Beirut/Tel Aviv9:47 p.m. March 26
Tehran11:17 p.m. March 26
Iran War Live Updates: Trump Delivers New Threats, Escalating Effort to Pressure Iran
Mr. Trump warned Iranian officials to consider his peace proposal “before it is too late.” As the administration struggles to force Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz to oil shipments, the Israelis said they had killed an Iranian naval commander who was key to shutting the waterway.
- Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
- Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
- Abbas Fakih/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Video obtained by Reuters
- Hussein Malla/Associated Press
- Zain Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press
President Trump on Thursday ratcheted up pressure on Iran to accept a proposal to end the war, warning them that otherwise “we’ll just keep blowing them away.”
The president issued his threat at a cabinet meeting hours after Israel said it had killed a naval commander who had been leading Iran’s effort to close a vital oil shipping route. At the meeting, Mr. Trump and a top adviser offered differing assessments of Tehran’s openness to negotiations. Iran has publicly rejected the overtures, though privately it has signaled some willingness.
“They’ll tell you, ‘We’re not negotiating,’” Mr. Trump said. “Of course, they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated.”
Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Mr. Trump, offered a more cautious interpretation. He said that he and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were still trying to convince the Iranians “that this is the inflection point, with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.”
Mr. Trump told reporters he didn’t yet know whether he would extend a deadline he gave to Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz, the vital oil route, by Friday or the United States would “obliterate” power stations in Iran. Mr. Trump said it would depend on what his negotiators, Mr. Witkoff and Jared Kushner, reported back.
Pakistan’s foreign minister confirmed on Thursday that his country has been facilitating back-channel communications between the United States and Iran, including relaying a 15-point U.S. proposal aimed at ending the war. But Pakistani officials did not say whether they would soon host any high-level foreign officials, appearing to play down the prospect of formal talks between the two sides after four weeks of war.
Although Mr. Trump insists that Iran is willing to negotiate because it is close to defeat, missile launches by Iran at Israel continued unabated on Thursday.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Commander killed: Israel said Thursday that the Iranian naval commander it killed, Alireza Tangsiri, played a pivotal role in shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Iran did not immediately comment on the claim.
Hardening demands: Diplomats said that Mr. Trump’s 15-point peace plan calls for what would amount to a complete termination of Iran’s nuclear program and strict limits on its missile arsenal. Iran said in comments carried on state television Wednesday that Iran would not end its attacks unless the United States paid war reparations and recognized Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz.
New attacks: The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had struck targets in Isfahan, in central Iran. Iran also launched strikes against U.S. allies and sites in the Persian Gulf. In Abu Dhabi, falling debris from a missile interception killed two people, authorities in the United Arab Emirates said.
Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported that more than 1,440 civilians have been killed in Iran. Almost 1,100 people in Lebanon have been killed, the authorities there said on Wednesday. At least 15 people were killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials said. The American death toll stands at 13 service members.
Israel’s political opposition has largely aligned with the government on the war effort against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But on Thursday, the leader of the parliamentary opposition leader, Yair Lapid, issued a stark warning about the military’s ability to carry out its missions in light of a severe manpower shortage.
“The government has sent the military to fight a multi-front war without a strategy, without the means, and with too few soldiers,” Lapid said in a televised address. He said that Israel’s military chief of staff had warned ministers on Wednesday that the military was struggling to mobilize reservists after more than two years of war, and that active-duty soldiers were facing “total collapse.” The remarks, attributed to Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, were not made publicly. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Heavy explosions were heard in several parts of Tehran on Thursday evening, according to Iranian state media. Residents described unusually intense bombardment compared with recent nights. It was not immediately clear who was carrying out the strikes, but the reports came after Israeli officials said the military intended to step up its air campaign because of concerns the United States could soon bring the war to a halt if it reaches an agreement with Iran. Washington’s diplomatic overtures still had not born fruit on Thursday.
At least 15 ballistic missiles and 11 drones were launched from Iran at the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, the country’s defense ministry said in a social media post. All told, the small country on the Persian Gulf has had to had deal with 327 missiles and 1,826 drones since the air war with Iran started. Two military members and nine civilians have been killed, the ministry said.
The Israeli military has “expanded” the ground operation in southern Lebanon “one step further,” Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo, the commander of the Northern Command, told troops on Thursday, according to a statement from the military. He said Israeli troops had so far killed more than 750 people he called “terrorists” and “destroyed infrastructure all across Lebanon.” Earlier in the day, the military said that it had deployed a third division to southern Lebanon, while troops from a fourth division had also carried out ground operations there.
