Politics

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said that he and Vice President JD Vance are “philosophically a little bit different” when it comes to U.S. war with Iran after ABC News previously reported that Vance internally expressed reservations about the strikes late last month.

When asked during his Monday evening news conference in Florida if there were any disagreements between him and Vance on action against Iran, Trump said he didn’t “think so.”

“We get along very well on this,” Trump said. “He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic. But I felt it was something we had to do. I didn’t feel we had a choice. If we didn’t do it, they would have done it to us.”

Trump’s comments about their differences on Iran come after ABC News reported that Vance, who has largely opposed U.S. intervention abroad, made his reservations about the strikes against Iran known internally, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Once it became clear that the decision had been made to move forward with the strikes, Vance shifted his focus to supporting the military operation, a source told ABC News.

This is not the first time Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, has expressed concerns internally about possible U.S. foreign military intervention.

Last year, in the Signal group chat discussing the U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen that a journalist was inadvertently invited to join, Vance appeared to break with Trump and questioned whether the president recognized that a unilateral U.S. attack on the Houthis to keep international shipping lanes open was at odds with his tough talk about European nations paying their share of such efforts.

A few days before the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, Vance told The Washington Post that there was “no chance” of a drawn-out war in Iran if the U.S. moved forward with the strikes.

Vance reiterated that same sentiment in a recent interview with Fox News, but also added that the operation against Iran “could go for a lot longer.”

“There’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective. What is different about President Trump, and it’s frankly different about both Republicans and Democrats of the past, is that he’s not going to let his country go to war unless there’s a clearly defined objective,” Vance told Fox News.

“He’s defined that objective as Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has to commit long-term to never trying to rebuild the nuclear capability. It’s pretty clear. It’s pretty simple, and I think that means that we’re not going to get into the problems that we’ve had with Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

Ahead of his second term, Trump campaigned on “America First” policies, which attracted his MAGA base. After the strikes on Iran, there has been criticism from within his base — including former political adviser Steve Bannon, who called the it “a mistake not to put America first.”

Trump said Monday that the U.S. is making “major” progress in achieving its military goals and that the operation is “ahead of our initial timeline by a lot.”

“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective. And some people could say they’re pretty well complete. We’ve wiped every single force in Iran out very completely,” Trump said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday said the U.S. will end its war with Iran “on our timeline” and “at our choosing” amid mixed messaging from the administration on the timing of the operation and its ultimate objective.

Hegseth notably declined to give a further assessment on how much longer the military campaign will last, saying Tuesday would be the most intense day of strikes yet in the 11-day conflict and that it will be up to President Donald Trump to decide when the war is over.

“The president has set a very specific mission to accomplish, and our job is to unrelentingly deliver that,” Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon press briefing.

“Now he gets to control the throttle. He’s the one deciding. He’s the one elected on behalf of the American people when we’re achieving those objectives. And so, it’s not for me to posit whether it’s the beginning, the middle or the end. That’s his. And he’ll continue to communicate that,” the defense secretary said.

Trump himself has made conflicting statements on the matter.

Trump told CBS News on Monday afternoon that the war is “very complete, pretty much.” But around that time, the Defense Department’s rapid response social media account posted on X: “We have Only Just Begun to Fight.”

ABC News White House Correspondent Selina Wang pressed Trump later Monday evening at a news conference: “So, which is it and how long should Americans be preparing for this war to last for?”

“Well, I think you can say both. The beginning — it’s the beginning of building a new country, but they certainly, they have no navy, they have no air force, they have no anti-aircraft equipment,” Trump said.

“We could call it a tremendous success right now. As we leave here, I could call it. Or we could go further and we’re going to go further,” the president added.

Trump said on Monday he thinks the war will be over “very soon” and repeatedly called the war a “short-term excursion.”

