The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled Monday that the Trump administration may continue deporting illegal immigrants to countries where they have no ties while a legal challenge plays out. The 2-1 decision lifts limits imposed by a lower court judge and keeps his order halted until the appeal is fully resolved.
The panel also expedited the schedule for the next stage of the case, signaling that a final resolution may come faster than the usual appellate crawl. The ruling contained no explanation from the majority, which let the action speak for itself.
According to The Hill, the two judges in the majority were Jeffrey Howard, nominated by former President George W. Bush, and Seth Aframe, nominated by former President Biden. The sole dissenter was Lara Montecalvo, a Biden nominee. That a Biden appointee joined the majority is notable. It suggests the administration's legal position carries weight beyond partisan lines.
The case originated with U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, another Biden nominee, who oversees a class action lawsuit filed by four noncitizens a year ago. Murphy had required the administration to first attempt removal to a migrant's home country or country of citizenship before sending them elsewhere. He also ruled that migrants must receive a "meaningful opportunity" to contest their deportation once a third country is selected.
In his final ruling last month, Murphy said material differences had emerged in the case and blocked the policy once again. His own words were blunt:
"It is not fine, nor is it legal."
The appeals court disagreed. Or at minimum, it decided Murphy's restrictions should not stand while the government makes its case.
As part of its aggressive immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has ramped up sending illegal immigrants to places other than their home countries. It has struck deals with Cameroon, South Sudan, and Eswatini, among other nations, to take in deportees. The strategy targets a persistent logjam in immigration enforcement: countries that refuse to accept their own citizens back. If a home country won't cooperate, the administration now has alternatives.
This is not a new fight. Last year, the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court and won after Murphy limited third-country removals at an earlier stage of the case. Monday's ruling continues that pattern of appellate courts siding with the executive branch's authority to enforce removal.
A DHS spokesperson said the administration had "once again been vindicated" and framed the stakes in direct terms:
"The Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and the Trump Administration has the authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare."
DHS also aimed the lower court resistance:
"If these activists judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won't take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets."
The broader dynamic here is one conservatives have watched for years. A district judge, often appointed by a Democratic president, issues a sweeping injunction against immigration enforcement. The administration appeals. A higher court stays the injunction or overturns it. Repeat.
It is a cycle designed to delay, not to adjudicate. Each injunction buys weeks or months during which enforcement is frozen, and the status quo of non-removal continues. Even when the government wins on appeal, the time lost is enforcement that never happened, deportations that never occurred, and illegal immigrants who remained in the country while lawyers argued about the process.
Murphy's insistence that migrants receive a "meaningful opportunity" to contest removal to a specific third country sounds reasonable in a law school seminar. In practice, it creates another procedural chokepoint in a system already drowning in them. Every additional hearing requirement is another delay. Every delay is another month someone remains in the United States instead of being removed.
Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which represents the migrants in the case, acknowledged the setback while highlighting the expedited timeline:
"While the order unfortunately delays implementation of the decision, we appreciate that the First Circuit ordered a swift resolution of the merits of the government's appeal."
Note the framing. The ruling that allows deportations to continue is characterized as a "delay" of the decision blocking deportations. In this worldview, the default state is that enforcement is halted, and any period where the government actually exercises its removal authority is a temporary aberration. That tells you everything about the assumptions driving the legal challenge.
The expedited schedule means the 1st Circuit will hear the merits of the government's appeal on a faster track. The administration has mainly argued that federal judges have no authority to intervene in these removal decisions at all, a position that, if accepted, would shut down the entire line of attack.
For now, the policy stands. Illegal immigrants can be removed to third countries. The deals with Cameroon, South Sudan, Eswatini, and others remain operational. And the administration's record in appellate courts on this question continues to build.
President Trump revealed Monday that Rep. Neal Dunn of Florida (R) had received a terminal heart diagnosis, a fact that had never been made public, and described how he personally intervened to get the congressman emergency surgery at Walter Reed.
Speaking in the White House East Room ahead of a Kennedy Center board meeting, Trump initially declined to name the ailing lawmaker. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), standing nearby, filled in the blank.
Trump had begun by alluding to the political stakes of losing a member of a razor-thin majority.
"We had one man who was very ill. It looked like he wasn't going to make it. I don't know. I don't I won't mention his name."
Johnson then identified the congressman as Neal Dunn and confirmed the severity of the situation.
"OK, that wasn't public, but, yeah, OK, it was grim."
Dunn, 73, represents part of the Florida panhandle, including Tallahassee, and is himself a medical doctor. He announced in January of this year that he would retire rather than seek a sixth term in the House. A spokeswoman for Dunn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to both Trump and Johnson, the chain of events started when the Speaker mentioned Dunn's condition to the president. Johnson described Dunn as someone who kept showing up to work despite a diagnosis that would have sent most people home, the Post reported.
"I mentioned it to the president, and I said, 'Congressman Dunn is a real champion and a patriot, because he's still coming to work, and if others got this diagnosis, they would be apt to go home and retire.'"
Trump asked what the diagnosis was. Johnson replied that he believed it was terminal. Trump then described the call he made to Dunn and the realization that followed.
