‘A small price to pay’: Trump confirms he will ask Congress for $200bn to fund war on Iran
Trump is asked by a reporter why, if the war on Iran is almost over, the Pentagon is going to ask Congress for an additional $200bn.
Trump says the US needed more funding for a “lot of reasons” amid the Iran war.
He’s vague on those reasons, saying only that he wants to make sure the military has “vast amounts of ammunition”.
He also denied that the military was running out of weaponry, claiming he’s been “judicious” about spending.
After grossly exaggerating (lying) about the amount spent funding Ukraine by the Biden administration, Trump adds:
We want to be in the best shape, the best shape we’ve ever been in. It’s a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy top.
Last night the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a more than $200bn request to Congress to fund the war in Iran, citing a senior administration official.
Per the Post’s report: “President Donald Trump campaigned on ending American adventurism abroad and frequently hammered the Biden administration for the amount of money approved to finance the war in Ukraine. By December, Congress had approved roughly $188 billion in spending for the war in Ukraine, according to the U.S. special inspector general for Operation Atlantic Resolve.”
Key events
FBI director says fired agents were dismissed for ‘ethical violations’ but declines to comment further
During a hearing in the US House today, FBI director Kash Patel fielded questions about the firings of several agents as part of the Trump administration’s alleged campaign of political retribution.
Last month, at least 10 FBI employees – connected to an investigation of Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office – were reportedly dismissed. This came after revelations that the justice department subpoenaed personal records of the current FBI director, Kash Patel, and White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, in the years before Trump returned to office.
At the time, CBS News reported that most of the FBI agents fired by Patel worked on counterintelligence cases, including those pertaining to Iran.
Today, Patel maintained that the agents were fired for “for violating their ethical obligations”, without elaborating further. Democratic lawmakers on the House intelligence committe probed Patel about whether the terminations were politically motivated.
“I’m asking about whether those people were fired because they were involved in the investigation of the document handling by president Trump, not for any behavior issues,” congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan said.
The FBI director evaded the questions. He noted that and saying he couldn’t comment due to “pending litigation”. There are several active lawsuits filed by dismissed FBI officials that are working their way through the courts.
“I just am worried that we are taking really good, really qualified people and picking fights with one another, across party lines, rather than making sure that we protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe,” Houlahan said.
My colleagues Will Craft, Andrew Witherspoon and Joseph Gedeon have been digging into how much the war on Iran has cost the US so far.
Using estimates compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, they note that the first six days war totalled $12.7bn.
This includes $1.2bn for over 300 Tomahawk missiles, and $4.3bn for other offensive strike munitions.
To put this price-tag in perspective, they’ve also provided a list of what else $12.7bn could afford. Some examples …
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Paying 9% of the US’s elementary school teachers
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1.5 million public housing units
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Medicaid for 3.6m children
Their full findings are here:
In response to Indyke’s testimony today, the lawyer representing several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, James Marsh, said that Indyke’s “claimed ignorance of Jeffrey Epstein’s widespread abuse of women and girls is deeply troubling, especially given his role as Epstein’s longtime attorney”.
Marsh added that Indyke’s remarks underscores how much “still remains hidden about the vast network of enablers that allowed these crimes to persist for decades”.
“Survivors – and the American people – deserve the full undistorted truth about who knew what,” he said in a statement.
Anna Betts
Darren Indyke, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime lawyer, told US House lawmakers on Thursday that he “had no knowledge whatsoever of Jeffrey Epstein’s wrongdoings” during his employment.
The deposition before the House oversight and reform committee on Thursday morning is behind closed doors, but according to a copy of Indyke’s opening statement provided to the Guardian by his attorney, Indyke told lawmakers that that his primary role “was to provide corporate, transactional and general legal services to Mr Epstein and his companies, and I did so”.
Indyke, who began working for Epstein in the 1990s, is testifying under subpoena as the panel continues its investigation into the late disgraced financier.
“I did not socialize with Mr Epstein, and I reject as categorically false any suggestion that I knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that I was aware of Mr Epstein’s actions while I provided legal services to him,” Indyke said.
“Had I known that he was abusing or trafficking women, I would have quit working for him at once and severed all ties to him,” he said.
Indyke said that after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, Epstein appeared to him “to be devastated and extremely contrite”.
Indyke also serves as co-executor of Epstein’s estate alongside Richard Kahn, Epstein’s longtime accountant, who testified before the same committee on 11 March. Kahn similarly told lawmakers in his opening statement that he was “not aware of the nature or extent of Epstein’s abuse of so many women until after Epstein’s death”.
Read the full report:
Asked by a reporter why he didn’t tell US allies like Japan about plans to strike Iran, Trump responded with an attempt to joke about Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor during the second world war.
One thing, you don’t want to signal too much. You know, when we go in, we went in very hard, and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise.
Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor? OK?
Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi took a deep breath and remained composed. You can watch the clip here.
Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 killed more than 2,400 Americans and spurred the US to join the war.
‘I told him don’t do that’: Trump confirms he told Netanyahu to stop attacks on Iranian energy facilities
Asked about Israel’s attack on Iran’s South Pars gasfield, Trump confirmed that he spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu about it – though he was not explicit about when exactly they spoke – and said he told the Israeli prime minister not to carry out further attacks on Iran’s oil and gas facilities.
Yeah I did, I told him don’t do that … And he won’t do that … We’re independent. We get along great. It’s coordinated. But on occasion, he’ll do something, and if I don’t like it … So, we’re not doing that any more.
It suggests that the US and Israel’s war aims are somewhat diverging.
Yesterday, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that Washington “knew nothing about this particular attack” and that Israel would not attack the gasfield further unless Iran again attacked Qatar. In that case, he said, the US would “massively blow up” the gasfield.
His defense secretary Pete Hegseth, also earlier claimed that Trump knew nothing about the attack on the South Pars gasfield, the world’s largest natural gas reserve.
Israel, meanwhile, has claimed that the attack was coordinated with the United States. Israeli sources have told Reuters and CNN that that Israel had carried out the attack in coordination with the US, contradicting the president’s claim. A US source also told CNN that the US was “aware” of the strike.
The Wall Street Journal also reported yesterday that Trump supported the attack as a message to Tehran over its blocking of the strait of Hormuz, but is now against any further attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure – but could be open to targeting more Iranian energy facilities, depending on whether Tehran impedes traffic in the critical waterway.
‘A small price to pay’: Trump confirms he will ask Congress for $200bn to fund war on Iran
Trump is asked by a reporter why, if the war on Iran is almost over, the Pentagon is going to ask Congress for an additional $200bn.
Trump says the US needed more funding for a “lot of reasons” amid the Iran war.
He’s vague on those reasons, saying only that he wants to make sure the military has “vast amounts of ammunition”.
He also denied that the military was running out of weaponry, claiming he’s been “judicious” about spending.
After grossly exaggerating (lying) about the amount spent funding Ukraine by the Biden administration, Trump adds:
We want to be in the best shape, the best shape we’ve ever been in. It’s a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy top.
Last night the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a more than $200bn request to Congress to fund the war in Iran, citing a senior administration official.
Per the Post’s report: “President Donald Trump campaigned on ending American adventurism abroad and frequently hammered the Biden administration for the amount of money approved to finance the war in Ukraine. By December, Congress had approved roughly $188 billion in spending for the war in Ukraine, according to the U.S. special inspector general for Operation Atlantic Resolve.”
Trump noted that he is “not putting troops anywhere”, which is different to past statements where he refused to rule out the possibility of boots on the ground.
He also repeated his familiar lines about the economic blowback of the war as something temporary:
Oil prices will go up, the economy will go down a little bit. I thought it would be worse, much worse … It’s not bad, and it’s going to be over with pretty soon.
Trump says Japan ‘unlike Nato’ is ‘stepping up to the plate’ on Iran
When asked whether he is satisfied with Japan’s support on Iran, Donald Trump said that they plan to discuss this further during their meeting. He noted that, based on statements from Japan in recent days, he believes they “are really stepping up to the plate”.
This, he says, is in contrast to Nato member counties.
In a short while, we’ll hear from Donald Trump when he welcomes the prime minister of Japan, Takaichi Sanae to the White House.
This will be Sanae’s first visit to Washington, since she took office in October last year.
This week, when she was asked about sending assistance to help the US reopen the strait of Hormuz, the prime minister said she was “currently examining what Japan can do independently and what is possible within the legal framework”. However, Trump has seen a number of his allies’ uncertainty about getting involved in the war on Iran as tantamount to dismissal.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as things get under way.
Gabbard: ‘US and Israel have different objectives in Iran war’
Taz Ali
Tulsi Gabbard also said today that the US and Israel have different objectives in the war on Iran.
Her remarks follow an earlier statement by defense secretary Pete Hegseth that Washington has its own objectives in the war, compared to its allies.
US officials are being quizzed on a statement made by Donald Trump that the US “knew nothing” about Israel’s attack on Iran’s South Pars gasfield yesterday. Israeli sources have apparently told local media otherwise.
“The objectives that have been laid out by the president are different from the objectives that have been laid out by the Israeli government,” Gabbard told the House intelligence committee today.
“We can see through the operations that the Israeli government has been focused on disabling the Iranian leadership. The president has stated that his objectives are to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability and their navy.”
Gabbard says that Kent’s allegations in resignation letter concern her
In a hearing before the House intelligence committee today, Tulsi Gabbard was asked the decision by her top counter-terrorism official, Joe Kent, to step down from his post.
