During today’s press briefing, Karoline Leavitt said that Donald Trump would ultimately determine when Iran is “in a place of unconditional surrender”.
The press secretary clarified what this state looks like, after the president insisted that only at this point would the military operation be complete. “He’s not claiming the Iranian regime is going to come out and say that themselves,” Leavitt said. “What the president means is that Iran’s threats will no longer be backed by a ballistic missile arsenal that protects them from building a nuclear bomb in their country.”
Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Pentagon will release a full report of its investigation into the bombing of an Iranian girls’ school that killed at least 175 people.
Donald Trump has insisted that Iran was responsible for the attack, claiming that Iran might have Tomahawk missiles.
However, my colleague Tess McClure reports that a video has shown a US Tomahawk missile hitting the Iranian naval base next to a primary school in Minab – adding to evidence that indicates the US was responsible for the school strike.
“As the president said yesterday, he will accept the conclusion of this investigation,” Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday, without commenting on when the report might be released.
US Navy has not escorted a vessel through strait of Hormuz, White House confirms
Karoline Leavitt was also just asked why Trump’s energy secretary earlier claimed that the US Navy had escorted an oil tanker through the strait of Hormuz, before deleting the X post a few minutes later.
She replied:
I know the post was taken down pretty quickly, and I can confirm that the US Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time, though of course that’s an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if and when necessary at the appropriate time.
In response to a Reuters report that around 150 US service members have been injured since the military action against Iran began, the press secretary said she could not confirm this is the exact number. “I know it’s within that ballpark,” she said.
Karoline Leavitt did not provide any more specifics about the lifting of oil sanctions.
On Friday, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said that India had been issued a 30-day waiver to buy Russian oil to offset the repurcussions of a distrupted supply chain since the US-Israel strikes on Iran began.
The press secretary told reporters that she had no announcements about the lifting of new sanctions.
Leavitt insists that hike in gas prices is 'temporary' and assures rapid price drop
The press secretary used her opening remarks to assuage anxiety around the hike in prices at the pump that many Americans have seen in the past week.
The recent increase in oil and gas prices is temporary, and this operation will result in lower gas prices in the long term. Once the national security objectives of Operation epic fury are fully achieved, Americans will see oil and gas prices drop rapidly, potentially even lower than they were prior to the start of the operation.
Leavitt says US military is 'drawing up additional options' to keep strait of Hormuz open, amid disruptions to oil supply chain
Leavitt noted today that the president and his energy team are closely watching the markets, when it comes the price of oil which has surged and dropped in recent days.
The press secretary noted that the US military is “drawing up additional options” following Donald Trump’s directive to continue keeping the strait of Hormuz open. “I will not broadcast what those options look like, but just know the president is not afraid to use them,” Leavitt said.
Karoline Leavitt said today that US forces have hit 5,000 enemy targets since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.
She noted that the regime’s ballistic missile attacks are down “more than 90%” and their “drone attacks are down by approximately 85%”.
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In a short while we’ll also hear from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, as she briefs reporters. I’ll bring you the latest lines here.
Johnson reiterated that the SAVE America act is a top priority for GOP lawmakers moving forward. The legislation, which has already passed the Republican-controlled House, has stalled in the Senate.
A reminder that the bill would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and showing voter ID to cast a ballot. However, Donald Trump wants to revise the legislation further and limit mail-in voting with a few exceptions, and include unrelated measures that would ban transgender people participating in women’s sports and gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
“Why is not passing in the Senate? Because no Democrat will go along with that,” Johnson told reporters in Miami on Tuesday. “Every Republican is in favor of those principles,” the House speaker added, while noting that the Senate’s majority leader, John Thune is “looking at all other avenues” to advance the bill.
The upper chamber’s top Republican appeared to dash his party’s hopes that they would be able to forge ahead without the 60-vote threshold requirement. “The votes aren’t there, one, to nuke the filibuster, and the votes aren’t there for a talking filibuster. It’s just a reality,” Thune told reporters.
Mike Johnson refuses to condemn GOP congressman's Islamophobic social media posts
At the House Republican policy conference in Doral, Florida, speaker Mike Johnson refused to condemn congressman Andy Ogles’ Islamophobic posts on social media.
