Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee pressed Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, to explain why her deputy, Joe Kent, said in his resignation letter on Tuesday that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation”, which contradicts weeks of statements to the contrary by Donald Trump.
Senator Markwayne Mullin fielded questions from his colleagues in a confirmation hearing to take over as Donald Trump’s new homeland security secretary.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, the FBI director, Kash Patel, said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.
Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that the changes to election law Republicans call the Save America Act will make it more difficult for US citizens to vote
By a vote of 53-47, Senate Republicans blocked a war-powers resolution that would have limited Donald Trump’s ability to prosecute the war on Iran he started last month.
Democrats on the House oversight committee walked out of a closed-door briefing from the attorney general, Pam Bondi, on the Epstein files, leaving what California congressman Robert Garcia called “an outrageous fake hearing”.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that aimed to rein in Donald Trump’s power to wage war against Iran without congressional authorization.
The 53-47 vote against taking up the measure fell almost completely along party lines, with no movement from earlier this month when Republicans blocked Democrats’ bid to limit Trump’s war-making power in the days after the joint US-Israeli strikes, known as Operation Epic Fury, began across Iran.
“We do not know Donald Trump’s goals. We do not know Donald Trump’s timeline. We do not know what victory even looks like in his eyes,” Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, said before the vote, urging Republicans to support the effort to force a debate on the war. “Enough is enough.”
The senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has led several war-powers efforts, was the only Republican to vote in support of the measure, while the senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has emerged as a staunch supporter of Israel, was the only Democrat to break with his party and vote against the resolution.
“If there’s anything that is plain in that constitution, it is that a president does not have the power to unilaterally bring a nation and its treasure, to bring a nation and its men and women, into conflict without a say of Congress,” the senator Cory Booker, who led the war-powers resolution, said in a floor speech before the vote.
Booker acknowledged that he would not succeed, but vowed to continue to introduce measures that would force Congress to debate and authorize military action.
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House Democrats walk out of 'fake hearing' with Pam Bondi on Epstein files, after she refuses to commit to testifying under oath
Democrats on the House oversight committee walked out of a closed-door briefing from the attorney general, Pam Bondi, on the Epstein files, leaving what California congressman Robert Garcia called “an outrageous fake hearing” after Bondi refused to commit to honoring a subpoena to testify under oath.
The committee voted to subpoena Bondi earlier this month, with five Republicans joining Democrats to demand that the attorney general answer questions under oath about the justice department’s failure to properly release files from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late child sex offender Donald Trump socialized with for nearly two decades.
Speaking outside the hearing room, Florida congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost said: “We asked her multiple times, are you going to come and speak with us under oath? She would not say yes. Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, would not say yes.”
“Our Republican colleagues say: ‘Is this not enough? Why don’t you want to speak to her now?’ We want her under oath because we do not trust her. Why don’t we trust her? Because she’s a liar,” Frost added. “Look at how that judiciary committee went. She was spying on members of Congress when they were in the DoJ looking at the documents unredacted. Look at what she’s done, as far as not putting documents related to Donald Trump on the website.”
Pennsylvania congresswoman Summer Lee said that when she asked how the committee would respond if Bondi refused to testify, the Republican chair of the committee, James Comer, insulted her by accusing her of “bitching”.
Comer confirmed the comment on social media, but sought to cast it as reasonable. “I said Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time because Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time,” the Kentucky Republican wrote.
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Senate Republicans defeat Democrats' war powers resolution to check Trump on Iran
By a vote of 53-47, Senate Republicans blocked a war-powers resolution that would have limited Donald Trump’s ability to prosecute the war on Iran he started last month.
The vote broke along mainly partisan lines, with only John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat, and Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, breaking with their parties on the resolution.
The vote was unchanged from that on a previous war-powers resolution two weeks ago.
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Pentagon asks White House for $200bn more to fight Iran war - report
The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon “has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to Congress to fund the war in Iran, according to a senior administration official”.
As the Post explains:
The funding request is likely to stage a major political battle in Congress, as public support for the effort remains tepid and Democrats have been sharply critical. Republicans have signaled support for the forthcoming supplemental request but haven’t committed to a legislative strategy, or found a clear path to surpass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
President Donald Trump campaigned on ending American adventurism abroad and frequently hammered the Biden administration for the amount of money approved to finance the war in Ukraine. By December, Congress had approved roughly $188 billion in spending for the war in Ukraine, according to the U.S. special inspector general for Operation Atlantic Resolve.
As the Post notes, Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor for helping Ukraine defend its territory from the full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022. But Trump has constantly exaggerated or lied about how much the US has spent to help Ukraine deter Russia, offering vastly inflated estimates that could make the cost of his war with Iran seem small by comparison.
On Tuesday, Trump claimed, falsely, that “Biden gave them between $350bn and $400bn of equipment and cash”, doubling the actual spending documented by an independent inspector general on a publicly available website.
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FBI is buying location data on Americans, Kash Patel tells Senate
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, the FBI director, Kash Patel, said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.
Patel’s admission came in response to a question from Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is a longtime opponent of the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Wyden told Patel that his predecessor, Christopher Wray, testified in 2023 that the FBI did not at that time purchase location data derived from internet advertising, although acknowledged that it had done so in the past.