Trump and his top officials have outlined four objectives of the military offensive: destroy Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities; annihilate their Navy; ensure they can never obtain a nuclear weapon; and prevent the Iranian regime from arming and funding terrorism outside its borders. But broader goals on what comes after the fighting ends remains unclear.

Trump’s signaled he could declare the military campaign a success at any time, even as the Iranian regime remains in power and Iran still maintains its enriched uranium stockpile. Trump’s repeatedly said Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon — and over the weekend said he was not ruling out the possible use of U.S. ground troops in Iran, but said that they would be used only “for a very good reason.”

The president has also sent mixed messages on regime change, and how involved the U.S. intends to be in what new leadership will take control in Tehran.

Trump expressed disappointment in the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike at the beginning of the war.

In a phone interview with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on Sunday, Trump said the new leader is “going to have to get approval from us.”

“If he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it,” Trump told ABC.

Hegseth, though, on Tuesday vowed the U.S. would not be involved in “mission creep.”

“This is not endless. It’s not protracted,” Hegseth said.

“This is not 2003. This is not endless nation-building … Those days are dead. Instead, we’re winning decisively with brutal efficiency, total air dominance, and an unbreakable will to accomplish the president’s objectives,” Hegseth said.

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(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump said on Monday he doesn’t “know enough” about the strike on an Iranian elementary school that Iran says killed at least 168 people, including dozens of children, but that he was “willing to live” with the findings of a U.S. investigation into the incident.

A newly surfaced video appears to show a U.S.-made missile, a Tomahawk, hitting a building in Iran adjacent to the girls’ school, experts told ABC News.

Trump suggested Monday it could have been a Tomahawk fired by Iran.

“I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, it’s sold and used by other countries, you know that,” Trump said. “And whether it’s Iran, who also has some Tomahawks, they wish they had more, but, whether it’s Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk — a Tomahawk is very generic, it’s sold to other countries. But that’s being investigated right now.”

The U.S. makes and sells Tomahawks to its closest allies, including the U.K. and Australia. But it has never sold the technology to Iran or other adversaries. While other countries like Russia use cruise missiles, only the U.S. makes Tomahawks, as the missile experts say appears to be seen in the video of the school strike. 

Israel has already said it wasn’t operating in the area of the school bombing. 

The president faced questions Monday on the Feb. 28 incident during a news conference at Trump National Doral Miami, including his comment over the weekend that Iran was behind it.

“Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing just behind the president on the plane, said the matter was under investigation and that “only side that targets civilians is Iran.”

But pressed on those remarks, Trump said on Monday, “I just don’t know enough about it.”

“I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawks are –are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us,” Trump said.

“But I will certainly, whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report,” the president continued.

The U.S. military was striking targets in the country last Saturday in an area where an elementary school was hit and dozens of children were killed, two people familiar with the initial findings previously told ABC News.

An analysis of satellite imagery by ABC News suggests the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab was near an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps compound but had been separated from it more than decade ago.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, rejected Trump’s claim that Iran was behind the hit on the girls’ elementary school.

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(WASHINGTON) — Ten days into the U.S. war with Iran, Americans are starting to feel the economic fallout as oil and gas prices soar.

Gas prices skyrocketed to a national average of $3.47 on Monday, up nearly 50 cents from last week, according to data from AAA. Plus, oil prices on Monday surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 before falling lower later in the day.

President Donald Trump has dismissed the higher cost, telling ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce it’s “a little glitch.”

“I think it’s fine. It’s a little glitch. We had to take this detour,” Trump told ABC’s Bruce in an interview on Sunday before going on to tout the U.S. military campaign against Tehran.

In a social media post on Sunday night, Trump argued: “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace.”

Yet the cost of living remains one of the biggest issues heading into the 2026 midterms, where Trump and Republicans are seeking to maintain narrow majorities in Congress.

A poll released by NBC News on Sunday found Trump received his lowest ratings in the poll on his handling of inflation and the cost of living as 36% of registered voters approve and 62% disapprove.

