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

March 4

🎤 1 for the road: Dinner surprise

Tweet from Donald J. Trump dated March 2, 2026, stating he was asked to be honoree at White House Correspondents Dinner, reflecting on the event, press criticism, and his plans to attend this year.

President Trump announced he'll attend the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner next month for the first time as president, Axios' Julianna Bragg writes.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that he accepted the invitation "in honor of our Nation's 250th Birthday, and the fact that these 'Correspondents' now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many."

Between the lines: This year's event will feature a magician — celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman — instead of the comedians who historically roasted the president sitting nearby.

Before Trump, Ronald Reagan was the last president to miss the black-tie dinner back in 1981, when he was recovering from an assassination attempt. He called in from Camp David.

Keep reading.

March 4

Trump pushes back on mounting criticism about his Iran war battle plan

Critics say President Donald Trump hasn’t done enough to explain why it was necessary to start a war with Iran now or to articulate his vision for an endgame to the escalating conflict. Read more.

What to know:

The frustration is coming not just from the political left but also from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base, as the conflict expands, energy prices surge and the death toll in the Middle East rises in a war that the administration suggests may only be in the opening stages.
Trump strode back into office last year on an “America First” pledge to keep the U.S. out of the sort of “forever wars” that bogged down some of his recent White House predecessors. Central to his foreign policy outlook dating to his first campaign has been his call to “abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change.” But now Trump finds himself in a war of his own choosing that’s spurring concern the U.S. could be dragged into another prolonged conflict in the Middle East.
The administration has not detailed who it wants to see take control of Iran following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other top leaders. Trump called on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to put down their arms. But history suggests that air power alone is unlikely to bring about the kind of regime change that Trump says he wants to see in Iran.

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March 4

Trump Denounces Two of MAGA’s Biggest Stars in New Civil War

The president was not pleased with their criticism of his Iran strikes.

Two of Donald Trump’s MAGA stars appear to be on the outs after a searing rebuke from the president for their comments on his Iran strikes.

Megyn Kelly, 55, said she had “serious doubts” about the strategy, while Tucker Carlson, 56, has long opposed military involvement in the Middle East. The former Fox News hosts each have millions of social media followers.

Kelly “oughta study her history book a little bit,” Trump, 79, told independent reporter Rachael Bade in response to the conservative podcaster’s comments on Monday.

Kelly “was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time and nothing stopped me,” he added. “And so, you know, some people are against—and they always come back."

As for Carlson, Trump said his opposition “has no impact on me.”

“I think that MAGA is Trump—MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump said. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing—every aspect of it."

Iran, he claimed, “is a detour that we have to take in order to keep our country safe and keep other countries safe, frankly.”

Kelly has a long history of run-ins with Trump, he once declared she “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever,” after she criticized his remarks on women, but she had come back around by the time he was running for a second term.

Both Kelly and Carlson supported Trump’s 2024 re-election bid and delivered speeches at his rallies in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Kelly, on her SiriusXM show on Monday, said that while she supported Trump, she should still be able to question his actions.

“I have serious doubts about what we’re doing,” Kelly said.

“I support the president... But that doesn’t mean... you have to accept another Middle East war without questions. And anybody who tells you that can suck it,” she said. “There’s nothing unpatriotic or unsupportive of one’s conservatism or general adherence to MAGA-type principles to say, ‘I would like to be better convinced that this is worth the sacrifice of American blood and treasure.’”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed that the U.S. strikes were “preventive” because the administration believed Iran would attack U.S. military bases after Israel attacked Iran. The response has garnered significant criticism.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had for weeks lobbied Trump to attack Iran, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported.

As of Monday, six U.S. service members had been killed.

Kelly went on to say that “no one should have to die for a foreign country.”

“I don’t think those service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel,” she said. “No one is crying that the ayatollah is dead, but our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or Israel. It’s to look out for us.”

Carlson, who tried to talk Trump out of the war, according to the New York Times, was similarly skeptical.

“This happened because Israel wanted it to happen,” he said on his show Monday. “This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war. This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives, to make the United States safer or richer... This war is waged purely because Israel wanted it to be waged.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to Kelly, Carlson, and the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-denounces-two-of-magas-biggest-stars-in-new-civil-war/?

March 4

Trump Admits He Has No War Plan in Bombshell Letter

The president appeared to confirm fears that he’s improvising when it comes to his military campaign in Iran.

President Donald Trump admitted in a letter to Congress that he has no idea how his war with Iran will play out. The 79-year-old president has repeatedly contradicted himself about why he launched “major combat operations” against Iran, and provided conflicting timelines about how long he expects the bombing to continue. His answers have ranged from a few days to more than a month, which Pentagon insiders warn would put serious strain on U.S. air defense stockpiles. Already six American service members have been killed in retaliatory strikes since the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign began on Saturday.

On Monday, the president’s lack of a plan in Iran was outlined in stark terms in a letter to Congress obtained by CBS News officially informing lawmakers of the strikes.

“Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace, it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary,” Trump said in the letter.

U.S. forces “remain postured to take further action… to address further threats and attacks upon the United States or its allies and partners,” he continued.

The letter was sent under the War Powers Act, a 1973 resolution requiring the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying U.S. forces if Congress has not declared war. The deployment cannot last more than 60 days without congressional approval.

The clock is now ticking for Trump to either conclude the military operation or convince Congress to back the war with Iran.

“These strikes were undertaken to protect United States forces in the region, protect the United States homeland, advance vital United States national interests, including ensuring the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, and in collective self-defense of our regional allies, including Israel,” Trump said in his letter.

Over the weekend, the president gave 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 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.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-admits-he-has-no-iran-war-plan-in-official-letter-to-congress/?

March 4

Terrifying Conclusion of Secret Senate War Briefing Revealed

Trump’s campaign promises to end messy military adventures abroad have been buried.

Lawmakers at a secret Senate briefing have revealed what appears to be Donald Trump’s new foreign policy priority in the Middle East, potentially laying the ground for endless U.S. military engagements across the region.

Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, attended the classified briefing Monday night—held by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe—on the president’s decision to launch an all-out war with Iran over the weekend.

Warner told reporters those officials had explained how, prior to those strikes, Israel had warned it was facing an imminent threat from Tehran. Israel’s plans to attack first, the officials apparently went on, had effectively forced the U.S. into a pre-emptive assault on Iranian targets, on the basis of protecting American military assets across the region from prospective retaliatory strikes by the Islamic regime.

“This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others, that was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline,” the senator said. “There was no imminent threat to the United States by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the U.S., then we are in uncharted territory.”

Throughout its history, Israel has frequently engaged in direct or indirect conflict with actors across the Middle East—including wars with neighboring states like Egypt and Lebanon, repeated confrontations with terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and strikes aimed at curbing Iran’s regional influence.

Warner’s comments about the White House treating threats to Israel as de facto threats against the U.S. raise the spectre of a future in which Washington could very well be drawn more quickly and more often into recurring conflicts across the Middle East, potentially committing U.S. forces whenever Israel’s security situation escalates.

The senator underscored the Trump administration’s unprecedented rationale for its strikes on Iran by stressing that his own support for Israel remains steadfast, but not unconditional. “I stand firmly with Israel,” he said. “But I believe at the end of the day, when we are talking about putting American soldiers in harm’s way and we have American casualties and expectations of more, there needs to be the proof of an imminent threat to American interests.”

“I still don’t think that standard has been met,” he added.

