Trump News for Wednesday, March 25, 2026

US-Iran conflict hands China's Xi upper hand ahead of Trump meeting: Experts

Selina Wang, Abcnews.com

Chinese President Xi has been watching the U.S.-Iran conflict from the sidelines, and experts told ABC News that's exactly where Beijing wants to be.

Migrants march in southern Mexico to denounce immigration restrictions

Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English

The march comes as a court in the US suggests there may be a secret deportation agreement between the US and Mexico.

Was This Really the First Humanoid Robot at the White House? An Investigation

Mike Pearl, Gizmodo.com

Suddenly Al Gore doesn't count as "humanoid"?

Melania Trump’s Moment With Robot Has Everyone Spotting The Same Strange Detail

Lei RV, Boredpanda.com

“The robot showed more personality,” a critic wrote.

Iranian foreign minister rejects talks with US

Al Jazeera English

“No negotiations have taken place.” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi says Tehran is not in talks with the US.

Mexico will continue accepting Cuban medical workers despite US pressure

Al Jazeera Staff, Al Jazeera English

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum praises services from Cuban doctors, who often work in underserved rural areas.

White House turns down Elon Musk's offer to cover TSA pay during the partial government shutdown

Lloyd Lee,Brent D. Griffiths, Business Insider

Billionaire Elon Musk offered to cover TSA workers' pay amid the partial government shutdown. The White House said that would pose legal challenges.

An Open Letter To Members Of The United States Congress

Mike Brock, Techdirt

I think we can all agree that nobody seems to be taking the business of governing ourselves terribly seriously. I say we can all agree on this because I think we all know that Donald Trump is a deranged, narcissistic criminal. We know this. Even those of you …

With some 2,000 ships stranded, Iran claims its easing grip on Strait of Hormuz

Bill Hutchinson, Abcnews.com

Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed in a letter to the U.N. that the Strait of Hormuz is open to "non-hostile" vessels.

Trump sends ICE agents to alleviate TSA officer shortage

Insider Inc., Business Insider

Trump is sending ICE agents to fill a TSA officer shortage during the government shutdown.

Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill to Pause AI Data Center Construction, Warns of ‘Cataclysmic Changes’

Bruce Gil, Gizmodo.com

The progressive lawmaker is introducing a bill calling for a national moratorium on data center construction until new AI regulations are enacted.

How Trump is complicating TSA funding

Cameron Peters, Vox

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: The DHS shutdown is causing chaos at airports, but Don…

Melania Trump Confidant Shared First Lady’s Secret Letters That Left Recipients Speechless

Rocio Corsi, Boredpanda.com

Melania Trump has a habit of sending secret letters to her collaborators, often leaving them speechless.

Trump Is Asking to Be Bailed Out Again

David A. Graham, The Atlantic

The president’s eagerness to act keeps getting him into difficult spots—which he then demands that legislators and the public help him escape.

Four killed in latest US attack on alleged drug-smuggling boat in Caribbean

Al Jazeera Staff, Al Jazeera English

The Trump administration has argued that the deadly strike targeted members of a 'designated terrorist organisation'.

DOJ to pay ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn $1M to settle lawsuit: Sources

Alexander Mallin, Abcnews.com

The DOJ has reached an agreement with ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn to pay him roughly $1.2 million to settle claims that he was politically prosecuted, sources say.

Trump to visit Xi Jinping in China on May 14 and 15 after Iran war delay

Al Jazeera Staff, Al Jazeera English

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt says Chinese President Xi Jinping will also visit US at a later date.

The US-Iran Briefing Wars

BBC News

Are the US and Iran peace talks going anywhere?

US tells Iran to accept defeat or Trump will ‘unleash hell’

Al Jazeera English

The White House has warned Iran to accept what it called a military defeat, or the US will “hit harder” than before.

Democrat alleges Trump ‘sold out’ US security in classified documents case

Al Jazeera Staff, Al Jazeera English

Representative Jamie Raskin alleged that a newly released memo shows that Trump mishandled highly sensitive documents.

DOJ inquiry into John Brennan intensifies...

Kaelan Deese, Washington Examiner

DOJ inquiry into John Brennan intensifies... (Second column, 5th story, link) Related stories:Investigators Believed The Don Hoarded Top Secret Gov't Files for Personal Financial Gain... He showed highly classified map to plane passenge…

Travelers are facing the longest TSA wait times in history

Ayana Archie, NPR

Wait times are exceeding four hours at some major airports, leading TSA officers to call out at rates of 40 to 50%, according to TSA Deputy Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill.

