Trump: Iran war ends ‘very soon,’ 18 U.S. dead; Hegseth warns Tehran; Kyiv bridge update
Evening: Defense secretary says Iran will never get a nuclear bomb; two Iranian UN diplomats expelled; DOJ seeks to reinstate White House media ban; Trump presses Cotton on permanent daylight saving; Court still opens Monday on Suncor.
5 PM CT video brief · 1:31Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your Evening Update for Saturday, October 3. Trump: Iran war ends very soon; cites 18 U.S. service members killed. Hegseth: Iran will never get a nuke; U.S. holds Hormuz blockade. Update: Kyiv bridge injures 2; Zelenskyy cites Russian civilian-target doctrine. DOJ asks judge to reinstate White House ban on CNN, MS Now, Politico. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Excessive rainfall threat across the Southeast on Sunday while continuing across the central Gulf Coast and southern Texas while this weekend. A long duration October heatwave emerging across central and southern California before spreading into the Great Basin. Our opinion. Iran endgame; Hormuz pressure; Ukraine settlement; press access is a privilege. That's your Evening Update. I'm Nora Vale. See you at 9.
Update since this morning’s brief: Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Saturday’s Russian strike on Kyiv’s Northern (Pivnichnyi) Bridge injured two people and damaged the roadway and trolleybus wires—the second major Kyiv bridge hit in two days after the Southern Bridge—BBC and Al Jazeera reported. Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence reviewed documents of a Russian “new doctrine” of striking roads, schools, hospitals and other civilian sites to “pressure people to leave” Kyiv and other cities; he said Ukraine will respond on Russian energy—“oil refiners”—but “will not respond… on any civilian objects.” Russia again urged diplomats and foreigners to leave Kyiv.
President Trump told a midterm rally in Mobile, Alabama, Friday that the U.S. conflict with Iran will end “very soon” and “probably right after the midterms,” and predicted oil prices will “come tumbling down” once it does, Fox News reported Saturday. Trump said 18 U.S. service members have been killed during Operation Epic Fury, which has lasted a little more than six months—“Iran, we’ve lost 18 incredible people”—a figure Fox said matches the Pentagon’s separate casualty categories. He also claimed Iran faces roughly 310% inflation and clarified that an earlier “weeks” timeline referred to denying Tehran a nuclear weapon, citing B-2 strikes.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters Saturday in Colorado Springs that “Iran will never, ever, ever have a nuclear weapon,” saying President Trump is “hell-bent and determined” to ensure it and that if Tehran “want[s] to blink,” it would be “to their detriment,” Fox News and the Jerusalem Post reported. Hegseth said Iran can “give it up” without leverage “or it may have to happen the hard way,” declined to confirm a third aircraft carrier for the region, and said the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has been “ironclad,” with traffic “running almost at pre-war levels.” He argued Iran’s navy and air force have been so degraded that “they don’t control” the strait—“we do.”
Two members of Iran’s United Nations General Assembly delegation were “kicked out” of the United States after failing to comply with a State Department order to leave, a U.S. official told Fox News Digital on Saturday. The State Department had ordered Iran’s entire UNGA delegation to leave immediately on Monday; Axios reported the mission was told Friday that Washington knew two diplomats remained in New York and again ordered them out—one left Friday night and the other Saturday morning, according to the report. “Secretary Rubio means business,” the official told Fox.
The Justice Department on Saturday asked U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to reinstate President Trump’s ban on CNN, MS Now and Politico journalists’ White House access, arguing access is “a privilege—not a right,” the Washington Examiner reported. Kelly, a Trump appointee, had temporarily blocked the revocation and ordered credentials restored after the outlets sued on First Amendment grounds. DOJ said Trump found the outlets failed “basic minimum standards of professionalism and decorum,” including by “publishing sensitive or classified information,” that they did not respond by a Sept. 25 deadline, and that the 1977 D.C. Circuit Sherrill v. Knight decision “is wrong and should be overruled.”
President Trump on Saturday urged Americans—especially Arkansans—to press Sen. Tom Cotton to support the Sunshine Protection Act making daylight saving time permanent, posting what appeared to be Cotton’s cellphone number, the Associated Press and The Guardian reported. The House passed the bill in July; it faces Senate opposition. Cotton reiterated Saturday that Congress has enacted permanent daylight saving before and repealed it after “absurdly late sunrises,” saying Arkansans “don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark.” Trump replied that putting Arkansas first means an extra hour of evening light and ending twice-yearly clock changes.
No material new Supreme Court orders Saturday. October Term 2026 begins Monday, Oct. 5, with oral argument in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County (No. 25-170) on whether federal law precludes state-law climate-damages claims against energy companies and whether the Court has jurisdiction, according to the Court’s monthly calendar and SCOTUSblog. Justice Samuel Alito announced Sept. 28 he will not participate, raising the possibility of a 4–4 tie that would leave Colorado’s go-ahead standing. Also Monday: Johnson v. United States Congress, on a constitutional challenge to limits on disability benefits for certain incarcerated veterans.
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