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WASHINGTON \u2014<\/p>\nPresident Donald Trump and Iranian leaders are trading threats over civilian infrastructure as U.S. strikes continued for the 12th straight night<\/a> since the conflict escalated. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, Trump said on social media<\/a> that for every ship Iran attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. will bomb one bridge or power plant.<\/p>\n In response, Iran’s Foreign Minister said<\/a>, “Any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response.” <\/p>\n Earlier this week, Trump told reporters that the U.S. has no interest in meeting<\/a> with Iran. He also indicated that American forces might soon target an underground Iranian nuclear site under construction, known as Pickaxe Mountain<\/a>. The U.S. bombed a site nearby last summer<\/a>, but Iran has continued digging at the location. <\/p>\n Despite the ongoing strikes, Trump claimed that Iran is under significant pressure. <\/p>\n “They’re getting hit so hard and they want to make a deal, but I say they’re not ready to make a deal,” Trump said. “Because every time they make a deal, they want to change it and everything; they’re not ready. They’ll be ready very soon.” <\/p>\n Human cost of war rises<\/p>\n This comes as the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the war began has increased to 18.<\/p>\n Trump participated in a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base Wednesday as the remains of four service members returned to the U.S.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the Pentagon identified the fourth U.S. soldier killed since Friday. Sgt. Angel Rampersad<\/a>, 28, of New York, is believed to have died during an Iranian attack in Jordan. <\/p>\n Rampersad was one of three soldiers killed in the incident last Friday. The Pentagon previously identified<\/a> 19-year-old Isabella Gonzales of Texas and 25-year-old Tyler Feehan of Hawaii.<\/p>\n Trump suggested on Tuesday someone other than Iran was responsible for the soldiers’ deaths. “They [Iran] did slip something through in Jordan, and if we had other operators, it would have– would not have happened, unfortunately,” Trump said<\/a>. “When you let other people do your job, with the United States, we let other people do the job, and sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.”<\/p>\n The Pentagon also identified a service member killed in Iraq<\/a> during the controlled detonation of an Iranian drone on Sunday as Sgt. Michael Swinton, 30, of North Carolina.<\/p>\n Congressional Republicans grow restless<\/p>\n The reignited conflict has contributed to rising gas prices ahead of the midterm elections, with some Republicans beginning to express concerns about the nearly six-month-long war.<\/p>\n While addressing the war on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> said a congressional war authorization is not needed, adding, “I think we need to bring this to a resolution… Now we got to wrap it up.”<\/p>\n In supporting a bill the House passed on Wednesday<\/a> to give the Department of Defense $60 billion, largely toward the war effort, Budget Committee Chair Rep. Jodey Arrington<\/a> described the effort as “bullets and bombs to finish the job.”<\/p>\n The House<\/a> and Senate<\/a> are set to vote on symbolic measures on Thursday to restrict the war in Iran.<\/p>\n On Thursday, AAA reported the national average for a gallon of regular gas is $4.09<\/a>. According to AAA data compiled by Hearst Television’s Get the Facts Data Team<\/a>, the average price for a gallon of regular gas was $2.98 when the war started. It had fallen back to $3.79 a few weeks ago before the fighting ramped back up.<\/p>\n Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump continues claims that Iran wants to make a deal despite 12th consecutive night of strikes President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[34,63339,7090,56566,864,392,36,226,1705],"class_list":["post-219702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-iran","tag-iranian-foreign-minister-hossein-amir-abdollahian","tag-nuclear-program","tag-pickaxe-mountain","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-trump","tag-war","tag-war-in-iran","tag-washington"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116969267970943946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}