finances which shocked even new director-general Matt Brittin.
It comes as the number of households paying the £180-a-year licence fee fell by half a million last year to 23 million, the latest BBC accounts show.
The previous year, accounts showed a 300,000 drop in licence fee payers.
The BBC’s chief financial officer, Bérangère Michel, said earlier this year that the drop in TV licences had “resulted in an unsustainable financial position”.
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More job cuts to come
The BBC must cut £500m from its budget by 2028 – with £160m to be delivered immediately. The corporation has already announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of the first stage in its savings plan.
Other cost-cutting options include cutting BBC Four arts and its archive channel and moving its content to BBC Two. The BBC Three youth channel could also be under threat.
‘Every part of BBC affected’
- More shows are set to be axed, following this week’s decision to scrap , insiders said.
- In a staff memo, seen by The i Paper, interim BBC head of news Jonathan Munro, said the 200 job closures announced in June would be followed by “further post closures (in news)” in the coming months.
- “Every part of BBC News will be affected, including senior leaders, and we’re reviewing some on-air roles,” said Munro.
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Familiar faces set to depart
There will be familiar faces leaving, presenters, on-screen correspondents. They will be looking for a small number of expensive on-air people who they might try to persuade to leave sooner than they expected. It’s all up in the air.
A leading news figure told the i paper
Apprentice jobs also hit
- Apprentices were also told they could no longer expect jobs, as a result of the cuts.
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Two rescued a week after Nepal floods
Two people have been rescued alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal, nine days after
a catastrophic flash flood killed more than 1,200 people.
Some 39 workers are still believed to be trapped inside the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project, according to Suresh Raut, a senior official of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).
Rescued workers named
Authorities have named Sanjaya Shah, a mechanical foreman with the NEA, as the first person to be rescued from tunnels.
The second person rescued is Kabir Maharjan, the BBC reported.
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Injuries to hands and feet
- Both workers have injuries on their hands and legs, thought to be from crawling through the tunnel.
- They are also suffering from lack of oxygen, authorities said.
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Huge rescue mission
Hundreds of the more than 5,000 still missing are labourers working in a vast network of tunnels at hydropower sites along the river.
Engineers have been pumping air into the hydropower tunnels as part of the huge rescue operation. Aside from the tunnel, it is estimated that over 5,000 people remain missing in Nepal and Tibet.
The rescues inject hope into an otherwise gruelling mission through thick mud.
A tunnelling expert told the news agency that teams had already dug through debris blocking the tunnel for 50-60 metres (164-196 feet) before finding survivors.
They were hoping for a breakthrough, said Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association.
“After a week of 24/7 heartache, we might, just, be back in miracle country.”
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Watch more from The i Paper
Four things to know as Reform reported to the police over ‘funding breach’
Reform UK has been reported to the police over allegedly breaching political donation rules.
The allegations
In the Channel 4 report, Reform’s Dan Jukes, discusses with a donor ways to allegedly get around electoral rules by securing a £500,000 donation via a foreign source.
The report, carried out by Verbatim Investigations, appears to show head of policy James Orr, suggesting the donor’s father could pay for polling. The report claims Reform commissioned three polls £32,500 in total and that the public was not told who commissioned or funded them.
The law
Under UK law, foreign companies are not a permissible source of funding for political parties, including payments for studies and research. Accepting donations from them could constitute a criminal offence.
Reform claimed it was the victim of a hoax and denied any wrongdoing.
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Reform’s response:
Reform UK has been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded, climate change activists posing as would-be party donors. The party denies any wrongdoing.
A Reform Spokesperson
Reform UK has a robust vetting process for prospective donors approved by the Electoral Commission.
Who reported Reform?
- The Lib Dems have written to the Met Police and Electoral Commission saying that James Orr, a senior adviser to Farage, facilitating the donation from an impermissible donor would breach the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act.
- Labour also intends to report the matter to the police, it is understood, while the Greens have called for an investigation.