In a line of questoning from Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, the director of national intelligence did not say whether she agreed with the allegations made in Kent’s resignation letter, where he claims that Iran posed no imminent threat, and the US was ultimately pressured to start a war by Israel.
“He said a lot of things in though that letter,” Gabbard said. “Ultimately, we have provided the president with the intelligence assessments, and the president is elected by the American people and makes his own decisions based on the information that’s available to him.”
When Stefanik asked Gabbard whether Kent’s statements blaming Israel for America’s involvement in the war concerned her, Gabbard replied plainly: “Yes.”
Elizabeth Warren is now the fourth senator to endorse Graham Platner, the insurgent candidate running for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine.
Warren said that Platner has “inspired people with his populist agenda for a government on the side of working families – not the billionaires and giant corporations”.
The Massachusetts lawmaker joins Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, as well as Democrats Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, in backing Platner.
An oyster farmer and former marine, Platner has raised substantial cash on his run to oust incumbent Susan Collins – the moderate Republican lawmaker who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997. Throughout his campaign he’s decried the “establishment political system that serves the interests of the ultra wealthy”.
In June, however, Platner will face off against the state’s governor, Janet Mills, in the Democratic primary.
It’s a hotly contested election for a seat that Democrats are confident they can pick up in this year’s midterms, to ultimately claw back more control in the upper chamber of Congress.
Platner, a political outsider who is making his first foray into public office, has set his campaign in contrast to that of Mills – an established political voice in Maine.
In the last six months, however, multiple controversies from Platner’s past have come to light, and he’s been embattled in a morass of damage control while. In October, there were a steady drip of reports featuring Platner’s unearthed racist, sexist and homophobic online comments. Then, Platner tried to get ahead of the story when he revealed, and then covered, a tattoo on his chest that closely resembles a Nazi symbol.
This week, Mills continued spotlight Platner’s internet history and launched an ad that featured women reacting to Platner’s 2013 Reddit post – where he said that survivors and victims of sexual assault should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up”.
In November, Platner told the Guardian that Collins is the “charade of fake moderation”, and argued that Mills is running the “same kind of old-fashioned campaign” that won’t be enough to offer lasting change.
“The reason that I am in the race is because I don’t believe that the governor and I have the same politics,” said in an interview. “People go into power and then don’t try to do anything big. Everything is like playing around in the margins. I think that that is the kind of politics that comes out of someone who’s been in this system for as long as the governor has.”
UK and allies say they are ready to join ‘efforts to ensure safe passage’ in strait of Hormuz
Taz Ali
The UK has joined European allies and Japan in saying they were ready “to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait of Hormuz”.
In a joint statement, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan condemned Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels and oil and gas facilities in the Gulf, while expressing “deep concern” over the escalating conflict.
This comes ahead of Donald Trump’s meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, later today.
Senate committee approves Mullin to lead DHS, heads to floor for full vote
The Senate committee that held a confirmation hearing for Markwayne Mullin to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), approved Trump’s nomination, creating a glide path for his confirmation when the full chamber casts its votes in the coming days.
Notably, Republican senator Rand Paul, who chairs the Senate homeland committee voted against Mullin’s confirmation, after they continued to clash during Wednesday’s hearing. Meanwhile, Democratic senator John Fetterman supported Mullin’s nomination.
“My AYE is rooted in a strong committed, constructive working relationship with Senator Mullin for our nation’s security,” Fetterman said in a statement.
Trump to welcome Japan PM after calls to assist with Iran war go unanswered
Donald Trump is in Washington today, and we’re going to see him at 11am ET when he welcomes the prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, to the White House.
Trump will first host a bilateral meeting, and then a dinner for the prime minister – the first woman to hold the position in Japan’s history.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on any lines about the war in Iran, after Trump expressed frustration at Japan, among others, for not sending warships to help the US reopen the strait of Hormuz.
Earlier this week, the president lashed out at European and Asian allies on social media and in the Oval Office for their reluctance to heed his calls and assist Operation Epic Fury. Trump then insisted that the US military does not “need or desire” their help.
It’s worth noting that as oil prices continue to soar, Brent Crude has hit $113 a barrel – one of its highest levels since the conflict with Iran began.
This comes after Israel launched an attack on the South Pars field – which Iran shares with Qatar – on Wednesday. Donald Trump claimed that the US “knew nothing” about Israel’s offensive, but said on Truth Social that they will make “no more attacks” on the field, provided that Iran abstains from attacking Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. Otherwise, the president threatened to “massively blow up” the entire gas field if Iran carries out any more retaliatory attacks.
Hegseth didn’t add any more information about how much intelligence the US had ahead of Israel’s attack on the Sout Pars field at his press conference today. “Iran has weaponised energy for decades. Israel clearly sent a warning,” he said.