On Iran, the NBC poll found a majority of registered voters (54%) disapproved of Trump’s handling of the matter.

Trump, on the 2024 campaign trail, vowed to bring gas down below $2 a gallon. During the first year of his second term, Trump routinely pointed to the drop in prices at the pump, including in his State of the Union address last month.

“Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor and was, quite honestly, a disaster, is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places $1.99 a gallon,” Trump said in his speech on Feb. 24.

Now, gas prices are closing in on $3.50 a gallon and are expected to continue to keep rising the longer the Middle East conflict lasts.

Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, told ABC News Live that Americans are currently experiencing “sticker shock.”

“Gas stations are seeing their costs go up in real time again today, as oil markets are jumping, and that’s going to be in another round of price increases over the course of this week, prices could jump another 15 to 35 cents a gallon for gasoline over the next three days, as long as nothing changes,” De Haan said. “And it’s going to be worse for the price of diesel, which could jump 35 to 50 cents a gallon, that would put it close to nearly a $5 a gallon national average.”

Some Democrats are seizing on the price jump to criticize Trump and the administration for the handling of the war.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, has called for President Trump to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to alleviate the financial burden for Americans.

“American families are suffering from higher prices as the effects of Trump’s reckless war become pain at the gas pump and beyond as high gas prices trickle down making everything more expensive,” Schumer said in a statement on Sunday. “They cannot afford to simply wait and hope prices come down. The President has a solution right here at home, and he should use it.”

“Trump promised a Golden Age in America. Meanwhile. Republicans are crashing the economy, gas prices are out of control and the extremists are spending billions dropping bombs in the Middle East. You deserve better,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also a New York Democrat, wrote on X on Monday.

Trump was asked over the weekend if he would use the SPR to bring some relief, but declined to say, instead criticizing former President Joe Biden’s use of the reserve. Biden released oil from the SPR several times over the course of 2022 as prices increased due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“I filled it up and he brought it down to the lowest level it’s ever been. We will start at the appropriate time, which is basically a gut instinct, we will start filling up,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday.

“Biden used them so that he could get some extra votes in the election,” Trump added.

Analysts previously told ABC News that the SPR is a “valuable resource” for the administration to bring some relief to Americans and assuage market fears, but likely wouldn’t be enough oil in the long term to make up for the 20 million barrels of oil currently being prevented from passing through the Strait of Hormuz every day.

Trump told Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade in an interview on Sunday night that ships holding at the Strait of Hormuz need to “show some guts” and push through the channel.

Several war-risk insurers have canceled their coverage for vessels amid the widening conflict. Trump said the U.S. government was going to provide some risk insurance and guarantees, and if necessary the U.S. Navy would escort tankers through the strait. 

Like Trump, several Republicans are contending that higher gas prices will be temporary.

“The prices will come back down as soon as we get out of Iran, as soon as we finish turning them into fish food, which will be pretty soon,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy said on Fox News on Sunday.

How long the Iran war will last remains an open question. President Trump initially estimated four to five weeks for the U.S., though he later said the timeline would be whatever it takes.

On Sunday, Trump told ABC’s Bruce: “I don’t know. I never predict. All I can say is we are ahead of schedule both in terms of lethality and in terms of time.”

GasBuddy’s De Haan told ABC News Live that the longer the conflict lasts, the more time it will take to see oil and gas prices to get back to their previous levels

“Every day the situation continues, it could add another several weeks to the recovery time,” De Haan said.

ABC News’ Isabella Murray, Nicholas Kerr, Soo Youn and Max Zahn contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Defense Department on Monday identified another U.S. service member who died following the opening wave of Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, marking the seventh U.S. service member to die in the war with Iran. 

Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, 26, died Sunday from injuries he sustained during a March 1 retaliation strike on U.S. troops at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia from Iran.

