Politics

(WASHINGTON) —  President Donald Trump on Monday shared new details about the harrowing lengths a U.S. aviator shot down in Iran went through to keep himself alive and the scope of the mission to rescue him.

“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” Trump recounted in a briefing on the operation to the media. “He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds, and contacted American forces to transmit his location.”

Trump said the weapons system officer, who ejected along with the pilot from an F-15 fighter jet, was “injured quite badly” and stranded in an area “teeming” with members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, militia and local authorities.

The pilot was rescued in a separate and challenging broad daylight mission on Friday.

But finding the second aviator, who landed miles away, was “comparable to hunting for a single sand of grain of sand in the middle of a desert,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said.

Trump said the U.S. has taken out Iran’s radar and air defense capabilities but the F-15 was shot down by a shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missile.

“They had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky,” the president said.

Trump said the second rescue mission involved involved “hundreds” of service members and 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and others, as well as efforts to deceive the Iranians about where U.S. forces were searching.

“We had seven different locations where they thought, and they were very confused,” Trump said of the Iranians.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described Iran’s military as “embarrassed and humiliated” by the rescue.

Trump said the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for finding “this little speck” in the mountainous area in which he was hiding.

Ratcliffe, the CIA director, said the U.S. deployed both human assets and “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses” to locate the weapons system officer on Saturday, who was “concealed in a mountain crevice, still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA.”

Ratcliffe said some of the unique capabilities the CIA used are ones that only the president can deploy and that he would not publicly divulge what they were.

“As an agency, the CIA possesses unique capabilities that only the president can deploy. Some of these capabilities fall under covert action authorities. And because covert means exactly that, I’m not going to be able to tell you everything that you want to know,” Ratcliffe said.

Ratcliffe said finding the downed aviator was “comparable to hunting for a single sand of grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”

“This was also a race against the clock, as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible, while at the same time keeping our enemies misdirected,” he added.

Hegseth said once the airman turned on his transponder, his first message was “God is Good.”

“In that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shown through,” Hegseth said. 

Trump said once it was determined that the two airplanes used to ferry in troops and equipment could not take off from the soft, wet sand in the makeshift landing area, “we blew them up to smithereens” so that the technology they carried couldn’t be captured by the Iranians.

“And we had a contingency plan, which was unbelievable, where lighter, faster aircraft came in and they took them out. We blew up the old planes. We blew them up to smithereens, because we had equipment on the planes that, frankly, we’d like to take, but I don’t think it was worthwhile spending another four hours there taking it off,” he said.

ABC News’ Mariam Khan contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday called a proposal to end the war with Iran a “significant step” but “not good enough” to persuade him to end his military campaign.

“They are negotiating now, and they have made a very significant step,” Trump said to reporters as he attended the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. “We’ll see what happens.”

It was not immediately clear which proposal Trump was referring to. The president had touted ongoing negotiations with more “moderate” parties but tensions ramped up over the weekend after the downing of a U.S. fighter plane.

According to a U.S. official and another person close to the ongoing talks, mediators are attempting broker a 45-day ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran ahead of Trump’s latest deadline, which calls for Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday or face attacks on bridges and energy infrastructure.

Iran signaled it would not accept the mediators’ proposal on Monday, responding instead with its own 10-point plan, which a U.S. official described as maximalist.

In the past, Iran has said it wants a permanent commitment from the U.S. to end the attacks rather than a shorter-term ceasefire.

Trump has moved the deadline several times citing progress in ongoing negotiations only to renew the threat of military destruction once again.

Both sources downplayed expectations that a deal could be reached in time, saying that so far Iran has refused to cede what it views as its main leverage in the negotiations: control over the Strait of Hormuz and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

“We are obliterating their country. And I hate to do it, but we’re obliterating and they just don’t want to say ‘uncle.’ They don’t want to cry, as the expression goes, ‘uncle.’ But they will,” Trump said. “And if they don’t, they’ll have no bridges, they’ll have no power plants, they’ll have no anything.”

But the president also seemed to acknowledge that the conflict was unpopular domestically.

“Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, a White House official said the proposal was just “one of many ideas” and indicated that the president had not signed off on it.

Mediators are floating confidence-building measures aimed at bringing both sides closer to an agreement, sources say, and stressing to the Iranian regime that even though Trump has previously moved back deadlines he has set, Tehran would likely need to signal a willingness to make major concessions in order to buy more time for negotiations to play out.  

In their public messaging, Iranian leaders have signaled little room for compromise, issuing demands the U.S. views as maximalist.

Mediators have floated the idea that perhaps access to the Strait of Hormuz and the elimination of Iran’s uranium stockpile could be fully resolved after a ceasefire is reached. However, a U.S. official said it appeared highly unlikely the Trump administration could be convinced to accept those terms–particularly on the Strait of Hormuz. 

