Closing summary
This brings our coverage of the day in US politics to a close. Here are the latest developments:
Donald Trump fired Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary and nominated Markwayne Mullin, a Republican Oklahoma senator, to replace her.
Mullin is a die-hard supporter of the president, but Trump supporters might be angered to learn that he defended the Capitol Police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt during the 2021 Capitol riot.
Mullin never served in the US armed forces, but routinely speaks as if he did.
The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted down a Democratic-backed measure to halt hostilities with Iran, as Republicans cleared the way for Donald Trump to continue the conflict that has drawn in countries across the Middle East, but criticized as having unclear goals.
One beneficiary of the chaos in the Persian Gulf appears to be Russia, since the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, just announced that the US has issued a temporary 30-day waiver “to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil.”
In a bizarre spectacle, Lionel Messi and his Inter Miami teammates were forced to stand behind Trump as he began a White House ceremony in their honor with nine minutes of boasting about his attacks on Iran and Venezuela and then hintd that Cuba is next. Trump also complimented Luis Suárez on his looks and brought up Cristiano Ronaldo and that late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for no apparent reason.
Trump tells Time magazine his Iran war could bring retaliatory attacks in US
In a new Time magazine interview this week, conducted like so many other by phone, Donald Trump was asked if Americans should be worried about potential terrorist attacks in the US in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes on Iran. “I guess,” Trump replied. “But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”
Markwayne Mullin never served in US military, but often speaks as if he did
Markwayne Mullin, the Oklahoma senator chosen by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security, has never served in the US military, but he routinely speaks as if he did in cable news interviews.
On Monday, for instance, Mullin told Fox News: “War is ugly. It smells bad. And if anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that’s happening around you and taste it, and feel it in your nostrils, and hear it, it’s something you’ll never forget. And it’s ugly.”
While Mullin’s words might have lead many viewers to assume that he was speaking from personal experience, he went on to suggest, in a somewhat confusing manner, that he was actually talking about of what he imagined the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had been through.
“Fortunately you have President Hegseth, or I say President Hegseth, Secretary Hegseth, that has got a great relationship with President Trump, and President Hegseth’s been there, he’s done that,” Mullin said, with something less than clarity.
This was, however, just the latest time that Mullin has spoken as if he has been through combat when, in fact, he has not.
In an interview with Fox News on 7 January 2021, the day after he had tried to help Capitol Police officers defend the House chamber from pro-Trump rioters, Mullin said: “Some people there got nervous, there’s a lot of members that was in that chamber that never dealt with a situation like that, and I’ll tell you, I’ve never dealt with a situation like that on US soil”.
Later that year, Mullin offered an extensive critique of the tactics used by the police to defend the House chamber during the January 6 Capitol riot, in an interview with C-SPAN in which he said: “I’ve been in these situations before, similar, not exactly the same.”
When the interviewer responded to that statement by asking Mullin, “Can you explain, for those who don’t know, your background?” he replied: “I would prefer not to.”
Later in the same interview, Mullin recalled that he directed Jason Crow, a congressman from Colorado who is a former Army Ranger, in how to best evacuate sheltering lawmakers from the balcony.
Then, Mullin recalled, he visited a triage center, where wounded police officers were getting treated for their injuries. “I haven’t seen a thing like that since stuff you see overseas,” Mullin told C-SPAN.
Since Mullin did not serve in any branch of the US armed forces, but inherited a plumbing company and took part in a handful of mixed martial arts fights, it is unclear what firsthand experience of disorder “overseas” he was flashing back to on January 6.
However, Mullin does seem to have visited Israel, in a guided tour for 40 lawmakers and their spouses in August 2015. There was no active warfare in Israel at that time, but another lawmaker’s wife, Kathleen Trott later told Politico that Mullin had behaved badly on the bus trip to see an Iron Dome installation and a kibbutz.
“We get on this bus, and it’s a couple-hour bus ride and people were kind of leaning on their spouse’s shoulder and falling asleep. And this idiot starts walking up and down the bus with his camera and anyone who fell asleep, he would put his finger in their nose and take a picture,” Trott told the outlet in 2023.
“Some people were mad, and some people were laughing. There were a couple of women who were mad,” she added. “You’re trying to fall asleep, somebody you don’t know has his finger… it was just middle school. And we were in Israel, and we’re going to go see the Iron Dome and go to a kibbutz. Just didn’t seem appropriate.”
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Markwayne Mullin, Trump's pick to lead DHS, defended officer who shot Ashli Babbitt on January 6
Markwayne Mullin, the Oklahoma senator who was picked by Donald Trump on Thursday to replace Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, is known as a fierce defender of the president, but comments he made in the aftermath of the January 6 riot, in which he called the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt justified, could lead to backlash from Trump’s most ardent supporters.
During the 2021 riot, Mullin, who was a congressman at the time, stayed on the House floor and attempted to help Capitol Police officers keep the pro-Trump mob from breaking into the chamber where dozens of lawmakers were still sheltering.
One news photograph from that day showed Mullin close to Lt. Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer shot and killed Babbitt minutes later, as she tried to climb through the barricaded door to the Speakers Lobby to gain access to the House chamber.
