administration

The Trump administration has deployed ICE agents to airports across the United States amid staffing issues and delays. It’s seen as a negotiating tactic in a funding dispute with Democrats, who describe it as a dangerous move.

WASHINGTON — President Trump took the United States to war without a vote of support from Congress, but lawmakers are increasingly questioning when, how and at what cost the war with Iran will come to an end.

Three weeks into the conflict, the toll is becoming apparent. At least 13 U.S. military personnel have died and more than 230 have been wounded. A $200-billion request from the Pentagon for war funds is pending from the White House. Allies are under attack, oil prices are skyrocketing, and thousands more U.S. troops are deploying to the Middle East with no endgame in sight.

“The real question is: What ultimately are we trying to accomplish?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told the Associated Press.

“I generally support anything that takes out the mullahs,” he said. “But at the end of the day, there has to be a kind of strategic articulation of the strategy, what our objectives are.”

Trump said late Friday that he was considering “winding down” the military operations even as he outlined new objectives and goals and despite the continued buildup of forces in the region.

Congress stands still

The president’s decision to launch the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is testing the resolve of Congress, which is controlled by his party. Republicans have largely stood by the commander in chief, but will soon be faced with more consequential wartime choices.

Under the War Powers Act, the president can conduct military operations for 60 days without approval from Congress. So far, Republicans have easily voted down several resolutions from Democrats designed to halt the war.

But the administration will need to show a more comprehensive strategy ahead or risk blowback from Congress, lawmakers said, especially as they are being asked to approve billions in new spending.

Trump’s casual comment that the war will end “when I … feel it in my bones” has drawn alarm.

“When he feels it in his bones? That’s crazy,” said Virginia Sen. Mark R. Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

House speaker says mission is ‘all but done’

The president’s party appears unlikely to directly challenge him, even as the conflict drags on. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said the military operation will be over quickly.

“I do think the original mission is virtually accomplished now,” Johnson told the AP and others at the Capitol this week.

“We were trying to take out the ballistic missiles, and their means of production, and neuter the navy, and those objectives have been met,” he said.

Johnson acknowledged that Iran’s ability to threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz is “dragging it out a little bit,” especially as U.S. allies have largely rebuffed the president’s request for help.

“As soon as we bring some calm to the situation, I think it’s all but done,” Johnson said.

But the administration’s stated goals — of ending Iran’s ability to obtain a nuclear weapon and degrading its ballistic missile supplies, among others — have perplexed lawmakers as shifting and elusive.

″Regime change? Not likely. Get rid of the enriched uranium? Not without boots on the ground,” Warner said.

“If I’m advising the president, I would have said: Before you take on a war of choice, make the case clear to the American people what our goals are,” he said.

The power of the purse

The Pentagon has told the White House that it is seeking an additional $200 billion for the war effort, an extraordinary amount that is unlikely to win support. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York called the amount “preposterous.”

The Defense Department’s approved appropriations from Congress this year are more than $800 billion, and Trump’s tax breaks bill gave the Pentagon an additional $150 billion over the next several years for various upgrades and projects.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said the country has other priorities.

“How about not taking away funding for Medicaid, which will impact millions of people? How about making sure SNAP is funded?” she said, referring to the healthcare and food assistance programs that were cut as part of last year’s Republican tax reductions.

“These are things that we should be doing for the American people,” she said.

Many lawmakers have recalled the decision by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to come to Congress to seek an authorization for the use of military force — a vote to support his proposed military actions in Afghanistan and later Iraq.

Tillis said Trump has latitude under the War Powers Act to conduct the military campaign, but that will soon shift.

“When you get into the 45-day mark, you’ve got to start articulating one of two things — an authorization for the use of military force to sustain it beyond that or a very clear path on exit,” he said.

“Those are really the options the administration needs to be thinking about.”

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

President Trump frequently contradicts himself, sometimes in the same speech, social media post or even sentence. On Friday, he sent a torrent of mixed signals about the Iran war that raise more questions about the direction of the conflict and his administration’s strategy.

Within a few hours, Trump said he was considering winding down the war, his administration confirmed it was sending more troops to the Middle East and, in an effort to lessen the economic influence on global energy markets, the United States lifted sanctions on some Iranian oil for the first time in decades — relieving some of the pressure that Washington traditionally has used as leverage.

The confusing combination of actions deepens a sense among Trump’s critics that there is no clear, long-term strategy for the war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran. Now in its fourth week, the war remains on an unpredictable path and a credible endgame is unclear as the global economy is being roiled.

‘Winding down’ the war

After another rough day in the financial markets, Trump said Friday afternoon on his social media network: “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”

Trump contended that the U.S. has adequately degraded Iranian naval, missile and industrial capacity and prevented Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The president then suggested the U.S. could pull out of the conflict without stabilizing the Strait of Hormuz, the channel through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply travels. The strait has been ravaged by Iranian missile, drone and mine attacks during the war.

“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump wrote. But, in another contradiction, he said the U.S. would help if asked, “but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated.”

While oil that traverses the strait is usually bound for Asia and other places rather than North America, the chaos still affects the United States. Oil is bought and sold globally, so a shortage in oil for Asian countries leads to bidding up prices on oil sold to companies in America too.

That fact, coupled with an Israeli strike on Iran’s gas fields and an Iranian retaliation that crippled a major terminal to ship liquefied natural gas from Qatar, helped tank U.S. equity markets Friday, with the S&P dropping 1.5%. There also was a sharp increase in U.S. fuel prices.

More troops to the war zone

Even as Trump said the U.S. was close to winding down the war, his administration announced it was sending three more warships to the Middle East with about 2,500 additional Marines. It was the second time in a week that the administration said it was deploying more forces to the war zone. The military says some 50,000 are supporting the war effort.

Trump has often said he has ruled out sending in ground troops, but not always, and his administration has hinted at a possible deployment of special forces or similar units.

The Marines being sent to the region are an expeditionary unit designed for quick amphibious landings, but their deployment does not mean a ground invasion is certain. Analysts have suggested the presence of U.S. forces on the ground may be needed to ultimately secure the strait.

The surge in troops came just a day after news emerged that the Pentagon was seeking an additional $200 billion from Congress to fund the war. That extraordinarily high figure does not suggest that the war was winding down.

Lifting some sanctions on Iran

The administration said it would lift sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil, provided it was already at sea as of Friday. The move was an attempt to help lower skyrocketing energy prices by allowing freer sale of oil that Iran has let pass through the strait. It also extends a financial lifeline to the Iranian government that Trump is targeting.

His administration has tried other methods to lower oil prices. It has tapped the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and lifted sanctions on some Russian oil. Yet Brent crude remained at $112 per barrel Friday, and analysts say oil prices are likely to remain high for months regardless of the next steps in the war.

The Iranian oil eventually would have reached another country, but now the United States and its allies can bid on it as well, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X.

“At present, sanctioned Iranian oil is being hoarded by China on the cheap,” Bessent wrote. “By temporarily unlocking this existing supply for the world, the United States will quickly bring approximately 140 million barrels of oil to global markets, expanding the amount of worldwide energy and helping to relieve the temporary pressures on supply caused by Iran.”

While 140 million barrels may seem like a lot, that is only a couple of days’ worth of oil on the global market.

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a U.S. fuel-tracking service, said he does not expect the temporary suspension to have a major influence on gas prices. The de facto closure of the strait has a much greater effect, he said. “Prices will likely still continue to rise so long as the Strait remains silent,” De Haan said.

And the contradictions in the position were obvious in Bessent’s post announcing the move, which labeled Iran “the head of the snake for global terrorism.” He said the administration would take steps to prevent Tehran from cashing in on the sales, but it was unclear how that would be done.

Even among some Republicans, the contradictions triggered rare public skepticism.

“Bombing Iran with one hand and buying Iran oil with the other,” South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X on Saturday.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press. AP business writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Ann Arbor, Mich., contributed to this report.

Caracas, March 20, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The US Treasury Department has issued a new sanctions waiver as the Trump administration seeks to deepen US control over Venezuela’s oil sector.

General License 52 (GL52), published on Wednesday, authorizes US entities to engage in transactions with Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA under conditions that limit Venezuelan sovereignty.

An updated FAQ from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control clarified that the exemption allows US companies to engage in activities related to the exportation of Venezuelan-origin oil products, export diluents and inputs to Venezuela as well as enter into new contracts for oil and gas production.

However, in line with recent US licenses, GL52 mandates that all tax, royalty, and dividend payments be made into US Treasury-controlled accounts.

Following the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has taken control over Venezuelan crude exports while imposing conditions favorable to Western energy conglomerates.

Thus far, Washington has returned US $500 million out of an initial January deal worth $2 billion. US authorities have also confirmed Venezuelan imports of US-manufactured medicines and medical equipment. Trump officials had vowed that US energy revenues could only be used for purchases from US suppliers and that Caracas would need to submit a “budget request” to access its funds.

The White House issued GL52 amid soaring energy prices caused by the US and Israeli war against Iran. Tehran has responded to massive bombings by targeting US military assets in the region and closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Last week, the US Treasury amended licenses to allow US imports of fertilizers from Venezuela, as well as repair works in the South American country’s electric grid. Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure remains in a precarious state after years of US sanctions, and expanded power capacity is a precondition for recovery of the oil industry.

Despite the broadened waivers for corporations hand-picked by the White House to engage with Venezuela, PDVSA and its subsidiaries remain under financial sanctions, while third-country firms risk secondary sanctions should they enter into agreements without a US Treasury special license.

In late January, Venezuelan authorities approved a pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law, granting private companies reduced fiscal responsibilities, increased control over production and exports, and the possibility of taking disputes to international arbitration bodies.

Chevron and Shell, with US Treasury approval, were the first companies to take advantage of the new incentives. Chevron’s Petropiar joint venture with PDVSA was granted a new 500 square-kilometer bloc to drill for extra-heavy crude in the Orinoco Oil Belt, while Shell is set to take over light and medium crude and natural gas operations in the eastern state of Monagas.

Last week, European energy giants Eni and Repsol, who were also given the inside track by the White House, announced an agreement with the Venezuelan government for the development of the Cardón IV offshore natural gas project.