Trump himself has repeatedly struggled to stick to any given justification for launching the attacks against Iran, which have prompted retaliatory strikes from Iran and sent shockwaves through the global economy. At least six U.S. servicemembers have already been killed.

The president offered four different explanations for the conflict in just the two days after he started it. He said that “all I want is freedom for the people” of Iran, then that the campaign was designed to put an end to the regime’s nuclear program, then that its goals are a change of leadership, and then that it came in response to an imminent threat of attacks on U.S. bases.

A somewhat circular variation of that last justification now appears to have stuck among top administration officials. “The president made [a] very wise decision,” Rubio told reporters Monday. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Johnson struck a similar tone after the Senate briefing. “Because Israel was determined to act with or without the U.S., our commander in chief and the administration and the officials had a very difficult decision to make,” he said. “If we had waited to respond before acting first, [our] losses would have been far greater than if we had done what we did.”

Speaking with Fox News later that night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to pour cold water on any suggestion he had forced Trump’s hand. Prefacing his comments with a chuckle, he said: “That’s ridiculous. Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America.”

Trump’s war with Iran comes after he repeatedly promised voters on the 2024 campaign trail that if elected, he would dramatically reduce U.S. military engagements abroad. In his election night victory speech, he told supporters, “I’m not going to start a war; I’m going to end a war.” And since assuming office last January he has modelled himself as the “Peace President” in a bid to secure himself the Nobel Peace Prize.

After the Norwegian Nobel Committee scorned those efforts in November, the president has now said he no longer feels “obligated to think purely of peace.” He has since bombed Nigeria, invaded Venezuela, launched a rapidly escalating conflict in the Middle East, and threatened military action against allies like Mexico, Colombia, Panama, and Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

Trump’s growing appetite for foreign intervention has severely tested more isolationist positions held by top members of his Cabinet. Vice President JD Vance, a steadfast critic of U.S. involvement in Ukraine, repeatedly assured voters in 2024 that Trump was the anti-war candidate, while Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sold T-shirts with “NO WAR WITH IRAN” on them as part of her bid for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

The president’s actions in the Middle East have set off conflict along the same lines among the GOP and the wider MAGA orbit. Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson immediately slammed the weekend’s attacks as “absolutely disgusting and evil,” while rogue Republican congressman Thomas Massie was quick to blast the White House’s latest defense of the conflict.

“The administration admits [Israel] dragged us into the [Iran] war that’s already cost too many American lives and billions of dollars,” the Kentucky congressman posted on X. “Before it’s over, the price of gas, groceries, and virtually everything else is going to go up. The only winners in [the U.S.] are defense company shareholders.”

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/terrifying-conclusion-of-secret-senate-briefing-on-president-donald-trumps-war-with-iran-revealed/?

March 4

How Trump’s War Has Triggered New Axis of Evil

Foreign policy analyst David Rothkopf dissects how the president’s Iran strikes link him to two world leaders accused of war crimes.

The U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran has formed a new “axis of evil,” according to Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf.Rothkopf, a foreign policy analyst, said that when judged by the number of innocent deaths, illegal wars, and “war crimes” committed, the three men in this new axis are Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin.“There was a time, 20-odd years ago, when George W. Bush, in making his case for his war, got on television and said the United States faces...an ‘axis of evil’ in this world,” Rothkopf told The Daily Beast Podcast host Joanna Coles.

Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union address, singled out Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as countries that were “arming to threaten the peace of the world.”

Rothkopf said that in 2026, amid Trump’s airstrikes on Iran, Putin’s four-plus-year war against Ukraine, and the destruction of Gaza under Netanyahu’s watch, there’s an argument that the three of them are doing the same.

“I think a case can be made, if you’re looking at the number of innocent deaths, and the number of wars of choice that shouldn’t have been undertaken, the number of illegal wars, and the number of war crimes committed, that the new axis of evil contains Vladimir Putin, but it’s now also Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu,” Rothkopf said.

In Iran, for instance, a strike on a girls’ school killed at least 175 people, health officials and Iranian state media said, the New York Times reported. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the U.S. or Israel was responsible.In Gaza, the Palestinian death toll as of last July was over 60,000, Palestinian health authorities said, with nearly one-third of victims under 18. The Israel Defense Forces also killed journalists and first responders. Multiple scholars have alleged genocide, and the International Criminal Court in 2024 issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in part for his alleged war crime of “starvation as a weapon of war.”

Meanwhile, Russian troops have attacked civilian targets like hospitals, spurring the ICC to issue arrest warrants for top Russian military officers. In 2023, the court did the same for Putin regarding child abductions. As of last January, the United Nations put the civilian death toll at over 12,300.

Rothkopf explained his reasoning further.

“If these are the countries that are attacking other countries illegally, producing deaths as a consequence of their policies, both in war and also policies like withholding food and aid from people around the world, are doing this recklessly, are doing this not to advance peace or national interests, but to advance the very, very narrow interests of the leaders of those countries, what they’re doing is fundamentally evil,” he said.

Trump, he added, has been motivated by several such interests, as has Netanyahu.

The two are “in the middle of a scandal,” Rothkopf said, referring to the Jeffrey Epstein saga and Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

“[Netanyahu] is also facing an election at the end of this year, which could cause him great political harm, and he also feels that conducting war outside of his country is the best way for him to remain in power,” Rothkopf said. “He also doesn’t care about casualties. He doesn’t care about the consequences of these things.”

So far, six U.S. service members have been killed by Iranian strikes. Trump ordered the attack after weeks of lobbying from Netanyahu, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported.

“And so this is the new axis of evil. It should be chilling for every American that we’re part of it,” Rothkopf said.

“Am I saying the U.S. military is part of that? Only because they are following the orders of the president of the United States, because they are waging this illegal war on behalf of the president. Am I saying the Congress, the enablers in Congress are part of it? Yes. Yeah, they are. They’re letting him get away with this.”

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-trumps-war-has-triggered-new-axis-of-evil/?

March 4

Keystone Kash Patel Fired Iran Experts Just Days Before Trump’s War

The FBI director’s revenge cull decimated a global espionage unit.

Embattled FBI Director Kash Patel’s revenge-fueled firing spree resulted in several key specialists in the threat posed by Iran losing their jobs—just days before Donald Trump’s latest war.

Patel terminated 12 FBI employees following revelations that his and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ phones had been under subpoena as part of a probe on the illegal storage of documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.

The FBI used subpoenas to obtain the communication records of Patel and Wiles during a 2022-23 probe that eventually came under the leadership of special counsel Jack Smith.

But Patel’s revenge strike on the FBI wound up decimating the Bureau’s global espionage unit known as CI-12, according to a report by MS NOW citing more than six sources with knowledge of the firings.

The report claimed that even on Monday there were still fears within the FBI that Patel would cull more agents and staff in the CI-12 unit, which operates out of the Washington Field Office.

The elite CI-12 unit focuses on “media leaks, global espionage and international threats against America” emanating from countries such as Cuba and Iran, according to former FBI officials speaking to the New York Sun.

“More broadly, CI squads are the lead domestic teams for investigating insider threats and foreign intelligence activity on American soil.”

Patel’s outing of the CI-12 staff not only came days before attacks in Iran, but also before a deadly mass shooting in Austin, Texas, conducted “by a man reportedly wearing a sweatshirt that said, ‘Property of Allah,’ beneath which was a T-shirt that was ’emblazoned with a design similar to the Iranian flag,“ CBS News reported on Monday.

The Daily Beast has contacted the FBI for comment.

