A bad sign.....

Anthropic ditches its core safety promise in the middle of an AI red line fight with the Pentagon

By Clare Duffy, Lisa Eadicicco

Anthropic, a company founded by OpenAI exiles worried about the dangers of AI, is loosening its core safety principle in response to competition.

Instead of self-imposed guardrails constraining its development of AI models, Anthropic is adopting a nonbinding safety framework that it says can and will change.

In a blog post Tuesday outlining its new policy, Anthropic said shortcomings in its two-year-old Responsible Scaling Policy could hinder its ability to compete in a rapidly growing AI market.

The announcement is surprising, because Anthropic has described itself as the AI company with a “soul.” It also comes the same week that Anthropic is fighting a significant battle with the Pentagon over AI red lines.

It’s not clear that Anthropic’s change is related to its meeting Tuesday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei an ultimatum to roll back the company’s AI safeguards or risk losing a $200 million Pentagon contract. The Pentagon threatened to put Anthropic on what is effectively a government blacklist.

But the company said in its blog post that its previous safety policy was designed to build industry consensus around mitigating AI risks – guardrails that the industry blew through. Anthropic also noted its safety policy was out of step with Washington’s current anti-regulatory political climate.

Anthropic’s previous policy stipulated that it should pause training more powerful models if their capabilities outstripped the company’s ability to control them and ensure their safety — a measure that’s been removed in the new policy. Anthropic argued that responsible AI developers pausing growth while less careful actors plowed ahead could “result in a world that is less safe.”

As part of the new policy, Anthropic said it will separate its own safety plans from its recommendations for the AI industry.

Anthropic wrote that it had hoped its original safety principles “would encourage other AI companies to introduce similar policies. This is the idea of a ‘race to the top’ (the converse of a ‘race to the bottom’), in which different industry players are incentivized to improve, rather than weaken, their models’ safeguards and their overall safety posture.”

The company now suggests that hasn’t played out. A spokesperson for Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new safety policy

Anthropic’s new safety policy includes a “Frontier Safety Roadmap” that outlines the company’s self-imposed guidelines and safeguards. But the company acknowledged the new framework is more flexible than its past policy.

“Rather than being hard commitments, these are public goals that we will openly grade our progress towards,” the company said in its blog post.

The change comes a day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to roll back the company’s AI safeguards, or risk losing a $200 million Pentagon contract and being put on what is effectively a government blacklist.

Anthropic has concerns over two issues that it isn’t willing to drop, according to a source familiar with the company’s meeting with Hegseth: AI-controlled weapons and mass domestic surveillance of American citizens. Anthropic believes AI is not reliable enough to operate weapons, and there are no laws or regulations yet that cover how AI could be used in mass surveillance, a source said.

AI researchers applauded Anthropic’s stance on social media on Tuesday and expressed concerns about the idea of AI being used for government surveillance.

The company has long positioned itself as the AI business that prioritizes safety. Anthropic has published research showing how its own AI models could be capable of blackmail under certain conditions. The company recently donated $20 million to Public First Action, a political group pushing for AI safeguards and education.

But the company has faced increasing pressure and competition from both the government and its rivals. Hegseth, for example, plans to invoke the Defense Production Act on Anthropic and designate the company a supply chain risk if it does not comply with the Pentagon’s demands, CNN reported on Tuesday. OpenAI and Anthropic have also been locked in a race to launch new enterprise AI tools in a bid to win the workplace.

Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s chief science officer, suggested in an interview with Time that the change was made in the name of safety more than increased competition.

“We felt that it wouldn’t actually help anyone for us to stop training AI models,” Kaplan told the magazine. “We didn’t really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments … if competitors are blazing ahead.”

Sat like piles of shit...

Supreme Court justices sit in silence at State of the Union as Trump slams their tariffs decision

By John Fritze

President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address Tuesday to slam the Supreme Court’s decision against his sweeping emergency tariffs, repeatedly calling the ruling “unfortunate” even as he suggested his administration would quickly move past it.

With four justices sitting mere feet away, their hands folded over their robes, Trump touted what he described as a vast economic benefit from the global tariffs before lamenting the “unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court.”

“It just came down,” the president said. “Very unfortunate ruling.”

Though it was likely an awkward moment for the justices, Trump’s criticism of the court was far more tempered than on Friday, when he railed against the justices who voted against his tariffs. In an angry press conference at the White House, he described the court’s decision as a “disgrace” and at one point said that justices in the majority were an “embarrassment to their families.”

Four justices showed for the president’s speech: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, a first-term Trump appointee. Three of them — Roberts, Kagan and Barrett — voted against his tariffs. Kavanaugh, whom Trump also appointed to the high court in his first term, wrote the dissent from that decision.

The justices themselves have made clear for years they would prefer to be almost anywhere besides a State of the Union address. Stone-faced and silent, their front-row presence is an oddity at an event where lawmakers repeatedly erupt into applause or jeers.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia once described the speech as a “childish spectacle.” Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged the awkwardness and in 2010 complained that jurists essentially had to sit in the chamber “like the proverbial potted plant.”

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Friday that Trump could no longer rely on an emergency law enacted in the 1970s to impose his tariffs on a whim. Nothing in the court’s decision barred Trump from relying on other laws to raise tariffs, though many of those other measures come with strings attached.

Trump last week praised Kavanaugh, who penned the dissent in the case, but called those who voted against him a disgrace and suggested without evidence that their decision may have been driven by foreign influence.

But Trump said the justices were still invited to his speech.

“Barely,” he added.

On Tuesday, Trump exchanged pleasantries and shook hands with all four justices in attendance as he worked his way through the chamber before the speech.

After calling the decision “unfortunate” and “disappointing,” he framed its impact as limited.

“The good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made,” the president said.

Sixteen years ago, President Barack Obama during his State of the Union took a similar swipe at the court for its decision days earlier in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited sums in candidate elections. Six justices who attended the speech offered little reaction at first as Obama began speaking about that decision.

“With all due deference to separation of powers,” Obama said, “last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.”

Obama’s scolding is perhaps best remembered for one justice’s reaction. Alito, a conservative who supported that decision, could be seen shaking his head and mouthing the words, “Not true.”

A media firestorm followed and Alito never returned to another speech, saving his expressions of agreement or disapproval for the bench.

But even when the president — any president — is not reeling from a significant legal loss, the presence of the justices can often make for awkward moments on the House floor. Last year Trump was caught on a microphone giving a hearty thanks to Roberts months after the court granted the president immunity from criminal prosecution for some official actions.

“Thank you again,” Trump could be heard telling Roberts on the House floor. “I won’t forget it.”

The president later said on social media that he was thanking the chief justice for swearing him in at his inauguration.

