Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
A top counter-terrorism official in the Trump administration resigned over the ongoing war on Iran. Joe Kent, who reported to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said in his resignation letter that he “cannot in good conscience” support the conflict.
Gabbard responded in a statement that did not refer to Kent directly, but argued that Trump “is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat”.
The House oversight committee subpoenaed attorney general Pam Bondi to appear for a deposition on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The Senate passed a measure to start debate on the legislation to restrict voting in US elections in a number of ways, by a vote of 51-48, along mainly partisan lines, with only Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican, crossing party lines.
During the annual St Patrick’s Day Shamrock ceremony at the White House, Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin, gently made the case for free trade and a rules-based order before presenting Trump with a bowl of shamrocks.
While Trump and his aides spent much of Tuesday deriding Kent, critics of the administration pointed out that Kent’s ties to rightwing extremists meant that he was never fit for the role in the first place.
'Good riddance to Joe Kent, a disgraceful white supremacist'
While Donald Trump and his aides spent much of Tuesday deriding Joe Kent, after the military veteran Trump endorsed in both his failed runs for Congress resigned from his job as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the war on Iran, critics of the administration pointed out that Kent’s ties to rightwing extremists meant that he was never fit for the role in the first place.
“A top national security official resigns and confirms that Iran posed no imminent threat,” Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, posted in response to the resignation. “Good riddance to Joe Kent, a disgraceful white supremacist, but that’s a major public admission that there was NO justification for this war.”
Murray was familiar with Kent from his two failed congressional campaigns to represent a district in the southwest of her home state, in which his ties to white supremacists and far-right extremists were documented by researchers and reporters.
Those concerns were bolstered by the fact that Kent’s resignation letter to Trump seemed to blame Israel for not just tricking him into attacking Iran, but also the US invasion of Iraq and its battle against Islamic State in Syria.
In the letter, Kent told Trump that high-ranking Israeli officials were behind a misinformation campaign “to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States,” which he called “the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war”.
Kent also wrote that his first wife Shannon, a naval intelligence officer who was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria in 2019, while serving in a Special Operations task force fighting the Islamic State, died “in a war manufactured by Israel”.
Seth Cotlar, a professor of history at Willamette University in Oregon, suggested on Bluesky that Kent’s resignation was “Another data point for the theory that the only significant pushback Trump will ever get from Republicans will come from the absolutely weirdest ideological extremists in his coalition, not from the so-called ‘moderate’ establishment types.”
By way of example, Cotlar pointed to a 2022 tweet from Kent in which he falsely claimed that Ukraine’s elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “was installed via a US backed color [revolution]… so he virtue signals in woke ideology while using nazi battalions to crush his enemies.”
As the Guardian’s Jason Wilson reported last year when Kent was nominated, the former Green Beret and CIA operative was “criticized for his proximity to white nationalist activists such as Nick Fuentes, and for the revolving cast of far-right activists his campaigns employed.”
In 2022, after Kent was criticized for his association with Fuentes, the anti-semitic podcaster with a large following among young Republicans who said he advised the candidate on social media strategy, Kent publicly disavowed Fuentes. “I strongly condemn Nick Fuentes’s politics, especially in regards to our ally Israel,” Kent wrote. That led the influential podcaster to take a victory lap on social media on Tuesday, after Kent seemed to echo his own conspiratorial views of Israel.
In a letter to the Senate majority and minority leaders opposing Kent’s confirmation last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Western States Center shared dozens of documented links tying Kent to extremists and called him entirely unfit for overseeing counter-terrorism in the US.
Mr. Kent cannot be relied upon to appropriately assess and act on international far-right hate and extremism… given his associations with the movement here in the US. Mr. Kent participated in a call discussing campaign social media strategy with white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes. Kent also criticized Twitter’s move to de-platform Fuentes, tagging him in a Twitter post. In June 2022, Mr. Kent gave an interview to Greyson Arnold, a live streamer who once referred to Hitler as “a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.”
In both cases, Mr. Kent disavowed the figures and claimed he did not know who they were prior to interaction with them. During his 2022 run for Congress, Kent invited far-right Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson to speak at a campaign rally and introduced him with praise. Patriot Prayer is a far-right group, active in the Pacific Northwest, that has hosted and promoted rallies in progressive cities like Portland, frequently engaging in violence against their political opponents. Patriot Prayer rallies have regularly included the Proud Boys, paramilitary groups, white nationalists, and other antigovernment extremist groups.
