3 hours ago
9
Historic government shutdown continues with little end in sight
A reminder that the record-breaking partial government shutdown just entered its eighth week, with little end in sight. Congress is on recess, and isn’t set to return for until 13 April.
Today, House lawmakers again took no action to pass a Senate bill to fund affected Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies. This comes after Republican leadership in both chambers announced a compromise to fund the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the US Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Their plan is to subsequently fund immigration enforcement through a reconciliation bill that would only require a simple majority in the Senate, and therefore skirt the filibuster.
However, House speaker Mike Johnson is facing pushback from hardline GOP lawmakers over the Senate-passed legislation. They argue that Republicans are ultimately conceding to Democrats’ demands, after they refused to pass a wider DHS funding bill without guardrails on ICE and CBP after federal officers fatally shot two US citizens during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Speaking to reporters now, Pete Hegseth recounted the weekend’s rescue mission of two air force officers. The defense secretary was typically bellicose in his remarks. “When our warriors are unleashed, as this president has allowed them to be, they are unstoppable,” Hegseth said, before comparing the second crew member to Jesus Christ.
“Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave a crevice all of Saturday … flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn,” the defense secretary added.
At Donald Trump’s press conference today, his son Eric Trump, son-in-law and special envoy Steve Witkoff and defense secretary Pete Hegseth are also in the White House briefing room.
Lucy Campbell
Trump adds that as part of the weekend’s rescue mission, the military deployed 155 aircraft, four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refuelling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft.
He says they exited the territory with the airman, who had been stranded for almost 48 hours, without taking any casualties.
The president is going into detail describing the rescue mission over the weekend, and complimenting US service members throughout.
“The genius is not even talent. It’s genius. It’s the whole ballgame, every one of them,” Trump said.
Earlier, the president said that Iran “can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night” – reiterating his deadline of 8pm ET Tuesday for the regime to reopen the strait of Hormuz or face further strikes on energy facilities and bridges.
The president kicked off his remarks discussing the rescue mission of the two air force officers after a US F-15 fighter jet was downed over Iran last week.
Trump said that both members of the crew ejected from the aircraft, and landed alive on Iranian soil.
“The flight crews and war fighters aboard those aircraft took extraordinary risks to rescue their fellow service members,” the president added, noting that the second officer was injured quite badly and stranded in an area “teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)”.
Donald Trump is now speaking in the White House briefing room.
I’ll bring you the latest lines here.
Joseph Gedeon
Donald Trump has endorsed the Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton in the California governor’s race, a move that could dash Republican hopes of locking Democrats out of the November runoff.
Trump announced his backing on Monday on Truth Social, writing that Hilton “has my COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT” and pledging federal support for his candidacy. “Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so,” he wrote.
Hilton, 50, is a dual British-American citizen who served as director of strategy to former prime minister David Cameron before leaving Downing Street in 2012 and moving to California. He later became a Fox News host before launching his campaign for governor.
The endorsement complicates a delicate Republican strategy built around the state’s jungle primary system, in which the top two finishers on 3 June advance to November regardless of party. With Hilton and his main Republican rival, the Riverside county sheriff, Chad Bianco, running neck and neck with three leading Democrats – congressman Eric Swalwell, former congresswoman Katie Porter and billionaire activist Tom Steyer – Republicans had hoped the two conservatives could split the vote evenly enough to squeeze both into the runoff.
In a March poll by the state’s Democratic party, Hilton held the lead with likely voters at 16%, followed by Republican Bianco at 14%. Swalwell, Porter and Steyer were in a dead heat at 10% each, according to the poll.
Rob Pyers, a political data analyst at California Target Book, said the endorsement would probably free up tens of millions of dollars for Democratic groups that had been preparing to spend heavily to boost one Republican candidate, which has been a tried-and-true strategic move Democrats have deployed in previous cycles to avoid a general election shutout.
Read the full story:
Trump says Tuesday at 8pm ET is his final deadline for Iran to reopen strait of Hormuz
Asked by a reporter at the Easter Egg Roll whether tomorrow at 8pm ET was his final deadline for Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz (as laid out in his expletive-laden Easter Sunday post), Trump replied: “Yeah.”
The president has flip-flopped on his deadlines several times already, and is now hurtling towards another self-imposed deadline – this time, Tuesday evening – for Tehran to reopen the critical waterway.
The strait has effectively been shut since the US and Israel launched war in Iran in late February, sending oil prices around the world skyrocketing.
Tehran has refused to reopen the strait in exchange for temporary ceasefire. Instead it wants a permanent and comprehensive end to the war, along with other demands including compensation for war damages.
Donald Trump also repeated his usual claims that the US military had already “obliterated” Iran.
A reporter then asked – if that was true, then why was the United States still at war?
The president responded:
It’s a big country. They can’t fight back. They have no capability. I mean, they have some missiles left, they have some drones left, but essentially they have no capability.
He also said he is not worried about concerns over targeting civilian infrastructure (which is illegal) and called the shooting down of US aircraft last week “a lucky shot”.