In 2018, Trump touted his “great new Supreme Court justice,” referring to Neil Gorsuch, who sat so expressionless that his locked face became a social media meme. Two years later, Trump boasted about Gorsuch and Kavanaugh as the camera panned to both men as they offered tight-lipped smiles to each other.

“To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally,” Roberts said in 2010, “I’m not sure why we’re there.”

False claims.......

Fact check: Trump makes false claims about the economy, elections and crime in State of the Union

By CNN staff

President Donald Trump made numerous false or misleading claims in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Many of them were long-debunked falsehoods familiar from his rallies, interviews and social media posts. These include various lies disparaging the fairness of US elections, his false claim that he ended wars that were never actually wars or never actually ended, and his fictional “$18 trillion” figure for supposed investment in the US over the past year.

The subject on which he was most frequently inaccurate was the economy. Among other things, Trump overstated the performance of the economy during this presidential term to date, overstated the inflation he inherited from the Biden administration, used highly misleading figures when discussing gasoline prices, and wrongly asserted, twice, that foreign countries are paying the tariffs that are actually being paid by US importers.

Here is a fact check of some of Trump’s remarks:

Economy and inflation

Fact check: Trump falsely claims US has secured ‘$18 trillion’ in investments

Trump repeated his regular false claim that he has secured $18 trillion in investments in the US since returning to office, saying, “In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe.”

The $18 trillion figure is fiction. As of the night of Trump’s address, the White House’s own website said the figure for “major investment announcements” during this Trump term was “$9.7 trillion,” and even that is a major exaggeration; a detailed CNN review in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump’s misleading claims on gasoline prices

Trump claimed gas prices are “now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places, $1.99 a gallon.” But no state had an average gas price on Tuesday below $2.37 per gallon, according to AAA; only two states had an average below $2.50 per gallon. And while there are some individual gas stations selling gas for below $2 per gallon, they are scarce; Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for the firm GasBuddy, said during the speech that the firm found just four stations across the country below $2 (aside from special discounts) out of the roughly 150,000 stations the firm tracks, so about 0.003% of the total.

Trump could fairly say gas prices have fallen during this presidency. They have declined from a national average of $3.12 per gallon on his inauguration day in January 2025, according to AAA, to a national average of $2.95 per gallon on Tuesday.

In addition, Trump claimed, “And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline.” We don’t know what Trump saw, but the average price for a gallon of regular gas in Iowa on the day of the January 27 speech was $2.57, according to data published that day by AAA – and Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, told CNN at the time that GasBuddy found just four stations in the state selling for $1.97 per gallon (aside from special discounts) out of 2,036 total stations the firm tracks, so 0.19% of the total.

Trump was fact-checked on this subject by an attendee at the Iowa speech he was referring to. When he spoke of gas in Iowa being $1.95 or $1.85 per gallon, someone in the crowd shouted, “No, $2.63,” according to CNN reporter Steve Contorno, who was on scene. Contorno saw that the gas station right outside the venue where Trump spoke was selling for $2.69 per gallon.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump falsely claims he inherited record inflation

Trump falsely claimed that when he gave his previous address to Congress early last year, he had “just inherited … inflation at record levels.” He added a bit later that former President Joe Biden and his congressional allies “gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country.”

Trump didn’t inherit the worst inflation in US history, and Biden never had the worst inflation in US history. The year-over-year inflation rate in Biden’s last full month in office, December 2024, was 2.9%, and the rate in the month in which Trump took over partway through, January 2025, was 3.0%; the most recent rate, for January 2026, is 2.4%. The rate did hit a 40-year high, 9.1%, in June 2022, but that was far from the all-time high of 23.7%, which was set in 1920. Regardless, the rate then fell sharply over Biden’s last two-and-a-half years in office.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump’s baseless claim about the economy

Trump claimed that he inherited a “stagnant economy” from the Biden administration and that it is now “roaring like never before.” Though there is no firm definition of “stagnant” or “roaring,” the facts don’t corroborate the suggestion that he has presided over a massive economic boom since returning to office in January 2025. The US economy grew 2.2% in 2025, which was lower than in any year of the Biden presidency; there was 2.8% growth in 2024. (The fall 2025 government shutdown likely reduced growth in late 2025.) The unemployment rate, meanwhile, increased from 4.0% in January 2025 to 4.3% in January 2026.

The year-over-year Consumer Price Index inflation rate did fall from 3.0% in January 2025 to 2.4% in January 2026, and Trump certainly has some other positive data points to cite. But his story about taking the economy from deceased to scorching is just not supported by the overall numbers.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump falsely claims foreign countries are paying his tariffs

Trump repeated his regular false claim that tariffs are “paid for by foreign countries.” In fact, tariff payments are made by importers in the US, not foreign countries, and those importers often pass on some of their costs to consumers. While foreign exporters may sometimes drop their prices to try to keep their products competitive, various analyses have found that the overwhelming majority of the costs of the tariffs Trump has imposed this term are being covered by a combination of US businesses and US consumers.

In an analysis released in February, officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York wrote, “We find that nearly 90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers.” The nonpartisan federal Congressional Budget Office wrote in a February report that “the net effect of tariffs is to raise U.S. consumer prices by the full portion of the cost of the tariffs borne domestically (95 percent),” from a combination of price hikes by US businesses that are importing tariffed products and price hikes by US businesses that are facing less foreign competition because of the tariffs.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump’s claim that more Americans are working today than ever

Trump repeated his regular claim that there are more people working today in the US than ever before. That’s true, but the claim needs context: the number of people working tends to rise over time because the US population tends to rise over time. Economists say there are far better measures of the health of the labor market.

The employment-population ratio, which measures the percentage of the population that is employed, is down slightly this presidential term so far, going from 60.1% in January 2025, the month Trump returned to office, to 59.8% in January 2026. The unemployment rate, which measures unemployment as a percentage of the labor force, has increased, going from 4.0% in January 2025 to 4.3% in January 2026; it hit a four-year high of 4.5% in November before easing. The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the population that is employed or actively looking for work, has been almost unchanged, ticking down 62.6% in January 2025 to 62.5% in January 2026.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Taxes and the budget

Fact check: Trump’s claim he passed largest tax cuts in American history

Trump once again claimed that the sweeping domestic policy agenda that he signed into law last summer contained the largest tax cuts in American history. But that is not actually the case.

The so-called big, beautiful bill made numerous permanent and temporary changes to the tax code, including eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, giving additional tax relief to senior citizens and parents of young children and allowing companies to deduct certain investments more quickly. The tax cuts amount to $4.8 trillion, or 1.3% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), over a decade, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis, released earlier this month.