Although Babbitt’s family denied that she ignored a verbal warning from the officer to stay back, another rioter at the door, who held up his hands when the officer drew his gun, told a news crew minutes after the shooting that he had heard the warning.
Mullin later told the police investigation into Babbitt’s shooting led by the DC Metropolitan Police, that he had heard Byrd issue a verbal warning to the rioters to stay back before he opened fire.
Byrd was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by investigators, but Babbitt’s family brought a wrongful death case that Trump’s justice department settled for nearly $5 million last year.
During his campaign to return to office, Trump described the killing of Babbitt as “murder”.
Last year, when the president was asked about her family’s wrongful death suit, he seemed to embrace the baseless conspiracy theory that Babbitt was not trying to lead the mob across the barricade into the House, but fighting to keep the rioters out.
“I’m a big fan of Ashli Babbitt, okay, and Ashli Babbitt was a really good person who was a big Maga fan, Trump fan,” Trump told the rightwing cable channel Newsmax. “And she was innocently standing there – they even say, trying to sort of hold back the crowd. And a man did something unthinkable to her when he shot her, and I think it’s a disgrace.”
In an interview with the cable network C-SPAN in July 2021, however, Mullin strongly defended the officer who shot Babbitt.
“He did not want to use lethal force at all. This guy is later in his career,” Mullin said. “He was the last person in the world that ever wanted to use force like that, and he wasn’t one to do that. I know for a fact, because after it happened, he came over and he was physically and emotionally distraught. I actually gave him a hug and said, ‘Sir, you did what you had to do.’”
“Unfortunately, the young lady, her family’s life has changed and it’s an unfortunate situation that she lost her life, but the lieutenant’s life has also changed, too,” Mullin said. “It wasn’t his choice. He did not show up that day to have to do that. He got put in a situation where he had to do his job because there were members still in the balcony. If you present your weapon and give commands and they still approach you and they don’t listen, you have no choice. You have to at that point discharge your weapon in a manner of self-defense or it will be taken away from you and put all our lives in danger.”
“So what he did, he did, but I believe that he saved other people’s lives along the way because I think there would have been a lot more that would have lost their lives,” Mullin added. “The lieutenant had to do what he had to do to protect us.”
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Amid Iran chaos, US treasury issues 30-day waiver to let Indian refiners buy Russian oil
One beneficiary of the chaos in the Persian Gulf appears to be Russia, since the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, just announced that the US has issued a temporary 30-day waiver “to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil.”
“This deliberately short-term measure will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government as it only authorizes transactions involving oil already stranded at sea,” Bessent added.
The treasury secretary said the “stop-gap measure” was implemented in response to what he called “Iran’s attempt to take global energy hostage”.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump said the US navy would begin escorting tankers through the strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed off, “if necessary”.
As our colleague Dan Sabbagh explains, “about a fifth of the world’s crude oil passes through the strait of Hormuz. But that masks considerable regional and country variations – while countries in the Americas import 12.5% of their oil via the strait, the proportion rises to 45.7% for China, according to the data agency Kpler.”
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Jamie Raskin, the Maryland congressman who is the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, released a scathing statement welcoming the firing of Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary and saying that her successor “must commit to ending the lies, lawlessness and terror that have come to define DHS under this Administration”.
“Less than 24 hours after Judiciary Democrats laid bare the staggering corruption, cruelty, and incompetence of Secretary Kristi Noem before the American people, President Trump finally did what should have been done months ago: he fired her. Under her watch, federal agents trampled the Constitution on a daily basis and gunned down two American citizens exercising their constitutional rights. Countless families have been terrorized and beaten under this reign of terror and lawlessness, and this chaos will forever be her legacy,” Raskin wrote.
“Although Noem may be gone from DHS, our effort to rein in this out-of-control agency –and hold it accountable to the American people– must intensify with this breakthrough. From day one, it has been clear that Stephen Miller was actually in charge of this lawless and heartless immigration policy. We will continue to hold all violators of the rights of the people accountable and will seek justice for their victims and for all our communities,” the congressman added.
The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted down a Democratic-backed measure to halt hostilities with Iran, as Republicans cleared the way for Donald Trump to continue the conflict that has drawn in countries across the Middle East, but criticized as having unclear goals.
By a vote of 212-219, the House voted to reject a war powers resolution proposed by Thomas Massie, a Republican representative, and Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative, which would have forced the US to withdraw from the conflict until Congress authorized military action. The vote was largely along party lines, with two Republicans breaking with their party to support the resolution, and four Democrats voting against it.
The measure’s failure in the House came after the Senate GOP rejected a similar war powers resolution on Wednesday. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and their leaders have made clear that they believe Trump was authorized to initiate the air and naval campaign that began over the weekend, prompting Tehran to launch drones and missiles across the Middle East. Six US troops have been killed, as well as 1,230 people in Iran.