“Is that the case still?” Wyden asked. “And if so, can you commit this morning to not buying Americans’ location data?”
“We do purchase commercially available information that’s consistent with the constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us,” Patel responded.
“So you’re saying that the agency will buy Americans’ location data,” Wyden said. “I believe that that’s what you’ve said in kind of intelligence lingo. And I just want to say as we start this debate, doing that without a warrant is an outrageous end run around the fourth amendment. It’s particularly dangerous given the use of artificial intelligence to comb through massive amounts of private information.
“This is exhibit A for why Congress needs to pass our bipartisan, bicameral bill, the Government Surveillance Reform Act,” Wyden said, referring to legislation he is working to pass to rein in surveillance.
Wyden’s questioning of Patel on this issue was amplified on social media by Warren Davidson, a House Republican who introduced a House bill mirroring Wyden’s Senate measure with Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren.
“This is a clear violation of the fourth amendment and is why I introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act,” Davidson observed, “to close the data broker loophole that allows intelligence agencies to buy Americans’ private data.”
The fourth amendment to the United States constitution defines the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and specifies that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”.
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Elizabeth Warren says Trump wants new election law to 'make it harder for Americans to vote'
Speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that the changes to election law Republicans call the Save America Act will make it more difficult for US citizens to vote and could lead to people considered likely to vote for Democrats being removed from voter rolls by the Trump administration.
Here is the start of Warren’s floor speech:
Donald Trump is trying to stop American citizens from voting. Why? Because he knows his agenda is unpopular and Republicans can’t win based on what he’s doing, so he wants to rig the election by picking his own voters. That’s what the Save Act is all about.
Don’t let Trump and the Republicans in Congress fool you. They’ll say things like, ‘You should have to show ID to vote just like you do to buy a beer.’ But this is not an ordinary voter ID bill. This is not a bill that says everybody has to show either a driver’s license or student ID to vote.
This is a way to keep American citizens from voting. I’ll give you an example. If this bill passes, then in 45 of 50 states, your driver’s license won’t count as valid ID. Let’s say you’re a married woman who lives in Massachusetts. And let’s say that when you got married, you took your husband’s name. Well, when you go to the polls to vote, you can’t register by showing them your updated driver’s license. Why? Because Massachusetts is one of the 45 states where a driver’s license doesn’t prove citizenship.
So you bring along your birth certificate? Now can you vote? Nope. Your birth certificate is still under your maiden name. Yes, you can use a passport, if you have one. But remember that fewer than half of all Americans have a passport and it costs $165 to get one – and takes a month or two, if everything is working on time.
No passport and no birth certificate that matches your driver’s license? Well, Trump and the Republicans say you’re out of luck.
And that’s just one example of how this bill will actually make it harder for Americans to vote.
Here’s another deeply disturbing thing about this bill: it would require states to hand over sensitive information about voters to Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, so that some shadowy guys can do whatever they want with it.
Maybe they take you off the voter rolls. Maybe they use that information for something else. No one knows what will happen. This is an agency whose former leader Kristi Noem said, just a few weeks ago, ‘We need to … make sure that we have the right people voting.’ Guess who’s going to get swept off the voter rolls? People that the Republicans think are likely to vote Democratic.
So, sweep off Black people, sweep off Brown people, sweep off women, sweep off students, sweep off people in precincts who voted Democratic last time, sweep off people that you think might vote Democratic in the upcoming election.
I’ve heard this bill called Jim Crow 2.0, harking back to the days when states in the south blocked Black people from being able to vote with a whole series of tests and barriers in the way so they wouldn’t be able to vote.
The Trump bill is Jim Crow 2.0.
Warren went on to point out that noncitizen voting “is extremely rare”, noting that a 2024 audit of voter rolls carried out by Georgia’s Republican state government found just 20 noncitizens registered to vote out of 8.2 million registered voters.
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'A movement is about the people – not any one person,' Pelosi says of César Chávez allegations
Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, and the only woman to ever hold that office, has released this statement on the allegations of sexual assault and abuse by the late labor organizer César Chávez:
It was with great sadness that I learned of the egregious revelations reported by the United Farm Workers about César Chávez. We must listen to the survivors, speak their truth, and uphold the values of dignity and justice in the face of conduct that deplorably betrays those principles.
“Words are inadequate to heal the trauma of Dolores Huerta and the courageous women who have already come forward, but may it be a comfort that so many people are praying and expressing support for them during this unimaginable time.
A movement is about the people – not any one person – and its strength lies in the values it upholds. We can honor the farmworker movement – and the generations who sacrificed to build it – while also confronting painful truths. No legacy is above accountability.”
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Gabbard won't say if White House claim Iran posed an 'imminent nuclear threat' is true
As our colleagues Joseph Gedeon and George Chidi report, Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee pressed Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, to explain why her deputy, Joe Kent, said in his resignation letter on Tuesday that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation”, which contradicts weeks of statements to the contrary by Donald Trump.
The president and his aides have repeatedly described the threat posed by Iran as imminent to justify the war, although when he announced the start of “major combat operations in Iran” from his Florida beach club on 28 February, Trump declared that it was a mission “to defend the American people by eliminating eminent threats from the Iranian regime”, having apparently misread the word “imminent” on the Teleprompter.