Trump announced they had launched “major combat operations” against Iran early on Saturday. “Operation Epic Fury” has seen six U.S. service members killed by Iranian strikes so far.

The 79-year-old ordered the attack on Iran after weeks of lobbying from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported.

The strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior officials—including some who had been identified by the United States as possible candidates to lead Iran.

CI-12 had a role in monitoring retaliatory strikes by Iran on U.S. soil after an American drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in 2020.

At the time of Patel’s firings last week, he lashed out at the work of the agency before he took over as director in February last year.

“It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records—along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles—using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight,” Patel said in a statement.

The FBI Agents Association opposed Patel’s firings at the time, releasing a statement to CNN that may have been prophetic.

“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals—ultimately putting the nation at greater risk.”

While he would not comment on personnel matters, FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson told MS NOW, “Our teams remain 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.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-director-keystone-kash-patel-fired-iran-experts-just-days-before-donald-trumps-war/?

ps:This is what this administration is doing so they can do this stuff without anybody telling him this is not the way to go!!!!!

March 4

Sinister Reason Keystone Kash Halted ICE Killing Probe Revealed

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee say they know why the FBI director ordered agents to stop investigating Renee Good’s murder.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have come forward with an explanation for FBI Director Kash Patel’s decision to order agents to stop investigating the killing of Renee Good at the hands of an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

In a Monday X post, the Democratic senators cited a “credible whistleblower” who said, “FBI forensic experts were ordered to stand down from processing the scene where Renee Good was killed, because Kash Patel did not want Good referenced as a ‘victim’ in the warrant.”

The revelation comes just days after ranking members Sheldon Whitehouse and Dick Durbin called for an investigation into the FBI’s decision to shut down a civil rights investigation into Good’s killing.

“As you know, it is standard procedure for federal prosecutors and the FBI to conduct a use-of-force investigation when a law enforcement officer kills or injures someone, especially in cases of immense public scrutiny such as this one,” the pair wrote in a letter sent to the Department of Justice’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility on Feb. 25.

“In light of these press reports, credible whistleblower information received by the Committee, and the mass resignation of career prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, we request that DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility investigate the end of the civil rights probe into Ms. Good’s death, including who ordered the closure of the investigation and why,” the letter continued.

A follow-up post from the Senate Judiciary Democrats said that “Kash Patel wanted to falsely spin Renee Good as a threat to law enforcement,” attaching a screenshot of a paragraph containing a whistleblower’s account of the closure of the FBI investigation.

According to the whistleblower, “FBI Director Patel wanted the warrant not to include language referencing Good as the victim but instead to portray her as the subject of an investigation into the assault of a federal law enforcement officer.”

A report from the New York Times last month revealed that agents who were preparing to examine blood spatter and bullet holes in Good’s SUV received orders to stop from senior officials, including Patel himself, who were concerned that a civil rights investigation would contradict President Donald Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who shot and killed her—a claim contradicted by available video evidence.The Times report details alternative approaches suggested by the Department of Justice, including suggesting prosecutors ask a judge to sign a new warrant that would allow them to investigate whether Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Good, had been assaulted. They also urged prosecutors to investigate Good’s partner.

The pivot prompted an internal revolt that resulted in at least six federal prosecutors resigning from the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office, as well as one supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office who resigned after being pressured to discontinue the investigation into Ross.

Good, a 37-year old mother of three and U.S. citizen who lived in Minneapolis, was fatally shot by Ross on Jan. 7 amid the Trump administration’s continued immigration crackdown and subsequent counter-protests in the city.

Nobody has been charged with her killing. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed in January that the DOJ would not be opening a criminal investigation into Ross for his role in Good’s death.

Local officials have expressed concern that the lack of an investigation will only deepen public distrust, with Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara telling the Times, “This is potentially destroying all of the progress that we have made, working together between local and federal law enforcement officials in a very coordinated way, to actually go after the worst of the worst.”

Chris Madel, a Minnesota defense attorney who advised Ross following the shooting, also supported an investigation, telling the Times, “In the absence of an independent use-of-force investigation, you lead the public to believe that there must be something to hide.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sinister-reason-keystone-kash-patel-halted-ice-probe-after-death-of-renee-good-revealed/?

March 4

Little Marco Goes Full Tin Foil Hat Over Reason for Iran War

The secretary of state said Donald Trump had no choice but to launch a “preemptive strike.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has offered what appears to be a bizarre conspiracy theory as a reason why President Donald Trump launched his war on Iran.

Rubio insisted that the U.S. fired first as a “preemptive” strike against Tehran.

The president had not explained why he started the war other than to claim Iran represented an “imminent threat” to the United States.

But Rubio insisted on Monday afternoon that Trump had no choice but to attack because the U.S. believed Israel was planning to hit Iran. And that the regime was likely to respond by targeting America.

Speaking before briefing lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Rubio said: “The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, they would immediately come after us.”

“We were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded,” Rubio added. “If we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked by someone else, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths.”

The bonkers theory ignored the obvious contradictions. It’s widely understood that Israel would seek Trump’s blessing before going to war with Iran, especially after the huge U.S. military buildup in the region.

And if the U.S. blocked Israel’s military ambitions, as Rubio’s version of events suggested, there would have been no need for Trump to wage war himself.

Rubio, who spearheaded the aborted peace talks with the Ayatollah’s regime last week, maintained the bombings “needed to happen.”

“We went proactively to prevent them from inflicting more damage,” Rubio added. “Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and loss of life.”

“We were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and had to be prepared to act as a result of it.”

Rubio was in the makeshift Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago with Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to monitor the launch in the early hours on Saturday. He said on Monday that the operation, which has so far claimed the lives of six U.S. troops, would continue until Iran’s ballistic missile stocks have been destroyed.

Rubio insisted the attack had to happen now, “because Iran in about a year, or year and a half, would’ve crossed the line of immunity—meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/little-marco-rubio-goes-full-tin-foil-hat-over-reason-for-iran-war/?

March 5

Trump Calls BS on Vance’s Frantic Spin About Iran War

The president has once again undercut his supposed MAGA heir-apparent.

Donald Trump has thrown his vice president under the bus over Iran, rejecting suggestions that JD Vance needed to be convinced about entering another foreign war.

In a pointed rebuttal of Vance’s evolving public posture on the conflict, Trump dismissed the idea that the vice president—whose political reputation was built on his opposition to foreign intervention—was wobbly over the decision by the U.S. to strike over the weekend.

In a brief interview with RealClearPolitics, Trump said Vance “did not take persuading” about supporting the strikes, which have so far resulted in six U.S. service members being killed.

The comments could prove sensitive for Vance, the standard-bearer of MAGA’s anti-interventionist wing, as he struggles to thread the needle over a war that could be a liability for him down the track.

In 2023, for instance, Vance wrote an op-ed praising Trump’s reluctance to start wars, describing this as “the enduring legacy of Mr. Trump’s first term.”

This week, he embarked on a spin campaign after White House sources said the one-time isolationist had pushed for a “go big” war in Iran.

Sources close to him later rushed to downplay the disclosure by White House sources, insisting that he had really opposed the war in private.

The prolific tweeter was also conspicuously quiet in the days after the strike, prompting supporters to wonder where he was.

On the third day of the new war, Vance finally broke his silence, telling Fox News’ Jesse Waters that the decision to support the strikes was consistent with clearly defined objectives—chiefly, to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.

He also said that, unlike past “forever wars,” this conflict would not lead to protracted U.S. involvement

“What’s so different about this is that the president has clearly defined what he wants to accomplish,” Vance said.