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will hold a news conference Monday in the White House briefing room, where he’s expected to give more details on the “daring” weekend rescue of a U.S. airman whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran.

Trump teased the upcoming briefing at the White House Easter Egg Roll.

“Those two pilots were incredible, brave, and we thank them,” Trump said.

Looming large over the president’s upcoming comments, however, is his latest deadline for Iran to make a peace deal or reopen the Strait of Hormuz — by 8 p.m. ET Tuesday — or face massive U.S. attacks on critical infrastructure, including energy and water facilities.

“Right now they’re not too strong at all, in my opinion,” Trump said of Iran at the Easter event. “But we’re soon going to find out, aren’t we?”

Trump told ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott on Sunday that if no peace deal is reached with Iran in the next 48 hours, “we’re blowing up the entire country.”

Trump has previously pushed his deadlines for Iran to comply with his demands.

But in a profanity-laced post on his social media platform early on Sunday, Trump told the Iranian regime, “you’ll be living in Hell” if it did not open the critical maritime shipping channel for oil and trade.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Trump wrote in the post.

Experts have warned that possible attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute war crimes and violate international law, a claim Iran makes as well. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when pressed on the issue last week, told reporters: “Of course, this administration and the United States Armed Forces will always act within the confines of the law.”

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in a post on X that if the U.S. attacks power plants, then Iran would deliver “a decisive, immediate, and regret-inducing response.”

Amid the threats of escalation, questions remain about the status of talks between the U.S. and Tehran, after President Trump said last week that the U.S. was carrying out negotiations with “much more reasonable” leadership.

Asked about reports of a new draft proposal that includes a 45-day ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a White House official told ABC News on Monday: “This is one of many ideas, and POTUS has not signed off on it. Operation Epic Fury continues. President Trump will speak more at 1 p.m.”

When asked about the ceasefire proposal, Trump said at the Easter event that he’s seen “every proposal.”

“It’s a significant step, it’s not good enough but it’s a very significant step,” Trump said.

Iran said it will not accept a ceasefire without “suitable guarantees,” a Pakistani security official told ABC News.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday vacated contempt-of-Congress charges against ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who had refused to honor a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 , 2021, attack, and later served a four-month sentence.

The Court did not explain its decision. There were no noted dissents.

In a brief order, the Court noted that the Trump Justice Department has moved to drop the indictment against Bannon and returned the case to a lower court for dismissal.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. Mike Turner defended the U.S. war with Iran on Sunday and said that he doesn’t believe an American ground force would be required to restore freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

“I don’t think U.S. ground troops are going to be necessary in any direct conflict,” Turner told ABC News’ “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos after being pressed on whether troops on the ground would be needed to reopen the strait.

“The straits are going to be open,” Turner told Stephanopoulos, but said that the U.S. cannot allow Iran to continue developing missile technology or nuclear weapons that could threaten the American homeland and Europe.

“You have to be able to address this … great sponsor of terrorism, this … global power ambition that Iran has,” he said.

Turner’s comments come as President Donald Trump has repeatedly indicated that the Strait of Hormuz is not the U.S.’s problem.

“The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future. We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it and we don’t need it,” Trump said Wednesday in a prime-time address to the nation, adding that it was the responsibility of other countries to secure the strait.

“We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on,” he said.

Turner said that despite the impact of the war on global oil markets, the consequences of inaction from the U.S. against Iran would have been greater.

“Certainly, you know, Iran is going to have some things that they’re going to be able to do during the conflict,” Turner said. “But if you don’t undertake the conflict, if you just step back and watch, as the Obama administration was going to do while Iran became a nuclear power and they became North Korea, we wouldn’t be looking at the Strait of Hormuz,” he added, claiming that if Iran had developed nuclear weapons the world would be “held hostage by a terrorist state.”

“They still are being significantly diminished,” Turner said, “and their ability to be able to be marching toward a nuclear state is being eliminated.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House, in its budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, is asking Congress to approve roughly $1.5 trillion for defense — a record-breaking military spending request as the U.S. remains in its fifth week of war with Iran.

That is a $445 billion, or a 42% increase from the 2026 total level, according to the White House. Non-defense spending would be then be reduced by $73 billion, or 10%, according to the budget released by the White House on Friday.

Major targets of the proposed spending cuts are environmental programs across many federal agencies, including canceling more than $15 billion in Department of Energy grants related to clean energy.

The White House budget also continues the Department of Education’s “path to elimination,” proposes cuts to agriculture spending by 19% and proposes slashing the Internal Revenue Service’s budget by $1.4 billion. 

