Today in one sentence: Federal Reserve officials warned that it might need to raise interest rates in inflation remains above its 2% target; Trump claimed the U.S. was in the “final stages” of negotiations with Iran “or we’re going to do some things that are a little bit nasty,” while also insisting, “I’m in no hurry”; Senate Republicans removed the $1 billion Secret Service provision tied to Trump’s White House ballroom from an immigration enforcement bill after the Senate parliamentarian ruled it was outside the bill’s budget rules; police officers who came under attack by Jan. 6 rioters sued to block Trump’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund”; Republicans backed by Trump won or led primaries in Georgia, Alabama, and Kentucky; and the Trump administration plans to move ahead with Trump’s 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery without congressional approval, instead relying on a 101-year-old authorization for a different, unbuilt project at the same site.

1/ Federal Reserve officials warned that it might need to raise interest rates in inflation remains above its 2% target. U.S. inflation rose to 3.8% in April – the highest level in nearly three years – driven largely by energy prices increasing due to the Iran war. Since last year, energy prices are up nearly 18%. Trump, meanwhile, said incoming Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh can “do what he wants to do” after repeatedly pressuring Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. Futures markets now put 60% odds on at least one hike by year-end. (New York Times / Reuters / Axios /Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

2/ Trump claimed the U.S. was in the “final stages” of negotiations with Iran “or we’re going to do some things that are a little bit nasty,” while also insisting, “I’m in no hurry.” Tehran, meanwhile, warned that it would retaliate beyond the Middle East if the U.S. or Israel renews strikes. “We’ll see what happens,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. could wait “a few days” for the “right answers.” The U.S. is demanding that Iran give up nuclear enrichment and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while Tehran is demanding sanctions relief, control over Hormuz traffic, and an end to the U.S. blockade of its ports. (Bloomberg / New York Times / CNBC / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / ABC News / NBC News)

3/ Senate Republicans removed the $1 billion Secret Service provision tied to Trump’s White House ballroom from an immigration enforcement bill after the Senate parliamentarian ruled it was outside the bill’s budget rules. Republican leaders also concluded they lacked the votes. The draft text had explicitly named the East Wing Modernization Project and allowed for the money to fund “above-ground and below-ground security features,” despite Trump claiming that donors, not taxpayers, were paying for the ballroom. While the White House told senators that only $220 million could go toward the ballroom and broader White House “hardening,” several Republicans objected to using an immigration bill to advance the project. Meanwhile, Trump demanded that Republicans fire Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, falsely claiming Obama helped appoint her and warning them to “get smart and tough.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, declined, saying “most of the issues we have here are votes,” while Sen. John Kennedy said plainly: “The votes aren’t there.” (Politico / Washington Post)

4/ Police officers who came under attack by Jan. 6 rioters sued to block Trump’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” arguing the Justice Department used Trump’s IRS tax-leak settlement to create an unauthorized payout system for people claiming “weaponization” and “lawfare.” The officers called it a “slush fund” and that payments to riot participants would violate the 14th Amendment’s ban on funding obligations “incurred in aid of insurrection.” The money would come from the federal Judgment Fund and be distributed by a five-member commission appointed by the attorney general. (Politico / CNBC / Bloomberg / NBC News / New York Times / ABC News / Washington Post / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal)

5/ Republicans backed by Trump won or led primaries in Georgia, Alabama, and Kentucky, extending his control over Republicans even as his overall approval rating has slipped into the mid-30s. In Kentucky, Trump-backed Ed Gallrein defeated Rep. Thomas Massie, one of Trump’s most outspoken Republican critics in Congress. More than $32 million in ad spending was spent on the race – the most expensive House primary ever. Trump also helped Rep. Andy Barr win the Republican nomination for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat. And in Georgia, Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones advanced to a June 16 runoff for governor against billionaire Rick Jackson, while Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger failed to advance. In 2020, Raffensperger refused Trump’s demand to “find” enough votes to flip the state in his favor. (NPR / New York Times / Associated Press / Politico / Washington Post / ABC News / Reuters / CNN / NBC News)

6/ The Trump administration plans to move ahead with Trump’s 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery without congressional approval, instead relying on a 101-year-old authorization for a different, unbuilt project at the same site. Even though federal law requires congressional approval for monuments on protected land, the Justice Department argued that Congress already approved the project when it ratified a bridge commission report in 1925 calling for 166-foot columns for a different project. (Washington Post)

The 2026 midterms are in 167 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 902 days.

• Today last year: Day 1582: "I’ve done enough."
• Two years ago today: Day 1217: "Objectionable and personally insulting."
• Five years ago today: Day 121: "Not the case."
• Six years ago today: Day 1217: "We still have a long way to go."
• Seven years ago today: Day 851: "Threshold for impeachment."

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Today in one sentence: Trump’s Justice Department expanded his IRS settlement to include a provision ending all pending tax audits of him, his family, and his businesses; the Senate voted to advance a war powers resolution that would require Trump to end military action against Iran without congressional authorization; Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn in Texas’ Republican Senate runoff; JD Vance defended Trump’s 3,700-plus stock trades in the first three months of 2026; Affordable Care Act enrollment could fall by nearly 5 million people this year after pandemic-era subsidies expired; Trump called the White House ballroom project “a gift” funded by him and private donors; and 55% of Republicans want the party’s next nominee for president to follow Trump’s lead, but 37% want the party to move in a different direction.

1/ Trump’s Justice Department expanded his IRS settlement to include a provision ending all pending tax audits of him, his family, and his businesses. The one-page addendum was signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche one day after the Trump administration agreed to create a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” The fund was part of a deal for Trump to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against his own government over leaked tax records. The addendum says the IRS is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from pursuing “examinations” of Trump, “related or affiliated individuals,” and related trusts and businesses. Meanwhile, Blanche and JD Vance separately declined to rule out payments to Jan. 6 defendants, with Vance saying “anybody can apply” and Blanche adding: “My feelings don’t matter.” (Washington Post / Politico / NBC News / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / CNBC)

2/ The Senate voted to advance a war powers resolution that would require Trump to end military action against Iran without congressional authorization. While the procedural vote didn’t end the war, four Republicans joined Democrats to advance the resolution after seven failed attempts. The measure, however, still needs a final Senate vote, House passage, and an almost certain Trump veto. (New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Politico / CNBC / Bloomberg / ABC News)

3/ Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn in Texas’ Republican Senate runoff. The endorsement came after early voting began and immediately angered Senate Republicans, who warned that Paxton could put a normally safe seat at risk against Democrat James Talarico. Trump, nevertheless, called Paxton a “true MAGA Warrior” and blamed Cornyn for not supporting him “when times were tough.” (Texas Tribune / New York Times / CBS News / Politico / Bloomberg / NPR)

4/ JD Vance defended Trump’s 3,700-plus stock trades in the first three months of 2026, calling it “absurd” to suggest that Trump is sitting in the “Oval Office on his computer on his, like, Robinhood account, buying and selling stocks.” The disclosure showed trades in companies with business before his administration, including firms Trump has “talked up at events” and in social media posts. The White House, however, said “there are no conflicts of interest” because Trump’s assets “are in a trust managed by his children.” (CNBC / Bloomberg)

5/ Affordable Care Act enrollment could fall by nearly 5 million people this year after pandemic-era subsidies expired Jan. 1. Average premium payments rose 58%, while deductibles jumped 37%. Enrollment is expected to drop from 22.3 million in 2025 to about 17.5 million in 2026, a decline of about 22%. The average deductible rose by more than $1,000, to $3,786, as many enrollees shifted into cheaper bronze plans. (Washington Post / CBS News / NPR / Associated Press)

6/ Trump called the White House ballroom project “a gift” funded by him and private donors. The comment follows the Senate parliamentarian blocking a Republican attempt to include taxpayer money for ballroom-related security work in an unrelated immigration enforcement bill. The administration estimates that about $220 million of the $1 billion Secret Service provision would go toward security work tied to the ballroom project. Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t publicly disclosed how much he’s personally contributed, but insisted that “all of this was paid for by myself.” (Politico / ABC News / Washington Post)

poll/ 55% of Republicans want the party’s next nominee for president to follow Trump’s lead, but 37% want the party to move in a different direction. (New York Times)

⏭️ Notably Next: Tuesday is the busiest primary election day of the 2026 midterms so far. Here’s what you need to know.

The 2026 midterms are in 168 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 903 days.

• Today last year: Day 1581: "This isn’t 'The Hunger Games.'"
• Five years ago today: Day 120: "Offensive and humiliating."
• Six years ago today: Day 1216: "Badge of honor."
• 9 years ago today: Day 120: Kept in the dark. Person of interest.

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Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: Trump postponed a previously unannounced attack on Iran after Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates asked him to “hold off”; Trump’s Justice Department settled Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS by creating a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded “Anti-Weaponization Fund” for people claiming they were targeted by the government for political purposes; Trump helped defeat a Republican senator who voted to convict him after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol; the Supreme Court rejected Virginia Democrats’ emergency effort to use a new, voter-approved congressional maps; Minnesota prosecutors charged an ICE agent with four felony assault counts and falsely reporting a crime in the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis during Operation Metro Surge in January; the EPA proposed repealing drinking water limits for four “forever chemicals”; 76% of Americans are concerned about their personal finances; and 64% of voters think Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran.

1/ Trump postponed a previously unannounced attack on Iran after Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates asked him to “hold off.” Trump claimed Gulf leaders told him “serious negotiations are now taking place” and that “a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable” because it would include “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!” Trump, however, told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine to remain ready for a “full, large scale assault” on “a moment’s notice” if talks fail. Iran, meanwhile, insisted it wouldn’t give up its enrich uranium and warned that Iranian forces were “ready to pull the trigger.” (Reuters / Axios / CNBC / Bloomberg / New York Times / NBC News / Politico)

2/ Trump’s Justice Department settled Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS by creating a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded “Anti-Weaponization Fund” for people claiming they were targeted by the government for political purposes. A five-member commission appointed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will decide payouts and issue “formal apologies” through Dec. 15, 2028. Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization, who sued over the leak of their tax records by a former IRS contractor, will receive a formal apology, but no money. The deal also ends Trump’s separate claims seeking damages over the Russia investigation and the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. It comes two days before a judge had ordered Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department to explain whether the case presented a real legal dispute or if Trump is suing “entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.” While Blanche called it “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization,” Rep. Jamie Raskin called it “pure fraud and highway robbery” and a slush fund for “insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists.” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called it “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.” (Associated Press / New York Times / Reuters / Politico / Axios / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / CNN / NPR / NBC News / CBS News / CNBC)

3/ Trump helped defeat a Republican senator who voted to convict him after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Bill Cassidy finished third behind Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming in Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary, sending Letlow and Fleming to a June 27 runoff. Trump had endorsed Letlow and celebrated Cassidy’s defeat, writing that his “disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now part of legend” and that “his political career is OVER.” Cassidy also provided the critical vote needed to confirm Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year despite concerns about Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism. (NPR / New York Times / Bloomberg / Axios / NBC News / Washington Post / Politico / Reuters)

• Trump called Rep. Thomas Massie “the Worst Republican Congressman in History” and urged Kentucky Republicans to “vote the bum out.” After Massie voted against his tax-and-spending bill, sponsored a measure to stop his Iran strikes, and helped force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, Trump endorsed Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL. Massie accused outside billionaires of trying to “buy a seat.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, campaigned in Kentucky for Gallrein ahead of Tuesday’s Republican primary. The Pentagon said he appeared in a “personal capacity” and that no taxpayer dollars supported the trip. (NBC News / ABC News / New York Times / Politico / New York Times / NBC News / The Hill)

• Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against Rep. Lauren Boebert after she campaigned for Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky. He called Boebert “weak-minded” and said he would withdraw his endorsement “if the right person came along.” Boebert said she was “not mad or offended” and “knew the risks” of supporting Massie. (Reuters / The Hill)

4/ The Supreme Court rejected Virginia Democrats’ emergency effort to use a new, voter-approved congressional maps, which could have given Democrats up to four more House seats in the midterms. The unsigned, one-sentence order left the Virginia Supreme Court ruling intact. The state court said lawmakers began the amendment process after early voting had started for the 2025 general election, leaving Virginia’s current 6-5 Democratic map in place. (Axios / Wall Street Journal / CNN / NBC News / New York Times / NPR / CBS News / Associated Press)

• Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen ended his reelection campaign after the Tennessee legislature’s broke up his existing, majority-Black district into three that favor Republicans. Cohen is Tennessee’s only Democrat in Congress. (CBS News / Washington Post)

5/ Minnesota prosecutors charged an ICE agent with four felony assault counts and falsely reporting a crime in the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis during Operation Metro Surge in January. Prosecutors said Christian Castro fired through a closed front door after agents chased another man to the Minneapolis home, hitting Sosa-Celis in the leg while adults and children were inside. (CNN / ABC News / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / New York Times)

6/ The EPA proposed repealing drinking water limits for four “forever chemicals,” rolling back part of the Biden administration’s first national PFAS rule meant to cut exposure for about 100 million people. (Washington Post)

poll/ 76% of Americans are concerned about their personal finances, and 29% say Trump’s economy is good. (CBS News)

poll/ 64% of voters think Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran. 59% disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president. (New York Times)

The 2026 midterms are in 169 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 904 days.

• Three years ago today: Day 849: "Extreme."
• Five years ago today: Day 119: "Legitimatizing a grift."
• Six years ago today: Day 1215: "I seem to be okay."
• Eight years ago today: Day 484: Really bad stuff.
• 9 years ago today: Day 119: Undisclosed.

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Today in one sentence: The Supreme Court preserved nationwide mail and telehealth access to mifepristone; U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks resigned; Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned Trump of “clashes and even conflicts” if the U.S. “improperly” handles Taiwan; the EPA proposed relaxing wastewater limits for coal-fired power plants; FBI Director Kash Patel took a military-coordinated “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona memorial; the Trump administration wants to build Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch using an existing, unrelated White House engineering contract; Trump allies want the July 4 fireworks show in Washington to break the Guinness World Record for the world’s biggest fireworks display; and 45% of Kamala Harris voters said Democrats should redraw House maps to help the party win more seats, even if that weakens some districts designed to protect Black and minority voters.

1/ The Supreme Court preserved nationwide mail and telehealth access to mifepristone, blocking a lower court order that would have reinstated in-person dispensing rules. The unsigned order keeps the FDA’s 2023 policy in place while Louisiana’s challenge continues, leaving medication abortion access unchanged for now. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, with Thomas writing that the manufacturers’ “are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise.” The case returns to the 5th Circuit. (NBC News / CNN / Bloomberg / Reuters / The Hill / The 19th / CBS News / ABC News)

2/ U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks resigned. Banks oversaw Border Patrol during Trump’s immigration crackdown and deployment of agents inside U.S. cities. Rodney Scott, the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, thanked Banks for delivering “the most secure border ever recorded.” His departure follows Kristi Noem’s removal, Gregory Bovino’s retirement, and Todd Lyons’s expected exit from ICE. When asked, Banks said “it’s just time” for him to leave the agency. (Washington Post / Associated Press / Reuters / ABC News / CBS News)

3/ Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned Trump of “clashes and even conflicts” if the U.S. “improperly” handles Taiwan, a democratically self-ruled island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. Xi called “the Taiwan question” “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” saying it could put “the entire relationship in great jeopardy.” The White House readout of the meeting, however, didn’t mention Taiwan, saying only that Trump and Xi had “a good meeting” and agreed the Strait of Hormuz “must remain open” and free of tolls. China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil. Iranian outlets, meanwhile, said Tehran allowed some Chinese ships through the strait. (CNBC / New York Times / ABC News / NBC News / Politico / Washington Post / Associated Press / Reuters / CBS News)

4/ The EPA proposed relaxing wastewater limits for coal-fired power plants. The rule required plants to reduce toxic heavy metals, including mercury, arsenic, and selenium, before dumping wastewater into waterways. The EPA said the change could cut power costs by up to $1.1 billion a year. However, in 2024 the EPA estimated that the rule would reduce 660 million to 672 million fewer pounds of pollution and provide $3.2 billion in annual public health benefits. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed the change is needed because the “AI and data center revolution” requires a “power demand that cannot be met under the overly restrictive policies of past administrations.” (Associated Press)

5/ FBI Director Kash Patel took a military-coordinated “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona memorial. The Pearl Harbor military cemetery is normally closed to swimmers and divers. The FBI didn’t disclose the swim, but instead said Patel’s Pearl Harbor visit was part of his official travel. Government, however, emails showed military officials arranged the logistics. One Marine veteran called it inappropriate for Patel and other political figures to snorkel or dive at the memorial, saying: “It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It’s hallowed ground. It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.” (Associated Press)

6/ The Trump administration wants to build Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch using an existing, unrelated White House engineering contract. Emails show that the Park Service asked if the engineering firm AECOM’s White House contract could cover an environmental assessment at Memorial Circle, more than a mile away. While the White House approved the idea within an hour, it’s unclear whether the Park Service used the contract. (Washington Post)

7/ Trump allies want the July 4 fireworks show in Washington to break the Guinness World Record for the world’s biggest fireworks display. The group leading the event says the finale would run more than 30 minutes and require more than 810,904 fireworks. The event will be treated as a National Special Security Event. Organizers, however, didn’t say what it’ll cost or whether taxpayers will help pay for it. (Axios)

poll/ 45% of Kamala Harris voters said Democrats should redraw House maps to help the party win more seats, even if that weakens some districts designed to protect Black and minority voters. Another 32% said Democrats should preserve those majority-minority districts, even if it means winning fewer seats. (Politico)

The 2026 midterms are in 173 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 908 days.

• Today last year: Day 1576: "This is idiotic."
• Two years ago today: Day 1211: "It's cheating."
• Five years ago today: Day 115: "Very concerning."
• Six years ago today: Day 1211: "Not an acceptable answer."
• Seven years ago today: Day 845: Echoes.
• Eight years ago today: Day 480: A fucked-up feedback loop.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Senate Republicans blocked a resolution to stop Trump’s war with Iran for the seventh time; the Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair; U.S. producer prices rose 1.4% in April and 6% from a year earlier; the Trump administration will withhold $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid reimbursements from California; the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is investigating ICE’s $38 billion warehouse-to-detention program; Trump’s Justice Department is discussing whether to settle Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, an agency he oversees; and the White House is considering a plan for Trump to issue 250 pardons to mark America’s 250th birthday.

1/ Senate Republicans blocked a resolution to stop Trump’s war with Iran for the seventh time. However, Republican Lisa Murkowski joined Rand Paul and Susan Collins in supporting the Democratic measure, leaving it one vote short. The Trump administration claims the April ceasefire “terminated” hostilities, making congressional authorization unnecessary. But U.S. forces remain deployed in the region, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz continues, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claims Trump can resume strikes without Congress. “It doesn’t appear that hostilities have ended,” Murkowski said. (CBS News / New York Times / The Hill / Washington Post / Associated Press)

2/ The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair in a 54-45 vote. Warsh will replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends Friday. Powell, however, plans to remain on the Board of Governors. Terms for governors last 14 years, while the chair’s term lasts four years. Warsh, who replaces Stephen Miran on the board, has pledged independence, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren called him a “sock puppet” for Trump. Inflation tied to the Iran war and Trump’s tariffs has complicated Trump’s demand for lower interest rates, and markets are currently not expecting a June rate cut. (CNBC / Bloomberg / Politico / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post)

3/ U.S. producer prices rose 1.4% in April and 6% from a year earlier – the biggest annual increase since late 2022. Energy costs led the increase, with gasoline up 15.6%, with services, trade margins, and shipping costs also rising. The data followed a 3.8% annual increase in consumer prices. (Associated Press / CNBC / Reuters / New York Times / Axios)

4/ The Trump administration will withhold $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid reimbursements from California. JD Vance claimed California had “not taken fraud very seriously,” while Mehmet Oz said the state must “come to the table” to explain outlier billing. Oz said California’s records showed “major red flags,” including $630 million in billing, $500 million in home health services, and $200 million in questionable spending. California, however, disputed the accusation, saying its home care program grew because it’s “keeping more people OUT of far more expensive nursing homes.” CMS also imposed a six-month freeze on new Medicare enrollments for hospice and home health agencies, but current Medicaid beneficiaries and existing Medicare providers aren’t supposed to lose coverage or services. (Reuters / Associated Press / CBS News / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Politico)

5/ The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is investigating ICE’s $38 billion warehouse-to-detention program. Under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS paid at least $1 billion for nine facilities, while ICE bought 11 vacant warehouses that weren’t zoned for detention at Noem’s direction. New DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has since paused the plan. (Wall Street Journal)

6/ Trump’s Justice Department is discussing whether to settle Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, an agency he oversees. Trump sued after a former IRS contractor leaked his tax records, claiming the agency “wrongly allowed” a “rogue, politically-motivated employee” to disclose them. The talks come as U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams is questioning whether Trump and the IRS are truly opposing parties, since Trump is both the plaintiff and the president overseeing the defendant agency. Options under discussion include having the IRS drop audits of Trump, his family, and his businesses, paying Trump taxpayer funds, or giving him some other unspecified public benefit as part of a pre-deadline settlement. (New York Times / CNN)

7/ The White House is considering a plan for Trump to issue 250 pardons to mark America’s 250th birthday. The discussions are preliminary, and some officials have raised concerns about granting so many pardons before the midterms. There were more than 16,000 formal pardon requests last year. (Wall Street Journal)

The 2026 midterms are in 174 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 909 days.

😒 Dept. of Election Meddling.

1. South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to announce a special session on redistricting. The new map would eliminate Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn’s seat, leaving the state with seven likely red seats and no Democratic-leaning ones. (Politico)
2. Republicans in the Louisiana Senate voted to advance a new congressional map that would eliminate one of Louisiana’s two majority-Black districts and give Republicans a 5-1 advantage. (NBC News)
3. The Missouri Supreme Court approved the state’s Republican-drawn map, creating an additional Republican-leaning seat. (Politico)
4. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set special primary elections for four House races using its 2023 congressional map that includes one majority-Black district. (New York Times)
5. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is calling a special legislative session to redraw his state’s congressional map for the 2028 cycle. Kemp declined to take up redistricting for this cycle. (Politico)

• Today last year: Day 1575: "A chance at greatness."
• Two years ago today: Day 1210: "Just do it."
• Five years ago today: Day 114: "A great day for America."
• Six years ago today: Day 1210: "The darkest winter in modern history."
• Seven years ago today: Day 844: Rules and norms.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Trump said he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” as a motivation for negotiations with Iran; U.S. inflation rose to 3.8% in April, the highest level in nearly three years; the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system could cost $1.2 trillion over 20 years – nearly seven times more than Trump’s $175 billion estimate; Trump called a journalist “a dumb person” after she noted that the cost of his White House ballroom project had doubled from $200 million to $400 million; Marty Makary resigned as FDA commissioner after 13 months; the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to revive a Republican-drawn House map with only one majority-Black district, likely giving Republicans six of the state’s seven seats; Democrats called for Rep. Jen Kiggans to resign after she agreed with a radio host’s comment that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries should get his “cotton-picking hands off of Virginia”; and during a late-night Truth Social posting spree, Trump baselessly called Obama a “traitor,” a “demonic force,” and part of a coup.

1/ Trump said he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” as a motivation for negotiations with Iran – “not even a little bit.” Trump said the “only thing” that matters is Iran “can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing — we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.” Trump added that “Every American understands.” (Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News / CBS News / NBC News)

2/ U.S. inflation rose to 3.8% in April – the highest level in nearly three years. Consumer prices rose 0.6% from March, with energy accounting for more than 40% of the monthly increase, with gasoline prices up 5.4%. Core inflation rose 2.8% from a year earlier, while real average hourly wages fell 0.5% from March – meaning prices rose faster than pay. (NPR / New York Times / Reuters / NBC News / CNBC / Associated Press / Washington Post)

• poll/ 77% of Americans said Trump’s policies have raised their cost of living, and roughly two-thirds said they’ve worsened national economic conditions. 55% said the economy and the cost of living are the most important issues facing the country. (CNN)

3/ The Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system could cost $1.2 trillion over 20 years – nearly seven times more than Trump’s $175 billion estimate. Congress has approved about $24 billion for the program. The system would add ground- and space-based interceptors, sensors, and orbiting weapons, including a space-based interceptor layer of 7,800 satellites. The CBO said the system would still be overwhelmed by a full-scale attack from Russia or China. (Associated Press / Bloomberg / ABC News / Reuters)

4/ Trump called a journalist “a dumb person” after she noted that the cost of his White House ballroom project had doubled from $200 million to $400 million. Trump claimed the project remained “under budget,” because he had “doubled the size.” He then called MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner “not a smart person” when she asked about rising costs for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation. The White House, meanwhile, tried to justify the $1 billion East Wing funding request as a security package and not ballroom funding. It shared a document with Senate Republicans listing $220 million for White House hardening, $180 million for visitor screening, $175 million for Secret Service training, and hundreds of millions more for improving security for Secret Service protectees, drones, and national events. (MS Now / The Hill / Axios)

5/ Marty Makary resigned as FDA commissioner after 13 months, ending a tenure marked by mass layoffs, senior leadership departures, and erratic policy decisions on drugs, vaccines, abortion pills, and vapes. Trump named Kyle Diamantas, the FDA’s top food regulator and a lawyer with no medical degree, as acting commissioner. Makary’s exit followed pressure from Trump to approve fruit-flavored vapes, which he’d resisted because of their appeal to young people. Trump called him “a great doctor” who was “having some difficulty.” (Reuters / New York Times / NBC News / CBS News / Associated Press / Politico)

6/ The Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to revive a Republican-drawn House map with only one majority-Black district, likely giving Republicans six of the state’s seven seats. The Supreme Court didn’t explain why its Louisiana ruling narrowing the Voting Rights Act should also reverse a separate finding that Alabama intentionally discriminated against Black voters. Alabama passed the 2023 map after courts ordered a second district be drawn where Black voters could elect their preferred candidate. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, meanwhile, warned that the court had “unceremoniously” discarded the lower court’s ruling and would “unleash chaos.” (New York Times / CBS News / CNN / NBC News / ABC News / Associated Press / Politico)

7/ Democrats called for Rep. Jen Kiggans to resign after she agreed with a radio host’s comment that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries should get his “cotton-picking hands off of Virginia.” Kiggans later said the host “should not have used that language” and that she was agreeing only that Jeffries should stay out of Virginia politics. Jeffries’ office called it a “stunning failure of judgment,” while House Democratic leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus demanded her resignation. Republicans, meanwhile, called it a “nothing-burger.” Kiggans is currently running for reelection in one of the country’s most competitive House races. (Axios / New York Times / Reuters / Politico / NBC News)

8/ During a late-night Truth Social posting spree, Trump baselessly called Obama a “traitor,” a “demonic force,” and part of a coup. He demanded that Obama be arrested for “treachery, treason, and seditious conspiracy,” while reviving the debunked claim that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. “Arrest them all. Prosecute them all. Incarcerate them all at once,” before adding: “But first, Barack Obama.” Trump also attacked the New York Times, posted AI-style images tied to Iran, and repeated his false claims about the 2020 election. The White House declined to comment on the more than 50 posts Trump sent. (Washington Post / The Guardian / CNN / New Republic)

The 2026 midterms are in 175 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 910 days.

• Today last year: Day 1574: "Total reset."
• Four years ago today: Day 478: "Headlines and sensationalization."
• Five years ago today: Day 113: "Ignoring the lie emboldens the liar."
• Six years ago today: Day 1209: "That's not prevailing."
• 9 years ago today: Day 113: Another fucking Twitter tirade.

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Today in one sentence: Trump said the U.S. ceasefire with Iran is on “massive life support” after rejecting Tehran’s latest counterproposal as a “piece of garbage” and “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE”; Trump endorsed suspending the federal 18.4-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax after his war with Iran pushed the average pump price to $4.52 a gallon; the man accused of trying to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner pleaded not guilty to four federal charges; the Supreme Court temporarily preserved nationwide access to mifepristone by mail and telehealth; the Virginia Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s voter-approved congressional redistricting plan; ABC accused the FCC of violating its First Amendment rights; and preservation group sued to stop Trump’s no-bid repainting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

1/ Trump said the U.S. ceasefire with Iran is on “massive life support” after rejecting Tehran’s latest counterproposal as a “piece of garbage” and “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.” Iranian state media said Tehran demanded war reparations, sanctions relief, recognition of its control over the Strait of Hormuz, and an end to the U.S. blockade. Iran called its terms “reasonable,” “generous,” and limited to its “legitimate rights,” but Trump said Tehran had “changed their mind” on allow the U.S. to remove its enriched uranium. Trump, meanwhile, accused Iran’s leadership of being run by “lunatics.” (New York Times / Politico / NBC News / Bloomberg / CNBC / CBS News / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / CNN / The Hill / The Guardian / Reuters / Axios)

• poll/ 66% of Americans say Trump hasn’t clearly explained why he took the country to war with Iran, including 30% of Republicans. (Reuters)

2/ Trump endorsed suspending the federal 18.4-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax after his war with Iran pushed the average pump price to $4.52 a gallon. “We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time,” Trump said, calling the savings “still money” and predicting that prices would “drop like a rock” when the war ends. Congress, however, would have to approve any pause, which would also cut revenue for highways and public transit. Last week, the White House said suspending the federal gas tax wasn’t “currently under consideration.” (Reuters / Associated Press / Axios / Bloomberg / Washington Post / CBS News / Wall Street Journal / New York Times)

• poll/ 63% of Americans blame Trump for the increase in gas prices, including a third of Republicans. (NPR)

3/ The man accused of trying to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner pleaded not guilty to four federal charges. Cole Tomas Allen allegedly traveled from California with guns and knives, then tried to rush a Washington Hilton security checkpoint. Prosecutors say he fired a shotgun and hit a Secret Service officer’s ballistic vest. Allen faces up to life in prison if convicted. (Associated Press / ABC News / New York Times / Bloomberg / CBS News / NBC News / CNBC)

• poll/ 24% of Americans believe the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner was staged, while 32% were unsure and 45% believed it was legitimate. (Washington Post)

4/ The Supreme Court temporarily preserved nationwide access to mifepristone by mail and telehealth. Justice Samuel Alito extended an administrative stay until 5 p.m. May 14, blocking a 5th Circuit ruling that would require in-person dispensing and suspend telehealth access. Louisiana had sued to revive those limits, arguing FDA rules undermine its abortion ban, while mifepristone manufacturers warned the ruling could disrupt national drug regulation. (NBC News / Associated Press / New York Times)

5/ The Virginia Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s voter-approved congressional redistricting plan, blocking Democrats from drawing a map that could have given them as many as 10 of the state’s 11 U.S. House seats. In a 4-3 ruling, the court said the Democratic-led legislature violated the state constitution’s amendment process by acting after early voting had begun, and leaving the April referendum “null and void.” The ruling didn’t judge the map’s fairness and Virginia will use the current 6-5 Democratic map. (Associated Press / Politico / CNBC / NPR / Wall Street Journal / ABC News / Washington Post / New York Times)

6/ ABC accused the FCC of violating its First Amendment rights, arguing that the agency’s review of “The View” marks a “major shift in policy and practice” that could “chill critical protected speech.” The filing came after the FCC ordered ABC’s Houston station to file a petition asking whether “The View” still qualified for its 2002 exemption from equal-time rules, following Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s February appearance. ABC called the demand “unprecedented” and asked the agency to reaffirm its long-standing treatment of the show as a “bona fide news interview program.” (Bloomberg / CNN / CBS News / The Verge / New York Times / NBC News)

7/ A preservation group sued to stop Trump’s no-bid repainting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, saying officials began changing a historic landmark without the required review. Federal records show that the contract to paint the surface blue was $13.1 million, more than 7 times Trump’s estimate of $1.8 million. The Cultural Landscape Foundation said the blue coating would make the pool resemble a resort feature, while Interior said “American Flag Blue” paint will improve the visitor experience. (Washington Post / New York Times / Politico / CNN / CBS News)

The 2026 midterms are in 176 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 911 days.

