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A sharp public diplomatic clash between U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the ongoing Iran conflict has triggered a formal Pentagon plan to withdraw 5,000 American military personnel from Germany, with the drawdown scheduled to unfold over the next 6 to 12 months. The announcement of the troop withdrawal came just 24 hours after Merz delivered critical remarks that stung the White House: speaking to university students earlier this week, the German leader argued that the U.S. lacked a coherent strategy for the Iran war, claiming Iranian negotiators had effectively humiliated Washington by drawing out talks and leaving American officials empty-handed after high-profile meetings in Islamabad.

Merz’s comments quickly drew a fiery retaliation from Trump on his social platform Truth Social. The U.S. president accused Merz of supporting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, dismissed his commentary as uninformed, and lambasted Germany’s overall economic performance. Beyond his attack on the German chancellor, Trump also broadened his criticism of NATO allies who have declined to join U.S. efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid the Iran conflict, a longstanding point of friction for the president, who has been an open critic of the alliance for decades. When asked Thursday if he would also consider pulling American troops from other NATO members Italy and Spain, Trump did not rule out the move, saying “I probably will” and accusing both countries of refusing to assist the U.S. in the Iran conflict, calling their inaction unacceptable.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed in an official statement that the order for the German drawdown originated with Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth. Parnell framed the decision as the outcome of a comprehensive review of U.S. military force posture across Europe, saying the adjustment aligns with current theater requirements and on-the-ground conditions. As of last December, the U.S. maintains more than 36,000 active-duty troops deployed across bases in Germany, making it the largest American military footprint in Europe and the second-largest globally, only trailing the U.S. troop presence in Japan. Germany’s Ramstein Air Base, located outside Kaiserslautern in southwestern Germany, serves as a critical logistics and command hub for U.S. operations across the continent.

This is not the first time Trump has pushed for U.S. troop reductions in Germany. During his first term in 2020, he proposed relocating 12,000 troops out of Germany to other NATO nations or back to the U.S., but the plan was ultimately blocked by Congress and later reversed entirely by his successor, President Joe Biden. At that time, Trump justified the proposed cuts by accusing Germany of failing to meet NATO’s military spending target of 2% of GDP, calling the country delinquent in its alliance obligations. That dynamic has shifted significantly under Merz’s government: Germany is on track to hit 3.1% of GDP in total defense spending by 2027, hitting 2027 levels of €105.8 billion (£91 billion), far exceeding the alliance’s requirement. Currently, the U.S. also stations roughly 12,000 troops in Italy and 10,000 more in the United Kingdom.

It has been nearly seven days since a suspect was accused of attempting to assassinate former President and current U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, and critical information surrounding the shooting incident at the Washington Hilton remains unresolved amid an ongoing investigation. As authorities continue to piece together the events of that Saturday night, official statements from prosecutors have shifted dramatically around one central question: did the accused gunman actually shoot the U.S. Secret Service officer that multiple senior officials, including the president, say was hit during the attack.

President Trump and other top administration officials have publicly stated that as the attacker charged the hotel’s security checkpoint, a Secret Service officer was struck by gunfire, and survived the incident only because he was wearing a bulletproof ballistic vest. Trump initially told reporters that the agent was shot “from very close distance with a very powerful gun.” But court documents submitted by federal government attorneys have not explicitly made the claim that the suspect fired the shot that hit the officer on the night of the high-profile gala.

Authorities have confirmed that the responding Secret Service officer fired five shots at the suspect as he advanced through the checkpoint, but none of those rounds struck the suspect, identified by the Department of Justice as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen. The incident, which unfolded steps away from the event attended by dozens of top government officials and journalists, was captured by closed-circuit security cameras that recorded the moment of gunfire.

Mark Lesko, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, explained the tension facing investigators in this high-stakes case in an interview with the BBC. “There’s this insatiable public interest in the case, pressure to get information out to the public,” Lesko said. “But on the other hand, you want to conduct a thorough investigation, which could take weeks in a case like this.” He noted that conflicting public statements from law enforcement are understandable in the chaotic early hours of a high-profile investigation, but warned that early inaccuracies could give defense attorneys room to undermine the prosecution’s case down the line.

The BBC reached out to the Department of Justice for additional comment on the shifting narratives, while the Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to provide any further clarification.

Within hours of the incident, the Department of Justice released an affidavit naming Allen as the suspect and bringing initial charges that included discharge of a firearm. Authorities confirmed Allen, who remains in federal custody, was armed with three weapons: a semi-automatic handgun, a pump-action shotgun, and three knives when he was detained at the scene.

The day after the attack, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told CBS News that the suspect had shot the Secret Service agent, saying “That’s what we understand as of now.” But just 24 hours later, at a public press conference, Blanche walked back that claim. When pressed again by a reporter to confirm who shot the officer, Blanche said, “We wanna get that right, so we’re still looking at that.” He confirmed investigators have recorded that five total shots were fired during the incident, and that “the suspect fired out of a shotgun, and we know that happened.” He added that full ballistics testing is still ongoing and has not been finalized.

The same day as Blanche’s revised press statement, the government released its full criminal complaint against Allen. The document states that the accused “approached and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun.” It adds that “As he did so, US Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. US Secret Service Officer V.G. was shot once in the chest; Officer V.G. was wearing a ballistic vest at the time.” Despite that accounting of the officer’s injury, prosecutors do not explicitly name Allen as the person who fired the shot that hit him.

“That is interesting and noteworthy because what it shows is the government does not yet have conclusive proof that the suspect did shoot the agent,” Lesko explained of the omission. He also pointed out that prosecutors have not yet added a charge of assaulting a federal officer to Allen’s case, though Blanche has confirmed additional charges could be filed as the investigation progresses. Even a Wednesday detention hearing filing submitted by the government made no reference to the officer being shot, only stating that a Secret Service officer had “observed the defendant fire the shotgun in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom” without confirming that any of Allen’s shots hit a person.

This omission did not go unnoticed by Allen’s defense team. In a court filing arguing for Allen’s release from custody, defense attorneys wrote, “Moreover, the government, after essentially asserting that Mr. Allen shot a Secret Service Officer in the criminal complaint, has apparently retreated from the theory by not mentioning the alleged officer at all in its memorandum.” Allen’s legal team did not respond to the BBC’s request for additional comment.

Four days after the attack, Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host who now serves as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, released new security camera footage of the incident on the social platform X. The video shows the man identified by authorities as Allen running through the hotel’s security checkpoint, and at one point he appears to raise his shotgun, though it is impossible to confirm from the footage whether he fired. The clip also clearly shows the responding Secret Service officer raising his weapon, with multiple visible muzzle flashes confirming he fired his gun. Pirro wrote in her post that “There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire,” but stopped short of claiming the video proved Allen fired the shot that hit the officer.

The same day that footage was released, Secret Service Director Sean Curran told Fox News that “All the evidence that I’ve seen, the suspect shot our officer point-blank range with a shotgun.”

Forensic reviews of ballistics and other physical evidence often take weeks, and in some cases months, to complete, and authorities are expected to release additional details as the investigation moves forward. Legal experts note that regardless of who fired the shot that hit the officer, prosecutors already have enough charges to secure a lengthy prison sentence if Allen is convicted. “They have enough charges here to put Allen away for a very long time” if a jury finds him guilty, Lesko said.

A sharp constitutional and political standoff has erupted in Washington over US military action against Iran, after President Donald Trump informed congressional leaders that all active hostilities between American forces and Tehran have formally ended following a weeks-long ceasefire — while asserting he never required legislative authorization for the conflict in the first place.

In a formal letter sent to top congressional leaders Friday, Trump confirmed that “There has been no exchange of fire between the United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026,” adding that “The hostilities that began on February 26, 2026 have terminated.”

The notification lands precisely on the 60th day after Trump formally informed Congress of the launch of strikes against Iran, a timeline that carries critical legal weight under the decades-old War Powers Resolution of 1973. Enacted in the wake of the Vietnam War to curtail unilateral presidential war-making authority, the law requires a sitting president to end all military engagement within 60 days of formal notification unless Congress grants explicit approval to continue hostilities, or issues a formal declaration of war. The legislation only allows a 30-day extension to facilitate safe withdrawal of forces if authorization is not granted.

Trump pushed back firmly against the law’s requirements in his letter, arguing that his constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief and chief architect of US foreign policy grants him independent power to order military action regardless of congressional approval. “I have and will continue to direct United States Armed Forces consistent with my responsibilities and pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct United States foreign relations as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive,” he wrote.

The Trump administration’s top defense official doubled down on this legal interpretation one day earlier, during a congressional hearing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers that the 60-day legal clock mandated by the War Powers Resolution had been paused by the current ceasefire. “We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire,” Hegseth said. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who questioned Hegseth on the issue, rejected this reading outright: “I do not believe the statute would support that.”

For weeks, Capitol Hill has been roiled by growing pressure to hold a formal vote on whether to authorize the ongoing conflict with Iran. Democratic lawmakers, who hold slim majority control of both chambers, have repeatedly introduced measures to constrain Trump’s ability to continue military action against Iran, but all such attempts have failed so far due to united opposition from most Republican lawmakers. That opposition may be shifting, however: a small number of Republican legislators have signaled they may rethink their positions now that the 60-day legal deadline has passed. According to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, Trump administration officials have already held behind-the-scenes discussions with congressional members about securing formal authorization for the conflict.

While active fighting has halted under the ceasefire, the two sides have yet to reach a durable long-term peace agreement through negotiations. On Friday, Iranian state media reported that Tehran had sent a new negotiation proposal to intermediaries in Pakistan, but the details of the proposal have not been released, and it remains unclear whether the proposal has been shared with US negotiators.

Speaking to reporters Friday afternoon, Trump acknowledged that ongoing diplomatic talks had not yet yielded a breakthrough, and expressed frustration with the pace of negotiations. “We just had a conversation with Iran. Let’s see what happens. But, I would say that I am not happy,” the president said. He blamed the slow progress on disarray within Iran’s leadership, arguing that the decimation of top Iranian military commanders in early strikes has left the country’s ruling circle “very confused” and unable to make key concessions.