However, the bill is not the largest tax cut in history, experts said. It ranks seventh in terms of share of GDP since 1918, according to Chris Towner, policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan watchdog group. The largest was former President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax package, which cost 2.9% of GDP over four years. (Looking at revenue changes as a share of GDP is a common way to assess the size of tax cuts because it shows the changes relative to the size of the economy. It allows for comparisons across time despite shifts in inflation and population, for example.) Similarly, the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, found that the bill is the sixth largest tax cut since 1940, in terms of share of GDP.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby

Fact check: Trump falsely claims he achieved no tax on Social Security

Trump again falsely claimed that he eliminated taxes on Social Security, one of his key campaign promises in 2024.

“With the great ‘big, beautiful bill,’ we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security,” he said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The massive domestic policy package that Trump signed last summer did create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more). But as the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged, millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will continue to pay taxes on their benefits – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby

Fact check: Trump’s false claim on balancing the federal budget by ending fraud

Trump baselessly claimed that eliminating fraud in federal programs would balance the federal budget, saying, “If we’re able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight. It’ll go very quickly.”

The annual budget deficit far exceeds the estimated amount of money the federal government loses to fraud each year.

A first-of-its-kind estimate that the federal Government Accountability Office released in 2024 found that between $233 billion to $521 billion is lost to fraud annually. But the federal budget deficit came in at just under $1.8 trillion for the most recent fiscal year, which ended in September, according to the Treasury Department – more than triple the highest estimated fraud total.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby

Immigration and foreign affairs

Fact check: Trump falsely claims that Biden allowed ‘11,888 murderers’ to enter US as migrants

While criticizing the Biden administration’s border policies, Trump repeated his regular claim that the Biden administration allowed 11,888 murderers to enter the US as migrants – saying, “They were murderers, 11,888 murderers. They came into our country.”

Trump was inaccurately describing federal data. The Department of Homeland Security and independent experts have noted that the figure it appears Trump was referring to when he uses the “11,888” number is about non-citizens who entered the US not just under Biden but over the course of multiple decades, including during Trump’s own first administration. They were convicted of homicide at some point, usually in the US after their arrival, and are still in the US while being listed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “non-detained docket” – which includes people who are currently serving their prison sentences, not roaming free as Trump has also claimed.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump falsely claims he ended eight wars

Trump repeated a familiar false claim about his role in foreign affairs: “My first 10 months, I ended eight wars.” While Trump has played a role in resolving some conflicts (at least temporarily), the “eight” figure is a clear exaggeration.

Trump explained during the speech that his list of supposed wars settled includes a war between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that wasn’t actually a war; it is a long-running diplomatic dispute about a major Ethiopian dam project on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s list also included another supposed war that didn’t actually occur during his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has sometimes claimed to have prevented the eruption of a new war between those two entities, providing few details about what he meant, but that is different than settling an actual war.) And his list included a war involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, but that war has continued despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration in 2025 – which was never signed by the leading rebel coalition doing the fighting.

Trump’s list also included an armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, where fighting temporarily erupted again in December despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration earlier in 2025.

One can debate the importance of Trump’s role in having ended the other conflicts on his list, or fairly question whether some have truly ended; for example, killing continued in Gaza after the October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, and Trump said in the speech, “The war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level; it’s just about there.” Regardless, Trump’s “eight” figure is obviously too big.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump’s inaccurate claims about NATO

Trump repeated his claim that before he prodded NATO members to spend more on defense, the US was “paying for almost all of NATO.” That’s an exaggeration. NATO figures show that in 2016, the year before Trump took office the first time, US defense spending made up about 72% of total NATO defense spending; in 2024, the year before he returned to office, it was about 63%. Both figures are big, of course, but “almost all” is a stretch” – and the US contributes a smaller percentage to NATO’s own organizational budget. Under an agreed formula, the US provided about 16% of that budget at the time Trump returned to office in 2025. When he took office in 2017, the US was contributing about 22% of the budget.

In addition, Trump touted NATO members’ 2025 commitment to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense-related and security-related spending by 2035 – including at least 3.5% of GDP on the “core” defense requirements that were covered by the previous target of 2% of GDP – saying they agreed “to pay 5% of GDP for military defense, rather than the 2% which they weren’t paying … Now they’re paying 5 (percent) as opposed to not paying 2 (percent).”

But most NATO members are not yet meeting the new higher target, which, again, they have given themselves a decade to meet. NATO estimates show that just three members, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, were at or above 3.5% in core defense spending in 2025, though they may be joined by others in 2026.

“It’s absolutely not true that the Allies are currently ‘paying 5%’ on hard defense, and even by 2035 they’ve only committed to 3.5%, in terms of their defense budget conventionally-understood. As of mid-2025, *no* Ally is spending 5%, in fact not even 4.5%,” professor Erwan Lagadec, who leads the NATO and European Union studies program at George Washington University’s international affairs school, said in a January email.

Lagadec added: “In 2025 the U.S. was ‘only’ at 3.2%, *down* from 2014 in terms of ratios to GDP (the only country in that situation). Hence the case can be made that the U.S. is now the ‘laggard’ going ‘in the wrong direction’; although of course the fact that the U.S. was spending a lower ratio in 2025 than 2014 on defense could be seen as a sign of success, i.e. the outcome of the other Allies doing more.”

Trump’s claim that “they weren’t paying” when the target was 2% needs context. Although most NATO members were not hitting the 2% target as late as 2023, a majority hit the target in 2024; NATO figures show that 18 member countries were at or above 2% out of 31 countries subject to the target.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Elections and crime

Fact check: Trump’s multiple false claims about US elections

Trump made a rapid-fire series of false claims about US elections while calling on Congress to pass a bill requiring voter identification and proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Trump falsely claimed, “Cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant.” It’s simply not; all evidence suggests fraud makes up a minuscule percentage of votes cast. Trump referred to “crooked mail-in ballots”; the incidence of fraud is also tiny with mail-in ballots, though experts say it is slightly higher than with in-person voting, and there is no basis to categorically describe them as “crooked.” And Trump said, “They have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat.” That is a lie, as Democrats, like Republicans, are elected all the time in free and fair US elections.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump falsely claims a Charlotte killer ‘came in through open borders’

Trump lamented the murder last summer of a refugee from Ukraine, Iryna Zarutska, who was killed on public transit in Charlotte, North Carolina. But Trump added a false claim that the alleged killer had migrated to the US, saying Zarutska “had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America – came in through open borders.”

In reality, the man charged with first-degree murder over the killing was, according to all available evidence, from the US. The Charlotte Observer has reported that the man’s Facebook page said he was born in Charlotte and attended high school there, and the newspaper has interviewed his American mother.