Pakistan’s expanding efforts to broker peace between the U.S. and Iran come after it reached an unorthodox — and potentially lucrative — real-estate deal involving a shuttered hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The deal, a potential partnership between the U.S. and Pakistani governments, was disclosed last month by President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, a former developer now assigned to negotiate peace around the world. Pakistan’s leaders recently relayed to Iran a 15-point U.S. plan to end the war, and they have offered to host talks between the two sides.
A close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia struck an optimistic note on the war’s effect on Persian Gulf countries at an event in Miami hosted by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. The challenges the region is facing are showing that it is resilient, said Mohammed Al Asheikh, a Saudi minister of state. “We will come out of this much better, much stronger.”
Israel’s war with Hezbollah has shown little sign of abating. More than 1,100 people have now been killed in the country since Israel’s conflict with the Iran-backed group erupted earlier this month, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. At least 121 children are among the dead, the ministry said.
Trump said he didn’t yet know whether he would extend a deadline he gave to Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz by Friday or the United States would “obliterate” power stations there. Trump said it would depend on what his negotiators, Witkoff and Kushner, reported.
“If it’s not going along, maybe not,” he said, adding that they “have a lot of time.” He added that a day “in Trump time” was “an eternity.”
President Trump said the “surprise” he’s been referring to regarding Iran was that the Iranians said they would let eight oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz as a show of sincerity ahead of talks. He said they were Pakistan-flagged boats. And two additional boats were let through, he added, so 10 boats passed.
Trump, asked about reports that the U.S. was considering a plan to divert munitions from Ukraine to the Middle East, did not answer definitively but said that “we do that all the time.” He said that the United States was still hoping to get the war in Ukraine “solved,” but noted that it was “thousands of miles away” and didn’t affect the United States.
He then expressed his ire at NATO allies, indicating that he could take the same posture they have in hesitating to get involved in his war against Iran. “That’s why, when I heard the head of Germany say ‘this is not our war,’ about Iran, I said, ‘Well, Ukraine’s not our war,’” he said.
President Trump said he was open to trying to suspend the federal gas tax in a bid to bring down sky-high costs at the pump stemming from the war with Iran. He said he “thought about it, I guess,” during the cabinet meeting, later adding it’s “something we have in our pocket if we think it’s necessary.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that he was confident that oil shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would start to increase and that the oil market was currently “well supplied.” Bessent predicted that after the war concludes, the world will have lower energy prices and less inflation because there will be “absolute security.”
Steve Witkoff, the White House special envoy who along with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are attempting to negotiate a deal with Iran, said during the cabinet meeting that the duo was focused on convincing Iran “that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.”
Witkoff said that they had “strong signs” that peace was a possibility, and that “Iran is looking for an off-ramp” following Trump’s threat this past weekend to “obliterate” their power plants within 48 hours. As the deadline neared, Trump pulled back the threat, and instead looked for his own off-ramp.
Even as President Trump claimed Iran’s military had been “obliterated,” missile launches by Iran at Israel continued unabated on Thursday. The Israeli military just said that it had identified missile launches from Iran, the eighth such announcement since midnight on Thursday. At least seven people were injured in central Israel on Thursday following missile barrages, according to the country’s emergency service.
The war on a second front — between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon — has also intensified on Thursday. One man was killed in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, according to emergency services, after a volley of rockets from Lebanon. The Israeli military later said that a third division would be deployed to southern Lebanon as part of what Israel has called a “limited” ground operation there.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking at the cabinet meeting, echoed President Trump’s claims that Iran has been at war with the United States for 47 years and that “every president should have done this,” referring to the war.
But other presidents have sought to address Iran’s nuclear plans diplomatically, including former President Barack Obama. And the glaring omission worth noting is that this is President Trump’s second term, meaning he was among the presidents in recent years who chose not to go to war with Iran. In fact, he called off a military strike against Iran in 2019 after Iran shot down a U.S. drone in international airspace. As planes were in the air, and with minutes to spare, he pulled back, citing the possibility of Iranian casualties.
On Iran, Trump reiterated his talking points about U.S. military successes, particularly that the war was “ahead of schedule,” and his complaints about allies not joining the war effort. He also continued to assert that Iran was “defeated” and its military capabilities were “obliterated,” and he pushed back against reports that Iran was not interested in negotiating a cease-fire with the United States.
“They’ll tell you, ‘we’re not negotiating,’” he said. “Of course, they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated.” He added that Iranians still had a chance to abandon their nuclear ambitions, but “in the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away, unimpeded, unstopped.”