"I said, 'That's bad.' Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote."
What happened next moved fast. Trump said he remembered the White House medical team and reached out immediately.
"And I said, 'I have to call them.' And I called the two doctors, they're both great, and they immediately went over to see the congressman, and he was on the operating table like two hours later, and it was a long operation."
Trump described the surgery as extensive, involving stents and other interventions. He said Dunn now has "a new lease on life" and "more energy than a man half his age."
Trump made no effort to disguise the political dimension of his concern. The Republican majority in the House currently stands at four seats. Losing even one member, whether to illness or death, narrows the margin to a point where a single defection on any vote can kill legislation.
Trump put it bluntly.
"Death is very bad when you're the speaker, and you have a majority of two or three. But we had it, and then we had another death."
He also acknowledged the dual motivation with characteristic candor, saying he acted for Dunn first and for the vote second, "but it was a close second, actually."
This is the kind of honesty that drives Washington commentators to distraction but registers as plain dealing with everyone else. Of course, a president cares about keeping his majority intact. Pretending otherwise would be the actual scandal. Trump simply said what any honest leader in his position would think, and did so while also acting to save a man's life.
One of the more interesting threads in Trump's remarks was his praise for the White House medical team and his willingness to deploy them on behalf of others. He described the doctors as "miracle workers" and indicated this was not an isolated case.
"And I realized I have doctors in the White House, and White House doctors are incredible and they've helped me with other people. They're helping me with people right now, people that are very sick."
The fact that Dunn, a physician himself, was apparently unable to secure the kind of rapid intervention that the White House medical apparatus delivered says something about the speed at which government healthcare can move when the president picks up the phone. It also says something about the dysfunction of the system when he doesn't.
Dunn's January retirement announcement takes on a different complexion in light of Monday's revelations. What might have looked like a routine decision by a senior member not to seek reelection now appears to have been shaped, at least in part, by a life-threatening medical crisis.
Johnson's initial reaction to Trump's disclosure, the resigned "OK, that wasn't public," captured the moment perfectly. This was a private matter that became public in the most Trumpian way possible: on stage, in real time, with the Speaker of the House wincing through confirmation.
Trump told the story because it illustrated something he wanted people to understand about how he operates. He sees a problem. He remembers he has resources. He uses them. The congressman was described as terminal. Now he has more energy than a man half his age.
Neal Dunn is alive, and he's still casting votes. That's the story.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Monday placing Vice President JD Vance at the helm of a sweeping new initiative to investigate fraud across the United States. The signing is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET at the White House, with both Trump and Vance present, according to a report from the New York Post.
The move formalizes what has already been building for weeks: a systematic, top-down effort to root out the billions of taxpayer dollars disappearing into fraudulent claims across federal programs.
According to Newsmax, a spokesperson for Vance framed the initiative in stark terms, describing a crisis that goes far beyond bookkeeping errors.
"In states across the country, fraudsters are depriving vulnerable citizens of basic social services, stealing billions of your tax dollars, and eroding America's social fabric."
That word, "eroding," is doing real work. This isn't simply about waste. It's about the structural integrity of programs that tens of millions of Americans depend on. When fraud bleeds a system dry, it's the legitimate recipients who suffer first. The people gaming the system don't lose their benefits. The grandmother on Medicaid does.
The spokesperson continued, warning that the scale of the problem now threatens the long-term survival of the safety net itself:
"This fraud has happened on such a massive scale that it's endangering the future viability of America's entire social safety net."
The administration's response, according to the spokesperson, will be a "whole-of-government war on fraud that includes multiple stakeholders who will follow the fraud wherever it leads."
If anyone doubted the administration's willingness to act, last month provided the proof. Vance publicly criticized Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over fraud failures in his state and then froze more than $250 million in Medicaid funding for Minnesota.
A quarter of a billion dollars. That's not a warning shot. That's a cannonball through the front door.
Walz's response was predictable. He called the administration's actions "a campaign of retribution." It's the same playbook Democratic governors have run since January 2025: any enforcement action is retaliation, any accountability is persecution, any oversight is authoritarianism. The framing collapses the moment you ask one simple question: Was there fraud, or wasn't there?
If Minnesota's Medicaid system were clean, the freeze would be indefensible. But Walz hasn't made that case. He's made the process case, the feelings case, and the motive case. Everything except the substance case. When a governor's best defense against a fraud investigation is "you're being mean," the investigation is probably onto something.
Earlier this week, Vance hinted that California could be the next state to face major scrutiny for fraud. On Friday, following a speech in North Carolina, he made it more explicit:
"We know there's a lot of fraud in California, and we're trying to get to the bottom of exactly what it looks like and what we've done in the Trump administration."
California is the obvious next target. It runs the largest state-administered benefits apparatus in the country, and its political leadership has spent years treating oversight as an afterthought and enforcement as an inconvenience. The state has made itself a magnet for exactly the kind of fraud this task force is designed to uncover, not through bad luck, but through deliberate policy choices that prioritize enrollment volume over program integrity.
A document describing the executive order reportedly identifies California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado as states with "insufficient" fraud oversight. The geography tells its own story. These are not random selections. They are states governed by leaders who have built their political brands on expanding benefits access while systematically defunding the mechanisms that keep those systems honest.
Placing the Vice President in charge sends a signal that this isn't a mid-level task force destined to produce a report no one reads. This is a principal-level initiative with the full weight of the White House behind it. Vance has already demonstrated a willingness to move fast and absorb political heat. The Minnesota action proved that. The California hints confirm it.
There's also a strategic logic to the choice. Fraud investigations cut across agencies: Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, the Social Security Administration, and state-level Medicaid offices. No single cabinet secretary has the jurisdictional reach to coordinate that kind of effort. The Vice President does.
The left will frame this as political targeting. They always do. But the framing requires you to believe that investigating whether taxpayer money is being stolen is somehow partisan. That belief tells you more about the people holding it than about the investigation itself.
For years, conservatives have argued that the greatest threat to social programs isn't spending cuts. It's the fraud, waste, and mismanagement that hollow them out from the inside while politicians demand more funding to paper over the gaps. The cycle is vicious and self-reinforcing: fraud drains a program, the program underperforms, advocates demand more money, and the money attracts more fraud.
This executive order is an attempt to break that cycle. Not by slashing programs, but by enforcing the rules that are supposed to govern them. The administration is making a bet that Americans, including the working-class voters who actually rely on these programs, care more about whether the system works than whether a governor's feelings are hurt.
It's a good bet. The people most harmed by Medicaid fraud aren't wealthy taxpayers in the suburbs. They're the low-income families who show up at a clinic and find out their coverage has been compromised by a system too bloated and too unsupervised to protect them. Cleaning that up isn't retribution. It's the bare minimum.
Monday's signing makes it official. The fraud has a new enemy, and he has subpoena power.
The top law enforcement official in Gov. Kathy Hochul's home county is urging New York legislators to kill her proposed 75% tax on nicotine pouches, warning that the levy will fuel the same black market the state already struggles to contain.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia sent a letter to legislative leaders rejecting Hochul's plan to tax nicotine pouches like Zyn and FRE at the same rate as cigarettes. His argument is straightforward: New York has tried taxing its way to public health before, and the results have been a booming underground economy in tobacco products, not fewer smokers.
"New York already faces widespread trafficking of vapes and other regulated goods."
"Experience shows that steep tax increases rarely reduce demand; they push it underground."
Garcia isn't speculating. He's describing the reality already unfolding across the state.
New York's cigarette excise tax stands at $5.35 per pack, the product of years of incremental hikes, including a $1 per pack increase in 2023, according to Just the News. Tack on New York City's additional $1.50 per pack levy, and smokers in the Big Apple face a combined tax rate of $6.85 per pack. For comparison, neighboring Massachusetts charges $3.51, and Vermont charges $3.08.
The predictable result: according to recent reports by the Tax Foundation, about 53.5% of cigarettes consumed in New York are purchased from illegal outlets or smuggled across state lines. More than half. The state's own enforcement actions tell the story. A 2023 New York City raid netted more than 1,800 cartons of cigarettes and $155,000 in cash from a single operation.
This is what a multimillion-dollar illicit market looks like in practice. And Hochul's answer is to replicate the same policy for an entirely new product category.
The proposal, dubbed the "bro tax" by some for the demographic most associated with nicotine pouches, is part of Hochul's $260 billion preliminary two-year budget. Her office projects the new levy would generate $18 million in its first year and $50 million annually once fully implemented.
A Hochul spokesperson framed it as a matter of public health:
"The Governor's proposal is a common-sense measure to improve public health at large, push back against manipulative tactics by big tobacco companies and increase necessary protections against life-threatening products."
The "common-sense" framing does a lot of heavy lifting here. New York already has one of the most aggressive tobacco tax regimes in the country. The result is that more than half of all cigarettes consumed in the state bypass the legal market entirely. The state doesn't collect a dime on those transactions. It doesn't regulate them. It can't even track them. Calling the next round of the same strategy "common sense" requires ignoring the evidence produced by every previous round.
Retailers and business groups, including the New York Association of Convenience Stores and the Business Council of New York, have also pushed back against the proposal. Their concern is practical: a 75% tax doesn't make customers quit. It makes them shop somewhere else, whether that's a neighboring state, an unlicensed dealer, or the internet.
Legal retailers lose revenue. The state loses tax compliance. Law enforcement inherits another black market to police. The only constituency that benefits is the underground economy.
There's a familiar pattern in Albany's approach to vice taxation. Officials propose steep levies under the banner of public health. They project modest but appealing revenue numbers. They dismiss enforcement concerns. Then, years later, they hold press conferences about the illicit market they created, seizing cartons and cash as proof that they're "cracking down" on a problem their own policy incentivized.
The 53.5% smuggling rate for cigarettes is not an anomaly. It is the direct, measurable consequence of making legal purchase so expensive that illegal alternatives become rational. Every economist who has studied excise taxes on inelastic goods could have predicted this. Many did.
Now Hochul wants to extend the experiment to nicotine pouches, a product that doesn't involve combustion, doesn't produce secondhand smoke, and that many public health researchers regard as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes. Taxing it at the same rate as cigarettes removes the price incentive to choose the less harmful option. That's not a public health strategy. It's a revenue play dressed in public health language.
