Trump issues blunt message to Senate majority leader to pass voter ID legislation
As John Thune battles conservative blowback for refusing to alter Senate rules and mandate a traditional “talking” filibuster that would force Democrats to hold the floor to block the Save America Act, Donald Trump had a blunt message for the Senate majority leader. “He’s got to be a leader,” the president told reporters outside the White House today.
The upper chamber’s top Republican has said he’ll likely hold a vote on the legislation, which requires proof of citizenship while registering to vote and significantly curbs mail-in voting, next week. However, staunch Democratic opposition means it will fall short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.
Thune has said the votes “aren’t there” for a talking filibuster, or doing away with the legislative filibuster altogether – the so-called “nuclear” option. Today, Trump said it was up to the South Dakota lawmaker to “get them” regardless.
Key events
Lucy Campbell
The US state department said on Wednesday that Iran and Iran-aligned militas may be planning to target US-owned oil and energy infrastructure and hotels in Iraq.
In a post on X, the US embassy in Baghdad said: “Iran-aligned terrorist militias have also targeted hotels frequented by Americans throughout Iraq, including the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR).”
It urged US citizens in Iraq to “remain vigilant, maintain a low profile and stay away from areas that could make them a target”.
Trump issues blunt message to Senate majority leader to pass voter ID legislation
As John Thune battles conservative blowback for refusing to alter Senate rules and mandate a traditional “talking” filibuster that would force Democrats to hold the floor to block the Save America Act, Donald Trump had a blunt message for the Senate majority leader. “He’s got to be a leader,” the president told reporters outside the White House today.
The upper chamber’s top Republican has said he’ll likely hold a vote on the legislation, which requires proof of citizenship while registering to vote and significantly curbs mail-in voting, next week. However, staunch Democratic opposition means it will fall short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.
Thune has said the votes “aren’t there” for a talking filibuster, or doing away with the legislative filibuster altogether – the so-called “nuclear” option. Today, Trump said it was up to the South Dakota lawmaker to “get them” regardless.
The president said that US forces were working “very hard” for Lebanon. This comes as Lebanon’s ministry of health said on Wednesday that 634 people have been killed in Israeli strikes against Beirut. “We’re working on it very hard. We love Lebanon,” Trump said. “We got to get rid of the Hezbollah. Has been a disaster for many years.”
While speaking to reporters today, Donald Trump evaded a question about the bombing of an Iranian girls’ school that killed at least 175 people. Earlier we noted that a preliminary investigation found that the US is to blame for the strike, according to a report from the New York Times.
When asked whether he takes responsibility for the attack, the president simply replied: “I don’t know about it.” This comes after Trump insisted that Iran was to blame in recent days, despite mounting evidence that suggests US liability.
When asked what it will take for the military action against Iran to end, Trump added that it requires “more of the same”. Earlier, the president told Axios that the war would end “soon” since the there is “practically nothing left to target” in Iran.
Outside the White House, Trump extolled how much headway US forces have made against Iran: “They’ve lost their navy, they’ve lost their air force … We could take them out by this afternoon, in fact, within an hour, they literally would never be able to build that country.”
Donald Trump just spoke to reporters briefly outside the White House.
Asked if oil companies should be using the strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway for shipping oil and liquefied natural gas where traffic has effectively ground to a halt amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, Trump said:
I think they should.
Iran has reportedly deployed about a dozen mines in the strait and reiterated today that any ships belonging to the United States, Israel or their allies passing through the strait could be targeted.
An Iranian drone attack in Kuwait that killed six US service members in the early hours of the US-Israeli war on Iran was more severe than previously revealed, with dozens suffering injuries including brain trauma, shrapnel wounds and burns, multiple sources have told CBS News, with at least one requiring the amputation of a limb.
More than 30 military members remained in hospital on Tuesday night with injuries from the attack on a tactical operations center at the Shuaiba port outside Kuwait City, according to CBS News’s report.
The Pentagon said yesterday that about 140 US service members had been injured so far in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
“The vast majority of these injuries have been minor, and 108 service members have already returned to duty. Eight service members remain listed as severely injured and are receiving the highest level of medical care,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement.
