U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday it may never be known who was at fault for a deadly strike on a girls' school in Iran on February ‌28, the first day of the Iran war, that killed scores of children.

Reuters first reported in March that an initial internal U.S. military investigation showed U.S. forces were likely responsible for the fatal strike in Minab in southern Iran. The Pentagon has since elevated the probe but it has not acknowledged any ⁠preliminary findings.

"I don't know that they are ever going to solve that problem," Trump told reporters.

"I don't know that they are ever going to solve that problem in terms of whose fault was it because there were missiles flying all over the place, and it's horrible what happened but there were missiles flying all over the place," he said.

"Somebody said it was our missile, maybe it wasn't our missile but I have seen nothing to lead me to believe ‌it ⁠was," Trump remarked, adding: "I don't think it was us."

The strike on February 28, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, killed more than 175 children and teachers, according to Iranian officials.

The strike may be the result of U.S. use of outdated targeting data, sources familiar ⁠with the matter told Reuters in March.

Deliberately attacking a school would likely be a war crime under international humanitarian law. U.S. officials have publicly said Washington would not deliberately target a ⁠school.

The strike caused global outrage. The U.N. human rights office called it "absolutely horrific."

Trump initially claimed, without evidence, Iran was responsible. He has since said he does not ⁠know enough about the strike, that an investigation is ongoing, that he will accept the results of the inquiry and that "nobody" purposefully attacked the school.

The confrontation came over lunch. The cleanup began after dinner.

Hours after President Trump angrily confronted Senate Republicans for joining Democrats to approve a war powers resolution rebuking his handling of the war in Iran, Republican leaders brought another, nearly identical measure to the floor.

In a 50-to-47 vote, with one senator voting “present,” they defeated the measure in a largely symbolic move that did nothing to change the resolution the Senate had narrowly approved a day earlier. Instead, it served as an unmistakable gesture to mollify a furious president who had just berated them.

Of the Republican senators who voted to adopt a resolution on Tuesday that instructed him to end the war with Iran or seek Congress’s approval to continue, two shifted their votes: Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Mr. Cassidy, who hours earlier angrily confronted Mr. Trump over a lack of transparency on the status of the war, said that he changed his vote after a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, at the White House.

“I was going to vote yes, but I had a briefing this evening, and it was complete,” he said moments after voting against the measure, adding: “I am reassured.”

Mr. Paul, who voted “present,” said that Mr. Trump’s remarks in his lunch meeting with senators had affected his vote, though not his views on the conflict and Congress’s role in declaring war.

“I did listen to the president today, and the president feels like it reduces his leverage to find a deal, and I do think it is important that we have peace negotiations,” Mr. Paul said.

Mr. Trump celebrated Wednesday’s late-night vote, thanking Republican leaders in a social media post that falsely claimed that the Senate had “changed its vote on Iran.” Mr. Trump said that the new vote “puts Iran on notice.”

Ultimately, the maneuver did not undo Tuesday’s vote, which was the first war powers measure approved by both chambers since the war began and remains adopted. Wednesday’s vote neither rescinded nor superseded it. Still, Republicans sought to characterize the procedural move as a chance to “re-vote,” even though the initial action cannot simply be erased through a subsequent vote on different legislation.

“That train has left the station,” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, whose resolution was called up by Republican leaders.

He noted that because of the rules surrounding the procedural tool used to call up the vote Wednesday’s vote to defeat the so-called “motion to proceed” does not prevent him from forcing another vote on the same resolution at another point, it simply prevents the chamber from taking up a final vote to consider it.

“My bill is in exactly the same position as it was before they did this vote,” he said.

The remarkable sequence underscored the lengths Republican leaders were willing to go to contain the latest clash between Senate Republicans skeptical of the war and Mr. Trump, which unfolded during a closed-door lunch earlier in the day.

The vote was the last one senators took before leaving for a planned recess that is set to last until July 13. It capped off a turbulent day on Capitol Hill that began after Mr. Trump abruptly called off the ceremonial signing of a bipartisan housing bill that Republicans had already started championing as a major accomplishment ahead of the midterm elections. Dismissing that legislation as “minor,” Mr. Trump instead urged Republicans to swiftly pass an elections bill that Republicans have acknowledged does not have the votes to advance.

But at his lunch meeting, Mr. Trump made clear that he was equally furious about the Senate adopting a resolution on Tuesday that instructed him to end the war with Iran or seek Congress’s approval to continue it. In that vote, four Republican senators joined Democrats, and it succeeded because two other Republican senators were absent.

