Breaking News
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond

Former Trump Spokeswoman Turns on Him Over Iran War

Caroline Sunshine, who was a spokeswoman for Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, is not thrilled with his recent decisions.

Donald Trump holds his arms out to the side while speaking at a podium
Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran is so unpopular, his own former spokesperson is calling him out.

During an appearance on Fox News Monday night, Caroline Sunshine pointed to a statement from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, who said that the United States could “expect to take additional losses” as it engaged in ongoing “major combat operations” in Iran.

“I voted for President Trump, and I worked for President Trump because I didn’t want to hear statements like that from my government again regarding American involvement in the Middle East,” Sunshine, who previously served as Trump’s deputy communications director, said.

Sunshine urged the Trump administration to be clear about their objectives for the military campaign, arguing that the president’s supporters did not support intervention in Iran.

“Are any of those objectives in the direct national interest of the United States and of the American people, or is this going to be another regime-change war that the American people rejected and did not vote for?” Sunshine said. “If they wanted that, they would not have voted for Donald Trump as many times as they have and put him in the Oval Office.”

She also called out the administration’s flimsy rationale for launching the strike in the first place.

“Six months ago, the American people were told that we used B2 bunker-buster bombs to completely obliterate and destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and anybody who said otherwise was fake news,” she said. “Now we’ve been told that we’ve—somehow in those six months they were able to restart the program—now we’re told that we’ve completely destroyed it again.”

The White House claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities in June, and as recently as last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that Iran was not currently enriching uranium. Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff claimed last month that Iran’s enrichment level had reached “60 percent.”

Sunshine noted that in addition to assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, the U.S. and Israeli strikes had wiped the chessboard of potential replacements and that Trump had indicated he was ceding power back to the people.

“If all of that has been done, why are we still there?” Sunshine asked. “Because we’ve lost six U.S. service members at our bases in the Middle East, and I don’t think the American people are going to have a very high tolerance for losing more U.S. soldiers unless those objectives are very clear, and those timelines are very clear, and it’s made clear how it is in the direct interest of the American people.”

A total of six U.S. military service members have died in a suspected drone strike on their makeshift operations center at a civilian port in Kuwait. There was no warning or siren to warn the officers of the oncoming attack, CNN reported Monday.

Meanwhile, the number of civilian deaths in Iran has surpassed 700, including dozens of school-age girls.

Trump Warns Iran War Could Go on “Forever”

The self-declared peace president initially said he would keep us out of forever wars.

Donald Trump turns to the side and claps
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Iran war could go on “forever”—if Donald Trump wanted it to.

In an ominous Truth Social post late Monday, the president suggested that U.S. munitions stockpiles could allow the fighting to stretch into eternity.

“The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better—As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons,” Trump wrote. “Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!).

“At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be,” he added.

But that is not the Pentagon’s analysis. Speaking to The Washington Post Monday under the condition of anonymity, military officials stressed that just two days of fighting Iran had already drastically depleted America’s missile defense systems.

“There is concern about this lasting more than a few days,” one source told the Post, adding that it often takes several air defense interceptors to stop an incoming missile. “I don’t think people have fully absorbed yet, like, what that has done with stockpiles.”

Trump acknowledged the diminished reserves in his post, but claimed that there was “additional high grade weaponry … stored for us in outlying countries.” He also blamed the loss on former President Joe Biden and his decision to transfer military equipment to Ukraine, derisively referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “P.T. Barnum.”

In the weeks leading up to the explosive hostilities, Trump’s top military adviser—Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine—warned the White House against such an attack, arguing that it could entangle America in a prolonged conflict. But the Oval Office disagreed.

“The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight—there is no chance that will happen,” Vice President JD Vance told the Post late last month.

Despite his criticism of the offensive, Caine acquiesced to the president’s whims. Over the last month, he assembled the largest military presence in the Middle East since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, a hardware collection across a web of U.S. bases that includes numerous ships—including naval destroyers and aircraft carriers—and more than a dozen jets in the region, reported CNN.

So far, six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Eighteen American soldiers have also been seriously injured. More than 700 Iranian civilians have been killed, including 176 children, dozens of whom were at a girls’ school in the country’s south.

Watch Bill Clinton Testify on Why Trump Really Cut Ties With Epstein

The former president’s testimony before Congress debunks Trump’s story about why he really stopped being friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

Bill Clinton speaks on a panel.
Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times
Former President Bill Clinton in 2024

Former President Bill Clinton may have just put a massive hole in President Donald Trump’s claims about how he and deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein ended their friendship.

In video testimony released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday, Clinton claimed that Trump told him exactly what happened between him and Epstein at a golf tournament for Major League Baseball executive Joe Torre’s Safe At Home Foundation, “20-something years ago.”

