Summary
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says he’s considering pulling US customs agents from airports in sanctuary cities – a move that could upend international travel to and from some of the country’s busiest airports. Mullin said he was considering the change because “I believe sanctuary cities is not lawful.” Republicans and Democrats remain in a pitched political battle over funding for ICE and Border Patrol.
Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed into a law a bill that allows the state to designate terrorist groups, then punish those who promote them. Critics say the law will threaten free speech, especially on school campuses. The bill specifics bars the state’s courts from enforcing foreign religious laws, specifically naming Sharia Law. Florida courts enforce secular laws passed in the state, however.
Representative Yassamin Ansari, an Arizona Democrat, will introduce impeachment articles next week against defense secretary Pete Hegseth. “Only Congress has the power to declare war, not a rogue president or his lackeys,” Ansari said in a statement.
Donald Trump reiterated his threats to bomb Iranian energy and civilian infrastructure if the White House does not reach a deal to reopen the Straight of Hormuz by tomorrow at 8pm ET. “The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said during a 90-minute press conference Monday afternoon.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican culture warrior, signed into law a measure that would allow the state’s chief of domestic security to designate terrorist groups and punish their purported supporters.
The law has raised first amendment concerns, particularly for students. The law provides for the immediate expulsion of students found to “promote” a state-designated terrorist group The term “promote” is exceedingly vague, critics say.
DeSantis said in a statement that the law was necessary to “defend our institutions from those who would harm us—especially terrorist organizations that seek to infiltrate and subvert our education system.”
The bill follows an executive order from DeSantis that designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood as domestic terrorist organizations. CAIR is one of the country’s most prominent muslim civil rights groups.
US district judge Mark Walker temporarily blocked DeSantis’s order last month, issuing a stern ruling. “The First Amendment bars the Governor from continuing the troubling trend of using an executive office to make a political statement at the expense of others’ constitutional rights.”
The bill also bars the state’s courts from enforcing religious laws, making specific mention of Sharia law. State courts typically enforce secular laws passed legislatures, rather than foreign religious laws.
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In his news conference earlier, Donald Trump repeated his frequently debunked claim that he warned Americans about the threat posed by Osama bin Laden in a book published in 2000.
“Osama bin Laden, if you read my book, I said, ‘You gotta taken him out.’ One year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you’d read the book,” the president told reporters on Monday.
In fact, as the CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has reported, anyone who does actually read that book “The America We Deserve,” which was published under Trump’s name and that of the author Dave Shiflett, will discover that there is a passing mention of bin Laden, but no warning that he posed a threat and needed to be arrested or killed.
That Trump is unfamiliar with the actual content of what he calls his book might not be surprising though.
In an email to the Guardian last year, Shiflett said that he wrote the book alone, with no input of any kind from Trump. “My understanding,” Shiflett wrote, “is that Trump neither writes nor reads his books.”
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Markwayne Mullin says he's considering pulling US customs agents from airports in sanctuary cities
Homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News he’s thinking about withdrawing customs agents from international airports located in sanctuary cities because he doesn’t think sanctuary city policies are legal.
“I believe sanctuary cities is not lawful,” Mullin told Fox News’s Brett Baier. “I don’t think they’re able to do that.”
Local sanctuary policies typically limit police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. They have existed for decades and historically survived legal challenges.
“One area we may take a hard look at is some of these cities have international airports,” Mullin said. “If they’re sanctuary cities should they really be processing customs into their cities? Seriously. If they’re a sanctuary city and they’re receiving international flights and we’re asking them to partner with us at the airport but once they walk out the airport, they’re not going to enforce immigration policy?”
Immigration enforcement is a federal authority, not a local one.
“Right now remember the Democrats are wanting to defund Customs and Border Patrol,” Mullin added, though the name of the agency is Customs and Border Protection. “Well, who processes those individuals when they walk off the plane? So I’m going to have to be forced to make hard decisions -- who’s willing to work with us and partner with us.”
On top of its ongoing annual budget appropriation of around $20 billion, CBP received an extra $65 billion from Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill last year.
Mullin’s idea would impact travel at many of the busiest airports in the United States, including Denver International Airport, JFK in New York City and Los Angeles International Airport.
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The US education department has ended agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at upholding rights and protections for transgender students.
The agreements were signed under previous presidencies. Both the Biden and Obama administrations had interpreted Title IX protections against sex discrimination in education to protect gay and trans students. The Trump administration has taken the opposite approach.