A Republican-appointed federal judge has ordered that more than 1,000 Voice of America (VOA) employees be reinstated after a Trump administration order effectively dismantled the radio network, triggering mass layoffs.
In two separate rulings made Tuesday, the US district judge Royce Lamberth said that attempts to shut down operations of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent federal agency that oversees VOA, are illegal and mandated that employees return to work by 23 March.
Lamberth further instructed the agency to create a plan for how it will return VOA back to the air.
Lamberth’s latest order comes only 10 days after he ruled that former USAGM director Kari Lake illegally led the agency, writing that Trump’s attempts to place Lake and others into leadership “are unlawfully withholding mandatory agency action”. Lake oversaw USAGM from 31 July to 19 November 2025, laying off more than 1,000 employees.
Ro Khanna calls for Joe Kent to testify to Congress on his claim that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to US
Ro Khanna, a California congressman, called on Joe Kent to testify to Congress about why he resigned from his job as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the war on Iran.
“The American people deserve to know why this Administration dragged us into war in Iran,” Khanna wrote on social media. “Joe Kent should come before Congress. If even officials like Joe Kent do not believe Iran posed an imminent threat, why are we sending more Americans to die in this war?”
During the annual St Patrick’s Day Shamrock ceremony at the White House, Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin, gently made the case for free trade and a rules-based order before presenting Donald Trump with a bowl of shamrocks the US president hoped would bring him luck.
“The United States is the largest economy in the world. Ireland is small. We need free and open trade to make our way in the world,” the Irish leader, or taoiseach, said, standing alongside Trump in the White House on Tuesday evening, as Irish-American guests sipped Guinness and champagne. “And we like to see as few barriers and tariffs get in the way of that as possible.”
“Like other small countries, we see international rules and order, including the United Nations, as essential to our peace and security and to that of the world,” he added.
As the Iran war rages, and Trump fumes over Europe’s refusal to send warships to the strait of Hormuz at his request, Martin found himself, earlier on Tuesday, in the somewhat awkward position of sitting next to the US president as he criticized the UK prime minister and warned darkly that Europe was a continent where “bad things have happened.”
Martin was gentle with Trump, choosing to pick his moments of disagreement rather than confront the US president. He defended Europe against the president’s claims that lax immigration laws had hurt the union, and pushed back on Trump’s criticism of Keir Starmer.
Drawing on Ireland’s own violent history, Martin expressed hope for an end to the Iran bombardment in the Middle East and the Russian war in Ukraine.
“Our own recent history has convinced us that dialogue, negotiation and deescalation are the ways to make progress, and we especially want to see progress and peace in the Middle East, as I know you do,” he said. “And we also need a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine.”
Tuesday’s festivities ended with the Shamrock ceremony, where Martin presented Trump with a crystal bowl brimming with shamrocks.
“I’m going to take it with me,” Trump said, showing off the bowl. “It brings ya a lot of luck.”
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Iran’s national security council confirms death of its chief, Ali Larijani
Iran’s supreme national security council has confirmed the death of its chief, Ali Larijani, after Israel said it had killed him in an airstrike.
“The pure souls of the martyrs embraced the purified soul of God’s righteous servant, Martyr Dr Ali Larijani,” the council said on Tuesday evening, adding that his son and his bodyguards had died with him.
“After a lifetime of struggle for the advancement of Iran and of the Islamic Revolution, he ultimately attained his long-held aspiration, answered the divine call, and honourably achieved the sweet grace of martyrdom in the trench of service,” it added.
Israel said earlier it had killed Larijani, a linchpin of Iranian politics, in overnight strikes. He is the most senior Iranian figure to die in the war since the supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on its first day.
His death removes a pivotal figure at the heart of the regime’s political and security establishment at a moment of acute crisis and represents a devastating blow.
Tulsi Gabbard, who warned of war with Iran, now says it was up to Trump to decide if Iran was 'an imminent threat'
Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, responded to the resignation of her deputy, Joe Kent, in a statement that does not refer to him directly, but takes issue with a central claim of his resignation letter: that “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” use misinformation to deceive Donald Trump “into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States”.
Gabbard wrote on social media that because Trump was “overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief… he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat”.
Her office, she added, “is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions.”
“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” Gabbard concluded.
As soon as she posted her statement, observers noted that Gabbard did not say that she disagreed with Kent. Jonathan Karl, an ABC News correspondent who frequently speaks with Trump, pointed out that, “nowhere in this statement, does she say that she agrees that Iran posed an imminent threat — or that the intelligence supports such a conclusion.”
