SERETIS NOTES

Posts

Innocent lives at risk

U.S. intelligence has warned that Iran has significantly escalated efforts to assassinate American diplomats and government officials overseas, with some plots reaching advanced stages, according to a memo obtained by Axios. The warning, contained in a Friday memorandum to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, comes as the Trump administration has reduced staff at several American embassies across the Middle East amid fears of Iranian retaliation and a possible resumption of major U.S. military operations against Tehran.

Trump not looking too good

President Donald Trump's approval rating reached a new low in the Wall Street Journal's polling , marking the lowest approval for an incumbent president heading into the midterm elections among the outlet's decades of surveys. The poll, released over the weekend, found Trump’s approval rating at 37%, the lowest for a president leading into the midterms since the Wall Street Journal began polling in 1990, when former President George H.W. Bush was in office. Trump’s lower approval rating comes as Americans continue to express deep disapproval of the economy and the president’s role in it. According to the latest poll, 65% said the economy was not strong, and 60% said that Trump’s policies have made the economy worse.

Putin in a loss for words

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin looked to struggle as he explained why Russia is reconsidering negotiations with Ukraine following a major strike on Moscow. The 73-year-old leader appeared confused as he addressed state media in St. Petersburg in the aftermath of Kyiv's biggest ever drone strike on the Russian capital last weekend. The mighty Russian bear has been exposed as a paper Tiger

Caving in to the Houthis

So the United States is now caving in to these backwards ass camel humping mutants for help? Washington officials met with Houthi officials, who told them that they won't target U.S. or Israeli ships, according to a new report. Reuters detailed that the meeting took place at the U.S. Embassy in Oman, and that Muscat helped organize the meeting. It went on to note that Washington has held negotiations with the group despite designating it as a "foreign terrorist organization" in march 2025. ymping mutants

China is on Trumps mind

China is on Trumps mind Later this month, President Donald Trump will meet with China's Xi Jinping in Washington. Earlier this summer, Trump met with European leaders at a NATO summit in Turkey . You can guess which one occupied more of the president's attention. China isn’t America’s only concern in 2026, of course. The Trump administration’s latest National Security Strategy addressed everything from the Western Hemisphere to Israel to, yes, America's European allies. But more than any other global dynamic, the U.S. rivalry with China has come to define both Trump’s policies and the United States’s global outlook.

ALL IN

GOP leaders are betting the House on President Trump in this year’s elections. The midterm cycle is always a referendum on the sitting president, whether members of his party like it or not. And if there was a clear message from the Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas, it’s that GOP leaders have embraced that reality with zeal, leaning heavily on Trump to animate their base and stave off a blue wave.