Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

March 3

Draft-Dodger Trump Has Found Another Way to Betray America

The “peace president” promises to keep bombing.

What better dodge is there for draft-dodger Donald Trump than to get elected as the “peace president,” promise an end to forever foreign wars, then hype the founding of a “Board of Peace” while contriving to slap his name on the United States Institute of Peace.The president delivered the opening address at the renamed The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace on Feb. 22.“What we’re doing is very simple,” Trump said. “Peace. It’s called the Board of Peace, and it’s all about an easy word to say but a hard word to produce. Peace. But we’re going to produce it, and we’ve been doing a really good job.”

He claimed to have settled eight wars.

“And, I think, a ninth to come,” he added.

He noted that he had named his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and real estate developer Steve Witkoff as “envoys of peace.”

“People like them both,” Trump said. “Iran is a hotspot right now… and they have a good relationship with the representatives of Iran. And good talks are being had.”

Six days later, on Saturday morning, the self-proclaimed “President of Peace” launched a major war against Iran.

“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties; that often happens in war,” Trump said in a video message he posted to Truth Social. “We’re doing this, not for now, we’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”

By Saturday afternoon, Trump was back on Trump Social to announce that an American-Israeli attack had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader for nearly four decades.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote.

Note that Trump capitalized history, perhaps because in his final years in office, he is so desperate to take a place in it as a great man. He does not want to be remembered for what he in fact is: a narcissistic, compulsive liar who always places Trump, not America or anything else, first.

There remains the question of how much of his history will be written in the blood of innocents. His mission began to seem less noble following reports that two schools had been hit by errant air strikes. Dozens of girls may have been killed at an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab.

Hanging over it all was the possibility that America would not be as lucky as it had been during last year’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities or the January raid to capture dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. The Army Special Forces helicopter pilot from the Maduro raid who received the Medal of Honor amid cheers at the State of the Union address had been seriously wounded, but is alive and expected to make a full recovery.

If flag-covered coffins do not begin to come home from Iran as they did for so many years from Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump may escape being rightfully condemned for waging war while talking peace. He may even reach the midterms a step ahead of speculation that the attack on Iran was a bid to distract voters from the Epstein files and the economy.

But that could quickly change if young Americans start dying in a war that was never supposed to have been. People may wonder why Trump’s name went on a peace institute just before he sent these heroes into harm’s way—which, in his own youth, he pulled a rich kid’s scam to avoid.

There remains an economic draft, as attested to by the swearing-in ceremonies that self-proclaimed “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth held during his Arsenal of Freedom tour in recent days. The stops did not include his own alma mater, Princeton, or any other elite venues. Hegseth should have started at Mar-a-Lago and invited young Barron Trump along with some crypto bros.

A short stroll from the Donald J. Trump Peace Institute is one landmark on which our current president’s name would have never appeared. That was thanks to a 1965 letter from a podiatrist friendly with his father, who attested that young Donald suffered from bone spurs.

The official result of the doctor’s note to Local Draft Board No. 63 in Jamaica, Queens, New York, was recorded on page 20 of its classification ledger.

“Trump, Donald John… 4F.”

That meant Trump had been deemed physically unfit for military duty, as confirmed by the added notation, an abbreviation for disqualified.

“Disq.”

Seventeen names further down was the 18-year-old son of a cop.

“Warshawsky, Joel B… 1A.”

This meant Warshawsky had been found fit for military duty. There was also a subsequent notation.

“Deceased.”

Washawsky was killed on Sept. 22, 1967, in Quảng Nam, Vietnam. His name is now on panel 27E, line 1, among the 58,318 names inscribed in the polished black marble at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

At the nearby peace institute, the name “Donald J. Trump” is now inscribed in much bigger letters on the stone facade.

Meanwhile, Trump was not going to let the possible death of schoolgirls give him pause. He declared that the bombing would continue.

“As long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/draft-dodger-trump-has-found-another-way-to-betray-america/?

March 3

Trump Loses It in Midnight Post After Iran Threatens Retaliation

The president threatened that the U.S. will “hit” Iran “with a force that has never been seen before!”

President Donald Trump issued a warning to Iran just after midnight as tensions in the Middle East threaten to spiral.“Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”The post, signed off “President DONALD J. TRUMP,” marked his most explicit threat yet of overwhelming retaliation.

Three United States service members have been killed in action, and five are “seriously wounded” in the war Trump launched overnight Saturday, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command.

“As of 9:30 am ET, March 1, three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury,” a spokesperson wrote Sunday at 9:49 a.m.

The announcement came hours after Tehran signaled it would intensify its response to ongoing U.S. and Israeli strikes in retaliation for airstrikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

The president shifted his focus back to the war he started after hosting a glitzy fundraiser at his sprawling Florida estate on Saturday night—even as Iranian missiles lit up the Middle East, targeting the U.S. and its allies in the region.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament, lashed out Sunday, calling U.S. and Israeli leaders “filthy criminals” and vowing they would suffer “devastating blows” for crossing Iran’s “red line.”

In a televised address, he warned: “You have crossed our red line and must pay the price.”

In a statement posted to its official Telegram channel, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed to launch the “most ferocious offensive operation in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces” against Israel and U.S. bases, saying the operation would begin “any moment now.”

Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, issued a stern warning to countries with U.S. military bases on X Sunday morning.

“To the countries of the region: We are not seeking to attack you,” he wrote Sunday morning in a post viewed over a million times at publication. “But when the bases located in your country are used against us, and when the United States carries out operations in the region relying on these forces, then we will target those bases.”

He continued: “For these bases are not part of the land of those countries; rather, they are American soil.”

Israel Emergency Services reported at least eight people were killed and 28—including children— were wounded in a “missile barrage” on Saturday and overnight in the country.

The United Arab Emirates Defense Ministry told ABC News three people were killed and 58 were injured in Iranian attacks over the weekend. The people killed were from Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, according to the statement.

In Kuwait, one person has been killed and 32 others injured since Iran launched strikes on the country, the BBC reported.

It’s not clear to anyone—including Trump—how long he intends to continue the war he just launched.

“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 if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs],’” Trump told Axios in a five-minute phone interview from Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.

He also admitted that U.S. troops may die in the process.

“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties, that often happens in war,” he said in a video he posted early on Saturday morning, wearing no tie and a white USA trucker hat.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-loses-it-in-12-am-post-after-iran-threatens-retaliation/?

March 3

Trump Parties With Millionaires as American Troops Die

Millionaires, Republican Party elites and big-spending donors were at Mar-a-Lago to party while Trump’s war raged across at least 10 countries.

President Trump hosted yet another glitzy fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago Saturday night as the Middle East was lit up by Iranian missiles targeting the U.S. and its allies in the region.

Video posted on Instagram appeared to show Trump greeting wealthy visitors at his West Palm Beach club on the night that Tehran vowed to unleash “devastating blows” in retaliation for airstrikes which killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Trump admitted in a 2 a.m. Truth Social post in the early hours of Saturday morning that he expected U.S. citizens to die in the war he had just started, but that put no dent in the party schedule at Trump’s private beach resort.

Those fears were later confirmed by military officials, who said Sunday that three U.S. service members were killed and five others seriously wounded in Operation Epic Fury.

Karoline Leavitt told White House reporters on Saturday afternoon that the president would take time out from launching wave after wave of missile strikes against Iran to mingle with millionaires at a Republican fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.