Eni and Repsol each own 50 percent stakes in Cardón IV, which has been in operation since 2009. Neither firm nor Caracas offered details on the renewed agreement, though both enterprises had lobbied for improved conditions and mechanisms to recoup accumulated debt due to US sanctions.

According to Bloomberg, ONGC Videsh (India), Maha Capital AB (Sweden), and J&F Investimentos (Brazil) are among the companies likely to receive special licenses for involvement in Venezuela’s oil sector as Washington seeks to counter rising crude prices. Nevertheless, analysts stress that the Venezuelan oil industry does not have the capacity to significantly ramp up output in the near future.

On March 11, the Trump administration formally recognized Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as Venezuela’s “sole authority,” days after Venezuela and the US reestablished diplomatic ties following a seven-year hiatus.

On Monday, Rodríguez appointed new executive boards for PDVSA’s US-based affiliates, including refiner CITGO. Asdrúbal Chávez, who held multiple roles in both PDVSA and CITGO since the 2000s, was picked as president of CITGO and its parent company, PDV Holding. At the time of writing, US authorities have not commented on the proposed new leadership for the companies, which had been run by the US-backed opposition since 2019.

CITGO is currently in the closing stages of a court-mandated auction that will see Venezuela lose ownership of its most prized foreign asset to address creditor claims against the country. The sale to Amber Energy, a subsidiary of vulture fund Elliott Management, is pending authorization from the US Treasury Department.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Fusagasugá, Colombia.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department filed a new lawsuit Friday against Harvard University, saying its leadership failed to address antisemitism on campus, creating grounds for the government to freeze existing grants and seek repayment for grants already paid.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, is another salvo in a protracted battle between the administration of President Trump and the elite university.

“The United States cannot and will not tolerate these failures,” the Justice Department wrote in the lawsuit. It asked the court to compel Harvard to comply with federal civil rights law and to help it “recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution.”

The lawsuit also asks a judge to require that Harvard call police to arrest protesters blocking parts of campus and to appoint an “independent outside monitor,” approved by the government, to ensure it complies with court orders.

Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit comes after negotiations appear to have bogged down in the months-long battle with the Trump administration that has tested the boundaries of the government’s authority over America’s universities. What began as an investigation into campus antisemitism escalated into an all-out feud as the Trump administration slashed more than $2.6 billion in research funding, ended federal contracts and attempted to block Harvard from hosting international students.

In a pair of lawsuits filed by the university, Harvard has said it’s being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration’s views. A federal judge agreed in December, reversing the funding cuts and calling the antisemitism argument a “smokescreen.”

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, a major association of colleges and universities, accused the administration of launching a “full scale, multi-pronged” attack on Harvard. Friday’s lawsuit, he said, is just the latest attempt to pressure Harvard to agree to changes favored by the administration.

“When bullies pound on the table and don’t get they want, they pound again,” Mitchell said.

The Trump administration began investigating allegations of discrimination against Harvard’s Jewish and Israeli students less than two weeks after the president took office. The allegations focus on Harvard’s actions during and after pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the Israel-Hamas war.

Officials concluded Harvard did not adequately address concerns raised about antisemitism that drove some students to conceal their religious skullcaps and avoid classes. During protests of the war, Trump officials said, Harvard permitted students to demonstrate against Israel’s actions in the school library and allowed a pro-Palestinian encampment to remain on campus for 20 days, “in violation of university policy.”

In its lawsuit Friday, the Justice Department also accused Harvard of failing to discipline staff or students who protested or tacitly endorsed the demonstrations, such as by canceling or dismissing classes that conflicted with protests.

“Harvard University has failed to protect its Jewish students from harassment and has allowed discrimination to wreak havoc on its campus,” White House press secretary Liz Huston said Friday on X. “President Trump is committed to ensuring every student can pursue their academic goals in a safe environment.”

Despite their bitter dispute, Harvard and the Trump administration have held some negotiations, and the two sides have reportedly been close to reaching an agreement on multiple occasions. Last year, the administration and the university were reportedly approaching a deal that would have required Harvard to pay $500 million to regain access to federal funding and to end the investigations. Almost a year later, Trump upped that figure to $1 billion, saying that Harvard has been “behaving very badly.”

At the same time, the administration was taking steps in a civil rights investigation that had the potential to jeopardize all of Harvard’s federal funding.

In June, the Trump administration made a formal finding that Harvard tolerated antisemitism.

In a letter sent to Harvard, a federal task force said its investigation had found the university was a “willful participant” in antisemitic harassment of Jewish students and faculty. The task force threatened to refer the case to the Justice Department to file a civil rights lawsuit “as soon as possible,” unless Harvard came into compliance.

When colleges are found in violation of federal civil rights law, they almost always reach compliance through voluntary agreements. When the government determines a resolution can’t be negotiated, it can try to sever federal funding through an administrative process or, as the Trump administration has done, by referring the case to the Justice Department through litigation.

Such an impasse has been extraordinarily rare in recent decades.

Last summer, Harvard responded that it strongly disagreed with the government’s investigative finding and was committed to fighting bias.

“Antisemitism is a serious problem and no matter the context, it is unacceptable,” the university said in a statement. “Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism in its community.”

In a letter last spring, Harvard President Alan M. Garber told government officials that the school had formed a task force to combat antisemitism, which released a detailed report of what unfolded on campus after Hamas militants stormed Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel retaliated with an offensive that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population — prompting pro-Palestinian demonstrations at colleges around the country.

After the demonstrations at Harvard, Garber said the university had hired a new provost and new deans and that it had reformed its discipline policies to make them “more consistent, fair and effective.”

Since he took office, Trump has targeted elite universities he believes are overrun by left-wing ideology and antisemitism. His administration has frozen billions of dollars in research grants, which colleges have come to rely on for scientific and medical research.

Several universities have reached agreements with the White House to restore funding. Some deals have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million from Columbia University. Brown University agreed to pay $50 million toward state workforce development groups.

Balingit and Casey write for the Associated Press.

The Trump administration said Thursday that it has launched investigations into 13 states that require state-regulated health insurance plans to cover abortion.

The inquiries are the latest in a long-running dispute between the political parties on how to interpret a provision, known as the Weldon Amendment, that’s included in federal spending laws each year. It bars states from discriminating against health entities that don’t provide, cover or refer for abortion.

When Democrat Joe Biden was president, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ civil rights office said the provision didn’t pertain to employers or other healthcare sponsors. The Trump administration said this year that it does.

The administration says that potentially puts states with abortion coverage requirements in violation of the law, because they may not allow employers or other healthcare issuers to opt out. It said it was sending out letters to gather more information from those states.

The Health and Human Services civil rights office launched the investigations “to address certain states’ alleged disregard of, or confusion about, compliance with the Weldon Amendment,” office Director Paula M. Stannard said in a statement.

“Under the Weldon Amendment, health care entities, such as health insurance issuers and health plans, are protected from state discrimination for not paying for, or providing coverage of, abortion contrary to conscience. Period,” Stannard said.

The states with the coverage requirements are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. All except Vermont have Democratic governors.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement Thursday that she’ll defend her state’s policies.

“New Jersey requires health insurance plans to follow all applicable laws, including protecting women’s reproductive freedom. So Donald Trump’s latest ‘investigation’ is nothing but a fishing expedition wasting taxpayers’ money,” she said.

The Weldon Amendment is one of a series of provisions known as conscience laws, which provide legal protections for individuals and healthcare entities that choose to not provide abortions or other types of care because of religious or moral objections.

In the years since it was enacted in 2005, there’s been a “partisan swing” in how broadly or narrowly it is interpreted depending on which party is in office, according to Mary Ziegler, a law professor at UC Davis.

Ziegler said the fact that employers and plan sponsors are not mentioned among healthcare entities in the text of the Weldon Amendment could give Democrats an edge with their interpretation, but the question has yet to be resolved in court.

Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the Heritage Foundation’s massive policy proposal known as Project 2025 called for an incoming Trump administration to withhold Medicaid funding for states found to violate the Weldon Amendment.

“What we’re seeing here is the fulfillment of a promise to the religious right,” she said.

President Trump’s first administration in 2020 moved to withhold federal healthcare funding from California over what it interpreted as a Weldon Amendment violation, but the Biden administration entered office the next year and reversed the decision.

Mulvihill and Swenson write for the Associated Press.

The US defence secretary designated the AI company a ‘supply chain risk’ after it refused to remove guardrails on its technology.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has said in a court filing that the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic was justified and lawful, opposing the artificial intelligence company’s high-stakes lawsuit challenging the decision.

The administration made its comments in a court filing on Tuesday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic, the maker of popular AI assistant Claude, a national security supply chain risk on March 3 after the company refused to remove guardrails against its technology being used for autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance.

The Trump administration’s filing says Anthropic is unlikely to succeed in its claims that the US government’s action violated speech protections under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, asserting that the dispute stems from contract negotiations and national security concerns, not retaliation.

“It was only when Anthropic refused to release the restrictions on the use of its products — which refusal is conduct, not protected speech — that the President directed all federal agencies to terminate their business relationships with Anthropic,” the administration’s legal filing said. The filing, from the US Justice Department, said that “no one has purported to restrict Anthropic’s expressive activity”.

Anthropic’s lawsuit in California federal court asks a judge to block the Pentagon’s decision while the case plays out. Some legal experts say the company appears to have a strong case that the government overreached.

In a statement, Anthropic said it was reviewing the government’s filing. The company said that “seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Supply chain risk

Trump has backed Hegseth’s move, which excludes Anthropic from a limited set of military contracts. But it could damage the company’s reputation and cause billions of dollars in losses this year, according to its executives.

The designation came after months of negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic reached an impasse, prompting Trump and Hegseth to denounce the company and accuse it of endangering American lives with its use restrictions.

Anthropic has disputed those claims and said AI is not yet safe enough to be used in autonomous weapons. The company said it opposes domestic surveillance as a matter of principle.

In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic said that the “unprecedented and unlawful” designation violated its free speech and due process rights, while running afoul of a law requiring federal agencies to follow specific procedures when making decisions.

