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

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Key Ally Instantly Slaps Down Trump’s Demand for Help

The president has been left scrambling for assistance as his war with Iran continues to jack up prices for everyday Americans.

Sometimes it takes a good friend to call you out when you’re wrong.

For Donald Trump, that pal is the nation of France, which has delivered an emphatic “Non!” to the American president’s request for military support in his Middle Eastern campaign.

The 79-year-old conducted diplomatic relations via Truth Social on Saturday, begging America’s allies to intervene in the Strait of Hormuz. The maritime shipping lane, which is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, is currently being blockaded by Iran following the U.S. and Israel’s joint attacks on the country.

As a result, approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil supply is not moving, rapidly driving up the prices of gas and aviation fuel in America.

“Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.

“Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat,” he continued, in what appeared to be a veiled plea for help from America’s allies.

French Response, the official X account of the French government’s foreign office, was quick to clarify that it would not be sending the ships Trump requested.

“No. The [French] aircraft carrier strike group remains in the Eastern Mediterranean. France’s posture is unchanged: Defensive. Protective,” the diplomatic outlet wrote. “Stop the scaremongering.”

The account repeated the message to multiple posts on X that had claimed France would be deploying warships to the Middle East.

Earlier, Trump had posted a separate message, calling for a coalition to help reopen the Strait.

“The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help—A LOT!” he promised.

“The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well. This should have always been a team effort, and now it will be—It will bring the World together toward Harmony, Security, and Everlasting Peace!”

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence has said that it is discussing “a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region.”

The Financial Times had previously reported that both France and Italy were seeking to negotiate a deal to guarantee safe passage of their ships through the Strait, though Italy has since denied the report.

Two French officials also previously told Reuters that the country was working on attempting to build a coalition to allow European ships through the strait, but French Response’s message suggests this may not include military activity.

Trump has made a series of posts in recent days suggesting that the Iranian military is both “completely decimated” and proving to be highly resilient, with continued bombardment required to open the vital maritime passageway.

“In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water,” Trump wrote. “One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz is, in fact, open for shipping but that it carries a high risk of being bombed by Iranian forces.

“The only thing prohibiting transit in the Strait right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do that,” Hegseth said.

Iranian military leaders have said that they will continue to block shipping through the strait and drive up the price of oil, which has already climbed to more than $100 per barrel. It is the largest disruption to global oil supplies in history.

While Iran’s historical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo of the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has since taken over and vowed to keep fighting.

On Friday, Trump announced that the U.S. had struck more than 90 military targets on Kharg Island, the deep-water fuel terminal through which most Iranian oil flows, typically to its main buyer, China. Fuel infrastructure reportedly remains intact on the strategic island, which is considered vital to the regime’s finances.

On Saturday, however, Trump said the U.S. “may hit it a few more times just for fun,” telling NBC that Tehran is ready to make a deal but he won’t accept it as the “terms aren’t good enough yet.”

Iran has downplayed the damage on Kharg and is now targeting fuel ports in nearby Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and the United Arab Emirates.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/key-ally-instantly-slaps-down-donald-trumps-demand-for-help-in-iran-war/?

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Trump Goon Threatens Broadcasters Over ‘Hoax’ War Coverage

The Trump administration has been incessantly complaining about the media’s coverage of the war in Iran.

Trump’s top media crony is threatening to revoke networks’ broadcast licenses if they do not cover the president’s unauthorized war in a way that satisfies what he’s calling “public interest.”

The Trump administration has been obsessive over headlines portraying the war in an unfavorable light. Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr weighed in on the matter on Saturday, responding to a post from President Trump, who was also complaining about headlines.

“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr, 47, wrote. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

“Time for change!” he threatened.

Carr’s threat received swift backlash online.

“If Trump doesn’t like your coverage of the war, his FCC will pull your broadcast license. That is flagrantly unconstitutional,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted.

“This is a clear directive to provide positive war coverage or else licenses may not be renewed. This is worse than the comedian stuff, and by a lot. The stakes here are much higher,” Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz posted. “He’s not talking about late night shows, he’s talking about how a war is covered.”

Schatz added in another post, “Somebody scolding you about your choice of words is annoying but not as big of a deal, free speech wise, as the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission threatening to revoke broadcast licenses of companies that don’t give positive coverage of a war in the Middle East.”

“FCC to journalists: cover the Iran war the way the president prefers or lose your broadcast license,” First Amendment lawyer Adam Steinbaugh said.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression also slammed Carr’s threats in a lengthy statement. The more than two-decade-old organization, which champions free speech, called Carr’s words “outrageous” on Saturday.

“Brendan Carr’s authoritarian warning — that networks risk their broadcasting licenses for Iran war reporting that the government doesn’t like — is outrageous,“ the organization wrote. ”When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong."

Earlier Saturday, Trump, 79, made a vaguely threatening Truth Social post about all the “media reforms” he has been engaged in, including getting several broadcast networks to settle lawsuits with him for millions of dollars, defunding NPR, and “saving” TikTok.

He also claimed credit for several network personalities leaving their roles, including former CNN anchor Jim Acosta and former NBC anchors Lester Holt and Chuck Todd.

Trump administration officials have been nonstop complaining about the coverage of the president’s war.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has been attacking reporters who dare to question the Trump administration on the war.

She went on a rampage against CNN for reporting on the Trump administration’s lack of planning around Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a result of the war. In several posts, she demanded that the reporter issue a correction for the story.

Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken an excessive amount of time to complain about the media’s coverage of the war. On Friday, he lashed out at CNN for the same story Leavitt fumed about.

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said in reference to the MAGA-friendly Paramount boss who is poised to take over CNN’s parent company.

The former Fox News weekend host then offered “a few suggestions” about the banners networks have been using to describe Trump’s war.

“People look up at the TV, and they see banners. They see headlines. I used to be in that business, and I know that everything is written intentionally,” Hegseth complained.

In perhaps the most jaw-dropping complaint from the administration about the media’s coverage of the war, Hegseth last week lamented the fact that networks were covering the deaths of U.S. troops.

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-goon-brendan-carr-threatens-broadcasters-over-hoax-iran-war-coverage/?

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Trumpworld Lawyer Busted in $500K Extortion Scheme

Attorney Joshua Nass is accused of shaking down a client after successfully winning him a presidential pardon.