President Trump is hosting his second cabinet meeting of the year, and the first since the U.S. went to war in Iran. This morning, he posted a string of social media posts threatening Iran over negotiations, lashing out at NATO allies for not joining the war, pressuring congressional Republicans to “terminate” the filibuster, and blaming Democrats for the ongoing partial government shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.
Israel’s assassination of an Iranian Navy commander, Alireza Tangsiri “makes the region safer,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, the leader of U.S. Central Command, in a statement Thursday. He said that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy has attacked hundreds of vessels over the years and “harassed thousands of innocent merchant mariners.”
The head of NATO said on Thursday that European countries needed time to “come together” to make sure the Strait of Hormuz is open for all, even as many of those nations have criticized the war in Iran as unlawful and unwarranted.
Briefing journalists at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Secretary General Mark Rutte noted that the alliance had long held that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs posed a threat not just to the Middle East but to Europe. He cited recent strikes against Turkey and a joint U.S.-British military base in the Indian Ocean as evidence of Iran’s threat to the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“What the United States is doing now is degrading that capability,” Mr. Rutte said of the American military action, which it has taken alongside Israel, against Iran. “And yes, I applaud it.”
But he also said he had told President Trump that European leaders could not be expected to quickly assist in the Persian Gulf because they were not given advance notice of the Feb. 28 attack on Iran.
Mr. Trump has criticized Europe for not doing more to help protect commercial ships from Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. “We are very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely nothing,” he said later on Thursday, during a cabinet meeting in Washington.
Mr. Rutte said his response to such criticism was that “Europe needed time because the United States, for good reasons, was not able to inform allies of what was going to happen.” He added, “It means that it takes some time for Europe to come together, and that’s happening now.”
He said that more than 30 countries around the world, most of them NATO members, were now planning how “to make sure that the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lanes, are open.”
Mr. Rutte conceded that it was not clear when that might happen, given that most allies have refused to get involved in the strait on Iran’s southern border until a cease-fire is announced.
“Indeed, that begs the question, given the fact that the war is ongoing: What does it mean in terms of the ‘what’ question, the ‘when’ question and the ‘where’ question,” Mr. Rutte said.
He said the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, was leading the multinational effort “to make sure that those questions will be answered.”
Mr. Rutte also reiterated his support for Mr. Trump. “The United States, under this president, is doing stuff which is quite crucial for the alliance,” he said.
Critics of Mr. Rutte in Europe say that by supporting the war, he has gone beyond his remit as secretary general of the alliance to become a cheerleader for an unpopular American president and an unpopular conflict.
Two people were killed and three others were wounded in Abu Dhabi on Thursday when shrapnel from an intercepted missile rained down on a road on the city’s outskirts, officials in the United Arab Emirates said.
The Emirati authorities did not release the names of the two people who were killed but said that they were a Pakistani man and an Indian man. Their deaths underscored the rising civilian toll from the missiles and drones Iran has launched into several Arab countries since the United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28.
The United Arab Emirates intercepted 15 ballistic missiles and 11 drones fired by Iran on Thursday, according to the country’s defense ministry.
Other countries in the Persian Gulf also said they had been attacked on Thursday, but none of them reported casualties. Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted at least 36 drones aimed at its oil-rich Eastern Province, a day after downing 34 drones and a ballistic missile. Kuwait said its air defenses brought down multiple drones, while civil defense teams in Bahrain extinguished a fire in the northern city of Muharraq that it said was caused by an airstrike.
In a joint statement issued late on Wednesday, six Arab nations condemned “blatant Iranian attacks” and strikes carried out by Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
“While we value our fraternal relations with the Republic of Iraq, we call on the Iraqi government to take the necessary measures to immediately halt the attacks launched by factions, militias, and armed groups from Iraqi territory toward neighboring countries,” the statement read.
The authorities in Kuwait also said on Wednesday that they had foiled a terror plot involving 10 of its citizens. The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry accused them of being linked to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, and said they “were planning to assassinate state figures and leaders and recruit individuals to carry out these missions.” Five of the 10 were arrested, but the other five, who were not in Kuwait, remained at large, the ministry said.
Surveillance footage shows what appears to be debris from an Iranian missile landing in a neighborhood in Kafr Qassem, Israel, on Thursday, and sending a vehicle flying into the air. About 30 seconds before impact, two people are seen hurrying away from the area. Five people in the city were treated for blast injuries, Israel’s emergency rescue service said.