Gabbard’s reticence to make her own view of the war clear is a sharp departure from comments she made during her run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, when she made campaign ads claiming that Trump wanted to start a war with Iran and warned Fox News viewers that “War with Iran would make Iraq/Afghanistan wars seem like a picnic”.
During that campaign, Gabbard also told supporters Trump had set “a dangerous precedent” in Iran by designating “the military of another country a terrorist organization”, and boasted that, as a congresswoman, she had introduced legislation, the No More Presidential Wars Act, that “would make it an impeachable offense for any president to bypass Congress and to unilaterally go and start waging a war in another country.”
When Trump ordered the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, in 2020, Gabbard took to the floor of the House to denounce the killing as an act of war.
“President Trump has committed an illegal and unconstitutional act of war, pushing our Nation headlong into a war with Iran without any authorization from Congress, a war that would be so costly and devastating, it would make our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic,” Gabbard said then. “In doing so, he has undermined our national security”.
Last year, after her confirmation as the national intelligence director, Gabbard posted a video clip on her personal YouTube channel headlined: “Tulsi Gabbard On Preventing Conflict With Iran”. In the video, an interview with the former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Gabbard said: “we have people who are working within the intelligence community… who are coopted by the military-industrial complex, abusing their position to feed or manipulate intelligence, as we saw with the Iraq war, to start a new war.”
“The work that gets done in places like this every single day has that power, to be the fodder, the fuel, the seed that can lead to yet another unnecessary war,” she added.
On Tuesday, as he dismissed Kent’s claim that Iran posed no imminent threat to the US, Trump said repeatedly, in a confusing, roundabout manner, that Iran was an imminent threat because its leaders were just “two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon” and “they would’ve used it” before he ordered B-2 bomber strikes last year on its uranium enrichment sites.
The day before, the president made the entirely unsourced claim that Iran was not only pursuing nuclear weapons but planned to use them to first destroy Israel and then attack the United States, an idea for which he has presented no evidence at all.
There is no public evidence that Iran was ever weeks away from obtaining nuclear weapons, and US intelligence agencies reported in 2007 that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The administration has presented no evidence that Iran ever restarted that weapons program or planned to attack the US.
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US Senate starts debate on restrictive voting bill
The Senate passed a measure to start debate on the legislation to restrict voting in US elections in a number of ways, by a vote of 51-48, along mainly partisan lines, with only Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican, crossing party lines to vote with all Democrats against moving ahead with the bill.
The proposed law, branded the Save America act by its Republican sponsors, was approved by the US House earlier this year, but could be blocked by the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to move to final consideration.
As our colleague Rachel Leingang explained last week, if passed into law, the measure would upend voting for all Americans in the middle of a federal midterm election year and create costly, chaotic changes for elections workers.
The bill includes a proof of citizenship requirement to register to vote, meaning that citizens would need to produce birth certificates many do not have, and a very strict photo ID requirement for casting a ballot, as well as a provision that requires states to regularly turn their voter rolls over to the federal Department of Homeland Security.
The measure would also make it harder to vote by mail, which is how nearly 1 in 3 Americans voted in the 2024 federal election.
Here's a recap of the day so far
A top counter-terrorism official in the Trump administration resigned over the ongoing war on Iran. Joe Kent, who reported to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said in his resignation letter that he “cannot in good conscience” support the conflict, adding that the US started this war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.
In response, Donald Trump said that he thought Kent was “a nice guy” but “very weak on security”. After his resignation, the president said it was “a good thing” that Kent left the National Counterterrorism Center, before defending the initial strikes, and insisting that Iran posed a credible threat.
The House oversight commitee subpoenaed attorney general Pam Bondi on Tuesday, requesting her to appear for a deposition on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. In a letter, chair James Comer requested Bondi’s appearance before the committee on 14 April. Earlier this month, five oversight Republicans voted with Democrats and approved a motion to subpoena Bondi.
While hosting the taoiseach of Ireland, Micheál Martin, at the White House, Trump continued to berate Nato allies for their resistance to help the US reopen the strait of Hormuz. “We don’t need any help,” Trump said, adding that it was a “foolish mistake” by members countries to withhold assistance. “We don’t need them, but they should have been there,” the president said.