In a carefully worded statement after Kent’s resignation on Tuesday, Gabbard, who made opposition to war with Iran the central plank of her failed run for the presidency in 2020, said that “determining what is and is not an imminent threat” was up to the president, not the intelligence community she oversees. She notably failed to say that the intelligence she had seen supported Trump’s claim that Iran was about to attack the US.
In his questioning of Gabbard, Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, pointed out that on day 2 of the conflict the White House website called the US attack a “military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime”.
“Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an ‘imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime’, yes or no?” Ossoff asked.
When Gabbard replied, “Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president,” Ossoff shot back: “False. This is the ‘Worldwide Threats’ hearing, where you present to Congress ‘national intelligence, timely, objective and independent of political considerations’. You’ve stated today that the intelligence community’s assessment is that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated and that ‘there had been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability’.”
“Was it the intelligence community’s assessment,” he continued, “that, nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a quote ‘imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime’? Yes or no.”
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” Gabbard replied.
“No, it is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States. This is the ‘Worldwide Threats’ hearing, where, as you noted in your opening testimony, quote, you ‘represent the IC’s assessment of threats’.”
When Ossoff again repeated the question of whether there was intelligence to support the White House claim Iran posed “imminent nuclear threat”, Gabbard repeated her claim that it was up to the president to say if a threat was imminent.
“You’re evading a question because to provide a candid response to the committee would contradict a statement from the White House,” Ossoff concluded.
Gabbard was also forced to admit that just last year the intelligence community’s annual threat assessment said clearly that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons. “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”, the 2025 report stated.
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White House shows Trump returning from dignified transfer ceremony, without a hat
Donald Trump just returned to the White House from a second dignified transfer ceremony at Dover air force base in Delaware this month, where he paid his respects to US service members killed fighting his war on Iran.
This time, according to images of the president before and after the ceremony for six service members killed in a plane crash released by the White House, Trump appears to have ditched the sports hat he wore during a similar ceremony for the war dead two weeks ago, sparking a backlash and some creative news reporting from his allies at Fox News.
Despite the criticism of his decision to salute the fallen troops in his Trump-branded USA golf hat at the last ceremony, the president’s political action committee used a photograph of him doing so in a fundraising email last week. The email from Trump offered donors a so-called “National Security Briefing Membership”, which would give them access to “my private national security briefings, unfiltered updates on the threats facing America”.
Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, held up a copy of the fundraising email at a Senate hearing on Wednesday and called it “a disgrace”.
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Here's a recap of the day so far
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers heard testimony from current Trump officials, and one lawmaker poised to take up a position in the administration. Senator Markwayne Mullin fielded questions from his colleagues in Congress in a confirmation hearing to take over as Donald Trump’s new homeland security secretary. Senators, including Republicans like Rand Paul, questioned Mullin’s temperament, how he would be different from his predecessor Kristi Noem, cryptic comments about classified “overseas” trips while in office, and the future of federal emergency management. While there were tense moments (see a particularly personal back-and-forth with Paul), Mullin tried to appear conciliatory and insisted he would make the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stronger under his leadership.
The hearing comes amid a month-long shutdown of certain agencies within the DHS. Republicans and Trump today continued to blame Democrats for the lapse in funding, as they demand stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement. Today, Hakeem Jeffries launched a discharge petition to force a vote for a separate funding bill for the TSA, Fema, Cisa and the coast guard. It’s a long-shot effort, since he would need 218 signatures to proceed. Meanwhile Trump said the ongoing shutdown is “causing chaos at the airports”, branded Democrats as “lunatics” and said their demands are “totally unreasonable”.
Senators on the intelligence committee also had the chance to grill Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, on the ongoing military operation in Iran. Gabbard, who established herself as an anti-interventionist candidate during her 2020 run for the Democratic presidential nominee, said that the US had “significantly degraded” Iran’s strategic position. However, Gabbard evaded questions from lawmakers about whether the regime posed any “imminent threat” to the US. This comes after her top counter-terrorism official resigned on Tuesday, claiming the Trump administration was pressured by Israel to launch the initial strikes at the end of February.
Speaking in Michigan, JD Vance acknowledged the soaring price of oil, and the subsequent increase at the fuel pump for most Americans. Meanwhile, Trump attended the dignified transfer for the air force crew that was killed when their refueling aircraft crashed over friendly airspace in Iraq. Bar a few Truth Social posts earlier, we’ve yet to hear from the president today.
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for the second time this year, a widely expected move amid turmoil in the Middle East and rising energy prices. All but one of the 12 voting members of the committee voted to keep rates at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, resisting enormous pressure from Donald Trump to lower borrowing costs at the risk of driving up prices in the long term.
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Coral Murphy Marcos and Michael Sainato
Lawmakers, union leaders and several community organizations expressed their dismay after allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior and abuse of young women or girls emerged against the late labor organizer César Chávez.
The New York Times released an investigation on Wednesday detailing the allegations, which revealed that for years the co-founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union had groomed and sexually abused girls who were involved in the movement.
The report has led to multiple cancellations or rebrandings of events that were meant to celebrate César Chávez Day, which is observed annually on 31 March, Chávez’s birthday. States including California, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Colorado, Oregon and Minnesota have recognized the holiday.
