Hegseth holds press conference on Operation Epic Fury
Kicking off today’s Pentagon press conference, Pete Hegseth said “America is winning” the war on Iran. “Decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,” he added.
Hegseth noted that in under a week the US and Israel will have “complete control of Iranian skies”.
He repeatedly touted that the US’s success, and the road ahead: “Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.”
Key events
Gen Caine said today that the US will “now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory”, after forces were able to establish air superiority.
“The throttle is coming up,” Caine said, “as opposed to ramping down”.
Caine also confirmed that the US has hit more than 2,000 Iranian targets, and more than 20 Iranian naval vessels.
The chairman also said that Iran’s military command and control is “in a bad way” but did not go into details.
Hegseth confirms sinking of Iranian warship
Vivian Ho
Hegseth confirmed that a US submarine sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian ocean as he declared that the Iranian navy “rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf” and that it was “ineffective, decimated, destroyed…pick your adjective, it is no more.”
He said that on Tuesday, an American submarine in the Indian ocean “sunk an Iranian war ship that thought it was safe in international waters.”
“Instead it was sunk by a torpedo, a quiet death – the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II. Like in that war, back when we were still the war department, we are fighting to win.”
This press conference comes just a day after the Department of Defense (DoD) identified four of the six American soldiers killed in a drone strike on a US base in Kuwait.
The soldiers were named as Captain Cody Khork, 35; Sergeant Nicole Amor, 39; Sergeant Declan Coady, 20; and Sergeant Noah Tietjens, 42.
Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, listed their names, and expressed condolences to their families while speaking at the Pentagon today.
Hegseth says Iran can no longer shoot volume of missiles as before
Hegseth noted that the US is able to continue the military action against Iran for as long as it needs.
“The enemy can no longer shoot the volume of missiles they once did – not even close,” he said. “We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to.”
Hegseth holds press conference on Operation Epic Fury
Kicking off today’s Pentagon press conference, Pete Hegseth said “America is winning” the war on Iran. “Decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,” he added.
Hegseth noted that in under a week the US and Israel will have “complete control of Iranian skies”.
He repeatedly touted that the US’s success, and the road ahead: “Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.”
Senate to vote on war powers resolution to prevent Trump from continuing Iran conflict
Chris Stein
Senate Republicans are on Wednesday expected to vote down a Democratic-backed war powers resolution that would prevent Donald Trump from continuing the conflict against Iran, with majority leader John Thune arguing the president is “acting in the best interest of the nation”.
Democrats have condemned Trump for ordering an air campaign against Iran without first seeking permission from Congress, while offering shifting explanations of its objectives. The war powers resolution introduced by Democratic senators Tim Kaine, Adam Schiff and minority leader Chuck Schumer would force an end to US participation in the current hostilities and require the president to go to Congress before re-entering the war.
“We shouldn’t be at war without a debate and vote. That was what the framers intended,” Kaine told reporters Tuesday. “We protect our troops when we do it the right way. We put them at risk when we do it the wrong way.”
The resolution will require 50 votes to advance. Democrats control 47 seats, but the Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman said he will oppose the resolution, meaning they’ll need at least five Republicans to join with them for it to succeed.
Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine to brief media on Iran
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, are set to begin speaking momentarily at a news conference at the Pentagon about Iran.
We’ll be covering their comments as part of our live coverage on the Middle East. To follow along, click here.
What a Republican runoff could mean for the US senate seat in Texas
Neither John Cornyn nor Ken Paxton were able to secure 50% of the vote on Tuesday, meaning that the two Republicans must face again in a runoff election on 26 May.
The four-term Republican US senator Cornyn has maintained throughout his campaign that a victory for attorney general Paxton – a scandal-scarred Maga darling and conservative culture warrior – could “risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years”.
It’s a sentiment that national Republicans also appear to hold, with some warning that Paxton would force the party to divert resources away from other key Senate contests to protect a seat long viewed as safely red. “Honestly, if you look at the polling in a general election setting, I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that the seat [flips], depending on who the Democrats nominate,” the Senate majority leader John Thune told Politico in a recent interview.
Read more here:
What does a Talarico primary win mean for the future of the Democratic Party?
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reported from Austin, Texas last night that the Democratic contest between James Talarico and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was an early test of competing political playbooks for challenging Donald Trump and the Republican dominance that has gripped the state for three decades.
Throughout his campaign, Talarico, a 36-year-old former middle school teacher and seminary student, pushed for a “politics of love” that roots progressive policy in the teachings of his Christian faith. He argued that the central divide in American politics is “not left v right” but “top v bottom” and contended that Democrats can rebuild trust in rural and suburban communities without abandoning their core values.
Crockett, on the other hand, has built a reputation as a rhetorical brawler with her unsparing attacks on Trump and Republicans. The 44-year-old former public defender and progressive firebrand leaned into “proven fighter” image during the campaign but also contended that high turnout among young voters and voters of color – not ideological moderation – is the key to winning statewide.
Read more here:
Midterm primary season begins with Talarico winning the Democratic race in Texas
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
As the war in the Middle East rages on half a world away, the midterm primary season kicked off with James Talarico winning the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat in Texas – and a Republican runoff.
The contest between Talarico and firebrand Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was an early test of competing political playbooks for challenging Republican dominance.
“We are not just trying to win an election,” Talarico told supporters in Austin before the race was called. “We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. And it’s working.”
Meanwhile, the messy Republican primary between the four-term Republican US senator John Cornyn and the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, ended in a runoff. A runoff is declared in Texas if neither candidate are able to capture 50% of the vote with just over two-thirds of the ballots counted, Cornyn led Paxton by less than two percentage points, with a third candidate, the rightwing congressman Wesley Hunt capturing about 13% of the vote.
Paxton and Cornyn will now face that election on 26 May. National Republicans have been openly fretting that a win by Paxton – a scandal-plagued conservative culture warrior and darling of the Maga movement – would provide Democrats with the opening they need to finally win over the staunchly red state that they have not carried in more than three decades.
Meanwhile, in North Carolina, former Democratic governor Roy Cooper and former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley won their respective primaries. In deep red Arkansas, where Republican incumbents like US senator Tom Cotton and governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders are expected to hold onto their seats, results came back as expected, with Cotton winning his primary and Sanders, who is running uncontested, always moving forward in the race.
In other developments:
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Senate Republicans are expected today to vote down a Democratic-backed war powers resolution that would prevent Donald Trump from continuing the conflict in Iran. “The president has the authority that he needs to conduct the activities, the operations that are currently under way there,” majority leader John Thune said Tuesday.
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The vote comes one day after Trump attempted to counter a simmering anti-Israel backlash in Congress and among his own Maga supporters by denying suggestions that he had ordered the attack on Iran because Israel had already decided to do so – a claim that appears to counter comments made by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in a classified briefing for all members of Congress.
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In more Iran news, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, and Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, are scheduled to hold a news conference at the Pentagon this morning to discuss the conflict.
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Minnesota is set to be front and center on the Hill with governor Tim Walz and attorney general Keith Ellison scheduled to go before the House oversight committee this morning over their state’s fraud scandal.
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Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem is then set to go before the House judiciary committee, one day after she was grilled before the Senate judiciary committee and refused to retract her statements calling the two US citizens who were killed by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis earlier this year “domestic terrorists”.
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In more Minnesota news: The Department of Homeland Security has opened an internal investigation into allegations that Gregory Bovino, a senior border patrol official who became the face of the state’s highly scrutinized federal immigration crackdown, the New York Times reported. Bovino is being investigated for allegedly making disparaging remarks about the Jewish faith of Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor.