Hegseth Brags About “Death and Destruction” Raining Down in Iran

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth spoke unapologetically about causing “death and destruction from the sky all day long” in Iran at a press briefing Wednesday.

“We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it,” Hegseth said, attempting to speak menacingly. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Is Hegseth hinting at a planned U.S. takeover of the country? That would require ground troops and billions more tax dollars. The Trump administration hasn’t ruled it out, worrying some members of Congress. On top of that, Hegseth proudly crowed Monday that this war with Iran has “no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars,” meaning that “playing for keeps” doesn’t mean a proper transition of power.

Through Hegseth, the Trump administration is saying that it doesn’t care about civilian casualties, war crimes, or any kind of well-being for the Iranian people. It’s more bravado and machismo, making the “shock and awe” of the Iraq War of the early 2000s seem quaint by comparison. In fact, Hegseth’s references to a quagmire suggest that the U.S. will not be treating Iran like Iraq—there’s no plan or regard for what Iran will look like after the bombing ends. Instead, the goal is to level Iran, human rights be damned.

State Secretary Marco Rubio just ate his own words.

The White House is scrambling to find a palatable explanation for U.S. involvement in the Iran war after Donald Trump rejected Rubio’s public rationale.

During a visit on Capitol Hill Monday, Rubio suggested that the U.S. jumped to action due to intelligence that indicated Israel was going to strike Iran. U.S. involvement was, according to Rubio, necessary to thwart retaliation against U.S. interests.

“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone … they were going to respond and respond against the United States,” Rubio said. “We knew there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

But that was apparently not the pitch that Trump approved. Responding to questions from reporters at the White House the following day, the president rejected any indication that Israel had pushed the White House to act.

“No. I might have forced their hand,” Trump said. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”

Hours later, Rubio also changed his tune—though his tone was noticeably more stressed.

“Yesterday, you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran and that’s why we needed to get involved. Today the president said Iran was going to get—” started a reporter, before Rubio interjected.

“No. Were you there yesterday? That’s false. I was asked very specifically—were you there yesterday?” said Rubio.

“Yes, I asked the question,” responded the reporter.

Eventually, Rubio relented that the White House “knew the attack was going to happen anyway.”

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., also tried to downplay Rubio’s comments. “[Rubio] clarified that those comments, those clips, are being taken out of context,” Waltz told CNN Tuesday night. “He was answering a very narrow operational question.”

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 1,000 Iranian civilians have been killed, including 176 children, dozens of whom were at a girls’ school in the country’s south.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen countries have been roped into the conflict since the U.S. began bombing Iran—including France, the U.K., and Greece—effectively destabilizing the entire region while disrupting global markets and oil production.

A contingent of Texas Republicans are pushing for an immediate pause on all immigration into the U.S. after local authorities revealed a naturalized citizen was their primary suspect behind a mass shooting that rattled downtown Austin Sunday.

More than 70 Texas state House Republicans tacked their names onto a letter to Congress demanding that U.S. immigration services immediately halt operations until “proper vetting protocols” were put in place to waylay broad concerns of terrorism, reported The Texas Tribune.

“The American people—and the people of Texas—demand immigration policies that place the safety and welfare of Americans first,” reads a copy of the letter shared by state Representative Jared Patterson.

That’s just one of four possible options the state GOP offered to alter America’s current immigration process.

The caucus also included a demand to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. Funding for the agency lapsed on February 13, sparking a partial government shutdown that has singularly affected the agency. Republicans and Democrats in Washington have been unable to reach a bipartisan consensus on whether to reform the violent department, which is still struggling after unwarranted violence by ICE agents in Minnesota that ultimately saw federal officers kill two U.S. citizens.

Democrats have agreed to pass the package so long as Republicans concede to 10 demands on how to reel in ICE agents, such as requiring them to identify themselves, take off their masks, and obtain judicial warrants before forcing their way onto private property. GOP congressional leadership, however, has not been willing to change the status quo at all.

Second on the Lone Star Republican agenda to rehab DHS is guidance to “immediately freeze all H-1B Visas” until the federal agency can conduct a “comprehensive audit of existing visa holders.”

Finally, conservative state lawmakers asked that the country “redirect resources toward identifying threats” within American borders.