• Three years ago today: Day 842: "It's hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN."
• Four years ago today: Day 477: "Failure."
• Five years ago today: Day 112: "A lifeline."
• Six years ago today: Day 1208: "It's scary to go to work."
• Eight years ago today: Day 477: Big mistake.
• 9 years ago today: Day 112: Contradicting the White House.

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Today in one sentence: Chief Justice John Roberts claimed that Supreme Court justices aren’t “political actors” and that the court isn’t a political institution; Tennessee Republicans enacted a new congressional map that breaks up majority-Black Memphis, likely eliminating the state’s only Democratic House seat; Trump called for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to be charged with “INCITING VIOLENCE,” in an attempt to link Jeffries’ “maximum warfare” language about redistricting to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting; a federal judge let the Justice Department keep more than 600 boxes of 2020 election ballots and records seized from Fulton County, Georgia, despite finding flaws in the FBI warrant; the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump’s 10% tariff on most imports was illegal; and 80% of Americans support age caps for members of Congress.

1/ Chief Justice John Roberts claimed that Supreme Court justices aren’t “political actors” and that the court isn’t a political institution. The defense comes a week after the court’s 6-3 conservative majority narrowed the Voting Rights Act’s protection for majority-Black congressional districts, opening the door for Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps. Since then Florida has enacted a new map that could add four more Republican House seats in November’s midterm election, while Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina are all moving to redraw their maps targeting Democratic districts. While Roberts didn’t address that ruling, he insisted that the court is “not simply part of the political process” and doesn’t make “policy decisions,” rather they just decide “what the law provides.” He called “considered criticism” fair, but warned that personal attacks on judges can become “problematic” and lead to “very serious problems.” (Politico / CNN / NBC News / Associated Press / Reuters)

2/ Tennessee Republicans enacted a new congressional map that breaks up majority-Black Memphis, likely eliminating the state’s only Democratic House seat. Republican Gov. Bill Lee promptly signed it into law after lawmakers repealed Tennessee’s ban on mid-decade redistricting. Republicans now have a path to sweep of all nine U.S. House seats. The move follows last week’s Supreme Court ruling narrowing Voting Rights Act protections for majority-Black districts. (NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / Associated Press / Politico / ABC News / NPR)

3/ Trump called for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to be charged with “INCITING VIOLENCE,” in an attempt to link Jeffries’ “maximum warfare” language about redistricting to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting. Jeffries used the phrase at an April 22 news conference about Democratic redistricting efforts, saying Democrats wanted “a fair national map.” The phrase also echoed language from a person close to Trump, who described the White House’s political strategy as “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.” Jeffries dismissed Trump’s post as “another deranged rant,” saying Trump was “threatening to criminally prosecute me” and asking: “What’s wrong with you, bro?” (Politico / The Hill / Daily Beast)

4/ A federal judge let the Justice Department keep more than 600 boxes of 2020 election ballots and records seized from Fulton County, Georgia, despite finding flaws in the FBI warrant. Judge J.P. Boulee called parts of the FBI warrant “troubling” and “defective,” but said the county hasn’t shown the government acted with “callous disregard.” The ruling allows the investigation into alleged election “irregularities” to continue. Georgia counted its 2020 presidential vote three times, each confirming Biden’s win. The Justice Department is separately seeking personal information on 2020 election workers. (New York Times / Bloomberg / Washington Post / CNN / NBC News / ABC News / Politico / Associated Press / Reuters)

5/ The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump’s 10% tariff on most imports was illegal and that he exceeded his authority under the Trade Act of 1974. The court said Section 122 didn’t allow Trump to treat trade deficits as “balance-of-payments deficits,” the legal criteria he cited after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier tariffs. The court for now only immediately blocked the administration from enforcing the tariffs against the two companies that sued and Washington state, making clear that it was not issuing a so-called “universal injunction.” The ruling limits enforcement against the two companies and Washington state that sued, stopping short of a nationwide injunction. (Associated Press / Bloomberg / Reuters / New York Times / CBS News / Politico / ABC News)

poll/ 80% of Americans support age caps for members of Congress. 83% support term limits for members of Congress. (NPR)

⏰ Dept. of I Ran Out of Time: A federal judge released Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide note; FBI Director Kash Patel gives away personalized bourbon bottles engraved with his name, title, and FBI shield; and Kamala Harris might run for president for a third time, saying “I’m thinking about it.”

The 2026 midterms are in 180 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 915 days.

• Today last year: Day 1569: "Not at all clear what it is we should do."
• Two years ago today: Day 1204: "Blacked out."
• Five years ago today: Day 108: "We have a long way to go."
• Six years ago today: Day 1204: "Overly prescriptive."
• Seven years ago today: Day 838: Privilege.
• Eight years ago today: Day 473: Fighting back.

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Today in one sentence: The FBI searched the office of a Virginia Democratic state lawmaker who helped lead the state’s redistricting plan earlier this year; Trump helped defeat at least five incumbents in Indiana’s Republican primaries that had blocked his mid-decade redistricting plan; Tennessee Republicans unveiled a proposed congressional map that would eliminate the state’s only Democratic U.S. House; the FBI reportedly launched a criminal leak investigation into the Atlantic writer who reported about concerns over Director Kash Patel’s drinking and conduct; Iran is reviewing a U.S. proposal to end the war even as Trump threatened Tehran “if they don’t agree, the bombing starts […] a much higher level and intensity”; Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee about his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; 87% of Americans have a negative view of Trump’s social media post depicting himself as Jesus; 63% of Americans blame Trump for the increase in gas prices; and 61% of Americans say the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but not anymore.

1/ The FBI searched the office of a Virginia Democratic state lawmaker who helped lead the state’s redistricting plan earlier this year. FBI agents executed a search warrant at Sen. L. Louise Lucas’ office and a neighboring cannabis dispensary she co-owns as part of a corruption investigation into possible marijuana-related bribery that began under Biden. Lucas has not been charged. The search came weeks after Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment to temporarily redraw the state’s congressional map. Lucas helped push Virginia’s mid-decade redistricting plan that could give Democrats up to four more House seats. After Republicans complained that the new Virginia map was unfair, Lucas replied: “You all started it and we fucking finished it.” (Fox News / Associated Press / New York Times / CBS News / NBC News / Bloomberg / Politico / Washington Post)

2/ Trump helped defeat at least five incumbents in Indiana’s Republican primaries. The senators had helped block his mid-decade redistricting plan that could’ve helped Republicans target Indiana’s two remaining Democratic U.S. House seats. Trump-aligned groups spent more than $12 million on races that usually draw little national attention. In Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican nomination for governor, while Sherrod Brown advanced to a U.S. Senate race against Jon Husted that could help decide control of the chamber. In Michigan, Democrat Chedrick Greene won a state Senate special election, giving Democrats another off-year win and securing their majority in the chamber. (Washington Post / Politico / Axios / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / CNN / ABC News / Associated Press / The Guardian / CBS News / NBC News)

3/ Tennessee Republicans unveiled a proposed congressional map that would eliminate the state’s only Democratic U.S. House seat. The plan would divide majority-Black Shelby County across three districts and give Republicans a shot at a 9-0 delegation. Lawmakers, however, must first repeal Tennessee’s ban on mid-decade redistricting and pass new election rules before the August primary. (NBC News / Axios / Politico / New York Times / The Hill)

4/ The FBI reportedly launched a criminal leak investigation into the Atlantic writer who reported about concerns over Director Kash Patel’s drinking and conduct. Patel has sued The Atlantic and Sarah Fitzpatrick for $250 million, claiming the story was false, while the magazine said it stands by the reporting and will defend its staff against “government harassment.” The FBI, meanwhile, said “no such investigation” exists, calling it “completely false.” (MS Now / New Republic / The Atlantic)

• 📌 Previously on WTFJHT – Apr 20, 2026: FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic and a journalist for defamation, seeking $250 million over an article that said he showed “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences,” was “often away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions,” and had become a point of concern inside the FBI and Justice Department.

5/ Iran is reviewing a U.S. proposal to end the war even as Trump threatened Tehran “if they don’t agree, the bombing starts […] a much higher level and intensity.” Hours later, Trump said the U.S. had “won” the war and held “very good talks” with Iran, adding: “We’re in good shape” but “we have to get what we have to get.” The reported one-page memo would start 30 days of talks on the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, frozen funds, and limits on Iran’s nuclear program. (New York Times / CNBC / NPR / CBS News / Axios / Associated Press / Reuters / ABC News / CNN / Bloomberg)

• Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 U.S. military structures or pieces of equipment across the Middle East since the war began – far larger than the Trump administration has publicly acknowledged. (Washington Post)

6/ Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee about his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Justice Department files showed Lutnick visited Epstein’s private island in 2012, four years after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, and then kept in contact after he previously said he cut ties in 2005. Committee Chairman James Comer said Lutnick was “forthcoming” but “wasn’t 100% truthful,” adding that the transcript would let “the American people judge.” Democrats, meanwhile, called Lutnick “evasive, nervous” and “dishonest,” and described his answers as “contortions and lies.” The interview wasn’t videotaped, which Democrats called part of an “egregious cover-up.” Lutnick is the first sitting Trump Cabinet official questioned as part of the panel’s Epstein investigation. (Associated Press / NBC News / MS Now / Bloomberg / New York Times / ABC News / The Guardian / CBS News / CNBC)

poll/ 87% of Americans have a negative view of Trump’s social media post depicting himself as Jesus. 9% had a positive reaction. Trump later deleted the image. (Washington Post)

poll/ 63% of Americans blame Trump for the increase in gas prices, including 32% of Republicans and 63% of independents. (NPR)

poll/ 61% of Americans say the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but not anymore, while 27% feel the country is currently a great place for immigrants, and 10% say the U.S. was never a great for immigrants. (Associated Press)

The 2026 midterms are in 181 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 916 days.

• Today last year: Day 1568: "Never say never."
• Two years ago today: Day 1203: "Not serving as a deterrent."
• Six years ago today: Day 1203: "We've solved every problem."
• Seven years ago today: Day 837: Legitimacy.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Trump paused Project Freedom after one day, citing “Great Progress” toward a “Complete and Final Agreement” with Iran while keeping the U.S. blockade “in full force and effect”; Marco Rubio urged Iran to negotiate, saying “the time’s come for Iran to make a sensible choice,” but added that its leaders are “insane in the brain”; Pete Hegseth dismissed reports about Iranian “kamikaze dolphins,” saying: “I cannot confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they don’t”; Trump accused Pope Leo XIV of “endangering a lot of Catholics” by criticizing the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran; Senate Republicans proposed $1 billion for Secret Service security upgrades tied to Trump’s ballroom project, despite Trump’s repeated promises that the project would use “ZERO taxpayer funding”; soil and debris from the demolished White House East Wing tested positive for lead, chromium, and other toxic metals; and Fulton County asked a federal judge to block a Justice Department subpoena seeking the personal information for thousands of 2020 election workers.

1/ Trump paused Project Freedom after one day, citing “Great Progress” toward a “Complete and Final Agreement” with Iran while keeping the U.S. blockade “in full force and effect.” Earlier in the day, Trump declined to define whether Iranian attacks on U.S. forces, commercial vessels, and the UAE had breached the ceasefire, saying: “You’ll find out, because I’ll let you know.” However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said Operation Epic Fury “is concluded” and that the U.S. had shifted to a defensive Strait of Hormuz mission, saying “There’s no shooting unless we’re shot at first.” Rubio also urged Iran to negotiate, saying “the time’s come for Iran to make a sensible choice,” but added that its leaders are “insane in the brain.” Separately, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed reports about Iranian “kamikaze dolphins,” saying: “I cannot confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they don’t.” (New York Times / ABC News / NBC News / Reuters / CBS News / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / CNBC / CNN / Bloomberg / Washington Post / Politico)

2/ Trump accused Pope Leo XIV of “endangering a lot of Catholics” by criticizing the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, falsely claiming the pope thinks “it’s OK” for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Leo, however, has never said that and he rejected the claim, saying the church has “no doubt” opposed nuclear arms. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, will meet with Leo at the Vatican on Thursday for what U.S. Ambassador Brian Burch called a “frank conversation” on U.S. policy. Rubio said the trip was planned before the dispute and that “there’s a lot to talk about with the Vatican.” (The Guardian / Wall Street Journal / New Republic / NBC News / Bloomberg / Reuters)

3/ Senate Republicans proposed $1 billion for Secret Service security upgrades tied to Trump’s ballroom project, despite Trump’s repeated promises that the project would use “ZERO taxpayer funding.” The money is included in a roughly $70 billion immigration enforcement bill, which says the funds can’t pay for “non-security elements.” Nevertheless, the White House said Congress had “rightly recognized the need” to harden the “long overdue” project. Democrats, meanwhile, plan to force a floor vote on the provision, while Republicans are trying to move it through a party-line bill. (CNN / Politico / New York Times / ABC News / Washington Post / NBC News)

4/ Soil and debris from the demolished White House East Wing tested positive for lead, chromium, and other toxic metals after being dumped at East Potomac Golf Links. While the National Park Service said the site didn’t exceed legal environmental limits and the Interior Department said the transfer was “safe for the public,” some samples, however, exceeded California’s industrial lead threshold and normal chromium levels. (New York Times / The Hill / The Guardian)

5/ The Education Department opened a Title IX investigation into Smith College, a women’s college in Massachusetts, for allegedly violating federal sex discrimination laws by allowing transgender women to enroll and access women’s housing, bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights claimed “an all-women’s college loses all meaning” if it admits “biological males.” (Politico / New York Times / Washington Post)

6/ The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued The New York Times, alleging that it denied a promotion to a white male editor because of race and sex. The lawsuit claims the Times diversity goals influenced the 2025 hiring process for deputy real estate editor and violated federal civil rights law. The Times, meanwhile, rejected the case as “politically motivated” and said that neither race nor gender played a role. (Washington Post / The Guardian / New York Times / Axios)

7/ Fulton County asked a federal judge to block a Justice Department subpoena seeking the personal information for thousands of 2020 election workers. The subpoena demands names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails for county employees, temporary workers, volunteers, and poll workers. County lawyers called the request “grossly overbroad” and that it was meant to “target, harass, and punish” Trump’s perceived political opponents. In January, the FBI seized Fulton County’s 2020 ballots and records as part of a federal investigation tied to Trump’s false claims that he lost Georgia because of voter fraud. (Associated Press / CNN / New York Times / ABC News / NBC News)

🟦🟥 Primaries: Tuesday’s primaries in Indiana and Ohio will test Trump’s hold over Republican politics. In Indiana, Trump is trying to oust seven Republican state senators who blocked his effort for a friendlier House map. In Ohio, primaries for governor, Senate, and House will shape November contests that could help decide control of Congress. (NPR / NBC News)

The 2026 midterms are in 182 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 917 days.

• Today last year: Day 1567: "The best, safest and most cost-effective way."
• Four years ago today: Day 471: "Appropriate next steps."
• Five years ago today: Day 106: "Disingenuous."
• Six years ago today: Day 1202: "Weaker and sicker and poorer."
• 9 years ago today: Day 106: An uncertain fate.

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Today in one sentence: U.S. forces shot down Iranian missiles and drones and destroyed six Iranian small boats after Trump began moving commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz as part of “Project Freedom”; the Supreme Court temporarily restored mail and telehealth access to mifepristone; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new congressional map that could give Republicans 24 of Florida’s 28 U.S. House seats; and 62% of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president – a record high from his two terms in office.

1/ U.S. forces shot down Iranian missiles and drones and destroyed six Iranian small boats after Trump began moving commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz as part of “Project Freedom.” CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels crossed under U.S. military protection and that U.S. forces had “opened a passage through the Strait of Hormuz to allow for the free flow of commerce to proceed.” Iran had warned that ships crossing without its permission faced “serious risks.” The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted Iranian cruise missiles and blamed an Iranian drone strike for a large fire at its Fujairah oil port, while Oman reported an attack near Emirati territory, and Seoul said a South Korean-operated ship caught fire after an explosion in the same area. Trump, meanwhile, said Iran had taken “some shots at unrelated Nations,” and warned Iranian forces that they’d be “blown off the face of the Earth” if they targeted U.S. ships. (New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / Bloomberg / CNN / The Guardian / ABC News / Wall Street Journal / Axios)

• On Friday, Trump told Congress that hostilities with Iran were “terminated,” arguing that the April 7 ceasefire meant the 60-day War Powers deadline no longer required congressional authorization. The letter said there has been “no exchange of fire” with Iran since the ceasefire, though U.S. forces were still enforcing a blockade and remain positioned to resume strikes. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators the ceasefire “pauses, or stops” the clock. (Politico / Axios / New York Times / Washington Post / CNBC)

• On Saturday, Trump compared the U.S. Navy to “pirates” while describing the seizure of a ship as part of his blockade of Iranian ports. “We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, took over the oil,” Trump said, calling it “a very profitable business.” (Reuters / The Guardian)

• On Sunday, Trump said the U.S. would start guiding foreign commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, calling it “Project Freedom” and warning that interference would be met “forcefully.” Iran warned it would strike U.S. forces if they attempt to approach the strait. (Washington Post / Axios / Bloomberg / CNBC / The Guardian / Wall Street Journal)

• Trump ordered 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany after Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. has “no strategy” for leaving the war and that “an entire nation is being humiliated” by Iranian leaders who are “very skillfully not negotiating.” The Pentagon claimed the withdrawal followed a force posture review. (Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / New York Times)

2/ The Supreme Court temporarily restored mail and telehealth access to mifepristone. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. paused a 5th Circuit order that would’ve prevented providers from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and shipping them to patients. Two manufacturers of mifepristone asked the Supreme Court to intervene, saying the appeals ruling created “immediate confusion and upheaval” for patients, providers, pharmacies, and the drug-regulatory system. Louisiana, which bans most abortions, had argued that the FDA’s mail-order rules undermine its law and increase state health costs. Louisiana is due to respond Thursday to the administrative stay. (NPR / CNN / Axios / New York Times / ABC News / NBC News / Associated Press / Politico)

3/ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new congressional map that could give Republicans 24 of Florida’s 28 U.S. House seats. The map, approved in a fast-tracked special session after the Supreme Court narrowed Voting Rights Act protections, targets Democratic-held districts in Tampa, Orlando, and South Florida. Meanwhile, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey called lawmakers back for a special legislative session to consider a new congressional map to give Republicans an additional House seat. And in Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee also called for a special session to “review” the state’s only Democratic-held district. (The Hill / Politico / CNN / Democracy Docket / CBS News / New York Times / NBC News / Associated Press)

poll/ 62% of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president – a record high from his two terms in office. Trump’s overall approval stands at 37%. (ABC News / Washington Post)

The 2026 midterms are in 183 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 918 days.

• Three years ago today: Day 835: "An insidious plot."
• Four years ago today: Day 470: "Not going to be easy."
• Five years ago today: Day 105: "New normal."
• Six years ago today: Day 1201: "It goes up rapidly."
• Eight years ago today: Day 470: Oh my goodness.
• 9 years ago today: Day 105: Health care?

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: Trump signed legislation funding most of the Department of Homeland Security; Louisiana suspended its U.S. House primaries after the Supreme Court struck down its congressional map, giving the Republican-controlled Legislature time to redraw districts before November; Trump withdrew Dr. Casey Means as his surgeon general nominee and named Dr. Nicole Saphier, a longtime Fox News contributor and radiologist; oil prices briefly hit their highest level since the Iran war began; the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge jumped to 3.5% in March; 56% of Americans oppose Trump tearing down the East Wing to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom; and the Senate unanimously banned senators and staff from trading on prediction markets, codifying the idea that lawmakers shouldn’t gamble on events they may might shape.

1/ Trump signed legislation funding most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending a record-long shutdown after House Republicans dropped weeks of resistance to a Senate-passed bill. The measure restores money for TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service, but leaves ICE and Border Patrol unfunded while Republicans pursue a separate $70 billion party-line bill for immigration enforcement. Democrats had demanded new limits on immigration agents after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, including restrictions on raids and agents wearing masks. The final deal included none of those demands. Speaker Mike Johnson claimed House Republicans held up the Senate bill because “we had to” keep ICE and Border Patrol from being left out of the funding package, adding: “We threw a fit.” (NBC News / CNBC / New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Reuters / Axios / NPR)

2/ Louisiana suspended its U.S. House primaries after the Supreme Court struck down its congressional map, giving the Republican-controlled Legislature time to redraw districts before November. Early voting in the House primaries was set to begin Saturday, and absentee ballots had already gone out. While the House races will remain on the ballot, votes in those races won’t count. The Senate primary, however, will go forward on May 16. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed Gov. Jeff Landry “has no choice but to suspend” the primaries, then urged other states with “unconstitutional maps” to act before the midterms. A new Louisiana map could give Republicans one or two more House seats. (Washington Post / New York Times / CNN / NBC News / Reuters / Associated Press / NPR)

3/ Trump withdrew Dr. Casey Means as his surgeon general nominee and named Dr. Nicole Saphier, a longtime Fox News contributor and radiologist. Means’ nomination had stalled in the Senate for more than two months over Republican concerns about her stance on vaccines, credentials, and her inactive medical license. Saphier is Trump’s third pick for the job. (CNN / Associated Press / Washington Post / Politico / New York Times / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

4/ Oil prices briefly hit their highest level since the Iran war began, pushing U.S. gas to $4.30 a gallon. Brent crude topped $126 before falling toward $114, while U.S. crude settled near $105. The spike followed stalled U.S.-Iran talks, Trump’s reported rejection of Iran’s offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and continued restrictions on tanker traffic through the waterway. Analysts said markets were “losing hope for any quick resumption in oil flows.” Before the war, Brent traded near $70. (New York Times / Semafor / Axios / CBS News / The Guardian)

5/ The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge jumped to 3.5% in March, as the Iran war drove gasoline prices to a four-year high. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose to 3.2% – well above the Fed’s 2% target. (CNBC / CNN / ABC News)

poll/ 56% of Americans oppose Trump tearing down the East Wing to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, while 28% support, and 15% unsure. (Washington Post / ABC News)

😏 Well, that’s fantastic: The Senate unanimously banned senators and staff from trading on prediction markets, codifying the idea that lawmakers shouldn’t gamble on events they may might shape. A broader ban on stock trading, however, remains stalled. (Associated Press)

The 2026 midterms are in 187 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 922 days.

• Today last year: Day 1562: "Not afraid of you."
• Two years ago today: Day 1197: "You know, it depends."
• Five years ago today: Day 101: "One god-awful mess."
• Six years ago today: Day 1197: "Honestly, I'm really in charge."
• Seven years ago today: Day 831: Meritless.
• Eight years ago today: Day 466: Panic mode.

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Today in one sentence: The Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, striking down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district and limiting the law’s main tool against racial vote dilution; Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new congressional map, which could give Republicans up to four more House seats in November’s midterm elections; the Supreme Court ruled that a Christian faith-based anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy center” can challenge a New Jersey subpoena tied to a state investigation into whether they misled donors and clients about abortion services; Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will remain a Fed governor when his term as chairman ends; Trump rejected Iran’s offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying the U.S. naval blockade will continue until Tehran accepts a nuclear deal; and the Iran war has cost about $25 billion so far.

1/ The Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, striking down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district and limiting the law’s main tool against racial vote dilution. Louisiana created the district after Black voters sued over a post-2020 map that gave them one of the state’s six House seats, despite Black residents making up about one-third of the population. While the ruling doesn’t erase Section 2, it narrows the provision Congress updated in 1982 to stop maps that diluted minority voting power. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Louisiana’s map was an “unconstitutional gerrymander,” while Justice Elena Kagan said the court had rendered Section 2 “all but a dead letter” and left states free to “systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.” Republicans, meanwhile, in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana immediately called for special sessions to draw new maps, saying “There is no time to waste” and “LET’S GO!” (Associated Press / Politico / Reuters / New York Times / Axios / Washington Post / NPR / CBS News / NBC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Politico / ABC News)

2/ Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new congressional map, which could give Republicans up to four more House seats in November’s midterm elections. The map targets Democratic seats around Tampa, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale, giving Republicans a strong chance to win in 24 of 28 districts. Democrats said the map is “designed and intended to rig outcomes.” Voting rights groups are expected to sue, citing Florida’s Fair Districts Amendments, which bars maps drawn to favor a party or incumbent. (Politico / New York Times / Bloomberg / CBS News / Washington Post / ABC News)

3/ The Supreme Court ruled that a Christian faith-based anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy center” can challenge a New Jersey subpoena tied to a state investigation into whether they misled donors and clients about abortion services. In 2023, when New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a subpoena as part of an investigation into whether First Choice Women’s Resource Centers was misleading patients and donors by implying it offered abortions and referrals while obscuring its antiabortion mission. The unanimous ruling revives First Choice’s First Amendment lawsuit, but doesn’t stop New Jersey’s investigation. (Reuters / Associated Press / Politico / CNN / Washington Post)

4/ Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will remain a Fed governor when his term as chairman ends May 15, preventing Trump the opportunity to fill a vacancy on the central bank’s board. Powell said “legal attacks on the Fed” had left him “no choice” but to stay until the investigation into the Fed’s renovations is “well and truly over with transparency and finality.” Powell called the Trump administration’s legal actions “unprecedented,” saying they “threaten our ability to conduct monetary policy without considering political factors.” While the Justice Department said it would close its criminal probe, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office could reopen the investigation if “the facts warrant doing so.” The Fed also held rates steady at 3.5% to 3.75%. The four dissents were the most since 1992. (Bloomberg / NBC News / CNBC / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Axios / Washington Post / New York Times)

5/ Trump rejected Iran’s offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying the U.S. naval blockade will continue until Tehran accepts a nuclear deal. He called the blockade “somewhat more effective than the bombing,” and that Iran is “choking” and must “cry uncle.” Iran’s state media warned the blockade could bring “practical and unprecedented action.” The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and its strike group, however, are expected to leave the Middle East in the coming days. The war has cost about $25 billion so far. (NPR / NBC News / CBS News / Axios / CNN / Bloomberg / Politico / Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News)

The 2026 midterms are in 188 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 923 days.

• Today last year: Day 1561: "America’s greatness."
• Two years ago today: Day 1196: "Serious questions."
• Five years ago today: Day 100: "Crisis into opportunity."
• Six years ago today: Day 1196: "A great success story."
• Seven years ago today: Day 830: Personal conversations.
• 9 years ago today: Day 100: Perspective.

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Today in one sentence: U.S. gas prices rose to their highest level in nearly four years; the Government Accountability Office will investigate the Justice Department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein files; the Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a 2025 Instagram photo of seashells arranged as “86 47”; the FCC ordered an early review of Disney-owned ABC station licenses after Trump demanded – again – that Jimmy Kimmel be fired; federal prosecutors indicted NIH official David Morens with conspiring to hide COVID-19 research records from public records requests while serving as an adviser to Anthony Fauci; the State Department plans to issue a limited run of U.S. passports featuring Trump’s portrait and gold signature to mark America’s 250th anniversary; and 64% of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president.

1/ U.S. gas prices rose to their highest level in nearly four years, reaching $4.18 a gallon as the Iran war has left the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed. Prices are up $1.19 since late February. While Iran has offered to reopen the strait if the U.S. lifts its blockade, Trump was reportedly dissatisfied because the proposal delays talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. Trump also claimed, without evidence, that Iran said it was in a “State of Collapse” and wanted Hormuz opened “as soon as possible.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran cannot decide “who gets to use an international waterway.” Analysts, meanwhile, warned that supplies remain strained and the summer demand could bring “a day of reckoning” the stock market is “ignoring.” (Reuters / New York Times / ABC News / Politico / CNBC / CBS News / Axios / Bloomberg / Reuters / ABC News)

• U.S. intelligence is studying how Iran would respond if Trump declared unilateral victory. The review comes as the two-month war has killed thousands, closed much of the Strait of Hormuz, and become a political liability for Trump. (Reuters)

2/ The Government Accountability Office will investigate the Justice Department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein files, including how officials reviewed, redacted, and released the records. A bipartisan group of senators said the Justice Department had exposed victim information while shielding alleged co-conspirators, calling it a failure that “re-victimize[d]” survivors and violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The department has, so far, released about 3.5 million pages while withholding millions more that officials claim are duplicates or exempt from disclosure. The review has no completion date and will run alongside a separate Justice Department inspector general audit. (Politico / Washington Post / NBC News / CNBC)

3/ The Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a 2025 Instagram photo of seashells arranged as “86 47.” The indictment charges Comey with threatening Trump and transmitting a threat across state lines, saying a “reasonable recipient” would view the post as “a serious expression” of intent to harm Trump, the 47th president. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed, “You are not allowed to threaten the president.” Comey deleted the post at the time and said he opposed “violence of any kind.” The case follows a failed 2025 prosecution that accused Comey of lying to Congress, which fell apart after a judge found that Trump’s hand-picked prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed. (CNN / Reuters / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / Bloomberg / Axios / Associated Press / Politico / Washington Post)

4/ The FCC ordered an early review of Disney-owned ABC station licenses after Trump demanded – again – that Jimmy Kimmel be fired. The FCC claimed the review concerns ABC’s diversity practices and possible “unlawful discrimination,” but the timing follows Kimmel joking that Melania Trump looked like an “expectant widow” several days before a gunman tried to enter the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Disney said ABC complies with FCC rules and is prepared to defend its licenses under the Communications Act and the First Amendment. (Semafor / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Washington Post / Axios / CNN / New York Times)

5/ Federal prosecutors indicted NIH official David Morens with conspiring to hide COVID-19 research records from public records requests while serving as an adviser to Anthony Fauci. Prosecutors said Morens used a personal Gmail account to evade FOIA searches for communications about bat coronavirus grants, EcoHealth Alliance, and the origins of the pandemic. The indictment cites a 2021 email where Morens said he had learned “how to make emails disappear,” though he denied in 2024 that he tried to evade transparency laws. The indictment doesn’t accuse Fauci of wrongdoing. (Associated Press / Reuters / Politico / New York Times / Washington Post)

6/ The State Department plans to issue a limited run of U.S. passports featuring Trump’s portrait and gold signature to mark America’s 250th anniversary. The design will be the default for in-person applicants at the Washington Passport Agency, while online applicants and those using other offices will receive the current version. The Trump passport follows a 2026 national parks pass showing Trump beside George Washington, newly printed paper currency with Trump’s signature, a planned 24-karat gold commemorative coin with his likeness, the renamed “Trump-Kennedy Center,” the renamed “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace,” the $5 million “Trump Gold Card” visa program, “Trump Accounts” savings plans for children, TrumpRx prescription drug discounts, and a large “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN” banner with Trump’s face on the Justice Department headquarters. Officials didn’t say how many passports would be issued. (Associated Press / Politico / CNN / CBS News / Washington Post)

poll/ 64% of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, while 34% approve. (Reuters)

The 2026 midterms are in 189 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 924 days.