Trump tells Messi he's 'great', weeks after calling Cristiano Ronaldo 'the greatest of all time'
After Donald Trump started a celebration of Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami by boasting about the US military’s ongoing attack on Iran, a country that is scheduled to take part in the upcoming Fifa World Cup in the US, the president acknowledged the Argentine footballer many call the greatest of all time.
“It’s my distinct privilege to say what no American president has ever had the chance to say before. Welcome to the White House, Lionel Messi,” Trump said.
The president then told Messi that his son Barron, who shares a name with the fictional spokesman for himself Trump used to pose as, is “a big fan of yours.”
“He thinks you’re just a great person,” Trump said, before revealing that Barron got to meet Messi.
“He’s a tremendous fan of yours,” the president added, “and a gentleman named Ronaldo.”
“Cristiano is great, you’re great,” Trump told Messi, as if to avoid the bitter debate between fans of the two players as to which one of them is the greatest.
But the president’s comments came just two weeks after he took a side in a bizarre video message in which he urged Cristiano Ronaldo, who currently plays in Saudi Arabia, to come play in the US. “Ronaldo, you’re the greatest of all time, we need you in America” Trump said in the TikTok video, which was illustrated with an AI fantasy of the president playing football in the Oval Office with the Portuguese striker.
That was just one of several White House social media clips showing Trump with Ronaldo, recorded when the footballer visited for a recent dinner in honor of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who ordered the brutal murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Another awkward moment during Trump’s attempts to banter with the largely Spanish-speaking Inter Miami squad came when he recounted a goal scored by “one of the greatest strikers of all time, Louis Suárez.” Trump mispronounced Suárez’s first name as “Louie” before asking where he was, and then turning to shake the Uruguayan striker’s hand.
The president was then momentarily tripped up by what he described as the good looks of the South American footballer. “These are good-looking people,” he said. Then, looking to his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the president added: “Marco, I don’t like good-looking men. You don’t feel so good about yourself standing up here.”
Trump hints regime change in Cuba is coming 'in a couple of weeks'
During the White House event in honor of Inter Miami on Thursday, Donald Trump told one of the club’s owners, Jorge Mas, who was born in Miami to Cuban exiles, that regime change in Cuba is on the horizon.
“Your parents came. You’re going to go back,” Trump said. “It’s going to be, and you won’t need my approval. You just fly back in.”
“I can just see that. It’s going to be a great day, right? We’re going to celebrate that separately,” the president said to the club owner at a celebration of his team’s cup win. “I just wanted to wait a couple of weeks. I wanted to wait a couple of weeks, but we’ll be together again soon, I suspect, celebrating what’s going on in Cuba.”
“They want to make a deal so badly, you have no idea,” the president claimed.
Earlier in the event, Trump praised the work of his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who moved to the United States before Castro came to power.
“What happening with Cuba is amazing,” Trump said, after remarks on the US-Israeli regime change war on Iran. “We think that we want to fix- finish this one first. But that will be just a question of time before you and a lot of unbelievable people are going to be going back to Cuba,” the president daid. “Hopefully not to stay. We want you back. And we don’t want to lose you. We don’t want to make it so nice that they stay. But some people probably do want to stay. They love Cuba so much. I hear it all the time.”
“Venezuela is going great,” Trump also said, turning to what he considers a successful regime change, in which the regime has remained mostly intact. “It’s been stabilized. We have a wonderful person as your president-elect, Delcy Rodriguez, and she and her staff have been doing a fantastic job working with us. We’re taking out hundreds of millions of barrels of oil”.
Trump says US will give 'immunity' to Iran's military and police if they surrender
Before turning to banter with Lionel Messi at the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump renewed his call for Iran’s military to surrender and the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the theocratic government that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution that deposed the Shah.
“I’m once again calling on all members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the military, and the police, to lay down their arms,” Trump said. Looking up from his prepared remarks, the president told the crowd assembled in honor of the MLS Cup winners: “They’re only going to be killed.”
“Now is the time to stand up for the Iranian people and help take back your country,” he continued. “You’re going to have a chance, after all these years, to take back your country. Accept immunity.”
“We’ll give you immunity,” the president said, using a term more often associated with legal cases than war. “And we’ll be giving you- really the right side of history, because that’s what it is. So, you’ll be perfectly safe with total immunity or you’ll face absolutely guaranteed death. And I don’t want to see that.”
“We also urge Iranian diplomats around the world to request asylum and to help us shape a new and better Iran with great potential,” he added. “It’s a country with great potential. There’s much better future for Iran. It’s now beginning. It’s going to be, I think, a great future.”
Trump then reiterated that he intends to have a say in choosing the next leader of Iran. “The United States will ensure that whoever leads the country next, Iran will not threaten America or its neighbors, Israel, anybody,” Trump said.
“If you look at what happened, they had missiles aimed at all of these other countries, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, many others that weren’t really involved very much,” Trump said, without mentioning that all of those nations host US military bases or troops.
“And they had missiles aimed, well, they were aimed there long before this ever started,” the president said. “They were going after the entire Middle East. And then we came along. We blew up their party.”