Garcia's opposition carries particular weight because he's not a policy think tank or an industry lobbyist. He's the person whose deputies will be dealing with the consequences when unlicensed nicotine products start flowing through Erie County. He's watched it happen with cigarettes. He's watched it happen with vapes. He's telling Albany, plainly, that a 75% tax will produce the same result.
Whether Albany listens is another question. The $50 million revenue projection is a powerful incentive for legislators who prefer to tax first and enforce later. But $50 million is a projection based on legal sales. If nicotine pouches follow the trajectory of cigarettes in New York, the actual collections will be a fraction of that number, and the enforcement costs will eat the rest.
New York already proved this model doesn't work. The sheriff is just the latest person willing to say it out loud.
President Trump told NBC News on Saturday that Iran wants to end the conflict, but he's holding the line. The terms Tehran is offering aren't sufficient, and until they are, the United States has no intention of easing up.
"Iran wants to make a deal, and I don't want to make it because the terms aren't good enough yet."
The comments came as Operation Epic Fury headed into day 16, with Trump signaling that a full Iranian abandonment of nuclear ambitions would be central to any agreement. He also raised the possibility of additional strikes on Kharg Island, Iran's critical oil export hub, which U.S. forces hit with over 90 military targets on Friday.
"We totally demolished Kharg Island, but we may hit it a few more times just for fun."
Trump noted the United States had intentionally spared the island's energy infrastructure, a detail worth absorbing. The world's most powerful military leveled every military target on the island while threading the needle around oil facilities. That's not recklessness. That's precision with a message attached.
A Reuters report cited a senior White House official saying the administration had rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to launch ceasefire talks. Trump, the official said, is "not interested" in those discussions "right now" and intends to continue the mission "unabated."
This is the posture that decades of failed diplomacy with Iran demanded. The previous playbook was familiar, according to Breitbart: Tehran provokes, the international community convenes, a deal gets signed that Iran violates before the ink dries, and the cycle resets. Trump is refusing to enter that loop.
There's a reason the regime wants to talk. It's not because they've found religion in nonproliferation. It's because, as Trump put it in the interview, the damage is stacking up fast.
"We've knocked out most of their missiles. We've knocked out most of their drones. We knocked out their manufacturing of missiles and drones, largely. Within two days, it'll be totally decimated."
When a regime that has spent decades building proxy armies and missile arsenals suddenly discovers the virtues of negotiation, the correct response is not gratitude. It's leverage.
Trump also addressed what may be the most strategically significant piece of this conflict: the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil normally passes.
On Truth Social earlier Saturday, the president said "many countries" would be sending warships alongside the United States to keep the strait "open and safe," naming:
He described these as "numerous countries that are affected by the thuggery of Iran." In the NBC interview, he added that these nations had not merely agreed but embraced the mission.
"They've not only committed, but they think it's a great idea."
Trump said the United States will be "sweeping the strait very strongly" but declined to discuss specific operational details on escorting ships through the waterway. That's the right call. You don't broadcast tactics to a regime that has spent years threatening to weaponize the chokepoint.
The coalition itself tells a story. When China, a nation that typically avoids anything resembling alignment with Washington, agrees to send warships to counter Iranian aggression, the regime's isolation is no longer theoretical. It's naval.
Perhaps the most striking moment of the interview came when Trump questioned the status of Iran's newly installed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father, Ali Khamenei, after the elder ruler was killed in the opening phase of the operation.
"I don't know if he's even alive. So far, nobody's been able to show him."
Trump called reports of his death "a rumor" but did not dismiss them. The questions have intensified since Mojtaba Khamenei issued what was described as his first statement as the supreme leader without appearing on camera. No visual confirmation. No public appearance. Just words attributed to a man no one can verify is breathing.
"I'm hearing he's not alive, and if he is, he should do something very smart for his country, and that's surrender."
A regime that cannot produce its own leader on camera is not projecting strength. It is projecting exactly what it has become: a government that has spent its credibility, its arsenal, and possibly its leadership in the span of two weeks.
The pattern here is unmistakable. On Friday, Trump announced that U.S. forces had carried out what he described as "one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East" and "totally obliterated every MILITARY target" on Kharg Island. By Saturday, he was fielding questions about ceasefire talks and brushing them aside. When asked whether additional strikes on Kharg Island were possible, his answer was one word: "possible."
Every element of this, the military strikes, the coalition formation, the refusal to negotiate prematurely, the public questioning of Iran's leadership, works in concert. Trump is not simply prosecuting a military campaign. He is systematically dismantling the regime's ability to negotiate from anything other than desperation.
Iran has spent years banking on the assumption that American presidents would eventually come to the table because the alternative was too costly. That calculation no longer holds. The alternative arrived, and it brought warships from five continents.
Fifteen days in, and the regime can't show the world its own supreme leader. The terms aren't good enough yet. They shouldn't be.
Costco is pulling ready-to-eat meatloaf meals from shelves across 26 states and two territories after an ingredient supplier flagged possible salmonella contamination. The retailer sent a notice to members warning them not to eat the affected product and to return it for a full refund.
