The Latest: Trump orders Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea
Aug 17, 2026, 4:49 AM
FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island in Singapore, on June 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to scale back annual joint military exercises with South Korea as his war against Iran stretches the limits of U.S. aircraft carriers. Trump said South Korea wouldn’t help with his war against Iran and cited his good relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
The USS George Washington is replacing the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East amid growing concerns about mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed Lincoln. The move leaves the western Pacific without a key military asset as China shows more signs of aggression.
The BBC asked a U.S. court for help in getting documents and testimony to defend against his $10 billion defamation lawsuit. The request filed in federal court in Florida on Friday argues that Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, Jr. have “personal knowledge” and likely have records relevant to Trump’s claims.
The Latest:
Trump on Sunday said vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the same spot where Trump had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.
Trump made the accusation in a social media post without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. He posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf.
“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for damage to his renovation projects in the nation’s capital, often without evidence and sometimes despite opposing accounts from his officials.
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The BBC asked a U.S. court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of Trump ’s family in connection with his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed.
Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, Jr. have “personal knowledge” and likely have records relevant to elements of Trump’s claims against the broadcaster, according to a filing Friday in federal court in Florida.
The broadcaster has been unable to serve subpoenas because the three have Secret Service protection and other security personnel around them, the filing says.
Trump filed the lawsuit in December seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing it of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.
The allegations center on the way a 2024 documentary edited a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington. The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”
The BBC has apologized to Trump for the misleading edit, but said it had not defamed him.
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The USS George Washington is departing the Pacific and expected to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East amid growing concerns about mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed carrier. The Lincoln has had its time at sea extended from its original May return date to support operations against Iran.
The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.
“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Instead, the U.S. is “doing the exact opposite” of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East.
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President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon on Sunday to scale back annual joint military exercises with South Korea, saying the ally declined to help with the war against Iran and citing his good relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Trump said in a social media post that the exercises, which began Monday, are not only costly but “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” during his time in the White House.
“Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump wrote. The president added that he recently asked South Korea’s president if they would join the U.S. in the “denuclearization” of Iran, “and they said, ‘No thanks!’”
The move is the latest example of the president appearing to turn against an ally in favor of a leader that previous administrations have cast as an adversary.
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