“It was designed to combat domestic violence, of which Joe Torre had been a victim as a child. And so I wanted to support it.… Donald Trump gave him the golf course in New York to have a tournament on, and I played in it a couple times,” Clinton said. “Donald Trump would come out and play a few holes with us. And he somehow knew I had flown in Jeffrey Epstein’s aircraft, and he said, ‘You know we had some great times together over the years, but we fell out. All because of a real estate deal.’ And he said that ‘I’m sorry it happened.’ That’s all.”

This completely contradicts Trump’s story that he made the valorous decision to kick Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club.

“And as far as you recall, President Trump characterized the nature of the ending of their friendship as being solely due to the real estate bidding?” an official clarified.

“That’s what he said.”

Clinton’s testimony confirms previous reporting that the two men really fell apart over a 2004 bidding war over a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

“Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until Trump kicked him out, because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last November.

Clinton’s deposition states otherwise. You can view his full testimony below.

Former CBP Chief Under Investigation Over Actions in Minnesota

Greg Bovino and his federal agents are under investigation for “Operation Metro Surge.”

U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino walks to his car as masked federal agents surround him.
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images
U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino walks to his vehicle at a gas station in Minneapolis, on January 21.

Local authorities in Minnesota are investigating former Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and other federal agents for potentially breaking the law during Operation Metro Surge in the Minneapolis area.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced in a news conference Monday that her office is already looking into 17 instances of “potential unlawful behavior” and asked local residents to submit any potential evidence of federal agents committing illegal activity through an online form at the new Transparency and Accountability Project. Minneapolis is the county seat of Hennepin County, where Border Patrol and ICE agents focused much of their activity.

Citizens will be able to upload video and audio evidence of agents breaking the law, and they can send descriptions if they saw anything illegal from ICE and Border Patrol, Moriarty said, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

“I want to be clear with our community about the challenges these investigations entail, because the federal government has refused to provide us information about the actions of their officers in Minnesota,” Moriarty said.

One of the 17 instances under investigation includes Bovino throwing a gas canister into a park full of residents in south Minneapolis on January 21. The incident occurred just two weeks after Renee Good was shot and killed, and three days before Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents. Another incident under investigation concerns Border Patrol agents confronting protesters outside of Roosevelt High School on January 7, also in South Minneapolis.

“There are many victims whose stories need to be told,” Moriarty said. “We will investigate and pursue charging where appropriate.”

The Trump administration effectively made Bovino its scapegoat for the horror in Minneapolis, reassigning him to his old office in California (and possibly retirement after that) after mass protests in the city. But he has largely escaped criminal charges, even from previous misdeeds in Chicago.

That could soon change. A local jurisdiction taking steps to investigate and even charge ICE and Border Patrol agents over illegal actions as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda is a big step. These agents have rarely been held accountable, and have in fact been protected from prosecution, as White House officials such as Stephen Miller have gone as far as to claim that they have “federal immunity.” Hennepin County is about to test that, and if it’s successful, may inspire other localities.

Federal Judge Deals Major Blow to Kristi Noem on Oversight of ICE

The homeland security secretary can’t keep blocking members of Congress from ICE detention centers.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stands during an event
Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg/Getty Images

A federal judge has revoked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s ability to restrict members of Congress from entering ICE facilities. 

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that Noem’s requirement that members of Congress give her a week’s notice before entering an immigration facility is illegal, given that it relies on funding Congress warned could not be used to block oversight from lawmakers.

“The Parties’ arguments on this point raise complex questions regarding the technical details of DHS budgeting and the application of appropriations law that the Court finds difficult to resolve on this preliminary factual record,” Good wrote. “Luckily, the Court does not need to fully address those disputes to resolve the present motion, because Defendants’ proposed solution suffers from a fatal flaw: It assumes that [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] funds are available for all of the costs necessary to promulgate and enforce the policy.” 

While DHS appealed immediately, others hailed the ruling as a tribute to common sense.  

“Despite the Trump administration’s unlawful attempts to block Members of Congress from conducting oversight, a federal court just affirmed in Neguse et al. v. ICE et al.—ONCE AGAIN—our clear right to conduct unannounced oversight visits,” Democratic Representative Joe Neguse wrote on X. “We will keep fighting to ensure the rule of law prevails.”

Multiple Democratic politicians have been denied entry, roughed up, or outright arrested trying to enter ICE facilities since President Trump returned to office last year. 

Last May, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Representative LaMonica McIver were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while trying to gain entry to Delaney Hall. Last June, Senator Alex Padilla was literally dragged out of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference in Los Angeles while trying to ask a question. That same month, New York City comptroller and then–mayoral candidate Brad Lander was taken from the hallways of a Lower Manhattan immigration court and detained by masked ICE agents.