The war in Iran will lead to a surge in inflation this year, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz pushes up prices for oil, gas and other commodities, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Thursday.
The inflation rate in the United States will average 4.2 percent this year, more than one percentage point higher than the group’s previous forecast, made late last year, the Paris-based organization said. Across the Group of 20 nations, inflation is forecast to average 4 percent this year, 1.2 percentage points higher than previously expected.
The global economy is projected to grow by 2.9 percent this year, an unchanged forecast, supported by spending on artificial intelligence.
“The resilience of the global economy is now being tested,” the O.E.C.D. said in a report. There is a “significant” risk to its projections if there are persistent disruptions to exports from the Middle East.
For the past month, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway off the southern coast of Iran, has plummeted because of attacks on ships. That, along with attacks on energy infrastructure across the Persian Gulf region, has led to a sharp reduction in the supply of energy, as well as other goods such as fertilizers. That will push up the costs of food and other goods.
“Higher energy and fertilizer prices and the unpredictable nature of the evolving conflict in the Middle East will add to inflation and weigh on demand,” the O.E.C.D. said.
In the United States, growth momentum from the beginning of this year is expected to be offset by a slowdown in consumer spending. At the same time, the impact of higher energy prices will outweigh the effect from lower tariff rates on imports. The jump in inflation narrows the chances that the Federal Reserve will be able to cut interest rates this year.
Among the G20 countries, Britain is forecast to suffer the biggest hit to growth, in addition to a large increase in inflation.
The O.E.C.D. said that central bankers needed to remain vigilant for signs that the energy shock could lead to a longer-term increase inflation, and that lawmakers should respond to higher prices with “temporary and well-targeted measures” because of pressure on government budgets.
Pakistan has been facilitating back-channel communications between the United States and Iran, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Thursday, including relaying a 15-point U.S. proposal aimed at ending the war. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared earlier this week that his country stood ready to mediate, but on Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, declined to comment on reports of an imminent summit or whether U.S. and Iranian envoys were expected to travel to the Pakistani capital.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that the United States has “reached out to us regarding their bases in Middle Eastern countries,” after Zelensky offered to share military expertise on anti-drone warfare. Zelenksy has previously said that Ukrainians had deployed to some countries in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to offer advice. In its war with Russia, Ukraine has sought cheaper, more easily produced solutions to defend against drone attacks.
“No matter how many Patriots, THAADs, or other air defense systems are in the Middle East, that alone is not enough for fully effective air defense,” he said in a post on X.
Alireza Tangsiri, the commander of the naval forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, is the latest senior Iranian military figure targeted by Israel in its monthlong bombardment of Iran.
Mr. Tangsiri had been leading Iran’s successful effort to close the Strait of Hormuz to almost all shipping traffic, causing serious economic disruption worldwide and raising the cost of the Iran campaign for the United States, Israel’s partner in the war. Israel said it had killed Mr. Tangsiri in a strike on Thursday; Iran has not commented.
It was not immediately clear what effect Mr. Tangsiri’s death would have on Iran’s Strait of Hormuz strategy. Iran said earlier this week that it would allow “non-hostile” ship traffic through the narrow waterway.
Mr. Tangsiri oversaw the navy’s testing of drones and cruise missiles, according to the U.S. Treasury, which imposed sanctions on him in 2019 and again in 2023. He also chaired the board of a company that manufactured and tested drones for the navy, the Treasury said. Iran’s ability to control passage through the strait has been made possible, in part, by its use of attack drones.
The commander of U.S. Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, said on Thursday that the killing of Mr. Tangsiri by Israel “makes the region safer.” He said the Revolutionary Guards’ navy had attacked hundreds of vessels over the years.
Mr. Tangsiri had become a vocal presence on social media in recent weeks. He used his account on X to give updates on ships that Iran had refused to allow through the strait; to threaten U.S.-linked oil facilities; and warn the United States not to attack Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub.
Mr. Tangsiri was chosen to head the Revolutionary Guards’ naval force by Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in 2018, and he was known for his aggressive statements asserting Iranian dominance over the Strait of Hormuz. Ayatollah Khamenei was killed in an airstrike at the outset of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran last month.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting.
Oil prices rose and stocks resumed their drop on Thursday as President Trump raised the pressure on Iran to accept terms to end the war.
“We’ll just keep blowing them away, unimpeded,” Mr. Trump said at his first cabinet meeting since the war started. The remarks did little to reverse a nearly daylong slide in stocks and a steady rise in oil markets.