Monday’s announcement appeared to be the first time the Trump administration had terminated existing civil rights settlements with schools.
Representative Yassamin Ansari to introduce impeachment articles against defense secretary Pete Hegseth next week
Representative Yassamin Ansari, an Arizona Democrat, will introduce impeachment articles next week against defense secretary Pete Hegseth, her office said in a statement.
“Donald Trump’s deranged statements – including one on Easter Sunday – are further entrenching our country and our world in another devastating, never-ending war,” Ansari said. ‘He’s threatening war crimes that violate US law and the Geneva conventions, on top of illegal actions and atrocities already committed at his direction –including violence that has destroyed schools, hospitals, and critical civilian infrastructure. Republicans must join us in calling on the president to end this suicidal war before it is too late.”
“Only Congress has the power to declare war, not a rogue president or his lackeys,” Ansari added. “Hegseth’s reckless endangerment of US servicemembers and repeated war crimes, including bombing a girls’ school in Minab, Iran and willfully targeting civilian infrastructure, are grounds for impeachment and removal from office.”
Ansari’s parents immigrated to the United States from Iran, she noted.
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US representative Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican, told Fox Business he envisioned the Iran war evolving into a ground war.
“I personally think it’s going to be boots – at least special ops, American special operators on the ground with allied allies in the region and air cover. We have to change the tact of the Tehran government, or we can’t leave. We can’t leave until the job is done.”
“I just don’t see any other way,” Fallon added.
Fallon sits on the House armed services committee.
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Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, elaborated on his plans to use the reconciliation process to bypass Democratic opposition to ICE and border patrol in a radio appearance on Straight Talk with Bill Frady.
“What I’m going to do is I’m going to draft a reconciliation bill and load up ICE and border patrol funding without one Democratic vote – give them all they need for three to 10 years, whatever I can fit in,” Graham said. “But we’re going to fund the border patrol and, we’re going to fund ICE, with Republican votes only. And I’m going to be the chairman and I’m going to meet with the White House Friday and get this thing moving.”
Graham said he also planned to use reconciliation – a procedure that allows the party in power to pass budget-related measures with a simple majority, avoiding a filibuster – to pass portions of the Save Act, a strict voter identification law that Trump has pushed for.
“We’re going to try to do another reconciliation bill later in the year, and get as much of it in as we can,” Graham said, referring to the Save Act.
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The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington quietly changed its programming to avoid unwanted attention from the Trump administration, according to an exclusive report from Politico.
The museum quietly took down online teaching resources discussing American racism and canceled a workshop entitled “The Fragility of Democracy”. They reportedly hoped moves like those would keep them off the White House’s radar as it cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and President Trump publicly lashed out at the Smithsonian. Read more at Politico.
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Here's a recap of the day so far
During a 90-minute press conference at the White House, Donald Trump said that his threat to bomb Iranian energy and civilian infrastructure still stands, if there is no deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz by Tuesday at 8pm ET. The country “can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” the president told reporters. He also shrugged off concerns that his actions could amount to war crimes, praised the rescue mission of two American air force pilots after their F-15 fighter jet was shot down last week, continued to slam Nato countries for their unwillingess to get involved in the conflict, and even floated the idea of the US charging tolls for the passage of ships through the strait of Hormuz.
The record-breaking partial government shutdown entered its eighth week, with little end in sight. Congress is on recess, and isn’t set to return for until 13 April. Today, House lawmakers again took no action to pass a Senate bill to fund affected Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies during its scheduled procedural session.
The supreme court has sent a case involving Steve Bannon – which holds him in contempt of Congress – back to an appeals court, where it is now likely to be dismissed. Bannon, a key ally of the president who served as a White House adviser during the first seven months of Trump’s first administration, was convicted of defying a subpoena from the House January 6 committee and served four months in prison in 2024. Today, the justices vacated a ruling by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit and sided with Bannon, who has since become a prominent rightwing podcaster.
Trump also endorsed the Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton in the California governor’s race, a move that could dash Republican hopes of locking Democrats out of the November runoff. The president announced his backing on Monday on Truth Social, writing that Hilton “has my COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT” and pledging federal support for his candidacy. “Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so,” he wrote.
Asked to clarify his comments from earlier in the day regarding his views about seizing Iranian oil, Trump said he would like to seize Iran’s oil. “To the winner belong the spoils,” Trump said.