“He gave the ultimate sacrifice for the country he loved,” Lt. Gen. Sean A. Gainey, the top officer for Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in a statement. “That makes him nothing less than a hero, and he will always be remembered that way. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.”

Pennington enlisted in the Army in 2017 as a supply specialist and was assigned to the 1st Space Battalion, 1st Space Brigade at Fort Carson, Colorado. He is set to be posthumously promoted to staff sergeant, the Army announced. 

Pennington was working at a strategic radar installation responsible for early warning against incoming missile threats, a critical node in the U.S. military’s missile-defense architecture, according to a source familiar with the situation.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump attended the dignified transfer of the other six American service members killed in the war’s opening hours, after an Iranian drone struck in Kuwait. All six were killed in the same attack.

Even as the ceremony underscored the war’s early toll, the president and senior Pentagon officials have been preparing the public for the likelihood that more casualties are ahead.

“The president’s been right to say there will be casualties,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties.”

Hegseth cast the losses as a grim but familiar feature of war for a country that has spent more than two decades fighting in the Middle East.

“Especially our generation knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets,” he said. “But that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say this is a fight we will finish.”

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Senator Andy Kim, D-N.J., is aiming to tackle the nation’s literacy crisis with a new bill focused on increasing children’s access to books.

Kim will introduce his “Open Books, Open Doors Act” on Monday, urging the Department of Education to authorize $100 million in annual grants to states and local communities to combat illiteracy and what he calls the country’s “book deserts,” which is an area that doesn’t have reliable access to books.

“Reading is a powerful tool that every child in America should have,” Kim said in a statement to ABC News. “We know literacy and reading unlocks life-long success in school and out, but right now millions of kids across our country are living in book deserts.”

He told ABC News in an exclusive interview that he feels it’s his responsibility to pass legislation that helps more kids develop their reading skills.

“This is not meant to be a messaging bill,” Kim said, adding, “This is not just meant to put the idea on the table, like, I want to get this done.”

“I want us to be able to immediately be able to benefit the kids in this country as they grow up,” he said.

His legislation aims to ensure every child is positioned for long-term success in school and in life. Kim noted that illiteracy is dire, not only for children, but also for adults. When adults have difficulty reading, it hurts the economy and American families, he said.

If passed, Kim’s bill would use the federal education department grant program to support states’ efforts to combat reading rates while prioritizing the locations that struggle most with access to books and “high quality” reading materials.

Actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton, who for two decades helped young students get excited about literature as the host of PBS’ “Reading Rainbow,” endorsed Kim’s push to provide children with equitable access to books.

“We must ensure that books are easy to find and free to borrow in every neighborhood — because when a child can read, they possess the power to write their own future,” Burton told ABC News in a statement.

The reading crisis is widespread. Recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), otherwise known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” found about a third of fourth graders are unable to read above the basic level. Access to books and a decrease in students who read for enjoyment are major factors contributing to the country’s sliding reading scores, according to the legislation and education experts.

Education Department skeptics and government officials, however, believe the agency has too much spending power already — without achievement results.

After a vocal minority of House Democrats and education advocates decried public school funding for lagging national test scores, Education Secretary Linda McMahon noted that continuing to spend federal dollars on the literacy issue was the wrong solution.

“Instead of solutions to confront our nation’s literacy crisis, they [Congressional Democrats] defended the status quo,” McMahon wrote in a recent post on X.

“The solution: return education to the states and empower local leaders to focus on the basics,” she added.

The future of Kim’s legislation could ultimately rest with McMahon, who has been tasked with putting herself out of a job by shuttering the department. Kim, who sits on the Senate’s education committee, has been critical of McMahon since she was tapped to lead the agency.

Kim said he has “deep disagreements” with moves made under her leadership that he alleged harm kids and their opportunities in life.

The Department of Education has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

On the heels of Read Across America week, the bill supports science of reading programs — the phonics-based reading approach — and early screening and intervention for reading disabilities. The legislation also establishes a federal clearinghouse that would identify evidence-based “book access” strategies to help advance literacy in local communities.