The recalled item is Costco's "Meatloaf with Mashed Yukon Potatoes and Glaze," sold between March 2 and March 13, 2026, with sell-by dates ranging from March 5 through March 16. That means some of these meals are still sitting in customers' refrigerators right now.
No illnesses or injuries have been reported at this time.
According to Newsweek, The recall traces back to Griffith Foods Inc., one of Costco's ingredient suppliers for the meatloaf product. Griffith Foods announced a recall of one of the ingredients used in the meatloaf due to the potential presence of Salmonella, which prompted Costco to act.
Costco did not specify how many units were sold during the nearly two-week window, nor did it identify which specific ingredient was the source of concern. What the company did make clear is that customers should stay away from anything covered by the recall.
"Do not consume any product that is part of this recall."
Costco added that customers can return the product to their local store for a full refund.
The affected meals were sold at Costco locations across a wide geographic footprint. The full list of states and territories includes:
That covers a substantial chunk of the country, from the Pacific to the Atlantic and down to the Caribbean.
Salmonella is no minor inconvenience. Symptoms can appear anywhere from several hours to a few days after exposure and can range from gastrointestinal distress to severe illness, particularly in the elderly, young children, and those with compromised immune systems. The potential for fatal infections is what gives recalls like this their urgency.
The fact that no illnesses have been reported is good news. But the sell-by dates on these meals run through today, March 16, which means the window for exposure hasn't closed. Anyone who purchased the product during those two weeks and hasn't eaten it yet should check the packaging carefully.
This recall is a useful illustration of how modern food supply chains work, and where they can break down. Costco didn't produce the contaminated ingredient. Griffith Foods did. But the product carried Costco's name, sat in Costco's deli cases, and went home with Costco's members. The retailer owns the customer relationship, and to its credit, it moved to notify members and offer refunds.
Still, the episode raises a fair question: how much visibility do major retailers actually have into the ingredients that go into their prepared foods? Costco hasn't disclosed which ingredient triggered the concern or when Griffith Foods first identified the problem. The gap between when the meals started selling on March 2 and when customers received the recall notice matters. Every day of delay in a Salmonella situation is a day someone might get sick.
Consumers who bought the meatloaf should not eat it, should not try to cook it to a higher temperature as a workaround, and should return it to Costco or dispose of it. When a company tells you to throw something away and come get your money back, take them up on it.
Tennessee Republicans are advancing a bill that would make it a state-level crime for illegal immigrants to remain in the state more than 90 days after receiving a final federal deportation order. The measure, sponsored by Tennessee House Majority Leader William Lamberth, would classify the offense as a Class A misdemeanor and would also apply to those who intentionally enter the state after being ordered removed.
The bill includes a trigger mechanism: it would activate only if federal law changes or the Supreme Court overturns its 2012 ruling in Arizona v. United States, which limited state authority over immigration enforcement. In other words, Tennessee is loading the legal chamber now and waiting for the Court to hand it the green light.
Lamberth made no apologies for the approach during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
"When someone has exhausted all their options and they've been told to leave the country, it is illegal for them to stay, both under federal law, and if this bill passes, it would be a misdemeanor for them to enter in, or remain in, the state of Tennessee."
When pressed about constitutionality under the Arizona precedent, he didn't flinch: "I like our track record with the U.S. Supreme Court."
He has reason for that confidence. Tennessee has already watched the Court uphold conservative state policies, including its ban on gender-affirming care for minors and a post-Roe abortion trigger law. The trigger mechanism in this immigration bill follows the same playbook. Lamberth described it as a design that "respects constitutional boundaries while ensuring we are prepared if states' authority is restored."
The immigration advocacy complex responded on cue. Spring Miller, senior legal director at the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, told Newsweek that the bill would produce "a chilling impact" and characterized it as unconstitutional overreach, as Newsweek reports.
"Established law dating back well over a century prohibits states creating their own immigration laws, but Tennessee legislators are attempting to create a state-level immigration regime with this bill that would lead to chaos and disorder throughout the country."
Miller also argued the bill would be nearly impossible to enforce, claiming there is no centralized database tracking everyone who has received a final order of removal and that some people with such orders could be adjusting their status through legal pathways.
State Representative Gloria Johnson offered a more colorful objection, calling it a "Stephen Miller bill" and warning the committee that "everything that I've read, everyone that I've talked to, said that this is currently unconstitutional."
Notice the framing. Opponents aren't arguing that people with final deportation orders should be allowed to stay. They're arguing that Tennessee isn't allowed to do anything about it. The distinction matters.
The constitutionality objection rests entirely on Arizona v. United States, a 2012 ruling that struck down parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law on preemption grounds. It's a real precedent. Nobody disputes that.
But the legal landscape has shifted considerably since 2012. The current Supreme Court has shown a willingness to revisit settled assumptions about federal supremacy when states present compelling interests. Tennessee's trigger mechanism is a direct acknowledgment of that reality. The bill doesn't pretend Arizona doesn't exist. It positions the state to act the moment the legal door opens.
Miller argued that taxpayer resources would be diverted from healthcare and education to "imprison people for simply being or passing through the state and having been issued a piece of paper that they may or may not have been aware of."
