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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was irritated on Wednesday after a reporter mentioned Joe Kent — the top Trump intelligence official who resigned after claiming President Donald Trump changed his story on the Iran war.Leavitt was responding to a reporter's question during a White House press briefing and had a sharp reaction to the comments from Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and close MAGA ally who stepped down last week from his role. Kent has said that Iran "posed no imminent threat to our nation" and that the president acted under "pressure from Israel.""Joe Kent said that the president's red line shifted from 'Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon' to 'Iran cannot pursue nuclear enrichment.' What is the administration's response to that criticism?" the reporter asked. Leavitt had a strong response to Kent's comments. "I think the president and I have both strongly responded to the criticism by Mr. Kent, who unfortunately resigned in disgrace and accused the president of basically being controlled by foreign countries and foreign manipulation, which is a ridiculous and laughable assertion," Leavitt said. "So his accusations have zero credibility as far as this White House is concerned." The reporter pressed further, "the question of the red line shifting from no nuclear weapon to no nuclear enrichment, is there any substance to that argument?"Leavitt pushed back on the question. "I think the president has been quite clear on what he wants to see from the Iranian regime, which is why he chose to launch Operation Epic Fury in the first place," Leavitt said.Q: Joe Kent said the president's red line shifted from 'Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon' to 'Iran cannot pursue nuclear enrichment.' What is the president's response?LEAVITT: Mr Kent resigned in disgrace. He has 0 credibilityQ: But the question of the red line shifting?… pic.twitter.com/3mdhr5pKJB— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 25, 2026

The Transportation Security Administration staffing crisis has hit a point that could impact one of the biggest events in President Donald Trump's year: the FIFA World Cup. Ha Nguyen McNeill, the acting TSA administrator, said during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday that more than 480 TSA workers have quit since the DHS shutdown started 39 days ago, Politico reported. She cited workers who sleep in their cars, sell their own blood or plasma, or take on second jobs to try and make ends meet while the government shutdown has left them unpaid. And with millions of people set to arrive in the U.S. for the major sporting event, he flagged looming chaos.“This is a dire situation. We are facing a potential, perfect storm of severe staffing shortages and an influx of millions of passengers at our airports in less than 80 days,” McNeill said. Hiring and training new TSA officers generally takes about four to six months, which is approaching the time of the upcoming FIFA World Cup. “If we see any spikes [in attrition], we’re going to have to pivot and asses how we are going to staff the FIFA locations adequately,” McNeill said.The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, marking a significant international sporting event that Trump has boasted will bring millions of visitors to North American venues during the summer months."McNeill warned that any officers the agency hires in the coming months won’t be ready to work checkpoint lanes during the FIFA World Cup this summer," according to Politico. More officers have called out during the stalemate, especially at major airports, which has prompted security screening lanes to consolidate, resulting in longer lines and wait times. Smaller airports have considered closing if they can't have enough staff, she explained. If the shutdown continues through Friday, the TSA workforce was expected to lose an estimated $1 billion in missed paychecks.

Exclusive: Indonesia reports growing number of attempts by Chinese nationals to organise boat journeys, as Australian authorities refuse to reveal detailsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Australian government has refused to reveal how many Chinese nationals have arrived in Australia by boat since 2024, saying that disclosing the figure may harm relations with other countries.However, reports by Indonesian police show that there has been a consistent trend of Chinese nationals attempting to reach Australia through Indonesia as an alternative to “zouxian”, or “walking the line” – the illegal migration route through Central America to the US via the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama. Continue reading...

UK urged to tackle transnational repression, as dissidents say Beijing has targeted them with tax bills and other threats“I didn’t feel safe, even though I’m not based in Hong Kong any more,” said Christopher Mung Siu-tat after getting tax bills from Hong Kong authorities. “The regime can reach me by their long arms wherever I am.”Siu-tat, the executive director at the Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor, a UK-based NGO, fled Beijing’s sweeping national security laws years ago. The letters are the latest example of a series of transnational repression (TNR) tactics the 54-year-old has faced in recent years. Continue reading...

Marco Rubio welcomes release of Dennis Coyle, who was detained in January last year for violating unspecified lawsAfghanistan’s Taliban authorities have released the American academic Dennis Coyle after holding him for over a year, with the foreign ministry saying the release came on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.A statement from the ministry said the academic researcher had been released in Kabul on Tuesday, following an appeal from his family and after Afghanistan’s supreme court “considered his previous imprisonment sufficient”. Continue reading...