Florida Vape magnate Shlomi Evgi posted photos on Instagram on Saturday night that showed him posing with Trump’s top diplomatic brains, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff. He also posted video footage of Trump in a gilded room, wearing a golden tie, shaking hands with high-rolling guests who had paid top dollar to attend the fundraiser.

Evgi, who received a written warning about breaching U.S. tobacco laws from the FDA in 2024, wrote, “Honored to meet Marco Rubio.” The CEO of QR Joy, which manufactures vapes under the Fume brand, is a regular at Mar-a-Lago and has met Trump on multiple occasions, according to a host of photos on his Instagram.The White House did not respond to a request for confirmation that Trump was partying on Saturday night, but Leavitt had been clear earlier in the day. “President Trump still intends to stop by the fundraiser being held at Mar-a-Lago this evening for the Republican Party, which is more important than ever,” she said.In the hours before launching the war in the Middle East, Trump danced to “YMCA” and Lee Greenwood’s MAGA classic “God Bless the USA,” while a black-tie crowd interrupted the charity gala cocktails to chant “USA! USA!” Little did the guests know that the U.S. military was preparing joint strikes on Iran with Israel at that very moment. Trump would soon disappear behind a curtain into a temporary situation room to watch the attacks unfold.Once the party guests had gone home, Trump posted a wild video on Truth Social announcing that war had begun.

In the 24 hours since, there have been missile attacks on at least 10 countries: Iran, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, and Qatar. The U.K. also said missiles heading for Cyprus, an island in Europe with a large British military base, had been intercepted.

The New York Times reported late last year that Mar-a-Lago would host a fundraiser this weekend, which would cost $1 million per person to attend.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hosts-big-money-party-as-missiles-are-fired-at-americans/?

March 3

📷 Pics to go: Living history

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Photo: Daniel Torok/The White House via Getty Images

President Trump talks to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles yesterday in a secure space at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., during Operation Epic Fury.

Photo: Daniel Torok/The White House via Getty Images

Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the Mar-a-Lago Situation Room yesterday.

Photo: The White House via AP

Vice President JD Vance was in the White House Situation Room overnight as the military operation began in Iran, dialed into a conference line with Trump and the team at Mar-a-Lago. (The Washington Post)

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are on the left. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is in the right foreground.

For national security reasons, the photo has been partially blurred so that lettering isn't legible.

March 3

Worms in food, poor medical care, lights on 24/7: Families tell of life in Texas detention center

When ICE officers in Minneapolis detained a 5-year-old boy and his father last month and sent them to a Texas detention center, many Americans were alarmed. But he was hardly an outlier. ICE has been holding hundreds of children and their parents at the Dilley detention facility, many for well beyond the 20-day limit set by longstanding court order. When Dilley opened in 2014, most families held there had just crossed from Mexico. But since the Trump administration reopened it last spring, the number of children and parents held there has risen sharply. Many are families who have lived in the U.S. for several years, uprooting children in what both families and experts say is often a traumatizing experience. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Trump orders US agencies to stop using Anthropic technology in clash over AI safety

The Trump administration on Friday ordered all U.S. agencies to stop using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology and imposed other major penalties, escalating an unusually public clash between the government and the company over AI safety. Anthropic had said it sought narrow assurances from the Pentagon that its AI chatbot Claude would not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon said it was not interested in such uses and would only deploy the technology in legal ways, but it also insisted on access without any limitations. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

March 3

Trump’s Iran Attack Was Illegal, Former U.S. Military Officials Allege

President Donald Trump’s order to launch a coordinated U.S.-Israeli strike against Iran ran afoul of international and domestic law, according to military and legal experts including the former legal chief at U.S. Central Command, which carried out the attacks.

https://theintercept.com/2026/03/01/trump-iran-attack-war-powers-resolution-united-nations-charter-legal/?

Fool Me Twice: The Case for War With Iran Is Even Thinner Than It Was for Iraq

Days before embarking America on another foreign war, Donald Trump spent more than 90 minutes speaking endlessly about America being back during his State of the Union, leveling racist accusations of Somali American fraud, and expounding on the beauty of America’s raid to arrest Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. It was a master class in testing the attention span of Americans hoping to hear anything at all about the danger that has loomed in the background now for months: the threat of armed conflict with Iran. Those who made it to the finale — and who have conscious memories of the George W. Bush years — would have noticed a similar tenor to the State of the Union in 2003, the one which paved the way for the justification of the invasion of Iraq less than two months later.

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/28/us-attack-iran-iraq-war/?

Pro-Palestine International Students Have Won in Court. Why Hasn’t Mahmoud Khalil Won His Freedom?

Most of the student activists targeted for deportation by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestine speech have beaten back their deportation cases.

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/26/mahmoud-khalil-deportation-case-free-speech/?

The U.S. and Israel Killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. What Comes Next?

On Saturday morning, the United States and Israel carried out intensive airstrikes against Iran, killing its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled the Islamic Republic since 1989.

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/28/trump-iran-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-dead/?

Trump Uses the Courts to Intimidate Critics. The Media Must Fight Back.

The Trump administration is embracing an intimidation strategy to silence critical media coverage. Here’s how it works: A federal agency launches a pretextual investigation into a perceived enemy, keeps the investigation open to coerce compliance, and resists any effort to have a court review the lawfulness of the agency’s actions.

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/27/trump-media-matters-free-speech/?

March 3

🗣️ Dem fault lines on Trump's war

Potential Democratic presidential candidates are blasting Donald Trump's war against Iran, but their criticisms differ — and a few even echo some Trump talking points.

Why it matters: Their responses reveal subtle but important differences in approaches to foreign policy and political strategy.

📣 What they're saying: Some condemned Trump's push for regime change, while others focused their critiques on Trump not waiting for congressional approval to begin bombing, his military strategy, and his not making the case to voters.

Former Vice President Harris said that even if Congress had approved Trump's actions, "that does not change the fact this action is unwise, unjustified and not supported by the American people. There can be no equivocation in our opposition to Donald Trump's war of choice."
Ocasio-Cortez joined Harris in absolute opposition: "This war is unlawful. It is unnecessary. And it will be catastrophic."

🏛️ Nearly every potential Democratic candidate surveyed by Axios said Trump should have gone through Congress. Some focused on that rather than the goal of regime change, and several noted that Iran's leadership has killed U.S. troops and funded terrorist groups across the Middle East.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Trump "acted unilaterally — without congressional approval and outside of the guardrails set up by our founders in Philadelphia nearly 250 years ago." But he added that "the Iranian regime represses its own people and is the leading state sponsor of terrorism around the world."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom called Trump's moves an "illegal, dangerous war," but also said "the corrupt and repressive Iranian regime must never have nuclear weapons. The leadership of Iran must go."
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker argued that Trump had "no plan" for "what happens if the Iranian regime collapses." Booker also called the regime "one of the most dangerous, destabilizing forces in the Middle East."

Several potential candidates called for Congress to immediately return to D.C. to debate U.S. actions, with some calling for a quick vote on a war powers resolution to check Trump's authority.

Khanna has introduced a measure to prohibit military action against Iran.
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly said: "The Senate needs to come back to Washington immediately and do its constitutional duty."
And Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Iraq war veteran, honed-in on the death toll for the military: "A draft-dodger who's never worn a uniform is now risking the lives of working-class kids."

Read more.

— Alex Thompson

March 3

Trump's lethal presidency

A bar chart showing U.S. airstrikes from January 2020 through February 12, 2026, by presidency. The data shows a notable spike in strikes during the Trump administration, particularly in Yemen and Afghanistan. The Biden administration shows significantly fewer airstrikes overall, with some increases in 2024. The number of strikes dramatically increases in 2025 as Trump takes office again, nearing 300 in the month of March 2025.