Referring to Venezuela, where the US captured former leader Nicolás Maduro and the interim leadership has shown a willingness to sell oil to the US and work with the US more closely, he added:
And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good, and we are a partner with Venezuela, and we’ve taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions.
Trump said earlier today he wasn’t sure if Americans would be supportive of him doing similar with Iran’s oil.
It’s worth noting that while the president continued to praise the US military for its rescue mission of two pilots in the F-15 fighter jet that was shot down over Iran, he also revealed that a “handheld shoulder missile” was ultimately responsible for downing the plane. Trump said that the regime got “lucky” as their shot “got sucked in right by the engine”.
While taking questions from reporters, Trump said that he was unhappy with the idea of Iran charging tolls for passage of cargo ships and oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz. He then floated the idea of the US charging levies. “Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner,” he said, without elaborating how this would work in practice. “We have a concept where we’ll charge tolls.”
When asked about his conflicting messages about the status of the war on Iran, the president said he doesn’t know whether a ceasefire is imminent.
“They have ’til tomorrow. Now we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “I can tell you they’re negotiating, we think in good faith, we’re going to find out. We’re getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended, because it affects them also.”
He went on to say that in order for Iran to successfully meet his deadline on Tuesday evening, the regime will need to have a deal that’s “acceptable” to the president, and part of that deal must include the reopening of the strait of Hormuz.
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Trump says he is not concerned 'at all' that his threat to bomb Iranian infrastructure could amount to war crimes
Trump gave an unclear answer, in response to a question from the New York Times, about whether he is concerned about violating the Geneva convention and committing war crimes and by bombing Iranian energy facilities and bridges.
A reminder that the president has said this will be the likely consequence if Iran doesn’t agree to reopen the strait of Hormuz by Tuesday at 8pm ET.
Initially, Trump said that is not concerned “at all” about breaking international law. But then said he hopes he doesn’t have to launch strikes on civilian infrastructure.
“If you think I’m going to allow them … to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times ‘not going to happen’,” he said, rounding off his muddy response by slamming the paper of record as “failing” and “fake”.
Earlier, Trump claimed that the Iranian people would are “willing to suffer” through the bombing campaign if eventually secured their freedom from the regime.
“All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It’s a violent, horrible world,” he added.
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Trump says there was pushback over rescue mission
The president told reporters today that not every senior military official was on board with the mission over the weekend to rescue two crew members. He noted that some warned him against the operation.
Trump asked the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Dan Caine, how many officers he sent into Iran for the rescue mission.
“I’d love to keep that a secret,” Caine said, before the briefing room erupted with laughter, including from the president.
“I was told that this is a very dangerous mission,” the president said. “They said, you know, we’re going to be sacrificing hundreds of people do this.”
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Trump insisted that his administration has a strategy for the ongoing operation in Iran, despite concerns that there is no clear plan.
“I have the best plan of all, but I’m not going to tell you what my plan is,” he said. “Every every single thing has been thought out by all of us. But I can’t reveal the plan to the media.”
Trump threatens to jail journalist who broke story of missing second airman
Trump is once again angry at news media, and says US authorities are trying to identify the journalist who “leaked” information that a second airman was stranded in Iran after the first one was rescued.
He says Iran wasn’t aware of the status of the second pilot prior to the report, which made the US rescue operation “much more difficult”.
Trump says US authorities would demand the media company that published the story to provide the identity of the “leaker” – whom he called “a sick person” – or face prosecution.
We’re looking very hard to find that leaker. We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security – give it up or go to jail’.
“They put this mission at great risk,” he says.
It isn’t clear which publication Trump is threatening.
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Oil prices have begun to rise since Trump’s press conference began. US crude oil leapt from $112 to about $114 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, which had been roughly flat for the day, rose too.
Hegseth noted that today will will be “the largest volume of strikes” on Iran since day one of Operation Epic Fury.
The defense secretary reiterated Trump’s threat to Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz or risk the destruction of civilian infrastructure. “Iran has a choice,” Hegseth noted. “Choose wisely, because this president does not play around.”
Speaking to reporters now, Pete Hegseth recounted the weekend’s rescue mission of two air force officers. The defense secretary was typically bellicose in his remarks. “When our warriors are unleashed, as this president has allowed them to be, they are unstoppable,” Hegseth said, before comparing the second crew member to Jesus Christ.
“Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave a crevice all of Saturday … flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn,” the defense secretary added.
At Donald Trump’s press conference today, his son Eric Trump, son-in-law and special envoy Steve Witkoff and defense secretary Pete Hegseth are also in the White House briefing room.
