Top Democrat slams Trump officials’ ‘totally insufficient’ answers in closed-door briefing about Iran operation – live | US-Israel war on Iran

Schumer: Trump officials’ Iran briefing ‘raised many more questions than it answered’

Chris Stein

The Senate’s Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said a briefing from Trump administration officials about the US war with Iran “raised many more questions than it answered.”

“Look, a whole lot of questions were asked. I found their answers completely and totally insufficient,” Schumer told reporters as he exited the meeting. He departed without taking questions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as CIA director John Ratcliffe are among those briefing Congress leaders in a classified facility in the Capitol. We expect other participants to come out and share their thoughts soon.

House speaker Mike Johnson echoed many of the points made by secretary of state Marco Rubio after attending a Gang of Eight briefing on the US-Israel strikes against Iran today.

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Johnson said “this was a defensive measure” that the United States took after learning that “Israel was determined to act in their own defense”. Later, he said he believed the president had not violated his war powers because he acted defensively.

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Johnson also repeated Rubio’s claim that the mission’s “objective was not regime change” but “to take out those short range missiles” and “eliminate their naval capabilities”. Although he added, “Iran was a great threat to everybody in the region and everybody in the world, because it was an evil regime,” and called Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death “a great development for freedom-loving people around the world”.

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The Senate’s Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said a briefing from Trump administration officials about the US war with Iran “raised many more questions than it answered.”

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“Look, a whole lot of questions were asked. I found their answers completely and totally insufficient,” Schumer told reporters as he exited the meeting. He departed without taking questions.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as CIA director John Ratcliffe are among those briefing Congress leaders in a classified facility in the Capitol. We expect other participants to come out and share their thoughts soon.

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The US state department is urging Americans to “depart now” from more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries, following the US-Israel strikes on Iran.

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In a post on social media, the assistant secretary for Consular Affairs advised Americans to leave Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen “due to serious safety risks”.

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Hundreds of thousands of travelers are currently stranded in the Gulf states, as the airspace over some of the world’s busiest airports, such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi, closed over the weekend.

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Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has questioned the Trump administration’s justification to try to remove several student activists who were living and studying in the US on valid visas and green cards.

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In a letter written to secretary of state Marco Rubio, and first provided to the Guardian, Warren notes that these students – Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Badar Khan Suri and Yunseo Chung – appear to have been targeted for their political views, “potentially violating their first amendment rights … despite the fact that none of these students were accused of a crime at the time or have been to date.”

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All of these students became flashpoints of the administration’s crackdown on protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

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Warren said that “recently unsealed court documents” also show that the state department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) assessed the students’ speech, written materials, and participation in protests around the war in Gaza, and that Rubio “personally approved their arrest and the revocation of their visas in the United States”.

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Signed by Warren, and fourteen other Democratic members of Congress – including senators Chris Van Hollen, Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley and representatives Ayanna Pressley, Greg Casar, Rashida Tlaib and Summer Lee – the lawmakers write they there are “particularly concerned” about the use of Section 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to justify the removal of several student activists from the US. This is a rare provision that allows deportation if a person’s presence has “serious adverse foreign policy consequences”. The letter notes that this authority had almost never been used in this way before.

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The lawmakers also write that Rubio justified the removals of these students by citing a national foreign policy objective of “combatting antisemitism”, while on social media labeling some of the students as supporting terrorists.

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They also note internal assessments from the state department which found no evidence to support the administration’s claims “for deportation based on support to a foreign terrorist organization” for any of the five students.

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For example, the letter notes a department memo which found that federal immigration enforcement did not provide any evidence showing that Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University who authored an op-ed in her student newspaper that resulted in her being detained in a Louisiana detention center for six weeks, engaged in “any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally”.

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The letter concludes with a list of formal questions for Rubio to answer by 16 March 2026. These include a historical record of how often these specific deportation powers have been used by a secretary of state since 1990; a request for the number of deportation determinations for individuals whose presence in the country “compromises a compelling United States foreign policy interest”; and documentation of any policy changes made under Section 237 since January 2025.