The Observer published its own fact check on Tuesday night noting Trump’s claim was not true.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump’s two false claims about crime in Washington, DC

Trump claimed that after his takeover of law enforcement and deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC, last summer, the capital is “now one of the safest cities in the country.” That’s not true. Nor is his claim that the capital has “almost no crime anymore,” as a cursory glance at public data or police press releases shows; more than 1,300 crimes were reported in the last month.

Crime data expert Jeff Asher told CNN in a February email: “DC crime fell substantially in 2025 but it was not anywhere near the safest city in America.”

Of the 50 largest cities tracked by Asher’s Real-Time Crime Index, he said, “DC had the 9th highest murder rate and 12th highest violent crime rate in 2025 of the 50 largest cities in the Real-Time Crime Index.” Trump’s intervention happened in August; in the period running from August through December 2025, Asher said, “DC had the 18th highest murder rate and 17th highest violent crime rate.”

“Even in the post-intervention period, DC’s murder rate was more than 5 times higher than San Diego and San Jose and roughly 3 times higher than cities like San Francisco, New York, and Seattle,” he said. And he added that crime in the capital was “falling considerably” prior to Trump’s Guard deployment, and continued to fall after the deployment, “in a way that is hard to determine the impact of the deployment itself.”

Trump could have accurately said the capital has had some prolonged recent stretches without a murder; the Washington Post reported that it began the year with a highly unusual three-week period with no homicides. But that stretch ended January 21.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Fact check: Trump’s unproven claim on fraud in Minnesota

Trump repeated his claim that Somali residents of Minnesota have committed $19 billion in fraud, saying: “There’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer. We have all the information, and in actuality, the number is much higher than that.”

It’s possible this “$19 billion” figure will be proven true, but nothing close to that figure has been proven to date.

In December, a federal prosecutor, Joseph Thompson, claimed that “half or more” of $18 billion in federal funds billed by 14 Medicaid services in Minnesota deemed at high risk for fraud – and now under a third-party audit ordered by Gov. Tim Walz – might be fraudulent.

But $9 billion is not $19 billion, Thompson didn’t say all of the possible fraud was committed by Somali residents, and Walz’s administration challenged Thompson’s claim.

One Walz administration official said in December that they had “evidence of tens of millions of dollars in fraud to this point,” not $9 billion; Walz himself said, “You should be equally outraged about $1 or whatever that number is, but they’re using that number without the proof behind it.” And Thompson – who resigned in January amid tension with the Trump administration over its handling of an ICE officer fatally shooting Renée Good – made clear at the time that the “half or more” comment was an early estimate rather than a firm number.

Promised $400 Million.... Ghosted Them....

Farmers Were Promised $400 Million in Drought Aid. Trump’s USDA Ghosted Them.

More than a year later, not a penny has been spent and no one knows what happened to the money.

Ayurella Horn-Muller

For those coaxing thirsty crops like alfalfa from the parched fields and withered pasturelands in Eloy, Arizona, water is as good as gold—and just as scarce. “We’ve had nothing from the Colorado River for the last two or three years. I mean, we’ve had to cut back the volumes to the growers and have had to reduce acres and stuff to make it work,” said Ron McEachern, former general manager of the Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District, which serves the Eloy area.

The agricultural hub draws from the Colorado River basin through a vast canal network, but drought, overexploitation, and aging irrigation equipment are draining what little remains. “We got gates that are leaking and leaking downstream,” McEachern said. “The water spills and it spills, and nobody’s getting any use out of it.”

Nearly two years ago, the irrigation district was invited to apply to a new non-competitive grant program that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the Biden administration was launching to help farmers in areas grappling with devastating droughts. McEachern collaborated with the federal agency to identify what his team would do with the grant: replace and upgrade the 35-year-old deteriorating radial arm gates in their local canal system. The district needed the components to more precisely regulate water levels in the canals, but they are much too expensive for them to buy and install on their own.

Then, in late 2024, they got the break they’d been hoping for. The Central Arizona operation was one of 18 irrigation districts spread across 12 western states initially selected to receive up to $15 million each from the USDA. The agency’s Water-Saving Commodities program also earmarked grants for three tribal communities and two state associations of conservation districts. In total, the USDA planned to spend a $400 million pool of funds on the initiative. 

Gloria Montaño Greene, who served during the Biden administration as Deputy Under Secretary for USDA’s Farm Production and Conservation, told Grist that the idea for the program started back in 2021, as severe drought conditions enveloped agricultural powerhouse states across the country. The $400 million, according to Montaño Greene, was set to be distributed through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a financial institution used to implement specific agricultural programs established by the federal government. By the close of 2024, she said the Biden administration had entered final agreements with selected recipients and notified Congress of how they intended to use the money. 

“When we left the administration, we already had the signed agreements and the commitments that were going to be going through with the process,” said Montaño Greene. Based on those final agreements, the money, which was structured to be either reimbursement-based or in the form of advance payments—or both, depending on the agreement—should have started flowing last year, as part of a five-year payment plan. “Everything was done, vetted, and reviewed,” she said. But because this money wasn’t voted on by Congress, the USDA may have the authority to backtrack on its commitments under an earlier administration.

Another former top USDA official familiar with the program, who requested anonymity, confirmed that the agreements were “100 percent” finalized before the end of 2024—with the expectation that the incoming administration would need to honor them. “I can speak to the assumptions and guidance that we were working on from legal counsel at that time, which was by entering into these agreements with the districts and other partners, we’re committing those dollars to this purpose,” the former official added. “From our perspective, we were operating under a framework and counsel that we were committing those funds to the USDA partners.” 

Beginning last January, the Trump administration threw that into a tailspin. Federal monies were frozen, grant programs culled, and an unprecedented number of federal staffers were forced out of work. Many operations at USDA have since resumed to some semblance of normalcy. But the $400 million promised to the irrigation districts, associations, and tribes in 2024 remains unaccounted for, and the grant recipients have received no indication of whether the program would start or the money would be paid out. 

In fact, McEachern no longer even knew whom at the USDA to ask for help. The last he heard from the agency about the water-saving grant was an email from his former point of contact to let him know they were leaving the USDA. That was over a year ago. “I think some of the people that were involved are probably no longer there, and nobody was really kind of pushing to get this off the ground,” said McEachern. “One thing is, they haven’t swept the money. So the money is there. It’s just getting them to release it.” 

Dan Crabtree, superintendent of Palisade Irrigation District, based in Colorado, one of the other 18 irrigation districts, has had much the same experience. “Since the election, we have not heard anything from USDA, other than to say they were evaluating the program and the application,” said Crabtree. Another recipient—Greybull Valley Irrigation District in Wyoming—told Grist in an email that it also knew nothing about the program’s status. 