Before the Times released the report, media inquiries about the allegations prompted the UFW to cancel celebrations honoring Chávez, calling the allegations “disturbing”, “shocking” and “indefensible”.
The Times investigation includes allegations by Dolores Huerta, one of the country’s most influential labor activists and Chávez’s ally, who said he forced her to have sex with him in the 1960s. Huerta released a statement on Wednesday, saying she “can no longer stay silent”.
Huerta told the news outlet that Chávez drove her to a grape field in Delano, California, in 1966 and raped her. She was 36 at the time. The rape led to a pregnancy, as did a second sexual encounter, according to her statement.
Huerta had not publicly shared her story, and said in the statement that she chose to come forward after the Times “indicated that I was not the only one – there were others”.
Read the full report here:
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Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady amid despite pressure from Trump
The US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for the second time this year, a widely expected move amid turmoil in the Middle East and rising energy prices.
Fed officials faced a confluence of issues to consider in their meeting this week: soaring oil and gas prices, fluctuating inflation that still remains above the Fed’s target of 2%, and a weakened job market that unexpectedly saw 92,000 losses last month.
All but one of the 12 voting members of the committee voted to keep rates at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, resisting enormous pressure from Donald Trump to lower borrowing costs at the risk of driving up prices in the long term.
In a statement, the board noted that “uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated” and “implications of developments in the Middle East for the US economy are uncertain”.
The Fed’s decision comes as the US and Israel approach their third week of war with Iran, forcing central banks across the world to decide how to weigh skyrocketing gas prices and their impact on the global supply chain.
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Donald Trump is now attending the dignified transfer for the air force crew that was killed when their refueling aircraft crashed over friendly airspace in Iraq. All six on board were killed during the incident that involved another aircraft and was in support of the ongoing military operation in Iran.
The US military said the crash was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
The event is closed to the press, and Trump took no questions from reporters as he traveled to the ceremony.
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'It's not going to last forever': Vance promises lower energy costs while oil prices keep climbing during the Iran war
Speaking in Michigan today, the vice-president acknowledged the soaring price of oil, and the subsequent increase at the fuel pump for most Americans.
Today, Brent crude went up by 4.8% – meaning the cost per barrel sits at $108.42. Meanwhile, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is $3.84 – almost 30% higher than it was a month ago, according to American Automobile Association (AAA).
“We know that people are hurting because of it, and we’re doing everything that we can to ensure that they stay low. This is a temporary war. It’s not going to last for ever,” Vance told the crowd at a manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan. “We’re going to take care of business. We’re going to come back home. When that happens, you’re going to see energy prices come back down.”
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The Democratic senator Mark Kelly, of Arizona, expressed frustration over the lack of candid answers from director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe and other intelligence officials about intelligence briefings for the president leading up to his decision to launch attacks on Iran.
Kelly noted that Gabbard posted to social media that Donald Trump concluded there “was an imminent threat and made a decision to attack Iran after carefully reviewing all of the information before him”. However, the lawmaker added that “the country deserves to know what the information was”.
Kelly asked officials if they were instructed to brief on whether Iran would close the straight of Hormuz. Gabbard, Ratcliffe and Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt Gen James Adams deferred specific questions about what they had told the president to a closed intelligence committee hearing to be held later today.
“We’re having a hard time finding out, not only if you briefed the president on something, but even if the White House asked if they could be briefed on something, or if analysis was produced,” Kelly said. “We’re trying to figure out if the president knew what the downside was of the straight of Hormuz being closed … Did he know this was going to happen? Or did he just disregard it?”
Kelly then held up a fundraising email sent six days ago from Never Surrender Inc, a Pac linked to the president, promising donors access to “private national security briefings”.
The fundraising message was controversial for its use of an image of Trump at a dignified transfer of service members killed in the line of duty during the Iran campaign, saluting a dead soldier’s casket while wearing a white baseball cap.
Kelly asked Ratcliffe whether he thought supporters of the president should be able to pay and receive his private national security briefings.
The CIA director said he had not offered presidential briefings to others, and would not – citing the Hatch Act. “I don’t know that document is, but regardless, what it says isn’t happening,” Ratcliffe said.
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'They say, "Oh, this is just a voter ID law." Bullshit': Democrats decry Save America Act as Senate debate continues
After the Senate voted to debate the sweeping and restrictive voter ID bill, Democrats decried the legislation on Capitol Hill today.
At a rally opposing the Save America Act, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, slammed GOP lawmakers for bringing the bill to the upper chamber floor: “They’re trying to dupe America. They say, ‘Oh, this is just a voter ID law.’ Bullshit!”
The top Democrat in the Senate said that the bill – which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and to present approved identification when they go to the polls – is the president and Republicans’ attempt to “fix the election”.
“Because they know damn well that if the election were held today they would lose,” Schumer added. “It is Jim Crow 2.0, but it’s spread across the whole country.”
The US House passed the bill earlier this year, but it faces steep odds in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster rule.
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Last year under former head Kristi Noem, DHS placed some Fema staff on leave after they signed a public letter of dissent. Known as the “Katrina declaration”, it warned that federal officials’ sweeping overhaul of the agency was putting the US at risk of another disaster like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.