But this was undercut when Trump admitted in a letter to Congress that he has no idea how long America could be involved.

“Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace, it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary,” Trump said in the letter.

The remarks come amid escalating controversy over the administration’s rationale for Operation Epic Fury—a joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran that has already drawn international criticism and cast doubt on Trump’s long-standing “America First” principles.

The broader conflict has already sparked pushback from U.S. lawmakers who question the legal authority for strikes without congressional authorization, and from military analysts warning that even limited objectives could entangle American forces in a prolonged regional fight.

Trump’s own framing of the war has also shifted, from emphasizing a swift and limited mission to declaring the campaign may go beyond the four or five weeks he initially claimed.

Meanwhile, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has refused to rule out deploying U.S. ground troops if “necessary”, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted on Monday that part of the reason the strikes were triggered was because of Israel’s plan to launch an attack.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he told reporters.

Veterans and Democrats slammed the revelation.

“The sitting Secretary of State of the United States of America admits that at 6 American soldiers have been killed and 18 seriously wounded because Israel decided to strike Iran and forced our hand,” said Iraq veteran Rob Smith.

“This is an absolutely jaw-dropping admission.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-calls-bs-on-vances-frantic-spin-about-iran-war/?

ps:AS per usual just throwing him under the bus once again! When will they learn he doesn't care one iota about any of them??

March 5

Trump Hit by Brutal Reality Check on Domestic Cost of War

The president’s affordability crisis has suffered yet another setback.

President Donald Trump’s war with Iran has wiped away two of his top talking points of MAGA 2.0.

Fuel prices surged by an average of 12 cents per gallon on Monday, which Gas Buddy reports is the largest single-day increase in three years, while markets dipped dramatically.

The DOW crashed 1,100 points on Tuesday morning, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite plunged by 2.5 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively. The Wall Street Journal wrote of the crash, “The index is on track for its biggest one-day decline since April last year, when markets were convulsing after President Trump imposed broad tariffs on U.S. imports.”

Oil prices have also spiked and are already causing Americans pain at the pump.

The post-bombing spike means American gas prices, at an average of $3.11 a gallon, are now higher than they were a year ago. Tuesday also marked the first time since November that gas has averaged more than $3 a gallon.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy, said he believes prices will continue to rise as conflict in the Middle East—which has left six American servicemembers dead—rages on.

He writes that the spike is directly tied to instability around the Strait of Hormuz, which is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. It is also what separates Iran from the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

“If tanker flows are materially disrupted, prices could rise further,” he wrote on Substack. “If maritime security stabilizes and flows normalize, some of this risk premium could unwind. For now, however, the pump reaction is not only underway—it’s accelerating.”

De Haan does not anticipate average prices exceeding $4 a gallon, but he said he could see them soon reach $3.35.

The areas that suffered the largest spike in gas prices over the last week are mostly in red states in the American heartland.

Gas Buddy reports that weekly prices rose the most in Wisconsin, spiking by an average of 33 cents per gallon, followed by Iowa, Nebraska, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Minnesota, and Arkansas. Aside from Minnesota, Trump carried each of those states in the 2024 general election.

The average gallon of gas cost $3.09 nationwide on March 3, 2025—a month-and-a-half into Trump’s second term. That is a far cry from the rare sub-$2-per-gallon gas Trump has touted this year, claiming his policies have driven costs down.

Trump, 79, even mentioned the sparse few gas stations that priced their gas so cheaply during his State of the Union address, despite those figures being far from reality for most Americans.

“Gasoline reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor—it was quite honestly a disaster,” Trump said in his big speech last month. “It’s now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places, one dollar and ninety-nine cents a gallon.”

Trump claimed that he saw gas for less than $2 a gallon during a January trip to Iowa, despite tracking firms saying at the time that fewer than 1 percent of stations offered that price. On that same trip, he was brutally fact-checked during an event by someone who yelled out that the actual gas prices in the state were 70 cents higher than what Trump was claiming.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the rising prices. However, Trump addressed the spiking costs in the Oval Office on Tuesday and claimed that the higher gas prices would be temporary.

“I’ll tell you what, I have never had more compliments on something I did,” Trump said of his Iran strikes. “People felt it’s something that had to be done. So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while—but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hit-by-brutal-reality-check-on-domestic-cost-of-war/?

March 5

After abandoning law firm executive orders, Trump administration reverses course and pursues fight

A day after abandoning its efforts to enforce executive orders that targeted some of the world’s most elite law firms, President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly reversed course on Tuesday and said it would proceed with the court fight. Read more.

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March 5

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March 5

Lock step no more: Iran war shows cracks in Trump’s conservative media support

For President Donald Trump, some of the sharpest criticism he’s faced in the early days of the Iran war has come from once-loyal media figures far more accustomed to singing his praises. Read more.

Why this matters:

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh are among those expressing discontent. It’s been noticed in the White House, which has been playing defense on social media and in interviews. To be sure, these critics are the minority of the media MAGAsphere, where Fox News’ biggest stars remain cheerleaders. But their words illustrate conservative media’s influence and how valuable it is to Trump when all runs as a well-oiled machine — and, by contrast, how much of a problem it can be if it fractures.
Much of the criticism has centered on Israel’s influence on Trump’s decision to go to war. Carlson, the former Fox News star who has built his own independent operation, told ABC News over the weekend that the attack was “absolutely disgusting and evil.” “It’s hard to say this, but the United States didn’t make the decision here,” Carlson said on his podcast. “Benjamin Netanyahu did,” he added, referring to the Israeli prime minister.

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March 5

A Heartless Response

																(Elizabeth Frantz / Reuters)
															

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The United States is at war. Americans, at such a time, might expect their government to speak to them regularly and report on U.S. goals—and casualties—but so far, they have gotten little beyond prerecorded videos of the president and some sound bites from various officials. Even Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has held only a few briefings.

Perhaps the Pentagon chief’s reluctance to speak to the press is just as well, because many Americans would be alarmed to realize that their sons and daughters in combat are being overseen by a person as callous as Pete Hegseth.

This morning, the defense secretary gave a briefing on the war that quickly degenerated into Trumplike bombast. (Wisely, the Pentagon scheduled this at 8 a.m. eastern time, when most of the country is either sleeping or busy starting their day.) Hegseth apparently prefers to sound more like a Call of Duty player leading a raid than a sober and judicious secretary of defense: “Death and destruction from the sky all day,” he said, along with other empty phrases such as “We’re playing for keeps.” (As opposed to what, exactly?)

Most reporters are now accustomed to Hegseth’s drama-laden antics. But even by the low standards he has set, he managed to shock many of them when he cynically used the deaths of U.S. military personnel to air his own grievances with the press.

On Sunday morning (local time), an Iranian drone hit a makeshift operations center in Kuwait. The Pentagon says that six Americans are dead. Not only is this event a tragedy, but it also requires an explanation: The drone reportedly snuck through U.S. defenses without setting off any alerts, and struck a target that now seems to have been unduly vulnerable to aerial attack.

The defense secretary, the man who is supposed to carry this news to the American public and mourn with them, instead whined about the unfairness of it all. “When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news. I get it,” Hegseth told the reporters, military personnel, and civilians gathered this morning in the Pentagon. “The press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step. As I said Monday, the mission is laser-focused.”