Randall Winston, general manager of Hidalgo & Cameron Counties Irrigation District 9, in Texas, another of the USDA’s selected recipients, said that while they’ve been waiting, the severe drought in the Rio Grande Valley has only gotten worse. As a result, they have been forced to dramatically reduce how much agricultural land the district is able to irrigate—last year, they supplied water for roughly 8,000 acres, when on a typical year they irrigate 120,000.

“Every drop of water, we’re trying to maximize that and save as much as we can,” said Winston. Prices for the equipment they need to manage the water they do have have also continued to climb, according to Winston, further setting them back. “We are concerned because we need to know the direction to take…We’re not mad at USDA, we just need to find out where we’re at with this,” he said.

Exactly why the administration has kept the funding locked without any communication to grantees for over a year is difficult to discern, according to Food & Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck. “Is this specifically because it’s intended to help farmers adapt to climate change, and climate change is a bad word in the administration, or it’s simply just trying to cut corners wherever they can?” said Starbuck. 

The USDA did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

During one former USDA staffer’s last few months working at the Farm Service Agency, they claim they were forced to partake in information “gatekeeping” as it related to the water-saving program. According to the staffer, who left their role in 2025 and asked to remain anonymous, “I was getting a lot of questions about, like, ‘Can we start or not?’ and I didn’t know the answer. I couldn’t get an answer. I really wasn’t allowed to communicate with them directly. Like, I couldn’t tell them ‘Your grant is frozen. Don’t spend any money because the money may never come to you.’ It was just ‘Tell them it’s under administrative review’…And then I couldn’t get a clear answer out of my leadership, or my direct manager, or my manager’s manager, about where the program was in the review process.” 

As for the suspicion that the program may have been targeted in the way that other Biden-era programs geared toward mitigating climate change have been, the former staffer isn’t convinced. “To me, it does seem pretty neutral from a climate perspective, because a lot of the states that have water problems are not necessarily blue states,” they said. “So I don’t think it was something that someone, like a high level official, would come in and say, ‘That’s the program I want to gut.’”

Although they can’t be certain, the former staffer believes the explanation is actually quite simple: There are no employees left to distribute the money. 

Locker Room Banter

We Now Know What Trump’s “Locker Room Banter” Looks Like

The locker room, in the mind of the president, is where misogyny is not only permitted but protected.

Inae Oh

It seems quaint to think about now. But in October 2016, just one month away from the presidential election that would fundamentally warp American politics, the biggest threat to Donald Trump’s candidacy was a 2005 Access Hollywood recording that caught Trump bragging about “grabbing” unconsenting women “by the pussy.” As a celebrity and a man of prominence, Trump claimed that he “could do anything” and get away with it.

At the time, the backlash was fierce, prompting a scrambled Trump to justify his comments as “locker room banter.” He also claimed, with the classic whataboutism that has become a hallmark for this political era, that “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course.”

And it was effective, a neat shorthand for “boys will be boys,” a genre of apparent comedy where some level of lewdness should not only be free, but protected. It previewed a misogyny that would only get worse through anti-abortion policies, dozens of sexual assault allegations, and eventually, the Epstein files. Fast forward to 2026, and we have another glimpse of what the president means by “locker room banter.”

They share the same misogyny familiar to many of us. That men are owed by women to accept insulting banter. That they are entitled to have their disrespect overlooked.

“I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” Trump toldthe US Olympic men’s hockey team after they won gold on Sunday. The men in the room, who had just received an invitation to the State of the Union, laugh boisterously, maybe in agreement. Trump then takes another crack: He’d “probably be impeached,” he said, if he didn’t extend an invitation to the US Olympics women’s hockey team, which, as it happened, also won gold at the Milan Cortina Olympics last week.

The moment has since ignited an outrage, not because it was especially offensive; it wasn’t. But for women watching, Trump’s remarks and the ensuing laughter felt specific in its familiarity, a classic case of men telling a woman one thing to her face and something hurtful or untoward when it’s just the guys. That includes Jack Hughes, who scored the winning goal for Team USA and said the first person he thought of after scoring was Megan Keller—only to laugh along as the president insulted her team.

For Trump, his remarks are fitting for a man caught bragging about sexual assault. Though Trump’s call with the men’s hockey team is not the same as the Access Hollywood recording—one is dismissive, the other sexually violent—they share the same misogyny familiar to many of us. That men are owed by women to accept insulting banter. That they are entitled to have their disrespect overlooked.

Some people may argue that it’s better not to make a fuss, that this is a rare moment of unity for the country, so why spoil it? But consider that the women’s team has declined Trump’s invitation to attend the State of the Union. It may be an act of defiance, a shot-in-the-arm kind of rejection we crave to see of Trump. But any relief found in such defiance disappears because it necessitates a woman opting out and foregoing what is deserved. This is how the logic of misogyny works: a masculine-coded joke, said within the confines of a masculine-coded room, for women to then adjust and lose out.

You Have Killed Americans

Ilhan Omar to Trump: “You Have Killed Americans”

A tense exchange during a remarkably racist portion of the president’s State of the Union address.

Anna Merlan

President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night toggled between being remarkably dull and profoundly racist. During a screed against undocumented immigrants, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) shouted at Trump, yelling, “You have killed Americans,” and “You should be ashamed.”

The confrontation began after Trump scolded Democrats for not standing and applauding during a portion of his speech during which he claimed that the “first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up,” Trump said to Democrats in the audience, as the rest of the room rose to their feet and applauded for over a minute. “That is why I’m also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals,” he continued. As he spoke, Omar could be heard shouting from the gallery, “You have killed Americans,” and “You should be ashamed,” while jabbing her finger in Trump’s direction. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), seated next to Omar wearing a pin that read “Release the Files,” a reference to still-unreleased Epstein files, also briefly yelled something in the direction of the dais.

ICE and Border Patrol agents killed two people in Minnesota, the state Omar represents: Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both of whose executions were captured on video. Omar’s guests for the State of the Union were four constituents from Minnesota who were impacted by ICE’s brutal raid on the state. They include Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis woman and United States citizen who was dragged from her car and violently arrested in mid-January. Thus far, at least eight people have died nationwide this year at the hands of ICE agents or in ICE custody.

Failed......

Trump uses longest-ever State of the Union to try to convince voters that US is 'winning so much'

By WILL WEISSERT, MICHELLE L. PRICE and MATT BROWN

President Donald Trump declared during a marathon State of the Union on Tuesday that “we’re winning so much” — insisting he'd sparked an economic boom at home and imposed a new world order abroad in hopes it can counter his sliding approval ratings.

Trump's main objective was convincing increasingly wary Americans that the economy is stronger than many believe, and that they should vote for more of the same by backing Republicans during November’s midterm elections. In all, Trump spoke for a record 108 minutes, breaking — by eight minutes — the previous time mark from his address before a joint session of Congress last year.