A final order of removal is not "a piece of paper." It is the conclusion of a legal process in which an immigration judge has determined that an individual has no legal right to remain in the United States. Describing it as something someone "may or may not have been aware of" is the kind of rhetorical sleight of hand that reduces the rule of law to an inconvenience.
Tennessee is not acting in isolation. It joins a growing bloc of states that have decided the federal government's failure to enforce immigration law does not require them to sit idle.
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center called this a "dangerous trend" in a 2024 policy assessment. Dangerous to whom? Not to the citizens of these states, who have watched for years as the federal government treated enforcement as optional. The trend is dangerous only to the legal fiction that states must remain passive while federal authorities decline to act on their own deportation orders.
The opposition to this bill, and to the broader state-level enforcement movement, ultimately rests on a single premise: that only the federal government may enforce immigration law, and if the federal government chooses not to, then nobody does.
That's not a legal principle. It's a policy preference dressed up as constitutional law.
For decades, the left has relied on federal inaction as a de facto amnesty mechanism. The federal government issues a deportation order. The individual ignores it. No one enforces it. Time passes. Advocates then argue the person has "built a life" and enforcement would be cruel. The cycle repeats. States like Tennessee are trying to break that cycle by removing one of its key ingredients: the guarantee that nothing happens when you ignore a judge's order.
Johnson accused the legislature of advancing this bill "at taxpayer expense," as if the cost of enforcing the law is an argument against having laws. By that logic, every criminal statute is a waste of money.
The bill's trigger mechanism makes it legally disciplined. It doesn't dare the courts to strike it down tomorrow. It plants a flag and waits. If the Supreme Court revisits Arizona v. United States, or if Congress acts to expand state enforcement authority, Tennessee's law snaps into effect without another vote.
Lamberth is betting that the legal window will open. Given the Court's trajectory and the growing political consensus around enforcement, it's not a bad bet.
Opponents will file lawsuits. Advocacy groups will issue press releases about "chilling impacts." Cable news panels will debate whether states can do what the federal government won't.
Meanwhile, people with final deportation orders will still be in Tennessee. The only question is whether that will remain consequence-free.
President Trump declared Saturday that Iran wants to negotiate a ceasefire, but he's not biting. Not yet.
In a nearly 30-minute telephone interview with NBC News, Trump laid out his position plainly: Iran is feeling the pressure, but the deal on the table doesn't meet his standards. He declined to specify what terms he's seeking.
"Iran wants to make a deal, and I don't want to make it because the terms aren't good enough yet."
That single sentence captures the posture of the entire operation. Two weeks into a joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, the administration is negotiating from a position of overwhelming force, and it intends to stay there until the terms reflect it.
The facts on the ground back up the confidence. U.S. Central Command announced Saturday morning that it had conducted precision strikes on 90 military targets while preserving Iran's oil infrastructure. Trump confirmed strikes on Kharg Island, Iran's critical oil export hub, though he noted the deliberate restraint around energy infrastructure, as NBC News reports.
"We totally demolished Kharg Island, but we may hit it a few more times just for fun."
Behind the bravado is a calculated strategy. Trump explained that he spared Iran's energy lines because rebuilding them "would take years." The goal isn't to destroy Iran's economy permanently. It's to destroy Iran's capacity to project military power.
And on that front, the progress is striking. Trump told NBC that U.S. forces have knocked out most of Iran's missiles, most of its drones, and most of its manufacturing capacity for both. He said that within two days, those capabilities would be "totally decimated."
"The only power they have, and it's a power that can be closed off relatively quickly, is the power of dropping a mine or shooting a relatively short-range missile. But when we get finished with the shoreline, they're not going to have that power either."
The message to Tehran could not be clearer: every day you wait, you have less to bargain with.
One of the most significant developments from the interview was Trump's plan to internationalize the security of the Strait of Hormuz. He posted on Truth Social Saturday morning that multiple countries would be sending warships to keep the strait open.
"Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe."
He specifically called on China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the UK to contribute, and said the U.S. would be "sweeping the strait very strongly." When pressed on which countries had already committed, Trump declined to name them but described their response as "very solid." He said the nations involved "think it's a great idea."
This is exactly the kind of burden-sharing that American foreign policy has needed for decades. The Strait of Hormuz isn't an American waterway. It's a chokepoint for global energy, and the nations that depend on it should bear the cost of keeping it open. Trump is forcing that conversation in real time, under live-fire conditions.
The stakes are not abstract. According to UAE data, 1,475 unmanned aerial vehicles had been fired at the country as of March 10. Iran's campaign of regional intimidation has hit real targets in real countries, and the coalition forming around the Strait reflects the reality that Iran's "thuggery," as Trump called it, affects far more than just the United States.
Perhaps the most revealing exchange in the interview concerned Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's newly named supreme leader. Khamenei was elevated earlier this week after U.S. and Israeli strikes killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the new leader's first public statement was conspicuously delivered in writing, not on camera.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed this on Friday with characteristic directness:
"Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written statement? I think you know why. His father: dead; he's scared, he's injured, he's on the run, and he lacks legitimacy."