“Tragic things happen”? Hegseth said this as though it is unreasonable to look any closer at such events. He seems unable to grasp that the deaths of Americans are not merely a public-relations problem: When a drone slips through U.S. defenses and kills six members of America’s armed forces, the deaths of those servicepeople are the story. The people of the United States deserve to know what happened and why. Hegseth complaining that he’s not getting credit for all of the drones that didn’t get through is like an airline executive responding to an air disaster by growling about all of the planes his company made that didn’t crash.

My colleague Nancy Youssef was at the Pentagon this morning, sitting just three rows from the podium. I asked her what the atmosphere was like after Hegseth’s heartless remark. She told me that his comments “sent a stunned silence through the briefing room.” Even members of Hegseth’s staff, she said, seemed to flinch at what he was saying. “Some put their heads down,” she said, while others just looked around. Someone in the room then said: “That was one of the most insulting things I have ever heard,” quietly but audibly and, as far as Nancy could tell, to no one in particular.

Unlike Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine opened his remarks by grieving the deaths of the fallen soldiers, saying that “it’s with profound sadness and gratitude that I share the names of four of our six fallen heroes.” He didn’t have the names of the other two, because while Hegseth was griping about media coverage, the U.S. military was completing the next-of-kin notification. (The names could be publicly released as soon as later today.) “Our nation stands with you,” Caine told Gold Star parents, wounded warriors, and their families, “and we are eternally grateful for your courage, your resiliency, your devotion to this mission and to our nation.”

The contrast was unsettling. For years, defense secretaries and top generals have carried the anguish of decisions that have led to troop deaths. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that he wept as he read the stories of the fallen; some generals have carried photos of those lost under their command—even into their retirement. Hegseth, instead, noted the losses almost in passing, and used them as a vehicle for his ongoing beefs with the press.

But Hegseth wasn’t content merely to carp about the coverage of American deaths. After expressing his irritation at the press, he decided to trash America’s allies. Instead of simply praising Israel—America’s only ally in this war—he took a needless shot at other nations, saying that U.S. allies in the past provided only “ancillary benefits” in global conflicts because they were “maybe willing but not as capable” as the Israelis. Hegseth made this preposterous claim in front of military people who had fought in previous wars alongside these allies—and who saw many service members from these nations sacrifice their life alongside their American comrades.

Hegseth is now holding more press conferences, according to Nancy’s reporting, because some White House officials have privately conceded that they are losing the communications war. The Trump team should have seen this coming: When Hegseth kicked the press corps out of the Pentagon last fall—including reporters from The Atlantic—for not agreeing to publish only Pentagon-approved news, some reporters warned department officials that such a move might make it harder for the public to understand America’s operations overseas, Nancy told me. Now the United States is involved in a major war, and no one in the Pentagon, the White House, or the State Department seems able to explain why without contradicting one another.

In the midst of all this, Hegseth provided at least one moment of clarity: He showed, yet again, why he is an execrable choice to lead the Pentagon. Like his boss, he does not talk to the American people so much as put on performances for them, and this morning, he played the role of the Fox News pundit castigating other journalists. But the people in the briefing room were doing their job trying to get the facts. Unlike Hegseth, they are taking their responsibilities seriously: This is not a game, it’s not a TV show, and it’s not some adolescent test of wills.

Pete Hegseth, if he does not resign, should at least get out of the way and let better men than him talk to the nation and to the press. No one is asking for classified details to be revealed in public; no one expects Periclean rhetoric from a talk-show host. But the people of the United States deserve more of an explanation of what’s happening in this war, and they certainly deserve more of an encomium for their fallen children than “Tragic things happen.”

Related:

The last days of the Pentagon press corps
Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is becoming a bubble. (From August)

March 5

Trump Launches Military Operation in Yet Another Country

The president’s war in the Middle East was only three days old when he ordered new U.S. military strikes 8,000 miles away.

The U.S. has launched military operations against “designated terrorist organizations” in Ecuador just three days after starting a war in the Middle East.

While the eyes of the world are on Iran, and Trump is under fire even from MAGAworld for his foreign entanglements, the president authorized yet another series of U.S. military strikes.

U.S. Southern Command announced the operations in a late-night X post on Tuesday, writing, “On March 3, Ecuadorian and U.S. military forces launched operations against Designated Terrorist Organizations in Ecuador. The operations are a powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism.”

“Together, we are taking decisive action to confront narco-terrorists who have long inflicted terror, violence, and corruption on citizens throughout the hemisphere.”

The post also included a quote from Southern Command General Francis L. Donovan, who said, “We commend the men and women of the Ecuadorian armed forces for their unwavering commitment to this fight, demonstrating courage and resolve through continued actions against narco-terrorists in their country.”

Attached to the post was a video of a helicopter taking off from an undisclosed location before cutting to black-and-white footage of the helicopter picking up soldiers.

Both the Pentagon and the White House referred the Daily Beast to U.S. Southern Command’s X post when contacted for comment.

The move comes as military officials are already said to be panicking privately about Trump’s newly launched war against Iran spiraling out of control and depleting U.S. air defense supplies. Launched early Saturday and dubbed Operation Epic Fury, Trump officials have given a flurry of contradictory statements about the goal and timeline of the war, with the president saying it could drag on for weeks even as military officials sound the alarm about rapidly depleted air defense missiles in the face of Iran’s retaliatory attacks.

At least six U.S. servicemembers have already been confirmed dead as a result of the conflict with Iran, and Trump has casually acknowledged that more are likely to die.

Perhaps aware of public backlash to the fallout over Trump’s Iran war, military operations in Ecuador were billed as more of a support mission.

U.S. Special Forces soldiers are advising and supporting Ecuadorian commandos on raids that are being conducted at suspected drug shipment facilities across the country, according to the New York Times.

A U.S. official who spoke to the Times explained that U.S. soldiers are not believed to be participating in the raids, but are merely assisting with planning and providing intelligence and logistics support.

The official said that the video posted to social media depicted the first in what was expected to be a series of raids across Ecuador.

The launch of operations in Ecuador also comes after the U.S. has conducted numerous strikes on what it claims are boats being used for drug-smuggling around the Caribbean.

At least 151 people have been killed in 44 strikes on 45 vessels across the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since the first strike on Sept. 2.

The Trump administration has not been forthcoming with evidence that the boats it has targeted were being used to smuggle narcotics, prompting legal experts to argue that the strikes are illegal and extrajudicial.

There have also been concerns that the Trump administration may have committed a war crime when it used an aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane to conduct a strike, according to a New York Times report published in January.

“Shielding your identity is an element of perfidy,” Retired Maj. Gen. Steven Lepper, a former judge advocate in the Air Force, told the Times. “If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity.”

Trump’s controversial extrajudicial strikes in the region culminated in the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife First Lady Cilia Flores in early January.

The pair was taken from a residence in Caracas and flown to New York, where they face charges of narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, and weapons possession. In his first court appearance following his abduction, Maduro described himself as a “prisoner of war” and pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The joint operation in Ecuador is the latest in a long line of foreign military operations undertaken during Trump’s second term in office.

Under Trump, who previously dubbed himself the “Peace President” and ran on a platform of “no new wars,” U.S. forces have conducted strikes on Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, and Nigeria, as well as on numerous vessels throughout the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-launches-military-operation-in-yet-another-country/?

March 5

Senator Says Secret Briefing on Iran Proves It’s ‘Worse Than You Thought’

Lawmakers attended a classified meeting as the Trump administration tries to justify the conflict.