Trump adds that as part of the weekend’s rescue mission, the military deployed 155 aircraft, four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refuelling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft.
He says they exited the territory with the airman, who had been stranded for almost 48 hours, without taking any casualties.
The president is going into detail describing the rescue mission over the weekend, and complimenting US service members throughout.
“The genius is not even talent. It’s genius. It’s the whole ballgame, every one of them,” Trump said.
Earlier, the president said that Iran “can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night” – reiterating his deadline of 8pm ET Tuesday for the regime to reopen the strait of Hormuz or face further strikes on energy facilities and bridges.
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The president kicked off his remarks discussing the rescue mission of the two air force officers after a US F-15 fighter jet was downed over Iran last week.
Trump said that both members of the crew ejected from the aircraft, and landed alive on Iranian soil.
“The flight crews and war fighters aboard those aircraft took extraordinary risks to rescue their fellow service members,” the president added, noting that the second officer was injured quite badly and stranded in an area “teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)”.
Donald Trump is now speaking in the White House briefing room.
I’ll bring you the latest lines here.
Donald Trump has endorsed the Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton in the California governor’s race, a move that could dash Republican hopes of locking Democrats out of the November runoff.
Trump announced his backing on Monday on Truth Social, writing that Hilton “has my COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT” and pledging federal support for his candidacy. “Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so,” he wrote.
Hilton, 50, is a dual British-American citizen who served as director of strategy to former prime minister David Cameron before leaving Downing Street in 2012 and moving to California. He later became a Fox News host before launching his campaign for governor.
The endorsement complicates a delicate Republican strategy built around the state’s jungle primary system, in which the top two finishers on 3 June advance to November regardless of party. With Hilton and his main Republican rival, the Riverside county sheriff, Chad Bianco, running neck and neck with three leading Democrats – congressman Eric Swalwell, former congresswoman Katie Porter and billionaire activist Tom Steyer – Republicans had hoped the two conservatives could split the vote evenly enough to squeeze both into the runoff.
In a March poll by the state’s Democratic party, Hilton held the lead with likely voters at 16%, followed by Republican Bianco at 14%. Swalwell, Porter and Steyer were in a dead heat at 10% each, according to the poll.
Rob Pyers, a political data analyst at California Target Book, said the endorsement would probably free up tens of millions of dollars for Democratic groups that had been preparing to spend heavily to boost one Republican candidate, which has been a tried-and-true strategic move Democrats have deployed in previous cycles to avoid a general election shutout.
Read the full story:
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Trump says Tuesday at 8pm ET is his final deadline for Iran to reopen strait of Hormuz
Asked by a reporter at the Easter Egg Roll whether tomorrow at 8pm ET was his final deadline for Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz (as laid out in his expletive-laden Easter Sunday post), Trump replied: “Yeah.”
The president has flip-flopped on his deadlines several times already, and is now hurtling towards another self-imposed deadline – this time, Tuesday evening – for Tehran to reopen the critical waterway.
The strait has effectively been shut since the US and Israel launched war in Iran in late February, sending oil prices around the world skyrocketing.
Tehran has refused to reopen the strait in exchange for temporary ceasefire. Instead it wants a permanent and comprehensive end to the war, along with other demands including compensation for war damages.
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Donald Trump also repeated his usual claims that the US military had already “obliterated” Iran.
A reporter then asked – if that was true, then why was the United States still at war?
The president responded:
It’s a big country. They can’t fight back. They have no capability. I mean, they have some missiles left, they have some drones left, but essentially they have no capability.
He also said he is not worried about concerns over targeting civilian infrastructure (which is illegal) and called the shooting down of US aircraft last week “a lucky shot”.
As my colleague Dan Sabbagh wrote yesterday: “The loss of the F-15 and other aircraft had come as a relative surprise, given the air superiority the US and Israel have established over Iran from the beginning of the five-week-long war. But it demonstrated that after thousands of bombing missions, Iran still has the capacity to inflict high-profile damage on the US.”
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Trump says Iranian people 'want to hear bombs because they want to be free'
The president said that military action is ultimately helping the people of Iran because “they want to hear bombs because they want to be free”, in response to a question from PBS News’ Liz Landers.
Trump added that the only reason that Iranians aren’t in the street protesting is because “they will be shot immediately” by the regime, as opposed to the ongoing strikes by the US and Israel across the country.