Data: ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data). Chart: Axios Visuals ("Other" includes Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela — as well as the waters off Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Colombia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.)

No president in the modern era has ordered more military strikes against as many countries as Donald Trump, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

He has attacked seven nations, three of which — Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela — had never been targeted by U.S. military strikes. He authorized more airstrikes in 2025 than President Biden did in four years.

Why it matters: Trump ran as an anti-war candidate. The White House argues he still is — that he exhausts diplomacy before acting, and that projecting overwhelming force is itself a path to lasting peace.

The deaths of three U.S. service members in the first 24 hours of Trump's Iran strikes puts that argument to its most brutal test.
"Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way it is," Trump said in a video statement yesterday. "But we'll do everything possible where that won't be the case," he added, vowing to "avenge their deaths."

🖼️ The big picture: Trump's strikes are historically distinctive not just in number but in kind.

President Bush's post-9/11 campaigns and President Obama's drone wars were massive in scale — but concentrated in inherited or congressionally authorized theaters.
Alongside traditional counterterrorism efforts, Trump has opened new fronts — a Christmas Day strike in Nigeria, drug boats sunk in the Caribbean, Nicolás Maduro snatched from Caracas.
His preferred model is consistent: no boots on the ground, no lengthy entanglements, overwhelming force applied quickly and framed as essential to defending American interests.

Zoom in: The ongoing U.S. military operation against Iran now stands in a league of its own — the most aggressive, high-risk foreign policy act of Trump's presidency.

Trump launched Operation Epic Fury — a joint U.S.–Israeli campaign explicitly aimed at toppling Iran's government — without congressional authorization or sustained public debate.
It was preceded by the largest U.S. military buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq — a warning to Iran that failed talks in Geneva would have consequences.

An F/A-18E Super Hornet returns to the USS Abraham Lincoln in support of Operation Epic Fury on Saturday. Photo: U.S. Navy

🔭 Zoom out: Trump outlined multiple targets for an operation he said could last four weeks: destroy Iran's ballistic missiles, its rocket factories and its navy.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated by Israeli strikes in the first 24 hours, along with dozens of senior regime officials.
U.S. and Israeli strikes show no sign of letting up, as Iran's retaliatory missiles and drones batter Gulf allies.

Back home, some of Trump's most loyal supporters are struggling to square this war with the candidate they elected.

Several MAGA influencers resurfaced a warning last June from the late activist Charlie Kirk, who called regime change in Iran "insane" and predicted it would result in "a bloody civil war."

March 4

Bombshell Pentagon Admission Wrecks Trump’s War Claims

Pentagon briefers made the acknowledgement in a briefing on Sunday, according to multiple reports.

Pentagon briefers have told congressional staff that Iran had no plans to preemptively strike U.S. forces or bases in the region.

The bombshell admission came at a private briefing on Sunday, CNN reports, citing multiple sources. Politico also cited two people who attended the briefing who said that no clear evidence of an imminent attack by Iran was presented, while the Associated Press cited three people familiar with the briefing.

The revelation undercuts President Donald Trump’s justification of the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country.

White House officials had claimed on Saturday that the U.S. chose to attack Iran because it had received indications that the country was planning to launch missile attacks against U.S. bases, according to CNN.

In addition, in his announcement of the strikes, Trump claimed the Iranian regime was building missiles that “could soon reach the American homeland.” An assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency published last year found that Iran was years away from possessing the intercontinental ballistic missiles required to launch attacks on the U.S. At present, there is no intelligence to suggest that Iran was working on an ICBM program at the time of the strikes, according to the assessment.

Three sources also confirmed to CNN that the nation was not interested in establishing one, a claim echoed by Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi last week.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CNN on Saturday, “President Trump is absolutely right to highlight the grave concern posed by Iran, a country that chants ‘death to America,’ possessing intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

The Pentagon briefers on Sunday cited Iran’s ballistic missile program and proxy forces as evidence the country posed a threat to the U.S., but sources who spoke to CNN noted that this has been true for years and does not explain the supposed urgency of Saturday’s strikes.

However, the briefers acknowledged that “there was no indication that Iran was preparing to preemptively strike U.S. bases in the region in anticipation of some sort of attacks from American-Israeli forces,” senior CNN reporter Zach Cohen said.

Sources who spoke to the Associated Press said that the briefers did not provide any clarity on what would happen in Iran following the strikes.

The news raises “more questions still, as the president has… we haven‘t heard from him about his reasoning, his justification and his plan going forward as this military operation continues,” Cohen told host Kaitlan Collins.

White House spokesperson Dylan Johnson told CNN in response that the Pentagon had “briefed the bipartisan staffs of several national security committees in both chambers for over 90 minutes on the military action in Iran.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Defense and White House for comment. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to appear before the media on Monday morning to provide an update.

Despite dubbing himself the “Peace President” and promising “no new wars,” Trump launched a wave of missile attacks on Iran early Saturday morning before announcing that the U.S. had begun “major combat operations.”

The strikes, conducted in conjunction with Israel, ultimately resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting Iran to launch a series of retaliatory strikes on U.S. bases and allies around the Middle East.

Responding to the news that three U.S. soldiers have already died since Saturday, Trump admitted that there would “likely be more.”

“As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives,” Trump said on Sunday afternoon.

“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more, but we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case.” The president also told The New York Times on Sunday that projections from the Pentagon suggest U.S. casualties could be “quite a bit higher” than what has already been seen.

According to an X post from U.S. Central Command made late Sunday, U.S. strikes in the region conducted as part of “Operation Epic Fury” continue.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagons-bombshell-admission-on-trumps-iran-claims/?

March 4

Trump’s War Sparks Crisis That Could Destroy GOP at Midterms

Unintended consequence of Trump’s attack in the Middle East will target potential Republican voters.

President Donald Trump’s new war hit the markets Monday morning, with the economic fallout set to hammer the same Americans he needs to save him in the midterm elections.

Oil and gas prices rocketed as trading opened for the first time since Trump launched his assault on Iran on Saturday. Crude prices were up 13 percent in early trading.

All three major U.S. stock indexes, meanwhile, dropped 1.5 percent as investors scrambled to insulate themselves from an anticipated global economic downturn amid disruptions to energy supplies.

“We were all set to rise to $3.10-$3.25 a gallon with a peaceful Persian Gulf,” Tom Kloza, a senior adviser at Gulf, told Reuters. “We’ll now get there very quickly and the action of the last 48 hours puts higher numbers in play.”

In retaliation against U.S. and Israeli strikes, which began Saturday and are now confirmed to have killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Associated Press reports regime and regime-aligned forces have begun targeting oil infrastructure in U.S.-allied countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20 percent of the world’s oil supply is transported, has been mostly closed to traffic since at least three vessels were attacked on Sunday, per The Washington Post.

Across the U.S., voters have repeatedly balked at Trump’s claims of ushering in “the greatest economy in history,” as he told The Wall Street Journal in December.

At 2.4 percent, inflation remains persistently high, with increased costs of basics such as energy, groceries, and utilities reportedly hitting lower- and middle-income families the hardest. The president continues to rail against “affordability” as little more than a Democratic Party “hoax.”

Republicans already face a bruising battle for control of the House and Senate at midterm elections scheduled for later in November, given Trump’s approval ratings have hovered at a miserable 39 percent for the past several months.