More than 20 education organizations support Kim’s bill, from the American Library Association to Reach Out and Read, a nonprofit organization that encourages families to read aloud together and provides books to millions of households nationwide.

Reach Out and Read CEO Lynette Fraga told ABC News having early access to books at home not only fuels literacy outcomes but also helps students thrive in life.

“If we think about early childhood we think about return on investment,” Fraga said. “We know that if we invest in the earliest years through things like access, through things like meaningful programs and child centered practices and systems, the return on investment is huge.”

Kim suggested that books “open doors” for millions of children. His bill currently has no co-sponsors — and its fate is unclear at this time — but he’s optimistic about support for this issue across party lines.

“I hope that all of us can get on the same page about increasing literacy in America and can see the value of that,” Kim said. “We are stronger as a society if we have a more literate society. I think everyone can recognize that.”

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(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at a ‘Shield of the Americas’ Summit on Saturday in Doral, Florida, an event that is billed by the White House as a ‘historic’ grouping of over 17 Latin American countries that are committed to cooperating with the U.S. in taking on the cartels and securing the American border following the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump will host heads of state from 12 nations across the Western Hemisphere, according to a White House official.

They are:

Argentinian President Javier Milei,
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira,
Chilean President-elect Jose Antonio Kast
Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles
Dominican Republic’s President Luis Rodolfo Abinader Corona
Ecuadorian President Daniel Roy Gilchrist Noboa Azín
El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele Ortez
Guyana’s President Mohamed Irfaan Ali
Honduran President Tito Asfura
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino Quintero
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña; and the
President of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar

“On Saturday, the point of this newfound Latin America Summit is to promote freedom, security and prosperity in our region,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing this week.

“The President will be speaking with the leaders of this country who have really formed a historic coalition to work together to address criminal, narcoterrorist gangs and cartels encounter illegal and mass migration into not only the United States but the western hemisphere, which remains a key and top priority of this President,” she added.

Trump’s relationships with some Latin American leaders have turned tense at times and his policies have drawn criticism. Some leaders criticized the U.S. raid that captured Maduro as an attack on Venezuela’s sovereignty. Trump has also been critical of Mexico’s efforts to fight drug cartels and traded barbs with the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro. However, following the Jan. 3 Venezuela raid, the two leaders appeared to have patched up their differences. Trump invited Petro to the White House and the two issued complimentary statements.

The summit has shifted in prominence after Trump announced he was removing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from her post and shifting her to a new role as a special envoy for “The Shield of the Americas.”

Noem emailed DHS staff overnight on Thursday, informing them that her official final day at the department will be March 31 and writing, “In my new role, I will be able to build on the new partnerships and national security expertise I forged over my time as Secretary of Homeland Security.”

The summit also comes amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has resulted in major movements in the U.S. energy markets.

To combat the spikes in crude oil prices, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday on Fox that the U.S. was “drilling expeditiously here at home” and tapping into the new markets in Venezuela.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. believes that Russia has been providing Iran the locations of American troops in the Middle East, including aircraft and ships, according to two people familiar with the intelligence.

The alleged assistance, first reported by The Washington Post, is alarming because it would enable the Iranians to target specific locations with ballistic missiles and drones, putting U.S. service members at risk.

When asked about the aid to Iran, an intelligence official confirmed that the U.S. believes Russia is supplying Tehran intelligence, but did not say exactly what type of information was being shared. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not deny the report on Friday, instead saying it didn’t matter because the U.S. was still winning the war.

“It clearly is not making a difference with respect to the military operations in Iran because we are completely decimating them,” Leavitt told reporters on Friday.

Leavitt added that the U.S. is achieving the military objectives of this operation, including destroying some 30 ships and crippling Iran’s ability to launch ballistic missiles.