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To justify war on Iran, Trump claims without evidence that Iran caused '95%' of severe injuries to US troops
In his remarks about the US-Israeli war on Iran at the start of a White House event to honor Lionel Messi’s MLS Cup winning Inter Miami on Thursday, Donald Trump claimed without evidence that Iran was responsible for almost all severe injuries to US service members.
“When you see somebody walking down the street without their legs, without the arms, whose face is so badly affected and hurt, it mostly came from, 95%, Suleimani and Iran,” Trump said, apparently referring to US troops injured by roadside bombs in Iraq planted by Iranian-backed Shia militias in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Those militia groups were supported by General Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, who was assassinated by the US in 2020, during Trump’s first term.
“Other presidents lived with it, I didn’t live with it,” Trump said,” apparently citing as justification for the new US-Israeli war on Iran, injuries to US troops that mostly took place more than 15 years ago.
“We had really no choice,” Trump added. “They were going to hit us, if we didn’t hit them because they’re crazy,” the president said, repeating his claim that the attack he ordered on Iran was justified as an act of self-defense.
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As Messi looks on, Trump addresses 'our operation on the country of Iran'
Speaking at the start of a White House event to honor Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami, Donald Trump just said that he would address what he called “our operation on the country of Iran”.
In brief remarks, peppered with joking asides, Trump claimed that the US-Israeli military offensive, which he seemed to be trying not to call a war, in line with new White House talking points, was “ahead of schedule”.
Looking down at the podium, Trump began by reading a statement that “the United States military together with the wonderful Israeli partners continues to totally demolish the enemy, far ahead of schedule.”
Trump went on to boast about what he called the great success of the war, as Messi, his manager Javier Mascherano and teammate Luis Suarez looked on nervously from the front row behind him.
“We’re destroying more of Iran’s missiles and drone capability every single hour, knocking ’em out like nobody thought was possible. As soon as they set off a missile, within four minutes the launcher gets hit, they don’t know what’s happening,” Trump said.
“Their navy is gone; 24 ships in three days, that’s a lot of ships”, Trump said with a chuckle, not mentioning that one of those ships was sunk not off Iran but in the Indian Ocean, killing at least 87 people, as the crew returned from a multinational naval exercise organized by India in the Bay of Bengal.
“Their anti-aircraft weapons are gone, so they have no air force, they have no air defense, all of their airplanes are gone, their communications are gone, missiles are gone, launches are gone, about 60% and 64% respectively,” Trump said. “Other than that, they’re doing quite well,” he joked.
As a ripple of nervous laughter sounded from the back of the room, where four members of Trump’s cabinet looked on, Messi’s face first contorted into a pained half-grin before his eyes seemed to betray some puzzlement and he looked directly at Trump as the president added: “But they’re tough and they want to fight.”
The president then repeated his claim that the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, which were ongoing when he abandoned them and turned to force, failed because of Iran. “They’re calling, they’re saying, ‘How do we make a deal?’” Trump claimed, without saying who “they” are. “I said: ‘You’re being a little bit late.’” the president joked. “And we want to fight now more than they do.”
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Schumer says 'good riddance' to Noem, but notes 'deep rot' at DHS
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Chuck Schumer was pleased by the news of Kristi Noem’s removal. “Good riddance,” the top Senate Democrat said, while noting there is a “deep rot” within her department.
He refused to comment on his opinion of Mullin as a replacement, or whether he would vote to confirm the Republican senator as homeland security secretary.
“This is not an issue of personnel, it’s an issue of policy,” Schumer added. “I don’t trust any one person being in charge of this agency, as long as Trump is president, given the policies he’s espoused.”
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Here's a recap of the day so far
Kristi Noem, the embattled Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, has been removed from her position by Donald Trump. In a post on Truth Social, the president said that Noem had “served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results”, before noting that she would become the special envoy for a new security initiative.
Trump announced that he was nominating Republican senator Markwayne Mullin to replace Noem. The president called the Oklahoma lawmaker a “Maga warrior”, while Mullin said the nomination was “pretty humbling”.
Despite Trump announcing he would replace Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, the Senate rejected a funding bill to reopen her department. By of vote of 51-45, all Democrats bar one blocked the legislation for a third time. They continue to demand stronger guardrails against federal immigration enforcement.
The president said he must “be involved in the appointment” of Iran’s next leader as he was in Venezuela, and dismissed the idea of the assassinated ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeding his father. In an interview with Axios, Trump said: “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
The House is also preparing to vote on Thursday on a war powers resolution that would require Trump to seek congressional permission before continuing the war with Iran. It’s the second vote in as many days, after the Senate defeated a similar measure largely along party lines on Wednesday.
House Republican leadership has called for Tony Gonzales to end his re-election campaign. This comes after the House ethics committee launched an investigation into the representative’s conduct, following reports that he had an extramartial affair with an aide who later died by suicide. On Wednesday, Gonzales admitted to the relationship with the his late staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, calling it “a lapse in judgment”.
Senate blocks DHS funding bill amid ongoing shutdown
Despite Donald Trump announcing he would replace Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, the Senate rejected a funding bill to reopen her department.