The United States router ban, explained

Sean Hollister, The Verge

You've probably heard the US government has banned foreign-made consumer Wi-Fi routers over national security fears. You might be wondering: WTF is going on? Just another day in America under Donald Trump and FCC chairman Brendan Carr. You're probably fine fo…

Pentagon’s Biggest Champion of Blacklisting Anthropic Has a Few Million Reasons for His Stance

AJ Dellinger, Gizmodo.com

The former Uber exec is a Perplexity guy.

WATCH: Melania Trump showcases robot guest at WH summit

ABC News, Abcnews.com

A walking, talking humanoid robot strolled side-by-side with first lady Melania Trump at the White House for the second day of her international technology summit.

The War With Iran Is Exposing Big Problems for the Military

Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic

What we have learned about the strengths and weaknesses of the American way of war

WATCH: Rep. Pete Aguilar calls out Trump for voting by mail in Florida special election

ABC News, Abcnews.com

Aguilar called out Trump for voting by mail in the special election for the statehouse district that includes his Mar-a-Lago estate in spite of his longstanding rhetoric against voting by mail.

Gov’t Admits More Than 100 Asylum Seekers Were Deported In Violation Of A *Single* Court Order

Tim Cushing, Techdirt

By any means, necessary or not: that’s how this administration gets its bigoted version of immigration enforcement done. The surges targeting cities and states that Trump doesn’t feel are loyal enough are a double-edged sword. They punish states run by Democr…

Top climate scientist Kate Marvel just resigned from NASA. Here's why

Andrea Thompson, Scientific American

Climate scientist Kate Marvel talked to Scientific American about her decision to leave NASA amid federal government turmoil and funding challenges

The TSA is broken — is privatization next?

Darryl Campbell, The Verge

KC Guidry usually gets to the airport two hours before a flight to give herself enough time to get through security. But she knew her flight on the morning of Monday, March 23, out of Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport was going to be anything but…

The Far-Right Algorithm: Anti-Churchill, Anti-West

David Frum, The Atlantic

The historian Andrew Roberts on why many right-wing podcasters now believe that the wrong side won the Second World War, and the rise of algorithmically driven pseudo-historians. Plus: Trump is looking for an off-ramp from his war in Iran, and Gore Vidal’s no…

The U.S. and Iran Are Fighting a Massively Asymmetrical War

Nancy A. Youssef, Missy Ryan, The Atlantic

The Strait of Hormuz presents a classic war theater for an insurgency to bog down superior forces.

What it would take to end the Iran war

Sultan Al-Khulaifi, Al Jazeera English

The termination of the US-Israeli war on Iran would require solid guarantees and a credible guarantor.

Trump Rewards Big Tech’s Biggest Bootlickers With Seats on AI Policy Board

Matt Novak, Gizmodo.com

The board mostly consisted of academics under Biden.

Jack Smith Was Building a Case That Trump Stole Classified Documents for His Own Business Interests

Jim Vorel, Jezebel

The classified documents taken by Trump reportedly contained some so secret, only six people in the country had clearance to see them.

WATCH: A.I. company Anthropic takes on Pentagon

ABC News, Abcnews.com

Lawyers for the Pentagon and Anthropic appeared in a San Francisco courtroom Tuesday afternoon for the first major hearing in the AI company's challenge to its designation as a "supply chain risk.".

Evidence Grows That Trump Is Using the War in Iran to Manipulate Markets

Yahoo Entertainment

At the Legacy Museum, facing America's racist past is a path, not a punishment

Terry Gross, NPR

"There is an America that is more free — where there's more equality, where there is more justice, where there less bigotry — and I think it's waiting for us," says human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson.

War on Iran: What troops is the US moving to the Gulf?

Abid Hussain, Al Jazeera English

Growing US military presence around Iran suggests shift from air campaign to potential ground operations.

Leaked database shows ICE pays off local cops...