Last Monday, an Ipsos poll found 68 percent of respondents disagree with the president’s rosy assessment of the economy, including 43 percent of Republicans. Reuters reports that just one in four now approve of his ongoing strikes against Iran.

Trump’s new war represents the most seismic development in the country since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which prompted the total collapse of oil production in what was then one of the largest exporters on the planet.

The ensuing “oil shock,” which resulted in long gas lines across the U.S. and even rationing in some states, contributed to President Jimmy Carter’s thumping loss to Ronald Reagan at elections the following year.

Social media users are already panicking as the markets continue to reel amid Trump’s onslaught. “Go get gas. I just did. Should have got a few cans too but whatever,” one person wrote, attaching a screenshot of stock market indexes and oil prices from CNN.

“Looks like Trump is about to have his first gas price surge as president. How much further can his approval tumble,” another said. “So much winning,” a third added.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-sparks-crude-oil-price-crisis-that-could-destroy-him-at-home/?

March 4

Flailing Trump, 79, Can’t Keep His Story Straight on the War He Just Started

The president spent the weekend contradicting himself on Iran.

President Donald Trump can’t seem to explain why he went to war with Iran or what his goals are for the military campaign. The president has given four different explanations in two days about how long he plans to bomb Iran and what he envisions for the country’s future, leading to accusations that he’s making up the deadly military campaign as he goes along.

The administration has also given shifting explanations about why Trump started the war in the first place.

The repeated contradictions suggest the president does not have a long-term strategy in place for the joint U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign, which killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggered a wave of retaliatory attacks in the region that left three American soldiers dead.

“All I want is freedom for the people,” Trump told The Washington Post at about 4 a.m. local time on Saturday, soon after announcing “major combat operations” against Iran.

Later that day, he told Axios that he could end the war in “two to three days” if Iran’s new leaders agreed to end its nuclear program.

Then on Sunday, he said the ongoing attacks would last “four to five weeks,” and insisted that it wouldn’t be hard for Israel and the U.S. to continue bombing Iran despite the risk of more U.S. troops dying in a wider regional conflict, The New York Times reported.

One option, Trump said, would be to leave most of the government intact, like in Venezuela, but with leaders who were willing to work with the U.S. to avoid further attacks. He said he had “three very good choices” about who could lead Iran.

But then, on Sunday night, Trump changed his story yet again by telling Jonathan Karl of ABC News that the top candidates to take over Iran had been killed in the initial attack on Saturday.

“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump told Karl, according to a post on X by a veteran Washington correspondent.

On Sunday, Iran’s top national security official, Ali Larijani, said an interim committee would run the country until a successor for the supreme leader was chosen, the Times reported.

The president appeared to be calling up journalists to “workshop different timelines and goals for his war,” The Economist’s Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom remarked in a post on X.

“He’s throwing spaghetti at the wall,” Carlstrom said, adding that there were “plenty of possible scenarios in which Trump declares victory and leaves the region with an absolute mess.”

According to Politico, the president spoke to 10 different reporters over the weekend but failed to offer consistent, specific answers to their questions about his plans or the justification for the war.

The administration’s explanations for why Trump ordered the strikes have been equally murky.

The White House on Saturday claimed that after weeks of deliberations, Trump finally decided to launch a full-scale attack against Iran because the U.S. had received indications that the country was planning to launch missile attacks against U.S. bases.

But during a briefing with congressional staffers, Pentagon officials said there was no evidence that Iran had been planning preemptive strikes.

During a video announcing the strikes, Trump also claimed Iran was building missiles that “could soon reach the American homeland.”

U.S. intelligence assessments, however, contradicted that claim, finding that Iran was years away from developing intercontinental ballistic missiles and wasn’t interested in doing so.

After the U.S. military’s Central Command announced that three soldiers had been killed at a base in Kuwait and five seriously wounded, Democratic lawmakers blasted the president for putting service members in harm’s way without laying out a plan for victory in the region.

In a video statement Sunday, Trump shrugged off the casualties as “the way it is.”

Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, a 43-year-old combat veteran of the Iraq War, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that it was “pathetic” the president hadn’t provided answers to the families of the fallen soldiers.

“It’s because he doesn’t have answers,” Ryan said. “There’s not a plan here, or if there is, he’s not sharing it with the American people.”

The former U.S. Army intelligence officer said the Iran campaign was reminiscent of “past ill-conceived, half-baked regime-change wars that sound good until they start, and then all of a sudden, no one knows what the heck is going on, and it’s young American men and women that pay the price.”

Reached for comment, a White House spokesperson told the Daily Beast the president had articulated three “clear, achievable” goals for military operations against Iran: destroying the threats posed by Iran’s ballistic missiles, missile industry, and navy.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/flailing-trump-79-cant-keep-his-story-straight-on-the-war-he-just-started/?

ps:That's what happens when you lie so much you can't remember what you've said before! But in his case he doesn't even care anymore, because his minions believe everything he says even when it's pointed out to them and shown them as to what he actually said and did!!!!!

March 4

CNN Reporter Slams Trump for Ignoring War Questions to Show Off New Statues in the Dark

President walked past reporters shouting questions about fallen troops to praise new statues of the Founding Fathers.

Donald Trump ignored reporters’ questions about the Iran conflict and three known U.S. troop fatalities on Sunday—stopping instead to admire some new statues outside the White House.

The bizarre moment came as the country absorbed the fallout from Operation Epic Fury—the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 86, along with dozens of other senior figures in Iran’s theocratic government. Three American service members died in Saturday’s operation, with five others wounded.

Trump, 79, had spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes, who was among the reporters waiting outside when Trump returned to Washington on Sunday evening, described the absurd scene.

“He usually stops and talks to the press—he completely ignored us,” she said, as first reported by Mediaite. “Instead [he] stopped and admired some new statues that were being put into the Rose Garden.

“We hadn’t seen them before, they appeared to be the Founding Fathers, saying, ‘Come look at them, they’re unbelievable.’ And then walked away.”

The statues—of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin—were captured on video by CBS News associate producer Emma Nicholson, who posted to X a photo of Trump as he returned to the White House, and images of the statues.

“Unbelievable statues,” Nicholson said Trump had told reporters standing nearby, before heading inside without taking questions.

Holmes said the press corps had been pushing Trump on matters of direct consequence. “We were shouting questions: ‘What is your message for the families of the service members who were killed? How long are we going to be in this conflict?’” she said. “We have so little answers right now, we don’t know what is going to happen next.”

The exchange—or lack of one—came hours after Trump appeared on video for the first time since Operation Epic Fury began, pledging to “avenge” the deaths of the fallen while warning that there would “likely be more” American casualties before the conflict was over.

Earlier that same day, he told The Daily Mail that the mission against Iran would “take four weeks—or less,” but told different stories to a range of different outlets in a confusing 48 hours.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-slams-donald-trump-for-completely-ignoring-war-questions-and-showing-off-white-house-statues-in-the-dark/?

March 4

MAGA Senator Reveals Which Country Trump Will Attack Next

The “President of Peace” thinks he’s “on a roll” and Lindsey Graham says he will take down another regime soon.

Gleeful bootlicker Lindsey Graham says Donald Trump is a better president than Ronald Reagan, and that the U.S. has Cuba in its sights after sparking a massive regional conflict in the Middle East over the weekend.

“President Trump finished the job that President Reagan failed to do!” the South Carolina Senator told Fox News late Sunday night. “I am a big admirer of Ronald Reagan, but I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump is the gold standard for Republicans, maybe any president, when it comes to foreign policy.”

