Trump Treasury Sec. Invents Random Timeline for Iran War Ending

The treasury secretary has pitched his own timeline for the Iran war.

When asked by CNBC on Monday when the armed conflict would end, Scott Bessent insisted: “two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” Bessent repeated. “I know the media likes to move things along, we see these headlines—and that’s part of the Iranian strategy. It’s very unfortunate that because of a dislike for President Trump—not you, but a lot of the mainstream media—are trying to make this into some crisis that it’s not.”

It was not immediately clear what informed Bessent’s deadline, though his confidence in the long-term gains of the lethal conflict was not so steady.

“And on the other side of this, if you look at longer-dated crude [oil prices], you look at future inflation expectations, they’re both very well anchored and, you know, this will end,” Bessent continued.

He then proceeded to contradict himself: “I don’t know how many weeks it will be, but on the other side of this, the world will be safer and we will be better supplied.”

Bessent is one of the first Trump administration officials to publicly pin down a potential end date for the war (even if he appeared to retract it soon after). In private, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials reportedly believe the conflict will continue for the next six months. That could change drastically, however, considering that Donald Trump and his allies are reportedly discussing putting boots on the ground in Iran—a drastic escalation that could embroil the U.S. in the conflict for much, much longer.

Americans are just as conflicted on the war’s chronology. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted March 6–8 found that 71 percent of registered voters believe that the war will last longer than a few months, with 26 percent of voters convinced the war will last longer than a year.

On Thursday, Bessent was abruptly yanked in the middle of a sit-down interview with Sky News to visit the Situation Room at the president’s request. “The president wants you right away,” an off-camera aide commanded. Bessent was visibly flustered when he returned about two hours later, volunteering unprompted details about one of his children’s supposed interest in joining the Iran war.

Israel and the U.S. opened fire on Iran on February 28, sparking a regional conflict that has so far killed 13 U.S. soldiers and more than 20 Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The war has also claimed the lives of more than 1,200 Iranian civilians, including dozens of children at a girls’ school in the country’s south. Some 3.2 million people have been displaced, as U.S.-Israeli strikes have damaged more than 42,000 civilian sites—such as homes, hospitals, and schools—across Iran, according to Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani.

Donald Trump’s solution to the farmworker shortage caused by his violent mass deportation campaign is to embrace migrant labor.

The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is making it cheaper to hire migrant farmworkers on temporary visas under the H-2A program. It’s a blatant admission that the White House’s promise that deporting more immigrants would help American workers with better wages and lower unemployment was a farce.

“The farm economy is in a difficult situation, and President Trump is utilizing all the tools available to ensure farmers have what they need to be successful,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Under the new policy, hourly rates for workers on H-2A visas have been lowered by $1–$7 depending on the state, with farmers now being allowed to calculate housing as part of the workers’ compensation. With this dramatic reduction in workers’ pay, the United Farm Workers of America, a union representing thousands of workers across the country, has filed a lawsuit claiming that American farmworkers will be pushed out while earning a lot less.

“These actions are going to displace domestic farmworkers who have been working in the fields and putting food on dinner tables for decades, and bring a work force that is even more vulnerable to abuse,” Teresa Romero, the union’s president, told the Times. She noted that exploitation and trafficking is already a problem for many migrant workers.

Anti-immigration organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies are also against the move, with Mark Krikorian, the group’s executive director, writing in November that such changes would encourage more immigration and reduce automation.

The Trump administration seems to be hoping its supporters, other than farmers struggling for labor, won’t notice this and will continue to think the White House is carrying out its deportation agenda, which is otherwise so extreme it has been compared to ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, its own myths about deportations helping the economy are unraveling.

Germany has rejected President Trump’s request for them to join his war on Iran while the United States flounders in controlling the vital Strait of Hormuz.

“What does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do that the powerful U.S. Navy cannot?” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Monday. “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.”

“Neither the United States nor Israel consulted us before the war, and ... Washington explicitly stated at the outset ​of the war that European assistance was neither necessary nor desired,” German spokesperson Stefan Kornelius added.