At the end of Mullin’s confirmation hearing, the Democratic senator Andrew Kim asked about Noem’s decision to dismiss those signatories and asked if his tenure would be different.
“Can you commit that, if confirmed, you would adhere to whistleblower laws and ensure that whistleblowers do not face retaliation for their protected disclosure,” he asked.
Mullin said “there’s already laws” protecting whistleblowers and that he will “work within the law”.
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John Fetterman, known for being more hawkish on immigration than his Democratic colleagues and breaking with them on the DHS shutdown, defended the Markwayne Mullin over his past controversies, namely his attempt to challenge Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to a fight at a 2023 hearing (questioned about that by GOP senator Rand Paul earlier, Mullin said that he and O’Brien are now “good friends”).
Fetterman’s vote could be crucial to sending Mullin’s nomination to the floor, where he would be sure to secure enough votes for confirmation.
The Pennsylvania Democrat touted his strong personal relationship with the Oklahoma Republican and appeared to signal that he was on board.
I came here and I committed to come here with an open mind, and I’m going to continue to do that. And it’s not going to be about ‘got you’ moments for me. It’s about just saying my experience with you has been consistent kindness and professionalism.
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Mullin vows to put forward nominee to lead Fema
Throughout Donald Trump’s second term so far, the Senate has not confirmed a leader for Fema.
Markwayne Mullin told the Democratic senator Andrew Kim he would change that.
We’re already looking at some [potential candidates] in the case that we do get confirmed. We’re making that a priority.
“A nominee for Fema and the reduction of DHS micromanagement of Fema will minimize the risk of our federal government not being prepared for extreme weather and other significant risk,” said Michael Coen, a former Fema chief of staff in the Obama and Biden administrations.
“Mullin shared a change in approach to Fema,” Coen added. “The nation’s emergency management community and Fema employees will await his actions after confirmation.”
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As deadly floods inundated Texas last summer, reports showed that Fema was unable to pre-position search and rescue crews or properly attend to emergency calls because of a policy implemented by former DHS head Kristi Noem that she personally approve all agency spending over $100,000.
At the hearing today, Markwayne Mullin said he would repeal that policy.
But an anonymous Fema manager noted that Mullin also noted that if confirmed to head DHS, he will also be “responsible for taxpayer dollars”, indicating those must be safeguarded.
“So I’m really guarded,” said the anonymous manager. “Fema already safeguards the taxpayer dollars by reviewing contracts and grants in accordance with the laws, policies and guidance in place. We don’t need more red tape on the processes in place.”
Asked for a response to Mullin’s statement that the workforces of some agencies are bloated, the manager said:
Fema lost 10% of its workforce in the first half of 2025 when we were already short-staffed.
And a headcount doesn’t really capture the damage of losing senior level staff that had years of knowledge and experience that is not easily replaced.
They noted that Fema has lost leaders who have presided over dozens or even hundreds of disasters.
That knowledge is gone. We cannot hire our way back to that.
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Mullin does not express regret over comments about Renee Good
Mullin declined to express regret for saying he “absolutely” believed the federal officer who killed Renee Good was “justified” in shooting her.
He told the Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal that the officer “had to make a split decision” and that there was an ongoing investigation.
In that case was a car was running towards him and did strike him at that point, that car becomes a lethal weapon. And that was there was another officer obviously giving her verbal commands.
“I apologize for interrupting you, but you’re saying you do not regret that statement?” asked Blumenthal.
Mullin replied that the federal investigation into Good’s death is “going on” and that he would take a look at it if confirmed.
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When asked by Democratic senator Andrew Kim if he would stop cutting Fema staff if confirmed to lead DHS, Mullin said “some agencies had been “very bloated” with “too many staff”.
He did not confirm if Fema is one of those bloated agencies.
One longtime official, who asked to remain anonymous, criticized these remarks from Mullin.
“If any agencies are bloated, it’s the ones that are hiring high school dropouts off the street,” the person told the Guardian, referring to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The anonymous Fema official also remarked upon Mullin’s statement that Fema “saw a lot of problems when it came to Superstorm Sandy”.
“I would hope that anyone coming would have a rudimentary understanding that many reforms have been passed over the last 20 years since Sandy,” the person said. “If we were serious about those fixes, the head of DHS would be giving us more support to implement them and improve, not just say we’ve failed.”
Mullin repeatedly voted against providing aid for victims of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.
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Mullin appeared to be less vehement on topic of sanctuary cities, noting that he’d like to prioritize communication with local leaders.
“I would like to go in there and talk to the mayors. I’d like to go in there and talk to the sheriffs, talk to the police chiefs, say, what is your concerns?” Mullin said. “Because the president has made it very clear he wants to protect the streets for every American … I don’t think that should be controversial.”
Senator Andrew Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, pressed Mullin on his plans for disaster management if confirmed, noting that former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said “almost exactly a year ago today that we should be eliminating Fema”.
“Can you commit to us here that you don’t support that approach?” Kim asked.
In response, Mullin said: “I think it needs to be restructured, not eliminated.”
“I think there is going to be bipartisan support for reforms,” he said, noting that the agency has been plagued by issues, including when “it came to Superstorm Sandy”.