By of vote of 51-45, all Democrats bar one blocked the legislation for a third time. They continue to demand stronger guardrails against federal immigration enforcement.
Lawmakers in the House will also vote to pass a funding bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later this afternoon.
Noem acknowledges removal while touting success in year as DHS secretary
Kristi Noem thanked Donald Trump for her new role as special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas” while acknowledging her ouster as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary. In a post on X, Noem said she looks forward to working with secretary of state Marco Rubio and defense secretary Pete Hegseth to “dismantle cartels” as part of the president’s initiative that he’ll announce on Saturday.
“I will be able to build on the partnerships and national security expertise, I forged over the last 13 months as Secretary of Homeland Security,” she wrote, while touting “historic accomplishments” during her tenure.
Noem is the first cabinet official of Trump’s second administration to be ousted from their role.
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Mullin says Trump nomination is 'pretty humbling'
Speaking to reporters today, senator Markwayne Mullin said that he was “pretty humbling” to be tapped as homeland security secretary.
“A little kid from Westville, Oklahoma gets to serve in the president’s cabinet – that’s pretty neat,” he added, while noting that Donald Trump called him with the news just before he posted about Noem’s ouster on Truth Social.
Noem just referenced the new “security initiative” to combat cartels that Donald Trump announced she would working on. However, she didn’t discuss her role, and made no reference that she has been removed from her post as homeland security secretary.
Kristi Noem is currently speaking in Nashville, at a conference with several police chiefs from across the country.
She’s yet to address her removal as homeland security secretary, and she hasn’t received any questions about her ouster.
Mullin wins one Democrat's support
Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who represents Pennsylvania, who also sits on the Senate homeland security committee said that he intends to vote for Mullin as DHS secretary.
Fetterman said that he’s “not sure how many fellow Democrats” would do the same “but I am AYE”.
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One quick, important, note. While Donald Trump said that Markwayne Mullin would take over from Noem starting on 31 March, the Oklahoma senator still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
The president can’t simply appoint a replacement for a cabinet position.
Democrats welcome news of Noem's removal as DHS secretary
Congressional Democrats have started to react to Donald Trump’s announcement that he’s ousting Kristi Noem as his homeland security secretary.
Robert Garcia, the ranking member on the House oversight committee, responded quickly on social media: “Well now we don’t have to impeach her.”
This comes after months of repudiation from Democrats about Noem’s leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), particularly the tactics of federal immigration officers during crackdowns across the country.
Senator Cory Booker, who lambasted Noem during a judiciary committee hearing this week and repeated calls for her resignation, said that he was “glad” to see that Noem is being replaced. “There is a long road ahead to reel in this out-of-control agency,” the New Jersey lawmaker said.
Meanwhile, the House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, welcomed the news of Noem’s removal. “Keep the pressure on these extremists,” the minority leader said, while also calling for the ouster of attorney general Pam Bondi.
Trump removes Noem as DHS secretary
Kristi Noem, the embattled Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, has been removed from her position by Donald Trump.
In a post on Truth Social, the president said that Noem had “served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results”, before noting that she would become the special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas” – a new “security initiative” that he plans to announce this week in Doral, Florida with Latin American leaders.
Trump announced that he was nominating Republican senator Markwayne Mullin to be the new homeland security secretary.
“A MAGA Warrior, and former undefeated professional MMA fighter, Markwayne truly gets along well with people, and knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Advance our America First Agenda,” the president said of the Oklahoma lawmaker.
As the only Native American in the Senate, Markwayne is a fantastic advocate for our incredible Tribal Communities. Markwayne will work tirelessly to Keep our Border Secure, Stop Migrant Crime, Murderers, and other Criminals from illegally entering our Country, End the Scourge of Illegal Drugs and, MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN.”
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Top House Republicans call for scandal-plagued congressman to end re-election bid
House Republican leadership has called for Tony Gonzales to end his re-election campaign. This comes after the House ethics committee launched an investigation into the representative’s conduct, following reports that he had an extramartial affair with an aide who later died by suicide.
On Wednesday, Gonzales admitted to the relationship with the his late staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, calling it “a lapse in judgment”. The GOP lawmaker, who represents an area of Texas that stretches from Juarez to San Antonio, said that he hadn’t spoken with Santos-Aviles for a year before she died.
“We have encouraged him [Gonzales] to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” the lower chamber’s top Republicans, led by House speaker Mike Johnson, said in a statement. “In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for re-election.”
Gonzales is now facing a runoff in the Republican primary race for his district, after he failed to secure 50% of the vote in Tuesday’s election. If he stays in the running, he’ll square off against Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTube personality, again in May.
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Was Trump ever in control of the Iran war? – podcast
This week on Politics Weekly America, my colleague Rachel Leingang speaks with foreign policy expert Ali Vaez – who discusses what it was like to take part in war game exercises for the Pentagon, and how they compare with what he has seen play out this week.
Then the Guardian’s Andrew Roth talks us through the inner chaos in the Trump administration and Congress over Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran.
Trump denies Noem's claim that he signed off on $220m border security ad campaign
Donald Trump has said that he did not sign off on a $200m border security advertising campaign featuring his embattled homeland security secretary Kristi Noem.