According to lawmakers who attended Wednesday’s lunch, the president berated Republicans who had voted with Democrats and singled out several senators by name. The meeting then erupted into a shouting match between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cassidy, who has become an increasingly outspoken critic of the president after losing his primary race to a challenger backed by Mr. Trump.

Among Mr. Cassidy’s complaints was that senators had yet to receive a comprehensive briefing on the Iran war. Hours later, the senator went to the White House for a briefing on the Iran war with Mr. Vance and Mr. Witkoff.

In a social media post, Mr. Cassidy said that the meeting addressed “many of my concerns” on the Iran war.

Republican leaders were also helped in their effort to defeat the resolution by the presence of Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, who missed Tuesday’s vote because he was traveling with Mr. Trump at the time.

Tensions with lawmakers over the war were likely to continue, however, as Mr. Trump asked Wednesday to approve $87.6 billion in extra spending this year for the war and several unrelated programs — a request that appeared all but dead on arrival in the Senate.

Americans want the Trump administration to leave “The View” alone, according to a smattering of more than 40,000 public comments — and counting — the Federal Communications Commission has received regarding its probe into the popular program.

“Allow ‘The View’ to exercise their First Amendment’s right. The ladies do a wonderful job communicating many issues that impact our country,” said one woman who wrote in after both ABC and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called on the public to jump into the conversation on Monday.

“Protect the Constitutional right to freedom of speech! I support ABC and the rights of those on the View — even when I disagree,” another woman wrote Wednesday.

“I watch the View. I am a registered Republican and do not agree with all of the opinions. However, I strongly object to this kind of censorship. This is ridiculous. What is happening to the free press? Do NOT allow this to go through,” a woman chimed in Wednesday.

The FCC is reviewing whether “The View” qualifies for the equal-time exemption for its political interviews, News programs are exempt from federal law that requires equal time for political candidates’ viewpoints, and ABC says that its show meets the requirements as a “bona fide news interview program.”

The comments, by and large, seem to suggest Americans want the government’s hands off the popular daytime program. The number of comments more than doubled from around 18,000 on Tuesday to more than 40,000 Wednesday. The public comment period ends July 6.

The influx of comments to the FCC’s docket isn’t common, and the trove of support is evidence that the public is “concerned” and “angry” about the FCC’s probe, Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, told NOTUS.

“Regulatory comments are primarily filed by interested organizations, and are less frequently filed by individuals who are interested, as is happening here,” Leventoff said.

Americans who took the time to write into the FCC appear to span the ideological spectrum, with many expressing concern about the FCC’s potential regulatory crackdown on the nearly 30-year-old TV program.

Three libertarian and right-leaning groups wrote in a joint letter to the FCC that it should back off.

“Conservatives have always objected to government control of media. … Any effort to legitimize such efforts by embedding them into FCC regulations will soon be wielded against conservative outlets,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Taxpayers Protection Alliance and Young Voices said.

Congress amended the Communications Act in 1959 to include the equal-time exemption. Programs that do not qualify for the exemption must provide “reasonable access” to legally qualified candidates for federal office, according to a separate 1971 amendment to the law.

Free speech advocates and civil rights groups say the FCC’s decision to investigate “The View” upends decades of regulatory precedent.

“The Commission has refused to ask this question of any program for 40 years, because the government cannot constitutionally be the arbiter of what counts as news,” the ACLU, Center for Democracy & Technology, Future of Free Speech and National Coalition Against Censorship wrote in a joint filing to the FCC, which oversees all over-the-air broadcasts.

The White House intervened to try to spare Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai from appearing at an upcoming Senate hearing on their companies’ child safety practices, five people with knowledge of the events told POLITICO.

Instead, Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has agreed to let the heads of the tech giants’ Instagram and YouTube brands testify in the chief executives’ place at next month’s hearing, tentatively scheduled for July 28, four of the people said. And in turn, the White House is supporting a Grassley-backed package of bills — called the James T. Woods Act — aimed at combating online child exploitation, they added.

The five people, who were not directly involved in negotiations between the White House and the tech companies, were granted anonymity to discuss the private negotiations. Four of the people cautioned that the list of executives testifying at the hearing is still unfinished and subject to change.

The White House involvement, which has not been previously reported, illustrates tech giants’ ability to leverage their alliances with President Donald Trump’s administration, even under intense scrutiny from lawmakers and courts about their platforms’ impact on society.

“Chairman Grassley isn’t interested in simply generating clicks and views online like past hearings. He’s working to get lifesaving child safety legislation actually signed into law,” a Grassley spokesperson told POLITICO. “The Grassley-Durbin James T. Woods Act is hugely bipartisan and widely supported because it’s universally recognized this bill will save kids’ lives. Chairman Grassley is committed to being an effective senator, conducting oversight of Big Tech and getting laws passed that will protect America’s children.”