After Sandy, however, Mullin repeatedly voted against the attempts to provide aid to storm survivors, including by opposing a $60.2bn aid package for victims.
Under Noem, Fema sustained severe staffing cuts, which officials say took a massive toll on the agency’s abilities to respond to disasters.
“I wanted to ask, if you’re confirmed, if you will stop these dangerous staff cuts that have reduced Fema’s disaster readiness?” Kim asked Mullin.
Mullin responded by saying some agencies had been “very bloated” with “too many staff”.
Kim also asked Mullin if he would repeal a policy instated by Noem which requires her to personally approve Fema spending over $100,000. Noem has insisted the policy boosted “accountability” and that she approved all spending quickly, but disaster management experts and Fema staffers say it greatly delayed crucial response measures.
Mullin indicated he will repeal the policy.
“That’s called micromanaging,” he said. “I’m not a micromanager.”
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Also on Capitol Hill today, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, faced questions before Congress.
Gabbard said that she did not “participate” in the FBI seizure of 2020 election documentation in Fulton county, Georgia, but was present “at the request of the president, and to work with the FBI to observe this action that had long been awaited”.
Most of the questions Gabbard and the FBI director, Kash Patel, are fielding are about the intelligence assessment provided to the White House about Iran’s capabilities and expected strategy before the president ordered an attack that is roiling energy markets.
But the Senate intelligence committee’s ranking member, Mark Warner of Virginia, had asked Gabbard what she was doing in Georgia, given that the criminal warrant “showed no foreign interference or nexus. As a matter of fact, the warrant was based on conspiracy theories that have already been examined and rejected repeatedly.” Warner was one of the earliest and most vocal critics of the Fulton county action by the FBI.
Gabbard asserted that her directorate has authority to investigate threats of foreign interference on elections, referring to a letter sent to Congress shortly after the FBI raid. She said Trump sent her to observe, but added that she had no prior knowledge of the contents of the warrant affidavit, and that she was “not aware that the president knew about an affidavit before it was served”.
“Then why was he sending you to Fulton county?” Warner asked.
“This occurred the day that the FBI had approved their warrant, approved by a local judge, and they began to execute this,” she replied before quickly moving on to other topics.
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Republican senator James Lankford asked Mullin about his plans for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) if confirmed.
“The state of Oklahoma is pretty familiar with natural disasters, as you know well,” Lankford said. “Love to get your ideas. You’re very familiar with this area and have great experience on it.”
In response, Mullin said: “Fema was never designed to be the first responder.”
“That’s the states,” he said. “Fema was designed to be the assistance to the states when the disaster reaches certain levels.”
Mullin said many “great ideas” for “how to make Fema work better” have been raised.
“It’s got a great mission, and I think people at Fema want to do their job, but we can be more effective and be more direct and speed it up,” he added. “Taking years to get reimbursed is not acceptable.”
Asked how to get funding to states more quickly, Mullin said: “We got to streamline the process and cut out the redundancies.”
Disaster experts have questioned Mullin’s experience in disaster management. They have noted he never served on either the homeland security committee in either the House or the Senate, and that he voted against a 2024 attempt to provide $20bn to Fema’s disaster relief fund. Mullin, like his predecessor if confirmed, Kristi Noem, has also questioned how much of a role the federal government should have in disaster response.
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Mullin says he regrets comments calling Alex Pretti 'a deranged individual'
Mullin said that he regrets making comments denigrating Alex Pretti, after he was killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis.
After the 37-year-old was fatally shot while filming the officers on his phone during a protest against the immigration crackdown in his city, Mullin called him a “deranged individual that came in to cause max damage”.
He went on to retract his comments while answering questions from senators on the homeland security committee.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Mullin said. “I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts. That’s my fault.”
Mullin, however, stopped short of issuing an apology when probed by Democratic senator Gary Peters of Michigan. “We’ll let the investigation go through, and if I’m proven wrong, then I will, absolutely,” Mullin added.
While Mullin has never served in the US military, he routinely speaks as if he did in interviews. My colleague, Robert Mackey, dug into these comments ahead of today’s confirmation hearing.
Two days after the US attacked Iran, 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.”
These remarks came up again when Gary Peters questioned Mullin today. The Republican senator confirmed that he has never traveled to a foreign country outside of vacation or mission work.
Mullin has made cryptic claims about “overseas” work, and was similarly opaque today while describing an unlisted official trip as a member of Congress, which he insisted was classified.
Peters said that the committee “will want to find out more information” about this trip.
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During his questioning today, Paul played a clip of Mullin threatening to fight Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, during a 2023 Senate health committee hearing.
Today, O’Brien was sat behind Mullin. The Oklahoma senator referred to the Teamsters leader as a “close friend”.
“We talk all the time. I’ve been on his podcast. We talked through this. That’s how you handle your differences,” Mullin added.
At the time, in an interview following his interaction with O’Brien on Capitol Hill, Mullin said that “sometimes people just need to be punched in the face”.
As Paul continued to question Trump’s nominee to lead the DHS, Mullin ultimately said that he didn’t agree with the sentiment that political differences had to be settled with violence.
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Disaster management experts and climate advocates have voiced concerns about what Mullin’s confirmation would mean for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which falls under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella.