- The Met said it is assessing the reports.
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‘No money reached Reform UK at all,’ says Orr
Orr, Reform’s policy head who is at the centre of the allegations, said that “no money reached Reform UK at all”.
“It was a public poll arranged by an independent person paying an independent pollster, and those polls were published immediately for the general public,” he said in a video posted to X.
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Aides step down
Both Orr and Jukes have stepped down from their roles. Farage said Reform UK has “broken no laws” and has not “taken any dodgy money” amid allegations the party breached political donation rules.
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This is a strange chain of logic, not least because Trump and his officials claimed repeatedly – dozens of times, over a period of months – that joint strikes by the US and Israel in 2025 had “totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and promised it would take “many years” for Iran to recover.
Now, Trump says, his 2026 conflict – which he promised would last for just weeks, and which is still stuck in stalemate after six months – was essential to stopping a nuclear-armed Iran, and that it was essential for the UK and Europe’s safety.
The US President seems fixated on securing the gratitude of British and European politicians for a war they didn’t want him to start, which never secured congressional approval, and for which he’s never formally set out any goals. It also doesn’t seem to have made us any safer – quite the opposite.
Trump’s logic as to why his war was good for Europe is confused, to say the least: Iran’s missiles, he claims, can reach Europe but not America.
“Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, they’re more likely to use it in Europe, where they do have missile capability, than they are in America, where they don’t,” he said. “I’m saving your country from a problem because they would use it.”
This is an odd way to understand a nuclear capability.
Countries don’t immediately launch nuclear missiles as soon as they obtain them – instead, they generally use them to try to deter invasion by their adversaries. Why Iran would immediately launch its theoretical nukes against European nations who hadn’t involved themselves in the war against it is never spelt out by Trump.
That confusion is compounded by Trump’s insistence on repeating US right-wing clichés about Britain. Trump said that London was full of “no-go” areas that police dare not visit, and that this lawlessness was caused by immigration.
This is a manifestation of long-running and racist tropes on the US right that insist native European populations are being intentionally replaced by Muslims through orchestrated mass immigration. In reality, of course, London does not have “no-go” areas for police, and instead is safer than any major US city, and getting safer each year – to the point that its homicide rate recently hit an 11-year low.
Sadly, Trump was never asked about the apparent contradiction between his remarks: if Britain is apparently changing so fast under immigration, and becoming an Islamic country, why would it still be so high on Iran’s target list?
Still, Trump’s confused rationale for his war kept coming, as did his obvious frustration that the UK and Europe had not been happier to play along. Trump correctly argued that Europe was far more reliant on oil from the Strait of Hormuz than America is, and complained that this meant European allies should have helped him unblock it.
He left out, however, the reason the Strait of Hormuz was blocked which was the military offensive that he initiated. Iran had previously never interfered with the flow of maritime traffic through the Strait on anything like this scale. As usual, Trump was blaming other people for not solving problems that he himself had caused.
Trump’s obvious peevishness came to the fore after a question on the Falkland Islands, over which Argentina’s erratic President, Javier Milei, recently re-staked a claim, calling the islands “Argentina” and part of “our future”.
Asked whether he would come to the UK’s aid should Argentina once again try to retake the islands by force – the US offered only indirect assistance against Argentina’s invasion in 1982 – Trump dodged the question, instead petulantly noting that the UK was “not there to help me” over Iran.
There are many demands on the time of the President of the United States. They have the world’s biggest economy to run, and Trump is facing a cost of living crisis at home, a war with Iran and looming electoral disaster at the midterms – and he’s bulldozing half of Washington in a remodelling project.
Typically, then, a US president would only give a foreign media interview when he had something important to say, or a serious message that he needed to make sure reached the people of that country.
Trump’s GB News interview had none of that. Instead, it was a display of an increasingly elderly and incoherent man, ranting only semi-coherently about world affairs. Trump used to be a man who wanted to look in control at all times. Now, though, he just looks like he’s lost it.