A well-connected Trumpworld lawyer/lobbyist was charged with extortion after allegedly hiring an individual to threaten a former client into settling $500,000 in debt.

Joshua Nass, 34, was arrested on Friday and arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn on Saturday after he was accused of recruiting an individual to “do anything and everything” to force a former client and the client’s son—identified by the Department of Justice only as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2—into paying $500,000 that they owed him for services he rendered.

“Rather than honestly representing his client, Joshua Nass allegedly chose to shake him down by hiring an enforcer to extort payment,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle said in a statement.

Nass was released on a $5 million bond after a brief court appearance, according to The Guardian.

Nass’ website touts that he is “connected,” and states that he specializes in “executive-branch advocacy.” On social media, he has posted images of himself with MAGA figures, including Donald Trump Jr., at Mar-a-Lago.

 

According to court filings, Nass enlisted the services of a New York-based individual in January and regularly met with him through March, believing that John Doe 1 could settle the debt through an insurance policy linked to his son.

Nass and the individual spent weeks cooking up a plan to extort the son, including forcing him outside of his home and into a car and physically assaulting him.

At one point, according to the filings, Nass allegedly instructed the person he hired not to behave “like a human being” while dealing with John Doe 2.

Though Nass’ targets were never named, court and disclosure filings suggest that John Doe 1 is Joseph Schwartz, a New York man in his late 60s who was sentenced to three years in prison last April over a $38 million nursing home tax fraud scheme in Arkansas. He was pardoned by President Donald Trump just months later, on Nov. 14, 2025.

In January, Nass stated in a lobbying disclosure that he was paid $100,000 between November and December 2025 for “advocacy concerning executive clemency and post-conviction relief, including federal presidential pardon advocacy and subsequent efforts to obtain expedited parole and state-level relief in Arkansas.”

Court filings noted that John Doe 2, the unnamed son of Nass’ client, facilitated the December payment of $100,000 out of $600,000 owed for lobbying services.

The New York Times previously cited Schwartz’s clemency as a sign of a growing pay-for-pardon industry.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed any suggestions that Trump’s clemency decisions were influenced by lobbyists.

“Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money and the president doesn’t even know who these so-called ‘lobbyists’ are,” she told The Times.

“The Trump administration has a robust pardon review process,” she added, calling Trump “the final decider.”

Neither Nass nor the White House immediately responded to a request for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumpworld-lawyer-joshua-nass-busted-in-500000-extortion-scheme/?

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Billionaire Trump Demands TSA Keep Working Without Pay

“I will never forget you!!!” the president told TSA officers as he called on them to report to work.

Transportation Security Administration employees were ordered to keep showing up to work by their billionaire boss—even as the partial government shutdown kept them from getting paid this weekend.

President Donald Trump, 79, called on TSA workers to report to work after they officially missed their first full paycheck on Friday as Democrats and Republicans remain deadlocked on funding the Department of Homeland Security, largely over immigration enforcement.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump thanked TSA agents and Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees’ Council 100, acknowledging that they are “going to work but not being paid.”

But that didn’t stop him from telling them to clock in anyway, while blaming “Radical Left Democrats” for the shutdown.

“They want your money to go to ‘Border Criminals, Murderers, foreign Drug Dealers, and some of the worst people on earth.’ They don’t want it to go to you,” he said of Democrats. “Keep fighting for the USA. GO TO WORK! I promise that I will never forget you!!!”

The DHS has been partially shut down for a month since its funding lapsed in February, resulting in tens of thousands of workers missing their first full paycheck.

Acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers last month that around 95 percent of the agency’s employees—about 61,000—are deemed essential and must continue working amid the shutdown.

And that’s while they’re still reeling from last year’s 43-day shutdown, which was the longest in U.S. history.

“Many in our workforce were subject to late fees and penalties for missed bill payments, eviction notices, loss of long-term childcare arrangements, and more,” McNeill said. “We cannot put them through another such experience.”

TSA officers make an average salary of $35,000, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Jones said many of these employees lack stability.

“They don’t have the levers to pull to help them weather the storm, I’m afraid. I’m seeing desperation in the eyes of my coworkers,” he told CNN.

As TSA officers saw their first $0 paycheck on Friday, the New York Post reported that big bars of gold were seen being carted around the White House to commemorate the broadening economic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela after the Trump administration closed a licensing deal with Minerven, a Venezuelan state-owned gold mining company.

Later on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration is set to receive $10 billion for brokering the deal that will keep TikTok in the U.S.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-donald-trump-demands-tsa-keep-working-without-pay-amid-dhs-shutdown/?

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Trump Insiders Spill Why Nobody Will Correct His Chaotic Gaffes

Trump has used his new favorite word to improperly describe his deadly war more than a dozen times this week.

President Donald Trump has a new word fixation, but it appears he does not fully understand its meaning — and members of his staff seem less-than-reluctant to tell him.In the last week, Trump, 79, has used the word “excursion” dozens of times to describe his unauthorized war in Iran. He often makes a waving hand motion to describe what he apparently means.The word “excursion” usually refers to a quick, leisurely vacation, but the president has applied that to describe his deadly war.

Some Trump aids told Zeteo that they believe Trump has confused the term “military incursion,” which is defined as invasion or attack, especially a sudden or brief one, with a “military excursion.”

Sources said that they or their coworkers have used the term “incursion” in front of Trump, which is where he may have picked up the term, but Trump is playing loose with the word’s definition.

“We took a little excursion because we felt we had to, to get rid of some evil, and I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion,” Trump said Tuesday from his Doral, Florida resort.

“We did a little excursion, we had to take this couple weeks, few weeks of excursion,” Trump said the next day at a factory in Ohio.

Some officials in the White House said that they are afraid to correct the president on his gaffe, and others said a correction wouldn’t even matter.

“I’m not telling him,” one administration official told Zeteo, implying that correcting Trump would be “a fool’s errand,” and that “doing so would likely get them yelled at.”

“We say ‘incursion,’ the boss says ‘excursion.’ It’s not a big deal,” another official asserted.

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

Reporters have attempted to correct Trump on the word’s meaning, especially as the war in Iran enters its third week.

“You just said it is a ‘little excursion,’ and you said it is a ‘war.’ So, which one is it?” one reporter asked on Wednesday.

Trump replied, “It’s both. It’s a, uh, an excursion that will keep us out of a war.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-insiders-reveal-why-they-wont-correct-his-obvious-excursion-gaffe-on-iran-war/?