“The 2027 Budget builds on the President’s vision by continuing to constrain non-defense spending and reform the Federal Government,” Office of Budget and Management Director Russ Vought wrote in the request to Congress. 

President Donald Trump’s budget request, which is largely a wishlist sent to Congress in order to signal the administration’s priorities, lists “reducing violent crime and protecting national security” along with “protecting the homeland and removing dangerous illegal aliens” as the other two spending priorities for the upcoming year. 

The budget proposes more than $19 billion for federal law enforcement — a 15% increase from 2026. The budget maintains “critical funding” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement next year, equal to the 2026 level, including $2.2 billion to maintain 41,500 immigration detention beds.

The White House said that an investment in defense and Department of Homeland Security would be, in part, achieved through budget reconciliation.

The reconciliation process comes with a key advantage of not being subject to a filibuster. This means legislation can be passed with a simple majority vote in the Senate and that Republicans wouldn’t necessarily need Democratic support, signaling an attempt from the White House to avoid Democratic demands for non-defense increases.

“Reconciliation funding in 2027 will enable DHS to fully implement the President’s immigration enforcement initiatives, finish construction of the border wall on the Southwest border, procure advanced border security technology, and continue the largest recapitalization investment in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard,” according to the White House. 

Currently, DHS funding is caught in gridlock on Capitol Hill, resulting in the longest partial government shutdown in history.

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House, in their budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, is asking Congress to approve roughly $1.5 trillion for defense — a record-breaking military spending request as the U.S. remains in its fifth week of war with Iran. 

That is a $445 billion, or a 42% increase from the 2026 total level, according to the White House. Non-defense spending is reduced by $73 billion, or 10%, according to the budget released by the White House on Friday.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHNGTON) — President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he plans to sign an order to pay “all” employees at the Department of Homeland Security amid the record-long agency shutdown.

“Help is on the way for our Brave and Patriotic Public Servants who have continued to work hard, and do their part to protect and defend our Country,” Trump wrote in a post to his social media platform.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — A group of Senate Democrats are demanding more information about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s finances and investments following a report — which the Pentagon demanded be retracted — that he may have tried to invest in defense stocks before the war in Iran began roughly five weeks ago.

“If this report is accurate, it would appear to represent an appalling effort to profit off of your knowledge of the President’s plans for war,” Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Tammy Duckworth, Ed Markey and Gary Peters wrote in a letter to Hegseth — and provided exclusively to ABC News — on Wednesday night. “This would be a profound conflict of interest and a potential violation of your federal ethics agreement — and betrayal of the nation paying the price for this war and the troops you are sending into harm’s way.”

The Financial Times reported earlier this week that a broker for Hegseth at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock — an equity fund — and tried to make a multimillion-dollar investment into a fund with defense stocks weeks before the Iran war.

The investment did not go ahead because it was not yet available for Morgan Stanley clients, the Financial Times reported — adding that it’s not clear whether Hegseth’s broker found another defense fund to invest in.

ABC News has not independently confirmed the Financial Times’ report.

When reached by ABC News, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock declined to comment on the Financial Times report

In a post on X on Monday, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell dismissed the report calling it “entirely false and fabricated” and demanded a retraction from the Financial Times.

Still, the Democratic senators, led by Armed Services Committee member Warren, said in their letter that if the report turns out to be accurate, it would be a “serious breach of the public’s trust” and in violation of the ethics agreement he signed ahead of his confirmation as secretary of defense.

“The American people deserve leaders they can trust to put national security ahead of their own financial self-interest,” the senators wrote to Hegseth.

Hegseth is prohibited, under the Department of Defense’s standards of conduct, from owning stock in 10 major industry-specific corporations including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Boeing, RTX Corporation and L3Harris, which are part of the fund that the Financial Times article claims Hegseth’s broker attempted to purchase.

Hegseth does not have any major holdings in defense companies, according to his most recent financial disclosure reviewed by ABC News.

“Since this was a multi-million dollar investment in a sector-specific fund, your agreement appears to indicate that your broker would have needed your approval or that you did not intend to meet the commitments you made in your ethics agreement,” the senators wrote. 

The senators have asked Hegseth to respond to a number of questions about the Financial Times report.

They ask Hegseth to say whether he shared any information with his broker about pending military action or whether he directed his broker to invest in any defense related funds, including BlackRock as the Financial Times report suggests, ahead of the Iran war. They also ask what instructions Hegseth has given his broker to try to avoid conflict of interests and they ask for an accounting of defense stocks owned and sold by Hegseth and his wife.

In his statement, Parnell said that Hegseth and the Department of Defense “remain unwavering in their commitment to the highest standards of ethics and strict adherence to all applicable laws and regulations.”