• Today last year: Day 1560: "They know me now."
• Four years ago today: Day 464: "A small price to pay."
• Five years ago today: Day 99: "Investments in our future."
• Six years ago today: Day 1195: "Can't imagine why."
• 9 years ago today: Day 99: Weak.

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Today in one sentence: The Justice Department charged Cole Tomas Allen with attempting to assassinate Trump; the National Trust for Historic Preservation refused to drop its lawsuit challenging Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom, rejecting a Justice Department demand following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a new congressional map that could give Republicans four more U.S. House seats; Iran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. lifts its blockade and ends the war, while setting aside nuclear negotiations for later; and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. has “no strategy” for leaving the war and that “an entire nation is being humiliated” by Iranian leaders who are “very skillfully not negotiating.”

1/ The Justice Department charged Cole Tomas Allen with attempting to assassinate Trump. Allen faces up to life in prison if convicted. Prosecutors said Allen allegedly rushed a White House Correspondents’ Dinner security checkpoint with a shotgun, pistol, and knives. He also faces two federal gun counts. Prosecutors said Allen planned the attack for weeks, booked a room at the Washington Hilton, traveled by train from California, and emailed a document listing administration officials as targets “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.” A Secret Service officer was struck in the chest, but protected by a ballistic vest. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said law enforcement “did not fail” because Allen was stopped “a floor above the ballroom,” with “hundreds of federal agents” between him and Trump. House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, said the Secret Service needs to “tighten up,” calling security at the event “a little lax.” (Associated Press / ABC News / Politico / New York Times / Axios / NPR / Wall Street Journal / CBS News / NBC News / Washington Post / Bloomberg)

• EARLIER: An armed California man was taken into custody after charging a Secret Service checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, prompting agents to evacuate Trump and senior officials before the suspect reached the ballroom. Officials said Cole Tomas Allen had a shotgun, handgun, and knives, and had traveled by train from California before staying at the Washington Hilton. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said preliminary evidence showed that Allen “set out to target folks” in the administration, “likely including the president,” while cautioning that investigators were still reviewing writings, devices, and interviews. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro added that Allen appeared “intent on doing as much harm and as much damage as he could,” and that prosecutors plan to arraign him Monday on federal firearm and assault charges. Although a Secret Service agent was hit in their bulletproof vest and released from the hospital, Blanche said “the system worked” because Allen “barely breached the perimeter.”

• Trump attacked CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell during a “60 Minutes” interview after she read from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect’s apparent manifesto. O’Donnell said the writings referred to Trump administration officials as “targets” and included the phrase “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor.” Although they didn’t name Trump, he treated the passage as directed at him, saying: “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody” and “I’m not a pedophile.” He called the suspect “sick,” accused CBS of being “horrible people,” and told O’Donnell she was “a disgrace” for reading the excerpt on air. He then said, “But go ahead. Let’s finish the interview.” (CBS News / Axios / Politico)

• Trump and Melania Trump called for ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel for a joke he made two days before a gunman tried to enter the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. On Thursday, during a parody skit of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech, Kimmel joked that the first lady looked like she had a “glow like an expectant widow.” Trump called the joke a “despicable call to violence,” while Melania said ABC should “take a stand.” (Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Politico / CBS News / NBC News / NPR / New York Times)

• 💡 First came the shooting. Then, the conspiracy theories. “The shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner has sparked conspiracy theories on the left and the right that it was staged to drum up support for Trump and his ballroom.” (Washington Post)

• 💡 False flag conspiracy theories swirl around White House Correspondents’ Dinner attack. “Baseless claims that the incident was staged swirled almost immediately. By the next day, the idea had spread across social media. Even Trump noted the speed.” (NBC News)

• 💡 Rumors and Speculation Swirl Online After Shooting at Washington Dinner. “Influencers jumped to fill the information void with conspiracy theories about the attack at the White House Correspondents’ dinner on Saturday.” (New York Times)

2/ The National Trust for Historic Preservation refused to drop its lawsuit challenging Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom, rejecting a Justice Department demand following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The Justice Department claimed the lawsuit put Trump and his staff at “grave risk.” The Trust said the claim didn’t change the legal issue that Congress hasn’t authorized construction on White House grounds. The trust sued after the White House demolished the East Wing for a 999-person ballroom, arguing Trump bypassed Congress and federal review. An appeals court has allowed work to continue until a June 5 hearing. (NBC News / CNBC / Bloomberg / Politico / Associated Press / Washington Post / New York Times)

3/ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a new congressional map that could give Republicans four more U.S. House seats. Florida’s current congressional maps, also drawn by DeSantis, currently give Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats, which could change to 24-4 under the new plan. The Republican-controlled Legislature could approve the plan this week. Democrats have promised lawsuits, citing Florida’s voter-approved ban on partisan gerrymandering. (Reuters / Politico / Axios / New York Times / CNN / NPR / The Guardian / Washington Post / NBC News)

4/ Iran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. lifts its blockade and ends the war, while setting aside nuclear negotiations for later. The proposal, via Pakistani mediators, would extend the ceasefire or end the war permanently before talks resume over Iran’s uranium enrichment and stockpile. While Trump’s used the blockade to choke off Iran’s oil exports and force nuclear concessions, the strait’s closure has driven up energy prices and disrupted global shipping. The White House said Trump’s national security team discussed the offer, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected any arrangement where ships must “get our permission” or “pay us,” saying: “That’s not opening the straits.” Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. has “no strategy” for leaving the war and that “an entire nation is being humiliated” by Iranian leaders who are “very skillfully not negotiating.” (Associated Press / CNBC / Bloomberg / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / Axios)

• Three years ago today: Day 828: "This issue is too important."
• Four years ago today: Day 463: "Last chance."
• Five years ago today: Day 98: "A beautiful day."
• Six years ago today: Day 1194: "Not worth the time and effort."
• Eight years ago today: Day 463: Very sick or very dumb.
• 9 years ago today: Day 98: Explicit.

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Today in one sentence: An armed California man was taken into custody after charging a Secret Service checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner; Trump said “I guess” and “I’m honored” when asked whether he was the target; and Trump described the Washington Hilton as “not a particularly secure building,” adding: “We need the ballroom.”

1/ An armed California man was taken into custody after charging a Secret Service checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, prompting agents to evacuate Trump and senior officials before the suspect reached the ballroom. Officials said Cole Tomas Allen had a shotgun, handgun, and knives, and had traveled by train from California before staying at the Washington Hilton. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said preliminary evidence showed that Allen “set out to target folks” in the administration, “likely including the president,” while cautioning that investigators were still reviewing writings, devices, and interviews. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro added that Allen appeared “intent on doing as much harm and as much damage as he could,” and that prosecutors plan to arraign him Monday on federal firearm and assault charges. Although a Secret Service agent was hit in their bulletproof vest and released from the hospital, Blanche said “the system worked” because Allen “barely breached the perimeter.” (New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / CNN / CNBC / NBC News / CBS News / ABC News)

2/ Trump said “I guess” when asked whether he was the target, saying “I’ve studied assassinations, and I must tell you, the most impactful people, the people that do the most […] they’re the ones that they go after.” He continued: “And I hate to say I’m honored by that, but I’ve done a lot.” Trump added that he wouldn’t change how he lives, saying “To be honest with you, I’m not a basket case.” (Washington Post / New York Times / Reuters)

3/ Trump described the Washington Hilton as “not a particularly secure building,” adding: “We need the ballroom.” About 10 hours later, he posted on Truth Social that the shooting “would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!” (Washington Post / The Hill / Axios)

The 2026 midterms are in 191 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 926 days.

✏️ Weekend Notables.

1. Trump canceled U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s planned trip to Pakistan, stalling talks to end the Iran war. He said the trip meant “too much time wasted on traveling,” accused Iran of “infighting and confusion,” and said: “We have all the cards, they have none.” Trump said Iran later sent a “much better” proposal, but added that it “offered a lot, but not enough.” (New York Times / Washington Post / Reuters / CNBC / CBS News)

2. Sen. Thom Tillis said he will stop blocking Kevin Warsh’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve after the Justice Department dropped its criminal probe of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Tillis said the DOJ assured him it wasn’t using the probe “as a weapon” against Fed independence and would shift the renovation-cost review to the Fed’s inspector general, clearing the way for Trump’s pick for likely confirmation. (Bloomberg / NBC News / Reuters / Washington Post / Semafor / CNBC)

3. Federal prosecutors charged Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke with using classified information from the U.S. operation to capture Nicolás Maduro to make more than $400,000 on Polymarket. The indictment says Van Dyke helped plan and execute the Caracas raid, then placed about $34,000 in bets tied to Maduro’s removal and U.S. forces entering Venezuela. He faces commodities fraud, wire fraud, theft, and misuse of confidential government information for personal gain. Prosecutors said he later tried to hide the trades by deleting his Polymarket account, changing account emails, and moving proceeds through cryptocurrency accounts. (ABC News / NPR / New York Times / Washington Post)

• Three years ago today: Day 827: "Mundane matters."
• Four years ago today: Day 462: "Bluster."
• Five years ago today: Day 97: "Presidential, focused, and competent."
• Seven years ago today: Day 827: Defensive.
• Eight years ago today: Day 462: Extremely opposed.
• 9 years ago today: Day 97: Ridiculous.

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Today in one sentence: Trump ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill” any boat laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz; Senate Republicans voted 50-48 to advance a budget plan for about $70 billion in ICE and Border Patrol funding for the rest of Trump’s term; a Virginia judge blocked state officials from certifying the new congressional map a day after voters approved it; Republicans are urging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to redraw the state’s congressional map before the midterms; the Justice Department’s internal watchdog opened an audit into whether the agency complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act; the Justice Department reclassified FDA-approved and state-licensed medical marijuana as a Schedule III drug while leaving recreational marijuana illegal under federal law; the Trump administration has approved only 1 “Gold Card” visa so far; and 58% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

1/ Trump ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill” any boat laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, after U.S. officials said Iran had deployed new mines despite the ceasefire agreement. Trump said there should be “no hesitation,” but claimed the strait was under “total control” and “Sealed up Tight” until Iran is able to “make a DEAL.” The order came as the USS George H.W. Bush arrived near Iran, putting a third U.S. aircraft carrier in the region. The blockade has turned back 33 vessels and left shipping through the strait remains sharply reduced. Trump, however, said he had no “time pressure” to reach a deal, telling reporters “Don’t rush me,” and that Americans should expect higher gas prices “for a little while.” (CNBC / Washington Post / New York Times / Axios / Associated Press / CNN / NBC News / ABC News)

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Navy Secretary John Phelan. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Phelan was leaving “effective immediately,” and Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao will serve as acting secretary. Officials said Phelan moved too slowly on shipbuilding reforms and angered Hegseth by going directly to Trump. (CNN / Reuters / Politico / Axios / New York Times / Washington Post)

2/ Senate Republicans voted 50-48 to advance a budget plan for about $70 billion in ICE and Border Patrol funding for the rest of Trump’s term, starting a reconciliation process to bypass Democrats. The measure now goes to the House, where GOP leaders want Republicans to adopt the Senate plan unchanged next week. “It has to be clean because it has to be quick,” Speaker Mike Johnson said, but conservatives are threatening to oppose the bill unless it includes other priorities, including tax changes, defense money, Iran war funding, spending cuts, or Planned Parenthood restrictions. Democrats have refused to fund ICE and Border Patrol without new enforcement limits, including a ban on masked raids, warrant requirements for entering homes, body cameras, and limits on raids at schools and hospitals. (Politico / Bloomberg / New York Times / Washington Post / NPR / ABC News / NBC News)

3/ A Virginia judge blocked state officials from certifying the new congressional map a day after voters approved it, pausing a plan that could shift as many as four House seats to Democrats. Judge Jack Hurley said the referendum violated the state constitution and called the ballot question “flagrantly misleading.” Attorney General Jay Jones said he’d appeal. Meanwhile, Republicans are urging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to redraw the state’s congressional map before the midterms, seeing Florida as their last chance to regain an edge. Some Republicans, however, say Trump’s Texas-led redistricting push triggered a Democratic response that may leave the party worse off. (CBS News / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Politico / Semafor / New York Times)

4/ The Justice Department’s internal watchdog opened an audit into whether the agency complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The review will cover how the department identified, withheld, redacted, and published records tied to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that lawmakers and survivors said was incomplete and careless with victim information. The law required nearly all records to be released, with exceptions for victims, child sexual abuse material, and active investigations. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche denied a cover-up, saying the department “did not protect President Trump” or anyone else. (New York Times / Politico / Reuters / ABC News / Associated Press / CNN / Washington Post / CBS News / CNBC)

5/ The Justice Department reclassified FDA-approved and state-licensed medical marijuana as a Schedule III drug while leaving recreational marijuana illegal under federal law. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the order would expand research and treatment options, while creating a faster DEA registration process for state medical marijuana licensees. The move came days after Trump signed a separate order expanding federal research into psychedelics such as MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and ibogaine. (Washington Post / CBS News / NBC News / Associated Press)

6/ The Trump administration has approved only 1 “Gold Card” visa so far. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the program, which opened in December, offers U.S. residency to foreigners who pay $1 million to the government for “the betterment” of the country, plus a $15,000 processing fee. Lutnick said there are “hundreds” of applications and described the vetting as “the most serious” in government history. (Bloomberg / CBS News)

poll/ 58% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance, while 39% approve. It’s Trump’s highest disapproval rating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (New York Times)

The 2026 midterms are in 194 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 929 days.

• Today last year: Day 1555: "Too erratic."
• Two years ago today: Day 1190: "Silly."
• Five years ago today: Day 94: "A critical step."
• Six years ago today: Day 1190: "The worst is yet to come."
• Seven years ago today: Day 824: Defiant.
• Eight years ago today: Day 459: Under open assault.
• 9 years ago today: Day 94: Rest easy.

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Today in one sentence: Virginia voters approved a temporary plan to redraw the state’s congressional map, which could give Democrats as many as four more House seats this; the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut despite Trump extending the ceasefire, with Iran firing on three commercial ships and seizing two of them; Democrats on the House Judiciary demanded that FBI Director Kash Patel complete a World Health Organization alcohol-use screening test; the Trump administration agreed to pay former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page $1.25 million to settle his claims over FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation; the Justice Department charged the Southern Poverty Law Center with defrauding donors by secretly using more than $3 million in contributions to pay informants inside the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups; 52% of Americans prefer congressional candidates who don’t support Trump’s deportation policy; and 55% of Americans say the House should impeach Trump.

1/ Virginia voters approved a temporary plan to redraw the state’s congressional map, which could give Democrats as many as four more House seats this fall. The new lines would shift Virginia from a 6-5 Democratic edge to a map that favors Democrats in 10 of 11 districts. Republicans said they will challenge the referendum in the Virginia Supreme Court. The measure suspends Virginia’s normal redistricting system for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections, not permanently, with the state set to return to its bipartisan redistricting commission after the 2030 census. Gov. Abigail Spanberger and other supporters cast it as a temporary response to the mid-decade redistricting fight in other states, not a permanent replacement for the commission. (CNN / NPR / Washington Post / Politico / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / The Hill)

2/ The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut despite Trump extending the ceasefire, with Iran firing on three commercial ships and seizing two of them. Trump justified the extension by saying Iran’s government was “seriously fractured” and there’s “no time frame” for ending the conflict, even though he had described Tehran’s new leaders as “much more rational” and “very reasonable” days earlier. He also insisted the U.S. “totally controlled” the strait and said Iran was “losing 500 Million Dollars a day.” (New York Times / CNN / ABC News / CNBC / Bloomberg / Associated Press / CNBC / Washington Post / Bloomberg / Reuters / NPR)

3/ Democrats on the House Judiciary demanded that FBI Director Kash Patel complete a World Health Organization alcohol-use screening test and turn over security clearance questionnaire responses with Congress. The demand followed The Atlantic’s report that Patel’s alleged excessive drinking and unexplained absences had become a concern inside the FBI and Justice Department. Patel denied the claims, said he has “never been intoxicated on the job,” and sued The Atlantic for defamation, seeking $250 million. Meanwhile, a federal judge dismissed Patel’s separate defamation suit over a TV remark that he spent more time in nightclubs than at FBI headquarters, ruling the comment was “rhetorical hyperbole,” not a statement of fact. Separately, The New York Times reported that the FBI looked into whether one of its reporters violated stalking laws after she wrote that Patel used bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with security and transportation. (CNBC / NBC News / The Hill / NBC News / The Guardian / New York Times)

• 🍻 This round’s on WTFJHT: We deserve better than a drunk FBI director. And independent journalism does, too. So I’m going to sponsor three subscriptions to The Atlantic for WTFJHT readers. Enter to win here. No purchase necessary to enter or win, blah, blah, blah.

4/ The Trump administration agreed to pay former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page $1.25 million to settle his claims over FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation. Page sued in 2020, alleging that the FBI and Justice Department used false and misleading surveillance applications to monitor him. A later inspector general report, issued during Trump’s first term, found major errors and omissions in those filings. The settlement, however, doesn’t change the Mueller investigation conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. (Associated Press / Politico / CBS News)

5/ The Justice Department charged the Southern Poverty Law Center with defrauding donors by secretly using more than $3 million in contributions to pay informants inside the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups. The 11-count federal indictment charged the civil rights group with wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, alleging it used fictitious entities and disguised bank accounts to conceal the payments. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the civil rights group was “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.” (Reuters / New York Times / NPR / Washington Post / NBC News)

poll/ 52% of Americans prefer congressional candidates who don’t support Trump’s deportation policy, while 42% said they were more likely to support such a candidate. (Reuters)

poll/ 55% of Americans say the House should impeach Trump, while 37% oppose, and 8% are unsure. 45% say they strongly support impeachment, while 30% say they strongly oppose it. (Strength in Numbers)

The 2026 midterms are in 195 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 930 days.

• Today last year: Day 1554: "Creating their own preferred version of reality."
• Two years ago today: Day 1189: "It’s called democracy."
• Five years ago today: Day 93: "A moral imperative."
• Six years ago today: Day 1189: "Dangerous and provocative."
• Seven years ago today: Day 823: Weapon of choice.
• 9 years ago today: Day 93: Planet B.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Trump abruptly extended the U.S.-Iran ceasefire hours before it was due to expire; Trump said he’d “remember” the companies that don’t seek refunds for tariffs the Supreme Court ruled illegal; Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell told senators he’d run the central bank as a “strictly independent” institution and denied that Trump had asked him to cut rates; Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned minutes before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on whether to recommend her expulsion from Congress; the Justice Department is escalating its Florida-based “grand conspiracy” investigation; the FBI is “spearheading the effort to look for connections” between the deaths or disappearances of scientists and staff who worked at sensitive nuclear or space technology laboratories; 62% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance; and 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.

1/ Trump abruptly extended the U.S.-Iran ceasefire hours before it was due to expire, saying Iran’s leadership was “seriously fractured” and needed to “come up with a unified proposal.” Earlier in the day, Trump accused Iran of violating the ceasefire “numerous times,” said the U.S. was “going to end up with a great deal” because Iran had “no choice,” but also warned, “I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with. We’re ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go.” He ordered the military to “continue the Blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz, leaving in place the main point of contention that stalled the talks. JD Vance, who had been expected to lead the next round of negotiations in Pakistan, stayed in Washington after his trip was postponed after Iran said it wouldn’t attend while the blockade remained. (New York Times / CNBC / Bloomberg / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / Politico / CBS News / Axios / CNBC)

2/ Trump said he’d “remember” the companies that don’t seek refunds for tariffs the Supreme Court ruled illegal. The comment came a day after Customs opened a claims portal for roughly $166 billion in repayments tied to Trump’s use of emergency powers for “reciprocal” tariffs. “It’s brilliant if they don’t do that,” Trump said. “If they don’t do that, I’ll remember them.” Trump added that the White House was trying to replace the lost tariff revenue “a different way,” promising “the same” result and “bigger numbers, actually,” though “it’s a little more unwieldy.” (Reuters / CNBC / Bloomberg / New York Times)

3/ Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell told senators he’d run the central bank as a “strictly independent” institution and denied that Trump had asked him to cut rates. Democrats called Kevin Warsh a potential White House proxy, pressed him over a recent shift toward lower rates, and demanded more detail about his financial holdings worth more than $100 million that he declined to fully describe. Warsh also called for “regime change” in how the Fed fights inflation and communicates with markets, offering few specifics on what that would mean in practice. Sen. Thom Tillis, meanwhile, has said he’ll block any Fed nominee while the Justice Department’s investigation into the current chair remains open. (CBS News / New York Times / CNN / CNBC / Bloomberg)

4/ Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned minutes before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on whether to recommend her expulsion from Congress. The move ended the panel’s jurisdiction and spared Democrats a vote on one of their own after a bipartisan ethics subcommittee found 25 violations and said all but 2 of 27 allegations against her had been proven, including accusations that she diverted federal relief money into her campaign. Cherfilus-McCormick, who has pleaded not guilty in the related criminal case, dismissed the proceedings as a “witch hunt.” Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a resolution to expel Republican Rep. Cory Mills over ethics allegations that include sexual and financial misconduct. (New York Times / NBC News / CBS News / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / The Hill)

5/ The Justice Department is escalating its Florida-based “grand conspiracy” investigation. The legally untested theory treats the Russia investigation and later cases against Trump as a long-running plot by former intelligence and law enforcement officials to target him. Joseph diGenova, who helped Trump in his failed effort to overturn the 2020 election, was brought in after career prosecutor Maria Medetis Long was removed from the case for raising concerns about charges. They’re targeting former CIA Director John Brennan over whether he lied to Congress about the 2017 intelligence assessment that found Russia interfered to help Trump. Brennan has denied wrongdoing. (Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News / CNN / Associated Press / CNN / Reuters / New York Times)

• The Southern Poverty Law Center said the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into its past use of paid informants to infiltrate violent extremist groups. The investigation followed months of attacks by Trump allies, including FBI Director Kash Patel’s decision to cut ties with the SPLC, Republican accusations that its “hate map” smeared groups like Turning Point USA and the Family Research Council, and the Justice Department’s recent push to root out what it calls anti-Christian bias in the federal government. (New York Times / ABC News / NBC News / Washington Post)

6/ The FBI is “spearheading the effort to look for connections” between the deaths or disappearances of scientists and staff who worked at sensitive nuclear or space technology laboratories. Since 2022, at least 10 scientists working on nuclear programs, NASA, and in other sensitive areas have died or disappeared. Investigators, relatives, and former officials involved in several of the cases said they have seen no evidence of a broader plot, and no link between the cases has been established. Nevertheless, online speculation and internet theories linking them to America’s enemies caught Trump’s attention: “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump said. “Pretty serious stuff […] hopefully a coincidence, or whatever you want to call it.” (CBS News / NBC News)

poll/ 62% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance, while 36% of approve. (Reuters)

poll/ 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy. Among Republicans, 37% disapprove, 80% of independents, and 96% of Democrats. (Associated Press)

The 2026 midterms are in 196 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 931 days.

• Today last year: Day 1553: "Doing a great job."
• Four years ago today: Day 457: "A critical window."
• Five years ago today: Day 92: "An American achievement."
• Six years ago today: Day 1188: "A new way of living."
• 9 years ago today: Day 92: Ridiculous standard.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Trump said he’s “highly unlikely” to extend the Iran ceasefire, warning that if it expires, “then lots of bombs start going off”; Trump called his energy secretary’s assessment that gas prices might remain at $3 per gallon or more until next year “totally wrong”; FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic and a journalist for defamation, seeking $250 million over an article that said he showed “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences,” was “often away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions,” and had become a point of concern inside the FBI and Justice Department; Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned following an inspector general investigation into allegations that she had an affair with a member of her security detail, drank on the job, and used official events to facilitate personal travel; the House Ethics Committee publicly urged anyone with information about sexual misconduct by a House member or staffer to come forward; the Justice Department demanded that a Michigan county turn over ballots and other records from the 2024 election; a federal appeals court allowed construction on Trump’s White House ballroom to continue for now; and Trump’s IRS and Treasury Department told a federal judge they’re negotiating a resolution to Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit over his leaked tax records.

1/ Trump said he’s “highly unlikely” to extend the Iran ceasefire, warning that if it expires, “then lots of bombs start going off.” A second round of U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad, however, was still being prepared despite Tehran publicly saying there was “no plan” and “no decision” on new talks after the U.S. seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship. The U.S., Pakistani, and some Iranian officials suggested the meeting could still happen. Trump insists Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon,” while Iran says it won’t negotiate “under the shadow of threats” and called the ship seizure and continued blockade as proof Washington’s “claim of diplomacy” doesn’t match its actions. Shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remains far below normal after Iran briefly declared it open, then reasserted control as the U.S. kept its blockade in place. (Washington Post / PBS News / New York Times / CNN / NBC News / ABC News / Wall Street Journal / Axios / Associated Press)

2/ Trump called his energy secretary’s assessment that gas prices might remain at $3 per gallon or more until next year “totally wrong.” Trump claimed prices would fall “as soon as this ends,” referring to the Iran war and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. A day before, Chris Wright had suggested that gas “prices have likely peaked and they’ll start going down, certainly with a resolution of this conflict.” The national average price of a gallon of gas was about $4.10 last week. (The Hill / New York Times / Bloomberg / Politico / CNN)

3/ FBI Director Kash Patel sued The Atlantic and a journalist for defamation, seeking $250 million over an article that said he showed “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences,” was “often away or unreachable, delaying time-sensitive decisions,” and had become a point of concern inside the FBI and Justice Department. The article, which cited more than two dozen anonymous sources, also said Patel’s drinking had forced meetings and briefings to be pushed later in the day, that members of his security detail at times had trouble waking him, and that he feared his job was in jeopardy. Patel called the story “a lie” and said, “They were given the truth before they published, and they chose to print falsehoods anyway.” His lawsuit described the story as “replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations” meant to “destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.” The Atlantic, meanwhile, said it stood by its reporting and would “vigorously defend” the magazine and its journalists. (Reuters / Washington Post / Associated Press / CBS News / NBC News / Politico / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Axios)

• [READ] The FBI Director Is MIA. “Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.” (The Atlantic)

4/ Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned following an inspector general investigation into allegations that she had an affair with a member of her security detail, drank on the job, and used official events to facilitate personal travel. The White House said she was leaving for the private sector, and said Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling would serve as acting secretary. Chavez-DeRemer is the third cabinet member to leave in less than two months, following Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and Attorney General Pam Bondi. (NBC News / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Bloomberg / Politico)

5/ The House Ethics Committee publicly urged anyone with information about sexual misconduct by a House member or staffer to come forward. The rare statement comes after Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales resigned following sexual misconduct allegations. “There should be zero tolerance for sexual misconduct, harassment, or discrimination in the halls of Congress, or in any employment setting,” the committee said. The panel encouraged anyone who may have experienced sexual misconduct by a House member or staffer to contact them, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, or the Office of Employee Advocacy (ABC News / Washington Post / Politico)

6/ The Justice Department demanded that a Michigan county turn over ballots and other records from the 2024 election. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s letter gave Wayne County 14 days to produce ballots, envelopes, and receipts, citing a handful of fraud convictions and old lawsuits. Michigan officials said none of the cases involved the 2024 election and called the request “baseless.” Trump won Michigan in 2024, but lost by nearly 250,000 votes in Wayne County, which is home to Detroit. Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel said arrests over the 2020 election were “coming soon,” adding that the FBI had “all the information we need” for an “entire conspiracy case.” (NBC News / Politico / Democracy Docket / Reuters / New York Times / Washington Post)

• A federal judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking Rhode Island’s unredacted voter rolls, ruling that federal election law didn’t authorize the request for private data on roughly 750,000 registered voters. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy called the demand a “fishing expedition.” (CBS News / Associated Press / Reuters)

7/ A federal appeals court allowed construction on Trump’s White House ballroom to continue for now, pausing a judge’s order that had stopped the aboveground work on the 90,000-square-foot project and underground bunker. The panel said the stay is administrative, not a ruling on the merits, and set arguments for June 5. Meaning, whether Trump can proceed without congressional approval remains unresolved. (ABC News / NBC News / Washington Post)

8/ Trump’s IRS and Treasury Department told a federal judge they’re negotiating a resolution to Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit over his leaked tax records. The filing asked for a 90-day pause while Trump’s own administration weighs whether to settle a personal lawsuit against itself, potentially leaving taxpayers to fund a payment to Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization. The suit stems from the leak of Trump’s tax records by former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. (Reuters / CNN / NBC News / New York Times)

poll/ 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance as president, while 63% disapprove. (NBC News)

The 2026 midterms are in 197 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 932 days.

• Three years ago today: Day 821: "Great."
• Four years ago today: Day 456: "Food for thought."
• Five years ago today: Day 91: "Overwhelming."
• Six years ago today: Day 1187: "Complaining."
• Eight years ago today: Day 456: Unprecedented treachery.
• 9 years ago today: Day 91: "Super-mighty preemptive strike."

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: The Republican-controlled House rejected a Democratic war powers resolution ordering Trump to end the war with Iran; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recited a fake prayer from a fictional movie during a Pentagon prayer service; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended Trump’s proposed 12% cut to the Health and Human Services budget; RFK Jr. once pulled over on Interstate 684 in New York and cut the penis off a road-killed raccoon to “study them later” while “my kids waited patiently in the car”; the House passed a bipartisan bill to restore Temporary Protected Status for about 350,000 Haitians in the U.S. for three years; a federal fine arts panel gave preliminary approval to Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery; and a federal judge – again – blocked above-ground construction of Trump’s White House ballroom, ruling that the administration could continue only below-ground work tied to national security facilities.