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👢 Trump's MAGA jam

President Trump, already at odds with many MAGA leaders over Iran, is getting pressured hard by MAGA activists not to endorse Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for reelection, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.

• Why it matters: This is the most unified, intense, in-his-face MAGA campaign yet to push Trump into picking sides in a pivotal fight — the GOP establishment or his base. Trump was leaning toward backing Cornyn before MAGA went ballistic, officials tell Axios.

🗳️ Republican leaders see Cornyn as way more electable than his scandal-stained GOP challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. A loss in November could jeopardize Republicans' Senate majority.

• Cornyn and Paxton finished atop the field in this month's Republican primary and are headed for a May 26 runoff. Trump has said he plans to endorse in the race, and his choice will be viewed as the favorite.

📱 Dozens of pro-Trump influencers have taken to X to slam Cornyn, including Laura Loomer, Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec.

• Steve Bannon, an outspoken Paxton supporter who hosts the "War Room" podcast, said the race is "MAGA versus everything they hate, everything that has screwed their country, every wrong they believe needs to be righted — and righted now."

🔎 The intrigue: As MAGA is pressuring Trump, the president is using a potential Cornyn endorsement as leverage to push top Senate Republicans to approve stringent voter ID and anti-transgender policies.

• Top Republicans fear that if Paxton winds up the GOP nominee, he could lose in November to state Rep. James Talarico, who's trying to become the first Texas Democrat to win statewide in 32 years.

Keep reading.

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As Trump pushes deportations, immigration data becomes harder to find

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

https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-data-numbers-deportations-000a289890193c94474f19b877eb37d1?

A seat at the table, but no vote yet for a Democratic lawmaker in the Kennedy Center board showdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Saturday that a Democratic lawmaker is entitled to participate in a Kennedy Center board meeting to discuss President Donald Trump’s plan to close the performing arts center for two years of renovations.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-kennedy-center-lawsuit-beatty-renovations-53d19b342753174b9a90b9c21aa9fa0c?

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Trump's escalation trap

Photo illustration: Allie Carl/Axios. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

For five years in office, President Trump has operated with intuition, impulse and improvisation, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column. The Iran war, now entering Week 3, is the first time Trump's style has made it impossible for him to easily talk or improvise his way out. Why it matters: Trump could wind up trapped between his caprice and the realities of war. He expects a quick, clear victory. But unlike tariffs that can be swiftly imposed and rescinded, the war's outcome is beyond unilateral control and quick fixes. And Iran gets a say. Trump is working to help break the Persian Gulf oil jam. But in doing so, he risks getting caught in an "escalation trap," where a stronger force is incentivized to keep attacking to demonstrate dominance amid diminishing returns. A senior Trump administration official practically admitted as much, telling Axios' Marc Caputo: "The Iranians f*cking around with the Strait makes [Trump] more dug in." State of play: Israel wants regime change in Iran and more dramatic military destruction as it weighs an invasion of Lebanon. Bibi Netanyahu has shown several times that when it comes to Iran, he has the ability to convince Trump to take his side. Iran wants survival — and to prove it can impose pain, militarily and economically, to scare off future attacks. And other nations want the free flow of oil and commerce through the Middle East's waters and air. U.S. military personnel remove JDAM bombs from a B-1 Lancer bomber at the RAF Fairford air base in southwest England yesterday. Photo: Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images 👀 What we're watching: Averaging out the timelines mentioned by Trump and his aides, it's fair to assume the administration expected an intense military operation lasting about 4–6 weeks. That makes April 1 (Day 33 of the war) a real gut-check moment. But in Washington and in capitals around the world, officials are preparing for a much longer crisis. Axios' Barak tells us he's heard from three different people in the administration and in allied countries who believe the instability in the Middle East and U.S. involvement could continue until September, even if the war shifts to a low-intensity conflict. Israel told journalists it plans at least three more weeks of attacks on thousands of additional targets in Iran. The president said yesterday in a phone call with the Financial Times' Ed Luce: "We've essentially decimated Iran … They have no navy, no anti-aircraft, no air force, everything is gone. The only thing they can do is make a little trouble by putting a mine in the water — a nuisance, but the nuisance can cause problems." Anna Kelly, the White House's principal deputy press secretary, emphasized to us that Operation Epic Fury is the result of "months and months of meticulous planning," with "ample options" provided to the president, who took all of his top officials' views into account as he made the final decision. Trump could pull out tomorrow. But the Iranians could keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and push oil prices so high that America would have to re-engage. The Iranians have made it clear in private and in public that even if Trump decides to end the war, they could continue shooting missiles and rockets until they get guarantees that this is the end of the war, not just a temporary ceasefire. Behind the scenes: Trump has grown accustomed to doing what he wants and then quickly improvising if things go south. But this time, some in his inner circle have what one official called "buyer's remorse" — growing fears that attacking Iran was a mistake. A source close to the administration said some key officials around Trump were reluctant or wanted more time. "He ended up saying, 'I just want to do it,'" the source said. "He grossly overestimated his ability to topple the regime short of sending in ground troops." The source said Trump was "high on his own supply" after last summer's quick strikes in Iran and January's abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro: "He saw multiple decisive quick victories with extraordinary military competence." President Trump speaks to the press on Air Force One en route to Washington from Palm Beach last night. Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images 🥊 Reality check: Trump's war of choice certainly looks like a military success so far. Iran's missile and drone launches have greatly decreased, indicating it's running out of weapons or the ability to fire them. The U.S. and Israeli air forces have overhead supremacy to bomb at will. Much of the Iranian navy is underwater. The ayatollah and senior leaders have been killed. The U.S. military death toll (at least 13) could have been greater for this breadth of action. 🔮 What's next: Trump now may have to make a tough decision on a significant military escalation — new territory for him as president. Some officials close to him had hoped he'd be able to show some quick gains and declare victory. Now, it's not apparent how he'd do that convincingly. As Barak reported, the U.S. doesn't have clear enough lines of communication with the Iranian regime to make a deal that's sure to stick. Trump said on Truth Social on Friday night that Iran "is totally defeated and wants a deal - But not a deal that I would accept!" The bottom line: To claim victory, the Iranian regime just needs to stay alive.