A reminder that the GOP lawmaker, who represents Tennessee’s fifth congressional district, wrote on X that “Muslims don’t belong in America”. Ogles has repeatedly denigrated the Muslim faith, insisting that it is “incompatible” with American values. His Islamophobic espousals have manifested in a piece of proposed legislation that would ban immigration from several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Syria and Libya.
On Tuesday, reporters press Johnson for his response to Ogles’ comments. “There is a lot of energy in the country, and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem,” he said in a attempt to justify Ogles’ posts. “That what animates this. That’s the language that people use, it’s a different language than I would use.”
He went on to say, without providing any evidence, that the imposition of Sharia law – the legal system of Islam that is enforced to varying degrees of severity across Muslim-majority countries – is a “real issue”.
“When you seek to come to a country and not assimilate…that is the conflict,” Johnson added. “It is not about people as Muslims, it’s about those who seek to impose a belief system that is in direct conflict with the constitution.”
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The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said that Trump administration “can’t make it 12 hours without contradicting themselves about this war”. This comes after defense secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier that Iran would see the “most intense day of strikes” on Tuesday while Donald Trump told CBS News on Monday that Operation Epic Fury is “very complete”.
Russia told Trump it isn't sharing US military asset intel with Iran, says Witkoff
Russia has denied sharing intelligence with Iran on US military assets in the Middle East, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has said today.
Speaking to CNBC, Witkoff said the denial came during a phone call that Donald Trump had with Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday, as well as in a separate call that he held earlier on Monday with Jared Kushner and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.
Trump didn’t divulge any details about his call with Putin yesterday, saying only that it was “very good” and that the Russian president “wants to be helpful on Iran”. On the Russian side, Ushakov said the conversation was “frank” and “business-like”.
It follows reports on Friday that Moscow was providing Tehran with targeting information that included locations and movements of US warships and aircraft in the region.
“Yesterday on the call with the president, the Russians said that they have not been sharing,” Witkoff said when asked if Washington thought Moscow had shared intelligence about the location of US military assets with Tehran.
He went on: “We can take them at their word. But they did say that. And yesterday morning, independently, Jared and I had a call with Ushakov who reiterated the same.”
He added: “That’s a better question for the intel people, but let’s hope that they’re not sharing.”
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Pentagon estimates US used more than $5bn worth of munitions in first two days of Iran war - reports
Multiple outlets are reporting that the US military used $5.6bn in munitions during the first two days of strikes against Iran, according to an assessment the Pentagon provided to congressional committees on Monday.
Members of Congress, who may soon have to approve additional funding for the war, have expressed concern about how quickly the conflict is burning through US military stocks - including long-range precision guided munitions that were used heavily in the first few days of the war - at a time when the defense industry was already struggling to keep up with demand.
There are also concerns that the US and its allies are expending a significant number of air defense munitions to shoot down incoming Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, of which Tehran has a large arsenal.
Indeed Donald Trump met with leading US weapons manufacturers at the White House on Friday – and said they had agreed to “quadruple Production of ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry” - as the Pentagon worked to replenish supplies.
His administration has not provided a public assessment of the cost of the conflict it launched on 28 February alongside Israel.
Lawmakers have clamored for more information, including public testimony from officials about issues including how the conflict might affect the US military’s readiness to defend the country.
Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly told CNN that senators would continue to ask briefers behind closed doors today about the per-day cost of the conflict to the US.
Several congressional aides have told Reuters and CNN that they expect the White House to soon submit a request to Congress for additional funding to produce more munitions for the war. Per Reuters, some officials have said the request could be for $50bn, but others have said that estimate seems low.
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Iran has appealed to the United Nations to condemn the United States and Israel for a “manifest environmental crime” over the bombing of fuel storage facilities in Tehran and other cities over the weekend.
The attacks led to the falling of acid rain across Tehran, as well as the spreading of clouds of smoke so thick they blocked out the sun and caused respiratory problems and skin irritation to residents.
In a letter passed to senior officials at the UN on Monday, including secretary general António Guterres, Saeed Iravani, Iran’s UN ambassador, said the explosions had “released large quantities of hazardous compounds including hydrocarbons, sulphur, and nitrogen oxides” creating “severe air pollution and serious health risks”. Subsequent rainfall led to the “dispersion and deposition of these pollutants through highly acidic precipitation”.
“Such developments may result in severe respiratory harm to the population and extensive environmental degradation, including the contamination of water resources and damage to ecosystems and living organisms.”