“Maduro? Everybody talked about him; well, Donald Trump’s got him in jail!” Graham went on. “Cuba’s next. They’re gonna fall. This communist dictatorship in Cuba? Their days are numbered.”

Trump spent much of last year modeling himself as the “President of Peace” in a desperate bid to secure himself the Nobel Peace Prize—an honor granted to his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama. Despite his dubious claims to have solved six, seven, and sometimes even eight conflicts worldwide, Trump was overlooked by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The 79-year-old MAGA leader earlier this year wrote to the Norwegian Prime Minister, who has no connection with the Nobel Committee, stating that he no longer feels “obligated to think purely of peace.”

Trump has since invaded Venezuela to capture former President Nicolás Maduro, who now faces narcoterrorism charges in a New York federal court. He’s threatened similar action against U.S. allies Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Greenland, the last of which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a fellow NATO member.

On Saturday morning, he launched an all-out assault against Iran after negotiations over the repressive Islamic regime’s nuclear armament program failed. His ongoing attacks, carried out in tandem in Israel, have sent shockwaves across the region, as Iran launched retaliatory strikes against Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, and even Cyprus. “The president is feeling like, ‘I’m on a roll’; like, ‘This is working’,” an administration official told The Atlantic on Sunday about ongoing discussions in the Situation Room.

Speaking with White House reporters Friday, Trump floated the idea of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, noting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is engaged in talks at a “very high level” to potentially “make a deal” with the communist regime.

The country is enduring a deep economic crisis marked by severe shortages of fuel, food, and medicine, along with prolonged blackouts and sky-high inflation, largely prompted by a tightening of U.S. sanctions and the collapse of subsidized support from Venezuela’s oil sector following the Trump administration’s capture of Maduro in January.

Rubio, who is of Cuban heritage, has been blunt about the White House’s aims in Havana. “Cuba’s status quo is unacceptable,” he told reporters last week. “Cuba needs to change.”

The Daily Beast contacted the White House and Pentagon for comment on this story. “As the President stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal,” a White House spokesperson said. “Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-senator-lindsey-graham-says-president-donald-trump-will-target-cuba-next/?

March 4

As Mideast conflict widens, US says attacks on Iran will last weeks and intensify

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israeli and U.S. airstrikes pounded Iran in an escalating campaign that U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday would likely take several weeks. Tehran and its allies retaliated across the region, striking Israel and a variety of targets inside Gulf states, including energy facilities in Qatar and the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia.

https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-us-03-02-2026-cb42936de1d8c261be8f30f11c6665fa?

March 4

Pentagon Pete Admits MAGA’s Worst Fear May Happen

The Defense Secretary had a near meltdown when asked to explain whether the U.S. had an exit strategy for Iran.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegeth has not ruled out deploying U.S. ground troops in Iran and is unable to say when America’s involvement in the conflict will end.In a combative and often contradictory press conference, the former Fox News host suggested there was no defined exit strategy, no set timeframe for the operation, and no publicly articulated rules of engagement guiding U.S. forces.

Asked if he planned to put U.S. boots on the ground, an indignant and irritated Hegseth replied: “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do.

“I think it’s one of those fallacies for a long time that this department, or presidents or others, should tell the American people and our enemies: by the way, here’s exactly how long we’ll go, here’s exactly how far we’ll go.

“We will go as far as we need to go to advance American interests... Why in the world would we tell you, the enemy, or anybody what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective?” he added.

The press conference was the first time Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dan Caine spoke since the U.S. began striking Iran overnight on Saturday.

At least four U.S. service members have been killed as part of the conflict, which Donald Trump announced in an eight minute video posted to his Truth Social account shortly after he was seen partying at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it,” Hegseth bizarrely claimed on Monday.

He also declared that Trump would not be bound by “stupid rules engagement” and that “we set the terms of this war from start to finish.”

“No nation-building quagmires, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars,” he said.

“Operation Epic Fury is laser focused: destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and ensure they will never have nuclear weapons.”

But lawmakers from both parties have publicly questioned the administration’s failure to obtain formal congressional authorization for the operation, which violates the Constitution.

In closed-door briefings with congressional staff this weekend, Pentagon officials even acknowledged there was no intelligence indicating that Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against U.S. forces before the U.S. and Israeli attacks.

“We still haven’t been provided any rationale that actually makes sense in terms of protecting American people,” Democrat Hakeem Jeffries told CNN.

Hegseth’s comments about boots on the ground are likely to infuriate MAGA world, some of whom were prepared to stomach the intervention provided U.S. troops were not forced into ground operations.

But despite being unable to articulate a clear time frame or exit strategy, he scoffed at comparisons to the Iraq war.

That conflict also began on dubious terms, with George W. Bush claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and presented a threat to America’s national security. In the end, no WMDs were found.

Over the years, Trump has used the Iraq war to promise his “America First” base he would not get involved in such foreign entanglements.

“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” Hegseth insisted. “I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president.”

Since launching the attack, the president has offered conflicting visions of how the war could end and who should take over in Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s autocratic supreme leader, was killed on Saturday.

He also admitted on Sunday that the U.S. had a number of candidates in mind to take over Iran following the death of Khamenei, but that they had died in the initial strikes on the country.

Four American soldiers have died, while three U.S. jets have also been shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses in what the U.S. military called an “apparent friendly fire incident,” with the crew members brought to safety.

The latest U.S. casualty, who was not named, “was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks, eventually succumbed to their injuries,” U.S. Central Command announced on social media on Monday.

“We expect to take additional losses,” General Caine said.

Meanwhile, Iran’s leaders have remained defiant. Speaking on CNN, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said the regime would “defend ourselves to the best of our ability.”

“Time is not of the essence,” he said. “We will do whatever necessary to protect our sovereignty and our people—no matter what.”

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Hegseth was setting expectations of a longer war because it was clear Iran’s strategy had shifted.

“They were targeting Israel, but the real target now is the United States,” he said in a briefing call with the Daily Beast.

“They have concluded that this war will only end once the pain tolerance of the United States has been reached… Their calculation, their metric of success, is not that they necessarily can win the war. They just need to get as close as possible to destroy Trump’s presidency before they lose the war.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pete-admits-magas-worst-fear-may-happen/?

ps:Because they have no clue as to what they're doing! All of them do whatever the criminal-in-chief tells them to do!!

March 4

Keystone Kash Is MIA After Issuing Grave Terror Warning

Trump’s FBI chief cranked up public anxiety, then vanished.

FBI Director Kash Patel has said nothing in public since issuing a grave terror threat via X on Saturday, even though a suspected terror attack has since taken place.

Early on Saturday afternoon, “Keystone” Kash, as he is known for his bungling efforts at the head of the bureau, touched on the anxious atmosphere that has arisen as a result of President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran. He said he had instructed counterterrorism teams to be on “high alert.”

On Sunday evening, CNN’s Senior National Security reporter, Zachary Cohen, said that U.S. officials “have increased security at various government agency headquarters & other domestic locations that could be targeted in response to the operation in Iran,” citing a source.

Indeed, two people were killed and over a dozen were injured in a shooting outside a beer garden in Austin, Texas, at around 2 a.m. on Sunday. The suspect, a naturalised American citizen born in Senegal, was shot dead at the scene by police.

Sources told CBS News that the gunman was wearing a sweatshirt with the words “Property of Allah” on it, and local FBI officials said that evidence on the suspect and in his vehicle suggested a “nexus to terrorism.”