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⚡ Trump eyes "Hormuz Coalition"

A tanker sits anchored in Muscat, Oman, last week. Photo: Benoit Tessier/Reuters President Trump is working to assemble a coalition of countries to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and hopes to announce it later this week, four sources tell Axios' Marc Caputo and Barak Ravid. Trump is also weighing a seizure of Iran's critical oil depot on Kharg Island — a move that would require U.S. boots on the ground — if tankers remain bottled up in the Persian Gulf, U.S. officials say. Why it matters: Oil and gas prices are rising as Iran's blockade of the Gulf's narrow strait drags on, choking off a significant share of the world's crude supply. Iran is blocking Gulf countries from exporting their oil while allowing tankers picking up Iranian crude to pass freely — keeping its own oil flowing to China and other countries. In a Truth Social post Saturday, Trump said the U.S. and several other countries will send warships to the Gulf to reopen commercial shipping and called on China, France, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. to help. ☎️ Behind the scenes: Trump and senior administration officials spent the weekend on the phones working to assemble the multinational coalition, a U.S. official said. "Most of this oil isn't our oil — it goes to other countries. So if they want it and they want the price to come down, they need to help out," an official said. Keep reading.

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Trump suggests he may delay China trip as he pressures Beijing for help with Strait of Hormuz President Donald Trump is suggesting he may delay his much-anticipated visit to China at the end of the month as he seeks to ramp up the pressure on Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and calm oil prices that have soared during the Iran war. Read more.

Why this matters: The uncertainty underscores just how much the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran have reshaped global politics in the past two weeks. Calling off the face-to-face visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping could have its own major economic consequences. Relations between Washington and Beijing have been fraught as both sides have threatened the other with steep tariffs over the past year.   In an interview Sunday with the Financial Times, Trump said China’s reliance on oil from the Middle East means it ought to help with a new coalition he is trying to put together to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait after Iran’s threats have throttled global flows of oil. Trump said “we’d like to know” before the trip whether Beijing will help. “We may delay,” Trump said in the interview.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ EU weighs action to keep Strait of Hormuz open   Details on the US-China trade talks   ‘Radiant’ mother from Kentucky among 6 US service members who died in air crash in Iraq   Republicans resist calls for Iran war hearings, creating a new standoff with Democrats   CEOs of top airlines demand Congress restore funding to Homeland Security and pay airport workers   Kyrsten Sinema admits a romance with her security guard as she fights ex-wife’s lawsuit

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Trump Melts Down at Supreme Court Justices in Unhinged Truth Social Rampage

The president said his attack against the nation’s highest court would cause him “nothing but problems in the future.”

Donald Trump had a full-on meltdown against the Supreme Court after it ruled that many of the president’s sweeping tariffs were implemented illegally, even though the decision arrived weeks ago.

In a lengthy and unhinged Truth Social post, the 79-year-old said February’s decision by the nation’s highest court was the one that “mattered most to me” and suggested the ruling is why the U.S. has been in “such major decline.”

In a 6–3 ruling, the Supreme Court decided that Trump could not impose his tariffs using a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies. After the embarrassing decision against him, Trump announced a new 10 percent global baseline tariff while citing Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose tariffs for 150 days.

In his raging Truth Social post, Trump blasted the liberal justices who voted to shut down his original tariff plans, as well as the three conservative justices who joined them: Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump nominated to the bench during his first term, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts.

“The Democrats on the Court always ‘stick together,’ no matter how strong a case is put before them—There is rarely even a minor ‘waver,’” Trump wrote.

“But Republicans do not do this. They openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how ‘honest,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘legitimate’ they are.

“Our Country was unnecessarily RANSACKED by the United States Supreme Court, which has become little more than a weaponized and unjust Political Organization. The sad thing is, they will only get worse!”Trump also moaned that the “inept and embarrassing” Supreme Court did not support the baseless claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him.“All I can do, as President, is call them out for their bad behavior! This statement about the United States Supreme Court will cause me nothing but problems in the future, but I feel it is my obligation to speak the TRUTH,” he added.In a follow-up post, Trump lashed out at federal Judge James Boasberg after he ruled there is no evidence to support the Department of Justice’s probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.The judge ruled that the subpoenas issued to Powell by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro’s office were intended to “harass and pressure” him into lowering interest rates as demanded by Trump.

“Boasberg has displayed open, flagrant, and extreme partisan bias and contempt against Republicans and the Trump Administration. To preserve the integrity of the Judiciary, he should be removed from all cases pertaining to us, and suffer serious disciplinary action, as should numerous other Corrupt Judges that, unfortunately, our Country has had to endure,” Trump wrote.

“He is exactly what Judges should not be! Boasberg would do better to focus on Justice and Fairness, not his own, and the Democrats’, Political Agenda, which has become LEGENDARY!”

Trump had called for Boasberg to be impeached last year after the judge halted the administration’s attempts to quickly deport Venezuelan migrants that the administration had labeled gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Supreme Court for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-melts-down-at-supreme-court-justices-in-unhinged-truth-social-rampage/?

ps:What a whiner!!!!!

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Trump Demands Death Penalty for Reporters in Unhinged War Rant

The president is furious about media coverage of his war.

Donald Trump says reporters who cover his war on Iran in a negative manner should face charges of “TREASON”—a crime punishable by death.

The 79-year-old president posted a nearly 400-word Truth Social rant on Sunday slamming Iran for “feeding” the “very appreciative Fake News Media” in the U.S. and even resorting to AI to spread “false information.”

The president claimed Iran had circulated images of “phony ‘Kamikaze Boats’ shooting at various Ships at Sea” and that while they looked “wonderful, powerful, and vicious,” he added that “these Boats don’t exist.”

Repeating his claim that the U.S. had defeated Iran’s military and slamming the Wall Street Journal for “false reporting,” Trump then took his anger to new heights.

The Journal on Saturday covered an Iranian attack on Saudi airbase in which it said five U.S. military refueling planes were hit and damaged.

Trump suggested the Journal’s story was false and said Iran was spreading fake news through AI. He said four of the aircraft were still in service “with the exception of one, which will soon be flying the skies.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the Wall Street Journal for comment.

He then blasted Iran, which, “working in close coordination with the Fake News Media,” spread a fake image of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier “burning uncontrollably in the Ocean.” Trump said that it was not burning and also had not been shot at.

The video was fact-checked last week by AFP, which concluded it was made using AI.