Ken Klippenstein, Kenklippenstein.com

Leaked database shows ICE pays off local cops... (Second column, 9th story, link) Related stories:PALANTIR turns poisonous on midterms campaign trail... Drudge Report Feed needs your support!   Become a Patron

NASA accelerates plans to build permanent moon base

Ellen Eberhardt, Dezeen

NASA has announced that it has cancelled a planned orbital space station to expedite its plans to build a permanent lunar base on the moon "landing by landing and incrementally" . Announced on 24 March, the shift in focus is part of agency-wide strategies to …

DHS funding deal on shaky ground as Trump and Democrats both decline to embrace it

Barbara Sprunt, NPR

After weeks of start and stop negotiations between Congressional Democrats and the White House, there's an emerging proposal to fund the majority of DHS and tackle ICE enforcement funding separately.

AOC and Bernie Sanders have a bill to pause AI data center construction. Here's what's in it.

Bryan Metzger, Business Insider

The bill would halt the construction of new AI data centers around the US until "strong national safeguards" are put in place.

Iran calls US proposal to end war ‘maximalist, unreasonable’

Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English

This is a breaking news story.

Why this battery company is pivoting to AI

Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review

Qichao Hu doesn’t mince words about how he sees the state of the battery industry. “Almost every Western battery company has either died or is going to die. It’s kind of the reality,” he says. Hu is the CEO of SES AI, a Massachusetts-based battery company. It…

Bondi Accused of Accidentally Revealing ‘Damning’ Evidence in Trump Case

Tom Latchem, Daily Beast

Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice has been accused of giving Congress a memo containing “damning evidence” that Donald Trump kept sensitive secrets to...

Missiles overhead, silence below: Israel’s home front holds firm

Simon Speakman Cordall, Al Jazeera English

Censorship and unity in the face of the Iranian threat combine to stifle dissent as Israel's war with Iran drags on.

Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang are part of Trump’s new ‘tech panel’

Stevie Bonifield, The Verge

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin will be the first four members of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), according to the Wall Street Journal. The p…

Anthropic’s case against the Pentagon could open space for AI regulation

Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English

A California judge says US DoD may be 'attempting to cripple Anthropic' for pushing for restrictions on AI weapons.

Iran outlines critical conditions for ending war with US

Yahoo Finance Video, Yahoo Entertainment

Oil prices (CL=F, BZ=F) are pulling back — Brent crude dipping back below $100 per barrel — after Iran outlined several critical conditions for ending the...

WATCH: President Trump says he's 'pretty much not happy' with any deal to reopen DHS

ABC News, Abcnews.com

As Senate Republicans on Tuesday scrambled to strike a deal to fund DHS amid the agency's partial shutdown, Trump said he would not be happy with any deal they hammered out.

A 92-year-old judge will take on the Maduro case. What do we know about him?

Jaclyn Diaz, NPR

Former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro heads to court again this week. The judge overseeing this case is longtime federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein. At 92 years old, Hellerstein is older than the average age of a federal judge by more than 20 years.

LaGuardia’s Air Traffic Controllers Had Too Much to Do

Colleen Mondor, The Atlantic

Having two controllers on a midnight shift might be standard procedure, but they can still be overwhelmed.

Oil tumbles and stocks soar on US plan to end the Iran war

nbuchanan@insider.com (Naomi Buchanan), Business Insider

Investors cheered reports of a plan to end the Iran war. Stocks rallied and oil prices tumbled, though some market pros remained cautious.

How the FCC Could Quietly Smother Network TV — Without Ever ‘Banning’ Free Speech

Alison Foreman, IndieWire

Commissioner Brendan Carr is ushering broadcast news and late night entertainment into a terrifying era under Trump. What's at risk? Analysis.

Democrat captures Florida House seat in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district

Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English

Emily Gregory's victory in the previously GOP-held district is the latest Democratic upset before November midterms.

Trump’s war on Iran, in his own words

Al Jazeera English

Here’s a look at Trump’s war, in his own words.

Brendan Carr Tries To ‘Ban’ All Foreign Routers In Lazy, Legally Dubious Shakedown

Karl Bode, Techdirt

Taking a break from attacking the First Amendment, FCC boss Brendan Carr this week engaged in a strange bit of performance art: his FCC announced that they’d be effectively adding all foreign-made routers to the agency’s “covered list,” in a bid to ban their …

US-Iran mediation: What are each side’s demands – and is a deal possible?

Sarah Shamim, Al Jazeera English

Trump's envoys have sent a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran via Pakistan. But Tehran has its own conditions.

Large Polymarket, Wall Street bets on Trump’s war news under scrutiny

Erin Hale, Al Jazeera English

Well-timed trades regarding Iran war news this week lead critics to argue White House may be engaged in insider trading.

