"Unusual activity" was observed on the main US stock market just fifteen minutes before Donald Trump went public with the sudden and unexpected news that he would stop striking Iranian energy sites and talks with Tehran were apparently going well. Trading volumes were up to six times higher than normal - with oil futures seeing a sudden flurry of activity in the moments before Trump broke that news.

More than half a billion dollars was netted in that brief window, but it's not clear how. Experts and analysts are sounding the alarm about the activity - could some people close to Trump have known what was coming and gone straight to the market to place their bets? Why are Trump allies blocking investigators from looking into the Trump family and their allies? And what does this mean for the much bigger question of where the plans for peace actually stand ?

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It's a funny old world when you have to check with Iran’s state TV before you know if the US president is telling the truth. In a post early this morning - just as the markets opened - Trump declared he’d had productive discussions to end with war with Iran. An hour later Tehran flatly contradicted him. But by then there had already been a market rally putting two trillion dollars back into the system. So what’s going on: Has Trump had enough of war? Has he had stern words from his Gulf allies? Or is he just trying to manipulate the price of oil?

Later, Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle on how to do business with America in the age of Trump and whether he’d call his actions "erratic".

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It can be hard to decipher the reasons behind the US-Israeli decision to strike Iran. With a flurry of hyperbolic - often contradictory - statements from the American leadership, the objectives, the progress, and the endgame of this war are not much clearer three weeks into it.

But Donald Trump has turned to one man to make the case for this war in a way he could never enunciate. Dr Muhanad Seloom has cut a somewhat isolated figure in the defence world outside of MAGA. An international security academic, he has been arguing that Trump's war is succeeding. Trump obviously likes what he is saying. The President posted Seloon's argument on Truth Social, with the caption: 'The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why'.

Lewis spoke to Dr Seloom from Doha to try and understand what the thinking might just be in the White House and what success would look like for America - with more and more voices sounding the alarm about the consequences of its failure.

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