1/ The Republican-controlled House rejected a Democratic war powers resolution ordering Trump to end the war with Iran. The vote was 213-214 and comes a day after the Senate voted down a similar measure. (Politico / Associated Press / CBS News / Washington Post / NBC News / Axios)

• Trump claimed a deal with Iran was close and suggested that Tehran had agreed to give up its buried stockpile of highly enriched uranium he calls “nuclear dust.” Trump, however, warned that if no deal emerged, fighting would resume, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said U.S. forces were prepared to restart attacks and maintain the blockade around Iranian ports. (New York Times / ABC News / CNN / Washington Post / Bloomberg / NBC News / CBS News / New York Times / Politico)

2/ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recited a fake prayer from a fictional movie during a Pentagon prayer service. “They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” Hegseth said, before reading a version of the made-up Bible verse from Pulp Fiction. Samuel L. Jackson’s character delivers the passage just before shooting a man. The Pentagon later defended Hegseth, saying the CSAR prayer was “obviously inspired” by Pulp Fiction and that anyone claiming he had misquoted Ezekiel was “peddling fake news and ignorant of reality.” (New Republic / Mother Jones / Rolling Stone / Variety / The Hill / Mediaite / The Guardian)

3/ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended Trump’s proposed 12% cut to the Health and Human Services budget. In his first congressional appearance in seven months, Democrats pressed Kennedy on the deaths of unvaccinated children during the Texas measles outbreak, the CDC’s rollback of childhood vaccine recommendations, and the agency’s decision to halt pro-vaccine messaging. Kennedy acknowledged that the measles vaccine is safe and effective “for most people” and safer than getting measles, but maintained that vaccination is a personal choice and that parents should “do your own research.” Republicans, meanwhile, used the hearing to praise his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. (New York Times / NPR / Washington Post / Associated Press / ABC News)

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once pulled over on Interstate 684 in New York and cut the penis off a road-killed raccoon to “study them later” while “my kids waited patiently in the car.” The account is based on a 2001 diary entry included in a new RFK Jr. biography. (People / The Guardian / New York Post)

• Trump said he’d nominate Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC – a former deputy surgeon general and public supporter of vaccines. (New York Times / Politico)

4/ The House passed a bipartisan bill to restore Temporary Protected Status for about 350,000 Haitians in the U.S. for three years. 11 Republicans joined Democrats to force a vote on the bill, which would reinstate work permits and deportation protections that the Trump administration tried to terminate. The measure now goes to the Senate, where its future are unclear. (Politico / NBC News / Washington Post)

5/ A federal fine arts panel gave preliminary approval to Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery, but asked for revisions before a final vote. The panel, made up entirely of Trump appointees, advanced the project even though roughly 1,000 public comments opposed it. Chairman Rodney Mims Cook Jr., who called the proposal “beautiful,” has a “Make Design Great Again” hat on his desk, and said Trump “wants to do something that in his heart he feels is good,” has previously said Washington should get three triumphal arches, not one. Commissioners raised concerns about the arch’s scale, its tunnel, and the gold statues on top. The arch also faces a lawsuit from Vietnam veterans, additional federal review, and questions about congressional approval, cost, and funding. (New York Times / ABC News / Washington Post / CBS News / NPR / Politico)

6/ A federal judge – again – blocked above-ground construction of Trump’s White House ballroom, ruling that the administration could continue only below-ground work tied to national security facilities. The larger project remains on hold pending congressional approval. Judge Richard Leon said the White House had offered a “brazen” and “disingenuous” reading of his earlier order, writing that “national security is not a blank check.” Trump responded on social media, calling Leon a “Trump Hating” and “highly political” judge, accusing him of undermining national security, and arguing that without the ballroom’s planned bomb shelters, medical facilities, and “Top Secret Military Installations,” future presidents wouldn’t be safe at inaugurations, summits, or major events. (Politico / Associated Press / New York Times / NBC News / Washington Post)

The 2026 midterms are in 201 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 936 days.

• Today last year: Day 1548: "Do your job."
• Two years ago today: Day 1183: "A clusterfuck."
• Five years ago today: Day 87: "Disastrous."
• Six years ago today: Day 1183: "Call your own shots."
• Seven years ago today: Day 817: Breakdown-level anxiety.
• Eight years ago today: Day 452: Morally unfit.
• 9 years ago today: Day 87: Provocation.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: For the fourth time, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic resolution to force Trump to end U.S. military action in Iran without congressional approval; Trump said the war with Iran was “very close to over” and claimed Iranian leaders wanted “to make a deal very badly”; House Democrats introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; House Republicans delayed a planned procedural vote on renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after their own members threatened to block it; Trump – again – threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell if he stays on as a Fed governor after his term as chair ends; Senate Republicans plan to move quickly on any Supreme Court vacancy that opens before the midterms; and 65% of voters blame Trump for the rise in gas prices.

1/ For the fourth time, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic resolution to force Trump to end U.S. military action in Iran without congressional approval. Rand Paul was the only Republican to support the measure, while John Fetterman was the only Democrat to oppose it. The war is now in its second month, and the War Powers Resolution requires Trump to end the operation within 60 days unless Congress authorizes it. Several Republicans, however, have begun to warn that their support might not last much longer, with Thom Tillis saying it will soon be time to “fish or cut bait” and John Thune saying the administration “need[s] a plan for how to wind this down”. (NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / Reuters / CBS News / Politico)

• The Pentagon is sending thousands more U.S. troops and warships to the Middle East. The buildup includes about 6,000 troops aboard the USS George H.W. Bush and about 4,200 more with the Boxer Amphious Ready Group, adding to roughly 50,000 U.S. personnel already in the region. (Washington Post)

• Russell Vought told Congress the White House has no “ballpark” estimate for the cost of the Iran war. The Office of Management and Budget Director told the House Budget Committee “We’re not ready to come to you with a request. We’re still working on it. We’re working through to figure out what’s needed in this fiscal year versus next fiscal year.” (Politico / CNBC)

2/ Trump said the war with Iran was “very close to over” and claimed Iranian leaders wanted “to make a deal very badly,” adding that if the U.S. “pulled up stakes right now” it would take Iran “20 years to rebuild that country.” U.S. Central Command said its blockade of Iranian ports was “fully implemented,” while Iran warned that if the blockade remains in place it “will not allow any exports or imports to continue” across the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea. The White House, meanwhile, pushed back on reports that Trump wanted to extend the ceasefire, which expires next week, saying that was “not true at this moment.” Trump nevertheless said oil prices would fall “very big” when the war ends and that the stock market “is going to boom.” (CNBC / Axios / Bloomberg / CBS News / Associated Press / New York Times)

• JD Vance admitted that young voters “do not love” Trump’s Middle East policy, but urged conservatives not to “get disengaged” and argued they should stay with Trump because the administration had delivered on other priorities. (The Hill / Associated Press / New York Times)

3/ House Democrats introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but the resolution is largely symbolic and not expected to advance in the Republican-controlled House. It accuses Hegseth of causing civilian casualties in Iran, possibly violating the law of armed conflict, mishandling sensitive military information, obstructing Congress, abusing his power, and bringing disrepute on the armed forces. The Pentagon dismissed the effort as a “charade,” saying Hegseth would remain focused on carrying out Trump’s objectives in Iran. (Axios / The Hill / CBS News)

4/ House Republicans delayed a planned procedural vote on renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after their own members threatened to block it. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is demanding privacy changes, including requiring a warrant before agencies can search Americans’ communications or buy personal data from brokers, warning that AI has made it easier to analyze huge amounts of personal data at scale. Republican leaders, the White House, and intelligence officials say those changes would make Section 702 harder to use and that a warrant requirement “won’t work” because intelligence agencies sometimes have to act within hours. (Politico / Axios / CBS News / The Guardian)

5/ Trump – again – threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell if he stays on as a Fed governor after his term as chair ends. Powell’s term as chair expires May 15, but he can remain on the Board of Governors until 2028, and said he’ll stay until the Justice Department’s investigation into the Fed’s headquarters renovation is finished. The probe has also delayed Kevin Warsh’s confirmation because Sen. Thom Tillis said he will block the nomination until the case is resolved. Trump said that if Powell stays on the board past May 15, “then I’ll have to fire him, OK? If he’s not leaving on time, I’ve held back firing him. I’ve wanted to fire him, but I hate to be controversial.” (New York Times / CNBC / Axios / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / NBC News / NPR)

• Justice Department prosecutors made an unannounced visit to the Federal Reserve’s headquarters construction site. They were turned away after seeking a tour of the $2.5 billion renovation project. (Wall Street Journal / NBC News / Washington Post)

6/ Senate Republicans plan to move quickly on any Supreme Court vacancy that opens before the midterms. While no justice has suggested they plan to retire, Justice Samuel Alito is 76 and Justice Clarence Thomas is 77. Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley said his panel would be “fully prepared” and named Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz as his preferred candidates if one were to step down. Cruz said he had “zero interest” in serving on the court, while Lee said it was “a bridge” he would cross if asked. (Politico / Bloomberg)

poll/ 65% of voters blame Trump for the rise in gas prices, and 55% disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president. (Quinnipiac)

The 2026 midterms are in 202 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 937 days.

• Today last year: Day 1547: "No tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding."
• Two years ago today: Day 1182: "Take the win."
• Five years ago today: Day 86: "Disinformation and interference."
• Six years ago today: Day 1182: "As dangerous as it sounds."
• Seven years ago today: Day 816: Hateful and inflammatory.
• 9 years ago today: Day 86: Frankenmissile.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: Trump said new U.S.-Iran talks could resume in Pakistan “over the next two days”; a woman publicly accused Eric Swalwell of raping her in a West Hollywood hotel room in 2018, saying she was “already incapacitated” when she arrived and that, as “he was choking me,” she “lost consciousness” and “thought I died”; a divided federal appeals court shut down U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s contempt investigation into whether the Trump administration defied his order to stop deportation flights carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador; Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve disclosed financial holdings worth well over $100 million; House Republicans accused the main Democratic fundraising platform of misleading Congress and withholding subpoenaed records tied to an investigation into possible foreign donations; the Justice Department released its first “weaponization” report, accusing the Biden administration of selectively enforcing the FACE Act against anti-abortion activists; and the Justice Department asked to vacate the Jan. 6 convictions of 12 former Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members, including several convicted of seditious conspiracy.

1/ Trump said new U.S.-Iran talks could resume in Pakistan “over the next two days” as the U.S. continued to enforce a blockade on Iranian shipping. No new meeting had been officially scheduled, and the main dispute remains unchanged: U.S. negotiators reportedly want a 20-year suspension on Iranian uranium enrichment, while Iran has agreed to a three to five years pause. Trump, however, wants a permanent ban on nuclear enrichment, saying “I’ve been saying they can’t have nuclear weapons. So I don’t like the 20 years.” JD Vance, who failed to secure a deal over the weekend, said “the ball is in the Iranian court,” while Iranian officials accused the U.S. of “maximalism” and “shifting goalposts.” The temporary ceasefire deal expires April 21. (CNBC / Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / Bloomberg / ABC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press)

• poll/ 51% of American think the war in Iran hasn’t been worth it, while 24% think it has been worthwhile, and 22% are not sure. (New York Times)

2/ A woman publicly accused Eric Swalwell of raping her in a West Hollywood hotel room in 2018, saying she was “already incapacitated” when she arrived and that, as “he was choking me,” she “lost consciousness” and “thought I died.” The allegation surfaced as Swalwell’s resignation from Congress took effect, after at least two women had accused him of nonconsensual sex or sexual assault and at least three others had accused him of other sexual misconduct, including unsolicited explicit images and an unwanted kiss. Swalwell’s lawyer, meanwhile, said he “categorically and unequivocally denies” all allegations and called them false. (New York Times / Associated Press / CNBC / NBC News / Washington Post / Reuters)

• Rep. Tony Gonzales said he would resign from the House after admitting last month to an affair with a staff member, a move that headed off a possible bipartisan expulsion vote. The Texas Republican said he would file his retirement when the House returned. Gonzales had already dropped his reelection bid as the House Ethics Committee investigated misconduct allegations. The inquiry ends once he leaves office. (NBC News / Politico / ABC News)

3/ A divided federal appeals court shut down U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s contempt investigation into whether the Trump administration defied his order to stop deportation flights carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. The 2-1 D.C. Circuit ruling said Boasberg’s probe was an “abuse of discretion” that improperly intruded on executive branch decision-making over national security and foreign affairs. The majority said Boasberg’s March 2025 order wasn’t clear enough to support criminal contempt over the migrants’ transfer to El Salvador. The decision, for now, ends a yearlong effort to determine why the flights happened despite the order. Lawyers for the migrants said they’d seek review by the full appeals court. (New York Times / Politico / NBC News / Reuters / Associated Press / Bloomberg / CNN / Washington Post)

4/ Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve disclosed financial holdings worth well over $100 million. Kevin Warsh’s Senate ethics filing, submitted as part of his confirmation process, shows he received about $10 million in consulting fees from Stanley Druckenmiller’s family office and holds two Juggernaut Fund stakes valued at more than $50 million each. Sen. Thom Tillis, meanwhile, has said he will block Fed nominees until the Justice Department closes its probe tied to Powell. (Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Washington Post / CNBC)

5/ House Republicans accused the main Democratic fundraising platform of misleading Congress and withholding subpoenaed records tied to an investigation into possible foreign donations. The demand from the chairs of the House Administration, Judiciary, and Oversight committees followed reporting that ActBlue’s outside counsel had warned that the company may have misstated parts of its 2023 letter to Congress explaining its anti-fraud procedures. ActBlue denied wrongdoing and dismissed the inquiry as a partisan effort to damage Democrats’ main online fundraising operation, which raised has $568 million in the first quarter of 2026. (New York Times / Politico / CBS News)

6/ The Justice Department released its first “weaponization” report, accusing the Biden administration of selectively enforcing the FACE Act against anti-abortion activists. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department will dismiss some pending cases and approve new FACE Act prosecutions only in “extraordinary” circumstances. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act makes it a crime to use force, threats, or physical obstruction to stop people from entering or providing services at reproductive health clinics. The 900-page report claims Biden-era officials worked too closely with abortion-rights groups, sought harsher sentences for anti-abortion defendants, and paid little attention to attacks on pregnancy centers and churches. The department also fired 4 prosecutors tied to FACE Act cases. (CNN / Associated Press / New York Times / Bloomberg / Washington Post / CBS News)

• Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Americans should be “happy” that Trump is directly involved in Justice Department decisions. He said Trump is “my boss,” and that directing the department is “what being the commander in chief is about.” (NBC News / The Hill)

7/ The Justice Department asked to vacate the Jan. 6 convictions of 12 former Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members, including several convicted of seditious conspiracy. Trump already commuted many of their prison terms last year, but the new filings asked the court to dismiss the convictions and the indictments with prejudice, meaning the cases couldn’t be brought again. (CBS News / Associated Press / NBC News / The Hill)

• Mark Meadows asked the Justice Department to reimburse legal fees he incurred in Trump-related federal and state investigations. Meadows was not charged in Jack Smith’s federal election case, but he was charged in Georgia and Arizona over efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Meadows has incurred at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills. (CBS News)

The 2026 midterms are in 203 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 938 days.

• Today last year: Day 1546: "Charade of due process."
• Four years ago today: Day 450: "Strange."
• Five years ago today: Day 85: "We stand for democracy."
• Six years ago today: Day 1181: "The ultimate authority."
• Eight years ago today: Day 450: Mission accomplished.
• 9 years ago today: Day 85: Preemptive.

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Today in one sentence: The U.S. began a naval blockade of ships entering or leaving Iranian ports after JD Vance failed to secure a peace deal in talks with Iran in Islamabad; Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV as “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy” after the pope condemned the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran; Rep. Eric Swalwell will resign from Congress and suspended his California governor campaign after sexual assault and other sexual misconduct allegations; the Trump administration agreed to restore the Pride flag at New York’s Stonewall National Monument; a federal judge dismissed Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its report about Trump’s lewd 2003 letter to Jeffrey Epstein; a federal appeals court temporarily allowed Trump’s White House ballroom project to continue; 50% of local election officials said they were worried about political interference ahead of the midterms, while 45% feared politically motivated investigations and 32% said they had already faced threats, harassment, or abuse; and from the Dept. of Cringe, the White House arranged for a McDonald’s DoorDash delivery to the Oval Office so Trump could turn it into a live promotion for his “no tax on tips” law.

1/ The U.S. began a naval blockade of ships entering or leaving Iranian ports after JD Vance failed to secure a peace deal in talks with Iran in Islamabad. Trump framed the blockade as a way to stop what he called Iranian “extortion,” saying Tehran had “chosen not to accept our terms,” and threatened to “finish up the little that is left of Iran” if it didn’t accept a deal. Hours after the blockade took effect, Trump warned that if Iranian “fast attack ships” came “anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED,” calling the method of attack “quick and brutal.” The talks were aimed at extending the ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but broke down over U.S. demands that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, surrender or dilute its highly enriched uranium, and give up control over traffic through the strait. (New York Times / Washington Post / Politico / NPR / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / CBS News / CNBC / Axios / Associated Press)

• U.S. intelligence agencies obtained indications that China may be preparing to send shoulder-fired air defense missiles to Iran. The intelligence remains uncertain, and officials said there’s no evidence the missiles have been delivered or used. Trump, meanwhile, warned Beijing of “big problems” if it arms Tehran. (CNN / Bloomberg / New York Times)

• Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended a UFC fight while JD Vance announced that talks with Iran had failed. Trump entered the arena with UFC president Dana White and family members, took his seat near Rubio, and watched the fights as Vance told reporters that Iran had refused to give up the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. House Democrats criticized Rubio for missing the talks, calling his attendance at the event “not serious leadership.”(The Guardian / Associated Press)

2/ Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV as “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy” after the pope condemned the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, saying “God does not bless any conflict” and warning that “military action will not create space for freedom or times of peace.” Leo also denounced the “idolatry of self and money” and the “display of power” surrounding the war. Trump responded, saying he didn’t “want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States” and told Leo to “stop catering to the Radical Left” and “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” He then posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as a Jesus-like healer, which was later deleted. Leo, meanwhile, replied that he had “no fear” of the Trump administration and would “continue to speak out loudly against war.” Trump refused to apologize for the now-deleted image and insisted it was “me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross. It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better, and I do make people better.” (Associated Press / Bloomberg / Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News / NBC News / Axios / CBS News / CNBC / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / The Guardian)

• Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments revive mental health debate. “As the president threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as ‘lunatic’ and ‘clearly insane.’” (New York Times)

3/ Rep. Eric Swalwell will resign from Congress and suspended his California governor campaign after sexual assault and other sexual misconduct allegations. Swalwell said he was “deeply sorry” for “mistakes in judgment” and would fight the “serious false allegation” against him, but said it was wrong for his constituents to have him “distracted” from his duties. The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into whether Swalwell engaged in sexual misconduct toward an employee he supvervised, while the Manhattan district attorney’s office is also investigating one allegation. A former staffer accused Swalwell of sexually assaulting her, and other women accused him of misconduct including unsolicited nude photos or explicit messages, allegations he has denied as false. (Politico / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / Politico / ABC News / Washington Post / CBS News / CNN / CNBC / Axios)

4/ The Trump administration agreed to restore the Pride flag at New York’s Stonewall National Monument, reversing a February removal and settling a lawsuit brought by LGBTQ+ and preservation groups. Under a proposed court settlement, the National Park Service will return the flag within 7 days and keep it in place except for maintenance, with the Pride flag flown below the U.S. flag and above the park service flag. A judge still must approve the deal, but the government said it intends to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall permanently. (Associated Press / New York Times / Reuters)

5/ A federal judge dismissed Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its report about Trump’s lewd 2003 letter to Jeffrey Epstein. The judge ruled that the complaint didn’t plausibly show “actual malice,” and said the Journal had sought comment from Trump, the Justice Department, and the FBI before publication. At the time, Trump called the letter a “fake thing” because “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words.” House Democrats would later release the letter that he insisted was “nonexistent,” “false, malicious, and defamatory.” The ruling, however, didn’t determine whether Trump wrote the letter. (Axios / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / New York Times / NBC News)

6/ A federal appeals court temporarily allowed Trump’s White House ballroom project to continue, extending a pause until April 17 while sending the case back to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to clarify whether stopping the work would interfere with White House security. The ruling didn’t resolve whether Trump can even build the $400 million, 90,000-square-foot project without congressional approval, but the court said it couldn’t determine whether the administration’s claimed of security work, including below-ground upgrades, is actually separate from the ballroom itself. (NBC News / Associated Press / Washington Post)

7/ 50% of local election officials said they were worried about political interference ahead of the midterms, while 45% feared politically motivated investigations and 32% said they had already faced threats, harassment, or abuse. Trump has called for Republicans to “take over” voting in key places, the Justice Department has tried to access voter rolls from states, and the FBI raided a Georgia election office. Trump has also replaced many career officials who resisted his 2020 efforts to overturn the election with appointees tied to the election-denial movement. (ProPublica / Politico)

The 2026 midterms are in 204 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 939 days.

• 😬 Dept. of Cringe:
  The White House arranged for a McDonald’s DoorDash delivery to the Oval Office so Trump could turn it into a live promotion for his “no tax on tips” law. “Look at this!” Trump said, before asking reporters, “This doesn’t look staged, does it?” He invited the driver, Sharon Simmons, to stand beside him. She said his policy had raised her income by about $11,000. Trump then asked whether she voted for him and whether “men should play in women’s sports.” She replied that she was “here about no tax on tips.” Trump tipped her $100. (Mediaite / CBS News / PBS News / The Hill / New Republic / New York Post / Associated Press)

• Three years ago today: Day 814: "Continued complications."
• Four years ago today: Day 449: "Fundamental changes."
• Five years ago today: Day 84: "Abundance of caution."
• Six years ago today: Day 1180: "A lot of instincts."
• Eight years ago today: Day 449: Slime ball.
• 9 years ago today: Day 84: Misdirected.

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Today in one sentence: House Republicans blocked a Democratic effort to force an immediate vote limiting Trump’s war powers over Iran; the Strait of Hormuz remained effectively closed despite the U.S.-Iran ceasefire; Trump – again – threatened to leave NATO and then used a closed-door meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte to complain that U.S. allies “weren’t there when we needed them”; and Melania Trump denied any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, saying “the lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.”

1/ House Republicans blocked a Democratic effort to force an immediate vote limiting Trump’s war powers over Iran. Republicans ended a brief pro forma session before Democrats could seek unanimous consent on a war powers resolution, delaying any House votes until lawmakers return from recess. Senate Democrats said they would force a vote on their own measure. Trump, meanwhile, said he was “very optimistic” about a deal with Iran as Democrats said Congress had to “step in and take control of the wheel.” (NBC News / Wall Street Journal / Semafor / The Guardian / Reuters / NBC News / Axios / Wall Street Journal)

• Army survivors of the Iranian drone strike in Kuwait disputed the Pentagon’s account, saying their unit was left exposed at an unfortified post where six U.S. service members were killed. They rejected Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s claim that one drone slipped through defenses at a fortified site, saying the position had no real protection from aerial attack. (CBS News)

• Trump said the U.S. military was “loading up and resting” for its “next conquest” even as American forces remain deployed around Iran until Tehran honors what he called the “real agreement.” (CNBC)

• The Selective Service System plans to automatically register eligible U.S. men ages 18 to 26 for a military draft by December. There are no formal plans to reinstate the draft. (CNBC)

2/ The Strait of Hormuz remained effectively closed despite the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. The head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. said the strait was “not open” and that access was being “restricted, conditioned and controlled,” and shipping data showed that about seven ships had passed through in the previous 24 hours compared with about 140 a day before the war. Iran’s military and state-linked outlets have signaled that Tehran plans to “manage and intelligently control the Strait of Hormuz.” It’s unclear, however, whether Iran had formally imposed a toll system or was restricting passage. While Trump had said the truce depended on the “complete, immediate and safe opening” of the strait, he later said Iran “better not be” charging tankers tolls and that, “if they are, they better stop now.” (NBC News / CNBC / Semafor / Reuters / Axios / Bloomberg)

3/ Trump – again – threatened to leave NATO and then used a closed-door meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte to complain that U.S. allies “weren’t there when we needed them.” Rutte responded by claiming allies were “doing everything the United States is asking” and that “the exact structure is less important than the speed here.” But it’s not clear what, exactly, Trump was asking for as a White House official insisted that Trump had “zero expectations for NATO” and “did not ask them for anything.” Britain, meanwhile, is now assembling a roughly 40-country coalition and France said about 15 countries are planning a “strictly defensive” shipping mission. (Reuters / CNBC / Bloomberg / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Politico / New York Times / Semafor / Wall Street Journal / Politico)

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “fed up” with U.K. energy bills rising and falling because of Trump and Putin. The White House, meanwhile, defended Trump’s Iran war, saying he had taken “courageous action” to ensure Iran could never get a nuclear weapon and was pursuing a deal for “lasting peace.” (CNBC)

4/ Melania Trump denied any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, saying “the lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.” She said she had “never had any knowledge” of Epstein’s abuse, called a 2002 email to Maxwell “casual correspondence,” and said “Epstein didn’t introduce me to Donald Trump.” She said she was responding to “lies” and “fake images” linking her to Epstein that have been circulating on social media for years, but it’s not clear why she chose to respond now. She also called on Congress to hold “a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors.” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said he agreed and urged Chairman James Comer to schedule one “immediately.” (CNN / Bloomberg / Reuters / Associated Press / Politico / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)

The 2026 midterms are in 208 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 943 days.

• Today last year: Day 1541: "Be cool."
• Two years ago today: Day 1176: "The extreme agenda."
• Five years ago today: Day 80: "Out of whack."
• Six years ago today: Day 1176: No deal.
• Seven years ago today: Day 810: A mess.
• Eight years ago today: Day 445: Barbaric.
• 9 years ago today: Day 80: Complicit.

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Today in one sentence: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared a “historic and overwhelming victory” over Iran; Iran said the two-week ceasefire with the U.S. was already being violated and warned that further talks were “unreasonable” after Israel struck Lebanon in its heaviest attacks yet; Iran will limit traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to about a dozen ships a day and require a toll payment during the two-week ceasefire; former Attorney General Pam Bondi won’t sit for her scheduled April 14 deposition before the House Oversight Committee on the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files; Chris Taylor won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, expanding the liberal majority and effectively locking in control of the court until at least 2030; and Republican Clay Fuller won the special runoff election for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s seat in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.

1/ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared a “historic and overwhelming victory” over Iran, but said U.S. forces would remain in the region and ready to “restart at a moment’s notice” if needed. Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine clarified the ceasefire “is a pause” and the joint force “remains ready” to resume combat. JD Vance, meanwhile, called the agreement a “fragile truce,” said Trump was “impatient to make progress.” Vance will also lead U.S. talks with Iran in Islamabad alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as the administration tries to turn the two-week pause into a longer deal. (Politico / Axios / CNBC / CBS News / Bloomberg / The Hill / Washington Post)

2/ Iran said the two-week ceasefire with the U.S. was already being violated and warned that further talks were “unreasonable” after Israel struck Lebanon in its heaviest attacks yet, killing at least 182 people. Iran’s parliamentary speaker said Washington had breached three parts of Tehran’s framework by allowing the “massacres in Lebanon,” an alleged drone incursion into Iranian airspace, and insisting that Iran wouldn’t be allowed to enrich uranium. But Trump, the White House, and Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon was never part of the deal, with Trump calling it “a separate skirmish.”Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Lebanon was “not part of the ceasefire agreement,” and JD Vance saying Iran “thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t.” (Washington Post / Associated Press / Reuters / NBC News / New York Times / Bloomberg / CNBC / The Guardian / CBS News / Axios / Politico / The Guardian)

• Live Blogs: CBS News / New York Times / Associated Press / Bloomberg / CNN / NBC News / ABC News
• EARLIER: The U.S., Iran, and Israel agreed to a two-week temporary ceasefire to allow some ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and open a window for negotiations. Iran then publicly shared a 10-point plan calling for U.S. nonaggression guarantees, Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, a right to uranium enrichment, sanctions relief, reparations, a U.S. troop withdrawal from the region, and an end to U.N. and IAEA measures against Tehran. It also said any broader ceasefire should cover all fronts, including Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The broader deal, however, remained disputed over whether Iran would keep control of the strait, continue enriching uranium, win sanctions relief, and whether the truce covered Israel’s war in Lebanon. Trump and the White House said Iran’s 10-point plan wasn’t the proposal he meant when he called the ceasefire framework “workable.” (NBC News / New York Times / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / Axios / Bloomberg / Reuters / Associated Press / Politico)
• Federal agencies warned that Iran-linked hackers were targeting U.S. water, energy, and government systems, and said some intrusions had already caused operational disruption and financial losses. Hackers were exploiting internet-connected programmable logic controllers, including Rockwell Automation devices, and urged organizations to take those systems offline from the public internet and review logs for suspicious traffic. (Politico / Bloomberg / The Guardian / Wired / Reuters)
• Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on any country that supplies military weapons to Iran. Trump said the tariffs would take effect “immediately” with “no exclusions or exemptions.” It’s not clear, however, if he could even carry out the tariffs after the Supreme Court stripped away the 1977 emergency-law authority he’d relied on for unilateral tariffs. (Politico / The Hill / CNBC)

3/ Iran will limit traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to about a dozen ships a day and require a toll payment during the two-week ceasefire. Ships would have to coordinate with Iranian forces and pay the equivalent of about $1 per barrel of oil on board in crypto. Trump and the White House, however, demanded that the strait reopen “without limitation, including tolls.” Charging for passage through Hormuz would violate the longstanding principle of peaceful navigation through an international strait. (Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / The Hill / New York Times / CNBC / Politico)

4/ Former Attorney General Pam Bondi won’t sit for her scheduled April 14 deposition before the House Oversight Committee on the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. The department she now longer works for said the subpoena no longer binds her to appear because Trump fired her, claiming she was summoned in her official capacity as attorney general. Rep. Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, said the subpoena applies to Bondi “whether she is the Attorney General or not” and threatened contempt if she refuses to appear. (ABC News / CBS News / Bloomberg / Politico / Axios / Associated Press / Washington Post)

5/ Chris Taylor won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, expanding the liberal majority and effectively locking in control of the court until at least 2030. Taylor, a state appeals judge and former Democratic lawmaker, defeated conservative appeals judge Maria Lazar for the 10-year term. (NBC News / Washington Post / CNN / New York Times / Politico)

6/ Republican Clay Fuller won the special runoff election for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s seat in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Fuller won by 12 percentage points – smaller than Trump’s 37-point win in the district in 2024. (Politico / NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times)

The 2026 midterms are in 209 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 244 days.