The senators say that getting answers to their questions will help them to “understand where there may be gaps in current department practices and policies to prevent conflicts of interest.”

House Democrats are also looking into the allegations made about Hegseth in the Financial Times report. 

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, announced Tuesday that he’d launch an investigation into the matter.

Republicans have not been publicly commenting on Financial Times report. ABC News has reached out to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker for comment about Democrats’ calls for an investigation, but did not receive a response.

ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze and Lauren Peller contributed to this report

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(WASHINGTON) —  Millions of dollars tied to artificial intelligence are pouring into the 2026 midterms.

Interest groups funded in part by AI industry leaders are split on how the government should oversee AI — and that’s already having an impact on political ads, some experts told ABC News.

“It’s sort of an open question as to what regulation is going to look like,” University of Rochester professor David Primo told ABC News. “The stakes are really high because once a regulatory system gets entrenched, it’s really hard to change it.”

An AI-related political group, Innovation Council Action, tied to two of President Donald Trump’s advisors, announced on Sunday that it would spend at least $100 million, The New York Times reported.

The donations associated with the AI sector go beyond party lines. Federal Election Commission filings show that key industry players are pouring money into committees supporting both Democrats and Republicans, with certain groups criticizing candidates who have expressed support for new AI-related laws and others doing the opposite.

“Companies have always tried to shape regulations, and they’ve always tried to shape them in their favor. What we’re seeing now, though, is that the big companies are not united,” Primo said.

With AI’s presence being increasingly felt, some politicians are calling on their colleagues not to accept money from the burgeoning industry.

“Their money will end up being toxic anyway,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., posted on social media. “People are catching on.”

1 industry, different political priorities

In February, Anthropic, the developer of Claude AI, announced it would give $20 million to an organization called Public First Action, explaining that it agreed with most Americans that not enough was being done to regulate AI and that the technology comes with “considerable risks.”

Public First Action spokesperson Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez said that they have already run advertisements thanking Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Rep. Josh Gottheimer D-N.J., for their AI records.

Gottheimer introduced a bill in February that would provide tax credits for companies training workers on AI development.

It is not yet clear who else has contributed to Public First Action, which describes itself as a “pro-regulation” group.

“Public First Action doesn’t disclose its donors,” Rivera-Rodriguez told ABC News. “To date, the project has raised around $50 million. The aligned super PACs will publicly disclose their contributors in their upcoming FEC reports.”

One of Anthropic’s main competitors, ChatGPT owner OpenAI, has voiced support for nationwide “common-sense rules of the road,” but has cautioned that the U.S. should not fall behind other countries.

In an economic blueprint released last year, OpenAI compared AI’s ascent to the rise of the car, pointing out that while the motor vehicle “industry’s growth was stunted by regulation” in the United Kingdom, the U.S. “took a very different approach,” causing the American automobile sector to grow.

FEC disclosures show that OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife each contributed $12.5 million to a group called Leading the Future, which describes itself as supporting candidates who “champion policies that harness the economic benefits of AI and reject attempts to hinder American innovation.”

Committees with links to Leading the Future have already made millions worth of contributions, filings indicate.

One group spent more than $500,000 each in support of North Carolina Republican House candidate Laurie Buckhout and Texas Republican House candidate Jessica Steinmann. The same committee spent more than $700,000 supporting Texas Republican House candidate Chris Gober.

Buckhout, Steinmann and Gober each won their March primaries. All three candidates include similar statements on their websites, mentioning that China cannot overcome the U.S. in the AI race.

Millions spent in Manhattan alone

Nowhere is the role of AI more front and center than in New York’s 12th Congressional District.

Numerous Democrats are running in this Manhattan race, but Assemblyman and former ​​Palantir employee Alex Bores, who co-sponsored New York’s Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, is the candidate who has largely had AI’s focus.

Bores’ website says that he hopes to hold large AI companies accountable and would work to create national safety and privacy requirements.

A PAC associated with Anthropic-supported Public First Action is supporting Bores, Rivera-Rodriguez confirmed. Leading the Future is not.

“Alex Bores is a hypocrite pushing policies that would undermine America’s ability to lead the world in AI innovation and job creation,” Leading the Future spokesperson Jessie Hunt told ABC News.

As of March 16, a super PAC tied to Leading the Future had already spent more than $2.2 million opposing Bores, FEC filings show.

“There’s a few Trump megadonors that made billions of dollars from AI that don’t think there should be any regulation of AI whatsoever,” Bores told ABC News following a recent forum.

With so much AI-related money flowing into races like NY-12 around the country, Primo said these funds are not being spent secretly or for bribery. Instead, the cash is being used to convince voters of who they should elect.

“This might actually be democracy functioning really well,” he said.

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