In response, all medical facilities in Tehran had been placed on high alert, while Iran’s environment department had advised residents to remain indoors, Iravani said.
These attacks constitute a clear violation of international obligations arising under multilateral environmental agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity, which underscore States’ responsibility to protect the global environment and to refrain from actions that may cause widespread environmental harm.
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran calls upon the United Nations and its relevant bodies to urgently address these developments and to undertake appropriate measures, including condemning environmentally destructive acts and pursuing accountability for those responsible for this manifest environmental crime.
You can follow developments on US-Israeli war on Iran over on our dedicated live blog here:
Cardinal Robert W McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, has said that the US-Israeli war with Iran is “not morally legitimate”, going further than the pope has done in his more moderate appeals for an end to the war.
In an interview with the Catholic Standard this week, McElroy said “the criterion of just cause is not met because our country was not responding to an existing or imminent and objectively verifiable attack by Iran.”
“As Pope Benedict declared categorically, Catholic teaching does not support preventative war, ie a war justified by speculation about events in the future,” he said. “If preventative war were to be accepted morally, then all limits to the cause for going to war would be put in extreme jeopardy.”
McElroy also argued that the conflict fails the “criterion of right intention” arguing that in his opinion, “one of the most worrying elements of these first days of the war in Iran is that our goals and intentions are absolutely unclear, ranging from the destruction of Iran’s conventional and nuclear weapons potential to the overthrow of its regime to the establishment of a democratic government to unconditional surrender,” he said. “You cannot satisfy the just war tradition’s criterion of right intention if you do not have a clear intention.”
Read the full story:
Top Republican on homeland security committee eyes next week for Mullin confirmation hearing
Rand Paul, the top Republican on the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee, told reporters that he’s hoping to schedule Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing to take over as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary for Wednesday 18 March.
A reminder that Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, was tapped by Donald Trump to lead the DHS after the president ousted Kristi Noem from the role. Her 13-month tenure had been roiled with controversy, most recently as immigration crackdowns across the country saw the fatal shootings of two US citizens.
Just before Noem was removed as DHS secretary she spent two days on Capitol Hill facing questions and criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. This included having to defend a $220m advertising contract that prominently featured her own image. Noem, for her part, claimed the president approved the campaign, despite the White House publicly denying any sign-off.
In the wake of Donald Trump telling CBS News that the US-Israel war on Iran could end “very soon”, oil prices rebounded on Tuesday. My colleagues on our dedicated live business blog note that Brent crude has now slipped just below $90 a barrel, down 9.9% to $89.22 a barrel.
This comes after they surged past $100 a barrel on Monday morning, the highest price in four years.
The national average gas price in the US, however, is still 13% higher than it was this time last week. The price-per-gallon sits around $3.53, according to AAA.
The White House has scheduled a briefing for reporters at 2pm ET. Karoline Leavitt will address the media, and take questions. We’ll bring you the latest lines as it gets underway.
Three prosecutors installed by Donald Trump’s administration to lead the New Jersey attorney general’s office after the president’s former personal lawyer was disqualified from the role in December were also illegally appointed, a federal judge has ruled.
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, handpicked the three to replace Alina Habba, who resigned after a succession of district and appeals court rulings that she was serving illegally because she never received Senate confirmation.
On Monday, federal judge Matthew Brann said Bondi’s actions repeated the same error of bypassing congressional approval for the appointments. He stopped short of ordering their removal pending a government appeal – but, in a blistering 130-page ruling, said overreach by the executive branch could jeopardise all of its cases before him.
“On the [government’s] reading, the president would have had no need ever to seek the Senate’s advice and consent for his [US attorney] appointments,” Brann, chief judge of the district court for the middle district of Pennsylvania, wrote.
Brann, a former Republican party official appointed to the federal court bench in 2012 during Barack Obama’s presidency, made the original ruling in August that disqualified Habba and accused the Trump administration of keeping her in place using “a novel series of legal and personnel moves”.
Donald Trump is back in Washington today. The president has no public appearances, per his official schedule, but we’ll be watching for any new lines that come out of the White House. Particularly after Trump said he would sign no new legislation until the SAVE America act is passed.
Hegseth says the aftermath of the conflict is “going to be in America’s interests” and says it “will not live under a nuclear blackmail” from Iran.