• Today last year: Day 1540: "Somewhat explosive."
• Two years ago today: Day 1175: "The cruelty and the chaos."
• Five years ago today: Day 79: "International embarrassment."
• Six years ago today: Day 1175: "It's time to intensify."
• Seven years ago today: Day 809: A way forward.
• 9 years ago today: Day 79: Knife fights.

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Today in one sentence: Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if the Strait of Hormuz didn’t reopen by 8 p.m. Eastern; more than 50 House Democrats and at least two Democratic senators called for Trump’s removal through impeachment or the 25th Amendment; the U.S. struck military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island; Trump and JD Vance publicly intervened in Hungary’s election campaign, rallying support for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; the Education Department terminated six civil rights settlements that had required schools to protect transgender students; and 35% of Americans are confident in Trump’s ability to make good decisions when it comes to Iran, while 64% are not.

1/ Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if the Strait of Hormuz didn’t reopen by 8 p.m. Eastern. Trump said he would “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran” if Tehran agreed to the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz,” calling it a “double sided CEASEFIRE” and that Iran had offered a “workable” 10-point plan. As of now Iran hasn’t publicly confirmed the deal, leaving it unclear whether Tehran had accepted Trump’s terms or whether this was, as Trump put it, the basis “to be finalized and consummated” over the next two weeks. The proposal emerged after Pakistan publicly urged a two-week extension and asked Iran to reopen the strait during that period “to allow diplomacy to run its course.” [Editor’s note: This is breaking news. I’ll keep the site updated and be back tomorrow with a full recap.] (Axios / Associated Press / NBC News / New York Times / Politico / CNBC / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg)

• EARLIER: Trump threatened that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if Iran doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his 8 p.m. Eastern deadline, repeating that Iran’s bridges, power plants, and energy facilities could be destroyed if no deal is reached. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Trump added that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen” and “we will find out tonight.” Iran said Trump’s threats amounted to “incitement to war crimes” and that Tehran would take “immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures” if the U.S. carried out strikes against civilian infrastructure. (NPR / Associated Press / Politico / NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post / The Guardian / CNBC / Bloomberg / ABC News / Axios)
• EARLIER: Iran cut off direct talks with the U.S. Trump, however, said the sides were still in “heated negotiations.” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, meanwhile, publicly asked Trump for a two-week extension, urged Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “for two weeks as a goodwill gesture,” and called for all sides to observe “a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks” so diplomacy could “achieve conclusive termination of war.” (Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Axios / CNN / Semafor / New York Times / Washington Post / Politico)

2/ More than 50 House Democrats and at least two Democratic senators called for Trump’s removal through impeachment or the 25th Amendment after he threatened to destroy “a whole civilization.” Democratic leaders including Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer said Trump’s threat to “intentionally destroy the power, water, or basic infrastructure” used by civilians “would constitute a war crime” and “a moral failure.” Jeffries demanded Congress return to session “immediately” to stop a “reckless war of choice.” Any 25th Amendment move, however, would still require JD Vance, a majority of Trump’s Cabinet, and potentially two-thirds of both chambers. (Axios / MS Now / New York Times / The Guardian / HuffPost / The Hill / The Guardian)

3/ The U.S. struck military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, stopping short of hitting the island’s oil infrastructure. U.S. officials said the operation hit more than 50 sites, while other accounts put the total above 90. The targets appeared to include sites that had already been bombed in earlier rounds. (Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Reuters)

4/ Trump and JD Vance publicly intervened in Hungary’s election campaign, rallying support for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán days before a vote that could end his 16 years in power. Vance told supporters in Budapest to “stand with Viktor Orbán,” while Trump called Orbán “a fantastic man” and said he’s with him “all the way.” Orbán is trailing in polls ahead of the April 12 election. (Semafor / New York Times / CNBC / BBC / The Guardian / Bloomberg / Associated Press / Washington Post)

5/ The Education Department terminated six civil rights settlements that had required schools to protect transgender students. The agreements covered preferred names and pronouns, anti-harassment training, and access to bathrooms aligned with gender identity. The move stripped away federal enforcement of protections negotiated under the Obama and Biden administrations and, in at least one case, pressured a Pennsylvania district to repeal its own anti-discrimination rules under threat of investigation and possible funding cuts. (Associated Press / Reuters / NBC News / New York Times)

poll/ 35% of Americans are confident in Trump’s ability to make good decisions when it comes to Iran, while 64% are not. (Pew Research Center)

The 2026 midterms are in 210 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 945 days.

• Today last year: Day 1539: "He’s at the peak of just not giving a fuck anymore."
• Four years ago today: Day 443: "A more perfect union."
• Five years ago today: Day 78: "Good faith negotiations."
• Six years ago today: Day 1174: "Too naive or too stupid."
• 9 years ago today: Day 78: Tomahawked.

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Today in one sentence: Trump demanded that Iran “Open the Fuckin’ Strait” in the next 48 hours or it would be “living in Hell” when he was done “blowing up the entire country”; Iran rejected a U.S.-backed 45-day ceasefire; Iranian forces downed a U.S. F-15E over Iran and hit a separate A-10 during the rescue effort; Trump asked Congress to approve roughly $1.5 trillion for defense – a record request – while cutting non-defense programs by about $73 billion; and the Supreme Court vacated an appeals court ruling upholding Stephen Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction.

1/ Trump demanded that Iran “Open the Fuckin’ Strait” in the next 48 hours or it would be “living in Hell” when he was done “blowing up the entire country.” Trump said Tuesday would be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” warning that “There will be nothing like it!!!” He ended his Easter Sunday Truth Social post with: “Praise be to Allah.” At the White House on Monday, he doubled down, saying Iran had until 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday or else “every bridge in Iran will be decimated” and “every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again” by “12 o’clock tomorrow night.” He added: “We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation.” Trump had already threatened to strike Iran’s power plants and other infrastructure, but postponed the action at least twice, first by 48 hours, and later by 5 more days, before resetting the deadline for Tuesday evening. Trump called another extension “highly unlikely.” When asked if the war with Iran is winding down or escalating, Trump responded: “I can’t tell you, I don’t know. I can’t tell you.” Democrats, meanwhile, called Trump “an unhinged madman” who was “dangerous and mentally unbalanced” for “threatening possible war crimes and alienating allies.” (New York Times / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Axios / Washington Post / Bloomberg / Politico / Associated Press / New York Times / Bloomberg / ABC News / NBC News / NPR / CNN / Associated Press / Washington Post)

2/ Iran rejected a U.S.-backed 45-day ceasefire, sending mediators a 10-point counterproposal that demanded a permanent end to the war, sanctions relief, reconstruction, and guarantees on passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump called the response “significant,” but “not good enough.” (NPR / Axios / Bloomberg / CNBC / Reuters / Axios / ABC News)

3/ Iranian forces downed a U.S. F-15E over Iran and hit a separate A-10 during the rescue effort, forcing its pilot to eject in or near Kuwaiti airspace. All three U.S. aviators survived. The F-15 pilot was recovered within hours, and the wounded weapons systems officer was rescued nearly two days later. Two rescue helicopters were also hit, but both returned safely. The U.S. had already lost three other F-15s earlier in the war to friendly fire. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have repeatedly claimed that Iran had “no air defenses” and that the U.S. had total control of Iranian skies. Meanwhile, Hegseth forced out Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, Gen. David Hodne, and Maj. Gen. William Green Jr. in the middle of the Iran war. (Axios / New York Times / Associated Press / Washington Post / Axios / Washington Post / NBC News / Axios / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / ABC News / Axios / Washington Post / New York Times / CBS News)

• Trump threatened to jail journalists who reported that a second U.S. airman was still missing after an F-15E was shot down in Iran, saying his administration would demand that the unnamed news outlet reveal its source on national security grounds. He said the leak made the rescue of the second crew member “a much more difficult operation” by alerting Iran that an airman was still on the ground. (NBC News / Washington Post / Politico / Bloomberg)

4/ Trump asked Congress to approve roughly $1.5 trillion for defense – a record request – while cutting non-defense programs by about $73 billion. The proposal would direct more than $1.1 trillion through regular appropriations and another $350 billion through reconciliation, a move meant to bypass a Senate filibuster. The fiscal 2027 budget would also cut $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, put a 15% cap on NIH indirect costs, and reduce HHS spending by 12.5%. The White House said it was eliminating “wasteful” or “woke” spending, but Congress rejected similar domestic cuts last year. (Washington Post / Bloomberg / New York Times / Associated Press / Politico / Axios / ABC News)

5/ The Supreme Court vacated an appeals court ruling upholding Stephen Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction. Bannon, who was convicted in 2022 on two misdemeanor counts for defying a House subpoena from the Jan. 6 investigation, has already served his four-month prison sentence and paid a fine. The Trump administration told the court in February that dismissing the case was “in the interests of justice.” (New York Times / NBC News / Washington Post / Associated Press)

The 2026 midterms are in 211 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 946 days.

• Three years ago today: Day 807: "Something is going to go boom."
• Four years ago today: Day 442: "Outraged by the atrocities."
• Five years ago today: Day 77: "Irritating."
• Six years ago today: Day 1173: "Not a big Trump fan."
• Eight years ago today: Day 442: TOTALLY under siege.
• 9 years ago today: Day 77: Filibustered.

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Today in one sentence: Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi and named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general; in a 19-minute address, Trump tried to sell the U.S.-Israeli war to the nation five weeks after starting it, saying the campaign was “nearing completion,” but also that the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard” for another two to three weeks; the U.S. struck a major bridge in Iran a day after Trump threatened to bomb the country “back to the Stone Ages”; Trump said it was “not possible” for the federal government to fund child care, Medicaid, and Medicare because “we’re fighting wars”; Trump will sign an order to pay all Department of Homeland Security employees who’ve missed pay during the record-long partial shutdown; and an appeals court threw out the nine-year prison sentence of the former Colorado county clerk who tampered with her county’s voting equipment while trying to prove false claims about the 2020 election.

1/ Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi and named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, abruptly ending a 14-month tenure derailed by Bondi’s mishandling of the Epstein files and failure to win cases against Trump’s perceived political enemies. Trump called Bondi “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend,” saying “We love Pam.” Bondi had claimed an Epstein “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” but the Justice Department later said the list didn’t exist. The House Oversight Committee, meanwhile, had already subpoenaed Bondi and still expects her to testify. Blanche, a former Trump defense lawyer, said Bondi led the department with “strength and conviction” and promised to keep “doing everything in our power to keep America safe.” (Reuters / Associated Press / NPR / Politico / New York Times / NBC News / CNN / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / Axios)

• The Justice Department said Trump doesn’t have to comply the 1978 Presidential Records Act, claiming that the post-Watergate law requiring presidents to preserve official records and turn them over to the National Archives is unconstitutional. The law clarifies that presidential records belong to the government, not the president. (CBS News / NBC News)

• Trump privately asked advisers whether he should replace Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The White House said Trump still has confidence in Gabbard, while Trump said she was “a little bit different” and “softer” than him on Iran, but still “available to serve.” (The Guardian / Reuters)

2/ In a 19-minute address, Trump tried to sell the U.S.-Israeli war to the nation five weeks into it, saying the campaign was “nearing completion,” but also that the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard” for another two to three weeks to “bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” He called the war a success, said U.S. forces had delivered “swift, decisive, overwhelming victories,” and claimed “never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks,” even as Iran continued firing missiles and drones across the region. But he offered no clear path to end the war and dismissed the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping route through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes, as a problem for others while insisting that it would “open up naturally.” (New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / CBS News / NPR / ABC News / NBC News / Bloomberg / Semafor / Axios / Politico)

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced out Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, ending his term about a year early. The Pentagon said George would retire immediately, but didn’t explain the move. Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s vice chief and Hegseth’s former military aide, is expected to take over in an acting role. George, a career infantry officer nominated by Biden and confirmed in 2023, would normally have remained in the job until 2027. The move came days after Hegseth publicly overruled the Army and blocked the punishment of a helicopter crew that flew by Kid Rock’s house. (Washington Post / Politico / Associated Press / Bloomberg)

3/ The U.S. struck a major bridge in Iran a day after Trump threatened to bomb the country “back to the Stone Ages.” Trump celebrated the strike and warned that “much more” would follow unless Iran made a deal. The attack expanded the war to infrastructure that Iran claimed was civilian, but U.S. officials, without evidence, described as a military supply route. It’s unclear whether the bridge was open to civilian traffic or used by Iran’s military at the time. (Axios / The Guardian / New York Times)

4/ Trump said it was “not possible” for the federal government to fund child care, Medicaid, and Medicare because “we’re fighting wars” and “we have to take care of one thing: military protection,” adding that the U.S. “can’t take care of day care” and that states “should pay for it too.” Trump suggested states “have to raise their taxes” to cover the costs and that maybe the federal government “could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up” for it. He added that he told Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought: “Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people.” The White House later said Trump was referring to fraud in those programs, despite his earlier promises to protect Medicare and make child care more affordable. (NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post / New Republic / The Hill)

5/ Trump will sign an order to pay all Department of Homeland Security employees who’ve missed pay during the record-long partial shutdown. The move comes as Republican leaders have settled on a two-step plan to first pass a Senate bill to reopen most of DHS, and then later use reconciliation to fund ICE and Border Patrol separately. The House, however, hasn’t acted on the Senate-passed bill as conservatives oppose funding DHS without ICE and Border Patrol. It’s not clear how the administration would pay all DHS workers, though White House guidance suggested it could draw on existing funds, as it did for TSA employees last week. (Associated Press / CBS News / ABC News / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Reuters / CNBC / Semafor)

6/ An appeals court threw out the nine-year prison sentence of the former Colorado county clerk who tampered with her county’s voting equipment while trying to prove false claims about the 2020 election. Tina Peters’ conviction still stands and the judges ordered her to be resentenced, saying the trial court improperly considered her protected speech when imposing the sentence. The panel also rejected Trump’s attempt to pardon her, saying a president’s clemency power doesn’t apply to state crimes. Peters will remain in prison for now while the case returns to the trial court where a judge will decide her new sentence. (Colorado Sun / Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News)

• 📌 Previously on WTFJHT – Oct. 3, 2024: Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison for tampering with voting machines under her control during the 2020 election.
• 📌 Previously on WTFJHT – Aug. 21, 2025: Trump demanded that Colorado release Peters from prison.

The 2026 midterms are in 215 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 950 days.

• Today last year: Day 1534: "Trump has chosen to blow up the system."
• Two years ago today: Day 1169: "This happens in war."
• Five years ago today: Day 73: "Low risk."
• Six years ago today: Day 1169: "Here we go again."
• Seven years ago today: Day 803: "Incompetent or corrupt."
• Eight years ago today: Day 438: DACA is dead.
• 9 years ago today: Day 73: Incited violence.

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Today in one sentence: Trump threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO, saying leaving the alliance was “beyond reconsideration”; Trump said the U.S. would consider a ceasefire with Iran only when the Strait of Hormuz is open, a day after saying the war could end in “two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three”; Trump will deliver an address “to the nation to provide an important update on Iran”; Trump called the United States “STUPID” for allowing birthright citizenship after it appeared likely that the Supreme Court would reject his effort to end it; Senate and House Republicans agreed to end the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown; Trump signed an executive order to create state-by-state lists of eligible voters and to limit mail ballots to people on those lists; 33% of Americans think Trump has a clear plan for handling the Iran war; and 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy – a record low.

1/ Trump threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO, saying leaving the alliance was “beyond reconsideration,” and complained that support for the U.S. war in Iran “should be automatic” because “we were there for them” but “they weren’t there for us.” He called the 32-nation alliance a “paper tiger,” said “I was never swayed by NATO,” and added that “Putin knows that too.” Trump also mocked Britain’s military, saying, “You don’t even have a navy,” and dismissed Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying, “He can do whatever he wants. It doesn’t matter.” Trump, however, can’t legally withdraw from NATO on his own, because U.S. law requires either a two-thirds Senate vote or Congress passing a law allowing the withdrawal. (The Telegraph / Financial Times / New York Times / Politico / Wall Street Journal / CNBC / Bloomberg / CBS News / The Hill)

2/ Trump said the U.S. would consider a ceasefire with Iran only when the Strait of Hormuz is open, a day after saying the war could end in “two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three.” He added that Iran “doesn’t have to make a deal” for the U.S. to leave. Instead, ​Trump said Iran will be “put into the stone ages” and “then ​we’ll leave.” Trump also claimed Iran had asked for a ceasefire, which Iran has denied. (Politico / Bloomberg / Reuters / Financial Times / CNN / Axios / Bloomberg)

• Trump was briefed on a plan to send U.S. ground forces into Iran to seize roughly 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium. But Trump dismissed the issue, saying the uranium was “so far ⁠underground, I ​don’t care about that.” He added that the U.S. would “always be watching it by satellite.” (The Atlantic / Washington Post / Reuters / New York Times)

3/ Trump will deliver an address “to the nation to provide an important update on Iran.” Trump’s speech will be broadcast live across all four major networks – CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox – beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern, and he’s expected to say the war was winding down, argue that U.S. forces had already met their main military goals, and repeat that the U.S. could leave in “two or three weeks.” Trump’s address will interrupt the two-hour season finale of The Masked Singer and a two-hour special episode of Survivor. (Politico / CNBC / ABC News / Bloomberg / Washington Post / New York Times)

4/ Trump called the United States “STUPID” for allowing birthright citizenship after it appeared likely that the Supreme Court would reject his effort to end it. Trump, who was the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court arguments, left shortly after Solicitor General D. John Sauer finished defending the administration’s attempt to narrow the 14th Amendment. Chief Justice John Roberts called the government’s reasoning “quirky” and said, “It’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution,” while several conservative justices also questioned the administration’s reliance on “domicile” and how officials would determine citizenship at birth. The order, which lower courts have blocked and has never taken effect, would deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. unless a parent is a citizen or green card holder. A ruling expected by late June or early July. (CNBC / Axios / New York Times / Bloomberg / NBC News / ABC News / Associated Press / Washington Post)

5/ Senate and House Republicans agreed to end the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown, reviving the Senate plan that House Republicans and Trump rejected last week. The bill would fund DHS through Sept. 30, push ICE and Border Patrol funding into a separate budget reconciliation bill that wouldn’t need Democratic votes. Trump directed Republicans to send him that immigration enforcement bill by June 1. (Reuters / NBC News / Politico / New York Times / Wall Street Journal)

6/ Trump signed an executive order to create state-by-state lists of eligible voters and to limit mail ballots to people on those lists. The order directs the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to help compile the lists, requires ballot tracking barcodes, and threatens federal funding for states that don’t comply. State election officials in Arizona, Oregon, and elsewhere said they would challenge the order in court. (NBC News / Politico / Associated Press / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / CNBC / Reuters)

poll/ 33% of Americans think Trump has a clear plan for handling the Iran war, while 67% say he does not. (CNN)

poll/ 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy – a record low. (CNN)

The 2026 midterms are in 216 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 951 days.

• Today last year: Day 1533: "Good trouble."
• Two years ago today: Day 1168: "Outrageous and abhorrent."
• Five years ago today: Day 72: "Based on a lie."
• Six years ago today: Day 1168: "A very heavy price."
• Seven years ago today: Day 802: Meaningless.
• 9 years ago today: Day 72: Disclosures.

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Today in one sentence: Trump told U.S. allies to “go get your own oil,” “go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT”; U.S. gas prices rose above $4 a gallon for the first since the summer of 2022; the Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors; a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop construction on the White House ballroom; a federal judge ruled that Trump’s executive order cutting off federal funding for NPR and PBS violated the First Amendment; and Rep. Eric Swalwell demanded that the FBI stop any release of old investigative files tied to his contacts with a suspected Chinese operative.

1/ Trump told U.S. allies to “go get your own oil,” “go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,” accusing NATO partners of refusing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz after several limited direct support, including reported restrictions on access to airspace and bases. He then warned that “the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore,” while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said other countries “ought be prepared to step up.” But Trump later said he wasn’t pulling the U.S. military out of the strait “quite yet,” saying U.S. allies would eventually have to “come in and take care of it.” (Politico / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / The Hill / Bloomberg / CBS News / Washington Post / CNBC / Associated Press / ABC News / Axios)

2/ U.S. gas prices rose above $4 a gallon for the first since the summer of 2022, which was caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One month ago, the national average price for a gallon of gas was less than $3. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the Iran war has pushed oil above $100 a barrel, tightening global fuel supplies. (Axios / NPR / Associated Press / Washington Post / New York Times)

3/ The Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. The justices sent the case back to the lower courts, finding that the law was an “egregious assault” on free speech and the First Amendment. The law banned licensed mental health providers in Colorado from trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity through talk therapy. More than 20 states have similar laws. (ABC News / NBC News / Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post)

4/ A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop construction on the White House ballroom, ruling that Trump can’t proceed with the $400 million project without congressional authorization. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the National Trust for Historic Preservation was likely to succeed because “no statute comes close” to giving the president the authority he claimed, writing that the president is the White House’s “steward,” not its owner. The ruling comes after the East Wing had already been demolished and two days before the National Capital Planning Commission was expected to consider the project. (ABC News / Associated Press / Washington Post)

5/ A federal judge ruled that Trump’s executive order cutting off federal funding for NPR and PBS violated the First Amendment and permanently blocked the administration from enforcing it. The judge said the government can’t use “the power of the purse” to punish speech, writing that the order amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, because targeted broadcasters over coverage that Trump described as biased. Congress, however, has already rescinded public media funding and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has shut down. (Associated Press / NPR / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / CNN)

6/ Rep. Eric Swalwell demanded that the FBI stop any release of old investigative files tied to his contacts with a suspected Chinese operative. The cease and desist letter followed reports that FBI Director Kash Patel had agents review and redact the files for possible public release, even though Swalwell was never charged and the House Ethics Committee later closed its review without action. Swalwell, a Trump critic, is running for governor of California. (Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / Associated Press)

The 2026 midterms are in 217 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 952 days.

• Today last year: Day 1532: "We’re going to boom."
• Four years ago today: Day 436: "Fairly significantly."
• Five years ago today: Day 71: "Hard-fought progress."
• Six years ago today: Day 1167: "Be prepared for it."
• 9 years ago today: Day 71: Witch hunt.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Trump said his “preference” would be to “take the oil in Iran” and floated seizing Kharg Island; hackers linked to Iran accessed FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account; House Republicans are considering cutting health care spending to help pay for a reconciliation bill that could provide as much as $200 billion for the Iran war and immigration enforcement; the Department of Homeland Security remained shut down after 44 days, setting a record for the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history; the Trump administration’s Supreme Court case against birthright citizenship relies in part on legal arguments advanced by white supremacist and anti-Chinese activists in the late 1800s; Trump’s White House ballroom project includes a “massive” military complex under the site of the demolished East Wing; and 33% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, the lowest rating of his second term in office.

1/ Trump said his “preference” would be to “take the oil in Iran” and floated seizing Kharg Island, the terminal that handles most of Iran’s crude exports. The comments push U.S. oil above $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022 as traders priced in further disruptions to global supply. Trump then warned that unless Iran immediately reopened the Strait of Hormuz and accepted a deal, the U.S. would “completely” destroy Iran’s oil wells, power plants, and Kharg Island. He also argued that “regime change” in Iran was already complete because so many senior leaders had been killed, while insisting that ceasefire talks were making progress because Iran had agreed to let 20 more oil cargo ships pass through Hormuz. Iran, however, publicly denied direct negotiations and rejected Washington’s demands as unreasonable. (NBC News / Bloomberg / CNBC / CNN / New York Times)

• Trump is considering a military operation to seize nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran. The potential operation would require U.S. forces to fly to two to three sites, secure the perimeter under fire, and bring in excavating equipment to search for the highly enriched uranium. Plus, a makeshift airfield one would need to be set up to bring equipment in and take the nuclear material out. (Wall Street Journal)

2/ Hackers linked to Iran accessed FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account, posting photos, a résumé, and what appeared to be more than 300 old emails online. The FBI confirmed the breach and said the material was “historical in nature,” but contained no government information. The leaked messages appeared to date from roughly 2010 to 2022 and mostly covered personal matters like travel, housing, and family. It’s not clear when the account was breached, whether the hackers are holding back more material, or whether every file they posted is authentic. (New York Times / CBS News / Politico / Axios / Reuters / Bloomberg / TechCrunch / CNN)

3/ House Republicans are considering cutting health care spending to help pay for a reconciliation bill that could provide as much as $200 billion for the Iran war and immigration enforcement. The options under discussion include proposals Republicans describe as targeting “fraud and waste and abuse,” including a revived Affordable Care Act payment change that the Congressional Budget Office previously said would save more than $30 billion, but leave 300,000 more people uninsured. (Axios / Rolling Stone)

4/ The Department of Homeland Security remained shut down after 44 days, setting a record for the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history. Senate Republicans declined to advance the House’s stopgap funding bill, days after House Republicans rejected a bipartisan Senate measure that would have reopened most of DHS but excluded ICE and Border Patrol. Trump, meanwhile, called on Congress to return from recess to “permanently fix this problem,” while the White House said he wants lawmakers to “fund and reopen the Department of Homeland Security entirely.” (New York Times / Associated Press / NBC News / Axios / NPR / Punchbowl)

5/ The Trump administration’s Supreme Court case against birthright citizenship relies in part on legal arguments advanced by white supremacist and anti-Chinese activists in the late 1800s. The administration wants to deny automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children if their parents were in the country illegally or in the U.S. temporarily. The brief cites Alexander Porter Morse, who argued for segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, and other 19th-century figures who tried to ban citizenship for the children of Chinese immigrants. A ruling is expected by summer, which could affect hundreds of thousands of future U.S.-born children each year. (Washington Post / NBC News / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press)

6/ Trump’s White House ballroom project includes a “massive” military complex under the site of the demolished East Wing. Trump said the ballroom “essentially becomes a shed for what’s being built under.” But what exactly is being built below the ballroom is unclear. The site sits above the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, which is the emergency bunker under the former East Wing. The White House only confirmed that the military is “making some upgrades” to its facilities there. (NBC News / Reuters)

poll/ 33% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, the lowest rating of his second term in office. (University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll)

The 2026 midterms are in 218 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 953 days.

• Three years ago today: Day 800: "Dead on arrival."
• Four years ago today: Day 435: "The Achilles' heel of autocracies."
• Five years ago today: Day 70: "Trailblazing."
• Six years ago today: Day 1166: Ill informed, misleading, and downright wrong.
• Eight years ago today: Day 435: Climate of change.
• 9 years ago today: Day 70: "Climate change."

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Today in one sentence: Trump, bypassing Congress, ordered Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to immediately pay our TSA Agents”; Trump, denying he was “desperate” to make a deal with Iran, said Tehran had “better get serious soon, before it is too late”; the Iran war and higher energy prices will push U.S. inflation to 4.2% this year; Trump interrupted a Cabinet meeting discussing the war in Iran, long security lines at airports, and rising oil prices to explain how he’s replaced White House pens with custom black-and-gold Sharpies; Trump’s signature will be added to U.S. dollars to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence; and despite referring to the mail voting as “mail-in cheating,” Trump defended voting by mail in Florida’s special election, saying “because I’m president” and “I had a lot of different things” to do.

1/ Trump, bypassing Congress, ordered Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to immediately pay our TSA Agents,” seeking to ease airport disruptions during the partial government shutdown that left Department of Homeland Security unfunded. It’s not clear, however, what legal authority Trump would use or where those funds would come from. The partial shutdown, now in its sixth week, has left TSA officers unpaid, which has contributed to staffing shortages, long security lines, and warnings of possible airport closures. Senate Republicans and Democrats, meanwhile, still haven’t reached a deal to reopen DHS, with Republicans proposing to fund all of DHS except ICE’s deportation operations and Democrats demanding limits on ICE tactics, including rules on masks and judicial warrants. (Associated Press / Washington Post / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

2/ Trump, denying he was “desperate” to make a deal with Iran, said Tehran had “better get serious soon, before it is too late.” After threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s energy infrastructure, he then announced a five-day pause and today extended it by another 10 days, saying that the latest delay came at Iran’s request and that talks were “going very well.” He also insisted Iran was “begging us to make a deal” to end the war. But Iranian officials publicly denied direct negotiations with Washington, saying messages were being passed through mediators. “We’ll see if they ​want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their ​worst nightmare,” Trump said. “In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away.” (ABC News / CNBC / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Axios / Associated Press / Washington Post / Axios / Reuters)

3/ The Iran war and higher energy prices will push U.S. inflation to 4.2% this year, up 1.2 percentage points from its December forecast, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD said the disruptions tied to the conflict, including reduced shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, are raising oil, gas, and fertilizer costs, will push up the costs of food and consumer goods. Markets, meanwhile, suffered their largest daily decline since the war began, with the S&P 500 falling 1.7% and the Nasdaq sliding into correction territory. (Bloomberg / Axios / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / CNBC / Associated Press / New York Times)

• The U.S. Postal Service said it will impose a temporary 8% fuel surcharge on packages starting April 26. The move follows similar fuel surcharges by FedEx and UPS and comes as the Postal Service lost $9 billion in fiscal 2025 after a $9.5 billion loss in fiscal 2024. (Wall Street Journal / New York Times)

4/ Trump interrupted a Cabinet meeting discussing the war in Iran, long security lines at airports, and rising oil prices to explain how he’s replaced White House pens with custom black-and-gold Sharpies. “See this pen right here?” Trump said. “This pen is an interesting example.” He said the White House had once stocked “beautiful” ballpoint pens that cost $1,000 each, and that he contacted Sharpie and insisted on paying $5 per marker. Online searches, however, show that typical Sharpies usually sell for about $1 to $2 apiece. “We’ve gotta get our priorities straight,” Trump said. (Associated Press)

5/ Trump’s signature will be added to U.S. dollars to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. It’s the first time in U.S. history that the sitting president’s signature appears on American currency. The Treasury Department said the first $100 bills with Trump’s signature will be printed in June, with other bills to follow. The overall design of the notes will remain unchanged, but Trump’s name will appear on the bills until a future administration decides to remove it. (Reuters / Vanity Fair / New York Times)

6/ Despite referring to the mail voting as “mail-in cheating,” Trump defended voting by mail in Florida’s special election, saying “because I’m president” and “I had a lot of different things” to do. He explained that his mail-in ballot qualified as part of an “exception,” but he didn’t say which one, even though he had been in West Palm Beach during the early voting period and his polling place was near Mar-a-Lago. (NBC News / New York Times)

The 2026 midterms are in 222 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 957 days.

• Today last year: Day 1527: "Listening to what our community needs and cares about."
• Two years ago today: Day 1162: "Sufficient risk."
• Five years ago today: Day 66: "Outrageous."
• Six years ago today: Day 1162: "We may well be in a recession."
• Seven years ago today: Day 796: Invalidated.
• Eight years ago today: Day 431: Conflicts.
• 9 years ago today: Day 66: Shifting blame.