Germany is the latest Western ally to rebuke Trump as he struggles to rein in surging oil prices caused by Iran’s retaliatory blockade of the strait. French President Emmanuel Macron told Trump the French Navy would only get involved after the situation calms, and U.K., Polish, and Spanish leaders have completely rebuked the president.

Germany’s reaction, along with those of various other European countries, underscores just how little support Trump’s war has with longtime U.S. allies—and understandably so. The Trump administration has spent over a year demeaning, attacking, and demanding more of European leaders. Begging them to cobble together some kind of “save the oil” coalition at the last minute seems like a Hail Mary in every sense.

Kristi Noem’s lies are finally catching up with her.

The Department of Justice on Monday received a recommendation to investigate the outgoing secretary for allegedly committing perjury while testifying under oath earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats announced on X.

The recommendation, first reported by former CBS journalist Scott MacFarlane, comes from Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, who are the ranking members on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, respectively.

The recommendation cites at least four responses Noem provided under oath, including her answers to questions about the $220 million ad campaign that reportedly got her fired. Speaking before the committees, Noem had crumbled under scrutiny regarding the multimillion-dollar ad contract she’d awarded to an eight-day-old company.

While testifying under oath, Noem claimed that Donald Trump had signed off on the campaign. The president later claimed he “never knew anything about it.”

Noem may have misled lawmakers about the process for awarding contracts, claiming there was open bidding while she really only allowed a few companies to pitch and passing federal funds to companies with ties to her inner circle. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Peter Welch have launched an investigation into the ad campaign.

The recommendation will also urge a probe of Noem’s statements about ICE satisfying detention standards for detainees, the treatment of U.S. citizens, and violating court orders.

Speaking under oath, Noem claimed that the Department of Homeland Security does not detain American citizens. This is not true. By October, DHS had detained at least 170 American citizens, including 20 children.

Noem also claimed that DHS had complied with court orders, while federal judges across the country have found that DHS has violated dozens of orders involving immigrants challenging the legal basis for their detention.

It’s not clear that the Department of Justice, led by Pam Bondi, will pursue an investigation against Noem. “Any claim that Secretary Noem committed perjury is categorically false,” a DHS official told MacFarlane.

Committee Democrats acknowledge it might take a while to see movement. “We have low expectations that Pam Bondi’s partisan Justice Department will pursue a perjury investigation into Kristi Noem,” they wrote on X. “Unfortunately for her, the statute of limitations is five years. This case can be pursued by the next Administration.”

This story has been updated.

Despite appointing hundreds of judges, Donald Trump suddenly feels that the nation’s judiciary is out to get him.

The president blatantly attacked the third branch of government over the weekend, venting over the span of several lengthy Truth Social posts about the various judicial decisions that overruled his unconstitutional policies. Trump was apparently irate that the governmental branch had not unequivocally yielded to his personal interests.

“The Courts treat Republicans, and me, so unfairly, always seeming to protect those who should not be protected,” Trump wrote. “They are highly politicized. Cases don’t matter, the Judge does!”

“The decision that mattered most to me was TARIFFS!” Trump argued in another post. “The Court knew where I stood, how badly I wanted this Victory for our Country, and instead decided to, potentially, give away Trillions of Dollars to Countries and Companies who have been taking advantage of the United States for decades.”

The ultraconservative Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff plan was beyond the power of his office, effectively dismantling the president’s foreign and economic agendas in one fell swoop. In his post, Trump name-dropped three members of the court—Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh—specifically thanking them for dissenting against the decision, in which two of Trump’s own appointees (Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch) sided in favor.

“The Democrats on the Court always ‘stick together,’ no matter how strong a case is put before them—There is rarely even a minor ‘waver,’” Trump continued. “But Republicans do not do this. They openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how ‘honest,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘legitimate’ they are.”

He further referred to the Supreme Court as a “weaponized and unjust Political Organization” that has “ransacked” the country.