The Pentagon separately designated Anthropic a supply chain risk under a different law that could expand the order to the entire government.

Anthropic is challenging that move in a second lawsuit in a Washington, DC, appeals court.

Icelandic low‑cost airline PLAY entered administration and ceased operations on September 29, 2025, with all flights cancelled and around 400 staff affected

Hundreds of workers were made redundant after a low-cost carrier announced it had entered administration.

Icelandic airline PLAY, headquartered in Reykjavík, confirmed it had ceased operations and grounded all its flights last September. A statement on the carrier’s website at the time read: “Dear passenger, Fly PLAY hf. has ceased operations, and all flights have been cancelled.”

According to local media outlet RUV, the move resulted in 400 people facing redundancy, with the company “trying to pay staff their wages”. It is unclear whether the affected employees have received their full payments.

PLAY was established in July 2019, starting operations from its base at Keflavík International Airport, Reykjavik, in June 2021. The carrier initially served six European destinations: Alicante, Tenerife, London, Paris, Copenhagen and Berlin. PLAY also ran services between London and Reykjavik, although prior to the announcement there were no seats on sale after November 1.

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The board of PLAY said in a statement at the time: “The board of Fly Play hf. has decided to terminate operations, and all of the company’s flights have been cancelled. The company will work closely with authorities and employees to implement the necessary steps for winding down operations.

“There are many reasons behind this decision. The company’s performance has long fallen short of expectations, ticket sales have been poor in recent weeks and months following negative media coverage, and internal disagreements among some employees regarding strategic changes have further strained the situation.”

Information disclosed by the board concerned modifications that failed to produce the required outcomes. They added: “Last fall, Play introduced a new business model that initially inspired significant optimism.

“Unfortunately, it has now become clear that these changes cannot deliver the results needed to overcome the airline’s deep-seated financial troubles. In hindsight, these measures would have needed to be implemented much earlier.”

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security will soon be under new management, an opportunity to reset President Trump’s immigration agenda or to double down on his signature campaign promise to conduct the largest deportation operation in American history.

The White House’s political director recently encouraged party lawmakers during a retreat at the Republican president’s golf club in Florida to focus on immigration enforcement against criminals, a pivot from the mass deportation agenda he ran on. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the aggressive operations have created a “hiccup” for the party, which is now embarking on a “course correction.”

Yet all indications are that Trump’s mass deportation operation is not stalling but intensifying, with billions of dollars being spent to hire Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, build warehouse detention sites and meet the administration’s goal of rounding up and removing some 1 million immigrants from the U.S. this year.

“We are at an interesting moment where it has been an inflection point — the public has finally seen what mass detention and mass deportation mean,” said Sarah Mehta, who tracks the issue at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“This is not an agency that’s slowing down,” she said. “They’re really going forward with some of the cruelest policies.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the president’s policies have sent immigrants out of the U.S., either through forced deportations or on their own, and sealed up the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Nobody is changing the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda,” she said.

Senators ready to grill Trump’s DHS nominee over deportations

The questions put Homeland Security at a crossroads. Secretary Kristi Noem is on her way out, and Trump’s nominee to replace her, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, appears this week for Senate confirmation hearings.

After the intense deportation sweeps in Minneapolis and other cities — and the deaths of at least three U.S. citizens at the hands of officers — Democratic lawmakers are refusing to provide routine funding unless the department changes its policies.

At the same time, those who believe Trump won the White House with his mass deportation agenda are disappointed the administration did not achieve its goals last year and insist he must do better.

“There has been a lot of talk in Congress and now in the White House about kind of backing away from President Trump’s, candidate Trump’s, mass deportation promise,” said Rosemary Jenks, co-founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, which argues for deportations.

“We believe that now is an opportunity,” she said. “We’ve got to get the deportation numbers up.”

A nation of immigrants no longer?

The debate is playing out as the United States, celebrating its 250th year, squares its founding as a nation of immigrants with images of masked federal agents breaking car windows and detaining people suspected of being in the U.S. without proper legal standing.

The Congress, controlled by Republicans, provided some $170 billion in last year’s tax cuts bill to fuel the effort, more than tripling the budget of ICE.

GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, in a fiery speech, fought back against the Democrats’ proposed restraints. “This question about deporting illegal immigrants was on the ballot. President Trump was not bashful,” he said. “And the American people supported the idea that we are going to deport people.”

Yet there are signs of cracks in the Trump coalition. Some Republicans prefer what one called a more humane approach and are sharing their views with Mullin.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), considered a stalwart against illegal immigration, said in his state it’s immigrants who milk most of the dairy cows, and he’s heard from restaurant groups that rely on immigrants to fill jobs.

“Can we just turn back the clock and have … all these people who came in here illegally, just be back home?” he asked.

“In terms of actually implementing that, it’s a lot tougher — particularly, in fact, when you realize a lot of these people, most of them, came here to seek opportunity, wanting freedom,” he said. “They’re working, supporting their family, contributing to organizations and community.”

Mass deportation group wants more

The Mass Deportation Coalition, a group of conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation and Erik Prince, founder of the security firm Blackwater, was formed recently to keep the administration on track.

It calls last year’s focus on removing violent criminal immigrants “phase one” and says “phase two” should focus this year on deporting immigrants beyond those with violent criminal histories.

Mark Morgan, who served as acting head of ICE and Customs and Border Protection during Trump’s first term and is part of the coalition, said that doesn’t mean roving patrols through Home Depot parking lots. It’s about strategic enforcement focused on immigrants at worksites and those who have overstayed visas and whom a judge has already ordered removed, he said.

But they’re facing opposition from within the Republican Party, Morgan said, particularly from those who want to narrow deportation to mainly criminals and from business groups that want to ease up on worksite enforcement.

“The Republicans that are saying that their definition of targeted enforcement is only criminal, they’re wrong. They’re on the wrong side of this,” he said.

“That’s why you see some of the base that’s really becoming apoplectic because they’re like, ‘Wait a minute. You’re talking about only removing criminals now? That’s not what you promised,’” Morgan said.

What’s coming next

The deportation advocates as well as those working to protect the rights of immigrants see that the Trump administration’s best chance at reaching its goals is creating an environment so unwelcoming for immigrants that they just leave — what’s often called self-deportation.

Mehta, at the ACLU, expects the administration will step up efforts to end temporary permissions that allow immigrants to remain in the U.S. — particularly refugees and asylum seekers — while their cases are making their way through the system. She called it a “deliberate attempt to make people undocumented — to take away lawful status — and then to be able to enforce against them.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said he fears that more nonviolent immigrants will be rounded up to fill the new warehouses being equipped as the Trump administration tries to reach its deportation goals.

That’s unacceptable, he said, and among “the key questions that Senator Mullin will have to answer at his confirmation hearing.”

Mascaro, Santana and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration likes to promote its immigration enforcement agenda through numbers, with ambitious goals to deport 1 million people, report zero releases at the U.S.-Mexico border and arrest thousands of alleged gang members.

For all the boasting, the administration has been releasing less reliable, carefully vetted data than its predecessors on a signature policy that has become one of the most contentious of Trump’s second term.

The gap in information and a loss of figures from an office that has tracked immigration data back to the 1800s have left researchers, advocates, lawyers and journalists without important statistics to hold the Republican administration to account.

“They aren’t publishing the data,” said Mike Howell, who heads the conservative Oversight Project, an advocacy group pushing for more deportations. Instead, Howell said, the Department of Homeland Security has put out numbers in news releases “that purport to be statistics with no statistical backup and the numbers have jumped all over the place.”

With mass deportations a priority, new restrictions and increased enforcement have led to a surge in immigration arrests, detentions and deportations.

But finding the metrics that once measured those changes can be hard. It is an extension of earlier administration moves to limit the flow of government information by scrubbing or removing federal datasets or by the firing last year of the top official overseeing jobs data.

Important data is no longer publicly available

The Office of Homeland Security Statistics is responsible for publishing figures from Homeland Security agencies, including removals and the nationalities of those deported, to provide a comprehensive picture of immigration trends at the border and inside the United States.

Originally known as the Office of Immigration Statistics, it tracked such data since 1872. In its current form, created under the Biden administration, it also started publishing monthly reports that allowed researchers to track developments almost in real time.

But key enforcement metrics on its website have not been updated since early last year. A note on the page where the monthly reports were says it “is delayed while it is under review.”

“It’s the most timely data. It’s the most reliable data,” Austin Kocher, research professor at Syracuse University who closely follows immigration data trends, said about the monthly reports. “It has the most omniscient view of immigration enforcement across the entire agency.”

An interactive dashboard launched by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December 2023 once let users examine whom the agency was arresting, their nationalities, criminal histories and removal numbers. ICE called it a “new era in transparency.”

Though intended for quarterly updates, the latest data is from January 2025. The agency’s annual report, typically released in December, had not been published as of mid-March.

Other agencies also publish data that touches on immigration, and parts of it do continue to roll out, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics detailing border encounters or data from the Department of Justice’s immigration courts.

But experts say other data has slowed.

The State Department’s most recent visa issuance data is from August. Key statistics from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have not been updated since October.

The now-missing data had helped researchers study the effects of different policies. Lawyers could cite the figures to support their litigation. Journalists saw in them a powerful tool to hold the government to account on public claims or to report on important trends.

“We’re all a little bit in the dark about exactly how immigration enforcement is operating at a time when it’s taking new and unprecedented forms,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute.

DHS did not respond to detailed questions about why it was no longer releasing specific data.

“This is the most transparent Administration in history, we release new data multiple times a week and upon reporter request,” the department said in a statement.

Researchers contend with a patchwork of numbers

Figures the administration has released are inconsistent and unverifiable.

In a Jan. 20 news release, DHS said it had deported more than 675,000 people since Trump returned to the White House. A day later, in a second release, the department put the figure at 622,000. In congressional testimony March 4, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the figure was 700,000.

But ICE, an agency within DHS, also releases figures on how many people it has removed from the country, part of a large data release mandated by Congress. An Associated Press analysis of the figures put that number at roughly 400,000 over Trump’s first year.