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Today in one sentence: Trump’s daily Iran war briefing includes a roughly two-minute military video montage showing the “biggest, most successful strikes” on Iranian targets; Iran rejected Trump’s ceasefire offer, saying the Americans were “negotiating with yourselves”; former special counsel Jack Smith’s team wrote in a 2023 memo that Trump kept classified documents “pertinent to certain business interests” after leaving office; Trump’s Justice Department agreed to pay Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn about $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit alleging he was maliciously prosecuted in the Russia investigation; Senate Republicans rejected Democrats’ latest offer to reopen the Department of Homeland Security; Democrats flipped a Republican-held Florida House seat that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort; 59% of Americans say Trump’s military action against Iran has gone too far; 58% of voters disapprove of Trump’s military action against Iran; and 42% of voters think the war with Iran will make the world less safe.

1/ Trump’s daily Iran war briefing includes a roughly two-minute military video montage showing the “biggest, most successful strikes” on Iranian targets. One official described the curated video as clips of “stuff blowing up,” while another defended the format saying “we can’t tell him every single thing that happens” and that the briefings tend to get a better response when they focus on victories rather than setbacks. The limits of that approach, however, were noted when Trump wasn’t briefed on an Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia that hit five U.S. Air Force refueling planes, but instead learned about it from media reports. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, rejected that Trump doesn’t receive the full range of developments in the war, calling it “an absolutely false assertion” and saying Trump “actively seeks and solicits the opinions of everyone in the room”. (NBC News)

2/ Iran rejected Trump’s ceasefire offer, saying the Americans were “negotiating with yourselves.” Iranian state media and Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran would not entertain “a temporary cease-fire,” wanted “reparations for war damage,” and “recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.” The White House, meanwhile, said talks with Tehran remained “productive.” Karoline Leavitt added that if Iran refused a deal, Trump was prepared to have it “hit harder then they have ever been hit before.” (CNBC / Bloomberg / New York Times / Axios / Associated Press / Politico / NPR / Wall Street Journal)

3/ Former special counsel Jack Smith’s team wrote in a 2023 memo that Trump kept classified documents “pertinent to certain business interests” after leaving office, giving investigators what prosecutors described as “a motive for retaining them.” Rep. Jamie Raskin called the memo “damning” and said Republicans, in a “frenzied search” for material to discredit the inquiry, instead turned over evidence about “your boss’s conduct.” Raskin demanded more records from Attorney General Pam Bondi and said the department must stop “cherry-picking investigative materials.” The memo further said investigators identified a classified map Trump “may have shown to individuals on board” a 2022 flight to Bedminster, with Susie Wiles cited as a witness. The White House and Justice Department, meanwhile, said Trump “did nothing wrong” and dismissed the claims as “salacious and untrue” and a “political stunt.” (Axios / Politico / MS Now / NBC News / The Hill / The Guardian / Washington Post)

4/ Trump’s Justice Department agreed to pay Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn about $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit alleging he was maliciously prosecuted in the Russia investigation. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, then later tried to withdraw that plea. Trump pardoned him in 2020. The settlement reversed a position the department had taken under Biden, when it won dismissal of Flynn’s civil suit in 2024. Flynn was seeking at least $50 million in damages and the DOJ called the deal an “important step in redressing” what it described as a “historic injustice.” (Associated Press / ABC News / Bloomberg / CBS News)

5/ Senate Republicans rejected Democrats’ latest offer to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, extending the five-week partial shutdown that’s been disrupting airport screening. Democrats said any deal must include limits on ICE tactics, including rules on masks and judicial warrants. Republicans, meanwhile, said the proposal was “not even close to being real” and accused Democrats of trying to pair DHS funding with ICE restrictions while refusing to fund ICE enforcement. (Politico / New York Times / Bloomberg / CNBC / Wall Street Journal)

6/ Democrats flipped a Republican-held Florida House seat that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Emily Gregory beat Jon Maples 51% to 49% in a special election after Mike Caruso resigned to become Palm Beach County clerk. Trump carried the district by about 11 points in 2024 and Caruso won by 19 points that same year. Gregory, a first-time candidate, centered her campaign on affordability, insurance, and health care. (NBC News / Associated Press / Politico / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Washington Post)

poll/ 59% of Americans say Trump’s military action against Iran has gone too far, while 26% say its about right, and 13% say it has not gone far enough. (AP-NORC)

poll/ 58% of voters disapprove of Trump’s military action against Iran, while 42% support it. (Fox News)

poll/ 42% of voters think the war with Iran will make the world less safe, while 35% think it will make the world safer, and 20% think it will make no difference. (Quinnipiac)

The 2026 midterms are in 223 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 958 days.

• Today last year: Day 1526: "Just something that can happen."
• Two years ago today: Day 1161: "A bit surprising and unfortunate."
• Five years ago today: Day 65: "Chaos as a consequence."
• Six years ago today: Day 1161: "Critical to maintaining national security."
• Seven years ago today: Day 795: No conclusion.
• 9 years ago today: Day 65: Shit list.

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Today in one sentence: The Trump administration ordered the 82nd Airborne Division to deploy roughly 2,000 to 3,000 troops to the Middle East; the U.S. sent Iran a 15-point proposal to end the war as Trump claimed “this war has been won”; Senate Republicans proposed a plan to fund and reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security while excluding ICE’s deportation operations; Minnesota sued the Trump administration to force the release of evidence in three shootings by federal officers during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis; Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 2022 investigation into Kash Patel subpoenaed more than two years of his phone metadata, text logs, online account details, billing records, IP addresses, and bank account information; a Justice Department prosecutor conceded that the government didn’t have evidence of fraud or other criminal misconduct in the Federal Reserve’s $2.5 billion renovation project; Trump voted by mail in a Florida special election after declaring that “mail-in voting means mail-in cheating” and “we got to do something about it all”; 36% of Americans approve of Trump’s ‌job performance; and 49% of U.S. workers were classified as “struggling” in their lives, while 46% were classified as “thriving” — the first time Gallup found more workers struggling than thriving.

1/ The Trump administration ordered the 82nd Airborne Division to deploy roughly 2,000 to 3,000 troops to the Middle East. The administration hasn’t said what the troops will be used for and a decision to send troops into Iran hasn’t been made. But the move gives Trump an ready ground force that could be used to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, seize strategic islands or coastal territory, or support an operation targeting Iran’s highly enriched uranium. The 82nd would join about 50,000 U.S. troops already in the region, along with thousands of Marines now heading there. (Politico / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / The Guardian)

• The Pentagon will close the press workspace inside the building, moving journalists to an outside annex and require escorts for access inside the complex. The change comes days after a federal judge ruled that the Pentagon’s earlier media restrictions were unconstitutional. The New York Times and the Pentagon Press Association said the new policy still defies Judge Paul Friedman’s order, which required the Pentagon to restore Times reporters’ access after he found the October rules unlawfully targeted disfavored journalists. (Associated Press / Axios / Washington Post / New York Times)

2/ The U.S. sent Iran a 15-point proposal to end the war as Trump claimed “this war has been won” and that Iran had agreed it would “never have a nuclear weapon.” He said negotiations were underway, that Tehran wanted “to make a deal so badly,” and that the U.S. was “talking to the right people” as Iran was “talking sense.” Trump also said Iran had delivered a “very big present” tied to “oil and gas,” but he did not explain the claim. Iran, however, publicly denied that any negotiations were happening. The proposal, sent through Pakistan, appeared to address Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and the Strait of Hormuz. But it wasn’t clear whether Tehran would accept it, whether Israel supported it, or who in Iran could authorize a deal after Israeli strikes killed senior leaders. The fighting, meanwhile, continued, with Iran launching more missile attacks on Israel, Iraq, and Gulf states. (New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / The Guardian / Axios / CNBC)

3/ Senate Republicans proposed a plan to fund and reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security while excluding ICE’s deportation operations. The shutdown began Feb. 14 and has led to long airport lines, missed paychecks, and rising absenteeism among TSA workers. The framework would fund TSA, FEMA, Border Patrol, and ICE’s non-deportation operations. Republicans would then try to use the filibuster-proof reconciliation process to restore funding for ICE’s deportation arm and pass parts of the unrelated SAVE America Act. The two-step strategy, however, still faces an uphill battle with Democrats saying the plan still lacks the immigration enforcement limits they’ve demanded, and Sen. Mike Lee, the Republican sponsoring the SAVE America Act, saying: “It’s hard to imagine how the SAVE America Act could be passed through reconciliation. And by ‘hard’ I mean ‘essentially impossible.’” Trump, meanwhile, said he would take a “hard look” but was “pretty much not happy” with “any deal.” Congress is set to leave town Friday for a planned two-week Easter recess, but Majority Leader John Thune has warned the Senate may have to stay until DHS is funded. (NBC News / Politico / CNBC / Washington Post / New York Times / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / ABC News)

• The Senate confirmed Markwayne Mullin as DHS secretary. Two Democrats, John Fetterman and Martin Heinrich, joined most Republicans to back Mullin, while Rand Paul was the lone Republican no vote. (ABC News / NBC News / CNBC)

4/ Minnesota sued the Trump administration to force the release of evidence in three shootings by federal officers during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, including the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. State and county officials said federal agencies blocked access to basic investigative material, leaving Minnesota unable to determine whether federal officers violated state criminal law. The suit also seeks evidence in the nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, who was initially charged with assaulting federal agents before prosecutors dropped the case after conflicting evidence emerged and authorities began examining whether agents lied about the incident. The suit names Attorney General Pam Bondi and outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the federal government had adopted an unprecedented policy of “categorically withholding evidence,” while Minnesota argued that the state could not let federal agents investigate themselves. (Associated Press / New York Times / Politico)

5/ Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 2022 investigation into Kash Patel subpoenaed more than two years of his phone metadata, text logs, online account details, billing records, IP addresses, and bank account information. The subpoenas were part of Smith’s investigation into Trump’s election interference and classified documents cases. At the time, Patel defended Trump’s claim that the Mar-a-Lago documents had been declassified. Patel is now the FBI director. A magistrate judge also approved a nondisclosure order in 2022, finding disclosure could risk flight, evidence tampering, witness intimidation, and serious harm to the investigation. (Reuters)

6/ A Justice Department prosecutor conceded that the government didn’t have evidence of fraud or other criminal misconduct in the Federal Reserve’s $2.5 billion renovation project. Prosecutors argued that a $1.2 billion overrun justified scrutiny because “it doesn’t seem right,” but Justice Department lawyers “do not know at this time” what evidence there is of fraud or criminal misconduct. The Fed, meanwhile, said the rising costs reflected a long renovation of historic buildings, labor inflation, and asbestos problems. (Washignton Post)

7/ Trump voted by mail in a Florida special election after declaring that “mail-in voting means mail-in cheating” and “we got to do something about it all.” Palm Beach County records showed Trump’s ballot was counted in the special election, even though he had spent the weekend in Palm Beach while early in-person voting was available. The White House didn’t say why Trump chose to mail his ballot, but instead argued that the SAVE America Act allows for “common-sense exceptions,” like illness, disability, military service or travel. (New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / CBS News / ABC News)

poll/ 36% of Americans approve of Trump’s ‌job performance – his lowest rating since returning to the White House. 29% approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, the lowest rating in either of his terms and lower than any Biden economic approval rating. (Reuters)

poll/ 49% of U.S. workers were classified as “struggling” in their lives, while 46% were classified as “thriving” — the first time Gallup found more workers struggling than thriving. 28% said it was a good time to find a quality job, down from nearly 70% in mid-2022, while employee engagement fell to 31%, the lowest reading in a decade. Even so, 51% of workers said they were either actively looking for a new job or watching for opportunities, while 43% said leaving would be too difficult or costly. (Gallup)

The 2026 midterms are in 224 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 959 days.

• Today last year: Day 1525: "Unavoidable uncertainty."
• Four years ago today: Day 429: "What will stop him."
• Five years ago today: Day 64: "An existential threat."
• Six years ago today: Day 1160: "I want America to understand: This week, it's going to get bad."
• 9 years ago today: Day 64: Ultimatum. Art of the deal.

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Today in one sentence: Trump delayed his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants for five days, claiming the U.S. and Iran had held “very good and productive” talks on a “complete and total” resolution of the war; Tehran, however, denied that there were any direct or indirect negotiations, calling it fake news, market manipulation, and “psychological warfare”; Trump deployed ICE officers to more than a dozen U.S. airports to help with TSA staffing shortages during the partial DHS shutdown; and the Supreme Court appears likely to limit mail-in voting in federal elections.

1/ Trump delayed his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants for five days, claiming the U.S. and Iran had held “very good and productive” talks on a “complete and total” resolution of the war. Tehran, however, denied that there were any direct or indirect negotiations, calling it fake news, market manipulation, and “psychological warfare.” Nevertheless, Trump said Iran “wants to settle” the war and “very much” wants a deal, and that the two sides had “major points of agreement,” including reopening the Strait of Hormuz, banning Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon, and removing its enriched uranium. Trump also suggested that any deal would amount to a “very serious form of regime change.” (NBC News / Bloomberg / NPR / Washington Post / Politico / CNBC / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Reuters / Axios / ABC News)

2/ Trump deployed ICE officers to more than a dozen U.S. airports to help with TSA staffing shortages during the partial DHS shutdown. Trump said the officers were meant to ease delays, but suggested he could send the National Guard next, while airports and administration officials said ICE was not screening passengers and no arrests had been reported. The move came after more than 400 TSA officers quit and about 3,450 called out on Sunday as the partial shutdown has forced TSA workers to keep working without pay. Trump and congressional Republicans have insisted on fully funding DHS, including ICE and CBP. Democrats, however, have pushed to pay for TSA while leaving ICE and CBP unfunded, demanding new limits on ICE tactics, including clearer identification, mask restrictions, and tighter rules for forced home entries. Trump, meanwhile, said he wouldn’t support a DHS funding deal unless it also included the Republican SAVE America Act, saying Congress should “lump everything together as one, and VOTE!!!” (New York Times / Associated Press / Politico / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / CNBC)

• The Senate voted 54-37 to advance Markwayne Mullin’s nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security, putting him on track for final confirmation this week. Mullin would replace Kristi Noem. (Axios / Politico)

3/ The Supreme Court appears likely to limit mail-in voting in federal elections. The case could force Mississippi and at least 13 other states to stop counting ballots mailed by Election Day but received later. At issue is a Mississippi law that allows absentee ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days after Election Day and were postmarked by then. The Republican National Committee argued that federal law requires both submission and receipt by Election Day. Justice Samuel Alito said late-counted ballots can undermine “confidence in election outcomes” and create an “appearance of fraud,” while Justice Neil Gorsuch called it “a contradiction” to say ballots must be cast by Election Day, but need only be mailed by then. But Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned whether that logic could also threaten early voting. A ruling is expected by late June. (NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / ABC News / CNN / CNBC / Associated Press / Politico)

The 2026 midterms are in 225 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 960 days.

✏️ Notables.

1. A federal judge ruled that the Pentagon’s policy of restricting press access violated the First Amendment. Judge Paul Friedman said the rules let the Pentagon revoke journalists’ credentials as “security risks” under vague standards and banned reporters from seeking information from military employees who were not authorized to speak publicly. (New York Times)

2. Voice of America journalists sued Trump administration officials, alleging they tried to turn the federally funded news outlet into a pro-Trump “mouthpiece.” The complaint named Kari Lake and other U.S. Agency for Global Media officials, saying they pushed for favorable coverage of Trump, censored or suppressed reporting they didn’t want aired, and pressured staff to show “loyalty” or risk losing their jobs. (NPR / New York Times)

3. The Interior Department agreed to pay about $1 billion to abandon two planned offshore wind projects. Instead, they’ll redirect the money to U.S. oil and gas investments. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the money had been tied up in what he called “expensive, weather dependent offshore wind.” (Washington Post)

4. A far-right activist who spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud and now leads FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery claimed that he was involuntarily “teleported” to a Waffle House. Gregg Phillips made the claims on multiple podcasts. “Teleporting is no fun,” Phillips said on one podcast. “It was real.” FEMA, meanwhile, said the comments were taken out of context or reflected private, informal, and “somewhat spiritual” discussions made before his current role. (CNN / The Guardian)

5. Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who later led the special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, died Friday at 81. He spent 22 months investigating Trump’s campaign and Russia, concluding that Russia interfered in the election and that Trump’s campaign had multiple contacts with Russians, but there was “insufficient evidence” to establish a criminal conspiracy. Mueller’s office also chose not to charge Trump with obstruction of justice out of “fairness concerns,” because “a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional process for addressing presidential misconduct.” However, Mueller, citing numerous legal constraints in his report, declined to exonerate Trump, writing: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.” Trump, meanwhile, responded: “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” (MS Now / Reuters / Politico / Associated Press)

• Three years ago today: Day 793: "False expectations."
• Four years ago today: Day 428: "Saber rattling."
• Five years ago today: Day 63: "An American issue."
• Six years ago today: Day 1159: "The pandemic is accelerating."
• Eight years ago today: Day 428: Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.
• 9 years ago today: Day 63: Save face.

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Today in one sentence: The Pentagon asked for more than $200 billion in additional funding for the Iran war; Iran attacked Gulf energy sites after an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field; Israel said it would stop attacking Iran’s South Pars gas field after Trump said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “don’t do that”; the Justice Department subpoenaed former FBI Director James Comey as part of a “grand conspiracy” case against the former officials who investigated and prosecuted Trump; about 9% of people who had Affordable Care Act insurance in 2025 are now uninsured after the enhanced federal subsidies expired at the end of 2025; a coalition of 24 states and more than a dozen cities and counties sued the EPA over its repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding; and Trump’s hand-picked federal arts commission approved a commemorative 24-karat U.S. gold coin depicting Trump leaning on a desk with clenched fists.

1/ The Pentagon asked for more than $200 billion in additional funding for the Iran war. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said “it takes money to kill bad guys […] for what’s being done, for what we may have to do in the future,” adding that the number “could move.” Trump said the large funding request was necessary for “vast amounts of ammunition” and “beyond even what we’re talking about in Iran.” The request hasn’t yet been formally transmitted to Congress, where it faces broad Democratic opposition and growing unease among Republicans anxious about an open-ended conflict, mounting costs and the prospect of ground troops. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said it “remains to be seen” whether the package could pass, with Democrats calling it a blank check and some Republicans saying the administration still had not explained the cost, timeline or strategy. (Washington Post / Associated Press / Politico / New York Times / CNN / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / ABC News / CNBC / Axios)

• What else could $200 billion buy?

• More than six years of rent help for millions of low-income households; roughly 23 years of federal childcare funding; about 16 years of Head Start for young children and families; fill the Pell Grant program’s projected 10-year shortfall and still leave roughly $100 billion left over; enough to fix the country’s entire bridge-repair backlog; and fund more than 60 years of programs aimed at ending veteran homelessness. (FHWA / HUD budget highlights / First Five Years Fund / CRFB / HUD vouchers)

• Trump said “I’m not putting troops anywhere,″ but then immediately added: “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.” (New York Times / Politico)

• poll/ 65% of Americans believe Trump send troops into a large-scale ground war in Iran. 7% support sending ground troops to Iran. (Reuters)

2/ Iran attacked Gulf energy sites after an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field, damaging Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex and knocking out 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity for 3 to 5 years. Brent crude briefly jumped above $119 a barrel before retreating, as markets priced in the risk that damage to oil fields, refineries, and export terminals could last longer than reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The Trump administration, meanwhile, said it may lift sanctions on about 140 million barrels of Iranian oil already at sea to ease the market. (Washington Post / Reuters / Associated Press / CNBC / Wall Street Journal / Axios / Politico / New York Times)

3/ Israel said it would stop attacking Iran’s South Pars gas field after Trump said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “don’t do that,” and later declared on social media that “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL.” Netanyahu confirmed the pullback, saying, “Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks,” after the Israeli strike set off Iranian retaliation against energy sites across the Gulf and sent oil prices higher. Iran, meanwhile, warned it would show “ZERO restraint” if its energy infrastructure was struck again. (Bloomberg / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Politico / New York Times)

4/ The Justice Department subpoenaed former FBI Director James Comey as part of a “grand conspiracy” case against the former officials who investigated and prosecuted Trump. The subpoena was issued last week and seeks information about Comey’s role in the January 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian election interference. More than 130 subpoenas have been issued in the probe, including to former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page. It’s unclear what crime prosecutors believe the subpoenaed officials committed. (NBC News / Axios / CBS News / Bloomberg)

5/ About 9% of people who had Affordable Care Act insurance in 2025 are now uninsured after the enhanced federal subsidies expired at the end of 2025. Of those who kept ACA plans, 17% aren’t confident they can afford the premiums for the full year, and 28% switched plans, often to cheaper coverage with higher out-of-pocket costs. Average ACA premiums more than doubled for subsidized enrollees in 2026, and more than half of returning policyholders said they have cut or plan to cut basic household spending to keep coverage. (CNBC / Wall Street Journal)

6/ A coalition of 24 states and more than a dozen cities and counties sued the EPA over its repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding, the legal basis used to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The case aims to restore the finding and reverse the repeal of vehicle emissions limits, arguing the agency ignored settled law, Supreme Court precedent, and longstanding science on climate harm. (New York Times / Associated Press / Reuters / Los Angeles Times / The Guardian)

7/ Trump’s hand-picked federal arts commission approved a commemorative 24-karat U.S. gold coin depicting Trump leaning on a desk with clenched fists – a design that Trump personally approved. A separate bipartisan coin advisory panel, however, already refused to consider the proposal. (Washington Post)

The 2026 midterms are in 229 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 964 days.

• Today last year: Day 1520: "Common sense."
• Two years ago today: Day 1155: "Further chaos."
• Five years ago today: Day 59: "Wasting time."
• Six years ago today: Day 1155: "Nobody knew."
• Seven years ago today: Day 789: A little longer.
• Eight years ago today: Day 424: Brilliant and courageous.
• 9 years ago today: Day 59: Collusion.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: Tulsi Gabbard refused to say whether U.S. intelligence assessed that Iran posed an “imminent” threat; oil prices jumped after an Israel airstrike on Iran’s South Pars gas field and Iran later attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility; Trump waived the Jones Act for 60 days in an effort to contain rising fuel prices caused by the war in Iran; the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.5% to 3.75%, acknowledging increased uncertainty due to the Iran war; the FBI is buying Americans’ data and location histories – again; and the United States was downgraded from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy due to Trump’s “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency.”

1/ Tulsi Gabbard refused to say whether U.S. intelligence assessed that Iran posed an “imminent” threat during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Instead, she told senators that “the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.” Gabbard, however, confirmed the intelligence community’s view that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was “obliterated” in last year’s strikes and that there had been “no efforts” to rebuild it, undercutting Trump’s claim that Tehran was “starting it all over.” She also said Iran’s regime appears “intact but largely degraded” and acknowledged it had “long been an assessment” that Tehran could use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage, while declining to say what warnings Trump received before the war. (Bloomberg / CBS News / ABC News / Washington Post / Axios / NBC News / Associated Press / New York Times)

2/ Oil prices jumped after an Israel airstrike on Iran’s South Pars gas field and Iran later attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility, two of the region’s most important gas sites. Brent crude settling above $107 a barrel, up from about $103 a day earlier and roughly 40% to 50% above prewar levels. Prices later topped $111 in after-hours trading as traders priced in greater risks to regional oil and gas supply. QatarEnergy said Ras Laffan suffered “extensive damage.” (CNN / Bloomberg / Axios / New York Times / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal)

3/ Trump waived the Jones Act for 60 days in an effort to contain rising fuel prices caused by the war in Iran. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the move, which lets foreign-flagged ships carry fuel and other energy products between U.S. ports, was meant to ease “short-term disruptions” in the oil market. But analysts and shipping executives said the effect on pump prices would likely be modest because crude prices, not domestic shipping costs, remain the main driver. (Politico / New York Times / Axios / CNBC / Reuters / Bloomberg / CBS News)

4/ The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.5% to 3.75%, acknowledging increased uncertainty due to the Iran war. “It is too soon to know the scope and duration of the potential effects on the economy,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said. “The thing I really want to emphasize is that nobody knows.” He said “higher energy prices will push up overall inflation” and that the Fed was “balancing these two goals in a situation where the risks to the labor market are to the downside, which would call for lower rates, and the risks to inflation are to the upside, which would call for higher rates, or not cutting anyway.” Fed officials raised their 2026 inflation forecast to 2.7%, kept unemployment at 4.4%, slightly lifted their growth outlook, and still project one quarter-point cut this year. (ABC News / New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / NPR / CNN / CNBC / Associated Press / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Axios)

5/ The FBI is buying Americans’ data and location histories – again. For the first time since 2023, the FBI publicly confirmed it’s actively purchasing commercially available information, giving agents a way to obtain location data from brokers without going to phone companies for records that would ordinarily require a warrant. Director Kash Patel said the purchases are lawful and have yielded “valuable intelligence,” but he did not say how often the FBI buys the data, what exactly it acquires, which brokers sell it or what limits govern its use. (Politico / TechCrunch)

6/ The United States was downgraded from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy due to Trump’s “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency.” The Varieties of Democracy Institute report said the U.S. suffered a “derailment of democracy” driven by “suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices,” while freedom of expression fell to “its lowest level since the end of WWII.” It also cited Trump’s “attacks on the press, academia, civil liberties, and dissenting voices” and said a Republican-controlled Congress had weakened the legislative checks that might have slowed him. (CNN)

The 2026 midterms are in 230 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 965 days.

• Today last year: Day 1519: "This is just the beginning."
• Two years ago today: Day 1154: "A practical impossibility."
• Five years ago today: Day 58: "Strings attached."
• Six years ago today: Day 1154: "Just in case we need it."
• Seven years ago today: Day 788: Pathetic.
• 9 years ago today: Day 58: Imminent.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: Trump said NATO “is making a very foolish mistake” by refusing to join the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran; Trump – twice – said that a former president told him he wished he’d been the one to attack Iran, but all four living former presidents denied talking to Trump about Iran; the top U.S. counterterrorism official resigned over the Iran war, saying Iran posed “no imminent threat”; the Senate voted 51-48 to open debate on the House-passed SAVE America Act; and the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to appear for a closed-door deposition over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and its compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

1/ Trump said NATO “is making a very foolish mistake” by refusing to join the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, while calling it “a great test, because we don’t need them.” He also insisted that “all of the NATO allies agreed with us” on confronting Iran, but that NATO had become “a one-way street” in which “we will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need.” Trump also said he was “not afraid” to put U.S. troops on the ground in Iran, adding: “I’m really not afraid of anything.” (Politico / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Bloomberg / Reuters / CNBC / Axios / Associated Press)

2/ Trump – twice – said that a former president told him he wished he’d been the one to attack Iran, but all four living former presidents denied talking to Trump about Iran. Representatives for Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Biden said they hadn’t spoken with Trump recently. Nevertheless, Trump first made the claim at a White House meeting with Kennedy Center board members, then repeated it in the Oval Office, saying, “I spoke to one of the former presidents” and that the person told him, “I wish I did what you did.” When asked who it was, Trump ruled out Bush, wouldn’t say whether it was Clinton, and said he didn’t want to identify the person because “I don’t want to get him into trouble.” (NBC News / New York Times / Associated Press / The Hill / The Guardian)

3/ The top U.S. counterterrorism official resigned over the Iran war, saying Iran posed “no imminent threat.” In his resignation letter, Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” Kent claimed Israel “deployed a misinformation campaign,” which “sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” and “was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now.” In response, Trump said Kent was a nice guy, who “was weak on security, very weak on security.” Kent is the first senior Trump administration official to publicly quit over the conflict. (Axios / Wall Street Journal / NPR / Politico / Washington Post / Reuters / CNBC / NBC News / Bloomberg / New York Times / Associated Press)

4/ The Senate voted 51-48 to open debate on the House-passed SAVE America Act, launching what Republicans said could be days of floor speeches on Trump’s “No. 1 priority.” The measure would require proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote, but Senate Republicans lack the 60 votes needed to break a Democratic filibuster. Senate Majority Leader John Thune also said that “the votes aren’t there” for the more aggressive talking-filibuster strategy. Democrats called the measure “a naked attempt to rig our elections” and vowed to block it “all day, all night.” (Politico / NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / CBS News / The Hill)

5/ The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to appear for a closed-door deposition over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and its compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The move followed a bipartisan committee vote earlier this month, when five Republicans joined Democrats to compel her testimony. Chairman James Comer said the panel has questions about possible mismanagement of the Epstein probe and Bondi’s role in collecting, reviewing, and releasing the files. The Justice Department called the subpoena “completely unnecessary,” and said Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche would brief committee members Wednesday, and didn’t say whether Bondi would comply. (New York Times / Washington Post / Politico / CNN / CNBC)

The 2026 midterms are in 231 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 966 days.

• Today last year: Day 1518: "Overdrive."
• Four years ago today: Day 422: "Consequences and implications."
• Five years ago today: Day 57: "Democracy is having a hard time functioning."
• Six years ago today: Day 1153: "We have it totally under control."
• 9 years ago today: Day 57: Tapped out.

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Today in one sentence: Trump demanded that other countries help reopen the Strait of Hormuz; U.S. allies largely rejected Trump’s demand that they help reopen the Strait of Hormuz; “We don’t need anybody,” Trump said after allies rejected his demand for help opening the Strait of Hormuz; FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over coverage of the Iran war; a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s slimmed-down list of recommended childhood vaccines; Trump publicly disclosed Rep. Neal Dunn’s terminal illness, then took credit for saving his life; and in two late-night Truth Social posts, including one that ran about 950 words, Trump attacked the Supreme Court and Judge James Boasberg, and repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

1/ Trump demanded that other countries help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying he’s asked about seven nations to send warships to protect the waterway that carries about a fifth of traded oil. “It would be nice to have other countries police that with us, and we’ll help. We’ll work with them,” Trump said, later adding: “Whether we get support or not, I can say this, and I said to them: We will remember.” Iran, meanwhile, said the strait is open to all except the U.S. and its allies. Oil prices are up more than 40% as the war entered its 17th day. (Bloomberg / Associated Press / Politico / Wall Street Journal / NPR)

2/ U.S. allies largely rejected Trump’s demand that they help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Australia, and others signaled they wouldn’t send ships into the conflict. Germany said “This is not our war, we have not started it,” adding that the conflict “has nothing to do with NATO,” Spain said it would “never accept” stopgap military measures and insisted “the objective must be for the war to end,” while Italy said “diplomacy needs to prevail” and warned that sending ships into a war zone would mean entering the war. Japan said it had “not made any decisions whatsoever” on whether to send ships to the strait, while Australia said it was “not something that we’ve been asked or that we’re contributing to.” Britain, meanwhile, said they would not be “drawn into the wider war.” (NBC News / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / CNN / Reuters / Politico)

3/ “We don’t need anybody,” Trump said after allies rejected his demand for help opening the Strait of Hormuz. “We’re the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world,” Trump said. “I’m almost doing it in some cases not because we need them but because I want to find out how they react.” Trump used the rejection to revive his complaints about NATO, saying the U.S. had protected allies “for many, many years” and warning that “we will remember.” He added: “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.” (Wall Street Journal / Reuters / New York Times / CNBC / The Guardian / Politico)

• Trump rejected Iran’s interest in negotiating a ceasefire, saying the war would end “when I feel it in my bones.” He said Tehran wanted a deal, but the terms were “not good enough yet.” Tehran, however, said it wouldn’t discuss a truce until U.S. and Israeli strikes stopped. (NBC News / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / The Hill / HuffPost / Politico)

4/ FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over coverage of the Iran war, calling news outlets purveyors of “hoaxes and news distortions” and warning them to “correct course” before license renewals. Trump said he was “thrilled” Carr was “looking at the licenses” of some “Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.” The FCC, however, doesn’t license cable networks or newspapers, and media lawyers said revoking local stations’ licenses over news coverage would run into the First Amendment. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attacked CNN and other outlets’ reporting on the war, saying “the sooner David Ellison takes over” the network, “the better,” referring to Skydance’s pending deal for CNN’s parent. (New York Times / CNBC / Axios / Politico / Variety / New York Times / Associated Press / New Republic / Bloomberg / CNN)

The 2026 midterms are in 232 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 967 days.