The president largely avoided his usual bombast, only occasionally veering off-script — mostly to slam Democrats. As he did during such addresses in his first term, Trump relied on a series of surprise special guests to dramatically punctuate his message. They included U.S. military heroes and a former political prisoner released after U.S. forces toppled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump drew some of the loudest applause of the night when he invited the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team into the House chamber.

“Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, 'Please, please, please, Mister President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore,'" Trump said before introducing the team.

The hockey players, wearing their medals and “USA” sweaters, drew a bipartisan standing ovation. Trump pointed to the Democratic side of the chamber and quipped, “That’s the first time I ever I’ve ever seen them get up.”

In a made-for-TV moment, the president announced he would be awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, to the hockey team’s goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck. He also bestowed the Purple Heart on Andrew Wolfe — a National Guard member who was shot while deployed on the streets of the nation’s capital. Wolfe made his first public appearance since then during the speech.

That scene recalled a similar surprise announcement in 2020, when Trump gave the Medal of Freedom to conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh during his State of the Union speech.

Trump decries tariff decision as justices look on

The president championed his immigration crackdowns and his push to preserve widespread tariffs that the Supreme Court just struck down. He drew applause only from Democrats while describing the high court's decision, which he called “an unfortunate ruling.”

Trump vowed to plow ahead, using “alternative” laws to impose the taxes on imports and telling lawmakers, “Congressional action will not be necessary.” Trump argued that the tariffs are paid by foreign countries, despite evidence that the costs are borne by American consumers and businesses. “It's saving our country,” he said.

The only Supreme Court justices attending were Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan. Trump greeted them personally before the speech, despite last week slamming Coney Barrett — who he appointed to the high court in his first term — for siding with the majority against his tariffs.

Democrats also stood for Trump vowing to halt insider trading by members of Congress. But Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat, yelled, “How about you first!” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, called out, “You’re the most corrupt president!”

When some heckling continued, Trump proclaimed, “You should be ashamed of yourselves." Later, he pointed at Democrats and proclaimed, “These people are crazy."

Democratic Rep. Al Green was escorted from the chamber early in the speech, after he unfurled a sign of protest that read “Black People Aren’t Apes!” That was an apparent reference to a racist video the president posted that depicted former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as primates in a jungle. Green was also removed during Trump's address last year.

The president, meanwhile, was mostly optimistic and patriotic, but Trump struck a darker tone in large swaths of his speech to warn about the dangers posed by immigrants. He invited lawmakers from both parties to “protect American citizens, not illegal aliens” and championed proposals to limit mail-in ballots and tighten voter identification rules.

Affordability gets relatively little time

Trump didn't dwell on efforts to lower the cost of living — despite polling showing that his handling of the economy and kitchen-table issues has increasingly become a liability. Such concerns about the high costs of living helped propel Democratic wins around the country on Election Day last November.

There also are persistent fears that tariffs stoking higher prices could eventually hurt the economy and job creation. Economic growth slowed in the last three months of last year.

It is potentially politically perilous ahead of November elections that could deliver congressional wins to Democrats, just as 2018’s blue wave created a strong check to his administration during his first term.

On Tuesday, Trump blamed his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, along with Democratic lawmakers in the chamber, saying they were responsible for rising prices and health care costs, two issues his political opponents have repeatedly raised against him.

“You caused that problem,” Trump said of affordability concerns. He added a moment later, “They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie.”

Trump also said he’d press tech companies involved in artificial intelligence to pay higher electricity rates in areas where their data centers are located. Such data centers tend to use large volumes of electricity, potentially increasing the cost of power to other consumers in the area.

Another notable off-script moment came as Trump was referencing prescription drug prices, saying, “So in my first year of the second term — should be my third term — but strange things happen,” prompting at least one chant in the chamber of “Four more years!”

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who delivered the Democratic response to Trump's speech, slammed the president's aggressive immigration policies, his widespread cuts to the federal government and his tariffs.

“Even though the Supreme Court struck these tariffs down four days ago, the damage to us, the American people, has already been done. Meanwhile, the president is planning for new tariffs,” she said. “Another massive tax hike on you and your family.”

A warning to Iran

Trump's address came as two U.S. aircraft carriers have been dispatched to the Middle East amid tensions with Iran. Trump said, “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy.”

“But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror — which they are, by far — to have a nuclear weapon,” he added.

The president also recounted U.S. airstrikes last summer that pounded Tehran's nuclear capabilities, and lauded the raid that ousted Maduro in Venezuela — as well as his administration's brokering of a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

“As president, I will make peace wherever I can," Trump said. "But I will never hesitate to confront threats to America, wherever we must.”

CRL 2688

Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula, a dying Sun-like star, can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot core (or "yolk") now illuminates the milky "egg white" shells of gas and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust being dense enough to block our view of the stellar core. Light beams emanate from that blocked core, escaping through holes carved in the older ejected material by newer, faster jets expelled from the star’s poles. Astronomers are still trying to figure out what causes the disks, lobes, and jets during this short (only a few thousand years!) phase of the star’s evolution, making this an egg-cellent image to study!

Risk of a Wider War

7 Experts on the Risk of a Wider War with Iran 

As the threat of U.S. strikes intensifies, our experts weigh the risks of escalation.

By POLITICO Magazine

nce again, the United States is on the precipice of war with Iran. But this time might be different.

In the eight months since the Trump administration bombed Iranian nuclear sites, the world has changed, and President Donald Trump seems emboldened. He faced little blowback after his previous attack on Iran, and he’s riding high after snatching Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela.

Now Trump is amping up the pressure on Tehran to give up its nuclear program by deploying a huge collection of fighter jets and warships to the Middle East, not seen since the Iraq War. If negotiations fail, Trump is threatening a massive attack, with the pursuit of regime change a possibility.

Last year, we asked a series of experts to weigh in on how an attack on Iran might unfold. We’ve gone back to them to see what they think of Trump’s latest moves, the potential rewards or risks of military action and how their own views may have changed based on what happened last time.

Their general consensus: Trump may be about to take risks that are far less predictable — and far more deadly — than his previous gambits to reshape the globe.

‘There will not be a “TACO” this time’

BY RYAN CROCKER

Ryan Crocker is a distinguished chair in diplomacy and security at RAND, and he was a career Foreign Service Officer who served six times as an American ambassador to: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.

It is highly unlikely that Iran will meet U.S. demands on zero enrichment, ballistic missiles and/or support for proxy forces. Tehran sees these as crucial underpinnings of regime legitimacy; to meet Washington’s conditions would effectively mean the end of the Islamic Republic.

The massive buildup of U.S. forces cannot be sustained indefinitely. There will not be a “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) this time — in the absence of an agreement, President Donald Trump will take action, probably limited in the first instance, in an effort to coerce Iran into an agreement. When that doesn’t work, and it won’t, Trump will expand operations in an effort to decapitate the regime, including clerical and military leadership. That will require precise intelligence, which may be harder to obtain than it was in June.