“And that is going to continue because the United States military is the best and most, most lethal fighting force in the world,” she said.

Six U.S. service members were killed March 1 during an Iranian drone attack on a base in Kuwait. At least 10 other troops have been severely wounded in operations across the region.

The CIA declined to comment. The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia has not addressed the allegations. But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said previously that Iran hasn’t asked for help.

“Our consistent position is well known to everyone, and there is no change,” Peskov said at a press briefing.

ABC News’ Cindy Smith contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — A Customs and Border Protection official on Friday told a federal judge that the agency does not have the technology or manpower to immediately process $166 billion in tariff refunds, arguing the process would distract from its role addressing “imminent threats to national security.”

In a sworn filing, the official said that CBP needs an additional 45 days to create a system to process refunds for the more than 53 million entries related to the unlawful tariffs.

“CBP has never been ordered to, nor has it attempted to, process a volume of refunds anywhere near the volume of total entries and Entry Summary lines on which IEEPA duties have been deposited,” wrote Brandon Lord, the executive director of CBP’s Trade Programs Directorate.

The disclosure comes two days after a judge from the Court of International Trade initially ordered the Trump administration to remove the tariffs from its backlog of import paperwork. Even though the liquidation process — when the agency finalizes a tariff payment after goods enter the country — is largely automated and the Supreme Court overturned the tariffs two weeks ago, Lord said that Customs and Border Protection “is not able to comply” with the court’s order.

“CBP is now facing an unprecedented volume of refunds. Its existing administrative procedures and technology are not well suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency’s trade enforcement mission,” Lord said.

According to Lord, the current system used to process tariffs cannot handle the volume of refund requests, and that doing so manually would take resources away from “responsibilities that serve to mitigate imminent threats to national security and economic security.”

Following a hearing on Friday related to the refund process, which was closed to the public, Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade suspended his earlier order to immediately begin recalculating tariffs dues. 

By lifting his initial order, the judge appears to be making room for the refund process to play out, though the exact timeline of refunds remains unclear. 

During previous hearings, the judge had expressed skepticism that the refund process would be a “mess” or that the government lacked the resources to issue refunds.

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(RICHMOND, Va.) — Early voting begins Friday in an unusual off-cycle election in Virginia that could have major implications for control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections.

Voters in Virginia are heading to the polls for a statewide election, set for April 21, on a constitutional amendment that would allow their legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map.

This would let the Democratic-controlled legislature implement a new proposed map that would make four GOP-held congressional districts favor Democrats. Given the razor-thin margins of the House — where Democrats only need to net three seats in November to regain control — even flipping that many seats in Virginia could be decisive for control of the chamber.

It’s a gambit that Democrats both in Virginia and nationally say is necessary after Republican-led redistricting in 2025 gave the GOP nine redrawn seats that now favor Republicans across four states.

Former President Barack Obama, in a video released Thursday to promote a yes vote on the amendment, claimed that Republicans pursued mid-decade redistricting “for a simple reason: to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms this fall … This amendment gives you the power to level the playing field in the midterms this fall.”

Republicans have called the plan to redraw seats a political power grab, decrying the move as going against the will of voters in Virginia who previously voted in favor of a redistricting commission.

Rep. Ben Cline, one of the Virginia Republicans whose seat is among those targeted, wrote on X on Wednesday, that “The Democrats’ plan to steal Congressional seats and disenfranchise Virginians is unconstitutional, but we’re going to have to defeat it at the ballot box on April 21.”

Democrats in Virginia’s legislature have already passed their proposed congressional map through the legislature and it has been signed by the governor; it gets implemented if voters approve the amendment. While the map is technically not on the ballot, Democrats have argued that it’s important that voters see the new lines that they are essentially voting on.

Virginia’s Supreme Court ordered twice to let the election proceed in the face of legal challenges to how Democrats passed the amendment through the legislature, although litigation continues to play out.

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