Trump also attacked the federal judge who dismantled the Justice Department’s case against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, claiming that Judge James Boasberg is “Wacky, Nasty, Crooked, and totally Out of Control,” and suffering from “the highest level of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

In a scathing 27-page opinion Friday, Boasberg said that the government had produced “essentially zero evidence” to substantiate its criminal case against Powell, citing Trump’s own tweets as evidence that the case to undermine Powell’s authority was politically motivated.

Trump has had some 267 judges confirmed by the Senate over the span of his two administrations, including three Supreme Court justices—more than any other president since Richard Nixon.

Donald Trump is accusing media outlets of committing treason over their Iran war coverage.

On Truth Social Sunday, Trump made a long-winded post accusing Iran of using AI to create fake videos of attacks on U.S. ships and American publications of “false reporting,” calling out The Wall Street Journal by name. In one instance, he cited a fake video of the USS Abraham Lincoln “burning uncontrollably in the ocean.”

“Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at—Iran knows better than to do that! The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” Trump ranted. “The fact is, Iran is being decimated, and the only battles they ‘win’ are those that they create through AI, and are distributed by Corrupt Media Outlets. The Radical Leftwing Press knows this full well, but continues to go forward with false stories and LIES.”

Trump went on to praise Federal Communications Commission chief Brendan Carr for threatening “the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.” Carr on Saturday threatened to revoke the broadcasting licenses of local outlets that he determined to be sharing “fake” news.

The president has long attacked media outlets for even the slightest bit of critical coverage against him, but the weaponization of the FCC in his second term adds cause for concern with this post. Under Carr’s tenure, the FCC has attacked multiple TV networks, including NBC, ABC, and CBS, citing various excuses, including DEI and new interpretations of existing statutes.

Trump officials, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are also lashing out at the media, openly gloating as right-wing ownership gets closer to running CNN. As Trump’s war with Iran continues to go poorly, he will continue to lash out at anyone who points out the obvious. Will this come with an attempt to censor the press?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday that the United States is “fine” with allowing Iranian oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz—due to the surging oil prices thanks to Trump’s war.

“The Iranian ships have been getting out already, and we’ve let that happen to supply the rest of the world,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan. “We think that there will be a natural opening that the Iranians are letting out, and for now we’re fine with that. We want the world to be well supplied.”

Asked whether the Trump administration will take any additional actions to address skyrocketing oil prices, Bessent said “it will depend on the duration of the conflict.” Iran, however, is very much profiting, as it’s maintained its ability to move oil around the world—mostly to China.

This comes just hours after President Trump virtually begged China, France, and other U.S. allies for help ushering oil through the strait.

The United States doesn’t seem to be “allowing” anything here. The Strait of Hormuz is lined with explosives and under Iranian control. Bessent’s admission seems like panicked capitulation based on skyrocketing oil prices rather than some kind of diplomatic tactic.

An Afghan man who worked with the United States military for more than a decade was dragged away from his two children at the preschool drop-off line. A day later, he was dead.

Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal was detained by federal immigration agents in Richardson, Texas, Friday while dropping off his two children at preschool, according to his brother, Naseer Paktiawal, who spoke to CBS News.

“He was arrested in front of these kids while taking them to school at seven in the morning. Some people surrounded him, put him in the car, and drove him away while they were screaming, asking for help,” Naseer Paktiawal told CBS News.

Before emigrating to the United States in 2021, Paktiawal was a member of the Afghan special forces who was hired by the U.S. government. He worked with them for more than a decade. “He was a hero to his family, to his people, and to his country,” his brother told CBS News.

According to ICE, Mohammed Nazeer Paktiawal was “paroled into the U.S. by an immigration officer,” or granted temporary permission to enter the country under Operation Allies Refuge, an evacuation effort for allied Afghan nationals that took place under the Biden administration. ICE told CBS News, however, that Nazeer Paktiawal had provided no record of his military service. His parole had expired in August 2025, the agency said.

ICE claimed that he had previously been arrested for SNAP fraud and theft.