A sweeping restrictive voting bill that would require proof of US citizenship for new voters, among other measures, is set for a lengthy debated in the Senate, starting as early as Tuesday. Ahead of a bill heading to the upper chamber floor, Trump took to social media to rally lawmakers to pass the legislation – vowing political retribution for lawmakers who defy his wishes. “I WILL NEVER (EVER!) ENDORSE ANYONE WHO VOTES AGAINST “SAVE AMERICA!!!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Senate Democrats sent over their latest counteroffer for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian. The official didn’t expand on any details of the latest proposal from Democrats, but noted that the White House is currently reviewing the offer. A reminder that several agencies within the DHS have been without funding for over a month, causing thousands of employees to go without pay.
Updated
House oversight committee subpoenas Pam Bondi as part of Epstein investigation
The House oversight commitee subpoenaed attorney general Pam Bondi on Tuesday, requesting her to appear for a deposition on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, and compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act – the legislation which resulted in the justice department releasing millions of pages of documents related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s cases.
In a letter, chair James Comer requested Bondi’s appearance before the committee on 14 April.
Earlier this month, five oversight Republicans voted with Democrats and approved a motion to subpoena Bondi.
Separately, Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, will provide a private briefing for committee members on Wednesday.
The Senate’s top Republican, John Thune, has been caught between a rock and a hard place in recent days.
The South Dakota lawmaker has come under increasing pressure from Donald Trump to pass his prized voter ID bill, known as the Save America act – which would require 60 votes in the upper chamber to overcome the legislative filibuster.
With Democrats resolute in their opposition to the bill, that leaves only 53 GOP senators in play. Conservatives who support the legislation have pushed for Thune to mandate a so-called “talking” filibuster, which would force Democrats to hold the floor to block the Save America act. However, the majority leader said this isn’t a feasible option.
“We don’t have the votes, either to proceed [to] a talking filibuster nor to sustain one if we got one,” Thune said last week. “That’s just a function of math. There isn’t anything I can do about that.”
While Thune has said he’s able to “guarantee the vote” on the legisaltion, he’s noted that he “can’t guarantee an outcome”, given the shortfall in the Senate.
Speaking to reporters today, he projected optimism for the uphill battle the bill faces. “I mean, we don’t know that we don’t have 60 votes yet,” Thune said. “You’re making an assumption that at the end of this debate none of the Democrats will be won over.”
Senate could require vice-presidential tie break if not enough Republicans vote to start debate on voter ID bill
As we reported earlier, debate on the voter ID bill that Donald Trump has made his “number one” legislative priority could start today.
However, before that gets going the Senate Republicans will need 51 votes for a procedural vote to actually kickstart discussion on the bill.
So far, there have been several reports which show that GOP senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have both indicated they’ll vote “no” on the motion. That means if one more Republican bucks their party, vice-president JD Vance will have to act as the tie-breaker in order to start debate on the Save America act.
Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator and one of Donald Trump’s staunch allies on matters of foreign policy, said today that he spoke with the president about Nato countries’ unwillingness to assist the US reopen the strait of Hormuz.
“I have never heard him [Trump] so angry in my life,” Graham said. “I share that anger given what’s at stake.”
The GOP lawmaker from South Carolina is a noted war hawk, and continued to defend the administration’s position on launching strikes, alongside Israel, on Tehran.
“The arrogance of our allies to suggest that Iran with a nuclear weapon is of little concern and that military action to stop the ayatollah from acquiring a nuclear bomb is our problem not theirs is beyond offensive,” Graham said, while adding that the repercussions of providing little help to the US, to keep the strait of Hormuz functioning, “are going to be wide and deep for Europe and America”.
While Graham said that considers himself “very forward-leaning on supporting alliances”, this “time of real testing” is causing him to “second guess” commitments. “I am certain I am not the only senator who feels this way,” he said.
On Capitol Hill, Donald Trump is speaking at the Friends of Ireland luncheon, but repeating many talking points about the success of the war on Iran.
In the last week he’s repeatedly referred to the conflict as a “little excursion” – a term he continued to use today.
“How are they [Iran] doing? Not so good,” Trump said. “They’re all gone … every one of them, they’re all gone.”
Updated
White House confirms it has received latest DHS funding counteroffer from Democrats
Senate Democrats sent over their latest counteroffer for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian.
The official didn’t expand on any details of the latest proposal from Democrats, but noted that the White House is currently reviewing the offer.
A reminder that several agencies within the DHS have been without funding for over a month, causing thousands of employees to go without pay.
Republicans have called Democrats’ demands, which include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to no longer wear masks while patrolling, and the need to obtain judicial warrants before entering private property, non-negotiables.
Updated
Trump says US 'not ready to leave Iran yet' but will be leaving 'in very near future'
Asked whether he has a “day after” plan for Iran, Trump said that if the US left the military operation now it would take “10 years for [Iran] to rebuild”.
