Trump dials up Iran rhetoric with expletive-filled deadline threat

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Iran threat reissued with f-bomb 

Trump denies Cabinet overhaul 

History behind the mask ban debate 

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President Trump amplified his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, declaring in a profanity-laced social media post over the weekend that the U.S. will escalate attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure if no agreement is reached by Tuesday. 

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday. 

The threat drew warnings of potential war crimes from Democrats and military experts.  

“Trump is calling reporters today to tell them he is going to commit mass war crimes next week. GOP leaders need to stop him,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a thread on the social platform X, referring to Trump’s remark to ABC News’s Rachel Scott that the U.S. would be “blowing up the whole country” if Iran remains defiant.  

 “Never mind that blowing up bridges and power plants and killing innocent Iranians won’t reopen the Strait. It’s also a clear war crime,” Murphy added. 

Both Reuters and Axios reported that talks on a temporary ceasefire ramped up over the weekend, but that Tehran was refusing demands to reopen the Strait as part of a short-term deal. 

The president has twice pushed back a deadline for Iran to reopen the strait, which has been effectively closed since the war began more than five weeks ago, expressing some optimism that Iran was interested in making a deal. 

But Iranian officials have publicly pushed back on the president’s claims, and Trump threatened to send Iran “back to the stone ages” during a primetime speech last week. And Trump repeatedly doubled down on his delayed deadline this weekend.  

“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them,” he said on Truth Social on Saturday. 

He cryptically posted “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time” later on Sunday but didn’t make clear exactly what the time refers to. 

Trump is holding a press briefing with military leadership today at 1 p.m. at the White House, where additional updates on the situation are expected. 

If Trump were to follow through on his threat, it would mark a significant escalation in the war, which Trump said in his Wednesday address the U.S. would conclude in the next two to three weeks. 

Trump told The Hill’s Julia Manchester and Mallory Wilson in a phone interview Sunday that he wouldn’t rule out sending in ground troops if Tehran doesn’t make a deal. 

“Normal people would make a deal. Smart people would make a deal,” he said. “If they were smart, they would make a deal.” 

Trump also told Scott of ABC News that the conflict should be over in days and not weeks.  

Trump has reportedly been weighing deploying ground troops to seize Kharg Island, an area inside the Persian Gulf key to Iran’s oil exports, or taking Iran’s enriched uranium, believed to be buried in a bombed-out nuclear facility.  

But any ground incursion would potentially expose U.S. forces to casualties and could extend the war even further. 

Iran shot down a U.S. Air Force fighter jet on Friday, marking the first time it has downed an American fighter jet since the war began. The two pilots of the F-15E Strike Eagle were both rescued, including one who had been missing for a day. 

“We have rescued the seriously wounded, and really brave, F-15 Crew Member/Officer, from deep inside the mountains of Iran,” Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. 

Polls show most Americans oppose his handling of the conflict and oil and gas prices have soared, adding pressure on the president. The average national cost of gas surpassed $4.10 per gallon over the weekend, according to AAA. 

The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky reports an international jet fuel shortage is also driving up airfares and causing thousands of flight cancellations, an effect that analysts warn could get worse in the coming weeks. 

But the president has sought to assure the country that the economic impacts of the war will be short-lived, and prices will quickly come down once the operation ends. 

▪ The Hill: Trump roils NATO as pressure builds on Strait of Hormuz. 

▪ The Associated Press: U.S. pulls off daring rescue. 

▪ The New York Times: Trump revels in threats to commit war crimes in Iran. 

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY   

Multiple U.S. aircraft were destroyed in the mission to rescue the stranded U.S. pilot, according to the Iranian Fars News Agency. Other outlets also shared images of destroyed aircraft that Iranian state media released. 

Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pope, called for peace to solve global conflicts during his first Easter Mass as pontiff Sunday. His predecessor, Pope Francis, died the day after Easter last year. 

The crew of the Artemis II mission will set a new record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth today, surpassing a mark set by Apollo 13. It will happen during a flyby of the moon before the crew members begin their trip back home. 

CABINET SHAKE-UP? Trump pushed back Sunday on reports of additional Cabinet swaps coming after his ousting of former Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

Trump told The Hill that the country is on the right track and other changes aren’t coming. 