✏️ Notables.

1. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s slimmed-down list of recommended childhood vaccines, finding that the government likely bypassed the CDC’s advisory process and unlawfully remade the panel that sets vaccine recommendations. The order froze the new guidance, which would have dropped routine recommendations for several shots, including influenza, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, and Covid-19 for most children and pregnant women. (Associated Press / Washington Post)

2. Trump publicly disclosed Rep. Neal Dunn’s terminal illness, then took credit for saving his life. He said the Florida Republican “would be dead by June,” but that after Trump connected him with Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Dunn had “a new lease on life” and was acting “like he’s 30 years younger,” as Johnson put it. Trump said Dunn had a “heart problem,” adding: “Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote.” (Politico / New York Times / Axios / Washington Post)

3. Trump’s White House chief of staff said she has early-stage breast cancer and will remain in her job while undergoing treatment. Susie Wiles said doctors detected the disease early and that she’s encouraged by a strong prognosis. Trump said “she will be spending virtually full time at the White House, which makes me, as President, very happy!” (Axios / New York Times / Politico / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post)

4. The Border Patrol official who led the Trump administration’s immigration raids in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and Minneapolis will retire after being removed from his national command role in January. Gregory Bovino’s removal followed the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during the Minneapolis operation and scrutiny of his tactics. The retirement also comes as Trump replaces Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who had promoted Bovino. (CBS News / Axios / NBC News)

5. In two late-night Truth Social posts, including one that ran about 950 words, Trump attacked the Supreme Court and Judge James Boasberg, and repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump called the Supreme Court “a weaponized and unjust Political Organization” and said it was “hurting our Country.” He also demanded “serious disciplinary action” against Boasberg, calling him “Wacky, Nasty, Crooked, and totally Out of Control,” for blocking Justice Department subpoenas tied to a criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Trump also claimed the court’s tariff ruling left him free to impose duties “in another form,” even though the decision didn’t say he had an “absolute right” to do so. (Democracy Docket / ABC News / Politico / The Guardian / Mediate / New York Magazine)

• Three years ago today: Day 786: "Brink of collapse."
• Four years ago today: Day 421: "Do more."
• Five years ago today: Day 56: "Exacerbating divisions."
• Six years ago today: Day 1152: "This is bad."
• Eight years ago today: Day 421: 100% safe.
• 9 years ago today: Day 56: Slashed.

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Today in one sentence: Trump dismissed rising oil prices caused by the Iran war, saying “when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” as Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel and the major U.S. indexes fell about 1.5% or more; the White House is considering a 30-day waiver of a 1920 statute requiring goods shipped between U.S. ports to move on American-flagged vessels as the Trump administration tries to contain fuel prices driven up by the war in Iran; the Senate passed the largest housing bill in roughly three decades; the Senate again blocked a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security; current and former UFC fighters will train FBI agents to provide them with “exciting, innovative training options”; Rep. Jim Clyburn, the 85-year-old South Carolina Democrat, will run for an 18th House term; and 59% of voters say the economic and political systems are stacked against them.

1/ Trump dismissed rising oil prices caused by the Iran war, saying “when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” as Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel and the major U.S. indexes fell about 1.5% or more. The S&P 500 fell 1.5%, the Dow dropped 1.6%, and the Nasdaq composite lost 1.8%, while Brent crude oil traded 9.2% higher and settled at $100.46 per barrel – the first time it’s closed above $100 since August 2022. The national average gas price has climbed to $3.60 a gallon from $2.30 since Trump’s State of the Union address last month. Nevertheless, Trump wrote on social media that “of far greater interest and importance to me […] is stoping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World.” (The Hill / New York Times / ABC News / CNBC / Associated Press / Bloomberg)

2/ The White House is considering a 30-day waiver of a 1920 statute requiring goods shipped between U.S. ports to move on American-flagged vessels as the Trump administration tries to contain fuel prices driven up by the war in Iran. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt framed the move as being “in the interest of national defense.” She stressed that waiving the Jones Act had “not been finalized,” but the exemption is expected to cover oil, gasoline, diesel, liquefied natural gas, and fertilizer. The potential waiver is the latest in a series of emergency measures, including a 172-million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve release and a coordinated 400-million-barrel IEA drawdown that hasn’t slowed rising prices as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, disrupting millions of barrels a day of supply. (Bloomberg / Politico / Washington Post / New York Times / Axios)

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. Navy will escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz “as soon as it is militarily possible,” contradicting Energy Secretary Chris Wright who said earlier in the day that the Navy was “simply not ready.” Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed in his first public statement to keep the waterway shut as a “tool to pressure the enemy,” while U.S. officials confirmed Iran has started laying mines using small boats after American forces destroyed its larger mine-laying vessels. (Sky News / CNBC / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / CNBC)

3/ The Senate passed the largest housing bill in roughly three decades. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act aims to boost housing supply by removing regulatory barriers and restricting large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. While the bipartisan measure passed the Senate 89-10, the bill faces a narrow path in the House, where Republicans have already called is “wholly unacceptable.” The key sticking point is a provision requiring investors who build or own 350 or more single-family homes to sell those properties within seven years. (NBC News / Axios / Politico / New York Times)

4/ The Senate again blocked a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The agency has been shutdown since Feb. 14. The House-passed measure failed 51-46, short of the 60 votes needed to advance, after Republicans objected to Democratic requests to fund narrower pieces of DHS such as TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the cybersecurity agency. Democrats have demanded new limits on immigration officers. (New York Times/ Politico)

5/ Current and former UFC fighters will train FBI agents to provide them with “exciting, innovative training options.” FBI Director Kash Patel called it a “tremendous opportunity for our FBI agents to learn and train with some of the greatest athletes on earth” and claimed it’ll help the bureau “be even better prepared to protect the American people.” (The Hill / Variety / Hollywood Reporter / Wall Street Journal / Deadline)

• Trump endorsed Jake Paul, a boxer and social media influencer, who is not running for office. Trump said Paul had his “complete and total endorsement” and predicted he’ll run for office “in the not-too-distant future,” adding “That’s what we want.” (New York Times)

poll/ 48% of Americans blame Trump for high gas prices. 74% said gas prices have increased this year – up 30 points from six weeks ago. (Axios)

poll/ 59% of voters say the economic and political systems are stacked against them, tying the April 1992 record. 84% said they agree that “the very rich and powerful are above the law when they do something wrong, they look out for each other, using their power and connections to get special treatment,” while 14% disagree, and 2% agree. (NBC News)

🤦‍♂️ Dept. of C’mon Man.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, the 85-year-old South Carolina Democrat, will run for an 18th House term. Clyburn said he was “healthy enough” to serve. (Washington Post / NBC News)

The 2026 midterms are in 236 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 971 days.

• Today last year: Day 1513: "This is not a game."
• Two years ago today: Day 1148: "Requisite intent."
• Five years ago today: Day 52: "Changes the paradigm."
• Six years ago today: Day 1148: Canceled.
• Seven years ago today: Day 782: Deteriorating situation.
• Eight years ago today: Day 417: Still intends to cooperate.
• 9 years ago today: Day 52: Worse off.

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Today in one sentence: Sen. John Cornyn said he’d back “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to pass the SAVE America Act; Trump suggested that the war with Iran would end soon because there was “practically nothing left to target”; the Trump administration believes it has three to four weeks before sustained high oil prices become a political liability; the International Energy Agency said its 32 member countries agreed to release 400 million barrels of emergency oil stocks; U.S. consumer prices rose 2.4% in February from a year earlier; a foreign hacker breached an FBI server in February 2023 and accessed files from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation; 46% of Americans say they support using the National Guard to monitor polling places in during the midterm elections; 22% of registered voters say they have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the Supreme Court; 52% of likely voters say they believe Trump launched the war on Iran at least partly to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal; and 41% of Americans approved of Trump’s decision to take military action in Iran – the lowest approval ever for initiating an international military action.

1/ Sen. John Cornyn said he’d back “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to pass the SAVE America Act, reversing his long-held support for the filibuster as he seeks Trump’s endorsement ahead of a competitive Republican primary runoff for his Senate seat against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Trump has called the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote in federal elections, his “No. 1 priority” in Congress. Cornyn, who recently called eliminating the filibuster an “absolute nonstarter,” denied that his reversal was driven by a possible Trump endorsement, but said it was “an evolution in my own thinking.” (NBC News / New York Post / Politico / Wall Street Journal / Politico)

2/ Trump suggested that the war with Iran would end soon because there was “practically nothing left to target.” When asked for a timeline, Trump replied “we’re not finished yet” and that the U.S. needed to keep doing “more of the same.” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz added that the campaign would continue “without any time limit.” Meanwhile, three commercial ships were struck near the Strait of Hormuz, which effectively remains closed. The Trump administration believes it has three to four weeks before sustained high oil prices become a political liability. The Pentagon told Congress that the first six days alone cost the U.S. more than $11.3 billion. (Axios / Politico / Bloomberg / Associated Press / New York Times / Wall Street Journal)

• The U.S. spent an estimated $4 billion in munitions in the first 72 hours of its strikes on Iran, including roughly 400 cruise missiles and 800 air defense interceptors. (Bloomberg)

3/ The International Energy Agency said its 32 member countries agreed to release 400 million barrels of emergency oil stocks – the largest coordinated drawdown in the agency’s history – as the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to cut off roughly 20% of global oil supply. Oil prices still closed more than 4% higher, with Brent crude near $92 a barrel, while analysts warned that the release would only cover roughly 26 days of lost supply. Trump separately said he’d tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which holds about 415 million barrels. (NBC News / CNN / Bloomberg / CNBC / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post)

4/ U.S. consumer prices rose 2.4% in February from a year earlier, matching January and economists’ forecasts. The report, however, captured inflation before the Iran war sent oil prices up more than 20% and pushed average gasoline prices above $3.50 a gallon. The Fed is expected to hold rates steady at its March 18 meeting, but economists warned that rising energy costs and a weakening labor market could raise stagflation risks. (CNBC / ABC News / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Politico / NBC News / Axios)

5/ A foreign hacker breached an FBI server in February 2023 and accessed files from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. The FBI said the “cyber incident” was isolated, but it’s not clear which Epstein files were viewed, whether any data was downloaded, or who carried out the intrusion. A person familiar with the breach said the hacker appeared to be a cybercriminal rather than a foreign government operative and seemed unaware the server belonged to law enforcement, because they left a message threatening to report its owner to the FBI over child abuse images on the device. The server was left exposed after Special Agent Aaron Spivack tried to navigate the bureau’s digital evidence procedures, and the breach was discovered the next day when he found the warning message on his computer. (Reuters / The Guardian)

• A bipartisan group of senators asked the Government Accountability Office to review how the Justice Department handled the release and redaction of Jeffrey Epstein files. Sens. Dick Durbin, Ben Ray Luján, Jeff Merkley, and Lisa Murkowski said DOJ exposed some victims’ identifying details, including email addresses and nude photos, while heavily redacting records tied to alleged co-conspirators or material witnesses. The request comes as the House Oversight Committee has already voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi. (Washington Post / Politico / CNBC)

poll/ 46% of Americans say they support using the National Guard to monitor polling places in during the midterm elections, while 54% oppose it. Two-thirds say they are confident their state or local government will run fair and accurate elections this year. (NPR)

poll/ 22% of registered voters say they have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the Supreme Court – the lowest level recorded in NBC News polling since 2000. Another 40% say they have some confidence, while 38% say they have very little or none. 9% of Democrats say they have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the court, compared with 35% of Republicans. (NBC News)

poll/ 52% of likely voters say they believe Trump launched the war on Iran at least partly to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, while 40% disagree and 8% are unsure. (Zeteo)

poll/ 41% of Americans approved of Trump’s decision to take military action in Iran – the lowest approval ever for initiating an international military action. For comparison, 47% approved of the 2011 Libya intervention, 53% for Grenada in 1983, 76% for the Iraq War in 2003, and 92% for the Afghanistan War in 2001. (New York Times)

The 2026 midterms are in 237 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 972 days.

✏️ Notables.

1. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed a ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, making Wyoming the fifth state to bar abortion at that stage. Gordon said the law lacked rape and incest exceptions and would likely trigger more litigation. The state’s only abortion clinic said it would challenge the ban in court. (Associated Press)

2. Kansas invalidated about 1,700 driver’s licenses held by transgender residents under a new law that also ban changes to birth certificates. A state judge declined to block the law while a legal challenge moves forward. (NBC News)

3. Trump personally ordered the Justice Department to reverse its decision to stop defending White House sanctions against several law firms, telling aides “I never signed off on that.” The reversal keeps the administration’s appeal alive of four trial court rulings had ruled the executive orders were unconstitutional. (Wall Street Journal)

4. Congressional Democrats opened an investigation into at least $63 million pledged by ABC, Meta, Paramount and X to Trump’s planned presidential library through legal settlements. The original fund set up to receive the money was dissolved by Florida officials last year. A second nonprofit reported receiving $50 million in contributions last year, but hasn’t confirmed publicly that it took possession of the settlement funds. (Washington Post)

5. The Pentagon banned press photographers from Pete Hegseth’s Iran war briefing after Hegseth’s staff deemed the photos “unflattering.” Only Defense Department staff photographers have been permitted into briefings since, while video cameras remain allowed. (Washington Post / Associated Press)

• Two years ago today: Day 1147: "Not on my watch."
• Five years ago today: Day 51: "This dark tunnel."
• Six years ago today: Day 1147: "It's going to get worse."
• Seven years ago today: Day 781: Sanity.
• 9 years ago today: Day 51: Abrupt.

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Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

Today in one sentence: Seven U.S. service members have been killed and 140 troops have been wounded in the first 10 days of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran; Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted – and then deleted – that the U.S. Navy had “successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz,” sending oil prices down nearly 20%; U.S. military destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump warned Tehran to remove any mines “IMMEDIATELY” or face military consequences “at a level never seen before”; the Trump administration told Israel to stop striking Iranian energy infrastructure, saying it was “not happy”; House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to condemn anti-Muslim remarks by Reps. Andy Ogles and Randy Fine, saying instead that he had spoken to them about “our tone and our message”; Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the Supreme Court’s use of emergency orders is “not serving the court or our country well”; a federal judge ruled that three Justice Department lawyers jointly leading the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office were unlawfully appointed; and a whistleblower complaint alleges that a former DOGE engineer copied two Social Security databases that contain records for more than 500 million Americans and took them to his new job at a government contractor.

1/ Seven U.S. service members have been killed and 140 troops have been wounded in the first 10 days of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, promised the “most intense day of strikes” yet and that the U.S. “will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated” After a classified Senate briefing, Democrats said the Trump administration doesn’t have a clear objective, timeline, or exit strategy. “Clearly, they do not have a strategic goal,” Sen. Mark Kelly said. “They have no exit strategy.” The White House, nevertheless, insisted that the operation was a “resounding success” and would end only when Iran no longer posed a credible threat. (New York Times / ABC News / The Guardian / Associated Press / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / CNBC / Bloomberg)

• Russia denied sharing intelligence with Iran about the locations of U.S. military assets in the Middle East. In calls with Trump and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Putin and other Russian officials denied reports that Moscow had given Iran targeting information on U.S. assets in the region. “We can take them at their word,” Witkoff said. “Let’s hope that they’re not sharing.” (Reuters / CNBC)

2/ Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted – and then deleted – that the U.S. Navy had “successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz,” sending oil prices down nearly 20%. However, the White House said the claim was false and that “the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or vessel at this time.” The Energy Department later said the post was deleted after it was “determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff.” (Bloomberg / Politico / Wall Street Journal / CNBC / New York Times)

3/ The U.S. military destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump warned Tehran to remove any mines “IMMEDIATELY” or face military consequences “at a level never seen before.” The strikes came after intelligence reports indicated Iran had begun laying mines in the strait where roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply flows. Trump, however, said the U.S. had “no reports” confirming that Iran had actually put mines in the Strait ‌of Hormuz. Almost all commercial shipping through the strait has stopped since the war began Feb. 28. (Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / Reuters)

4/ The Trump administration told Israel to stop striking Iranian energy infrastructure, saying it was “not happy.” The warning follows Israel striking several oil depots in and around Tehran over the weekend. U.S. officials said the administration was concerned the attacks could hurt Iranian civilians, raise the risk of retaliation against Gulf energy facilities, and destabilize oil markets. (Axios / Reuters / Wall Street Journal)

5/ House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to condemn anti-Muslim remarks by Reps. Andy Ogles and Randy Fine, saying instead that he had spoken to them about “our tone and our message.” Ogles had posted that “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” while Fine wrote that choosing “between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” Johnson said the “conflict” was not with Muslims but with people who “come to a country and not assimilate” and seek to “impose Sharia law” in ways “in direct conflict with the Constitution.” (Politico / The Hill / The Guardian / Axios / Washington Post / NPR / NBC News)

6/ Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the Supreme Court’s use of emergency orders is “not serving the court or our country well.” She called the trend of letting Trump administration policies take effect before lower courts finish testing whether they are lawful “a real unfortunate problem” and that the court had moved beyond preserving the status quo. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, meanwhile, argued the increase in emergency appeals reflects presidents relying more on executive action because Congress is gridlocked. (CNN / New York Times / NBC News / Associated Press / Washington Post)

7/ A federal judge ruled that three Justice Department lawyers jointly leading the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office were unlawfully appointed – the second time in less than a year that the court has disqualified Trump’s picks to lead the office. After a federal appeals court disqualified Alina Habba as the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann found that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to split the role between Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox, and Ari Fontecchio had violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the Appointments Clause, and the statute governing U.S. attorney duties. Brann stayed his ruling pending appeal, but warned that if the government left the trio in place, “it does so at its own risk,” and that any further unlawful appointments “will result in dismissals of pending cases.” (Associated Press / CBS News / New York Times / Bloomberg / Politico / Washington Post)

• The D.C. Bar filed ethics charges against Trump’s pardon attorney, accusing Ed Martin of using his position as interim U.S. attorney to coerce Georgetown University Law Center into abandoning its DEI programs. Martin allegedly threatened to freeze all student hirings from Georgetown and later warned that the school’s DEI practices could jeopardize its nonprofit status and nearly $1 billion in federal funding. (New York Times / Politico / CNN)

The 2026 midterms are in 238 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 973 days.

✏️ Notables.

1. Smartmatic asked a federal judge to dismiss foreign bribery and money-laundering charges, arguing the October indictment was a vindictive, selective prosecution tied to Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged. The company said the Trump administration brought the case in retaliation for defamation suits against Trump allies and Fox News over false claims about the company’s role in the 2020 vote. (New York Times / Washington Post)

2. House Republican leaders said Tuesday they plan to bring an 18-month extension of Section 702 surveillance authority. The plan would renew the warrantless foreign surveillance program without the new restrictions. (Politico)

3. The White House told House Republicans to stop talking about “mass deportations” and instead focus on removing violent criminals. (Axios / Washington Post)

4. The Pentagon spent $93 billion in September 2025 — more than any single month since 2008. While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pledged to refocus the department on “warfighting and lethality,” the purchases in September included $225 million in furniture, $15.1 million in ribeye steak, $6.9 million in lobster tail, $2 million in Alaskan king crab, $5.3 million in Apple devices, and a $98,329 Steinway grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home. In the final five days of September, the department signed $50.1 billion in grants and contracts, more than the combined annual defense budgets of Canada and Mexico. Federal agencies that don’t use their congressionally allocated budgets by the end of the fiscal year lose that money permanently. (New Republic)

5. A whistleblower complaint alleges that a former DOGE engineer copied two Social Security databases that contain records for more than 500 million Americans and took them to his new job at a government contractor. The complaint, filed in January, alleges the engineer told co-workers he needed help “sanitizing” the data before uploading it to his employer’s systems. He reportedly told one colleague who refused to help that he expected a presidential pardon if his actions were deemed illegal. The two databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include the records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names. (Washington Post)

• Today last year: Day 1511: "Detox period."
• Four years ago today: Day 415: "Preposterous."
• Five years ago today: Day 50: "Help is on the way."
• Six years ago today: Day 1146: "Everything is working out."
• 9 years ago today: Day 50: Blow it up.

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Today in one sentence: Trump claimed that fighting in Iran was “very complete, pretty much” and would end “very soon,” but then threatened to strike Iran “at a much, much harder level” if Tehran disrupted oil supplies; Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” even as a classified U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that even a large-scale military assault was unlikely to lead to regime change in Iran; the U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, its third loss in five months, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4%; the FBI subpoenaed records from the Arizona Senate’s 2021 review of roughly 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots; Trump threatened to not sign any legislation until Congress passes the SAVE America Act; a plaque honoring law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, was installed at 4 a.m. Saturday – three years after Congress required it by law and with no ceremony or announcement; and the Justice Department released three FBI interview summaries it had withheld from the Epstein files, including one by a woman alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her as a minor in the 1980s after Jeffrey Epstein introduced them.

1/ Trump claimed that fighting in Iran was “very complete, pretty much” and would end “very soon,” but then threatened to strike Iran “at a much, much harder level” if Tehran disrupted oil supplies. The White House and other G7 countries have discussed a possible coordinated release of crude oil from strategic reserves after Brent crude briefly spiked to nearly $120 a barrel — its highest since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. is also waiving some oil-related sanctions to ease prices, including a waiver allowing certain countries to buy Russian oil. Trump, however, dismissed the war’s impact on global energy markets as “a very small price to pay” for “safety and peace” while saying it was “too soon” to talk about seizing Iran’s oil. He added: “I have a plan for everything. You’ll be very happy.” (Bloomberg / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / New York Post / NBC News / Axios / CBS News / Reuters / The Hill / Associated Press / Politico / CNN / CNBC)

2/ Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” even as a classified U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that even a large-scale military assault was unlikely to lead to regime change in Iran. The National Intelligence Council report, completed before the war began, found that Iran’s establishment would follow succession protocols to preserve continuity of power even if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Trump, nevertheless, said there would be “no deal” except “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” adding that the war should end with “the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s).” (New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / NBC News / Politico / Washington Post / New York Times / CNN)

• Russia provided Iran with intelligence since the U.S.-Israeli war started, including satellite and other targeting data on U.S. warships, aircraft, radar, and military personnel. The material indicates that Moscow is sharing information, not directing Iranian strikes. When asked about the intelligence sharing, Trump responded: “What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time.” (Washington Post / Associated Press / New York Times / NBC News)

• Two men were charged with attempting to support ISIS and use of a weapon of mass destruction after throwing two homemade bombs during a protest outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s residence. Neither device detonated and no one was injured. Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, told investigators they had hoped to cause more damage “than the Boston Marathon bombing,” which caused “only three deaths.” (New York Times / CNN / NBC News / Bloomberg)

3/ The U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, its third loss in five months, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4%. The losses were spread across nearly every major sector, and downward revisions to December and January brought job growth over the last three months to effectively zero. A Kaiser Permanente nurses strike sidelined about 31,000 health care workers, pulling the sector down from a gain of 116,000 in January to a loss of 28,000, while manufacturing cut 12,000 jobs, construction 11,000, and leisure and hospitality 27,000. The White House called the report a “surprise.” (Wall Street Journal / CNN / CNBC / NBC News / New York Times / Bloomberg)

4/ The FBI subpoenaed records from the Arizona Senate’s 2021 review of roughly 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots, expanding the Trump administration’s criminal investigation of the 2020 presidential election beyond Georgia. Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen said he received and complied with the federal grand jury subpoena last week, turning over records tied to the Senate’s review of Maricopa County. The physical ballots have since been destroyed under state records retention laws, but the Senate retained digital images, absentee envelopes, vote tallies, and server software from the audit, which confirmed Biden won the state. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said the election had already been certified, litigated, and confirmed, and called the inquiry “the weaponization of federal law enforcement.” (New York Times / CNN / Politico / NBC News / Axios / Washington Post)

5/ Trump threatened to not sign any legislation until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote in federal elections. “Go for the gold,” Trump wrote on social media, demanding that the legislation “must be done immediately” and “supersedes everything else.” The House passed the bill last month, but it needs 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Democrats said they’ll block the measure, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has resisted pressure from Trump to change the filibuster rules. The standoff puts other pending legislation at risk, including a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which has been partially shut down since last month. (NBC News / Democracy Docket / Axios / CNBC / Reuters / The Hill / Mother Jones / The Guardian)

The 2026 midterms are in 239 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 974 days.

✏️ Notables.

1. A House Republican changed his party affiliation to independent, cutting Speaker Mike Johnson’s majority to a single vote. Rep. Kevin Kiley of California said he’ll continue to caucus with Republicans for “the remainder of this term” for committee and administrative purposes, but wouldn’t commit to supporting Johnson on procedural votes. He attributed the switch to California’s mid-decade redistricting, which turned his seat more Democratic and prompted him to seek reelection as an independent. (Washington Post / Axios / CBS News)

2. A federal judge ruled that Kari Lake’s appointment to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media was unlawful, voiding the mass layoffs and other actions she carried out at Voice of America. Judge Royce Lamberth found that Lake violated both the Constitution’s appointments clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, writing that her authority amounted to “an unlawful effort to transform Lake into the CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media in all but name.” Lake, who never received Senate confirmation, called Lamberth “an activist judge” and said she would appeal. (The Hill / CBS News / New York Times / CNN)

3. Anthropic sued the Trump administration, alleging the Pentagon retaliated against the company for refusing to let the military use its AI without restrictions on autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance. The supply-chain risk designation, a label normally reserved for companies tied to foreign adversaries, effectively blocks Anthropic from Pentagon contracts and threatens hundreds of millions of dollars in broader federal business. Anthropic filed suits in two courts, arguing the government violated its First Amendment rights, exceeded its statutory authority, and bypassed required procurement procedures. The White House, meanwhile, called Anthropic “a radical left, woke company” trying to dictate military operations. (ABC News / NBC News / Bloomberg / Politico / Wall Street Journal)

4. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are investing in a drone company seeking Pentagon contracts following the Trump administration’s ban on Chinese drones and a $1.1 billion domestic procurement initiative. Powerus is also pursuing Ukrainian drone technology to manufacture and sell under American branding to meet Pentagon requirements for domestically made weapons. The Trumps’ investment vehicles, American Ventures and Dominari Securities, are financing the deal alongside Unusual Machines, a drone components firm where Trump Jr. serves as a shareholder and advisory board member. (Wall Street Journal)

5. A plaque honoring law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, was installed at 4 a.m. Saturday – three years after Congress required it by law and with no ceremony or announcement. House Speaker Mike Johnson had blocked the installation, calling the 2022 law “not implementable,” until the Senate passed a unanimous resolution in January directing the Architect of the Capitol to display it on the Senate side. Officer Daniel Hodges, who sued over the delay, called the installation “a fine stopgap” and said his lawsuit would continue, noting that the plaque’s location and format fall short of what the law requires. (Washington Post / NPR / NBC News / CNN)

6. The Justice Department released three FBI interview summaries it had withheld from the Epstein files, including one by a woman alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her as a minor in the 1980s after Jeffrey Epstein introduced them. Officials said the documents were mistakenly coded as duplicates, but didn’t explain why only the three interviews that named Trump were missing from the initial release. Trump claimed that the Epstein files had “totally exonerated” him, while the White House called the allegations “completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence.” Meanwhile, 37 pages of related records remain absent from the public database. (NPR / New York Times / Politico / CNN / Wall Street Journal)

• Three years ago today: Day 779: "Undermining the American public's confidence."
• Four years ago today: Day 414: "We must continue to fight."
• Five years ago today: Day 49: "110% confident."
• Six years ago today: Day 1145: "Nobody is trying to minimize this."
• Eight years ago today: Day 414: But his emails.
• 9 years ago today: Day 49: Flurry.

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Today in one sentence: Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and replaced her with Sen. Markwayne Mullin; Senate Democrats blocked a Republican bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security for a third time; the House rejected a bipartisan effort to force Trump to seek congressional approval for continued military action in Iran; Trump said he wasn’t concerned about rising gasoline prices caused by the Iran war, saying “if they rise, they rise”; two dozen Democratic-led states sued Trump to stop his new 10% global import tariffs; and a Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump was sentenced to life in prison for molesting two children.