“I never knew anything about it,” the president told Reuters in a phone interview today.
NBC News also reported on the denial today, citing a White House official as saying: “POTUS did not sign off on a $220 MILLION dollar ad campaign. Absolutely not.”
Noem - who has been overseeing Trump’s aggressive and highly contentious immigration crackdown - was questioned by both Democrats and Republicans before a Senate panel yesterday about the contract and process to select the companies.
It was also the first time she addressed members of Congress since federal immigration officers fatally shot two US citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – during a surge of law enforcement in Minneapolis in January. Several Democrats have called for Noem to resign or risk impeachment.
In response to questions from GOP senator John Kennedy, Noem claimed that Trump did know about her decision to approve the contract for the border security ads, in which she is prominently featured, including a scene filmed on horseback at Mount Rushmore in the former South Dakota governor’s home state.
As Shrai reported on Tuesday, Kennedy also noted that the contract to make the ads was awarded to a strategy group run by the husband of Noem’s former spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin.
Noem said on Tuesday that the contract was awarded through “a competitive process” and that no political appointees were involved. Yesterday, she said the contract was “all done correctly, all done legally”.
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Further to that, Donald Trump has said the same thing to Reuters today.
He said that the US must have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader and that while it was very early in the process of picking a new leader, Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba was an unlikely choice.
We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future. We don’t have to go back every five years and do this again and again ... Somebody that’s going to be great for the people, great for the country.
Trump says he must 'be involved in' choosing Iran’s next leader
Donald Trump has said he must “be involved in the appointment” of Iran’s next leader as he was in Venezuela, and dismissed the idea of the assassinated ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeding his father as supreme leader as “unacceptable”.
“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,” Trump told Axios today. You will remember that Rodriguez took over after US forces captured president Nicolás Maduro in January.
Trump added that he could not accept a new Iranian leader who would continue Khamenei’s policies.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” he said.
Selecting a leader who followed the policies of the former supreme leader could force the US back to war “in five years”, he added.
It comes a day after Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth insisted that regime change was not the primary goal of the US military operation in Iran. Other Trump administration officials have made the same claim since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran last Saturday, which killed the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei .
This, even though Trump himself has pushed for Iranian regime change previously. His administration has pivoted its messaging in recent days to focus on destroying Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities.
Since the US-Israeli military assault began, Trump has suggested several times that he had a good idea who he wanted to succeed Khamenei in Iran.
But these latest comments to Axios come after he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday:
Most of the people we had in mind are dead.
No formal announcement has been made from Iran regarding the selection of a new leader, though Mojtaba Khamenei is considered the frontrunner.
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State department says almost 20,000 citizens have returned to US from Middle East
Almost 20,000 American citizens have returned to the US from the Middle East, according to state department spokesperson Dylan Johnson.
“These figures do not include the many Americans who have safely relocated to other countries or those who have departed the Middle East but are still in transit back to the United States,” Johnson said in a statement.
This comes after the Trump administration received questions over whether it should have done more, in advance of the weekend strikes on Iran, to evacuate more Americans in the Middle East.
Major airlines have canceled flights to and from the region since Saturday, and several airports paused flights and scaled back operations, leaving thousands stranded. There have also been reports of Americans calling the state department hotline and being receiving no guidance on how to return to the US.
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Congress to vote on funding bill to reopen DHS
Both the US House and Senate are set to cast votes on a funding bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The department shuttered three weeks ago, after lawmakers failed to pass the necessary appropriations amid a reckoning over aggressive tactics by federal immigration officers.
The House is set to vote on the measure at 4pm ET, while the Senate will attempt to advance the legislation at 1:45pm ET. The upper chamber needs to clear a 60-vote threshold to move funding forward. It seems all but certain to fail, as Democrats remain resolute that any bill must include stronger guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Their demands have largely been dismissed by GOP members of Congress.
While several agencies, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), have been affected, immigration enforcement is able to continue, thanks to the billions of dollars conferred by the sweeping tax policy bill that Donald Trump signed into law last year.
On Truth Social today, Donald Trump has spent much of his time on the platform urging lawmakers to take up the SAVE America Act – legislation which requires a photo ID in order to cast a ballot, proof of citizenship at voter registration and significantly curtails mail-in voting.
The House passed the bill, but faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
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Experts say that the Trump administration has failed to take obvious steps to contain the spread of measles, which is continuing to accelerate in the United States as the number of cases has climbed past 1,000.
The administration has revealed a relaxed attitude toward the highly contagious virus both in terms of messaging and funding allocation, experts said.
“One of the leaders at [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] referred to this dramatic and tragic increase in the cases of measles, and, in some states, deaths, as just the ‘cost of doing business’,” noted Alonzo Plough, who has worked in multiple senior public health positions and is currently chief of science at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Plough was referencing a quote from Dr Ralph Abraham, who served as CDC principal deputy director beginning in December 2025, and who resigned in late February. To Plough, hearing that from CDC leadership suggests “that they do not believe that this is a significant issue to track”.