DHS has said 2.2 million people who were in the U.S. illegally have gone home on their own, but the department has given no explanation for the count. Experts have questioned the source of that figure, saying this was not something that DHS historically has tracked.

The department did not respond to questions about where that data came from.

With key sources of data halted, researchers, advocates and others have had to rely on information the administration is obliged to report or that has come to light through legal action.

The publication of ICE detention figures — how many people are detained, for how long and whether they have committed a crime — is required by Congress and is generally released every two weeks. But the figures’ release has faced some delays and its data gets overwritten with every new publication, complicating the work of people who need access to it.

The University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project, a research initiative, successfully sued through the Freedom of Information Act to access data about ICE arrests including nationalities, conviction status and whether arrests occurred at jails or in the community.

Graeme Blair, co-director of the project, said every administration has struggled with transparency in immigration enforcement, and given the Trump administration’s ambitious enforcement goals, the team wanted to secure and verify information that the government might not publicly release.

“Given the scale of what they were talking about doing, it seemed really important to be able to understand, to be able to double check those numbers,” he said.

But there are limitations, he said. The data obtained through the lawsuit only runs through Oct. 15. It does not cover recent operations such as the Minneapolis enforcement surge, when federal immigration officers fatally shot two protesters, leading to widespread demonstrations and scrutiny of enforcement tactics.

The absence of data is one of the few issues that has drawn bipartisan criticism.

“We deserve to know the numbers, just like we deserve to know who’s in our country and who needs to leave,” Howell said.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio had some explaining to do when he arrived on Capitol Hill for a classified briefing with lawmakers in early March.

Members of Congress wanted to know why, two days earlier on Feb. 28, the United States and Israel had attacked Iran and killed its supreme leader — without notifying them first. After the briefing, Rubio told reporters the U.S. preemptively struck Iran to get ahead of an Israeli attack. A day later, he tried to clarify his remarks.

“The bottom line is this: The president determined we were not going to get hit first,” Rubio said. “It’s that simple, guys.”

For members of Congress, the moment underscored how marginal a role Congress has been able to play in a war that, two weeks in, has spread into more than a dozen neighboring countries, led to the deaths of at least 13 American service members and cost billions of dollars.

In the two weeks since the war began, Congress has largely been sidelined. Lawmakers have cycled through classified briefings, TV interviews and hallway scrums with reporters, but have taken little formal action related to Trump’s war efforts — just two unsuccessful votes aimed at limiting the conflict.

Most of the debate has taken place online, where some GOP lawmakers have drawn rebukes from colleagues for saying America “needs more Islamophobia” and other Islamophobic rhetoric about Iran and its people.

At the same time, Trump has pressed Congress to focus instead on a controversial voting law, signaling to the Republican-led Congress that he wants their focus on the election rather than a historic moment abroad. The president, meanwhile, has offered shifting explanations on how much longer he intends to be at war in the Middle East, telling Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Friday that he will conclude the hostilities when “I feel it in my bones.”

Taking Trump’s statements at face value, Democrats and some Republicans have begun to worry that more American troops could be deployed inside Iran to complete the mission — and lawmakers are still trying to understand the war’s threat to the global energy markets as fighting encroaches on the Strait of Hormuz and Americans face soaring gas prices.

The Republican majorities have for the most part rallied behind President Trump, and have blocked measures in both the House and Senate that would have halted the war against Iran and forced him to seek congressional approval for additional hostilities.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) likened efforts to rein in Trump’s war efforts to siding “with the enemy.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was even more effusive, arguing there is a precedent for presidents using military force without congressional authority.

“The norm in this country is not to declare war by Congress, but for the military to be used by the commander in chief. Sometimes authorization from the Congress is requested, sometimes it is not,” Graham said during a Senate floor speech. “More than not, it is not requested.”

Presidents have frequently used military force without a formal declaration of war — including in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq — but experts argue there is a difference between bypassing a formal declaration and sidelining Congress altogether.

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who served under President Obama, pointed to the 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as an example of how the process once worked.

Even though it was a covert Special Forces operation, Panetta said, he personally briefed key congressional leaders before Bin Laden’s killing took place.

That kind of consultation, he said, no longer happens. Instead, lawmakers learn about military operations the same way ordinary Americans do — by watching the news — and then demand to be briefed, he said.

“By that time, the country is pretty much committed to war,” Panetta said.

Presidents of both parties have expanded their power to wage war unilaterally, but Panetta said he believes Trump has crossed a new threshold by dispensing not just with congressional approval but with the courtesy of a briefing.

“It’s not good for our democracy. It’s not a good process,” he said. “It’s not what our forefathers would have wanted.”

Rubio, however, has argued the administration has kept congressional leaders apprised. He told reporters there is no legal requirement to notify all members of Congress and that he briefed the Gang of Eight — a group made up of the top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as the leaders of the respective intelligence committees — within 48 hours of the attack against Iran.

“We notified congressional leadership,” Rubio said. “The law says we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities. We’ve done that.”

In the statement issued Friday, the White House defended the president’s approach to the war in relation to how its involved Congress, adding that Trump and administration officials “continue to keep bipartisan lawmakers in Congress apprised of the operation as the United States continues to dominate.”

“Past presidents have talked about this for 47 years — but only President Trump has had the courage to do something about it,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said.

Democrats say they’re ‘flying blind’

Democratic lawmakers, including some who have been included in classified briefings, have accused administration officials of keeping them “in the dark” and are beginning to demand public congressional hearings.

“I want this administration to testify in public, under oath, regarding a bunch of questions we have in order for the American people to see for themselves,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). “I do believe this administration has lied to the American public and Congress.”

Gomez, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he never expected that he would have to spend so much time trying to discern if the administration is lying to lawmakers.

“I think it’s that’s what makes the job harder,” he said.

Democrats, who are in the minority, have limited power to call those briefings, but have continued to put pressure on the administration in a public way.

Senate Democrats last week sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, demanding answers by Wednesday about reports that a U.S. airstrike hit an Iranian elementary school.

Iranian officials said the explosion killed at least 175 people, most of them children. The U.S. has not taken responsibility for the attack, and Hegseth has said the matter is under investigation. Trump, without providing evidence, has claimed Iran was responsible for the attack.

Seeking answers has been a common theme among Democrats since the start of the war. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), for instance, said after a classified briefing last week that he had “left with more questions than answers” and a real concern about the possibility of deploying American troops to Iran.

Power of the purse

If the war continues, Congress still retains some leverage.

Under the War Powers Resolution passed by Congress in 1973, unauthorized deployments into hostile situations must end after 60 days unless Congress votes to declare war or passes legislation authorizing the use of the military.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he has told Hegseth and Rubio that if they violate that provision it will be like “stealing money” for actions that are not approved by Congress and warned they could be held civilly liable.

The 60-day deadline will be a key moment for Congress to step in, Sherman said; otherwise there will be growing concern about Trump having “unchecked power.”

So far, he thinks Republicans in control view their job as “butler to the president,” and that the Constitution already gives Trump “too much power over the military.”

“If Congress is controlled by people who want to be servants to the president, it’s going to do an incredibly bad job of being a check on the president,” he said.

Beyond the War Powers Resolution, lawmakers also have power over the appropriations process and could deny the administration’s request to boost military funding.

“The Congress can stop military action by cutting off funding. If you don’t like the war in Iran, say we won’t pay for it. We have the constitutional power of the purse,” Graham said in a Senate floor speech early in March.

The Trump administration’s war with Iran cost $11.3 billion during its first six days, according to the Associated Press.

But Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Diego), who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, says he is aware of the figure only because of news reports — not because the Pentagon has been transparent.

“We are flying blind in the sense that we just don’t know. We don’t know how much is being spent or what it’s being spent on,” Levin said.

Levin says the military will probably need to bolster its munitions stockpile at the rate the conflict is going.

If the Pentagon does request more money, Levin said, he would try to ensure that “not one more dollar goes toward any of this without clear answers and a clear plan.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is stepping up its ambitious effort to replace about $1.6 trillion in lost tariff revenue that was eliminated by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a range of the president’s import taxes.

Recovering that lost revenue, which the White House was counting on to help offset the steep, multitrillion-dollar cost of its tax cuts, is possible but will be challenging, experts say. The administration has to use different legal provisions to impose new import taxes, and those provisions require longer, complex processes that U.S. companies can use to seek exemptions. It could be months or more before it is clear how much revenue the replacement tariffs will yield.

“I wouldn’t bet against this administration being able to get back on paper the same effective tariff rate they had before,” said Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. But the new approach will “make it easier for people to contest the tariffs, which is going to put a big asterisk on the revenue until all that is settled.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the administration will investigate 16 economies — including the European Union — over whether their governments are subsidizing excessive factory capacity in a way that disadvantages U.S. manufacturing. The investigation will also cover China, South Korea and Japan, Greer said.

In addition, he said, there would be a second investigation of dozens of countries to see whether their failure to ban goods made by forced labor amounts to an unfair trade practice that harms the United States. That investigation will also cover the EU and China, as well as Mexico, Canada, Australia and Brazil.

Both investigations are being conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which requires the administration to consult with the targeted countries, as well as hold public hearings and allow affected U.S. industries to comment. A hearing as part of the factory capacity investigation will be held May 5, while a hearing on the forced labor investigation will occur April 28.

It’s a far cry from the emergency law that President Trump relied on in his first year in office, which allowed him to immediately impose tariffs on any country, at nearly any level, simply by issuing an executive order.

Moments after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports under a separate legal authority, but that duty can only last for 150 days. The president has said he would raise it to 15%, the maximum allowed, but has yet to do so. Some two dozen states have already challenged the new taxes. The administration is aiming to complete its Section 301 investigations before the 10% duties expire.

The effort underscores the importance that the Trump White House has placed on tariffs as a revenue-raiser at a time when the federal government is facing huge annual budget deficits for decades into the future. Previous administrations, by contrast, used tariffs more sparingly to narrowly protect specific industries.

Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, noted that the first investigation covers roughly 70% of imports, while the second would cover nearly all of them.

“That breadth suggests the goal isn’t to address the issues at hand, but instead to re-create a sweeping tariff tool,” she said.