Elizabeth Warren said a classified briefing about Donald Trump’s war on Iran has confirmed the situation surrounding the controversial conflict is even more dire than expected. The Massachusetts senator was among a number of Democrats who attended a closed-door meeting Tuesday about the president’s war in the Middle East, and warned that the administration has no clear plan to end the conflict, or any real justification for starting it.

“Here’s what I can say: It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried,” Warren, 76, said in a video posted online.

“The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation. Donald Trump still hasn’t given a single clear reason for this war, and he seems to have no plan for how to end it.”

“Like a lot of you, I am really angry. I am angry at what Donald Trump is doing, and I feel grief for those already killed in this unnecessary conflict. And I will keep doing everything I can to fight to end this war,” Warren added.

Trump confirmed in the early hours of Feb. 28 that the U.S. had joined forces with Israel to launch a bombing campaign against Iran after months of pressuring Tehran to agree to a new nuclear deal.

One of Trump’s justifications for starting the war—that Iran was preparing to launch an unprovoked attack on U.S. forces or bases in the region, or was building missiles capable of reaching U.S. soil—has never been backed by official intelligence assessments.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also faced intense MAGA backlash after appearing to suggest that the U.S. only attacked Iran after being made aware that Israel was about to do so.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” Rubio told reporters at the Capitol on Monday. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut was another Democrat who spoke out against the war after attending Tuesday’s classified briefing with Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Joint Chiefs Chair Dan Caine. Rubio, Caine, and Ratcliffe gave a similar briefing on Monday, highlighting the administration’s concerns that Congress could turn against it over the conflict.

“I’m more convinced now that this is going to be open-ended and forever,” Murphy told reporters Tuesday. “This feels like a multi-trillion-dollar, open-ended conflict with a very confusing and constantly shifting set of goals.”

Fellow Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal added: “I just want to say I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/senator-elizabeth-warre-says-secret-briefing-on-iran-proves-its-worse-than-you-thought/?

March 5

Trump Caught in Frantic Scramble to Replenish Iran Weapons

Pentagon insiders have contradicted Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S. has an “unlimited” supply to fight Iran.

President Donald Trump has called a meeting Friday with defense contractors to try to speed up weapons production as his war in Iran burns through U.S. missile stocks.

The president—who has ordered military strikes against more countries than any other U.S. president in modern history—claimed Monday in a Truth Social post that the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited supply” of munitions, and that “wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies.”

But with no end in sight to the deadly attacks on Iran—which have in turn triggered retaliatory strikes throughout the Middle East, killing six U.S. soldiers to date—Pentagon officials told The Washington Post earlier this week the mood was “intense and paranoid” as the military ran through its stockpiles of U.S. air defense interceptor missiles.

Even before “Operation Epic Fury” began on Saturday, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine had warned the White House that weapons shortages and limited allied support would significantly increase risks to both the mission and U.S. troops, according to the Post.

Now, the administration has invited executives from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon’s parent company RTX, and other key suppliers to attend a meeting at the White House, Reuters reported.

Sources said officials were likely to press weapons makers to move faster to boost production.

The meeting comes as Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg is reportedly preparing a supplemental budget request of about $50 billion that would be used to replace weapons used in recent conflicts.

Lockheed, the Pentagon, and the White House did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment, while RTX declined to comment.

The Daily Beast has reached out as well.

In Iran, the military has deployed Tomahawk cruise missiles, F-35 stealth fighters, and low-cost one-way attack drones.

The U.S. has also drawn down billions of dollars’ worth of weapons stockpiles—including artillery systems, ammunition, and anti-tank missiles—in connection with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s attacks on Gaza, according to Reuters.

In his Truth Social post, Trump falsely claimed that former President Joe Biden had given “everything” away to Ukraine, even though the missiles used in Iran are longer-range than the ones that were provided to Kyiv.

His post hinted at shortages, saying, “At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be.”

In just the past year, Trump has ordered military strikes against eight countries: Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and, as of this week, Ecuador.

He has also blown up dozens of alleged drug-carrying boats, summarily killing hundreds of people, in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-white-house-war-meeting-to-bolster-weapons-revealed/?

March 5

Secret Hill Briefing Reveals That There’s No Endgame in Iran

Democratic lawmakers fear the Trump administration has no clear exit strategy for its war with Iran.

A classified briefing on Capitol Hill has left lawmakers alarmed that Donald Trump’s campaign in Iran lacks a defined endgame.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, who is an Iraq war veteran, told CNN that Monday’s briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed that the Trump administration has no clear exit strategy for its war with Iran.

“The most important thing that came away from this was, number one, we don’t have a plan on how to get out of this,” the Democratic senator said.

He added that without a clear plan, there is a risk it could turn into a “long-term war.”

“We don‘t actually have a concept of victory. We—you know, our justification for going into the war is entirely different from what we‘re hearing from the president right now. Again, this is even after the president went publicly and spoke to that. And that all is a very scary situation. Like, for me, as someone who had to live through some really bad decisions in 2005 that the, you know, the then-administration did, if we don‘t know how we can get out of this war, if we don‘t know what the actual victory is, we‘re seeing potentially a long-term war," he said.

He added: “The president has not been very clear how and when it ends. And more importantly, the American public does not want this right now.”

Rubio and top Trump administration national security officials briefed senators on Monday and again on Tuesday amid growing demands for the administration to define its endgame in Iran.

Since launching “major combat operations” against Iran—which saw Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and dozens of Iranian officials killed in the opening salvos—Trump’s public explanations for why the strikes were ordered and how long they might last have varied, with different statements about objectives and timelines that have shifted over the past several days.

His projections for the duration of the campaign have swung from just days to well over a month—a timeline defense officials privately caution would stretch U.S. air defense systems and munitions reserves. The cost of escalation is already being felt: at least six American service members have been killed in retaliatory attacks since the joint U.S.–Israeli offensive began Saturday.

Meanwhile, in a letter sent to Congress by Trump under the War Powers Act, obtained by CBS News, the 79-year-old admitted that he does not know the “full scope” of military operations in Iran.

“Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace, it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary,” Trump wrote.

Democratic senators said they left Monday’s briefing certain that the president, who returned to office promising to end America’s so-called “forever wars,” does not have a coherent plan for Iran.

“There are times when you go into a classified session and you walk out with a better understanding about the gravity of the situation and the rationale behind the military action. This is not one of those times. We remain as confused as the American people are,” Sen. Brian Schatz told reporters.

“They have had three or four or five justifications for this act of war over the last four or five days, and nothing in this classified session alleviated that confusion,” he said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who sits on Armed Services Committee, said in a video posted on X that the U.S. government has no plan for Iran.

“It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried,” Warren said. after attending a Senate briefing with Rubio and other top officials. “The Trump administration has no plan in Iran.”

She added that the “illegal war” was launched “without any imminent threat to our nation.”

Most Democrats swiftly condemned the strikes, arguing that Trump had effectively taken the country to war without authorization from Congress.

Party leaders then revived demands for a new War Powers resolution. If passed, such a measure could restrict the president’s ability to conduct further unilateral strikes without lawmakers’ approval.

However, the measure is unlikely to pass due to the lack of Republican support.

Before the briefing, Rubio told reporters on Monday that “the next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/secret-hill-briefing-reveals-that-theres-no-endgame-in-iran/?

March 5

True Chaos Exposed as Trump Abandons Thousands in War Zone

One embassy warned Americans stuck in the Middle East that they “should not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation.”

Americans in the Middle East have been struggling to leave the region amid the Iran war, with multiple U.S. embassies saying they cannot help.