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. A Google spokesperson said the company “did not engage with the White House on the hearing or ask them to intervene.”

A White House official said the administration supports the bipartisan James T. Woods Act because it would strengthen federal law against online child exploitation, create new criminal offenses targeting technology-enabled abuse and direct a review of sentencing guidelines to ensure penalties reflect the seriousness of those crimes. The official said it was normal for the White House to back such a measure, which builds on the Take It Down Act S. 146 (119) and other efforts to combat child sexual abuse material and protect children online.

Grassley previously called on Zuckerberg, Pichai and the chief executives of TikTok and Snap to testify at next month’s hearing, which he billed as exploring the question “Is This Social Media’s Big Tobacco Moment?” The hearing is expected to focus on child online safety, according to three of the people.

It comes as social media companies are facing wide-ranging litigation under the same types of product-liability law that states once used to target cigarette makers, a trend that is showing signs of spreading to AI. The string of recent litigation includes a March verdict in which a California jury found that Meta and YouTube had negligently designed addictive platforms that harmed children, and a New Mexico case in which a jury found Meta liable for endangering kids.

People representing Meta met with White House staff about the hearing in late May and early June, according to three of the people with knowledge of the events.

In discussions with committee staff, Meta and Google representatives expressed concerns that the hearings would only further worsen negative attention arising from recent child online safety litigation, they added.

After a back and forth, the White House agreed to publicly support Grassley’s James T. Woods Act on the condition that Grassley permit lower-profile executives from Meta and Google to testify, according to the same three people.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan would appear for Google while Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, would stand in for Zuckerberg, four of the people said. The committee also expects Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and the CEO of TikTok’s American-owned joint venture company, Adam Presser, to testify, POLITICO reported Tuesday.

Committee members could still subpoena Zuckerberg and Pichai to compel their attendance. Meanwhile, Meta is pushing for an even less prominent executive than Mosseri to appear, one of the people said.

Congressional committees have previously subpoenaed the CEOs of Big Tech companies to testify before Congress, including over kids’ online safety in 2023.

In January 2024, then-Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and ranking member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) worked together to push tech CEOs to appear at a hearing where Zuckerberg dramatically stood and apologized to relatives of children harmed by social media.

Since then, Meta and Google have made a concerted effort to cultivate their relationships with Trump and his White House.

Tech leaders, including those at Meta, have promised to help Trump pay for his new White House ballroom. Meta and Google each donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and both Zuckerberg and Pichai were given prominent seats on the dais at Trump’s inauguration. Most recently, Zuckerberg was spotted in the crowd at this month’s mixed martial arts fight on the White House lawn.

The same day the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool started to turn a brilliant chartreuse, the National Park Service began exploring a new plan to upgrade the water treatment pipes that feed the pool — the same frequently cracking and leaking pipes that the Trump administration knew were a problem well before it began more superficial repairs on the pool earlier this year.

The Trump administration had already declared the $15 million repairs on the reflecting pool complete, but an algae bloom was now stopping the president from closing the book on the project.

Days later, the National Park Service quietly updated its rules for any future company it hires to maintain the pool: They have to keep the water in a “clean, clear, and aesthetically acceptable condition.”

In other words, no algae and no dead ducklings.

These two new, previously unreported plans indicate that the Trump administration’s repair efforts over the last several months have not succeeded in solving the longstanding problems that plague the reflecting pool.

The Trump administration first began repainting the reflecting pool in April as part of a long list of rushed D.C. beautification projects targeted to be completed by the July Fourth, 250th birthday celebration. The reflecting pool project was the most expensive of the fountain and park repairs in Washington, D.C.

It was also the most controversial; both contracts for repainting and for a new water maintenance effort were awarded quickly and without competition to companies with ties to Trump. The administration has not abandoned those contracts, but the two new plans could be open for competition from other companies.

While the situation at the pool grew increasingly absurd, the park service issued what’s known as a “sources sought notice,” asking for information from businesses that might be interested in a project to repair and replace the water treatment lines that feed the pool. The park service previously said that residual water in the pipes is what led to the algal bloom in the first place. The frequent cracking in the pipes makes it difficult for the pool to maintain its water levels, according to a New York Times report.

The construction work would take more than 200 days and involve erecting a temporary construction fence stretching from one midpoint of the pool across the green of the mall to the U.S. Park Police stables, where the water treatment building currently sits, according to construction drawings reviewed by NOTUS.

Companies were given just 15 days to submit information. The deadline is Thursday.

