Author: Press Room

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration was “jiu-jitsuing the Iranians” by “using their own oil against them.” Partial transcript as follows: KRISTEN WELKER: Let me talk about your announcement this past week. On Friday, the Treasury Department lifted sanctions on Iranian oil stored on tankers, a move that would effectively allow Iran to get more than $14 billion of oil revenue.Why is the U.S. helping to fund a country that it’s currently at war with, Mr. Secretary? BESSENT: Again, Kristen, why don’t we have good facts here? That Iranian oil was always…

Four Senate Republicans are meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss funding the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shuttered for more than a month amid a standoff with Democrats over the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda. GOP lawmakers attending the Monday night meeting, according to a person granted anonymity to share details of a private confab, are Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Steve Daines of Montana. Britt is the chair of the appropriations subcommittee with oversight over DHS and has been helping lead negotiations to…

Kirill Dmitriev has pointed to Moscow’s deals with other countries as the Iran war tightens global oil and gas supplies The EU risks becoming the last in line among buyers of Russian energy resources as Moscow expands projects with other countries amid the fuel price shock triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev has warned.In a post on X on Monday, Dmitriev wrote that the EU is “at the end of the queue,” while commenting on a BRICS News report published during Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s visit to Russia, which said Hanoi would sign…

On 17 March 2026, I was on “Judging Freedom” talking with the Judge about Iran and related matters. Today is the 20th anniversary — to the day — of the publication on the internet of “The Israel Lobby” in The London Review of Books. Naturally, the Judge and I talked about the article and book that Steve Walt and I wrote, focusing on the role that the lobby plays today — as opposed to back in 2006 — in shaping the discourse about Israel as well as US policy toward Israel. I emphasized that the lobby’s role in shaping policy remains as…

The populist Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party secured its strongest ever result in a West German state election on Sunday, while winning the youth vote as the establishment Social Democrats continue to slide. Nearly five million voters headed to the polls on Sunday in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the country’s sixth-largest state by population. While the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz won the evening with 31 per cent of the vote, slightly up from its 27.7 per cent showing in the previous election in 2021, the headlines emerging from Sunday focused on the collapse of the Social…

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has approved the Dalilah Law, named after 6-year-old Dalilah Coleman, to ban states from issuing Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDLs) to illegal aliens. The bill, introduced by Rep. Erin Houchin (R-IN) in the House and Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) in the Senate, would require states to limit CDLs to American citizens, green card-holders, and certain foreign visa workers. The test for securing a CDL would also only be administered in English. Likewise, the bill would immediately revoke all trucking licenses given to illegal aliens and foreign nationals on Temporary Protected Status (TPS), regardless of whether such aliens have been…

Sunday, during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that President Donald Trump “plays checkers, not chess.” Host Jon Karl said, “And this is all happening as we have this shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, basically no funding for anything except for ICE. I mean, where is this going? What’s your sense?” Christie said, “Well, look, as it continues to impact, lines at airports. Yeah. And as we get closer to this summer, when people are going to be going on vacation, you know, it’s going to have to come to a…

The party gained unprecedented support in an election in a former West German state The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has reached an electoral milestone outside of its traditional political heartland, the second such achievement in less than a month. The party secured nearly 20% of the vote in regional elections in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.AfD finished third behind Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democrats – the two parties that have traditionally dominated the political landscape in the state ever since the 1950s.It achieved the highest result for any third party in the…

YouTube and Netflix children’s content creator Ms. Rachel is temporarily moving on from supporting the cause of Hamas-led Palestine and is now taking aim at President Donald Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On one of her recent episodes, Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Anne Accurso, spoke over video chat with an immigrant child currently in the custody of federal officials at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. Accurso found that the boy, 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez, was sad because he was not going to be able to participate in his school spelling bee. “It…

AFP — Britain is sending short-range air defence systems to the Gulf to help counter Iranian missile attacks, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday. “We’re deploying short range air defence systems to Bahrain at speed,” Starmer told a parliamentary committee, adding the UK was “doing the same with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia”. The UK is working with industry to “distribute air defence missiles to Gulf partners”, which have faced waves of Iranian barrages in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes, and has embedded airspace specialists there, Starmer said. Defence minister John Healey told parliament the country would be deploying its Rapid Sentry…