Trump portrays tariffs as a way to force foreign countries to essentially help pay the cost of U.S. government services, even though all recent economic studies find that American companies and consumers are paying the duties, including analyses by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and economists at Harvard University. In his State of the Union address last month, Trump even touted his tariffs as a potential replacement for the income tax, which would return the United States’ tax regime to the late 19th century.

Trump also wants tariffs to help pay for the tax cuts he extended in key legislation last year. The tax cut legislation is expected, according to the most recent estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to add $4.7 trillion to the national debt over a decade, while all Trump’s import taxes, including ones not struck down by the court, were projected to offset about $3 trillion — or two-thirds of that cost.

The high court’s ruling Feb. 20 that he could no longer impose emergency tariffs eliminated about $1.6 trillion in expected revenue over the next decade, according to the CBO.

Some of Trump’s import taxes remain place, including previous tariffs on China and Canada that were imposed after earlier 301 investigations. The administration has also imposed tariffs on some specific products, including steel, lumber and cars. Those, combined with the 10% tariff for part of this year, should yield about $668 billion over the next decade, the Tax Foundation estimates.

“It’s going to take a really big patchwork of these other investigations to make up for the [lost] tariffs,” York said.

The administration’s efforts are also unusual because they reflect an overreliance on tariffs to bring in more government revenue. Trump has also said the import taxes are intended to return manufacturing to the United States — manufacturing jobs, however, are down since he returned to office — and he has used the tariffs to leverage trade deals.

“What makes this really different,” said Kent Smetters, executive director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, “it is really the first time tariffs have been mainly used as a revenue raiser.”

Patel, meanwhile, argues that raising revenue can be done more reliably and straightforwardly by Congress. Laws like Section 301 are traditionally intended to be used to address specific trade policy concerns in particular countries.

“It’s not supposed to be there to raise revenue,” she said. “If we want to raise revenue through tariffs, then Congress should impose a broad based tariff.”

Rugaber writes for the Associated Press.

The administration of President Donald Trump has warned that news outlets could have their broadcasting licences revoked over critical reporting on the war against Iran, accusing the media of “distortions”.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said in a social media post on Saturday that broadcasters must “operate in the public interest”, or else lose their licences.

“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote.

The warning was the latest apparent threat from Carr, who has repeatedly attracted scrutiny for statements that appear to pressure broadcasters to conform with Trump priorities.

Last year, for instance, Carr called on the channel ABC and its distributors to “find ways to change conduct, to take action” on comedian Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night show had been critical of the president.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said of Kimmel on a podcast. ABC temporarily suspended Kimmel’s show in the aftermath of those comments.

Carr’s latest statement prompted swift condemnation from politicians and free-speech advocates, who likened his remarks to censorship.

“This is a clear directive to provide positive war coverage or else licenses may not be renewed,” Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii wrote.

“This is worse than the comedian stuff, and by a lot. The stakes here are much higher. He’s not talking about late night shows, he’s talking about how a war is covered.”

Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy at the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), likewise denounced Carr for seeking to silence negative war coverage.

“The First Amendment doesn’t allow the government to censor information about the war it’s waging,” Terr said.

Trump denounces war coverage

Carr’s latest statement came in response to a social media post from Trump, accusing the “fake news media” of reporting that US refuelling planes had been struck in an Iranian attack in Saudi Arabia.

“The base was hit a few days ago, but the planes were not ‘struck’ or ‘destroyed’,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Four of the five had virtually no damage, and are already back in service.”

He added that reporting to the contrary was intentionally misleading. “Lowlife ‘Papers’ and Media actually want us to lose the War,” he wrote.

The president and his allies have faced accusations that they use the power of the state to penalise dissent and critical news coverage, raising concerns about press freedom.

Polling shows that the war, launched by the US and Israel on February 28, is largely unpopular in the US.

A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 53 percent of voters oppose the military action against Iran, including 89 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independent voters.

The war has also been condemned by legal experts as a clear violation of international law, which prohibits unprovoked attacks.

Trump, however, has offered shifting rationales as to why he believes Iran posed an imminent threat to US security.

He has also asserted that the war is proceeding successfully, despite ongoing Iranian attacks on US forces across the region and the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade artery.

“We’ve won. Let me tell you, we’ve won,” he told a rally this week in Kentucky. “In the first hour, it was over.”

His administration, meanwhile, has blamed the news media for turning public opinion against the war.

“Yet some in this crew, in the press, just can’t stop,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during a briefing on Friday.

A former Fox News host, Hegseth called for “patriotic” reporters to write more optimistic headlines instead. He denounced TV banners that read, for example, “Mideast war intensifies.”

“What should the banner read instead? How about ‘Iran increasingly desperate’? Because they are. They know it, and so do you, if it can be admitted,” Hegseth said.

He criticised the news outlet CNN, in particular, for a report asserting that the Trump administration had underestimated the chances of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz.

Hegseth quipped that he hoped a prospective deal would soon place CNN under the control of David Ellison, son of close Trump ally and tech executive Larry Ellison.

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” he added.

Despite morale-sapping staff layoffs, bizarre executive orders and a 43-day federal government shutdown last fall, the grandeur and serenity of national parks in California remain irresistible to outdoors lovers looking to unwind.

The nine national parks in the Golden State — including Yosemite, Death Valley and Joshua Tree — attracted nearly 12 million recreational visits in 2025, according to statistics from the National Park Service.

That’s up more than 800,000 visits from 2024 and up more than 300,000 from the previous record set in 2019, according to the data, which stretches back to 1979.

Nationally, visits were high, at 323 million, but down a couple of percentage points from the record set in 2024, according to a park service press release.

“America’s national parks continue to be places where people come to experience our country’s history, landscapes and shared heritage,” said Jessica Bowron, acting director of the NPS.

“We are committed to keeping parks open, accessible and well-managed so visitors can safely enjoy these extraordinary places today and for generations to come,” Bowron added.

President Trump’s critics beg to differ.

Since Trump resumed office in January 2025, his administration has slashed the NPS workforce by nearly a quarter, buying out or laying off hundreds of rangers, maintenance workers, scientists and administrative staff across the country.

And last year, as part of his war on “woke,” Trump instructed the park service to scrub all signs and presentations of language he would deem negative, unpatriotic or smacking of “improper partisan ideology.”

He also ordered administrators to remove any content that “inappropriately disparages Americans” living or dead, and replace it with language that celebrates the nation’s greatness.

That gets tricky at places such as Manzanar National Historic Site in the high desert of eastern California — one of 10 camps where the U.S. government imprisoned more than 120,000 Japanese American civilians during World War II.

It’s also hard to dance around disparaging details at Fort Sumter National Monument, where Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War; Ford’s Theater National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; and Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, which commemorates the assassination of the country’s best known civil rights leader.

“This administration is actively erasing the history, science and culture that our national parks protect,” said Emily Douce, deputy vice president for government affairs for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn.

Douce argued that morale among staff at the parks — a string of 63 federally protected natural wonders often described as “America’s best idea” — has never been lower.

But the fact that employees still showed up, including without pay during last year’s federal government shutdown, demonstrates their commitment to keeping the beloved parks flourishing.

“The enduring popularity of America’s national parks is not surprising,” Douce added. “What’s shocking is this administration’s relentless attacks on these places and their caretakers, which threatens their future.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The National Park Service is routinely ranked among the most admired branches of the large and sprawling federal government. Even Americans who have never watched a minute of C-SPAN, or get a little lost in the alphabet soup of other agencies, will probably never forget standing in Yosemite Valley and admiring a towering waterfall.

There were 4.3 million visits to Yosemite in 2025, 2.9 million to Joshua Tree and 1.3 million to Death Valley, according to the data.

The 323 million visits to America’s national parks in 2025 are more than twice the attendance — 135 million — at professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey games combined.

Of course, it’s a lot cheaper to get into a park. U.S. residents pay between $20 and $35 per vehicle for a day pass, or $80 for an annual pass. The Trump administration recently raised the annual fee to $250 for foreign visitors.

National Park Service officials did not respond to emails requesting comment on California’s 2025 attendance.

March 11 (UPI) — A bipartisan group of senators penned a letter to the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday calling for an investigation into the Justice Department over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files release.

The letter accuses the Justice Department of noncompliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the bipartisan law overwhelmingly passed by both chambers of Congress last year. The lawmakers shared concern that the department has still not released all of the files it is required to by the law, despite a December deadline.

Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, signed the letter. They also shared concerns about the files that have been released, including victims’ names not being redacted and alleged coconspirators’ names being redacted.

The Government Accountability Office is an independent and nonpartisan agency in the legislative branch. Its purpose is to operate as a watchdog over the federal government, with the authority to investigate and perform audits.

“Contrary to Congress’s explicit directive to protect victims, these records included email addresses and nude photos in which the names and faces of publicly-identified and non-public victims could be identified,” the letter said. “But when it came to information identifying powerful business and political figures who are alleged coconspirators or material witnesses, DOJ appears to have heavily redacted those.”

The senators are requesting that Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown reviews the department’s process it used to review, redact and release the files. They specify that they want the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the release of the files “has serve to cover up child sexual abuse.”

The Epstein files have continued to be a source of contention between lawmakers and the Trump administration more than two months after the Justice Department was required by law to release the files.

Lawmakers have pushed for answers about the delayed and mistake-filled release from Attorney General Pam Bondi, leading to fiery exchanges in a House Judiciary Committee hearing last month.

The House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena for Bondi’s testimony last week. Five Republicans joined all of the Democrats in the committee in voting for the subpoena.

“This horrific scandal is one where powerful, wealthy men groomed, abused, and raped young women, men, and children,” the letter from the senators reads. “It is critical to understand what led to DOJ’s failure to redact the victims; information and re-victimize those individuals while violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act in its redactions of information related to their alleged abusers.”

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for a Sacramento DACA recipient who was deported to Mexico last month have filed a lawsuit against the federal government seeking her immediate return to the U.S.

Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, 42, was detained Feb. 18 during a scheduled interview for her green card application. She was deported to Mexico the next day, despite having active deportation protection through the Obama-era program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

According to the lawsuit, Estrada Juarez, who worked as a regional manager for Motel 6, was deported without being provided notice of a lawful removal order and without the opportunity to fight her case before an immigration judge.

