“Complete Incoherence”: Dems Sound Alarm After Secret Iran Briefing

Democratic senators came out of a classified briefing about the Trump administration’s war with Iran Tuesday expressing grave concern.

Senator Chris Van Hollen said officials peddled the same words in private that they have said in public, calling it “complete incoherence” with “constantly shifting narratives” to try to justify the war.

Senator Ed Markey said the briefing “confirmed what we already knew: Donald Trump is waging an illegal war, and he has no plan to end it.”

“Trump is completely out of control, and Americans have already lost their lives because of his lies. The war in Iran must end now,” Markey added.

“It is so much worse than we thought. You are right to be worried,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said. “The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation.”

“I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters. “But I also am no more clear on what the priorities are going to be in the administration going forward.”

All of this is disturbing and confirms the lack of a plan, except for “death and destruction.” The administration is committed to sinking more and more bombs and military resources into the conflict, and ground troops seem more likely each day. Justifications keep shifting from regime change to ending Iran’s nuclear program, and inside the military, some leaders are trying to push the narrative of a holy war. If senators are worried, the American people should be too.

American forces might not be able to fend off Iran’s drones.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine admitted in a closed-door meeting with U.S. lawmakers Tuesday that Iran’s Shahed attack drones have become a bigger problem than initially predicted, reported CNN.

The drones are capable of flying low and slow, a facet of their design that has made them difficult targets for U.S. air defenses, particularly as the United States and its allies run low on interceptor munitions.

One source told CNN that the U.S. has been “burning” through long-range precision-guided missiles over the last four days.

Nonetheless, Hegseth and Caine attempted to downplay concerns about the drone threat, noting that U.S. partners in the Gulf states had been stockpiling interceptors, a source familiar with the briefing told the broadcast network.

But U.S. requests for more interceptors have not yet been fulfilled.

“It’s not panic yet, but the sooner they get here the better,” a regional source told CNN.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a prominent member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, emerged from the meeting with Hegseth and Caine with a cold message: “We do not have an unlimited supply.”

“The Iranians do have the ability to make a lot of Shahed drones, ballistic missiles, medium-range, short-range, and they’ve got a huge stockpile,” Kelly told CNN. “So at some point … this becomes a math problem and how can we resupply air defense munitions. Where are they going to come from?”

Military officials have stressed since Sunday that fighting Iran has already drastically depleted America’s missile defense systems.

Yet Donald Trump and his officials have insisted, invariably, that American munitions are well stocked. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, the president announced that “medium and upper medium” grade munition stocks had “never been higher or better,” though he noted that “at the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be.”

In the weeks leading up to the explosive hostilities, Caine—Trump’s top military adviser—warned the White House against such an attack, arguing that it could entangle America in a prolonged conflict. That is turning out to be true. The White House has thus far offered several possible timelines for the conflict, refusing to stick to just one.

Per Trump’s own estimates, the war could rage for a few days, or several weeks, or “forever.”

Meanwhile, Hegseth hasn’t informed the public of any such lapse in America’s defense systems. Instead, he suggested to reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday morning that the conflict was continuing without a hitch.

“We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be,” Hegseth said.

He did let a clue about munitions stockpiles slip, though: Hegseth announced the military would begin using gravity bombs, “which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.”

Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, warned on X that “this means we are running out of precision munitions.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took time from his Wednesday briefing to complain about the media coverage of President Donald Trump’s unauthorized war on Iran.

“When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news,” Hegseth said. “I get it—the press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.”

In his remarks, Hegseth glossed over the reality that Trump and co. entered the conflict without congressional approval, can’t keep their war plans straight, and admitted that there was no evacuation plan for trapped civilians when bombing began. Hegseth refused to give details on the cruel acts that have already been committed by U.S.-Israeli forces, the most extreme being a strike on a girls’ school in Iran on Saturday that killed up to 168 people, many of them children.

But it was harder for Hegseth to ignore Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who stood next to the defense secretary to deliver the names of four U.S. Army Reserves who perished in Trump’s war on Sunday. The names of the four are Captain Cody Khork, Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens, Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, and Sergeant Declan Coady. Two more deceased American soldiers are yet to be identified.

Lawmakers are warning the public that more Americans are likely to die in Iran.

“This is as serious as it gets,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told reporters on Tuesday. “This is war and peace. They told us in that room that there are gonna be more Americans that are gonna die … that they’re not gonna be able to stop these drones flying into the Middle East. We have to have a debate in the United States Senate on authorization of military force.”

Murphy’s Connecticut counterpart, Senator Richard Blumenthal, echoed the warning. “I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground,” he told reporters.

Hegseth admitted as much in his Wednesday remarks.

“More and larger waves are coming. We are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating,” he said.

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.

France and the United Kingdom have entered the Iran conflict.

French President Emmanuel Macron ordered France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, to move from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea.

In a prerecorded speech that aired on French television Tuesday afternoon, Macron told his countrymen that he had also deployed Rafale fighter jets, air-defense systems, and airborne radar systems in the preceding hours to aid the Middle East offensive.