On Tuesday, the fourth day of the war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Capitol Hill that more than 1,500 people are still asking for assistance. State Department official Dylan Johnson wrote on X that the department has contacted “nearly 3,000 Americans abroad,” and that it “is actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East.” The State Department also posted a three-step guide for Americans in the region.

But embassies have largely not been a resource to Americans.

“The U.S. Embassy is not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel,” the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem wrote on X.

The U.S. Embassy in Qatar also warned Americans that they could not help with evacuations.

“Out of an abundance of caution and until further notice, U.S. Embassy Doha has suspended routine consular services,” it said, adding that Americans who stay should create a contingency plan, but “should not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation.”

Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian embassy instructed Americans not to come to its consulate in Dhahran due to “a threat of imminent missile and UAV attacks.”

The State Department has urged Americans to leave Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

But “absurdity” and “chaos” are just two of the words some have used to describe their experiences.

Randy Manner, a retired U.S. major general who was once the deputy commanding general of the Third U.S. Army in Kuwait, told The New York Times he has been stranded in the United Arab Emirates since Friday.

“It is the epitome of absurdity. ‘Leave the country,’ but yet the airspace is closed,” he said, referring to Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar closing their airspaces. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, airlines have canceled approximately 18,000 flights arriving to and departing from the Middle East since Saturday.

Manner added: “This is nothing less than a total failure of the U.S. government to provide the expected assistance to American civilians who are caught in harm’s way.”

Krista Jucknath Hickman told the BBC about the “chaos” that ensued when she and her husband, Mike, had their flight out of Dubai on Saturday canceled.

“Everything stopped,” said Hickman, a federal employee who said she registered her trip with the State Department beforehand but got no security alert.

Hickman said she tried to reach the U.S. embassy.

“The orders are not realistic, not supportive,” she said. “The number provided by the State Department for support is unable to help. I called twice. Both times I was told there are no evacuation procedures in place.”

Hickman added: “All that can be done is book flights that don’t take off.”

The two resorted to paying $1,000 to be driven into Oman.

Similarly, U.S. businessman James Blunt told NOTUS about calling the hotline while in the UAE: “They are absolutely disinterested, no sense of urgency.” He eventually took a commercial flight out, without the government’s help.

Another person told the outlet that two calls to the hotline on Tuesday went unanswered.

Texas resident Oliver Sims, who was returning from a friend’s wedding in India, told ABC News that it has been “really scary” being stranded in Qatar, for instance being woken up by Iranian drone attacks.

When reached for comment, the State Department directed the Daily Beast to its official statement from Tuesday afternoon, which in part said that it was “facilitating charter flights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan for American citizens, and will continue to secure additional capacity as security conditions allow.”

It added that “over 9,000″ citizens have returned to the U.S. so far.

Trump, when asked about the slow response to evacuate Americans, said in the Oval Office on Tuesday that the war outbreak “happened all very quickly.”

“I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked,” he said. “They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/true-chaos-exposed-as-trump-abandons-thousands-in-war-zone/?

March 5

Kristi Noem Misled Congress About Top Aide’s Role in DHS Contracts

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem misled Congress on Tuesday about the powers of her controversial top aide Corey Lewandowski, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and four current and former DHS officials.

https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-dhs-misled-senate-judiciary-corey-lewandowski-contracts?

March 5

Pentagon Pete Makes Incendiary Complaint About Honoring Dead Troops

The defense secretary did not mention the service members killed by name but used their deaths to criticize the media.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not address the American casualties in his first appearance after the names of four U.S. service members killed in “Operation Epic Fury” were released, but instead accused the press of reporting on “tragic things” to make President Donald Trump “look bad.”

The Pentagon chief delivered a speech filled with pre-baked lines about the U.S. already winning while suggesting the war was only beginning.

“America is winning decisively, devastating and without mercy under the direct command of President Trump,” the former TV personality declared at the top of his press briefing.

Hegseth only alluded to those killed in the war since it was launched by Trump overnight on Saturday, while attacking the press for reporting on casualties.

“When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon released the names of four of the six American troops killed in “Operation Epic Fury.”

Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, died on March 1 after a drone attack in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.

“All Soldiers were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, Des Moines, Iowa,” the Defense Department said in its statement. “The incident is under investigation.”

Two other American military personnel who were killed in action have not yet been identified.

Hegseth did not get into the circumstances surrounding their deaths or offer condolences to their families. That was left to Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“First, it is with profound sadness and gratitude that I share the names of the four of our six fallen heroes,” Caine began before reading off the names of those killed at the briefing. “To the families of our fallen, we grieve with you today, and we look forward to welcoming your family members home at Dover in the coming days.”

Caine shared that the names of the other two Americans killed in action were being withheld until the next of kin notification was complete.

“To our Gold Star families, to our wounded warriors, and their loved ones, we will never forget your sacrifice,” Caine said. “Our nation stands with you, and we are eternally grateful for your courage, your resiliency, your devotion to this mission and to our nation.”

Trump indicated in a video Sunday that there would likely be more casualties, stating, “And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends, that’s the way it is. likely be more.”

In the press conference on Wednesday, Hegseth stuck to chest-thumping and argued that the U.S. was dominating in its ongoing military operation.

“Four days in, we have only just begun to fight. America fights to win,” Hegseth declared.

The defense secretary served in the Army National Guard during which time he deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. He achieved the rank of major and was awarded two Bronze Star Medals during his service.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pete-hegseth-makes-incendiary-complaint-about-honoring-dead-troops/?

March 5

GOP Star Kicked Out of Congress Due to MAGA’s Desperate Midterm Push

Dan Crenshaw’s Texas district was drastically changed as the GOP tried to gain more congressional seats.

Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw lost his GOP primary to a hardline MAGA challenger after falling victim to the Republican Party’s redistricting efforts in the state.

State Rep. Steve Toth trounced the incumbent by 16 percentage points in Tuesday’s primary election in the solidly red Texas 2nd Congressional District after a successful campaign painting Crenshaw as insufficiently conservative or loyal enough to Donald Trump.

The president did not endorse either candidate in the primary, but the lack of support arguably hurt Crenshaw more, as he was the only House Republican in Texas running for re-election without Trump’s backing.

Crenshaw may also have been doomed by the GOP’s desperate effort to gain an advantage in November’s midterms through redistricting.

In August, Texas redrew its congressional map at the urging of the Trump administration, giving the GOP five new seats. As part of the new maps, all of Toth’s district was moved into Crenshaw’s new seat, including his home base of Montgomery County.

Crenshaw’s district had previously been almost entirely in Harris County, but much of that area was carved out in the redistricting effort.

In a July 2025 interview with Punchbowl News, Toth said of Crenshaw: “He was not in good shape—that’s to put it lightly. In Montgomery County, his unfavorables were really high, through the roof… So we’re very encouraged by it.”

Crenshaw was once one of the GOP’s biggest stars in the House, even appearing on Saturday Night Live shortly after he won his first congressional election in 2018.

While firmly pro-Trump, Crenshaw has broken with the president on several issues, including rejecting his false claims about the 2020 election. A former Navy SEAL known for his distinctive eye patch after losing an eye in Afghanistan, Crenshaw frequently clashed with some of the party’s more hardline and far-right figures, particularly over his staunch support for Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.

Crenshaw has also faced a series of controversies. In February 2025, he was caught on a hot mic after an interview on British TV saying that if he ever met former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, “I’ll f---ing kill him.”

Carlson had previously attacked Crenshaw, labeling him one of “the dumbest” Republicans and giving him the nickname “Eyepatch McCain.”