Trump went on, “The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!”

Treason is considered one of the most severe crimes in U.S. federal law; anyone owing allegiance to America who goes to war against them or aids and comforts their enemies can be subject to the death penalty or imprisoned for a minimum of five years.

In a gaggle on Air Force One on Sunday, Trump lashed reporters over coverage of his war, while also stating he was not ready to declare an end to the conflict.

“They’re decimated, but... I think that we’ve done damage to them right now,” Trump said. “If we left right now, it would take them 10 years and more to rebuild. But I’m still not declaring it over.”

He then blamed the media, saying, “The problem is that when you look at fake stories, by you people, written by and generated by AI, it’s incredible.”

CNN’s chief media analyst Brian Stelter said on Sunday night that Trump is “fuming” about the coverage of his war in the American media.

“Quite frankly, Trump does not want this scrutiny,” Stelter said. “He would prefer a propagandistic, pliant press in the United States, but he‘s not going to get that, he‘s not getting that.”

Stelter said that while the fake videos are “a real phenomenon,” they had been debunked by several key media players including CNN and the New York Times.

“I’ve got to tell you, I have not seen any U.S. news outlets that have fallen for those videos,” he said. “To the contrary, real news outlets are debunking those lies, but Trump sounds confused by the chaotic information environment.”

Trump also referenced his Truth Social post during his mid-air gaggle, stating that, “I actually think it’s pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know is false. And it’s a very dangerous thing for the country.”

The president alsooonet” before refusing to take any more questions from the outlet. When a female reporter asked Trump why the U.S. is sending 5,000 marines and sailors, the president shot back. “You’re a very obnoxious person,” he said, and took a different question from a male reporter.

Trump has form for being rude to female journalists, last year snapping “Quiet, piggy!” at one journalist.

As part of his rambling Truth Social rant about the media, Trump also praised his FCC henchman Brendan Carr, who has already been threatening to revoke broadcasting licenses of networks he feels are not covering the Iran war in a way that meets “public interest.”

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

“The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not. Time for change!”

Inis Sunday post, Trump said he was “thrilled” to see Carr’s threats to what he called “Corrupt and Highly Unpatrioticws’ Organizations.”“They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings, and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED,’ the president wrote.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-demands-death-penalty-for-reporters-in-unhinged-war-rant/?

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Frantic Trump Melts Down at Allies Refusing to Join His War

The president warns that NATO’s future is at risk unless allied countries cave to his demands.

President Donald Trump moaned about how some of America’s closest allies are not joining his war on Iran—and warned: “We will remember.”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the 79-year-old blasted a number of NATO countries that have confirmed they will not get involved in efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow shipping passage through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes that Iran has closed off amid U.S. and Israeli strikes.

“We’re always there for NATO. We’re helping them with Ukraine. It’s got an ocean in between us, doesn’t affect us, but we helped them,” Trump said.

“And be interesting to see what country wouldn’t help us with a very small endeavor, which is just keeping the Strait open. It’s small because Iran has very little firepower left.”

Trump added, “Whether we get support or not, I can say this, and I said it to them: We will remember.”

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman, and Iranian attacks on targets across the region, has caused an oil price shock that has seen surge in gas prices in the U.S. and crude oil prices climbing past $100 a barrel.

Multiple countries, including Australia, Japan, France, and the U.K., have announced they will not be sending any warships or other reinforcements to help with Trump’s attempts to reopen the vital shipping route.

Trump is getting so desperate to get other countries to join his deeply unpopular Middle East conflict that he is considering delaying a summit with China’s President Xi Jinping later this month as a pressure tactic to get Beijing to join the war effort.

The president argues that countries in China and Europe are more heavily reliant on gas from the Gulf via the Strait than the U.S. is.

“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump told the Financial Times.

“If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”

When asked on Air Force One if China has agreed to help tackle the Strait of Hormuz crisis, Trump replied that it is “a little early” to confirm anything.

“But China’s an interesting case study. They get most of their oil, they get a lot of, maybe 90 percent, from the Strait. So I said, ‘Would you like to come in?’ and we’ll find out. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. There’s some other deeper reasons, but they may not. They should come in.

“I said years ago, ‘Why are we maintaining the Hormuz Strait, when it’s really there for China and many other countries? Why aren’t they doing it?’ And that’s because we had weak leadership, to be honest with you,” he added.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/frantic-donald-trump-melts-down-at-allies-refusing-to-join-his-war-on-iran/?

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Major White House Split Leaks as Trump’s War Spirals

An insider says Trump “grossly overestimated” his own abilities in the conflict.

Senior White House officials are reportedly having “buyer’s remorse” over the Iran war as the realization sets in that President Trump was “high on his own supply” when he launched it.

That bombshell is buried inside a new Axios dispatch. It lays bare a deep fracture inside Trump’s inner circle, now navigating week three of a bloody conflict that has claimed at least 13 American lives, left more than 1,400 Iranians dead, and produced one of the worst civilian atrocities attributed to the U.S. military in decades.

A source close to the administration told the outlet that key officials had not been fully on board with Trump’s plans before the 79-year-old president overruled them all. “He ended up saying, ‘I just want to do it,’” the source said. “He grossly overestimated his ability to topple the regime short of sending in ground troops.”

The same source said the president had grown dangerously overconfident on the back of what looked like a string of quick wins—last summer’s strikes in Iran and January’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “He saw multiple decisive quick victories with extraordinary military competence,” the source said.

A senior administration official told Axios that Iran’s disruption of the Strait of Hormuz was only making Trump “more dug in.” This has raised the specter of what the outlet terms an “escalation trap,” in which a stronger force keeps attacking to assert dominance as the returns diminish and the exit narrows.

Unlike the first Trump administration—plagued from day one by insider grumbling, warring factions, and tell-all memoirs—Trump’s second term has thus far remained an administration where officials do not leak doubt but instead project certainty, close ranks, and attack critics.

Such dissent makes the Axios report all the more striking.

Trump’s war began on Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Within hours, a suspected Tomahawk missile had reduced a girls’ elementary school in Minab, in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province, to rubble, killing at least 170 people, the vast majority schoolchildren.

Trump initially blamed Iran, suggesting the country “also has some Tomahawks”—a claim military experts dismissed. When pressed this week, he said: “I don’t know about it.”