1/ Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and replaced her with Sen. Markwayne Mullin, making Noem the first Cabinet secretary forced out in his second term. Mullin still needs Senate confirmation, but Trump said the change takes effect March 31 and called him a “MAGA Warrior” who would make a “spectacular Secretary of Homeland Security.” Trump added that Noem would become a special envoy for the “our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.” The move followed Noem’s claim that Trump had approved a roughly $200 million DHS ad campaign that prominently featured her, a claim Trump and White House officials contradicted. It also came after criticism of her handling of the Minneapolis immigration operations, where federal agents killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who Noem labeled “domestic terrorists.” (Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Politico / Washington Post / NPR / NBC News / Bloomberg / ABC News / CNN)

2/ Senate Democrats blocked a Republican bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security for a third time, saying Noem’s removal “changes nothing” because “the problems at this agency transcend any one person.” The Senate vote was 51-45, short of the 60 needed to advance. Democrats want binding limits on ICE and Border Patrol tactics, including identification, warrant, mask, and use-of-force rules, while Republicans say they’ve offered reforms and accused Democrats of refusing a deal. The standoff leaves the DHS shutdown on track to enter a fourth week. (New York Times / CNBC / The Hill / Axios / Associated Press / Politico / Washington Post)

3/ The House rejected a bipartisan effort to force Trump to seek congressional approval for continued military action in Iran, voting 219-212 to block consideration of the measure. The resolution, led by Rep. Thomas Massie and co-sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna, would have required Trump to end offensive operations. Massie said the War Powers Resolution lets a president use force without Congress only in narrow cases, including a declaration of war, specific statutory approval, or a national emergency caused by an attack on the United States. “None of those conditions exist today,” he said. The vote came a day after the Senate blocked a similar measure, effectively signaling that Congress will not restrain Trump’s war powers on Iran. (ABC News / NBC News / New York Times / Axios / Politico / Associated Press)

4/ Trump said he wasn’t concerned about rising gasoline prices caused by the Iran war, saying “if they rise, they rise.” He called the U.S. military operation in Iran is “far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit,” claiming that “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over.” That came as the national average gas price rose 27 cents in the last week to $3.25 a gallon. Meanwhile, Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, warned that failing to respond to higher fuel costs would be “catastrophic” for Republicans, while aides were “looking under every rock” for ways to lower prices. Two energy industry executives familiar with the conversations inside the White House said Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other advisers “are getting screamed at to find some good news” on bringing down prices. “Folks are scrambling for announcements and messaging to counter the narrative” of rising prices.(Politico / Bloomberg / Reuters / New York Times / The Hill / CNBC)

5/ Two dozen Democratic-led states sued Trump to stop his new 10% global import tariffs, arguing that Trump was trying to “sidestep” the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down most of his tariffs. After the ruling, Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days to address “fundamental international payments problems.” The states argued that the U.S. trade deficit doesn’t meet that standard, asked the court to block the tariffs, and refund any duties already collected. (Politico / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post)

6/ A Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump was sentenced to life in prison for molesting two children. Andrew Paul Johnson was found guilty on 5 state charges in Florida, including molesting a child under 12, molesting another under 16, lewd exhibition, and sending harmful material to a minor. He tried to keep one victim quiet by promising money he expected from the federal government after Trump’s pardon, and investigators found explicit messages he sent on Discord. (NPR / Associated Press / NBC News)

The 2026 midterms are in 243 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 978 days.

• Today last year: Day 1506: "Let him stew in his own juice."
• Two years ago today: Day 1141: "The situation is simply intolerable."
• Five years ago today: Day 45: Brat attacks.
• Six years ago today: Day 1141: Confusion.
• Seven years ago today: Day 775: Stone cold crazy.
• Eight years ago today: Day 410: President for life.
• 9 years ago today: Day 45: Troubling.

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Today in one sentence: The Republican-led House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi for a closed-door deposition about the Justice Department’s handling of records tied to Jeffrey Epstein; Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution to block Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran; Trump is “actively considering and discussing” America’s role in Iran after the war with his advisers and national security team; Texas state Rep. James Talarico won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Texas; Republicans Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton advanced to a May 26 Republican runoff; the Office of Congressional Conduct said it had “substantial reason to believe” Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, had a sexual relationship with a subordinate who later died by suicide; and 54% of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, and 52% said the U.S. shouldn’t have taken military action.

1/ The Republican-led House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi for a closed-door deposition about the Justice Department’s handling of records tied to Jeffrey Epstein. Five Republicans joined Democrats to approve the subpoena after Rep. Nancy Mace said Bondi’s claim that the Justice Department released “all of the Epstein files” was “not” supported by the record. The department to date has released more than 3 million pages to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but the Justice Department has also acknowledged that it’s withholding millions more documents under claims of privilege. Lawmakers in both parties, however, have criticized the department’s process as both incomplete and sloppy, pointing to heavy redactions and episodes where victims’ information appeared in public releases. (NBC News / Politico / CNN / New York Times / CBS News / CNBC / The Hill / Associated Press)

2/ Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution to block Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran. The 53-to-47 vote was mostly along party lines, with Rand Paul the only Republican who supported the resolution. “This essentially is the vote whether to go to war or not,” Paul said. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy added: “It is amazing to me that my Republican colleagues refuse to learn lessons. Six Americans have already died for an illegal war that nobody wants. […] And for what? We still don’t even know the reason for this war.” One Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman voted against it. A similar House vote is expected Thursday, which is also expected to fail. “As people see the consequences,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said, “I think they may decide, ‘Why are we doing this?’” (Politico / Washington Post / New York Times / Associated Press / The Guardian)

3/ Trump is “actively considering and discussing” America’s role in Iran after the war with his advisers and national security team. Trump is also reportedly open to supporting armed Iranian opposition groups and the CIA is working to arm Kurdish forces based in Iraq. Both efforts are aimed at triggering mass protests to overthrow the regime after the U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added that Trump “hasn’t ruled out” U.S. ground troops, but they “aren’t part of operational plans at this time.” (Wall Street Journal / Axios / CNN / NBC News / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / New York Times / The Hill / Reuters)

• A U.S. submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it the first U.S. submarine torpedo sinking of an enemy ship since World War II. (ABC News / CNN / New York Times)
• U.S. and Ecuadorian forces launched joint military operations in Ecuador against what U.S. Southern Command labeled “designated terrorist organizations.” The military released no details of the operations. (Politico / Axios / Bloomberg / The Guardian)

🔴🔵 PRIMARIES
4/ Texas state Rep. James Talarico won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Texas, defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the nomination. On the other side, Republicans Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton advanced to a May 26 Republican runoff. Trump, who is expected to endorse Cornyn, posted on Truth Social that Republican primary race in Texas “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW!” He added: “The candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!” Talarico would be the underdog against either Republican. Democrats haven’t won any statewide race in Texas since 1994. In North Carolina, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley won their primaries, locking in a matchup expected to be central to control of the Senate. In Texas, several majority-Latino counties cast more votes in the Democratic primary than voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, while in North Carolina the primary drew about 5% more voters than 2022 with Democrats casting about 200,000 more primary ballots than Republicans. (Associated Press / CNN / ABC News / Axios / The Hill / NBC News / Politico / Wall Street Journal / NPR / Politico / New York Times)

• Since the start of 2025, Democrats have flipped nine Republican-held state legislative seats in special elections, while Republicans have flipped zero Democratic-held seats. (NBC News)

5/ The Office of Congressional Conduct said it had “substantial reason to believe” Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, had a sexual relationship with a subordinate who later died by suicide. The matter was referred to the House Ethics Committee, which opened an investigation into whether Gonzales “engaged in sexual misconduct” toward a congressional employee and whether he “discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.” Gonzales, who is seeking reelection, is headed to a Republican runoff against Brandon Herrera, a right-wing YouTuber and gun-rights activist known as “the AK Guy.” Separately, House Republicans blocked Rep. Nancy Mace’s measure to force the public release of sexual misconduct and harassment by congressional lawmakers and aides. (Politico / NBC News / CNN / CNBC / CBS News / Washington Post / New York Times)

poll/ 54% of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, and 52% said the U.S. shouldn’t have taken military action. 89% of Democrats and 58% of independents opposed the strikes, while 77% of Republicans supported them. Republicans who identified as MAGA backed the action 90%-5%, but non-MAGA Republicans were divided, 54%-36%. (NBC News)

The 2026 midterms are in 244 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 979 days.

• Today last year: Day 1505: "Very dumb."
• Two years ago today: Day 1140: "Such chaos."
• Five years ago today: Day 44: "No matter how long it takes."
• Six years ago today: Day 1140: "A perfect storm."
• Seven years ago today: Day 774: High crimes and misdemeanors.
• 9 years ago today: Day 44: Accused.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Trump warned that “I guess the worst case” from U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran would be “somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person”; Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed the U.S. attacked Iran first because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” and that it would “precipitate an attack against American forces”; Sen. Thom Tillis threatened to block Trump administration nominees and stall committee work unless Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem answers his questions about the Charlotte’s Web immigration operation; Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick agreed to a voluntary, closed-door House Oversight interview on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein after Justice Department records contradicted his Senate testimony; the Justice Department abruptly reversed itself and will defend Trump’s executive orders targeting four law firms, less than 24 hours after telling the same court it wanted to drop the appeals; the Interior Department threatened to hold employees “accountable” after an internal database leaked showing National Park Service staff flagging hundreds of items that could “disparage” Americans for possible revision or removal; the Supreme Court temporarily blocked California from enforcing a 2024 law that limited when educators could tell parents about a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation; and voters in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas head to the polls today to kick off the 2026 midterm season.

1/ Trump warned that “I guess the worst case” from U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran would be “somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person.” He said “most of the people we had in mind are dead,” and that “another group, they may be dead also,” leaving “a third wave coming” and “pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.” Israel, meanwhile, struck the Council of Experts building in Qom as votes were being counted to choose a successor to Ali Khamenei, saying: “We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader.” (Bloomberg / New York Times / The Guardian / Politico / CNN / Axios)

• Live blogs: ABC News / NBC News / CNBC / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / Washington Post

2/ Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed the U.S. attacked Iran first because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” and that it would “precipitate an attack against American forces,” arguing that waiting meant “higher casualties” and that “we were not going to get hit first.” Trump, however, publicly contradicted that version of events, saying, “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.” Rubio later tried to reframe the decision, saying “this had to happen anyway” because Iran “was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program.” Democrats said a classified briefing failed to show an “imminent threat,” with Chuck Schumer calling the answers “completely and totally insufficient” and Mark Warner saying, “There was no imminent threat to the United States,” warning of “uncharted territory” and demanding “the objective” and “our exit plan.” (The Guardian / Axios / Politico / ABC News / Washington Post / CNBC)

3/ Sen. Thom Tillis threatened to block Trump administration nominees and stall committee work unless Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem answers his questions about the Charlotte’s Web immigration operation, saying “I’m giving you a performance evaluation here, I’m not looking for a response,” and adding that “time after time after time, I’ve been disappointed.” Tillis called Noem’s leadership “a disaster,” accused DHS of detaining U.S. citizens, chasing arrest “numbers” over judgment, and said he had “reason to believe” she was “violating the law, either knowingly or unknowingly,” citing delays in FEMA reimbursements tied to her sign-off policy. He then accused her department of “stonewalling” Congress, citing a DHS inspector general letter that described “10 different instances” where investigators were “misled” or blocked. “Does anybody have any idea how bad it has to be for the OIG in this agency to come out and do this publicly?” he said. “That’s a failure of leadership, and that is why I’ve called for your resignation.” Tillis warned he would put a hold on “any en bloc nominations” unless he got answers, and threatened to “deny quorum and markup in as many committees as I can” – a threat that would slow nominations and legislation. (The Hill / CNBC / NBC News / Politico / Axios / New York Times / Associated Press / Bloomberg / CBS News / CNN)

4/ Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick agreed to a voluntary, closed-door House Oversight interview on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein after Justice Department records contradicted his Senate testimony that he “did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person.” Lutnick said he “did nothing wrong” and wants to “set the record straight,” while the White House said he remains a “critical asset” to Trump. Lutnick previously claimed he cut off Epstein after a 2005 visit to Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, vowing he would “never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again,” but the documents showed Lutnick meeting at Epstein’s home in 2011 and his family having lunch on Epstein’s private Caribbean island in 2012. (Axios / NBC News / CNN / CNBC / Politico / Washington Post)

5/ The Justice Department abruptly reversed itself and will defend Trump’s executive orders targeting four law firms, less than 24 hours after telling the same court it wanted to drop the appeals. The Justice Department gave no explanation, but instead argued a procedural point: that the court hadn’t yet granted the voluntary dismissal request and so the administration could still pursue the cases. Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey objected, calling the reversal “unexplained” and urged the court not to reward the government’s attempt to withdraw a dismissal the parties had agreed to ahead of Friday’s deadline. Trump’s executive orders, which trial judges had already found unconstitutional, would have stripped security clearances, restricted access to federal buildings, and pushed agencies to cut off contracts involving the firms and their clients. (Politico / Associated Press / New York Times / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

6/ The Interior Department threatened to hold employees “accountable” after an internal database leaked showing National Park Service staff flagging hundreds of items that could “disparage” Americans for possible revision or removal. The entries were compiled under Trump administration orders to strip “partisan ideology” from park sites and instead refocus on the nation’s “beauty, abundance, or grandeur.” The Interior Department said the material was “draft, deliberative” paperwork and “not a representation of final action.” Even so, the submissions included exhibits and material on Emmett Till, slavery, civil rights, LGBTQ+ history, pollution, and climate change. And, many entries read as staff trying to interpret the directives, with some proposing softer wording for documented violence to avoid “denigrating” perpetrators. (Washington Post / Reuters)

7/ The Supreme Court temporarily blocked California from enforcing a 2024 law that limited when educators could tell parents about a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation, reviving a lower-court injunction while the case continues. In an unsigned order, the court said the parent plaintiffs were “likely to succeed” on their First Amendment claim, citing constitutional “parental rights” in participating in decisions about a child’s mental health. The court granted emergency relief for the parents, but declined to extend the same relief to teachers, who also challenged the policies. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented and criticized the court for intervening on the emergency docket before the appeals process played out, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, said the order was meant to prevent “irreparable harm” and was preliminary. The litigation now returns to the lower courts, with California officials saying they remain committed to student safety and privacy while the case proceeds. (Sacramento Bee / Washington Post / NBC News / Politico / CNN)

8/ Voters in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas head to the polls today to kick off the 2026 midterm season. In Texas, Sen. John Cornyn faces Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in the Republican Senate primary, a race that could go to a runoff if no candidate wins 50% of the vote. Republican leaders have warned that if Paxton is the nominee, Democrats could have their best shot in decades at flipping the seat in November. Democrats will also pick a Senate nominee, choosing between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico. In North Carolina, voters begin filling an open Senate seat after Sen. Thom Tillis declined to run again, with former governor Roy Cooper expected to win the Democratic nomination and Trump-backed former RNC chair Michael Whatley favored on the Republican side. And in Arkansas, Republican incumbents are expected to advance with the more competitive primaries further down the ballot. (New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / ABC News / CBS News / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

• The Supreme Court blocked a New York state court decision that would likely have flipped a Republican congressional district into a Democratic district. Earlier this year, a state judge ruled that New York’s 11th District must be redrawn because the current map violates the state’s Constitution by diluting the votes of Black and Latino voters. The district is currently held by a Republican. (ABC News / NPR / The Guardian / Washington Post)

The 2026 midterms are in 245 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 980 days.

• Today last year: Day 1504: "It’s going to be very costly for people."
• Four years ago today: Day 408: "A criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States."
• Five years ago today: Day 43: "Neanderthal thinking."
• Six years ago today: Day 1139: Not good.
• 9 years ago today: Day 43: Blame game.

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Today in one sentence: Trump declined to rule out sending U.S. ground troops into Iran “if they were necessary,” saying “whatever it takes” and adding, “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground”; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected the idea of an “endless” war in Iran; the Pentagon acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S. interests – contradicting Trump’s claim that the U.S. was “very nearly under threat” from Iran; a federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s effort to delay litigation over potential tariff refunds; the Justice Department dropped its defense of Trump’s executive orders sanctioning four law firms with ties to Democrats; Trump allies are continuing to press him to declare a national emergency and impose federal election rules without Congress as the SAVE Act’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates has stalled in the Senate; 34% of Americans approved of the U.S. attacks on Iran; and 60% of Americans said they don’t trust Trump to make the right decisions on U.S. use of force.

1/ Trump declined to rule out sending U.S. ground troops into Iran “if they were necessary,” saying “whatever it takes” and adding, “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground.” He said the U.S. projected “four to five weeks” for Operation “Epic Fury,” but also said it would run “as long as necessary” and that the military could go “far longer than that.” Trump insisted that “it won’t be difficult” because “we have tremendous amounts of ammunition.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that the “hardest hits are yet to come.” Trump, meanwhile, clarified the operation’s goals as (1) destroying Iran’s missile capability, (2) “annihilating” its navy, (3) blocking a nuclear weapon, and (4) stopping Tehran from arming and directing proxy forces. The Pentagon said at least six U.S. service members had been killed in Iranian strikes and three F-15E jets were downed by Kuwaiti air defenses in an “apparent friendly fire” incident. “We expect casualties with something like this,” Trump said, separately adding that “there will likely be more before it ends” and “that’s the way it is.” (New York Times / NBC News / Bloomberg / Politico / New York Post / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / NPR / Axios / New York Times / NBC News / CNN)

• At least four U.S. troops were killed in Kuwait during Iran’s counterattacks following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, with 5 more seriously wounded and additional troops reporting minor shrapnel injuries and concussions. U.S. Central Command also said Kuwaiti air defenses mistakenly shot down 3 U.S. F-15E fighter jets during an Iranian air assault, an “apparent friendly fire incident” that destroyed the aircraft, but left all 6 crew members safe and in stable condition. (Washington Post / New York Times / The Hill / CNN / Associated Press / Politico)

• FROM THE WEEKEND:

• Day 1866: The U.S. and Israel launched “massive and ongoing” “major combat operations” in Iran. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was necessary to end an “existential threat” and to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. Trump said the U.S. would “destroy their missiles,” “raze their missile industry,” and “annihilate their navy,” and officials said the campaign could last several days.

• Iranian state media said Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, after hours of mixed signals that included an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman saying he was “safe and sound.” Trump celebrated the killing as “justice,” saying Khamenei “was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems.” He warned that bombing would continue “throughout the week or as long as necessary.”

• Democrats said they’ll try to force votes on War Powers resolutions to limit Trump’s authority to continue U.S. military action against Iran. Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul, called the strikes “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.”

• Trump ordered federal agencies to “immediately cease” using Anthropic’s Claude AI model after the company insisted on enforceable limits against fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then labeled the company a “supply-chain risk,” seeking unrestricted use of its technology for any “lawful purpose.

• OpenAI reached an agreement with the Pentagon to deploy its AI models on classified Defense Department networks. CEO Sam Altman said the deal allows “any lawful use,” but bans domestic mass surveillance and requires “human responsibility” for any use of force, including around autonomous weapons.

2/ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected the idea of an “endless” war in Iran. “This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” he said, while insisting it is “not a so-called regime-change war […] but the regime sure did change.” When asked about troops on the ground, Hegseth said, “No, but we’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” and later called it “foolishness” to publicly set limits. “Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back.” Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine said the operation is “not a single overnight operation,” warned the U.S. expects to “take additional losses,” and said more troops and fighter jets are heading to the region to build “total combat capacity” and “total combat power.” Caine add that some of the work ahead will be “difficult and gritty.” (New York Times / Politico / Axios / The Hill / Bloomberg / Associated Press / Washington Post)

3/ The Pentagon acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S. interests – contradicting Trump’s claim that the U.S. was “very nearly under threat” from Iran. Officials instead described a broader, ongoing threat from Iran’s ballistic missiles and proxy forces in the region, even as the Trump administration publicly claimed an “imminent” threat to justify the strikes. (Reuters / ABC News / Politico / ABC News)

4/ A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s effort to delay litigation over potential tariff refunds. After the Supreme Court ruled last month that Trump’s worldwide tariffs were illegal, the Justice Department asked for at least a 90-day pause. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, however, declined and sent the case back to the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York to sort out the refund process. The government has collected more than $130 billion from the tariffs and could face refunds totaling as much as $175 billion. (Associated Press / Bloomberg)

5/ The Justice Department dropped its defense of Trump’s executive orders sanctioning four law firms with ties to Democrats. Trial judges had blocked the sanctions against Jenner & Block, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, Perkins Coie, and Susman Godfrey as unconstitutional. Trump’s orders would have stripped security clearances, restricted access to federal buildings, and pushed agencies to cut off contracts involving the firms and their clients. (CNN / Wall Street Journal)

6/ Trump allies are continuing to press him to declare a national emergency and impose federal election rules without Congress as the SAVE Act’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates has stalled in the Senate. Even though election administration is run by the states unless Congress sets new rules, activists have circulated draft executive order language that would use emergency authority to justify tighter federal control over voting, including limits on mail ballots and voting machines. Some Republicans have been urging the White House to act, with Sen. Rick Scott saying that “if he has the power” to require citizenship to register and “show ID to vote, he ought to do it.” Trump, meanwhile, said he’s “never heard about” the draft order and denied planning an emergency declaration. (Semafor / CNBC / Democracy Docket / New York Times / ProPublica)

poll/ 34% of Americans approved of the U.S. attacks on Iran, while 44% disapproved and 22% were unsure. 69% of Republicans support the strikes, while 70% of Democrats and 52% of Independents disapprove. (Strength in Numbers)

poll/ 60% of Americans said they don’t trust Trump to make the right decisions on U.S. use of force, and 62% said he should get congressional approval for any further action in Iran. 56% opposed U.S. efforts to overthrow Iran’s government, while 44% supported it. Only 12% support sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, with 60% opposed and 28% unsure. (CNN)

The 2026 midterms are in 246 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 981 days.

• 🧭 Dept. of the Shape of Things to Come.

• Some ✏️ Notables I’m tracking for tomorrow’s edition:

• Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released the video depositions with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton as part of their investigation into Jeffrey Epstein; Senate leaders are warning that a three-way Republican primary in Texas could give Democrats their first Texas Senate win since 1988; the National Parks Service has compiled a database of plaques, maps, films, and books it thinks could “disparage” America; and North American birds are dying off faster.

• Three years ago today: Day 772: "A big deal."
• Four years ago today: Day 407: "Badly miscalculated."
• Five years ago today: Day 42: "It's not going away anytime soon."
• Six years ago today: Day 1138: "No reason to panic."
• Eight years ago today: Day 407: Leverage.
• 9 years ago today: Day 42: Misleading. Recused.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: The U.S. and Israel launched “massive and ongoing” “major combat operations” in Iran; Iranian state media said Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes; Democrats said they’ll try to force votes on War Powers resolutions to limit Trump’s authority to continue U.S. military action against Iran; Trump ordered federal agencies to “immediately cease” using Anthropic’s Claude AI model after the company insisted on enforceable limits against fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance; and OpenAI reached an agreement with the Pentagon to deploy its AI models on classified Defense Department networks.

1/ The U.S. and Israel launched “massive and ongoing” “major combat operations” in Iran. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was necessary to end an “existential threat” and to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. Trump said the U.S. would “destroy their missiles,” “raze their missile industry,” and “annihilate their navy,” and officials said the campaign could last several days. Trump added: “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” saying Iran had “attempted to rebuild” its nuclear program despite last June’s “Operation Midnight Hammer,” which he claimed had “obliterated the regime’s nuclear program.” Nevertheless, Trump said Iran was developing “long range missiles” that could threaten U.S. allies in Europe and “could soon reach the American homeland.” Trump warned that “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties,” adding “That often happens in war,” but “we’re doing this not for now […] for the future.” He called it “a noble mission.” Trump, who has claimed to have ended eight wars, said “No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight,” urging Iranians to “take over your government” because “America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” Iran, saying it would respond “by all means necessary,” retaliated with missile and drone attacks at Israel and at U.S. bases and allies across the Gulf, prompting shelter-in-place alerts at U.S. embassies and air defense interceptions in multiple countries. (New York Times / Washington Post / Politico / Bloomberg / ABC News / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Axios / CNBC)

• 💻 Live blogs: NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / ABC News / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / CNBC / CNN

2/ Iranian state media said Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, after hours of mixed signals that included an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman saying he was “safe and sound.” Trump celebrated the killing as “justice,” saying Khamenei “was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems.” He warned that bombing would continue “throughout the week or as long as necessary.” Israel said the strikes also killed senior defense and intelligence figures. Under Iran’s constitution, an interim council assumes authority while the 88-member Assembly of Experts selects a new supreme leader. There is no clear successor. (Axios / Politico / New York Times / Washington Post)

3/ Democrats said they’ll try to force votes on War Powers resolutions to limit Trump’s authority to continue U.S. military action against Iran. Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul, called the strikes “acts of war unauthorized by Congress.” Passage, however, looks uncertain in the Republican-controlled House and Senate. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Tim Kaine said the administration hadn’t provided Congress or the public “critical details” on the scope or immediacy of any threat, and they demanded an all-member classified briefing and public testimony, arguing Trump struck without authorization. Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson, defended the operation as justified and that lawmakers would be briefed. (ABC News / Bloomberg / Politico)

4/ Trump ordered federal agencies to “immediately cease” using Anthropic’s Claude AI model after the company insisted on enforceable limits against fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then labeled the company a “supply-chain risk,” seeking unrestricted use of its technology for any “lawful purpose.” Hegseth said contractors and suppliers that work with the military “may not conduct any commercial activity” with Anthropic. The administration, however, allowed up to six months for some agencies to transition “to a better and more patriotic service.” Anthropic called the designation “legally unsound” and said any ban can’t legally extend beyond Claude’s use on Defense Department contract work. (Washington Post / Politico / New York Times / Associated Press / CNBC / The Verge / Axios)

5/ OpenAI reached an agreement with the Pentagon to deploy its AI models on classified Defense Department networks. CEO Sam Altman said the deal allows “any lawful use,” but bans domestic mass surveillance and requires “human responsibility” for any use of force, including around autonomous weapons. Altman said OpenAI will add technical safeguards so the models “behave as they should,” though neither OpenAI nor the Pentagon publicly described what those controls are, how they will be audited, or what happens if they fail. (NBC News / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Axios)

• Two years ago today: Day 1135: "Bait."
• Four years ago today: Day 405: "Not satisfactory."
• Six years ago today: Day 1135: "Deeply troubling."
• Seven years ago today: Day 770: Options.
• Eight years ago today: Day 405: White lies.
• 9 years ago today: Day 40: Split. Choice.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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Today in one sentence: Pro-Trump activists circulated a 17-page draft executive order urging Trump to declare an election emergency and use it to impose federal voting rules, including limits on mail ballots and voting machines; the Trump administration believes “the politics are a lot better if the Israelis” attack Iran first, thinking Tehran’s retaliation would build U.S. support for American attacks; the FBI subpoenaed phone “toll records” for Kash Patel and Susie Wiles in 2022 and 2023 during Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigating into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents; Hillary Clinton’s closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation was briefly paused after an unauthorized photo from inside the room was posted on social media; a federal judge ruled that the IRS violated federal privacy law “approximately 42,695 times” by sharing taxpayer addresses with ICE; the U.S. recorded net negative migration in 2025 for the first time since the Great Depression; 61% of Americans say they support deporting unauthorized immigrants, but 60% say ICE agents have “gone too far”; and 56% of Americans say they don’t trust Trump to make the right decisions about using military force overseas.

1/ Pro-Trump activists circulated a 17-page draft executive order urging Trump to declare an election emergency and use it to impose federal voting rules, including limits on mail ballots and voting machines. The draft, promoted by activists who said they had “certain coordination” with the White House, cited alleged Chinese interference in 2020 as the basis to declare a national emergency. Trump has said he’ll act by executive order on voter ID and mail voting if Congress doesn’t pass the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register. A U.S. intelligence review found China considered influence efforts in 2020, but didn’t carry them out, and courts have already blocked parts of Trump’s earlier election order. (Washington Post / New York Times)

2/ The Trump administration believes “the politics are a lot better if the Israelis” attack Iran first, thinking Tehran’s retaliation would build U.S. support for American attacks. The U.S. deployed F-22 Raptor fighter jets to an Israeli air base for a potential wartime mission, positioning forces to help defend Israel and U.S. assets if Iran strikes back. The buildup came as U.S. and Iranian negotiators held indirect talks in Geneva that ended without a deal, but Oman and Iran reported “significant progress.” Meanwhile, Democrats and some Republicans moved to force votes next week requiring congressional authorization before any Iran attack. (Politico / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Reuters / NBC News / Politico / CNBC / Axios)

3/ The FBI subpoenaed phone “toll records” for Kash Patel and Susie Wiles in 2022 and 2023 during Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigating into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents. Both were private citizens at the time. The scope, timing, and purpose of the subpoenas, as well as whether Patel, now FBI director, or Wiles, now White House chief of staff, were targets of the investigation is unclear. Patel claimed the records were placed in “Prohibited” case files that made them hard to locate after Trump officials took over the bureau. After Patel disclosed the records, at least 10 FBI employees tied to the Mar-a-Lago documents case were fired. The FBI Agents Association called the terminations unlawful and a violation of due process. (Reuters / Associated Press / Axios / New York Times / The Guardian / ABC News / NBC News / CNN / CBS News / The Hill)

4/ Hillary Clinton’s closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation was briefly paused after an unauthorized photo from inside the room was posted on social media. Rep. Lauren Boebert reportedly took the photo and shared it with conservative influencer Benny Johnson. In prepared remarks, Clinton said she didn’t recall ever meeting Epstein, never flew on his plane, and had “nothing to add,” accusing Republicans of using her testimony as “partisan political theater” to deflect from Trump’s ties to Epstein. The deposition resumed after about 30 minutes, with Bill Clinton scheduled to testify Friday. (New York Times / Washington Post / Axios / Reuters / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / ABC News)

5/ A federal judge ruled that the IRS violated federal privacy law “approximately 42,695 times” by sharing taxpayer addresses with ICE. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the IRS shared the addresses in August under a data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security without confirming that ICE had provided a valid address for the taxpayer it was seeking, a statutory requirement meant to limit access to already-identified individuals. The judge said the government’s verification standard was so weak that ICE could have submitted placeholder entries like “00000” and still received a taxpayer’s home address. (Washington Post)

• ICE officers entered Columbia University housing and detained an undergraduate, using a “missing person” story to get inside. Columbia said officers lacked a judicial warrant for nonpublic areas and tightened rules on letting law enforcement into housing. Hours later, Elmina Aghayeva was released, while DHS claimed her 2016 visa termination made her removable. (New York Times / Washington Post)

• A nearly blind refugee was found dead in Buffalo days after U.S. Border Patrol took custody of him at his release from jail and dropped him at a coffee shop miles from his home. Authorities said homicide detectives were reviewing the timeline even as local reporting said the medical examiner deemed the death health-related. CBP said agents saw no distress and left him at a “warm, safe” coffee shop near his last known address. The mayor and his family said he was released without notice or adequate help in below-freezing weather. (WIVB / CBS News / Reuters)

6/ The U.S. recorded net negative migration in 2025 for the first time since the Great Depression. The U.S. population lost an estimated 150,000 people last year with total in-migration falling to about 2.6 to 2.7 million – down from almost 6 million in 2023. (Wall Street Journal)

poll/ 61% of Americans say they support deporting unauthorized immigrants, but 60% say ICE agents have “gone too far.” 39% approve of Trump’s handling of deportations. (Reuters)

poll/ 56% of Americans say they don’t trust Trump to make the right decisions about using military force overseas. 59% say they have little to no trust in Trump’s ability to make the right decisions on the use of nuclear weapons. (AP-NORC)

The 2026 midterms are in 250 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 985 days.

• Today last year: Day 1499: "Is anyone unhappy with Elon?"
• Two years ago today: Day 1133: "Clarifying."
• Five years ago today: Day 38: "Too complicated."
• Six years ago today: Day 1133: "We're very, very ready for this."
• Seven years ago today: Day 768: Lawless.
• Eight years ago today: Day 403: They're on our side.
• 9 years ago today: Day 38: Crackdown.

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