“Maria’s deportation was unlawful and violated basic principles of due process,” said her attorney Stacy Tolchin. “She had a valid DACA status, she appeared for her immigration appointment as instructed, and she should never have been removed from the country.”

Estrada Juarez’s case garnered public attention and outrage from members of Congress, including Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), after being published in the Sacramento Bee.

According to her lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday,it’s unclear whether an order for her removal was ever issued. And even if one was issued, the complaint says, “Petitioner could not legally be removed from the United States while in DACA status.”

The complaint states that the one document Estrada Juarez received was a verification of her physical removal from the U.S. — not a removal order. The document states that she is barred from returning to the U.S. for 10 years because she had been ordered removed by an immigration judge.

The lawsuit calls that contention untrue — Estrada Juarez has never been in removal proceedings and has never seen an immigration judge. Her arrest at her immigration interview was the first time she learned she had been ordered removed in 1998.

The Department of Homeland Security told The Times that a judge had ordered Estrada Juarez’s deportation in 1998 “and she was removed from the United States shortly after.”

“She illegally re-entered the U.S. — a felony,” Homeland Security said. “She was arrested and her final order re-instated. ICE removed her from the U.S. on February 19, 2026.”

In 2014, Estrada Juarez went to Mexico using a travel permission for DACA recipients known as advance parole. She reentered the U.S. legally on Dec. 28, 2014.

According to the lawsuit, “reinstatement of removal requires an illegal reentry, and Petitioner’s last entry was on advance parole so would not fall under that ground.”

The lawsuit includes an emergency request for the federal government to facilitate Estrada Juarez’s return while the case is pending.

Estrada Juarez applied for legal permanent residency, or a green card, through her daughter, Damaris Bello, 22, a U.S. citizen. Her DACA status is valid until April 23, according to the lawsuit, and she has a pending renewal application.

Estrada Juarez said the U.S., where she lived for 27 years since her arrival at age 15, is the only home she has ever known.

“I followed the rules and showed up to my immigration appointment believing I was taking the next step toward stability,” she said. “Instead, I was taken away from my daughter and forced out of the country overnight.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump promised that 2026 would be a bumper year for economic growth, but instead it has kicked off with job losses, rising gasoline prices and more uncertainty about America’s future.

In his State of the Union address less than two weeks ago, the Republican president confidently told the country: “The roaring economy is roaring like never before.” The latest batch of data on jobs, pump prices and the stock market suggests that Trump’s roar has started to sound far more like a whimper.

There is a gap between the boom that Trump has predicted and the volatile results he has produced — one that could set the tone in this year’s midterm elections as he tries to defend his party’s majorities in the House and Senate. With Trump’s tariffs uncertainty ongoing, the war in Iran has suddenly created inflationary concerns regarding oil and natural gas.

The White House says it is still early in the year and stronger growth is coming.

No signs of a jobs boom

“WOW! The Golden Age of America is upon us!!!” Trump posted on social media Feb. 11 after the monthly jobs report showed gains of 130,000 jobs in January.

Since then, the job market has evaporated in worrisome ways.

Friday’s employment report showed job losses of 92,000 in February. The January and December figures were revised downward, with December swinging to a loss of 17,000 jobs. Monthly data can be rocky, but a trend has emerged that shows an enduring weakness. Without the healthcare sector, the economy would have shed roughly 202,000 jobs since Trump became president in January 2025. His administration notes construction job gains outside of the housing sector, which it says point to future hiring growth.

Trump often claims that jobs are going to people born in the United States, rather than to immigrants. But the latest report punctured some of that argument.

The unemployment rate for people born in the U.S. has climbed over the last 12 months to 4.7% from 4.4%. This means a greater share of the people who Trump said would get jobs because of his immigration crackdown are, in fact, searching for work.

Prices at the pump are going up

“Slashing energy costs is among the most important actions we can take to bring down prices for American consumers,” Trump said in a February speech in Texas just before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. “Because when you cut the cost of energy, you really cut — you just cut the cost of everything.”

The president has repeatedly told Americans that keeping gas costs low would be key to defeating inflation. He has talked up the decline, citing figures that were far below the national average to persuade the public that driving was getting cheaper.

But the strikes against Iran that began Feb. 28 have, for the moment, crushed that narrative. Prices at the pump have jumped 19% over the last month to a national average of $3.45, according to AAA. The investment bank Goldman Sachs warned in an analyst note that, if higher oil prices persist, inflation could rise from its 2.4% reading in January to 3% by the end of the year.

The administration is banking on plans to contain any energy price increases, essentially betting that either the conflict will end shortly or the administration can succeed in getting more tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump advisors on Sunday sought to assure anxious Americans that surging fuel prices are a short-term problem.

“We never know exactly the timeframe of this,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on CNN’s “State of the Union. “But in the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months thing.”

Stocks are off their highs

“You know, we set the all-time record in history with the Dow going to 50,000,” Trump said Thursday at the White House.

This frequently repeated talking point has grown stale. The Dow Jones industrial average, one of Trump’s preferred measures of success, has dropped 5% over the last month. Stocks are up during his presidency, just as they were when Democrat Joe Biden was president. The recent decline could be reversed if the war with Iran ends and companies see solid profits over the next year and beyond. The recent dip, however, should be a warning sign as the administration has stressed the importance of more people investing in the stock market through vehicles such as “Trump accounts” for children.

The stock market has become a barometer of how people feel about the economy, with stock investors tending to have more confidence and those without money in the markets being more pessimistic.

Joanna Hsu, the director of the University of Michigan’s surveys of consumers, noted that in February a “sizable” increase in sentiment among people owning stocks “was fully offset by a decline among consumers without stock holdings.”

Productivity is up, but workers aren’t benefiting

Trump can point to a win in that the economy has become more productive — generating more value for each hour of work. That is a positive sign for long-term growth in the U.S. and a reflection of its strong tech sector.

Business sector labor productivity climbed 2.8% in the fourth quarter of last year, the Labor Department reported Thursday. But the challenge is that the gains might not be spread to workers in the form of higher pay as labor’s share of income last year fell to the lowest level on record, noted Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project, a nonprofit aligned with liberal economic issues.

Economy grew at a faster pace under Biden

“Under the Biden administration, America was plagued by the nightmare of stagflation, meaning low growth and high inflation — a recipe for misery, failure and decline,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.

The scoreboard tells a far different story, one that makes Biden’s track record in 2024 look better than Trump’s performance last year. The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8% pace during Biden’s last year, compared with 2.2% under Trump in 2025.

As for inflation, the primary measure used by the Federal Reserve is the personal consumption expenditures price index. It was 2.6% in both 2024 and 2025.

Trump has staked his economic argument on doing better than Biden. But while he has avoided the inflation spikes that haunted Biden’s presidency — amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — Trump has not delivered stronger growth or more hiring.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

The United States-Israeli war with Iran continues to rage, as Washington pledges to send more troops and military assets to the Middle East and Tehran widens its retaliatory strikes across the region.

But on Thursday, top officials under US President Donald Trump shifted focus to another military front: Latin America.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has indicated he plans to exert US dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere. His push for control has coincided with military operations against alleged criminal networks across the region.

At Thursday’s inaugural “Americas Counter Cartel Conference”, speakers such as White House security adviser Stephen Miller assured reporters that Latin America would remain a top military priority for the US, regardless of events in the Middle East.

“We are not going to cede an inch of territory in this hemisphere to our enemies or adversaries,” Miller said, adding the US was “using hard power, military power, lethal force, to protect and defend the American homeland”.

Miller further maintained there is no “criminal justice solution” to drug cartels, which he likened to armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).

Organised crime, he concluded, “can only be defeated with military power”.

Since Trump took office last year, his administration has applied what experts describe as a “global war on terror” approach to Latin America, including by labelling drug cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”.

Figures like Miller, a key architect behind Trump’s hardline immigration policies, have championed the president’s militaristic approach, even as critics warn it raises human rights and legal concerns.

Last September, for instance, the administration began striking alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, in what rights groups have decried as extrajudicial killings.

And in early January, the US launched an extraordinary operation to abduct Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. It has since pursued a pressure campaign against Cuba designed to weaken its communist government.

Just this week, on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced it had launched joint operations with Ecuador’s military “against Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the South American country.

The announcement indicated a new front for US military actions in the region, which officials have said could include land operations.

But the broadening scope of Trump’s military involvement in Latin America, combined with the nascent war with Iran, has raised questions about the US’s ability to sustain such intense military activity.

Prepared to ‘go on offence alone’

The “Americas Counter Cartel Conference” came as Latin American leaders arrived in South Florida to attend a regional summit hosted by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Attendees included officials from the Trump-allied conservative governments in Argentina, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

But despite support from several regional governments, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth nevertheless told the audience that the US was “prepared to take on” Latin America’s cartels and “go on the offence alone, if necessary”.

“However, it is our preference — and it is the goal of this conference — that, in the interest of this neighbourhood, we all do it together,” Hegseth added.

The secretary also praised Trump’s take on the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which sought to establish a US sphere of influence, separate from Europe, in the Western Hemisphere. Administration officials have dubbed Trump’s parallel approach the “Donroe doctrine”.

Hegseth framed the administration’s attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats as a keystone of Trump’s effort to maintain regional influence.

The US military has carried out at least 44 aerial strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, resulting in an estimated 150 known deaths.

The identities of the victims have not been released, with several family members saying fishermen and informal workers were among those targeted.

The Pentagon chief said the approach was meant to “establish deterrence”.

“If the consequence was simply to be arrested and then released, well, that’s a consequence they’d already priced in a long time ago,” Hegseth said.

He then pointed to a “few weeks” in February in which there were no strikes on alleged drug boats.

The pause in attacks, he said, was evidence of the strategy’s success. But that break notably came as the US surged assets to the Middle East.

Emphasis on ‘heritage’

Neither Hegseth nor Miller specifically referred to the war with Iran, but the pair touched on themes that have been present in the administration’s messaging on the war.