WATCH: NASA unveils ambitious $20 billion moon base strategy

ABC News, Abcnews.com

"This time, the goal is to stay," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Tuesday as NASA unveiled an ambitious $20 billion moon base strategy.

Spain’s PM says Israel to inflict on Lebanon same destruction as in Gaza

Al Jazeera Staff, Al Jazeera English

Pedro ​Sanchez has been one of the few leaders in Europe to condemn Israel's war in Lebanon, US-Israeli ⁠war on Iran.

The Deep Risk That Republican Hawks Overlooked

Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic

If the Iran war goes badly, the isolationist, anti-Israel wing of the party is likely to steer the GOP’s future.

Where Are All the Campus Protests?

Rose Horowitch, The Atlantic

Two years ago, students occupied buildings and colonized the quad. Now the same places are strangely silent.

Not Even Mar-a-Lago Is Safe from the Blue Wave

Danielle Han, Jezebel

Our MAGA president is now repped by a rookie Democrat!

Arm’s CEO Insists the Market Needs His New CPU. It Could Piss Everyone Off

Lauren Goode, Wired

Arm just confirmed the rumors: It’s producing its own chip for the first time. CEO Rene Haas explains why this won’t alienate the many chipmakers who license the company’s designs.

'Maybe a New Audience Will Tell Me What They Think,' Lindy West Joked a Week Before Her Memoir Release

Lauren Tousignant, Jezebel

"I can't guarantee that I will make anyone actually understand how I feel, so that's scary," she told Jezebel shortly before the launch of Adult Braces, which has sparked a whirlwind of backlash and discourse.

U.S. drafts plan to end war with Iran as 2,000 paratroopers are ordered to deploy in the Middle East

NPR Staff, NPR

Nearly a month into the war with Iran, the Trump administration is keeping its options open: it has drafted a 15-point plan to end the war with Iran and ordering thousands of paratroopers to deploy in the Middle East.

Belarus’s Lukashenko makes first visit to North Korea in bid to deepen ties

Al Jazeera Staff, Al Jazeera English

Belarus and North Korea are expected to sign a treaty of friendship as their leaders meet in Pyongyang.

How Trump's Iran war objectives have shifted over time

Franco Ordoñez, NPR

Here is a reminder of some of what he has said - and where the US is now.

Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrant

Jude Joffe-Block, NPR

Data brokers buy up huge amounts of information from cell phones and browsers to sell for targeted advertising. But the government, including ICE, also buys the data.

Is Iran’s negotiating position stronger than when US-Israeli war started?

Virginia Pietromarchi, Al Jazeera English

Tehran believes so, and will seek to extract concessions that the US and Gulf nations can't agree to, analysts caution.

US-Israel war on Iran: What’s happening on day 26 of attacks?

Elizabeth Melimopoulos, Al Jazeera English

Iran, Israel, the Gulf faced new missiles and drones. The US has signalled military escalation and openness to a deal.

Amid US-Israeli attacks, people in Iran struggle to survive ailing economy

Maziar Motamedi, Al Jazeera English

Some are left without an income, others are temporarily displaced, and no one knows when the internet will return .

Rubio plans travel to France to sell Iran war to skeptical G7 allies

The Associated Press, NPR

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to France this week to try to sell America's skeptical Group of Seven allies on the Iran war that has sent global fuel prices soaring.

Parsi: No deal ‘’without both sides giving something to the other’

Al Jazeera English

Trita Parsi argues that Iran is unlikely to agree to end the war without sanctions relief.

What we know about the US’s 15-point plan Iran proposal

Al Jazeera English

US media reports the Trump administration has proposed a temporary ceasefire and a 15-point plan to end the war on Iran.

Iran says ‘non-hostile’ ships can pass safely through Strait of Hormuz

John Power, Al Jazeera English

Tehran's statement on opening of key waterway comes as US President Trump says talks are taking place to end the war.

The Papers: 'US troops gather in Gulf' and 'Strictly No Baftas'

BBC News

Donald Trump plans to deploy US ground troops in the Gulf is a focus for Wednesday's front pages.

Iran war live: Trump again says talks under way; 12 killed in south Tehran

Lyndal Rowlands, Zaid Sabah, Al Jazeera English

US-Israeli strikes on Iran continue despite claim of talks, with at least 12 killed, 28 wounded in one attack on Tehran.