He added:
But we’re not ready to leave yet. But we will be leaving in the near future, we’ll be leaving in pretty much the very near future.
He repeated his point that the US has had “great support” from countries in the Middle East but has had “essentially no support” from Nato.
Asked about his relationship with UK prime minister Keir Starmer, Trump said Starmer “hasn’t been supportive”.
He said that Starmer was willing to send two aircraft carriers “after we won” when there was no threat for them because the war was already “won”.
I like him, I think he’s a nice man, but I’m disappointed.
Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin (who is still there) stepped in at this point to state that the transatlantic relationship between Europe and US is still “very, very important”.
He also vouched for Starmer, calling him an “earnest” and “sound” person that the US president has the capacity to get on with.
In response to a later question about Starmer, Trump repeated that he likes the UK prime minister but added that the US-UK relationship was always the best “before Keir came along”.
He then went on a tangent about windmills.
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Trump says his meeting with China's Xi will take place in five or six weeks
Donald Trump also confirmed that he’s “resetting” his meeting with Xi Jinping in China “in about five or six weeks”.
I look forward to seeing President Xi, he looks forward to seeing me – I think.
'Iran was a threat': Trump doubles down, claiming that Joe Kent was 'weak on security'
Asked about the resignation of Joe Kent, his former director of national counterterrorism, who said he couldn’t remain in his job because he couldn’t support the conflict in Iran, Trump replied:
Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.
I didn’t know him well ... But when I read his statement I realised that it’s a good thing that he’s out, because he said Iran was not a threat.
Iran was a threat, every country realised what a threat Iran was.
As Shrai reported earlier today, Kent, an Iraq war veteran and failed congressional candidate, said he “could not in good conscience” continue serving as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, due to the ongoing war on Iran.
In his resignation letter to Trump, Kent accused “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” of deploying “a misinformation campaign” that ultimately “sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran”.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you,” he wrote.
'We don't need them, but they should've been there': Trump says Nato allies making 'a foolish mistake' by not helping with strait of Hormuz
Donald Trump was asked what progress he’s made in getting allies to help the US with escorting oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz.
“Well, we don’t need any help,” Trump said. Nato allies “agreed” what the US did, he claimed, adding that it was very important that they remove the nuclear threat from Iran.
He repeated his usual lines that they have successfully wiped out Iran’s military, navy and air force, and killed “one of their top people” yesterday – referring to Iran’s national security chief Ali Larijani, whom Israel claims to have killed.
Then circling back to Nato, Trump said they were making “a foolish mistake” and once again framed this issue as a loyalty test for Nato. He said Nato should’ve “been there” for the US, but also that the US didn’t need them anyway. He told reporters:
I think Nato’s making a very foolish mistake. And I’ve long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not Nato would ever be there for us. So this is a this was a great test because we don’t need them, but they should have been there.
Trump continued to berate Nato this morning over their resistance to assist the US in its war on Iran, in particular their ruling out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz. The US president previously warned that Nato faces “a very bad future” if allies failed to help the US reopen the vital waterway.
Back in the Oval Office, asked a follow-up question on French president Emmanuel Macron’s comments that France will not join a taskforce in the strait of Hormuz until the situation is “calmer”, Trump replied that Macron will be out of office soon.
Updated
Donald Trump has been taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office as he meets with the Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin. I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
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Former Trump advisor says Joe Kent is a 'crazed egomaniac' making 'a splash before getting canned'
In response to Joe Kent’s resignation as the Trump administration’s top counter-terrorism official, one of the president’s former advisors branded Kent as “a crazed egomaniac” who was “often at the center of national security leaks”.
Taylor Budowich, who served as Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications until he resigned in September of last year, also questioned whether Kent produced “any actual work”.
Earlier today, Kent, an Iraq war veteran and failed congressional canddidate, said he “could not in good conscience” continue serving as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, due to the ongoing war on Iran.
In his resignation letter to Trump, Kent accused “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” of deploying “a misinformation campaign” that ultimately “sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran”.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you,” he wrote.
Budowich, however, slammed Kent’s decision and undermined his overall performance on the job. “He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President of the United States,” Budowich said of the outgoing counter-terrorism official. “This isn’t some principled resignation-he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser.”
Trump continues to slam Nato allies for refusing to join war on Iran
Donald Trump continued to lambast Nato countries over their resistance to assist the US in the war on Iran. This comes after US allies in Europe and beyond ruled out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz, despite threats from the president that Nato faces “a very bad future” if members fail to help reopen the vital waterway.