“The Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they’re not going to be shot, and as soon as they can get weapons,” Trump added. “If they had weapons … Iran would give up in two seconds because they wouldn’t be able to take it.”
The president also added that the regime had a “lucky shot” when it downed a US F-15 fighter jet on Friday, but said the rescue of the airman who sustained injuries was “incredible”.
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Speaking to reporters at the White House during the Easter egg roll, Donald Trump said that he only used profanities in a social media post threatening to strike bridges and energy facilities in Iran “to make my point”.
A reminder that the president demanded the regime, who he labelled “crazy bastards” on Truth Social to reopen the “fuckin’” strait of Hormuz or risk further repercussions.
Trump reiterated that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon, but the bombing campaign will continue because [the regime] “they just don’t want to say ‘uncle’,” and surrender.
“If they don’t, they’ll have no bridges, they’ll have no power plants, no anything,” he told the media ahead of his 1pm ET press conference.
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Supreme court sends Steve Bannon case back to appeals court, poised for dismissal
The supreme court has sent a case involving Steve Bannon – which holds him in contempt of Congress – back to an appeals court, where it is now likely to be dismissed.
Bannon, a key ally of the president, who served as a White House adviser during the first seven months of Trump’s first administration, was convicted of defying a subpoena from the House January 6 committee and served four months in prison in 2024. But today, the justices vacated a ruling by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit and sided with Bannon, who has since become a prominent rightwing podcaster.
Even though Bannon has already served a sentence, the Trump justice department is seeking to effectively throw out the case – a move that is largely symbolic.
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Historic government shutdown continues with little end in sight
A reminder that the record-breaking partial government shutdown just entered its eighth week, with little end in sight. Congress is on recess, and isn’t set to return for until 13 April.
Today, House lawmakers again took no action to pass a Senate bill to fund affected Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies. This comes after Republican leadership in both chambers announced a compromise to fund the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the US Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Their plan is to subsequently fund immigration enforcement through a reconciliation bill that would only require a simple majority in the Senate, and therefore skirt the filibuster.
However, House speaker Mike Johnson is facing pushback from hardline GOP lawmakers over the Senate-passed legislation. They argue that Republicans are ultimately conceding to Democrats’ demands, after they refused to pass a wider DHS funding bill without guardrails on ICE and CBP after federal officers fatally shot two US citizens during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
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District court judges nationwide have been increasingly issuing strong rulings challenging the legality of many of Donald Trump’s policies and executive power grabs, blocking key ones at least temporarily, and sparking angry responses from the president, former judges and prosecutors say.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, lower court federal judges have written sharply critical opinions about his legally dubious policies on immigration, tariffs, Department of Justice (DoJ) prosecutions of political foes and more.
The impact of the court rulings by these judges has been sizable, slowing or halting some of the president’s most extreme policies and prompting Trump and Maga allies to respond with vindictive attacks that have helped to fuel some threats against several judges.
Legal experts say the spate of adverse court rulings has created an often toxic courtroom climate for administration lawyers who have been upbraided sharply by judges for making false or tenuous representations in defense of Trump policies.
Former DoJ lawyers credit many district court judges for acting as crucial buffers against Trump’s power grabs and administration disdain for the rule of law.
“District court judges around the country, appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, are serving as the strongest guardrail against the incursions on the rule of law,” ex-DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich said.
“In one year, DoJ lawyers have lost the presumptions of regularity, competence and reliability that it has taken decades to accumulate. The judges are calling out [the] DoJ for its lawless positions and hollow arguments in the strongest language I have ever seen.”
Read the full report here:
Trump will be in Washington for the rest of the day. Aside from his afternoon press conference, he and the first lady, Melania Trump, will host the annual Easter egg roll at the White House at 10am ET.
After meetings, the president will welcome Jewish community leaders to the White House for a Passover greeting at 3.30pm ET. This will be closed to the press, but we’ll keep an eye out in case anything else opens up.
Trump holds press conference on Iran war, following profanity-laden threats on social media
Donald Trump is set to hold a press conference in the White House briefing room today at 1pm ET on the US-Israel war on Iran. He’s expected to provide an update on the weekend rescue mission to retrieve a crew member after a US F-15 jet was downed on Friday over Iran.
This also comes after the president issued a profanity-laden ultimatum to the Iranian regime on social media to reopen the strait of Hormuz, or face further strikes on energy sites and bridges across the country.
The president posted on Truth Social on Sunday: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
We’ll bring you the latest lines as that gets under way.