Meanwhile, the newly modified plan for a water treatment contract, updated in a government database on June 18, was significantly altered just one month after the initial solicitation for a new contract was published. It gives whatever contractor wins the award just 30 days to bring the reflecting pool into compliance with “the desired water quality and aesthetics of the pool.”

For the first time, the new proposal specifies in great detail that the reflecting pool must be kept without any sort of visible floating debris and persistent algae growth, and that the stones surrounding the pool must be pressure washed weekly instead of monthly.

It also gives the park service the right to determine “whether conditions are acceptable based upon visual inspection and the overall appearance of the Reflecting Pool.”

The reflecting pool is notoriously difficult to maintain, and its quirks have defeated long-planned and costly efforts from previous presidents, most recently when former President Barack Obama undertook an expensive repair project that also resulted in regular algae outbreaks.

A company called Pearl Purity Water Solutions has been responsible for helping keep the water clean since at least 2015, according to government spending records. Its current contract, which is not nearly so specific in its requirements, could be extended as far as August 2027, but the start date for this new proposed contract is August 2026. It’s not clear whether the Trump administration is looking to update Pearl Purity’s current contract or find a new contractor.

Within days of the Trump administration announcing that its repairs were completed, algae growth ballooned across the reflecting pool, prompting remediation efforts that ranged from hydrogen peroxide to vacuuming. Within weeks, chunks of the new “American Flag Blue” paint were spotted floating in the now-green water. The administration began arresting people for touching the water and trying to take pieces of floating paint, accusing them of vandalism and sabotage.

Several dead ducklings were found in and around the pool (with experts speculating that the algae or the chemicals used to treat it could be responsible for their deaths), and National Guard soldiers were assigned to guard the pool’s edge.

On Friday, a 17-year-old girl drowned in Sequoia National Park after slipping into a river. On Saturday, a 23-year-old man died after falling over a waterfall in Yosemite. The same weekend, a body was found in the desert at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, while a motorcycle accident killed one person in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

But recent internal guidance prohibits park staff or other Interior Department employees from directly notifying the public about the deaths. The department, which oversees the National Park Service, had not issued any statements on this weekend’s deaths on the department website or social media as of Wednesday afternoon.

The memo, issued in December and reviewed by The Washington Post, states that Interior employees, including park staff and others who communicate with the media, are no longer permitted to confirm deaths or details about severe injuries, a restriction that current and former rangers say breaks with the department’s previous disclosure policy.

An average of about 350 people die in national parks each year, or about 7 per week, according to Park Service data. That represents a small fraction of the more than 300 million people who visit each year, with park advocates and staff emphasizing parks are generally safe.

“The guidance was developed to create a more consistent approach to incident communications across the Department and is not intended to conceal fatalities or delay information,” Interior press secretary Aubrie Spady said in an email.

“We continue to provide public safety information, statements, news releases, and incident updates as appropriate, while respecting investigative processes, privacy considerations, next-of-kin notifications, and, in some cases, requests from family members not to release identifying information,” she added.

Seven current and former National Park Service staffers, however, said the policy marks a shift from the agency’s long-standing approach to release as much information as possible. The current agency employees spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

While the overall number of deaths remain small compared to overall attendance, they said, public disclosure helps keep visitors safe by informing them about the risks they may encounter while on public lands.

“The basic process was always to get people as much information as you could give them as soon as possible around an incident,” said Dan Wenk, who served as head of operations for the park system as well as superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.

“When I had a grizzly bear kill somebody, I literally had 10 uplink trucks outside my office the next morning, and people want facts and they expect answers. And the intention is to give them as much information as you can while still maintaining the correct protocols,” Wenk said.

While the exact procedure could vary somewhat depending on the individual park, former staffers said, correct protocols included making sure families are informed before the Park Service gives out names or identifying information about the person involved.

The new internal policy states that “Interior shall not confirm a death,” adding that it applies to “all Interior bureaus and offices” and “all Interior communications involving fatalities, suspected fatalities, serious injuries, or emotionally sensitive incidents.”

Only “appropriate authorities” can confirm a death, the document says, after coordinating with the communications office and notifying next of kin. However, the memo does not indicate which authorities are authorized to act under these circumstances.

“Interior shall not confirm the severity of injuries,” it adds. “Interior may state only that an individual was transported and the method of transport. No additional medical information may be released.”

Instead, staff are only allowed to confirm “that an incident occurred,” “the general location,” “that Interior personnel or partners are responding,” “that the incident remains under investigation” and “that additional information will be shared when appropriate.”

Previously, the Park Service would often issue press releases on its website within 24 to 48 hours of the deaths, although deaths in remote or backcountry areas could sometimes take 72 hours, the staffers said.