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“In attempting to deport these five students, a court ruled that you took actions ‘to chill the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble’ of students and academics across the country,” Warren wrote. “This abuse of your authority risks normalizing a future where Secretaries of State may summarily revoke visas based on speech, depriving individuals of their rights and whittling down the guarantees of the First Amendment.”

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are set this afternoon to brief leaders of Congress as well as the chairs of several committees about the US war with Iran.

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As he headed into the behind-closed-doors meeting in the Capitol, Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer made a brief comment to reporters: “This is Trump’s war. This is a war of choice. He has no strategy, he has no end game.”

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He declined to take questions.

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Republican speaker of the House Mike Johnson entered the meeting shortly after him.

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Marco Rubio said the United States’s aim is to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, and that it attacked Iran “preemptively” on Saturday to protect US forces from retaliation after learning that Israel was going to strike.

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The secretary of state’s remarks came as he answered questions from reporters before briefing congressional leaders on the US-Israel strikes on Iran this weekend.

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The US secretary of state said: “There absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was, that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed that they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.”

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He added: “We knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

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Six US service members have been killed since Saturday.

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Later, Rubio said that the United States’s mission in Iran “is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities, and their ability to manufacture them, as well as the threat posed by their navy to global shipping,” but that “we would not be heartbroken, and we hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government”.

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In response to a question about reports that the United States hit an Iranian girls’ school, Rubio said “the United States would not deliberately target a school” but referred questions about the hit to the Department of Defense.

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“The hardest hits are yet to come from the US military,” Rubio concluded, before heading into the briefing.

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In a statement, US Central Command (Centcom) said that six service members have been killed in action.

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“US forces recently recovered the remains of two previously unaccounted for service members from a facility that was struck during Iran’s initial attacks in the region,” Centcom said. “ The identities of the fallen are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.”

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The House oversight committee has just released the video footage of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s depositions, as part of lawmakers’ ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

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The former president and former secretary of state sat individually for closed-door testimony last week before the committee.

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The developments on the US-Israel war in Iran risks overshadowing the release of the footage, particularly as top administration officials brief congressional leaders on Operation Epic Fury. Secretary of state Marco Rubio just spoke to members of the press ahead of his meeting with lawmakers.

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In a somewhat vague statement before the UN security council, Melania Trump offered her “heartfelt condolences to the families who have lost their heroes who sacrifice their lives for freedom”, without naming a specific conflict, or the US-Israel war on Iran.

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She added:

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I extend my earnest wishes for a swift and smooth recovery to all those who have been injured. You are in my thoughts and prayers during these challenging times, the US stands with all of the children throughout the world. I hope soon peace will be yours.

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  In his first conference since the joint US-Israel operation against Iran, Donald Trump laid out his administration’s objectives moving forward. This includes destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilating their navy, preventing Iran from ever having nuclear weapons, and ensuring the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”. Notably, the president did not urge the Iranian people to push back against their government – something he’s pushed for in recent weeks.

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  Speaking today, Trump said that he predicted the war to last four-five weeks but the US has the “capability to go far longer”. In an earlier interview the president also didn’t rule out the possibility of American boots on the ground in Iran. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” the president told the New York Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”

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  Earlier, in a heated Penatgon press conference, Pete Hegseth initially said that US troops wouldn’t be in Iran, but later said he wouldn’t get into details. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said, while chiding reporters for asking for more clarity on the length of the US-Israel war on Iran. “We have plans,” he said. “But we would never in front of a press pool lay out how long that may take.” He also pushed back against Democratic lawmakers and the media at large. “This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president,” Hegseth said.

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  US Central Command also confirmed that a fourth US service member has been killed. A joint statement by Gulf states and the US condemned Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks” across the Middle East and warned that the strikes threatened regional stability.

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  Kuwait air defences mistakenly shot down three US F-15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations, the US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday. All six crew members ejected safely, were safely recovered and in stable condition.