Trump also confirmed that he had received a full range of military and diplomatic options from US Central Command on Thursday, with proposals spanning from a full-scale resumption of offensive operations to “finish them forever” to continuing diplomatic efforts to reach a negotiated settlement.

In a high-profile federal corruption trial that wrapped up Friday, a jury found ex-U.S. Representative David Rivera of Florida guilty on multiple felony counts, including conspiracy and failure to register as a foreign agent, for his role in a covert lobbying campaign on behalf of the Venezuelan government. The conviction marks a major conclusion to a six-week proceeding that drew testimony from high-profile political figures and laid bare a secret influence campaign worth tens of millions of dollars. Prosecutors laid out that the former lawmaker’s consulting firm secured a $50 million contract from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil giant, to lobby sitting U.S. officials to soften Washington’s stance on Caracas during a period of extreme bilateral tension. The work was carried out in 2017 and 2018, when the Trump administration first imposed harsh economic sanctions on the Maduro regime, and was funneled through PDVSA’s U.S. subsidiary Citgo, according to court documents. Joining Rivera in conviction was his long-time associate Esther Nuhfer, a veteran political consultant who partnered with him on the scheme. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of Florida argued that the pair intentionally hid the true source of their funding and the ultimate backer of their lobbying: Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan government. “As long as the money kept coming in, they didn’t care from where,” lead prosecutor Roger Cruz told jurors during closing arguments. The trial featured unexpected testimony from sitting U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a long-time friend and former housemate of Rivera’s, who was one of the targets of the lobbying effort. Rubio repeatedly stated he had no knowledge of Rivera’s work for the Venezuelan-linked firm, a claim confirmed by Texas Congressman Pete Sessions, who also testified during the proceedings. Neither Rubio nor Sessions have been accused of any wrongdoing in the case. Defense teams for both Rivera and Nuhfer mounted a two-pronged defense throughout the trial. First, they argued that the pair were under no legal obligation to register as foreign agents because their contract was directly with the U.S.-based Citgo, not the Venezuelan central government. Second, Rivera’s lead attorney Ed Shohat told jurors that his client was actually working to remove Maduro from power, not normalize relations between the two countries. “He was working every possible angle to get Nicolás Maduro out,” Shohat said, according to court transcripts from the Associated Press. “There was not a word in the chats about normalizing relations.” The case unfolded against a dramatic shifting backdrop for Venezuelan politics: earlier this year, in January, former President Donald Trump authorized a military strike in Venezuela that resulted in Maduro’s capture. The former Venezuelan leader is currently being held in New York City, awaiting trial on federal drug trafficking charges alongside his wife. Following the verdict reading, during which Rivera showed no visible emotion according to U.S. media reports, the judge ordered the former congressman into immediate detention. Prosecutors successfully argued that Rivera poses a significant flight risk given his ties and possible assets abroad. The conviction caps a decades-long political career for Rivera, who represented a South Florida congressional district for one term from 2011 to 2013, and closes a major chapter in a federal investigation into unregistered foreign lobbying in Washington. Rivera and Nuhfer now face sentencing at a later date, with potential penalties including decades of federal prison time.

As former President Donald Trump traveled to central Florida this week, all eyes turned to The Villages — a sprawling, 20,000-acre master-planned community marketed as a retirement utopia for active seniors, and one of the most reliably Republican voting blocs in the critical swing state of Florida. For decades, this massive retirement hub, which boasts more than 150,000 permanent residents and a dense network of golf courses, recreation clubs, and social gathering spots, has delivered lopsided victories for GOP candidates in every major election. But ahead of Trump’s highly anticipated visit, new divides have emerged within the community that signal a potential political shift, a BBC on-the-ground investigation found.

During the visit, Trump was met with raucous, enthusiastic crowds of loyal supporters, many of whom lined the streets hours in advance to catch a glimpse of the former president, waving campaign flags and voicing strong support for his 2024 presidential comeback bid. Longtime residents who align with the GOP told reporters that Trump’s policy agenda, particularly his stances on Social Security, healthcare costs, and cultural issues, align closely with the priorities of most retirees in The Villages. Many emphasized that they see Trump as the only candidate capable of pushing for the changes they want to see in Washington.

But contrary to the community’s reputation as a uniformly conservative stronghold, a growing group of local residents — including some who have voted Republican for most of their lives — have emerged as vocal critics in the lead-up to the visit. These critics raised concerns about Trump’s past policy decisions that have impacted senior citizens, as well as his ongoing legal battles and polarizing political style that many say has divided the country. Some local residents even organized small, peaceful protests ahead of the visit to make their opposition visible, breaking with the longstanding unbroken support for GOP candidates that has defined The Villages for generations.

Political analysts note that any shift in voting sentiment in The Villages could have major implications for the 2024 general election. Florida is widely expected to be one of the most competitive battleground states in the nation, and senior voters make up a disproportionately large share of the electorate in communities across the state. The growing divide within this traditionally solid GOP base suggests that even the most loyal Republican strongholds are not immune to shifting attitudes toward Trump, adding a new layer of uncertainty to the upcoming presidential race.