Oil rises.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose roughly 6.5 percent to just under $109 a barrel, after settling at $102.22 on Wednesday.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, climbed to $95.33 a barrel, after ending Wednesday at $90.32.
Investors and analysts are focused on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Shipping traffic exiting the Persian Gulf through the strait has been effectively halted since the war began on Feb. 28. Mr. Trump on Thursday said he didn’t yet know whether he would extend a deadline he gave to Iran to fully open the strait by Friday or the United States would “obliterate” power stations there. He said it would depend on the state of negotiations. Attacks on energy infrastructure, by both Israel and Iran, have raised concerns about longer-lasting damage to the world’s oil and gas supply.
Price of Brent Crude Oil
Global stocks fall.
The S&P 500 was down 1.4 percent Thursday afternoon as investors tried to weigh the prospects of a cease-fire. The day before, the index gained 0.5 percent.
Stocks in Europe closed broadly lower. The DAX in Germany, the FTSE 100 in Britain and the Stoxx 600, a broad European index, all dropped more than 1 percent.
Stocks in Asia also turned lower after rising on Wednesday. Japan fell 0.27 percent, and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong lost 1.9 percent. The Kospi index in South Korea was the worst performer, closing 3.2 percent lower. On Wednesday, stocks rose across the region.
S&P 500
Gasoline prices are flat.
U.S. gas prices ticked down less than a penny on Thursday to remain around a national average of $3.98 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. It was the first day the price did not increase since the war began, leaving the cost for drivers up 34 percent in that period.
Diesel prices have increased even more quickly, rising to $5.38, up 43 percent since the start of the war.
Republicans in Congress are growing more anxious about the Trump administration’s handling of the war in Iran as their questions about its objectives and cost, including whether ground troops will be needed, go unanswered.
Several G.O.P. lawmakers emerged on Wednesday from classified briefings with Pentagon officials on Capitol Hill complaining that they had not received crucial details about the way forward. Their frustration came nearly a month into a conflict in which Republicans have given President Trump broad latitude to wage war with no congressional input, and resisted calling administration officials to provide a public accounting of what they are doing.
Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who attended one of the briefings on Wednesday, said senior officials had failed to provide basic details about the scope and direction of the military campaign.
“We want to know more about what’s going on,” an uncharacteristically irritated Mr. Rogers told reporters. “We’re just not getting enough answers.”
Across the Capitol, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of his chamber’s Armed Services panel, suggested he was also frustrated about the lack of information.
“Let me put it this way,” Mr. Wicker said of his House counterpart, according to Politico. “I can see why he might have said that.”
The complaints came as the Pentagon prepared to deploy nearly 7,000 additional troops to the Middle East, including forces from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, moves intended to bolster operations tied to the war in Iran. They surfaced as lawmakers are also bracing for a potential $200 billion funding request from the Trump administration to pay for the conflict.
Other Republicans echoed those concerns, pointing to discrepancies between the administration’s public rationale and objectives for the war and the information that had been shared privately with them.
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina said she left the briefing troubled by what she described as shifting explanations for the conflict and unclear military objectives.
“The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee,” Ms. Mace said in a social media post. “This gap is deeply troubling. The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people.”
In classified briefings for lawmakers in both chambers on Wednesday, Pentagon officials declined to outline when or how U.S. ground forces might be used in Iran, according to two people familiar with the sessions who spoke about them on the condition of anonymity. During the closed-door session with senators, according to another person familiar with it who requested anonymity to describe it in general terms, the Republican Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska complained about how limited the information was, including requests for details on the cost of the military campaign.
Senator John Hoeven, Republican of North Dakota, said that officials “don’t have an official number at this point,” for the cost of the operation. Asked about the Pentagon’s $200 billion funding request for the war, he told reporters that the administration was “obviously” working to “figure out how we’re going to get it done.”
To date, few Republicans have publicly joined Democrats in raising questions about the war, even as Democrats have tried repeatedly to demand testimony from top officials and force votes insisting that Congress authorize the use of force. But with the conflict dragging on, gas prices rising and more U.S. troops heading to the region, some in the G.O.P. have begun sounding alarms.
“We will not sacrifice American lives for the same failed foreign policies,” Ms. Mace said on Wednesday. “The war machine may be willing to give the lives of your sons and daughters for the price of oil, but we are not.”
At the White House, Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, defended the administration’s approach, reiterating that it does not believe formal congressional authorization is required at this stage of the conflict.
She said notifications to Congress and classified briefings had been provided “out of courtesy and out of respect,” describing the current situation in the Middle East not as a war but as “major combat operations” against Iran.
Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.