It is all the more strange, then, that there has been radio silence from Patel. He has made no statement on the attack, instead letting his subordinates in the Austin field office inform the public when a national statement might help to quell anxiety.

Patel has attracted criticism for his handling of several ongoing crises. A frantic FBI search continues for the mother of Tody host Savannah Guthrie, and violence erupted in Mexico last week after the killing of a high-ranking cartel boss. The escalating conflict across the Middle East as a result of the administration’s double-team bombing campaign alongside Israel has heightened the focus on Patel.

Patel once again opted for questionable optics after Team USA’s gold medal victory over Canada in the Winter Olympics last Sunday. Patel, 46, led the celebrations, belting out chants and chugging beers with the players in the dressing room. The imagery rankled some, as the search for Nancy Guthrie was coming up cold, and Americans were sheltering in Mexico as bullets flew.

There were questions over whether taxpayers had funded an Italian knees-up for the hockey super-fan, but he insisted he was there on official business that just so happened to coincide with the 2-1 overtime victory against Canada.

He has also faced criticism for demanding that FBI resources be used to protect his girlfriend, 27-year-old country singer Alexis Wilkins, at an unprecedented level.

Supporters say he’s just a real dude, a down-to-earth guy who’s trying to show that he’s one of us. “I like my FBI director being a real person, I like the fact that he drinks a beer, I like the fact that he wants to celebrate with our gold medal hockey team,” said Jay Town, a U.S. attorney during Trump’s first administration.

But Trump himself is reportedly not too pleased. One source told The Wall Street Journal that the president privately questioned his locker-room performance at the Olympics, but was forced to back him in public.

When reached for comment about where Patel is and whether he intends to update the nation on the escalating conflict in the Middle East or the potential terror attack in Texas, the FBI issued the following statement to the Daily Beast: “FBI personnel continue to be fully engaged across the country and prepared to mobilize any security assets needed to assist federal partners—as well as state and local law enforcement. As always, we ask the public to please report anything that may seem suspicious to law enforcement—1-800-CALL-FBI and tips.fbi.gov."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/keystone-kash-mia-after-issuing-grave-terror-warning/?

ps:And people are suprised?? This is what they all do! They take there lead from the criminal-in-chief!!!

March 4

‘Peace President’ Breaks Record for Attacking the Most Countries

Trump has already authorized assaults against more countries than other president in modern U.S. history.

Wannabe Nobel Laureate Donald Trump has now ordered attacks against a greater number of countries than any other president in modern U.S. history.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly pledged to reduce American military engagements abroad. After assuming office for the second time last January, he modeled himself as the “President of Peace,” even claiming to have solved a highly contested number of conflicts around the world as he sought to secure himself the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the same period, though, he has ordered strikes against targets across no less than seven nations—Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen—at a rate that has already outstripped the total sanctioned by Joe Biden throughout the Democratic president’s four years at the White House, Axios reports.

The outlet adds that while attacks under Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama may have been “massive in scale,” they were largely “concentrated in inherited or congressionally authorized theaters,” like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The first three of the countries targeted by Trump have never before come under attack by the U.S.

His assault on Iran, which has plunged the Middle East into chaos as shockwaves ripple across the global economy, has claimed at least four U.S. service members’ lives since it began on Saturday.

“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is,” the president, who dodged the Vietnam War draft on five separate occasions, said in a statement Sunday. He has warned that the fighting could last another four weeks.Trump’s latest assault flies directly in the face of his promises to voters on the campaign trail. “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars,” he told the nation in his 2024 election night victory speech.

With his approval rating hovering at a meager 39 percent over the past several months, the war now marks a severe test of his support at home, with the latest polls suggesting just one in four voters support his ongoing action in the Middle East.

Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, an otherwise staunch ally of the president, has called ongoing strikes against Iranian targets “absolutely disgusting and evil.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story. An official told Axios that Trump’s “first instinct is always diplomacy,” and that “unfortunately, the Iranian regime refused to engage realistically with the United States.”

“As a result, President Trump is taking decisive action to eliminate major national security threats to the American people, which past presidents have talked about for 47 years, but only this president had the courage to accomplish,” they added.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/peace-president-donald-trump-breaks-record-for-attacking-the-most-countries/?

March 4

Pentagon Pete Throws Tantrum at His Own Hand-Picked Reporters

The so-called “secretary of war” couldn’t even handle a minor conflict with his own press pool.

Pete Hegseth bristled through a Pentagon press conference, snapping at his own hand-picked journalists who asked seemingly innocuous questions. The defense secretary went live to the nation from the Pentagon to address concerns about Donald Trump’s muddled war in Iran, which the president launched over the weekend with a series of air strikes.

The press conference started with the so-called “secretary of war” doling out platitudes and victim-blaming in a pre-prepared statement. “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it,” the former Fox & Friends weekend host declared at one point.

Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then faced a press pool who were keen to know more about a war that has split opinion among Republicans.

The pool included a bunch of handpicked Trump-friendly hacks who either signed up or were invited to join the new-look press corps after seasoned reporters refused to sign an essential Pentagon gag order back in October.

A Defense Department official told the Daily Beast that several outlets that signed the restrictive new policy and retained access were present, such as conservative publications One America News (OAN), The Federalist, and The Epoch Times.

Among the new crop who joined after outlets like Fox News, The New York Times, and Reuters refused to play ball were The Gateway Pundit, The Post Millennial, Turning Point USA’s Frontlines and The Daily Signal.

Lindell TV, the media platform launched by MyPillow CEO and Trump super fan Mike Lindell, was also present. So, too, was right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, also known as Timcast.

Pool, who came to prominence during the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, has criticized Trump in recent weeks but largely built his platform on anti-establishment political commentary that often overlaps with pro-Trump narratives.

Laura Loomer, perhaps Trump’s most diehard loyalist, was notably not present. Loomer claimed in December that she had officially been given a desk and credentials at the Pentagon.

The official added that journalists from other organizations, including Politico, CNN, and MS NOW, were allowed to attend the press conference.

It appeared, though, that Hegseth only answered questions from his chosen outlets. His mood deteriorated rapidly, and he grew more and more irate as reporters lobbed questions at him that were hardly hardball. The first flashpoint came when an unidentified reporter asked whether there were currently American boots on the ground in Iran.

“No, but we are not going into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said, before pointedly adding, “It is a fallacy that this department or presidents should tell the American people and our enemies, ‘Here is what we’ll do, here is how long we’ll go, how far we’ll go, what we’re willing to do and not do.’ It is foolishness!”

After basically suggesting that his department does not have to inform Americans about a new war in the Middle East, he added, “We will go as far as we need to go to advance American interests. You don’t have to roll 200,000 people in and stay for years. We are not foolish about it. Will we be bold and decisive about it? Do we put months of planning in? Absolutely.”

He grew even agitated, gesticulating toward the press and saying, “Going forward, why would we tell you—you, the enemy, anybody—what we will or will not do? We fight to win and achieve the objectives the president of the United States laid out, and will do so.”

Hegseth looked tetchy again after NBC News’ Courtney Kube snuck in a question, asking how long the operation in Iran might last. “That’s a typical NBC sort of, gotcha type question,” he snapped.

CNN media analyst Brian Stelter reported that Hegseth had a pre-selected list of questioners, and all the reporters were in assigned seats, “so he knew who to call on.” Kube was not one of them, hence his pointed response.

He reserved perhaps his most harsh rebuke for a female journalist who dared to question him on his earlier comments and say the American public “deserve” to know what “they’re sending their men and women to war for.”