Speculation has swirled in the days since Bondi was fired that other Cabinet members may be next. Bondi was the second member of Trump’s second-term Cabinet to leave their role during the administration, coming just weeks after the firing of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 

Reports have raised questions about the future of several Cabinet members, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. 

But the White House and Trump’s allies have denied that additional changes are forthcoming. 

“Secretaries Chavez-DeRemer and Lutnick are both doing a great job standing up for American workers, and they continue to have President Trump’s full support,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement. 

“POTUS has total confidence in [Gabbard] and any insinuation otherwise is totally fake news,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement on X. 

Still, this wouldn’t be the first time the administration has praised a Cabinet member before their exit. Trump said Bondi was doing a “good job” in response to a report of her impending departure before he ultimately fired her, though the White House didn’t issue a full-blown denial as it has with some of the other Cabinet members currently being talked about. 

▪ The Washington Post: Trump wants to avoid ‘massive shake-up.’ 

▪ Time: Who Trump has replaced in the administration. 

FUNDING PUSH: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to bring the lower chamber back from recess early to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

Jeffries said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Johnson should bring the House back to “stop creating chaos at airports all across the country” and forcing employees to continue working without pay. 

The House convened in a pro forma session last week but didn’t take action on the bill. The chamber isn’t currently set to return from its Easter recess until next week. 

After Trump came out in favor of a two-step process to fund most of DHS through the normal appropriations procedure and cover immigration enforcement through reconciliation, the Senate passed a bill to fund all DHS agencies except for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. It now awaits action in the House.  

All DHS workers are set to get relief after weeks of no pay as Trump formally ordered the department on Friday to pay its employees, following up on an order to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees.  

But that’s a temporary solution for the funding gap. 

Even with support from Johnson and other members of House GOP leadership, getting the funding plan through the House may not be easy, with members of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus slamming it for not including funding for immigration enforcement. 

Some Republicans want to deal with ICE funding in a reconciliation bill. But that too is complicated, with GOP members hoping to focus on other priorities such as voting reform, Iran war funding and cuts aimed at fraud in federal programs, The Hill’s Sudiksha Kochi and Emily Brooks report. 

Trump wants a reconciliation bill on his desk by June 1.  

▪ The Hill: Trump detachment, GOP divisions stifle efforts to reopen DHS. 

▪ NewsNation: How to check TSA wait times. 

BUDGET REQUEST: The White House is seeking $1.5 trillion for defense in its 2027 budget request, roughly a 40 percent increase from the current fiscal levels.  

A base of $1.1 trillion will be requested for the Defense Department, while $350 million would be for “critical Administration priorities” such as more munitions and defense industrial base expansions. The second portion would be passed through reconciliation.  

Trump had floated the idea of a record-breaking defense budget request in January, saying such a budget would allow the U.S. to build its “Dream Military.” 

The request is sure to face pushback from Congress. Democrats quickly slammed the proposal, arguing it doesn’t address Americans’ needs and undermines domestic programs and priorities. 

The budget request features a 10 percent cut, equivalent to $73 billion, in nondefense spending, focused on cutting spending on housing, community, environmental, health care and other programs. 

Some of those cuts were panned by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican appropriator.  

▪ Politico: Trump plans spending millions on White House renovations. 

▪ The Hill: Budget would cut TSA funding, require privatization at small airports. 

The president will participate in executive time at 8 a.m. He and first lady Melania Trump will participate in the White House Easter Egg Roll at 10 a.m. He will host a press conference at 1 p.m. and participate in a policy meeting at 2:30 p.m. He will deliver a Passover greeting to Jewish community leaders at 3:30 p.m. 

The House will convene at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session. 

The Senate will meet at 1 p.m. for a pro forma session. 

DARK MEMORIES: The Democrats’ push to prohibit federal immigration officers from wearing facemasks may be a relatively recent battle, but it has ties dating back decades. 

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) told The Hill’s Mike Lillis they still have memories of an era before the Civil Rights Movement of when a man wearing a mask was someone to fear. 

“I grew up in the South. A white guy jumps out of the car with a mask on, I mean, my first reaction is self-defense,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a former CBC chair. 