Trump, for example, said Iran’s government “waged war against civilisation itself”. There have been reports, meanwhile, that US military officials have referenced the biblical “end times” as a religious underpinning for the war.

Those remarks have reflected what critics consider Trump’s embrace of Christian nationalism and his view of the Americas as a European-derived “civilisation” threatened by outside forces.

At Thursday’s conference, Miller himself referenced violence in European history as justification for the modern-day military actions in Latin America.

There were periods in European history throughout the 18th and 19th centuries during which “ruthless means were used to get rid of the people who were raping and murdering and defying established systems of order and justice,” Miller said.

He also echoed Trump’s allegation that Europe was facing “civilisational erasure” as a result of left-wing leadership and immigration.

“The reason why many Western countries are struggling today is they’ve forgotten the eternal truth and wisdoms they once followed,” Miller said.

Hegseth, meanwhile, described all the countries at Thursday’s meeting as “offsprings of Western civilisation”.

Representatives in attendance, he said, faced a test “whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders and prosperous people ruled not by violence and chaos but by law”.

He added that foreign “incursions” represent “existential questions” for the region, seemingly referencing the growing influence of China as an economic and political partner in the Americas.

Israel, Iran, ICE, dyslexia, single moms and a pet otter named Potter were among the subjects discussed Tuesday evening at California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s tour stop in Los Angeles to promote his new book, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery.”

Speaking to a sold-out crowd of around 1,300 at L.A.’s historic Wilshire Ebell Theatre, the hourlong Q&A hosted by Writers Bloc and moderated by “Pod Save America” hosts John Favreau and Tommy Vietor was equal parts a get-to-know-the-man-behind-the-mask chat and a timely discussion about challenges facing the country.

The engaging discussion was clearly geared toward dispelling the image of Newsom as “that slick guy” (his own words), by covering his journey from an insecure, cocky young man trying to impress those around him to an adult who, through his successes and follies, has become comfortable in his own skin.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and moderators Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor promoting Newsom’s new book, “Young Man in a Hurry.”

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

He described his young, pre-politician self as posing in a suit: “I was thinking I was Pierce Brosnan in ‘Remington Steele.’ I just discovered hair gel,” Newsom joked. He said in those early years he was often overcompensating for his own feelings of inadequacy as the son of a single mom who struggled to pay the rent. As a kid with learning differences, whose undiagnosed dyslexia put him behind in school. Whose “broke and broken” father neglected his family while hobnobbing with wealthy San Francisco families, including the heirs of the Getty oil fortune.

A chatty, relaxed and sometimes free-associating Newsom rarely needed prompting from the moderators when speaking about his childhood, his family’s strange choice of pet (the aforementioned otter) or far more serious matters. He said that Democrats need to “fight fire with fire” and be more “ruthless” in their fight to win back the country.

Newsom’s politician-speak was evident in some of his more rehearsed efforts to convince the crowd that he’s a regular guy (he may not have changed many diapers with his first daughter, but he got better at his dad duties with his next three kids). But those instances were matched by unvarnished comments that appeared genuine, and risked alienating some of his base.

One such instance came early in the conversation, when Newsom was asked about where he stood on President Trump’s new Iran war, and the administration’s changing rationales on why it launched the military operation without consulting Congress.

“[The Trump administration’s] first rationale was we’ve got to make sure that they’re not armed with nuclear [weapons]. But I thought that was resolved, that we had completely ‘obliterated’ it,” Newsom said, using Trump’s claims against him. “Then maybe that wasn’t the case, so now it’s about their missiles, and they can perhaps hit the United States, and then it’s wait, that’s a decade plus away. So that’s BS. Then it’s about their militias, it’s about their proxy. Then it’s no, it’s about their navy. And then no, it’s a response to the likelihood that Israel was going to [go in] so we had to go in ourselves. God help us … this is Keystone Cops.”

Newsom was then asked if the United States should perhaps consider rethinking its military support for Israel, and he said that would be reasonable.

“The issue of Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] is interesting because he’s got his own domestic issues,” Newsom said. “He’s trying to stay out of jail. He’s got an election coming up. I mean, to say this is in America’s interest, at a time when affordability is at crisis levels, where you had an administration who literally got elected saying this is exactly the opposite of what they would ever consider doing. The fact that we are in this now, regional war.…”

He also said Netanyahu was “potentially on the ropes. He’s got folks, the hard line, that want to annex the West Bank.” Newsom suggested that some critics have “appropriately” described Israel as sort of an “apartheid state.” His comments caused a stir Wednesday from pro-Israel advocates who felt Newsom was turning on their interests.

But most of the conversation was about the book, and domestic issues. Newsom has been a fierce critic of Trump and his policies, positioning himself as part of the resistance, one of the few high-profile leaders to hit back with policy (Proposition 50) and a strong media presence with his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” and his Trump-trolling social media accounts.

“Nothing goes to the heart of who [Donald Trump] is than his press conference yesterday, where he was lamenting [that] four Americans had died,” Newsom said. “He mentioned them in passing. And then went on, in great detail, about the drapes and the Imperial Palace in the East Wing [of the White House] that he’s building. He talked about [it] with real passion and conviction. It says everything about Donald Trump, the uncertainty in the world, to the fact that we have allies under threat, UAE, we’ve got proxy war with, once again, with Hezbollah and Lebanon. We’ve got all the anxiety as relates to 20% of the world’s oil flow, issues related to oil prices and stocks.”

Though Newsom was speaking to an auditorium of blue state supporters, his tour kicked off last week in the South, with stops in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina. His efforts to relate to his audience were seized upon when, during a conversation with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, he addressed the audience, saying, “I’m like you,” before bringing up his low SAT scores. He was called out for his comment, which was labeled as racist by critics, particularly those from right leaning media outlets.

In Los Angeles on Tuesday, he was asked how he felt about the California Democratic Party chair’s recent suggestion that some party candidates drop out of the governor’s race, to avoid a Republican potentially winning. “I confess. I agree. With all the promise and peril that marks this moment in California, the most un-Trump state in America,” we can’t risk a Republican winning, he said.

The California Highway Patrol and a private security firm deployed officers and agents around the venue for a tight security presence (no bags or purses allowed). On at least three occasions, one or more protesters interrupted the discussion with shouts from the balcony and floor seats, demanding Newsom do something about privatized prisons and the ICE sweeps of immigrants.

After they were removed by security, Newsom said he understood the “escalation of stress” over the last ten years or so, and defended his record, mentioning he signed the first bill banning private prisons and was a “fierce opponent” of what’s happening on American streets.

Attendees of the event applauded Newsom’s record, and just about everything else he said. They were, after all, folks who had paid up to $80 a seat to hear the conversation and receive a copy of his book. He walked into the crowd afterward and spent nearly a half hour chatting with audience members, posing for selfies and signing copies of his memoir. Newsom was not in a hurry.

WASHINGTON — When President Trump announced that he was taking the United States to war against Iran, he offered a long list of ambitious goals.

He said the operation aimed not only to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but also to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and defang its proxy forces in the Middle East.

Then he added the most audacious objective of all: regime change.

“To the great, proud people of Iran … the hour of your freedom is at hand,” he said. “Take over your government. It will be yours to take.”

That was a striking turnabout for Trump, who campaigned for president in 2016 promising: “We’re going to stop the reckless and costly policy of regime change.”

But it’s far from clear that the president has a coherent plan for replacing Iran’s radical Islamist autocracy with a friendlier regime. Nor is it clear that he’s fully committed to the goal.

On Monday, at a White House event, Trump reiterated the military goals of the operation, but did not mention regime change — suggesting he may be having second thoughts. However, he did describe the current Iranian regime as “sick and sinister.”

Military experts and Iran scholars are virtually unanimous that airstrikes alone, no matter how destructive, are unlikely to transform the Islamic republic into a peaceable, democratic country.

“Air power rarely produces friendly regime change,” said Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago, a prominent scholar of air power. “Bombing can destroy targets. It does not reliably reshape politics.”

A more likely outcome is that Iran’s militant Islamic security force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, will seize power, experts said. The Washington Post has reported that the CIA also made that assessment before the war began.

A takeover by the Revolutionary Guard would change the names of the people in charge, but it would fall far short of a genuine regime change.

Trump has said he doesn’t believe ground troops will be necessary, although he hasn’t ruled them out. He hasn’t offered a plan for pushing Iran’s theocratic rulers out of power beyond continuing the airstrikes. The outcome on the ground, he said Sunday, is up to ordinary Iranians.

“Be brave, be bold, be heroic and take back your country,” he said in a video message on Sunday. “America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we’ll be there to help.”

In an interview with the New York Times, he said he hopes the Revolutionary Guard will simply “surrender” to the opposition forces it was brutalizing only a month ago.

In effect, he is abandoning the so-called Pottery Barn rule — “You break it, you own it” — that was popularized by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell before the Iraq war in 2003. Trump’s message to Iranians looks like: “I’ll break it, you own it.”

Iran’s democratic opposition is fragmented

The central problem with Trump’s apparent theory of regime change, scholars say, is that the Revolutionary Guard and other security services are well-organized and well-equipped, but the country’s democratic opposition is fragmented.

“Even if the clerical regime were to fall, the security forces are best positioned to take its place,” warned Richard N. Haass, a former top State Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

Meanwhile, he added, “the political opposition is not united or functioning as a government-in-waiting. It is not in a position to accept defections [from the regime], much less provide security.”

Some experts argue that there is more the administration could be doing to improve the prospects for regime change, without putting troops on the ground.

Haass faulted the Trump administration for failing to work more closely with the Iranian opposition to prepare it for a role in a potential future government.

Others said the United States should now make it clear that it would provide substantial economic aid to a new Iranian regime, but only if its behavior is benign. Iran’s economic crisis, its worst in recent history, helped spark the popular uprising in January that the regime suppressed at the cost of thousands in lives.

“There are more steps the administration could be taking now to help the democratic opposition,” said Kelly Shannon, a visiting scholar at George Washington University. “Close coordination with dissidents on the ground. Protection from the security forces if they open fire. Money, including support for a general strike fund. Assistance with ensuring internet access for all Iranians. And ensure that airstrikes don’t hit Evin Prison or other prisons where dissidents are being held; a lot of potential opposition leaders are in there.”