Hegseth described Mojtaba Khamenei as "wounded and likely disfigured" and called his statement "a weak one." Trump went further, saying he's "hearing he's not alive" but acknowledged it was "a rumor." Then he added a line that doubles as both diplomacy and a threat:
"I'm hearing he's not alive, and if he is, he should do something very smart for his country, and that's surrender."
Trump also mentioned that there are people "living that would be great leaders for the future of the country," but declined to identify them, saying he didn't want to "put them in jeopardy." The implication is unmistakable: the U.S. has a vision for a post-theocratic Iran, and it involves people who already exist inside or near the regime's orbit.
None of this comes without a price. Thirteen active U.S. service personnel have died since the conflict began, including six crew members killed Friday when their military refueling plane crashed in Iraq. Trump said of the troops involved that they "have been terrific" but that "they got shot at unnecessarily."
Iraqi officials reported Saturday that an Iranian strike hit a helipad inside a U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad. The conflict is not one-sided, and the administration isn't pretending otherwise.
There is also the question of gas prices. On March 1, the day after the U.S. and Israel began operations, gas averaged $2.94 a gallon nationally. By Saturday, it had risen to $3.66. Trump, who hammered Biden over gas prices throughout 2024, dismissed concerns.
"I think they'll go lower than they were before, and I had them at record lows."
He pointed to global oil supply as a reason for optimism, saying there's "so much oil, gas" available but that "it's being clogged up a little bit. It'll be unclogged very soon." He also referenced a decision to temporarily lift some sanctions on Russian oil, a move clearly designed to stabilize global markets during the conflict.
In one of the more unexpected turns in the interview, Trump addressed Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's offer to help U.S. forces intercept Iranian drones. Zelenskyy posted on X Friday that Ukraine had already sent expert teams to three countries in the Middle East to share drone interception expertise.
Trump was unimpressed.
"We don't need help. Last person we need help from is Zelenskyy."
He then pivoted to the broader conflict between Russia and Ukraine, saying he was "surprised that Zelenskyy doesn't want to make a deal" and that "Zelenskyy is far more difficult to make a deal with" than Putin. An unnamed Iranian politician called Ukraine a "legitimate and lawful target," a statement that underscores how tangled these overlapping conflicts have become.
Trump acknowledged reports that Russia may be sharing intelligence with Iran but was measured in his response, saying, "Russia is perhaps giving information, perhaps they're not." He noted that the U.S. is "giving a little information to Ukraine" while trying to broker peace between the two nations.
The geopolitical web is thick: the U.S. is striking Iran, coordinating with Israel, easing sanctions on Russia to manage oil prices, and fending off Ukrainian attempts to insert itself into the Middle East theater. It's a lot of spinning plates. But the through line is consistent: Trump is managing each relationship on American terms, not getting pulled into anyone else's preferred framing.
Trump said the conflict is "way ahead of the timetable," faster than the month or longer he had initially suggested it might take. He described Iran's remaining military capability in terms that suggest the campaign's kinetic phase is nearing its conclusion. There is, he said, "practically nothing left to target."
But the military campaign was never the hard part. The hard part is what comes after: the deal, the diplomatic architecture, the question of who governs Iran and under what constraints. Trump made clear Saturday that he's in no rush.
"The only thing I want to do is make sure that Iran can never be the bully of the Middle East again."
That's not a ceasefire condition. That's a strategic objective. And it requires patience, leverage, and a willingness to walk away from a bad deal. Saturday's interview was Trump telling the world he has all three.
Casey Means, President Trump's nominee for surgeon general, now says she supports the measles vaccine and views the ongoing outbreak as "largely preventable with the MMR vaccine," according to written responses obtained by MS NOW.
The clarification comes after Means drew criticism last month for sidestepping a direct endorsement of the measles vaccine during her Feb. 25 confirmation hearing before the Senate HELP Committee. At the time, she told senators that vaccinations "save lives" and were a critical part of public health strategy, but stopped short of broadly encouraging parents to vaccinate their children against measles, the flu, or whooping cough.
In her updated written responses, Means said she agreed with "Dr. Oz's message to Americans to take the measles vaccine." She also reportedly quoted acting CDC Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya's assessment that the vaccine "remains the most reliable and effective way" to prevent the disease.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and physician himself, pressed Means during the Feb. 25 hearing on whether she would encourage mothers to get their children vaccinated against measles. Her answer at the time left room for interpretation:
"I'm supportive of vaccination. I do believe that each patient, mother or parent needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they're putting in their body and their children's body."
That was it. Cassidy pressed further. Means refused to go beyond that statement.
The response wasn't wrong on its face. Parents should absolutely consult their pediatricians. Nobody seriously argues otherwise. But for a surgeon general nominee in the middle of the largest measles outbreak in the United States since the start of the century, the careful phrasing landed as evasion rather than prudence, as The Hill reports.
The numbers tell the story plainly enough. The CDC confirmed 1,362 measles cases across 31 states as of March 12, 2026, with 14 reported new outbreaks, each defined as three or more related cases. The ongoing outbreak in South Carolina alone has grown to nearly 1,000 cases, surpassing the West Texas outbreak from last year to become the largest in the country since the start of the century.