“I am not surprised by their action,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one way street.”
He said that the member countries “will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need” before heralding the success of US forces degrading Iran’s military capabilities, naval forces, and air defenses.
“We no longer “need,” or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance – WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea,” Trump insisted on social media.
Updated
Top Senate intelligence Democrat agrees with Kent's decision to resign
In response to Joe Kent’s decision to resign as the Trump administration’s top counter-terrorism official, the Senate’s top Democrat on the intelligence committee said that Kent is “right” about his decision to resign.
“There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice in the Middle East,” said Mark Warner, a lawmaker from Virginia.
Warner noted that Kent’s record is “deeply troubling”, and believes “he never should have been confirmed to lead the National Counterterrorism Center” to begin with, but agrees with Kent’s comments about the ongoing war on Iran.
“The United States cannot be led into conflict on the basis of politics, impulse, or a president’s desire for confrontation. We have seen where this road leads before,” Warner said in a statement.
Joe Kent’s resignation from the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) is being met with derision inside the Trump administration this morning, making it unlikely that it will trigger internal splits or opposition to the war in Iran.
Several senior Trump advisers have long made clear that they have not cared about him or his views for some time, evidenced by the fact that Kent has played no role in any major operation or policy in Trump’s second term.
There does appear to be some anger towards Kent for making such a splashy resignation, however, including from his own former colleagues. DNI Tulsi Gabbard is set to face a bruising Worldwide Threats Hearing on Capitol Hill this week, where she is now certain to be asked about Kent’s resignation.
Top counter-terrorism official resigns over war on Iran: 'We started this war due to pressure from Israel'
A top counter-terrorism official in the Trump administration has resigned over the ongoing war on Iran.
Joe Kent, who reported to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, said he “cannot in good conscience” support the conflict, adding that the US started this war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.
In a letter addressed to Donald Trump, Kent praised the president’s foreign policy achievements in his first administration. Noting that Trump was skilled at applying “military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars”. This was exemplified by the “killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS,” Kent wrote.
However, things changed during Trump’s second term in office.
“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” said Kent, who served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you,” Kent wrote, “into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory.”
Kent – a former Green Beret who served in Iraq and later worked as a CIA operative – claimed the intelligence used to justify the strike on Iran “was a lie,” calling it “the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation thousands of our best men and women.”
He also referenced his late wife, cryptologist Shannon Smith, who was killed in a suicide bombing in northern Syria in 2019, as a victim of another “war manufactured by Israel”.
Kent was confirmed to his position in July last year, but his nomination was criticized for his proximity to white nationalist activists such as Nick Fuentes, and for the revolving cast of far-right activists his two failed congressional campaigns employed.
In his resignation letter to the president today, Kent urged the administration to “reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for”.
He added:
You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.
Updated
The Trump administration has agreed to take a financial loss in order to make it easier for Americans to walk away from their US citizenship.
In April, the cost to formally renounce citizenship will plunge from $2,350 to just $450, below the actual cost to the government of processing the requests – but fulfilling a years-long promise to reverse an unpopular fee adopted in 2015.
The number of people seeking a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) has soared in recent years, with 2024 recording the third highest annual total of 4,820, according to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) figures.
Analysts say political changes in the US are a driving factor in many cases – the start of Donald Trump’s first presidency in 2017 saw an immediate spike. But Americans overseas have also grown increasingly weary of complicated tax rules.
So-called “accidental Americans”, those who acquired citizenship through birth in the US or through parents, but who have lived most or all of their lives abroad, are required to file an IRS tax return annually, prompting many to seek a breakup.
An analysis by the Outbound Investment Group in May reported rising frustration at the outsized cost of a CLN, and a cumbersome application process that often lasts months to more than a year.
It said a global backlog for renunciation appointments exceeded 30,000, and that the government’s efforts to deal with the surge was like a game of Whack-a-Mole, with more applications arriving quicker than others are finalized.
Experts say the figure is also an undercount because the IRS “expatriation list” covers only CLN applicants whose net worth is above $2m.
The slashing of the fee by 80% was announced in a final rule published to the federal register on Friday – and which will take effect on 12 April.
Also on Capitol Hill this week, top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries announced that he will launch a discharge petition on Wednesday for a bill that would fund certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that have been shutdown for a month – forcing many employees to work without pay. In order to force a vote on the House floor, Jeffries would need 218 signatures to proceed.