The debate over facemasks claimed the national spotlight following the January deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens who were killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. In both cases, the officers who fired the fatal shots were wearing masks, concealing their identities. 

The Trump administration has defended the use of masks, arguing they’re necessary to protect agents from doxing and physical harm. 

“If you want ICE to take the masks off, the threat level has to decrease,” White House border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s Jake Tapper. 

But Democrats note that no other law enforcement agencies at the federal, state or local level wear masks to perform police work, and they argue masks allow officers to commit acts of violence without accountability. 

“The logic behind the masks for the [Ku Klux Klan] is the same as the logic behind the masks now, which is to hide an identity,” Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) said. “And if you’re on the good guys’ side, that’s not what you should be doing.” 

▪ NBC10: New Jersey bans law enforcement from wearing masks. 

▪ KING 5 News: Can state face mask bans be enforced? 

HEATING UP: Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed‘s decision to rally with controversial influencer Hasan Piker is stirring debate over claims of antisemitism linked to his past remarks about the Israel-Hamas war.  

El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director who has sought to rally progressive enthusiasm with endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other left-wing figures, invited Piker to rally with him Tuesday at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. 

The Hill’s Julia Mueller reports the decision has stirred criticism from El-Sayed’s opponents for the Democratic nomination and raised some concerns that Republicans could have an easier time winning the general election if El-Sayed wins the primary. 

Piker has built up millions of followers on YouTube, Instagram and X. But his rise has been controversial, particularly for comments he made following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage. 

Piker said the attack was a “direct consequence” of U.S. and Israeli government actions and “it doesn’t change the dynamic for me” if rapes happened as part of Hamas’s campaign. Those comments and others have fueled accusations of antisemitism against Piker, which he denies. 

El-Sayed’s Democratic rivals have slammed the decision to invite Piker. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) told Jewish Insider that Piker is “the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” while state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) compared Piker to far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, an avowed antisemite. 

Piker has maintained that his criticisms have focused on the U.S. and Israeli governments and not Jewish people as a whole. 

The Michigan Senate race is expected to be one of the most hotly contested in the country this year. Polling has shown a tight race in both the Democratic primary and in hypothetical general election match-ups with the likely Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich.). 

▪ NBC News: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) defends going on Piker’s livestream. 

▪ The Hill: Ad campaign calls out Trump threat to ‘federalize’ elections. 

CALIFORNIA ENDORSEMENT: Trump has endorsed Republican Steve Hilton in the California gubernatorial race, hoping to give him a boost as the GOP tries to pull off an upset in the deep-blue state. 

Hilton is a former Fox News host and adviser for the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party. 

Trump said in a Truth Social post early Monday that he has known Hilton for years and that he is a “truly fine man.” He slammed the current status of California under outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). 

“Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so! With Federal help, and a Great Governor, like Steve Hilton, California can be better than ever before! Steve Hilton has my COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT. He will be a GREAT Governor and, importantly, WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!!!” Trump said. 

The race to succeed Newsom appears wide open with a crowded field and nobody pulling ahead in polls. All candidates compete on the same primary ballot, and the top two will advance to the general election. 

With polls showing Democratic support split among more than a half-dozen prominent candidates, Republicans have gained some optimism that they could box out Democrats and have Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the other prominent Republican candidate, advance. 

How Congress could put the Constitution in every American’s pocket, Randy Wright writes in The Washington Post. 

Iran is ending the dream of remote-controlled war, Marc Gustafson and Justin Kosslyn write in The New York Times. 

And finally … Savannah Guthrie is set to return as co-host NBC’s “Today” show on Monday, more than two months after the disappearance of her mother. 

Authorities have still not located Nancy Guthrie, who went missing from her home in Tucson, Ariz., on Feb. 1. Officials believe she was taken against her will, but they have no substantial leads in the case despite thousands of tips and multiple purported ransom notes reviewed. 

NBC announced late last month that Savannah Guthrie would return to her role. 

“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness, and I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not,” she told her former co-host Hoda Kotb on March 27. “But I can’t not come back, because it’s my family. I think it’s part of my purpose right now.” 

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