Crenshaw was also reportedly banned by House Republicans from official congressional international travel for three months after an “alcohol-related episode” during a foreign delegation trip to Mexico.

He allegedly “toasted” a “crude” joke made by a Mexican official in August 2025 that made a woman present “uncomfortable,” according to Punchbowl News. Crenshaw dismissed the allegations as “clickbait.”

Toth, who was endorsed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, is now all but certain to win November’s general election, given how heavily Republican the state’s 2nd Congressional District is.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-star-dan-crenshaw-kicked-out-of-congress-due-to-magas-desperate-midterm-push/?

March 5

Trump’s Approval Rating Hits Second-Term Low Amid Iran Backlash

A new poll gave Donald Trump his lowest net approval rating since November 2017.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has sunk to its lowest point of his second term as backlash over the escalating conflict with Iran intensifies.

The latest YouGov/Economist polling, conducted between February 27-March 2 among 1,515 adults, shows that Trump’s net approval rating has fallen to -21 points, with 38 percent approving of his job performance and 59 percent disapproving.

That is his lowest net approval rating since November 2017. It is also Trump’s highest disapproval rating of his second term.

Meanwhile, a majority of Americans—51 percent—now say they strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance, the highest level recorded in either of his two terms and the first time that figure has crossed 50 percent.

The poll also showed that Trump’s popularity has reached a record low with independents. Among the group, just 26 percent approve of Trump’s performance, while a record 69 percent disapprove—giving him a net rating of -43, the worst of either term.

At the same point in his first term, Trump’s net approval with independents was -12.

It is not the only polling that has shown record lows for the president. The Economist’s tracker puts Trump’s net approval rating at -19 points, lower than at any point in his first term.

It comes after the U.S. and Israel launched unprovoked “major combat operations” against Iran over the weekend—which saw Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and dozens of Iranian officials killed. Six U.S. service members were also killed in retaliatory strikes in Kuwait.

Since then, polls have largely shown that a majority of Americans disapprove of the decision to strike Iran. CNN polling showed that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the initial decision to strike Iran, with 41 percent approving.

The YouGov/Economist polling showed that 48 disapprove, while 37 percent approve.

That was mostly driven by Democrats who are overwhelmingly critical of the attacks, with 78 percent disapproving. But the criticism is not limited to Democrats.

While most MAGA Republicans said they strongly approve of the attacks (65 percent), only 27 percent of non-MAGA Republicans said they approve.

YouGov polling published on February 28, the day of the first strikes on Iran, showed that 69 percent of Republicans backed the strikes. But that is far lower than the 93 percent who supported George W. Bush’s Iraq War in 2003 or the 96 percent who backed the Afghanistan invasion in 2001.

Meanwhile, Reuters/Ipsos polling of 1,282 U.S. adults between February 28 and March 1 found that 23 percent of Republicans said Trump is too quick to use military force.

Trump’s escalating use of military force has exposed a widening divide inside the Republican Party, particularly among his “America First” supporters who backed his 2024 “no new wars” pledge.

The strikes on Iran marked the second U.S. attack on Tehran in the past year, following the June 2025 hits on nuclear sites, and came after his operation to capture Venezuela’s president and talk of possible action in Cuba — moves critics say clash with his anti-interventionist campaign message.

The backlash from parts of his base was swift. Andrew Tate posted, “NOBODY WANTS THIS WAR,” adding, “I do not support war with Iran for Israel.”

Nick Fuentes called it “a war of aggression for Israel,” writing, “Trump, Vance, and Rubio sold us out.”

Rep. Thomas Massie also broke ranks, declaring, “I am opposed to this War. This is not ‘America First,’” and vowing to force a congressional vote on further escalation.

Since the strikes began, Trump has offered a number of different explanations for why the strikes were ordered and how long they might last, fueling concern that the war could drag on.

Trump’s timeline for the war has shifted from a matter of days to more than a month—a duration defense officials warn could strain U.S. air defenses and munitions stockpiles.

His justification has also evolved. He initially said Iran was preparing missile attacks on U.S. bases, but Pentagon officials later told congressional staffers there was no evidence of imminent preemptive strikes.

Trump further claimed Iran was building missiles that “could soon reach the American homeland,” a statement U.S. intelligence assessments disputed, concluding Tehran is years away from developing intercontinental ballistic missiles and has shown no intent to do so.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego told CNN that without a clear plan, there is a risk it could turn into a “long-term war.”

“We don‘t actually have a concept of victory. We—you know, our justification for going into the war is entirely different from what we‘re hearing from the president right now. Again, this is even after the president went publicly and spoke to that. And that all is a very scary situation,” he said. “Like, for me, as someone who had to live through some really bad decisions in 2005 that the, you know, the then-administration did, if we don‘t know how we can get out of this war, if we don‘t know what the actual victory is, we‘re seeing potentially a long-term war.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-approval-rating-hits-second-term-low-amid-iran-backlash/?

March 5

Trump’s DOJ Pulls Jaw-Dropping Number of Epstein Files Offline

A review found that tens of thousands of files related to the Epstein case have been taken offline.

Thousands of files relating to the Epstein case have been taken offline, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.The Journal found that more than 40,000 files were missing from documents that had been posted to the Justice Department’s website, including documents that detailed one woman’s unverified allegations of sexual misconduct against President Donald Trump.

Reached for comment, the DOJ told the Daily Beast: “The Department has not deleted any files from the library. In compliance with the EFTA, our team is working around the clock to address victim concerns, redact personally identifiable information and any images of a sexual nature.

“As of March 2, 47,635 files were offline for further review and should be ready for re-production by the end of the week. This is the most transparent Department of Justice in history, and all responsive documents will be repopulated online once proper redactions are made.”

As the Journal notes, among the files taken offline are FBI notes detailing a series of interviews conducted in 2019 with a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s who alleged that Trump sexually abused her when she was a minor in the 1980s. The president has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime.

The files released in January included a summary of the woman’s allegations and a Form 302 from her first interview, but not three other Form 302s, including the interviews in which Trump was named.

The Justice Department, which is required to release witness statements to the public under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, has not explained why the statements were not released.

The Journal reports that the DOJ had previously said it was conducting a review to see if any materials were “improperly tagged in its review process,” and, if that were the case, it would release them.

House Democrats accused the DOJ of withholding documents that could embarrass the president last month, with House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia announcing that Democrats on the committee would be opening an investigation into the matter.

“Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes,” Garcia said.

“Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the President of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover up,” he added.

Department officials have denied deliberately withholding the files, and have claimed that many of the files taken offline contained nudity.

A department spokeswoman told the Journal that it was working to address victims’ concerns and redact sensitive information and explicit images, adding that the documents would be shared online once redactions are made.

The DOJ has already been repeatedly embarrassed by blunders relating to the redaction and release of the Epstein files, including the revelation late last year that the redactions made in the first release could be easily undone using Photoshop.

The department also came under fire last month after a CNN analysis uncovered nearly 100 explicit images of two young wom

he files published as part of the second release.

Another blunder in the second release resulted in the accidental unmasking of an undercover FBI agent after footage from a 2009 video of an undercover operation was published.

The DOJ has only released 3.5 million of the 6 million pages of evidence associated with the Epstein case. Following the second release of files in January, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the department’s review of the case had now concluded.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-doj-pulls-jaw-dropping-number-of-epstein-files-offline/?

ps:Of course they did!! Now that the Clinton fiasco is over trump is slowing being isolated with his Epstein pals!!

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