Investigations by multiple media outlets have all concluded the U.S. was most likely responsible, as the result of outdated targeting intelligence that still had a Revolutionary Guard naval base at the school’s location.

A Pentagon 15-6 investigation is underway. The inquiry will establish not whether a mistake occurred, but how.

On top of the 13 confirmed U.S. military deaths, six crew members were killed when a refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on March 13.

More than 1,100 children have been injured or killed across the region since the war began, according to UNICEF figures from March 12.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Daily Beast that any talk of a split was “totally false,” and that “the entire administration is united behind President Trump and the Department of War.” She added: “The President listens to a host of opinions on any given issue, but ultimately decides based on what is best for our country and US national security.”

On Truth Social on Friday night, Trump declared that Iran was “totally defeated and wants a deal—But not a deal that I would accept!”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Pentagon for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/major-white-house-split-leaks-as-donald-trumps-iran-war-spirals/?

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Trump Has Already Lined Up His Next War

The commander-in-chief knows where he’s going once he’s done with Iran.

President Donald Trump has named his next target after Iran.

The self-styled “Peace President” was on board Air Force One on Sunday, returning to the White House after a weekend at Mar-a-Lago, when he was asked about his administration’s talks with Cuba.

“Cuba’s a failed nation,” he said. “Cuba also wants to make a deal and I think we will pretty soon either make a deal or do whatever we have to do. We have a lot of great people that happen to vote for Trump, not that that matters, but we have a lot of great people from Cuba that were violently and viciously thrown out of the country and worse. The families were killed.”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced the talks on Friday, saying his country had not received any fuel for three months, amid rolling blackouts and suspended air links due to a U.S. oil blockade.

Trump’s second term has already seen the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and “major combat operations” launched against Iran. Now he says things could happen “pretty quickly” with Cuba.

The U.S. has long offered a fast-track road to citizenship to Cubans fleeing the island’s regime in a bid to entice people away from communism. Those pathways have been severely reduced under Trump, amid his massive ICE deportation push.

“And so we’re talking to Cuba, but we’re going to do Iran before Cuba. And you know, people have been waiting 50 years to hear this story with Cuba. When I left Palm Beach today, there were thousands of people on the road, I’m sure you saw them. And they were from Cuba and from Venezuela, all friendly, all friendly, waving the flag and waving the American flag.

“They’ve been waiting 50 years for what’s happening with Cuba. So I think something will happen with Cuba pretty quickly.”

The United States has had a hostile relationship with Cuba since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, with a strict trade embargo since the 1960s only briefly lifted under President Barack Obama.

The U.S. designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism in 2021, deepening the rift, while dozens of Cuban security personnel were killed during the U.S. strikes on Caracas that saw Maduro’s abduction in January.

The attack on Venezuela had huge ramifications for Cuba, which got around half of its oil, or around 35,000 barrels a day, from there, the BBC reports. Now, Venezuela’s oil apparatus is largely under the control of the U.S., severing its primary supply of fuel to the island.

Thousands are now thought to have died in Trump’s war, as Iran retaliates against neighboring countries and Israel launches ground operations in Lebanon. Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed so far.

Announcing the talks with the U.S. on Friday via state media, Díaz-Canel said, “These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations.”

He said he hoped it would move the country “away from confrontation.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-has-already-lined-up-his-next-war/?

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Young Trump Voters Fume He ‘Betrayed’ Them by Launching His War

The president seems determined to ruin any gains he made among younger voters at the 2024 election.

Young voters who backed Donald Trump in the 2024 election have expressed their outrage at the president for launching a war with Iran.

Joshua Byers, a 26-year-old in the key swing state of North Carolina, told The Washington Post he feels “betrayed” by the so-called “Peace President,” who vowed not to start any new wars as one of his top 2024 campaign promises.

“I don’t know why we are fighting [in Iran] if we have never been attacked,” Byers told a group of young voters taking part in a focus group just outside Charlotte. “I just don’t understand why.”

“I don’t really want to vote anymore,” Byers added. “I’m really starting to just think it just won’t matter… I don’t want to feel responsible for taking a vote and feeling misled, or misjudged, or making a wrong move.”

One of the key reasons Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris was because of the significant gains he made among young voters.

However, polls have frequently suggested that the president’s erratic second term and failure to deliver on promises to improve people’s financial hardships have caused the 79-year-old’s support among young people to crater.

“I wouldn’t even say it’s living,” James Wiest, a 23-year-old Republican, told the focus group organized by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics about his ability to make ends meet. “It’s more survival.”The fallout among young voters could have disastrous consequences for the Republican Party in the 2026 midterms, where the GOP is already widely predicted to suffer heavy losses.

Wiest said Trump potentially overseeing the U.S. “stepping into World War III” has made him less likely to vote in November’s elections.

“I agree with his idea of making America great again, but the way he is going about... it’s not who I thought would be running this country,” he told the Post.

“He is really focusing on stuff that pertains to him, that he is mad about, and he does not care about what we are mad about.”

Lilly Burrow, a 23-year-old who voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, said she is outraged at the president for “doing Israel’s dirty work” by joining in the attacks on Iran.

“It does change how I feel about Trump,” Burrow said. “He said there would be no new wars, and he said that gas would be below $3 a gallon… I am not happy with him right now.”

Influential podcasters such as Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz–who were seen as pivotal in convincing young people to back Trump in 2024–have also declared that the president has betrayed the American people by starting a war with Iran.

The White House insisted Trump has not broken his 2024 promises by dragging the U.S. into a new Middle East conflict.

“President Trump campaigned proudly on his promise to deny the Iranian regime the ability to develop a nuclear weapon, which is what this noble operation is seeking to accomplish,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Washington Post.

“The President does not make these incredibly important national security decisions based on fluid opinion polls, but on the best interest of the American people.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for further comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/young-donald-trump-voters-fume-he-betrayed-them-by-launching-his-iran-war/?

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Hegseth Hands Pentagon Contractor Behind Security Disaster Another $100M

The Defense Secretary has his own history of failing to protect sensitive information.

Signalgate leaker Pete Hegseth just handed a multimillion-dollar contract to protect the Defense Department from hackers to a firm that allegedly couldn’t even protect its own employees from having their data stolen.

The Defense Secretary came under fire last year for disclosing sensitive details of U.S. military strikes to a journalist who’d been accidentally added to a group chat on Signal.