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  Also today, secretary of state Marco Rubio, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – will brief senior congressional lawmakers on Operation Epic Fury. On Tuesday, top administration officials will address all members of the House and Senate for a Congress-wide briefing.

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Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “49 of the most senior Iranian regime leaders” have been killed during the Operation Epic Fury so far. This includes supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

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“Preventing this radical regime and its terrorist leaders from threatening America and our core national security interests is a clear-eyed and necessary objective,” she wrote in a post on X.

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Trump says the US is already “substantially ahead” of its time projections.

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He says they projected four-five weeks at the beginning, but adds they have “capability to go far longer”.

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He adds that the US had predicted four weeks to terminate Iran’s military leadership, “and … that was done in about an hour, so we’re ahead of schedule there, by a lot.”

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Trump claims the objectives of the operation in Iran are “clear”.

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They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons.

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He adds that the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”.

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Trump then goes on to cite the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.

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And we thought we had a deal. But then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out. I said, you can’t deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.

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Trump goes on:

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An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people.

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Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat.

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Donald Trump is speaking now, he begins with a brief update on the US’s attacks on Iran.

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Today, the US military continues to carry out large-scale combat operations on Iran, he says, “to eliminate the grave threat posted to America by this terrible terrorist regime”.

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House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries decried the US operation in Iran in an interview with CNN today.

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“There’s no indication that Iran had reconstituted its nuclear program. There’s no indication that Iran was prepared to strike the United States preemptively or to strike any of our interests in the region. And there certainly is no justification for a regime change war,” Jeffries said.

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This week, Congress is set to vote on a war powers resolution that could curb the administration’s military action in Iran.

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“Article one of the constitution explicitly provides Congress with the authority to declare war, period, full-stop,” Jeffries said. “Donald Trump chose intentionally not come before Congress, which is why we’re going to force this vote on a war powers resolution and make sure that we do everything we can to constrain him at this point in time.”

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Top administration officials did brief congressional leaders ahead of the strikes on Saturday, and they’re set to speak with them again today.

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“We are seeing the beginning of an all-out war in the Middle East,” Jeffries added in his CNN interview earlier.

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Footage circulating on social media appears to show a military aircraft falling from the sky in Kuwait.

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US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday that three US F-15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations had mistakenly been shot down by Kuwait air defences in an “apparent friendly fire incident”, and the cause was under investigation.

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All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered and are in stable condition, Centcom said in a statement which you can read in full here.

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In an interview with the New York Post, the president noted that the possibility of American troops in Iran is not entirely off the table.

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“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Donald Trump told the Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”

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This comes after Pete Hegseth initially said that there weren’t plans to have service members on the ground in Iran, but also was reluctant to say whether this was the administration’s lasting stance. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said at a Pentagon press conference earlier.

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In an interview with CNN, Donald Trump said that the “big wave” of strikes against Iran is yet to come.

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“We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” the president said.

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“We’re knocking the crap out of them,” Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper during a nine-minute phone interview. “I think it’s going very well. It’s very powerful. We’ve got the greatest military in the world and we’re using it.”

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When asked about the length of the war, Trump said he didn’t “want to see it go on too long”. Earlier, his defense secretary Pete Hegseth was belligerent with reporters, and insisted that he would not put a timeframe on the conflict.

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“I always thought it would be four weeks,” Trump told CNN, “And we’re a little ahead of schedule.”

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A new poll by Reuters/Ipsos found that only one in four Americans support military action in Iran. What’s more, more than half of Americans – including one in four Republicans – think that Trump’s use of military force is excessive. The survey was conducted before the US military announced that four service members were the first casualties of Iran’s counterattack.

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Additionally, 45% of respondents said they would be less likely to support the campaign against Iran if gas or oil prices increased in the United States. On Sunday, Brent Crude was trading at more than $80 per barrel, up by 13%, according to oil traders.

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Throughout his press conference at the Pentagon today, defense secretary Pete Hegseth insisted on various occasions that Operation Epic Fury would not be completed “overnight”.