It comes shortly after the defence secretary reiterated president Donald Trump’s threat that if Iran does anything to prevent the flow of oil in the strait of Hormuz, it will be hit “twenty times harder”.
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When it comes to the ongoing investigation into the bombing of the Iranian girls’ school, Pete Hegseth appeared to answer a question about the probe that was shouted in today’s Pentagon press conference.
“Open source is not the place to determine what did or did not happen,” the defense secretary said. “We take things very, very seriously and investigate them thoroughly.”
Hegseth went on to say that Iran “targets civilians indiscriminately” according to US military intel. “They set the targeting of drones and missiles toward civilian targets, hospitals, hotels, airports,” without providing an update on the investigation into the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, which killed at least 175 people.
On Monday, Donald Trump was pressed on why he insists Iran was responsible, when cabinet officials have even said who is to blame for the attack. “I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation,” the president said. “Certainly, whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report.”
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Military action against Iran is 'not endless', says Hegseth
When it comes to the timeline of Operation Epic Fury, Pete Hegseth underscored that the military action against Iran is “not endless”.
“It’s not protracted. We’re not allowing mission creep,” the defense secretary added.
Hegseth said that continues to defer to Donald Trump when it comes to communicating the success of the operation.
He [the president] gets to control the throttle. He’s the one deciding. He’s the one elected on behalf of the American people … so it’s not for me to posit whether it’s the beginning, the middle or the end, that’s his.
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Pete Hegseth said he was unable to comment on the status of the new leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, following reports that he was injured.
The defense secretary did warn the late ayatollah’s son “to heed the words of our president” and “not pursue nuclear weapons”.
America is 'winning' and executing its objectives against Iran, says Pete Hegseth
During his opening remarks Hegseth said that the mullahs know that their military is being “systematically degraded” and that Iran “stands alone and is badly losing”.
By contrast, he noted that America is “winning” and is executing its objectives to destroy its missiles, its navy and “permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever”.
Hegseth added that “this is not 2003, and it is not endless nation-building” in an attempt to put daylight between this bombing campaign and the US’s previous forays into Middle Eastern conflict.
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Hegseth promises ‘most intense day of strikes’ with no guidance on end of war
At a Pentagon press conference, defense secretary Pete Hegseth did not give any guidance on when the military action against Iran might end. “We do so on our timeline and at our choosing,” he said.
In recent days, Donald Trump has been unclear about the length of the operation. Last week he said that it would probably take at least four weeks, but on Monday the president said the US is making “major strides toward completing our military objective” and even added that “we’re getting close to finishing”.
At the Department of Defense, Hegseth described that today “will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran – the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes.”
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Hegseth and Caine to update on Iran war in press conference at 8am ET
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth will be giving a press conference, with chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Dan Caine, shortly.
The presser is due to begin at 8am ET and will update on the latest from Trump’s war on Iran.
You can follow any news lines that emerge from it in our Middle East live blog here:
RFK Jr’s pick to review Covid vaccines authored misleading research, experts say
The MIT professor who has been appointed by Robert F Kennedy Jr to review the safety of Covid-19 vaccines has failed to meet basic scientific standards in his own research on the topic, according to more than a dozen scientists and public health experts.
Retsef Levi, an operations management professor, is a member of the US health department’s vaccine advisory committee (ACIP) which is meeting later this month and – many experts fear – could seek to rollback recommendations on who should receive Covid-19 vaccines.
Levi, who holds Israeli and American citizenship, has claimed that Covid-19 vaccines are the “most failing medical product in the history of medical products”, despite a body of research that has shown they are safe and effective. A modeling study published in 2022 in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet estimated that Covid-19 vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives in the first year they were available.
He holds a coveted seat on ACIP, which was once considered the “international gold standard for vaccine decision-making” but has faced criticism after Kennedy fired 17 of the group’s voting members – including doctors, immunologists and epidemiologists – and replaced them with individuals who have been criticized for undermining public trust in the safety and efficacy of many vaccines, without any basis in fact.
Mississippi voters to decide whether to send representative Thompson back to Washington
Mississippi Democrats on Tuesday will decide between longtime representative Bennie Thompson and his 34-year-old primary challenger in a race that reflects generational struggle for control of the party.
Thompson, a 78-year-old civil rights leader who chaired the House 6 January Committee and serves as a ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, has held his seat for more than three decades, AP reports.