Andrew G Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said it’s “entirely inaccurate” to suggest that the CDC had deprioritized measles.
“The CDC’s focus remains on measles prevention and treatment education and targeted public health interventions to protect communities and provide clear, accurate information to all Americans,” Nixon said.
Florida’s former surgeon general and a current professor at Brown University’s school of public health, Dr Scott Rivkees, said that current messaging on public health is causing “tremendous confusion to the public”, with “individuals in senior positions who are advocating for things that the medical community will take issue with”, like “alternatives” to the measles vaccine, which is known to be safe and effective.
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Trump vows to endorse a Republican candidate in Texas runoff
Donald Trump said that he would endorse a candidate in the heated Texas GOP runoff “soon”.
This comes as neither the four-term incumbent, senator John Cornyn, or the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, received 50% of the votes in Tuesday’s primary.
Throughout campaigning, Trump abstained from weighing in, and heaped praise on all candidates during a visit to Texas last week.
However, in a post-election post on Truth Social, the president said that after he makes his endorsement he will ask the other candidate “to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”, noting the importance for his party to fend off a Democratic triumph in the Lone Star State and inch closer to reclaiming the US Senate.
A reminder that no Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1994.
During a press conference at Downing Street today, Keir Starmer fielded questions about the state of Britain’s “special relationship” with the US. This comes after Donald Trump scolded the UK prime minister for refusing to let US forces use British military bases for the ongoing military operation on Iran. This week, Trump said that Starmer was “no Churchill” at a meeting with German chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“The special relationship is in operation right now,” Starmer said. “It’s for the president to take decisions that he considers in the national interest the right decisions for the US … but equally, it’s for me as the British prime minister to take decisions that I consider to be in the best interest of the United Kingdom.”
My colleague, Tom Ambrose, is covering the latest.
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A reminder that my colleague, Vivian Ho, is covering the latest developments out of the Middle East as the US-Israel war on Iran enters its sixth day.
She notes that the World Health Organization (WHO) said it has verified more than a dozen attacks on health infrastructure in Iran.
Four healthcare workers have been killed and 25 others injured, according to the organisation.
“WHO has verified 13 attacks on health care in Iran and one in Lebanon,” the organisation’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference, without attributing blame.
As hundreds of civilians and some US service members have been killed in the aftermath of the 28 February strike against Iran by the United States and Israel, the Guardian asked readers in the US what their thoughts are on the latest military action in Iran.
Their responses were largely disapproving, with some acknowledging that the Iranian regime needed to be toppled, even with a high cost.
“I don’t have any love lost for the ayatollahs,” said Iraj Roshan, a 66-year-old retired cardiologist and US citizen who was born in Tehran, in an interview with the Guardian. “But these wars are won by narrative.”
Roshan fled to Turkey after the Iranian revolution, making his way to Austria and later the US, where he has lived since 1983.
On the campaign trail – in 2016, 2020 and 2024 – Donald Trump and his allies spoke against foreign intervention, painting Democrats as enablers of war. In a series of social media posts days before the 2024 election day, Trump adviser Stephen Miller repeatedly warned that a win for Kamala Harris, the then vice-president, would lead to young men being “drafted to fight” in a “3rd World War”.
Roshan argues that the US government does not have a strategy in the Middle East.
“I don’t see any way this war is going to end in a way that the US can declare victory without putting boots on the ground or without arming the Iranians themselves,” he said.
Read more about how Americans are reacting to the US-Israel war in Iran.
US gas price continues to rise, highest in almost a year
According to the latest reading by AAA, the average gas price is $3.25 a gallon – the highest in 11 months. This is also 27 cents higher than a week ago, before the US launched its first strikes against Iran.
The ongoing surge in oil prices comes as shipments passing through a crucial waterway, the strait of Hormuz, have been disrupted as the US-Israel war on Iran continues. Around 20% of the world’s crude oil travels through the choke point.
Department of Defense identifies names of final two US soldiers killed in drone strike
The Pentagon has released the names of the final two of the six service members who were killed during a recent drone strike in Kuwait.
The two soldiers were identified as Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan, 54, and Maj Jeffrey O’Brien, 45. They were from Sacramento, California, and Indianola, Iowa, respectively.
Earlier in the week, the Department of Defense named the first four soldiers killed in the attack. The White House said that Donald Trump plans to attend the ‘dignified transfer’ of the bodies of the six US service members who have been killed since the war with Iran began.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. We won’t hear from the president until 4pm ET, when he welcomes the Inter Miami FC, the 2025 Major League Soccer Champions, to the White House.
We’ll be listening out for the latest lines on the US-Israel war in Iran.
Moderate Democrats plot path to victory by winning the middle
Joe Walsh half jumped out of his seat when discussion at the Third Way conference in Charleston turned to how Democrats sound to voters.
“Tone! My God!” the former Republican congressman shouted. “The Democrats come across as, like, professors, academics, elites. I mean, my God, rip off your freaking sport coat and talk to me! Listen to me like a regular human being.”
