Good morning and welcome to way too early, the show that wonders if a paramount deal means

we're going to have to remember yet another password. I am barely getting by over here as it is.

I'm Ali Vitale on this Thursday, May 28th. We are going to start with the news.

Fresh strikes in the Middle East are once again threatening peace talks to end the three-month

war and testing the already tenuous

truce. A U.S. official tells MS now, the military carried out new strikes in Iran yesterday,

shooting down four Iranian attack drones and targeting a ground control station in a port city

along the Strait of Hormuz. The official added both the drones and ground facility posed

a threat to the key waterway,

saying, quote, these actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire.

That word defensive is important and the reasoning that the U.S. has provided in the past, too.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, meanwhile, said early today that it retaliated against the latest round of U.S. strikes, claiming to have targeted the American military base from which they were launched,

although it didn't say where the U.S. base was or how it had been targeted.

The IRGC also warned its response to future attacks would be more decisive in their words.

At the same time, Kuwait's army said its air defenses were intercepting hostile missile and drone attacks, although it did not state the origin of those attacks.

It all came up in a cabinet meeting yesterday as President Trump defended his handling of the war in Iran, dismissing concerns about any political fallout ahead of the midterms.

The president also openly threatened U.S. ally Oman over entering

into any agreement with Iran on sharing control of the Strait of Hormuz. Watch.

Their whole economic system is broken down. They thought they were going to outweigh me,

you know, we'll outweigh him. He's got the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms. People understand it. They know that

very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it

just for us. Iran is very much intent. They want very much to make a deal.

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