“Did you not hear my remarks?” he bluntly responded before ranting about the Trump administration being “clear-eyed” in its objectives.

“We’re ensuring the mission gets accomplished, we are clear-eyed, unlike other presidents, about foolish policy of the past that recklessly pulled us into things not tethered to clear objectives,” he said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/animated-pete-hegseth-snaps-at-press-during-wild-pentagon-briefing/?

March 4

U.S. ‘Secretary of War’ Bizarrely Claims: ‘We Didn’t Start This War’

Pete Hegseth surfaced for the first time in months to deliver a series of cringeworthy and contradictory remarks.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bizarrely claimed in a live Pentagon address that the U.S. did not “start” the war with Iran. Hegseth, in his platitude-filled broadcast message on Monday morning, said Iran has carried out attacks for decades in a “one-sided war against America,” without offering much in the way of specifics. “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it,” the former Fox News host added. Elsewhere in the communique, he said the goal of the so-called “Operation Epic Fury” was not regime change, even though the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini was killed in an early strike. “This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth crowed. He also rolled out his usual spiel, railing against “politically correct wars” and saying that the Iran offensive is bound by “no stupid rules of engagement.” The address was the first from the Pentagon since December 2 last year.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-bizarrely-claims-we-didnt-start-this-war/?

ps:Clueless!!!!!!!!!!

March 4

First Missile Hits Europe as Trump’s War Spirals Out of Control

The chaos of the president’s all-out assault on Iran is expanding ever outward.

Donald Trump’s new war just hit Europe. An Iranian drone struck a British military base in Cyprus on Sunday, after Saturday’s launch of the MAGA president’s all-out assault on the Iranian regime plunged the Middle East into a state of chaos not seen since George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. The U.K. Ministry of Defence says no casualties have been reported at the Cypriot facility, but that family members of active service personnel would be moved off-base as a precaution. “Our force protection in the region is at the highest level and the base has responded to defend our people,” the MoD said in a statement. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, is said to have been briefed on the situation by Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides. The U.K. is currently assisting the U.S. in its defense of military assets in the Middle East, but has not been involved in direct strikes against targets in Iran, which are now confirmed to have killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, plus several of his likely successors.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/first-missile-hits-europe-as-president-donald-trumps-war-spirals-out-of-control/?

March 4

Trump’s Medicaid work mandates are meant to save money. But first states will have to spend millions

New Medicaid work requirements signed into law by President Donald Trump are meant to save money. But states first will have to spend millions of dollars to implement them. An Associated Press analysis finds that states are projected to spend over $1 billion on technology improvements and additional staff needed to carry out the requirements. The Medicaid changes were included in Trump's big tax-cut law passed by Congress last year. States are still waiting on federal rules to provide further guidance. Read more.

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March 4

💸 Conflict could worsen price crisis

Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios

A surge in oil prices tied to President Trump's war in Iran threatens to deepen America's affordability crisis, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

Gas prices are plastered everywhere, making them the most powerful political and psychological signal about the cost of living.
Any price spike would compound existing pressure on Americans' budgets and further sour perceptions of the economy.
⛽️ Today's AAA average national price for a gallon of regular is $3.

📉 Gas prices have been a deflationary tailwind for Trump.

Prices in January were down more than 7% from a year ago, easing overall inflation.

📝 Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at Stifel, wrote in a memo this morning: "Voters have already been concerned about the economy and affordability. A sustained increase in oil prices could be a risk for Republican candidates in November."

Go deeper.

🤖 The Treasury Department is pulling the plug on Anthropic's AI tools at the direction of President Trump, Secretary Scott Bessent announced today. Go deeper.

Charlie Kirk’s legacy

A fracture has emerged in President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement on the heels of the strikes against Iran. As the war spirals across the Middle East, some conservative opponents are rallying around the words of the late right-wing activist.

March 4

Off the Cliff

																(Daniel Heuer / Bloomberg / Getty)
															

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Donald Trump has taken America into war with a country whose population is approximately the size of Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s combined. He has done this without making a case to the American people, and without approval of any kind from their elected representatives. His launching of hostilities (with the embarrassingly bro-themed name “Operation Epic Fury”) is the culmination of decades of expanding presidential powers over national-security issues, and Trump has now taken that expansion to its extreme conclusion, launching wars and using military power as he sees fit.

Many of his critics are focused on the claim that the war is illegal under both U.S. and international law—and they are probably right about that. But Trump has already floored the accelerator and driven off the cliff. What are the options for Congress and the American people—the majority of whom do not support this conflict—to regain some control over a president conducting a war as if he were a medieval prince?

Unfortunately, the few legal options available are laden with their own risks. Congress could decide to cut off funding for the war, which at this point could be as reckless an act as starting one. Men and women overseas did not choose to go, and they should at least be allowed to conduct their operations without worrying that Congress will simply turn off all funding. It could pass a resolution demanding an immediate end to hostilities—also a risky move.

Congress does have a less dramatic option: It could invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a law often discussed but rarely understood by the public. I have my own skepticism about using this law: In fact, I helped to avert its use in 1990 when I was working in the Senate during the first Gulf War.

I’ll come back to that. Meanwhile, here’s where the law came from and what it actually says.

The War Powers Resolution was adopted in 1973 during the waning days of the Vietnam War. The resolution imposes these limits on the power of presidents to wage war:

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

This seems simple enough: Unless Congress declares war or passes some law, or the United States is attacked, the president cannot send U.S. forces into harm’s way.

Simple, but irrelevant. Presidents have gotten around this by using that last part about “national emergencies” to justify the use of force; multiple commanders in chief have also—rightly—noted that they may use military power in support of existing treaties (which are the law of the land) if an ally calls for American help.

Nearly a decade before the War Powers Resolution existed, President Lyndon B. Johnson ramped up U.S. involvement in Vietnam by claiming self-defense—he said that U.S. ships had been fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin by the North Vietnamese—and the need to honor a treaty commitment to South Vietnam. Congress rewarded him with the open-ended Tonkin Gulf Resolution, empowering him, “as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”

Many in Congress regretted issuing LBJ this blank check, and by 1973, American legislators realized that maybe handing out “all necessary measures” passes to presidents might not be a great idea, so they repealed Tonkin Gulf in 1971 and later passed the War Powers Resolution. President Richard Nixon vetoed the resolution, on multiple grounds of constitutionality and prudence, but the Congress of 1973 was in no mood for lectures from Nixon, and it overrode his veto.

The problem is that the War Powers Resolution is both too weak and too strong. On the one hand, it requires that the president “consult” Congress only if possible. On the other hand, the resolution sets a firm clock on military action: Within 60 days of notifying Congress, the president “shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted” unless Congress declares war, extends the deadline, or cannot meet because of enemy attack. (That’s a Cold War provision—Congress can’t meet and approve military action if it’s been vaporized by a nuclear strike.)

The law, drawn up half a century ago to stop a future LBJ or Nixon, is poorly written, and even now, members of Congress argue over its meaning. (Yesterday, for example, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut admonished Representative Mike Lawler of New York for cherry-picking some of the law’s language.) Assuming that Congress does not pass a law ending the operation, Trump, in theory, has almost two more months to continue the fight.

This time limit is, in general, a bad idea. It’s a signal to the enemy that the United States has only two months to fight before its legislative and executive branches possibly go into conflict with each other. In any case, competent strategists do not put expiration dates on their operations; such limits give the opponent an incentive to negotiate in bad faith, to engage in information operations against American voters—or perhaps to up the level of violence and hope that congressional nerves are shaken so badly that even the steeliest president cannot keep a wartime political coalition together.