He is running against Evan Turnage, an antitrust lawyer who previously worked for top Democrats in Washington, and Pertis Herman Williams III, who has called for a new era of leadership.
Turnage is part of a wave of young Democrats who are hoping to oust older incumbents and usher in a new era. He has staked his candidacy on a message of economic populism and cast himself as a leader capable of understanding and regulating Big Tech and artificial intelligence.
Turnage faces an uphill battle against Thompson, who has more than $1.5 million in his bank account. Since mid-December, Turnage’s campaign has raised just over $200,000 and has a little under $40,000 left to spend
Posing an additional challenge is Thompson’s incumbency advantage.
Marvin King, an associate professor of political science at the University of Mississippi, said Thompson’s 17 terms in Congress have made him an institution in a state where voters tend to reelect incumbents.
“He’s basically been there like half of people’s lives on average,” King said. “No other challenger has effectively shown why Bennie Thompson should be dethroned.”
Thompson has faced a few meaningful challengers from both the right and left, but none of his races have been considered close, King said.
Georgia votes for successor to Marjorie Taylor Greene in US House
Hello and welcome to the US politics blog.
Georgia voters are heading to the polls to choose a successor in Congress to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Republican former prosecutor Clay Fuller is likely to come out of Tuesday’s jungle primary, in which the top two candidates go to a runoff regardless of party, alongside retired army general Shawn Harris, a Democrat.
The two would face a runoff election on 7 April.
Fuller has Trump’s endorsement and had raised more than $1m leading into voting Tuesday, but Harris, who faced Greene two years ago, has raised more than four times as much.
Even though four Republican candidates dropped out before the election, the Republican field is fractured between more than a dozen candidates, including former state senator Colton Moore, a combative agitator to the right of most Republican legislators in Georgia.
“This is an interesting case to see how powerful Trump’s hold over the party is in that particular district,” said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University who lives in the district at stake.
Swint said the most likely outcome was Harris finishing first without a majority, while the field of a dozen Republican candidates splits the party’s vote, leaving either Fuller or Moore to claim the second runoff spot.
Swint added that Harris was almost certain to lose to the Republican in the runoff, given the district’s conservative leanings.
Greene, also a firebrand on the right, broke hard against Trump last year, beginning by questioning his first strike on Iran in June, then by sounding alarms during budget talks that the end of healthcare subsidies would wreck her constituents’ finances.
The administration’s resistance on the Epstein files was the last straw; Trump and Greene turned on each other, leading to Greene’s resignation in January to avoid a contentious, divisive primary challenge.
Read our full report here:
In other developments:
As oil prices surged amid the widening war with Iran, Donald Trump said that the conflict could be over “very soon” while threatening even more aggressive action if Tehran moved to cut off global energy supplies. During back-to-back appearances in Florida, Trump said the US had taken a “little excursion” to the Middle East “to get rid of some evil” but suggested the war, now in its second week, was ahead of schedule and near completion. More here.
Trump renewed his push for the Save America Act, a curtailment of voting access, after threatening on Sunday not to sign any bills until Congress approves the legislation. “All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote,” Trump said during remarks on Monday at a Republican event in Miami. “No mail-in ballots, except for illness, disability, military or travel.” More here.
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, has said “there will be more casualties” in the US military from the Trump administration’s war in Iran after officials confirmed on Sunday that the number of US service members killed had climbed to seven. He portrayed Trump’s decision for the US to join Israeli attacks on the Middle East country as essential “to advance American interests, and protect American lives”. More here.
A golf club company backed by the sons of Trump is merging with drone manufacturer Powerus in a deal designed to take the drone technology company public. The merger with Aureus Greenway Holdings is the latest in Eric and Donald Trump Jr’s growing investments in the drone sector, following last month’s $1.5bn tie-up between Israeli drone maker XTEND and Florida-based JFB Construction Holdings. More here.
Claudia Sheinbaum has responded to Trump’s description of Mexico as the “epicenter of violence,” by calling on the US government to step up efforts to combat gun trafficking. “There is something that the US can help us a lot with: stop the trafficking of illegal weapons from the US to Mexico,” the president of Mexico said. “If they stopped the entry of illegal weapons from the United States into Mexico, then these groups wouldn’t have access to this type of high-powered weaponry to carry out their criminal activities.” More here.
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