As recently as 2019, Mullin has questioned the existence of the climate crisis – despite scientific consensus that it is occurring.
Like former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, who gutted Fema, Mullin has also suggested that states should lead disaster response rather than the federal agency, even once publicly questioning if Fema should have any role in disaster preparedness.
Mullin did not mention Fema in his opening statement.
Michigan Senator Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee, voiced concerns about Noem’s treatment of Fema in his own opening words.
“The administration has also taken an ax to Fema, cutting staff and freezing or delaying critical grant funding for everything from emergency food and shelter after a disaster to flood mitigation programs and security grants to nonprofits, including houses of worship,” Peters said.
'Everybody knows I'm very blunt and direct to the point': Mullin pushes back against GOP chair
Mullin was quick to push back against committee chair Rand Paul’s comments at the beginning of the hearing.
“I have to address the remarks the chairman made, calling me a liar,” Mullin said. “I think everybody in this room knows that I’m very blunt and direct to the point … I’ve worked with many people in this room. Seems like you [Paul] fight Republicans more than you work with us.”
The Oklahoma senator said that his candor is what separates him from most lawmakers:
If do have something to say … I’ll never say it behind your back. So for you to say I’m a liar, sir, that’s not accurate.
Mullin went on to say that although he has “different opinions with everybody in this room”, as homeland security secretary he’s prepared to “protect everybody”.
He said the job is “bigger than the political differences” on Capitol Hill. “So I can set it aside, if you’re willing to set it aside, let me earn your respect. Let me earn the job,” Mullin added.
“This is a role where temperament matters, where judgment matters, and where experience matters,” Peters said, before noting that under Noem’s leadership “shortcomings in these traits” have imperiled the DHS.
“While I’m interested in hearing more about your vision for leading the department,” Peters told Mullin today, “I do have reservations about your readiness to take on such a significant role at such a critical time.”
The committee’s top Democrat, Michigan senator Gary Peters, noted what we reported earlier – that Democrats are committed to funding TSA, Fema, Cisa and the Coast Guard, while lawmakers negotiate “much needed ICE reforms”.
“Yesterday, the White House sent a letter laying out their latest offer, but the devil is always in the details. Administrative action is not enough,” Peters said. “We need to pass real reforms into law. If Republicans really do agree with us that TSA and other personnel need to be paid, then they should join us and pass the bills to pay them today.”
'You told the media that I was a freaking snake': Republican chair probes Mullin on past vote on funding for refugee welfare programs
Rand Paul seemed immediately frustrated with Mullin as he opened the hearing. While he was speaking, he suggested that Mullin wasn’t listening to his remarks, during which he pushed Trump’s nominee on his vote against Paul’s amendment to stop all funding for refugee welfare programs.
“You decided to transfer the blame. You told the media that I was a ‘freaking snake’ and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted,” Paul said, referring to when he was attacked by a neighbor in Kentucky in 2017, which resulted in Paul breaking several ribs and developing pneumonia.
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The confirmation hearing for Markwayne Mullin, the president’s nominee to replace Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary is due to start any minute.
Lawmakers are gathered around the dais, and the committee’s chair, Republican senator Rand Paul is delivering his opening remarks.
Trump slams Democrats over partial DHS shutdown, as Jeffries attempts to force a vote to separate funding for affected agencies
The president also used Truth Social today to criticize Democrats over the ongoing stalemate on funding parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Funding for several DHS agencies has been lapsed for more than a month as lawmakers negotiate new limits on federal immigration enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), however, was not impacted because it continues to receive billions of dollars guaranteed under Donald Trump sweeping bill, signed into law last year.
Meanwhile, thousands of employees at the Transport Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) and the Coast Guard have been affected, and are working without pay
Trump said the ongoing shutdown is “causing chaos at the airports”, branding Democrats as “lunatics” and saying their demands are “totally unreasonable in their Radical Left asks”.
On Tuesday, a White House official confirmed that Senate Democrats sent a counteroffer on Monday aimed at resolving the budget standoff. A Trump administration official told the Guardian that the offer by Democrats was under review, although Republican lawmakers were quick to dismiss the proposal.
Democrats have previously demanded that federal officers obtain judicial warrants to enter private property. They’ve also pushed for immigration enforcement to no longer wear masks while patrolling and making arrests. This comes after agents fatally shot US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, in the streets of Minneapolis in separate cases in January.
Today, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, will launch a discharge petition to force a vote for a separate funding bill for the TSA, Fema, Cisa and the Coast Guard. It’s a long shot-effort from the lower chamber’s top Democrat, since he would need 218 signatures to proceed.
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Donald Trump has issued a short statement on his Truth Social, musing about what would happen to the strait of Hormuz if the US “finished off” what’s left of Iran. He suggested it would get “non-responsive allies”, presumably in Nato, “in gear and fast”.
European countries including the UK have pushed back on Trump’s demands to help reopen the strait of Hormuz by force after Iran shut down the majority of shipping through the critical trade route.
We’ll also be watching several events on Capitol Hill today. This includes the confirmation hearing of Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – Republican senator Markwayne Mullin at 9:30am ET. As that gets under way, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI director Kash Patel will face questions from Senate lawmakers. They’ll be joined by CIA director John Ratcliffe, and we’re expecting questions about the administration’s first major defection over the Iran war – former counter-terrorism chief Joe Kent.