I am familiar with these arguments because I made them in 1990 to my boss, the late Senator John Heinz, when I was his personal assistant for national security and defense. At the time, Heinz and a small group of Republican senators wanted to invoke the War Powers Resolution as President George H. W. Bush was heading toward war against Iraq. Heinz supported Bush’s intentions, and he wanted to avert a challenge to Bush’s authority. The War Powers Resolution is the law of the land, the senator told me, so wouldn’t it help Bush if Congress did its duty and invoked it?

I was a lot less concerned about rogue presidents back then, but I was very concerned about time-limiting a war to dislodge Iraq from Kuwait. (Senator Heinz passed away 35 years ago, so I am not spilling secrets here.) I told him that I thought the resolution was of dubious constitutionality, but even more to the point, I asked him whether he was willing to have a floor fight to extend Bush’s authority two months after the war had started. At the time, the Republicans were the minority in Congress, and we talked about what such a messy political brawl might look like in the middle of a war. He and the other GOP senators dropped the idea.

In the end, it didn’t matter. One day, after lunch with Bush, Heinz told me that Bush was determined to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait even if it meant his eventual impeachment, no matter what Congress said in the meantime. Yet Bush did go to Congress, and he got resolutions of support from both houses just before combat operations began in January 1991.

Right now, Trump has no such worries of impeachment—the GOP controls both houses of Congress, and he has an iron grip on his party (at least until November). But the question remains of whether Congress has any ability to restrain Trump, who has used force more times in more places in just one year than any of his predecessors.

At the least, Congress could use the threat of the War Powers Resolution clock to demand hearings and some explanations. Trump and his people have so far explained almost nothing about the rationale for the war. (The secretary of defense, meanwhile, gave a briefing today that amounted to a lot of chest-thumping nonsense about fighting “to win” without being bound by “stupid rules of engagement.”) And invoking the War Powers Resolution would be far less dangerous now that Iran’s military has largely been beaten and the U.S. and Israel have complete control over Iran’s skies.

Congress is now set to debate the War Powers Resolution, but the fact that this debate is needed at all is a reminder of how much the exercise of American democracy has historically been predicated not on black-letter law but on trust, norms, and basic decency. Congress should not have to argue over whether to trigger the War Powers Resolution, and certainly not in the midst of conflict; better presidents, even when they have abused their authority, have obviated such a fight by going to Congress, speaking to the American people, and building a consensus for action. Trump, instead, has thrown U.S. service people into combat—and dared everyone to stop him.

For now, Congress can try, at least, to use the law to rein in Trump and force him to answer questions about a war he started on his own. But Operation Epic Fury should also impel legislators to think about future ways to place presidential war powers back within the limits of a deliberative, constitutional republic.

Related:

March 4

MAGA war revolt

MAGA's ascendant "America First" wing erupted after Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively blamed Israel for drawing the U.S. into war with Iran, Axios' Marc Caputo, Barak Ravid, Alex Isenstadt and Zachary Basu write.

Why it matters: Rubio's remarks were the first time a Trump official had so explicitly acknowledged Israel as a driving force behind the war — landing at a moment when Americans' public support for Israel has hit historic lows.

"We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action" against Iran, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday. "We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces" by the Iranian regime.

"And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties … And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act," Rubio continued.
Rubio added later: "Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen no matter what."

The widely repeated translation: The U.S. couldn't stop its ally — a far smaller nation that America arms, funds and protects — from attacking Iran on Saturday. So the U.S. had to strike Iran, too.

Not quite, U.S. officials said later. Regardless of Israel, they said, Trump ordered the strikes because he felt Iran was negotiating a nuclear deal in bad faith, and the U.S. needed to destroy the country's offensive military infrastructure.
"This operation needed to happen," Rubio told reporters, because Iran was developing too many missiles too quickly and was rebuilding its nuclear capabilities.

🖼️ The big picture: Rubio's remarks were widely interpreted as making the U.S. look subordinate to Israel's interests. And they inflamed already angry MAGA elites who had spent the day railing against President Trump's decision to go to war.

🎙️ On their podcasts and social media, frustrated pro-Trump influencers argued the president had become beholden to the military hawks and neocons he explicitly ran against.

Anti-Israel voices on the right — as well as openly antisemitic influencers who've clawed toward the mainstream in recent years — claimed vindication.

🔎 Between the lines: Even some traditional Trump allies think the White House's messaging has been muddled. The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh wrote on X as MAGA fractured over Rubio's remarks: "So he's flat out telling us that we're in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said."

But Philip Klein, editor of National Review Online, wrote that those who think Rubio "said that Netanyahu forced the U.S. into war … are conflating the question 'Why?' with the question of 'Why now?'"

💡 Reality check: The picture critics are painting — of a U.S. reluctantly pulled into war by a smaller ally — obscures deep coordination between the two countries in the weeks before the strike.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been urging Trump to strike Iran since December. But Israeli officials say he wouldn't have moved without Trump's explicit approval.
It's highly unlikely Netanyahu would've struck Iran without Trump's green light, Israeli officials added. If Trump had preferred to keep negotiating, the strike would have been postponed.

Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly reined in Netanyahu from aggressive military operations, including his bombing campaign last year in Syria.

And Trump essentially forced the Israeli prime minister to accept a Gaza peace plan that resulted in Hamas releasing its remaining hostages and the remains of others.

📺 Netanyahu pushed back last night, telling Fox News' Sean Hannity that Trump "can't be dragged" into anything — and that the president acts on his own judgment.

Mike Cernovich, a prominent pro-Trump social media figure, said on X: "Rubio's comments are a record scratch moment. He said what most guessed was the case. That he said [this] out loud … is a sea change in foreign policy. There will be massive calls for a walk back."

Megyn Kelly said on her show that she has "serious doubts about what we're doing."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "President Trump's courageous decision to launch Operation Epic Fury is grounded in a truth that presidents for nearly 50 years have been talking about, but no president had the courage to confront: Iran poses a direct and imminent threat to the United States of America and our troops in the Middle East."

Read Rubio's full remarks ...

March 4

☎️ Scoop: Trump courts Kurds

President Trump spoke by phone with Kurdish leaders in Iraq on Sunday to discuss the U.S.–Israel war with Iran and what might come next, three sources with knowledge of the calls told Axios' Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo.

Why it matters: The Kurds have thousands of soldiers along the Iran–Iraq border and control strategic areas that could be significant as the war develops. Iraq's Kurds also have close ties to Iran's Kurdish minority.

🔬 Zoom in: Trump spoke to leaders from the two main Kurdish factions in Iraq — Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani — a day after the Saturday bombing campaign began.

The calls were the culmination of months of behind-the-scenes lobbying by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another source said. Israel has had close security, military and intelligence ties with the Kurds in Syria, Iraq and Iran for decades.
"It is the general view, and certainly Netanyahu's view, that the Kurds are going to come out of the woodwork … that they're going to rise up," one official said.

Screenshot: MS NOW

👀 Inside the room: Netanyahu, who "has been relentless" in urging strikes on and regime change in Iran, first advocated for the Kurds in a White House meeting with Trump.

"When he first came over and sat with Trump for hours, you would have thought Netanyahu had it all figured out," the official said.
"He had the successor planned out. He had the Kurds all figured out: Two sets of Kurdish groups here and there. This many people are going to rise up," the official added.

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