It is important that initial strikes comprehensively target Iran’s missile capabilities. If Iran can, they will use them against U.S. allies and assets in the region, as well as Israel. What Trump will not do is commit U.S. ground forces. In the event of regime decapitation, this means the U.S. will have no ability to control subsequent events. It is impossible to predict what will happen next. What we can say with confidence is that we will not see the emergence of a secular democracy led by the son of the Shah. Far more likely would be the seizure of power by a group of unknown military officers and massive internal violence.

‘President Trump… operates without either clear objectives or strategy’

BY JONATHAN PANIKOFF

Jonathan Panikoff is director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East on the National Intelligence Council.

President Donald Trump correctly learned that military action can work — but may have overlearned how much and how often. It is probably not only the June strikes that increased President Trump’s confidence in his ability to attack Iran with limited blowback, but his killing in January 2020 of Iranian Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani, as well as the military action he took in Venezuela and success there. The U.S. is not going to be able to rendition the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the same way. And strikes always carry severe risks, including the potential that this is the time Iran finally decides the regime’s survival is at stake — always its singular overriding goal.

But without clear goals for what the strikes are meant to achieve, there is no broader strategy to determine which risks are worth taking. If Tehran determines the regime is at risk, then the response may be extensive and include not just ballistic missile strikes on Israel or U.S. bases and personnel in the region, but potentially asymmetric attacks, both terrorist and cyber, across the globe as well.

The problem is that the president’s own words, “help is on the way,” have put him in a box, making the lack of a clear strategy a potential lesser risk than not striking and keeping his word. If he doesn’t, it will embolden the Iranian regime further, which would be skeptical of the president’s future threats, undermining U.S. deterrence. Moreover, it would reinforce the view of many Arab states that are already negative toward U.S. reliability and the value of President Trump’s word, a notion that Beijing and Moscow would almost certainly latch onto as well.

Neither protests nor airstrikes alone are likely to end the regime’s grip on power. History suggests it will require either the varying Iranian security forces to stand aside, as happened in 1979, or at least a part of the security establishment to switch sides to the opposition.

What we all should have learned by now is that President Trump, more than many of his predecessors, operates without either clear objectives or a strategy. That can create opportunities for the U.S. and its allies where they didn’t previously exist, and perhaps U.S. airstrikes, in addition to further diminishing Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear problem, will bring tens of thousands back to the street. But it also poses the risk that, for the first time, the president’s actions vis-à-vis Iran won’t actually lead to the result he expects and could prompt significantly greater threats to Israel, Gulf allies and U.S. personnel in the region.

‘Effectively playing a game of chicken’

BY DENNIS ROSS

Ambassador Dennis Ross is the William Davidson distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East; his latest book is Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Lead in a Multipolar World.

Before President Donald Trump launched his strikes against the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites — the most important Iranian nuclear infrastructure — I predicted that if he attacked only in a limited way, the conflict would be contained. But if the attack was wider and seen as being about regime change, it would escalate and not be containable. Though we attacked all three sites, Trump’s intent was limited to the nuclear program, and the Iranians responded much the way they had to the killing of Qassem Soleimani: They signaled what they would do in advance of attacking al Udeid base, letting us limit the damage and conveying they had no interest in escalation. So, is that the lesson that President Trump has learned: You can use force in a limited way for a limited objective and Iran will respond in kind?

The fact that the president is apparently now speaking about a more limited strike to try to produce a deal — and only if that fails might he then consider a much larger one intended to produce regime collapse — suggests the following: First, he thinks that he can use limited force for coercive purposes to achieve a deal and that the Iranians have an interest in keeping the conflict limited. Second, that if he cannot achieve a nuclear deal — which seems to be his preoccupation even if others talk about ballistic missiles, support for proxies and treatment of Iran’s citizens — he will raise the ante, but much later.

The problem is that the Iranians now seem to feel that Trump can be deterred by their threats to attack U.S. forces, interests and friends throughout the region. They read him as wanting only a limited conflict and they are threatening a much wider one. Apart from the mismatch in perceptions, there is an irony: Neither side actually wants a wider war. Trump doesn’t want a war that escalates, could be hard to stop and could produce a huge leap in oil prices when he already has to deal with the affordability crisis in this country. But the Iranians, for all their bluster, know they are profoundly vulnerable with little or no air defense, and with the risk that their forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and related control mechanisms of their public, could be dramatically weakened by a war that escalates. With a public they know is extremely angry, this is not the time to weaken the regime further. So neither may want a wider war with escalation that can take on a life of its own, but each reads the other as willing to back down on their red-lines, believe it is very costly for them to back down on their own, and are effectively playing a game of chicken.

For President Trump it comes back to understanding his objective. I may be wrong, but I still think he defines it more narrowly: Iran doesn’t rebuild its nuclear infrastructure and program and effectively gives up its pursuit of nuclear weapons in a way that is unmistakable. For Ayatollah Ali Khamenei et al., is that outcome seen as such a sign of regime weakness that it is a threat to the regime? Or is it possible that there are those around the Supreme Leader who can prevail upon him to look for a way out, given the danger of a war with the U.S. to the survival of the regime? That happened in 1988 with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini when Mir Hossein Mousavi and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani persuaded him that the risk of escalation with the U.S. threatened the survival of the regime, and he needed to end the war with Iraq. The real question now is whether, as in 1988, regime survival will once again trump revolutionary defiance.

‘We may yet find ourselves in a cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation’

BY RAY TAKEYH

Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Trump administration was a late entry into the June War. Once Israel began to dominate Iran’s skyline and attack its nuclear facilities and kill scores of its generals with relative impunity, President Donald Trump inched his way into the conflict. First, he boasted that the Israeli success was caused by American weapons, and then he joined the war and took credit for its outcome. He promised that Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated.

And then came America’s snatching of President Nicolás Maduro from his palace in Venezuela. Trump, who relishes displays of power, seems to enjoy bombing recalcitrant adversaries, as long as there is no cost. Trump’s demand is for Iran to declare that it will never enrich uranium at home. In the midst of all the military deployments in the Persian Gulf, the fact that is neglected is that zero-enrichment is Iran’s practical condition today. The bombed nuclear facilities remain under rubble, and there is no evidence that Iran is surreptitiously enriching uranium anywhere. In essence, Trump is proposing to bomb Iran to get a declaration from a regime that he and many in the Republican Party have long insisted is not to be believed.