The legislation would separate funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) and the Coast Guard.
An appropriations bill for the DHS remains at an impasse, as Democrats demand stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement in the wake of crackdowns across the country that have resulted in the fatal shootings of two US citizens. Republicans, for their part, have called many of the proposals from their colleagues non-starters, and insist that any bill must fund the whole department. While the agencies that Jeffries seeks to reopen have been affected by the shutdown, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been spared, thanks to a multi billion-dollar infusion from Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-policy bill signed into law last year.
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Trump vows political retribution for lawmakers who vote against voter ID bill
Ahead of a lengthy Senate debate on the Save America act, Donald Trump took to social media to rally lawmakers to get the legislation passed.
A reminder that the president has threatened to not sign any further bills under the sweeping voter ID bill makes its way to his desk.
A short while ago Trump insisted that the Save America act is “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress” in a post on Truth Social.
He has claimed, baselessly, that undocumented citizens are voting in droves in federal elections, which experts say is exceedingly rare. The president is also pushing for an amended version of the bill that includes, among other items, a ban on mail-in ballots and bans on transgender people participating in women’s sports and gender-affirming surgeries for minors. If this version were to pass in the Senate – which is unlikely – it would also have to go back to the House.
The current bill has already failed in the upper chamber, and is facing an uphill battle in the coming days that Senate majority leader John Thune must navigate in order to appease Trump.
“Only sick, demented, or deranged people in the House or Senate could vote against THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. If they do, each one of these points, separately, will be used against the user in his/her political campaign for office,” the president wrote. “A guaranteed loss!”
He ended his post with an all-caps promise: “I WILL NEVER (EVER!) ENDORSE ANYONE WHO VOTES AGAINST “SAVE AMERICA!!!”
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A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest developments out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog.
Earlier they reported the news that Israel said it killed the Iranian national security chief, Ali Larijani, in overnight strikes. If their claim is confirmed it would make Larijanj the most senior Iranian figure to be assassinated since the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli war.
Notably, Iran has not confirmed Larijani’s death. There are reports that he could only be injured. We’ll also be listening to hear what information Donald Trump has when we hear from him later.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. On St Patrick’s day, we’ll hear from the president when he welcomes the taoiseach of Ireland, Micheál Martin, to the White House for a bilateral meeting at 11am. Trump and Martin will then head to Capitol Hill at 12.10pm ET for the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon.
After policy meetings, Trump will then greet the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, Emma Little-Pengelly, at 5pm ET. Along with Martin, they’ll take part in the annual Shamrock Bowl presentation in the East Room – a tradition dating back more than 70 years.
Of note, Norther Ireland’s other leader, first minister Michelle O’Neill, is boycotting the day’s meeting and celebrations, to protest against the Trump administration’s stance on the war in Gaza.
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Trump relied on unverified intelligence to blame Iran for deadly school strike
Donald Trump’s attempt to blame Iran for the deadly strike on an elementary school stemmed from an early US intelligence assessment that initially suggested the missile was Iranian but was almost immediately dismissed, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The CIA initially told the president that they did not believe the missile that struck the school was a munition used by the US because the fins appeared to be positioned too low for it to be a Tomahawk cruise missile.
Within 24 hours, the CIA realized that early assessment had been wrong after it became clear from additional videos, taken at other angles, that the missile was in fact a Tomahawk, the people said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
But Trump had already settled on the explanation that Iran was responsible for the strike before he raised it to reporters on Air Force One last Saturday, even as the defense secretary Pete Hegseth was more cautious and said only the matter was under investigation.
Trump repeated his position at a news conference the following day. While he appeared to accept the missile that hit the school was a Tomahawk – a missile used only by the US and a handful of allies including the UK, Japan and Australia – he suggested it belonged to Iran.
It was not clear when Trump was briefed about the updated intelligence findings but former intelligence officials faulted both Trump and the briefers.
Illinois heads to elect next senator and five congressional district candidates
Illinois voters on Tuesday will decide between a crowded field of Democratic candidates vying to be the state’s next senator as the midwestern state also nominates candidates for five open congressional seats.
Longtime Illinois senator Dick Durbin’s retirement leaves a competitive race that includes two US representatives and the lieutenant governor vying to replace him, with massive infusions of money coming to the candidates from outside groups, including donors affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), that are spending millions to sway voters.
The representatives running for Senate are leaving open contests for their seats, and other sitting Democratic representatives decided not to run for reelection. Among the contenders are seasoned politicians, former lawmakers seeking comebacks and progressive upstarts.