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“This is a big battle space with a lot of capabilities. That’s part of the reason why it’s such a threat to us,” he added.

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When probed about the operation’s length, Hegseth proved adversarial with reporters. “President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take: four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, it could move up. It could move back,” he said. “We’re going to execute, at his command, the objectives we’ve set out to achieve, and what he has shown an ability to do what other presidents don’t quite seem to have the aptitude to do as well.”

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While speaking today, Pete Hegseth acknowledged the fourth US service member killed in Iran’s counterattacks.

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“War is hell and always will be,” he said. “Our grateful nation honors the four Americans we have lost thus far and those injured – the absolute best of America.”

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During his opening remarks, Pete Hegseth insisted that the US “set the terms of this war from start to finish”, and noted that the military’s ambitions “are not utopian”.

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He went on to chide the media, as many have challenged Donald Trump’s claims that he “ended eight wars” and campaigned on keeping the US out of foreign conflicts.”

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“This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president,” Hegseth said.

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Pete Hegseth has kicked off his Pentagon press conference, by saying that for “47 long years”, the Iranian regime has waged a “savage, one sided war against America”.

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He noted that they did this through “the blood of our people, car bombs in Beirut, rocket attacks on our ships, murders at our embassies, roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

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The defense secretary added: “We didn’t start this war, but under president Trump, we are finishing it.”

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US defense secretary Pete Hegseth and general Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are planning to hold a press conference on Monday morning about the military operation against Iran.

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The Pentagon announced the 8am EST media briefing on social media Sunday night.

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On Tuesday, Hegseth and Caine will join US secretary of state Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe in briefing the full membership of Congress on the strikes, the White House said.

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Rubio also was slated to brief Hill leadership on Monday.

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Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

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Top Democrats demanded over the weekend for an immediate vote in Congress on whether to restrain president Donald Trump’s military action against Iran.

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The House and Senate were already expected to hold votes this week but Trump’s decision to launch attacks on Iran has increased the urgency of lawmakers to try to reassert their powers.

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It comes as Israel and the US launched fresh waves of intensive attacks across Iran as part of their joint campaign to overthrow the country’s government, which has plunged the Middle East into a new regional conflict with no certain timeline or outcome.

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The heated rhetoric from both Washington and Tehran suggests a further escalation in the coming hours and days.

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New York representative Gregory W Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would “get on the next plane flying” to vote against the war.

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Meanwhile, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries both called for urgent action to restrain Trump’s attacks on Iran.

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The Democrats’ strategy of forcing votes on war power resolutions have been portrayed as a way for Congress to reclaim its constitutional powers to declare war but have, so far, all failed.

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In other developments:

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  Donald Trump appeared to link the massive attack he ordered against Iran to his persistent claims about his 2020 election loss in a social media post about allegations that Tehran’s government interfered in the US elections. This is the second military operation of the Trump administration where the president alluded to allegations concerning the 2020 result.

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  Donald Trump said on Sunday he was prepared to talk to what was left of the Iranian leadership after the killing of the country’s supreme leader by US-Israeli airstrikes aimed at overthrowing the regime. Trump was speaking as a second day of intense bombing of Iranian cities and Tehran’s missile counterattacks sent tremors across the region and through the global economy.

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  Three US service members have been killed in action as part of US military operations against Iran, the US Central Command said in a statement on Sunday. These are the first confirmed deaths since the US began launching strikes against Iran on Saturday.

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  The Iranian community in Los Angeles has spoken out about the attack by Israel and the US, with some saying ‘it’s not an invasion, it’s a liberation’.

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  The US military reportedly used Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, to inform its attack on Iran despite Trump’s decision, announced hours earlier, to sever all ties with the company and its artificial intelligence tools.

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  National Democrats are watching the Texas Senate primary closely to see which style and message resonates – anti-Maga rage or a populist crusade against a “corrupt” political system.

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  All unaccompanied immigrant children who are pregnant, many by rape, are being moved to a single facility in Texas in order to avoid providing abortion services in a significant human rights violation, critics say.

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