Hegseth used the messaging app, which is not approved for official government communications, with other top members of Donald Trump’s cabinet, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

The Daily Beast can now reveal that after Hegseth’s jaw-dropping security blunder, his department has awarded almost $100 million in contracts for protecting IT systems at U.S. facilities across the world to a firm hit by a massive breach that saw criminals make off with sensitive personal data on at least 45,000 people. The new deal is to provide and maintain electronic systems to protect Navy bases from cyber attacks, as well as emergency systems to help manage physical threats against those facilities.

Virginia-based group M.C. Dean’s latest contract with the Pentagon landed on Feb. 26, two days before Donald Trump went to war with Iran. The Islamic regime is one of the most adversarial hacking forces on the planet, carrying out repeated attacks against U.S. military assets, industrial infrastructure, banks, and elections. Iran is presently bombing American targets around the Persian Gulf in retaliation for Trump’s strikes.

Criminals first got into M.C. Dean’s systems in December 2021, accessing sensitive details of employees, contractors, and other individuals’ driver’s licenses, Social Security numbers, and health insurance information. The month before, the group had won a $250m Pentagon IT contract for dozens of DOD facilities across the country—including the nuclear bunker where Dick Cheney was taken on 9/11.

The breach lasted for at least five months. A class action lawsuit brought against M.C. Dean the following year by victims of the hack accused the group of failing to inform people of the attack until three months after it was discovered. Victims said the company had “intentionally, willfully, recklessly, or negligently” failed to ensure their data was protected, leaving the door open for a “nefarious third party” that could well use those details to extort them in future. M.C. Dean denied “any and all” of those claims, but agreed to compensate those affected up to $8,000 each to avoid the time and costs of battling it out in court.

Hegseth’s approach to protecting sensitive government information has come under intense scrutiny since the Signal scandal last year. A DoD inspector general probe found that sensitive details of military strikes were shared after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had accidentally been added to the White House chat. It also discovered that Hegseth’s staff had rigged systems in his office to allow him to use Signal at the Pentagon, which is obviously supposed to be a secure classified facility.

Hegseth refused to sit for an interview with officials investigating those claims, declined to hand over his phone, and violated federal record laws by allowing messages in his chats to be automatically deleted before they could be permanently saved.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon and M.C. Dean for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/hegseth-hands-mc-dean-pentagon-company-behind-security-disaster-another-100m/?

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Trump Hit With Secret Warnings Iran War Could Deepen Energy Crisis

The CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips have privately warned White House officials things are about to get worse.

Oil executives have secretly warned President Donald Trump and his team that the spiraling energy crisis created by his war in Iran is about to get even worse, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In a series of White House meetings, the CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips warned officials—including Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum—that disruption to energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz would continue to create volatility in global energy markets, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Journal. The title added that Trump did not attend the meetings.

The price of crude has spiraled since Trump launched “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran on February 28. Tehran has responded by choking the world’s energy supply, using drones and mines to strike tankers in the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow shipping lane connecting Gulf oil to the rest of the world. The U.S. oil benchmark is now hovering around $99 a barrel, up from $87 a barrel on the day of the White House meetings.

Announcements that the U.S. would ease sanctions on Russia and contribute to the largest-ever emergency oil release—some 400 million barrels—have done little to steady prices.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods warned that oil prices could rise past current elevated levels if speculators unexpectedly bid up prices, and that markets could see a supply crunch of refined products. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth and ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance also conveyed their concerns about the scale of the disruption.

None of the executives blamed the Trump administration for the crisis, the Journal noted. But a senior administration official acknowledged that prices are going to continue to rise, and that there isn’t a lot it can do at the moment. The Pentagon has told the administration that options exist to open the strait, and the administration wants that to happen in weeks, not months.

Some oil executives say they are bracing for a prolonged period of high oil prices that may boost their profits in the short term but could ultimately damage the industry and the economy.

The White House is also hoping to increase oil flows from Venezuela, after Trump took de facto control of the country when he arrested its leader Nicolas Maduro in a nighttime raid earlier this year. Exxon told the administration it is evaluating sending a technical team to the country. Chevron, the only major U.S. oil company active there, said its Venezuelan production has reached record levels.

Burgum said the administration has been “working around the clock” with energy companies to stabilize global energy markets.

Burgum, who is also Chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council, said in an emailed statement to the Daily Beast: “The Trump administration has been working around the clock with energy companies since the day Operation Epic Fury began to mitigate short-term disruptions and stabilize global energy markets.

“The undeniable success of President Trump’s Energy Dominance Agenda is only possible because of the industry relationships we foster every day.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hit-with-secret-warnings-iran-war-could-deepen-energy-crisis/?

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Trump’s mass deportation agenda is at a crossroads with the Homeland Security shake-up

The Department of Homeland Security will soon be under new management, an opportunity to reset President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda or to double down on his signature campaign promise to conduct the largest deportation operation in American history. All indications are that Trump’s mass deportation operation is not stalling out but intensifying, with billions of dollars being spent to hire Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, build warehouse detention sites and meet the administration’s goal of rounding up and removing some 1 million immigrants from the U.S. this year. Read more.

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Judge blocks US government from slimming down vaccine recommendations

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee.

https://apnews.com/article/kennedy-acip-vaccines-cdc-fc758951019f41d2f5e81e4e2faa22d3?

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Vance at a Crossroads

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Mike Pence should have been a warning to J. D. Vance about the inevitable abasement in store once you join a ticket with Donald Trump. Before he became Trump’s running mate a decade ago, conservative Christian values were the center of Pence’s political identity, but in October 2016, he reluctantly stood by Trump after the release of the tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women “by the pussy.” It was a sign of things to come. Pence became vice president, and for the next four years, he defended his boss through moral abominations and deficit explosions that cut against his fiscal conservatism, flinching only when Trump asked him to help steal an election. His reward? Trump did nothing while a mob threatened to hang Pence.

All of this was common knowledge when Vance agreed to run with Trump in 2024. No one lands on a presidential ticket if they’re not outrageously ambitious—nearly every veep for at least a century has fancied themselves a future president—but Vance is particularly brazen. Becoming Trump’s running mate required a yearslong effort to ingratiate himself with a guy whom Vance had, in the pages of this magazine, referred to as “cultural heroin” and elsewhere called “America’s Hitler.” Maybe Vance’s ambition blinded him to Pence’s lesson, but the war in Iran is teaching it to him the hard way.

For the first year of Trump’s presidency, Vance’s Faustian bargain looked like just that: a bargain. Though smart, Vance is not an especially talented politician. He won election to the Senate from Ohio only with Trump’s endorsement, and he lacks anything like Trump’s charisma. By signing on with Trump, however, he not only ended up one heartbeat from the presidency but also became the heir apparent to Trump’s political movement and the presumptive GOP nominee in 2028. Trump has often lavished praise on Vance, and Vance’s clearest rival, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, told Vanity Fair that he won’t run if Vance does. (Vance isn’t taking any chances. “I’ll give you $100 for every person you make look really shitty compared to me,” Vance joked to the magazine’s photographer. “And $1,000 if it’s Marco.”)

But Trump’s recent military policy has complicated this easy ascent. Vance has built a political profile around his opposition to foreign intervention, which he traces to his own disillusionment while serving as a Marine in Iraq. That meshed well with Trump’s first-term image (if not his reality), but it clashes with the imperial ambitions of his second. Vance was conspicuously missing when Trump launched the January raid to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He’s also been scarce since the start of the Iran war, which threatens to turn into a quagmire with record speed.

The Iran campaign shows, as my colleague Idrees Kahloon wrote recently, that “within the Trump administration, Vance’s opinions seem to matter less and less.” Even worse for Vance, Rubio is ascendant. MAGA gadfly Laura Loomer noted that when Trump spoke in Vance’s home region last week, the secretary of state received gushing acclaim from the president. All Vance got was short shrift.

Vance has begun making public statements in support of the war, but they appear to emerge from clenched teeth. Bolstering this impression was what sure looks like an intentional leak to Politico on Friday that Vance “was skeptical of the U.S. striking Iran in the leadup to President Donald Trump’s decision to launch the war.” This report was greeted dismissively in some quarters as a frantic attempt by Vance to distance himself from a doomed war, or, as The New Republic’s Alex Shephard put it, “a Machiavellian and astonishingly self-serving maneuver.” One can never rule this out with Vance, but I think it’s just as possible that the story is less a strategic ploy than Vance reacting in frustration to being so ignored by the president.

Insofar as Vance has any sincere beliefs in anything other than himself, his opposition to military intervention seems to be one. Though he has changed many of his positions in the past decade, he has remained consistent on this, and he seems to say the same things in private that he does in public. When an administration official mistakenly added Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, to a Signal chat about a strike on Yemeni militants last year, Vance was dubious about American action. “I just hate bailing Europe out again,” he wrote. (Turnabout is fair play: Now Europe seems unenthused about bailing Trump out in the Strait of Hormuz.)

What Vance is learning now is that serving Trump doesn’t mean just compromising on some ancillary issues that you care less about, or keeping a straight face during his nonsensical digressions. Instead, Trump will humiliate you even—or especially—on your most deeply held views. Just as Pence found himself obliged to defend Trump’s least socially conservative tendencies, Vance is now defending his war in Iran. Vance may have thought he was getting a cheap ticket to the pinnacle of power. The price, it turns out, is much higher than he realized.

Related:

• David Frum: The J. D. Vance I knew
• The talented Mr. Vance

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💬 Trump talks margins

President Trump said he helped facilitate medical care for Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) after learning of Dunn's terminal diagnosis in part because he "needed his vote."

• "I did it for him first and for the vote second, but it was a close second, actually," Trump said today.

Catch up quick: Trump revealed Dunn had been given a terminal diagnosis and would have been "dead by June" due to a heart problem, before the president intervened in his medical care.

• "OK, that wasn't public," House Speaker Mike Johnson, sitting next to the president at a White House event, replied.
• Dunn's current health status is unclear. Trump said the medical care included a lengthy surgery; Johnson said it had given Dunn a "new lease on life."
• The comments created an awkward moment and sowed confusion about Dunn's health. His office did not reply to a request for comment.

The big picture: Johnson and Trump discussed how the speaker is working with one of the narrowest majorities ever and can only afford to lose two of his members on party-line votes.

• The exact nature of Dunn's health problem and his treatment have not been publicly disclosed.

— Kate Santaliz

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⚡ Trump's Hormuz struggle

Data: PortWatch. Chart: Axios Visuals U.S. allies are resisting the Trump administration's pressure to join an international coalition to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz, Axios' Barak Ravid writes. While the U.K. has circulated a plan among potential coalition members, responses from several other countries have ranged from skepticism to "hell no," according to sources familiar with the diplomatic talks. Why it matters: The closure has become the war's central crisis for the White House. As long as the Iranian blockade holds and Gulf oil remains trapped, Trump can't end the war and declare victory, even if he wants to. 🔎 Zoom in: A source said the Trump administration wants the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada, the Gulf countries and Jordan to be part of the coalition. The U.S. has also approached Japan and South Korea. But the leaders of several countries — including Germany, Italy and Japan — have already ruled out sending naval vessels. On Sunday, Trump pitched U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. A source said that while Starmer was forward-leaning, Macron was noncommittal. "Macron didn't give a final no, but at the moment it's a no," a second source said.

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🗞️ War fuels press squeeze

The Trump administration is ramping up its attacks on the press as it struggles to control its messaging about the war in Iran, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer writes.

• Why it matters: History suggests that when press freedoms are targeted during times of war, they're rarely reinstated.

Over the past few weeks, the administration has threatened news outlets with regulatory retaliation and blocked access to their war coverage.

• FCC chair Brendan Carr on Saturday threatened to revoke broadcast licenses if war coverage did not "operate in the public interest."
• His comments came shortly after the president criticized the press on Truth Social for its coverage, alleging the media "actually want us to lose the War."

The Washington Post reported the Defense Department barred photographers from briefings after Hegseth's staff objected to unflattering photos of him from a previous briefing.

• Hegseth later called out CNN for a story headlined, "Trump administration underestimated Iran war's impact on Strait of Hormuz."

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Judge blocks US government from slimming down vaccine recommendations A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee. Read more.

Why this matters: The decision halted an order by Kennedy — announced in January — to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. It also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee, which was set to convene this week in Atlanta.   The judge’s order, however, is not the final word. The blocks are temporary, pending either a trial or a decision for summary judgment. Federal health officials indicated they planned to appeal. “HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing,” said Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon.

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