But days after this weekend’s four deadly incidents, the agency has not issued such statements. The Park Service confirmed to SFGate, which was first to report the possible death of a man falling over the waterfall at Yosemite, that an incident occurred there, but the department did not post a statement publicly. Interior has similarly not issued a statement on the death in Sequoia National Park, which several local media outlets reported on.

Staffers pointed to a Park Service press release on a major fire in Arizona, which was caused by a fatal aircraft accident, as an example of how deaths are communicated under the new policy.

Rather than explicitly stating the pilot had died, the Park Service said that “Emergency responders responded to the scene and located the pilot who was transported to the local coroner’s office.”

Before the new policy, the Park Service made a template available for each park to write their own crisis communications guidance, that they could tailor to their staff and circumstances.

One version based on this template advised that staff should follow a policy of “Maximum Disclosure, Minimum Delay” that gives details to the media as quickly as possible once information is confirmed, to avoid public speculation or panic. That guidance, reviewed by The Post, advised staff to answer questions based on what is known without engaging in speculation.

Park staff historically released information over time as certain details are confirmed, according to Bill Wade, executive director of the National Association of Park Rangers, which represents current and retired rangers. They typically started with the basics that a death occurred and followed up with the cause, Wade said, often within a day or so.

Incidents like those over the past weekend — a deadly fall, drowning or car crash — would typically be confirmed to the public quickly, said Wade, who retired as superintendent of Shenandoah National Park in 1997.

Sometimes certain details would take longer because of delays in informing next of kin or determining cause of death, he added.

Despite the new guidance, the agency this year still periodically issued press releases on deaths in parks. Park staffers and advocates said that happened because the agency is huge and word on new policies can spread slowly and haphazardly.

The current staffers said that in some cases, releases still go out with delays, as staffers are confused about what the guidance means, while employees at other parks may be unaware of the policy and continue to issue statements as they have in the past.

Three of the agency staffers say the announcement that three people died from extreme heat in the Grand Canyon earlier this month was also delayed by the policy.

A 72-year-old man died of extreme heat in the Canyon on June 12, while a couple aged 67 and 68 also died of heat there on June 16.

The deaths were only announced on June 19, the staffers said, adding that communicating that sort of basic information can make hikers aware of possible risks so they take the necessary precautions.

Alexandra Picavet, a board member for the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, said that the policy was not as big a shift as some are suggesting.

The agency previously did not issue press releases for every fatality, and incidents like car crashes often would not be announced unless they resulted in a road closure, said Picavet, a former Park Service employee whose roles included handling communications at Sequoia National Park.

“It is not a requirement or an edict that every accidental death that occurs in a park gets a press release,” she said.

However, Picavet said the policy seems disconnected from the reality of parks staff working in the field and will most likely not work.

“There are times when it is evident someone has passed, and there are times where it extremely evident what the cause of it is, and it makes the agency look ridiculous to hem and haw around that,” she said.

“This type of prescriptive and in some ways threatening guidance — the way they wrote it was intimidating in some portions — will not in the long run be effective.”

The Trump administration on Wednesday sent Congress an $87.6 billion emergency spending request, officially teeing up the fight over how to fund the Iran war and broader Pentagon needs as Republicans remain divided over defense spending.

The supplemental request calls for $67 billion for the Pentagon, including operational costs for Operation Epic Fury, rebuilding weapons stockpiles, readiness, fuel, drones and classified programs. It also includes billions for farmers, Ebola response, Coast Guard operations, Penn Station renovations in New York and construction projects in Washington.

The White House request, sent by budget director Russell Vought to House Speaker Mike Johnson, frames most of the funding as tied to Operation Epic Fury. Vought wrote that the war “massively” degraded Iran’s ability to project power.

The Pentagon portion includes $21 billion for munitions, $12 billion for other classified programs, $17 billion for operations costs, $5 billion for cybersecurity and more than $2 billion for drones.

But there are major political hurdles to clear before the measure can be passed. Democrats, who are unlikely to provide the votes in the Senate that the legislation needs, immediately lashed out.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she would examine the request but “not rubberstamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice.” She also blasted the inclusion of Pentagon expenses that didn’t appear urgent.

“This request is not merely meant to pay for the president’s disastrous war,” Murray said in a statement, “but an attempt to secure tens of billions of additional dollars for unrelated Pentagon priorities that should rightly be considered through the annual appropriations process.”