“This requires our support. That is why I have decided to send additional air-defense assets there as well, along with a French frigate, the Languedoc, which will arrive off the coast of Cyprus later this evening,” Macron said. “And we will continue this effort as much as necessary.”

Hours earlier, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that his country would send a warship and helicopters to Cyprus, where a drone hit an outlying U.K. military base. The development occurred around the same time that Donald Trump said he was “not happy” with the U.K.’s decision to withhold base access on the island from U.S. military forces.

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump told reporters at the White House, seated beside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The U.S. and the U.K. had clashed on the issue over the weekend, though Starmer capitulated to Trump’s demands by Sunday, permitting U.S. forces to use U.K. bases to strike Iran. British officials believe that the drone strike on their base in Cyprus occurred before Starmer’s revised guidance was issued, reported The Wall Street Journal. British forces have so far been unable to note with certainty which government was behind the drone strike.

“The strike on RAF Akrotiri last night is deeply concerning, an example of the dangerous and indiscriminate attacks by Iran & its proxies,” British Defense Secretary John Healey wrote on X, noting in another post that there were no casualties on the island and damage was minimal. “Our best assessment is that the drone was fired before the Prime Minister’s statement last night on the US use of UK bases.”

Greece also issued military support to Cyprus after the airstrike, ordering two frigates and a pair of F-16 fighter jets to the island on Monday.

“Following the unprovoked attacks on the territory of Cyprus, Greece will … contribute in every possible way to the defense of the Republic of Cyprus in order to address the threats and illegal actions taking place on its territory,” Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said in an address on Monday.

More than a dozen countries were roped into the conflict just 72 hours after the U.S. began bombing Iran, effectively destabilizing the entire region while disrupting global markets and oil production.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker called out Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Tuesday for repeatedly lying under oath about her agency’s operations.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Noem lied or played dumb multiple times about her agency’s alleged misconduct, including detaining U.S. citizens and children, federal agents entering school property, and ICE violating court orders.

Moments after asserting that she ran a tight ship at DHS, Noem claimed she couldn’t give an “accurate number” of U.S. citizens detained by ICE as of last October. Booker pointed out that public records indicated at least 170 incidents of DHS detaining U.S. citizens, including 20 children.

Noem insisted that DHS did not detain children and separate them from their parents. In reality, ICE has detained hundreds of children, and families of mixed legal status are being regularly torn apart by the administration’s relentless immigration crackdown.

Booker pressed Noem on how long detentions last for American citizens. “We don’t detain American citizens,” Noem replied.

“You are not speaking truthfully under oath,” Booker interrupted, pointing to the case of Isaias Pena Salcedo, a U.S. citizen who was held by ICE for 70 hours, even after he showed federal agents his passport.

Booker also called out federal immigration agents giving themselves permission to violate the Fourth Amendment and conduct warrantless raids on private homes.

“You have situations where your officers are violating the sanctity of people’s homes, arresting and detaining them, and holding their children, and you’re acting as if you don’t know about it and saying that under oath,” the New Jersey Democrat said.

Booker then pushed back on Noem’s outrageous claim that she was not familiar with the shooting of Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was shot five times by federal agents in Chicago. Not only was the officer who shot her caught bragging about it—but former CPB chief Greg Bovino reached out afterward to congratulate him. In fact, the officer claimed over text message that Noem herself had also offered him her support.

“The case was thrown out of court, and you represent here that you don’t know about it,” Booker said incredulously, displaying a poster of the text messages behind him.

Booker didn’t stop there: “Are you aware of your officers’ activities in places like schools? Are you aware of your officers’ activities at our public schools?”

“Sir, we don’t go into schools and do targeted law enforcement operations,” Noem replied.

That was yet another lie. Booker cited multiple instances where federal immigration agents had entered school property as part of enforcement operations, including a January raid on the grounds of a high school in Minneapolis, and an incident just last month when federal agents blatantly lied to Columbia University staff in order to abduct a student from her dorm. Booker also referred to an incident in February, in which a group of children fled from a school bus stop in New Jersey as an ICE operation unfolded nearby.

“Secretary Noem, these are kids. They’re terrified in our communities. How do you think that affects them, when children in my state go running, fleeing, and often you all pursue children?” he asked.

Booker also hit back at Noem’s claim that her agency complied with court orders, citing a chief judge in Minnesota who found that ICE had violated nearly 100 court orders since the beginning of January. He cited another judge in New Jersey who determined in February that DHS had violated 52 separate court orders, “all involving cases where immigrants successfully challenged the legality of their detention.”

“You are violating the separation of powers, violating court orders, and routinely violating the civil rights of Americans. This is a reckless and out of control agency that you are responsible for,” Booker said.

“Either you are incompetent or you are violating laws with impunity. You should step down from your position. If you don’t, you should be removed by this president, and if not, Congress should impeach you.”

“I appreciate the encouragement,” Noem replied.