As my colleague Dan Sabbagh wrote yesterday: “The loss of the F-15 and other aircraft had come as a relative surprise, given the air superiority the US and Israel have established over Iran from the beginning of the five-week-long war. But it demonstrated that after thousands of bombing missions, Iran still has the capacity to inflict high-profile damage on the US.”
Trump says Iranian people 'want to hear bombs because they want to be free'
The president said that military action is ultimately helping the people of Iran because “they want to hear bombs because they want to be free”, in response to a question from PBS News’ Liz Landers.
Trump added that the only reason that Iranians aren’t in the street protesting is because “they will be shot immediately” by the regime, as opposed to the ongoing strikes by the US and Israel across the country.
“The Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they’re not going to be shot, and as soon as they can get weapons,” Trump added. “If they had weapons … Iran would give up in two seconds because they wouldn’t be able to take it.”
The president also added that the regime had a “lucky shot” when it downed a US F-15 fighter jet on Friday, but said the rescue of the airman who sustained injuries was “incredible”.
Speaking to reporters at the White House during the Easter egg roll, Donald Trump said that he only used profanities in a social media post threatening to strike bridges and energy facilities in Iran “to make my point”.
A reminder that the president demanded the regime, who he labelled “crazy bastards” on Truth Social to reopen the “fuckin’” strait of Hormuz or risk further repercussions.
Trump reiterated that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon, but the bombing campaign will continue because [the regime] “they just don’t want to say ‘uncle’,” and surrender.
“If they don’t, they’ll have no bridges, they’ll have no power plants, no anything,” he told the media ahead of his 1pm ET press conference.
Supreme court sends Steve Bannon case back to appeals court, poised for dismissal
The supreme court has sent a case involving a key ally of Donald Trump – one that holds him in contempt of Congress – back to an appeals court, where it is now likely to be dismissed.
Steve Bannon, who served as a White House adviser during the first seven months of Trump’s first administration, was convicted of defying a subpoena from the House January 6 committee and served four months in prison in 2024. But today, the justices vacated a ruling by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit and sided with Bannon, who has since become a prominent rightwing podcaster.
Even though Bannon has already served a sentence, the Trump justice department is seeking to effectively throw out the case – a move that is largely symbolic.
Historic government shutdown continues with little end in sight
A reminder that the record-breaking partial government shutdown just entered its eighth week, with little end in sight. Congress is on recess, and isn’t set to return for until 13 April.
Today, House lawmakers again took no action to pass a Senate bill to fund affected Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies. This comes after Republican leadership in both chambers announced a compromise to fund the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the US Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Their plan is to subsequently fund immigration enforcement through a reconciliation bill that would only require a simple majority in the Senate, and therefore skirt the filibuster.
However, House speaker Mike Johnson is facing pushback from hardline GOP lawmakers over the Senate-passed legislation. They argue that Republicans are ultimately conceding to Democrats’ demands, after they refused to pass a wider DHS funding bill without guardrails on ICE and CBP after federal officers fatally shot two US citizens during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Peter Stone
District court judges nationwide have been increasingly issuing strong rulings challenging the legality of many of Donald Trump’s policies and executive power grabs, blocking key ones at least temporarily, and sparking angry responses from the president, former judges and prosecutors say.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, lower court federal judges have written sharply critical opinions about his legally dubious policies on immigration, tariffs, Department of Justice (DoJ) prosecutions of political foes and more.
The impact of the court rulings by these judges has been sizable, slowing or halting some of the president’s most extreme policies and prompting Trump and Maga allies to respond with vindictive attacks that have helped to fuel some threats against several judges.
Legal experts say the spate of adverse court rulings has created an often toxic courtroom climate for administration lawyers who have been upbraided sharply by judges for making false or tenuous representations in defense of Trump policies.
Former DoJ lawyers credit many district court judges for acting as crucial buffers against Trump’s power grabs and administration disdain for the rule of law.
“District court judges around the country, appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, are serving as the strongest guardrail against the incursions on the rule of law,” ex-DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich said.
“In one year, DoJ lawyers have lost the presumptions of regularity, competence and reliability that it has taken decades to accumulate. The judges are calling out [the] DoJ for its lawless positions and hollow arguments in the strongest language I have ever seen.”
Read the full report here:
Trump will be in Washington for the rest of the day. Aside from his afternoon press conference, he and the first lady, Melania Trump, will host the annual Easter egg roll at the White House at 10am ET.
After meetings, the president will welcome Jewish community leaders to the White House for a Passover greeting at 3.30pm ET. This will be closed to the press, but we’ll keep an eye out in case anything else opens up.
Trump holds press conference on Iran war, following profanity-laden threats on social media
Donald Trump is set to hold a press conference in the White House briefing room today at 1pm ET on the US-Israel war on Iran. He’s expected to provide an update on the weekend rescue mission to retrieve a crew member after a US F-15 jet was downed on Friday over Iran.
This also comes after the president issued a profanity-laden ultimatum to the Iranian regime on social media to reopen the strait of Hormuz, or face further strikes on energy sites and bridges across the country.
The president posted on Truth Social on Sunday: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
We’ll bring you the latest lines as that gets under way.