The evening of his arrest, in the processing room of ICE’s Dallas field office, Paktiawal complained of shortness of breath and chest pain. He was then transferred to Parkland Hospital, where he received treatment and a doctor bade him to stay for observation. The next morning, medical staff observed that his tongue had become swollen. Later, after cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other lifesaving measures, Paktiawal was declared dead.

“All I want,” said Naseer Paktiawal, “I want justice for my brother. I don’t need anything else from this government.”

The number of detainee deaths at ICE facilities has significantly increased as nearly 70,000 people are currently held in detention and the agency has stopped paying for health care altogether.

ICE has repeatedly failed to disclose information about detainee deaths, according to Zeteo.

As of Monday, ICE’s detainee death reporting webpage only lists two deaths in 2026. But ICE has published press releases documenting nine deaths since the beginning of 2026—a year that began with one detainee being choked to death by a guard.

Just two weeks into the war that he started, Donald Trump has resorted to begging other countries for assistance in securing the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump claimed that other regions of the world—such as China—depend more on the Middle East waterway than the U.S. does, and should therefore be leading the charge in reopening the bomb-laden strait.

“I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory. It’s the place from which they get their energy. And they should come and they should help us protect it,” Trump said. “Why are we maintaining the Hormuz Strait when it’s really there for China and many other countries? Why aren’t they doing it?”

Situated between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important energy transit point in the world, funneling approximately one-fifth of all crude oil shipments. Iran began laying mines across the passageway last week, effectively sealing in the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman from the rest of the open ocean.

Trump insisted that China gets about 90 percent of its crude oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz, though analysts that spoke with CNBC disagree, noting to the business network that “Beijing has spent the past two decades diversifying energy supplies and building strategic reserves to mitigate potential disruptions.”

In 2024, the U.S. imported roughly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the strait, accounting for roughly 7 percent of total U.S. crude imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, the president insisted that nations “affected by Iran’s attempted closure” of the strait would be sending warships to the area. He specifically named China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the U.K. as countries he hoped would contribute.

Nonetheless, some of America’s named allies have already rejected Trump’s plea. French President Emmanuel Macron said he would send the French navy to escort tankers, but only after the conflict stabilizes. Leaders from the U.K., Germany, Poland, and Spain have outright refused to get involved.

The U.S. president is attempting to strong-arm Beijing into the matter, openly weighing the possibility of delaying his planned summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping if his economic adversary does not participate in his war plan, reported the Financial Times Sunday.

Trump has yet to receive Congress’s approval for the war or formally address the American public about the deadly conflict. In failing to do so, he has broken tradition with every other president before him.

So far, 13 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. More than 1,200 Iranian civilians have been killed, including dozens of children at a girls’ school in the country’s south. Some 3.2 million people have been displaced as U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran have damaged more than 42,000 civilian sites, including homes, hospitals, and schools, according to Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani.

President Donald Trump really doesn’t want to talk about sending more U.S. service members to die in the Middle East, after he’d already claimed the war was won. 

The Pentagon is moving 5,000 additional Marines and several warships to the Middle East, amid Iran’s continued attacks on the Strait of Hormuz that have paralyzed global trade and sent oil prices skyrocketing.

Speaking to the press aboard Air Force One Sunday, Trump cast aside questions about the deployment. 

“Can you explain why we’re sending 5,000 Marines and sailors?” asked one reporter. “Can you explain why you’re—”

“You’re a very obnoxious person,” Trump said, before quickly moving on. 

He also appeared to sidestep questions about the U.S. service members who had already been killed in retaliatory attacks. 

“Do you have a comment on the six service members who passed?” asked another reporter.

“Who else?” Trump said, searching for another question before quickly departing.

Trump’s refusal to speak about these service members is the clearest sign that the president is unable—or unwilling—to grasp the human cost of the U.S. and Israel’s military onslaught on Iran.  

Last week, Trump confusedly claimed the war was “won” but that the U.S. must stick around to “finish the job.” On Thursday, he insisted that rising gas prices are actually good—surely a winning political message. Now, it seems that Trump’s increasingly expensive and divisive war will continue.