“This requires a concerted, well-funded effort to cross-reference immigration records, law enforcement databases, and intelligence reports to identify individuals who pose a credible threat to American citizens,” the letter reads. “This is not optional—it is essential.”

State Representative Cole Hefner, chair of the House’s Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans’ Affairs Committee and lead signatory, told the Tribune that the letter was a team effort by the entire House caucus.

Six House Democrats are breaking with their party to support a different, more lenient war powers resolution that would grant President Trump a 30-day extension on his war on Iran, according to Punchbowl News. Each of those six Democrats has received somewhere from $300,000 to $3 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. 

The Democrat representatives voting for another month of war are:

• Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey)
• Jimmy Panetta (California)
• Henry Cuellar (Texas)
• Greg Landsman (Ohio)
• Jared Golden (Maine)
• Jim Costa (California)

“Our war powers resolution allows for the short-term, targeted strikes on the regime’s missiles and bombs, requires Trump to come to Congress for a vote, and specifies ‘no ground troops,’” Representative Landsman wrote Tuesday. “Destroy the regimes [sic] ability to destroy more lives or cause any more mayhem or violence. Nothing more.” 

The sentiment was not a popular one. The initial war powers resolution, co-sponsored by GOP Representative Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna, would immediately block any U.S. military action without congressional approval under the 1973 War Powers Resolution. It is set for a  Wednesday vote, but it doesn’t stand a chance of becoming law. Even if it passed both chambers of Congress, it doesn’t have sufficient support to override a Trump veto. 

“I truly cannot understand how anyone could decide, sure I trust Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth to wage a regime change war in Iran,” Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor wrote Tuesday on X. “Have at it for 30 days, fellas, the[n] we’ll check back in. Mindbogglingly stupid.”

“NEWS: six democrats introduce alternate war powers resolution that is not a war powers resolution, but instead maintains the status quo while looking Vaguely Concerned in the event the war becomes politically toxic which it already is,” Citations Needed host Adam Johnson wrote sarcastically. 

“There is not by any reasonable measure ‘a discomfort with the @RoKhanna resolution among House Dems,’” the Center for International Policy’s Dylan Williams said. “This is the pro-war fringe of the caucus giving themselves a phony oversight vehicle to point to. No one should be fooled by it. A vote against Khanna-Massie is a vote for war.”

In just four days of bombing, the Trump administration and the Israeli government have killed at least 787 Iranians, including about 180 children at an elementary girls’ school. Now six Democratic hawks want to give them 30 more days. 

Donald Trump is offering a Band-Aid to fix the broken global supply chain as his illegal war with Iran spirals out into a regional conflict—but is it just another moneymaking scheme?

The president announced on Truth Social Tuesday that he’d ordered the U.S. Development Finance Corporation, or DFC, to provide political risk insurance “at a very reasonable price” to “ALL shipping lines”—but “especially Energy”—traveling through the Persian Gulf.

Trump’s announcement comes after the price of gasoline spiked 11 cents overnight and the price of natural gas increased 5 percent. As part of a series of retaliatory strikes on nearby nations, Iran struck energy facilities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of all oil trade must pass through, causing crude oil prices to jump 7 percent.

Trump had a solution to that too, it seems, and not a good one. “If necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible,” he wrote. “No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD.”

Trump is casually suggesting that the United States direct millions of taxpayer dollars to fund military protection for ships carrying oil and gas, amid an ongoing major combat operation that most American taxpayers do not support and their representatives did not authorize.

At the same time, Trump’s offer for cheap insurance doesn’t quite pass the smell test.

The president did not specify how he would ensure the insurance would be reasonably priced. His post could indicate that the U.S. government plans to subsidize the insurance, which could mean spending even more taxpayer dollars.

The DFC offers investors political risk insurance to protect assets lost due to a range of conditions including “declared or undeclared war.” Those funds are held by a Corporate Capital Account used for the DFC’s investments and operating expenses, but excess collections are typically credited to the Department of the Treasury, according to a congressional research report from 2022.

In essence, Trump helped to start a war in the Middle East, and then offered to sell insurance to anyone afraid their stuff might get destroyed. That sounds like what some might call a racket.