The United States met the typical criteria of 12 months of consistent spread on Jan. 20, putting the country on the verge of losing a measles elimination status it has held for more than two decades.
That status isn't a trophy. It's a public health infrastructure achievement that took decades of vaccination campaigns to build. Losing it would be a concrete, measurable failure.
Dr. Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, encouraged Americans in early February to get vaccinated amid the resurgence. Acting CDC Director Bhattacharya has been clear about the vaccine's efficacy. The administration's public health apparatus has been pointing in one direction on this question. Means is now aligned with it.
There is a reasonable conservative position on medical autonomy that respects parental decision-making and doctor-patient relationships. Means gestured toward it in her hearing testimony. But that position doesn't require ambiguity about whether a proven vaccine works or whether people should take it during an active, spreading outbreak. You can defend informed consent without hedging on the science.
The MMR vaccine is one of the most effective tools in the history of medicine. It is not experimental. It is not new. It is not controversial among serious medical professionals of any political stripe. Saying so plainly isn't a concession to the public health bureaucracy that conservatives rightly distrust on other matters. It's just accurate.
Means still faces a vote from the Senate HELP Committee, where members from both parties will have read both her hearing testimony and her written clarification. The gap between the two will not go unnoticed. Senators like Cassidy, who already pressed her once, will want to know which version of Means they're confirming.
The written responses are a step in the right direction. But a surgeon general's most important tool is the ability to speak clearly to the American public when it counts. The next time the moment demands it, the answer needs to come the first time it's asked.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt unloaded on CNN Friday, calling a report that President Trump's national security team failed to anticipate Iran's potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz "100% FAKE NEWS."
The rebuke came after CNN reported Thursday that Trump's national security team "failed to fully account for the potential consequences" of U.S. strikes, specifically the possibility that Iran would move to shut down the strait, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil shipments pass.
Leavitt didn't mince words on X:
"The idea that chairman Cain and Secretary Hegseth weren't prepared for this possibility is PREPOSTEROUS."
She went further, pointing out that neutralizing Iran's ability to threaten the strait was baked into the operation itself:
"The President was fully briefed on it, and a goal of the Operation itself, to annihilate the terrorist Iranian regime's navy, missiles, drone production infrastructure, and other threat capabilities is quite literally intended to deprive them of their ability to close the Strait."
Read that again. The entire point of Operation Epic Fury was to destroy the Iranian regime's capacity to hold global shipping hostage. CNN's thesis is that the administration never considered the very thing the operation was designed to prevent, as Fox News reports.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth blasted the report during remarks at the Pentagon Friday, calling it "more fake news from CNN" and "patently ridiculous."
Hegseth framed the threat in terms that anyone paying attention for the last several decades would recognize:
"For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the strait hostage."
Then the line that landed hardest: "CNN doesn't think we thought of that."
Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, added his own assessment on X, and it wasn't subtle:
"As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, let me make clear: whoever leaked this lied."
He followed up with a suggestion CNN might want to consider: "CNN should do some fact-checking."
Here's where it gets interesting. CNN issued a clarification to the story on Friday. The updated version now acknowledges that "top Trump administration officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major disruption to the Strait, according to one official." That's a significant concession buried inside an update.
But the clarification also tried to thread a needle, noting that "multiple sources familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term solutions." The original report leaned on anonymous sources claiming the administration was blindsided. The updated version concedes there were plans. Those are two very different stories.
When Fox News Digital reached CNN for comment, the network responded: "We stand by our reporting." CNN Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson echoed the sentiment on X: "We stand by our journalism."
Standing by a story you've already materially amended is a choice.
The CNN dustup wasn't an isolated incident. The White House has repeatedly clashed with major news outlets this week over coverage of the Iran conflict. On Thursday, Leavitt called for ABC News to retract a separate story, accusing the network of spreading "false information to intentionally alarm the American people."
According to Leavitt, the ABC report was based on "one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip." ABC News has since updated its story with an editor's note acknowledging that the FBI's alert included the detail that the information was unverified, a fact the original story apparently failed to emphasize.
Two major networks. Two stories require significant corrections or clarifications. One week.
The pattern here isn't complicated. Anonymous sources feed breathless claims to outlets already predisposed to frame military action as reckless. The claims get published. The administration pushes back with named officials making on-the-record denials. The outlets quietly update their stories while insisting nothing was wrong in the first place.
Cotton's point deserves weight. He chairs the Intelligence Committee. He has access to the classified briefings CNN's anonymous sources claim to be describing. And he says whoever leaked to CNN lied. That's not a vague denial from a communications staffer. That's the senator with the most direct oversight authority calling the sourcing fraudulent.
The Strait of Hormuz has been a flashpoint in U.S. strategic planning for decades. Every military planner who has ever war-gamed a conflict with Iran has accounted for it.
The suggestion that an administration actively striking Iranian naval and missile infrastructure somehow forgot about the strait those assets are designed to threaten is not serious analysis. It's narrative construction.
CNN wanted the story to be about incompetence. The story is actually about an operation designed to eliminate the very threat CNN accused the administration of ignoring. The clarification they were forced to publish proves it.