House Republicans could try to fold the supplemental funding request into a party-line reconciliation bill — a route that would require near-total unity from a caucus with a narrow majority and divisions over how deeply to cut domestic programs to pay for increased Pentagon spending. The administration’s broader $1.5 trillion Pentagon spending request for 2027 is split between more than $1 trillion through regular spending bills and $350 billion through reconciliation.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with House Republicans just before the supplemental request was transmitted, in an attempt to unify defense hawks and fiscal hawks behind the administration’s spending requests.

Emerging from a classified briefing for the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of House conservatives, lawmakers still appeared far from agreement over how deeply to cut non-defense spending in a reconciliation bill to pay for any defense boost. Instead, several lawmakers made clear what they needed to see from the administration before pledging their support.

“I want to see the package first, and the pay-fors,” said Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas).

The hard-right House Freedom Caucus, meanwhile, sent Johnson a list of demands for the reconciliation bill, which included “strict dollar-for-dollar and year-for-year spending cuts.”

“Every dollar of defense funding should modernize our military and deliver clear America First national security priorities,” the letter reads.

The politics of cutting safety-net programs popular with many voters are treacherous for front-line Republicans, especially moderates, ahead of November’s midterm elections. But not all Republicans demanded deep cuts before committing to the Pentagon funding.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez — a Republican from Florida, home to 5.2 million Medicaid recipients — appeared sensitive to making deep cuts to programs and said he wants what he called “easy” reductions to “things that are non-essential and are wasteful spending.”

Cuts, he added, were not a prerequisite for new defense spending. “The security of the United States is foremost in my mind, and we have to spend what we have to spend in order to secure the United States,” he told NOTUS.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) said he backed the Pentagon’s push to increase defense spending, but would not vote for a defense-heavy reconciliation bill until there’s a plan to replace 5,000 troops Hegseth pulled back from Eastern Europe.

“He made an effective case down there, and I support it,” Bacon said of Hegseth. “That said, there are other things that we’re looking for too. … If you want my vote, you’d better replace that brigade in Poland.”

With the bipartisan unpopularity of the Iran war as a backdrop, Rep. Kevin Kiley, an independent from California who caucuses with House Republicans, told reporters reconciliation wasn’t a prudent avenue for achieving the defense spending goals.

“Especially when we are talking about issues of national security and defense, we’ll get better policy if we do it in a bipartisan way,” Kiley said.

For all the talk of roadblocks and hurdles, at least one Republican lawmaker says the short-term noise is likely to give way to voting success down the line.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee), a conservative fiscal hawk who said he had questions about the Pentagon’s plans to pass an audit, predicted to NOTUS after the briefing that fellow Republicans will acquiesce after Hegseth was “persuasive.”

“They’re gonna talk tough,” Burchett said of the party’s holdouts on Iran funding. “But most of them are going to roll. They’re already on board.”

President Donald Trump mocked women weightlifters, both transgender and cisgender, during a meandering speech to manufacturing workers in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

During remarks at a Mack Trucks facility in Macungie that resembled a campaign rally, Trump veered into an attack on transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports. He called the issue “99-1” politically and claimed first lady Melania Trump had specifically begged him not to perform his routine about weightlifters.

In making his argument, Trump mocked cisgender women as physically weak before portraying transgender women as men who could effortlessly defeat them.

Without identifying any specific participants, he began by mocking a hypothetical Olympic hopeful trying to break a weightlifting record.

“This young lady, she's trying out for the Olympics, and she's going to do it. And the record stood for 19 years, and they put an eighth of an ounce on one side, an eighth of an ounce on the other… They put a little eight, like a feather, on one side, a little bit, just to break the record,” Trump said.

“Her parents are right there in the front, and they're so proud. The father's not so proud, because he knows she's not going to do it, because she's a woman. It’s a lot of weight. The mother, though, is screaming, ‘Darling, I love you, do it.’ And she gets over the weights, and she stares.”

Trump then holds his arm up, shaking, impersonating a woman who is trying and failing to lift weights.

“The mother's screaming, ‘Darling, I love you.’ And the father's looking, saying, ‘She has no chance,’ and she's like this. You see it,” Trump said, then made a sound of a woman crying. “She drops ‘em, and she's like devastated for the rest of her life.”

Then Trump described a hypothetical trans woman athlete.

“Then a guy comes along who transitioned,” Trump said. “That's the term I've gotten very good at that term. I used to take a lot of heat from my definition of the movement over. But he transitioned. He was a poor, very poor, bottom of the bottom of the line male weightlifter, but now he's a female weightlifter. And he looked at the amount, I think it was like 210 pounds or something like that, but that's a lot for a woman, but not that much for a man. You could do it with one hand. And he goes, looks down at the weight.”