Scenarios for the future

If the Revolutionary Guard remains intact, Iran experts have described several different scenarios for the regime that may emerge.

One might be called the Venezuela scenario: an Iran ruled by officers from the current regime who have agreed to cooperate to some extent with the United States. This would resemble the situation in Venezuela, where the United States captured President Nicolás Maduro but left the rest of his regime in power.

Trump has already endorsed that quick-fix scenario and said he’s willing to open talks with the newly named successors to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike. “What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario,” he told the New York Times.

Another option might be called the Hamas scenario: a battered and weakened Islamic Republic could stay in power but remain hostile to the United States, even after losing much of its military infrastructure.

A third possibility would be the Libya scenario: an Iran in which the regime has been toppled, and several factions battle for power. That’s what happened in Libya after the United States and other countries used air power to help overthrow longtime dictator Moammar Kadafi.

But none of those scenarios would be the transition to democracy that many Iranians hope for — the more positive version of regime change.

Trump’s search for offramps

Trump, meanwhile, sounds as if he is already looking for an opportunity to declare victory and withdraw.

In an interview with Axios on Saturday, he said he believes he has several “offramps” from the war.

“I can go long and take over the whole thing — or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians, ‘See you again in a few years.’”

“He seems to be looking for an offramp,” Haass said. “He may say ‘It’s up to the Iranian people’ and leave the opposition to its fate…. He might claim a victory in terms of obliterating — or, I guess, ‘re-obliterating’ — Iran’s nuclear program and downgrading its ballistic missiles.”

“But he would still face a danger in that scenario. If it comes down to a physical confrontation [between the regime and the opposition], the opposition could be killed in even larger numbers before. … After offering regime change as one of the reasons for the war, we may not only fail to produce regime change; we could see a second massacre.”

According to President Trump, the United States attacked Iran because the Iranian regime posed “imminent threats” to the U.S. and its allies, including through its use of terrorist proxies and continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world,” he said in a recorded statement Saturday.

According to leading Democrats in Congress, Trump’s justification is questionable, especially given his claims of having “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities in separate U.S. bombings last year.

“Everything I have heard from the administration before and after these strikes on Iran confirms this is a war of choice with no strategic endgame,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and part of a small group of congressional leaders — the Gang of Eight — who were briefed on the operation by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

That divide is bound to remain an issue politically heading into this year’s midterm elections, and could be a liability for Republicans — especially considering that some in the “America First” wing of the MAGA base were raising their own objections, citing Trump’s 2024 campaign pledges to extricate the U.S. from foreign wars, not start new ones.

The debate echoed a similar if less immediate one around President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, also based on claims that “weapons of mass destruction” posed an immediate threat. Those claims were later disproved by multiple findings that Iraq had no such arsenal, fueling recriminations from both political parties for years.

The latest divide also intensified unease over Congress ceding its wartime powers to the White House, which for years has assumed sweeping authority to attack foreign adversaries without direct congressional input in the name of addressing terrorism or preventing immediate harm to the nation or its troops.

Even prior to the weekend bombings, Democrats including Sen. Adam Schiff of California were pushing Congress to pass a resolution barring the Trump administration from attacking Iran without explicit congressional authorization.

“President Trump must come to Congress before using military force unless absolutely necessary to defend the United States from an imminent attack,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the armed services and foreign relations committees, said in a statement Thursday.

In justifying the daylight strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei just two days later, Trump accused the Iranian government of having “waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder” for nearly half a century — including through attacks on U.S. military assets and commercial shipping vessels abroad — and of having “armed, trained and funded terrorist militias” in multiple countries, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

Trump said that after the U.S. bombed Iran last summer, it had warned Tehran “never to resume” its pursuit of nuclear weapons. “Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland,” he said.

Other Republican leaders largely backed the president.

“The United States did not start this conflict, but we will finish it. If you kill or threaten Americans anywhere in the world — as Iran has — then we will hunt you down, and we will kill you,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“Every president has talked about the threat posed by the Iranian regime. President Trump is the one with the courage to take bold, decisive action,” said Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi.

While Iran’s coordination with and sponsorship of groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas are well known, Trump’s claims about its ongoing development of nuclear weapons systems are less established — and the administration has provided little evidence to back them up.

Democrats seized on that lack of fresh intelligence in their responses to the attacks, contrasting Trump’s latest claims about imminent threats with his assertion after the separate summer bombings that the U.S. had all but eliminated Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

“Let’s be clear: The Iranian regime is horrible. But I have seen no imminent threat to the United States that would justify putting American troops in harm’s way,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Gang of Eight. “What is the motivation here? Is it Iran’s nuclear program? Their missiles? Regime change?”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that the Trump administration “has not provided Congress and the American people with critical details about the scope and immediacy of the threat,” and must do so.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the Trump administration needs congressional authority to wage such attacks barring “exigent circumstances,” and didn’t have it.

“The Trump administration must explain itself to the American people and Congress immediately, provide an ironclad justification for this act of war, clearly define the national security objective and articulate a plan to avoid another costly, prolonged military quagmire in the Middle East,” he said.

After the U.S. military announced Sunday that three U.S. service personnel were killed and five others seriously wounded in the attacks, the demands for a clearer justification and new constraints on Trump only increased.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said Sunday he is optimistic that Democrats will be unified in trying to pass the war powers resolution, and also that some Republicans will join them, given that the strikes have been unpopular among a portion of the MAGA base.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who partnered with Khanna to force the release of the Epstein files, has said he will work with him again to push a congressional vote on war with Iran, which he said was “not ‘America First.’”

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, said that whether or not Iran represented an “imminent” threat to the U.S. depends not just on its nuclear capabilities, but on its broader desire and ability to inflict pain on the U.S. and its allies — as was made clear to both the U.S. and Israel after the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which Iran praised.

“If you are Israel or the United States, that’s imminent,” he said.

What happens next, Radd said, will largely depend on whether remaining Iranian leaders stick to Khamenei’s hard-line policies, or decide to negotiate anew with the U.S. He expects they might do the latter, because “it’s a fundamentalist regime, it’s not a suicidal regime,” and it’s now clear that the U.S. and Israel have the capabilities to take out Iranian leaders, Iran has little ability to defend itself, and China and Russia are not rushing to its aid.

How the strikes are viewed moving forward may also depend on what those leaders decide to do next, said Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology who teaches courses on Iran and Middle East politics at the UCLA International Institute.

If the conflict remains relatively contained, it could become a political win for Trump, with questions about the justification falling away. But if it spirals out of control, such questions are only likely to grow, as occurred in Iraq when things started to deteriorate there, he said.

Israel and the U.S. are currently betting that the conflict will remain manageable, which could turn out to be true, Harris said, but “the problem with war is you never really know what might happen.”

On Sunday, Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Israel and the wider Gulf region. Trump said the campaign against Iran continued “unabated,” though he may be willing to negotiate with the nation’s new leaders. It was unclear when Congress might take up the war powers measure.

Democrats are pushing for a vote next week on a resolution to curtail President Trump’s authority to conduct strikes in Iran, a move that would reassert Congress’ role in approving the use of military might.

The effort was already underway to force a vote on a war powers resolution, but it gained fresh momentum as the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran beginning early Saturday, an action that Trump referred to in a video shortly afterward as “war.” House Democratic leaders announced this week — before the strikes — that they would begin procedures to force a floor vote on a resolution for Iran.

The resolution directs Trump to terminate the use of armed forces against Iran, unless explicitly authorized by Congress. Presidents of both parties have skirted around war powers resolutions in the past.

Passage is uncertain in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, with GOP members of both chambers expressing initial support for the bombing of Iran. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) praised the attacks Saturday and said to reporters that the administration “better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change.”

But the effort for a war powers vote has gained the support of at least two House Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, making it possible for the measure to pass the House if enough Democrats support the measure and enough members show up for the final vote.

On the Senate side, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, who voted for an earlier war powers resolution, said he would “oppose another presidential war.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Iran “is a bad actor and must be aggressively confronted for its human rights violations, nuclear ambitions, support of terrorism and the threat it poses” to allies in the region.

“However, absent exigent circumstances, the Trump administration must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war,” Jeffries’ statement said.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), a California Democrat who is co-sponsoring the resolution with Massie, urged lawmakers to reconvene in Washington on Monday to vote, calling the strikes the launch of “an illegal regime change war in Iran with American lives at risk.”

Massie on social media described the attack as “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.”

The resolution faced initial opposition from staunch pro-Israel House Democrats Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the Senate should pass the resolution but didn’t outright oppose the strikes. He complained that the administration did not lay out its case to Congress or the public.

Trump would surely veto the resolution if passed, but substantial GOP votes for it could persuade him to limit the attacks on Iran. The Senate passed a procedural vote for a resolution against the strikes in January that culminated in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, after which the White House sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Capitol Hill to testify to members.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, but no president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in World War II has used that formal declaration, instead relying on less expansive authorization to deploy military force. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 to slow the Vietnam War.

However, most presidents have sought some level of buy-in and approval from Congress, which approves the budget for the Pentagon.

“The Constitution is clear: The decision to take this nation to war rests with Congress, and launching large-scale military operations — particularly in the absence of an imminent threat to the United States — raises serious legal and constitutional concerns,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement. “Congress must be fully briefed, and the administration must come forward with a clear legal justification.”

Other Senate Democrats, including Tim Kaine of Virginia and Andy Kim of New Jersey, have also urged their chamber to vote on a similar measure to put checks on Trump’s use of military force in Iran.

Rubio notified the so-called Gang of Eight — the top congressional leaders in the House and Senate and on the intelligence committees — of the strikes, the White House said.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, defended the strikes as “pivotal and necessary.”

“The President has stated the operation’s goals clearly: thwart permanently the ayatollahs’ desire to create a nuclear weapon, degrade their ballistic missile force and their production capacity, and destroy their naval and terrorism capabilities,” Wicker said in a statement.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) noted in his statement: “This is not how a democracy goes to war.”

Wasson writes for Bloomberg.