Walsh, who left the Republican party last year over Donald Trump, vibrated with the frustration of Democratic operatives and funders and elected officials who had gathered over the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, to discuss how to win moderate voters. Many were alumni of the Clinton administration, or Biden’s White House, who fear that the provocations of Donald Trump will push candidates to the left, when they believe that progressive policies cost Kamala Harris the 2024 election.
The Democratic National Committee has refused to publicly release its autopsy of the 2024 election, calling it a “distraction” when Democrats appear poised to win big midterm gains. A progressive group, RootsAction, released its postmortem in December, arguing that courting the middle while failing to forcefully admonish the Israeli government for its actions in Gaza turned off liberal and working-class voters, leading to a historic collapse in turnout among those groups.
Moderate activists at the invitation-only conference, titled “Winning the Middle”, also highlighted the loss of support among voters without college degrees and the working class. But they disagree sharply about what caused them to withhold support from Harris, and what it takes to get it back.
More here:
Fetterman on Iran's leadership: 'Just keep killing them until they’re gone'
The Senate vote on a war powers resolution broke down along party lines on Wednesday, 47-53 – John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the sole Democrat to vote against the measure, while Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only member of the Republican majority to support the resolution.
On Wednesday, prior to the vote, Fetterman went on CNN News Central to voice his support of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and say that this was a situation of “country over party”.
“What I’m trying to establish is that every single senator in the Congress says we should never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. That now has made that possible after that. And now they’ve eliminated this leadership,” Fetterman said. “Now, do you really want those things? Does it really matter? Were you really serious about that? Because if you were, why can’t we just acknowledge – I’m not with all of it – but this was a great development for the region.”
Anchor Kate Bolduan asked Fetterman if he thought the US and Israel were aligned in their war goals, specifically in regards to comments made by Israeli defense minister Israel Katz that “any leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime” would become “an unequivocal target for elimination”.
“Yeah just keep killing them until they’re gone,” Fetterman said. “I mean, absolutely. I’ve read that they’re (Israel is) going to target who they (Iran) ever elect to be their next leader and kill them. Absolutely. I fully support it. So, that’s what’s entirely appropriate.”
When Bolduan pushed further on the issue, asking Fetterman who should decide the leader of Iran, “if you think the United State should take part in taking out every next leader going forward” if the leader doesn’t meet the right measure, he responded by saying he “absolutely” supports killing the leadership of Iran.
“Hey, I’m sorry, I absolutely support killing, you know, the leadership of the Iranian. Absolutely. I absolutely support that,” Fetterman said. “I think that’s entirely appropriate until hopefully they’ll pick someone that realizes that they need to live and coexist in peace in the region and stop trying to destroy Israel and to stabilize the region.”
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House to vote on war powers resolution after Senate measure fails
Welcome to our coverage of US politics today as the conflict as Iran continues to dominate the agenda.
The House is preparing to vote on Thursday on a war powers resolution that would require Donald Trump to seek congressional permission before continuing the war with Iran – a sign of unease in Congress over the rapidly widening conflict.
It’s the second vote in as many days, after the Senate defeated a similar measure largely along party lines on Wednesday.
The tally in the House is expected to be tight, but the outcome will provide an early snapshot of the political support, or opposition, to the US-Israel military operation and the president’s rationale for bypassing Congress, which alone has the power to declare war.
“Donald Trump is not a king, and if he believes the war with Iran is in our national interest, then he must come to Congress and make the case,” said Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Meanwhile Republicans are invoking the war in Iran and the prospect of retaliatory terrorist attacks as they tee up votes on Thursday on a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
The House already approved a DHS spending bill in January, but it faltered in the Senate as Democrats insisted on changes to immigration enforcement operations following the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents in the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. As a result, funding for the department lapsed on 14 February.
Republicans are calling on Democrats to reconsider their vote in the wake of the conflict in Iran. Both the House and the Senate are expected to hold votes on the matter.
“The military action in Iran makes it all more urgent and crucial to have a fully funded, fully staffed DHS across all its departments,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
It appears unlikely this strategy will win over Democrats but stay with us to see how it plays out.
In other news:
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth told Israel to “keep going until the end” on Iran, saying the US stood with the country, in overnight talks with his counterpart, Israel Katz.
The Pentagon has released the names of the final two of the six soldiers who were killed during a recent drone strike in Kuwait. The two soldiers were identified as Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan, 54, and Maj Jeffrey O’Brien, 45. They were from Sacramento, California, and Indianola, Iowa, respectively.
Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana dropped his bid for a third term on Wednesday in a surprise withdrawal just minutes before a filing deadline for candidates. Daines, 63, said in a statement that he wrestled with the decision for months before deciding to retire. Montana US Attorney Kurt Alme entered the race shortly before the state’s deadline for major party candidates. Donald Trump has endorsed Alme and praised Daines.
Former President Barack Obama is promoting a Democratic effort to redraw congressional lines in Virginia, the latest front in a nationwide redistricting battle ahead of this year’s midterm elections. The announcement on Thursday comes a day after the state Supreme Court allowed the redistricting question to go to voters for an April 21 election. Early voting begins Friday.
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