A reminder that Kent resigned on Tuesday in a letter that claimed Iran posed no imminent threat, and blamed Irasel for pressuring the US to initiate the conflict. The White House has rebuked Kent’s allegations, and the president branded him “a nice guy” who is “weak on security”.
Donald Trump will begin the day with meetings in Washington, before traveling to Dover, Delaware for the dignified transfer of more fallen US service members in the ongoing war on Iran.
He’ll hopefully speak to reporters as he heads off, so we’ll bring you the latest lines.
Illinois lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton won the Democratic primary race to succeed Illinois’ US senator Dick Durbin, beating out US representative Raja Krishnamoorthi.
With nearly 90% of the vote tallied, Stratton was leading Krishnamoorthi by more than six percentage points on Tuesday night, according to the Associated Press.
“We did it,” Stratton said of her upset victory. “Tonight we showed what’s possible when you listen to the people and give the people what they want.
“Courage inspired me to run. Courage powered this campaign and courage will bring this fight straight to Donald Trump’s front door,” she said, as the crowd in Chicago wildly applauded.
Stratton, a progressive with the support of governor JB Pritzker, had been behind Krishnamoorthi in polling until recent weeks, when an infusion of cash from the governor and a hardening sentiment on immigration pushed aside the relatively moderate congressman. Stratton also faced competition on her left from congresswoman Robin Kelly, which threatened to split the progressive vote. Kelly drew less than 20% of the vote, according to the Associated Press.
When Robert F Kennedy Jr ran for president as a Democrat in 2023, he found an unexpected ally in Scott Brown. A former Republican senator, Brown had begun a tradition of hosting Republican presidential candidates for barbecues in his New Hampshire back yard, where they could stump for votes and get attention ahead of the state’s crucial primary.
Kennedy became Brown’s first Democratic invitee. His appearance in September 2023 drew hundreds of people, Brown’s biggest crowd ever. Kennedy held Brown in such high regard that after he decided to run instead as an independent, he reportedly reached out to Brown as a possible vice-presidential running mate, though Brown declined.
Later, Brown – now running for Senate in New Hampshire – said he helped Kennedy prepare for his Senate confirmation hearings for the job of US health secretary.
Newly released records obtained by the Guardian shed further light on the men’s relationship and how Brown – who had been appointed to serve as ambassador to Samoa and New Zealand by Donald Trump during his first term – responded to a controversial trip Kennedy took to Samoa in June 2019. Months later, Kennedy’s visit would become a subject of public scrutiny when measles swept through the Pacific island nation. Samoan officials and health leaders said Kennedy, who made the trip when he was the head of a US anti-vaccine organization, bolstered the credibility of local anti-vaccine activists ahead of the outbreak, which killed 83 people, mostly children under age five.
Kennedy has said he had “nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa” and that he never told anybody there not to vaccinate.
US senators to grill Trump intelligence team at 10am ET
Senators will get the chance today to question top aides to president Donald Trump in public about national security, nearly three weeks into the Iran war as the Senate intelligence committee holds its annual hearing on worldwide threats to the United States.
The hearing is likely to focus on the Middle East conflict, as lawmakers - including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans, as well as Democrats - have said they want more information about a war that has killed thousands of people, disrupted the lives of millions and shaken energy and stock markets, Reuters reported.
Democrats in particular have complained that the administration has not kept Congress adequately informed about a conflict that has cost US taxpayers billions and demanded public testimony rather than the classified briefings held in the past two weeks.
The testimony from officials including director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe is also likely to touch on the shock announcement on Tuesday that a top aide to Gabbard had resigned, citing the war.
Joe Kent, who headed the National Counterterrorism Center, is the first senior official in Trump’s administration to resign over the conflict. The Office of the DNI oversees the counterterrorism center and Kent is close with Gabbard, who has kept a low profile since the Iran war began.
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Trump nominee Mullin expected to receive quick confirmation as DHS chief
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
A Senate committee later today is expected to give a quick confirmation to Markwayne Mullin, a first-term Republican senator from Oklahoma, to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Mullin was nominated by US president Donald Trump after Kristi Noem was ousted amid public blowback against the administration’s aggressive approach to its mass deportation agenda, which resulted in the killings of two US citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis.
The Democrats have forced the DHS into a partial shutdown until their demands for guardrails on immigration enforcement are met.
The issues at the heart of the standoff are set to come up this morning, when Mullin’s confirmation hearing begins before the Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs.
“I am grateful to President Trump for nominating me to lead the US Department of Homeland Security,” Mullin, who was elected to the Senate in 2022 after serving five terms in the House of Representatives, said on social media earlier this month.
“I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the Senate and carrying out president Trump’s mission alongside the department’s many capable agencies and the thousands of patriots who keep us safe every day.”
Republicans have praised his nomination, and their control of the Senate gives them the numbers to push his appointment through even if Democrats oppose him. Democrats have been quiet about Mullin, with party leaders saying that their demands for reforms to immigration operations won’t change regardless of who leads DHS.
The confirmation is expected to begin at around 9.30am ET.
Read the full story here:
In other 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.