Donald Trump and several members of his cabinet joined the families of the six US soldiers killed in the strike during a “dignified transfer” ritual at Dover air force base on Saturday.
A man was taken into custody earlier after driving his van into a security barrier outside the White House this morning, the Secret Service confirmed to the Guardian.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the agency said the man crashed into the temporary security barrier just before 6.30am. He was immediately arrested by officers from the Secret Service’s uniformed division.
The man, whose identity was not immediately released, was being interviewed by investigators. Criminal charges were pending, the Secret Service said.
A police bomb squad was called to the scene, checked the vehicle and determined it to be safe.
Preliminary investigation says US to blame for bombing of Iranian girls’ school – report
A preliminary investigation into the bombing of an Iranian girls’ elementary school found that the US is to blame for the strike that killed at least 175 people, according to the New York Times.
Citing unnamed officials familiar with the preliminary findings, the Times reports that Tomahawk missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school was the result of a “targeting mistake” by the US military, which was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base, which used to include the school building.
The Guardian has previously reported on the growing body of evidence that shows the US to be responsible for the attack.
According to the officials briefed on the preliminary investigation whom the Times spoke with, officers at US Central Command (Centcom) created target coordinates for the strike “using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency”.
The officials emphasized that “there are important unanswered questions about why the outdated information had not been double checked”.
Donald Trump has insisted that Iran bears responsibility for the attack, despite admitting that he “doesn’t know enough” about the strike, and administration officials are withholding blame until a full report is released. The president has said he is “willing to live” with the investigation’s findings.
Senator Rick Scott says Trump has ‘no interest’ in boots on the ground in Iran
The Republican senator Rick Scott, who sits on the upper chamber’s armed services and foreign relations committees, said that Donald Trump “has no interest in troops on the ground” in Iran, during an interview with CNN.
On Tuesday, after a closed-door briefing with defense and state officials, Democrats on the Senate armed services committee lambasted the Trump administration’s “incoherent” strategy when it comes to the US-Israel war on Iran. “This is a disaster of epic proportions. It’s already getting Americans killed. It’s driving up prices here at home,” Chris Murphy said in a TV interview after the meeting.
Scott said that Democrats were being “disingenuous” about the possibility of Trump sending US soldiers to Iran – a move that he hasn’t entirely ruled out.
“There’s nothing in this briefing that said that we are going to put troops on the ground. There was nothing,” the GOP lawmaker from Florida told CNN.
Scott added that while it is going to be “very difficult” to open the strait of Hormuz, the administration “clearly” has a plan. This comes after the US military said it attacked and destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the crucial waterway. On Tuesday, CNN reported that Iran has begun laying explosive devices in the strait in recent days.
“Nobody wants to see gas prices up,” Scott said. “So we want prices to come down. I think, unfortunately, prices are going to be up for a while until this ends.”
Rachel Leingang
A Democrat won a special election for a state house seat in New Hampshire on Tuesday, flipping a Republican district that Donald Trump carried and marking the latest in a string of 28 Democratic upsets that could usher in a blue wave in the midterms.
Bobbi Boudman beat Republican Dale Fincher in New Hampshire’s Carroll county district 7. It was Boudman’s third try at the seat – she lost to incumbent representative Glenn Cordelli in the last two cycles by several points. Cordelli resigned from the seat after moving, leading to the special election on 10 March.
Unofficial results show Boudman winning with about 52% of the vote among the more than 4,000 voters who turned out.
Marissa Hebert, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Democratic party, noted on X the swing Boudman made in the district: she lost in 2024 by more than 13 points. “Bad day for @NHGOP!” Hebert wrote.
National Democrats pointed to Boudman’s win as part of a pattern of Democrats winning in red and toss-up areas: Democrats have now flipped 28 seats since Trump won in November 2024, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) said. Republicans have not flipped any.
The committee hopes for more wins this year, with a strategy that could deliver the biggest Democratic gains in two decades, Heather Williams, the DLCC’s president, said.
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