Donald Trump's improvised comments about Iran while boarding Air Force One on Monday demonstrated his chaotic approach to military strategy — and his apparent blindness to critical consequences unfolding around him, according to a report.The president made a comment revealing that Iran's regional retaliation caught planners of the military action against the country off guard."Look at the way Iran attacked unexpectedly all of those countries surrounding them. That was not supposed to-- nobody was even thinking about it," the president conceded before reasserting without substantiation, "But they wanted to take over the Middle East."The remarks prompted analysis from New Republic correspondent Greg Sargent and Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy.Sargent highlighted the troubling implications on his podcast. "He said no one anticipated that Iran would attack other countries in an effort to widen the war," he commented. "But in saying that, Trump revealed that he didn't anticipate it — which is a striking admission about his own lack of foresight."He continued, "We think this captures something broader. On one front after another, Trump plainly didn't prepare for eventualities that most experts fully did anticipate. So how directly responsible are these failings for what we're seeing right now — that by most indications, the war is getting worse for Trump and the U.S. on many fronts?"Duss responded, "Well, we know that this is going much worse than Donald Trump himself thought it would. We know that Donald Trump does not do the reading. We know that Donald Trump has the attention span of a fly. We know that he just makes stuff up all the time. Trump made this threat over the weekend to bomb power plants — which is clearly a war crime, to attack plants that produce power for civilians. And then I think he woke up and saw that the stock market is in trouble, oil prices are continuing to go higher."Duss dismissed Trump's characterization that the attacks blindsided everyone as fundamentally dishonest."Everyone anticipated this," he stated flatly. "Every one of these countries that Iran has attacked — we should have expected it, whether it's Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, obviously Israel. This is part of Iran's defensive strategy. This is part of how they believe they were creating deterrence."He went on, "So Iran is following through — they have to follow through, in a sense, if they want to make sure that this doesn't happen again in the future. So yes, to answer your question, of course, people knew Iran was going to do this. Again, Donald Trump does not bother to do the reading."

According to former Defense Secretary Mike Esper, who served in Donald Trump’s first administration, the leadership of Iran is feeling pretty confident about its position after three weeks of having war waged upon them by the president.In a clip shared on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” Esper admitted the Pentagon’s military objectives seem to have been met, but now the hard part begins — and Iran has some leverage to make demands.“In terms of the military objectives that [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. Dan Caine outlined, you know, taking down the navy, the air force, ballistic missiles production, etc. Degrading the nuclear, they've made incredible progress on those things,” he said before adding the caveat, “I'm not hearing as much about the nuclear, but I think the military objectives are being accomplished.”“Now, of course, it's unclear what the political objectives are," he continued. “The president has moved around and said different things at times, and so it's hard to see what the yardstick is at when it comes to that. At the end of the day, it's going to be the political yardstick that determines, you know, win-loss. You know how much of a victory, whatever the case may be.”“But what's interesting now, I think, is the Iranians. My sense is they survived the decapitation,” he elaborated. “They probably feel like they've taken three weeks of, you know, America's and Israel's best, and they've survived. There's no signs of the regime fracturing.”“I mean, the [director of national intelligence] said that the other day in the hearing,” he pointed out. “And they feel emboldened, so much so that they're making demands as to what it would take to have a negotiated end to the conflict. So they are emboldened.”“I don't see them giving up anytime soon,” he predicted. - YouTube youtu.be

Donald Trump is searching for an exit strategy from his increasingly unpopular war with Iran, but Saudi Arabia's de facto leader is pushing hard in the opposite direction — pressuring the president to view the conflict as an opportunity to reshape the entire Middle East.According to the New York Times, controversial Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been aggressively urging Trump to intensify the war against Iran, according to people briefed by American officials on the private conversations.In discussions over the past week, Prince Mohammed has told Trump that he must accelerate efforts toward dismantling Iran's hard-line government, according to those familiar with the talks.Prince Mohammed contends that Iran represents an existential long-term threat to the Gulf region that cannot be adequately addressed without regime change, the sources said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similarly regards Iran as a long-term threat, though the two allies have divergent strategic interests. Analysts note that Israeli officials would likely view a destabilized Iranian state consumed by internal chaos as a strategic victory, whereas Saudi Arabia sees a failed Iranian state as a direct and immediate security catastrophe.Yet senior officials within both Saudi and American governments harbor serious concerns about prolonged conflict. They fear Iran will unleash increasingly devastating strikes against Saudi oil infrastructure while the United States becomes mired in an indefinite war.Trump's public messaging has been erratic, oscillating between declarations that the war could end imminently and suggestions of escalation. On Monday, the president wrote on social media that his administration and Iran had engaged in "productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities," though Iran denied that any negotiations were taking place.The war's toll on Saudi Arabia — economically and strategically — has been severe. Iranian drone and missile strikes, launched in response to American and Israeli military action against Iran, have already triggered significant disruptions throughout global energy markets.Saudi Arabia's government flatly disputed claims that Prince Mohammed has advocated for prolonging the conflict."The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has always supported a peaceful resolution to this conflict, even before it began," the Saudi government said in a statement, adding that officials "remain in close contact with the Trump administration and our commitment remains unchanged."