Wars have their own dynamics that are impossible to predict ahead of time. As Vietnam-era diplomat George Ball warned Lyndon Johnson, “Once on the tiger’s back, we cannot be sure of picking the place to dismount.” America may bomb Iran, and it may get away with it. The Islamic Republic is weak, its defenses battered and its population restive. But the mullahs may retaliate and, in the process, they may kill American servicemen, thus mandating more American bombing. We may yet find ourselves in a cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation, otherwise, on the tiger’s back.

Seldom has a military operation lacked coherent strategic objectives or a concise explanation as the prospective attack on Iran. In another era, Congress would be demanding an explanation from the administration and a measure of accountability. American people should demand no less.

‘Iranian leaders would ultimately prefer deal-making to a broader war’

BY ARASH AZIZI

Arash Azizi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and author of What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom.

President Donald Trump might have concluded from the 12 Day War that decisive military action can bring a swift end to a conflict and that, faced with overwhelming American military might, there is little that Iran can do. As is often the case, too much hubris can be dangerous because, under certain conditions, Iranians might end up broadening the conflict, knowing full well Trump’s aversion to that scenario. They could, for instance, strike Israel, infrastructure in hubs such as Dubai and U.S. bases in the region, causing significant instability. Iran will suffer grave consequences if it picks this path, but those Iranian military leaders who could lead such a campaign might still reasonably hope to be in a better position at the end of it. They might even use this to pave their own path to power.

Last year, I said that the Iranian leaders would ultimately prefer deal-making to a broader war in the region. I still think the same. Under the right conditions, elements in Iran might seize the opportunity for a new deal with the U.S. and perhaps even bring about a Venezuela-like regime transformation in the country. But there nevertheless exist dangers of a broadened conflict, even if neither side truly wants it.

‘The majority of Americans oppose a U.S. military campaign against Iran’

BY ROBIN WRIGHT

Robin Wright is a foreign affairs analyst who has written multiple books on the Middle East, including Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World.

Much of what all of us wrote last year may be even truer today. Alas.

President Donald Trump either does not fathom the growing domestic and international opposition to a war with Iran, or he is making facile assumptions about how it might play out afterwards. Before the 12 Day War last year, Trump called for “unconditional surrender.” This time around, on February 13, he said a change in power “would be the best thing that could happen” in Iran. While the theocracy is clearly no longer sustainable long-term, Trump has not yet made a single clear-eyed case about who or what might come next. The previous four administrations made historic blunders — costly in thousands of American lives and trillions from the national treasury — in their calculations about Afghanistan and Iraq. If all Trump wants is a new nuclear deal, that means the current government remains in power. Then what?

I, for one, remain bewildered. Others seem confused, too. The majority of Americans oppose a U.S. military campaign against Iran under the current circumstances, according to a poll last month. Dozens of members of Congress, from both parties, have publicly warned in recent weeks that the White House does not have the legal authority to engage in a new war without getting congressional approval. Much of the world, including powerful players in the Middle East, is wary too. Britain, which participated in the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is refusing to allow U.S. warplanes to use its military bases for air strikes on Iran.

Implicitly or explicitly, Washington backed opposition movements during the Arab uprisings launched in 2011. The autocratic leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen — who had collectively ruled for 123 years — were ousted. There are lessons here, too. Some of the leaders democratically elected in Tunisia are now in jail. The current Egyptian government is more brutal than the one ousted in 2011. Libya is hopelessly divided between two rival governments. And poor Yemen: The autocrats in those countries did not deserve to hold on to power. The protesters in those countries and in Iran today, facing such brutality, have inspired us all. The Middle East has consistently been the world’s most volatile region for 78 years. More than ever, all the arms of power in Washington need to be careful not to mess up whatever they opt to do next.

‘Trump is more confident about military strikes in Iran this time around’

BY IAN BREMMER

Ian Bremmer is president and founder of the Eurasia Group.

President Donald Trump is more confident about military strikes in Iran this time around — both on the back of his experience at the end of his first term (after the killing of Qassem Soleimani) and the 12 Day War last year, as well as given the success of his military operation in Venezuela last month.

I see the risks of limited action as comparatively low, since Israel has established escalation dominance in the region (against Iran’s proxies) and the regime is not under imminent threat in its domestic environment. But a broader decapitation threat is another matter, and there I could see attacks against U.S. military targets in the region, as well as critical energy infrastructure, and disrupting the Strait of Hormuz (with significant implications for oil prices) as more plausible.

All of which is why a more limited set of strikes, at least to begin with, seems the more likely option to me at this point. Yes, Iran hasn’t offered much in terms of their negotiations, but there’s no reason not to test that after having once again pushed back their nuclear capabilities and targeted ballistic missile capacity (that they’re not yet willing to negotiate about).

Revives push....

Hegseth revives push to punish Sen. Mark Kelly

The Defense secretary appealed a ruling this month in favor of the former Navy captain.

By Leo Shane III, Connor O'Brien and Kyle Cheney

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday ramped up his public spat with Sen. Mark Kelly, appealing a federal court ruling that blocked him from punishing the Arizona Democrat for advising troops not to follow illegal orders.

The case, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, asks a panel to set aside the ruling this month from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who issued a preliminary injunction halting the Pentagon’s effort to demote the former Navy captain and reduce his retirement pay.

The move reveals that Hegseth has no plans to tamp down his battle against Kelly, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has fought the allegations against him as a threat to free speech.

The two men have been locked in a public fight since November, when Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers released a video warning that President Donald Trump’s administration was “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.”

It also told troops to “refuse illegal orders” but did not specify what that meant.

The comments came just weeks after the administration started controversial military airstrikes against alleged drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and sent the National Guard into U.S. cities against some governors’ wishes to reduce crime.

Hegseth and Trump criticized Kelly and Democrats’ remarks as “seditious.”

Kelly has said the pair is attempting to turn him into an example and therefore silence other military retirees who would criticize the administration.

Kelly vowed to continue fighting the Trump administration in a higher court. “These guys don’t know when to quit,” he said in a statement following the appeal.

“A federal judge told Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth that they violated my constitutional rights and chilled the free speech of millions of retired veterans,” Kelly said. “There is only one reason to appeal that ruling: to keep trampling on the free speech rights of retired veterans and silence dissent.”

The Pentagon, soon after the video’s release, launched a probe into Kelly, a fighter pilot who served 25 years in uniform and as a NASA astronaut. It led to Hegseth formally censuring Kelly and starting a review process to determine whether his rank and retirement pay should be reduced.

The judge, in the initial court ruling this month that favored Kelly, noted that courts haven’t sought to impose limits on political speech by retired service members. The ruling also said that Kelly’s position as a senator, and as a member of the Armed Services Committee, requires him to weigh in on sensitive political topics.

The Justice Department has failed to secure a grand jury indictment against Kelly or any of the other Democrats in the video. All six of the lawmakers involved served in military or national security roles.