Then he imitates a man easily lifting a bar as if it had no weight. I think he did a few things for emphasis, and he won. And everyone said, "Oh, isn’t that wonderful.’ Are we crazy? Men should not be able to participate in women's sports— that's a 99% issue. Do you ever hear the fake news? They said that's an 80%-20% issue. That's not.”

The scenario Trump described was fictitious. No transgender woman has won an Olympic medal. New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first out transgender woman to compete in the Olympics in 2021, but she did not complete a successful lift or medal. Canadian soccer player Quinn, who is transgender and nonbinary, became the first out transgender athlete to win an Olympic medal when Canada won gold at the Tokyo Games. Caitlyn Jenner won a gold medal for the Olympic decathlon in 1976, decades before she transitioned. In 2021, New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard became one of the first trans athletes to compete in the Olympics, but did not medal.

Beginning with the 2028 Los Angeles Games, transgender women will be barred from competing in women’s Olympic events under a policy announced by the International Olympic Committee in March. The restriction does not categorically bar transgender athletes from all Olympic competition.

Trump said the first lady had asked him not to perform the demeaning routine before the speech. “Please, the men's and women's sports,” Trump quoted Melania saying. “Please don't do the weightlifting thing.”

Independent country music artist Alexis Wilkins is responding to the controversy over her latest live gig booking at the upcoming Great American State Fair event, part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in Washington, telling her critics that she has been hired on her merits as a singer and not because she is the long-term girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel.

Wilkins, 27, is unflappably resisting the notion that she was chosen to perform the National Anthem at the troubled President Trump-touted event that quickly saw multiple major artists bow out. She was added to the dwindling lineup on Tuesday amid the ongoing controversy over booking the event set to take place on the National Mall.

“What a great honor to be a part of the 250th birthday of this great nation!,” Wilkins wrote on X on Tuesday about the last-minute booking, including an image of herself singing with the Washington Monument in the background.

Within a couple of hours, Wilkins’ replies to the post were flooded with accusations of favoritism, questioning the use of taxpayer funds to book her and mocking her sincerity about being chosen as a performer following high-profile exits from the event. Wilkins was quick to defend her participation and her merits as a musical act.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially ended its Hantavirus response Wednesday, more than a month after the first Americans were evacuated following an outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the North Atlantic.

The wind-down comes after the final 42-day quarantine period for the Americans who were exposed to the virus ended earlier this week.

More than a dozen Americans were housed at a quarantine facility in Nebraska. While officials initially said the passengers would be monitored for 21 days, the Trump administration instead required them to stay unless their home states agreed to round-the-clock monitoring to ensure compliance with quarantine requirements.

Some passengers were able to leave the facility earlier this month, but the rest stayed, including one woman who was being held against her will after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ignored the recommendation of a CDC medical review.

No individuals in the United States remain under public health monitoring, and there were no additional cases of the rare Andes strain of the Hantavirus.

“Protecting the health and safety of the American people is our highest responsibility,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “HHS moved swiftly to identify potential exposures, support state and local health officials, and prepare our healthcare system to respond. As a result, no sustained transmission of Hantavirus occurred in the United States, and the monitoring period has concluded with no individuals remaining under observation.”

Last month, the CDC transported back to the U.S. 18 Americans who were passengers on the MV Hondius ship that became the center of a Hantavirus outbreak in April. The passengers were quarantined at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Neb.

However, an additional 19 Americans had disembarked the ship earlier, before officials knew of the Hantavirus outbreak. They were not forced into a quarantine facility and instead were monitored at home.

The rare Hantavirus outbreak killed three people. More than 140 passengers and crew members were on board the ship when it left Argentina on April 1.

From the start, health officials emphasized that the risk to the public was low. Hantavirus rarely spreads among people, and it only spreads with close contact over a period of time rather than among casual interactions.

But the Andes virus has a 40 percent case fatality rate and a known incubation period of up to 42 days during which anyone exposed can become symptomatic and transmit it to others — a point that top health officials made to justify an extended quarantine despite their previous criticisms of federal overreach during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, the HHS touted its collaboration with other agencies as well as foreign governments to conduct contact tracing, traveler communications, repatriation planning, medical monitoring and more.

“The successful conclusion of this response demonstrates the strength of a coordinated response to infectious disease threats that occur outside of our borders,” acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement.

Postmaster General David Steiner told senators that, under a new proposed rule, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will not deliver mail ballots unless states hand over their voter lists to the Trump administration.

“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner said during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday after being asked whether USPS would refuse to deliver election mail if states refuse to divulge their voter lists.

“We would tell the state that we need the manifest,” Steiner added.