The open Senate and House seats in Democratic-leaning districts mean the primaries will likely decide who wins in the November general election. And because the state is reliably blue, the winners could be in office for long careers, like Durbin has been for over 29 years.
State-level races, including the governorship, are also on Tuesday’s ballot, with JB Pritzker running unopposed for a third term.
What does Trump’s restrictive voting bill include – and does it have a chance of becoming law?
Donald Trump has vowed that he will not sign any other legislation until Republicans’ massive voting bill, the Save America act, is passed. The bill would upend voting for all Americans in the middle of a federal midterm election year and create costly, chaotic changes for elections workers.
The Senate is set to consider the legislation next week, though Senate leaders say they don’t have the votes to get over the filibuster hurdle, essentially dooming the bill for failure.
While the fate of the legislation remains unclear, the damage may already be done. If it doesn’t pass, the talking points surrounding it will play into false election narratives for Trump and his allies, giving fodder for ongoing conspiracies about stolen elections.
The Save America act is a rebranded and expanded version of last year’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) act, which passed in the US House but didn’t get a vote in the Senate. This year’s version includes expansive documentary proof of citizenship requirements and criminal liability for election officials from the initial Save act, in addition to a very strict voter ID requirement for casting a ballot and a provision that requires states to regularly turn their voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security.
Every voter would be affected by the Save America act, said Xavier Persad, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, “regardless of political affiliation, all across the country”. It could disenfranchise potentially tens of millions of valid US voters, he said, as people would face more barriers to voting at every step of the process.
“It is a sweeping effort to solve a problem that doesn’t exist that would require a vast, expensive new bureaucracy to be built in a short few months before a major election,” said David Becker, director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Changing the rules in the middle of the midterms, with primary elections already passed or underway in many states, would cause “absolute chaos”, said Gréta Bedekovics, director of democracy policy at the Center for American Progress.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that this would disenfranchise people,” she said.
Here’s what the bill includes, and its prospects for passage:
Controversial voter ID bill to be taken up by Senate after Trump threats
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
The voter ID bill, would require proof of US citizenship for new voters, could be taken up by the Senate as early as today.
The Save America act is a rebranded name for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility act, or the Save act, a bill that has been circulating through Congress in some version for more than two years.
The US House passed the bill earlier this year, but it faces steep odds in the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to move forward because of the filibuster rule. Republican senators face heavy lobbying to lift the filibuster to advance the act.
Democrats are uniformly opposed to the legislation and expected to block its passage through the Senate. They say the legislation would disenfranchise millions of American voters who don’t have birth certificates or other documents readily available – both Republicans and Democrats who would be newly registering to vote.
The bill would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and to present approved identification when they go to the polls, among other new rules that Trump and his most loyal supporters are pushing as part of an effort to assert more federal control over elections.
Federal law already requires that voters in national elections be US citizens. But the legislation would lay out strict new requirements for voters to prove their status. Last week, Trump threatened not to sign any bills until Congress approves the legislation.
“All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote,” the US president said during remarks on Monday at a Republican event in Miami. “No mail-in ballots, except for illness, disability, military or travel.”
The bill also directs states to turn voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security for citizenship verification. The justice department has sought access to voter rolls in many states, including filing lawsuits in some.
Voting rights advocates have said the bill would effectively prevent millions of Americans from voting – only about half of people have a valid US passport, and other documents, such as birth certificates, may not match up with people’s names. They have called attention to impacts on married women who changed their names whose documents may not be updated, saying the act could cause additional hurdles to voting for them.
In other developments:
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, denied that he is in talks with Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s real-estate pal turned chief diplomat, and accused the US of leaking false claims that the two are in direct contact to calm panicked markets.
After Trump claimed that he had spoken to a former US president who told him that he approved of his attack on Iran, all four living former presidents denied having spoken with Trump about Iran.
Trump publicly revealed details about a Republican congressman’s “terminal” diagnosis that could have left him “dead by June”, prompting Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, to say: “That wasn’t public.”
The appointment of a controversial slate of vaccine advisers by Robert F Kennedy Jr likely violated federal law, a federal judge ruled, and all votes taken by the committee over the past year have been stayed.
Gregory Bovino, the US border patrol chief and frequent Fox News guest who was the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts until the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis by federal agents, said he will retire within weeks.
Trump, who once mocked the gestures of a New York Times reporter with a congenital condition that limits his ability to move his joints, claimed that the governor of California’s dyslexia means that he is “dumb”.