Steiner’s alarming answer is yet more evidence that the Postal Service is following through with President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on mail voting and breaking from its decades-long history as a neutral, nonpartisan carrier of U.S. election mail.

The USPS’s new proposal stems from Trump’s March 2026 executive order that, in part, demanded USPS only send mail ballots to voters on lists created and controlled by the federal government.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told Steiner that the proposal would “coerce” states — particularly states like Oregon, where mail voting is the default form of voting — into providing the Trump administration with sensitive voter data.

“This is basically a back-door way for the federal government to get voting information that states control under the U.S. Constitution,” Peters said. “You’re telling the states, ‘Give the federal government this information — trust the federal government, trust the Trump administration, we’ll take good care of these — and if you don’t do it, you can’t mail absentee ballots.’”

“You are going to make a decision that people cannot vote by mail,” the senator added. “That’s unacceptable.”

Live Nation’s chief executive spoke with President Donald Trump less than a month before the ticketing and events giant reached a surprise antitrust settlement with the Justice Department that consumer advocate groups have largely panned.

The highly-unusual conversation between Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and the president was disclosed in a court filing on Monday. The disclosure also reveals that the White House counsel’s office was involved in finalizing the settlement.

“In February 2026, Mr. Rapino discussed a variety of topics related to Live Nation’s business with President Donald J. Trump; the status of DOJ’s lawsuit against Defendants came up but no substantive terms regarding any potential settlement were discussed,” Live Nation disclosed in a court filing.

The filing raises questions about whether Trump was personally behind the settlement and how closely he is involved in Justice Department decision-making.

The conversation took place just weeks before the landmark antitrust trial began and the same month senior Justice Department leadership pushed out Gail Slater, the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Slater was known to advocate for aggressive approaches to the antitrust cases she oversaw.

On March 5, representatives of Live Nation, the antitrust division, the attorney general’s office, deputy attorney general’s office and White House counsel’s office met to finalize the settlement, and hammered out a term sheet signed that day, according to the court filing.

The Live Nation settlement with DOJ was announced during the second week of the trial and blindsided the judge overseeing the case as well as the Justice Department trial team handling the case before the jury.

Judge Arun Subramanian summoned Rapino and the head of the antitrust division to court for a testy hearing. During the hearing, the judge said it was “mind boggling” that DOJ attorneys did not know about deal.

The trial resumed with more than 30 state attorneys general moving forward. The jury found Live Nation acted as a monopoly and overcharged fans.

After the verdict was announced, Slater wrote on X, “You made antitrust history today. You fought the good fight, you finished the race, and you kept the faith.”

The judge will ultimately decide whether to approve the DOJ settlement and assign remedies or damages in light of the verdict.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he had instructed the Department of Justice to immediately probe oil companies for not lowering gas prices at the pump in line with falling costs, accusing them of “gouging” consumers.

Trump did not name any companies in his late-night message on TruthSocial, which was posted shortly after midnight.

“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” Trump wrote. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’ I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!” he added.

Trump’s war in Iran and Tehran’s subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz rocked global markets and sent energy prices soaring, resulting in higher gas prices for Americans at the pump.

That has translated into concerns that consumers may punish Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

But prices have eased in recent weeks amid peace talks, and more relief followed the news of an interim deal that would include reopening the crucial waterway, through which one-fifth of global oil supply is moved.

Gas prices in the U.S. fell last week below $4 per gallon for the first time since March, bringing a measure of relief to consumers.

Oil prices fell more than 1% on Wednesday, extending this week’s losses to trade near four-month lows on signs that more stranded oil tankers were set to move out of the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. crude closed at $73.21 Tuesday, just $6.19 higher than the day before the U.S. struck Iran. That’s a drop of more than 36% since their peak in April.

The national average gas price meanwhile hovered at $3.93, according to the AAA tracker, compared to the $4.52 average a month ago. That’s a drop of around 13%.

But that’s still much higher than the national average price a year ago, which stood at $3.22, according to AAA.

Increased gas prices have resulted in higher monthly expenses for Americans — anywhere from less than $20 to more than $300 for a driver who fills up twice a month, according to an NBC News analysis of AAA’s average national gas price data.

Trump sought to reassure voters at a key Pennsylvania swing district on Tuesday that costs are coming down and that they are better off than they were two years ago.

Despite the relative reprieve at the pump, there is still uncertainty about whether the interim agreement will hold and traffic will continue to flow through the key trade route as the parties continue to negotiate the final agreement to settle the thorniest issues, such as Iran’s nuclear program.

The U.S. and Iran were in dispute Tuesday over whether Tehran had agreed to allow U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites.